not commit the folly of producing more than the world will take at profitable values, and if the cotton States will establish a system of State regulated warehouses which will enable the farmers to store their cotton and secure cheap money upon warehouse receipts whereby they may sell the crop gradually over a period of several months instead of forcing it upon the market, as they do now, within two or three months.

3. These proprietors and the British Egyptian department of agriculture promise hearty cooperation in establishing a system of accurate reports of cotton consumption.

Therefore, we repeat that there is a vital relation between Egyptian and American cotton production which should be cultivated in amity and mutuality by every possible official and cooperative endeavor. All of which is respectfully submitted.

S D-63-1-vol 21-5

WASHINGTON

FREDERICK WILLIAM RAIFFEISEN.

Mr. CHAIRMAN, Mr. BURGOMASTER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have prepared a few remarks for this occasion and wish to say that if you have come to hear eloquence or witness the subtle tricks of an actor or a speaker you are quite likely to be disappointed. That gift was not given me. If any gift was given me it was the ability to hold on tight like a bulldog to a proposition that seemed to me logical and right and that moved me. And in the issue before us, in the inquiry we are making, you too seem to be moved by similar impulses. My friends, we seem to be traveling on a fine line, the line between the sublime and the ridiculous. It reminds me much of the traditional story in the Koran, the story of the departed soul which must walk over a bridge as narrow as a hair, when the wicked fall into the gulf of oblivion and the good continue on to the end until they reach paradise.

We are engaged in a great work, a work as great and noble as was ever undertaken in the history of man; greater and nobler than the great work of the old Greek chieftain, Alexander the Great, greater than the work of Pompey, or of Julius Cæsar, greater than that of Augustus Cæsar, greater than that of Napoleon, for the work that we are engaged in leads to the very gates of divinity, that divinity which we hold so much in awe; that divinity that leads right up to the gates of heaven, the gates of righteousness.

If we are single-minded and if our efforts are well directed, we are then on the line of the sublime, but if we are self-seeking or lacking in courage and ability, then we are on the line of the ridiculous.

The great line of demarcation between the animal and man is the demarcation of service. The animal serves himself, and in serving others only does so under compulsion; but man, the real man, is placed here on earth in order that he may serve his fellows, not under compulsion, but freely and of his own will and with eagerness.

In the service before us we have nothing to apologize for, not even to the great founders of religion, not even to the great Apostles nor to the great prophets, not even to God Almighty Himself; for, if we are truly within the precincts of this service, then are we truly within the precincts of His holy temple, and are therefore priests and soldiers fighting for might and power and with might and power, fighting such a fight the privilege of which was given to but the few among the sons of man, for not even the prophets of old had a greater mission. At the present time we are come to learn; we are come to learn, so that presently we may be enabled to teach, to teach not merely the American people, but the people of the North American Continent and the people of the South American Continent, and presently the results of the efforts of the American commission shall permeate everywhere, from land to land, from the beginning until the end,

and round about the whole world. We are beginning to discern with clearness that the task before us is not merely economic amelioration, but that it is higher than that. It reaches upward until it strikes the true keynote of political stability, insuring peace and equity, not merely for the people of the United States, but political peace and equity wherever the principles underlying these doctrines shall take root.

At the present time we are here, at the feet of this master, Father Raiffeisen, and at the feet of the German people to learn, but be it ever remembered that it is not merely a trait of the American people to learn but to teach, and if we are distinguished in anything from other nations of the world it is by this very trait that the American people learn in order to teach. We hope, therefore, to be enabled. to pay back to our teachers of the European countries benefits in terms of service for the benefit their service has been to us, and to pay this back with interest and with compound interest. We hope presently to add our amendment to the really great work begun by Father Raiffeisen; we hope to show that the very root and secret of our work is not merely to find amelioration for the farmer for it would be just as charitable to find amelioration for the shoemaker and for the carpenter the scope of our work goes beyond that. In its final analysis this work will be found to insure not merely amelioration for the American farmer, but stability for the American Republic.

If this statement be based on fact, if it contain an underlying truth that can be harnessed to service, which may insure the stability of the American Republic, then it establishes the sanctity of our mission. If there be no such truth, then is all this work an illusion. But is it an illusion? Do we not see here, all around us, in the great European countries that we have visited, the operations and results of rural cooperation and its beneficent and farreaching effects? This is no mere abstract statement; it is a fact that any ordinary mind can readily prove for itself, a fact which should be understood not merely by us here but by statesmen, the people that govern the United States.

We are living not far distant from a time when it was fashionable to think that our welfare, our world centered round our own vicinity, our own little village, our own State, our own Nation. But is there not a greater and a higher law? Is it not the welfare of all the nations of the earth which is the best guarantee of the welfare of our own Nation and of our own individual welfare? Do not darkness and an unprogressive state in one nation act and react upon the others? What benefit, for instance, is it to the world that there is such a country as Morocco? To whom is it a benefit? It is not even a benefit to the poor barbarians and beggars that live there. Let that country be developed, let the sun of progress and civilization shine upon it, let development pursue its course, and in the place of its few thousand indigents it would become filled with millions of progressive prosperous people, blessing by their imports and exports their fellow men of other lands, of other countries. It is the amount of development and the progress of any nation and of all nations that make for the greater sum of human happiness, and a diminution of that progress and development in any one country necessarily diminishes the happiness of the whole.