48 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCEITY. 
with each other as “ hale fellows well met,” and indulge in laughs over their 
essays ? 
“ Would it not he just as well if our rural population — the voters, would 
let the politicians harangue to smaller audiences, and enjoy the contest a 
little more among themselves, and we attend to the more vital interests of 
Agriculture, without Avhicli politicians would find their “ occupation gone,” 
and there would be no need of governmental machinery? Or, if need be 
that they turn aside for a season to look after political affairs, let them make 
their own candidates and vote for them, and drive the professional politicians 
to lionester walks of life, where they can get their bread through labor and 
sweat — in works that may confer some good upon their fellows, instead of 
living and fattening as they now do on official spoils and pillage. 
“If there is any danger of the disruption and downfall of the American 
experiment of free government, as many assert at this day, it lies in this 
fact,—that the tody of the people do not rule , but are mere machines in the 
hands of artful managers, who foist themselves into the governmental offices, 
and perpetuate their power by blindfolding the people. To exchange the 
rule of one party for another, is often but gaining the difference betwixt 
“tweedledum” and “tweedledee;” and our boys can figure that difference. 
The surety of a continued republic or democracy, where the people them¬ 
selves rule, is in the actuality of the people’s rule, as contradistinguished 
from the rule of those who make ruling their vocation and business, and 
who subordinate their country’s good to their individual aggrandizement 
and profit. 
“We profoundly believe there is danger in the existing order of things. 
And we further believe that the only escape from this danger lies in a return 
to the cardinal principle of a people’s government, by that people assuming 
the direction of their own affairs, and driving out the gamblers that infest 
the precincts of the state. The rural yeomanry should exercise a potent in¬ 
fluence in their own government. They have little voice in it now. 
“ The movement known as the ‘ Patrons of Husbandry,’ and the efforts in 
the direction of ‘ Farmers’ Clubs ’ and kindred associations, however crude 
and undeveloped they may yet be, are indications of a wholesome common 
sense in the minds of the yeomanry and a growing ambition to do something 
for the true interests of the commonwealth. Only through the organization 
and co-operation of the people can this true 1 reform ’ ever be accomplished. 
Ho free government can be maintained where the people are degraded and 
repressed. 
“ We would not be an unnecessary alarmist, nor a hasty disorganizer; but 
we emphatically appeal to the farmers to look this matter in the face. Ho 
your own thinking! Do not leave this God-given pi ivilege to the keeping 
of partisan editors and stump orators! Give the imaginary issues of politics 
the go-by! Take no delight in the mock fights and burlesque tragedies of 
the political stage! Ascertain your own proper status and rights in the gov¬ 
ernmental economy, and, knowing these, assert them, and demand their rec¬ 
ognition! Arise to a proper comprehension of the dignity of your position, 
