The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1920-03-27
A GREETING TO THE OLD SETTLERS ASSOCIATION AT
LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL, KANSAS CITY, MO-
MARCH q, 1920.
BY ]. DALLAS BOWSER.

Dear friends, called you together, today
To welcome all in our heartiest way;
With hand and with heart we bid you good cheer,
And a hope that we'll please by what we do here
You her a remnant enfeebled by
Whose years but few It'll they from es stage,
To that country unknown firm faith in God.
They'll calls them from under the sod.
These whiehaired days long since passed
Bore heavy the burden in the heat and the blast
They laid the foundations of church. school and home
which this great city wondrous has grown
humble beginnngs-ther tasks they
No experience guide them their tools but few;
The echoes of still heard in the land,
Thus life and new work for the freedman began
No vote had he yet five years passed
guns silenced til his franchise had
l remember that bright April day
Some fifty years since when wended our way
TO the booth the Square where the City Hall stands
And balot-best gift a
stood by rock pile with eyes buging wide,
Lest some low 'ngger hater' would force us aside;
fears quite groundess, one interposed
A challenge to cast our first vote as we chose
No home and no church, school,
rich forty not mule;
We started bare handed, purse empty, and all
We pushed bravely on to respond to the call
OF stern duty that bade every in the road
Shoulder his knapsack and carry his load
Our achievements meager patterns crude
Our culture unpublished manners rude;
improvement, of mind, heart and SOUL
How we'll we succeeded, we are her to unfold
Like rough unhewn asher, whose natural state
square and chel smooth stones to create
the trestle board marked out plans
For the work station in life should demand
All hail these grandmothers who toled at the tub
That the women today spend hours at their club!
hail these grandsires, who toled night and day.
That boys might have leisure for study and play!
But first greetings over you glance round the hail.
hearts call the roll, but they answer not all;
Through above them the dead cannot hear
Name by name, in the silence falls sad as a tear
They summoned in their morning and noon,
Ere their tasks completed, they left us alone
a shaft will raise to their memories best
the skies, where know they're at rest
They absent yet with us, nor shall they depart,
AS long cherish their deeds in heart
of forgetmenots place their biers
Which time shall not wtther kept with our tears
OF the worthy deserving mention knew,
The roll of the dead is too long to review;
They each did part this great city to build,
Though humble their labors their tasks to fulfill
Like the widow whose mites thrown into chest,
Or the garment that Dorcas had made as her best,
So humble strivngs for duty and right
through a glass darky they struggled for light
jewels precious when by justice weighted
Than the wealth Of today, all so proudly displayed.
recall them, those long vinshed years.
Though arudous labors, we toiled without fear;
Or problems the future might bring
thought not of failure, and joyous could sing
We everybody, our neighbors were tue
anttboss days. and antigraft, too
We voted straight tickets, our votes none could buy
When a approached quick passed him by.
Our sabbaths sacred profaned not the day,
balls cheap shows that corrupt grave and gay
One faith and God one heaven above.
we loved to tell the story of Jesus and His love-
may back numbers, unpublished the while,
your gait is your and so is our style;
proud your progress, the honors you's won,
forget the depths from whence you have come
Old timers send greeting from river to sea,
Frisco and Denver, Chicago, d, c.
Salt Lake and Seattle, from New York afar,
with wish this meeting shall
But pause, dear comrades there is to be said
BY timers frosty head;
by Wen show how the have advanced
On the racetrak OF life when given a chance.