State Convention—The Farmer in Politics. 17P 
gence. We should learn to give our support to such candidates and to 
such measures as will shield all producers from injustice, and give 
to them all the consideration their numbers and interests demand. 
I do not forget that, in a country with a government such as ours,, 
two political parties are essential; but leaders of political parties 
would be a hundred times more careful in the administration of the 
government, more economical in their dealings with the finances 
of the country; would be more intensely interested in doing right,, 
were they less sure of our votes, were they taught that we hold, 
them as our own, and would do with them as we please. 
Should we but take this stand—letting politicians know they 
could not rule us—we should find them just as anxious to work in 
honesty and forbearance toward us, as they are at present to mani¬ 
fest their carelessness for our wishes or our respect. 
There are other things that stand in the way of a well-regulated 
representation of diverse interests, and a want of a proper attention 
to the exercise of the franchise by the better and more intelligent 
class of our citizens is not among the least of them. At present, 
we are governed by the most shiftless and worthless class of our 
people. Candidates are not nominated or selected, as a rule, espe¬ 
cially in our cities, because of their honesty, capacity or intelli¬ 
gence, but because of their influence over a floating population— 
or over others who control ic who have no interest in the country, or 
any conscience to govern their conduct; purchasable and venal, 
they are the tools that demagogues and rascals work in our legisla¬ 
tures with, and a blind adherence to party compels those who 
should control to swallow the filthy mass of corruption presented, or 
remain at home in disgust. There are various remedies presented by 
men of note and character for this state of things; the household vote 
as proposed by Judge Doolittle in his speech at Rockford, Illinois; 
the cumulative vote as proposed by Mr. Morrison, M. P., in Eng¬ 
land; proportional representation as incorporated into the consti¬ 
tution of Illinois in the year 1870, and one or two others, each of 
which has its advocates, and each no doubt has some good points 
worthy your serious consideration, but I have no time now to dis¬ 
cuss them, and if I had, I am not sufficiently acquainted with their 
details or their merits to be able to lay them before you intelli¬ 
gently. That a reform in this direction is necessary to our welfare 
and to the life of the republic few will dispute, and believing so, I 
