154 Wisconsin - State Agricultural Society. 
lution. Civil war has passed away, slavery no longer blights any 
portion of our land with its withering curse. 
But there are other evils and other questions looming up in the 
near future that must be met, and the consideration of which may 
well make us both thoughtful and careful. The question of edu¬ 
cation is not yet settled. To-day there are vast numbers of our 
fellow-citizens in other States who are utterly destitute of any ed¬ 
ucation except that of vice and ignorance; yet, they have the ballot 
in their hands and a voice equal to } T ours or mine in saying who 
shall hold the highest as well as the lowest offices in the gift of our 
nation. It is well known to intelligent men of all parties that in 
many instances not only in the past, but in each recurring year, 
these ignorant men are the victims of blatant demagogues and un¬ 
principled scoundrels, who secure their votes and thereby elevate 
themselves to places of power and trust, when justice would consign 
them to permanent homes within the walls of their State penitentia¬ 
ries. In connection with the question of national education,will come 
that of the taxation of churches and religious societies of each and 
every kind. National finance is also to be discussed and settled upon 
some basis which will be permanent as well as true and just. The 
great question of transportation is in a condition that is far from 
being either satisfactoiy or just; and, in my opinion, the da} r is 
not far distant when our national legislature must take up this 
question and decide it in such a manner as will at least put it out 
of the power of three or four men to meet in a little ten-by-twelve 
office, in New York or elsewhere, and in a one-liour conference de¬ 
press the price of every bushel of grain, every pound of meat, but¬ 
ter, cheese, or other product which the farmer has for transporta¬ 
tion. Nor does the conference of this famous quartet of railroad 
presidents affect only you and me, and perhaps a few others, here 
and there, but it reaches the pocket of every farmer that has pro¬ 
duce to sell or exchange between the Alleghany and the Rocky 
Mountains, and, in the aggregate, to the amount of tens of millions 
of dollars. And for what? Is it a necessity? Not at all. The 
men simply have the power, and they use it. It enables them to 
pay dividends upon their hundreds of millions of watered stock, 
which represent no labor nor expenditure of any kind, and has no 
real value. It enables them and their dependents to live in a prince¬ 
ly style that not a single farmer in the northwest could either equal 
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