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| 1933 Century of Progress Exposition Documents |
Crowd Jams Fair
Opening
Bands, Cavalry, Flags and Drums Herald New Era.
Farley, Horner and Kelly Speak at Ceremonies in Soldier Field.
A Pageant of Color.
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Source: Chicago Daily News, 27 May 1933, pgs. 1, 4.
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By Robert J. Casey.
Soldier Field, Chicago, May 27.—So they
opened A Century of Progress. They opened it with a racketing of bombs
and the prancing of cavalry and a sunburst of flags that strewed the
lake front for miles.
All along Michigan boulevard and the roads leading through Grant
park the crowd had been in motion for hours before the first shell burst
above the stadium to announce that the first turnstile had turned for
the second world's fair.
It was a slow-moving crowd—unlike any other that has attended any
ceremonial in Chicago in recent years—a crowd that was unwilling to
reach its objective without seeing everything that was to be seen and
there was plenty of pageantry along the line of march. For hours the
streets of the north side had been blocked by mobilizing artillery,
infantry, cavalry, bands and marching societies in the costumes of all
the nations under the sun.
For hours the fair-bound spectators had pressed for space along the
curbs until it seemed that all Chicago had quit work to stand and watch.
No Ceremony as Doors Open.
Over along the lake the weird city of the Century of Progress had
opened its doors without official reception committees, waving o banners
or ruffle of drums at 8:30 and here the spectacle that most Chicagoans
have come to know in its surface appearances at least, took on a new
significance.
With people in the streets and signs of life on the madly colored
terrace this strange agglomeration of planes and angles seemed entirely
different.
A week ago this queer melange of blatant color had seemed like
something out of another world—uninhabited and uninhabitable. Today,
with men and women in the dress of summer of 1933 circulating through
its dazzling streets it looked no less weird but more understandable.
The great stadium—whose pure doric lines made a dizzy contrast to
the geometrical lines of the buildings on the sky line beyond the bowl—filled slowly.
Honor Farley's Arrival.
The north stands were a bare mountain of unoccupied seats when at
five minutes to 11 the motorcycle escort came down the ramp on to the
field and the bombs were thrown up in a dense barrage to announce the
arrival of Postmaster-General James A. Farley.
Here began the spectacle that had been lacking when the first
50-cent customer registered No. 1 on the turnstile to open the
exposition.
In the middle of the bowl sat a colorful regiment in the native
costumes of the countries represented in the fair—a mass of red, blue
and white that became a wavering flame as a bright, hot sun broke
through a fluff of white clouds.
Blimps Ride Overhead.
Blimps rode overhead amid the puff balls and parachutes of the
bursting bombs. The band of the [pg. 4] Board of Trade Post of the
American Legion, with its blue and white uniforms, massed banners and
two drum majors—came onto the field in its usual position at the head
of the line of march and played America. The crowd stood up and remained
standing while Mr. Farley, Gov. Horner, Mayor Edward J. Kelly and other
city officials rode around the stadium in automobiles.
Mr. Farley took his place in the speakers' stand to be chivvied by
photographers who thought he out to smile more widely on such a gala
occasion. Came other notables to face a similar ordeal. Other bands and
other military contingents—headed by the glittering Black Horse
troop—came down the ramp and dipped their guidons to Mr. Farley as the
official representative of President Roosevelt.
Thirty-six airplanes, hanging wing to wing, came thundering over—so low that they seemed scarcely likely to clear the tower of the Sky
Ride—behind them another group of eighteen.
This was the signal for the arrival of the regular army and navy
contingents.
Artillery Song Played.
A band playing the caisson song headed an exhibit of nickel-plated
cannon—one gun from each battery of the 122d F. A. Behind them rode a
contingent of the 14th cavalry in copper-plated tin hats on scrubbed and
polished horses.
More airplanes roared over. Gracie Allen came in looking for her
brother, thus making it certain that the fair was really open.
A characteristic bit was contributed by a horse named Joe—a proud
member of the 124th F. A. picket line who marched three or four miles to
the stadium and balked squarely in front of the reviewing stand. This
upheld many of the best traditions of the old 124th, which always had a
horse named Joe who fell down or balked when generals and such looked at
him.
A gentleman with a wisp of hay lured Joe back into the march and
there was no further excitement until an aircraft signal truck belonging
to the 202d F.A. imbedded itself in the soft field right on the spot
where Joe had stymied the parade.
With these obsequies out of the way the naval reserves passed in
review, followed closely by a contingent of officers.
Heading the next section of the march was the Black Horse troop of
Culver Military academy—uniformed in gray and white. This outfit and
the academy infantry troop that followed it presented easily the best
exhibition of marching so far seen.
Cadets Escort Queen.
Other groups of cadets from Morgan Park Military academy and St.
John's Military academy came into the bowl as an escort to a series of
red floats on which were seated the court of the fair's queen of
beauty—Lillian Anderson of Racine—fifty girls dressed in white and
cream with broad-brimmed hats of red. Queen Lillian herself occupied a
red throne under a feathery red canopy and smiled prettily at the
reviewing stand with a perfectly executed "eyes right."
But that wasn't the end of it. The groups that had already come
down the runway circled the field and took up positions at the south
end. The vast floor of the stadium became a strange tapestry with
squares of khaki and black and gray silver, relieved here and there by
dazzling patches where the flags and guidons were massed.
There were blazing rectangles where the sun glanced from helmets of
copper, bronze and white enamel and other bursts of color where the
groups of the nations spread across the center zone like a patternless
crazy quilt.
Into this melange, color and shadow were constantly flowing as
other marching organizations completed their circuit of the field and
took up position at the south end. Fife and drum corps in maroon and
scarlet and mauve and red and purple. Bands in kilts skirling bagpipes.
Bands in khaki and red streaming with ribbons and twirling long white
sticks on deep red drums. Colored legionnaires with long silver trumpets
and royal blue coats... Blue jackets in serge and white... Polish
veterans in horizon blue... Boy Scouts in olive drab and brilliant
green.
The wavering motion of the troops standing at rest gave the field a
scintillance that it has never seen before, even on occasions when the
entire bowl was packed with colorful costumes. From the stands it
appeared like the great fan of a peacock's tail waving back and forth in
the sunlight.
National groups followed the military and semimilitary
organizations to add further dazzling detail to the scene, Irish, Greek,
Armenian, Swiss, German, in an array that seemed like something out of
the newsreels... Women's bands in heliotrope and mauve... Women's
marching societies of the Swedish group with frocks of gold and winged
silver helmets.
The Italians contributed a bit of novelty by giving the fascist
salute to the reviewing stand and a lady in the peasant costume of some
unidentified region of the Balkans fell down in the hold previously
occupied by Joe, the horse, and the truck of the antiaircraft regiment.
The parade ended at 12:25 with the appearance of a battered
barouche in which rode a woman in the costume of the '90s, identified by
a label as the queen of the last World's Fair. Bishop George Craig
Stewart arose to deliver the invocation.
By this time several thousand more people had filed into the
stands, but the acreage of seats to the south remained gray and empty.
From some of the tiers near the reviewing stand scores of visitors
looked out upon the teeming streets of the exposition greeted the
speakers' program with yawns and filed out to the superior excitement of
ballyhoo boulevard.
Rufus C. Dawes, in the face of his dwindling audience, recited the
aims of the exposition and the history of its development. He closed
with a welcome to the visitors and made way for Mayor Kelly.
Mayor Kelly began his address with a tribute to Chicago's late
mayor, Anton J. Cermak, under whom the work of building the exposition
was begun. He congratulated Mr. Dawes and the committee and expressed
the belief that the opening of the exposition had come at a time which
history would mark as the end of the great depression.
Gov. Henry Horner, who followed him, recounted the amazing history
of Illinois and the city that came miraculously from the ashes of Fort
Dearborn. He extended the welcome of Illinois to the nations whose
representatives were massed in the bowl before him.
"In vigor and variety," he said, "this Century of
Progress has never been equaled. Imagination has been lifted to the very
skies. Today, forty years after the great fair of 1893, we stand at the
beginning of a new era. The exposition is proof of Chicago's ability to
do things. It was conceived in the teeth of the prospective breakdown of
the world's economic system."
Gov. Horner expressed the hope that the exposition might be more
than a playground for a summer, but a help and encouragement to the
civilization whose progress it celebrates. He closed with a declaration,
that it would stand as a renewed expression of Chicago's motto, "I
will."
The governor was followed by Postmaster Farley, who spoke to a
packed arena, but empty stands. Quoting the motto, "I Will,"
he said that it might be well taken as the motto of the United States,
typifying as it does the spirit that has brought the country through
100years of struggle.
In expressing the regret of President Roosevelt at being unable to
open the world's fair in person, Mr. Farley went to some length to
explain the circumstances that had kept him in Washington.
"Chicago," he said, "was the scene of the
president's greatest triumph. His friendship for your late mayor, Anton
Cermak, was something beyond an ordinary relationship. The most tragic
moment in his life was when he held in his arms that mayor who had
received in his body the bullet that was intended for himself."
Discusses Economic Trends.
Mr. Farley also mentioned that the road from old Fort Dearborn to
the Chicago river is now a region of homes and factories but nobody
seemed concerned about this. He spoke briefly about the queer status of
economics in the world, whereby an upheaval in central Europe may bring
about bank failures in Chicago and the nation's stock market may be
forced up and down by a crop failure in the Argentine.
Mr. Farley closed with the reading of the president's message—a
message of hope that the Century of Progress would mark the beginning of
a century of even greater progress—a progress not only along material
lines, but of world uplifting that will culminate in the greater benefit
of mankind.
Cyrena Van Gordon then sang the national anthem. Mr. Farley was
formally introduced to Queen Lillian, bombs were exploded above Soldier
field, releasing the flags of all nations on little parachutes, a
document was signed with an official pen and the fair was formally
opened.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 29 December 2005
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