After the successful world fairs in London and Paris the Berlin press argued at large for a world fair to be held in Berlin as well. Especially the "Verein Berliner Kaufleute und Industrieller" (Association of Merchants and Industrialists) was on the forefront - the association had been founded for the industrial exposition of 1879. Its chairman Max Ludwig Goldberger took it as a personal aim of life to make a world fair happen in Berlin. Goldberger had lived in the US for a time and he had written a book called "Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten" (literally "country of boundless possibilities", the German wording for the catch phrase of "the land of opportunity"). He knew quite well of the international benefits for the industry deriving from a world fair. With the Eiffel Tower showing the industrial strength on the world fair in Paris of 1889 the national press was nearly frantic about a German world fair to show off to the "Erbfeind" (hereditary enemy).