443 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
Yery little. Why? Because you have not men in the councils 
of the nation to represent your interest. We, a great agricultural 
people, represented in the senate of the United States by whom? 
Not by a farmer, for there is not a single one in that august body. 
This great interest, one above all others, without a representative 
in the higher branch, and (if I am rightly informed) not one in 
the lower—certainly not one from this state. If you want a man 
to represent your wishes and sympathize with your condition, 
either in or out of congress, send him whose occupation and la¬ 
bors have best fitted him for that work. One who is capable and 
honest, and who will devote his time and talents to your interests, 
and not for his. own pecuniary profit and aggrandizement. 
If there ever was a time when we needed men of integrity and of 
high moral principle to look after the interests of this country, it 
is now, and I think I see a hopeful prospect in the near future that 
many of them will be elevated to positions of trust and honor, 
extravagance put down, and the nation once more return to 
the simpler, plainer, more honest and economical ways of the 
early days of the republic. 
I am often astonished at the little interest manifested by the 
producing classes of this country. Questions of more vital inter¬ 
est to them than to all others combined, are continually arising. 
For instance, taxation. This is one of the most important ques- 
in our state and nation, because it has for its object the distribu¬ 
tion of the burdens of supporting and maintaining the state and na¬ 
tional government, caring for the unfortunate and afflicted who 
fill our prisons, reformatory and charitable institutions, and pro¬ 
tecting the weak and feeble, the laborer, the stem tillers of the 
soil, the mechanic and artisan, against the selfish greed of capital, 
class interests, and gigantic monopolies. For one-half hour be¬ 
fore I left Madison yesterday, I listened to an able argument in 
the assembly chamber before the railroad committee and members 
of the legislature, by Hon. John W. Cary, a paid attorney of one 
of the powerful corporations of this state, against an increase of 
taxation of railroad property, and, in attempting to show that 
their property was already bearing more than its proportion of 
the burdens of taxation when compared with the other property of 
the state. As I listened to this learned and able advocate of the 
