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National Geographic : 1919 Jan
Contents
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE packing industry has changed the center of gravity of the meat-producing world, giving American-grown meat to Briton, Frenchman, Belgian, Swede, Norwegian, Spaniard, Greek-to any one who has something to give America in exchange. Its agricultural-implement industry has revised the economic status of more than half of the inhabitants of the earth-the hum of its sowing machinery figuring in seed-time operations for a billion people, and the click of its harvesting machinery resounding on every continent, if not in deed in every country within the confines of civilization. Its sleeping-car industry has entirely revised the geography of travel, bringing hundreds of places separated by moun tain- and plain close to each other-even to the extent of enabling half of the peo ple of America to be within shut-eye town distance of the great Middle West metropolis. RIVAL WONDERS OE THE PAST AND FUTURE Situated in the very heart of the world's most fertile and prosperous val ley, at the natural cross-roads between the industrial East and the agricultural West, the ore-producing North and the cotton-growing South; possessing the cheapest water transportation on earth and the finest railway facilities in the worll, it was inevitable that Chicago should grow; and it is equally inevitable that it will continue to grow. Indeed, one hesitates as to which were the better story, the wonder-tale of the ninety-five years that have sufficed to convert the village of sixty inhabitants into the metropolis of two and a half millions, or the bold plans of far-seeing city-builders who are doing the initial work toward making Chicago a fit place of abode for the five million inhabitants it expects to have before the dawn of the middle decade of the twentieth century. It is interesting to pause for a bird's eye inventory of what the city is today. Fourth in population, it ranks first among the world's great urban centers in many ways. No other place butchers as much meat, makes as much machinery, builds .as many cars, manufactures as much furniture, sells as much grain, or handles as much lumber. A casual investigation shows that it is America's principal piano market, its chief mail-order center, its leading stove market. The city has the busiest street corner in the world, the most traveled bridge in existence, the largest depart ment store on the map, the largest art school on the globe. It has so many buildings that if placed in a row they would reach from New York to San Francisco; furthermore, the city normally grows at the rate of ten thousand houses a year, leading even New York in the- vastness of its con struction program. AN EMPIRE IN ITSELF One soon finds that Chicago is a little empire in itself. Thirteen American States have fewer churches; thirty-seven have smaller populations; many States have fewer miles of roads than the Windy City has of streets., It has more telephones than Montana has people. There are nations whose postal business is not nearly as great as that handled by the Chicago post-office; countries by the dozen that spend less money for govern mental purposes; even continents that move less freight than is carried into, out of, and through this one city. Having added two million people to its population in thirty-five years-more than live in the entire State of Kansas it was inevitable that the city should en counter many knotty problems in provid ing for the well-being of such a host. Time after time it enlarged its bound aries, improved the transportation sys tem, recast sanitary arrangements, and revised fundamental plans in one way or another; but just as often it has had to take further steps as necessary and as radical as those taken before. The city had to raise the whole business district fourteen feet to insure drainage; it had to reverse the flow of a river to secure proper sanitation, and it had to establish an entirely new water system to meet ever-growing needs. And yet today it is up against harder problems than ever. The men who made Chicago were not as far-sighted as the
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