I was a cosmopolitan on the bank of  moody river when Philadelphia and

Boston were pulsated only by town-criers;

Along my levee French and Spaniard and Aborigine and African met and

understood each other.

I was hardy and founded upon a hardy brotherhood.

I became asylum to a horde of freedom-bent Germans from an oppressive Fatherland;

I was bosom to the shorn lambs of Ireland.

When gold polarized the West, through my bounden limbs converged the Argonauts of ‘forty-nine.

Frugal Yankees and touchy Southrons came and fetched their feud over slavery;

Slave pens and a public mart are among my relics in limbo, but I supplied

History with the cause celebre named for black Dred Scott.

I was a Union City in 1861, yet I gave succor and occasion to Confederate

sympathizers–(I should be the most liberal city in the U.S.A)

…

I am the center of the Continent. I am the centripetal of these United

States, for I am a parcel of all sections;…