PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 25 



to outline what these details would be. Mr. Wilson expressed himself with 

 the utmost candor, said he would assist us as much as he possibly could, 

 and recommend to the President and to Congress, in his annual report,, 

 the enactment of all necessary legislation, and otherwise do everything 

 in the power of the Department to suppress this evil. A committee of us 

 appointed by this Conference called upon the President of the United 

 States. He received us with the utmost cordiality. We explained to him 

 the situation; we explained the immense national importance of the mat- 

 ter; the threat of immense danger to the vast interests of this country. 



Let me impress you with this idea, so far as our efforts in the National 

 Congress are concerned. We do not expect to base our demands to Con- 

 gress upon the local character of the danger. We know, individually and 

 personally, how much depends upon this matter, for the people of this 

 State; but in order to impress Congress, we look upon it as a national 

 question, as a threatened national calamity; and from that standpoint, I 

 hope that this Convention will straighten our hands in the shape of their 

 resolutions to-day. 



Now, the President appreciated that view of the question. He assured 

 us that he would favor any legislation, on a line looking to the suppres- 

 sion of the danger, and of its ultimate eradication. Not satisfied with that,, 

 we asked him to put an expression of his sentiments and his attitude on 

 this question in his message to Congress, so that, when the fight upon the 

 floor of Congress came up, we could refer to him as the Chief Executive 

 of this great nation, and pick up his message to Congress and say, that he 

 understood and appreciated this danger, and urged appropriate legislation 

 to suppress it. He very cheerfully and cordially agreed to recommend 

 it in his message, but said he could not give it an extended notice, because 

 of the great number of other interests of perhaps equal importance, that 

 he would have to embrace in his message; but he said he would give 

 them a clear cut expression as to his sentiments upon the question. Not 

 satisfied with that, he asked Mr. Burgess and myself (however, as much 

 interested as I was, and as zealous in the matter as I am or was, Mr. 

 Ransdell took my place, because I could not attend to it right there) ; 

 the President asked us would we serve as his messengers to the Secretary 

 of Agriculture, said that he wanted to impress upon the Secretary of 

 Agriculture his personal views on the subject, and that if we would do 

 him the honor to serve as his messengers, he would write to the Secre- 

 tary. And he did right there and then, requesting the Secretary to pre- 

 pare such data and such a message as the Secretary would be justified in 

 doing, that he might put them in his message to Congress. We went 

 down, at least Mr. Ransdell and Mr. Burgess went down to see Mr. 

 Wilson, with that letter from the President, and they told me, when they 

 returned, that Mr. Wilson was then at work and had conferred with them 

 several times, upon the question of the language to be used by the Presi- 



