Arizona republican., 1920-06-13
BY FREDERIc J. HASkIN


 CHICAGO, H.. June 6-The r4se ot the Chic.Aso river, figurativeiy speak ing, has been almost IS spectacular as the, rise of some of the barefoot boys who grew up on it's banks But in all fairness it must be admitted that lt belongs not so much to the class which X has achieved greatness as to the class which has had greatness thrust upon it. It has nearly always been Tn the | public eye, either civic problem | or an advantage and now the attention l of the whole country is turned toward | it again. this time because the 2,000,- 900 Michigan avenue bridge over 1t has | just been completed.
 This bridge is really the greatest I honor that has been paid to the river so far. It is the first double-level bridge for pedestrians as well as traf- fife to be built in this country, if not in the world, and marks new step in the handling of congested city trat- fife is America The river may well , flow more proudly under such struc- ture, and Chicagoans walk more proudly over it. For 1t is a monument to progressive citizenship repre- sented by the Chicago plan commis- sion.
 The Chicago river seems always to have been somehow involved in the destinies of men. In fact it is the req son why there is any Chicago. Years ago it was used by the Indians as q canoe route, as it furnished q water way from Lake Michigan which. with a miles easy portage, connected it| with the Desplaines river and thence down the Illinois to the Mississippi. It was called Chi-Kang- -Ong by the Indians a name which means River Of the Wild Onion. After it was discov- cred by Joliet and Marquette a trading post was stablished at it's mouth and that was the beginning of Chicago.
 Was a Menace
 It had always been a sluggish and weak -willed stream flowing feebly into Lake Michigan and before the day of the drainage canal it became a real menace to the lives of Ghicagoans. For nine or ten months of the year it had no current at all and. as the drainage of the city was emptied into it, the result was extremely unpleasant not say unsa nitary. So after 30 wears of agitation and work the drainage canal was completed, and the obhging river turned around and flowed back wards into the Desplaines, carrying quantities of purifying lake water with it. This canal also made it more val Gable to commerce.
 But it is not it's rise as a useful fac tor in Chicago life that has been so spectacular. It is it's rise as an aesth- etic influence. It is the Cinderella among rivers. and at last it seems to be coming into it's own Once con- sidered by all to be a loathy stream, to be used for drainage and to bear huge ungainly barges loaded with coal and iron upon it's back, but to be ignored by all nice people, it is now painted and etched and sung by almost every artist and poet for miles around. If you are an advanced Chicagoan YOU will no longer blush and apologize when visitors mention it. You will rather lead them to it impressiyely, and point with pride to it's swirilng green waters reflecting old warehouses. dark red barges, little white pufts or smoke from the tugs and dipping sea gulls Swarms of art students from the Art institute and the Academy or Fine Arts have been descending upon it of late and clinging all over it's bridges and wharves busily preserving its beauty in erayon and paint. Young poets moon along it's bridges at tWf- light and watch the first red and yell low lights pop out on the boats and send long lines of brightness down into it's violet waters, the while their bosoms swell with appropriate senti- ments It is not known exactly who first discovered the Snnate loveliness of this much Rlaligned steam but it is generally conceded that Carl Sandburg. unofficial poet laureate of Chicago, was one of the first to find poetry in it. So he was asked to explain it's sudden charm for the cultured.
 Now Inspires Poets
 Well" said MT. Sandburg cooking his stogie at a meditative angle, guess you might say that the reason we are beginning to appreciate the Chicago river is that we are just grow ing an artistic consciousness of our own You see we've been too busy growing commercially until just lately to give much time to beauty, and SC we got our art ready-made. Fin stance, take the lions on the Art insti- tute steps-if we'd had any sense ol the relation of art 10 life we'd have buffaloes on those steps and a lot bet ter-looking animals they would be too But we got those lions because there I was a European precedent for lions It's the same way with the river Thers wasn't any precedent for exalting dirty old river so we despised ours, al during the Victorian era. Then real ism got to be fashionable, people began l to realize that lots of things that aren. pretty are beautiful. and our young ar l lists discovered the Chicago river. c course the river had been beautiful al the time. but we hadn't grown up to it..
 Will Hollingsworth, art critic an, instructor at the Academy of Fin Arts, has just finished a series of wate 1 color sketches of the river which arr now on exhibition here.
 ITO my mind.Y said MT. Hollings worth. "it is the most beautiful plac in Chicago. It is beautiful I suppose