228 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



be the battle cry of these captains of industry. The big organizations 

 will endeavor to dominate the field of business, to the exclusion of the 

 smaller ones. But, as usual, the small manufacturers will furnish the 

 real competition, and let us hope that they will ride serenely along in 

 the procession, with the shoals and breakers behind them. But what- 

 ever the outcome, the demand for exhibit space at fairs will increase 

 and grow immeasurably in the coming years, so that if any action is 

 seriously contemplated along the line discussed, never was the time more 

 opportune than now. 



The Chairman : I am going to call on Alex Sloan. Mr. Sloan is 

 preparing a history of the American and Canadian fairs and he has 

 some very valuable information for us. You all know Mr. Sloan. He 

 is the father of the automobile racing game and he has the pluck 

 and energy to do things. We will now listen to Mr. Sloan. 



Alex Sloan (Chicago) : I will only take a few minutes of your 

 time and it is on a subject that is entirely new to me. I will say at 

 the start why I am in this particular line of work. Two years ago 

 I was called to Washington to fix up a controversy there with an 

 assistant of Mr. Garfield's, who had issued an order that no gaso- 

 line was to be used for any sort of amusement purpose. When I 

 went up to visit Mr. Ruckland for the first time and started to talk 

 of the fairs to him and to tell him the magnitude of the fairs and 

 what they meant, while he was a California oil man (he was prob- 

 ably associated with the Standard Oil Company), he was absolutely 

 at a loss to understand the magnitude of the fairs — the Iowa and 

 the Minnesota fairs. I had to spend an awful lot of time trying to 

 tell him how big they were. I sat at the table with a senator who 

 didn't know absolutely what a large fair represented and he said, 

 "Sloan, can you give us some reference book that we can read on 

 fairs?" I told him I'd try and I went and delved into the libraries 

 and found there was no books on American fairs — not even in the 

 Congressional Library, and I decided then and there that if I was 

 able I was going to hand to the fair people of this country a volume 

 that would be worthy of respect of any one that wanted to know 

 about fairs. 



About a year ago this time I received one of the first editions of 

 the history of the great war and I saw how well the fair men took 

 to that. Those that had copies were very much interested in them 

 and showed great appreciation. It was about that time I definitely 

 made up my mind to absolutely give to this country the best volume 

 on fairs that could be gotten together and began taking it up with 

 fair men at that time, and evolved my plan. Within the next three 



