The Admiral and the Ambassador (29 page)

Ambassador Porter, his wife, and his daughter were among the sea of diplomats, exposition officials, and
grandes dames et messieurs
of Parisian society that flowed across the open floor and out into the open air of the Champs de Mars, with the Eiffel Tower beyond. While most of the Europeans were
in conservative business suits and evening gowns, the wardrobes of the world added splashes of color, from green-and-red Hungarians to white-clad Arab sheiks to red-cloaked Cossacks and Chinese representatives in fine silk. The speeches were mercifully short; Loubet spoke of Europe and his hopes that the international cooperation that had made the exposition possible augured a lengthy peace in a region that had seen so much war. “I am convinced that, thanks to the persevering affirmation of certain generous thoughts with which the expiring century has resounded, the twentieth century will witness a little more fraternity and less misery of all kinds, and that ere long, perhaps, we shall have accomplished an important step in the slow evolution of the work towards happiness and of man toward humanity,” Loubet told the crowd, which erupted in a prolonged outburst of cheers.
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It was the only high point in an otherwise inauspicious start. People who had traveled to Paris expecting an extravaganza were bitterly disappointed. “Imagine if you will an exhibition which exhibits absolutely nothing, an exposition which exposes naught but the incompetency of its management,” the
Los Angeles Times
's George Grantham Bain reported. “Conceive a lot of buildings magnificently planned and in part finely executed, solemnly, and formally opened to the public, which enters them to the number of 180,000 in one day, to find only scaffolding, rubbish, plaster, dirt, dust, and half-finished showcases.” And it was not a cheap place to be. “The French people have reduced the business of squeezing the last penny from a pleasure seeker to a science.”
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The Exposition Universelle eventually hit full stride and became a massive affair. It was so large, in fact, that few realized that Paris was simultaneously hosting the second modern Olympic Games, most of which were conducted in front of empty stands. The Exposition ultimately drew some 30,000 exhibitors from France, followed by 6,600 from the United States, 2,500 from Belgium, 2,000 each from Germany and Italy, and another 1,500 from Russia. That the United States, though separated from the expo by an ocean, sent the second-highest number of exhibitors indicated how much significance American industrialists and businessmen put on the event, much to Porter's satisfaction. While there would be food and music and exotica, the Exposition Universelle was, at heart, an international trade show, and the Americans were there to try to crack open European
markets. The US Congress had budgeted nearly $1.4 million to help underwrite the nation's exhibits. The feckless Ferdinand W. Peck of Chicago, son of a wealthy real estate developer and a philanthropist in his own right, was named head of the American delegation, largely based on his role as a vice president and fundraiser of the Chicago World's Fair. His hubris and lack of tact (he was a no-show when Loubet, the French president, made a scheduled tour of the American pavilion) became a source of continual embarrassment to Porter and other Paris-based Americans.

The American footprint spread across the exposition grounds. A building to house the forest-products exhibition was created in Chicago and shipped in pieces for final construction. Individual exhibits, including one to display different methods of cooking corn, were designed and created and shipped over to take their places in the various halls. The main US pavilion, a domed octagon on the riverfront, dismissed by one critic as looking like “a bleached interpretation of a Roman pantheon,” went up on the Left Bank just west of the Invalides bridge, between pavilions for the declining empires of Austria and Turkey. The American pavilion was set up as something like a hospitality suite for businessmen, with stenographers on standby and supplies of typewriters, American newspapers (the
New York Times
published a special Paris edition for the duration of the exposition), and daily stock updates. At night, the space was given over to lavish receptions and parties, all designed to facilitate business deals.

In an era of jingoism, there was nationalist pride to display as well. Over the previous decades, fine arts had played increasingly important roles in the world's fairs, with medals and other honors making or breaking artistic careers. In an effort to push American artists, the American jury selecting the US entries was based in New York City instead of Paris (which had selected mostly Paris-based American artists for the 1889 exposition). This time the cream of domestic artists—many of whom had studied in Paris at some point—were selected to exhibit, including James Whistler, Winslow Homer, and John Sargent.

Ambassador Porter was the face of America in Paris, and the embassy played host to a revolving door of American dignitaries and business leaders, many of whom knew Porter from his role at Pullman, his work within the Republican Party, and his years moving among New York City's moneyed
circles. Some demands were a bit odd: one woman asked embassy officials to store her sealskin coat, and another asked for space for her trunks. The embassy also served as the safety net for unfortunate tourists who ran out of money, were robbed, or faced other crises while in the country. “Shortage of money was, of course, a very common reason to appeal to the Ambassador,” Elsie Porter wrote in her biography of her father. “Some of these unfortunates confessed to a night on Montmartre and in consequence the disappearance of all their worldly goods.” Others were simple scam artists, including non-Americans who showed up with “the stars and stripes in their buttonholes and who spoke broken English.” Some were young Americans who had budgeted too little or spent all their cash to get to Paris, planning to find temporary jobs to finance their stays and eventual trips home—jobs that didn't materialize.
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Elsie, for one, was unimpressed with the exposition. “My impression is that, for the people who had never travelled, or for engineers and manufacturers, the Exposition filled its special function. For a person who had travelled and seen all the exhibits in their own country and surroundings and who was not interested in manufacture or engineering or boats, it was not a very interesting show. The buildings on the whole were in wretched taste and many of the exhibits very cheap. Everything was over-crowded and rather poorly done.” She was particularly displeased with the “disgrace” of the American pavilion, which she said paled in comparison with “the beautiful English Tudor house and the Belgian Gothic building, a copy of the
Hotel de Ville
at Antwerp…. But ours—oh dear, how it made my blood boil. The inside was a large rotunda with galleries all around and draped in American flags. On the ground floor was a Post Office, at the back was a large sitting room with some plain oak furniture.”

The dedication of the US pavilion was put off until early May, when the building was ready. Peck and other leaders of the American delegation decided to invite the entire diplomatic corps—and, it seems, anyone else who was interested—to the ceremony. It was so crowded that many key guests, including speakers such as Porter, couldn't get to the main door, which remained closed and locked as the throng grew. Porter extricated himself from the mess out front and went around to the rear where a guard, not recognizing the ambassador, refused to let him in. Another official
already inside spotted Porter arguing with the guard and intervened. The plan had been for the speakers to be in place before the doors opened, and there was a lengthy delay before everyone was ready. “The doors were opened and every straggling American climbed in,” Elsie wrote. “They got all around us, so that I was nearly stifled. They stood on seats and chairs, so that there was no chance of getting out, and it was a very warm day. The only refreshing thing was Sousa's band.”

John Philip Sousa, in fact, was one of the highlights of the exposition. His band performed at a wide range of pavilions and evening concerts, filling the expo grounds with his driving marches. American artists also grabbed attention, with awards going to works by Whistler, Homer, Sargent, and others. In some ways, the Exposition Universelle marked a transition in the art world. Among the attendees was nineteen-year-old Pablo Picasso, who finagled a press pass through the Spanish journal
Catalunya Artistica
and arrived in Paris in late October, just before it closed, to write about the extravaganza (though he apparently never published any articles). He also had his first painting to be exhibited outside Spain hanging in the Spanish section of the Grand Palais exhibit, a piece called
Last Moments
that was singled out by reviewer Charles Ponsonailhe as representative of the new wave of painters coming out of Barcelona.
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A Parisian crowd overwhelms the American pavilion at the Exposition Universelle 1900.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Horace Porter Collection, Manuscript Division

Overall the Exposition Universelle was light on innovations; there was no new Eiffel Tower or Ferris wheel. It was the first world's fair in which automobiles were featured prominently, on the eve of their transformation of the world. An elevated, wooden, three-speed moving walkway carried attendees around the interior edge of the Left Bank exhibition areas. The entire grounds were illuminated by electric lights, also a first. (Chicago had been only partially lit.) So the displays were mostly innovations on pre-existing ideas, a focus on doing what was already known faster, larger, and better. American industrial and commercial products fared well. Of nearly 2,000 medals awarded to American products and exhibitors, 220 were grand prizes in their categories, 486 were gold, 583 were silver, and 422 were bronze. Each award carried with it marketing potential and bragging rights; some Campbell's soup varieties still bear a copy of the medal its three-year-old product won that year.
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In the end, the Exposition Universelle didn't live up to French expectations. Some fifty million people attended, setting a record that still stands, but this was a full ten million people fewer than anticipated and budgeted for. Private businesses and vendors lost money, particularly restaurants that had paid high fees and endured high overhead costs in their temporary locations. They badgered the French government for rebates based on the unmet attendance promises, and eventually received partial settlements. For months after the fair closed, the shells of abandoned or bankrupt exhibits dotted the grounds; these were slowly eviscerated by scavengers before finally being razed. Still, the Exposition Universelle did what the organizers had hoped: it buffed up the French image internationally, spurred the economy in the short term, and was viewed as a success, even if it didn't meet expectations.

Porter, though, must have been happy to see the last of the Americans leave.

In the fall of 1898, Garret Hobart, a friend of Porter's and a well-known and well-liked New Jersey politician, began having trouble catching his breath. Then he developed a steady and tight pain across his chest. He talked with his doctors, who diagnosed myocarditis—an infection and inflammation of the heart tissue. While the exact treatments the doctors prescribed are unknown, they apparently had some effect, and Hobart began feeling better. But only for a time. He was, in fact, gravely ill, and despite several rallies, his condition deteriorated over the ensuing months, exacerbated by a bout of influenza that winter, work stress in the spring, and an ill-advised strenuous travel schedule in the summer of 1899.

By fall, a year after he first began feeling poorly, Hobart was effectively confined to his house and bed in Paterson, New Jersey. He had a large public following, and periodic updates about his health showed up in the nation's press. The articles offered few details, but Hobart's wife noticed that every time he read about his own illness he seemed to get worse. So she limited public updates to trends—that he'd had a good night or a bad night, he was feeling strong, or was resting quietly. But Hobart was, without a doubt and despite the best hopes of his family and friends, dying.