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 and 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 today. 
