1905.] THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION. 257 



He also needed a vast amount of treasure to equip his armies. 

 He is reported to have said that if the young repubhc secured 

 this territory she would, in the future, *begin a commercial 

 revolution which in the end would hard hit his great rival, 

 England. It is very likely that all three reasons were at work 

 upon his mind. At any rate it was accomplished, and he gave 

 us an empire for fifteen millions of dollars. The managers 

 of the St. Louis Exposition and its projectors, having in mind 

 the magnitude of this enterprise, saw that a proper celebration 

 of that event must be equally great in magnitude. Therefore 

 no enterprise of this kind has ever been projected anywhere in 

 the world on so great a scale as this celebration just closed at 

 St. Louis. You ask if there is no criticism to make. I say, 

 yes. It was too large ; larger than it should have been, per- 

 haps, for convenience, and yet correspondingly it had very 

 many great advantages. Those of us who were in Chicago 

 will remember what a beautiful white city that was, how large, 

 and how extensive. We never expected to see anything along 

 those lines of greater magnitude or greater import than that 

 beautiful celebration. Yet Chicago covered 633 acres, St. 

 Louis 1,240. That exhibition was greater than the combined 

 fairs of Paris, Chicago, and Buffalo. I was told by a member 

 of the national board of managers, who had figured it up, that 

 to get the buildings of the St. Louis Exposition upon the Pan- 

 American grounds they would have to be put so closely to- 

 gether that one could hardly pass between them. The fair 

 w'as projected upon these immense lines because it was to 

 celebrate an event of immense national importance. It is 

 probable that this countr}- never could have saved the Union, 

 or protected itself, and never could have taken its place among 

 the world powers, without this territory, but with it it has 

 become great, and it is steadily increasing, until today, as we 

 all know, America is a world power. 



The general scheme of the St. Louis Exposition was very 

 much like that of Chicago, or the Columbian. The buildings 

 were grouped something similar. There were two features 

 in the srand central scheme that called to mind the beautiful 

 Court of Honor at Chicago, although larger and more ex- 

 tensive. Chicago was beautiful in that respect, yet the ter- 

 ritory was flat. The Administration Building and the beauti- 

 ful Peristvle at the further end of the Grand Basin, as all who 



Agr. — 17 



