OCR Text |
Show 0 PE.N SEX Tm N PFTESI DENT WILSON TOUCHES BUTTON WHICH OPENS PANAMA-PACIFIC PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL FAIR, Exposition First Day Attendance Records Rec-ords Broken in Spite of Bad Weather. Secretary Lane Addresses Ad-dresses Vast Throng. San Francisco. All records for exposition ex-position first-day attendance wore broken on February 20, at the opening open-ing of the Panama-Pacific International Internation-al exposition. Three hundred thousand thou-sand people passed through the turnstiles. turn-stiles. The previous record was at the opening day of the St. Louis world's fair, IST.THo in 1904. The crowd was a spectacle In itself. It filled the grand stands, it packed the great courts and concourses, it poured through the aisles, it overflowed over-flowed from the sidewalks into the avenues, from the hills to the hay, as far as the eye could reach, in unending unend-ing rivers of bobbing heads. The day broke threatening and rainy, but by sunset there was scarcely scarce-ly a cloud in the sky. One shower fell during the dedicatory exercises. As President Wilson opened the exposition ex-position with the touch of a button in the White House the sun's long slanting slant-ing rays glinted in a miniature rain-how rain-how through the spurting streams of the Fountain of Knergy. that moment unleashed. Flags of all the nations rose on manifold poles and pinnacles. Signal bombs were detonated from towers. The dedicatory ceremonies were made as simple and short as possible. The citizens, headed by Governor Hi ram W. Johnson and Mayor .lames Rolpb. ,lr.. representing the state and the city, were welcomed to the grounds by the officers and directors of the exposition and officers of the federal government. Addresses were delivered by President C. C. .Moore of the exposition; Dr. Frederick J. V. Skiff, director in chief; Governor .Johnson. Secretary Lane and a few others. Invocations and benedictions were pronounced by clergymen representing rep-resenting the Roman Catholic, Protestant Protes-tant and Jewish faiths. Shortly after noon the grounds were given over unreservedly to the people. |