Evening Times Republican

LOOKER-ON IN IOWA
For the Times-Republican.
Lake View, Aug. 10. The present program of the state fair officials apparently suits outsiders. The idea is to have the whole business inside of the fair grounds, whether admitted or not, country people go to the state fair for fun, for a good time, and if they also gain in knowledge by observation and questions, well and good. So let us have the circus in front of the amphitheater every afternoon, bring on your trick dogs and ponies, your tight rope performers, your jugglers and a balloon ascension. We want it all included in the 50 cents we pay at the gate. And so with the fireworks. Have it on the fair grounds, free to everybody inside the fence. If the city of Des Moines sees fit to get up an opposition show, it is no more than they have done before, for naturally enough the business men enjoy the trade the big crowd gives them. But all of these dealers in everything the man from the country buys will get full as many dollars if the crowd goes over to the fair grounds to see the fireworks as they will if they go down to the river front. In fact, they will get more, for the fireworks being free at the fair grounds will save us from the country who are spending several days at the state fair just 50 cents more to spend in town with the dealers in solids, liquids and dry stuffs. And here is an imperative need for the state fair grounds: a great big, or several smaller hotels, should be erected by the management on the fair grounds. Of course the hotels of Des Moines will kick on this proposition. But just the same it is called for and needed. These buildings should be built after the plan at many lake resorts. Porches the whole length on each side of the buildings. A wide hall thru the center, and have each room open on the porches and into the halls. There is no need of plastering or finishing the sleeping rooms any more than is inexpensively done by board partitions. Such rooms containing a bed, a chair, a wash stand and accompaniments can be filled by thousands of occupants at 50 cents per head by a class of people who now go home to near by towns rather than take their chances at the crowded hotels in town. It is not necessary for the state fair officials to furnish such a building or buildings. Let them be built and men will compete at a good rental to run such places for a week on the state fair grounds. Hundreds of exhibitors that now sleep in tents or buildings will gladly hire accommodations in such hotels or lodging houses. And the right party who will run such a hotel at $2 a day, three good clean meals, a clean bed and bedroom, all on the hill, where even if it is hot in town it will be comfortable out on the grounds, can make a small barrel of money in just one week.
The Sioux City Tribune offers its columns to Governor Shaw to announce that he is not a candidate for the United States Senate. Now the writer happens to be in possession of a straight tip that the governor is not a candidate for the place formerly filled by Senator Gear. Governor Shaw intends to appoint a man for the short term and re-appoint him for the next term, but it must be a man who can succeed himself by the votes of the legislature of 1902. The governor will require the most positive proof of the latter part of this proposition before he starts the lucky individual on his short or long term for the senate. But notice the statement that Governor Shaw is not a candidate for Senator Gear's vacant seat, yet there is Allison. He is to be re-elected also in 1902. No one doubts that he will be. And then Allison, having served one year of his next term, will then have a record of continuous service longer than any living or dead man. He has got enough. He resigns. Governor Shaw is elected by the friends of the grateful candidate who followed Gear. And Allison, having received his full share of this world's honors, can do no more than to advise his friends to work for Governor Shaw who disinterestedly stepped aside and appointed -- to fill Mr. Gear's former position, thus closing the ranks of disgruntled republicans in 1900. Now all this comes from a public man in Iowa who is very friendly with Governor Shaw. He did not say that Governor Shaw ever mentioned to him his intentions. But this he does say, he thinks Governor Shaw is sincere in saying he is not a candidate as successor to Senator Gear. He says he has talked with Governor Shaw on this question, but whether this Allison deal was mentioned the Looker-On will never know. Neither will the reader see the name in print of the gentleman who has thus got at the true inwardness of the senatorial succession in Iowa.