The Autobiography of an Idea

to see John Root in his office in the Montauk, a large office building recently completed by his firm. John was in his private room at work designing an interesting detail of some building. He drew with a rather heavy, rapid stroke, and chatted as he worked. Burnham came in. “John,” he said, “you ought to delegate that sort of thing. The only way to handle a big business is to delegate, delegate, delegate.” John sneered. Dan went out, in something of a huff. Louis saw the friction of ideas between the artist and the merchant; a significant mismating which made him ponder. And he watched through the years the growing of Daniel Hudson Burnham into a colossal merchandiser. Louis at that time had not grasped the significance of choice, much less its social and antisocial phases, the ramification of its effects as a cause, its complete explanation of things that seemed veiled. Dan Burnham had chosen.

John Root also had chosen, and he had a temper. He knew at least the value of social prestige. To be the recognized great artist, the center of acclaim and réclame was his goal. But John did not live to carry out his program to the full, though he had a full grown moral courage that in Burnham was rudimentary. He departed this vale of tears, and this best of all possible worlds, 15 January, 1891, at the age of forty-one, leaving in Louis’s heart and mind a deep sense of vacancy and loss. For John Root had it in him to be great, as Burnham had it in him to be big. John Wellborn Root in passing left a void in his wake.

For several years there had been talk to the effect that Chicago needed a grand opera house; but the several schemes advanced were too aristocratic and exclusive to meet with general approval. In 1885 there appeared the man of the hour, Ferdinand W. Peck, who declared himself a citizen, with firm belief in democracy⁠—whatever he meant by that; seemingly he meant the “peepul.” At any rate, he wished to give birth to a great hall within which the multitude might gather for all sorts of purposes including grand opera; and there were to be a few boxes for the haut monde. He had a disturbing fear, however, concerning acoustics, for he understood success in that regard was more or less of a gamble. So he sought out Dankmar Adler and confided.

The only man living, at the time, who had had the intelligence to discern that the matter of acoustics is not a science but an art⁠—as in fact all science is sterile until it rises to the level of art⁠—was Dankmar Adler, Louis’s partner. His scheme was simplicity itself. With his usual generosity he taught this very simple art to his partner, and together they had built a number of successful theatres. Hence Peck, the dreamer for the populace, sought Adler, the man of common sense. Between them they concocted a scheme, a daring experiment, which was this: To install in the old Exposition Building on the lake front, a vast temporary audience room, with a huge scenic stage, and to give therein a two-weeks season of grand opera, engaging artists of world fame.

This was done. The effect was thrilling. An audience of 6,200 persons saw and heard; saw in clear line of vision; heard, even to the faintest pianissimo. No reverberation, no echo⁠—the clear untarnished tone, of voice and instrument, reached all. The inference was obvious: a great permanent hall housed within a monumental structure must follow. This feeling marked the spirit of the Chicago of those days.

Ferdinand W. Peck, or Ferd Peck as he was generally known⁠—now “Commodore” at seventy-five, took, on his slim shoulders, the burden of an immense undertaking and “saw it through.” To him, therefore, all praise due a bold pioneer; an emotionally exalted advocate of that which he, a rich man, believed in his soul to be democracy. The theatre seating 4,250 he called the Auditorium, and the entire structure comprising theatre, hotel, office building, and tower he named the Auditorium Building⁠—nobody knows just why. Anyway it sounded better than “Grand Opera House.”

For four long years Dankmar Adler and his partner labored on this enormous, unprecedented work. Adler was Peck’s man. As to Louis he was rather dubious, but gradually came around⁠—conceding a superior aesthetic judgment⁠—which for him was in the nature of a miracle. Besides, Louis was young, only thirty when the task began, his partner forty-two, and Peck about forty; Burnham forty⁠—Root thirty-six.

Burnham was not pleased; nor was John Root precisely entranced. It is said the ancient Egyptians held a belief that man’s shadow is a fifth or residual element of his soul. About this time⁠—the earlier days⁠—Burnham’s shadow seemed to precede or follow him on all fours with its nose to the ground, as if perturbed. Mr. Peck had an able board of directors; among them was a man named Hale, William E. Hale. Mr. Hale’s shadow seemed also perturbed and quadruped. Then came our old friend of Tech and Columbia, Prof. William R. Ware, whose shadow seemed serene. Then all shadows disappeared from the scene.

The unremitting strain of this work doubtless shortened Adler’s life. He did not collapse at the end as Louis did; rather the effect was deadly and constitutional. Louis’s case was one of utter weariness. He went to central California. The climate irritated him. Then he moved to Southern California⁠—the climate irritated him. This was during January and February, 1890. He had friends in San Diego and stayed there awhile. There he learned, at four o’clock one morning, what a “slight” earthquake shock is like. Then on to New Orleans. That filthy town, as it then was, disillusioned him. Here he met Chicago friends. They persuaded him to go with them to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, eighty odd miles to the eastward on the eastern shore of Biloxi Bay. He was