The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-07-13
Mosby on Missouri


(From an address delivered by Thos
Speed Mosby, Flag Day, 1917, at the
State Capitol, Jefferson City, Mo-
Nesting here in the heart of this
vast continent, the shining sun in all
his course beholds no fairer land that
this, our dear Missouri. Whether in
the teeming life of her sunlit fields or
in the whir of her busy shops and
mills, or when, reposing on her bed of
flowers, Night crowns her with a di-
adem of stars, Missouri is still the
land of which the prophets have
dreamed and poets sung; she is the
tabled Atlantis, that seers foretold;
she is the garden of the Hesperides,
where the golden apples glow; she is
the pole-star of the Union, and the
Eden of the world.
Is not such a 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 Mis-
souri,; 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 golden 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 comingle their bushes in peren-
NAL beauty forevermore; you who have
glimpsed the rainbow trout and the
big-mouthcd 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-will a.
calling from each shady nook and rill,
while her orioles MARBLE at the gate of
dawn, her hooking birds trill eter-
nal melody in a thousand groves
and the bob-white whistles to his
mate, "when the frost is on the pump
kin and the folders in the shock"
II 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 today.
Why, an ordinary Missouri hen can
make more fuss than a suffragette
convention-and yield more revenue,
too. 1t is Missouri lead that is doing
the awful work in Europe 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 mist 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 depart"-
then, o then, my brother, 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 anything
on earth but disturbance, and where
there is always enough of the milk
of human kindness to sustain the pop
ulation when the COW goes dry.