108 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Two years ago when I was elected president of the American Associa- 

 tion of Fairs and Expositions, I proposed that we interest the government 

 in our fairs. They were kind enough to eventually pass a resolution — 

 kind in one way but not in another — giving me carte blanche all the 

 authority that the association could give me and asking me to go to Wash- 

 ington and see what could be done. I think where a community is back of 

 its own fair and the people being for it and the states having the fair and 

 the people being for it, it is an ideal situation, because virtually all these 

 managers are simply stewards of the people's money, and if we have 

 any profits it is not pocketed but is put back in the fund and eventually 

 redounds to the benefit of the public. So that sort of organization is multi- 

 plied many times until now there are between 25 and 30 million people 

 served annually at these fairs. That being the case, it struck me and 

 others that the government should begin to get interested in these fairs. 

 This is a wonderful government and any man that doesn't go to Washing- 

 ton and spend a couple of weeks or a month, if he has the time, is scarce- 

 ly doing himself justice. There is at Washington an inconceivable amount 

 of show material and still I ran across one man down there, who is a very 

 able and eflScient head of a bureau, who said to me "There are many of us 

 who do not have what might be termed the show-sense." He says, "I 

 wouldn't know whether in my bureau there is a single thing that would 

 be worth showing in any of the state fairs. A man who has show-sense 

 might come in here and find numerous things that would be exceedingly in- 

 teresting to people." He says, "I don't know that." Other men have that 

 sense and are very, very anxious to carry out the idea. 



I found that the government had, in the Department of Agricultural, an 

 office called the "Office of Exhibits," and from that office, under the super- 

 vision of Prof. F. Lamson Scribner, we carried on all our work, because it 

 was the only place in Washington where any exhibition idea was studied 

 out. They were very anxious, of course, to enter into any kind of a prac- 

 tical exhibition that their means would permit. The trouble with it, we 

 found, was there was really no authority under the law for any of the 

 other departments to make an exhibition, and all exhibition material which 

 was secured was made available because the head of the department 

 simply crossed his fingers and let it out. My experience down there led 

 me to understand that there are many men in this country who have no 

 adequate conception of the fair. A good many of them think a fair is a 

 great big picnic where thousands of people have a good time. They don't 

 really understand the great educational benefits of a fair, and education 

 is the prime consideration of all properly conducted fairs. The Office of 

 Exhibits, of course, understood thoroly the principles of the fair, but the 

 question was "who was going to do it?" and "how was it going to be done?" 

 They hadn't the money; they hadn't the equipment. The office of Mr. 

 Hoover was visited and he had a man in there from Connecticut — a young 

 man, a graduate of Yale, and a very fine gentleman. He said he had never 

 attended a fair, but it seemed up to him to put out the exhibit for the 

 government of the United States this year at the fairs. Well, of course, to 

 one of experience, I realized that he had a great big job on his hands, but 

 he had consulted with his superiors and they decided that he should go 

 ahead. Of course, he ran up against a stone wall and wrote me that it was 



