J.W. Lentz Speaks Out Against Evil Carnivals, March 3, 1921

Against a Carnival

Editor Post-Dispatch:

Please allow me to give my thought to the readers of your paper concerning the Richmond County Fair.

First, I will say that I have always thought that the side shows, gambling dens of all descriptions in our Fairs are a curse to out county and the State. The cry is now to give the children a Christian education. This is all good and right, but is it right for us to set a trap or to allow the Devil to move his poison dens in every County and State Fair to destroy this education. I say is it right?

I say a Christian people can not do this. If the county can not keep up the Fair without these dens of sin, I say let it go down. When we come to this conclusion the County Fair will disappear. Just as our schools 25 years ago some of the leading men in Rockingham declared the schools all over the State would go down if the State went dry. Did they go down? I say cut the Devil work out of everything. God will help us.

--J.W. Lentz

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1921