The gates had scarcely closed for the last time when the work of destruction and demolition began. All of the beauties of the dream city which for seven months had been the admiration of thousands and an inspiration to all to do higher and better things, were swept away almost in a night and soon the whole scene will be restored to a park. To those who had come to love its majestic structures, its placid waterways, its attractive vistas and its fairy like illumination, comes a pang of regret tempered with the feeling of gratefulness that it ever existed and that it was their privilege to witness it secure in the knowledge that it shall always be theirs to remember and to dream of. Most effectually was the whole story told in an address on Chicago Day, by Ernest McGaphey, a poet from that city. "In its truest sense this Exposition is epic and dramatic. The mere prose of it will come to lie neglected on the dusty shelves of statisticians, but its poetry will be a priceless legacy to generations that will follow. And thus there is one light only which may not fade from the windows of Time--one glint to illuminate the flight of the dying years--that gleam which lives in fancy and in memory. "And when this vision of magic departs; when the ivory towers have vanished, and the sound of flowing waters has been stilled, there will exist with us yet the recollection of it all. And so at the end the most enduring fabric known to man is woven of the warp and woof of dreams. The canvas of the great painters will crumble, the curves of noble statuary be ground into dust by Time, and all this pageantry of art and commerce disappear. But memory will keep a record of these days as a woman will treasure old love letters, and in the last analysis the height and breadth, the depth and scope of this splendid achievement shall be measured by a dream." CHAPTER II The Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission, State of New York [ILLUSTRATION] The first steps looking toward the official participation of the State of New York in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition were taken by the Legislature of 1902, which passed the following act, receiving executive approval on April 7, 1902: CHAPTER 421, LAWS OF 1902 An Act to provide for the representation of the state of New York at the Louisiana purchase exposition at Saint Louis, Missouri, and making an appropriation therefor. Became a law, April 7, 1902, with the approval of the Governor. Passed, three-fifths being present. _The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:_