444 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
weak human nature has been somewhat weakened, but I am not 
prepared to say that all men are venal, corrupt and mercenary in 
their motives, and if placed in positions of power, trust and 
responsibility would sell their honor, self-respect and manhood 
for a u mess of pottage.” Possibly such men are not prominent 
before the country; they may be occupying modest, retiring, 
humble positions and possibly little known outside the township 
or county where they live, but who are men of education, ability, 
integrity and sterling worth, men whose nice sense of honor and 
high moral principle, corrupt, scheming bad men would not 
approach and attempt to bribe. Such men are needed to-day. 
Let them be sought for by the people. This is a government “ by 
the people, of the people, and for the people,” and where econ¬ 
omy, frugality and republican simplicity should permeate every 
department, and where our representatives should be men in 
whom we have the highest regard for honesty and integrity, 
men whose sympathies are with the people, the laboring, toiling 
millions who produce the necessaries of life, and who do not seek 
these places of responsibility and trust for the fortunes they may 
bring, but who are willing to work for reasonable salaries and de¬ 
vote their time for the public good. 
I don’t want to see aristocracy encouraged in this country by 
high salaries. I don’t want to be taxed to enable officials to 
dress in expensive garments and spend the earnings of my labor 
in riotous living. 
Some months since I read with a feeling mingled with shame 
and contempt, of the action of the British Parliament in giving 
of the people’s money to an amount of one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand dollars annually to the Duke of Edinburg, son of 
Queen Victoria. I doubt not this boy is possessed of many good 
qualities, and if made self-reliant and strong by being thrown upon 
his own resources would earn for himself and handsome Russian 
princess an honorable living, but that the subjects of her Majesty 
should be compelled to labor for a few pence per day, and live 
upon the poorest and cheapest fare to enable this Royal Scion to 
live in silver palaces, “ dress in purple and fine linen and fare 
sumptuously every day,” is an outrage upon civilized and chris¬ 
tianized society, and an insult to every laboring man in the king- 
