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   At 4:30 in the afternoon, I was called to a meeting of the State Fair Board.  About twenty five members were present.  There was no welcome in the faces of these men.  They felt they had been cheated and that I had misrepresented the facts when I secured the contract and that the only gentlemanly thing I could do under the circumstances was to tear down the outfit and leave the city queitly [[quietly]].  It was a bad situation and one that called for immediate action with no mistakes possible.  I reminded these gentlemen that the contract contained a clause providing that I was to be the sole judge of the weather conditions and as to the safety or advisability of making flights.  Also, that I was taking the risk personally and no one was permitted to order me to make a flight if in my opinion the weather conditions were not satisfactory.  They decided to wait another day before taking action.

   In the early days airships had to be as light as possible.  As a friend said they were made of string and tooth picks stuck together with chewing gum.  While this was not quite true they were frail, to say the least, and one had to be careful not to step in the wrong place and also had to be careful not to fall overboard.  The little motors were altogether too small and did not develop power enough to make any headway against winds.  But crowds could not understand and they didn't want to understand.  They wanted to see a show and if they were not satisfied they became ugly and wanted to destroy the outfit.  We had to guard against such acts continually.

   When I left the room I was surrounded by newspaper men who, knowing how these men felt, were certain I had a story.  I told them we had agreed on an early flight for the following morning.