Evening star., 1914-04-18
THE PERSONALITIES OF
FIVE CITIES.
BY DIR FRANK CRANE.
Copyright. 1914. by Frank Cranc.l

Cities have their personality
Los Angeles. Omaha. Annapolis Ban
gor are as different as so many women.
The great metropolis has even more
individuality than the town. New York,
London, Paris, Munich. Rome. each name
recalls an atmosphere. flavor as dis
tinct as if you had said apple, peach.
pear, ounce. melon.
Men grouped in civic activity ACQUIRE
composite soul 1t is difficult 10 de-
scribe. Who can put the infinite airs
OF personality into sounds? 1t is a mat
ter to be sensed.
Here is how five cities affect one per
SON | give it as a matter of taste No
feaoef may agree with me- but
London ,mpresSes me with its small
ness It has been called the largest
cry 1t stretches out in weary square
| mics OF dun houses. Yet when I go
there and feel the intensity of its various
forms of narrowness I have tho same
village sensation one gets in Worcester
Mass
It is caste everywhere Society is in
layers, clean cut as a pousse cafe Reli-
gion is in sects. each opn:onatad.
thoroughly exclusive. Politics bitterly
partisan. Literature in cliques The
rich are classed by clubs the poor by
labor unions: Every human soul is
d
The word for Paris is amusement
Pleasure is the serious side of life They
do not say there. Did you like your
| ride but Did the ride amuse you -
! life is measured by its powers of diver
| sion. Existence is thing to he forgot
ten. Pleasant sensation is pursued with
intense skill. The Partisan is the world 5
expert in taste. of clothes of food of
drinks. of sex
Munich take as representative OF
Germany rather than Berlin which is
| hardly city, but vast camp-a bust
ness organization superimposed upon a
military organization. Munich is mos,
| German. Its word is ..gemuethlich :
meaning, approximately, comfortable "
! The citizens there are at ease. physically
mentally, morally. There are oceans OF
| beer, mountains of food and the best OF
| art and music. There is none of tina,
appalling responsibility without which
the English are uncomfortable The mil
llonalre sits down by the side of his
/ coachman in the enormous Munich beel
| hall. There is none of the fevered chase
| of joy as in Paris. There is ease-ant
| tobacco.
| Rome is an antique vase filled with
new double and hybrid and crossed flow
| ers. The vase is composed of the two
| empires, one of the ancient Caesars the
| other of the medieval church. The flow
ers are the New Italy. democracy strug-
| Cling to escape its outworn shell. De
| mocracy is young and awkward. we
| prefer the lovely SCARED, dream-rich
old vase to the flowers. the crumbling
Coliseum to the spick and span monu-
ment to Victor Emmanuel
New York is alone truly cosmopolitan
Paris is French to the bone. London
truculently English, Munich German and
Rome Italian. New York is the city of
the five races, the four winds and the
seven seas. The so-called New York
ers' are curious and small group. ever
growing less. The business of New York
is run by the Jews, its politics by the
Irish. its eating and dressing by the
French, its drinking by the Germans, its
labor by Italians and Slavs its washing
by the Chinese. Only it's visitors, the
larger part of its population and the
source of its prosperity, are American.