64 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



ment lands and in improved conditions for the Indians that again 

 betokened his agricultural vision. From 1891 to 1897 he was 

 United States Senator and head of the committee that built the 

 present Congressional Library. He was at the same time member 

 of the commission which built the Wisconsin State Historical 

 Library, and was responsible for the efforts which brought to this 

 institution the interesting first documents of Wisconsin's agricul- 

 tural history. Of sound conservative ideas, he was chairman of 

 the committee on resolutions at the National Democratic (Gold 

 Standard) Convention at Indianapolis in 1896. He was a mem- 

 ber in 1906 of the Commission empowered to build the new Wis- 

 consin capital, the artistic triumph of American state houses. 

 This duty was foremost in his interests until his death at Madison, 

 August 27, 1908. 



Senator Vilas was possessed of a keen patriotic sense and for 

 years was a member of the Society of the Army of Tennessee. 

 Numerous of his addresses bearing on the issues, outcome and 

 rewards of the Civil War, were delivered by him during the cru- 

 cial political period of the two decades following the war. To 

 his advanced ideas an-d energetic efforts much of the prominent 

 agricultural position of Wisconsin is at present due. Everything 

 that Senator Vilas did he did well. His words were as carefully 

 chosen in ordinary conversation as they were when he spoke to 

 tens of thousands. He was one of the earliest advocates of special 

 education for rural citizenship, and by his legislative foresight, 

 laid the foundation of the rural coherence found in his state todav. 



