PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS. at 
PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
W. W. PENDERGAST, HUTCHINSON. 
This morning is the time for the president’s annual address. I came 
without any prepared address, as I thought the program would be so crowded 
there would be no time whatever, and so I told several members. They an- 
swered that there would be a committee appointed on the president’s ad- 
dress, and there must be something to report on. They said it was my duty; 
they said they would call in the militia, and that made me feel a little afraid. 
If it is my duty so to do, I will try to say a few words that may be productive 
of some good. 
I take this hour because there are so many to come on at this time that 
should be here, but who are absent. We also have a little difficulty in open- 
ing the meeting and getting started in the morning, and I will put that in as 
a part of my address, that we must be a little more prompt in beginning; we 
are too apt to begin late and then hang on at the other end. We do not want 
to be like Davy Crockett’s dog. He said: “He is a good dog and has a 
great many good points. He will run well and bark well and hold on well 
until it comes to the very place where I want him to hold on the longest 
and get the hardest grip, then he will let go and turn around and bark at 
me.” (Laughter.) We are not quite like that; we do not start off quite as 
promptly as we should in the morning, but we have good staying qualities. 
During this past year I have had opportunity to become more intimately 
acquainted with the members of this great and growing organization than 
ever before, and I am more and more impressed by the utter self-abnegation 
of most of the people who belong to this society. We are disinterested, we 
simply want to make this state and the whole Northwest a more desirable 
place in which to live, and we are doing right, my friends, in not under- 
taking to do too much at a time. You all remember the story of Jack the 
Giant Killer, how when the old giant, Bloody Man, got hold of him and told 
him he was going to spit him and roast him and have him for supper unless 
Jack did everything the giant did, Jack began to tremble; he was now in the 
giant’s power. The giant, among other things, got him to go out in his grove 
and set him to pulling up trees, or thought he had set him to do it. He took 
hold of one himself and pulled it up by the roots and threw it away, and then 
he took another. After awhile he began to look around for Jack, and cast- 
ing his eyes to one of the nearest trees he found him tying the tops together. 
He called to him and said, ‘Come down here and go to pulling up the trees, 
or I shall have you for supper, sure as the world.” “Wait a minute,” said 
Jack, “till I get the tops tied together.” ‘“‘Why are you tying the tops to- 
gether?” asked the giant. Said Jack, “When I begin to pull I am going to 
pull an acre at a time.” A great many people make a mistake in that they 
are going to pull an acre at a time. The best way is to take one thing at 
a time and work at that until we have accomplished the desired result, and 
that is just what we have been doing all these years. I say we, because I am 
glad to count myself among the number, although I cannot go back as far 
as some of these graybeards I see before me, but I have tried to contribute 
a little part toward the grand result that is sure to follow. One thing at a 
time. Let others take an acre at a time, but let us take one thing at a time, 
and let us attend strictly to our knitting. We will try to make the North- 
west the home of the apple or the pear, or of small fruits which we know we 
can grow and make at home right here in our midst, and by their help add 
to the enjoyment of every man, woman and child in the entire state. And let 
