Windt im Wald Farm
Geauga County, Northeast
Ohio
since 1995
Horses of the White City
Part I
By Charles and Jeanne Craver
First published in Arabian Horse World Sept 89 pp 134-143
In 1871, Mrs. O'Leary's cow is said
to have kicked over a lantern in Chicago and burned the city down.
The most valuable parts of Chicago were completely destroyed, including
the homes of an estimated one hundred thousand people. Municipal
services such as the water system were wiped out. There were thousands
and thousands of completely destitute and homeless people, and the
business part of the city almost ceased to exist.
However, this was a time of vigor
in American life. There was still a frontier out west, and perhaps
the same drive that sent people there helped in the rebuilding of
a new, stronger Chicago. By 1890 -- less than twenty years after
the fire -- Chicago was again a great city. It was thought by its
citizens to be the foremost in the country. A new town, a brash
town, a rich town. It was the gateway to the rest of the United
States.
And the citizens of Chicago wanted
to celebrate their renewal. What better way than to hold a Fair
for the whole world to attend? It would be the best World's Fair
of all time. Nothing else has ever held a candle to it nor is apt
to do so.
It needed a name and a reason, so
they called it "The World's Columbian Exposition" in honor of the
four hundredth year (plus one!) since Columbus sailed the ocean
blue. We know it more frequently as the "Chicago World's Fair of
1893," differentiating it from a comparatively minor event also
held in Chicago during 1933-24.
The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
was America's first Disneyland. It was a matter of fantasy: an ephemeral
thing that lasted only a few months. They built what they called
"The Great White City" brand new just to hold it. One of the buildings,
covering 42 acres, was said to be the largest on earth. Lakes were
created, islands built for landscaping, swamps drained. Magnificent
white statuary was everywhere -- scantily clad nymphs and goddesses
holding allegorical sway over a gigantic celebration.
Foreign countries were invited to
display their national cultures and products and they came, building
their own lovely palaces to show their magnificence. Among the countries
and states sending exhibits were the Argentine Republic, Austria,
Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British Guiana, Bulgaria, Canada, Ceylon,
Chile, Columbia, Korea, Costa Rica, Curacao, Denmark, Ecuador, France,
Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica,
Japan, Lahore, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, New South Wales, Nicaragua,
Norway, Orange Free State, Paraguay, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Siam,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Serving this mass of internationalism were 69,492 "exhibiters."
Was this the first United Nations?
The United States Government was
itself a major exhibitor, and most of the individual states of this
country were handsomely represented by embassy-type buildings of
their own. In those days something really spectacular could be built
for $20,000.
Then there was the place known as
the "Midway Plaisance." This was a part of the Fair presentation,
but it was separate from the official displays of governmental units
-- a magnificent sideshow to the main events of the Fair. Exhibits
were contributed by individual proprietors from countries of the
world, each out to make a buck according to the good old profit
motive of that rough and ready time. The Midway Plaisance housed
a massive display of exotica presented by a cast of literally thousands
coming from all over the world. Some of this was for real. Some
was hype. Like sideshows everywhere.
There was an Irish castle, a Viennese
beer garden, a Japanese temple, a bunch of bare-bosomed "Amazons"
from Africa. Of special interest to many was an extremely popular
exhibit titled the "Street of Cairo." It was balanced by exhibitions
from the Ottoman empire including a "Street of Constantinople" and
extensive exhibits showing aspects of life in the Ottoman Empire.
Included was a Bedouin encampment, complete with Arabian horses,
sponsored by an organization we know as the "Hamidie Hippodrome
Society."
The greatest feature on the Midway
Plaisance was the Ferris Wheel. This was an enormous machine: still
the largest Ferris wheel ever built. It was 264 feet in diameter
and required a 2000 horse power engine to turn it. Fully loaded
it held 2160 people. Eventually, it was shipped to St. Louis for
the Fair of 1904, requiring 175 railroad flat cars to haul it.
The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
was a great public event in America life. Every American who could
get there must have gone. On October 9th -- the day held in celebration
of Chicago, called "Chicago Day"-- there were 716,881 admissions.
This was in a city with a population of 1,098,576 as of the 1890
census, so just about everybody must have been there.
Almost all the public figures of
the time seem to have been in Chicago during the Fair, plus probably
most of the honeymooners who got married that year. It was said
that one couple got married on ponies riding the Ferris Wheel. One
wonders if the roaring 20's was actually the playground era of the
baby boomers resulting from the Chicago's World's Fair. There could
have been enough of them. Total paid attendance at the Fair was
27,529,401.
Behind The Scenes
Not all went smoothly on the Midway
Plaisance. Like most big American events, there were elements of
wishful thinking. Space for exhibitors was not ready at the opening
of the Fair, with the result that some exhibits such as the British
Horse Guards (also called Tattersall's Military Tournament) and
the Hamidie Society could not initially open within its grounds
at the start of the Fair. Even though admitted later, these exhibits
lost major opportunity for income from Fairgoers.
The Ferris Wheel was a magnificent
concept, but it was not completed at the beginning of the Fair,
and for some time its various unassembled parts cluttered the main
Midway area, reducing traffic of customers, until its final readiness
on June 21st. Trade was further reduced by insistence of the Blue
Law segment of the nation that the Sabbath be honored, which meant
that Sundays, when working people could attend, did not contribute
to income. Federal funding was tied to Sunday closure, but the Fair
Directors resisted closing for a few weekends. However the righteous
ultimately drove out temptation and the Fair remained closed on
Sunday for most of its run.
The impact of such problems on the
individual proprietors sponsoring exhibits at the Midway Plaisance
must have been considerable. Robert Levy, head of the "Street of
Constantinople," speaker of 11 languages and an experienced campaigner
in world expositions, formed a Midway Plaisance Concessionaire's
Club to funnel complaints to the Fair Board. Concessionaires had
been required to pay many fees in advance. Yet when the Fair opened
electricity was not available to run the exhibits. The concessionaires
threatened to strike in June, after the Director of Works suddenly
gave orders to turn off the lights at 7 p.m. The Midway had been
staying open all night, doing its share to honor the wild and wooly
reputation of Chicago.
The whole event was played against
a national background of financial distress. The United States was
then in the midst of its worst depression since 1837. Railroads,
trusts and corporations failed. There was massive poverty and unemployment.
Farmers were displaced. The national debate between tight and loose
money was intense.
The Fair itself was far in the financial
hole during its first months of operation. "The panic grew apace,
and the attendance at the Exposition increased very slowly. Heavy
obligations for construction work matured, but there were no funds
with which to meet them. The heavy liquidation and the severe contraction
of credit throughout the country made the demand for money everywhere
very depressing, and it was not easy to withstand the just demands
of creditors greatly in need of moneys due them. Little or nothing
could be done... The concessionaires shared in the general distress.
Most of them had grievances against the Exposition for incomplete
roads, for inadequate electric light service, and for various other
causes. They were doing little business and saw ruin stare them
in the face." Forty-five thousand of the foreign exhibitors found
themselves in a financial hole and some went bankrupt. Among these
were two horse groups, the British Horse Guards and the Hamidie
Hippodrome Society.
The Ferris wheel concession was the
symbol of American inventiveness by which the Fair is most remembered.
Even with gross receipts of over $700,000, at the end of the Fair
it ended up with a balance due to the management of the Fair of
a little over $84,000.
But financial success was not the
public's concern. Like all American audiences, it loved a show.
Bankrupt or thriving; that didn't matter.
The Fair started May 1 1893. It ended
six months later, October 31st. Afterwards most of the buildings
burned or were torn down, and the grounds reverted to park.
Memories remain. We are concerned
with those that pertain to the establishment of the Arabian horse
in America.
Our First Show
The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
appears to have been the first place in the United States where
Arabian horses were exhibited against each other in competition.
Only four horses were exhibited, a two-year-old stallion, Mirzah
Saafy and three mares, Aga, Hasfoura, and Kohey I (probably a misprint
of the name "Koheyl"). They were exhibited by Jacob Heyl of Milwaukee.
Unfortunately, these horses were never registered and left no descendants
in current Arabian breeding. They were of bloodlines from the stud
of Weil of the royal family of Wurtemburg, which eventually became
incorporated into the Marbach stud farm. It was and remains one
of the best-thought-of studs of Europe, but the bloodlines from
its greatest period now exist only as traces throughout the breed.
The judge of this exhibit was Rev.
F. F. Vidal from England. In his written commentary on the horses,
he said "though they are beautiful animals, they are not altogether
perfect specimens. They all, more or less, are defective in a point
which pure Arabs are generally super excellent, namely, their shoulders."[1]
A couple of classes with only a few
entries was not a very glamorous beginning for the Arabian horse
show industry in America, but at least it was a start. Rev. Vidal's
talents as a judge were more extensively tested at the classes for
Americo-Arabs, which were defined as horses having one eighth or
more of "pure Arab strain."[2]
There appear to have been sixteen entries in this category with
Mr. Heyl's stallion Hassan winning the sweepstakes and his mare
Adelina taking the second prize.[3]
In the category of "Russia-Arab"
and with a different judge, two horses were exhibited for His I.
H. Grand Duke Dimitry of Russia. These were *Gouneiad and Gudrun,
with *Gouneiad preferred by the judge.[4]
Apparently the Russian Arabians and
other Arabians did not compete against each other. (In fact, the
Russian horses did not compete with any other horses at all, regardless
of breed.) At this removal in time, the reason for this is not apparent.
It may have been felt that the Russian horses were from a different
tradition in Arabian breeding than the others. Davenport comments
on a pedigree difficulty with *Gouneiad who was of rather typical
continental European breeding of the time.[5]
Rev. Vidal, judge for the other Arabian
horses, may have been touching indirectly on this subject in his
official comments on the horses which he judged. His first point
in making his commentary was that he considered the horses to be
purebred Arabians because they were from the Weil Stud, the only
other continental European stud in his opinion to have purebred
Arabians being the Hungarian stud, i.e., Babolna.
[6]
Any debate about continental Arabian
breeding has been pretty well resolved by time. In the world of
today's competition, the Russian horses would not be differentiated
from bloodlines of other sources, and *Gouneiad and Gudrun would
probably be recognized as good old-fashioned Arabians.
Neither Russian horse appears in
modern Arabian pedigrees, although *Gouneiad 21 was registered and
sired some pure Arab foals for the Huntington stud.
[7] *Gouneiad was described
by M. W. Dunham, who judged him, as being *15 1/8 hands high; very
fine head; fair length of neck; high withers, very thick at top
of shoulders; top line exceedingly good; stout, round body and wide
thighs, broad stifle; hind legs clean and well set; fore legs slightly
inclined backward at the knee."
[8] *Gouneiad's skull is preserved at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City. It is unusually wide between the
jaws. It is of normal size and has a slight dish. Its ratio of width
across the forehead to total length was such that in life *Gouneiad
probably did not appear to be wide across the forehead.
The Ottoman Presence
The Chicago World's Fair of 1893
is mainly remembered by current Arabian horse breeders in America
because of the Hamidie Society exhibit of native Arabian horses.
To understand this show and the horses exhibited in it, one has
to consider that it was part of an overall context of exhibits of
the Ottoman Empire at the Chicago World's Fair. At the time of the
Fair, the Ottoman Empire was known in diplomatic circles as "The
Sick Man of Europe." It had been a great empire for hundreds of
years, including at one time much of the Balkans, Turkey, the Arabian
peninsula, and North Africa, including Egypt.
By 1893, however, it had been in
decline for several hundred years, and was fighting to make a place
for itself among "modern" nations. Its Balkan presence was in jeopardy.
It had a hostile border with Russia. It had lost effective control
in Egypt. The Arabian peninsula was restive under influence of Arab
nationalism. There was widespread and extremely negative international
publicity because of government persecution of its Armenian minority
citizens.
In bleak circumstances like this,
nations turn to public relations to make up the difference. That
is probably a main reason why Turkey, which was the central part
of the Ottoman Empire, made the effort to be strongly represented
at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.
The major Turkish exhibit of official
government sponsorship was the Ottoman Pavilion. This was a building
eighty by one hundred feet in size, said to be in imitation of the
Hunkhar Casque or Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III in Constantinople.
It had a dome in the center and smaller domes at each corner. It
had an outreaching roof and outside walls of wooden panels which
had been thickly carved in Turkey with Arabic texts and designs.
There was also a smaller pavilion of the same sort with a luxurious
reception chamber, and exhibits in other areas of the Fair. There
were twelve categories of exhibits of the Ottoman empire, including
textile fabrics, gold, silver, and other minerals, munitions of
war, electrical appliances, antiquities, natural agriculture products,
silks, dye-stuffs, and other items.
Turkish women were also represented.
The Woman's Building contained a case of "embroideries of exquisite
workmanship and design, and unequaled by anything ever before shown
in this country... Among the more noticeable specimens shown are
doylies that look like frost work, some being in solid gold, embroidery
on drawn threads, closely resembling the repousee, and gold-basket
work of Russian goldsmiths...The finest linen scarfs for table centers
have the oriental finish of a wrought bordering, with tiny spangles
and penduloques...One design is copied from the enamels of the 'green
mosque,' a marvelous piece of architecture in Broussa. Altogether
the exhibit is one of the finest in the building."
The affairs of the Turkish commission
were operated by a staff under H.E. Ibrahim Hakky Bey, who had the
title of "Commissioner-General of the Ottoman Empire to the World's
Columbian Exposition." The members of his commission consisted of
nine men, of whom five have names which sound like they might have
been Turkish. We also see the names "Pushman," Sweeney," "Thompson,"
and "Asdikian." The last of these is listed in the Official Catalogue
of the World's Columbian Exposition as "acting for Agriculture."
Asdikian is also listed in an internal
memo of the office of the appointment clerk, USDA, "as appointed
special agent at $1200 per annum in the Bureau of Animal Industry,
removed Mar. 15 - 1893." [9]
It appears, therefore, that he was a U.S. Government employee whose
job was terminated so that he could assume duties on the Turkish
commission at the Columbian Exposition. Possibly he was considered
especially apt for this post because he was natively from Armenia.
More about Asdikian later.
As fascinating as were the various
commercial products of the Ottoman Empire, the average American
visitor at the Columbian Exposition was probably more impressed
and entertained by Turkish exhibits at the Midway Plaisance, which
had more of the romance and color of the Orient.
Turkish exhibits at the Midway Plaisance
appear to have been in at least two divisions. There was a Turkish
village, operated by Robert Levy, a caterer from Constantinople,
as Concessionaire. Levy had previously handled a successful Turkish
concession at the Paris World's Fair of 1889. His concession at
Chicago, which was the first of all the exhibits on Midway Plaisance
to be ready for customers, appears to have included a Turkish theatre,
a refreshment pavilion, a tent said to have belonged to the Shah
of Persia, a "Grand Bazaar," a Bedouin encampment in which Bedouin
daily life was shown, cottages illustrating Turkish village industry,
a replica of Cleopatra's Needle, a replica of a bronze Greek monument,
and a mosque.
There was also music: When President
Grover Cleveland officially opened the Fair on May 1, he was serenaded.
The Turkish band played for the President and his party as they
were paraded through the grounds. The Chicago Tribune (5/2/93) reported:
"...when the smiling face of the President was seen well down the
line, the man who occupies the proud position of drum major swung
his little short baton, and there was the wildest and most confusing
escape of unmelodious sounds that have greeted the President's ear
since he left Washington. Then all the men smiled and bowed, though
they carefully retained their red fezzes while the President took
off his silk hat and made a profound bow."
The Turkish exhibit at the Midway
Plaisance additionally offered theatrical entertainment, mock sword
fighting, and an interesting display typical of the Middle East
carried on by young ladies in ethnic costume performing what was
described in some places as an educational demonstration of athletic
muscle control. Elsewhere, it was said to be disgusting to people
of sensitivity. This was the "Danse du Ventre," in today's terminology,
the "belly dance." It was also performed by young ladies of other
middle-eastern exhibitions as those of Egypt and Algeria. Participants
seem to have been fully clothed, but this dancing may have been
a little more than would have been favored by our recent President's
Commission on Pornography. It was described as "a dance of young
women, wherein Western people might see how the head of St. John
Baptist was lost to Herodias."
After the great Fair, many of the
exhibits adjourned to San Francisco, where they resumed business
as The Midwinter Fair. The Danse du Ventre attracted attention there,
too. A newspaper reports that "The Pacific Society for the Prevention
of Vice has had the Turkish dancing girls, who were a feature on
the Midway in Chicago and who were to appear at the Midwinter Fair,
arrested, and a determined effort will be made to prevent them from
dancing..." It is hard to imagine what they did that would have
shocked anyone in San Francisco of that era, or now.
The mosque was apparently a beauty,
with a gilded dome 60 feet high and a 135-foot minaret. The call
of the faithful to worship from its towers must have added a religious
touch to the atmosphere of the presentation. The Sultan of Turkey,
Abdul Hamid II, felt so strongly that Moslems attending the World's
Fair should have a place to worship that he personally subscribed
part of the money necessary to build it.
A fascinating switch of emphasis
occurred at Yom Kippur, when the mosque was temporarily converted
to a synagogue and much of the Turkish Village was shut down as
Jewish performers attended the service of their faith.
Hamidie Hippodrome Society
The Midway Plaisance exhibit of greatest
interest to the Arabian horse public was a concession for the exhibition
of desertbred Arabian horses. This is described in our stud books
as the "Hamidie Hippodrome Society." In official correspondence
at the time of the Fair, it was referred to as the "Ottoman Hippodrome,":
but it was better known as "The Wild East Show," and wild it was
and of the East it was.
So much so that no one has ever been
able to totally separate from it what was truth and what was fiction,
but this interesting event provided a context which helped start
Arabian horse breeding in America, then in its infancy, with only
a handful of Arabian horses in American ownership.
The scope of the exhibition was not
modest. Its departure from the Ottoman Empire was reported in The
Levant Herald and Eastern Express of March 27, 1893.
"Razi Sekali has obtained
an imperial irade authorizing him to open at Chicago a show
of Bedouin life with horses, camels, gazelles, greyhounds, camping
materials, tent equipment and all the adjuncts necessary to
produce a faithful representation of the existence of the nomadic
Ishmaelites of the Syrian desert. Mr. Sursock, a rich banker
of Beyrout, has promoted this undertaking and has been energetically
assisted by Mr. Allan Ramsay of the Imperial Ottoman Bank...
A large steamer has been chartered to convey the men, the livestock,
and in short all the materials which compose the exhibition,
across the Atlantic, and the vessel sails today for America
from Beyrout. The exhibition will be installed on the grounds
of the baseball Club, where Mr. Ramsay has secured space which
will contain 25,000 spectators..."
Of the 274 passengers on the SS Cynthiana,
most were young with ages between 20 and 35. Except for a few, they
were listed as "performers." Most had one to three items of baggage.
Only thirty-one were women. The official country of citizen ship
was given as Turkey, but these people actually came from places
like Beirut, Haifa, Mt. Lebanon, Damascus, Nazareth, Tripoli, Baalbek,
Jaffa, and Antioch. For many of them, the names of these towns may
have been used to indicate general areas of origin, according to
the responsibilities of the local Ottoman governors.
Probably the administrators of the
Hamidie Hippodrome Society and personnel of other aspects of the
Turkish presentation at the Fair came by other routes of transport.
In all, 477 exhibitors were reported as participating in the Hamidie
Hippodrome Society and other Turkish exhibits is not clear.
According to official declaration
at Customs, the actual numbers of animals imported by the Hamidie
Society was a little different than given in the newspaper account
reporting their arrival. Horses remained at forty head. There were
twelve camels and seven donkeys.
[10] In subsequent official
correspondence, the number of donkeys changed somewhat from letter
to letter, but the number of horses held constant at 40.
Another interesting feature of early
correspondence between representatives of the Hamidie Hippodrome
Society and the Secretary of the Treasury is repeated reference
to two horses being furnished from the private stables of the Sultan
of Turkey. The Collector of Customs, Port of Chicago, wrote to the
Secretary of the Treasury: "They state that they have the highest
official support in their enterprise, that the Sultan of Turkey
has sent two horses from his private stables, as part of their equipment,
with the view of illustrating to the Western World the quality of
stock they raise." [11] Horses
of the Sultan are referenced in a follow-up telegram of a few days
later: "Referring to my letter seventeenth instant regarding Ottoman
Hippodrome Consisting of Sultans horses and appurtenances..."[12]
In a memorandum apparently from the office of the Secretary of the
Treasury to Collector of Customs, Port of Chicago, notice is taken
of the statement that "they are accompanied by two horses from the
private stables of the Sultan of Turkey."[13]
Horses of the Sultan are not specifically
identified. None of the published American writers on the subject
of the Hamidie Society mentions them. One wonders a bit as to how
well-informed such writers were on the actual details of the importation.
Surely horses from the Sultan would have been newsworthy as items
of romantic origin and as indicating the official regard with which
the exhibition was held by the ruler of its originating country.
A further indication of official
regard was that the Sultan sent three representatives to keep track
of things, of which two were officials. The third, who was overall
head of the Turkish World's Fair Commission, was said by A. G. Asdikian
to have been Abdul Hamid's favorite private secretary. Official
oversight no doubt concerned much more of the Ottoman presence than
the Hamidie Society alone, but, like horse owners everywhere, the
Sultan probably kept track of his own horses.
The Bistany Influence
The origin of Hamidie Society horses
not donated by the Sultan is, of course, a matter of special interest.
In Homer Davenport's 1906-7 catalog of the World's Fair horses in
his possession at that time, he writes:
"...on the ship from Constantinople
to Beirut, en route to the desert, I was fortunate to meet Mr.
Bistany, a Syrian merchant, of Buffalo, New York, who informed
us that he had lost upwards of $80,000 in financing the company
known as "The Hamid Hippodrome Company,' that came to the Chicago
World's Fair in 1893, he having paid the money for the purchase
of the horses and mares, and he remarked that in our entire
travels over the desert we would not find the equal of the gray
mare Nedjma that was included in that importation, and he said
that she was a Kehilet Ajuz, one of the finest specimens of
that family... I asked him of the breeding of the other horses,
and from whence they had come... He told me that there were
several of the prized blood known as Hamdani Simri, several
Abeyan Sherraks, and others of the best strain; that they came
from the plains, near Damascus... He talked for an hour on the
rarity of blood of the gray mare... and told of the trouble
they had in getting her from the Anazeh."
If $80,000 or any substantial part
of that sum was actually paid for these horses, they were an expensive
collection indeed, costing about $2,000 each. Most of them were
young stallions. That was a category of horse that was a very frequent
sale item from desert tribes. A few years later the Davenport importation
to the U.S. from the same area was made at an approximate cost of
$1000 per head on arrival in this country.
[14]
A letter from this same K. A. Bistany
to H. K. Bush-Brown, initial secretary of the new Arabian Horse
Club, bears on the subject:
"...It takes me very long
time to explain you the breeding of said horses which took us
about a year to select from many different Tribes of the desert.
Price was no object to us when we were able to secure of every
tribe the purest blood horse they had from Anazeh, and the surrounding.
They were most of them, Seglawi Jedran, Abeyan, Jilfa, Kahilan
Ajuz & so forth. Nejdma was a star of the 40 horses and not
only that, I do not think that any better horse ever been imported
to this country... and it is hard to find at present time in
the desert of Arabia as pretty as Nejdma."
[15]
In an additional letter Mr. Bistany
wrote: "We had to gather these horses of many parts of the country,
Damascus, Aleppo, and the Desert of Arabia... Most of the horses
had the pedigrees, but very few of them which have been in the cities
had no certificates, as their names and breed known to us, and after
the company failed; books and papers have been lost or destroyed.
I am sure I do not know what became of them."
[16]
Years later in 1929, K. A. Bistany
wrote to the Arabian Horse Club in reference to the mare *Saada
721, a Jilfah Sitam-al Bulad which he had imported from Baalbek,
Syria. Mr. Bistany's letter refers to earlier historic Arabian horse
events: "In the year of 1893 the Hamidie Society Company of which
I was a stockholder imported forty-two Arabian Horses for the Chicago
World's Fair. Nejme, one of the best of this importation was my
particular Mare...In 1906 while I was crossing from Constantinople
to Syria, I met the late Mr. Homer Davenport who informed me that
he owned two colts from the mare Nejme. Later in Syria I helped
him secure the Arabian Horses he imported that year to this country."
[17]
A Turkish language newspaper, The
Chicago Fair Illustrated of June 1, 1893, lists "S. K. Bistany,
Proprietor, private office Turkish Village, World's Fair, Chicago."
An "S. K. Bistany" is also listed as the concessionaire for the
"Bedouin Camp" in the official report of the president of the World's
Columbian Exposition. The similarity of name seems to at least indicate
a family involvement with the World's Fair business. The passenger
list of the SS Cynthiana, upon which Hamidie Hippodrome Society
personnel arrived in the U.S., includes two men and two women having
the Bistany name, one man described as "K. Bistany," aged 33, which
corresponds roughly with the New York Times obituary age of Khalil
A. Bistany, there connected with the Bedouin village exhibit at
the Chicago World's Fair.
Concerning the name "Bistany" in
connection with the Hamidie Society, A. G. Asdikian, who had personal
contact with the Society at the Fair, wrote "I do not personally
remember the 'Mr. Bistany of Buffalo"... but know this much that
several people by that name were leading stockholders in the 'show'
and if my memory serves me right, a Mr. Bistany was the president
of the Hamidieh Company, and as there were several younger men connected
with the show by that name, would not doubt but this gentleman is
one of them." [18]
A Matter of Duty
Troubles began for the Hamidie Hippodrome
Society immediately upon arrival in America. It turned out that
they were required to pay $1446 duty owed for livestock
[19] and $541.56 as duty on
893 packages of food which they had brought along for both their
livestock and the little army of people in the entourage.
[20] The total required of
them was therefore about $2,000. This was not an inconsiderable
sum in 1893, when you could build a fine house for that amount of
money. It appears to have created a financial bind right at the
beginning for an organization which had come to this country in
the expectation of minimal cash outlay.
In the words of the manager of the
Hamidie Hippodrome Society, Khalil Sarkis, "When the World's Columbian
Exposition at Chicago extended invitations to the various nations
of the earth to exhibit, our country also received an invitation..."
That country and Syria had also in 1891 been visited by Commissioners
of the Fair soliciting participation. In March 1891, W. A. Brown
of a custom house brokerage company had written to the Secretary
of Treasury asking whether animals imported for the Columbian exposition
to be exhibited as a part of an Arab village would be admitted duty
free.
It appears from subsequent correspondence
that assurance was given that no duty would be charged, on the apparent
basis that payment of duty was not required for exhibits located
actually on the grounds of the Exposition, and which were not imported
directly for resale. Turkish advance plans therefore seem to have
been made without the expectation of payment of duty, and, in fact,
their letter appealing the duty requirement says "In view of the
invitation extended to us as before stated, we did not come prepared
with the necessary funds to pay duty on our importation, relying
entirely upon the information which we had received that all exhibits
for the World's Fair would be admitted free, under special regulations
of the Secretary of the Treasury."[21]
Under the law and according to advance
publicity, duty would not have been charged on the horses if the
Society had been able to take up immediate residence within the
grounds of the Columbian Exposition. Apparently they had trouble
in making arrangements to do so and had to locate temporarily outside
the grounds.
The reason for the difficulty in
accommodations seems to have been that the great World's Columbian
Exposition of 1893, in addition to being a glorious extravaganza,
was also a typical American snafu. The report by the Department
of Collections for the Fair casts some light on the situation:
"A very few weeks before the
opening of the Exposition concessionaires began to attempt to
secure space inside the buildings and booths outside. It seemed
to be impossible to have assignments of space made them which
would be permanent and reliable. The matter was in the joint
charge of the Department of Works and of the director-general.
If one of these departments approved a space, the other was
more than apt to veto it. No spaces apparently had been especially
reserved for this purpose in the general plan of apportionment
in the buildings. The spaces had to be gotten where they could
be found...It finally became necessary for the department to
cover the entire grounds with its employees, find stations actually
located, and either doing business or preparing to do so, take
a memorandum of the location, find out what concession had possession
of the space, making up its records of stations in this way."
[22]
Eventually, the Hamidie Society was
able to relocate within the Fairgrounds, but it had gotten off to
a bad start in the "Land of the Free," which was unexpectedly costly
in cash requirements for duty and in terms of loss of revenue because
of inadequate opportunity to exhibit.
The payment of duty was protested
by appeal directly to the Secretary of Treasury. It was pointed
out that a similar organization of equine performers, the British
Horse Guards, had also not located within the World's Fair enclosure
but had been excused payment of duty. Furthermore, as an extenuating
circumstance, mention was made that immediately upon payment of
duty, there had been a fire in which seven of the horses and three
camels had been destroyed. [23]
In the same fire, according to A.G.Asdikian, valuable equipment
and pedigrees for many of the horses had also been lost.
[24]
From a memorandum of June 1893, apparently
from the Department of Treasury to the Collector of Customs of Chicago,
it appears there may have been reimbursement of duty paid on livestock,
but not for what was paid on food-stuffs. For a company in a financial
squeeze, a delay in return of funds must have been poor help.
