New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-03-06
SMOKE.

II seems that there Is an air for pork and
another air for pictures. Each atmosphere may
have its uses and be honorable equally with
the other Just as, according to IT. Paul, the
| diverse members Of the body have Ike claim
TO loneliness; but the two atmospheres are not
the same. In country where all men are
born free and equal It mi-ht be thought con
| trary to the constitution for Nature to dscrim-
mate in the matter Of air but. nevertheless, she
does. and this city is to be the gamer there
by, while Chicago valnly regrets that 1t did not
long ago pray to the sun:
Never the hell-colored smoke Of the factories
Hide thee.
II has generally been conceded that when
| Chicago had made it's pile and went In for
| culture and art II would get there In great
| shape In fact Its millOnaires have been build
ing galleries and buying pictures with the char
| actcrlsc push and enterprise with which they
had turned soft coal into hard money They
| certainly have n right TO protest and demand
| the repeal OF the laws Of chemistry. which are
! forcing art collectors like Mr. J. W. Ellsworth
! to remove their treasures from the corrosive
| atmosphere of Chicago and house them for
preservation in NewYork. Indeed It is out
rageous that this giant city of the lakes with
| It's miles Of territory. its hundreds Of railroads.
| its ffty-story buildings, its thousand sockyardS
its million furnaces and its mammoth directory
should he baked in its aesthetic aspirations by
little carboIlc acid and we shall not be
priscd to hear Mr.. Ellsworth called to account
as no true patrio; 10 let Il little thing like dis
indignation Of paint make him give away
| his city. Old masters are always faded and
crooked, anyhow, and n little buminOus smoke
would only make them more old-mastcrly than
ever.
But we have no disposition to joke over the
smoke Of Chicago. 1t Is rather a choking than
n joking matter and we are quite alive to the
danger Of Boosting in a Tammany town. whose
rulers may at any moment decide that pictures,
like civilized school systems. are a dudish fad,
and want to turn the Metropolitan Museum into
a roadhouse for a park speedway. Moreover,
art collectors object to dust from dirty streets
only less than to SCOT from smoky chlmneys.
Our object is 10 dwell on the fact that cvza-
ton is not a veneer, but must enter into the
whole body. That Is a commonplace concern
Ing the individual. but how often do we fail
to realize Il concerning community? The too
common impression is that art and industry
have distinct fields that the few who care for
pictures need have no concern with factories.
ana tnat the SENSE LOT quality is OF 100 IenUOuS
a substance for consideration in the works shop.
We all remember Ruskln's high scorn of those
who thought the greatness Of England was in
the cheapness and abundance Of her coal and
his denunciation of the men who hid fcecy
clouds with pals Of smoke, turned roadside
hedges to dust heaps. and buried green river
banks under factory refuse. But rarely does
1t occur to us that such protests have any other
basis than longing for an impossible harmony
We accept the crude. hard side of commerce as
necessity, and dismiss the dreamer as 'un
practlce." Yet here Is case of the practical
tendency Of the factory to innict practical
money damage on valuable property. Consider
pictures simply as property. They are Italy's
almost greatest wealth to-day. both for earning
power and for reserve Judcious collecting is
often said to be one Of the safest Of invest
ments. Shall we dismiss damage 10 them as
lightly as offences against the harmony Of
Nature? 'i
Factory smoke Is really the sign Of bar
barism. True civilization means excellence.
whether 1t be at thinking or forging horseshoes
or burning coal The difference between the
two Is the difference between the intelligent
craftsman who his tools rightly and the
careless fellow who hacks away at his task
with no object but TO serve his time and get
his money. Black smoke from a chimney tells
Of disorder within. The fireman is a bungler
or the furnace bad or the smoie-consumcr miss
ing. So It Is with cities. If have smoke
and dust and noise and hundred other evils
which it is "lmpracticable' TO remove It is be-
cause we careless workmen over stocking
our fires and being slovcny with our refuse
There is really nothing in our tasks which re-
Quires 1t. Not the industries hut the brutal and
unintelligent conduct of them is at fault, and a
people Is not really civilized till 1t learns to con-
sumo its own smoke-in other words to do what
ever work It undertakes we'll and completely.
to have standards and live up to them. There
is the great fault Of American civilization. We
have ideals I'm abundance. We want clean
cities, pure government healthful factories and
happy homes. but we will not take the pains
to carry those ideals out Like the careless
apprentice, we save trouble and just let things
go.