26 



FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Honorable W. A. Northcott, President, 

 Commercial Association, Springfield. 



Address of Welcome. 



Mr. President and Members of the 

 Bee-Keepers' Association of the State 

 of Illinois: 



"It affords me great pleasure to come 

 here at your invitation as a representa- 

 tive of the Springfield Commercial As- 

 sociation to welcome you to our city 

 and to thank you for holding your 

 meetings here, and to express the hope 

 that you will come again each year if 

 possible and we will try to make it 

 pleasant. You have a comfortable 

 meeting place here and if there is any- 

 thing we can do to add to your comfort 

 Wfc want to do it. 



"I do not know much about bees and 

 you do jiot expect me to tell you much 

 about the subject. I am a good deal 

 like the young colored preacher who 

 preached his first sermon, and said: 'I 

 don't know anything about religion 

 and neither do you, therefore I will ex- 

 plain it to you.' 



"I tried to read . up something but 

 didn't have much time and I knew you 

 didn't expect me to instruct you in Bee 

 Culture. 



"My daughter is interested in bees but 

 she cannot come here because she has 

 a little baby a year old, and many hives 

 of bees do not tie you down closer than 

 one baby will a mother. You ladies 

 know a baby requires the attention of 

 mother most of the time. She is the 

 meal ticket for the baby; she must be 

 on hand at the right time. 



"I remember Shakespeare says some- 

 thing about bees in speaking of gov- 

 ernment, that well ordered government 

 is like the bee hive; it speaks of the 

 queen bee and the drones. It is very 

 beautiful if you have not read it. I 

 don't remember the place where the 

 bee is spoken of. Shakespeare is elo- 

 quent in speaking of the bee. He says 

 that the bees have the best government 

 on earth; that theer is absolute obedi- 

 ence; and that the intelligence of the 

 bee is a wonderful thing. 



"I tried to get some bee jokes; I 

 looked through my library and found 

 a book and on the back of it it said — 

 "STUNG". I thought that applied to 

 bees sure but there was nothing about 

 bees in that book. My reading was 

 like the Irishman, when the Court 

 went to sentence him. 



"How much education have x'ou 

 had? Have you ever read your Bible? 



'No, I have never read my Bible. 



"What have you read? , 



"I have a few red hairs on the back 

 of my neck. 



"I did not read up on bees because 

 I knew you would not expect me to 

 talk on that subject. 'I wish I could 

 stay and hear you talk about it; I am 

 a little old to learn and do not ex- 

 pect to go into the bee business, but 

 I would be interested iri hearing about 

 it— 



','We are proud of Springfield; I 

 know a little about that. I have only 

 lived here ten years. They are a hos- 

 pitable, pleasant people, many of them 

 Southern people, who cani^ here from 

 » Kentucky and Virginia. I^iticoln v^^as 

 a Kentuckian. Most of the people 

 around Springfield .are pld Kentucky 

 people and very hospitable. 



"A story is told of one of the Mayors 

 of Springfield. He went off to attend 

 a meeting of Mayors and bragged 

 about our city, so much so that it niade 

 the people tired; thev put up a joke 

 on him. One of the ^eakers told this 

 story: Mr. Schnepp breamed that he 

 was dead and went to the "^ther world. 

 The attendant showed him about. He 

 looked around and said — "Heaven is 

 not very different from Springfield." 

 The attendant said: "Mr. Schnepp, 

 you ain't in Heaven." (He had gotten 

 into the other place.) 



"I heard a good one about this war; 

 there were a lot of fellows looking at 

 the bulletin board; they all thought 

 that they could fight it better than 

 the Kaiser — to hear their opinions 

 about the war around the bulletin 

 board. One fellow said: "Well, the 

 Germans can lick them Russians and 

 the French and the Belgiang and Eng- 

 lish — but I don't know about those 

 Allies; I don't know anything about 

 them. 



"I want to say to you that the value 

 of getting together and organizing 

 and talking about a common pursuit 

 or subject is very great. This world 

 is moving along by a comparison of 

 ideas. If I lived in the woods by my- 

 self I would not develop very much. 

 You are dependent upon a comparison 

 of ideas for development. This world 

 has moved faster the last hundred 

 years along scientific lines than it has 

 moved in all ages that have gone be- 

 fore. Fire, air, earth and water are 



