Second mayoralty (1893)
Harrison was again elected mayor in 1893, in time for the World's Columbian Exposition being held in the city. Harrison stated that his desire was to show the world the "true" Chicago during the world's fair.
Harrison was sworn in for his fifth nonconsecutive term on April 17, 1893. Harrison's first acts after being sworn in were to immediately submit vetoes of several ordinances that the council had already passed, one which served the interests of the Midland Elevated Railway (which stockbroker James R. Keene held significant stake in) and another which would have granted the Hygeia Springs Company permission to supply water into the city (which would have advanced a controversial project by Wisconsin businessman James C. McElroy to pipe water from the famed springs in Waukesha, Wisconsin to the grounds of the world's fair). Mayor Washburne had similarly vetoed the same ordinances in his final act as mayor. All vetoes were sustained.
A Washington Post obituary credited Harrison with having, contributed largely to the success of the Exposition, "by his unwearying zeal in its behalf."
Harrison appointed 1st Ward Alderman "Bathhouse" John Coughlin to sit on the reception committee for the world's fair. This appointment was a small part in Harrison's plan to create a centralized Democratic Party machine consisting of empowered ward committeemen and precinct captains that would answer to the local Democratic Party. The plan would not be accomplished until Anton Cermak came to power in Chicago politics in the 1920s.
In July, Harrison proposed the idea of building a new municipal water intake crib 7 miles (11 km) offshore of the city in Lake Michigan, and adjoining it to an artificial island built atop stilts anchored to the lakebottom. He envisioned such an island serving as "a summer resort...a pleasure garden, a picnicking ground."
During the exposition, Harrison entertained visiting dignitaries. On June 27, he hosted a breakfast at his personal residence for an official representative of the Spanish Monarchy. Harrison also delivered speeches during a number of themed days and other events of the exposition. At one event, he generated outrage by suggesting in a speech to a Canadian audience at a Dominion Day event that Americans would invite annexation of Canada to the United States. In August, during "British Empire Day" at the fair, he jokingly doubled-down on this by telling a British audience, by saying that Americans would invite an annexation of Great Britain alongside Canada. In the same remarks, however, he offered praise of the influence that the British Empire had, and its influence in the world's economy, and spoke in astonishment of the vast reaches of its empire.
On August 8, during an assembly of military surgeons of the United States National Guard, Harrison expressed his concern about unemployment in Chicago amid the Panic of 1893. He predicted that this situation, if not addressed with federal government funds, would inspire civil unrest in the city, remarking, "There are 200,000 people in Chicago today unemployed and almost destitute for money. If Congress does not give us plenty of money, we will have riots that will shake the country." Indeed, significant arrest with national reverberations did ultimately arise in Chicago, during the Pullman Strike in 1894.
