The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-26
AT FAIR MAKE BEST EXHIBIT Seattle Claims to Be Most
 Cosmopolitan City SCENES AT FAIR GROUNDS Some of the Most Novel "Barkers" in the Business Are Found on "The Pay Streak at AIaska-Y Yukon
 Show.

Seattle, September &.@SpecfaL) L)-Many and varied as are the exhibits of all kinds at the AlaslVa-Y ukon- Pacific exposition. the most fascinating single exhibit of all is the people New York city and Snn Francisco have vigorously disputed Seat ties claim to the distinction of being the most cosmopolitan city in the New World. The skeptic from Gotham or the Golden Gate should he but visit Seattle this summer and should he possesses al least the modicum of candor that all good Americans boast. would at least have to grudgingly admit that the exposition city is more nearly the American cosmos than any other metropolis. First avenue on Saturday evening. or the famous pay streak in the fair grounds on Sunday afternoon would readily lead one to be Iieve that congress of nations had just adjourned. Black and white. yellow and red, the observer will see every race every cline under the sun represented The prosperous side-whiskered banker will alight from his autoA and in the monde script crowd. grouped negiigently about on the sidewalk. and watching him with a
 
 face and heavy sombrero of the Mexican; the waxed mustache, patent-leather boots and black chapeau of the FrenehInan, the silken robe and glossy queue of the Chinaman and the crinkIy hair, muti-col- ored sash and giant turban of the Hin do. And yet no race, no class will pre- dominate sufficiently to disturb the gen eral impression of Americanism in the crowds.
 Of Cosmopolitan Character.
 A band which holds forth at one of the amusement parks in the exposition boasts IA nationalities, although it has but 29 pieces. A policeman on the cor ner will tell you that good politics de- mands that no less than seven national ities be recognized on the force. Of d. Sunday visitor in Seattle can excuse non-attendance at church, for there are churches of every denomination that has ever been heard of and even two or three in the foreign quarter that have not, out side of the Pacific northwest. News papers and magazines are published in two more foreign languages in Seattle than in New York city. If there are palaces on ferry avenue and Boren ave nue that would not disgrace Spruce or Walnut streetS-and there are-there can also be found in the tide-hats of South Seattle wretched dwellings that remind one poignantly of New Yorks Bowery or Five Points, or of Chicago's Packing town as depicted in Upton Sinclair's Jun gle''
 But if Seattle under ordinary circum- stances is vartegated and interesting. at exposition time 1t is doubly so. Viewed from an angle of the tourist or of the exhibitor, the humanity on display is one perpetual show" in itself as changing as kaleidoscope, as broad in its horizon as panorama, as gripping in the way it 1 commands the interest as moving pie ture show. In fact the fair might be regarded as a mammoth, never-ending moving picture film, with pictures chang ing momentarily, and with each as ab- sorbing as the last
 The exhibitors themselves form an in- teresting community. Eighty per cent of them are from back east and as back j east' means anywhere from Montana to Florida, or from Texas to Maine, it is plain to see that the term 'easterner'' is too loose to mean anything. Dapper young clerks from New York or Phila- delphia occupy booths next door perhaps to dark-eyed southern beauties repre- senting a Savannah or a New Orleans firm. On one side of the corridor may be seen a raw-boned rangy Canadian, earn estly demonstrating the superiority of ! Canadian-made machinery; across the aisle, one will see a trim Chicago girl, in immaculate shirtwaist and blue serge skirt, showing how easy 1t Is to darn stockings and do fancy work on a sew | ing machine.
 College Men PredomInate.
 It is estimated that 40 per cent of the | male employees of the A. Y. P. corpora l ton are college men. Certainly the great bulk of the positions requiring endurance, | lustiness of throat and unlimited nerve have gone to the university crowd, as they are called. Pennsylvania, Princeton, | Cornell, Michigan, Yale, Columbia, Chi cago, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Syr- acuse, Stanford. California. Georgetown l and the University of Washington all 1 have substantial delegations. The men hold every manner of positions. responsi- ] ble and routine, hard and easy, from !, boosters for cafes and chauffeurs and | demonstrators to star reporters on the newspapers and building superintendents | and guardsmen captains. They are a happy, irresponsible crew. with practical l jokes and fraternity reunions and little ] Bohemian dinners to while away their | leisure. But they are an aggressive and ~riciant crowd too: no class of employees.