Editorial Drawing, Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1896

Almost any act of public remembrance necessarily reveals as much about the present as it does about the past. The man who reenacted Paul Revere's ride at America's Bicentennial galloped past the Bagel Bin and the Minuteman Car Wash, and he made his journey in daylight out of fear of getting run over if he sounded his alarm by night. But purposeful present-mindedness seems to be especially the case in events organized to commemorate the fire. The twenty-fifth anniversary, for example, was dominated by the presidential election campaign and the debate over the gold standard, which had been so eloquently attacked by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention (held in Chicago) and so fervently defended by William McKinley and the Republican press. To mark October 9, the Chicago Business-Men's Association organized a titanic "sound money" parade. British journalist G.W. Steevens observed to his astonishment that it took more than five hours for what he estimated as 100,000 marchers to pass by him and the other 750,000 onlookers. The rabidly anti-Bryan Tribune was pleased to note that there were fewer than 13,000 marchers (Steevens counted thirty thousand) in the free silver procession staged by the Democrats that evening, even if Steevens thought that they had more spirit in their step. One cartoonist dressed up Bryan as Mrs. O'Leary, replacing the cow with the Democrats' mule, all set to kick over a flaming lantern labeled "Anarchy." The grandest commemoration of the fire was the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Although the official reason to hold this greatest of America's world's fairs was to celebrate the quadricentennial of Columbus's historic voyage, like the Inter-State Exposition of two decades earlier, it was intended by Chicago leaders to demonstrate Chicago's astonishing resurrection and continuing promise. Partly to boost business, as well to celebrate certain holidays and honor different constituencies, the fair planners organized a number of special days. The most successful by far was October 9, designated as Chicago Day, which culminated with a gala "night pageant" of floats, music, and fireworks. The spirit of the occasion, and of Chicago, was represented in posters and statuary by a comely and determined young woman whose classical garb includes a breastplate inscribed with the city's motto, "I Will," and on whose crown is perched a phoenix.

Advertisement for Chicago Day at the Columbian Exposition, October 9, 1893

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