The record-union., 1893-07-10
THE NIIDWINTER FAIR.

The proposed Midwinter Fair to be
held in San Francisco the coming winter
may be said to be now quite we'll assured
The preparatory steps have so far ad-
fair will be held. The meeting of the
State Board of Trade, to be held in San
Francisco tomorrow, will really settle
the matter finally. Should that repre-
sentative body of cool-headed men con-
clude that the fair is a desirable thing, as
it now seems probable they will adjudge,
the confidence of the people in the scheme
will be greatly stiffened.
For it is now an accepted fact that the
State Board of Trade more than any
other body, acts with an eye single to the
good of the whole State. We know of no
organization that is so free from localiza-
ton, and so absolutely public-spirited.
The very fact that its severest critics are
found in San Francisco, testifies to the
impartiality and observation-disclosures of the
board. If, then, it shall conclude that the
Midwinter Fair is matter of interest to
all the people, though of greatest profit to
San Francisco, the people as a whole will
concur.
AS we now look at it, the State at large
will be a beneficiary, though San Fran
cisco will be the most Immediately
prohted, wherefore she should bear, as we
put it some weeks ago, the chief burden
of the expense of preparation.
The money that the fair will bring to
the purse of the entertainer class of bust
ness men in the metropolis will NOT re-
main with them. It will not be taken
out of the State; it will remain in the
home channels of circulation, and will
actively move therein. The supplies San
Francisco will need must be drawn most
largely from the interior, so that a con-
siderable sum of the income will at once
return to the people at large. In very
considerable measure the wages of in
dustry will be stimulated and large en-
ployment of workers result.
But there is a larger and better sense in
which the fair will be gain to the whole
people. 1t will immensely increase the
input to this State of the winter tourist
classes, and that is first a money spend-
ing class, and, secondly, it is a class that
has and Will contribute to our permanent
population and our wealth. 1t is directly
traceable that a large percentage of the
permanent population coming into the
State for the three years next succeeding
the year 1888 was due to the Triennial
Conclave of the knights Templar meet
ing in San Francisco in that year. So it
has been after each large convocation of
representative people of the East held
in this State.
The correspondence of the interior
press from the Worlds Fair generally
contains the complaint that at the East
and among the visitors to the Columbian
Exposition there is deplorabIe ignorance
and misintormation among the people
relative to California and her natural
advantages. This runs, we are told. to
the question of prices for land, social
conditions, educational advantages. ca
pacity of the soil. capital needed by the
homeseeker and commercial conditions.
Simply, fatty, California is greatly mis-
understood at the East. Now fair held
here in midwinter and drawing a fairly
good number of people from abroad, and
presenting at glance the producing con-
ditions of the State, cannot fail to be q
most valuable aid in State building.
To us it seems that the chief work o.
the counties outside of that of San Fran
cisco should be to make a thoroughly
good exhibit of products at that ex-
hipition. They ought 10 be relied upor
to present California to the eye of the OBJ
server in the full measure of her capacity
as a producer of the necessities and many
of the desirable luxuries of life, and a:
an ideal locality for home-building.
To this end it should be made poin