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AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION. 295
If it was a matter of theory or a matter of choice, I should
not take a back seat. It is very unfair. The thing is an
outrage you say, but I don't see .any other way. And so it
goes with all this matter of property. I can conceive how
the same condition would attain when we came to this re-
arrangement of property. I for one am decidedly opposed
to the increase of offices and office holders-one of the great-
est vices of our country. One of the greatest problems con-
nected with every incoming administration of our country,
is the pressure f or office.
We will suppose that all the land of this country from
ocean to ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf is to be put up at
auction and rented, the government must appoint parties to
take care of the rentals, to see that they are duly auctioned
off at the outset, then that the rents are duly collected, that
the parties who hold said lands are not getting into arrears,
and we will have a horde of office-seekers that will double
and treble the crowds that rush to Washington. I am op-
posed to that class. We are a nation burdened with taxes.
It is a matter of our own choice. We are paying now nine
thousand millions of dollars in rent. The figures are actu-
ally above that. I have given you the hundreds for it, not
the exact figures for three years, only incidental expenses;
what are they? Go to the superintendent of our insane asy-
lum. The most expensive party who is boarded by the state
is an insane person, and the superintendent will tell you
that one-half of the boarders in that great city of mental
suffering, are caused directly by drink. Go to another
great establishment at Waupun, the state prison at Waupun,
and they will tell you that two-thirds of the inmates are
sent there directly through the use of intoxicating liquor.
Then you take criminal affairs. The expense of one long
suit we had in the city of Oshkosh, and we farmers had to
put our hands in our pockets and pay it. Now we are ready
to cheerfully pay out over nine hundred millions of dollars
and all other incidental expenses in this matter.
We have this matter in our own hands. I am not a pro-
hibitionist. The gentleman has not touched on the truth at