OPENING DAY PROCESSION.
It was a vast oceanic crowd, gathered from every land and nation of the globe to celebrate the inaugural day of the Columbian Exposition.
Turks, Arabs, Singhalese, and Malays; Algerians, Dahometans, Coreans, Samoans, Egyptians, and Eskimos, as well as Japanese, French, Germans, Spaniards, and Russians, were represented and mixed throughout that great throng, to which also were added a hundred or more painted and feathered Sioux Indians.
These last, in fact, were the only true, original Americans present, for in one sense all others are immigrants.
Although the preparations had been delayed by a long, cold, driving rainstorm, word had gone abroad that on Monday, May first, the World’s Fair would be opened, and foul weather did not keep the people at home.
When the President arrived, shortly before eleven o’clock, the sun, for the first time in several days, broke through the dark, low-lying clouds; but trailing fogs still half veiled the domes, towers, and finials of the gigantic buildings. Never, as it seemed to those who have marked their progress toward completion, had these huge structures looked so enormous, as now that their foundations were encompassed and blackened by the innumerable multitudes, while their domes and roofs were looming, half concealed, in the mist-clouds.
The magnitude of the grand square and the vastness of the assemblage alike defied the power of the human voice to fill or reach. The prayer and the ode were heard by but few. But the voice of the President was stronger, and audible farther; and when, advancing, amidst a tremendous outburst of cheers, he began his short address, the opening sentence, admirable in its simple modesty, “I am here, my fellow-citizens, to join in the congratulations which befit this occasion,” penetrated to a greater distance, and stimulated remote areas of the throng to try to approach nearer and hear more.
The pressure of these converging masses of humanity soon began to be felt alarmingly by the central concourse, directly in front of the platform. The lines of stalwart guards, although aided and re-enforced by platoons of United States infantry, were powerless to withstand this immense inward movement. Guards and soldiers were pushed aside, and borne on by the resistless pressure. Their brandished swords and shouts appeared not to be noticed or heeded; and for a time it seemed as if hundreds, perhaps thousands, would be borne down and crushed under foot.
Many women fainted, and were supported bodily by those near them; nor could the Red Cross chairs gain access, for a time, to take them away to the emergency hospitals.
STREET SCENE,—OPENING DAY.
The crowd swayed to and fro, oscillating rhythmically, and displaying within itself currents and counter-currents of human beings which met and mutually checked each other. At last, as if from restored equilibrium, the tumult ceased.
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.
By good fortune no one had been seriously injured; but the spectacle of resistless might, presented by this movement of three hundred thousands of people, will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it from the platform.
From here and there in the great tract of human heads and faces, bursts of cheering rose at intervals, and were responded to from opposite quarters; and it was amidst such scenes as these that the President finished his speech and advanced to the little triple dais of oak and velvet, draped with the national colors, and pressed the electric key, or “button,” by means of which the great Allis engine in Machinery Hall was set in motion.
The same key also gave the signal to all the flagmen, fountain-men, cannoneers, and boatmen on the lagoons, to enact their parts in the great programme of display.
But louder even than the artillery salutes and the shrieking of steam whistles was the mighty roar of applause from the multitude. It was, in truth, vox populi: the voice of the people in their united might. Then for a few moments a kind of silence fell, and the great sea of faces was seen to be rapt and intent on the brilliant spectacle of the unfurling flags, and leaping white jets and spray-bursts from the fountains.
On the instant, at the touch of the button, the great buildings turned suddenly resplendent with gay colors: the flags, ensigns, streamers, gonfalons, and emblems of all nations. In a moment the stately “white city of palaces” had grown deliriously gay with bright bunting; and on the lagoons swiftly propelled gondolas, in Venetian red and blue, mingled with the even brighter-hued electric launches.
And over all—a curious, pleasing feature of the hour—wheeled hundreds of white gulls, visitors from the great lake just outside, whose peculiar wild cries blended with the human acclamations.
The President had spoken, and had opened the Exposition. The brief ceremonies were over, and the mighty concourse in Administration Square melted away, in streamlets and groups, for a day of sight-seeing in the grounds.
Many made their way to the Manufactures Building, to behold the largest edifice in the world, and also in the hope of gaining another glimpse of the President and Cabinet, who were soon to proceed thither in company with the Duke of Veragua, a direct descendant, in the eleventh generation, of Christopher Columbus.
Almost as many more turned toward Machinery Hall, to see the huge engines and dynamos which had been so recently set in motion. The rest distributed themselves in many directions through the grounds.
Then indeed it was apparent that half a million of people may be present at the Exposition without crowding or mutual inconvenience. From many points of view, in fact, no one would now have suspected that an unusual number of visitors were on the grounds. The great squares, plazas, avenues, courts, and interspaces swallowed them up, and if one may use the expression, gaped for more.
Eighty thousand may visit the Manufactures Building at one time. Agricultural Building has room for thirty thousand, Machinery Hall for as many more, and so on of all the other great structures. A million of people may be present at the Fair on a single day without serious obstruction to sight-seeing.
The four hundred thousand or more who attended the May-day opening were a remarkably quiet and orderly assemblage. Very few dissensions or disturbances of any kind occurred. Few rogues were present, so far as known; if present, they contented themselves with sight-seeing. But one pickpocket attempted to ply his vocation, and he was detected in the act.
After the opening exercises, the great assemblage gave an observer the impression of being unusually silent, as if awed by the grandeur and magnitude of the buildings. On every hand people were seen to be gazing in absorbed contemplation. Foreigners present remarked this silence of the people with surprise, it was so unlike the vivacious chatter of a European crowd. Americans are unemotional, irresponsive, stupid, they exclaimed.
They failed to understand the American type of mind. Our people were beholding, intelligently comparing, estimating, thinking; and one who really thinks is not apt to chatter. These silent gazers were taking in the height, breadth, beauty, and magnificent variety of the great Exposition,—taking it in and storing it away for future use.
MACHINERY HALL.