PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 125 



in adopting policies for social growth or for the construction of states, 

 it is well to take the larger view of it. 



There was another subject that was spoken of this morning by Mr. 

 Mills, and I want to agree with him in that, and as long as Colonel Irish 

 is not here I can go after him without hesitation. In the condemnation 

 Which he visited upon the heads of our laboring people of California, I 

 was profoundly impressed with the moderation and the propriety of 

 the language of Mr. Mills. In the methods we have adopted to get 

 there, no matter how, we have brought up this society of men. After 

 all, we are very proud of what we are, and we are very liable to look 

 down on the other man and condemn him for what he is not ; but to a 

 greater degree than we think, we are the creatures of circumstances with 

 which we have been surrounded, and while a man may to some extent 

 select his path, there are a great many conditions which surround us 

 over which we have no control. This civilization of which we are members 

 and of which we are factors has been responsible for making that man 

 what he is. We have given him a bed, and I have seen it so often on 

 the side of a straw stack. I have seen him come in after a hard day's 

 work, with his garments wet and soaked, and he has been turned into a 

 cold loft. "We have denied him social recognition; we have denied him 

 education ; we have forced him out of this and out of that and he has 

 got to find a back room some place, and that back room has been the 

 saloon. He has gone into the saloon and found a bright light and some 

 chums who will recognize him, and. then after we have pushed him in 

 there and made it impossible for him to go anywhere else, we damn him 

 because he goes there. Now, I just simply say that on the side, and 

 in justice to a class of men of whom I am afraid we have not been suf- 

 ficiently considerate and a class of men to whom we have been unjust. 



There was another subject brought up this morning that T did want 

 to talk about, and that is the subject which lies so close to Professor 

 Wickson and myself, and if it had not been so very near 12 o'clock I 

 would have liked to answer Mr. Berwick just a little bit— and Mr. Ber- 

 wick, by the way, is a good deal like Colonel Irish— but I am so sure I am 

 right in this matter that I am not even afraid of Mr. Berwick. We don't 

 want to have the State Farm a self-supporting institution any more than 

 our public school system, and that is all outgo and no income. But, as 

 I said before, we want to take a longer look ahead, we want to take the 

 broad view. I will tell you how it is self-supporting, just in the rough- 

 est sort of way. I recall that at one of the experiment stations in Min- 

 nesota, a professor developed a wheat that is worth ten or twelve million 

 dollars a year. That professor was getting probably $2,500 and the 

 whole expense was probably $25,000 or $30',000, and in return for that 

 he gives you $10,000,000. I believe the corn crop of Illinois has been 

 estimated by the corn-growers' association to have increased from ten to 



