by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With the Fourth of July weekend of 1926 bringing the “Pageant of Liberty” at the Los Angeles Coliseum, while an exposition was about five weeks in at Philadelphia to mark the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the first, generally accounted a success, gradually slid out of public view, while the second, continuing on for a few more months, received plenty of attention in local media, though increasingly with coverage of the mounting problems of the expo.
Moving into August, one of those issues was an effort by moralists in the City of Brotherly Love to ban any events on Sundays, as an injunction was sought citing a 1794 “blue law” ordinance as well as a Pennsylvania state law of 1925 that the operation of the event was to be “in conformity with existing laws governing Sunday observance.” The San Pedro News-Pilot of the 6th, however, questioned “whether any friends are made for Sabbath observance in America by going so far back and invoking, in a spectacular way, laws long forgotten or ignored.”
Despite all efforts otherwise by the operators of the expo, however, including taking the matter to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the Sunday ban was implemented, but only for commercial enterprises, not the full closure sought, on the last three Sundays as November as the festivities limped to a close. The high court, while sustaining the injunction as ruled upon by a county court, issued a writ allowing the managers of the expo “to continue to operate and charge admission on Sunday,” with final arguments of the appeal held not much more than week prior to the closing of the festivities.
But, the bigger headache for the organizers was the financial bugaboo entailed in the event, with the Pasadena Post of the 4th noting that,
The exposition in Philadelphia whose name drives so many to the dictionary—the Sesquicentennial—is not faring well financially, reports indicate. It is confronted with a huge operating deficit. It needs $3,700,000 to meet outstanding obligations . . . Mayor [W. Freeland] Kendrick [who assumed executive authority over the expo] said that the sesquicentennial celebration of American independence is “cheap at any price.” He expressed confidence that the people of Philadelphia will support and encourage the exposition directors . . .The Philadelphia exposition doubtless is a good one. It is praised by those who have visited it . . . [but] there have been too many expositions in this country, of recent years, for any of them to be a financial success.
The Sesquicentennial Association, as cited in the Los Angeles Times three days later, announced that investors stood to lose a massive $100 million “and the whole project will be a complete failure if it is not permitted to operate on Sundays.” Attorneys for the organizers put it bluntly that closing on the Sabbath “must necessarily involve the absolute, entire and complete ruin and disintegration of the whole project.”
The economic malaise involved in the expo extended to transportation companies, which dropped prices to ferry visitors to Philadelphia, so the Pennsylvania Railroad (remember your Monopoly!) would carry those from Los Angeles for $134.50 roundtrip, proclaiming that this comprised “the lowest fares in years!” The Los Angeles Express of the 24th reported that the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railways were offering “special reduced fares” from 19 September to 15 October.
Sporting events were hoped to attract large numbers of visitors to the expo and August included American Athletic Union swimming championships for men and women and an aviation meet, a sport of a sort, was planned for early September. The big news, however, came just after the middle of the month when it was announced, despite the mayor’s squelching of the idea before finances become a real issue, that heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey would face Gene Tunney in a bout on 23 September at the new exposition stadium, later known as John F, Kennedy Stadium.
Jack James, an Express sports columnist, wrote that the expo was “more or less of a complete bust” and observed that the AAU competitions “failed to attract the spending throngs the descendants of the Conscript Fathers so confidently expected.” It was, therefore, in desperation, he continued, that the Dempsey-Tunney bout was arranged and the desperation was both for the expo officials and Dempsey’s promoter, Tex Rickard, after a New York boxing license was refused. Adding about double the seats to 150,000 and charging up to $30 for tickets, it was hoped that up to $2 million would be realized for the fight.
When the contest was held, there was a pouring rain (which plagued the expo for weeks), and, in front of 120,000 drenched but largely enthusiastic fans, Tunney emerged the winner, controlling the fight from start to finish in the ten-round gladiatorial extravaganza. Almost exactly a year later, at Soldier Field in Chicago, Tunney successfully fended off Dempsey (who then retired) in a defense of his title—the fight was known for its Long Count.
Also taking place during the expo and at the stadium were seven games played by the Philadelphia Quakers in the sole season of the original American Football League (AFL), these played on Saturdays because of that “blue law”—in fact, on 22 August, while the Sesqui case was being adjudicated, the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team of the American League played its first Sabbath game, the only one of the season, besting the Chicago White Sox, 3-2. These contests began on 2 October with the Quakers (a strange name given the real Quakers’ pacifist views) defeating the Chicago Bulls (that name later recycled for the NBA basketball team) 9-3. The next week, the Los Angeles Wildcats came to town and were shutout 3-0, but the attendance was 35,000, compared to 8,000 the prior week.
The crowd grew to 40,000 for the 16 October game against the Newark Bears, whom the Quakers shutout, 9-0, but attendance dropped more than 60% for the 23 October match against the Rock Island [llinois] Independents, with the identical score. Having dominated its opponents to date, the Quakers more than met their match in the New York Yankees, which, in front of 25,000 persons, throttled the home team, 23-0. Two subsequent Quaker victories against Los Angeles (a team actually based in Illinois and also called “Wilson’s Californians” because team owners, football legend Red Grange and promoter C.C. Pyle, built the squad around recent University of Washington star, George “Wildcat” Wilson) and Rock Island, with light attendance at the Sesqui venue, were followed by a pair of wins against the Yanks, but the league title contest was at Shibe Park, not the Sesqui stadium.
Philadelphia the took on the NFL’s New York Giants, which finished sixth in that league, in a mid-December “challenge” game, and was crushed 31-0. In 1933, voters in the City of Brother Love voted to repeal the “blue law,” this happening the same year the Prohibition amendment of the Constitution banning most production and sales of alcohol was repealed. A plan for a Sesqui collegiate all-star football game comprising teams from the western and southern states was planned in August, but appears to have been abandoned.
Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Walter Henry Rothwell was a guest conductor of the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra at the expo and returned home on 25 August and, while the temperature in the Angel City was 102, Rothwell professed to be cold because, reported the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News of the following day, “he had just returned from Philadelphia, where it gets really hot—awful hot—say around “117 or 120 in the shade.” He was highly complimentary of the orchestra, saying it was one of the finest he’d known, but, just a half year later, in March 1927, Rothwell was dead of a stroke as he drove to the beach at Santa Monica.
Among the local visitors to the expo was Pasadena Superintendent of Schools George C. Bush, who went with his wife and daughter, but as the Star-News of the 27th reported, in terms that might sound familiar for this year’s 250th:
Their impression of the Sesquicentennial Exposition was that it had been done in a big hurry and was unfinished, while much of the space was unoccupied. The California exhibits, notably those of Los Angeles county and the San Joaquin Valley, stood out prominently among all the rest and usually had an interested crowd among them.
Of general interest was a report published in the Black-owned California Eagle of the 27th that as part of a three-day conference in Philadelphia, the National Negro Press Association, whose first vice-president was Joseph B. Bass, co-owner with wife Charlotta, of the Eagle, visited the expo with the observation that “the Sesqui-Centennial officers were hosts to the quill-pushers during their session.”
On the other hand, when the Ku Klux Klan sought to have its “klanvocation” in the City of Brotherly Love in mid-September and to have a demonstration during the Sesqui expo, the Hollywood Citizen reprinted an account in its edition of the 11th that “Philadelphia authorities were inhospitable to the plans,” so the KKK ended up having its gathering in the nation’s capital instead.
With regard to sports that month, commented the Daily News of the 18th, the Los Angeles branch of the Union Pacific Railroad’s baseball team, champions of a local league of railroaders, headed to Philadelphia to compete for a national championship comprising similar teams, though they did not end up with the coveted title. The UP, noted the Pomona Progress of the 25th, also extended its special rates to the Sesqui through 15 November, though dates of travel could continue until early December. There was a youth baseball championship game in mid-October with a squad from Yonkers, New York defeating a team from Pocatello, Idaho, 23-6, while, on the 20th, French tennis legend Suzanne Lenglen bested Californian Mary K. Brown in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, at the Sesqui Auditorium.
Returning to the Crown City, the Pasadena Post of the same day informed readers that 4,000 promotional pamphlets boosting the city were given out at the exposition and another 3,500 were shipped there, these only handed out to those who asked for them. It was added that the Pasadena display included 25 color images of the town and region and Jessie L. Ogston of the chamber of commerce remarked,
Pasadena seems to be very well known. I have not heard a single unfavorable comment about the city. It seems to me that it is the best loved city in Southern California.
By early October, it was clear that, despite the Dempsey-Tunney bout, the Philadelphia expo was an unmitigated economic disaster, with the Times of the 8th noting that Mayor Kendrick deflected attention from his management by claiming that “the financial failure” was because of “the failure of the people to go there,” adding that, instead of an anticipated 25 million visitors there were fewer than 5 million. Director-General E.L. Austin added that operating shortfalls were up to $40,000 weekly, while unpaid bills to contractors and others amounted to $3 million.
The Express of the 20th editorialized that the gates were to be shuttered at the end of the month, though it was actually the end of November, and “Philadelphia will stand a loss of $15,000,000 on the big show,” but repeated that “the American people failed to awaken to the significance of the event.” It added that the centennial of 1876 was much more successful and issues of the paper from then reported on locals heading on “the arduous trip from this coast.” This led the Express to assert,
Apparently the people have lost interest in the founding of the nation . . . We accept independence as our right, with no thought about what it cost those who handed it down to us. Washington and Jefferson proved unable to compete with [champion swimmer] Gertrude Ederly [Ederle], Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney for favor of the crowd at the exposition. The hollow notes of [the] Liberty Bell were drowned out by the gong of the big prize fight . . . Bunker Hill and Valley Forge were a long time ago. Much has happened in 150 years. Still, it will be best not to forget.
In the Times two days later, reader J.R. Young reported that, having visited the expo, two months after it opened, it was “still very incomplete” and he saw and heard in the media, in hotels and on trains “slighting remarks about the big show.” He found the Los Angeles County exhibit to be excellent, along with a few others, but, as the title of his letter stated, the event was “Not Up to [the] Mark.”
In its editorial page of the 20th, the News-Pilot remarked on the flop that was the expo in terms of attendance being just 20% of projections and no way for organizers to escape the flood of red ink on its books, even as it asserted that “the ‘Sesqui’ is really a mighty good show, worthy of the city and the occasion.” Of the items of blame including construction delays and politics, poor advertising was cited as preeminent, as it was commented that “almost any country blacksmith could have improved it.” It added, however,
It may be long before any future exhibition can appeal to the national imagination and the national purse as did the Philadelphia Centennial and the Chicago fair [of 1893]. Our people have more varied interests now, more numerous forms of education, entertainment and recreation. A world of movies, radio programs and automobiles draws us away from exhibition halls.
As the Philadelphia exposition crawled to its close, more commentary was expressed in Los Angeles papers about its failings, with the Whittier News of 13 November asking “IS THE DAY OF EXPOS PAST?” and reiterating the issue of a lack of public interest, though it observed that Chicago was planning for its world’s fair of 1933-1934—which was quite successful despite the dire days of the Great Depression.
The Express of the 18th cited an Associated Press report that the presumed deficit of the expo would top $5 million and that Mayor Kendrick stated that funds for subway construction would be redirected to pay that debt and then blamed poor weather (with rain on 17 weekends during its run). Remarkably, exposition officials seriously considered repeating the Sesqui in 1927, apparently under the impression that better weather would mean more success.
Two days later, the Daily News addressed this in a short editorial, noting the plans to reintroduce the event and that the weather blame game was such that officials in the City of Brother Love “believe there would have been an attendance at the exposition that would have prevented a deficit.” Wiser heads obviously prevailed because there was no repeat of the festivities in 1927.
The good news for our region is that the Los Angeles County exhibit was given the grand prize for all displays and it was reported that estimates were that “millions of people viewed the exhibit which was in competition” with others from across the nation and from other countries. It was added that around 2 million pieces of promotional material was given to visitors. Chamber of Commerce president Arthur S. Bent commented,
The winning of the grand prize by Los Angeles county is of inestimable value from an advertising viewpoint to Southern California. Millions viewed it according to reports received by the Chamber. The displays of fruit never failed to attract the eyes of the Easterners and the exhibit will doubtless influence thousands to come to Southern California to live.
After the exposition closed on the last day of November, Robert T. Small, an Express special correspondent, pointed the finger of reproach at advertising, writing, “no story of the demise” of the event “without attention being called to the fact that the exposition management ignored one of the shining principles of modern industrialism as well as modern show business.” This, he continued, was that “advertising and intensive publicity seem to have been avoided rather than used” and this applied to radio as well as newspapers.
Small concluded by remarking,
Nor was there any outstanding attraction at the exposition to catch the imagination of the public. It was just a sedate show which failed to interest a public too sophisticated to care one way or the other.
It turned out, though, that the Pageant of Liberty was also encumbered with debt, or, that is, a deficit of $6,000 hung over the heads of the members of the Hollywood fraternal society, the 233 Club, which absorbed the costs of the Coliseum extravaganza of 5 July. On 24 November, the society held an “all-star vaudeville show and dance” at the recently reconstructed (following a fire) Shrine Auditorium that drew 6,000 persons. It was not learned, however, if the event was able to raise the funds to wipe away the debt. In any case, the amount of money was minuscule compared to that in Philadelphia.
As noted earlier in this post, it may be instructive, as well as interesting, to compare and contrast the national and local celebrations of the American centennial of 1876 and the “Sesqui” of 1926 to those of our America250 commemorations of 2026. It was also observed that there may be some readers young enough to be around for the tricentennial of 2076 and who knows what the future holds for the marking of that anniversary and what the state of American democracy will be.
As noted in this post, the Pennsylvania Railroad offered a promotional round-trip fare of $134.50 from Los Angeles to Philadelphia during the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition. Today, although there is no direct passenger rail service on this route, travelers can still take Amtrak from Los Angeles to Philadelphia with a connection in Chicago. A round-trip coach ticket typically costs only about four times what people paid a century ago.
Considering that the overall inflation rate from 1926 to today is roughly 18-fold, what does this “four times” really indicate? Was rail travel extraordinarily expensive in 1926, or is it remarkably inexpensive today? Keep in mind that the $134.50 fare quoted here was already a discounted promotional rate.
I believe two of the primary reasons are the absence of airline competition a century ago and the government subsidies that help support Amtrak today.