TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 157 



State Fair has not offered. I think there are several possibilities which 

 will afford an endless number of features which need but new surround- 

 ings, and different settings, to make of an old feature something really 

 extraordinary. 



At this time, the County Fair has a field all its own. The opportunity 

 and the possibilities are so great that the unfolding of them would stagger 

 the imagination of the most enthusiastic director. To the men of lim ted 

 foresight and inexperience may be placed the blame for the failure of the 

 County Fair at the very time it should have taken on new life. Upon the 

 shoulders of you men gathered here with one thought and purpose, with 

 open minds combined with a purpose worthy of your most ardent effort, 

 will rest the future of the County Fair. 



In striving to better conditions, financially and substantially and in sug- 

 gesting changes, new ideas and features, may I not remind you of the 

 changing conditions which so reacted on the County Fair of the past and 

 must be taken into serious consideration each year in reckoning with 

 the future. It was these changes and the failure to recognize them which 

 caused the fair managers of a few years back to fail utterly. It must be 

 the appreciation of these important yearly changes that will insure against 

 failure. 



When the County Fair had reached the pinnacle of its success, horse 

 racing was a feature — if not approved by all was opposed by none. The 

 great majority owned a good, horse. That was the answer to the uni- 

 versal interest in the race program. Few of this generation who boasted 

 not of some sporting blood! The abolishing through legislation of bet- 

 ting whether we care to admit it or not, had a tendency to destroy interest 

 in breeding and racing and seriously affected the gate receipts. That 

 racing no longer was considered by the masses of paramount interest 

 there was no mistaking. The Fair Board, composed in most cases of 

 farmers, had not kept in step with the trend of public thought and with 

 ideas beginning and ending with the raising, racing and showing of stock 

 knew not in which direction to turn. Failure was inevitable. Not only 

 was the County Fair so affected but several of the great State Fairs were 

 saved from ruin by installing big men with big ideas who succeeded in 

 focusing state-wide attention through other channels, and carried out 

 along ideas suggested by the showmen of America, but executed by men 

 who had made a thorough and systematic study of the World's Fairs for 

 several years. 



Recent statistics compiled from data accumulated by expert and success- 

 ful directors of expositions and fairs prove beyond a question of doubt 

 that the Exposition as a County Fair feature has become the most potent 

 factor in reckoning to a degree of certainty the results. In my years of 

 experience, associated as I have been in that time with the most able 

 men and competent directors, there has yet to be recorded a single in- 

 stance when the Exposition as an added feature failed in increasing the 

 gate receipts. To more intelligently discuss with you my subject, "The 

 Exposition and What It Means to the County Fair," we must go back over 

 a number of years when the County Fair, aside from the Circus was the 



