Two things he can’t stop on Sunday
An old man labeled “Sabbatarian Bigot,” dressed as a Puritan, holds a book labeled “Blue Laws” and stands in front of “Niagara Falls.” A man walking with his wife and child suggests that the old man will be no more successful at stopping Niagara Falls, than he will be at preventing the Pan-American Exposition from opening on Sunday. A nearby sign states “Pan-American open on Sunday by order of Supreme Court.” In the background, hordes of people stream through the open gates to the Exposition.
Comments and Context
Church groups and denominational spokesmen lobbied the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo to “respect the Sabbath” and close the fair on Sundays. This had been a controversy during the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, but the Sabbatarians had more success with the Buffalo fair. Operating between April and October 1901, the fair opened on Sundays at half-price admission for barely a month, due to heavy complaints from concessionaires. The courts, when the controversy resulted in litigation, decided in favor of the fair’s owners, closing gates on Sundays. The “opening” on the sign in Puck‘s cartoon was a short-lived victory. Ultimately, and in spite of popular plaudits and 8-million visitors, the Exposition was a financial disaster. Even with the Sunday closures, its major income was derived from concession fees. John G. Milburn was President of the Pan-American Exposition, and hosted President William McKinley at his house, where, after McKinley’s death at an assassin’s hand, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office.
