108 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



had to win three times in succession." (Applause and 

 laughter.) 



By his persistency and faithfulness to this organiza- 

 tion Hugh Van Pelt has won the place in our hearts which 

 brings him back year after year to speak to this conven- 

 tion. I want to introduce Hugh Van Pelt, of Waterloo, 

 Iowa. (Applause.) 



Mr. Hugh Van Pelt (Waterloo, Iowa) : Mr. Toast- 

 master, ladies and gentlemen: I am sure I don't know 

 what they mean when they refer to that loving cup, if 

 I have to win it three times in succession or if I can come 

 back three times more. Anyway, I feel tonight in a very 

 peculiar light. Formerly, if I could describe it to you, it 

 compares with the plight in which a Dutchman found 

 himself in Ohio before the days of hard roads. He had a 

 four-horse team hitched to a labor wagon and the wagon 

 got stuck in the mud. He was out at the side of it, dis- 

 couraged to the point of almost weeping. A friend of his 

 came along on horseback and said, ''What is the matter, 

 Hans?" And Hans between half-sobs said, *'I am stuck." 

 ''What is the use of worrying about being stuck?" the 

 friend said. "Wasn't you ever stuck before?" "Sure, I 

 have been stuck a lot of times, but always before I had 

 something to unload." (Laughter.) And so when one is 

 stuck he is fortunate to have something to unload, and 

 always when I find myself in this position I do have some- 

 thing to unload, but tonight I do not, because my rule is 

 to unload a lot of stories, and my good friend O'Hair has 

 unloaded those already; there are no stories left to unload. 



I feel that I am like the rest of you, I can refer to Mr. 

 O'Hair in this manner because we all with him in the dairy 

 industry of Illinois, especially, are good chums, which re- 

 minds me of a fellow down in Russellville, Arkansas, last 

 winter. He was taking a midnight train. A young fellow 

 and a young lady got on the train and took a stateroom, 

 and as they went in the young fellow gave the porter a 

 dollar and said to him, "I don't want you to say anything 

 about we folks being married," he knowing that everyone 

 that got on at Russellville knew it because they were 



