managerial genius, would have been regarded as miraculous by the past generation. Shows and carnivals, while necessitating constant censorship and periodical disciplining, have in general shown a marked trend toward higher standards.96 To secure even a brief hearing in the midst of such educational advantages and entertainment enticements the speaker of the present day must be a person of extraordinary interest-the President, Vice President, Governor, or a figure of equal prominence. As one pragmatic county fair promoter said: "I think your speaker is just the same as your free attraction or your horses or any vaudeville show if you haven't got a headliner I don't believe he is worth ten cents to you. 1997 The large and permanent influence that agricultural fairs have come to exert was demonstrated in a striking way in the World War. As soon as war was declared the publicity bureau of the American Association of Fairs and Expositions formulated war service aims for the fairs, and when it was widely rumored that, owing to transportation limitations, the government would discourage the holding of fairs in the fall, the Association met at Washington in July to present their case directly. A subsequent report emphasized the fact that the fairs of the country had a combined 96 Johnson's Crooked Carnivals in The Country Gentleman, April 25, 1925, pp. 7, 41; Thirty-Second Annual Meeting of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, 1922, pp. 12-43, 60-67, 110; Iowa Year Book of Agriculture, 1913, p. 331; Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1915, p. 13; Report of the Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture, 19151916, p. 127; Gilbert's Fairs and their Educational Value in North Carolina Extension Circular, No. 69, p. 114. 97 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1916, p. 289. Among the speakers secured for northwestern fairs during the first quarter of the century were President Wm. H. Taft, W. J. Bryan, Warren G. Harding, James M. Cox, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and James J. Hill. normal attendance of 32,000,000 and that they provided the most effective agency for war propaganda, reaching both in numbers and classes the people that were most needed to be lined up for war service. The plans of the fair managers were fully endorsed by the Food Administrator, by the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of War, by the Council of National Defense, and by President Wilson "who told the Fair managers that he believed the state fairs had a great mission to perform this year in helping the government in its food production and conservation campaign, and that if the different agencies of the government did not co-operate with the Fairs, to notify him and he would see that they did."98 The State societies formulated elaborate war programs involving stimulation of production, encouragement of conservation and the instilling of patriotism for their own exhibitions, and they also worked out similar programs on a smaller scale for the local fairs.99 The Federal government, through the influence of the Association, coöperated with special war exhibits.100 The fairs in the falls of 1917 and 1918 thus became war activities. In spite of unusual difficulties growing out of abnormally increased costs at all points, overcrowded transportation facilities, and the general unsettled conditions, the war fairs were remarkably successful. At the meeting of the American Association in the winter of 1917, when forty-six of the fifty-eight mem98 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1917, pp. 18-20. 99 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1917, pp. 18-21, 289291, 1918, pp. 22, 200; Iowa Year Book of Agriculture, 1917, pp. 66, 67, 246, 272, 274-276; Report of the Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture, 19171918, pp. 190, 191; Rubinow's Fairs and their Educational Value in North Carolina Extension Circular, No. 69, pp. 7-9. 100 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1918, pp. 20, 21; Iowa Year Book of Agriculture, 1918, p. 297; Report of the Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture, 1917-1918, p. 201. bers were represented, most of the societies reported fairs of record size and enthusiasm.101 Thus quickly and fully mobilizing their resources for the common cause, the agricultural fairs rendered a unique and highly effective war service. At the high tide of agricultural prosperity immediately following the war, in the years 1919 and 1920, agricultural fairs reached the greatest prosperity in their history.102 The consequent depression inevitably affected attendances adversely,103 but was not without its compensations, as the permanent, serious work of the fair was maintained while some of the spectacular superfluities were largely eliminated.104 The years of trial in war and reconstruction have demonstrated that the modernized agricultural fair, like the agricultural college, has a definite field and a permanent mission. EARLE D. Ross IOWA STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS 101 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1917, pp. 267, 268, 289, 290; Report of the Wisconsin State Department of Agriculture, 1917-1918, pp. 189, 190, 209; Rubinow's Fairs and their Educational Value in North Carolina Extension Circular, No. 69, p. 4. 102 During the past few years the Fairs of this country have been riding upon a high tide of prosperity, and many conditions indicate that still further immediate advancement will be made'.- Secretary-General Manager of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society in Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1919, p. 24. "The year 1920, the banner year with most fairs". Vice President of the Eastern States Exposition in Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1923, p. 347. 103 Report of the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, 1921, pp. 31–34, 310, 1922, p. 38; Iowa Year Book of Agriculture, 1921, p. 69. 104 Compare The Field and System on the Farm, October, 1921, p. 748. SOME PUBLICATIONS The Story of the Western Railroads. By Robert Edgar Riegel. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1926. Pp. 345. Students of economic history as well as the general reader should welcome this single volume history of the railroads in the United States. In general the author has attempted to limit the work to the western phase of the story. He ends the discussion of the situation in the early twentieth century because at this point he feels that "the western railroad net is complete", that "conditions have become those of today", and the subject at that point "becomes more interesting to current economics than to history." Much of the material for this volume was taken from newspapers, periodicals, railroad guides and compendiums, and government publications; and the author has used these sources with skill and effect. Some of the material in monographic form has appeared in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, The Missouri Historical Review, and THE IOWA JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND POLITICS. The volume is well written in a clear interesting style; the chapter on "The Railroads and Western Settlement" being particularly well done. The book contains a bibliography and an adequate index. Westward Extension, 1763 to 1776, is one of the articles in the April number of Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. A continuation of The Influence of the Presbyterian Church in Early American History, by Henry D. Funk, appears in the April number of the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society. A second installment of Jeannette Thurber Connor's The Nine Old Wooden Forts of St. Augustine; and Some Florida Names of Indian Origin, by Frank Drew, are two papers in the April number of The Florida Historical Society Quarterly. The Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society dated April, 1925, contains another installment of a Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, compiled by Clarence S. Brigham. This relates to Tennessee and Vermont. Washington's Misssion to the French Forts in 1753, by Don Marshall Larrabee; Indians and Their Antiquities, by E. Melvin Williams; Shay's Rebellion, by Charles S. Shriner; and The Western Terminus of the Oregon Trail, by Francis E. Smith, are among the articles published in Americana for April. Of special interest to middle western readers is the article entitled The Children of the Pioneers, by Frederick Jackson Turner, which appears in The Yale Review for July. This is a study of the contributions of men and women from the Middle West to the various branches of human activity, such as science, art, history, literature, economics, and finance. The Fortieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology contains the following papers, all by Truman Michelson, of interest to Iowa history students: The Mythical Origin of the White Buffalo Dance of the Fox Indians; The Autobiography of a Fox Indian Woman; Notes on Fox Mortuary Customs and Beliefs; Notes on the Fox Society known as "Those Who Worship the Little Spotted Buffalo"; and The Traditional Origin of the Fox Society known as "The Singing Around Rite". WESTERN AMERICANA The University of Oregon has issued in pamphlet form a monograph by Edwin T. Hodge entitled Mount Multnomah Ancient Ancestor of the Three Sisters. The Watertown Village Site, by Anton Sohrweide, is an interesting picture of an old Indian village site appearing in The Wisconsin Archeologist for April. Measuring Americanism, by Carl M. Rosenquist; and The Grange as a Political Factor in Texas, by Roscoe C. Martin, are two papers |