265

THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAINS

Mrs. Peattie Writes of Them and of the Capital of the Rockies

Denver as Seen With the Eyes of a Visitor From the Prairies - Views and Impressions

Cities, like plants, are the result of conditions; and the nature of those conditions determines the quality of the plant - or the city. That is to say man makes some cities by force of attrition, production and competition. Human [?] itself is the soil from which the city grows. The precious manure is prodigally expended to keep in existence such hotbeds of effete civilization as Berlin and Paris. The necessities of man, the meeting of his demands, the catering to his pleasures, his education and his vices, are the causes of the city's prosperity and its continuance. It is like theses,
in which fish feeds upon fish, and some fishes seem born only that others may fatten upon the. Such cities are like coral reefs, which the builders build with their lives, making the voluntary sacrifice naturally, and in obedience to the instincts of their nature.

But here in the western part of this republic are cities which have come into existence, and which are sustained for different reasons. There are the cities born literally fo the earth. They feed men and do not prey upon them

Two such towns are Omaha and Denver. Both are the fruits of earth Both the natural, healthful offspring of the vast mother. One is born of the plains, the other of the mountains. One is the result of corn, wheat, hay and the garden. The other of gold, silver, lead and coal.

One does not talk about one's own town any more than one puts his own portrait on his writing desk As it is pleasanter to look at the face of another, so it is pleasanter to talk about another city than the one of which he is a part.

Denver is the miners' paradise. To earn—Denver considers that stupid. Like Tumon Of Athens it digs "Roots, roots, roots," out of the earth—roots which make the wealth of nation. The streets upon streets of business blocks, residences, schools and churches are built literally out of the mountains The many colored stone that architects and builders have used with exquisite art were quarreled from the mountains. Giant bowden, hydraulic machine, and miners' pick brought out the lead and silver taht filled those homes with luxury, and paneled the club houses with onyx and wainscoted the hotel rotundas with marble and carvings of wood. Minerva did not more triumphantly spring from the head of Jove than Denver has sprung from the mountains And above her those mountains hang always, inscrutable, terrible, beautiful, always changing warred upon by the elements, making in tender mists a mask behind which their sternness hides, fascinating and inviting the beholder

There is in Denver peculiar class of men. They are essentially men of the mountains They may have their weaknesses, but cowardice is never one of them They are men with a peculiar development of certain faculties They handle money as a farmer handles seed corn—only as a means of producing more They are always spendthrifts Misers do not live a mile above sea level, where the ether Intoxicates, and a hysteria of hope disturbs the emotions of even the best poised.

Physically, these men of the mountains are remarkable Their chests average four inches more in breath than those of the men of the cast They do not become giddy, They can climb anywhere They can walk all day. They can sleep anywhere. And they can eat anything but are naturally luxurious, and the miner's cabin frequently knows Huer vlands than the dining room of the conventional and pretentious citizen.

Denver has lived like a Monte Christo Now, suddenly, it is the midst of poverty. The people who live in those magnificent homes are many of them penniless They are haunted by the sheriff, who follows them like a Nemesis. Yet the old habits of luxury will not easily desert them. They give banquet for which they cannot pay. They lock the door on the sheriff and drink their champagne. They refuse to be dull. When they are melancholy it is with a sort of furore that makes them threaten secession Not that they mean anything treasonable They are the most loyal people in the world. But up in that altitude you have to be more or less spectacular.

Besides, to have been one day the Sodorn of this republic, that is the richest and gayest of cities, and the next to bo pauperized—Isn't that enough to furnish excuse for a little ill advised verbosity?

Not that Denver Is discouraged.

"Just let the government decide what sort of money it really wants," said one of its citizens, "and we will go out to our mountains and dig it up."

Apropos of the effect of Denver upon tho emotions, it may be safely said that it arouses the ambitions as no other city does. It is, perhaps, for this reason that there is within it a more brilliant "smart set" than is to be found anywhere else in the United States, excepting New York But there is this difference. The leaders of the New York smart set aro women Those of Denver are men They are of various nationalities but mostly English and American They keep elegant establishments, stables of blooded horses, are members of the Denver club, and connoisseurs la the giving of dinners They are collectors of bric- a brac, pictures rugs. horses and picturesque personal episodes Prodigality in their fee of entrance into social circles Omaba and some rich young men, but the most reckless of them have never tho essayed the dash that is the leading characteristic of the Denver smart set.

Of course, where there are ten persons of this sort, there are a thousand domestic, quiet, modest, hard working citizens, who love their own homes better than society, and a reputation for reliability more than a glittering popularity. But no home le bo modest or no family so domestic and steady-going that dreams of sudden wealth have not entered it The slow earning of money always seems the last report to the Colorado man lie cannot get over the idea that he has to go out there among the mountains and ale it out. In his dreams he sets the dull glow of the precious, ore la the cold recesses of the long, draughty theft.

In short, the Deaver man has become so accustomed to the unusual that he cannot accept the usual with anything save feelings of protest and impatience.

Where people are prodigal and gay they are also generous. No one is going to starve or freeze in Denver, bad as the times are, and formidable as is the army of unemployed men. Until recently the state hardly knew what it was to have a poor person—one dependent upon charity. One has to be very careful la Colorado mot to judge a man by bis dress. The man in torn Jeans may have his hundreds of thousands in a pretty little pocket upon the dark mountain there, where you see that snow- wreath whirligig so cruelly. If ever the whirligig of time wrought strange tricks, It does it in Colorado.

Politics out there to perplexing. There are seven tickets in the field. These are the result of divergent boldness interests. To understand the political intrigues of Denver is as difficult as to understand the court of Louis XIV. of France. Every man is attached to his own little particular faction, and for reasons which are apt to be strictly personal.

Almost every man in Denver, and at least half o the women, are in favor of equal suffrage. The daily journals advocate it openly. The leading women of the city in intelligence, wealth and social position are for it, and are conducting a disguised campaign in its behalf. It is much more than likely that Colorado will join with Wyoming in giving equal suffrage to its men and women citizens.

The last time I was in Chicago s woman tried to board one of the Harrison street horse cars She had a heavy 2 year old child in her arms, and made several futile attempts to get upon tho crowded car Her strength was hardly equal to the task. None of the men near her moved or offered any assistance. “ The conductor stood with his band on the bell rope, watching her angrily. Everyone glared at her as if she were a vampire, sucking their lives—as, indeed, they considered that she was in thus compelling them to lose a few seconds of the time they affect to consider so valuable. At length the conductor could conceal his rage no longer

"Give me that there young 'un," he cried snatching it from the frightened woman, who looked, pot without reason, as if she expected it to be dismembered before ber eyes

The other day when I was in Denver, a home bound car at the busy hour of 6 in the evening was stopped by a very sweet faced old lady who was leading two tiny children by the band. The motor had not yet reached a full stop before two gentlemen and the conductor were on the ground beside her assisting ber and her pretty charges into seals that had been vacated for them, Then everybody smiled pleasantly at the party, and the ladies who sat nearest played with the children. That makes one of the differences between Chicago and Denver.

Denver has more fine residences than any other city of its size.

The streets are narrow, but beautiful.

The architecture is distinct, intelligent consistent and original.

A frame building is an anomaly.

In the residence district the hard alkali roads are as nature made them, without paving of any kind. In the business district asphalt is used.

Bicycles are almost as much used as legs

Even the boot blacks understand the silver question.

Some of the clergymen enjoy an enormous popularity. One of them is a poet. Another was asked to run for congress, but refused.

The school buildings are magnificent.

The women dress like New Yorkers: and the men are also fashionable and fastidious

Electricity is used to the created extent. Almost all the nicer houses are lighted by it, and many of them are heated by it as well. It runs the street cars and illuminates the streets

Great is Denver! An intoxicating, volatile, bewitching town! May its prosperity return! And may adversity inculcate some useful lessons

Look see the mountains where a mist, like mother of-pearl rises, swathing the highest peak of all! And over yonder is a mountain wrapt in purple, and with bent brow, like a sail king And there is a slender peak rosy as dawn, and looking as if only summer airs blew there! Who could guess the bleak pass at its side, and the canon where men die forgotten in the sephulchers shaped for them when the bills were young?

ELIA W. PEATTIE

WHY THE CITY EDITOR FAINTED.

He was a young man with a bright face and he told the city editor that be was very anxious to become a journalist. He said that be bad graduated from college last June and that while in school he wrote a number of "items" for the paper, and his friends said they were splendid and that he should be a reporter.

The city editor was short a man and so he told the young fellow that he could go around to the undertaking shops and see what was new. Lie was gone for an hour and when he returned he sat down at a desk. He destroyed a ream of paper before he get started and then he turned in his copy. I was seated in the next room and I heard the city editor grumbling to himself as be road the new man's copy.

"Holy Nelliel I but that man is a terror," I heard tho city editor mutter, " I don't believe he knows what a paragraph is. Now wouldn't this kill you: 'The corpse Iny quietly in the casket ' I suppose he thinks the corpse should have turned over a couple of times and whistling "Buffalo Girls are you coming out tonight, something else. Great Len! how's this: The relatives of the girl stood silently by.' I suppose to thinks they should shoot Craps or dance!"

There were continued mutterings and continents on the new reporter's matter and then I heard a body fall heavily to the floor. I rushed in and saw the city editor Jing prostrate on the floor in a dead faint and with a sheet of the new reporter's copy clasped in his hand.
I hastily raised his head and poured a few drops of whiskey from a convenient bottle down his throat, and as I did so I saw the cause of his faintness, for his thumb rested on this sentence:

"Her untimely end casts a gloom over our entire community!"

RAY EATON.

THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAINS

Mrs. Peattie Writes of Them and of the Capital of the Rockies

Denver as Seen With the Eyes of a Visitor From the Prairies - Views and Impressions

Cities, like plants, are the result of conditions; and the nature of those conditions determines the quality of the plant - or the city. That is to say man makes some cities by force of attrition, production and competition. Human [?] itself is the soil from which the city grows. The precious manure is prodigally expended to keep in existence such hotbeds of effete civilization as Berlin and Paris. The necessities of man, the meeting of his demands, the catering to his pleasures, his education and his vices, are the causes of the city's prosperity and its continuance. It is like theses,
in which fish feeds upon fish, and some fishes seem born only that others may fatten upon the. Such cities are like coral reefs, which the builders build with their lives, making the voluntary sacrifice naturally, and in obedience to the instincts of their nature.

But here in the western part of this republic are cities which have come into existence, and which are sustained for different reasons. There are the cities born literally fo the earth. They feed men and do not prey upon them

Two such towns are Omaha and Denver. Both are the fruits of earth Both the natural, healthful offspring of the vast mother. One is born of the plains, the other of the mountains. One is the result of corn, wheat, hay and the garden. The other of gold, silver, lead and coal.

One does not talk about one's own town any more than one puts his own portrait on his writing desk As it is pleasanter to look at the face of another, so it is pleasanter to talk about another city than the one of which he is a part.

Denver is the miners' paradise. To earn—Denver considers that stupid. Like Tumon Of Athens it digs "Roots, roots, roots," out of the earth—roots which make the wealth of nation. The streets upon streets of business blocks, residences, schools and churches are built literally out of the mountains The many colored stone that architects and builders have used with exquisite art were quarreled from the mountains. Giant bowden, hydraulic machine, and miners' pick brought out the lead and silver taht filled those homes with luxury, and paneled the club houses with onyx and wainscoted the hotel rotundas with marble and carvings of wood. Minerva did not more triumphantly spring from the head of Jove than Denver has sprung from the mountains And above her those mountains hang always, inscrutable, terrible, beautiful, always changing warred upon by the elements, making in tender mists a mask behind which their sternness hides, fascinating and inviting the beholder

There is in Denver peculiar class of men. They are essentially men of the mountains They may have their weaknesses, but cowardice is never one of them They are men with a peculiar development of certain faculties They handle money as a farmer handles seed corn—only as a means of producing more They are always spendthrifts Misers do not live a mile above sea level, where the ether Intoxicates, and a hysteria of hope disturbs the emotions of even the best poised.

Physically, these men of the mountains are remarkable Their chests average four inches more in breath than those of the men of the cast They do not become giddy, They can climb anywhere They can walk all day. They can sleep anywhere. And they can eat anything but are naturally luxurious, and the miner's cabin frequently knows Huer vlands than the dining room of the conventional and pretentious citizen.

Denver has lived like a Monte Christo Now, suddenly, it is the midst of poverty. The people who live in those magnificent homes are many of them penniless They are haunted by the sheriff, who follows them like a Nemesis. Yet the old habits of luxury will not easily desert them. They give banquet for which they cannot pay. They lock the door on the sheriff and drink their champagne. They refuse to be dull. When they are melancholy it is with a sort of furore that makes them threaten secession Not that they mean anything treasonable They are the most loyal people in the world. But up in that altitude you have to be more or less spectacular.

Besides, to have been one day the Sodorn of this republic, that is the richest and gayest of cities, and the next to bo pauperized—Isn't that enough to furnish excuse for a little ill advised verbosity?

Not that Denver Is discouraged.

"Just let the government decide what sort of money it really wants," said one of its citizens, "and we will go out to our mountains and dig it up."

Apropos of the effect of Denver upon tho emotions, it may be safely said that it arouses the ambitions as no other city does. It is, perhaps, for this reason that there is within it a more brilliant "smart set" than is to be found anywhere else in the United States, excepting New York But there is this difference. The leaders of the New York smart set aro women Those of Denver are men They are of various nationalities but mostly English and American They keep elegant establishments, stables of blooded horses, are members of the Denver club, and connoisseurs la the giving of dinners They are collectors of bric- a brac, pictures rugs. horses and picturesque personal episodes Prodigality in their fee of entrance into social circles Omaba and some rich young men, but the most reckless of them have never tho essayed the dash that is the leading characteristic of the Denver smart set.

Of course, where there are ten persons of this sort, there are a thousand domestic, quiet, modest, hard working citizens, who love their own homes better than society, and a reputation for reliability more than a glittering popularity. But no home le bo modest or no family so domestic and steady-going that dreams of sudden wealth have not entered it The slow earning of money always seems the last report to the Colorado man lie cannot get over the idea that he has to go out there among the mountains and ale it out. In his dreams he sets the dull glow of the precious, ore la the cold recesses of the long, draughty theft.

In short, the Deaver man has become so accustomed to the unusual that he cannot accept the usual with anything save feelings of protest and impatience.

Where people are prodigal and gay they are also generous. No one is going to starve or freeze in Denver, bad as the times are, and formidable as is the army of unemployed men. Until recently the state hardly knew what it was to have a poor person—one dependent upon charity. One has to be very careful la Colorado mot to judge a man by bis dress. The man in torn Jeans may have his hundreds of thousands in a pretty little pocket upon the dark mountain there, where you see that snow- wreath whirligig so cruelly. If ever the whirligig of time wrought strange tricks, It does it in Colorado.

Politics out there to perplexing. There are seven tickets in the field. These are the result of divergent boldness interests. To understand the political intrigues of Denver is as difficult as to understand the court of Louis XIV. of France. Every man is attached to his own little particular faction, and for reasons which are apt to be strictly personal.

Almost every man in Denver, and at least half o the women, are in favor of equal suffrage. The daily journals advocate it openly. The leading women of the city in intelligence, wealth and social position are for it, and are conducting a disguised campaign in its behalf. It is much more than likely that Colorado will join with Wyoming in giving equal suffrage to its men and women citizens.

The last time I was in Chicago s woman tried to board one of the Harrison street horse cars She had a heavy 2 year old child in her arms, and made several futile attempts to get upon tho crowded car Her strength was hardly equal to the task. None of the men near her moved or offered any assistance. “ The conductor stood with his band on the bell rope, watching her angrily. Everyone glared at her as if she were a vampire, sucking their lives—as, indeed, they considered that she was in thus compelling them to lose a few seconds of the time they affect to consider so valuable. At length the conductor could conceal his rage no longer

"Give me that there young 'un," he cried snatching it from the frightened woman, who looked, pot without reason, as if she expected it to be dismembered before ber eyes

The other day when I was in Denver, a home bound car at the busy hour of 6 in the evening was stopped by a very sweet faced old lady who was leading two tiny children by the band. The motor had not yet reached a full stop before two gentlemen and the conductor were on the ground beside her assisting ber and her pretty charges into seals that had been vacated for them, Then everybody smiled pleasantly at the party, and the ladies who sat nearest played with the children. That makes one of the differences between Chicago and Denver.

Denver has more fine residences than any other city of its size.

The streets are narrow, but beautiful.

The architecture is distinct, intelligent consistent and original.

A frame building is an anomaly.

In the residence district the hard alkali roads are as nature made them, without paving of any kind. In the business district asphalt is used.

Bicycles are almost as much used as legs

Even the boot blacks understand the silver question.

Some of the clergymen enjoy an enormous popularity. One of them is a poet. Another was asked to run for congress, but refused.

The school buildings are magnificent.

The women dress like New Yorkers: and the men are also fashionable and fastidious

Electricity is used to the created extent. Almost all the nicer houses are lighted by it, and many of them are heated by it as well. It runs the street cars and illuminates the streets

Great is Denver! An intoxicating, volatile, bewitching town! May its prosperity return! And may adversity inculcate some useful lessons

Look see the mountains where a mist, like mother of-pearl rises, swathing the highest peak of all! And over yonder is a mountain wrapt in purple, and with bent brow, like a sail king And there is a slender peak rosy as dawn, and looking as if only summer airs blew there! Who could guess the bleak pass at its side, and the canon where men die forgotten in the sephulchers shaped for them when the bills were young?

ELIA W. PEATTIE

WHY THE CITY EDITOR FAINTED.

He was a young man with a bright face and he told the city editor that be was very anxious to become a journalist. He said that be bad graduated from college last June and that while in school he wrote a number of "items" for the paper, and his friends said they were splendid and that he should be a reporter.

The city editor was short a man and so he told the young fellow that he could go around to the undertaking shops and see what was new. Lie was gone for an hour and when he returned he sat down at a desk. He destroyed a ream of paper before he get started and then he turned in his copy. I was seated in the next room and I heard the city editor grumbling to himself as be road the new man's copy.

"Holy Nelliel I but that man is a terror," I heard tho city editor mutter, " I don't believe he knows what a paragraph is. Now wouldn't this kill you: 'The corpse Iny quietly in the casket ' I suppose he thinks the corpse should have turned over a couple of times and whistling "Buffalo Girls are you coming out tonight, something else. Great Len! how's this: The relatives of the girl stood silently by.' I suppose to thinks they should shoot Craps or dance!"

There were continued mutterings and continents on the new reporter's matter and then I heard a body fall heavily to the floor. I rushed in and saw the city editor Jing prostrate on the floor in a dead faint and with a sheet of the new reporter's copy clasped in his hand.
I hastily raised his head and poured a few drops of whiskey from a convenient bottle down his throat, and as I did so I saw the cause of his faintness, for his thumb rested on this sentence:

"Her untimely end casts a gloom over our entire community!"

RAY EATON.