The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-07-03
THE FAIR PROPOSITION

Editor Star: There is a string-a
big string-big enough to be called a
rope, connected with the present to
this county of the fair grounds, and
that string is that the county should
be saddled with fairs in the future
1t is not the province of the COM
missioners to run fairs. I doubt if
the special law authorizing them is
constitutional. Doubt if a single
warrant can be legally drawn to meet
our expense of the fair, if the county
should run it.
What if there is a fair? For one
thing every fair that has ever been
held, for years, at Ocala, has had a
lot of gambling games, absolutely il
legal and by which numbers of the
people of the county have been
swindled. The operators of these
games ought to have been arrested,
but, in open defiance of law, were au-
thorized to do business by the fair
management, for which the fair man
agement was paid. Do you want
Marion county to enter into this
thing at all? Years ago the fair went
to the. bad. Got in debt and finally q
meeting of stockholders was called, at
which meeting was present. / en-
deavored to get the stockholders to
make present of the fair grounds,
which myself sold to the fair asso-
citation at a very low figure as a mat
ter of public spirit, to either the coun-
ty or to Ocala to be held to furnish
site for any factory or industrial
enterprise that any one might wish
to start here among US, but the stock
holders refused utterly to consider
this and gave the property to Mr..
John r. Martin for what the fair then
owed, as remember, far less than its
value, the only string on the gift be-
ing that it should become his abso-
lutte property unless fair was again
held within a certain time. and this
would have come to pass, and Mr..
Martin would have become the alb
solute owner of the property if / and
one other man, well known here in
Ocala, had not prevented it by see
ing to it that fair was held in time
to save the fair grounds. Some of
the warmest advocates of county
ownership of fair today were among
the fair stockholders who engineered
apparently delivered to Mr.. Martin.
What earthly difference does it
make what the fair grounds are
valued at if the county cannot sell
them, or get a dollar out of them, if
we have to be saddled with white
elephant of $4,000 fair grounds and
spend our money on them for years
to come? The constitution of the
state, the laws of the state. do not
contemplate the running of fairs by
commissioners. 1t is wholly outside
of their province. A dangerous in
novation that everybody admits will
be a further burden on the taxpay-
ers. What does a blue ribbon mean
anyway when blue ribbons are hand
ed out by the dozen, by the hundred,
by the bale almost. when a two-toeo
rooster can draw blue ribbon for
being the only crippled Shanghai at
the fair?
have always been a stakeholder in
the fair from the day sold the
grounds to. the association. If the
fair cannot run alone, sell it for the
benefit of the Marion County Hospi
tai, donate it to Ocala or Marion
county, really without strings, as a
future public park, or to furnish sites
for future factories. But do not sad
die on this county the expense, trou-
BILE and inevitable mismanagement of
a fair. Respectfully,
P. Fl. Nugent.