Our readers will remember that we last week made mention of a change in the sweepstakes rings at the next Illinois State Fair. This was a slight error. The change was made with reference to the Fat Stock Show. In this connection we present the argument of Hon. John P. Reynolds, on the subject before the board and which governed the board in its action.
THE ARGUMENT.
To the State Board of Agriculture.
Gentlemen.—The undersigned, Superintendent of class A., respectfully submits the following report for the past year, including the fair in September, and the Fat Stock Show in November.
THE FAIR.
It was perfectly apparent to any one familiar with the displays of previous years in this department, that the breeding of fine cattle in this country is, at the present time, attracting the attention and commanding the best and most intelligent care of not alone the farmers who have been bred to their avocation, but of capitalists, who comprehend the great money values involved, and who either of themselves or through their sons have set out to identify themselves with this great interest. As the result of the fact the display of cattle was more varied as to breeds and greater as to number, if not superior as to quality, than at any fair, while the visitors in attendance seeking to purchase and studying the question of breeds with a view to purchase for breeding purposes, were never so numerous nor so much in earnest.
Under such circumstances, it may easily be imagined that the awards of prizes, not for the money value of the prizes themselves, but for the bearing of such honors upon the interests of exhibitors in regard to sales, assumed an unusual importance and involved a corresponding responsibility on the part of this board. Impressed, as I think, with a proper sense of that responsibility, and of the embarrassment which always surround that position, as your representative I discharged the duty to the best of my ability.
The most serious and perhaps, the only embarrassment which I should refer to in this report, was the absence of so large a proportion of the members of awarding committees originally selected, rendering it necessary to fill the places of the absentees by selections from the by-standers after the cattle had been called to the rings. Some of you "have been there" and have a realizing sense of the difficulties involved in the effort to make these substitutions intelligently and with conscientious care, on the spur of the moment. To do so in all cases with satisfaction to one's self is simply impossible, and to do it in all cases with satisfaction to unlucky competing exhibitors is not to be expected. If I could do the first and feel sure that the talisman had been wisely selected, it would be easy to disregard complaints, if any, which are known to be unjust.
The question of so modifying our committee system as to avoid the embarrassment I have referred to and thus to secure a better deserved confidence in the justice of the awards is one I hope to hear discussed at this meeting as it has been probably at every meeting of our predecessors for the past thirty years.
Possibly we are in the light of our own experience, with a different system at the Fat Stock Shows prepared to try something else at the fairs; but of this I do not feel certain.