We drove up to a skyscraper with the white electric sign "Stevens Hotel." Judging by the advertising prospectus, this was the biggest hotel in the world, with three thousand rooms, huge halls, stores, restaurants, cafeterias, concert and ball-rooms. In brief, the hotel was quite like a transoceanic steamer, the comforts of which are adapted to the needs of people who for a certain time are entirely cut off from the world. Only, the hotel was much larger. One could undoubtedly live a whole lifetime there without once going out into the streets, since there is really no need for it. Perhaps only to take a walk? But one could take a walk on the flat roof of the hotel, and it is even better there than in the street. There is no risk of being run over by an automobile.

Several times we went out on the esplanade, which is called Michigan Avenue, surveyed with pleasure that remarkable avenue and the elaborate facades of skyscrapers that look out upon it, turned into the first cross street off the shore, and suddenly stopped.

"No, no, gentlemen!" cried Mr. Adams, delighted with our amazement. "You must not be amazed. Oh, but! This is America! Seriously! It would be foolish to think that the Chicago meat kings would build you a sanatorium here."

The street was narrow, not too well lighted, depressingly dull. It was crossed by quite narrow, dark, dirty lanes paved with cobblestones, real dives with the blackened brick walls of shoddy houses, fire-escapes,, and garbage-cans.

We knew that Chicago has its dives, that there must be dives there. But that these were located in the centre of the city—that was a complete surprise. It looked as if Michigan Avenue were only the tinsel, and that it was only necessary to lift it in order to see the real city.

This first impression proved in the main to be correct. We wandered over the city for several days, wondering more and more at the helter-skelter accumulation of its various parts. Even from the point of view of capitalism, which has raised the simultaneous coexistence on earth of both wealth and poverty into a law, Chicago must perforce appear a heavy, clumsy, uncomfortable city. Scarcely anywhere else in the world have heaven and hell intertwined so intimately as in Chicago. Side by side with the marble and granite facing of skyscrapers on Michigan Avenue are the disgusting alleys, dirty and stinking. In the centre of the city factory chimneys jut out and trains pass, enveloping the houses in steam and smoke. Some of the poor streets look as they would after an earthquake: broken fences, twisted roofs of boarded kennels, wires askew, piles of rusty metal trash, broken chamber-pots, and half-rotted soles, filthy children in rags. Yet only a few blocks away—fine broad streets lined with trees, filled with beautiful private residences with mirror-like walls, red-brick roofs, with Packards or Cadillacs at their entrances. Ultimately this close proximity of hell makes life in paradise not too pleasant. All this in one of the richest cities, if not the very richest city, in the world!

Down the street ran newsvendors, shouting:

"Policeman murdered!"

"Bank Robbery!"

"Detective Thomas Killed!"

"Gangster Filios, Alias 'Little Angel,' Killed Instead of Detective Patterson!"

"Racketeer Arrested!"

"Kidnapping on Michigan Avenue!"

In this city shooting goes on. It would be surprising if people did not shoot here, if they did not steal millionaires' children (that is what they call kidnapping), if they did not maintain houses of ill-fame, if they did not occupy themselves with rackets. A racket is the surest and most profitable profession, if it may be called a profession. There is hardly a single form of human activity that is beyond the reach of a racket Broad-shouldered young men in light hats walk into a store and ask the merchant to pay them—these young men in light hats—a salary, regularly, every month. For that they will try to reduce the taxes which the merchant pays the state. If the merchant does not agree, the young men take out machine-guns and begin to shoot at his counter. Then the merchant agrees. That constitutes a racket. Later other young men come in and politely ask the merchant to pay them a salary for ridding him of the first group of young men. They, too, shoot up his place. That is another racket. Trade-union officials receive money from manufacturers for calling off strikes. From the workers they likewise receive money for getting them jobs. That, too, is a racket. Artists pay ten per cent, of their earnings to employment agents even when they find the jobs themselves. That also is a racket. A doctor of internal medicine sends a man whose liver is out of order to a dentist for consultation and receives from the latter forty per cent, of his fee. That is likewise a racket.

And other things happen. Here is one told us by a Chicago doctor:

"Just before elections to the Congress of the state of Illinois," said the doctor, "a man whom I had never seen before in my life came into my house. He was a politician of the Republican party. A politician is a business man whose profession is only politics. Politics is his means of earning a livelihood. I detest people of that type: they are brazen, crude, impudent. They always have a wet cigar in their mouth, their hat is always askew, they have stupid eyes, and an imitation ring on a fat finger. 'Good mawnin', doc,' the man said to me (meaning 'Hello, doctor!'), ' who are you going to vote for?' I wanted to hit him in the mug and throw him out into the street. But having appraised the width of his shoulders, I realized that if anyone were thrown out into the street, it would most likely be I. Therefore, I said modestly that I would vote for my favourite candidate. 'All right,' said the politician. `I believe you have a daughter who has been waiting for four years to get a job as a school-teacher.' I told him that that was so. 'All right, then,' said my uninvited guest, 'if you will vote for our candidate, we will try to get a job for your daughter. We don't promise you anything definite, but if you vote for our opponent, then I can tell you quite definitely, your daughter will never get a job, she will never be a school-teacher.' That was the end of our conversation. ' Good-bye, doctor,' he said in farewell. 'I'll come in to see you on election day.' Well, of course, I was very much ashamed. I was indignant at this outrage. But on election day he actually drove up in his automobile to call for me. Again his fat cigar came in at the door of my home. 'Good mawnin', doc,' he said, 'can I give you a lift to the voting booth?' And, do you know, I actually went with him. I thought to myself, in the end does it make any difference who is elected a Democrat or a Republican—and maybe my daughter might get a job. I haven't told this story to anyone except you—I was so ashamed. Hut I am not the only one who leads such a political existence. Everywhere there is compulsion in one form or another. And if you want to be really honest, you must become a Communist. But to do that I must at once sacrifice everything, and that's too hard!"

The Chicago racket is the most famous in America. Chicago had a mayor whose name was Cermak. He came from the workers, was a trade-union leader for a while, and was popular. He was even a friend of the present President, Roosevelt. The newspapers wrote about the touching friendship of the President and the simple workman. (You see, children, what a man can attain with his own horny hands in America?) Three years or so ago Cermak was killed. He left three million dollars, fifty houses of ill-fame, which, it developed, had been kept by the busy Cermak. And so—for a certain time a racketeer was mayor of Chicago.

It does not follow from this fact that all the mayors of American lilies are racketeers. The incident with Cermak, however, does give some insight into Chicago, a city in the state of Illinois.