The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-04-10

/ gestive OF retrospective thought; and
/ in the few minutes shall occupy To-
night l want TO speak OF Iowa in the
j early days, the days of small things,
i the days OF the log cabin and the
] clearing out on the frontier. the days
of hardship and privation, the days of
4 pinching poverty when fathers and
Z mothers were laying the foundation
/ for the prosperity their children now
enjoy: but. after all. viewed through
the softening mists OF memory. the
{ leveling vista of retrospective years,
the hardships and privaIions are all
/ forgotten, and those days stand out
the best. the brightest, the most bean
tiful. because they were the morning
of our lives
With an ultra slave state on her
southern border, and the flames OF
fratricidal war already lighted in
Kansas and Nebraska on the west,
Iowa early assumed a position on the
great question OF human slavery that
was an inspiration to other and older
states.
In the momentous and prolonged
controversy that determined the ques-
ton OF the admission of Kansas and
Nebraska as slave or free states.
Iowa had profound interest. and she
spoke in no uncertain tones.
IN 1854, in accepting the nomination
for governor by the Wing party. Jas
". Grimes. in speaking of this great
question said:
Shall populous. thriving villages
and cities spring up all over the face
of Nebraska, or shall unthrift, sparse
ness. standstill and delay character
ize that state?
Shall unpaid. unwilling toll, in
spired by no hope. and inpelled by
no affection, drag rs weary. indolent
limbs over that state, 1urrying the
soil TO barrenness and leaving the
wilderness a wilderness still. or shall
it be thrown open TO the hardy and
adventurous freemen of our own
country?
With the blessing of God. Will
war and war continually against the
abandonment to slavery of a single
foot of soil now consecrated TO free
dom
It is not strange that such a decla-
ration vas a bugle call TO the friends
of freedom in that young common
wealth. nor is it strange that the
sturdy sons Of Iowa rallied TO the call.
Out of this love of liberty, this
hatred OF slavery, was organized
Towas first railroad.
II was a peculiar railroad, without
charter or public organization: the
location of its right-of-way was in
definite and changed frequently to
meet the exigencies OF the occasion.
II was a railroad whose builder and
maker was Cod" It's southern term
mus was enshrouded in the clouds
and shadows of human slavery: its
northern TERMINUS was bright and
glorious in the sunlight of liberty.
II was in Iowa that the poor. down
trodden and oppressed passenger on
the underground railway breathed
in his first inspiration of the life
giving atmosphere of freedom, and
there the chains of bondage, worn by
himself and his fathers for. centuries,
fell to the ground
This railroad had no officers, no en-
ployes save conductors and station
agents; the stations beginning with
the little college village of Tabor in
Fremont county. thence through Des
Moines, GrinneIl, West Liberty,
Springdale to LeClair on the river
These little Iowa villages were "a nil
lar OF cloud by day and OF fire by
night" TO mark this highway of free
dom across the state.
The conductors drove their teams
by night across the lonely, track1ess
prairies of Iowa and the station
concealed, and kindly cared for the
/ poor refugees in cellars and barns
during the day, and with the coming
Iof darkness sent them on their way
1 to freedom.
4 In the early spring of 1853, John
Brown, with eleven escaping slaves.
7 AtAeNS "hoS etS pIOpdUlS the last
trip that was made over the under
4 ground railroad in Iowa.
The country was aroused, spies
were sent out, President Buchanan
Joined the state of Missouri in offer
ing large rewards for the return of
the men and women to slavery and
the capture Of the grand old Apostle
of Freedom who was soon to pay the
last full measure OF devotion" to the
cause of liberty on the scaffold at
Charlestown
On this trip, he rested at Grinnell
and III the house of the Hon. Josiah
Il B. Grinnell he wrote part Of the
proclamation later made public at
Harper's Ferry. In March. 1859, this
last load of passengers crossed the
river at Detroit, and found freedom
in Canada under the flag of England.
Two years later the great question
of the extension of slavery was trans
ferred from the arena of debate to the
arbitramcnt of war The state O
Iowa was yet in her swaddling clothes
her people We're poor and widely scat
- tNrnd hui \,