- William Steinway’s diary: “Still in bed, Nahum Stetson calls on me, talk about withdrawing from Worlds Fair on account of obnoxious Award System to be forced on Exhibitors by John Boyd Thatcher.”
- Another for withdrawal is the discovery of the fact that the only piano judge of the Columbian Exposition is Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld, who is a friend of William Wallace Kimball, a Chicago maker of “commercial” pianos. Steinway & Sons participating in the Columbian Exposition would mean competing against Kimball, and most probably losing to him.