The Sculpture of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 
SIGNING THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
By Karl Bitter A group at the base of the 
majestically forward. It is sincerely to be 
hoped that provision will be made for the 
perpetuation of this monument, which now 
stands in staff near the main entrance ol the 
exposition grounds. The equestrian figure 
of De Soto, the discoverer of the mouth ol 
the Mississippi, bv E. C. Potter, who was 
associated with Daniel Chester French in the 
modeling of the Columbus quadriga at Chi¬ 
cago, the Grant statue in Fairmount Park, 
Philadelphia, and the more recent “ Wash¬ 
ington ” in Paris, is well worthy of the con¬ 
spicuous site it occupies in the grand plaza 
in front of the Varied Industries Building. 
A mounted figure of Joliet stands on the 
left of the main entrance, as the De Soto 
stands on the right. It is by A. Phimister 
Proctor, who modeled the great quadriga 
which crowned the portico of the United 
States Pavilion at the 
Paris Exposition in 
1900. 
La Salle, in my judg¬ 
ment, has not been ac¬ 
corded the honor that is 
his due ; for, although 
the historians give to 
Joliet the credit of hav¬ 
ing discovered the upper 
Mississippi, it was La 
Salle who took actual 
possession ot the vast 
territory in the name of 
France by establishing 
a chain of forts and trad¬ 
ing posts the length of 
the river. Even a casual 
reading of Parkman 
would have proved that, 
in a gallerv of historical 
portraits, he is entitled 
to much higher rank 
than the “impudent 
liar,” Hennepin,or than 
Marquette, or than the 
later governors and col¬ 
onizers, Bienville, La¬ 
clede and Renault, of 
whom statues are to be 
seen in the avenues of 
the exposition grounds. 
So, too, it seems that 
greater emphasis should 
have been given to the part played by Jeffer¬ 
son in the annexation of the French territory 
by purchase. Napoleon appears more than 
once in the sculptural scheme, most promi¬ 
nently in a figure, by Mr. French, expressive 
ol the conventional somber mien and absorp¬ 
tion of thought. Why, for once, can we not 
have a Napoleon, on the stage or in marble, 
erect, imperious, self-willed, as the man of 
action and resource who held united Europe 
so long at bay? His whole life was not passed 
in bitter exile at St. Helena, and in 1803 St. 
Helena was an undreamed-of possibility. 
In one respect the St. Louis sculpture 
shows a most distinctive quality of Ameri¬ 
canism. That is in the frequency with which 
Indian themes and types appear. At the 
foot of the Cascades and bordering the 
Grand Basin is ranged a series of figures 
TREATY 
Louisiana Purchase Monument 
