160 



Missouri Agricultural Report. 



W. B. Sanford. 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 



(Hon. W. B. Sanford. Springfield, Mo.) 



Ladies and Gentlemen: It seems your chairman is given to 



mistakes. When your meeting was 

 opened he asked all the members of 

 the audience to come forward, alleg- 

 ing that Dr. Black's voice — the voice 

 of an orator — was weak. Now, I will 

 straighten out that mistake. I told 

 him to ask you to come up here be- 

 cause my knees were weak, and he 

 got me confused with Dr. Black. 



Dr. Black has touched beauti- 

 fully on the new conditions. The 

 speaker who has just preceded me has 

 talked and told you more eloquently 

 than I could, were I to try, of what 

 the conditions of this day and time demand. I have not lived 

 in the country for years, but my love and affection and the 

 beautiful memories that I have of my home life on the farm 

 have endeared the farm to me to the extent that I have not 

 ceased to be a farmer. While I am a native Missourian, yet 

 in infancy my father moved out of this State into Arkansas, 

 and there he lived as an humble citizen, in an humble home, in 

 an humble way, and to my mind, when I go back and think of his 

 life of drudgery and toil and the things that came up in his life, 

 the many conflicts he had, I feel that he was indeed a martyr. 

 Then when I think of my sainted mother, I only think of her in 

 reverence, and think she was the noblest, truest, purest, grandest 

 and best woman that ever lived. These are the sacred memories 

 that cling to me from boyhood days. I can recall the little 

 things that would be of most consequence to me and would be 

 tiresome to you, but to me they all cluster with fragrance and 

 tender memory. I am sorry that there are not more old people 

 in the audience to whom I could tell them, for they could appre- 

 ciate the conditions under which I lived. But this is a new era 

 and new conditions have come. So I will change my line of talk 

 a little because I want to suggest to you some of the responsi- 

 bilities that have come to you as citizens under the new condi- 

 tions. 



