CANADA IN THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION
The year of 1915 will forever remain illuminated in the history of
Canada and of the United States as that of the celebration of two
momentous events: the completion of the Panama-Pacific Canal, uniting
the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; and the bridging the entire
continent, from Montreal to Vancouver, from New York to San
Francisco, by human speech. The achievement of the Panama Canal was
at a cost of three hundred and ten millions of dollars; the
achievement of "the voyage of the voice" across the continent, by the
Bell telephone system, cost that company twice the amount of the
expenditure demanded by the canal. During the next decade, the Bell
Company propose to expend an even greater sum in the perfecting of
all the future possibilities that may arise.
The completion of the Panama Canal is one of the signal events in the
world's history. It changes the great currents of commerce; it has
reduced the distance between the central points of the Atlantic and
the Pacific coasts from 13,000 to 5000 miles, and it will greatly
reduce the cost of coaling on voyages from coast to coast. From
Colon, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, to Balboa, on the Pacific
side, {228} was formerly, by the water route around Cape Horn, a
distance of 10,500 nautical miles; through the canal the distance is
44 miles. The time required between these two points formerly
approximated to 126 days; now the distance between is but one day.
These elementary statistics reveal to some degree the inestimable
value of the achievement to all the nations of the world.
It was fitting that such an achievement should be celebrated with an
exposition of the arts, the resources, the productions, and the
inventions of the civilised world. It was the vivid drama of
international achievement. There were more than eighty thousand
single exhibits, and groups of related exhibits, representing every
phase of the highest efforts of man in contemporary progress.
Industries and economics, inventions and discoveries, arts and
sciences, education and ethics, met under the striking architectural
beauty and in a scenic setting never before equalled in any land.
Against a background of the blue Pacific lying under a glowing
western sky, with a splendour of decoration hardly paralleled, the
scene was one worthy to be forever perpetuated in the world's
history. It struck the note of a new life. The contrast between
this illustration of the development of the arts of peace--the vision
of the spirit that united East and West in the common cause of all
that ennobles and exalts--and those awful scenes of carnage that were
raging in central Europe on the other side of {229} the globe, was a
contrast that might well employ the genius of Thucydides to depict,
with a pen lighted from the living coal on the altar. Yet, such is
the leading of divinely-guided destiny, each was doing its work in
the regeneration of the world. The seemingly irreparable calamity of
the war was sweeping away old conditions that the new life of
spiritualisation should enter in; it was the preparing the way of the
Lord and making His paths straight. Faith constantly discerned the
triumphant exhortation:
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting
doors; and the King of Glory shall come in!"
More than three hundred congresses met in these palaces under the
shadow of the Tower of Jewels; in the halls of music, of art, or in
the terraced pavilion of the Court of the Universe. All were
welcomed with that royal hospitality that has ever characterised the
generous heart of San Francisco. These congresses dealt for the most
part with the vital topics of the day. They concerned themselves
less with the life of literature and more with the life of nature;
less with the life that takes note of abstract and profound
intellectual problems and more with the practical applications of
ethical truth. The congresses thus discussed open-air life, foods,
clothing, motoring, the political enfranchisement of women, new
theories in education, hygiene, economics, charities. In the
building of Liberal {230} Arts there was one exhibit from the
Observatory on Mount Lowe, labelled by the director of that
institution, as the stuff of which the universe and man were made:
that of electrons and mentoids. The distinctively new note of the
twentieth century was everywhere in evidence. The Exposition planted
its standard in an approaching Future, not in a receding Past. By
this standard alone could it be truly judged. The salons of fine art
did not measurably offer, in any extent, the quality of art displayed
at Chicago in 1893, nor was it comparable with that transcendently
superb collection of paintings and sculpture that concentrated the
inspiration of the centuries in the Paris Exposition of 1900.
Naturally, there were physical barriers of space and the barriers of
war conditions that effectually determined this. It was easy for
Europe and the Orient to send to Paris their most adequate
representation. And France, alone, is so rich in her national
treasures of art, both of the past and of contemporary work, that her
own display alone would have made a profound impression. For San
Francisco, in 1915, conditions effectually debarred her from securing
much of the great art of the world. Very wisely, she did not dash
herself blindly and unavailingly against destiny, but wisely struck
the key of desire from a new centre. The result was in that the
Exposition suggested its own ideals with but slight reference to
traditions.
Singularly fortunate was it, indeed, in its administration. {231}
President Charles C. Moore seemed the man best fitted for the high
and responsible place that he so ably filled. Never was a great
world-exposition conducted with a more remarkable combination of
wisdom, courtesy, admirable judgment, and comprehensive treatment.
Not less fortunate was the great undertaking in its vice-presidents:
William H. Crocker, R. B. Hale, I. W. Hellman, jun., M. H. De Young,
Leon Sloss, and James Bolph, jun., while Dr. Frederick J. V. Skiff,
as Director-in-Chief; George Hough Perry, at the head of the
Publicity Department; and Mr. A. M. Mortesen, as Traffic Manager,
were all felicitously equipped for their special service.
"The Future is our kingdom,"
said George Sterling, the poet of the day, whose poem entitled _The
Builders_ was read by George Arlett, a member of the California State
Commission, at the closing ceremonies.
Mr. Sterling struck the keynote of the splendid enterprise in these
stanzas:
"We do but cross a threshold into day.
Beauty we leave behind
A deeper beauty on our path to find
And higher glories to illume the way.
The door we close behind us is the Past;
Our sons shall find a fairer door at last.
"A world reborn awaits us! Years to come
Shall know its grace and good,
When wars shall end in endless brotherhood
And birds shall build in cannon long since dumb.
Men shall have peace, though then no man may know
Who built this sunset city long ago."
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Only nine years had passed since San Francisco had been practically
destroyed by a sudden and terrible calamity. But the spirit of the
Golden Gate laughs at calamity and with a magician's wand transmutes
it into success. Only two years after this devastation San Francisco
raised millions for the exposition she had planned. No earthquake
could entomb her spirit, nor could it be drowned by any tidal wave
that the Pacific is capable of providing. With that lofty poet,
William Vaughan Moody, who, alas, "died too soon" for the nation
which his lyre entranced, San Francisco might well declare:
"From wounds and sore defeat
I made my battle-stay;
Winged sandals for my feet
I wove of my delay."
The Panama-Pacific Exposition opened on February 15, 1915, and closed
on December 4 of the same year. It was participated in by the
Argentine Republic, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Equador, France, Guatemala,
Haiti, Holland, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Nicaragua,
New Zealand, Panama, Persia, Peru, Portugal, Salvador, Spain, Sweden,
Uruguay, and Venezuela.
This enumeration of the countries participating will of itself
suggest the somewhat new class of exhibits, as differing from those
of older countries in former world-displays. The Panama-Pacific was
thus its own precedent. Its claims to the novel and {233} the unique
were extremely well sustained. It was the second exposition held on
the Pacific coast, and it had the longest duration by four months of
any ever held before.
The grounds comprised over 600 acres, with a water-front of two and a
half miles, on San Francisco Bay, just east of the Golden Gate. On
the other three sides they were partly enclosed by hills, thus
forming a natural amphitheatre. There were eleven colossal palaces
with many lesser buildings. These palaces were grouped in a series
of rectangles connected by courts and arcades with an Andalusian
charm. The courts fascinated the eye by their colonnades, arches,
domes, and glittering minarets. They were adorned by mural paintings
of symbolic significance, by fountains, sunken gardens, and
sculptured art, with niches and restful seats. Festival Hall, with
its superb organ, where a concert was held every day, contained an
auditorium seating three thousand people, and there were also ten
smaller halls. The National Government staged its own special
exhibit on a ten-acre space, appropriating two million dollars for
this purpose, and this exhibit included a representation of the
building of the Panama Canal.
In all this imposing world-panorama of twentieth-century exhibits,
Canada led the procession. Whatever the enthralling nature of
spectacles offered by other nations, it was the Dominion that set the
pace. Canada, an entrancing, garlanded figure, {234} aglow with her
abounding enthusiasms; her resistless energy; her dreams of a future
that crystallise themselves in her all-conquering empire
building--Canada the Spellbinder assumed her place as if by divine
right, and certainly by common consent, as the very Winged Victory
flying on into a golden future. The Canadian Building, whose classic
beauty would have done no discredit to the Parthenon had it also
occupied a place on the "Holy Hill" that overlooks all Attica; this
structure, so simple yet so rich in architectural effect, her main
portal guarded by great lions sculptured on either side, was one of
the most impressive creations of the entire Exposition. With a
singular comprehensiveness of grouping, the exhibits in this building
represented the Dominion in her completeness. It was no one province
that engaged the attention to the exclusion of another; it was the
Dominion herself, in the unity of her vast empire, rather than any
merely tributary feature of the country. In the inscrutable magic
that wrought this effect lay the secret of its spellbinding quality.
It was a power that enthralled every visitor who crossed the
threshold, and brought him back to study it again.
How was this result achieved? The question was in the air. Every
one asked it. No one could exactly answer it, but every one shared
the wonder. The statistical data of the Dominion was impressive
enough for almost any commensurate influence; yet mere facts and
figures could give little clue to the {235} mysterious effect on the
throngs of visitors. One might read that the population of Canada
had increased from five millions to seven millions in ten years; and
that fifty-five per cent. of this population was engaged in
conquering Nature, and transmuting her plains into golden harvests as
a granary of the world; that her Government is expending ten millions
a year in agricultural instruction alone; that her root and fodder
crop each year is valued at almost two hundred millions of dollars,
representing an area of nine million acres, and that the value of her
field crops annually is five hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
One might read that her live stock, valued at a given time at seven
hundred millions, increased a hundred and fifty per cent. within one
decade only. This visitor might recall the shrewd assertion of James
J. Hill that "there is land enough in Canada, if thoroughly tilled,
to feed every person in Europe"; and that, while at present only
thirty-six million acres are under cultivation, there are four
hundred and forty millions, thirty per cent. of her entire area, that
are available for agricultural use. Yet not all these impressive
statistics can alone account for the innate magic, the indescribable
witchery, that Canada flings about all who come to look upon these
marvellous panoramas in her building. Statistical data have their
uses and inspire respect, while one cons them by heart and feels sure
he is thereby equipped to give a reason for the faith that is in him;
but in {236} his heart he knows that all the figures in the realm of
mathematics could not really account for his consciousness of the
fascinations of the Dominion. A leading journal of San Francisco,
advocating the desire that the Californian exhibit should be made a
permanent one, proceeded to point the moral and adorn the tale by
pointing to the Canadian exhibition. The editorial argument thus ran:
"Canada, with her complete exhibit, has won much praise from
Exposition sightseers and has set the precedent for a permanent
exhibit. One reason why our northern neighbour was able to make such
a splendid impression at the Jewel City from the first was because,
as its display was permanent, much of it had been installed in a
European exhibition and had come directly here from across the
Atlantic. The packing cases were ready to be opened and the best
arrangement for the resources of Canada had been determined by
experience.
"California needs to be an active participant in future expositions,
as active as the Dominion of Canada.
* * * * * * * * *
"With a permanent exhibit California will be ready at the first sound
of an exposition reveille to rush to the front, full panoplied in
luscious armour of golden butter, armed with 42-cm. cases of
preserved fruits and with glittering shields of virgin gold.
"Then bring on your Canada!"
The skill with which the Canadian exhibit was grouped impressed
itself first as a work of art, and only secondarily as a thing of
commercial value. This skill in presentation was not the least
element in its attractiveness. Here was Dawson, shooting out rays of
violet, vermilion, and orange, myriads of lights in all the colours
of the spectrum. A panoramic {237} view of a wheat belt that would
feed the world; Vancouver, with the great elevator at the water's
edge; and with that, was Vancouver's prophetic dream of 1923, when
three hundred millions of bushels of grain will be sent from Canada
to Europe by the way of the Panama Canal; again there were the homes
of farmers, attractive and realistic; an orchard scene introducing
real fruit, and where realism ended and art began it was difficult to
discover; the trees were laden with fruit; apples lay in heaps under
the shade of the trees; young men and maidens were gathering the rosy
and the golden fruit, tripping over the green turf so naturally that
one half wondered if they as well as the apples were not actual?
Here was a section out of British Columbia showing a sportsman's
happy hunting-ground; there were snow-capped mountains, but with real
water trickling down; an eagle, fierce, tempestuous, with widespread,
flapping wings, is hovering in the air in a manner that would do
credit to Heller, the wizard of necromancy on the stage. From
yawning crevices bears emerge, until the visitor instinctively
shrinks away, and the beaver is seen constructing his dam. Was it
Governor Frontenac who recommended to the King of France that the
beaver should be adopted as Canada's trade mark?
There are mounted duck, grouse, elk, buffalo, and sullen, scowling
carabou gazing at the surging throng. There are buffalo from the
Peace River region, a thousand miles north of the {238} border
between Canada and the States, where these hordes formerly ranged in
countless droves, and which to-day is one of the finest of
wheat-growing regions.
Nothing is more interesting to the curious visitor than are the views
of typical Canadian homes. Some that are shown are but the growth of
twelve years; from the time of the first turning of the plough in the
prairie soil to completion of the two-storied, balconied house, with
its broad piazza, set in the pretty grounds whose shady trees were
planted as seedlings, with gay parterres of flowers in and around the
curving walks and paths. The facilities for thus acquiring a home,
by taking up the usual allotment of a hundred and sixty acres of
land, which can be done on such favourable terms, turned the
attention of many visitors toward the Dominion.
Another exhibit of great interest was that of power plant models, for
every industrial centre in Canada has this abundance of power at very
low rates, owing to the enormous supply of water power in the
country. The canneries, too, form one of the most important
industries, and their extent is well illustrated in the display made
in the Canadian building.
There are cases upon cases of specimens of Canada's precious
minerals: gold from British Columbia, silver ore from Cobalt, gold
from the Yukon, and copper and various other minerals, with
representative specimens of coal deposits. Other glass cases {239}
again display much of the flora of Canada, in a profusion of flowers
whose rich and brilliant colouring attracts attention; and there are
curious grasses and rare plants and foliage.
In one corridor are a group of life-like portraits in oil of King
George and Queen Mary, of several of the Governors-General of the
Dominion, and of many of the Government officials, Sir John A.
Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and Premier Borden. In this
connection it is rather interesting to recall that the appellation of
the term Dominion to the country was due to a member of Parliament
who, after Sir John Macdonald had arranged for the confederation of
the nine provinces, and a name was being discussed, said that he had
that morning read in his Bible the words: "His Dominion shall be from
sea to sea," and the happy augury was seized and the term applied to
the vast and splendid country.
Colonel William Hutchinson's hospitable offices were a favourite
rendezvous for appreciative visitors. Here gathered Canadians and
Canada-lovers to discuss the latest news from the Dominion. So
largely, however, had Colonel Hutchinson's life been passed in the
noted national and international expositions of the world that for
fifteen years he has hardly been more than three months at a time in
his home in Ottawa.
The Grand Trunk building offered, daily, a moving picture exhibition
that attracted many onlookers, and so real were the effects that when
in {240} one a torrent of water came rushing over a cataract, the
visitor near involuntarily turned for a seat farther back. In this
building, as in the national one, the Dominion was laid under tribute
in representation that interpreted the essential life of Canada.
The superb collection of photographs of the scenic mountain route of
the Grand Trunk Pacific was a perennial attraction to visitors in the
exhibit made by this transcontinental railway. It revealed anew how
the completion of the Grand Trunk System is an achievement which in
its daring, its magnitude of interests, and the enterprise involved
was one of the great twentieth-century events, and one only to be
compared with the opening of the Panama-Pacific Canal itself.
[Illustration: Looking towards Mount Munn from the Valley of Flowers]
The Reverend Arthur Barry O'Neill, C.S.G., after visiting the
Exposition, wrote that he considered the Canadian and the Grand Trunk
buildings as instances of "artistic genius beyond all praise," and as
a "lasting honour and credit to the Canadian Government." In a
sonnet in which Mr. O'Neill celebrates the youth of Canada, the brave
lads who have gone to the front, and who
"... have writ a score
Of valour true, surpassing old romance.
And lent new pride to each Canadian's glance,"
the poet adds:
"And here, as well, where contests fair of Peace,
The nations wage along the Golden Gate,
Huge throngs acclaim the Maple Leaf, nor cease
The chorused praise that makes our hearts elate."
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It is not the aim in this chapter to describe the whole of this
interesting and beautiful Exposition, but only the contribution made
by Canada; yet one can hardly refrain from noting the charm of the
Alaskan exhibit with its panoramic presentation of the Muir glacier;
nor that of the Santa Fe Railway in the "Zone," where the very
realistic and wonderful portrayal of the Grand Canyon in Arizona was
one of the great attractions of the entire grounds.
The Palace of Transportation was one of the extremely interesting
features of the Exposition. Here could be studied the latest
scientific methods of the day in many details not familiar to the
general public, as, for instance, the method of handling mails on
fast trains and the delivery at stations while the full speed of the
train is maintained; many types of marine transportation; and still
more of aircraft, the navigation of the air being one of the things
constantly demonstrated to throngs of people who were absorbingly
interested in the possibilities of aerial flight.
The experimental panorama of the Panama Canal itself was an
appropriate feature. At the Exposition in Paris in 1900 the journey
on the Trans-Siberian Railway was produced with extraordinary
realism. The traveller entered a luxurious train, a very real train
comprising drawing-room and dining cars, as well as a library car,
and the passing of the long panorama of the entire scenery of that
noted route gave a very vivid idea of what one {242} would see in the
actual journey. The California Exposition arranged a similar exhibit
of a journey through the Panama Canal. The voyager was invited to
the deck of a steamer, and ingenious illusions illustrated the
sailing from ocean to ocean.
San Francisco was a gala city through the entire summer. Not the
least of the enjoyments were the sails in the splendid local boats,
with glass-enclosed decks, across the Bay to Oakland and to Berkeley,
the latter city the seat of the University of California. There were
excursions for every day in the week for those who wished to vary the
scene, and the Exposition itself constantly presented new attractions
and new features with the great number of congresses, the numerous
lectures, and perpetual fêtes.
The close of the Panama-Pacific Exposition was a scene worthy to live
in historic pageantry. The day was one of June dropped into the
heart of December. The sun was burning against a cloudless sapphire
sky. Within the very radiance of the Tower of Jewels, on one of the
terraces of the Court of the Universe, was erected a stand on which
were assembled the Directors, the Commissioners of Foreign
Governments, the representatives of the Army and Navy of California,
and the representatives of the City of San Francisco. From the
arches of the Rising and the Setting Sun the sculptured figures
looked down. There was orchestral music, and the reading of Mr.
Sterling's poem from which lines have been quoted in preceding pages.
The {243} message of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States,
was flashed around the world at the moment it was given to the
Exposition. President Wilson well expressed the significance of the
undertaking as one "eloquent of the new spirit which is to unite East
and West and make all the world partners in the common enterprises of
progress and humanity."
The guards marched away; the sailors fired a salute; the Exposition
banner descended. President Moore's pictorial words have
immortalised the scene:
"Night came on, and the world's wonder of lights; the Exposition
lights that would never shine again--a red glow on Kelham's towers,
rose flame in the porches of the Machinery Palace, dim reflections in
the Lagoon of the Palace of Fine Arts and the broad basin in the
Court of the Four Seasons, the splendour of the giant monstrances in
the Court of Abundance, the silver phosphorescence of the Adventurous
Bowman on his column and the Lord of the Isthmian Way on his
rack-o'-bones horse, the tremulous frosty shimmer of the hundred
thousand jewels of the great spire; and over all, the long bands,
like lambent metal, of bronze and crimson and green and blue, from
the forty-eight searchlights on the Yacht Harbour Mole, bands that
barred the heavens so far that they deceived the eye and in the
south-east appeared to converge beyond the hills of the city.
"Not abruptly, but slowly and gently, the lamps {244} grew dark, the
beams of the searchlights faded, and arches and courts and colonnades
and towers and sculptured forms of men and women and angels and great
beasts receded into the friendly night, lighted now by the glimmer of
the winter stars, Orion and Sirius, Aldebaran and the Hyades. And
through the starlight 'Taps' dropped in liquid notes from bugles high
on the Tower of Jewels."
[Illustration: Bulkley Gate (150 feet high), Bulkley River]
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