350 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



seven passengers. The man at the gate courteously inspected the pass 

 and let the rig and passengers in. The rig drove out after a bit and in 

 about twenty minutes returned with the driver and six girls in it! Well, 

 to make a long story short, twenty-one persons went in on that life mem- 

 bership ticket that afternoon. 



You may talk all you please about the passes issued to concession men, 

 but if you come right down to bed-rock you will find that the people in 

 your own town give you more dirty work than the concession people. I 

 am not here to deride anybody or stick up for anybody, but I am telling 

 you what we had to contend with, and I believe that is what you want. 

 Take the concession people today, and there is not a fair in the state of 

 Iowa that can cut them out and come out on top. I mean everything that 

 goes in the concession line, and there is not a fair in the state of Iowa, 

 figuratively speaking, understand, that can cut them out and show figures 

 on the good side of the ledger. The concession is an asset to the fair, and 

 if you treat them right and show them that you have a real fair, they 

 will do you a lot of good. The concession men, the free-act people, and 

 the race horse people will do more for you today outside of your own 

 boosters than any other people. They come to get.and I will admit they 

 don't always get it honestly, but if you treat them square they will do 

 the same, for I believe there is good in every man. 



But returning to the fair. Mr. Hoyt was elected to take charge of the 

 old fair association's matters, and he tried in every way to arrange a 

 meeting where we might congenially work things out, but there was 

 nothing doing. It wasn't for the good of the country or of the state of 

 Iowa, or for the good of their sons and daughters that they fought, but 

 for that almighty pass, and we had some hot meetings. It was the Man- 

 chester Commercial Club that backed us up and we all stuck together, 

 and when the old crowd wouldn't be reasonable we just decided to let 

 the dead remain buried, and so we simply said, "Gentlemen, we believe 

 it is time to show you up; we believe we have got the products; we have 

 got the men; we have got the population and we have got a railroad cen- 

 ter, and everything else, and we're going to put on a fair." We had a 

 fight, but we got started and the balloon strings were cut on the first day 

 of the fair. When the old-timers came along and tried to get through on 

 the old paper, we won out nicely, not by harsh treatment, but simply by 

 showing them how it would be impossible to maintain a fair without 

 money, and we won through courteous treatment. 



So we got our directors elected and started to do business, but we 

 couldn't put on a stock show the first year. I will show you what we 

 were up against and what we put on by honest dealing. I believe that 

 one of the greatest faults of fair managements is dishonesty — they mis- 

 represent what they are going to put on at the show; they misrepresent 

 what is going onto the grounds, and what is the result? When the puolic 

 finds you have misrepresented, you are the first fellow that catches the 

 blame. If we were to go down to the theatre tonight because of some 

 certain advertisement which attracted your attention, and after you had 

 paid your money you find that it was not at all what was represented, 

 you would be the first man to holler. And so it is with the patron at the 



