178 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



ing? Can there be any business growth if the other is depreciated in its 

 capacity to add to what it has accomplished? We must all go up to- 

 gether. There is no question about that at all, and our interests are 

 absolutely mutual interests. But I need not say anything further along 

 that line. These are suggestions that come to my mind from what has 

 been said here by those who have spoken before. I have suggested that 

 we are just beginning in this country, and I think that is true. The 

 world has just reached a point, if you please, a point of vantage. It has 

 just planted its feet now upon a vantage ground from which it can be- 

 gin to grow and develop into a mighty country, into a great world, if 

 you please, and everything that we are doing now or trying to do is 

 suggesting this tonight. 



You take the legislature over here. What are we talking about over 

 here? What thoughts are in the minds of the people. Why, the thought 

 of the people is, we must begin to grow, to develop. In other words, 

 Iowa, if you please, must put on some new clothes. It has worn its old 

 clothes practically out, not quite down to the seat of its pants or the 

 knees of its breeches, but that is the way people are beginning to feel, any- 

 way. So we are beginning to make permanent roads, beginning to talk 

 about better school facilities, beginning to talk about public utilities bills, 

 and workingmen's compensation acts. These are things that were not 

 thought of or talked about twenty-five years ago, if you please. All in- 

 dicating the growth of the public thought and the development that lies 

 right ahead of us in this country. And so I want to congratulate you, if 

 you please, that you come together to discuss these questions of mutual 

 interest, and I say they are of mutual interest; and, whatever you do, it 

 doesn't make any difference what it is, is helpful to another. I think 

 that any man's life is helpful to all other lives if it is any sort of a 

 decent life at all. I think that is true with what a man does. 



Now there may be men here, there may be men in this city, who are 

 simply giving themselves to making money simply for the purpose of 

 establishing a fine home, rearing their family, and all that kind of thing, 

 but whatever his notion may be of what he is doing or what he is going 

 to accomplish, he can not do it without helping you and without helping 

 me, and without helping us all. I don't know how I can better illustrate 

 my thought so you will get it than by saying: You go up and down the 

 avenue out here. It is a beautiful avenue out here in the city of Des 

 Moines, beautiful homes, fine homes. Nobody can go up and down that 

 avenue at certain seasons without admiration for those homes and the 

 beautiful surroundings that are there, the good taste that has been de- 

 veloped, and all that kind of thing. That man who built the home on the 

 avenue, if you please, may have thought of nothing more than simply the 

 expenditure of his money and perhaps a selfish interest in building a 

 home, but throughout all time, so long as that home is there and those 

 beautiful grounds are there, every man that passes up and down that 

 avenue receives a benefit from it and an enjoyment in it, and he makes 

 a contribution, if you please, to society and to the state. So I say it 

 floes not make much difference what our lives are, if they are along 



