State Convention—Better Education, Etc. 155 
or imitate without becoming a bankrupt inside of twelve months. 
With all these and other questions that are sure to come up within 
the next few years, and some of them those in which farmers are 
more vitalty interested than any other class, is not more education 
a necessity? These are questions of national importance. They 
are questions that will affect not only ourselves and those con¬ 
nected with us, but those who are to come after us. 
it is said that when Abraham Lincoln was nominated, in 1860, 
over William H. Seward, for president, Mr. Seward remarked that 
power no longer lingered in the east, but bad departed and hence¬ 
forth rested in the valley of the Mississippi. This remark is un¬ 
doubtedly true, and another thing in this connection is also true, 
viz., that more than half of the voting population of these States 
are farmers. Gentlemen, the power lies in our hands; the respon¬ 
sibility whether for good or for evil is upon us; we can not shirk it 
if we would, we should not if we could. Rather let us use it, but 
let us use it wisely and well. He who casts his ballot for his party, 
and persuades his friends to do the same, simply because it is his 
party, and from no better nor higher motive, is un tvorthv of the 
great privilege which he enjoys; and instead of being an intelligent 
safeguard of the republic is ever liable to become the dupe and vic¬ 
tim of unscrupulous demagogues and political thieves, who are al¬ 
ways and ever ready to attach themselves to any and every party, 
whereby they may themselves be elevated to places of power and 
trust. 
It may be asked, would you abridge the use of the ballot? Hot 
at all; but I would have it used more intelligently. How shall this 
be accomplished? This convention is one way of assisting in this 
work. If instead of one convention we could have twenty-five of 
them, held in different portions of the State, and conducted by the 
best men in the State, and then their best thoughts and ideas scat¬ 
tered broadcast through every village and every neighborhood with 
associations well organized and well conducted, where all matters 
connected with agriculture either socially, morally, politically, or 
otherwise, could be thoroughly discussed; where plans of opera¬ 
tion could be agreed upon, and then carried out openly and in the 
face of all men; how long, think you, would it be before there 
would be a change and that change for the better? For instance, 
suppose that in each congressional district in the western and north- 
