Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-12-08
MANAGEMENT ROASTED.
e. Tracy Tobin Finds Little Good to Say of
Philadelphia Exposition and Commercial
C0npress

Philadelphia Exposition and Commercial
Congress.
Special to the Register.
CHARLESTON, w. Va, December
7.-Governor Atkinson has received the
report of E. Tracy Tobin, the West
Virginia commissioner to the Interna-
tional Export Exposition and delegate
to the International Commercial Con-
gress, just closed in Philadelphia, in
which Mr.. Tobin gives the manage
ment of the congress and of the expo
sition a severe dressing down. He
charges the management of these two
institutions with being narrow, con
tracted and puerile.
Mr.. Tobin is not a West Virginian.
He is a citizen of Philadelphia. Mr..
Neil Robinson, of this city, recommend
ed his appointment by Governor Atkin-
son as a commissioner to represent this
State in the International Export Elk
position, and he was appointed. He
was also appointed a delegate by the
Charleston Business and Industrial AS
ISOLATION to represent it in the Inter-
national Commercial Congress. Both
of these appointments were sought by
Mr.. Tobin, evidently for the purpose
of giving him the rights of a member of
the Commercial Congress and of the
Export Exposition. Whether Mr.. To-
bin had any motive for becoming a
member of those two gatherings be-
yond the honor it conferred upon him
is not certainly known. He visited a
number of places in West Virginia
and pndpaynrcd to Soo,Yro ovhihi+r fra~,
this State in the exposition, and also
endeavored to have a building erected
on the exposition grounds for the pur-
pose of displaying the exhibits from
this State. He had plans of the pro-
posed building made and submitted
them to Governor Atkinson, but as
there were no funds to construct such
a building available in the State treas
ury, even if it were desirable, nothing
further was done with it. Mr.. Tobin
had these plans made at his own ex-
pense and paid out of his own pocket
all the expenses incident to the col
lection of exhibits in this State. He
neither asked nor received any COM
pensation for his services.
Referring in his report to the Inter-
national Export Exposition, Mr.. Tobin
says:
THE conception and purpose of the
exposition for the advancement of
American manufactures and the extern
sion of export trade were highly COM
mendable, and under proper manage
ment could not have failed TO be Of in
e~aluculable advantage to the Export
trade of the United States, yet under
the existing narrow, contracted and
puerile management an opposite fate
was inevitable"
OF the International Commercial
Congress Mr.. Tobin says:
"As in the Export Exposition. so in
this. The management forgot the DOS
sibilities of the situation and instead
of making it the success its manage
ment demanded, and which its person
mel warranted, caused it to become an
incongruous mass of contradiction and
palpable inconsistencies, and while
some good may eventuate in some iso-
lated instances, in the main the man
agement failed utterly in their purposes
and lost the grand opportunity the con-
gress anorde1.~ As matters de-
veloped at the congress, naturally those
of the greatest interest to West Viz
GINA were such as might bear most
directly upon her own principal indus
tries, such as coal, lumber. oil and iron,
and of these it was suggested an in
creased export trade could be devel-
oped of coal TO England, Mexico and
India, of lumber to New Zealand and
the West Indies, of oil to Australia,
Russia, Hungary, Japan and India, OF
iron to England. Australia, Germany,
Spain and Mexico.
Then follows, in Mr.. Tobin's report, a
criticism of the management for their
failure to invite the presentation of pa