Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-03-14
IT IS sEs,lDea,se.


peSuuckeu We get. AS ioE TIE usei'
who have the work to do. the chiefs of
the entire enterprise and the directing
minds of the hundred and one depart
ments. it is wonder that they have any
mind left at all. One of them said the
other evening that his head felt as
though it was only network of cob
webs, and that when night came the do
ings of the day seemed like dream. -
During a single hour of the day in
question no less than 40 cards had been
brought to him. Is important questions
relating to weighty matters, and which
required prompt consideration, reached
his desk through the circumlecution hu-
reau, while the boy in attendance at the
telephone kept plying him with queries
from people down town who were ''hohl-
ing the wire" so that they might be MS
sured of an immediate answer. That
in greater or lesser degree" said he.
sis the kind Of experience some of us
have TO go through day in and day out,
and 10 hours day at that" No wonder
he felt as though his brains had gone out
and cobwebs had come in.
And there will be cobwebs in the crani-
they try to do too much in the sightsee-
ing line. \ few months ago we thought
we knew all about it. We spread ont
upon our desk a birdseye view of the
grounds. veritable work of art, by the
way, with its buildings in red and blue
and white and lavender, and its gold
mounted domes and its beautiful walks
and we figured out how easy it would be
to get from the Manufactures building
to the Administration building, and
thence over to the Woman's temple, and
thence to the rendezvous of the little
ones, and around the Electrical building
and over the bridge to Uncle Sans head
quarters, and so on until all the main
structures of the White City had been
covered. and we could go over to our
own state building, which ever one it
happened to be, and take rest
1t looked very simple on paper and
without any figures to start one thinking.
but it doesn't look SO simple to the peo-
pie whose business now compels them to
make the rounds through snow up to
their ankles, nor will it look SO simple to
er Brown of Kansas when they start in
on their sightseeing expedition next sum-
mer. 1t will behoove them, unless their
visiting be prolonged into weeks or
months, to make up their minds before
hand what they propose to see and then
tn make SIRE that they see IT.
If they expect to take in anything and
everything, to start out at the farthest
end of the Midway plaisance and to
continue to the very extremity of the
fair grounds proper, making mental
picture of one attraction after another
and storing their minds with informa-
ton concerning the same, they will find
out before they get back home that they
have tried to do too much, and that,
like the old man in the fable who tried
to please everybody and succeeded in
pleasing nobody and losing his donkey
in the bargain, their visit to the great
Worlds show has not been productive
of the good results that might have ac-
crued from more concentrated and sys-
tematic method of exploration among
its wonders.
Don't understand me as suggesting
that there is too much to the Worlds
fair. One cannot have too much of a
good thing. as the boy said when re-
monstrated with for filling himself up to
his very neck with mince pie. 1t was in
tended to be u big thing. The master
minds that are responsible for the enter
prise as it stands today started out to
make it the biggest thing that the world
had ever seen, SO big that when, in days
to come, the next Worlds fair of the
North American continent is captured
by New York or Boston or Philadelphia
OF San Francisco or some big place that
just now is only>a barren plain, its pro-
jectors will find that they have all they
can do, and perhaps more than they can
do, to equal to say nothing of eclipsing,
the record of the Windy City. And GER
tainly they have succeeded.
There is something that will appeal in
personal sense to every woman and
imam that enters the grounds, whether
she or he be in search of amusement, of
enlightenment or of instruction. Stu
dents of science or art or philosophy or
| education or medicine, of hundreds of
other things, will find each department
in which they can linger for hours and
90 away feeling all the better for having
done it. Bnt the individual that at
tempts to take it all in without any fixed
or definite motive beyond desire to
boast afterward that he has ''seen it all"
will be the one that in reality has seen
the least, and who will be the first to
complain that there is "too much Of it."
1t is not one man show. No one pair
of legs, no one pair of eyes, is going to
take in the ramifications of Jackson park
from center to circumference. That may
be accepted as gospel.
And then there are the outside attrac-
tions-that is to say, the objects of inter
est that are part and parcel of the bust
ness end of the enterprise, features that
have been granted space in fair terri
tory, but will be permitted to charge
fee for admission independent of the half
dollar turned over for admission to the
park grounds. The number of these is
legion. In fact, there is one or more for
every day from the first of May to the
last of October. Monster wheels, or
rather monster wheel; a big theatrical
spectacle, novel in design and daring in
conception; colonies of Indians and Es-
kimos and Cingalese; reproductions of
streets in Cairo. Mohammedan mosques
and Irish villages-something or other
from people of all lands and Of all
tongues. How are we to see it all?