52 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



A VETERAN OF THREE CABINETS 



15. The awakening of agricultural interests and the establish- 

 ment of a firm market for farm products, have been matters of 

 accomplishment of the last quarter century. The definition of 

 the phases of agriculture as an industry and the attacking of its 

 problems in a thorough and scientific way have been functions 

 of the United States Department of AgricuUure. Although the 

 Department's beginnings were merely a sop, thrown out by poli- 

 ticians to their rural interests, the strong hand of the Honorable 

 James Wilson, grasping the foundations laid by Secretary 

 Rusk (18), shaped their development so as to yield firm federal 

 support to the industries of the land. 



Secretary of Agriculture in the successive cabinets of Presi- 

 dents McKiNLEY, Roosevelt and Taft, Mr. Wilson not only 

 holds the record for length of service in a cabinet position, but 

 also saw develop from a department of a few hundred employees, 

 an institution whose workers run up into five figures. Secretary 

 Wilson was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, August 16, 1835, and 

 came to America at the age of sixteen. His parents first settled 

 in Connecticut but afterward emigrated to Tama Co., Iowa, where 

 he entered the public schools in 1855. His collegiate education 

 was obtained at Iowa College, Grinnell. In 1851, he engaged in 

 farming for himself, but being a man of broadest sympathies 

 and inspired with the ideals of public duty, he was elected a 

 member of the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth Iowa Assem- 

 blies. He was Speaker of the last Assembly, and as such took 

 so prominent an interest in educational matters that he was made 

 Regent of the State University of Iowa during the years 1870 to 

 1874. In 1873 he was elected to the forty-third Congress, a 

 position he retained during the subsequent session. In 1877 he 

 was made a member of the Iowa State Railway Commission, 

 where he remained for six years until returned to Congress. 

 Unfortunately his right was contested, but with the delays of 



