This note in the April 9, 1894, issue of the Duluth (MN) Evening Herald shared an opinion about how the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition promoted the spread of an “American spirit of liberality and freedom” internationally … and an example of falling short of that ideal within the Ottoman Empire.

The Office of the Turkish Commissioners building, designed by Chicago architect J. A. Thain. stood behind the main Turkish Building on the southeast side of the North Pond. [Image from Johnson, Rossiter A History of the World’s Columbian Exposition Volume 2 – Departments. D. Appleton and Co., 1897.]

The World’s Fair’s Effect

The beneficial results of the Worlds Columbian exposition were widespread. It was instrumental in drawing together more closely the nations that were represented. It injected into the representatives of the foreign countries some of the American spirit of liberality and freedom. It destroyed many old conservative notions and customs and spread throughout the whole world American ideas on many subjects.

Even the sublime porte has been reminded of the effect produced by the great fair and the various international conferences connected with it by an incident which has just occurred at Constantinople. A dispatch says that Ibrahim Hakki Effendi*, who was Turkish commissioner to the Chicago Columbian exposition, returned from the United States so inoculated with liberal ideas that his recent lectures delivered in the law school caused a great stir in government circles. To prevent the further dissemination of his objectionable ideas, the school was ordered to be closed.

It is a pity that the sultan and his grand vizier did not also visit this country and imbibe some of the liberal ideas that impressed the Turkish commissioner. It would have been interesting to watch the effect of such a change upon the Turkish nation.

* Ibrahim Hakky Bey, Commissioner General of the Ottoman Empire to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

Ibrahim Hakky Bey, Commissioner-General of the Ottoman Empire to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893. [Image from World Columbian Exposition Illustrated May 1893.]