The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1916-06-29
Can Any State Beat Iowa?
NV Herbert Quick in the Anne

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can Magazne.)
When father prepares a festival
for his children, he keeps back his
most perfect gift for the best. After
| all the things have been presented
which affection can prepare, or fillal
hope anticipate, the climax Of gener-
osity is reached when the last and
most precious gift is discovered, a
beneficience conferred in a seeming
extravaganza of giving. In the grad
ual ascent to the apex of perfection
in uncovering the varied regions of
the world to his children, the ALL
Fathers masterpiece is Iowa.
| Nothing has been left undone by
nature to complete the work. First,
Destiny covered Iowa with the waters
of the sea, and for millions of years
there dropped to the dark levels of
this primordial ocean the lime, the
gypsum, and the clays which form
the basis and provide for the renewal
of her soil. There fell also the sand
stones for her buildings, when man
should come to make them. Then the
scaled rose, the waters receded, and
in the hot moist breath of the car
boniferous era were laid down the
! Goals, SO that when man came he
might find the suns heat stored for
him, clay for that heat to convert to
brick, and lime, gypsum and clay to
combine with heat into that liquid
rock which pours like water and turns
to living stone.
But His hand was stretched out
still. The clay and lodges and sands
were then no better than those of
any other land. They would not. 40
for the Masterpiece. So there came
on the earth great chill, and the
waters were made to pillow, and with
that plow of ice the GRANTEES of the
north were ground up that their
potash might be made soil, and the
phosphates We're mingled with the
potash, and through all ran the lime;
and the glacial plow passed over
Iowa and made her great plain of
smooth filth, and strewed it with
! black drift fit for the pigmy pillow Of
man.
] Then Destiny waited while the wat
ers made channels for themselves.
| And the swamps dried up. And for
millions Of years the forces of nature
| stored nitrogen in the black soil, and
! filled it with vegetable mold like that
which delighted the children of Is
rael when they spied out the promis-
! ed land Of Canaan, and reported that
it was goodly land.
| And there it lay, a great green
savanna, veined with tiny embroider-
les Of forest along the streams, it's
| ground-swell and unending success
sion of low rounded hills, it's ripples
the shadows made by the wind in the
waving grass. Destiny kept Iowa one
vast cleared field fit for the pillow.
| Destiny laid the Missouri along her
western border and the Mississippi as
her eastern boundary, that commerce
might find in them arms of the sea
for her future trade. And God look
ed on His work and found that it
was good; but in order that it might
be superlative, He tilted the surface
a little to the south SO that the sun
might the better work with the rain,
and both with that matchless soil for
the good Of man.
Then the curtain was drawn aside
from the western continent. And still
Destiny was not ready for Iowa.
American institutions had to be de-
| veloped and somewhat perfected. At
| last the hour struck for the discovery
of Iowa. 1t was the unwilling of
lovely picture-a great undulating
green sea enameled with flowers.
Not parched by drought like the reg
ions to the west. Not sodden and
swampy like the rainsoaked forests to
the east. Not stony and sterile like
regions farther south. Not in the
region Of fugaciOus summers of the
north-but just in the right place. In
the heart Of the empire of corn, the
realm of wheat, the kingdom Of the
paddock, the pasture, the meadow and
good brown earth, where winter is
cold enough to rest and revivify the
soil and summer warm enough and
long enough to flood the world with
produce.
To the unwilling of Iowa came all
the peoples of America. This gives
the Hawkeye the power to understand
all America. Up along the rivers
came the cavaliers from Kentucky
and Virginia, and the woodsmen of
Missouri and Tennessee. There came
also the southern Hoosiers from In
diana, and the long Suckers from
Egypt. Iowa was settled as a south
ern state. Her river cities We're
southern. The first business life Of
Iowa was southern, and her great
men were southern in their sympath-
les and characteristics. South of the
CO. one still finds the political and
social life profoundly affected by the
early settlers of the Boone and Crock
EFT stripe Here and there are the
descendants of the French voyageurs
and coureurs de bois.
But there came sitting through Il
linois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wiscon-
sin the sturdy stocks of New York
and Pennsylvania-and the New En-
gland conscience in it's migration
from New England gave Iowa to local
self-government and the common
school, and after old-fashioned
Americanism had become entrenched
in the towns and on the farms, there
came the best people of Europe
Danes, Norsemen, Celts, Germans,
British-and filled the state with
their virile strains and their demo-
cratic PHILOSOPHERS.
God is the supreme opportunist.
He proved it by keeping back the best