ANNUAL REPORT—A BRIGHT FUTURE. 
IOI 
whether it would not be wise economy, highly beneficial to the 
state, to exempt capital from taxation for a limited number of 
years, when invested entirely in manufacturing. Whether money 
now being loaned at high rates of interest, and often to the utter 
ruin of those who borrow, would not be directed towards, and in, 
v 3 
manufacturing enterprises, which would be a great source of pro¬ 
gress and wealth to the state. On general principles, I am opposed 
to exemptions of class property of any kind from taxation, but if 
demanded by public policy, then it becomes judicious and wise to 
exempt it. The true policy of the state should be to encourage the 
building up and extension of the mechanical and manufacturing 
industries to such an extent that the consuming population would 
be largely increased, and but little of the enormous products of 
the state left for transportation to the east. When this is done, 
we shall all hear less of railroad monopolies, high tariffs and hard 
times. 
A BRIGHT FUTURE. 
Few, if any states of the Union possess more natural advantages, 
or contain within their limits more of the true elements of wealth 
and progress than Wisconsin. With a climate healthful, imparting 
to her people vigor of mind and body, with a soil rich and fertile, 
producing cereals, fruit and other products in quality and quantity 
equal to any of the states of a similar latitude, with mines of iron, 
lead, zinc, copper and other ores of untold value, waiting only the 
vitalizing hand of capital and industry to make them one of its 
greatest sources of wealth; with a lumbering interest unsurpassed, 
furnishing employment for thousands of laborers at remunerative 
prices, and creating a home market for the products of the soil in 
that part of the state; with water-power of almost inexhaustable 
capacity, sufficient at least to turn all the machinery requisite for 
the manufacture of all the articles used in this and the adjoining 
states in the form of cloths, farm machinery and implements and 
wooden ware, with mines, forests of timber and flocks of sheep 
from which to gather the raw material; with manufacturing indus 
tries of every kind springing into life and activity throughout the 
state, stimulating agriculture, increasing the home consumption of 
