FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 255 



that attract the crowds to the county fair. People do not come 

 •for education to the county fair; they come for amusement, not 

 education. This education talk is all a joke. Those pictures on 

 the slides show it is. They come to be amused, and they are will- 

 ing to pay to be amused, but they want high class amusement, they 

 want their money's worth. On these slides today you could see 

 where the crowds congregated. You could go to the agricultural 

 buildings, and so on and you wouldn't find very many people, but 

 did you see the immense crowds around the grand stand ? We all 

 know better than to think they come for education. They come 

 to be amused, and we want to amuse them. People are harder to 

 please than they used to be. They are willing to pay for high class 

 amusement. There was a time, however, when a few horses could 

 come on the track, maybe one fellow would have a red shirt on 

 and no suspenders, and another fellow would come out with a stiff 

 hat on, and that used to amuse the crowd. Some fellow would 

 get up and say a funny thing and another would slap him with a 

 slaparatus, and that used to amuse the crowd. Then you wonder 

 why they don't come to the county fair. It will be perfectly plain 

 to you when you have attended as many as I have in the last thirty 

 years. They don't like horse racing you say? Then you don't 

 understand what horse racing is from a racing standpoint. Now a 

 man who has been around, he comes to take his family or friends 

 to the small county fair. There is always a big crowd to get in 

 there. He goes to the hotel and the hotel is crowded. The clerk 

 says, ''I will give you a cot in the hall for $3.00," and he would 

 have to split his family up. Then he takes a ride on a tumble down 

 hack over a long dusty road to the fair ground. There are a few 

 barkers and a number of grease joints along there. He goes up 

 to the grand stand which probably had not been swept out since 

 the year before and all that sort of thing. And then they will hear 

 music. Gentlemen, I have heard a good deal about good music. 

 There are some of those fellows who would not know music from a 

 boiler explosion. Then some fellow will get up and tell a joke of 

 some kind that almost caused you to kick the cradle over some 

 fifty years ago when your grandfather told it. Then some fel- 

 low — some blatant mouthed auctioneer that has handled a few 

 country sales will get up and announce in a loud voice the races, 

 and three or four horses come out and race up and down the track. 

 The band will play a song and then there will be a hurray, and a 

 cloud of dust will fly up and cover some lady's gown, and then 



