# Travels in Philadelphia/Calling on William Penn

CALLING ON WILLIAM PENN
It would be a seemly thing, perhaps, if candidates for political office were to take a private trip up the tower of the City Hall and spend an hour or so in solitary musing. Looking out over the great expanse of men and buildings they might get a vision of Philadelphia that would be more valuable to them than the brisk bickering business of "showing each other up."
Under the kindly guidance of Mr. Kellett, the superintendent of elevators in the City Hall, I was permitted to go up to the little gallery at the base of the statue. A special elevator runs up inside the tower, starting from the seventh floor. Through ​great echoing spaces, crossed with girders and littered with iron work which the steeplejacks have taken down from the summit for painting and repairs, the small car rises slowly into the top of the dome, over 500 feet above the street. Then you step out onto the platform. Along the railing are the big arc lights that illuminate the pinnacle at night. Over your head is the projecting square toe of William Penn, his sturdy stockinged legs, his coat-tails and outstretched right hand as he stands looking toward the treaty ground. He loved the "fruits of solitude," and he has them here. He is not often disturbed, save by the nimble acrobats who swing in a bosun's chair at their unenvied tasks. A bosun's chair, let one add, is only a plank, not much bigger than a shingle, noosed in midair in the loop of a rope.
The street-dweller knows curiously little of the atmospheric conditions. The groundling would have said that yesterday was a day of crystal clearness. Yet from the top of the tower, even in the frank morning sunlight, the view was strangely restricted. The distances were veiled in summer haze. Camden, beyond the shoreline, was a bluish blur; even League Island was not visible. On the west the view faded away into the greenery of Overbrook, and northward the eye did not reach to the suburbs at all. Enclosed by this softened dimness, the city seemed even vaster than it is.
At that height the clamor of the city is dulled to a gentle mumble, pierced by the groan of trolleys ​and the sharp yelps of motorcars trundling round the Hall. On the glittering pathway of the river ferries and tugs were sliding, kicking up a riffle of white foam behind them. One curious and applaudable feature is the absence of smoke. All over the roofs of the city float little plumes and wisps of steam, detaching and drifting away in the warm blue shimmer like dissolving feathers. A cool breeze was moving in from over the Park, where the tall columns of the Smith Memorial were rising over a sea of green. The Parkway seen from above stands out as the most notable feature of Philadelphia topography. From there, too, one sees how the northeastern corner of Broad Street Station cuts into the line of the Parkway, and wonders just how this will be rectified.
It is fascinating to lean over that sunny parapet and watch the city at its work. Down at the corner of Broad and Chestnut I could see a truck loaded with rolls of paper, drawn by three horses, turning into Chestnut street. On the roof of the Wanamaker store was a party of sightseers, mostly ladies, going round with a guide. Mr. Kellett and I got out our kerchiefs and gave them a wave. In a moment they saw us, and all fluttered enthusiastic response. We were amused to notice one lady who detached herself from the party and went darting about the roof in a most original and random fashion. From our eyrie it looked rather as though she was going to take a canter round the running track on the top of the store, and we ​waited patiently to see what she was up to. Then she disappeared. As one looks over the flat bare roofs of skyscrapers it seems curious that so few of them are put to any use. Only on one of the cliffs of offices could I see any attempt at beauty. This was on the roof of the Finance Building, where there are three tiny grass plots and a little white bench.
It is possible to climb up through William Penn's left leg by a narrow ladder, dodging among beams and girders and through a trap-door, and so up to the brim of his beaver. I was keen to essay it, but Mr. Kellett discouraged me by saying a suit of overalls was necessary. I am no respecter of garments, but I did not press the point, as I feared that my friendly guide might still think I had a grenade about my person, and was yearning for immortality by blowing William's head off. So we compromised by going down to see the inside of the huge clock dials, and the ingenious compressed air devices by which the hands are moved every thirty seconds. A minute space on each clock face is an arc of about fourteen inches, so the minute hand jumps about seven inches every half minute. In a quiet room at the base of the tower are the two master clocks that control the whole mechanism. They are very beautiful to watch, and it is interesting to see that they were made in Germany, by Strasser and Rohde, Glashütte, Saxony. Exact noon is telegraphed from ​Washington every day so that these clocks can be kept strictly on the tick.
If we were a city of mystics, instead of a city of hustling and perturbed business men, we would elect a soothsayer to dwell on the little gallery below William Penn. The pleasantest job in the world has always been that of an oracle. This soothsayer would be wholly aloof from the passion of the streets. (Passion, said William Penn, is a sort of fever in the mind, which always leaves us weaker than it found us.) He would spend his time reading the "Fruits of Solitude" and would occasionally scribble messages on slips of paper, which he would weight with marbles and throw overboard. Those who found these precious sayings would read them reverently, and go on about their folly undismayed. Baskets of victuals and raiment would occasionally be conveyed to this lofty dreamer by humble admirers. On his windy perch he would brood lovingly upon the great city of his choice. When election time came round he would throw down slips telling people whom to vote for. If he thought (not mincing words) that none of the proposed candidates was worth a damn, he would frown down forbiddingly, and the balloting would have to be postponed until candidates satisfactory to his vision had been put forward. When they told him that John Jones had hosts of friends, scraps of paper would be found in the City Hall courtyard saying "It is the friends of mayors who make all the trouble." And the ​people would marvel greatly. He would be the only completely blissful prophet in the world, as the only way for an oracle to be happy is to put him so far away from the marketplace that he can't see that the people pay no attention to his utterances. What William Penn used to call his "natural candle," that is, the light of his spirit, would burn with a cheerful and unguttered radiance. Just inside the door that leads to the tower gallery there is a comfortable meditative armchair of the kind usually found in police stations. So perhaps they are planning to have just such an oracle.
I wandered for some time in the broad corridors of the City Hall, which smell faintly of musky disinfectant. I peered into the district attorney's indictment department, where a number of people were gathered. Occasionally a clerk would call out names, and some would disappear into inner rooms. Whether they were plaintiffs or defendants I could not conjecture. In the calf-lined alcoves of the law library, learned men were reading under green lamps. I looked uncomprehendingly at the signs on the doors—Court of Common Pleas, Court of Oyer and Terminer, Orphans' Court, Delinquent Tax Bureau, Inspector of Nuisances. All this complex machinery that keeps the city in order makes the layman marvel at its efficiency and its apparent kindliness. He wants to do something horrible in order to see how the wheels go round. He feels a little guilty not to have committed some crime.