THE VETERINARIAN A FACTOR IN POLITICS. 
29 
under the act of Congress approved March 2, 1899, is not a com¬ 
missioned officer nor an enlisted man, but a civil employee. 
Compare this, if you will, with the other armies of the civilized 
world. I11 most of them the veterinarian enters the army as a 
lieutenant and by promotion may become a veterinary colonel 
or the intermediate rank. It is estimated in the German army 
that the veterinarian saves twenty times his cost, and doubtless 
if such an expediency were adopted in the American army, and 
the veterinarian was given like authority in supplying and 
equipping in common with his other duties, more than this 
might be saved our government. With this in view it strikes 
me that the citizen and taxpayer should be more interested than 
the veterinarian. The question may be asked, what is our duty 
as to political matters involving our interests in general? Am 
I admonishing you to become politicians? No, notin a special 
sense of its acceptance beyond the incentive of self-preservation. 
If I were, I should say few, if any callings are endowed with so 
many privileges tributary to influence through extensive ac¬ 
quaintances and subsequently numerous friends, which he 
might use to advance political or social ambition if he so elects. 
But, this is not the objective thought we desire to present. 
Sentiment, based on influence, is a vain thing to build on ; but 
rather to be established is the endowment of a profession noble 
in its calling, so upbuilding in its every duty to society, that 
time cannot mar its inherency. 
It is congratulating to know that our profession is rapidly 
developing this desired condition, and let us not tire in well 
doing, until we take our place as one of the first sciences of the 
land established in every branch of commerce or concentrated 
society. 
To accomplish this means hard individual work, character¬ 
ized by thoroughness, dignity and self-respect, which empha¬ 
sizes and promotes character, and endows one with reserve 
intellectual power, such as Daniel Webster possessed when he 
made that instantaneous reply to Robert Y. Hayne, of South 
Carolina, in 1830, concerning the doctrine of nullification, or 
