450 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



property to be exempt from taxation, the soil is entitled to the first consid- 

 eration. 



Agreeably to a theory, and in accordance with a system as old as the 

 Christian era — yes, older — founded upon the doctrine that the tiller of the 

 soil occupied a servile position in society and State, it has been the rule 

 and practice of all Governments, of which ours«is not an exception, to lay 

 the financial burdens of the Government upon the farmer. And I make 

 the assertion without fear of contradiction, that the land and products of 

 the agriculturist pay threefold more, in proportion to the actual profit, than 

 any other industry or pursuit in our country. This should not be. While 

 I would tax the non-producing speculator, I would relieve the tiller of his 

 own soil from this onerous burden, and compel the so called luxuries to 

 bear the great burden of taxation. By this rule I would accomplish three 

 great and just purposes: I would relieve the farmer of more than his just 

 share of taxation; make those who indulge in the luxuries bear their full 

 share of the burdens of a State which encourages their luxurious mode of 

 living, and place before the young American the inducement to become an 

 agriculturist, by exempting his farm from taxation. And I lay it down as 

 a rule that can and should be enforced, that he who enjoys the jiririleges, 

 immunities, protection, and luxuries of a free Government, should hear the 

 burdens of the State, and furnish the means to sustain the Government; while 

 he who devotes his intellect, energy, and labor to sustaining such Govern- 

 ment should be comparatively free of the responsibilities imposed upon 

 the consumer of luxuries. Under this rule you would compel the man 

 who never cultivated or produced a grain of wheat, but who lives luxuri- 

 ously upon the sales of wheat, to do something he has never yet been 

 required to do in our great and free country — to hear his just share of the 

 burden. 



Mr. President, I have not attempted to say anything of practical farm- 

 ing. Such could hardly be expected of me. While I am proud to say 

 my earlier boyhood days were spent upon a farm in the West, and that I 

 had some experience while a boy in dropping and hoeing corn, pulling and 

 cutting tops off turnips, weeding onions and other patches, feeding cattle, 

 and sundry other duties of a farmer's boy, not least disagreeable of which 

 was piling and burning brush and grubs to clear the land for the plow, 

 and some little experience in agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley — for I 

 planted with my own hands, more than twenty years ago, one of the best 

 orchards that is now growing in Merced County — yet I do not feel that I 

 am capable of discussing practical farming. I do not believe you expected 

 me to do so; and I would avoid the ridicule that attached to that great 

 philosopher, Horace Greeley. 



But I would say something of this great San Joaquin Valley — a valley 

 that rivals that of the famous ancient Nile in fertility, and is in area quite 

 six times as great; a valley that, if properly distributed and governed, is 

 destined to sustain a population largely engaged in agriculture, of many 

 millions of free, happy, intelligent, and healthy Americans. It is not too 

 much to say, that by the time the Christian era has marked two thousand, 

 when this comparatively young Republic, in the opinion of many being 

 yet in its experimental stage only, shall be double its present age, when, 

 agreeably to the most careful calculation, there will be living within the 

 limits of these United States quite two hundred and fifty millions of peo- 

 ple,^ is reasonable to conclude that several millions, perhaps not less than 

 ten, of these people will be domiciled in the great San Joaquin Valley, and 

 hundreds of thousands of them in this city, its metropolis. 



Yes, Mr. President, in one hundred and fourteen years — a long time in 



