Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two, by C. DEAN, in the office of the

Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

To present a book of this kind, with character sketches of living men who are prominent factors in great public enterprises, might have been criticized fifty years ago as being somewhat in bad taste. But opinions like fashions are continually changing. The popular demand of today is to know the methods of successful men; and, in order to know them character must be investigated.

"As soon as a stranger is introduced into any company one of the first questions which all wish to have answered is, How does that man get his living?" And if he has succeeded in adding something to the general wealth he becomes at once a sort of hero in the estimation of the American citizen.

The Chicagoans noticed in these pages are

men of extraordinary ability, and occupy the front rank in the world of Enterprise. An effort has been made to give a true delineation of their characters and of their business modus operandi; but the most important question is: How much are these energetic sons doing for the world? Are they using their force in absorbing that of others, or in expending their great energies and talents for the benefit of mankind?

C. D.

When one reads such authors as Buckle and Draper, one is impressed with the influence of climate, soil and scenery; of oceans, lakes, rivers, mountains and valleys, upon the civilization, the industries, habits and customs of a people.

Thomas Carlyle finds the history of a nation or a period in the lives of its great men; the rulers, the warriors, the scholars and reformers, make and direct national and world-movements; but other writers find in the existing conditions of a time, the power that produces the leading minds and actors and gives shaping to what they do.

When one studies the brief but remarkable history of Chicago, one finds place and need for all these theories to account for its wonderful growth in population, business, wealth, and the progressive and earnest spirit of its people in the fields of learning and religion.

When nature formed the great valley between the Alleghany and the Rocky mountains, with its long rivers and rich soils, that fact determined the great agricultural region of the continent. And when nature placed such a body of water as Lake Michigan, stretching three hundred miles north and south in this valley, with the head of this lake in the line of the national highway between the two oceans and the great east and west, nature determined the location of the largest inland city on the continent. For in the nature and needs of the business of the country, the many lines of railway would center at such a point of both land and water communication; and hence one may affirm that New York, and San Francisco with their ocean harbors, and Chicago at the head of Lake Michigan, and on the line of national travel and commerce, are where they are, and in a large sense, what they are, because of these natural conditions.

And it would, in part be true also, to say, that the leading men of Chicago have made the city what it is; but only in part; for whilst they have been making the city,