His bald head reflecting the noon sunlight, Farley first solemnly explains the president's absence. Loudspeakers fill the stadium with Farley's tale of the president's regret at not being able to attend: "It was here in your Chicago stadium that his party nominated him for the presidency… moreover, there is the tie of friendship…"
And the uninvited guest, the last man Rufus and General Dawes want to see here, sneaks in: the man Mayor Kelly has replaced through party machinations devious even for Chicago, with legislation rushed through Springfield to authorize the city council to select the new mayor (to "save the public the expense of an election"), turning scandal-ridden Park Board Chairman Edward Kelly into a world's fair mayor ("A man of vision!"), a mayor who represents the Irish faction of the Demos ("Fuck the Irish!" having been the previous mayor's war cry), backed by Jewish Governor Homer, who owes his election to that uncouth, patronage-minded hunky whose departure from this vale of tears has been a blessing disguised by a period of several weeks of public mourning, weeks ago, months ago, history now, dimly remembered if at all; but Farley, possibly not fully understanding the twisted nature of Illinois politics, has brought the uninvited guest up onto the reviewing stand.
"… the tie of friendship with your martyred mayor, a friendship the warmth of which rose above political affiliation and typified the mutual admiration of two outstanding public men, each of whom recognized the sincerity of the other."
Mayor Kelly, Rufus Dawes, and Governor Homer shift in their seats, in perfect unison, like dancers in
The Gold Diggers of1933.
Farley continues: "The most intense moment in our president's career was when he held in his arms the friend who had stopped the deadly bullet aimed at his own heart."
There are few dry eyes in the bleachers; I wonder how Cermak's family is taking all this. A small article in yesterday's Trib told of the family's disappointment at not being invited to be on the reviewing stand; the city council responded by assuring the Cermaks reserved seats in the bleachers nearby.
General Dawes is among the dignitaries on the reviewing stand, but he does not speak. He is content to allow the public to think his brother Rufus the sole guiding force of the exposition- Rufus and the visionary Mayor Kelly- though Dawes must certainly be somewhat disappointed having another Democrat take Tony's place, and a scandal-tinged one at that. The extent of General Dawes' public activities at the Century of Progress, this sunny day. will be to take the first two-wheeled carriage ride of the fair, sitting in his stovepipe hat. puffing his pipe, his back-seat chauffeur a college kid. The papers will take pictures of this earth-shattering event, saying "Who says Dawes can't be pushed around?"
We have aisle seats, and Mary Ann doesn't argue when I suggest we leave early, while speakers are still having at it, and get over to the fair, which has been open for business since nine this morning.
Even leaving that stadiumful of people behind, it's crowded getting in, partially because there are so few turnstiles for everybody to push through. In the background the dignified, imposing Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium look on, as if jealous of the crowds their new neighbor is attracting. I pay Mary Ann's fifty cents, and offer my pass in its little leather billfold to the attendant, who checks my picture and punches the card.
And, then, spread out before us is General Dawes' and Cermak's- dream city, a city of futuristic towers, geometrically shaped buildings, flat angular planes of white, blue, orange, black, yellow, red, gray, green, windowless bold splashes of color. Before us is an avenue overseen by flapping red flags angling in from overhead at either side, an avenue filled with people and an occasional tour bus, the buses getting out of the way of people, for a change, and at its far end, the Hall of Science, Camelot out of Buck Rogers, fluted white pylons alternating with sheets of cobalt blue. To our left is the Administration Building, an ultramarine box with a silver facade; at the left a lagoon shimmers- across it the long, low, green-and-black Agricultural Building, and the three white towers of the Federal Building, which loom over its triangular Hall of States like the prongs of a big upturned electrical plug.
And it goes on like that: the Sears Roebuck Building, an off-white, blue-trimmed tower rising from a sprawl of modernistic wings; the Swedish, Czechoslovakian, and Italian pavilions, looking just as futuristic as the next guy, with little old-world flavor in evidence; then up a ramp to the Hall of Science, the "capitol" of the fair, with its U-shaped front facing the lagoon. Inside, a ten-foot transparent robot human says to us (and others gathered around him), "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall swallow. You can see this mouthful of food passing down my esophagus. Now you see the swallow entering the top door of my stomach. Watch my stomach contract to churn up food."
I had been hungry, before that, and when the memory had faded a bit we did partake of a couple of red hots from a futuristic white stand by the Sky Ride; Mary Ann was anxious to take this ride- with its six-hundred-some-foot towers standing a couple thousand feet apart. At about two hundred feet up, so-called "rocket" cars traveled back and forth on steel cables, above the lagoon. It was not something I
wanted to do after having a hot dog-Once you got past the assault upon your senses by geometry and color gone berserk, the fair turned out to be a fair: we wandered anions plaster dinosaurs; saw Admiral Byrd's City of New York, the ship he used to explore Antarctic seas; hit the two-block stretch of midway, and rode the roller coaster, the Bozo, and the Cyclone, but. hoping to keep the red hot down. I begged off the Lindy Loop, passing up, too, the Pantheon de la Guerre, where the world's largest war paintings were on display, and doing without the flea circus and the Florida alligator show. We crossed the lagoon and had a look at the Enchanted Island, where parents could dump kids (after a doctor inspected each tyke) and gigantic cutouts of Oz characters and a two-story boy riding in his red wagon ruled the five-acre roost.
The whole fair was big on giantism, despite a midget village on the midway the Time and Life Building had, on its either side, towering huge mock covers: a Fortune cover depicting planets in space; a Time cover featuring the man of the year- FDR- whose face loomed over the fair, even if he hadn't been able to make it there. The Haviland thermometer was just this big goddamn thermometer, several stories high, with a red neon stem; no wonder that kid at Enchanted Island was trying to get away on his wagon.
We walked hand in hand. Mary Ann wasn't saying much, but was trying to maintain a cynically bohemian attitude- she wore a black beret with a black slit dress, and heels that must've killed her, while everybody else in sight wore colorful, holidaylike apparel; but while her look was Tower Town, her eyes were full of Iowa. This place made Little Bit O'Heaven look sick. This was the most unreal unreal place on earth, and Mary Ann, whether she would admit it or not, loved it here.
So did the rest of the people, and it was a swell place to hide from the depression, even if a lot of families did have to pass up the many food concessions and find a bench to eat the lunch in brown bags they'd brought with 'em. Most of the tourists were staying in private homes, usually at fifty cents per person, meals included; and many a frugal head of the family- whether in trousers or skirts- insisted on getting the full fifty cents worth by bringing their lunch.
Of course a lot of people were buying their lunch here, in which case it was likely their money- at least some of it- would go into Syndicate coffers. Capone might have been in Atlanta, and Cermak in the ground, and Chicago superficially a cleaner city, but Nitti's boys were cleaning up at the fair. Quite literally, since they controlled the fair's street-sweepers union, and the union the college-boy rickshaw pullers/carriage pushers formed, and half a dozen others. The San Carlo Italian Village restaurant was run by Nitti people; they had the popcorn concession, hatcheck, parking, towel/soap/disinfectant concessions; every hot dog and hamburger sold at the fair was theirs, and Ralph "Bottles" Capone, Al's brother, had seen to it that, with the exception of Coca-Cola, no soft drinks sold on the grounds came from any other bottling works than his own. Most of the beer here was Nitti's, too, of course. And why shouldn't Nitti make money off the fair? He built it.