142 New York at the World's Columbian Exposition. 



people who constitute the metropolis in conveying to Chicago their cor- 

 dial congratulations upon her unequaled success in this great undertaking. 

 The world needed a demonstration of what the American people in a new 

 country, under new conditions and without traditions, could accomplish, 

 and they have had it. 



There is no rivalry, and can be none between New York and Chicago. 

 New York is misunderstood because she has got so big that she has passed 

 beyond the possibility of exhibiting her interests or enthusiasm. Things 

 happen in New York every day and pass unnoticed which take rank with 

 cyclones and earthquakes in other places. At the time when the press of 

 this country and abroid was jBUed with the prodigious growth of the towns 

 of the West and Northwest, there was a development going on in real 

 estate west of Central Park which, in increase of population, in the cost 

 of construction of buildings and enhancement of value of land was 

 greater than in any three or four of the booming towns of the country. 



The period of rivalry of cities in the United States has passed ; 

 the period of competition of municipalities for competitive trade has gone 

 by. The prodigious development of the internal commerce of the coun- 

 try and the equally remarkable increase of transportation facilities to 

 meet it have thrown upon the great cities of tlie United States opportuni- 

 ties and responsibilities greater than they can manage. It was possible 

 twenty-five years ago for any great city by increasing by liberal appropri- 

 ations its rail and water communications to side-track a rival. But that 

 day has gone by. 



The United States, stretching as it does from ocean to ocean, requires 

 two commercial capitals, one for the coast and the other for the interior. 

 The capital on the coast, which must necessarily be the capital of the con- 

 tinent, has been fixed for half a century. The capital of the interior has 

 been located by this fair. Chicago is to be the center, gathering the pro- 

 ducts of the fields and of the mines, and New York the reservoir for their 

 distribution through the country and abroad. 



New York can afford to exercise the quality for which she is distin- 

 guished of recognizing and applauding the merits of Boston and Phila- 

 delphia, of Chicago and St. Louis, of New Orleans and San Francisco. 

 She is proud of Duluth and Kansas City, of Portland, Oregon, and Port- 

 land, Maine. She knows that by the attractions of gravitation and oppor- 

 tunity, which have made London and Paris, the best products of literature, 

 of the professions, of the arts, of the dramatic and of the lyric stage, seek 

 fame and fortune in New York. She knows that she is and every year 

 will become more potentially the literary and financial center of the 

 North American and South American continents. Every university, every 



