American Adventures Part 30

Charleston is a hard place to leave. Wherever one may be going from there, the change is likely to be for the worse. Nevertheless, it is impossible to stay forever; so at last you muster up your resignation and your resources, buy tickets, and reluctantly prepare to leave. If you depart as we did, you go by rail, driving to the station in the venerable bus of the Charleston Transfer Company--a conveyance which, one judges, may be coeval with the city's oldest mansions. Little as we wished to leave Charleston we did not wish to defer our departure through any such ba.n.a.lity as the unnecessary missing of a train.

Therefore as we waited for the bus, on the night of leaving, and as train time drew nearer and nearer, with no sign of the lumbering old vehicle, we became somewhat concerned.

When the bus did come at last there was little time to spare; nevertheless the conductor, an easygoing man of great volubility, consumed some precious minutes in gossiping with the hotel porter, and then with arranging and rearranging the baggage on the roof of the bus.

His manner was that of an amateur bus conductor, trying a new experiment. After watching his performances for a time, looking occasionally at my watch, by way of giving him a hint, I broke out into expostulation at the unnecessary delay.

"What's the matter?" asked the man in a gentle, almost grieved tone.

"There's very little time!" I returned. "We don't wish to miss the train."

"Oh, all right," said the bus conductor, making more haste, as though the information I had given him put a different face on matters generally.

Presently we started. After a time he collected our fares. I have forgotten whether the amount was twenty-five or fifty cents. At all events, as he took the money from my hand he said to me rea.s.suringly:

"Don't you worry, sir! If I don't get you to the train I'll give you this money back. That's fair, ain't it?"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

OUT OF THE PAST

By no means all the leading citizens of Atlanta were in a frame of mind to welcome General Sherman when, ten or a dozen years after the Civil War, he revisited the city. Captain Evan P. Howell, a former Confederate officer, then publisher of the Atlanta "Const.i.tution," was, however, not one of the Atlantans who ignored the general's visit. Taking his young son, Clark, he called upon the general at the old Kimball House (later destroyed by fire), and had an interesting talk with him. Clark Howell, who has since succeeded his father as publisher of the "Const.i.tution,"

was born while the latter was fighting at Chickamauga, and was consequently old enough, at the time of the call on Sherman, to remember much of what was said. He heard the general tell Captain Howell why he had made such a point of taking Atlanta, and as Sherman's military reasons for desiring possession of the Georgia city explain, to a large extent, Atlanta's subsequent development, I shall quote them as Clark Howell gave them to me.

First however, it is perhaps worth while to remind the reader of the bare circ.u.mstances preceding the fall of Atlanta. After the defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston's army fell back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on Paris at the beginning of the European War, shortening their own lines of communication while those of the advancing Germans were being continually attenuated. As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman kept after Johnston; and as Joffre was beginning to be criticized for failing to make a stand against the enemy, so was Johnston criticized as he continued to retire without giving battle. One of the chief differences between Joffre's retirement and Johnston's lies, however, in the length of time consumed; for whereas the French retreat on Paris covered a few days only, the Confederate retreat on Atlanta covered weeks and months, giving the Confederate Government time to become impatient with Johnston and finally to remove him from command before the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand against Sherman should be made. Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as long as Johnston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at the Battle of the Marne.

Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city of less than 10,000 inhabitants, it was the chief base of supply for men and munitions in the Far South.

"When my father asked him why all his effort and power had been centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I remember that General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was only one day's journey from these chief cities of the South.'"

In spite, therefore, of the a.s.sertion, which I have heard made, that the prosperity of Atlanta is "founded on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and hot air," it seems to me that it is founded on something very much more solid. Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which underlies the city.

The prosperity of Atlanta is based upon the very feature which made its capture seem to Sherman so desirable: its strategic position as a central point in the Far South.

Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia is General Sherman remembered with a feeling that can properly be described as affectionate, though it may be added that Atlanta has good reason for remembering him warmly. The burning of Atlanta by Sherman did not, however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for the war came to an end soon after, and the rebuilding of the city supplied work for thousands of former Confederate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many of the strong men who played leading parts in the subsequent commercial upbuilding of the place: such men as the late General Alfred Austell, Captain James W.

English, and the three Inman brothers, Samuel, John, and Hugh--to mention but a few names. The First National Bank, established by General Austell, is, I believe, Atlanta's largest bank to-day, and was literally the first national bank established in Georgia, if not in the whole South, after the war.

Woodrow Wilson was admitted to the bar in Atlanta, and, if I mistake not, practised law in an office not far from that meeting place of highways called Five Points. Here, at Five Points, two important trails crossed, long before there was any Atlanta: the north-and-south trail between Savannah and Ross's Landing, and the east-and-west trail, which followed the old Indian trails between Charleston and New Orleans. When people from this part of the country wished to go to Ohio, Indiana, or the Mississippi Valley, they would take the old north-and-south trail to Ross's Landing, follow the Tennessee River to where it empties into the Ohio, near Paducah, Kentucky, and proceed thence to Mississippi.

In the thirties, Atlanta--or rather the site of Atlanta, for the city was not founded until 1840--was on the border of white civilization in northern Georgia, all the country to the north of the Chattahoochee River, which flows a few miles distant from the city, having belonged to the Cherokee Indians, who had been moved there from Florida. Even in those times the Cherokees were civilized, as Indians go, for they lived in huts and practised agriculture. Of course, however, their civilization was not comparable with that of the white man. If they had been as civilized as he, they might have driven him out of Florida, instead of having been themselves driven out, and they might have driven him out of Georgia, too, instead of having been pushed on, as they were, to the Indian Territory--eighteen thousand of them, under military supervision, on boats from Ross's Landing--leaving the beautiful white Cherokee rose, which grows wild and in great profusion, in the spring, as almost their sole memorial on Georgia soil.

As Georgia became settled the trails developed into wagon and stage routes, and later they were followed, approximately, by the railroads.

After three railroads had reached Atlanta, the State of Georgia engaged in what may have been the first adventure, in this country, along the lines of government-owned railroads: namely, the building of the Western & Atlantic, from Atlanta to Chattanooga, to form a link between the lower South and the rapidly developing West. This road was built in the forties, and it was along its line that Johnston retreated before Sherman, from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Though it is now leased and operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company, it is still owned by the State of Georgia. The lease, however, expires soon, and (an interesting fact in view of the continued agitation in other parts of the country for government owners.h.i.+p of corporations) there is a strong sentiment in Georgia in favor of selling the railroad; for it is estimated that, at a fair price, it would yield a sum sufficient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtedness of the State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve millions clear in the State treasury.

At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the hills, not many miles from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch, later Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born.

Roswell was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savannah, Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country near the coast, who drove there in their carriages and remained during the summer. After a time, however, three prosperous families--the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, and Barrington Kings--made their permanent homes at Roswell.

Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern colonial houses the whole front of which consists of a great pillared portico, in the Greek style, giving a look of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses are, as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees; those at Bulloch Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient white oaks, giant osage oranges, and a pair of holly trees, one at either side of the walk near the front door.

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here when they were respectively seventeen and fifteen years of age. A half sister of Miss Mittie had married a relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to live in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home that young Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, conceived a desire to go there. This resulted in his first visit to Bulloch Hall, and his meeting with Mittie Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent abroad, but two or three years later when he went again to visit his relatives in Philadelphia, Miss Mittie was also a guest at their house, and this time the two became engaged.

Save that the Bulloch furniture is no longer there, the interior of the old Georgia residence stands practically as it was when Theodore Roosevelt and Mittie Bulloch were married in the dining room. Through the center, from front to back, runs a wide hall, on either side of which is a pair of s.p.a.cious square rooms, each with a fireplace, each with large windows looking out over the beautiful hilly country which spreads all about. It is a lovely house in a lovely setting, and, though the Bullochs reside there no longer, Miss Mittie Bulloch is not forgotten in Roswell, for one of her bridesmaids, Miss Evelyn King, now Mrs. Baker, still resides in Barrington Hall, not far distant from the old Bulloch homestead.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

ALIVE ATLANTA

An army officer, a man of broad sympathies, familiar with the whole United States, warned me before I went south that I must not judge the South by northern standards.

"On the side of picturesqueness and charm," he said, "the South can more than hold its own against the rest of the country; likewise on the side of office-holding and flowery oratory; but you must not expect southern cities to have the energy you are accustomed to in the North."

As to the picturesqueness, charm, officeholding, and oratory, I found his judgments substantially correct, but though I did perceive a certain lack of energy in some small cities, I should not call that trait a leading one in the larger southern cities to-day. On the contrary, I was impressed, in almost every large center that I visited, with the fact that, in the South more, perhaps, than in any other part of the country, a great awakening is in progress. The dormant period of the South is past, and all manner of developments are everywhere in progress. Nor do I know of any city which better exemplifies southern growth and progress than Atlanta.

My Baedeker, dated 1909, opens its description of Atlanta with the statement that the German consul there is Dr. E. Zoepffel. I doubt it--but let us pa.s.s over that. It describes Atlanta as "a prosperous commercial and industrial city and an important railroad center, well situated, 1030-1175 feet above the sea, enjoying a healthy and bracing climate." That is true. Atlanta is, if I mistake not, the highest important city east of Denver, and I believe her climate is in part responsible for her energy, as it is also for the fact that her vegetation is more like that of a northern than a southern city, elms and maples rather than magnolias, being the trees of the Atlanta streets.

Baedeker gave Atlanta about 90,000 inhabitants in 1909, but the census of 1910 jumped her up to more than 150,000, while the estimate of 1917 in the "World Almanac" credits her with about 180,000. Moreover, in the almanac's list of the largest cities of the earth, Atlanta comes twentieth from the top. It is my duty, perhaps, to add that the list is arranged alphabetically--which reminds me that some cynic has suggested that there may have been an alphabetical arrangement of names, also, in the celebrated list in which Abou Ben Adhem's "name led all the rest."

Nevertheless, it may be stated that, according to the almanac's population figures, Atlanta is larger than the much more ancient city of Athens (I refer to Athens, Greece; not Athens, Georgia), as well as such considerable cities as Bari, Bochum, Graz, Kokand, and Omsk. Atlanta is, in short, a city of about the size of Goteborg, and if she has not yet achieved the dimensions of Baku, Belem, Changsha, Tashkent, or West Ham, she is growing rapidly, and may some day surpa.s.s them all; yes, and even that thriving metropolis, Yekaterinoslav.

As to the "healthy and bracing climate," I know that Atlanta is cool and lovely in the spring, and I am told that her prosperous families do not make it a practice to absent themselves from home during the summer, according to the custom of the corresponding cla.s.s in many other cities, northern as well as southern.

Atlanta is one of the few large inland cities located neither upon a river nor a lake. When the city was founded, the customs of life in Georgia were such that no one ever dreamed that the State might some day go dry. Having plenty of other things to drink, the early settlers gave no thought to water. But, as time went on, and prohibition became a more and more important issue, the citizens of Atlanta began to perceive that, in emergency, the Chattahoochee River might, after all, have its uses. Water was, consequently, piped from the river to the city, and is now generally--albeit in some quarters mournfully--used. Though I am informed by an expert in Indian languages that the Cherokee word "chattahoochee" is short for "muddy," the water is filtered before it reaches the city pipes, and is thoroughly palatable, whether taken plain or mixed.

Well-off though Atlanta is, she would esteem herself better off, in a material sense at least, had she a navigable stream; for her chief industrial drawback consists in railroad freight rates unmodified by water compet.i.tion. She has, to be sure, a number of factories, including a Ford automobile plant, but she has not so many factories as her strategic position, stated by General Sherman, would seem to justify, or as her own industrial ambitions cause her to desire. For does not every progressive American city yearn to bristle with factory chimneys, even as a summer resort folder bristles with exclamation points? And is not soot a measure of success?

Atlanta's line of business is largely office business; many great corporations have their headquarters or their general southern branches in the city; one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks is there, and there are many strong banks. Indeed, I suppose Atlanta has more bankers, in proportion to her population, than any other city in the United States.

Some of these bankers are active citizens and permanent residents of the city; others have given up banking for the time being and are in temporary residence at the Federal Penitentiary.

The character of commerce carried on, naturally brings to Atlanta large numbers of prosperous and able men--corporation officials, branch managers, manufacturers' agents, and the like--who, with their families, give Atlanta a somewhat individual social flavor. This cla.s.s of population also accounts for the fact that the enterprisingness so characteristic of Atlanta is not the mere rough, ebullient spirit of "go to it!" to be found in so many hustling cities of the Middle West and West, but is, oftentimes, an informed and cultivated kind of enterprisingness, which causes Atlanta not only to "do things," but to do things showing vision, and, furthermore, to do them with an "air."

This is ill.u.s.trated in various ways. It is shown, for example, in Atlanta's princ.i.p.al hotels, which are not small-town hotels, or good-enough hotels, but would do credit to any city, however great. The office buildings are city office buildings, and in the downtown section they are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home, instead of appearing a little bit exotic, self-conscious, and lonesome, as new skysc.r.a.pers do in so many cities of Atlanta's size. Even the smoke with which the skysc.r.a.pers are streaked is city smoke. Chicago herself could hardly produce smoke of more metropolitan texture--certainly not on the Lake Front, where the Illinois Central trains send up their black clouds; for Atlanta's downtown smoke, like Chicago's, comes in large part from railroads piercing the heart of the city. Where downtown business streets cross the railroad tracks, the latter are depressed, the highways pa.s.sing above on steel bridges resembling the bridges over the Chicago River. The railroad's right of way is, furthermore, just about as wide as the Chicago River, and rows of smoke-stained brick buildings turn their backs upon it, precisely as similar buildings turn theirs upon Chicago's busy, narrow stream. I wonder if all travelers, familiar with Chicago, are so persistently reminded of that portion of the city which is near the river, as I was by that portion of Atlanta ab.u.t.ting on the tracks by which the Seaboard Air Line enters the city.

Generally speaking, railroads in the South have not been so prosperous as leading roads in the North, and with the exception of the most important through trains, their pa.s.senger equipment is, therefore, not so good. The Seaboard Air Line, however, runs an all-steel train between Atlanta and Birmingham which, in point of equipment, may be compared with the best limited trains anywhere. The last car in this train, instead of being part sleeping car and part observation car, is a combination dining and observation car--a very pleasant arrangement, for men are allowed to smoke in the observation end after dinner. This is, to my mind, an improvement over the practice of most railroads, which obliges men who wish to smoke to leave the ladies with whom they may be traveling. All Seaboard dining cars offer, aside from regular a la carte service, a sixty-cent dinner known as the "Blue Plate Special." This dinner has many advantages over the usual dining-car repast. In the first place, though it does not comprise bread and b.u.t.ter, coffee or tea, or dessert, it provides an ample supply of meat and vegetables at a moderate price. In the second place, though served at a fixed price, it bears no resemblance to the old-style dining car table d'hote, but, upon the contrary, looks and tastes like food. The food, furthermore, instead of representing a great variety of viands served in microscopic helpings on innumerable platters and "side dishes," comes on one great plate, with recesses for vegetables. The "Blue Plate Special" furnishes, in short, the chief items in a "good home meal."

This is, perhaps, as convenient a place as any in which to speak of certain points concerning various railroads in the South. The Central of Georgia Railway, running between Atlanta and Savannah, instead of operating Pullmans, has its own sleeping cars. This is the only railroad I know of in the country on which the tenant of a lower berth, below an unoccupied upper, may have the upper closed without paying for it. One likes the Central of Georgia for this humane dispensation. The locomotives of the Western & Atlantic carry as a distinguis.h.i.+ng mark a red band at the top of the smokestack. The Southern Railway a.s.signs engineers to individual engines, instead of "pooling power," as is the practice, I believe, on many railroads. Because of this, engineers on the Southern regard the locomotives to which they are regularly a.s.signed, as their personal property, and exercise their individual taste in embellis.h.i.+ng them. Bra.s.s bands, bra.s.s flagstaffs, bra.s.s eagles over the headlight, and similar adornments are therefore often seen on the engines of this road, giving the most elaborate of them a carnival appearance, by contrast with the somber black to which most of us are accustomed, and hinting that not all the individuality has been unionized out of locomotive engineers--an impression heightened by the Southern Railway's further pleasant custom of painting the names of its older and more expert engineers upon the cabs of their locomotives.

Some cities are like lumbering old farm horses, plugging along a dusty country road. When another horse overtakes them, if they be not altogether wanting in spirit, they may be encouraged to jog a little faster for a moment, stimulated by example. If, besides being stupid, they are mean, then they want to kick or bite at the speedier animal going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to speak. Again, there are tough, st.u.r.dy little cities like buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken.

There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fas.h.i.+oned barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like b.u.t.te, Montana. And here and there are cities, like Atlanta, reminding one of thoroughbred hunters. There is a brave, sporting something in the spirit of Atlanta which makes it rush courageously at big jumps, and clear them, and land clean on the other side, and be off again. Like a thoroughbred, she loves the chase. She goes in to win. She doesn't stop to worry about whether she can win or not. She knows she will. And as the thoroughbred, loving large and astonis.h.i.+ng achievement, lacks the humbler virtues of the reliable family carriage horse, Atlanta, it cannot be denied, has "_les defauts de ses qualites_." For whereas, on the side of das.h.i.+ng performance, Atlanta held a stock fair which, in one year, surpa.s.sed any other held in the South, and secured the grand circuit of races, on the other side she is careless about hospitals and charities; and whereas, on the one side, she has raised millions for the building of two new universities (which, by the way, would be much better as one great university, but cannot be, because of sectarian domination), on the other, she is deficient as to schools; and again, whereas she is the only secondary city to have an annual season of Metropolitan grand opera (and to make it pay!) she is behind many other cities, including her neighbors, New Orleans and Savannah, in caring for the public health.