Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/37

Rh compared to any city on the continent. The placid, speculative Quakers founded this city and raised it to a high state of prosperity. It has not a proud metropolitan character like New York, nor the same aspiring element, nor adventurous recklessness of mercantile enterprise, but it has solid affluence and German industry. The aspect of the city would be more cheerful if the brick walls of the houses were covered with a coat of white paint, but in the better quarters a surprising luxury in the architecture is prevalent. All the door-steps, the bases of the windows and doors gleam in splendid white marble; often the ground floors, and not rarely the whole front of a house, are built of this dazzling stone. Independence Hall in Philadelphia is historically the most remarkable building of the Union. It is only a small court-house, insignificant and poor outside and inside and evidently not planned for so large a city. In its hall the Declaration of Independence of the United States was signed and from its windows it was proclaimed. Now the small building is living evidence of the insignificance of the North America of that time; and all around it is the populous city, a sign of its present increasing greatness. When the Declaration of Independence was signed—seventy years ago—Philadelphia had only five thousand inhabitants. Few things remain beside Independence Hall to remind us of that period.

We chanced to arrive during the municipal and State election; the campaign between the parties was nearing its end; only the final great efforts were to be made. In the streets we frequently met omnibuses filled with bands of music and drawn by gayly decorated horses. On all sides of the wagons were the names of the candidates, in enormous letters. Mass-meetings, attended by thousands, followed each other in quick succession. An American mass-meeting is a strange spectacle when