Henry Tribe

I was impressed with the number of cars again in Chicago. Chicago is on Lake Michigan, and alongside the lake is a multi lane highway. I walked along a stretch of this from, perhaps, 7 pm – 8.30 pm. I was quite astonished by the number of cars, in both directions. The speed limit is 40 mph and everyone was making sure he made full use of this, although the driveway was interrupted by quite a number of sets of traffic lights. Apart from the odd Volkswagen and the odd English sports car, all were the big American cars, nearly all new. The starts from traffic stops were frequently like at races. I suppose the excitement of driving these cars is preferred by the average man to doing many other things, in a way driving is a relaxation from thinking how to use one’s time, and once one is used to it is almost automatic. No one was on the “promenade” between road and lake, nor was the lake front built up like a promenade, although it deserves to be. The only other people I saw were occasional small groups of bathers (after dark, this) and one old Negro fishing and perhaps a dozen other pedestrians in say 2½ miles. Only the road was lit by street lights, the bathers using the spare light from these, directed away from the beach.

Returning to the centre, I went up the Prudential Building – 600 feet high – by express lift, and then after looking over the city by night went straight on a train to Ames. This is on the Chicago and North Western line – I am surprised by the number of railways here; the branch to Bloomington was run by the Monon railroad, from Detroit to Chicago by the New York Central. Didn’t know before that there was such a railway as the “Rock Island Line” – of jazz fame, but there is. All are diesel, not a single steam engine seen so far in the U.S.