n search not so directly
of freedom and democracy as of more money for the same labour. A new
Midlander--in fact, a new American--was beginning dimly to emerge.

A new spirit of citizenship had already sharply defined itself. It was
idealistic, and its ideals were expressed in the new kind of young men
in business downtown. They were optimists--optimists to the point of
belligerence--their motto being "Boost! Don't Knock!" And they were
hustlers, believing in hustling and in honesty because both paid. They
loved their city and worked for it with a plutonic energy which was
always ardently vocal. They were viciously governed, but they sometimes
went so far to struggle for better government on account of the helpful
effect of good government on the price of real estate and "betterment"
generally; the politicians could not go too far with them, and knew
it. The idealists planned and strove and shouted that their city should
become a better, better, and better city--and what they meant, when they
used the word "better," was "more prosperous," and the core of their
idealism was this: "The more prosperous my beloved city, the more
prosperous beloved I!" They had one supreme theory: that the perfect
beauty and happiness of cities and of human life was to be brought about
by more factories; they had a mania for factories; there was nothing
they would not do to cajole a factory away from another city; and they
were never more piteously embittered than when another city cajoled one
away from them.

What they meant by Prosperity was credit at the bank; but in exchange
for this credit they got nothing that was not dirty, and, therefore,
to a sane mind, valueless; since whatever was cleaned was dirty again
before the cleaning was half done. For, as the town grew, it grew
dirty with an incredible completeness. The idealists put up magnificent
business buildings and boasted of them, but the buildings were begrimed
before they were finished. They boasted of their libraries, of their
monuments and statues; and poured soot on them. They boasted of their
schools, but the schools were dirty, like the children within them. This
was not the fault of the children or their mothers. It was the fault of
the idealists, who said: "The more dirt, the more prosperity." They
drew patriotic, optimistic breaths of the flying powdered filth of
the streets, and took the foul and heavy smoke with gusto into the
profundities of their lungs. "Boost! Don't