heroic courage than when, almost alone, he defied the threats and violence of an unprincipled mob.

He took no part in the civil war, his physical condition proving a sufficient exemption from military duties, but through the influence of friends and in recognition of his personal merits, he was given a position in the Confederate treasury department at Richmond, thus securing to himself and family a necessary maintenance until such time as they fondly hoped to return to their western home. But, alas for human hopes and expectations! death claimed his wife in 1862, and his own health rapidly declining, he died in Richmond, on the 16th of July, 1863, at the early age of forty, leaving behind him two orphan daughters to mourn their irreparable loss.

Major Dennison was a man of sterling worth, of spotless integrity, a loyal citizen, and a polished and courtly gentleman, whose untimely death was lamented by hosts of friends north and south, and whose memory is held in benediction by those who loved him.

PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION, 1897.

Read before the Society at the opening of the Twentieth Session, January 12, 1897.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 8, 1897.

Mr. Jay Amos Barrett, Librarian State Historical Society, Lincoln, Nebraska,

MY DEAR SIR: I very much regret my inability to be present at the coming session of the State Historical Society. But particularly do I lament the fact that I shall not be there to meet the surviving members of the first territorial legislative assembly who will at that time convene within our lecture room. It will be very appropriate, it seems to me, on that interesting occasion to see what sort of history has been made during the last fifty years in regard to class legislation.

It has been recently declared that under the gold standard the poor are invariably oppressed and made poorer and the rich favored and made richer. It has been declared with wonderful effrontery that the American people have been crushed in their enterprises and industries by the single gold standard. Even from citizens in high positions have come utterances like the following:

"The promulgation of the gold standard is an attack upon your homes and your firesides and you have as much right to resist it as to resist an army marching to take your children captive and burn the roof over your head."

In view of these wild and false statements, why not look over the economic and social improvements which have come about under this terrible gold standard during the last fifty years?

In that time has not imprisonment for debt been abolished? In that time have not laws been passed exempting homesteads

and large values in personal property from execution against debtors who are the heads of families?

Have not liens been provided for mechanics and laborers by which their wages may be secured upon the property in which they have put forth their efforts?

Have not poor persons been permitted to sue in the courts, state and national, without the payment of costs or the giving of security for costs?

Have not laws been passed providing for the appointment of attorneys to defend, without compensation, poor persons in the criminal courts and, in some instances, in the civil courts?

Have not laws been so constructed that courts are directed to enter judgment in favor of the laborer who has to bring suit to recover his wages or enforce his rights against a corporation for a stated sum to recover his attorney's fees?

Have not the hours of labor to make up a day been declared by law as to the public service and on public works?

Have not the wages of labor been made preferred claims in the administration of estates, and in some cases are not wages made preferred claims generally?

Have not laws regulating passenger and freight rates on railroads and other lines of transportation, and also the charges of public warehouses and elevators been instituted during the last fifty years?

In the same time have not national and state commissions been created to supervise railway traffic by which charges are supposed to have been reduced two-thirds or more?

Have not statutes reduced the rates of interest in nearly all the states and extended the time for the redemption of property after the foreclosure of mortgages or deeds of trust?

In that half century have not railroads been required to fence their lines or pay double damages resulting from failure to fence?

Have not railroads in that period been also required to furnish safe places and appliances for their workmen?

Have not manufacturers and mine owners been required to

provide places and machinery for the safety and comfort of their employes?

Has not the incorporation of labor organizations been authorized in that time by law and Labor Day been made a national holiday?

Have not commissioners of labor, state and national, been appointed to gather statistics and as far as possible to ameliorate the condition of the working classes?

Have not the laws provided against poor men being blacklisted or threatened by postal cards, as to the collection of debts alleged against them?

Have not the public mails and post routes been relieved by law from the carrying of lottery schemes and other fraudulent methods of getting money from the unsophisticated?

Have not the postages been reduced so that, under the operation of the present laws, the people get the county newspapers free of any carrying cost?

Has not slavery been abolished in that time?

Has not the condition of labor been elevated and improved? Have not foreign laborers been forbidden to come into the United States under contract, and Chinese emigrants shut out? Have not boards of arbitration, state and national, for the settlement of labor disputes, been created?

In that half century have not homesteads aggregating more than three millions in number been given gratuitously to those who would enter upon them and cultivate them?

In the same time have we not given away a million or more of farms in the United States under the operation of the timber culture law?

Have not free public libraries been established by statute in nearly every state and county of the east and north and in many of the western and southern states?

Have not institutions for the blind, feeble minded, the insane, and deaf and dumb multiplied in every commonwealth of the United States?

Have not institutions for caring for the sick, the aged, and

the distressed been improved and increased in numbers a thousand-fold during the last fifty years?

During what other half century has any nation shown a pension list running to $160,000,000 a year to provide for its veteran soldiers?

In what other country have so many millions of dollars been expended for free public schools and universities in the last fifty years?

And who brought about these beneficent institutions which look after and care for those who are unable to care for themselves?

Were they not the higher class of citizens-the intelligent, the wealthy-who conceived and constructed these homes for those who otherwise might have no homes?

Are not these evidences of a bountiful, abundant, and a generous charity visible in every state and county and city of the American Union? And, this being the case, with what truth, with what good common sense, and with what justice can any public man endeavor to array the poorer against the richer citizens of the republic? How can anyone declare, in the face of all these gigantic facts, that the gold standard has cursed and shrunken the civilization of the last half century in the great republic of the western continent?

In the records of all the centuries since man began a historic career where can fifty years be found during which the cost of production of staple foods for the human race has been so much reduced?

What other half century can vie with the last half of this in bringing to the great mass of mankind increased comforts and luxuries at constantly lessening cost?

During these fifty years have not the dynamos of most of these power agents, which before the beginning of 1850 had been concealed from human vision, been developed and made to work for the advantage and benefit of the American people?

And under the gold standard, since 1850, has not the popula tion of the United States more than trebled and its wealth multiplied itself nine times?