174 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



opposite sides of the fence most of the time, we have been opposed to 

 each other almost every place we have met, yet we have always found in 

 him a clean, fair fighter, and a thoroughly kind, considerate gentleman, 

 whom it has been a pleasure to meet, although our interests have usually 

 been exactly opposite. I refer to Judge Davis, the Iowa attorney of the 

 Chicago and North Western, and we would like to hear from him. (Ap- 

 plause.) 



Mr. James C. Davis: Mr. Chairman, and My Brother Beef Growers of 

 Iowa (Applause): Some gentleman met me the other day, and he said: 

 "Davis, how do you feel when the legislature is in session?" I tried to 

 make an answer, but the other night I was at the theater and one of the 

 actors described another one who was in love as having, "a God-save-us 

 look in his eye," and I thought that might describe my general feeling 

 while the legislature is in session. (Laughter.) 



I don't know whether you gentlemen know it, but I am really qualified 

 to be a member in good standing of this association. I have three cows. 

 (Laughter.) I have a Jersey, I have a Short-horn, and I have a Holstein. 

 And I use the Holstein milk to water the Jersey with. (Laughter.) I 

 said to my man the other day — he is selling milk — I work for the rail- 

 road, and try to earn money enough to keep the place going. He told me 

 he had sold 269 quarts of milk in January, and I said, "William, what 

 are you getting?" He said, "I am getting ten cents a quart." I said, 

 "That is a pretty good price, isn't it?" "Well," he says, "I am selling 

 it all as Jersey milk." (Laughter.) I said, "How do you do it?" And he 

 said, "The Holstein gives most of the milk, but I just flavor it a little 

 with the Jersey." It made me think, and you will recognize I am getting 

 into pretty high-class in this milk business. (Laughter.) 



I wish that the men who represent the railroads and the men that are 

 the bone and sinew of Iowa, as you men are, could get a little closer to- 

 gether. I wish I could get Senator Doran to believe me when I make 

 some statement about railroads. You know I am pretty familiar with 

 most of you. There is Bill Drury, and Justin Doran, and Mr. Ames, and 

 Brady — we all served in the thirty-second together. We are like veter- 

 ans. When we get together, we talk over our trials and battles, and I 

 generally talk of my defeats. I have no victories. The truth of it is 

 that if you would just take my standpoint and look at this situation — 

 ordinarily there are about seventy-five or eighty railroad bills introduced 

 in the legislature — all of them bad, as a general rule. (Laughter.) Most 

 of them are not introduced to pass. 



I heard a story of a gentleman who visited a farmer who was very 

 prosperous and well-to-do, and the farmer had a great, big, black dog with 

 a fierce bark. The farm was threaded by a railroad that ran along, and 

 every time one of the big transcontinental trains came along that 

 wouldn't stop at Buckingham, Ames, one of those you see go by and 

 want to stop and won't, this dog would run out and bark and run after 

 it till he had run himself down. And the man said "Why don't you 

 break that dog of chasing trains?" "Oh," said the farmer, "it helps the 

 dog, and it doesn't hurt the railroad." (Laughter.) 



