The Butler weekly times., 1917-07-12
.Mosby on Missouri.

{From an address delivered by
Thos. Speed Mosby, Flag Day, 1917,
at the State Capitol, Jefferson City,
MOI :" -
Nesting here in the heart of this
vast continent, the shining sun in all
his course beholds no fairer land than
this, our dear Missouri. Whether
in the teeming life of her sunlit fields
or the whir of her busy shops and
mills, or when, reposing on her bed
of flowers, Night crowns her with
diadem of stars, Missouri is still
the land of which the prephets have
dreamed and poets sung; she Is the
tabled Atlantis, that seers foretold;
she is the garden of Hesperides,
where the golden apples glow; she
is the pole-star OF the Union, and the
Eden of the world.
Is not such land worth living for
yes, dying for? Yea, is it not
worthy Of the last drop of your
hearts blood? Tell me, you who
know Missouri; you who have basked
beneath the witchery of her smiling
skies, and seen her myriad flocks and
herds upon ten thousand grassy
plains; you who have seen the gold
en- cleaning OF her seas of wheat,
and beheld the glory of her emerald
hills, cloud-kissed, sun-crowned, in
their azure, green and gold, where
the honeysuckle and the rose COM
mingle their bushes in perennial
beauty forevermore; you who have
glimpsed the rainbow trout and the
big-mouthed bass, leaping in all their
shimmering splendor on the bosom
of her silver streams; who have
heard the bull-frog boom his basso
in our great Southeast, "where the
cotton, Gavin and sweet-pertaters
grow; who have heard her whip
poor Wills a-calling from each shady
nook and rill. while her orioles warb-
lie at the gates of dawn, her mock
ing-birds trill eternal melody in a
thousand groves-and the bob-White
| whistles to his mate, when the frost
is on the pumpkin and the folders in
the shock"
1t is true that we have no morning
drum beat, keeping coming with the
hours, to encircle the globe with the
blatant boast of military power; but,
for all that, the bray of the Missouri
mule is heard round the world to-
day. Why, an ordinary Missouri hen
can make more fuss than suffra-
gette convention-and yield more
revenue, too. 1t is Missouri lead
that is doing the awful work in Eur
ope today. Yes, it is fact that
Europe is literally shot to pieces
with Missouri lead. Some day, let
US hope, the world will learn to make
better use of all the good things
that come from Missouri. And that
day is coming, too. Though dark the
lowering war clouds loom today, and
loud the riven thunders roar, the day
of peace is coming bye and bye, and
the horrors of this universal war will
pass, just as surely as the mists OF
night shall pass before the glory OF
the sun. And when the Eternal
Spring shall come, and the flowers
shall bloom to die no more, when
The tumult and the shouting dies,
The Captains and the Kings de-
part
then, o then, my brothers. we'll use
our Missouri lead for sinkers, and
our bayonets for digging bait. Then
shall all nations be at peace, and the
good men from all over the world
shall flock to Missouri-to Missouri,
the land of glory without guile, where
the soil is rich enough to raise any
thing on earth but disturbance. and
where there is always enough of the
| milk of human kindness to sustain
the population when the cows go
dry.