Governor Shafroth: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, and members of the Association of State and National Food and Dairy Departments: In behalf of the state of Colorado, I most cordially welcome you to our state, and hope that your stay within our city will be pleasant. I recognize that you are gentlemen of that class which we term experts; you have peculiar knowledge of the various offices which you hold and of the duties thereof, and I know that your deliberations will be profitable, not only to the people of this state, but to yourselves. It is needless for me to say that I most cordially welcome a body which has within it the greatest Secretary of Agriculture this country has ever known (great applause), and you may know that that is a compliment well deserved when I tell you that I am a Democrat and he is a Republican (applause); and, further, I can tell you that while I was in Congress I said it on the floor of the House, and it was the consensus of opinion of both the Republican and Democratic sides of the House. (Applause.)

I am also proud that you have within your list of delegates here the celebrated Dr. Wiley of Washington. (Applause.) Such distinguished men we feel proud to receive in this city, and I know that you honor them in every way.

I cannot conceive, gentlemen, why it was that the Congress of the United States failed for years and years to pass any pure food legislation. It was a mystery to me while I was in Congress. I was in favor of legislation of this character for years, and so manifested it upon all occasions where I had an opportunity to manifest it; but, for some reason, on account of some influences, these salutary laws that now would not receive any vote at all for the repeal thereof are recognized as wholesome and proper legislation. Without our pure food laws, the man who wanted to deceive, the man who wanted to cheat, was given the advantage over the honest man in his business. In fact men who wanted to sell one article for another, had such an advantage that the honest person who engaged in any of the pursuits which this law touches was at such a disadvantage that the dishonest or the deceitful man could run out of business his honest rival; and yet that was the condition of this country until two or three years ago, when the pure food law of the nation was passed, and it was about that same time that the pure food law of this state was passed. I recognize that there must be co-operation between the National Government and the State Government. (Applause.) It is necessary for the man upon whom the law operates to know his status. If he has laws of a diverse nature, one by the National Government and another by the State Government, he is at a disadvantage, and not only that, but he becomes disgusted with the laws when he does not know, perhaps, that he is violating the law in doing a certain thing.

The state of Colorado, in its Sixteenth General Assembly, established a pure food department of this state, and it took for its guide the national legislation which had been enacted six or eight months before, and therefore, in this state at least, we have the advantage of having that co-operation and that similarity in the laws that is for the best interests of all of the people, sellers as well as buyers. (Applause.)

My friends, I hope that that co-operation will exist throughout all of the states of the Union, and that

purchaser and will not put a seller at a disadvantage with an unscrupulous rival. I know that that is your object; I know your object is that when an article is sold it must be what it is represented to be. It is to know and should know that when he buys a thing he gets what he buys.

Now, my friends, I know that you have many quesnot necessary, of course, that it should be deleterious in its composition, but the purchaser has the right tions to discuss: you want to perfect these laws, and we want to see them perfected, and I know that your deliberations will be entertaining, especially to you. They may be of such a technical nature as not to be so entertaining to the public, but nevertheless it is a great work, it is a work which the nation has needed for years and which, now that we have received it in the form of legislation, makes it of great benefit to the public.

We hope that after your deliberations here are over you will go into the mountains and see the finest scenery in the world. I hope you will visit our city, particularly the residence portion of our city, of which we are justly proud. We are advancing here at a ratio we will have laws in every state that will protect a which almost might be termed geometrical. We have a progress on in this city that we would have called twenty years ago a great boom. When we take into consideration that the building permits in this city last month were fifth in amount of the cities in the United States you can recognize the fact that there is a great building boom on in this locality; but far greater than any city boom is the great agricultural advancement that we are making in the irrigated districts of our state. There we are making a return, an increase in number of acres, an increase in price per acre, that is almost marvellous to those who live in countries or states where irrigation does not exist. By the application of moisture at the time the crop needs it, there is no such thing as failure of crop, and by proper application the quantity of products can be multiplied twice and even three times. And that, of course, is reflected in the price which the man is able to obtain for his agricultural lands. The number of enterprises that are being commenced and are being pursued and being finished in the way of irrigation enterprises is perfectly marvellous, and I have no doubt that within five years from this date, nay, as soon as the projects that are now under construction are finished, there will be 4,000,000 acres of irrigated lands in the state of Colorado. We hope, my friends, that you will examine that portion of the state where agriculture is intensified by the application of water through irrigation. I am satisfied that you will see crops there that will make you feel that this is one of the chosen spots of the earth.

I hope that your deliberations will be pleasant, and that they will be of great benefit to the nation and to the state. I thank you. (Great applause.)

President Emery: I now have the honor and pleasure to introduce Senator Irby, who will represent Honorable Robert W. Speer, Mayor of Denver. (Applause.)

Senator Irby: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: It gives me very great pleasure, on behalf of the Mayor, and through him the people of Denver, to extend to you a warm Western welcome, a welcome augmented and accentuated by our admiration men and women who are devoting their splendid tal

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ents and energies to the betterment of our food supply. Now that the revision upward of the tariff tinkers has proved to us that we cannot get our bread and meat any cheaper, let us console ourselves with the very laudable undertaking of making it purer and better. If we cannot reform the tariff on the staff of life, let us reform the staff itself. We of Denver are fortunate in having very wholesome food, thanks to your efforts, although I am afraid my scanty avoirdupois would lead you to doubt that. I regret that the Mayor, with his 220 pounds, is not here, because he is a much better advertiser for Denver tables than I am, although he only eats two meals a day, whereas I eat three, with sometimes a matinee sandwiched in between. Therefore it seems it is quality and not quantity that we should seek. It may be, however, that I have to rustle so hard to get enough to eat that it keeps me poor to carry it around. I sympathize very much with the Missouri farmer who used to call his hogs to feed. They asked him why his hogs were so bony; he said he used to call them to feed, and he, having lost his voice, it was necessary to knock on the fence to attract their attention, and the durned woodpeckers knocking in the trees kept his hogs running hither, thither and yon to such an extent that he did not think there was corn enough in Pike county to keep them fat. But I am an optimist, gentlemen; I believe in bones; they have their uses, even if only to serve as a warning on a poison bottle, whether the poison is benzoate of soda or anything else, whether offered us by the Remsenites, the Wileyites or any of their satellites. (Laughter.)

We are very glad to have you in Colorado, the state of pure air, glorious sunshine and magnificent mountain scenery. The Creator has done generously by us, and man in this city is showing his appreciation with the saw and hammer, with the shovel and the broom, and if they keep it up in right good heart, the time may come within the memory of some living today when we will have a city which will be a model of that fabled habitation of which it was said that "all her homes were temples and all her seasons summer." We have here, gentlemen, a variety among our inhabitants which will keep you from feeling in the least homesick. We have, by way of variety only, the publican and the sinner, the scribe and the Pharisee, the Greek and the barbarian, the bond and the free. The world was made various so that desultory men, studious of change and pleased with novelty, might be satisfied; but the majority of our people, of course, just as it is in your sections of the country, come easily within the range of the salt of the earth. Somebody has said that the West is made up of the progressive East. Certain it is that it is not the drone who breaks down in the East and must come to these mountains. Anyhow, we have builders and not wreckers. For the sake of variety also, to keep you from feeling homesick, we have the political agitator and the spasmodic reformer, men who, having sprinkled a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, have captured them everyone (laughter), and are supinely sighing because there are no more cardinal virtues to conquer. These have their uses; they are like the fleas on David Harum's dog-they keep us from brooding. And, gentlemen, don't forget that the ladies in Colorado stand up and are counted. They used to be just simply our superiors, but now they have moved up a peg, you know, and they are our equals. During the campaign we either get them on

our side or we go over to their side horse, foot and dragoons. A politician in a recent campaign told me that the ladies in his ward would not listen to reason. I asked him if he ever heard the story of the little boy when he first saw his grandmother. The old lady came to visit the family for the first time after the boy was born, and he looked up at her and said, "So you are my grandmother, are you?" She said, "Yes, Johnny, I am your grandmother on your father's side." "Well," he says, "after you have been around here awhile you will find out you are on the wrong side." (Laughter.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted to have you here. The city and the fulness thereof are yours to do with as you like. I am commissioned by the Mayor to say that while here you will be immune from arrest, and to make sure of that, you may appoint your own chief of police. I am sorry I cannot recommend Mr. Cannon, because he believes in the third degree. Anyhow, the keepers of hotels and restaurants and other refreshment parlors have been commanded, on pain of imprisonment, to serve you nothing but the very purest whiskey. (Laughter and applause.)

President Emery: I now have the honor and the pleasure of introducing Dr. Stemen, who will represent Dr. Hugh L. Taylor, Secretary and Executive Officer of the Colorado State Board of Health. Dr. George. C. Stemen is also a member of the State Board of Health. (Applause.)

Dr. Stemen: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I am reminded this morning while sitting on this rostrum of a story of a newspaper man who had made his living for a number of years by writing numerous articles for the paper. He was suddenly taken very ill, and his doctor told him he could live but a short time. After the doctors had retired, and as he lay on his bed, thinking of his past life, with a great effort he turned over on his side, took up a pencil and wrote on the wall: "I have but a few more minutes to live. When I die cremate my body in the fireplace in the dining room so that my ashes may mingle with the ashes of the grate." (Laughter.)

I am further reminded of the good old parson who had been invited to preach to the inmate of a certain penitentiary, and upon arriving at that institution and finding a large audience, composed of convicts, assembled to hear him, prefaced his remarks with this congratulatory salutation: "Fellow citizens, I am glad to see so many of you here this morning." (Laughter.)

In using this story in an introductory way I do not wish to be understood as giving literal expression to its meaning in connection with this assemblage, for whatever may be the justice of applying it to this audience, there may perhaps be some nervously apprehensive individuals present who might think I was dealing in personalities that were ill-timed and out of place. I therefore desire to localize the old parson's greeting and say that I am glad to see so many of you here this morning. I am glad you are here because your presence bespeaks for you an abiding and continuing interest in the principles and perpetuity of this organization, an organization that has been in the past and will continue to be in the future a great moving force, a world power, one of the bright lights that shine through the mists and clouds and above the mountain peaks and makes it radiantly glorious with the promise of a better and happier day. I am glad you are here because if you were not I should feel