Seville Exposition

Long-jawed Alfonso XIII of Spain listened last week in Seville, amid an imposing group of gold-braided notables, to a high-sounding address by Spain's Dictator General Don Miguel Primo de Rivera. The dictator gesticulated, emphasized, smiled, scowled, pointed. To foreign ears it would have sounded like a declaration indeed, perhaps of grave warning, perhaps defiance. What the dictator was leading up to, however, was only this:

"You are our King, even in the days of misfortune afflicted by the death of the Queen-Mother, Maria Christina. When I conclude my address you will pronounce the words for the opening of this exposition."

When the dictator did finish, King Alfonso uttered a few lisping Castilian syllables and Seville's Ibero-American Exposition formally began.

Crowds swarmed through massive wrought iron gates eager to see what Primo de Rivera's new Spain had to offer the world; what exhibits had been prepared by Portugal, by the U. S. and nine other American republics whose relations with Spain the Ibero-American Exposition was meant to improve.

Important among the dignitaries at the opening was U. S. Ambassador Ogden Haggerty Hammond, onetime New Jersey realtor. So anxious was Ambassador Hammond to help the exposition that he has moved to Seville for the summer.

For the first time in many years, the U. S. Government has erected a building at a foreign exposition. Conventionally Spanish, solidly constructed, it will house the U. S. Consulate at Seville after the exposition is closed. Meanwhile visitors thronged inside to see the oil furnaces, electric refrigerators, airplane models, miniature wind tunnels and other mechanical gadgetry.

One outstanding difference between the Seville fair and other European expositions was instantly apparent to opening-day visitors. Instead of finding uncomfortable new buildings in an old and settled town, they discovered a great established park with comparatively old exposition buildings in a hastily modernized city. Seville's exposition has been 19 years in preparation, many times postponed. The main building was used as a hospital during the War. Trees have grown up; the buildings look settled. This winter, however, it was decided that the old crooked streets of Seville were not wide enough for the large expensive automobiles of expected tourists, Seville's hotel accommodations were insufficient. Old blocks were ruthlessly torn down, new streets hastily laid out, new hotels built. Andalusian Seville of Washington Irving and the Giralda Tower were hastily awakened. Like anyone just awakened from a long sleep, Seville last week was tousled but cheerful.

There was no need to awaken the city of Barcelona, which has just opened an exposition of its own. Barcelona is Spain's greatest seaport, most modern, most commercially successful city of the Iberian peninsula. Barcelona's exposition buildings on a hillside overlooking the city are new, strikingly modernistic.