NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 109 



impossible for them to do it. Then the Office of Information was sought. 

 The president of the United States was given 100 million dollars which 

 he could use in any way that he saw fit and the Office of Information had 

 the first call on the money, so we went to the Office of Information and 

 a gentleman from Iowa by the name of Mr. Byoir seemed to be next to Mr. 

 Creel in this matter and they decided they would go into it and they 

 would put on this exhibition. They picked out a young man from the city 

 of New York who was a very fine gentleman, a newspaper man of emi- 

 nence, and an all-around competent young man except that he had had no 

 fair experience. He said, "The congressman from my district sends me 

 seeds, but I would have to go 15 miles to find a square yard of earth in 

 which to plant the seeds that I get. I don't know anything about exhibi- 

 tions; I live in the heart of New York City." Well, it looked like a hard 

 job but they were going at it and they said that they would put it on. 

 The next thing I heard was that they were not going to put it on; but in the 

 meantime the Department of War had appginted a man from the Quarter- 

 master's Department, a man who had had experience in every exposition 

 that the United States- had had part in since 1893 — Chicago, Buffalo, At- 

 lanta, San Francisco, St. Louis and various other places where the 

 government of the United States had exhibited. We found that Capt. 

 Hettinger was a real fair and exposition man and the determination by 

 the various departmental heads then was made to put this work in the Office 

 of Exhibits where it naturally belonged. We secured from Mr. McAdoo 

 baggage cars to ship the exhibits in over six different circuits and the 

 whole busness had to move and move very rapidly. Now, think, this was 

 all done inside of 90 days. As slow as the government generally moves, 

 I think that they did very remarkably. We run up against various troubles, 

 too, early in 1918, and there was considerable talk of fairs being really non- 

 essential. That had to be discussed and was discussed for several days 

 in Washington until finally it was swept aside and Dr. Pearson, of this 

 state, had considerable to do with assisting in that thru the Department of 

 Agricultural, the Treasury Department, etc. 



After the exhibits were determined upon and after the fairs were de- 

 clared to be essential, as the governor indicated here today, to the life of 

 the people both socially and commercially in time of war as well as in 

 peace, they so determined and moved right on. 



Then came the matter of taxation. We had to present to Mr. Roper, the 

 Commissioner of Internal Revenue, all our arguments with respect to fairs. 

 Mr. Roper had no idea regarding fairs, neither did any of his assistants. 

 That department thinks of just one thing and that is getting the money, and 

 they care little how they get it so long as it is done legally. They are sure 

 strong for getting the money — that's their business — and, of course, we 

 glory with them in it so long as they do it right without damaging any other 

 interests. But the agricultural fairs of America were specifically exempted 

 from taxation by the bill passed by congress and we thought the phrase- 

 ology of the law was such that the congress meant to inflict no tax on the 

 people conducting agricultural fairs at all. We finally got a ruling that 

 the agricultural fairs would not be subject to taxation, that the grand- 

 stand or any of the inside gates would not be taxed, and that entertainments 

 where the shows or carnivals were playing on a percentage basis would 



