“The children of the East are proud of the East and the children of the West are proud of the West. I lived for a number of years in Minnesota when it was a territory, and I am told by my friends that I made the Eastern people--to use a slang expression--‘tired’ in singing the praises of the land of the Dakotas. After I had located myself in New York, upon a return from a visit to Minnesota I met an old friend in Chicago with whom I had an earnest conversation in reference to the rapid progress of the West. We were both Western men in our enthusiasm, but when he found that I had located in New York he expressed his dissatisfaction by saying: ‘New York! Why, in a few years New York will be to Chicago what Liverpool is to London; New York, like Liverpool, will be the seaport town, but Chicago, like London, will be the great interior city!’ His sudden exclamation nearly took me from my feet, but when I recovered I answered him as earnestly: ‘When Chicago reaches its population of fifteen hundred thousand New York will add to its boundaries a few of its suburbs like Brooklyn and Jersey City and Newark and Hoboken, when it will have a population of three millions, and give Chicago another pull of half a century!’ “But I have been in the habit for years of visiting the West frequently, in order to watch its progress and study geography,--for seeing is believing. I have just spent two days in Chicago, and now find myself for the first time in Kansas City, which was called by more than one person in Chicago whom I met, ‘Chicago No. 2!’ And I have come to the conclusion that possibly what my enthusiastic Chicago friend said, and what I heard Governor Seward also say in the city of St. Paul in the year 1856, is true--‘that somewhere here, in the State of Illinois, the State of Kansas, or the State of Minnesota--somewhere here in this galaxy of States, which we call the Northwest, there will be built a great interior city, larger than any of our seaport towns.’ “The Eastern cities will however, for years contest with you the right to excel them in population, in intelligence, and in wealth. We acknowledge your rapid progress. We know that forty years ago Chicago had just begun to exist and that many of your other cities were unknown.