"My country, 'tis of thee!" / Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

CHAPTER XX.
OUR CITIES.

A GREAT city is a great sore—a sore which never can be cured.

The greater the city, the greater the sore.

It necessarily follows that New York, being the greatest city in the Union, is the vilest sore on our body politic.

If any one doubts it, let him live in New York awhile and keep his eyes and ears open.

The trouble about great cities is not that they have any impetus or influence especially their own, but that every one, from the vilest all the way up to the best, is compelled by circumstances of city life to often conduct his own daily walk and conversation on lines which are not entirely natural, and which never can be made so.