SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 123 



it was a question of a man getting in. When a concessioner came to me 

 I would ask, "What have you got"? If he said he had a paddle wheel I 

 would tell him, "Nothing doing! Nothing in the way of a paddle wheel 

 or anything of that kind." Or he might say, "I have a little jewelry 

 proposition that turns around," and again I would say, "Nothing doing!" 

 But if he had something that looked all right, then I would tell him em- 

 phatically, "If you have anything else than you have represented to me, 

 there will be something doing.. I am going to have somebody watch you 

 and just as soon as you vary from the proposition you have listed to me, 

 you will be closed up, fired out of the grounds and your concession for- 

 feited." That is what I insisted on. 



Then take the matter of pickpockets; they don't come to you and you 

 don't know who they are, so you have to catch them, and you have men 

 on the grounds to watch those fellows in order to take care of things of 

 that kind. 



Simply give the men to understand when they come to you that you 

 are not going to wink at any of that funny business. If the secretaries 

 of the different fairs will give the men to understand for one thing that 

 they are going to insist on a straight game, the men with gambling 

 propositions will have to go some place else. Let them understand that 

 you are not going to write out a contract for one thing and know that 

 laler on they will give you a gambling proposition. In my experience I 

 have had very little trouble in games and things of that kind, and it has 

 been because I used caution in choosing concessions. 



In the matter of number, I never tried to see how many concessions 

 I could get on the fair grounds. I wanted every concessioner to go away 

 with money in his pocket. I wanted him to make money. I am sorry to 

 say that for five or ten dollars some secretaries will let a man set up a 

 juice-joint under the guise of a trained lion, or something like that. 

 When you look over the show you know they couldn't make expenses 

 legitimately, and if you keep them down they will go away and knock 

 your fair. My method was this: Take the matter of soft-drinks. I would 

 auction off five concessions of soft drinks to the highest bidders. I sold 

 the pop corn privilege and the ice cream cone privilege the same way. 

 That is the only thing I sold exclusively on the fair grounds. About 

 three or four weeks before the fair I would advertise liberally and give 

 notice to the different concessioners that we were going to sell privileges 

 on the fair ground on a certain date, and I would put a minimum on the 

 amount that each of those concessions would bring. The minimum was 

 $50. No concession would sell for less than $50 and the man who bought 

 the first concession had first choice in the matter of location. We had 

 our concessions under the grand stand, which was centrally located and 

 made an ideal place, with five big roomy booths for these purposes. Those 

 concessions would bring all the way from $50 to $175 apiece, and thoso 

 fellows would make money. We have had men come in year after year 

 ready to buy those stands. Why? For the simple reason that they made 

 money. It costs a concessioner about so much to come to your fair and 

 set up his stand there. Now, if that man after coming there pays $50, $75 



