Samuel Clay Bassett took up a soldier’s homestead claim near Gibbon after the Civil War and developed “Echo Farm” in Platte Valley. Bassett taught school and was involved in the Buffalo County Agricultural Society, the Nebraska Dairyman’s Association, and the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. He served as a member of the state legislature and vice president of the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Nebraska is an agricultural state. If, in the Union of States, Nebraska, at this date, has achieved recognition, anything of a fame which will prove lasting, worthy of being recorded in history it is largely because of her agriculture. With a history as a state of less than half a century the development of our agriculture has been marvelous.
The great source of wealth in the state is agriculture. It is the one supreme source in which all our people have an interest, a common interest. The prosperity, comfort and happiness of all our people is dependent upon the development of such resource.
We are living in a new era and new forces along educational lines are at work. On every hand there is an insistent demand - “Back to the land: Back to the farm”.
We are beginning to realize, to recognize, that there is science in agriculture, there that is culture in the study of agriculture, and in our schools and colleges we are teaching the principles of scientific agriculture.
In selecting, by this committee, of this occasion, of a representative of the state at the Panama exposition let us recognize this new era: let us, as it were, strike a new note, blaze a new trail; let us select one who has been a tiller of the soil; a home builder; a pioneer in the development agriculture in our state; one who has, during the active years of life, kept in touch with the soil and taken a leading part in the up-building of the state along agricultural lines.
In this selection let us not have so much in mind the glorification of an individual as the glorification and advancement of a cause: that which will add to the name and fame of the state as well as the individual.
In the selection let us endeavor to give force and effect among our people and for the encouragement of coming generations, of the sentiment - That in the great Central West of which Nebraska is a part, in this heart of a continent, this bread basket of the world, he who leads in the building of homes, in the development of scientific agricultural, in the production - not the accumulation - of wealth which enriches all the people and adds to the comfort and happiness of mankind, is worthy and entitled to receive state wide recognition for such service.
