250 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
Evening Session, 7:30 i\ m. 
President Stilson called the convention to order, and introduced 
S. D. Carpenter, of Madison. 
DOLLARS AND SENSE. 
BY S. D. CARPENTER, MADISON. 
If I should ask you what, of all earthly substances, things, or 
essences were the most desirable, longed for, labored for, prayed for, 
intrigued and u stnouged ” for, you would, no doubt, answer “dol¬ 
lars,” and that would be sense, because of the truthfulness and 
“ patness ” of the answer. 
And if I should ask you, what substances or things, that are 
worshipped by all, as deities above the gods on high Olympus, and 
ar 3 toyed with by kings and beggars, and yet as direct palliatives 
for hunger, nakedness, or any of the physical or spiritual wants of 
our race, are the most worthless and non-servicable, you would, no 
doubt, answer—dollars—as that would be sense, again, because the 
answer would embody truth. 
The love of dollars, then, without the practical application of 
sense, may be said to be the cube-root of all our financial ills, and 
the sage who concocted the maxim that it was the “ root of all 
evils,” was not so wild as skeptics have sought to prove. 
Dollars have a history and a science. Their history covers acres 
of octavo pages of wrong, oppression, violence, usurpations, and 
bloodshed, and a long catalogue of other crimes—so long that no 
man hath days allotted enough to even finish “ part the first/' 
Yet there is a more roseate view on the obverse side that should, in 
its proper place, be exhibited. 
The science of dollars, unlike the general order of sciences, is 
naturally mastered by some at an early age, while the great mass 
seldom pass the rudimentary stage. The application of the prac¬ 
tical science of dollars, is to get the greatest number of dollars 
with the least possible outlay of muscular, dynamic power, and to 
sell those dollars for the greatest possible amount of muscular, 
dynamic power. This is the true science of dollars, and covers the 
whole ground. It is a sort of lemon-squeezer and sponge com¬ 
bined, with running-gears composed of everything save conscience. 
Two factors are essential to a successful working of the machine, 
