PROCEEDINGS STATE AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION 133 



a general way by appropriations, thus enabling your district and county 

 fairs to grow. 



I am a believer in the educational value of the county, district and 

 state fair. I believe that the county and district fair have their place, 

 scattered over the state and that there should be a proper relationship 

 between these organizations and the state fair. They are builders, if you 

 please, of a greater and a better state fair. Now to do this, to build a 

 better state fair, we must have successful county and district fairs. The 

 county and district fair bears the same relationship to the state fair 

 as do our high schools to the colleges. They are feeders or developers 

 of our state fair. We are all proud of this great state fair of low^a. In 

 fact we are proud of Iowa. As they have been discussing the condition of 

 Iowa and of the nation, I want to say to you people that we have never 

 passed that hat in Iowa and we are not going to do it this year or in any 

 future year. I want you people to keep this thing in mind; that we have 

 the richest soil in the world; that we have more wealth per capita than 

 any other state in the union. Not only is that fact true but the egg crop 

 of Iowa is worth more than the orange crop of the entire United States. 

 We are first in the value of horses; we are second in the number of 

 cattle, only being exceeded by Texas, having a territory much larger than 

 Iowa. Now we have many distressing things, it is true, here in Iowa, but 

 we can and we should meet this situation. There is, as Dr. Pearson stated, 

 an over-production. He suggested that we should curtail production. I 

 am sure we all agree with the President of our great agricultural college 

 that this should be done. He also suggested one other remedy, that is the 

 accumulation or taking off the market of certain corn, and there is just one 

 thought in that connection I want to leave with you. That is this, I won- 

 der whether that would result in very great relief for the reason that that 

 visible supply would be ever present and affect your market condition. 

 It seems to me, ladies and gentlemen, that we must first reduce production 

 and then must try to find a market for this corn which will use it up. 

 It seems to me that what we need today is not so much more financing as 

 it is a marketing of our present over-production and present crop. Now 

 the question naturally arises, in a sense, how can this be done? I know 

 it is a difficult problem, it is one that is going to be hard to solve. We 

 cannot loan money to the eastern countries and expect them to repay 

 to us this money in buying of our food products, but we should, however, 

 I believe, extend to all eastern countries a credit by which they may buy 

 some of our farm products, thus extending credit for the purpose of ex- 

 pediting the purchase of our products rather than loaning money for any 

 general purchases at this time. 



Now people speak sometimes of the depressed condition of the country. 

 True, it is not the best at the present time, but I want you people to keep 

 in mind that the wealth of this country is 240 billion; that we owe, it is 

 true, twenty-five billion, but we are owed by other countries nine billion 

 dollars. This country is a long ways from being bankrupt at this time. 

 What we need, as Dr. Pearson has said, is men with courage, men with 

 backbone, who are going to go out and meet this situation and meet it 

 squarely and honestly. The question is, how can these things be done? 



