The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
"That is why we are cottoning to that idea of a civic center out by
Schenley Park; that's why we pat Andrew Carnegie on the back when we
know that he is giving us the best in pictures and in music in America;
that's why Frick is holding back with his horse pasture there in front
of Carnegie Institute to build something bigger and better. Don't you
get the idea now of the bigger and better Pittsburgh?"
The limousine stopped and the ironmaster beckoned a large, whiskered
Russian to it. "Here's a real anarchist," he said, "but he is one of my
protégés. He speaks down in a dirty hall in Liberty avenue, near the
Wabash terminal, but he's for the new Pittsburgh, and he's for it
strong--so we come together after a fashion."
The Russian, who was a teacher, came close to the big automobile and
pointed to a woman of his own people--a woman wretchedly poor, who dwelt
in one of the hovels which are today Pittsburgh's greatest shame.
"She's reading Byron," he said quietly, "and she has been in America
less than six months. She says there is a magnificent comparison between
Byron and Tolstoy."
That reminded the ironmaster of an incident.
"After that bad time in 1907," he said, "I chanced into one of Mr.
Carnegie's libraries, and the librarian complained to me of the way the
books were being ruined. Their backs were being scratched and filled
with rust and even shavings. I had an idea on that myself. I went back
to our own mill--it was pretty dull there and I was dodging the forlorn
place as much as I could. But we were sifting out a gang from the men
who were beating at our doors every morning for work, and even then we
were carrying twice as many men as we really needed. I went around back
of the furnaces and there were the library books--the men were reading
them in the long shifts."
"They weren't reading fiction?" asked the New Yorker.
"Not a bit of it," said the ironmaster. Then he added:
"One of them spoke to me. He was only getting three days a week. 'Mr.
Carnegie can give the books,' was his quiet observation, 'and the money
to buy them. But we need more than money. Can't he ever give us the
leisure to read them without its costing us the money for our food?'
"That, New Yorker, from the mouth of one of those of the new Pittsburgh
is the real answer to your question."
11
THE SIXTH CITY
They call her the Sixth City, but that is only in a comparative sense,
and exclusively in regard to her statistical position in the population
ranks of the large cities of our land. For no real citizen of Cleveland
will ever admit that his community is less than first, in all of the
things that make for the advance of a strong and healthy American town.
His might better be called "the City of Boundless Enthusiasm." Your
Cleveland man, however, is content to know it as the Sixth City.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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