[ARMORY OF THE CLEVELAND GRAYS.]

A growth more normal and steady, a growth which has also carried along with itself elements far more precious than mere size, it would be hard to find. For these folks do not deserve the epithet which Carlyle applied to London's millions. They are a people of vigor, initiative, progressiveness, carefulness, wealth, work, comfortableness, and good-heartedness. Cleveland may be conservative; but it is the conservatism of the English nation which Emerson describes in saying: "The slow, deep English mass smoulders with fire, which at last sets all its borders in flame." Cleveland's fires are the fires of anthracite and not of straw.

A city of comfort, Cleveland has no London's East End. I do not believe that in any other population of the world of its size can be found so few hungry stomachs or homeless bodies. Work abounds. All men work. Its rich men are workers, and, what is far more exceptional, the sons of its rich men are workers. Its wealth is of the solid sort. It represents investments which pay dividends every six months, and which represent the advancement of every commercial and manufacturing interest. But Cleveland is obliged to acknowledge that not a few of its rich men are legal citizens of New York City, ostracized from its pleasant borders by what they and others regard as the unjust tax laws of the State.

The city has not yet reached the condition in which it is understood that in case a will is probated representing a large estate which fails to give at least a considerable sum to charity or to education, the court shall set it aside on the ground that the testator was of unsound mind. Of course money is given away both by gift and by bequest, but more, on the whole, by gift than by bequest, and in large amounts, but not in amounts so large as prevail in communities of an age of two hundred and seventy-five years rather than of one hundred. The rate of increase which money may make for itself is so great, that the holder and the maker hesitate to part with such a remunerative agent. Yet the beneficence viewed in the light of decades is great. A noble school of science, a noble college and university, including professional schools, a noble foundation for an art school, are easily found among the more obvious tokens. Hospitals and orphanages, private schools, endowed churches, Young Men's Christian Association buildings, parks and college settlements, are ready proof of private beneficence for public ends. Testimony should also be borne to the wisdom as well as the generosity which characterize the giving of this people. My pen refuses to write names, but it is free to say that to find beneficence which is, it shall not be said so little harmful, but which is so gloriously efficient, as the beneficence of some of Cleveland's noblest women and men would be difficult. With the gift, before the gift, and after the gift goes the wisdom as well as the graciousness of the giver. One, too, should not neglect to say that in not a few of the great manufacturing concerns of Cleveland prevails a spirit that the employer owes to the employee something more than wages. The dividend to labor consists, in the more obvious relations, in providing rest and recreation rooms, facilities for eating the midday luncheon, and in doing what can be done in creating associations and conditions which make for the enrichment of life and the betterment of character.

[LAKE IN WADE PARK, SHOWING ADELBERT COLLEGE IN THE DISTANCE.]

Of course Cleveland has societies and clubs: clubs into which the worthiest life of the community naturally organizes itself for worthiest purposes, and clubs which represent the life that is simply worthy and of which the purposes are not the highest. Clubs of women and clubs of men, clubs social and clubs professional, clubs literary and clubs commercial, clubs anthropological and clubs sociological, clubs chemical and clubs engineering, clubs collegiate and clubs pedagogical, clubs athletic and clubs æsthetic, clubs piscatorial and clubs ecclesiastical, clubs architectural and clubs of free-traders, clubs for municipal improvement and clubs for no improvement of any kind—they all and many others are found in this very pleasant city.

And underneath all these associations and organizations it is easy to discover the growth of a distinctly civic spirit, also manifest in special movements and conditions. The endeavor to build in one group buildings so important as a county court-house, a city hall, a public library and others reveals the willingness to surrender individual advantages to the public weal. The attempt to deal largely and justly with all municipal franchises proves the presence of a desire to serve all as well as each. The Municipal Association, an organization of a few gentlemen of high purpose and of patience as well as of great influence, has, in recommending or in refusing to recommend certain candidates for office, promoted the growth of a public sense out of which it has itself sprung. The determination that the public schools shall not be used for partisan purposes is perhaps as strong an illustration as could be given of the presence and potency of the civic spirit of Cleveland.

[PERRY'S MONUMENT, WADE PARK, CLEVELAND.]

In the three great professions are found noble members. In this triple service is manifest a high tableland of general excellence rather than a level broken by high and distinct peaks of individual conspicuousness. The highest relative standing belongs, I judge, to the members of the medical profession. This prominence may be the result of the presence for more than fifty years of a medical school which has numbered among its faculty some great investigators and teachers. But not a few of those who are examples of highest service have been unwilling, it must be said, to remain in Cleveland. As the Atlantic draws down the level of the Great Lakes, so the territory of the Atlantic draws away some (not all) of the more eminent members of the great professions. The supply however never becomes exhausted, nor does it deteriorate.

[Charles F. Browne ("Artemus Ward")]