OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 61 



President Garfield, but he declined in order to be elected Gov- 

 ernor of Wisconsin in 1880. He was twice re-elected, serving 

 seven years in all. In 1886 he took the firm stand that quelled 

 the Milwaukee riot by ordering the militia to "fire on the mob." 

 A single volley "blew the backbone out of anarchy" teaching a 

 permanent lesson to the Wisconsin "reds." In other states the 

 situation was not handled so successfully, and that very night, 

 May 4, 1886, dozens of Chicago police lay stififening, or writhing 

 in gore, victims of the bomb throwers of Haymarket. On the 

 strength of this record he was at once renominated for Governor, 

 and re-elected without competition. He declined a fourth term. 



In 1888 Governor Rusk was Wisconsin's candidate for repub- 

 lican presidential nomination, and early the next year was ap- 

 pointed by President Harrison to the newly created Secretary- 

 ship of Agriculture. Secretary Rusk at once recognized the 

 myriad services that could be performed in marketing America's 

 surplus crops, and immediately set about extending the disposal 

 channels for the great staple crops and the vast animal products. 

 He made strenuous efforts to secure the substitution of home grown 

 for imported products and to bring the department into close rela- 

 tionship with the farmers. The beginnings of the control of con- 

 tagious disease among cattle were laid under his oversight, thus 

 permitting the markets of the world to be opened to our meat 

 products. He established propaganda for the introduction of 

 Indian corn to Europe as a cheap and economical food substitute 

 for the other cereals. He succeeded in placing sugar production 

 upon a stronger foundation, promoted irrigation in the arid west, 

 and sponsored laws to check the ravages of insect enemies to 

 plant and animal life. During his administration the well-known 

 special reports on "Diseases of Cattle" and "Diseases of the 

 Horse" were first published. 



On March 8, 1893, he returned to his beautiful four hundred 

 acre farm at Viroqua, after a public life of more than thirty 



