442 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



The thing of all things — and I am speaking with all the earnestness of 

 my nature, because I believe in your organization — the thing of all things 

 that is most dangerous to you is that somebody, some how, might get 

 your feet off the ground and throw you. Mother Earth is a mighty good 

 old steadier — stand on her, be sensible, be sane; don't ask Congress to do 

 the impossible things; don't ask Congress to do for you anything that 

 you wouldn't want Congress to do for any other class of American citi- 

 zens. (Applause.) But demand of Congress — No, I wont' say that! I 

 was in Congress I8I2 years, my friends; I went there when I was a boy 

 (Laughter.) ; I grew up in that body. I have served with more than 

 2,000 members of Congress, most of whom have gone, and there is no 

 man beneath the stars who has a more profound respect for the honesty, 

 the integrity, the patriotism, and the good sense of the American Con- 

 gress, whether it is democratic or republican, than I have. (Applause.) 

 And I ask of you not to demand these things of Congress. What you need 

 to do is to let Congress know that you have a sane, sensible, just propo- 

 sition, and that you, the real American farmers, want it, and Congress 

 will give it to you only too gladly — too gladly. 



My friends, some eight or nine years ago, on the fiftieth anniversary 

 of the battle of Gettysburg, with some friends I visited that historic field. 

 It was a quiet Sunday morning; the church-bells were calling the children 

 to Sunday-school, and down the streets could be seen fathers and mothers 

 taking their children to school to be taught the beauties of the Bible. 

 On Seminary Ridge I stood and looked across the valley, with its ripen- 

 ing wheat, the cherries were just to turn, the flowers were in bloom, the 

 birds were w^arbling their sweetest music, and my mind flashed back 

 fifty years in retrospect, and I saw belch out from the gray lines across 

 yonder a flame of smoke and fire, and the opening gun at Gettysburg had 

 been fired; I saw a dashing cavalry officer draw^ from its scabbard his 

 sword and order the onward charge of 18,000 of as gallant soldiers in 

 gray as ever trod the surface of this earth; I saw them come over this 

 wheat field in double-quick time; I saw one brave lad from Mississippi 

 leap the breastworks of the boys in blue, located where I was standing, 

 and I saw him brained with the butt of a cannon. The gray lines with- 

 ered, fell back, reformed and charged once more, but the steadiness of 

 the boys in blue v/as more than the dashing chivalry of the boys in gray 

 could overcome. When it was over, the Union was saved. Shortly there- 

 after that mysterious, melancholy man of history, a type unto himself, 

 gave to the world on that great battlefield a classic that will live as 

 long as the human heart beats in unison to real eloquence, and I some- 

 times think that it was a strange thing, almost an uncanny thing, that 

 this awkw^ard, gawky, unprepossessing man in personal appearance, of 

 poor parentage, should have been brought into the world, and should in 

 that critical period in our local history, become the president of the 

 United States. And as time went on and the waves of war from over the 

 ocean engulfed us finally, and when we had sent our 2-million boys 

 across, and when these boys, the sons of those men in gray who charged 

 under Pickett, and the sons of those men in blue who stood like the ever- 

 lasting granite of the hills upon which they fought, the sons of these men, 



