CHAPTER VII.

THE DEDICATORY ORATION.

Magnificent Effort of Henry Watterson— Grand and Patriotic Throughout— The Earnest Kentuckian
Touches Brilliantly Upon Many of the Salient Points from 1492 to the Present Day — From the
Hillside of Santa Rabida to the Present Hour of Celebration — No Geography in American
Manhood — No Sections to American Fraternity — -The Rise of the Young Republic — The Drum
Taps of the Revolution — The Tramp of the Minute Men — The Curse of Slavery Gone— The
Mirage of Separation Vanished— A Great and Undivided Country.

ITH darkness settling fast, the dedication service had
only reached its main event, the Dedicatory Oration-
by Henry Watterson. This effort had been prepared
at almost a moment's call, on the declination of Mr.
Breckinridge. In its delivery, too, the great journal-
ist exhibited that strong good sense which, together
with his genius, has ensconsed him so securely in the
hearts of Americans. No orator was ever given a
more hearty reception than was accorded Henry Wat-
terson when he was introduced by Director-General
Davis. And Mr. Watterson entered into the spirit of
the occasion, delivering his address in his own
peculiarly effective style. Just before he concluded,
a ray of sunlight entered one of the western windows,
and falling upon his gray locks seemed to crown
him. The great Kentuckian accepted the gift, and throwing his face into the
strong light delivered his final sentiment so as to impress each individual of that
throng. His speech was as follows:

Among the wonders of creative and constructive genius in the course of pre-
paration for this festival of the nations, whose formal and official inauguration has
brought us together, will presently be witnessed upon the margin of the inter-
ocean which gives to this noble and beautiful city the character and rank of a mari-
time metropolis, a spectatorium, wherein the Columbian epic will be told with realistic
effects surpassing the most splendid and impressive achievements of the modern
stage. No one who has had the good fortune to see the models of this extra-
ordinary work of art can have failed to be moved by the union which it embodies,
of the antique in history and the current in life and thought, as, beginning with the
weird mendicant fainting upon the hillside of Santa Rabida it traces the strange
adventures of the Genoese seer from the royal camp of Santa Fe to the sunny
coasts of the Isles of Inde; through the weary watches of the endless night, whose

ii6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

sentinel stars seemed set to mock but not to guide; through the tracklessand shore-
less wastes of the mystic sea, spread day by day to bear upon every rise and fall of
its heaving bosom the death of fair, fond hopes, the birth of fantastic fears; the
peerless and thrilling revelation, and all that has followed to the very moment that
beholds us here, citizens, freemen, equal shareholders in the miracle of American
civilization and development. Is there one among us who does not thank his
Maker that he has lived to join in this universal celebration, this jubilee of mankind ?

I am appalled when I reflect upon the portent and meaning of the proclama-
tion which has been delivered in our presence. The painter employed by the king s
command to render to the eye some particular exploit of the people, or the throne,
knows in advance precisely what he has to do; there is a limit set upon his purpose;
his canvas is measured; his colors are blended, and, with the steady and sure hand
of the master, he proceeds, touch upon touch, to body forth the forms of things
known and visible. Who shall measure the canvas or blend the colors that are to
the mind's eye of the present the scenes of the past in American glory? Who shall
dare attempt to summon the dead to life, and out of the tomb of the ages recall the
tones of the martyrs and heroes whose voices, though silent forever, still speak to
us in all that we are as a nation, in all tha- we do as men and women?

We look before and after, and we see through the half-drawn folds of Time
as through the solemn archways of some grand cathedral the long procession pass,
as silent and as real as a dream; the caravels, tossing upon Atlantic billows, have
their sails refilled from the east and bear away to the west; the land is reached, and
fulfilled is the vision whose actualities are to be gathered by other hands than his
who planned the voyage and steered the bark of discovery; the long sought, golden
day has come to Spain at last, and Castilian conquests tread one upon another fast
enough to pile up perpetual power and riches.

But even as simple justice was denied Columbus was lasting tenure denied
the Spaniard.

We look again and we see in the far northeast the Old World struggle be-
tween the French and English transferred to the New, ending in the tragedy upon
the heights above Quebec; we see the sturdy Puritans in bell-crowned hats and
sable garments assail in unequal battle the savage and the elements, overcoming
both to rise against a mightier foe; we see the gay but dauntless cavaliers, to the
southward, join hands with the Roundheads in holy rebellion. And, lo, down from
the green-walled hills of New England, out of the swamps of the Carolinas, came
faintly to the ear like far-away forest leaves stirred to music by autumn winds, the
drum-taps of the Revolution; the tramp of the minute-men, Israel Putnam riding
before; the hoof-beats of Sumter's horse galloping to the front; the thunder of
Stark's guns in spirit-battle; the gleam of Marion's watch-fires in ghostly bivouac;
and there, there in serried, saint-like ranks on fame's eternal camping-ground
stand —

" The old Continentals,
In their ragged regimentals,
Yielding not,"

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 117

as amid the singing of angels in heaven, the scene is shut out from our mortal vision
by proud and happy tears.

We see the rise of the young republic; and the gentlemen in knee-breeches
and powdered wigs who signec^tthe Declaration and the gentlemen in knee-breeches
and powdered wigs who made the Constitution. We see the little Nation menaced
from without. We see the riflemen in hunting-shirt and buckskin swarm from the
cabin in the wilderness to the rescue of country and home; and our hearts swell to
a second and final decree of independence won by the powers and valor of Ameri-
can arms upon the land and sea.

And then, and then — since there is no life of nations or of men without its
shadow and its sorrow — there comes a day when the spirits of the fathers no longer
walk upon the battlements of freedom; and all is dark; and all seems lost save
liberty and honor, and, praise God, our blessed Union. With these surviving, who
shall marvel at what we see to-day; this land filled with the treasures of earth; this
city, snatched from the ashes, to rise in splendor and renown passing the mind to
preconceive.

Truly, out of trial comes the strength of man, out of disaster comes the glory
of the State!

We are met this day to honor the memory of Christopher Columbus, to cele-
brate the four-hundredth annual return of the year of his transcendent achievement,
and with fitting rites, to dedicate to America and the universe a concrete exposition
of the world's progress between 1492 and 1892. No twenty centuries can be com-
pared with those four centuries, either in importance or in interest, as no previous
ceremonial can be compared with this in. its wide significance and reach; because,
since the advent of the Son of God, no event has had so great an influence upon
human affairs as the discovery of the western hemisphere. Each of the centuries
that have intervened marks many revolutions. The merest catalogue would crowd
a thousand pages. The story of the least of the nations would fill a volume. In
what I have to say upon this occasion, therefore, I shall confine myself to our own;
and, in speaking of the United States of America, I propose rather to dwell upon
our character as a people, and our reciprocal obligations and duties as an aggrega-
tion of communities, held together by a fixed constitution, and charged with the
custody of a union upon whose preservation and perpetuation in its original spirit
and purpose the future of free popular government depends, than to enter into a
dissertation upon abstract principles, or to undertake an historic essay. We are a
plain, practical people. We are a race of inventors and workers, not of poets and
artists. We have led the world's movement, not its thought. Our deeds are to be
found not upon frescoed walls, or in ample libraries, but in the machine shop, where
the spindles sing and the looms thunder; on the open plain, where the steam plow,
the reaper and the mower contend with one another in friendly war against the
obduracies of nature; in the magic of electricity as it penetrates the darkest caverns
with its irresistible power and light. Let us consider ourselves and our conditions,
as far as we are able, with a candor untinged by cynicism and a confidence having
no air of assurance.

n8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

A better oportunity could not be desired for a study of our peculiarities than
is furnished by the present moment.

We are in the midst of the quadrennial period established for the selection
of a Chief Magistrate. Each citizen has his right of choice, each has his right to
vote and to have his vote freely cast and fairly counted. Whenever this right is
assailed for any cause wrong is done and evil must follow, first to the whole country,
which has an interest in all its parts, but most to the community immediately in-
volved, which must actually drink of the cup that has contained the poison and can-
not escape its infection.

The abridgement of the right of suffrage, however, is very nearly propor-
tioned to the ignorance or indifference of the parties concerned in it, and there is
good reason to hope that with the expanding intelligence of the masses and the
growing enlightenment of the times, this particular form of corruption in elections
will be reduced below the danger line.

To that end, as to all other good ends, the moderation of public sentiment
must ever be our chief reliance, for when men are forced by the general desire for
truth, and the light which our modern vehicles of information thrown upon truth,
to discuss public questions for truth's sake, when it becomes the plain interest of
public men, as it is their plain duty, to do this, and when, above all, friends and
neighbors cease to love one another less because of individual differences of opinion
about public affairs, the struggle for unfair advantage will be relegated to those
who have either no character to lose or none to seek.

It is admitted on all sides that the current Presidential campaign is freer
from excitement and tumult than was ever known before, and it is argued from this
circumstance that we are traversing the epoch of the commonplace. If this be so,
thank God for it! We have had full enough of the dramatic and sensational and
need a season of mediocrity and repose. But may we not ascribe the rational way
in which the people are going about their business to larger knowledge and experi-
ence, and a fairer spirit than have hitherto marked our party contentions?

Parties are as essential to free government as oxygen to the atmosphere, or
sunshine to vegetation. And party spirit is inseparable from party organism. To
the extent that it is tempered by good sense and good feeling, by love of country
and integrity of purpose, it is a supreme virtue; and there should be no gag short
of a decent regard for the sensibilities of others put upon its freedom and plainness
of utterance. Otherwise the limpid pool of democracy would stagnate, and we
would have a republic only in name. But we should never cease to be admonished
by the warning words of the Father of his Country against the excess of party
spirit, reenforced as they are by the experience of half a century of party warfare;
happily culminating in the complete triumph of American principles, but brought
many times dangerously near to the annihilation of all that was great and noble in
the national life.

Sursum Corda. We have in our own time seen the Republic survive an irre-
pressible conflict sown in the blood and marrow of the social order. We have seen
the Federal Union, not too strongly put together in the first place, come out of a

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

great war of sections stronger than when it went into it, its faith renewed, its credit
rehabilitated, and its flag saluted with love and homage by 60,000,000 of God-fearing
men and women, thoroughly reconciled and homogeneous. We have seen the
Federal Constitution outlast the strain, not merely of a reconstructory ordeal and
a presidential impeachment, but a disputed count of the electoral vote, a congres-
sional deadlock, and an extra constitutional tribunal, yet standing firm against the
assaults of its enemies, whilst yielding itself with admirable flexibility to the needs
of the country and the time. And finally we saw the gigantic fabric of the Federal
Government transferred from hands that had held it a quarter of a century to other
hands without a protest, although so close was the poll in the final count that a
single blanket might have covered both contestants for the chief magisterial office.
With such a record behind us, who shall be afraid of the future?

The young manhood of the country may take this lesson from those of us
who lived through times that did indeed try men's souls — when, pressed down from
day to day by awful responsibilities and suspense, each night brought a terror with
every thought of the morrow, and, when look where we would, there were light
and hope nowhere — that God reigns and wills, and that this fair land is and has
always been in his own keeping.

The curse of slavery is gone. It was a joint heritage of woe to be wiped out
and expiated in blood and flame. The mirage of the Confederacy has vanished.
It was essentially bucolic, a vision of Arcadia, the dream of a most attractive econ-
omic fallacy. The Constitution is no longer a rope of sand, The exact relations of
the states to the Federal Government, left open to double construction by the au-
thors of our organic being because they could not agree among themselves and
union was the paramount object, has been clearly and definitely fixed by the last
three amendments to the original chart, which constitute the real treaty of peace
between the North and South, and seal our bonds as a nation forever.

The Republic representsat last the letter and the spirit of the sublime declara-
tion. The fetters that bound her to the earth are burst asunder. The rags that
degraded her beauty are cast aside. Like the enchanted princess in the legend,
clad in spotless raiment and wearing a crown of living light, she steps in the perfec-
tion of her maturity upon the scene of this, the latest and proudest of her victories,
to bid a welcome to the world!

Need I pursue the theme? This vast assemblage speaks with a resonance
and meaning which words can never reach. It speaks from the fields that are
blessed by the never-failing waters of the Kennebec and from the farms that sprinkle
the Valley of the Connecticut with mimic principalities more potent and lasting than
the real; it speaks in the whirr of the mills of Pennsylvania and in the ring of the
wood-cutter's axe from the forests of the lake peninsulas; it speaks from the great
plantations of the South and West, teeming with staples that insure us wealth and
power and stability; yea, and from the mines, forests and quarries of Michigan and
Wisconsin, of Alabama and Georgia, of Tennessee and Kentucky, far away to the
regions of silver and gold, that have linked the Colorado and Rio Grande in close
embrace, and annihilated time and space between the Atlantic and Pacific; it speaks

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

in one word from the hearthstone in Iowa and Illinois, from the home in Misbissippi
and Arkansas, from the hearts of 70,000,000 of fearless, free-born men and women,
and that one word is " Union!"

There is no geography in American manhood. There are no sections to
American fraternity. It needs but six weeks to change a Vermonter into a Texan,
and there has been a time when upon the battlefield, or the frontier, Puritan and
Cavalier were not convertible terms, having in the beginning a common origin, and
so diffused and diluted on American soil as no longer to possess a local habitation,
or a nativity, except in the national unit.

The men who planted the signals of American civilization upon that sacred
rock by Plymouth Bay were Englishmen, and so were the men who struck the coast
a little lower down, calling their haven of rest after the great republican commoner,
and founding by Hampton Roads a race of heroes and statesmen, the mention of
whose names brings a thrill to every heart, The South claims Lincoln, the immor-
tal, for its own; the North has no right to reject Stonewall Jackson, the one typical
Puritan soldier of the war, for its own! Nor will it! The time is coming, is almost
here, when hanging above many a mantel-board in fair New England — glorifying
many a cottage in the Sunny South — shall be seen bound together, in everlasting
love and honor, two cross-swords carried to battle respectively by the grandfather
who wore the blue and the grandfather who wore the gray.

I cannot trust myself to proceed. We have come here not so much to recall
bygone sorrows and glories as to bask in the sunshine of present prosperity and
happiness, to interchange patriotic greetings and indulge good auguries, and, above
all, to meet upon the threshold the stranger within our gate, not as a foreigner, but
as a guest and friend, for whom nothing that we have is too good.

From wheresoever he cometh we welcome him with all our hearts; the son
of the Rhone and the Garonne, our godmother, France, to whom we owe so much,
he shall be our Lafayette; the son of the Rhine and the Mozelle, he shall be our
Goethe and Wagner; the son of the Campagna and the Vesuvian Bay, he shall be
our Michael Angelo and our Garibaldi; the son of Arragon and the Indies, he
shall be our Christopher Columbus, fitly honored at last throughout the world.

Our good cousin of England needs no words of special civility and courtesy
from us. For him the latchstring is ever on the outer side; though, whether it be
or not, we are sure that he will enter and make himself at home. A common lan-
guage enables us to do full justice to one another at the festive board or in the
arena of debate, warning both of us in equal tones against further parley on the
field of arms.

All nations and all creeds be welcome here; from the Bosphorous and the
Black sea, the Viennese woods and the Danubian plains; from Holland dike to
Alpine crag; from Belgrade and Calcutta and round to China seas and the busy
marts of Japan, the isles of the Pacific and the far-away capes of Africa — Armenian,
Christian, and Jew — the American, loving no country except his own, but loving
all mankind as his brother, bids you partake with us of these fruits of 400 years of

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 121

American civilization and development and behold these trophies of 100 years of
American independence and freedom!

At this moment in every part of the American Union the children are taking
up the wondrous tale of the discovery, and from Boston to Galveston, from the little
log schoolhouse in the wilderness to the towering academy in the city and the town,
may be witnessed the unprecedented spectacle of a powerful nation captured by an
army of Lilliputians, of embryo men and women, of toppling boys and girls, and tiny
elves scarce big enough to lisp the numbers of the national anthem, scarce strong
enough to lift the miniature flags that make of arid street and autumn wood an
emblematic garden to gladden the sight and to glorify the red, white and blue.

See

"Our young barbarians all at play,"

for better than these we have nothing to exhibit. They, indeed, are our crown
jewels: the truest, though the inevitable, offspring of our civilization and develop-
ment; the representatives of a manhood vitalized and invigorated by toil and care,
of a womanhood elevated and inspired by liberty and education. God bless the
children and their mothers! God bless our country's flag! And God be with us
now and ever, God in the roof-tree's shade and God on the highway, God in the
winds and waves, and God in all our hearts!

CHAUNCEY M. DEPFW.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

123

C

HAPTER VIII.

THE GLOWING TRIBUTE OF CHAUNCEY M, DEPEW.

An Oration So Brillant As To Hold Every Listener Spell-Bound— Columbus, the Discoverer, Washington,
the Founder, Lincoln, the Savior— God Always Has in Training Some Commanding Genius for
the Control of Great Crises in the Affairs of Nations and People— Neither Realism nor Romance
Furnishes a More Striking and Picturesque Picture than that of Christopher Columbus— The
Magician of the Compass Belonged to that High Order of "Cranks" who Confidently Walk
Where "Angels Fear to Tread "—Continents Are His Monuments— Prayer by Cardinal Gibbons
and Benediction by Rev. H. C. McCosh, of Philadelphia— Grand Display of Fireworks Closed
the Dedication Festivities.

FTER Mr. Watterson had concluded and the applause had
died away, Director-General Davis stepped forward and
said: "The chorus will now sing The Star Spangled Ban-
ner,' and everybody is invited to jo n in the chorus." The
audience rose and as the strains of the grand old anthem
floated out over the immense assemblage they lent the in-
spiration and the music of their voices to the great volume
of harmony. Chauncey Depew had been on his feet during
the singing of the anthem, and at its conclusion stepped
to the front and launched into his address. He was forced
to halt, however, as his voice was drowned by the cheers of the
audience. For nearly five minutes the gifted orator stood awaiting the
applause to die out. Finally he was allowed to proceed, but was inter-
rupted at frequent intervals by bursts of enthusiasm from his hearers.
He said:

This day belongs not to America, but to the world. The results of the event
it commemorates are the heritage of the peoples of every race and clime. We
celebrate the emancipation of man. The preparation was the work of almost
countless centuries, the realization was the revelation of one. The Cross on Cal-
vary was hope; the cross raised on San Salvador was opportunity. But for the
first, Columbus would never have sailed; but for the second, there would have been
no place for the planting, the nurture and the expansion of civil and religious liberty.
Ancient history is a dreary record of unstable civilizations. Each reached its zenith
of material splendor and perished. The Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Grecian and
Roman empires were proofs of the possibilities and limitations of man for conquest
and intellectual development. Their destruction involved a sum of misery and re-
lapse which made their creation rather a curse than a blessing. Force was the
factor in the government of the world when Christ was born, and force was the

i24 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

sole source and exercise of authority, both by church and state when Columbus
sailed from Palos. The wise men traveled from the East toward the West under
the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. The spirit of the equality of all men before
God and the law moved westward from Calvary with its revolutionary influence
upon old institutions, to the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across
the seas. The immigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, from Ger-
many and Holland, from Sweden and Denmark, from France and Italy, have, under
its guidance and inspiration, moved west and again west, building states and found-
ing cities until the Pacific limited their march. The exhibition of arts and sciences,
of industries and inventions, of education and civilization, which the Republic of
the United States will here present, and to which, through its Chief Magistrate, it
invites all nations, condenses and displays the flower and fruitage of this trans-
cendent miracle.

The anarchy and chaos which followed the breaking up of the Roman em-
pire necessarily produced the feudal system. The people preferring slavery to
annihilation by robber chiefs, became the vassals of territorial lords. The reign of
physical force is one of perpetual struggle for the mastery. Power which rests upon
the sword neither shares nor limits its authority. The king destroyed the lords,
and the monarchy succeeded feudalism. Neither of these institutions considered
or consulted the people. They had no part, but to suffer or die in this mighty
strife of masters for the mastery. But the throne, by its broader view and greater
resources, made possible the construction of the highways of freedom. Under its
banner races could unite, and petty principalities be merged, law substituted for
brute force, and right for might. It founded and endowed universities, and encour-
aged commerce. It conceded no political privileges, but unconsciously prepared its
subjects to demand them.

Absolutism in the state, and bigoted intolerance in the church, shackled
popular unrest, and imprisoned thought and enterprise in the fifteenth century.
The divine right of kings stamped out the faintest glimmer of revolt against
tyranny; and the problems of science, whether of the skies or of the earth, whether
of astronomy or geography, were solved or submerged by ecclesiastical decrees.
The dungeon was ready for the philosopher who proclaimed the truths of the solar
system, or the navigator who would prove the sphericity of the earth. An English
•Gladstone, or a French Gambetta, or a German Bismarck, or an Italian Garibaldi,
or a Spanish Castelar, would have been thought monsters, and their deaths at the
stake, or on the scaffold, and under the anathemas of the Church, would have re-
ceived the praise and approval of kings and nobles, of priests and peoples. Reason
had no seat in spiritual or temporal realms. Punishment was the incentive to
patriotism, and piety" was held possible by torture. Confessions of faith ex-
torted from the writhing victim on the rack, were believed efficacious in saving
his soul from fires eternal beyond the grave. For all that humanity to-day cherishes
as its best heritage and choicest gifts, there was neither thought nor hope.

Fifty years before Columbus sailed from Palos, Gutenberg and Faust had
forged the hammer which was to break the bonds of superstition, and open the

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 125

prison doors of the mind. They had invented the printing press and movable types.
The prior adoption of a cheap process for the manufacture of paper, at once utilized
the press. Its first service, like all its succeeding efforts, was for the people. The
universities and the schoolmen, the privileged and learned few of that age, were
longing for the revelation and preservation of the classic treasures of antiquity,
hidden, and yet insecure in monastic cells and libraries. But the firstborn of the
marvelous creation of these primitive printers of Mayence was the printed Bible.
The priceless contributions of Greece and Rome to the intellectual training and
development of the modern world came afterward, through the same wondrous
machine. The force, however, which made possible America, and its reflex influ-
ence upon Europe, was the open Bible by the family fireside. And yet neither the
enlightenment of the new learning, nor the dynamic power of the spiritual awaken-
ing, could break through the cfust of caste which had been forming for centuries.
Church and state had so firmly and dexterously interwoven the bars of privilege
and authority that liberty was impossible from within. Its piercing light and fervent
heat must penetrate from without.

Civil and religious freedom are founded upon the individual and his inde-
pendence, his worth, his rights and his equal status and opportunity. For his
planting and developement, a new land must be found, where, with limitless areas for
expansion, the avenues of progress would have no bars of custom or heredity, of
social orders, or privileged classes. The time had come for the emancipation of the
mind and soul of humanity. The factors wanting for its fulfillment were the new
world and its discoverer.

God always has in training some commanding genius for the control of great
crises in the affairs of nations and peoples. The number of these leaders are less
than the centuries, but their lives are the history of human progress. Though
Caesar and Charlemagne, and Hildebrand, and Luther, and William the Conqueror,
and Oliver Cromwell, and all the epoch makers prepared Europe for the event, and
contributed to the result, the lights which illumine our firmament to-day are Colum-
bus the discoverer, Washington the founder, and Lincoln the savior.

Neither realism nor romance furnishes a more striking and picturesque
figure than that of Christopher Columbus. The mystery about his origin heightens
the charm of his story. That he came from among the toilers of his time is in har-
mony with the struggles of our period. Forty-four authentic portraits of him have
descended to us, and no two of them are the counterfeits of the same person. Each
represents a character as distinct as its canvas. Strength and weakness, intel-
lectuality and stupidity, high moral purpose and brutal ferocity, purity and licentious-
ness, the dreamer and the miser, the pirate and the puritan, are the types from
which we may select our hero. We dismiss the painter, and piercing with the clari-
fied vision of the dawn of the twentieth century the veil of four hundred years, we
construct our Columbus.

The perils of the sea in his youth upon the rich argosies of Genoa, or in the
service of the licensed rovers who made them their prey, had developed a skillful
navigator and intrepid mariner. They had given him a glimpse of the possibilities

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HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 127

of the unknown, beyond the highways of travel, which roused an unquenchable
thirst for adventure and research. The study of the narratives of previous ex-
plorers, and diligent questionings of the daring spirits who have ventured far to-
ward the fabled West, gradually evolved a theory, which became in his mind so
fixed a fact, that he could inspire others with his own passionate beliefs. The
words, "that is a lie," written by him on the margin of nearly every page of a
volume of the travels of Marco Polo, which is still to be found in a Genoese library,
illustrated the scepticism of his beginning, and the first vision of the new world the
fulfillment of his faith.

To secure the means to test the truth of his speculations, this poor and un-
known dreamer must win the support of kings and overcome the hostility of the
church. He never doubted his ability to do both, though he knew of no man living
who was so great in power, or lineage, or learning that he could accomplish either.
Unaided and alone he succeeded in arousing the jealousies of the sovereigns and
dividing the councils of the ecclesiastics. "I will command your fleet and discover
for you new realms, but only on condition that you confer on me hereditary nobility,
the Admiralty of the Ocean, aad the vice-royalty and one-tenth the revenues of
the New World," were his haughty terms to King John of Portugal. After ten
years of disappointment and poverty, subsisting most of the time upon the charity
of the enlightened monk of the Convent of Rabida, who was his unfaltering friend,
he stood before the throne of Ferdinand and Isabella, and rising to imperial dignity
in his rags, embodied the same royal conditions in his petition. The capture of
Grenada, the expulsion of Islam from Europe and the triumph of the Cross aroused
the admiration and devotion of Christendom. But this proud beggar, holding ir
his grasp the potential promise and dominion of Eldorado and Cathay, divided wit)
the Moslem surrender the attention of sovereigns and bishops. France and En^
land indicated a desire to hear his theories and see his maps, while he was still a
suppliant at the gates of the camp of Castile and Aragon, the sport of its courtiers
and the scoff of its confessors. His unshakable faith that Christopher Columbus
was commissioned from Heaven, both by his name and by Divine command, to
carry "Christ across the sea" to new continents and pagan peoples, lifted him so far
above the discouragements of an empty purse and a contemptuous court that he
was proof against the rebuffs of fortune or of friends. To conquer the prejudices
of the clergy, to win the approval and financial support of the state, to venture
upon that unknown ocean, which, according to the beliefs of the age was peopled
with demons and savage beasts of frightful shape, and from which there was no
possibility of return, required the zeal of Peter the Hermit, the Chivalric courage
of the Cid and the imagination of Dante. Columbus belonged to that high order
of Cranks who confidently walk where "angels fear to tread," and often become the
benefactors of their country, or their kind.

It was a happy omen of the position which woman was to hold in America,
that the only person who comprehended the majestic scope of his plans, and the
invincible qualities of his genius, was the able and gracious Queen of Castile. Is-
abella alone of all the dignitaries of that age, shares with Columbus the honors of

128 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

his great achievement. She arrayed her kingdom and her private fortune behind
the enthusiasm of this mystic mariner, and posterity pays homage to her wisdom
and faith.

The overthrow of the Mahommedan power in Spain would have been a for-
gotten scene, in one of the innumerable acts in the grand drama of history, had
not Isabella conferred immortality upon herself, her husband and her dual crown
by her recognition of Columbus. The devout spirit of the Queen, and the high
purpose of the explorer inspired the voyage, subdued the mutinous crew, and pre-
vailed over the raging storms. They covered with the divine radiance of religion
and humanity, the degrading search for gold and the horrors of its quest, which
filled the first century of conquest with every form of lust and greed.

The mighty soul of the great Admiral was undaunted by the ingratitude of
Princes, and the hostility of the people, by imprisonment and neglect. He died as
he was securing the means, and preparing a campaign for the rescue of the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem from the infidel. He did not know what time has revealed,
that while the misson of the crusades, of Godfrey of Bouillon and Richard of the
Lion Heart, was a bloody and fruitless romance, the discovery of America was the
salvation of the world. The one was the symbol, the other the spirit; the one death,
the other life. The tomb of the Savior was a narrow and empty vault, precious
only for its memories of the supreme tragedy of the centuries, but the new conti-
nent was to be the home and temple of the living God.

The rulers of the Old World began with partitioning the new. To them the
discovery was expansion of empire and grandeur to the throne. Vast territories,
whose properties and possibilities were little understood, and whose extent was
greater than the kingdoms of the sovereigns, were the gifts to court favorites, and
the prizes of royal approval. But individual intelligence and independent con-
science found here haven and refuge. They were the passengers upon the cara-
vels of Columbus, and he was unconsciously making for the port of civil and religious
liberty. Thinkers, who believed men capable of higher destinies and larger respon-
sibilities, and pious people who preferred the Bible to that union of church and state
where each serves the other for the temporal benefit of both, fled to these distant
and hospitable lands from intolerable and hopeless oppression at home. It required
three hundred years, for the people thus happily situated, to understand their own
powers and resources, and to break bonds which were still reverenced, or loved no
matter how deeply they wounded, or how hard they galled.

The nations of Europe were so completely absorbed in dynastic difficulties,
and devastating wars, with diplomacy and ambitions, that they neither heeded nor
heard of the growing democratic spirit, and intelligence in their American colonies.
To them, these colonies were sources of revenue, and they never dreamed that they
were also schools of liberty. That it exhausted three centuries under the most
favorable conditions for the evolution of freedom on this continent, demonstrates
the tremendous strength of custom and heredity when sanctioned and sanctified
by religion. The very chains which fettered became inextricably interwoven with
the habits of life, the associations of childhood, the tenderest ties of the family, and

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 129

the sacred offices of the Church from the cradle to the grave. It clearly proves
that if the people of the Old World and their descendants had not possessed the
oportunities afforded by the New for their emancipation, and mankind had never
experienced and learned the American example, instead of lining in the light and
glory of nineteenth century conditions, they would still be struggling with mediaeval
problems.

The northern continent was divided between England, France and Spain,
and the southern between Spain and Portugal. France wanting the capacity for
colonization, which still characterizes her, gave up her western possessions and left
the English, who have the genius of universal empire, masters of North America.
The development of the experiment in the English makes this day memorable. It
is due to the wisdom and courage, the faith and virtue of the inhabitants of this
territory that government of the people, for the people and by the people was in-
augurated, and has become a triumphant success. The Puritan settled in New
England and the Cavalier in the South. They represent the opposites of spiritual
and temporal life and opinions. The process of liberty liberalized the one and ele-
vated the other. Washington and Adams were the new types. There union in a
common cause gave the world a Republic both stable and free. It. possessed con-
servatism without bigotry, and liberty without license. It founded institutions
strong enough to resist revolution, and elastic enough for indefinite extension to
meet the requirements in government of ever enlarging areas of population, and
the needs of progress and growth.

The Mayflower with the Pilgrims, and a Dutch ship laden with African
slaves, were on the ocean at the same time, the one sailing for Massachusetts, and
the other for Virginia. This company of saints, and first cargo of slaves, repre-
sented the forces which were to peril and rescue free government. The slaver was
the product of commercial spirit of Great Britain, and the greed of the times to
stimulate production in the colonies. The men who wrote in the cabin of the May-
flower the first charter of freedom, a government of just and equal laws, were a
little band of protestants against every form of injustice and tyranny. The leaven
of their principles made possible the Declaration of Independence, liberated the
slaves, and founded the free commonwealths which form the Republic of the
United States.

Platforms of principles, by petition, or protest, or statement, have been as
frequent as revolts against established authority. They are part of the political
literature of all nations. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed at Phila-
delphia, July 4, 1776, is the only one of them which arrested the attention of the
world when it was published, and has held its undivided interest ever since. The
vocabulary of the equality of man had been in familiar use by philosophers and
statesmen for ages. It expressed noble sentiments, but their application was lim-
ited to classes or conditions. The masses care little for them nor remembered them
long. Jefferson's superb crystallization of the popular opinion, " all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," had its force and effect

130 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

of being the deliberate utterance of the people. It swept away in a single sentence
kings and nobles, poets and prelates. It was Magna Charta, and the Petition
of Rights planted in the virgin soil of the American wilderness, and bearing richer
and riper fruit. Under its vitalizing influence upon the individual, the farmer left
his plow in the furrow, the lawyer his bench, to enlist in the patriotic army. They
were fighting for themselves and their children. They embodied the idea in their
constitution, in the immortal words with which that great instrument of liberty and
order began: " We, the people of the United States, do ordain."

The scope and limitations of this idea of freedom have neither been misin-
terpreted nor misunderstood. The laws of nature in their application to the rise
and recognition of men according to their mental, moral, spiritual and physical en-
dowments are left undisturbed. But the accident of birth gives no rank and con-
fers no privilege. Equal rights and common opportunity for all have been the
spurs of ambition, and the motors of progress. They have established the common
schools, and built the public libraries. A sovereign people have learned and en-
forced the lesson of free education. The practice of government is itself a liberal
education. People who make their own laws need no law-givers. After a century
of successful trial, the system has passed the period of experiment, and its dem-
onstrated permanency and power are revolutionizing the governments of the world.
It has raised the largest armies of modern times for self preservation, and at the
successful termination of the war returned the soldiers to the pursuits of peace. It
has so adjusted itself to the pride and patriotism of the defeated, that they vie with
the victors in their support and enthusiasm for the old flag and our common coun-
try Imported anarchists have preached their baleful doctrines, but have made no
converts. They have tried to inaugurate a reign of terror under the banner of the
violent seizure and distribution of property, only to be defeated, imprisoned and exe-
cuted by the law made by the people and enforced by juries selected from the
people, and judges and prosecuting officers elected by the people. Socialism finds
disciples only among those who were its votaries before they were forced to fly from
their native land, but it does not take roct upon American soil. The State neither
supports nor permits taxation to maintain the Church. The citizen can worship
God according to his belief and conscience, or he may neither reverence nor rec-
ognize the Almighty. And yet religion has flourished, churches abound, the min-
istry is sustained, and millions of dollars are contributed annually for the evan-
gelization of the world. The United States is a Christian country a living and
practical Christianity is the characteristic of the people.

Benjamin Franklin, philosopher and patriot, amused the jaded courtiers of
Louis XIV. by his talks about liberty, and entertained the scientists of France by
bringing lightning from the clouds. In the reckoning of time, the period from
Franklin to Morse, and from Morse to Edison, is but a span, and yet it makes a
material development as marvelous as it has been beneficient. The world has been
brought into contact and sympathy. The ele.ctric current thrills and unifies the
people of the globe. Power and production, highways and transports have been so
multiplied and improved by inventive genius, that within the century of our inde-

CARDINAL GIBBONS

132 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

pendence sixty-four irillions of people have happy homes and improved conditions
within our borders. We have accumulated wealth far beyond the visions 01 the
Cathay of Columbus, or the El Dorado of De Sota. But the farmers and free-
holders ttv "ivings banks and shops illustrate its universal distribution. The ma-
jority are its possessors and administrators. In housing and living, in the elements
which make the toiler a seu-i erecting and respected citizen, in avenues of
hope and ambition for children, in all that gives broader scope and keener pleasure
to existence, the people of this republic enjoy advantages far beyond those of other
lands. The unequaled and phenomenal progress of the country has opened won-
derful opportunities for making fortunes, and stimulated to madness the desire and
rush for the accumulation of money. Material prosperity has not debased litera-
"ture nor debauched the press; it has neither paralyzed nor repressed intellectual
activity. American science and letters have received rank and recognition in the
older centers of learning. The demand for higher education has so taxed the re-
sources of the ancient universities, as to compel the foundation and liberal endow-
ment of colleges all over the union. Journals remarkable for their ability, inde-
pendence and power, find their strength, not in the patronage of government, or
the subsides of wealth, but in the support of a nation of newspaper readers. The
humblest and poorest person, has in periodicals whose price is counted in pennies, a
library larger, fuller and more varied, than was within reach of the rich in the time
of Columbus.

1 he sum of human happiness has been infinitely increased by the millions
from the Old World who have improved their conditions in the New, and the
returning tide of lesson and experience has incalculably enriched the Fatherlands.
The divine right of kings has taken its place with the instruments of mediaeval tor-
ture among the curiosities of the antiquary. Only the shadow of kingly authority
stands between the government of themselves by themselves and the people of
Norway and Sweden. The union in one empire of states of Germany is the symbol
of Teutonic power, and the hope of German liberalism. The petty despotisms of
Italy have been merged into a nationality which has centralized its authority in its
ancient capitol on the hills of Rome. France was rudely roused from the sullen
submission of centuries to intolerable tyranny by her soldiers returning from service
in the American Revolution. The wild orgies of the reign of terror were the reven-
ges and excesses of a people who had discovered their power but were not pre-
pared for its beneficient use. She fled from herself into the arms of Napoleon.
He, too, was a product of the American experiment. He played with kings as with
toys, and educated France for liberty. In the process of her evolution from dark-
ness to light she tried Bourbon, and Orleanist and the third Napoleon, and cast
them aside. Now in the fullness of time, and through the training in the school
of hardest experience, the French people have reared and enjoy a permanent
republic. England of the Mayflower and of James the Second, England of George
the Third and of Lord North, has enlarged suffrage and is to-day animated and
governed by the democratic spirit. She has her throne, admirably occupied by one
of the wisest of sovereigns and best of women, but it would not survive one dissolute

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 133

and unworthy successor. She has her hereditary peers, but the House of Lords
will be brushed aside the moment it resists the will of the people.

The time has arrived for both a closer union, and greater distance between
the Old World and the New. The former indiscriminate welcome to our prairies
and the present invitation to these palaces of art and industry, mark the passing
period. Unwatched and unhealthy immigration can no longer be permitted to our
shores. We must have a national quarantine against disease, pauperism and crime.
We do not want candidates for our hospitals, our poorhouses or our jails. We can-
not admit those who come to undermine our institutions and subvert our laws.
But we will gladly throw wide our gate for, and receive with open arms, those who
by intelligence and virtue, by thrift and loyalty, are worthy of receiving the equal
advantages of the priceless gift of American citizenship. The spirit and object of
this exhibition are peace and kinship.

Three millions of Germans, who are among the best citizens of the Republic,
send greeting to the Fatherland their pride in its glorious history, its ripe literature
its traditions and associations. Irish, equal in number to those who still remain
upon the Emerald Isle, who have illustrated their devotion to their adopted country
on many a battlefield fighting for the Union and its perpetuity, have rather intensi-
fied than diminished their love for the land of the shamrock, and their sympathy
with the aspirations of their brethren at home. The Italian, the Spaniard, and the
Frenchman, the Norwegian, the Swede, and the Dane, the English, the Scotch,
and the Welsh, are none the less loyal and devoted Americans, because in this con-
gress of their kin, the tendrils of affection draw them closer to the hills and valleys,
the legends and the loves associated with their youth.

Edmund Burke, speaking in the British Parliment with prophetic voice, said:
"A great revolution has happened — a revolution made, not by chopping and chang-
ing of power in any of the existing States, but by the appearance of a new State, of
a new species, in a new part of the globe. It has made as great a change in all the
relations and balances and gravitations of power as the appearance of a new planet
would in the system of the solar world." Thus was the humiliation of our suc-
cessful revolt tempered to the motherland by pride in the State created by her
children. If we claim heritage in Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton, we also acknow-
ledge that it was for liberties guaranteed Englishmen by sacred charters our
fathers triumphantly fought. While wisely rejecting throne and caste and privilege
and an established church in their new-born state, they adopted the substance of
English liberty and the body of English law. Closer relations than with other
lands, and a common language rendering easy interchanges of criticisms and
epithet, sometimes irritate and offend, but the heart of Republican America beats
with responsive pulsations to the hopes and aspirations of the people of Great
Britain.

The grandeur and beauty of this spectacle are the eloquent witnesses of
peace and progress. The Parthenon and the cathedral exhausted the genius of
the ancient, and the skill of the mediaeval architects, in housing the statue or spirit
of Deity. In their ruins or their antiquity they are mute protests against the

i34 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

merciless enmity of nations, which forced art to flee to the altar for protection
The United States welcomes the sister republics of the southern and northern con-
tinents, and the nations and peoples of Europe and Asia, of Africa and Australia,
with the products of their lands, of their skill and of their industry to this city of
yesterday, yet clothed with loyal splendor as the Queen of the Great Lakes. The
artists and architects of the country have been bidden to design and erect the
buildings which shall fitly illustrate the height of our civilization and the breadth of
our hospitality. The peace of the world permits and protects their efforts in util-
izing their powers for man's temporal welfare. The result is this Park of Palaces.
The originality and boldness of their conceptions and the magnitude and harmony
of their creations are the contributions of America to the oldest of the arts and the
cordial bidding of America to the peoples of the earth to come and bring the
fruitage of their age to the boundless opportunities of this unparalled exhibition.

If interest in the affairs of this world are vouchsafed to those who have gone
before, the spirit of Columbus hovers over us to-day. Only by celestial intelligence
can it grasp the full significance of this spectacle and ceremonial.

From the first century to the fifteenth counts for little in the history of pro-
gress, but in the period between the fifteenth and twentieth is crowded the romance
and reality of human development. Life has been prolonged and its enjoyment
intensified. The powers of the air and water, the resistless forces of the elements,
which in the time of the discoverer were the visible terrors of the wrath of God
have been subdued to the service of man. Art and luxuries which could be pos-
sessed and enjoyed only by the rich and noble, the works of genius which were read,
and understood by the learned few, domestic comforts and surround ings beyond the
reach of lord or bishop now adorn and illumine the homes of our citizens. Serfs are
sovereigns and the people are kings. The trophies and splendors of their reign
are commonwealths, rich in every attribute of great states, and united in a republic
whose power and prosperity, and liberty and enlightenment are the wonder and
admiration of the world.

All hail Columbus, discoverer, dreamer, hero and apostle. We, here, of every
race and country, recognize the horizon which bounded his vision and the infinite
scope of his genius. The voice of gratitude and praise for all the blessings which have
showered upon mankind by his adventure is limited to no language, but is uttered
in every tongue. Neither marble nor brass can fitly form his statue. Continents
are his monuments, and unnumbered millions, past, present and to come, who en-
joy in their liberty and their happiness the fruits of his faith, will reverently guard
and preserve from century to century his name and fame.

Great applause followed the sublime effort, at the cessation of which Car-
dinal Gibbons invoked the divine blessing. Then Rev. H. C. McCosh, of Phila-
delphia, delivered the benediction, and a national salute closed the dedicatory cer-
emonies.

That night there were three sets of fireworks on the north, south and west
sides, which were seen and enjoyed by half a million or more people. Chicago

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

never before witnessed such pyrotechnical displays. The upward rays of the
search-lights at Jackson Park were also visible all over the city.

On the night of October 25th, President Palmer's banquet at Chicago prac-
tically closed the festivities of Dedication. The guests included national commis-
sioners, local directors, officers of the Fair, military men, foreign commissioners and
professional entertainers, whose presence lent enjoyment to the occasion.

'*>,

COLUMBIAN ARCH, FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 22, 1892.