The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1907-09-19
HOW GOD MADE IOWA.


The following beautiful word paint
Wallace, the veteran editor of Wallace's
every paper in the state and should be
read with pride by every loyal citizen
of Iowa. 1t was an after dinner speech
at banquet given by the state agricul-
tural board:
Speaking of this great state of Iowa
and it's people, of whose achievements
life it is the province of this association
to imagine the great creator of all
things laying aside for time the
creation of suns and stars, planets and
worlds and systems of worlds, mountain
ranges and trout streams, rainbows and
sunsets and women's smile and saying
to Himself, will now create the finest
stretch of agricultural land on which my
sun shall shine, and SOW it with my
choicest seed. So He stripped the soil
between these two great rivers down
to the bare rock; then with His mighty
glaciers planed down the hills and
filled up the hollows, and then filled it
with select soil from every part of the
planet. Then putting, so to speak, His
right hand on the Mississippi and His
left on the Missouri, He pressed it to-
gether, throwing up this great backbone
and giving drainage to east and west
and south.
Then He held His hand over it and
hid it from the eyes of man until the
fullness of time should come; until man
had emerged from savagery into feudal-
ism, from feudalism into monarchy,
then to limited monarchy and
then to constitutional government;
until English farmers had wrested
the Magma Charta from King John; I'M
til Martin Luther had taught us the
right and duty of private Judgment;
until Cromwell with his Ironsides had
given us civil liberty; until John Knox
had given us religious liberty.
And still He held His hand over it I'M
til the printing press had been discov-
ed; until Franklin had chained the
lightning and Morse made it the swift
CINE had made the railway possible and
the railway had become the highway of
the nations. He sowed it with the
choicest seed of this planet.
Then in His fullness of time He peo-
PiSSt IL "lOh ollO SOIS VI ldUuSIS
who had reclaimed rocky New England
age beasts the sons of those hardy pion-
GERS who cleared away the mighty for
ests west Of the Alleghenies and made
highway for civilization. Then he
brought from foreign lands the patient,
untiring German With his love for home
and frau and the fatherland; the sons of
tho Hnrnnrnto Of 1rh0p, Msl+Dr
'Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered
saints" the sons of the followers of
William Of Orange; the fair haired child
vikings; the sons of the covenant who
dyed the heather clad hills of Scotland
with their blood for conscience's sake;
gave lis Pat, "a broth of a boy" to whom
life is perpetual sunshine: and said to
them all: go in and make this Mesop-
otamia of the new world, the country
between the two great rivers like the
ancient paradise, like the garden of
Jehovah, like the land of Egypt, as thou
goest unto Zoar."
And, gentlemen, it is the achievements
of these defendants of the royal seed in
bringing out the perfection of form not
III iiidrulo UuG LII HeSu anu UlOOu, III Une
production of waving crops of the
choicest grains, with which to feed the
hungry nations, that you and this asso-
citation are called upon to present, and
to unfold to an admiring world what is
best of all, the type of men to be pro-
duced from generation to generation on
this favored spot of the earths surface;
for man is greater than all his works,
and the object of all human achieve
ments is the perfection of human char
acter.