Miss Brewster gained courage as she proceeded, and in a clear, unshaken voice continued:
“In all lands on which the sun ever shone, probably there was never a time when money wisely expended could set in play so many and such powerful forces for good as it can do now and here. For here, in this western land of unlimited possibilities, is the young giant born whose savage strength may prove our nation’s weakness if we leave his infant years to the guidance of his own wayward will.
“Here, then, is the sorest present need in our land to-day, for here in our hands lies the power to mould the influences which shall shape the destiny of millions yet unborn. One hundred dollars now may prevent the evil which, a century hence, one hundred thousand dollars could not undo.
“As I have driven about your magnificent boulevards and marked your towers and palaces, I have been impressed even more than I expected to be, and my expectations were great, with your wealth, and its solid, satisfactory embodiment in enduring architecture and fine parks and streets. But not only has your material advancement amazed me. I have been most profoundly impressed with the seriousness of mind and the depth of patriotic feeling that was shown in your notable celebration of the centennial of the beginning of our constitutional government.
“Historic old Boston, that of all other cities should have appreciated the significance of the occasion, gave hardly a thought to the day. New York gave herself to ostentatious pageantry and a glorification of Washington alone; but in this new city of the West, unlinked by historic ties with the past, have I found in press and people a deeper sentiment and
A MORE THOUGHTFUL READING
of the lessons of the century.
“I have been studying this wonderful city of yours that buys more of Browning’s poems than any other city in the world, and is fast drawing to itself not only the wealth and fashion of the land, but that culture of which our older cities have fancied themselves the almost exclusive possessors.
“I have been looking at your schools, your churches, your philanthropies, and, above all, at your poor, and that class from which your
ANARCHISTS AND CRIMINALS