Story of International Relations

2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 111

objective. The World Exposition will have fallen short of its goal if it were

merely a spectacle—whatever its brilliance.^93

Indeed, following its conclusion, Chapsal rejoiced in the thought
that the exposition had unfolded as much more than a French spectacle
involving a degree of foreign collaboration. Indeed, he stated that the
exposition had turned out to be a great ‘gathering [rassemblement] of
peoples, a veritable Société des Nations.’^94 Evoking the humanism that
informed the thinking of certain of the exposition’s planners, such as
that of Edmond Labbé, the exposition’s general commissioner, Chapsal
stated that the exposition had

become in reality an international work, a meeting of races, of peoples, of

nations. The International Exposition of 1937 had manifested itself as a

true demonstration of universal civilisation. Because not only had it testi-

fied to the state of this civilisation in all parts of the world, but had made

it apparent that civilisation is one and indivisible and common to all. If the

Exposition has revealed this truth...it will deserve well of civilisation and

will have marked a date in human history.^95

Yet the exposition did not paint a picture of unalloyed harmony: the
very insecurities and difficulties to which Chapsal referred in his inau-
gural speech were incorporated into the exposition.^96 Indeed, the
attempt to engender feelings of. international solidarity and foster a new
humanism via the exposition was a function of an acute awareness that
the world existed in a state of profound disharmony, an awareness that

(^93) Fernand Chapsal, 1937, quoted in Fickers, ‘Presenting the “Window on the World” to
the World,’ 293.
(^94) Chapsal, introduction to Ministère du Commerce et de l’Industrie, Livre d’or officiel de
l’Exposition Internationale, 15–16.
(^95) Ibid., 15. See also Edmond Labbé ‘Les Leçons de l’exposition,’ in Ministère du
Commerce et de l’Industrie, Livre d’or officiel de l’Exposition Internationale, 19–20; and
Junyk, ‘The Face of the Nation,’ 104; and Lemoine, preface to Lemoine, ed., Paris 1937:
Cinquantenaire de l’Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne,
14.
(^96) Chandler, introduction to Confrontation: The Exposition internationale des arts et des
techniques dans la vie moderne (1937). Chandler notes the following of one of the inten-
tions of the exposition officials: ‘To their credit, exposition officials recognized that they
were celebrating in a deeply troubled world, and did their best to confront the actual and
impending disasters within the framework of the exposition itself ’ (ibid.).