SPEECH OF GBAND MASTER SMEDLEY. 269 



farmers. I look for the time to come when from the farms and shops 

 of Iowa will go forth men who will fill our executive and legislative 

 halls; when intelligence will become so broad and general that it 

 will be impossible for our judiciary to be corrupt; and when we 

 shall cease to hear of venal legislators and corrupt public servants. 



No experiment of modern times has been so important as the one 

 under consideration. The farmers of this nation are on trial before 

 the world. The question is now to be settled as to whether they are 

 capable of self-government; as to whether they are competent to do 

 business, and whether they are susceptible of a high condition of 

 educational advancement. The experiment is now to be tried, prac 

 tically, as to whether woman is competent to assume equal and like 

 responsibilities with man ; as to whether our wives, mothers, daugh 

 ters, and friends shall work with us, joining hands in all life s duties. 



Sisters and brothers, do we feel the importance of this trial ? Are 

 we fully aware of the importance of this experiment ? Do we realize 

 just what it means ? That it means, upon the one hand, a servile, 

 slavish, and secondary condition ; on the other, manhood and wo 

 manhood in their highest and broadest sense? It means, on the 

 one hand, comparative poverty ; on the other, affluence. It means, 

 on the one hand, ignorance ; on the other, enlightenment. It means 

 serfdom on the one hand, and freedom on the other. It means that 

 our children shall be the future hewers of wood and drawers of 

 water in the nation, or American citizens, brave, strong, self-reliant, 

 and competent for all places of trust and responsibility. It means 

 that labor shall be a degradation, or that work shall be ennobled, 

 elevated, and a badge of conferring honor. Again I say, do we fully 

 realize the importance of this experiment? Do we take in all its 

 power and significance ? 



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 Let us, then, with clean hands and pure hearts, consecrate all 

 that is best and noblest in us, to the success of a work more patient 

 and sublime in its character than any ever before undertaken. Let 

 each lay upon the altar of this new Order whatever he or she may 

 have of selfish ambition or of mercenary motive, and, joining hands, 

 let us covenant that our best and highest thought and action shall 

 be dedicated to the cause of justice and humanity. Let us pledge, 

 each to the other, that we will labor faithfully, patiently, earnestly, 



