538 TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



come in a hurry, but which may be worked out in the following years. 

 In addition to that we have gone a long ways in the direction of the 

 movement which Mr. Sykes spoke of this morning, of having the farmer 

 as the agricultural industry represented in places where public or quasi- 

 public measures are being framed which have so large an effect upon 

 the economic life of the country as a whole. We heard at Ames a few 

 days ago a stirring address by Senator Kenyon, in which he told us of 

 the work that had been done in our national legislature at Washington 

 to represent sanely but very determinedly the needs of the industry 

 which is the chief industry of all this country out here. I am very much 

 distressed since that time to see so open a declaration of hostility to 

 that agricultural group. It seems to me that we have in a sense come 

 into our own and that, in coming into our own, we should make no apolo- 

 gies for representing this great industry, but should only see to it that 

 the opinions which are expressed back in this country, the views, the 

 measures we insist upon, shall be sane and so sound that after being 

 pushed through to recognition by agencies of that sort, that the sane 

 and thinking people of this country will endorse them. I am very much 

 encouraged in that connection to think back to those conferences we 

 had a year ago when some people came out from Chicago and told us 

 what we should do and how unsound and how radical we were in saying 

 that we thought our judgment was, perhaps, just as good as theirs, in 

 saying that those were not the things that should be done. Now, in the 

 twelve months since that, how many of the men, strong men, men who 

 stand well in those sections, have come out and admitted that the judg- 

 ment of this western section was sound, and that the proposals that they 

 made were not radical, and even now many of them saying they are will- 

 ing to join with us in making a systematic procedure for the strengthen- 

 ing of our industrial possibilities. 



Now, the second point that I want to make in that connection is this 

 matter of finance that is before us. We had a conference over here at 

 the Hotel Fort Des Moines the other day, and I see the faces of a good 

 many people who were there and of a number who were not there, and 

 it seems that the purpose of that conference, if it was a purpose similar 

 to the one last year, has not been met in anything like the measure that 

 it was met last year. If I sense the consensus of the people last year 

 who went home from the farmer-banker conferences, it seemed to be 

 that they had an outlook where some definite results might be accom- 

 plished; but the people who went home from the conference the other 

 day were just a little bit more muddled than they were before that con- 

 ference was held. 



In connection with the economic outlook, which is supposed to be my 

 subject, there are two points that it seems to me should be stressed. The 

 outgrowth of those meetings last year was an ideal that established 

 financial institutions in this state are now sufficiently strong so that they 

 could, by introducing some additional agencies, serve the needs of a state 

 like this, and they wanted to do it, and that a progressive section within 

 that banking fraternity came out to take that sort of a stand. Now what 

 has happened since that? You know perfectly well. Through the joining 



