Nations and States

The Exposition sent out its invitations in peacetime and opened in wartime. By August 1, 1914, forty governments had accepted, and pavilions from Canada to Siam were going up in the Presidio. Within days most of Europe was at war. It took a lot of diplomacy, and a Navy collier sailing through mine-strewn waters, to fill the foreign section anyway. What came in 1915 was a strange world's fair: missing Germany and Britain as official participants, but with a French palace built in nine weeks, Japan's most ambitious exposition display up to then, and China's first large official showing at an exposition abroad.

The invitation

Congress's resolution of February 15, 1911, authorized the President to invite the nations, but the invitation was held up for a year. Secretary of State Philander Knox and Senator Elihu Root did not want to issue it until there was a government commission to stand behind the fair. The Exposition's president, Charles C. Moore, broke the deadlock in January 1912. He offered to route all dealings with foreign exhibitors through the State Department and promised that the Exposition would pay the commissioners' salaries if Congress would not. President Taft's proclamation followed. Todd reprints it, dated February 2, 1912, although one passage gives the 4th.

"I do hereby invite all the nations of the earth to take part in the commemoration of an event of great interest and importance to the world..."

President William H. Taft, proclamation of February 2, 1912, in Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 1 (1921)

Guatemala accepted first, in eighteen days, and Haiti, Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, Peru and others followed. Some of these later dropped out. Europe was harder. Some governments objected that the fair was not really national, because California was paying for it, and the international convention limiting great expositions to one every three years had to be waived. In April 1912 a "Commission Extraordinary" sailed for Europe on the Mauretania. It was led by John Hays Hammond, with R. B. Hale, William T. Sesnon, Rear Admiral Sidney A. Staunton and Brigadier General Clarence R. Edwards. In about three months they traveled 25,000 miles, called at fifteen capitals, met seven reigning monarchs and sat through forty-five official banquets. Todd notes that they failed to see the Kaiser and the Czar.

France accepted in July 1912, the first of the European powers to do so. Holland and Cuba followed. The turning point, Todd says, came when the Dutch consul general in San Francisco, H. A. van Coenen Torchiana, persuaded his government to appropriate $400,000: "That loosened the key log in the jam." Italy sent the former mayor of Rome, Ernesto Nathan, as its envoy with a comparable sum. Japan appropriated about $800,000, and its demands for space were second only to France's. By March 1914, thirty-three countries had accepted, and by August 1 there were forty.

Germany and Britain

Two great powers would not join officially, and Todd admits it: "Yet in spite of the most strenuous exertions Great Britain could not be brought officially into the family circle, nor could Germany." Their businesses, however, wanted in. In Germany the Exposition opened a Berlin office under a committee headed by Albert Ballin. By August 1914 nearly 2,000 German firms planned to exhibit, and a German pavilion was designed. In Britain a committee that included Sir Thomas Lipton sent Prime Minister Asquith a memorial signed by a majority of the House of Commons. The British planned to raise $300,000 privately for an unofficial display.

The war ended most of these plans. Germany had no pavilion and no commission in 1915, though German products still appeared in several palaces, and forty-odd German paintings reached the art exhibition by a roundabout route. Britain was represented only by private exhibitors, in the Transportation and Manufactures palaces among others. Austria, which had accepted officially and hired an architect for its pavilion, showed only goods in the Palace of Varied Industries. The German potash syndicate's building was taken over by Greece.

The war and the Jason

When war broke out, Moore announced at once that the fair would open on time (see The Story of the Fair). His statement of August 14, 1914, said that no nation at war had withdrawn and that France and Italy had confirmed their plans. That was true only on paper. Cancellations of exhibit space soon totaled about 350,000 square feet, nearly a fifth of the exhibit area. The international naval review, the yacht races and a planned "Congress of Congresses" of 400 international associations fell apart.

France nearly withdrew altogether. After its government moved to Bordeaux in September 1914, its Exposition commission effectively dissolved. In November the Exposition's Director of Exhibits, Captain Asher Carter Baker, went to France. His report home was blunt: "There is only one interest in France, and that is to save the country." Even so, at Bordeaux he obtained a cabinet meeting and a new organizing committee. Todd credits this mission with the whole French display and with Belgium's as well.

Getting the exhibits across the Atlantic was the next problem. The Navy collier Jason had already been chartered to carry Christmas gifts from America to children in the warring countries. The Exposition arranged for her to bring exhibits back free on the return voyage, and the government insisted that every belligerent be offered equal space aboard. The Jason left New York on November 14, 1914. She called at Marseilles, Genoa, Barcelona, Bristol and the Piraeus, but the Navy would not let her into the English Channel. She loaded French and Italian exhibits, art from Venice and from Budapest, Norwegian pictures sent overland to Genoa, and 104 cases of Greek sculpture casts. She anchored off the grounds on Sunday, April 11, 1915, with a cargo insured for $3,500,000, and the Exposition held a "Jason Day" four days later. See The Art Exhibition for what she carried.

The foreign section

The foreign pavilions stood on Presidio land at the west end of the grounds. They ran from about Lyon Street westward toward the racetrack, along the Avenue of Nations and in the wedge of land south of the Palace of Fine Arts. North of them, along the bay, were the state buildings. Todd counts forty-nine foreign pavilions and state buildings in all, facing one another across the avenues (see Avenue of Nations and Avenue of States). The totals depend on the source. Todd counts thirty-one foreign countries, twenty-five official and six unofficial, with twenty-one pavilions. The Official Guide says twenty-eight foreign nations and twenty-two pavilions, and Condensed Facts says twenty-nine nations.

Commissioners and directors treated one another as a kind of official family, and pavilion dedications followed a set routine. There was lunch in the President's dining room in the California Building, with toasts to the visiting nation's ruler and to President Wilson, then speeches, and then a ceremony at the pavilion's door, where a bronze plaque was presented.

Sources: Todd, vol. 3, chs. XXXIV–LVII; Official Guide. Siam built a pavilion, a twice-scale copy of a royal residence made in Bangkok, taken apart and shipped over. New Zealand's pavilion was dedicated with Maori dancers. Persia, Uruguay, Spain, Switzerland, India and several other countries exhibited only inside the palaces.

France

The most talked-about foreign building was France's, a copy of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur in Paris. It was started around January 10, 1915, and finished before the end of March, in nine weeks, five of them rainy. It housed a large French art and industrial display and the exhibit of occupied Belgium, which France paid for. France asked to be placed hors concours, outside the competition, so its exhibitors took no grand prizes. At the dedication on April 9 the French commissioner, Tirman, said: "This Pavilion will not resist the ravages of time, but the thought it symbolizes will remain." Chester Rowell of the California commission answered for his hosts.

"Of all the nations at war, it is France that comes to us, with this palace as a symbol that the world is not permanently split apart."

Chester H. Rowell, April 9, 1915, in Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 3 (1921)

Tirman was partly wrong. The building did not last, but San Francisco later got a permanent copy, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (see What Survived).

Neutrals

The small neutral countries of northern Europe made a point of coming. Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands all built pavilions even with their neighbors at war. At Denmark's dedication its commissioner, Otto Wadsted, spoke for them:

"We of Denmark are surrounded to south, east, and west by warring nations. Our state is precarious, our days anxious. But we realize... that on this other side of the world there is a place where peace reigns..."

Otto Wadsted, March 16, 1915, in Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. 3 (1921)

The states

The states were much easier to recruit. Oregon was the first to make a final choice of site. On March 14, 1912, 228 Oregonians led by Governor Oswald West came south by special train to receive the deed. New York had picked a site first but later moved. Todd's counts vary from chapter to chapter. At one point he says thirty states and territories took part and twenty-seven erected buildings, counting Hawaii and the Philippines, besides the City of New York. At another he says twenty-five states plus Hawaii, the Philippines and New York City built buildings, and three more states and Porto Rico took part through exhibits only. The Official Guide lists thirty-two participating states and territories. Some states that could not get money from their legislatures, including Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma, raised it by subscription. Tennessee's legislature voted $30,000, but the governor killed the bill.

The state buildings stood west of the California Building along the bay, in two rows either side of the Avenue of States. Massachusetts closed the vista at the end. The buildings were meant as reception houses more than exhibit halls, and many copied a historic building at home:

• California: the host building, in the Mission style, paid for largely by the counties, which bought exhibit space in it at $2.50 a square foot. It cost $458,525, housed the Exposition's offices and the Woman's Board, and was billed by the Official Guide as the largest state building ever put up at any exposition.
• Pennsylvania: reproduced features of Independence Hall. The Liberty Bell stood in its loggia from July 17 to November 11, 1915, and was locked in a fireproof vault at night.
• Massachusetts: a two-thirds-size copy of the Bulfinch front of the State House in Boston.
• Virginia: a replica of Mount Vernon, furnished with Washington relics.
• Oregon: a "Parthenon with the bark on," with forty-eight Douglas fir logs 5 to 6½ feet thick and 42 feet tall as columns, and a flagpole from Astoria towering over the grounds.
• New Jersey copied the Trenton Barrack, Maryland the house "Homewood," Ohio its Capitol, and Texas recalled the Alamo.
• New York: the first state to appropriate money, $700,000 in 1912. New York City put up a building of its own.

Two territories built as well: Hawaii, whose building had an aquarium of Honolulu fish, and the Philippines, whose building had windows of capiz shell. The federal government, for its part, appropriated $1 million, half for exhibits and half for a building and entertainment. Because the war's cancellations freed up space in the palaces, the government exhibits went into the palaces and no federal building was put up. In August 1914 President Wilson named a national commission for the fair: William Phillips, Franklin D. Roosevelt and William Bailey Lamar.

Afterward

Most of the pavilions and state buildings had no future. The Presidio lease ran until April 1917, and most were eventually sold at auction and wrecked. A few were moved. The Ohio Building went down the bay on a raft to San Mateo County, and the Wisconsin and Virginia buildings went to Santa Venetia in Marin County. The Oregon Building was given to the Army as a soldiers' club, and Missouri's was built to be handed over to the Army. The city accepted Japan's pavilion, but it collapsed in a gale while being moved. Greece's sculpture casts stayed in San Francisco. See What Survived.

Sources

• Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition (1921): vol. 1, chs. XLIII–XLV (inviting and "bringing Europe into it"), LI (enlisting the states), LIX (Oregon's site), LXXVIII (pavilion sites); vol. 2, chs. XXIV–XXVII (the war and the Jason), XLII (federal participation); vol. 3, chs. XXXIV–LXXXI (the Society of the Nations; dedications of foreign pavilions and state buildings); vol. 5, ch. XXXVII (disposal of the buildings).
• Official Guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915), "Foreign Participation" and "State Participation."
• Condensed Facts Concerning the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (c. 1914–15); The Exposition Fact Book.
• John D. Barry, The City of Domes (1915), on Ambassador Herrick and French participation.