9G IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Association. Then cut out the entrance fees and deductions and put racing 

 on the same basis as our other vaudeville acts. Make out our budget 

 during the winter months of the amount we want to put into harness 

 racing and then go ahead and advertise it and pay for it. A few years 

 ago the thoroughbred horse interests were in the same condition as the 

 harness horse interests now are. Horses cheap, owners broke, racing 

 on the decline, and the industry in a generally run-down condition. Several 

 of the leading thoroughbred owners got together and organized the Thor- 

 oughbred Horse Association, and its results have been most happy. I do 

 not suppose that the organization of this association alone has made the 

 thoroughbred horse business so prosperous, but it has added to it in no 

 considerable degree and has kept thoroughbred racing from dying out. 

 I thank you very much for the consideration shown me in my taking up so 

 much of your valuable time here today and, with your permission, I will 

 now close by reading you a copy of a letter I recently received from Mr. 

 Thomas B. Cromwell, of Lexington, Kentucky, Secretary of the Thorough- 

 bred Horse Association and which explains itself. 



THOROUGHBRED HORSE ASSOCIATION, Inc. 

 20 Hernando Building 



Lexington, Ky., Nov. 22, 1918 

 Mr. E. J. Curtin, 

 Decorah, Iowa. 



Dear Sir: Answering your letter of Nov. 19, I am sending you a copy of 

 our Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws. You will see by these that we 

 are a non-profit-taking organization. Our dues are $10 annually and we 

 have at present two paid officers, a secretary and race-track representa- 

 tive. We have attained a wonderful measure of sucess during the nearly 

 three years we have been organized. We have assisted in the enactment 

 of laws beneficial to racing; have prevented the enactment of laws preju- 

 dicial to racing, all through exercising influence properly brought to bear 

 and at no time by the use of money. 



We have not had, at all times, the cooperation of the Jockey Club and 

 State Racing Commission. The bodies, composed in the majority of race- 

 track stockholders or men leaning to the race tracks, rather than to the 

 side of the horsemen, at the outset combatted the organization and refused 

 to take membership, but now they seem to recognize the bolstering in- 

 fluence and some have admitted it was a mistake to have regarded us as 

 hostile. 



I am constrained to believe that such an organization as we have, if 

 formed on the trotting turf, would result in the improvement of your rac- 

 ing organization and in the betterment of conditions in general. 



Hoping that this will be of assistance to you and assuring you of my 

 willingness to cooperate with you at all times, I am 



Very truly yours, 



Thos. B. Cromwell, Sec'y. 



The President : Gentlemen, we have with us this morning the 

 governor of the great agricnlttiral State of Iowa, whom I know 



