ADDRESS. 
475 
one hundred appeals being on file for a cattle tagger, and not 
one scintilla of evidence as to his capability and fitness for 
such a position. Think of a congressman, a dignified member 
of that higher house of our Government (the Senate) making 
his own place secure by plodding through his own district 
and offering as a bargain for certain support and influence 
the scalp of one of the most highly qualified, scientific and 
conscientious workers in the Bureau of Animal Industry, and 
delivering the same to a political boss’s constituent, where it 
rests in the hands of one (to be most charitable with him) who 
has no other qualification than the fact of being a veterin¬ 
arian, and his father having a strong political pull. Such a state 
of affairs seems ludicrous, were it not for the serious side, that 
all faulty, imperfect work of this Bureau must be shouldered 
by the veterinary profession, and shall we look on without 
protest or objection and witness in time the wiping out of 
this branch of our Government service, because of the faulty 
work thus done, and in its train see every foreign country 
raise its bars and barriers against our food products. 
Such positions as these should be worthy the aim and 
effort of every young man who has qualified himself to fill 
them, and it should be a mark of honor for any man to have 
filled acceptably a position of this kind for his paternal gov¬ 
ernment. How far from all this is it to-day ? Look around 
and about you and count the many wrecked futures .and 
checkered careers of those whom you know who have been 
allured to secure these positions by virtue of the political 
influence and power at their command. Let us be true to 
ourselves and lift our voices with one accord against its 
longer perpetuation, and I am sure that even those who have 
tasted of its sweetness and drank its dregs of disappointment 
will welcome, as strong as any of us, a return to the only % 
system that is worthy of a free and intelligent people. 
A few more words and 1 will close these remarks, that we 
may proceed to indulge in the feast provided for us. Per¬ 
haps during the past year we have had some three-score of 
veterinarians enter the borders of our State to become a part 
of the veterinary profession here. How many of you, fellow 
