The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-08-31

and more to be westerners, and
especially middle westerners.
A generation ago poets and art
lists generally were as scarce along
the Chicago river as fish in the
Sahara Then a group of news
papermen gathered there which IN
cluded several poets of real merit
and at least one good novelist
This group broke up and most OF
its members became mere popular
writers. 1t is only within the last
few years, with the rise Of the So
called Chicago school of poets, that
the great beef town has begun to
get q highbrow reputation.
In part this reputation has been
wished upon Chicago. II. L. Menck-
en-, the eminent critic, impressed by
the fact that nearly all of our
worthwhile contemporary novel
lists have at some time lived in
Chicago, announced to the world
that Chicago was becoming the lit
erary capital of the western hemi-
sphere. He published this state
ment not only here. but in a lead
ing London weekly. The cry was
taken up by others. No doubt the
case for Chicago as center of in
tellectual activity has been con-
siderably oyerdrawn. The Chicago
highbrows are after all a small
group or a few small groups.
Taxing Bohemia
But they do seem to be growing.
The Dill Pickle club, down on
Tooker Court, was long their favor
lite rendezvous. 1t became a show
place, visited by all sorts of curl
Gus people, and it recently wen-
into ostensible eclipse when the
government levied an amusement
tax upon it!
The Dill Pickle club is supposed
to be closed, and maybe it is, but
meantime there is large area OK
the city up north of the river which
is dotted with studio buildings, ell
of which are inhabited by artists,
poets, and other professional wor-
shippers of freedom and beauty. 1t
looks as though Chicago were de-
veloping in that section a genuine
art quarter, like the Latin quarter
in Paris and Greenwich Village in
New York.
This Towering of intellect in the
great city of wealth and business
is a phenomenon attended by 70
mantle happenings-by strange and
dramatic social contacts of the kind
that o. Henry liked to write about
For the wealthy folk of Chicago,
while they generally affect indif-
ference toward all things aesthetic
and highbrow, are often secretly
curious about them. Especially is
this true of the women Daughters
of the rich seem often to be at
Hicted with highbrow cravings. The
Dill Pickle club began as band OF
poor poets, with a mixture of Yaga-
bonds, but it was not long before
limousines began rolling up to its
doors bringing fashionahly dressed
women. At least one affair of tho
kind romancars like to write about
there. The daughter OF
q wealthy Chicago family fell in
love with a young sculptor who
wears his hair long, dispenses with
a hat, and continually hurls his
scorn at the pork packers. The two
became engaged, and have been try
ing ever since to overcome the OPP
position Of the girls family to 4
The sculptor has since
achieved some reputation but his
hair and his radical ideas remain
and the uptown family
cannot stomach either.
There is a little bookshop in Chi
cago at which you can buy almost
any radical book, pamphlet or peri
1dical ever published, and it is said
hat this shop is financed partly By
Chicago society women-the wives
IF wealthy business men. 1t is 4
lad with them, a method of making
contact with a new world, utterly
iifferent from their own. So, in
more ways than one, the world Of
lrt and dream touches hands with
hat of beef and money.