ILLINOIS DAIRYMEiir'S ASSOCIATION. 51 



and for more and better reasons than the usually accepted one, it is not good 

 for him to be alone. The hermit's cell and the monastery— the policy of se- 

 clusion—has been tried and found wanting, morally and otherwise. In exact 

 proportion to their isolation from their fellow men, and from the current ac- 

 tivities in the world about them, men become absorbed in their own personal 

 interests, material or spiritual, to such extent, that the natural love of self 

 exceeds its proper limits and becomes the ruling force of a life time. In a 

 general sense, isolation and contraction, intercourse and expansion, are, re- 

 spectively, related terms in a chain of causes and effects. Most men know 

 of other men who have limited their own power for good and lessened their 

 own rational enjoyment of life, by holding aloof from the current interests 

 about them. 



From moral as well as other considerations, the principles underlying as- 

 sociation demand endorsement. In spite of all that has been or may be said 

 on that old exploded absurdity, "total depravity," there is in human nature 

 an innate, often latent, love of justice, truth, and the common equities aris- 

 ing from the relations between men. The individual, while standing by 

 himself, and responsible to no visible power, frequently holds his moral con- 

 sciousness in abeyance, and suffers his interests to warp his judgment and 

 control his decisions. But an association of just such men will put them- 

 selves on record in favor of a high standard in the conduct of life, and agree 

 to be governed by a written or unwritten law of justice and honor, Man's 

 natural love of justice for himself, founded on selfishness, if you please, is 

 the most powerful influence in inducing him to grant it to others. He can- 

 not demean himself by refusing to others what he demands of them, for him- 

 self ; and so, in accordance with a moral law, through the necessities of all, 

 comes the higher standard of conduct for the individual. An organized as- 

 sociation of men for any purpose is therefore the premoterof advanced moral 

 standards. Its purely democratic structure is based upon and demands re- 

 spect for the rights of others, which is of the very essence of morality, and 

 teaches justice and equity as the foundation of a healthy order of society. 



The association of men on terms of entire equality is the best possible 

 educational institution from which to graduate good citizens of a modern 

 republic, or a '' government of the people, for the people, and by the people." 



The standing reproach charged against the American people is the per- 

 sistent pursuit of the almighty dollar and the omnipotent influence of money 

 awdit tbe possessor of wealth. In society, as in finance, gold is the accepted 

 in American society. Social distinction, and frequently political preferment, 

 standard, and respectable poverty is only a subsidiary coin, or discredited 

 dollar, which, by a despotic social decree is legal tender for but a small 

 amount of consideration. In a country w^hich recognizes no claims based on 

 name or anc^^stry, in which intellectual endowment and wealth are the only 

 avenues to distinction, the mass of men must remain unnoticed and unhon- 

 ored, and wealth becomes the absorbing ambition as the only available means 

 of personal enjoyment and social prominence. In such a state of society, 

 whatever promotes a free intercourse of men on a basis of perfect equality, 

 does something toward correcting false standards. This organization, like 

 others of similar origin and objects, is a republic pure and simple,— a democ- 

 racy in the primitive sense of that much abused term, in which there is no 



