CHAPTER V.

DEDICATION OF THE BUILDINGS.

President Higinbotham Bestows the Commemoratory Medals — The President of the Commission Receives
the Buildings from the President of the Exposition and the Latter Presents Them to the Vice-
President of the United States for Dedication— Mr. Morton Dedicates Them to the World's
Progress in Art, Science, Agriculture and Manufactures— " God Save the United States of
America."

T the sixth number in the Dedicatory Programme, Pres-
ident Higinbotham, calling the Director of Works and the
artists of the Exposition into a conspicuous position, made
to them the following address, at the same time bestowing
the commemoratory medals: MR. BURNHAM AND GENTLE-
MEN: It becomes my agreeable duty on behalf of the Board
of Directors of the World's Columbian Exposition, to receive
from you these buildings, which represent your thought,
skill and labor as master artists of construction. It is difficult to
command language fully adequate to express our satisfaction with
your achievements. We have observed with admiration the rapid devel-
opment of your plans, until there stand before us today structures that
represent the ripest wisdom of the ages.

Never before have men brought to their task greater knowledge, higher aims
or more resolute purpose. Never before have such magnificent fruits been the
result of thought and toil. The earth and all it contains have been subservient to
your will. You have pursued your work loyally, heroically and with an unselfish
devotion that commands the applause of the world. Your country and the nations
of the earth will join us in congratulating you upon the splendid issue of your plans
and undertakings.

We accept these buildings from you, exulting in the belief that these beau-
ful structures furnish proof to the world that, with all our material growth and
prosperity since the Columbian discovery of America, we have not neglected
those civilizing arts which minister to a people's refinement, and become the chief
glory of a nation.

" Peace hath her victories,

No less renowned than war."
In this Exposition, one of the adorning victories of our age of peace, you take

102 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

conspicuous part, and the work accomplished reflects, and will continue to reflect,
honor alike upon yourselves and upon your country.

In recognition of your faithful and efficient services, and in order to note
more substantially than by mere words the successful progress of your great work as
master artists of construction, the Board of Directors have issued this medal, which,
I have the honor to present to you. A simple token it is, which finds its real and
abiding value, not in its intrinsic worth, but rather in the high merit which receives
and the grateful appreciation which bestows it.

Turning from the Director of Works and the artists, with President Palmer
rising, the President of the Exposition continued as follows:

But yesterday these surrounding acres composed a dismal morass — a resting
place for the wild fowls in their migratory flight. Today they stand transformed
by art and science into a beauty and grandeur unrivaled by any other spot on earth.

Herein we behold a miniature representation of that marvelous development
and that unprecedented growth of national greatness, which, since the day of
Columbus, have characterized the history of this New World.

The idle boy, strolling along the shore of this inland sea, carelessly threw a
pebble into the blue waters. From that center of agitation there spread the circling
wave, which fainter and still fainter grew, until lost at last in the far distant calm.
Not so did the great thought come and vanish which has culminated in these
preparations for the World's Columbian Exposition. It was not the suggestive im-
pulse of any single brain or locality that originated this noble enterprise. From
many minds and many localities there seemed to come, spontaneously and in unison,
the suggestions for a Columbian celebration. Those individual and local senti-
ments did not die out like the waves, but in an inverse ratio grew more and more
powerful, until they mingled and culminated in the grand and universal resolve of
the American people, " It shall be done."

Today, sir, on behalf of the Board of Directors, representing the citizens of
Chicago, to me has been assigned the pleasant duty of presenting to the World's.
Columbian Commission these buildings, for dedication to the uses of the World's.
Columbiam Exposition, in celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America.

In viewing the work thus far accomplished, we gladly acknowledge our-
selves debtors to the patriotic pride of our fellow citizens throughout the land; to the
kindly interest manifested by the President of the United States; to the generosity
of the Congress; to the hearty sympaty of the civilized nations of the earth and to.
the efficient co-operation of the honorable commission which you represent.

The citizens of Chicago have cherished the ambition to furnish the facilities
for the Exposition, which, in character, should assume a national and international
importance. They entertain the pleasing hope that they have not come short
of the nation's demand and of the world's expectation. Permit us, sir, to believe
that it was not a narrow ambition, born of local pride and selfishness, that asked
for the location of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. Rather let it
justly be said that it was in view of the fact that 25,000,000 of people live within a

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 103

radius of 500 miles of Chicago, and that standing here, so near the center of popu-
lation, Chicago would be accessible to a larger number of American people, who
are the creators of our wealth and prosperity, than would any other city on the
continent. The citizens of Chicago have been actuated by the most patriotic sen-
timents in asking for the location of the Exposition at this place. Animated by the
most public spirited motives they have made such preparations for the Exposition
•as we trust you cannot but look upon with satisfaction.

The fidelity and remarkable skill of the master artists of construction must
be a justification for the pride with which we point to the structures which rise
about us in such graceful and magnificent proportions. In furnishing grounds and
buildings which should meet the modern demand for utility and scientific adapta-
tion, we have not done violence, let us hope, to that growing love for the beautiful
which gratifies the eye and educates the taste. Nature, science and art have been
called upon to contribute their richest gifts to make these grounds and buildings
worthy of your acceptance.

The Board of Directors now beg leave to tender to the World's Columbian
Commission and to the nation these buildings, in fulfillment of Chicago's pledge
and in honor of the great event we celebrate."

The President of the Columbian Commission, on receiving the Exposition
from the Board of Directors, thus presented it to the Vice-President of the United
States, Levi P. Morton, for dedication:

When a structure designed fora beneficient purpose has reached completion
and is about to be devoted to its object, it is deemed fitting, in accordance with a
custom which sprang from the aspirations of man, and which has received the
sanction of successive generations, that its intent and aim shall be declared amid
imposing ceremonies, and the good will of the present and the blessing of the future
invoked upon it.

If this occasion shall have as one of its results the inauguration of another
festal day to enlarge the too meager calendar of our people, the world will be
richer thereby, and a name which has been hitherto held in vague and careless
remembrance will be made a vital and elevating force to mankind.

Anniversaries are the punctuations of history. They are the emphasis given
to events, not by the song of the poet, or the pen of the rhetorician, but by the
common acclaim of mankind. They are the monuments of the heroes and the
saviors of the race. They are the Memnons which fill the heart with promise, the
eye with gladness and the ear with song.

The teacher of Socrates, when dying was asked what he wished for a monu-
ment. He answered: " Give the boys a holiday."

It was a happy thought to have linked with the achievements of Columbus
and Pinzon, which doubled the area of the habitable globe, an undertaking whereby
we hope to illustrate the fact that they also made possible more than a duplication
of blessings to mankind.

As these great men died ignorant of the magnitude of their work, may we
not hope that this Exposition will accomplish greater good than will be revealed to

104 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

us of today, be its outcome never so brilliant? May we not hope that lessons here
learned, transmitted to the future, will be potent forces long after the multitudes
that throng these aisles shall have measured their span and faded away?

Four hundred years ago today, Rodrigo de Triana, from the prow of the
" Pinta " cried, " Land." That cry marked the commencement of an era wherein
has been condensed more of good import to the race than in any other. Today, at
the floodtime of that era we are reminded of what that cry involved, and of how
much there is yet to do to give it its fullest significance.

There are no more continents to discover, but there is much to do to 'make
both hemispheres the home of intelligence, virtue and consequent happiness. To
that end no one material thing can contribute more than expositions to which are
invited, in a fraternal spirit, all nations, tribes and peoples, where each shall give
and receive according to their respective capacities.

The foundations of civilization have been laid. Universal enlightment, now
acknowledged as the safe substructure of every state, receives an added impulse
from the commingling of peoples and the fraternization of races such as are ushered
in by the pageant of today.

Hitherto the work of the National Commission and of the Exposition Com-
pany has been on different but convergent lines; today the roads unite, and it may
not be amiss at this time to speak of the work already done. Two years age the
ground on which we stand was a dreary waste of sand-dunes and quagmires, a home
for wild fowl and aquatic plants. Under skilled artists, supplemented by intelli-
gence, force, industry and money, this waste has been changed by the magic hand
of labor to its present attractive proportions. I do not speak of this work as an
artist, but as one of the great body of laymen whom it is the high calling of art to
uplift. To me it seems that, if these buildings should never be occupied, if the
exhibits should never come to attract and educate, if our people could only look
upon these walls, towers, avenues and lagoons, a resul' would be accomplished by
the influence diffused well worth all the cost.

It was an act of high intelligence which, in the beginning, called a congress
of the most eminent of our architects for consultation and concerted action. No
one brain could have conceived the dream of beauty, or lured from fancy and
crystallized in form these habitations where art will love to linger and science,
Cornelia-like, shall expose here children to those who ask to see her jewels.

Of the Commission and its agencies, its Director General and the heads of
its departments, its agents and envoys, I, although a part of that national organiz-
ation, may be permitted to speak. Called together by the President two years ago
its organic law difficult of construction, with room for honest and yet contradic-
tory opinions, it has striven honestly, patriotically and dilligently to do its whole
duty. Through its agencies it has reached to the uttermost parts of the earth to.
gather in all that could contribute to make this not only the museum of the savant
and the well read but the kindergarten of the child and sage.

The National Commission will, in due time, take appropriate action touching
the formal acceptance of the buildings provided under their direction by the World's

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 105

Columbian Exposition Company for this National and International Fair, and to
you, Mr. President, as the highest representative of the Nation, is assigned the
honor of dedicating them to the purposes determined and declared by the Congress
of the United States.

In behalf of the men and women who have devoted themselves to this great
work, of the rich who have given of their abundance and the poor who have given
of their necessities; in behalf of the architects who have given to their ideals a local
habitation and a name, and the artists who have brought hither the three graces of
modern life, form, color, and melody, to decorate and inspire; of the workmen who
have prepared the grounds and reared the walls; in behalf of the chiefs who have
organized the work of the exhibitors; in behalf of the city of Chicago, which has
munificently voted aid, of the Congress which has generously given of the National
moneys: in behalf of the World's Columbian Commission, the World's Columbian
Exposition Company, and the Board of Lady Managers, I ask you to dedicate these
buildings and grounds to humanity, to the end that all men and women of every
climate may feel that the evidence of material progress which may here meet the
eye is good only so far as it may promote that higher life which is the true aim of
civilization — that the evidences of wealth here exhibited and the stimulus herein
given to industry are good only so far as they may extend the area of human
happiness."

At 4 o'clock, in the presence of a vast audience which rose at the moment,
but could, as a rule, hear no word of the speaker, the Vice-President of the United
States, acting by courtesy for the President of the United States, and addressing
President Palmer, of the National Commission, read the following oration:

MR. PRESIDENT: Deep, indeed, must be the sorrow which prohibits the Presi-
dent of the United States from being the central figure in these ceremonials.
Realizing from these sumptuous surroundings, the extent of design, the adequacy
of execution, and the vastness of results, we may well imagine how ardently he has
aspired to be officially and personally connected with this great work, so linked to
the past and to the present of America. With what eloquent words he would have
spoken of the heroic achievements and radiant future of his beloved country. While
profoundly anguished in his most tender earthly affection, he would not have us
delay or falter in these dedicatory services, and we can only offer to support his
courage by a profound and universal sympathy.

The attention of our whole country, and of all the people elsewhere con-
cerned in industrial progress, is to-day fixed upon the city of Chicago. The name
of Chicago has become familiar with the speech of all civilized communities;
bureaus are established at many points in Europe for the purpose of providing
transportation hither; and during the coming year the first place suggested to the
mind, when men talk of America, will be the city of Chicago. This is due not only
to the Columbian Exposition which marks an epoch, but to the marvelous growth
and energy of the second commercial city of the Union.

I am not here to recount the wonderful story of this city's rise and advance-
ment, of the matchless courage of her people, of her second birth out of the ashes

io6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

of the most notable conflagration of modern times, nor of the eminent position she
has conquered in commerce, in manufactures, in science and in the arts.

These are known of all men who keep pace with the world's progress.

I am here in behalf of the government of the United States, in behalf of all
the people, to bid all hail to Chicago, all hail to the Columbian Exposition.

From the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, and from the peerless cosmopolitan cap-
ital by the sea to the Golden Gate of California, there is no longer a rival city to
Chicago, except to emulate her in promoting the success of this work.

New York has signalized the opening of the new era by a commemorative
function, instructive to the student, encouraging to the philanthropist, and admoni-
tory to the forces arrayed against liberty.

Her houses of worship, without distinction of creed, have voiced their thanks
to Almighty God for religious freedom; her children to the amount of five and
twenty thousand have marched under the inspiration of a light far broader than
Columbus, with all his thirst for knowledge, enjoyed at the University of Pavia;
and for three successive days and nights processional progresses on land and water,
aided by Spain, and Italy, and France, saluted the memory of the great pilot with
the fruits of the great discovery in a pageant more brilliant than that at Barcelona,
when upon a throne of Persian fabrics, Ferdinand and Isabella disregarded the
etiquette of Castile and Aragon, received him standing, attended by the most
splendid court of Christendom.

And what a spectacle is presented to us here. As we gaze upon these mun-
ificent erections, with their columns and arches, their entablatures and adornments,
when we consider their beauty and rapidity of realization, they would seem to be
evoked at a wizard's touch of Aladdin's lamp.

Praise for the organization and accomplishment, for the architect and builder,
for the artist and artisan, may not now detain me, for in the year to come, in the
mouths of all men it will be unstinted.

These are worthy shrines to record the achievements of the two Americas,
and to place them side by side with the arts and industries of the elder world, to
the end that we may be stimulated and encouraged to new endeavors. Columbus
is not in chains, nor are Columbian ideas in fetters. I see him, as in the great
picture under the dome of the Capitol with kneeling figures about him, betokening
no longer the contrition of his followers, but the homage of mankind, with erect
form and lofty mien animating these children of a new world to higher facts and
bolder theories.

We may not now anticipate the character and value of our national exhibit.
Rather may we modestly anticipate that a conservative award will be made by the
world's criticism to a young nation eagerly listening to the beckoning future, within
whose limits the lightning was first plucked from heaven at the will of man, where
the expansive power of steam was first compelled to transport mankind and
merchandise over the water-ways of the world, where the implements of agriculture
and handicraft have been so perfected as to lighten the burdens of toil, and where
the subtle forces of nature, acting through the telegraph and telephone, are daily

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 107

startling the world by victories over matter, which in the days of Columbus might
have been reckoned among the miracles.

We can safely predict, however, those who will come from the near and dis-
tant regions of our country, and who will themselves make part of the National
exhibit. We shall see the descendants of the loyal cavaliers of Virginia, of the
Pilgrim Fathers of New England, of the sturdy Hollanders who in 1624 bought the
twenty-two thousand acres of the Island of Manhattan for the sum of $24, of the
adherents of the old Christian faith who found a resting-place in Baltimore, of the
Quakers and Palatine Germans who settled in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, of the
Huguenots who fled from the revocation of the edict of Nantes to the banks of the
Hudson in the North and those of the Cooper and Ashley rivers in the South, of
the refugees from Salzburg in Georgia, and of Charles Edward's Highlanders in
North Carolina. With them also we shall have in person, or in their sons,
the thousands of others from many climes who, with moderate fortunes, have
joined their future to that of the great Republic, or who with sinewy arms have
opened our waterways and builded our ironways.

We trust that from the lands beyond the seas many will come to engage in
fraternal competition, or to point us to more excellent standards. If they shall
find little in our product to excite their admiration, we shall welcome them to the
atmosphere of the new world, where some of the best efforts have been made in
the cause of freedom and progress by Washington and Franklin and Lafayette; by
Agassiz and Lincoln and Grant; by Bolivar and Juarez and Toussaint L'Ouverture;
by Fulton and Morse and Edison.

Columbus lived in the age of great events. When he was a child in 1440
printing was first done by movable types; seven years later, the Vatican library,
the great fountain of learning, was founded by Nicholas the Fifth; and 1455 is
given as the probable date of the Mazarine Bible, the earliest printed book known.
It was not until a hundred years after the discovery, that Galileo, pointing his little
telescope to the sky, found the satelites of Jupiter, and was hailed as the Columbus
of the heavens. '

His character was complex, as was that of many of the men of his time who
made their mark in history. But his character and attainments are to be estimated
by those of his contemporaries, and not by other standards. Deeply read in
mathematical science, he was certainly the best geographer of his time. I believe,
with Castelar, that he was sincerely religious, but his sincerity did not prevent his
indulging in dreams. He projected, as the eloquent Spanish orator says, the pur-
chase of the holy places of Jerusalem, in the event of his finding seas of pearls,
cities of gold, streets paved with sapphires, mountains of emeralds, and rivers of
diamonds. How remote, and yet how marvelous, has been the realization! Two
products of the southern continent which he touched and brought into the world's
economy have proved of inestimable value to the race, far beyond what the im-
agined wealth of the Indies could buy.

The potato, brought by the Spaniards from what is now the Republic of

io8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

Ecuador, in the beginning of the century following the discovery, has proved, next
to the principal cereals, to be the most valuable of all plants for human food. It
has sensibly increased the wealth of nations and added immeasurably to the welfare
of the people. More certain than other crops, and having little to fear from storm
or drouth, it is hailed as an effectual barrier against the recurrence of famines.

Nor was the other product of less importance to mankind. Peruvian bark
comes from a tree of spontaneous growth in Peru, and many other parts of South
America. It received its botanical name from the wife of a Spanish viceroy, liber-
ated from an intermittent fever by its use. Its most important base, quinine, has
come to be regarded, as nearly as may be, as a specific for that disease and also for
the preservation of health in certain latitudes, so that no vessel would dare to ap-
proach the east or west coast of Africa without a supply, and parts of our own land
would be made partially desolate by its disappearance. No words that I could use
could magnify the blessings brought to mankind by these two individuals of the
vegetable kingdom from the shores of the New World.

Limited time for preparation does not permit me to speak authoritatively of
the progress and proud position of our sister republics and of the Dominion of
Canada to demonstrate the moral and material fruits of the great discovery. Con-
cerning ourselves the statistics are familiar and constitute a marvel. One of the
states recently admitted, the state of Montana, is larger than the empire of
Turkey.

We are near the beginning of another century, and if no serious change
occurs in our present growth, in the year 1935, in the lifetime of many now in man-
hood, the English-speaking republicans of America will number more than
180,000,000. And for them, John Bright in a burst of impassioned eloquence pre-
dicts one people, one language, one law, and one faith; and all over the wide con-
tinent, the home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and
every clime.

The transcendent feature in the character of Columbus was his faith. That
sustained him in days of trial and darkness, and finally gave him the great dis-
covery. Like him, let us have faith in our future. To insure that future, the
fountains must be kept pure, public integrity must be preserved. While we rever-
ence what Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel fought for, the union of peoples, we
must secure above all else what Steuben and Kosciusko aided our fathers to
establish — liberty regulated by law.

If the time should ever come when men trifle with the public conscience, let
me predict the patriotic action of the Republic in the language of Milton:

" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like
a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as
an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full
mid-day beam; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself
of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with
those also that love the twilight flutter about, amazed at what she means."

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

109

Mr. President, in the name of the Government of the United States, I hereby
dedicate these buildings and their appurtenances, intended by the Congress of the
United States for the use of the World's Columbian Exposition, to the world's pro-
gress in art, in science, in agriculture and in manufactures.

I dedicate them to humanity.
God save the United States of America.

GROUP DIRECTORS WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

« r> v 1- VICTOE LAWSON. 2. ANDREW MCNALLY.

8. OTTO YonNG. 4. c. L. HUTCHINSON. 5. J. W. SCOTT.

6. CHAS. T. YEEKES.

7. (j. H. WHEELER. s. JOHN C. WELLING. 9. MARK L. CRAWFORD*

10. C. H. G. BILLINGS. 11. J. W. ELLSWORTH.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR, m