Yet even in that early day a member of the Hull-House
Men's Club who had been appointed superintendent of Douglas Park
had secured there the first public swimming pool, and his fellow
club members were proud of the achievement.
There was in the earliest undertakings at Hull-House a touch of
the artist's enthusiasm when he translates his inner vision
through his chosen material into outward form. Keenly conscious
of the social confusion all about us and the hard economic
struggle, we at times believed that the very struggle itself
might become a source of strength. The devotion of the mothers
to their children, the dread of the men lest they fail to provide
for the family dependent upon their daily exertions, at moments
seemed to us the secret stores of strength from which society is
fed, the invisible array of passion and feeling which are the
surest protectors of the world. We fatuously hoped that we might
pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common
destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract
from life's very misfortunes a power of cooperation which should
be effective against them.
Of course there was always present the harrowing consciousness of
the difference in economic condition between ourselves and our
neighbors.
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