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Peoples Press DULUTH AND SUPERIOR, MAY 13,
THE WILD WEST.
Amy Leslie, brilliant descriptive writer and art critic contributes to the Chicago News a long article in which she takes the same position as THE PEOPLE'S PRESS, i.e., that Buffalo Bill's American Historical Exhibit is the most appropriate and interesting department of the World's Fair. Buffalo Bill's Park adjoins Jackson Park, and is therefore virtually a department of the Exposition, although under a seperate management. The amiable Amy says:
Some time ago I listened to a pleasant discourse upon World's Fair art by Lorado T-ft, and though intensely enthusiastic and complimentary, as every one must needs be in commenting upon the exquisite works, about every third model Mr. Taft would dismiss with the significantly amiable remark: "I do not quite know what it represents or signifires, except that is is eminently artistic and beautiful." That is the one absent quality in the gracious art smiling with life at our portals. It does not quite mean anything American, and therefore does not speak to stranger visitors of our nation, but reminds them of their own, and commemoration of signal events are not entitled to so much of a country's homeage. It is one thing to discover a world and another to people it, jewel it with heaven's gentlest benisons and slave for the might, glory and perfection of all its promight, glory and perfection of all its promised wealth. If any memory of the pioneer force in American culture is indicated in the World's-Fair decorative exhibitions it must be very stealthily expressed. In place of gilded Dianas and huge Ajaxes, winged houris and exultant dragons, how infinitely more surprising and dramatic would have been e group of ungovernable praire horses, startling weestern riders and Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, Old Jim Bridger and Buffalo Bill. Of course the primitive slush of illiterate penny-dreadfuls has tarnished the princely achievements of this type of American hero. We are accustomed to a sort of dime-novel or Frank Chanfrau interpretation of these splendid characters and the proof of great worthiness is that even under so uncouth a cloud they have always shone out resplendent.
I was more impressed with this forgivable virtue by a visit to Cody's "Wild West" today. There is the American Exposition which will attract foreigners when they are tried of staring at the Indian gentleness of faultless outlines and evidences of superb culture. They willl bring up at the Cody show every time and they will find Americans real Americans, there - if not in teh audience, in the performance,
How a heroic statue of Buffalo Bill, with his magnificent physique, picturesque accouterments and scout impertuosity, would, have stood out among the dulcet elegances of foreign art! Clad in fringed deer-skins - than which not Grecian drapery is more genuinely graceful and artisitc - with the high boots which typify hardship and the country's savage estate, his inseparable gun, fiery horse and incomparable inherent pose!
Cody is one of the most imposing men in appearance that America ever grew in her kindly atmosphere. In his earlier days a hint of the border desperado lurked in his blazing eyes and the poetic fierceness of his mien and coloring. Now it is all subdued into pleasantness and he is the kindliest most benign gentleman, as simple as a village priest and learned as a savant of Chartreuse. I have just left him in his beaded regalia (which is not dress, but rest for him) and I do not think I ever spent a more delightful hour. His history, teeming with romance, is familar to everybody in tow continents, but his social personality is known to a favored few, in which treasured category I herewith enroll myself. All the gray that has been thrust into his whirlwind life has centered itself in the edges of his beautiful hair. For the rest he is ruddy, straight as the strudiest buck in is troupe and graceful as an eagle. He talks in the quaint mountaineer language which robs Englsih of all its proper crudities. It is a lazy, melodious sort of drawl tremendously fascinating and unapproachable exept by a thoroughbred trapper, a cool soldier and American westerner.
His own tent at the show is a dream of improvised luxury. There are couches of tempting comfort and such a bewildering plethora of Indian ornament that further entertainment scarcely seems called for but he thinks of a thousand charming favors and offers them in such an every-day simple manner that one scarcely appreciates that there has been any effort made in courtesy. Mr. Cody is perfectly natural. He has acquired no alien airs or manner in his marvelous travels and successes, has never lost the atmosphere of the boundless plains, the inspiration of discovery and attempt, nor the honest bravery of a lonely scout for nothing much more than hardy sustenance and exciting adventure.
He has gathered about him a host of clever men and all tongues are spoken under the white tents of the "Wild West Show."
First I was presented to Rain-in-the-Face,
and the breating of thightened drums and shuffle of moccasined feet. The younger braves are executing a ghost dance and are arrayed in startling coas of paint and tufts of feathers, principally paint. One splendidly built young fellow is naked to his feet except a cloud of tanned dog-skin about his loins, gorgeously embriodered in beads and father-bones. He is painted a warm terra cotta and, as he dances, his back is a study of delicated muscles and perfection in outline. A sturdy little Indian boy is called out of the dance, which he leaves reluctantly to greet me. He is the baby, growing very fast, which Burke found wandering among the dead on the field of Wounded Knee, and boasts the cosmopolitan title of Johnnie Burke No Neck.
Instead of familiar old Ceres (this time in such luxury of grace and plenty) or inexhaustible Bacchus, sacred bovines and impious feasters, and American would have lifted on the walls of agricultural hall great pansy-eyed Texas steers, feather-crested Indians, a sundance, a Rocky mountain hero, or an eyen dozen of them and a wilderness of picturesque beauty. On the highest point of vantage, instead of pillaging bured art, America might have been honored with the effort of an artist who felt the magnitude of his own country. Any one of the men employed would have greeted the innovation with rejoices. They must be tired as the least enthusiastic of us of endlss views of the myths, the gods and the artistic chestnuts. Fancy a nineteenth century artist deliberatley perching himself upon a ladder to map out a Diana or Trion at all comparable with the hundreds which have confronted him during his studies abraod in every investigated quarter from that catacombs to Monte Carlo. While Church, our decisive creator, must needs distort his brush with "The Viking's Daughter" Macmonnies, Millet. Symonds and the rest of the Columbian immortals have wrestled with gigantic beauties of antiquity until the wonderful Fair look least like America of any place this side of the world of the obelisks. Any one of these artisits or the greater ones of the nations with charming art would have reveled in the novelty of picturesque America. It might not have necessarily interfered with the encyclical marble appearance of the Apollos, Venuses, Hebes and adipose Cupids, but what Americans might have enhoyed showing the congress of nations would be types of our own idolized heroes, the like of which ornament no other history. Our warriors, pioneers, savages and broad acres. I - it is I, because I am American from the crown of my head to the round my feet caress - I'd have reveled in a colossal reproduction of the adored heroes inspiring American boys of the last century to courageous undertaking, press of civilization and the audacious vehemence of rightful war. Now, about the only art-remembrance of the march of stupendous American improvement is epitomized in one man's magnifincet puma.
A kindly old lady then takes me into an adjoining canvas, where she has piles of unfinished costumes and sewing machines that look pretty busy. She is the mother of the entire camp and has been with Cody for fifteen years. The Russian prince, Ivan Makharadze Richter, a tremendously swell yaquero and an expert bolas wielder are in turn presented to me, and then the infintely more interesting groups of Indians lounging about the tents close to the fires. One charming characteristic of the fiery untammed mouarch of the plains in his prodigious talent for resting. Indians can rest more to the square inch than any class of royalty I ever ran across. The show is simply tremendous. I can see how strangers to such brilliant spectacular nature might rave over it. I was born and raised where occurances identical with the dramatic incidents of this exhibition were not at all unusual, and the show is intensely exciting to me. It is not theatrial, save that the dramatic force of reality is always the most thrilling achievement in stupendous spectacles. As for the riding, the entire exhibition shows conclusively that America posesses not only the most daring but the most daring but the most graceful riders in the world. It is diverting to note the difference in the seat, carriage and management of horses in each representative rider. An Indian hugs the animal close, lifting the horse, instead of bearing weight upon it. Every muscle of an Indian's body trembles in response to the horse's gait. He sticks to the saddle or bareback by a sort of capllary attraction. The cowboy and Mexican do not touch a horse but wear him out. The rider seems winged and has his hands full of ropes and reins and everything but the expected. Germans are huge, bulky riders, who bounce and shake and take good care of their horses. Cossacks ride a horse like it was stationary and cast-iron and Arabs whirl about a mass of circling drapery and arms. A Frenchman is always le beau sabreur, but he can't ride even a rocking-horse. The most beautiful and easiest riders in the world are American cavalrymen. In Cody's show they are magnificent. Handsome, of course. I was assured to-day by a very in-
DULUTH, MINN., MAY 13, 1893
FROM CHICAGO.
Our Chicago Correspondent writes this week:
"Ye who have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now."
If Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the board of lady managers, had used the above quotation, she could not have more effectually accomplished that result than when she arose before the board in the woman's building, and declared with much emotion that she was disgusted with the dissensions in the board and ready to resign her position. As rapidly as sobs would permit, the ladies assured her that they were her staunch suppprters and wished her to remain at their head. A tearful vote of confidence in their preseident was then recorded, and for the moment, at least, harmony prevailed. There were no dissenting votes, but four ladies declined to be recorded in the affirmative. The immediate cause of dissention was the lack of social regonition extended the board upon the opening day visit of President Cleveland and the Duke of Veragua.
Now that the glamor of "opening day" is over and the World's Fair is Settling down to business, the crowds are disappointing. This is due to the fact, as my previous letters have explained, that the exhibitors still have a great deal to do.
There are a large number of visitors in the city, but preparations are so ample for taking care of an immense crowd that at present the attendance is not very noticeable. The leading regular hotels have a fair crowd of guests and their corridors have the appearance in point of crowd of two or three days before a National Convention when the advance guard has come upon the ground. LAter on the city will undoubtedly be thronged, but a good many people are destined to ascertain that even a World's Fair will not produce a fortune in six months.
The commisioners from Great Britain returned their invitations to the opening unused, because their secretary was not included.
Then Parmelee's ominibus line, the only one in the city, struck against the hotels because not allowed to keep runners in the corridors, and refuses to call for guests wishing to leave the city.
Next came the Columbian Guards at the Fiar grounds 2,000 strong - who ask advance from &60 to $75 per month because they have to pay twenty-cents for a cut of pie since the show began.
The exhibitors in machinery hall are up in arms because the management charges them $10 per horse power for motive power to run their exhibits.
The Chicago piano men are all ablaze because in dedicating Music Hall Paderewski was allowed to use New York piano, the makers of which refuesed to exhibit.
The local directory are at war with the National Commission over the question of Sunday opening. The Fair was not open last Sunday, but Buffalo Bill's park, opposite the Fair, was open, and the people who went there were not only kept out of mischief, but were better treated and better entertained than they would have been in the Fiar Grounds. Buffalo Bill is not a competitor of the wolfish World's Fair managers, but a help to their business. When the grasping Fair managers make a visitor mad by some act of extortion or neglect, Buffalo Bill puts him in a good humor. The Fair managers owe Bill something for bringing many people to Chicago who would not, otherwise, come at all. But Buffalo Bill's Exhibit, is the only thing entitled to use the word "World" in its title having been all over the world, and is something no man woman or child in the western hemisphere will want to miss seeing. The Chicago papers put more talent to work writing it up than they do on Jackson Park. During the Paris Exposition the Parisian sculptors made bronze using Buffalo Bill as a model. Now the World's Fair managers are kicking themselves because they didn't do likewise. Europeans are criticising them for not doing it.
A Valuable Object Lesson.
An annex to the World's Fair of the most sterling interest to visitors will be Buffalo Bill's Wild West camp located just outside the 62md and 63rd street entrances to the Exhibition grounds. The study of the native American Indian and the white frontiersman is a subject of a most appropriate nature in its relative connection with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, and the efforts made to supplant the sway of the savage and in its place build an Empire which is the crowning glory of civilization's progress.
This camp is an object lesson of incalculable value, showing as it does the Red man camped in primitive style on the same ground where one hundred years ago his forefathers lived and battled with the advance guard of Caucasian settlers. Little dreamed he, in his untrammeled freedom, that his descendants would in this day be smoking the pipe of peace and eating the salt of the hated pale face in the latter's camp of sky-scraping brick and mortar wigwams.
Within a short distance was the scene of the dreadful Chicago massacre, where the retiring garrison of Fort Dearborn were teacherously slaughtered. It is eminetly fitting that the manners and customs of the rapidly vnishing aboriginal race should be here shown in actual daily life. European students of Ethonology have expressed their high appreciation of the value of this exhibition as a means of acquiring definite knowledge of the habits and mode of life of the Indian tribes.
Education and instruction is here combined equally with the entertaining qualities that have made Buffalo Bill and his Wild West the senstion of the century in two continents - a veritable kindergarten, equally valuable to adult and youth of all nations.
Comparison is aided, bu study is assisted and enjoyment increased by the augmentation of the wild West idea by the addition of exemplars of the rough riders of the world, including the Indian, cowboy, Cossack, Mexican, Guacho and representative horsemen of the cavlary of the armies of the great nations of the world. This promises to be a feature of the Exhibition year.
Chicago Globe 19/5/93.
FLOCK TO THE WILD WEST.
Visitors to the Fiar Make it a Point to See Buffalo Bill.
The long list of admirable features of the great exhibition given by Buffalo Bill's Wild West are so artisitcally arranged that the audience is kept constantly entertained and interested. The sports, pastimes and mode of warfare of the native American Indians, the athletic exercises and dashing skill in the horsemanship of the Cossacks and Arabs, and the daring riding of the cowboys are all intensely exciting, while the picturesque groupings and drills from the English, French, German and American cavalry aided by the varied brilliancy of their uniforms always evoke rounds of hearty applause, and the climax is reached when Col. W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), mounted on his beautiful Arabian steed, is seen dashing gallantly up towards the grand stand. After having witnessed the exhibition the suditor is privileged to stroll through the camp and view its many items and objects of peculiar interest. Twice each day, Sundays included, and rain or shine, exhibitions are given, beginning at 3 and 8:30 o'clock, and all roads leading south take passengers to the very gates of the WIld West, either on Sixty-second or Sixty-third streets.
CROWDS AT THE WILD WEST.
Buffalo Bill's Show Continues to Attract Throngs of People.
The interst of the visitors to the world's fair and citizens generally in Buffalo Bill's Wild West is continually increasing. When the magnitude, the perfectness of deatil, the historic and educational character of this exhibition are considered, it is not surprising that hte covered grand stand, which seat 18,000 people, is so frequently taxed to its capacity and is always confortably filled. Two entrances have been provided for the convenience of visitors, one is Sixty-second and another on Sixty-third street, and all railroads going south have made speial arrangments to transport passengers to the gates.
The Illinois Central has completed a commodious platform near the entrance and every other world's fair train goes direct to the Wild West. The Alley "L" road has a station at the grounds and the electric cars land visitors closeto the gates, as do also the conveyances of the Columbian Coach Company. After the performances the patrons are privleged to enjoy the many interesting sights of the camp. A restaurant has been provided where visitors can obtain a good meal at a fixed price.
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