The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-07-14
IT is HARD WORK
To Arrange For a Big
Celebration.
Some Of the Things tho Managers
Must Arrange For.
Thousands of Details to
Perfect.
What 1t Means to Lay Out a Gel
ebration Even For One Day.

A big celebration like that Portland Is
30 have on August 9Th in connection
with Old Home Week. develops more
schemes for money making than would
seem possible For example the members
of the committee which has this celebra-
ton in charge are being con stantly visit
ed by people who have all manner of
plans for making few dollars in con-
nection with the show and who want the
endorsement or official sanction OF the
committee to give them standing with
the public.
The first men TO call upon the mem
bsrs Of the present committee were they
who are agents for the fire works com
panies They came TO Portland before
the announcement of the celebration had
been made more than day or so.
Three or four of them were on hand very
early and they all had unusually good
offers to make ana We're prepared to give
fireworks exhibitions costing from hum
dreds to thousands of dollars. After
these came the men with the official
programme ideas, the official prospectus
plans, the Old Home Week stamps, the
official souvenirs, the official badges, the
official photographers, the men and
women who want their poetry adopted
to be read at the Old Home Week meet
ing; those who wish to get some part of
the appropriation to devote to some
special objects which they claim add
features to the celebration. Besides
these there are many other men and
women who have all manner of schemes
for making few dollars on this one
day. There are young men who have
plans for providing rooms for the strang
ers who are coming here and very in
genious plans they are too. Then there
are the decorators who want contracts
for decorating the City buildings and
streets and great many others besides.
The secretary receives letters from
bands who want engagements and who
make all kinds OF oilers to come here
on August 9TH, and from organizations
who want to take part in the parade.
In fact from the very first there has bee n
a crowd of these people who have offers
TO make and whose plans must be con-
sidered. In a measure they aid the COM
mittee a great deal in the formulating of
their plans, but as all of these matters
must be carefully considered and duly
weighed, it requires no end of time and
patience to dispose Of them.
1t is doubtful If many people in Port
land realize the work there is in making
plans for such celebration. Take the
morning parade on August eth, for ex-
ample. 1t is a pageant which lasts but
an hour or so. and yet it is extremely
expensive and the details of this feature
alone are almost innumerable. There
are horses, horse equipments, and car
riages to provide. Then the details of
forming the parade must be arranged,
the transportation of those organizations
from out of the city to provide for, the
arrangements made for feeding those
who come from out of the city, the bands
must be secured, the route of the parade
settled upon and arrangements made
for reviewing stand, ice water along the
route of march, street sprinkling and
plans for the withdrawal of the review
ing party from the procession in time to
reach the stand, ana not delay the march
too long. The city must construct
landing stage for the men from the fleet
to disembark upon, the arrangements
with the commander of the fleet must be
made and there are thousand and one
items of this kind which must receive
personal attention and be prepared for
in advance or the pageant of an hour
Will not be a success.
In this case there are hundreds of
other details to be determined and ar
ranged, such as the inviting of guests,
plans for their entertainments, receptions,
etc, The other features OF the day must
all be carefully planned out before
hand, each costs lot of money and re-
quires much patience and time to settle.
All of this the committee must be fa-
miliar with even to the smallest detail.
They have to arrange a system of secur-
ing the necessary funds and carefully
estimate the figure upon the estimated
expenses of each expenditure The CEN
tire of all of this is the Mayor, on whose
shoulders falls the most of the work.
He Is the first person to whom run all |
schemers, all who have ide as and all who
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