i50 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



an article of diet that is not only a delicacy but an absolute ne- 

 cessity for the completion of every meal. He provides for the 

 motherless baby the only means of sustenance and saves to the 

 world a precious human life, an immortal soul. He enters the 

 sick chamber and the hospital wards and with his product, the 

 Elixir of life, he nurses back the emaciated victim of disease 

 who is lingering on the border land of that country from which 

 no traveler returns. He is the producer of the only balanced 

 ration for the weak and the strong, and I come to the Illinois 

 dairyman today, and in behalf of Illinois babies and Illin. >is ;«.i- 

 valids and Illinois mothers, and the great Commonwealth of 

 Illinois, I beg of you to let your most prominent care be The 

 Care of the Milk of the Farm. 



The dairyman is the one indispensible manufacturer. - He 

 is of equal importance in the Palace of Kings and the hovel of 

 the poor. His possibilities are limitless. He stands pre-eminent 

 and alone as a philanthropist, as with daily regularity he dis- 

 tributes to unnumbered voyagers nature's only life preserver, 

 and he is "Only a Dairyman." Only a drummer boy, but in 

 many a historic battle it was through the inspiration given by 

 his music that urged a disorganized and terror stricken army 

 on to victory, that but for him would have suffered ignominious 

 defeat. Only a news boy, and we forget his importance as he 

 hurries hither and thither carrying the latest news and leaving 

 at our door-step, while the world is still asleep, messages from 

 the remotest corner of the earth and making it possible for lis 

 at breakfast to get not only the political and financial situation 

 in the new and old world, but the market reports from the com- 

 mercial centers of the earth. 



Only a clerk, and yet without him the wheels of commerce 

 would stop. On him rests a responsibility that no one else can 

 bear. He occupies a position that no one else can fill. He is 

 the connecting link between labor and capital. It is he that oils 

 the machinery and applies the steam that moves the great engine 

 of commerce and transports the necessities and the luxuries of 

 life from the few to the many. 



