[Illustration: Down by the docks we saw gigantic, strange machines, expressive of Cleveland's lake commerce--machines for loading and unloading ships in the space of a few hours] It is a fine and unusual thing, in itself, for an American city to be planning its own beauty fifty years ahead. Cleveland is almost un-American in that! But when the work done--yes, and before it is done--this single great improvement will have transformed Cleveland from an ordinary looking city to one of great distinction. Fancy emerging from a splendid railway station to find yourself facing, not the little bars and dingy buildings which so often face a station, but a splendid mall, two thousand feet long and six hundred wide, parked in the center and surrounded by fine buildings of even cornice height and harmonious classical design. At one side of the station will stand the public library; at the other the Federal building; and at the far extremity of the mall, the county building and the city hall. Three of these buildings are already standing. Two more are under way. The plan is no longer a mere plan but is already, in part, an actuality. When the transformation is complete Cleveland will not only have re-made herself but will have set a magnificent example to other cities. By that time she may have ceased to call herself "Sixth City"--for population changes. But if a hundred other cities follow her with group plans, and whether those plans be of greater magnitude or less, it must never be forgotten that Cleveland had the appreciation and the courage to begin the movement in America, not merely on paper but in stone and marble, and that, without regard to population, she therefore has a certain right, to-day, to call herself "First City." MICHIGAN MEANDERINGS CHAPTER V DETROIT THE DYNAMIC Because Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit are, in effect, situated upon Lake Erie, and because they are cities of approximately the same size, and because of many other resemblances between them, they always seem to me like three sisters living amicably in three separate houses on the same block. As I personify them, Buffalo, living at the eastern end of the block, is the smallest sister. She has, I fear, a slight tendency to be anemic. Her husband, who was in the shipping business, is getting old. He has retired and is living in contentment in the old house, sitting all day on the side porch, behind the vines, with his slippers cocked up on the porch rail, smoking cigars and reading his newspapers in peace. Cleveland is the fat sister. She is very rich, having married into the Rockefeller family. She is placid, satisfied, dogmatically religious, and inclined to platitudes and missionary work. Her house, in the middle of the block, is a mansion of the seventies. It has a cupola and there are iron fences on the roof, as though to keep the birds from falling off. The lawn is decorated with a pair of iron dogs. But there are plans in the old house for a new one.