Better Days; Or, A Millionaire Of Tomorrow Or, a Millionaire of Tomorrow

CHAPTER I. The earth trembled underneath their feet. FIVE years had passed and the Columbian Expo sition was only a memory. A memory of minarets and spires piercing the heavens, of vast bubbles of glass and iron swinging in air, of acres of floor crowded with wonders of mechanism, splendors of art and displays of the genius and energy of man in every conceivable field of effort. At that Exposition the marvel of marvels, the ex hibit of exhibits was the great, growing, all-encom V passing city of Chicago the city which from lake to forest is a succession of inspirations. As the Attic salt infused the soul of every true Athenian, so the spirit of creative thought seems to possess the mind of everyman who enters her gates. If not asermon, there seems at least a purpose animating the very stones. Whence comes this unseen, unvoiced power of growth that leads along unexpected ways to achievement, like steps that lead to heights up some unanswering stair Enterprises seem to burst forth and clasp the light and suck the air of strength as from some mummied seed of ages gone, nursed but for this harvest opportunity. Men plan, and their plans outrun their clutch as if the momentum would not be stayed. Men die, and yet behold the thought they planted multiplies in a hundred fields. As from this ridge of the great Northwest the willing and impartial waters sever, one part flowing northward and eastward through lake and strait and roaring over cataract and seeth ing through rapids to the surging Atlantic the other part gliding westward and southward to recruit the tawny current that carries the wash of a continent to the Mexican gulf so this great city of unsalted seas divides her auspicious favors.All are welcome to march in her ranks architect and artisan, millionaire and mechanic, pork-packer and poet. She bids the stalwart soldier of fortune to fall in, and places her strong arm about the shy, unrecognized child of genius, dumb and halting, maybe, with discouragement and despair, and so steadies him on his feet in the blazing procession, imposing no conditions but to keep step. In this mighty city the strong, clean element of earnest endeavor, the conquering tread of hugelimbed labor, the flexible yet tenacious mentality, the eager outreaching spirit of quotget onquot is so manifest and so catching that one feels if he has not lived in Chicago his is a wasted life. Not that the life is feverish or hysterical as in a new mining camp or a city of climate and quotboom.quot By no means. But a handful of the seed of empire fell upon this favored acreage where only a grain was meted out to other lands, and it grows because it cannot help but grow. Hail matchless city of the western world The bronzes of conquest were once stricken from the Column Vendome in Paris because they perpetu ated the memory of triumphs won through the blood and tears of a people to glut the vanity of an emperor who desolated a world that he might illumine a throne. But Chicago s commemorative columns and arches will be her iron-laced highways, her marts of trade, her palaces of industry, her miles of beautiful homes...