182 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



and the future with you is in your individual capacity, doing your 

 duty as a citizen. My friends, we can not rely on others. We must 

 look to ourselves. And the great and primary duty of the people of Iowa 

 is individually, each man by himself, taking an interest in these public 

 affairs and doing his full duty, not only in his local township, not only in 

 his county, not only in his state, but in the nation at large. I want to 

 say to you that this is one of the serious problems of our time, is 

 to bring home to the people themsalves their responsibility to be well 

 informed, and to act when the time comes. (Applause.) 



The Toastmaster: At our last meeting, a year ago in December, 

 I had the pleasure of introducing the on]y commerce counsel in captiv- 

 ity. He was only six months old then, and he filled our hearts with 

 joy by the splendid optimistic talk he gave us. Now he is a year older, 

 and he bears a good many scars of battle, and some of them have been 

 delivered to him on our account. I know our members have a curiosity 

 to know whether that same optimistic spirit pervades him now that did 

 a year ago. I refer to Judge Henderson. (Applause.) 



Hon. J. H. Henderson: Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen — It was a 

 year ago that I was here, and I am thinking now that in reference to 

 the work that I have had to do that I w^as a good deal smarter than 

 I am tonight, because I know that I know a good deal more now than I 

 did then. Some of these friends have said that they have been taken 

 by surprise or were not notified that they were to talk. I was not 

 notified, but I have not been taken by surprise, because I was fooled 

 once. I came here last year and they set me at this end of the table, 

 and I supposed that that was just a quiet, nice place for a guest to sit, 

 and I was called on. And w^hen they set me down at this table at the 

 same place, I knew then that I was to be called on, and I really have 

 not enjoyed my supper. 



I feel a little bit more as if I belonged to you. I talked about be- 

 ing a lawyer and acquainted with lawyers' ways, and I think I said 

 something that if it were in a gathering of lawyers, I would feel a little 

 bit better, because I would know how much to believe of what they 

 said. I feel tonight that I can go along a little bit further now and 

 know somewhat of how much I am to believe of what you say. 



I come on one line of my ancestry from tillers of the soil, and 

 raisers of stock as far back as I can trace the lineage, and on the 

 other side I come from tanners and shoemakers and office-holders, and 

 I believe I have got a little bit of a combination of both strains in my 

 nature, as I have farmed a little and have held office quite a little. 



I have been thinking as I have been sitting here this evening 

 and looking into your faces, that here is represented tonight the 

 strength and the solidity and the permanency of this great state, a 

 state of which I am proud because I live in the county in the state in 

 which I was born, and live in the township in which I was born, and 

 have lived in the same ward and precinct in which I have ever cast a 

 vote in this state. I have great pride in the great state of Iowa, and 

 it is a pleasure to be with those whom I know and recognize as being 



