114 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



farmers, as no other plan will succeed. Men are willing to contribute of 

 their means to support this association if they are solicited and the 

 matter explained to them. But I believe we are wasting our time if we 

 attempt to do the work in any other way. Assuming that this work will 

 be continued by my successor, I want to say a few words in his behalf 

 to the local men, who must assist him in the canvass if he succeeds. It 

 will take some of your time, and this will mean a sacrifice to you. But 

 unless you are willing to make that sacrifice, he cannot succeed. And re- 

 member that when you are helping him you are building up an associa- 

 tion that is protecting your interests — therefore you are helping yourself. 

 Don't expect your president to go out among strangers and solicit member- 

 ships as he would sell farm machinery, for he is handling a different prop- 

 osition, and he would be looked on with suspicion; he cannot succeed 

 without a good local man with him. So please remember this, when 

 he asks you to assist him to canvass your farmers. 



But there is one danger to your association at this juncture that I 

 want to warn you against at this meeting, and that is the danger of 

 your members lapsing into a sort of belief that the association is now 

 over the hill, and that it will succeed without them making any further 

 sacrifice to boost it. Just as sure as they do this, your association will 

 dwindle away and die, as it is only through a united effort of all that 

 it will continue to grow. The splendid work done by your organization 

 is commending itself to sober, thinking farmers everywhere — and why 

 not? It has taken the despised farmer — as it were — who was supposed to 

 wear nothing but blue overalls and cowhide boots, and to never get the 

 hayseed combed out of his hair, and has placed him in the front rank 

 in the state; and now, after seven years of hard fighting, all other classes 

 take off their hats and hail the Iowa farmer. It has proven to the rail- 

 roads that the farmers have rights as well as great corporatins. It has 

 taken a hand in cleaning up our politics, so that the people's rights are 

 now protected against corporation's greed. It has become a recognized 

 power in defending and protecting the farmers' interests. In short, it is 

 the one organization above all others that stands for a building up of 

 the farmer and stockman and a square deal for all. 



"With these undisputed facts so vividly in our minds, we should all 

 make a more determined effort than ever to push the association during 

 the coming year. 



Now just a little resume of my work for the association during the 

 past year, as it has been a very busy one for me. During the winter I held 

 a meeting every day when the weather would permit, and was also doing 

 all I could to improve the service for the stockmen. And then toward 

 spring I took up personally the question of the water at Chicago, and 

 began to work on it. Then in May I commenced the canvass for five- 

 year memberships under the new plan, and pushed that with all my might 

 during the balance of the year. I have traveled 12,000 miles by rail 

 and about half that distance with team and automobile. I have attended 

 conferences and hearings where your interests demanded my assistance, 

 and hav« conscientiously endeavored to discharge my duty and protect 



