FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 257 



The President : It is just ten minutes until machinery hall 

 opens, and as Professor Smith, of Michigan, is with us this 

 afternoon, I will ask him to say a few words to us. 



REMARKS. 



PROFESSOR SMITH, MICHIGAN. 



Mr . Chairman — I fully appreciate the fact that a man that goes from 

 one State to another where the conditions are diflferent must be very careful 

 lest he do more harm than good, and whatever I have to say this afternoon 

 and this evening i want you to have clearly in your mind, as it is in mine, 

 is with reference to the Michigan conditions and what I say, knowing it to 

 be true in Michigan, may not be true here. I was recently down at Rock- 

 ford, Illinois, at the dairymen's convention there and found things quite 

 different from our State. I have, also, recently been out to Texas, but 

 things true of Texas are not true in Michigan, and I was glad of it. The 

 things I had learned were unlearned there. It was just like (if you will 

 pardon a story) a man down in Texas who had a negro butler, a splendid fel- 

 low except he would get drunk. One day when in that condition he broke 

 the best china the man had in the house. The man said "I will teach him." 

 He took up a newspaper that night and when the negro butler came in he 

 pretended to be reading and said ''Just listen, Sam. Mr. Brown's negro, 

 Charles, became intoxicated the other evening and when in that condition 

 he attempted to blow out the lamp, but his breath was so satuated with 

 alcohol that be took fire and blew up." "Oh Gawd, Massey, I will never 

 blows out a lamp again as long as I live", and so what I have to say may 

 not apply to you. First, what do you want in a State dairy association; 

 who do you want there? What is a State dairy association? It is an organ- 

 ization where we meet together all the factors between the cow and the con- 

 sumer; it is unified in one gathering all the factors that go to transmit the 

 golden grain of your beautiful prairies into the golden cash of your pocket- 

 books. What are the constituent elements of such an assembly? First and 

 foremost, the milk producer. Ill fares that association that does not cater 

 first and foremost and largely to the milk producer, and does not -secure his 

 presence at a meeting of this kind. 



Mr. Chairman , I am not talking after consulting with you or any member 

 of this organization, and I am saying what I believe. Your dairy associa- 

 tion will never succeed as it should until you get at its meetings a large rep- 

 resentation of your milk producers. Why are they not here? Why are they 

 not at every dairy association? Why were they not at the Illinois meeting? 

 Why not at Michigan meeting? For many reasons. First, the distance 

 they are apart kills the enthusiasm. You men in the cities are enthusiastic 

 because you run up against each other every day; it keeps you warm and 

 enthusiastic. Your farmer has hard work to be enthusiastic, and he does 

 not appreciate the benefits of these meetings as he should; he is a little 

 bit suspicious. I want to make a point, that you must get the milk pro- 

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