144 New Yoek at the "World's Columbian Exposition. 



We are realizing the high conception of the English laureate when he 

 contemplated a parliament of men, a federation of the world. 



We in New York were anxious to secure this great enterprise, and it 

 would have been a city of poor and mean pretensions that would not have 

 sought to hold within its municipal arms the wonderful achievements we 

 behold here to-day, and New York is no mean city. But Chicago won it. 

 I don't believe that there is an intelligent being within the limits of our 

 great metropolis but that has shared in the glorious success of this fair, 

 and in the pride which all feel in this magic, this incomparable enterprise. 



We do not come here in envious mood, but to express to you citizens 

 of Chicago our thanks for your contribution, not only to a majority, but 

 to civilization and Christianity throughout the world. 



The literary programme was concluded by the following address 

 delivered by Seth Low, president of Columbia College : 

 Fellow-citizens of Chicago and New Jork; 



When Governor Dongan, the second of the English Governors of the 

 province of New York, granted a new charter to the city of New York, 

 in 1670 or thereabouts — I give the date from memory — he spoke of the 

 city in that instrument as already au ancient city. From this ancient and 

 historic city, which saw the last of the British soldiery depart when the 

 war of independence had been won; which saw this Federal government 

 established by the inauguration of George Washington as the first Presi- 

 dent of the United States; whose gates at the portal of the continent 

 swung inward for the needy and the oppressed of Europe, and outward 

 into the boundless opportunities of the New World — such a city we have 

 come to bear greetings and congratulations to this masterful and marvel- 

 ous city by the great lake. No exhibition at the fair is to be compared 

 with Chicago itself. Built and rebuilt in little more than half a century, 

 it stands to-day as truly one of the wonders of the world as the Pyramids 

 of Egypt. 



When Aladdin's palace sprang into being in a night, one window was 

 left unfinished. The most skillful artificers of the realm, with all the 

 jewels of the kingdom at their command, worked for a year to complete 

 this window. When it was done it did not compare with the rest of the 

 palace, which a higher order of genuis had completed in a single night. 

 Something like this, I think, must be said of the general setting and effect 

 of every other world's fair compared with the unique beauty and poetry 

 of ihc White City. It is little, I know, in the ears of the citizen of 

 Chicago to say that Chicago has surpassed every other city which 

 embarked in a similar undertaking; one should rather say, perhaps, that 



