POLITICAL VETERINARIAN ISM IN ILLINOIS. 
907 
seemed not only willing but anxious to have an appointment 
to do State work. The veterinary profession was in no way to 
blame for the first appointment of a non-graduate, the blame 
resting with a few of the political wire-pullers of the Republi¬ 
can party, but for the second appointment the graduates who 
made it possible for a non-graduate to hold the office are alone 
responsible, for by their work they have made it possible for any 
man to hold the office that a few wire-pullers may see fit to name. 
During the past winter quite a number of graduates came 
out as candidates for the office of State veterinarian, men who 
would have been an honor to the office and to the profession, 
and, after obtaining endorsements of which they might feel 
justly proud, were each and all passed by without the least 
recognition. Some of these men had been serving the State 
for nearly four years, and after four years of work succeeded in 
doing just what they had been working for, their own defeat, 
and I can assure you that I regret their defeat perhaps more 
than they do. It seems to me that if those men had been just 
a little better posted on politics there would have been very 
few candidates in the field. For it was a foregone conclusion 
at the time the present Governor received the nomination that 
if elected no graduate would be appointed. 
There was never any doubt as to where the Democratic party 
or its candidates stood in regard to the appointment of a State 
veterinarian. But, strange as it may seem, out of the four can¬ 
didates of the Republican party, there was only one who dared 
to say one word as to where he stood on the appointment of 
State veterinarian, and I take pleasure in saying that the one 
Republican candidate who spoke with no uncertain sound for 
our schools and for the veterinary graduates of medicine and 
surgery was Hon. Judge Carter, of Chicago. And I wish to say 
to you that if this meeting adjourns without giving a vote of 
thanks to the defeated Democratic nominee and to Judge Carter, 
it will adjourn without showing due respect for the men who 
were ready and willing to give just recognition to the graduates 
of this State. 
