The Coolidge examiner., 1933-06-16
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

TT HE gates are thrown open and
! through them pour the thousands.
They surge down a broad thorough
x fare-"the Avenue of Flags" where
lAIl hundreds of banners OF every col
4 & or. hung from 'modernistic" flag
6NA staffs OF kind you've never seen
SS4A before, stream in the wind that
mS%NN blows from or Lake Michigan. And
FA%SSJ0 then the buildings and streets and
Il 1l&AiH avenues and terraces and gardens
\ NAF and courts and lagoons that are
AH Chicagos A Century of Progress
III ~ swallow them up and their places
are taken by other thousands who
follow close behind
They are off upon tour OF the word-the
whole world spread out before their eyes with
IN the space Of 424 acres.
Which foreign land will you visit first Mr.
and Mrs American and Young America? Shall
IL be Argentina or Algeria, Mexico or Morocco,
Guatemala or Czechoslovakia? From the hushed
solemnity of the Golden Temple of Jehol, the
Chinese Lama temple where the Manchu en-
perors worshiped Buddha and the other gods two
centuries ago. it is but a step to lively side
walk cafe in the MOntmartre section OF Paris.
Would you prefer TO be amused by dancing girls,
wrestlers, jugglers and sword fighters in a typ
ical Oriental street, or to watch the nimble
fingers of the handicraft artisans in a Belgian
village made up of transplanted portions of
Client, Bruges and Malinesi The world Is
your oyster" Mr. and Mrs American and Young
America. All you have TO do is open it,
No, thrill in visiting foreign lands, you say?
And you never liked geography in school, any
way? Then a trip 'Farthest South" by stepping
down into the hold of the ship which Admiral
Byrd sailed into the Antarctic may not thrill
you But how about stepping into the bathy-
sphere in which DR.. William Beebe descended
2,200 feet beneath the waters of the sea- or
into this featherweight aluminium globe in which
DR.. August Picard ascended $4,000 feet into
the stratosphere7 Certainly you can't say "Oh
everybody goes THERE!"
If A Century of Progress were lust another
worlds fair," the foregoing might be representa-
tive of "the whole world" which 1t offers But
there is another world" which the visitor dis
covers here-the world of science and inven-
ton, the new world that has been created by
the ingenuity OF mankind during his progress
of the past century. And this is the world which
offers the thrills, for unlike expositions of the
past with the customary static rows of still
exhibits" A Century of Progress is show in
motion.
Movement action . . things in the process
Of making or being Life! That is the world
that is unfolded before your eyes One of the
is the diorama, a small stage with a reastical-
ly painted background and threedimensional
actors built in perspective in the foreground.
Dioramas have been used for years in museums
but here machines and chemical reagents take
the place of stuffed animals. Molecules and
ions perform for you. You "see" a radio wave
bringing you your favorite music or the voice
of your favOrite comedian. You staEd in front
of one case and push lever or two and under
your hand earthquake is produced geysers
spout boiling water and volcanoes belch forth
lava and gas. For u moment you are a god on
Mount Olympus
You stand before "The Transparent Man." a
model of the human body heroic in size. Your
eye possesses the penetrating power of X-rays
and you see the nervous, respiratory, circula-
tory, digestive and muscular systems In action.
You gaze upon a cross-section of a twig (en-
larged many times) and you see the cells in it
growing. You looking at Life!
The history of the human race might be writ
ten in terms of its means of transportation So
come down to this Greek theater on the shore
of the lake with its triple stage including river,
canal and deep-sea narbor front, as well as land