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has no more right to open his mouth than a traitor to the Union had 

 right to glory in the triumphant issue of our civil war. This is the 

 thing I want to say : Are you a citizen ? Are you under the State's 

 protection and care? Then it is your duty, sacred, holy, to dis- 

 charge your obligations as a citizen with the utmost intelligence 

 and good judgment at your command. Chief among these obliga- 

 tions is your solemn duty at the ballot box. To fail there, upon 

 every and all occasions ; to act otherwise than in accordance with 

 the highest and best 3 T ou kuow ; to allow yourself to approach that 

 ballot box without having given the matter before you the result of 

 your most conscientious consideration, or, in shiftless indifference, 

 to stay away from it altogether, is to prove false to your country 

 and unworthy the name of a citizen. 



The second thing that it seems to me the farmer is too often in- 

 clined to forget is this, thai the end of his existence is something 

 higher than the mere accumulation of money. 



I know that it is very natural for the man who has earned his 

 money by toil that has driven him from his couch often before the 

 gray dawn of day and wrung the sweat from his brow beneath the 

 furnace heat of a July sun, — it is very natural, I say, for that man 

 to know well the value of a dollar. Farmers, as a class, I grant, 

 do not get rich in a year ; thej 7 work hard for what they have, and, 

 if successful, know what habits of thrift and economy mean. But 

 even this furnishes no ground for that spirit of excessive prudence, 

 to use the mildest phrase, which has so often characterized them. 

 Farmers, take them altogether, have impressed their fellows, too 

 often, as in no small degree prone to cling to the fruits of their in- 

 dustry with a hand that is slow to open to the great calls of God 

 and humanity. As a result of this, you often find the farmer's 

 home bar.e of everything save the absolute necessities of life, him- 

 self and his family denying themselves of advantages that they 

 ought to enjoy, and scrimping at every turn, so that a few more 

 acres may be added to the farm or a few more hundreds go into 

 the bank. In this lies one reason why so many boys leave the 

 farm and seek the city. What boy of spirit, who knows his father 

 is well-to-do, enjoys the contrast between his own cheap suit 

 and the neat, stylish dress of the young man of the village or 

 city ? It is all very well to talk of a foolish pride ou the part of 

 young people, but, my friends, you can't make over human nature 

 at your will, and the farmer's son ought to know that, so far as his 

 father is able, he does all in his power to make life upon the farm 

 pleasant and attractive. And what is true for the sons is true for 

 the daughters. For the saving of a few dollars many a father and 

 mother see their children growing up hating the privations of the 



