VOL. XXV.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., MARCH 1, 1890.
NO. 9
N
The Profits and Pleasures of Professional
and Farm Life Compared.
Paper read before the Hendricks County Farmers'
Institute, by Judge John V. Hadley, Danville.
My subject was invented and assigned
to me by the committee having this and a
previous like meeting in charge.
Whether this assignment to me was suggested by the old adage, "that a jack of all
trades is master of none," is a matter of
no consequence to my audience and what
the committee thought about it, or what I
think about it, can be of no interest or
value to you except so far as my course in
life may illustrate the truth of the proposition* However this may be, however
strong the arguments in favor of a concentration of effort, and however strong a diversity of employment, I appear before you
to confront the fact, that 20 years of my
life have beon given to farming, 10 years
exclusively to the practice of law and for
the last 10 years I have presided over a
sort of co-partnership between law and agriculture and am therefore in some degree
qualified to speak upon the profits and
pleasures of the two departments of labor.
The same general economic rule by
which the profits of professional labor are
determined, determine also tho profits of
farming. There is no mystery about it.
There is no advantage in one over the
other.
The popular belief among non-professional people that the wage of professional
labor is large and easily earned, is just as
erroneous.as the popular belief among
professional people, that farming, with its
variety and rapidly changing duties is a
sort of general picnic with large remuneration for  the  labor  actually  performed.
The truth is that the ground and
SOURCE OF ALL HONORABLE SUCCESS
is industry, intelligence, integrity and
perseverance. Theso four elements combined in the same person and supported
by health and strength, will succeed in any
vocation, in this favored country of ours.
The opinion we entertain of the character
of each others business results from the
point of view from which we look at each
other. Professional people will drive out
into the country in the spring or summer
—and they rarely go at any other time—
and see the forests and fields ^clothed in
verdure, singing birds frolicing about,wild
flowers springing up everywhere and the
scene is so exhilarating and enchanting
that they become oblivious to the
ardurous realities of farm life. While
the farmer will go to town and see the professional man about his duties, so entirely
freed from manual labor and going on
with so much apparent ease and comfort
to himself, and he will see the doctor receive $25 for a few calls, or a lawyer $25 for
what appears to be a day's work, and he
goes home in amazement at the inequalities of human labor. The value of a good
cow earned in a single day without capital
or obvious work. The difficulty with my
farmer friend is that he does not see tho
whole case. What the people see of tho
professional man is merely the dress parade of his business and particularly is
this true of the lawyer. His work in the
court house is a very small part of the
whole. The office, with his books and
briefs, is his workshop, and I affirm that
the lawyer with the largest clientage and
the most handsome income, is the
HARDEST WORKED MAN IN THE COMMUNITY.
The fact is, that at times when engaged in
heavy trials, he works 2. hours a day.
The lawyer who wins becomes devoted
to the cause of his client, so earnest and
eager for success, that disappointment becomes as painful to him as to his client
and this eagerness and enthusiasm keeps
him strung up from the moment he meets
his antagonist in the court room. It is
not infrequent that in trials the testimony
of 50 to 75 witnesses, is given to the several facts bearing upon the point in controversy.   In some respects all these witness
es will differ in what they say and yet the
attorney, who will be required to proceed
with tho argument as soon as the evidence
is closed, will be expected to remember
the testimony of every witness who has
testified. Ho is not only expected to remember it, but he should in fact remember
t and should have it so classified and arranged in his mind as to be able at any instant to call up all the testimony and circumstances in support, or in attack, of any
fact in the line of the issue. Such a trial
will last six or eight days. On the first day
he must remember the points made by the
opening statement of the other side and
what evidence has been given during the
day. On tho second day he must hold fast
to all that was delivered on the first and
augment it with what was delivered on
the second, and so on day by day, adding
to the load his mind must carry and assimilate. Add to this from two to four
hours in the office after supper counseling
with clients, talking with witnesses, preparing pleadings, plowing through volume
after volume for authority, and in the
last days of such trial you may imagine
such attorney going home at 10 or 12
o'clock at night, his mind in a whirl, his
strength exhausted and his appetite gone,
In bed he endeavors to go to sleep, but
there is the case. He tries to count himself to sleep and he counts 100, but the
case is still clinging to him.   Then he  be-
he has laid up at the end of ten years. It
may be assumed that the average lawyer
having spent two years at study, his education and library have cost him ?3,000,
and these aro his stock in trade. Take an
an equal number of farmers with equal intelligence, each with ?3,000 capital, and
note the results of ten years of business,
and in my judgment the comparison will
be unfavorable to the lawyers—unfavorable
to the lawyers of this county, oven—and I
will be pardoned in saying that there are
few, if any other counties in the State,
wherein the lawyers, as a class, are in so
good pecuniary condition. This fact I
know from law book sellers who have the
financial standing of every lawyer in the
State, and who have told mo that there is
not an attorney in Danville to whom they
will hesitate to send a book upon order
without the money. It is not that the
lawyers here have made more money
but that they have had better habits of
economy and thrift.
The profits of farming are now at low
ebb but the same may be said with equal
force of the professions. Even in these
slow times the people will not get sick to
the satisfaction of the doctors. It is generally beljeved that when times are closest
with general business the harvest is richest
for the lawyers, but it is wholly a mistake.
All sorts of business must prosper or suffer
together.   The farms are
THE IMPROVED TRACTION ENGINE, BUILT BY TIIE M. RUMELY CO., LA PORTE, IND.
gins at 100 and counts backwards to one,
to find the case there to receive him. A
horrid night of unrest. The body exhausted lies motionless in a comatose state
with the mind never so active, all night
through, springing from the one proposition to another, from the testimony of one
witness to another, suggesting, arguing,
contending and now and then discovering
and retaining a really valuable  principle.
A lawyer thus overwhelmed with his
case can no more free himself from it when
he goes home, than he can free himself
from the consequences of sin, and it is
only the verdict of the jury that enables
him to lay it down and often this process
is very painful to him.
The farmer has no such labors and if
such labor was as unremitting to the lawyer as is the usual avocation of the farmer
to him, there is not an attorney in the
State so strong as to bo able to stand up
under the strain for five years.
Such cases are expected to and usually
do bring good fees, and it is the number
of these arduous cases that draw proportionately upon the life and strength of the
attorney and the fees arising therefrom,
that constitute the visible profits of tho
business. The little cases and office work
are quite satisfactory if they pay the expenses of the office and Irving.
THE PROFITS OF A BUSINESS
are best determined by what a man has
left at the end of the year, and it is still
more satisfactorily  determined by what
THE   GREAT  INDUSTRIAL   THERMOMETERS,
and when the farmer is making money so
is the lawyer; and when tho farmer is running behind you may assuredly note the
lawyer lighting the wolf from his door. It
is safe, therefore, to say of men of the samo
capability and adaptability that he who
succeeds at the law would also have succeeded on the farm, and he who has succeeded on the farm would also havo succeeded at the law. Success and profits in
both avocations are predicated upon hard
work and patient perseverance, guided by
intelligence and the golden rule.
THE   PLEASURES OF THE TWO AVOCATIONS
depend vory much upon the temperament
of the man. The passive, emotional and
poetic nature should never espouse a profession. The physician is constantly
brought into contact with hard and disagreeable duties; the exposure of travel, tho
distress of suffering and of friends in
death and dangerous sickness. None but
a phlegmatic temperament can hold a
steady hand or quick heart in all conditions under which the physician is placed,
while it is safe to assert that none but an
aggressive, combative disposition can find
either pleasure or contentment at the bar.
At the bar the man's moral sense lives on
contention, and being constantly mixed
up with other people's quarrels, sees only
the bad side of human nature, and year in
and year out, feeding upon quarrels and
deceits and desires for vengeance, the
moral perceptions  must be very strong to-
maintain these supremacies, and if the
charge be just that lawyers as a class are
remiss in their Christian and high moral
duties, their delinquencies should not be
attributed to a natural degeneracy, but to
the feature of their business to which I
havo alluded. The farmer, on the other
hand,
SEES ONLY THE BRIGIITSIDE
of human nature. If a just man himself,
he will rarely, if over, havo a quarrel, and
seldom witnesses one by others, and his duties being such as to generally keep him at
home in the society of his own family,
when he does meet neighbors at the
threshing, or beef club, or church, or at
town, they will all be in a good humor,
and the contact will be pleasurable and inspiring.
The pleasures of either business are
measured largely by the degree of observance of nature's law of order. Nature abhors a sloven anywhere and no place more
than in tho office or on the farm. The
farmer goes to town to hire a lawyer, and
being a stranger he calls at an attorney's
office. If he finds the floor uncarpeted,
dirty and soiled by tobacco, a few old
broken chairs, a whittled table and a few
greasy books scattered around, he would
not hire that attorney to defend a provoke
case, and ought not to. The inexorable
law of decency and order requires that
every class of employment shall be conducted with a system and style commensurate with the character of tho business
to succeed, and neglect of this law is nowhere more widespread than among the
farmers. Neglect and disorder are on
every hand. If farmers would fix up their
farms, paint their buildings, build up and
straighten up thoir fences, take out the
bushes and briers and stumps, underdrain
their fields, clean up their pastures and
lots, keep their implements in good repair and their work animals in good Ilesh
and training, their profits would be increased aud pleasures augmented ten
fold.   Even tlie sloven is
HAPPIER   AMID   PLEASANT   SURROUNDINGS
than amid tho disorder and confusion ho
creates about him. Another pleasurable
advantage the farmer has is his ability to
free himself from his business. When
night comes and he turns his face toward
the house, his business is left behind, and
having fed his stock and eaten his supper
and spent an hour of pleasant conversation
with his family, lie goes to bed, and after
a night of restful, blissful sleep, he gets up
in the morning bright and invigorated for
another day; while the lawyer, who for
the time being, is the common drudge of
his client, has no timo for his family, and
little time for his bed, and getting up in
the morning with tired body and aching
heed and throbbing templo, goes back to
his post of struggle and turmoil.
I love the country for its peace and quiet.
I lovo tho green pastures with their lazy,
lounging herds. I love to see tlie mellow,
moist, invigorating earth fall caressingly
about the tender plants of corn. I love to
hear the jocund music of the reaper as it
gathers into sheaves the golden grain; but
more than all, I love
THE   PRINCELY    INDEPENDENCE     OF     THE
FARM
where thoro is no fawning for favors, no
scheming for jobs, and where the first of
the llocks and fields belong to the family
of the master. I too, love my profession;
its social and literary advantage, its elegant ease when off' duty, and life is not a
failure, if for a single day to stand before a
jury of the country and successfully pload
for tho redress of a great wrong.
The fruit is sweetest that grows highest
up and costs the greatest effort to obtain;
so tho ecstatic pleasure that comes to tho
attorney -with a favorable verdict after a
long and hard struggle, is never known or
felt by the farmer.
I conclude, to the young men—if there
are any present hesitating what to do—
there are golden opportunities everywhere
and thero aro hard lines and disagreeablo
duties everywhere. If you want to get
rich, keep out of the law. If you want to
get money without earning it, keep out of
the law. The ttuctuations in values give
you better promise on the farm. You may
find pleasure and compensation and struggle wherever you go, but turn where you
will, remember always "that the man who
works is the man who wins."