TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART 11 109 



they thought they had completed their business the request was made 

 that the secretary should write up an account of the meeting to be fur- 

 nished to the few newspapers then being published in Iowa, to let Iowa 

 know that there was going to be a state fair and that the state agricul- 

 tural society had been formed. The secretary got out his pencil and 

 started writing, and he wrote along for a while very industriously, and 

 finally the president said, "You are getting that too long, aren't you? 

 Just read it to us." And the Secretary read, "A large and respectable 

 meeting of the Iowa Agricultural Society was held at Cedar Rapids on 

 the 3rd day of June " 



"Hold on, hold on," he says, "There are only three of us here." The 

 secretary said, "That's right; this is a large and respectable meeting— 

 you're large and I'm respectable." (Laughter.) 



Now we can see that the fair grows until it is one of the greatest in 

 the United States — we know that. Judge Wright told us that they held 

 the fair on wheels for many years, being held in different parts of the 

 state, and many times it rained all night preceding the fair. The judge, 

 who was president of the fair, would get up early and walk around the 

 grounds and look after the few exhibits. At one of these fairs there was 

 a farmer that had brought a bull that looked very downcast. During the 

 night it had rained torrents, and in the morning when Judge Wright got 

 there he found that the bull had walked round and round a tree to 

 which he was tied, making a pathway of mud and manure knee-deep, and 

 he was lying down in that muck. The farmer was trying to clean him off 

 when the judge arrived, and the judge said, "My friend, it is a little dis- 

 couraging to have such bad weather, isn't it?" and the farmer said "What 

 can you expect when you have an old crippled lawyer for president." 

 (Laughter.) 



That afternoon they had a number of speeches, and in front of the 

 platform was an old farmer. Judge Wright commenced his speech which 

 he had prepared welcoming them to the great Iowa State Fair, and this 

 farmer kept edging back farther and back and back — he apparently didn't 

 want to stand up so close, and he finally disappeared entirely. 



I was on the board of agriculture back in the 90s when everything was 

 lower in price than it is now — it was worse than it is now. The first duty 

 that was assigned to me when T was elected was to sign notes. I signed 

 notes for $20,000. I didn't know the financial condition of any member of 

 the board, but I signed the notes, and I made up my mind I would do 

 everything in my power to get the society out of debt, and I stayed with 

 it until it was out of debt, and we redeemed every obligation with 6 per 

 cent interest. (Applause.) Some of the exhibitors who were holding 

 premiums that had been awarded them would have been glad to get the 

 principal, but I said, "Gentlemen, let's advertise in the papers that we 

 will redeem every obligation of the society, from the date of the obligation 

 with 6 per cent interest," and they agreed, and you see the result today. 

 Our society's paper is not going begging today. No paper is outstanding 

 and we have no obligations at the bank. 



But we have fallen on evil days; we have had such times before. We 

 have been high up the last few years. We have had a war in Europe and 



