TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 179 



was the end of another pet aversion! I said I would never have a walk- 

 ing chewing tobacco man on the grounds, and there he was already 

 there. (Laughter.) 



The other night I was out in Sioux City with a bunch of friends. We 

 had been having a lot of trouble keeping gypsies off the ground, which 

 we did, and at this little social gathering the other night I made the state- 

 ment that next year I was going to make them keep fortunte tellers off the 

 ground. I had no sooner said that than four or five ladies got up and 

 started to holler like the deuce. One lady said, "Why, that's what we go 

 to the fair for, we have more fun making up parties to get our fortunes 

 told than anything else connected with the fair," and I looked at the lady 

 a little bit and I didn't dare to answer her, because the lady was my 

 wife. (Laughter.) 



And as a result of all my experience in this business, my only advice is, 

 and my only proposition is, for yoii to put on your grounds whatever you 

 can get some money out of, and still get by with your people and the 

 law. That Is about all all of us do, and I expect what all of us will con- 

 tinue to do for a long time. 



We put the concession on the ground to make money, and I think it is 

 the greatest mistake in the world for any fair organization to look at their 

 last year's receipts and then tell the concession men to go out and beat it. 

 I told my concession man this year to do that, and he did. (Laughter.) 

 So you see how much I know about concessions. (Laughter.) 



We got something like $7,000 more this year than last, and we jipped 

 them good and proper. We jipped them so badly this year that next 

 year we expect to have $7,000 less in that department. (Laughter.) We 

 didn't figure as far ahead as next year, and a lot of them went away 

 broke — mostly our own people, and we didn't cry much. 



I can't tell you a thing about concessions, boys, because Mr. McLaughlin, 

 who has been in the fair business quite a long time, is in charge of that 

 department of our fair, and he said to me the other day, "Don, 

 I have been in this business fifteen years, and I know less each year 

 than I did the year before." (Laughter.) And that is my condition. 

 My advice is to put on just as many concessions as you can, run them 

 as clean as you can, and don't do anything that the law can get you for. 



A number of years ago a grandstand concessioner sued us for $500 for 

 putting too many people in the grandstand, making it impossible for his 

 venders to go thru the stands, and he wanted $500 damages. The case 

 went into the circuit court and we beat him, and he appealed to the 

 supreme court, and the big bolshevik justice of the North Dakota supreme 

 court. Associate Justice Robinson, decided the case against us because 

 he had signed a contract in which nothing was said about counting 

 aisles, and such stuff as that. This man claimed there was a verbal argee- 

 ment that I wouldn't stand anybody in the grandstand, but it was auto- 

 mobile day and we had to put the people there or lose the money. After 

 that defeat I went to three of the best lawyers in North Dakota to have 

 them make up a contract, and it is not a contract at all, it is a license 

 for them to do business on our grounds. It is the best proposition I have 



