CHAPTER VI.

END OP THE EXPOSITION.

Official closing day of the Great Fair — Impressive termination of the most magnificent creation of any
age — A vast throng present — The illuminated fountains play for the last time — The great search lights
blaze out the close — Electric switches turn off their tens of thousands of arcs and incandescents forever —
The terrible death of Carter H. Harrison, the World's Fair Mayor, by the bullet of an assassin, precludes
the possibility of carrying out a program of Oijtory, music and pyrotechnics— The Mayor's Day — Mayoi
Harrison's last speech — His last signature was at the Tiffany pavilion — Symposium of reports and Ad-
dresses in the Woman's Building — Lady managers kiss and say good bye — Destruction of the Exposition
commences on Wooded Island — Some interesting facts and figures— Paid admissions reach nearly
22,000,000— The Exposition pays all its bills and has nearly $3,000, 000 in bank .601

?

HON. THOMAS W. PALMER,

rBEsiDBNT WORLD'S COLUMBIAN COMMISSION.

I NTRODUCTORY

PRESIDENT THOS. W. PALMER.

OU want me to express my opinion in regard to the Fair.
I cannot talk to you about it from an artistic standpoint for
I know very little about art. I can only tell its effect upon
me and, inferentially, what it will be upon 10,000,000 of
people. 1 think it will astound every one who visits it, both
on account of its magnitude and what they will consider its
artistic merits. It would be fairy-like if it were not so co-
lossal. It is a vision snatched from dreams whose lines
have been brought out and well defined by the iodine of art.
As an educational force and inspiration I believe the build-
ings, their grouping, and laying out of the grounds will in
themselves do more good in a general way than the exhibits
themselves, by the exaltation that it will inspire in every
man, woman, and child who may have any emotions, and who has none, that may
come to view it. I think that the prospect from Lake Michigan will impress every
one who approaches it from that side by the tout ensemble which will be pre-
sented. I never looked at it without thinking of Claude Melnotte's description to
Pauline of his palace by the Lake of Como.

I was at Nice some years ago, and one morning in November I looked from
my balcony up the distant mountain side and saw the cataract going over the dam,
the Alps in the background, with the olive groves and the blue Mediterranean far
above ground, and I said to my wife: "Every one who can should come to Nice to
put in a stock of material for dreams." I think the Exposition furnishes a maga-
zine for dreams equally as grand and more attractive.

I have no doubt that, notwithstanding the vast amount of literature and
illustrations which has been issued describing the Fair, the expectations of our
people and those from abroad will be more than realized. I never go down to it
but what I am lifted up to a higher plane, and feel more enthusiasm in regard to
its real magnitude and merit. If it was within the range of constitutional legisla-
tion it would pay the Government of the United States to bring free of expense ten
millions of our people who will not have the money to come.

You have seen Kiralfy's "Around the World in Eighty Days" and read Jules
Verne's "Around the World," wherein Mr. Fogg gained a day and saved his
fortune by going to the west, so will all people and races here gain more than a day

20 INTRODUCTORY.

and more than a fortune in getting a more thorough idea of the habitable globe
by coming west to Chicago.

I regard the street of all nations on the Midway Plaisance, although thought
by some to be beneath the aim of the great Exposition, as one of its most valuable
adjuncts. To the specialist, the scientist, and the artist the Exposition furnishes all
that may be desired, but to the vast mass of humanity the attractions of the Mid-
way Plaisance will give the first impulse to inquiry, and the statuary outside of
buildings constructed on harmonious lines will remain a vital force to the majority
of people long after details are forgotten.

The Art Building is a classic and the Fisheries Building a study. In looking
at the first a man can feel that he is in Athens during the age of Pericles. The
whole thing if viewed by that worthy would make Haroun al^Raschid go wild with
despair and Scheherezade go mad with envy because Aladdin and his lamp, her
greatest achievement, was surpassed from the shores of an inland lake on the
margin of the prairie.