SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 25 



will not fall into the mistake I made in some places in Indiana and 

 Michigan and over in Nebraska. I found men who understood drag to 

 mean harrow. I spoke at Wahoo, just south and west of Omaha last 

 winter. One county officer didn't get to the meeting, but he heard some 

 things I said. We took the same train, and we had about ten minutes 

 of the hardest wrangle you ever heard in your life. At the end of that 

 time I found that all the trouble arose over the fact that he understood 

 by drag I meant harrow; so of course, we couldn't get together. Mr. 

 Roosevelt had an experience of that kind on his recent hunting trip. 

 You all remember he took an outing. Presidents, like everybody else, 

 like to be alone at times. So one morning he got up before the rest of 

 the party did, and started across the prairie. In fact, he went so far, 

 that when a storm came and he tried to get back to camp, he was over 

 taken and got a good soaking. As he jogged along near the camp, he 

 saw before him a, one horse buggy with two ladies in it, and as he came 

 closer he saw they were holding an umbrella over the horse, as he got 

 up near them he rode beside the buggy and said: " Ladies, how does it 

 happen that you sit in this drenching downpour and hold that umbrella 

 over the horse." One of the ladies replied: "This is a livery horse, 

 and the livery man said, we would have trouble with this horse if we 

 let the rein get under his tail." 



Now, it is quite important, wlien people use words, that the same 

 definition be placed upon them, and remember that the man who listens 

 to you may be thinking of a harrow. I believe to-day, the greatest thing 

 that needs to be impressed upon the people of Iowa can be summed up 

 in two words — I am speaking now of the most important thing that 

 every man who has to do with the roads in Iowa, the most important 

 thing for him to remember is don't wait. 



Now, I talked to a man yesterday, an editor — my newspaper friends 

 are the best friends I have. I don't think anybody has done more for 

 me and the roads in Iowa than the newspaper men have. Yet a news- 

 paper man within the last three days; a man, who so far as I know, never 

 drove a team or walked behind a drag in his life, insisted to me that we 

 must tell the farmers to go out and use the big graders first. If you 

 want to use a grader, use it. Don't wait for the grader; use the drag 

 first. Now, some of you have an idea you will have to plant a whole lot 

 of drain tile. All right, plant them; don't wait, use the drag first. 

 Some of you live in a hilly country; you have in your mind some spouty 

 places half way down a clay hill. You will say, Mr. King, we can't use 

 that road until we get that spouty place drained out. All right; drain 

 it out, but don't wait. There is a spouty place that faces my house; the 

 water is running on both sides of the road. It has been running there 

 nearly all fall and summer. It has been running from within five or six 

 feet from the top of the hill. It has never broken through; it has been 

 smooth as this floor, almost all the time. There isn't any tile there. 



They talk to me about capillary attraction — if I wasn't so close to 

 his home I would mention his name — I beg the pardon of the newspapet 

 men; he also is a newspaper man. They say, you can't tell me you can 



