The provincial American and other papers

by Meredith Nicholson

Indianapolis was long a place of industry, thrift, and comfort, where the simple life was not only possible but necessary. Its social entertainments were of the tamest sort, and the change in this respect has come only within a few years,—with the great wave of growth and prosperity that has wrought a new Indianapolis from the old. If left to itself, the old Indianapolis would never have known a horse show or a carnival,—would never have strewn itself with confetti, or boasted the greatest automobile speedway in the world; but the invading time-spirit has rapidly destroyed the walls of the city of tradition. Business men no longer go home to dinner at twelve o’clock and take a nap before returning to work; and the old amiable habit of visiting for an hour in an office where ten minutes of business was to be transacted has passed. A town is at last a city when sociability has been squeezed out of business and appointments are arranged a day in advance by telephone.

The distinguishing quality of Indianapolis continues, however, to be its simple domesticity. The people are home-loving and home-keeping. In the early days, when the town was a rude capital in the wilderness, the citizens stayed at home perforce; and when the railroad reached them they did not take readily to travel. A trip to New York is still a much more serious event, considered from Indianapolis, than from Denver or Kansas City. It was an Omaha young man who was so little appalled by distance that, having an express frank, he formed the habit of sending his laundry work to New York, to assure a certain finish to his linen that was unattainable at home. The more the Hoosier travels, the more he likes his own town. Only a little while ago an Indianapolis man who had been in New York for a week went to the theatre and saw there a fellow-townsman who had just arrived. He hurried around to greet him at the end of the first act. “Tell me,” he exclaimed, “how is everything in old Indianapolis?”

The Hoosiers assemble at Indianapolis in great throngs with slight excuse. In addition to the steam railroads that radiate in every direction interurban traction lines have lately knit new communities into sympathetic relationship with the capital. One may see the real Hoosier in the traction station,—and an ironed-out, brushed and combed Hoosier he is found to be. You may read the names of all the surrounding towns on the big interurban cars that mingle with the local traction traffic. They bring men whose errand is to buy or sell, or who come to play golf on the free course at Riverside Park, or on the private grounds of the Country Club. The country women join their sisters of the city in attacks upon the bargain counters. These cars disfigure the streets, but no one has made serious protest, for are not the Hoosiers welcome to their capital, no matter how or when they visit it; and is not this free intercourse, as the phrase has it, “a good thing for Indianapolis”? This contact between town and country tends to stimulate a state feeling, and as the capital grows this intimacy will have an increasing value.

There is something neighborly and cozy about Indianapolis. The man across the street or next door will share any good thing he has with you, whether it be a cure for rheumatism, a new book, or the garden hose. It is a town where doing as one likes is not a mere possibility, but an inherent right. The woman of Indianapolis is not afraid to venture abroad with her market-basket, albeit she may carry it in an automobile. The public market at Indianapolis is an ancient and honorable institution, and there is no shame but much honor in being seen there in conversation with the farmer and the gardener or the seller of herbs, in the early hours of the morning. The market is so thoroughly established in public affection that the society reporter walks its aisles in pursuit of news. The true Indianapolis housewife goes to market; the mere resident of the city orders by telephone, and meekly accepts what the grocer has to offer; and herein lies a difference that is not half so superficial as it may sound, for at heart the people who are related to the history and tradition of Indianapolis are simple and frugal, and if they read Emerson and Browning by the evening lamp, they know no reason why they should not distinguish, the next morning, between the yellow-legged chicken offered by the farmer’s wife at the market and frozen fowls of doubtful authenticity that have been held for a season in cold storage.

The narrow margin between the great parties in Indiana has made the capital a centre of incessant political activity. The geographical position of the city has also contributed to this, the state leaders and managers being constant visitors. Every second man you meet is a statesman; every third man is an orator. The largest social club in Indiana exacts a promise of fidelity to the Republican party,—or did, until insurgency made the close scrutiny of the members’ partisanship impolite if not impolitic!—and within its portals chances and changes of men and measures are discussed tirelessly. And the pilgrim is not bored with local affairs; not a bit of it! Municipal dangers do not trouble the Indianapolitan; his eye is on the White House, not the town hall. The presence in the city through many years of men of national prominence—Morton, Harrison, Hendricks, McDonald, English, Gresham, Turpie, of the old order, and Fairbanks, Kern, Beveridge, and Marshall in recent years—has kept Indianapolis to the fore as a political centre. Geography is an important factor in the distribution of favors by state conventions. Rivalry between the smaller towns is not so marked as their united stand against the capital, though this feeling seems to be abating. The city has had, at least twice, both United States Senators; but governors have usually been summoned from the country. Harrison was defeated for governor by a farmer (1876), in a heated campaign, in which “Kid-Gloved Harrison” was held up to derision by the adherents of “Blue-Jeans Williams.” And again, in 1880, a similar situation was presented in the contest for the same office between Albert G. Porter and Franklin Landers, both of Indianapolis, though Landers stood ruggedly for the “blue jeans” idea.

The high tide of political interest was reached in the summer and fall of 1888, when Harrison made his campaign for the presidency, largely from his own doorstep. Marion County, of which Indianapolis is the seat, was for many years Republican; but neither county nor city has lately been “safely” Democratic or Republican. At the city election held in October, 1904, a Democrat was elected mayor over a Republican candidate who had been renominated in a “snap” convention, in the face of aggressive opposition within his party. The issue was tautly drawn between corruption and vice on the one hand and law and order on the other. An independent candidate, who had also the Prohibition support, received over five thousand votes.

The difficulties in the way of securing intelligent and honest city government have, however, multiplied with the growth of the city. The American municipal problem is as acutely presented in Indianapolis as elsewhere. The more prosperous a city the less time have the beneficiaries of its prosperity for self-government. It is much simpler to allow politicians of gross incapacity and leagued with vice to levy taxes and expend the income according to the devices and desires of their own hearts and pockets than to find reputable and patriotic citizens to administer the business. Here as elsewhere the party system is indubitably at the root of the evil. It happens, indeed, that Indianapolis is even more the victim of partisanship than other cities of approximately the same size for the reason that both the old political organizations feel that the loss of the city at a municipal election jeopardizes the chances of success in general elections. Just what effect the tariff and other national issues have upon street cleaning and the policing of a city has never been explained. It is interesting to note that the park board, whose members serve without pay, has been, since the adoption of the city charter, a commission of high intelligence and unassailable integrity. The standard having been so established no mayor is likely soon to venture to consign this board’s important and responsible functions to the common type of city hall hangers-on.

It is one of the most maddening of the anomalies of American life that municipal pride should exhaust its energy in the exploitation of factory sites and the strident advertisement of the number of freight cars handled in railroad yards, while the municipal corporation itself is turned over to any band of charlatans and buccaneers that may seek to capture it. In 1911-12 the municipal government had reached the lowest ebb in the city’s history. It had become so preposterous and improvement was so imperatively demanded that many citizens, both as individuals and in organizations, began to interest themselves in plans for reform. The hope here as elsewhere seems to be in the young men, particularly of the college type, who find in local government a fine exercise for their talents and zeal.

In this connection it may be said that the Indianapolis public schools owe their marked excellence and efficiency to their complete divorcement from political influence. This has not only assured the public an intelligent and honest expenditure of school funds, but it has created a corps spirit among the city’s teachers, admirable in itself, and tending to cumulative benefits not yet realized. The superintendent of schools has absolute power of appointment, and he is accountable only to the commissioners, and they in turn are entirely independent of the mayor and other city officers. Positions on the school board are not sought by politicians. The incumbents serve without pay, and the public evince a disposition to find good men and to keep them in office.

The soldiers’ monument at Indianapolis is a testimony to the deep impression made by the Civil War on the people of the State. The monument is to Indianapolis what the Washington Monument is to the national capital. The incoming traveler beholds it afar, and within the city it is almost an inescapable thing, though with the advent of the sky-scraper it is rapidly losing its fine dignity as the chief incident of the skyline. It stands in a circular plaza that was originally a park known as the “Governor’s Circle.” This was long ago abandoned as a site for the governor’s mansion, but it offered an ideal spot for a monument to Indiana soldiers, when, in 1887, the General Assembly authorized its construction. The height of the monument from the street level is two hundred and eighty-four feet and it stands on a stone terrace one hundred and ten feet in diameter. The shaft is crowned by a statue of Victory thirty-eight feet high. It is built throughout of Indiana limestone. The fountains at the base, the heroic sculptured groups “War” and “Peace,” and the bronze astragals representing the army and navy, are admirable in design and execution. The whole effect is one of poetic beauty and power. There is nothing cheap, tawdry, or commonplace in this magnificent tribute of Indiana to her soldiers. The monument is a memorial of the soldiers of all the wars in which Indiana has participated. The veterans of the Civil War protested against this, and the controversy was long and bitter; but the capture of Vincennes from the British in 1779 is made to link Indiana to the war of the Revolution; and the battle of Tippecanoe, to the war of 1812. The war with Mexico, and seven thousand four hundred men enlisted for the Spanish War are likewise remembered. It is, however, the war of the Rebellion, whose effect on the social and political life of Indiana was so tremendous, that gives the monument its great cause for being. The white male population of Indiana in 1860 was 693,348; the total enlistment of soldiers during the ensuing years of war was 210,497! The names of these men lie safe for posterity in the base of the gray shaft.