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 WOXDERS OF 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 Xorth and the 

 cotton-growing South ; possessing the 

 cheapest water transportation on earth 

 and the finest railway facilities in the 

 world, 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. Xo other place butchers as much 

 meat, makes as much machinery, builds 

 as manv 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 



