IMPROVEMENT IMPERATIVE.
We felt that we must improve on previous showings made by the State at other Expositions, or resign and ask that the responsibility be placed in other hands, or that the money be allowed to remain in the State Treasury. With a larger appropriation, corresponding with the larger expenditures in freight and numerous other items at Seattle as compared to Portland, the effort for an improved display would not have been difficult; but with the appropriation practically the same, considering the salvage benefit realized for Portland from California’s exhibit the previous year at St. Louis, the planning, the economizing, the denials and the extra personal labor imposed in order to accomplish the desired result can never be fully appreciated, except by those who had immediate charge of the work. Those efforts were made the more difficult by reason of California’s reputation for open handed hospitality, and the ever present consciousness that nothing must be done or left undone that might tend to impair that reputation. You can understand it is no easy task to maintain a show of generous hospitality all day, and then set up at night to figure out how you can do the same thing to-morrow without unduly impairing a limited revenue.