Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press., 1921-04-20
THE FITZGERALD FAIR

THE FITZGERALD FAIR
Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County
may have a fan this fall, as it has
had for the last two pears. If it
does have a fair it will be as much
better than the one last year as
the one last year was better than
the one the year before. But if
it is to be better the people of
Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County
have got to do less advising and
criticizing and more HELPING.
Three men have shouldered the
biggest part OF the burden of
work and worrying and planning
and arranging for the last two
fairs. They have pocketted ev-
cry penny of the losses, and the
losses have been larger than most
people know. Those three men
are willing to take a third year S
loss if they can be assured that
the good people of the city and
county, the people who really
have the public interest at heart
are going to try to make the fair
a better bigger fair. They can't
accomplish this end by giving ad-
vice to the world at large aor by
waiting until it iy all over and
then picking flaws.
The Fitzgerald Fair has been
criticized very little. 1t has had
probably more compliments and
less criticism than any other Of
county fairs in Georgia. Some
of the little criticizing that has
betn done has been well-inten-
toned and simply ill-informed.
Most of it has been malicious
and simply aimed to hurt rather
than to help anything under the
shining sun. But this sort of a
thing is to be expected. Nothing
was ever done that amounted to
anything without enjoying lit
tie cold water throwing.
Splendid assistance has been
given the Fair the past two years
by various public spirited indi-
viduals who were generous with
real work and were too busy
helping with their shoulders to
the wheel to offer anything but
constructive criticism. But a
county fair cannot reach its full
est success as the work of indi-
viduals. 1t must be the work of
groups OF people, result of or
ganized effort.
The Leader has IN years past
urged and pleaded with county
boards of education and COM
missioners and civic organiza-
tions to take the risk a county
fair involves and give the countY
a big annual exposition of agri-
culture and live stock. 1t is use
less to epumerate the benefits
that accrue from county fairs
here. They are ample enough
to warrant public interest in
such an undertaking. But no
civic organization nor official
board took any step toward or
ganizing or even encouraging
such a thing in a material way.
For a number OF wears, ever
since the dissolution of the Ben
Hill Fair Association in which a
number of stockholders lost their
money, the present managers
of the Fair tried to induce some
other agency to give the farmers
fair. Nobody would
Failing to get county fair for
Ben Hill County in any other
way, the editor OF the Leader and
two other public spirited men
took the initiative and the risk
and have given, the word "giv-
en-" IS used advisedly, the farm
erS OF the county a talr with the
assistance of number OF other
really public spirited citizens.
Now the present managers
have learned enough through
costly experience to engineer as
good a fair as any in Georgia.
But three men, with other bust
ness affairs on their hands, can
not single handed and alone make
a successful county fair. 1t takes