TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 251 



HON. W. L. HARDING, GOVERNOR OF IOWA. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : 



The program committee said that if I would come they would 

 promise the members of this association that they would not be in- 

 flicted with me. Now they have broken their word with you. It 

 would be impossible for me to fill the place usually occupied by the 

 mayor of Des Moines, because most of him is below the belt. I 

 didn't exhibit last year. The fact of the matter is that the compe- 

 tition is getting so keen at the county fairs that a grade won't get 

 by any more. I have enjoyed in days gone by my visits at the county 

 fairs, and the state fair and the district fairs, and I am sure that 

 while I never got a blue ribbon, yet I had admirers as I stood in 

 front of the grand stand. 



I notice this audience tonight is larger than any I have seen 

 assembled for like occasion during the past ten years. It speaks well 

 for the organizations which you gentlemen represent. I just no- 

 ticed in the resolutions that were read that they referred to Iowa 

 and then said it was the best state in the Union. Well, if there 

 was anybody conducting a fair in Iowa that didn't believe that, it 

 ought to rain a whole week when he was having a fair. Of course 

 it's the best state in the Union. I was down in Kansas not long ago 

 and they were trying to brag about Kansas, and I told them that it 

 wasn't necessary up here in Iowa to brag about our state, that it 

 spoke for itself, but that we usually had a touch of Kansas every 

 summer. We have many, many states in this Union of states, and 

 each one has something of which it can be proud, and Iowa can 

 enter almost any field of competition with any state of the Union 

 and get a good marking, at least. We have made wonderful prog- 

 ress in agriculture in days gone by. I am satisfied in my own mind 

 that we have only started, and it is organizations like the fair organ- 

 izations of the counties and districts and states that are leading the 

 way. I presume once in a while you get tired, and after you have 

 worked all year and gotten a good fair together, and then it rains 

 and the crowd doesn't come as it ought to, you say, "Well, is it 

 worth while?" Is it worth while; if life is worth while it is worth 

 while, for there must be those always who are willing to stand out in 

 the forefront and lead. Land at $500 an acre, six per cent on that, 

 somebody has got to be leading if you pay interest on the invest- 

 ment. We are going to pay interest on the investment in Iowa, there 

 isn't any question about that, but we are not going to be able to do 



