Live Stock Breeders' Association. 285 



and in the directing of the growth of civilization, and in moulding 

 the institutions of society in that vast empire that lies between 

 the Mississippi and the Pacific. The Missourian has been the 

 pioneer of the west. From the time of Alexander W. Doniphan, 

 the one man Abraham Lincoln said he had ever met who came up 

 to his expectations, at the head of his band of Missourians made 

 his wonderful march into the southwest, the Missourian has al- 

 ways been upon that firing line which is the protest of civilization 

 against the wilderness. In that ceaseless yearning for the frontier 

 which has drawn the star of empire in its course across the con- 

 tinent, the Missourian has usually been at the head of the pro- 

 cession. 



But so completely has he shaped the development of the states 

 west of the Mississippi river that he has in recent years been pay- 

 ing some attention to the development of the resources of his own 

 State, and to the correction of evils within our own borders. And 

 while the Missourian has accomplished much in this regard, while 

 he has done much in bringing about a changed and better condi- 

 tion of public affairs, he has come to the realization of the fact 

 that any permanent work in wiping out the evils in the public 

 system must be founded upon the reform of those commercial and 

 industrial conditions which tend to dishonor and degrade. In this 

 wave of reform that has swept across the country in recent years, 

 causing a wonderful increase of interest in the performance of the 

 duties of citizenship, demanding a higher standard of aggressive 

 honesty upon the part of public officials, demanding that every 

 citizen should recognize his responsibility in the performance of 

 his duties to the State, the Missourian has also been something of 

 a pioneer. 



But when he has come to investigate each of these evils and 

 abuses, he has found in the last analysis, as the original cause or 

 source of this evil, that there has been some business or industrial 

 enterprise unlawful in its plan of organization or illegal in the 

 way in which its affairs have been conducted. 



If it was the State legislature or if it was the city council that 

 had been bribed to defeat or enact legislation, it was found, when 

 the conditions were investigated which had resulted in these 

 abuses, that there had been some commercial or industrial enter- 

 prise, unlawful in its plan of organization or illegal in its business 

 methods, that had been seeking some unfair or illegal privilege 

 from the representatives of the people. 



If it was some man high in public or official life who had. 



