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WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY . 
gies on side issues and matters of secondary importance until this 
matter is disposed of. 
All must admit that in a county like ours, free and cheap 
transportation is a necessity to the commonwealth. All will ad¬ 
mit, too, I think, that the question of transportation is now so 
tangled that the general government alone is capable of unravel¬ 
ing it. This implies political action. Political action mustbe 
popular to be successful. In this movement all industries being 
equally interested, must stand shoulder to shoulder. 
This I say is the giant evil, an evil, too, that has attained such 
power in brains and money that it threatens to break down and 
crush out every other interest that crosses its track. It has at¬ 
tained this power, too, by means and agencies over which we 
seem now to have no control. 
How is this evil to be met? Appeal to the legislatures of the 
states, says one. We shall soon see, I think, here is the great 
trouble. We have had too much state legislation already. We 
have legislated ourselves into a perfect snarl. AVe are bound 
hand and foot with all sorts of statutes and enactments; statutes 
prospective and statutes retrospective. 
Gentlemen, I speak with all deference when I declare I do not 
believe there is a brain, nor any combination of brains within 
these legislative halls that can conceive of a solution of the diffi¬ 
culty by legislative enactment, but that it would remain a two 
sided question after all; so much so that gentlemen of the bar 
would cheerfully undertake the defence of either side, being gov¬ 
erned simply by the amount of retainer’s fee that may be slipped 
into their pocket. For one, I frankly confess, more in sorrow 
than in anger, I have no faith in state legislation. They them¬ 
selves have tied a Gordian knot they cannot cut. 
Litigate, says another. I answer what is the use of going to law 
with a party of unbounded wealth, and who, at the same time have 
the statutes to which we appeal for decision, all on their side ? For 
the last decade or more we have been busy emptying our pockets 
into theirs, and so far as the railroads of the northwest at least are 
concerned, they have made their own statutes for the last twenty 
years. Every railroad committee in the general assembly of Illi¬ 
nois, and in the legislature of AVisconsin during the time specified 
