Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

by Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was held to commemorate this most important event in the history of America—the purchase from France of the vast Louisiana Territory—an event second only in importance to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which constituted the first great advance of the United States toward national expansion, and at the same time insured to them the control forever of the greatest natural waterway on earth, the Mississippi River.

The Missouri Historical Society was the first organization to take formal steps toward the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the acquisition of this territory. In acknowledgment of the public sentiment expressed, Governor Stevens, of Missouri, called a convention of delegates to be appointed by the respective governors of the twelve States and two Territories that had been created in the Louisiana Purchase. Ninety-three delegates attended the meeting on January 10, 1899, and unanimously voted that an international exposition should be held in St. Louis as a means of giving expression, by practical demonstration, to the universal appreciation of what had been accomplished within this vast region during the century.

An executive committee was appointed, of which Hon. David R. Francis, of St. Louis, was made chairman. The aid of the United States Government was sought, and, after preliminary work on the part of the members of the committee in raising the $10,000,000, which Congress had made a condition should be secured before rendering material assistance, a bill was passed March 3, 1901, appropriating $5,000,000 toward "celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase Territory by the United States by holding an international exhibition of arts, industries, manufactures, and the products of the soil, mine, forest, and sea in the city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri."

This enormous tract of land that for a century had been steadily contributing to the material advancement of the world was now to show that it was ready and able to assume its full share not only in practical life and progress but in the deeper phases of science and art, and to demonstrate the nature of its resources by participation in the greatest universal exposition ever held. By this exposition it was not only above all else to illustrate the marvelous development of the territory whose acquisition it was meant to celebrate, but it was likewise "to provide for a comparative display of the products, natural and artificial, of the nations of the world, to be arranged in classified groups, the exhibits of each nation in every class to be set down by the side of those of all other nations, thereby better to insure comparison and an intelligent verdict as to merit by the direct and practical contrast thus secured." It was to demonstrate the feasible combination of the artistic with the useful, the beautiful with the enduring, the graceful with the strong.

The three most significant dates historically connected with the acquisition of the magnificent domain known as Louisiana are April 30, 1803, when the great treaty was signed; October 19, when the treaty was ratified in the Senate of the United States by a vote of 24 to 7; and December 20, of the same year, when our Government received formal possession at New Orleans from the French prefect, Laussat. The council chamber of the Cabildo (which building was so ably reproduced at the exposition) and the balcony adjacent were the scene of the formal retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France, and also of the event so much more momentous to us—the ceremony in which France delivered Louisiana into the keeping of the United States.

On August 20, 1901, by a proclamation of the President, "in the name of the Government and of the people of the United States, all the nations of the earth" were invited "to take part in the commemoration of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, an event of great interest to the United States and of abiding effect on their development, by appointing representatives and sending such exhibits to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition as would most fitly and fully illustrate their resources, their industries, and their progress in civilization." This invitation was sent through the Department of State of the United States to the chief magistrates of all civilized governments, from nearly all of whom official acceptances were received in reply.

It has become a matter of history that ground was broken for the site of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition December 20, 1901, that day being the anniversary of the one on which the jurisdiction over the Louisiana Territory passed from France to the United States in 1803. The dedication exercises were held on the afternoon of April, 30, 1903, and were designed to commemorate not only the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the treaty by Livingston, Monroe, and Marbois, transferring the territory from France to the United States, but also to dedicate in a formal manner the grounds and palaces of the exposition then rapidly advancing toward completion, though not to be opened before the following spring.

The exercises were participated in by representatives from nearly all civilized nations, and the presence on April 30, 1903, of the President of the United States, ex-President Cleveland, the Joint Committee of Congress, the ambassadors and ministers of twenty-six foreign governments, the governors and representatives of more than forty States and Territories, conferred upon it the official indorsement of the nations of the world, and added the weight and dignity which the sanction of governments alone could give.

When the treaty of cession was concluded in 1803 President Jefferson represented less than 6,000,000 people and there were but 50,000 white settlers in the Louisiana Territory. President Roosevelt in 1903 represented 80,000,000 people, the Purchase contained 15,000,000 inhabitants, and the 865,000 square miles which it comprised had been geographically divided into twelve States and two Territories. It was an area greater in extent and in natural resources than that of the original thirteen States, and constituted the largest real estate transfer ever known in the history of nations.

The price of $15,000,000 paid for it was considered exorbitant by those who were opposed to the purchase in 1803, yet the possibilities of the country, then so vague and ill-defined, so amply justified the prophetic faith of its advocates that a century later many millions of dollars in excess of the purchase money were spent in commemorating the transfer of a tract of land without which the present greatness of the United States would not have been possible. The present value of the agricultural products alone of the area for one year are a hundred times, and the taxable wealth more than four hundred times, the purchase money.