“The Exposition stands at the meeting of the world’s highways, where gather the nations of the earth, burdened each with the evidences of its newest and noblest achievements. It is an epitome of the world’s progress, a history and a prophecy.
“The latest discoveries, the newest inventions, the triumphs in art, in science, in education, in the solution of social and even of religious problems, are here arrayed; whatever testifies to the industry, the skill, the creative and almost divine power of human thought when stimulated to its most earnest endeavors.
“The more we share with others the good we possess, the more shall they share with us the things and thoughts that make for peace with them. The more we all strive for the common good, the nearer we shall attain to universal brotherhood.”
Thus inspired, he was deeply engaged in the enterprise from the first. In 1890 he had much to do with securing from Congress the honor of holding the Exposition in Chicago. After it was so decided, he was commissioned to go abroad to promote interest in the Fair—was a director and a member of important committees—Finance, Ways and Means, Foreign Exhibits; and later, in August, 1892, was made President of the Directory and Chairman of the Council of Administration, a body of four, chosen half from the Directory and half from the National Commission created by Congress. This Council was clothed with the full power of all other bodies and committees, and charged with the completion and administration of the Exposition at a time when the treasury was empty and the enterprise was thought to be a failure. During that summer Mr. Marshall Field, Mr. Higinbotham’s partner and head of the firm, was absent in Germany; and he withheld his consent to Mr. Higinbotham’s accepting the Presidency, because he felt that the probable failure of the enterprise would reflect on their business. To convince him, Mr. Higinbotham wrote him the exact status of the Fair, what he thought he could do with it if Mr. Field would consent, and his reluctance to refuse his services at a time of crisis.
In regard to this, Mr. Higinbotham has stated: “I remember saying that he would not be glad he lived in Chicago if the Fair was a failure, and his property would not be worth half as much. I also wrote him how many people would attend the Fair and how much we would receive from concessions, estimating about as follows:
| Admissions, 22,000,000 | $11,000,000 |
| Concessions | 4,000,000 |
| Residuum, Building Material, etc. | 1,000,000 |
| $16,000,000 | |
| “Then I wrote him that it would cost to complete and administer the Fair | 9,000,000 |
| and we would have | $7,000,000 |
to pay back to bondholders and stockholders. These were arguments that he could understand when far away, and he cabled me, ‘All right, go ahead.’ I did, and we made the prognosis good and a little more. I wish I had time, space and patience to tell you how I based my estimates for attendance, and then tell you how hard I worked to make it all come true. The other members of the Council of Administration agreed at the first meeting to stand by and support me all the time and always. This they did, with the result that at the conclusion, with six thousand written pages, we did not have a single negative vote recorded in the minutes of our meetings. The members of the Council of Administration, besides the Chairman, were: George V. Massey of Dover, Delaware; J. W. St. Clair of West Virginia and Charles H. Schwab of Chicago.”
Mr. Massey, the only surviving one of the four, corroborates this assertion of harmony, and adds the following appreciation of his dead colleague’s services:
“As one of his associates in the Council, I was afforded exceptional opportunity to become acquainted with his wonderful capacity for effective work along the most judicious and practical lines; and the knowledge of his envied characteristics, thereby derived, warrants the statement that the successful results of the Exhibition were more largely attributable to his untiring and energetic efforts than to any other official related to the undertaking.”
The year or two covered by those six thousand pages of minutes was a period of dramatic intensity for the man at the head of the vast enterprise. The local Board of Directors, composed of Chicago business men, was the great working body which organized, paid for, and ran the Fair, the National Commission being a more or less ornamental consort appointed by the Government to give the Exposition authority and dignity in the eyes of the invited nations. When Mr. Higinbotham, on August eighteenth, 1892, accepted the presidency of the Directory, after the successive resignations of Lyman J. Gage and William T. Baker, the early local enthusiasm had given way to despondency, for the impression had gathered force that soaring expenses could never be met even to the extent of repaying the bonded indebtedness, not to speak of the stockholders.