364 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



discretion of gathering, grasping and appropriating to ourselves 

 nearly everything in sight, and many things not in sight, at the cost 

 and sacrifice of some of the most sacred and cherished values of 

 human life and happiness, and we have no license or commission to 

 hurt the earth; no preemption on its natural gifts. 



It is a fact that "to inveigh against the use of money is to decry 

 the inevitable," at least in this land of ours; and this truism is the 

 efficient reason why moral suasion and logic are futile. Your prayers 

 avail naught towards the repression of frantic and fanatic business, 

 so called, with its fierce and relentless competition and frenzied 

 finance is masterful, after all, without the strong arm of the law to 

 confine or enfeeble it. Money madness and cupidity are not a part 

 .and parcel of the record of our noble Commonwealth; not, at least, 

 for reference, and cannot contribute to the grandeur of our national 

 history. We may boast of an exceptional franchise bestowed by 

 high Heaven and seem disposed to revamp and revise the tendencies 

 and policies of other nations; while the pursuit of our own commer- 

 cial idea and our being possessed of its strange fatuities, only con- 

 vey to other civilized nations, that, without a resurvey, some re- 

 generation, we, eventually, may become guilty of nearly all the folly 

 of which any nation or people is capable. We have surpassed his- 

 tory in our extravagance, if you will, wastefulness, and in our dis- 

 remembrauce of our descendants; while in a woeful degree, we have 

 squandered our patrimony, and, perchance,, the values that other- 

 wise might be available to our progeny. 



While fully sensible of the evils that are extant in the State and 

 nation, yet I cannot imagine any greater stigma or reproach that can 

 attach to any generation than it may merit or incur by its disregard 

 of posterity. Proud of our unrivalled wealth and prestige, we may 

 advance to such a degree in the wrong direction and may acquire 

 such a spurious prominence as to become despised in the sight of 

 men and destroyed in the sight of God. This may be a digression, 

 which I trust you will indulge; but it is not an extravaganza.^ Our 

 dominant and predatory financial spirit, might well be portrayed on 

 canvass as a lion rampant. 



Conservation of our natural resources is only to be secured by 

 conservation of our moral resources, and it has become obvious that 

 correlation of the two are essential. These things are coordinate 

 in my mind and I cannot divest myself of this conviction or dissociate 

 the moral, mental and material forces towards our betterment and 

 upbuilding, and am yet persuaded that a business proposition is 

 none the less a moral proposition, while, in the spirit and genius 

 of our institutions in the light of the Gospel and upon every prin- 

 ciple of expediency, honor and right, an urgent political question is 

 just as much a religious question. The entire subject of conserva- 

 tion resolves itself into a question of upright and faithful citizen- 

 ship. The one greatest source of unselfish and honest patriotism 

 is in the farming community; for Almighty God and the farmer gave 

 us thiis nation with its glories, and it looks to me as though God 

 and the farmer are going to take care of it. 



A nation is not great alone in its structures of iron and steel, and 

 wood and stone, or, indeed, in its policies of aggrandizement; but 

 it is wisest and grandest in its building of conscience and character, 

 and we cannot transmit to our heirs, a more worthy heritage than 



