Even when he was far from Chicago, Daniel Burnham's mind remained very much on planning efforts in the city. In this letter written in December of 1908 on stationery Burnham found in a friend's hotel room while he was traveling in Germany, Burnham offers Bennett some practical advice on how the booklet being prepared to help promote the Commercial Club's proposal for Michigan Avenue can be improved. He tells Bennett that that the booklet should point out as explicitly as possible to property owners in the area that their real estate will increase in value. "If the property owners are captured by the argument as it is, then well and good & our object is accomplished; if they are not, then the real estate argument must be used, raw," Burnham writes. "For they are, as they have frankly said, fighting for their pockets," he goes on, "and nothing but proof that this scheme will pay them very directly will have any weight with them."

Author: Daniel H. Burnham
Source: Art Institute of Chicago