“going to do her level best” — Columbian Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin

Today, the Columbian Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin remembers the signing of the World’s Fair bill 127 years ago.

The Chicago Tribune of April 28, 1890 printed several articles about the World’s Fair.

One of them reprinted from another paper threw open the challenge of how to make the event a success.

Another article touted a document from Columbus as the “chiefest” offering for the exposition.

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The World’s Fair Project.

What will Chicago do with it?—Her level best, of course.

Milwaukee News: Up to the moment when President Harrison threw down his pen after signing his name to the World’s Fair bill there was, of course, just the very remotest chance that something might happen to prevent Chicago from being given the Worlds’ International Fair without the shadow of a peradventure.

All doubt is now, however, at an end. The President has signed the precious document, the members of the Cabinet have solemnly approved of the action and a score or more enthusiastic residents of the Garden City are already on their way to Washington to bid fabulous sums of money for the pen with which the bill was signed and the piece of blotter with which the signature was dried up.

So far as authority to go ahead is concerned, Chicago has now got all the authority she needs. If ever he was prompt in anything, the President was prompt in signing the bill almost as soon as it reached him from the Senate. This may possibly have been meant as a gentle hint that there is not a moment for Chicago to lose in setting about the accomplishment of the stupendous task that has been confided to her care.

Well, now that Chicago has got the Fair beyond the reach of all cavil from East, West, North, or South, what is she going to do about it? The question has passed beyond the conditions of theory or sentiment, and is now intensely practical.

What man will she appoint to superintend the vast undertaking in its entirety? What men will she select to manage the hundreds of divisions and subdivisions into which the Fair must necessarily be divided departmentally?

This is a matter of no mere formal moment. It is a question of the most vital importance, and upon it successful or unsuccessful solution will hinge the fortune or failure of the great international undertaking.

Every international exhibition that has hitherto been successfully held has owed much of its success to the men who were placed at the head of affairs. No one disputes that the last Parisian international exposition was a splendid success from every point of view.

And in looking for the source, the fons et origo, of that success, it is equally indisputable that it was due to the officers who were entrusted with the management of the exposition. They were men distinguished as practical engineers, scientists, artists, and business organizers. Each had a distinct idea of the duties of his department, and consequently the colossal machine moved along without friction from beginning to end.

The United States possesses men who are as competent as any in the world to take charge of the greatest international exposition this globe has ever seen.

Let the Chicago World’s Fair General Committee ponder gravely over the names of the men they will call to their assistance. Let these men be chosen outside of any consideration whatever but that of known executive ability.

Having made their decision then let the Committee of Management go ahead, looking neither to the right nor the left after they have once placed their hand upon the plow, determined to plow a long, deep, and straight furrow.

[Chicago is going to do her level best. She has not been in the habit of making failures of her enterprises heretofore, and judging the future by the past the Fair will be a grand success. But Congress has made it a National Fair, and the whole Nation must help.]

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Columbus’ First Letter

Announcement of the Discovery in the Ambrosian Library.

In February, 1493, Columbus, homeward bound, wrote at the Canaries an account of his discovery to the Royal Treasurer. On his arrival at Palos, the 14th or 15th of March, he wrote another of similar purport to the Royal Steward, Santangel.

These letters he dispatched at once to Barcelona where the Royal Court was then assembled. They were translated into Latin, and speedily printed in every country where printing was known. These Latin documents diffused knowledge of the discovery. Spanish was provincial—Latin, as it were, universal.

It was generally believed till recently that the letters were not published at all during the lifetime of Columbus in Spanish. A Spanish manuscript found by Navarrete in the archives at Simancas—and supposed to have been derived from the Columbian protograph—was published by him in 1825.

An ancient printed copy in Spanish was at last brought to light—one doubtless more ancient than any of the Latin editions. This Spanish letter was reprinted in 1863. It had been found in a mass of papers bequeathed to the Ambrosian Library there by a Baron Custodi—a writer of Milanese history.

This Spanish book is said to have been shown in 1857 to an American historian, but its value was not recognized till near 1863, the year of its republication.

Since that year that Spanish tract of four pages, for it contains only the letter to the royal steward or secretary, Santangel has become the kohinoor of hte Ambrosian Library, and has been often reproduced in facsimile. It was thus perpetuated in New York in Notes on Columbus by Harries and Barlow in 1865. But their edition deluxe was privately printed, only ninety-nine copies struck off, and not one of those was put on the market. No. 69 is in the Madison Historical Library.

In the lowest deep a lower deep. He that seeketh findeth. Bernard Quaritch, who has unearthed more literary uniques than all living men, has just brought out of its grave an edition of the letter to Santangel in Spanish, older than the world-famous pre-Latin copy exhumed in Milan.

This publication bears tokens that it was printed in a Catalan workshop, since the words are spelled according to the Catalan dialect, and Barcelona, where Columbus arrived about the 10th of April to meet the sovereigns, was at the Catalan Capital.

Moreover, a certain Catalan abbreviation, being misunderstood by the compositor of the Ambrosian text, was so misprinted as to make nonsense of one phrase. He thus showed that his edition was a copy and whence it was copied.

Here, then, was the original of the Ambrosian text, in which the dialectic forms were corrected according to classical Spanish. What is the stream to the Fountain? What are all other Columbian relics to this four-paged letter which passed under the eye of the great discoverer in the first bloom of his success?

No man in the world has held such a witch-hazel as Quaritch for divining where springheads of desiderated love lie hid. No man has brought more of them to the knowledge of the literary world. He invites the scrutiny of all experts, assured that they will confirm his claim to hold the first tidings from the New World to the Old, and that in the original form so long desiderated it had been given up in despair.

It is not to be wished that bibliographical critics shall be as credulous regarding the pretensions of the Quaritch find as the wenches in “Winter’s Tale” were when Antolycus proved the truth of a ballad by “five justices’hands at it and witnesses more than his pack would hold.”

But the credentials of this godsend proving indubitable, and it coming forth in resurrection in the very nick of time, Chicagoans will set it in a shower of gold and hail rich pearls upon it.

In other words, they will pay Quaritch his price, or rather allow him to exhibit his treasure trove at the Columbian Centennial in the chief place of honor as the first and chiefest foreign offering at a shrine where myriads shall bring the glory and honor of the nations.

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The Columbian Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin shows with a facsimile image of the first page of Columbus’ letter to Santangel.

Columbian Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin