17G IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



of the light does our people good; it helps them to get together and 

 enjoy themselves. Keep on with this educational institution, and if you 

 are not blessed here you will be rewarded for it in the hereafter. I thank 

 you. 



The Toastmaster: We have with us this evening as our principal 

 speaker a gentleman who is of that profession which requires a retainer 

 before service is rendered. I am informed, however, that he will not 

 expect a retainer here from any of the fair men. I take pleasure in in- 

 troducing to you Hon. James B. Weaver, Jr. 



J. B. Weaver: Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen of the Convention: 

 1 am sure that it is safer to speak to a company of fair men when you have 

 them in a room like this than when out in a grandstand. I have had the 

 latter experience a good many times, but never quite that which was 

 visited upon a friend of mine — I think it is Charley Picket on whom they 

 tell this story. Charley and Dolliver were on the program at one of the 

 county fairs, and were to address the crowd in the grandstand. The 

 crowd paid pretty good attention to him at first — for he is a splendid 

 speaker — but pretty soon one of the exhibitors brought a magnificent 

 stallion out into the ring and walked him up and down in full display 

 before the grandstand, and of course people began to look at that stal- 

 lion. Charley noticed their lack of attention and tried to get hold of 

 them again, and he would succeed for a time, and then again their eyes 

 would wander toward the ring where this handsome animal was being 

 exhibited. This continued for some time, and, finding it impossible to 

 get an attentive hearing, he finished in disgust, and Dolliver came on. 

 By the way, they had just taken the stallion off as Dolliver began to 

 speak, and he had no difficulty holding their attention. In referring to 

 the preceding address, Dolliver said "My young friend Picket did pretty 

 well, considering the competition he had." 



As I think of your Association, what it means to the state of Iowa, to 

 the nation, as you are gathering the people of Iowa into these Autumn 

 meetings, there to compare the results of their efforts, to compare the 

 magnificent products of the state of Iowa, to stimulate each other into 

 better production, better livestock, better grain, and better activities for 

 the development of our state, I realize that there are few agencies that 

 are greater in their influence upon the life of the state than yours; and 

 I feel this, too, that the county fair has come to be the occasion not only 

 of the display of products of Iowa but where lowans meet and where 

 there is developed a school of patriotic interest in the nation and in the 

 state. 



I see Frank Young here tonight. Frank comes from my old county 

 down in the southern part of the state, reminding me of my boyhood, 

 back a good deal farther than I like to admit, when the holding of the 

 fair in the fall was only equal in interest by one other event, and that 

 was the coming of Van Amberg's circus, which used to come across the 

 clay hills from Ottumwa. As boys we always laid our plans for thos(3 

 two events — the county fair and the circus. We were preparing for it 

 in July and August, and we thought of the times we would have, where 

 we would all meet at the fair and see the stock and the races and hear 



