Article May 9, 1901 Issue

First Exposition Afloat

The suggestion for a floating exposition, to enable American manufacturers and exporters to exhibit their goods at the doors of the people to whom they desire to sell them, recently made by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, is resulting in much discussion of the subject, not only throughout the United States, but in other parts of the world. Letters are being received from various countries in Europe and elsewhere, making inquiries regarding the proposed enterprise, and many inquiries from manufacturers and merchants in the United States desiring to participate in an undertaking of this character.

The proposition as originally presented suggested that it would be much easier to induce those whom we would make our customers to examine our goods if carried to their doors, than if the goods were set up in an exposition in the middle of the United States and the world invited to cross the oceans to examine them, and that greater proportionate results in the enlargement of our foreign commerce would accrue from investments in exhibitions carried to the doors of the would-be customers rather than large expenditure in creating sufficiently great attractions to bring the would-be customers to our own doors.

To this end it was suggested that an exposition association might be formed by manufacturers and exporters, which could create a guarantee fund which would entitle the subscribers to a proportionate amount of space in the vessel or vessels carrying the exhibit, this exhibit when completed to pass from port to port along the coast of South America, thence to the principal cities of Asia, Oceanica, Africa, and Europe, and thence returning to the United States, occupying perhaps two years in the trip and visiting the principal cities and countries of the world.

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