84 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
flashing bayonets, we have driven from our shores the foul¬ 
est of all American foes— the idea that it was dishonorable in 
any to work for a living. Let us trust that battle has been 
fought and won, once and forever. 
Mr. Holton has referred to the ignorant people who come 
together in some of the fairs of the old w r orld. Not ignorant 
masses come to these fairs held in our midst. I say it ad¬ 
visedly, not boastingly, but with the strictest regard to truth, 
that, as a people, we are the most enlightened on the face of 
the earth. We have yoked intelligence to labor. We have 
redeemed toil from degeneration. The toilers of the land are 
the rulers of our society ; for hand and brain are indissolubly 
wedded together. And through this, America stands forth as 
one of the greatest of the world’s social regenerative forces. If 
you want the monuments of this dual toil, look around you— 
here they are in the princely products of thrift and skill and 
industry which everywhere greet our eyes. 
Yet more needs to be done. I am not satisfied. We talk 
about “the balance of power ” sometimes, but nearly all pow¬ 
er is in the hands of the farmers of our country, whether re¬ 
ligious, social or political. Eight-tenths of our population are 
tillers of the soil. What intelligence do they need for the re¬ 
sponsibilities resting upon them ! They ought not to leave to 
others a knowledge of the great questions and problems 
which relate to the very structure and on going of the Ameri¬ 
can state. They ought to be competent to deal with them in 
their varied and intricate forms. 
I say our farmers ought to be thus intelligent, a3 well as the 
lawyer, the physician, the teacher, or any in the so-called 
learned professions. I do not forget the fact stated by one of 
our most distinguished national educators, in my hearing, that 
“ fully three-fourths of all our statesmen, legislators, lawyers, 
divines, merchants, literary Bohemians, editors, etc., were the 
sons of farmers.” Let me ask where else could they all come 
from ? And I, with many others, can testify that the daugh¬ 
ters of these farmers make the best of sweethearts and wives. 
