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 Agriculture. 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 PREst- 
DENTS McKINLEY, ROOSEVELT and Tarr, 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 inte five figures. SECRETARY 
Witson 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 
