EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV. 191 



and realizing that the dawn was approaching, is it any wonder that in 

 my heart of hearts I re verve the memory of Richard P. Clarkson? 



The other Des Moines newspapers heartilj' co-operated with the fair 

 management, doing everything in their power to bring the fair out of the 

 financial difiiculties that had beset it for years, and I cannot allow this 

 opportunity to pass without expressing my heartfelt thanks not only to 

 the editors of the Des Moines newspapers, but also to the editors through- 

 out the state, for their hearty co-operation in that critical period in the 

 affairs of the agricultural society. 



To bring the attention of the people of the state to the fact that a great 

 state fair and exposition was to be held we wrote a letter to nearly every 

 editor in Iowa, asking if they would include with one of their newspaper 

 issues a supplement that we proposed to have printed, lauding the fair in 

 the highest terms and inviting all the people of Iowa to attend. 



We received the most favorable responses to our request and we negoti- 

 ated with the Western Newspaper Union for two hundred and fifty thou- 

 sand printed sheets, newspaper size, to which order an additional hundred 

 thousand was afterwards added, when we had ascertained that that num- 

 ber would be required to supply the demand. 



Shortly after all the supplements had been issued we received a com- 

 munication from the then postmaster general stating that we were violat- 

 ing the postal rules in thus sending supplements to local newspapers to 

 be mailed without payment of postage and asking us to desist from such 

 infraction of the postal laws. To me the duty was assigned to reply to 

 the postmaster general's courteous letter and I humbly apologized in be- 

 half of the society, promising that we would desist, which we did, but 

 three hundred and fifty thousand supplements to Iowa newspapers had 

 been distributed among the people of our state. 



Now mark the result. The attendance and receipts were large be- 

 yond our most sanguine expectations, and we were enabled to pay all the 

 expenses of the fair and wipe out every dollar of indebtedness, principal 

 and interest, and from that day to this the ofl&cers of the State Agri- 

 cultural Society have not been required to pledge their personal credit 

 for the debts of a state institution. 



Not only the oflBcers of the fair, but also the people of the state owe a 

 debt of gratitude they never can repay to the editors of Iowa for their 

 aid at a time w^hen the fate of the fair was trembling in the balance. 

 The officers were getting uneasy at being called upon year after year to 

 assume the obligations of an institution in which they had no more interest 

 than any other citizen of the state, except that by the votes of their con- 

 stituents they had been chosen to assume the responsibility of managing 

 an institution that the best people of the state believed would conduce in 

 no small degree in developing the agricultural resources of the state. 



Threats were openly made by the directors to tender their resignation 

 each year when new notes had to be signed for money borrowed at the 

 banks to make up the deficit in the receipts. 



The first duty required of me after being elected a director of the Iowa 

 State Agricultural Society was to sign my name to notes aggregating 

 twenty thousand dollars, and I am frank to confess that when signing my 

 name with men of whose financial ability I was ignorant, the cold chills 



