During
this month I was visited by many interviewers, and while sometimes
their calls were inopportune, yet I uniformly received them, answered
their questions, and furnished them any information in my power.
I knew that they were seeking information not for their own
convenience, but to gratify a public interest, and, therefore, I
was entirely willing to answer such questions as were put to me.
The case was very rare where I was misrepresented, and then it was
either unintentional or to brighten a story or to exaggerate a
fact. I recall one interview in respect to courts of arbitration
and the universal labor question. My opinions were expressed
offhand, and, although not taken down at the time by the interviewer,
my words uttered during a half hour's interview were quoted with
great exactness. I know this is not the common opinion in respect
to the interviewer, and in some cases gross misrepresentations are
made, but in the very few instances where this has occurred in my
experience I have always carefully remembered the reporters who
made them and declined any further interview with them.

The latter part of August, Judge Thurman and I were invited to make
brief addresses at the state fair in Columbus. After he had spoken
with his usual ability and directness, I made a speech mainly about
new devices in agricultural implements. I said:

"From the fact that Judge Thurman and I have been invited to address
you I infer that you did not expect us to tell you what we knew
about farming. He has been recognized as a standard authority as
to the law--not only as to what it is but as to what it ought to
be--but I never heard that he was eminent as a farmer, either of
the theoretical sort who know how things ought to grow, or of the
practical sort who know how to make them grow. I have had more
experience as a farmer than he has had, but somehow my crops always
cost me more than I could get for them. If the many millions of
farmers in the United States have had my experience in farming they
would have to get more than seventy-five cents a bushel for wheat
to make the two ends meet. Still, Judge Thurman and I have learned
enough to know that farming is the chosen employment of a large
proportion of the human race, and is, besides, the chosen recreation
of nearly all who have been successful in other pursuits. Every
lawyer especially, from Cicero to Webster, has delighted in the
healthful pleasure of rural pursuits-