narrow circles. For example, the Civil Service Reform League is more than a decade old. The Citizens' League is younger, but it has performed its part in preparing the minds of the people for the work recently undertaken. The Municipal Order League, organized with special reference to work needed in the city to give fitting welcome to World's Fair guests, has just expired. Many Chicago citizens have been in communication with the currents of thought on municipal subjects which have affected all our great cities. Thus a preparatory process had been going forward which fitted many individuals to become organs of a more sensitive municipal consciousness. The immediate impulse which aroused this consciousness was an accident; and by this it is meant that influences were at work which would have brought about the same result if the particular incident had not occurred that introduced the period of civic revival. The actual order of events was as follows: At the Stead meeting on November 12, 1893, a committee of five was chosen to select a committee of twenty-one to organize a "Civic Confederation of Chicago." The committee of five was selected to represent the following classes:—"labor," "education," "commerce," "religion," "women." The social philosopher will not feel constrained to repress the smile which this classification provokes, but whatever its logical faults, it served its purpose. Following the appointment of the committee, this resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that the formation of a Civic Federation is feasible and practicable, and that a committee of twenty-one be selected as an organizing committee, and that this committee be selected by the committee of five already selected.
The committee of five accepted the responsibility assigned, selecting, however, a committee numbering over forty, and notified them of their appointment in a letter which contained the following paragraph:
The object of this organization, briefly and in general terms, is the concentration in one potential non-political, non-sectarian center, of all the forces that are now laboring to advance our municipal, philanthropical, industrial, and moral interests, and to accomplish all
