THE WHITER PITTSBURGH 451 



ago the fighting citizens seized a political opportunity; and Pittsburgh 

 has in Mayor George W. Guthrie an executive of whom it is justly 

 proud. Not even by his bitter political opponents is he charged with 

 any wish or motive that is foreign to the highest interest of the city. 

 From a machine-ridden, ring-encircled municipality, the revolution- 

 izing and purging have been so thorough that political corruption is 

 now virtually non-existent. It is no longer " a city ashamed " ; it is 

 joyful and proud. 



Anxious critics have inquired whether Pittsburgh's sudden and 

 untoward opulence is a menace — a menace to itself, and to humanity. 

 The city has been adding a chapter or two to the history of sociology. 

 It has turned out (promoted is perhaps more accurate) a new and 

 curious variety of plutocrat ; and still worse, has produced a new leisure 

 class. The latter was born out of the loins of toiling industry; has 

 sprung upon an amazed world within a decade; and the funny twins 

 have made an unwelcome commotion. It is seriously asked whether 

 these do not furnish a gauge by which the future manhood of Pitts- 

 burgh is to be determined: whether they are not the prolific seeds of 

 complete degeneracy. 



The answer is to be found in the fact that Pittsburgh was raised up 

 by the brain and brawn, the self-respecting moral qualities of its 

 Scotch-Irish founders. They were, and are yet, a forceful race — 

 fighters and workers, natural leaders, men with a high sense of duty, 

 who do their own thinking. Do the critics see no signs of the vital 

 undercurrent which is to be the determining factor of the future? Do 

 they not see in Pittsburgh's intellectual activity a guaranty of the more 

 wonderful reputation which is to be achieved hereafter, when the present 

 spendthrift perversions and pranks have been long forgotten ? Just as 

 it has been in the past, so now the vicious idler is made to feel uncom- 

 fortable. His father toiled for his winnings, is toiling yet, if he lives, 

 and the son who lives only to spend money and invent new and out- 

 rageous forms of diversion is a virtual outcast. And yet he is an 

 almost inevitable outgrowth of the marvelous period. He is not con- 

 fined to Pittsburgh; but has merely been somewhat disproportionately 

 advertised. And doubtless, too, his number is small as compared with 

 what it might have been had the principles of his progenitors been less 

 firmly anchored. He will not increase. Pittsburgh has even a con- 

 fident hope that he and his tribe may become extinct. 



