The Irish standard., 1915-09-01
Continued from Page 11)


Industries Minnesota must have, in
addition to it's agriculture; and large
cities, too, it must have to become a
great commonwealth, harboring di-
versities of occupation and retaining
within itself values arising from its
soil and mines. But already we have
our great cities of St. Paul. Minneap-
oils and Duluth, and already our in
dustries have developed on a scale of
imposing dimensions and are sure to
develop on a yet larger scale, as we
make hurry to harness into service
our streams and rivers, and thereby
create power to turn the wheels of
mills and factories. No coal, it is
said, is found within Minnesota, but
were coal so necessary, it is not far
away, and railroads we have to haul
it hither; but coal will not be the main
reliance of the future. The power of
the future is electricity, and this is
easily gotten in almost every part of
the state, by means of our coursing
waters. But whatever else it is, of
whatever else it may be made to be,
as years go by, through commerce
and industry, Minnesota, we must al
ways remember, is primarily the
great field of American agriculture.
This it's chief pride, it's chief source
of wealth and greatness. 1t is we'll
for its people that nature so fashioned
Minnesota.
Let us all pay homage to agricul-
ture. 1t is the great source of ma
tional wealth. All wealth comes from
Mother Earth, either as mineral or
as the produce of the farm, and main
ly, of course, as the latter. Farm and
mine furnish the raw material to mill
and to factory; farm and mine bur-
den with their offerings the freight
cars of railroads.; farm and mine Gre
ate the money that fills the Golfers of
the banker and the capitalist. Out
side of the men who put their hand
to shovel and to plough, all others,
whatever their business or their pro-
fession, do nothing more than handle
the wealth that is snatched from the
ground, serving in one capacity or
another the farmer and the miner, or
making trade of the wealth the farm
er or miner has produced. Stop
farming and mining: the wheels of
industry are stopped, the counters of
money-changers are void of treasures.
Stop farming, we all starve. Farm
ers, we are all dependent on your
toll; we all measure our success and
our wealth by the products of your
fields. We consider your welfare to
be our welfare; and for our own sake,
work with you that your calling be
tous and remunerative.
The moral life of the nation, its
sound citizenship, its safe political
motion, are dependent upon the farm
ing population. Let the life-blood of
the nation be restricted in its cours-
ings to those vast and incongruous
agglomerations that are the cities, and
the nation at once becomes sick and
sore; its vitality weakens, its moral
health decays; it dies. Farmers of
America, we look to you in your re-
moteness from contagion and crime,
in your daily breathings of pure air,
your daily contact with the smiles of
nature, to hold strong and invulner-
able the spiritual fibre of our common
manhood, to guard against disintegra-
ton of the family, the vitalizing cell
of the whole commonwealth. We
look to you to save the citizenship and
the political veal of the nation from
selfish intrigue, civic debasement, cor
ruption and ultimate death. The
broader our farm lands, the more
numerous their til1ers, the healthier
the whole nation, the more secure its
liberties, the more hopeful its per-
petuation. The farmer must be aware
of this, and must be ever mindful of
through all its agencies of administra-
ton and of formation of public opin-
ion, must work for the sake of its own