Exudation

“ And why not join all forces, North, South, East and West in one sublime and divinely led effort to carry the untold blessings of education, morality, freedom, and Christianity to all peoples who still sit amid the shadows of tyranny, superstition, poverty and ignorance? This World’s Exposition will reach its highest and grandest legitimate possibilities just in proportion as it shall help forward these desires of all good men and these plans and purposes of the World’s Redeemer. ”

“ In the celebration of public festivals the pomp of the nobles and merchants—the gorgeous appointments of their households, their imposing array of slaves and eunuchs, the beauties of their seraglio, the glittering damascened armor, the silks embroidered with gold, the sheen of priceless gems—awakened the astonishment of the stranger and provoked the sullen and impotent anger of the populace. ”

“ The exhibition being an international one, and the Government being a voluntary contributor, it is my opinion that its contribution should be of a character, in quality and extent, to sustain the dignity and credit of so distinguished a contributor. The advantages to the country of a creditable display are, in an international point of view, of the first importance, while an indifferent or uncreditable participation by the Government would be humiliating to the patriotic feelings of our people themselves. ”

“ But sarcasm aside, I hold it to be eminently fit that we keep up those celebrations from year to year, at least until we shall have an American celebration to take its place. That the event we thus commemorate transpired in another country, and was wrought out by the labors and sacrifices of the people of another nation, form no valid objection to its grateful, warm, hearty, and enthusiastic celebration by us. In a very high sense, we may claim that great deed as our own. It belongs not exclusively to England and the English people, but to the lovers of Liberty and of mankind the world over. ”

“ Although the Fair was officially known as a World’s Fair, and it did contain honorable contributions from many foreign countries, it was, in a sense that no other exhibition has been before, a nation’s fair. ”

“ There is a great deal of freedom in the Exhibition. The servant who walks behind his mistress through the Park feels that he can crowd against her in the Exhibition. The Queen and the day labourer, the Prince and the merchant, the peer and the pauper, the Celt and the Saxon, the Greek and the Frank, the Hebrew and the Russ, all meet here upon terms of perfect equality. ”

“ There the race is not a peg to hang a few days of dissipation on, but a sacred ceremony, to the celebration of which all men and all circumstances tend and bend. No balls, no concerts, no public breakfasts, no bands from Litolf, no singers from Welsh, no pineapples from Gunter, are there called for by thoughtless thousands, who have met, not from any affection for the turfs delights or their neighbour’s cash, but to sport their splendid liveries and to disport their showy selves. ”

“ Cry down, with all the power that is in you, public exhibitions that are daily undermining and uprooting the morality of this great nation, which affects, as it must continue to affect more and more day by day, the destiny [840] of the world. They influence the fashions; they fill the public streets with impurity. Their effect is in the very air we breathe, the press we read, the pictures that meet our eyes on every stand. ”

“ Sometimes the patriotism of such a gathering would be wrought up so intensely by waving banners, martial and vocal music, and burning eloquence, that a town’s quota would be filled in less than an hour. It needed only the first man to step forward, put down his name, be patted on the back, placed upon the platform, and cheered to the echo as the hero of the hour, when a second, a third, a fourth would follow, and at last a perfect stampede set in to sign the enlistment roll, and a frenzy of enthusiasm would take possession of the meeting. ”

“ He would have seen a perpetual round of banquets, balls, concerts, receptions, and garden parties, to which only the élite of society were invited, all dressed in the extreme of fashion, blazing with jewels, and radiant with the smiles of prosperity. Among the lions of this gorgeous society he would have seen the most distinguished statesmen of the day, chiefly peers of the realm, with the blue ribbon across their shoulders, the diamond garter below their knees, and the heraldic star upon their breasts. ”

“ President and Gentlemen,—We are assembled in what may be called the Holy Week of our community,—not occupied by pomps of a complex ceremonial, swelling in tides of music, beneath time-honored arches, but set apart, with the unadorned simplicity of early custom, to anniversary meetings of those charitable and religious associations from whose good works our country derives such true honor. Each association is distinct. ”

“ This Exposition—on a new site, in a new world—assumes greater dimensions than a market for merchandise or than figures of finance. We should make it a congress of the nations wherein agriculture, manufactures, and commerce should be the handmaids of ideas—where art should paint the allegory of Peace and chisel the statue Fraternity—where music should play a dirge to dead hastes and an epithalamium on the marriage of the nations. ”

“ In our veins courses blood of all nations, and it is the healthy commingling of that blood which has produced a race of world conquerors. It has produced the men who have made possible this great Exposition. We have been placed in the world's crucible, have been melted in the glowing heat of a nascent life, and have been forged into a weapon which shall carve the world. Our ideals are worthy, the hopes and aspirations of the nation devoted to justice and love; ideals which shall be the steadfast inspirer of nations and individuals to uprightness, to justice and to honor. ”

“ The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm of a population yet young—full of the first ardor for the beautiful— dedicating to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies honorably won, or the treasures injuriously extorted, and uniting the resources of a nation with the energy of an individual, because the toil, the cost, were borne by those who succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the glory. ”

“ Then, at night, we may have illuminations, both private and municipal, and displays of fireworks in open places, where the exhibitions can be conducted by experienced men, thus avoiding all danger of the shocking accidents which now sadden our celebration. Let us, on this day, forget the noise of battle and the passions of international strife, and remember only the wonderful spirit of sacrifice, and patriotism, and brotherhood which animated our Revolutionary heroes. ”

“ The Government, ladies and gentlemen—and especially the Minister for Agriculture, whom a slight indisposition has debarred from being here to-day—says to you by my lips that this festival, a living proof of fecund prosperity and of useful activity, is a national festival. The affluence of every single commune is the affluence of the State ”

“ When the amusement of the young shall become the care of the experienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are now rolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into the form of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, and not dreaded. ”

“ The fact is, our fair becoming one of the most popular and genteel exhibitions of the year. We are glad of its prosperity, not because we love popularity, but because of the change in public opinion which it indicates. We know that imputations have been cast upon those who act most prominently in conducting this fair. ”

“ And in the name of the Government, and of the people of the United States, I do hereby invite all the Nations of the earth to take part in the commemoration of an event that is preeminent in human history and of lasting interest to mankind by appointing representatives thereto, and sending such exhibits to the World’s Columbian Exposition as will most fitly and fully illustrate their resources, their industries and their progress in civilization. ”

“ After the exhibition was finished, and amid the fresh outburst of enthusiasm that followed, it was suggested that a proper way to wind up the Congress and give suitable expression to the festive mood which now possessed mankind would be to have a grand ball. ”

“ Of the earnest manner in which our ancestors set about the celebration of this festival, the mock ceremonial with which they illustrated it, the quaint humors which they let loose under its inspiration, and the spirit of fellowship which brought all classes of men within the range of its beneficent provisions, we have a large body of scattered evidence, to be gleaned out of almost every species of existing record, from the early days of the Norman dynasty down to the times of the Commonwealth. ”

“ At this time of social transition, when we all more or less feel the melting away of old divisions and parties, of old barriers of sects and schools, and the emergence of new possibilities, the continual appearance of new groupings of thought and action, such a Civic Exhibition would surely be specially valuable. In the interest, then, of the incipient renascence of civic progress, I plead for a Civic Exhibition. ”

“ Nor is the circumstance of a private nature, for banners are everywhere displayed, the vast city is illuminated, and a thousand cannon are proclaiming it from their iron throats. The population seems frantic with joy, and rush tumultuously into each other’s arms, in token of a national jubilee. ”

“ Three more masters of ceremonies, then came the impassive official display, always the same for marriages, deaths, baptisms, openings of Parliament, receptions by the sovereign,—the interminable procession of state carriages, with gleaming panels, great mirrors, gaudy, gold-bespangled liveries, which passed amid the dazzled throngs, reminding them of fairy tales, the equipages of Cinderella, and arousing the same Ohs! of admiration that ascend and burst with the bombs at displays of fireworks. ”

“ We see the banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena of our competition with each other, in the arts that minister to our race's support and happiness, and not to its suffering and destruction. ”

“ Thus it happens that on this day the farmer finds out what kind of weather he is going to have, and what kind of grain will yield the richest crop.
The Prince is carried back to his home again, with drums beating, horns blowing, and with the same [Pg 69] attendant crowd of soldiers, priests, nobles, and peasants. Once upon a time the people really believed in the ceremony, and what it was supposed to tell them. Even now many thousands of them have great faith in the acts that have been performed; but as education spreads, the belief in these quaint and picturesque ceremonies will die out. ”

“ The glad news of the final triumph of the patriotic cause was carried rapidly to every part of the country, and the joy of the people found expression in enthusiastic demonstrations of all kinds. In every city and town, religious services were held to render thanks to God for the success which had crowned the efforts of the nation to establish its freedom. ”

“ The abolition of the public festivals by which the potentates of the pagan empires compensated their subjects for the loss of political freedom, the heartless egotism of our wealthy Pharisees, venal justice, and the dire bondage of city life all help to stimulate a headlong race toward the goal of the promised land of ease and independence—a goal reached only by a favored few compared with the multitudes who daily drop down wayworn and exhausted. ”

“ And after all what is really important to a nation is that the people in it—any chance crowd in a street in it should think. I confess I care very little one way or the other about the pennies being saved, or about the brewer's little touch of moral poetry, his idea that this particular crowd was solid Sunday-school from one end to the other, all through. ”

“ These festivals were the great events of the year — which made the people feel that they had a country, that they were children of a common race, inheritors of a common faith, and sharers of a common joy. ”

“ We rejoice where they were successful, permanent, and a blessing to the world. But why cannot we be allowed to celebrate an event, one of the greatest of its times, without being taunted with sayings, which, while bearing bitterness, need the support of evidence ”

“ It is an age of obedience. Ceremonies and ordinances are set up to bring the wild will under discipline. And the better to secure exact obedience, a visible system of formal observances is announced—so many sacrifices every day, and so many meat-offerings, drink-offerings, cattle, doves, fruits, cakes, for every sacrifice. To withstand the surrounding seductions of nations still steeped in the vices of their natural propensities, a scheme of coercive restraints comes in. [315] The people must have multiplied festivals, jubilees, national gatherings, regularly kept, and by divine appointment. ”

“ But I have seen that the time is at hand when it shall come as a vast chorus of cities, of fields, of men's voices, filling the dome of the world—a chorus in the glory and the shame of which no millionaire who merely wants to make money, no artist who is not expressing the souls and freeing the bodies of men, no statesman who is not gathering up the desires of crowds, and going daily through the world hewing out the will of the people, shall dare to live. ”

“ If the Exposition has awakened the sentiments of patriotism and reverence in the minds of all its visitors, and has broadened their views concerning mankind, and made more charitable their hearts toward the rest of the world, as it has done with this one true rural family, then it has been a mighty success, though millions of dollars were lost in its construction. ”