80 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



I am always glad to give suggestions as to what we should try 

 to do. I gave to most of you, a week ago or two weeks ago, a resume 

 of the work of the Association during the past year which was 

 really a resume of three years, and I think I shall not take time 

 now to go into that. In my mind the work of the Association is 

 shaping itself into some pretty definite things; and I can see in the 

 future, at least a little way into the future, that if it is to meet the 

 situation as it should be met there must be some shifts some changes 

 in the form of the administration of the Association, some shifts in 

 the lines of work pursued, and a very clear-cut, well-defined policy 

 of work arrived at during the coming year, so that stakes for the 

 future can be set up based on right conclusions. 



I believe that there will be one department of cooperative market- 

 ing in the Association. Now that will not all happen this year; 

 but it is going to happen some time in the future, when some of this 

 preliminary stuff has been worked out. And I know as well as I 

 know that, that there will be a department of finance, taking in the 

 questions of revenue, taxation, farm financing, and farm credit ; these 

 are the subjects that such a department is going to handle, study and 

 put itself in position to work on. It will have to follow a pretty 

 definite policy ; it must know pretty definitely where it is going, and 

 then it must work to get there. Then there will be a department 

 of transportation. The immediate question before the house is 

 freight rates, but that is the least of our questions. Under the head 

 of transportation, we have a road question. The farmer has a tre- 

 mendous road question, and under the same head he has the water- 

 way question. Transportation in the future is going to mean, in this 

 organization, more than a reduction of freight rates. Then there is 

 going to be a general legislative department, which will be tied up 

 perhaps with the legal department, perhaps not; I do not know 

 whether the farmers want the law tied up with the legislative de- 

 partment or not. But questions of law and legislation will be 

 grouped fairly close together. Then there will be, of course, the 

 general administrative department of the Association. 



Now, I do not claim to be a prophet, but I am willing to prophesy 

 on this particular thing as coming true in the life of the Association. 

 It must come if the Association is going to serve its place as one of 

 the several factors in the agricultural life of the state of Illinois. If 

 the Association, as a volunteer association of farmers of the state, is 

 going to make the third point in the triangle, with the State College 

 of Agriculture and Experiment Station, and the State Department 



