11 



believe it conservative to state that in the not distant future our population 

 will be at least 5,000,000. I advance this statement on the basis of the causes 

 that have made Chicago the abode of about 2,000,000 persons within the span 

 of a human life. 



Chicago is the gateway to and from the West ; and the great movement ^ m ^ r ' c e e way of 

 of commerce to-day is eastward and westward. Chicago lies also between 

 the North and the South. It is the largest transportation center in the 

 world, and the railroads have not come here because of free rights of way and 

 tempting bonuses. They have come because Chicago is where it is. They 

 were obliged to come, because the business they sought was here. They 

 paid well to get into Chicago ; and long ago they awoke to the need of outer 

 belt lines and constructed them. 



When the Panama canal is built commerce will be increased srreatly Growth as ship- 



J ping center. 



north and south through Chicago. There is no accurate method of fore- 

 casting how important our city will become as a shipping center, both by 

 rail and by water, with this added business to handle. There are great 

 possibilities for Chicago as the commercially strategic point both east and 

 west and north and south. 



Chicasro is convenient to timber belts. It is convenient to mines of iron , Raw , materiaI on 



hand. 



and copper and coal. It is convenient to dairy lands. It is convenient to 

 wheat and cornfields. 



Chicaeo will be not only the traffic center of the future America. Be- As a manufactur - 



& J ing center. 



cause of its location it also will be the manufacturing center. Raw material 

 in increasing volume will be brought here to be worked over. Finished 

 products in larger and larger quantities will be shipped hence to the marts 

 of the world. The present enormous volume of this sort of business will 

 seem small compared with that of the future ; and other lines of human 

 service will grow in proportion to the commercial and manufacturing 

 development. 



As sagacious a man as James J. Hill, reviewing the prospects of \J^ Hllls P redlc ' 

 American trade with China, Japan and the American colonies, now in its 

 infancy, said of the future Chicago : 



" When the Pacific Coast states shall have a population of 20,000,000, as 

 they will, then Chicago will be the largest city in the world." 



Problems of a Great Population. 



While it seems clear that our destiny to be a very larsre city is assured Destiny and its 



J j a j perplexities. 



by our position on the map, as evidenced by past growth, what of the tre- 

 mendous local problems that will crowd themselves upon us for solution 

 with the enormous and diversified population of the great Chicago of the 

 future ? 



At present more than half of our people are foreigfn-born or born of City of workin s- 



1 x r ° men. 



foreign-born parents. Chicago is a city of workingmen. This always will 

 be so. We have an extremely small so-called leisure class. 



Bishop Charles P. Anderson, of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of \ Vo J ds of Bish °P 



r L L Anderson. 



Chicago, who is familiar with religious work among the city masses, said at 

 the great missionary meeting in the Auditorium on January 7, 1903: 



