U. S. VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
• 381 
Daniels, of Ohio ; J. C. Whitney, Hillsdale, Mich.; J. M. Cur- 
phey, Sayre, Roe, of Ind.; J. H. Hope, Ill.; Prof. Periam, of 
Chicago Veterinary College; Albert Dean, of Mo. 
The President introduced Dr. W. L. Williams, of Blooming¬ 
ton, Ill., who delivered an address of welcome and spoke as fol¬ 
lows : 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY DR. WILLIAMS. 
When we invited and urged you to convene this meeting here, our message 
bore an inferential promise of a hearty welcome, which it now becomes our pleas¬ 
ant duty to endeavor to fulfill. 
In a formal invitation it is scarcely possible to convey to a desired guest the 
full measure of the welcome which awaits him, nor to advise him wholly of the 
many reasons why a visit would be gratefully enjoyed, and so social custom has 
long decreed that an invitation be brief, and that many of the essential reasons 
for bidding the guest come, and for according a hearty greeting, should remain 
unexpressed until he has arrived at the house of the host, who, surrounded by 
the inspiring influences of home, may all the more fitly give voice to his 
thoughts. 
So ere you enter upon the duties for which you have come in our midst, we 
would invite you to pause and briefly consider a part of the reasons why we ex¬ 
tend to you a most hearty welcome, with the hope that they may gladden and 
cheer your labors. 
Were it my duty to welcome you specially to Illinois, the State of my birth, 
the scene of my efforts as a student and veterinarian, there would certainly be 
no lack of suitable reasons, with our vast live stock interests, the first in value of 
any State in the Union, the long list of serious contagious diseases which exist 
or have existed in our midst, their economic and sanitary importance, and the 
resulting large body of young veterinarians, greater in number than in any other 
Western State, who have every reason for heartily greeting you here for the good 
which may come to ourselves by commingling with you. 
It is not, however, to Illinois, but to the West and Northwest that we bid 
you welcome; to the live stock producing area of the nation, and one of the 
most important live stock regions of the world. You now visit for the first time 
the source of live stock supplies not alone to the nation, but to no small extent 
to several foreign countries. 
Our meat producing animals are rarely equalled, never surpassed in any 
land for quality and richness, and our quantity is sufficiently great so that, after 
supplying the wants of the nation, we still have an enormous supply of meat and 
dairy products for exportation. We breed and supply to home and foreign 
markets a vast number of horses, among which are the speediest pacers and 
trotters, and as fleet thoroughbreds, and as powerful draft horses, as are to be 
found in the world. 
In buildiug this comparatively recent live stock interest, every valued 
breed of every land has been drawn upon for its choicest individuals, and yet 
