Animals: Idol in Temple

When fire gutted the important buildings of Chicago’s Union Stock Yards & Transit Co. last May the old pavilion which since the Century’s turn had housed the International Live Stock Exposition also went up in flames (TIME, May 28). Would the Exposition be held this December? Union Stock Yards’ testy old Board Chairman Frederick Henry Prince, whose interest in animals was materially increased when he bought heavily into Armour & Co. (TIME, Dec. 25 1933). answered “by cable from Paris: EXPOSITION MUST TAKE PLACE ON SCHEDULE. At once his trusted Union Stock Yards President Arthur George Leonard, a founder of the Exposition, went to work to build a bigger, better fireproof edifice in six short months—a steel, brick & concrete modern-Gothic structure, three-storied and three-winged, with a vast grey-beamed, chromium-trimmed arena in its centre. “This,” boasted President Leonard, “will be America’s new Temple of Agriculture.”

Last week the Exposition opened on schedule and with it the new $1,225,000 Temple of Agriculture, penny-bright and new-broom clean. On hand was Chicago’s Mayor Kelly to make a speech. Wilson & Co.’s Chairman Thomas Edward Wilson to entertain at dinner 1,300 healthiest members of the 4-H Club. New York’s Representative James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. to sit on the show’s cattle department directorate, Dutchess County’s Oakleigh Thome to see what his Eastern Aberdeen Anguses would do this year. Daily from Saturday to Saturday 35,000 visitors swarmed up & down the Temple’s broad cement ramps, past rows & rows of freshly curried swine, sheep, steers, beef cows, rows & rows of the cream of the corn crops, prime kernels of wheat, oats. rye, barley.

As was the custom, two new human animals were crowned healthiest girl and boy: Doris Louise Paul, 15, of Wilton Junction, Iowa and Leland Monasmith, 18, of Lane, S. Dak. For the twelfth consecutive time highest grain honors went to a Canadian, with a one-peck sample of hard red spring wheat. Corn owned by an Indianan named Lux was chosen best of the crop. A ton of Clydesdale draft horse owned by Mr. Wilson’s packing company was elected best of its kind.

But biggest news of last week’s Exposition was not these prizes, not the new Temple, not the fact that Edward of Wales’s Alberta herd of Shorthorns was better than usual, not the celebration of Walter Biggar’s 10th anniversary as judge of the grand champion steer but the fact that a comparative upstart breed of beef cattle had reached a stock show eminence never before attained.

In 1878 the Lake Forest cattle firm of Anderson & Findlay imported from Scotland the first herd of pure-bred Aberdeen Angus. A few years before, a white-bearded Scottish landowner named William McCombie had, by a process of delicate selectivity, developed the short-legged, short-necked, squat, hornless, sleek-black creatures. In Lake Forest, Anderson & Findlay’s big Angus bull had soon serviced five Angus cows, and before long other breeders, in Kansas, in Iowa, were adding Anguses to their herds. The blacks began taking prizes, first at local shows, then at the Chicago Fat Show, and then, at the first (1900) International Exposition in Chicago an Angus was named Steer of the Year. And in latter-day International shows when it became fashionable for yearlings to carry off top honors, the Angus, a fast fattener, was again & again the favorite.

Last week the American-Aberdeen Angus Breeders Association celebrated its Golden Jubilee at the Exposition with the greatest of jubilation. Never before could any breed fancier lay claim to so proud a boast. When all the judging was done in the new Temple of Agriculture, black Aberdeen Anguses had waddled off with every top and reserve (second place) prize in every one of the interbreed classes: best 4-H steer (raised by junior farmers), best steer, best herd (of three), best carlot, best get-of-sire (three by the same bull), best carcass. Anguses took a total of ten top carcass prizes in both light and heavy classes. Named Grand Champion Steer—foremost prize of the show—was Campus Idol, a black raised on Iowa State College’s farm, whence had come, in former years, four other Grand Champions. Two days later Campus Idol was prodded out of the Temple’s doors, auctioned off to Kroger Grocery & Baking Co. at $3 for each & every one of its 1,140 pounds—highest price fetched since 1929. Shortly Campus Idol will go the way of all steers—to the slaughter house. Kroger announced it would give the well marbled meat to children’s charities.