It was almost twelve o’clock on the opening day of the World’s Fair. President Cleveland was on the grand stand in front of the Administration Building. The triumphant Columbian March had been rendered by the great orchestra; the director-general had given his admirable address; the ode and prophecy had been read, and the President was making his brief speech of the opening hour. [Illustration: ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND COURT OF HONOR.] “Look sharp! He will touch the button in a moment more! Watch for the flags and the fountains!” Massed before the platform, and extending away down the grand square toward the Peristyle, still streaming in through the broad courts, thronging the immense façades and capacious balconies of the mighty buildings, and even perched by scores and by hundreds on the lofty battlements and amidst the huge statuary groups of the roofs, were wellnigh four hundred thousand people. [Illustration: OPENING DAY PROCESSION.] It was a vast oceanic crowd, gathered from every land and nation of the globe to celebrate the inaugural day of the Columbian Exposition. Turks, Arabs, Singhalese, and Malays; Algerians, Dahometans, Coreans, Samoans, Egyptians, and Eskimos, as well as Japanese, French, Germans, Spaniards, and Russians, were represented and mixed throughout that great throng, to which also were added a hundred or more painted and feathered Sioux Indians. These last, in fact, were the only true, original Americans present, for in one sense all others are immigrants. Although the preparations had been delayed by a long, cold, driving rainstorm, word had gone abroad that on Monday, May first, the World’s Fair would be opened, and foul weather did not keep the people at home. When the President arrived, shortly before eleven o’clock, the sun, for the first time in several days, broke through the dark, low-lying clouds; but trailing fogs still half veiled the domes, towers, and finials of the gigantic buildings. Never, as it seemed to those who have marked their progress toward completion, had these huge structures looked so enormous, as now that their foundations were encompassed and blackened by the innumerable multitudes, while their domes and roofs were looming, half concealed, in the mist-clouds. The magnitude of the grand square and the vastness of the assemblage alike defied the power of the human voice to fill or reach. The prayer and the ode were heard by but few. But the voice of the President was stronger, and audible farther; and when, advancing, amidst a tremendous outburst of cheers, he began his short address, the opening sentence, admirable in its simple modesty, “I am here, my fellow-citizens, to join in the congratulations which befit this occasion,” penetrated to a greater distance, and stimulated remote areas of the throng to try to approach nearer and hear more.