Chapter IV: Iowa and Her People

"In all that is good Iowa affords the best."

Thus a few years ago wrote one of our state's most distinguished citizens.[C]

And his utterance found a ready response in the hearts of the men and women of our fair land, so that today the expression is an axiom. Every Iowan believes firmly in its truth.

There is no fairer land under the benevolent sun. Here plenty reigns, and prosperity has her home. Cheerful industry has redeemed the land that once was the home of wild animals and untamed savages. Iowa's waving corn fields; her meadows of luxuriant grass; her hills dotted with magnificent houses and barns; her landscape made more picturesque by the presence of fattening herds; her school houses and higher centers of learning on almost every hill; the smoke from the busy industries of her thriving cities and villages; her soil the most fertile of any known; her waste land less than that of any other equal area; her percentage of illiteracy the lowest; her mineral resources abundant; her numerous streams affording water power inferior to none--all these things and more rightly tend to make Iowans proud of their State.

Now, as a half century ago, Iowa offers "to the lawloving and the temperate; to the enterprising, the vigorous, the ambitious, a home and a field worthy of their noblest efforts."[D] She throws open to the world her exhaustless stores of wealth, her golden opportunities, and says: "Behold your reward."

N. H. Parker, writing more than a half century ago, drew this glowing picture of the future Iowa:

"As the immigrant mother leads her sons and daughters into
the undeveloped paths of wealth--as civilization elevates a
race out of the sloughs of semi-barbarism--as national
prosperity exalts a land--or as science raises the human
intellect from darkness into dazzling light--thus Iowa, with
rapid strides, ascends the precipitious sides of
prosperity's mountain range, bearing her sons and daughters
to loftier, and still loftier peaks, and revealing to their
gaze still wider and richer vistas. And the summit of this
range she will never reach; for her onward progress cannot
be stayed, until her arterial streams are dry--until the
agricultural life-blood in her veins has ceased to flow,
until her great metallic heart has been emptied. Upon the
topmost summit, then, Iowa will never stand, for through
countless ages yet to come, her progress--that must be
forever onward--must be upward also."[E]

The people of Iowa do not stand still. Not satisfied with present achievements, they go forward, doing well to-day the tasks that are theirs, and striving earnestly to make the future better and more glorious than the past.

We can not do better here than by quoting a toast to the future of Iowa given some years ago by O. J. Laylander, a loyal son of the state:

"In the few minutes allotted to this toast scant justice may
be awarded so worthy a theme. We love you, O Iowa, lusty
child, resting in the mighty arms of the Missouri and the
Father of Waters, laughing beneath the warm kisses and the
love tears of gentle May; crying aloud to all the world:
'See how I grow! How strong I am! How happy and healthy and
beautiful!'

"Iowa is glorious now. The great, green carpets, fresh from
the springtime cleaning, shimmer in the glorious sun. The
broad, black belts of loam await with open pockets the
hiding of the golden grain. Living, glowing mines of gold
stud the prairies' endless velvet folds. The countless
castles of the farm are bound into great bundles by the
sounding wire. Above every door that opens upon honest toil
is inscribed in letters of gold the motto, 'Rich, rich,
rich.'

"Such is Iowa today in its wealth of land and stock. Each
year the unfailing field fills the bins to bursting and
grows the meat for millions.

"Material Iowa, with great leaps, has gone forward in the
world's race. Manifest destiny was misread by even the
wisest of our grandfathers. Even thirty years ago no prophet
dared choose the gorgeous hues necessary to a true picture
of the Iowa of to-day.

"Yet not alone in industrial lines has Iowa set the pace for
the states. In politics she has crowded New England off the
stage, and bold Ohio sits quietly at her feet. In literature
and in arts she stands unashamed. Comfort and culture walk
hand in hand, and happiness is a perennial contagion.

"Some fifty years ago there came to Iowa a sturdy boy. Today
he calls his own one thousand billowy acres which have risen
in value in steps of ten until one hundred thousand dollars
would not tempt him to yield his title. One June afternoon
he sat on his piazza in sweet reverie. He reviewed the
wonderful development of the grand old state, and sent his
imagination in search of greater possibilities. From the
hedge the thrush poured forth a song of love. The humming
bees thrust their honeyed tongues into the flowers on the
trellis at his side. The south wind was heavy with fragrance
brushed from the blooming bushes. All nature conspired to
steal the old man's senses and soon reverie gave way to
sleep and dreams, and this, they say, was the dream: He
dreamed that it was the year nineteen hundred and forty-one,
and he was celebrating his hundredth birthday. He had seen
comfort and culture become as common as the summer sun.
Literature and art had countless country devotees. People
had ceased to hurry, and worry was unknown: and then he
dreamed that he died, and sought admission at the golden
gate. To his amazement he was halted and informed that he
was at the wrong place. Greatly grieved, he parleyed with
the guard: 'I never wittingly did a human soul a wrong. I
was rich, but it was not my fault. Why must I, who have
always tried to do my duty, go to hell?' 'No one said
anything about hell,' was the reply. 'To the annex--the
second gate to the right. You Iowa people complain so much
about celestial conditions and make so many comparisons with
Iowa that we have concluded to colonize you a few thousand
years and send you all back to Iowa.'

"That the future of Iowa shall be such that if you shall not
wish to come back, you shall at least wish to stay as long
as possible, is my sincere desire."[F]

Calhoun made the assertion on the floor of the United States Senate that he had been told that "the Iowa country has been seized upon by a lawless body of armed men." Senator Ewing, of Ohio, and Senator Clay, of Kentucky, had received similar information, the former asserting that he would in no way object to giving each rascal who crossed the Mississippi to the westward one thousand dollars if by that means he might get rid of him. And these distinguished statesmen were not alone in this view. To many in the east the first comers to the territory were "land robbers," "idle and profligate characters," "fugitives from justice," "lawless intruders," and worse. They were squatters "who feared neither the laws of God nor man."

Doubtless those who made these assertions were honest and sincere. They believed that only the most desperate characters, the outcasts of decent communities, had the hardihood to explore this _terra incognita_. They could not comprehend how persons living in settled communities, and surrounded with many of the comforts of life, could be so fool-hardy as to leave all these things for the sake of making a new home in a wilderness inhabited only by wild animals and wilder and more dangerous Indians.

But there is another side to the picture. Personal observation is always more to be depended upon than hearsay testimony. One of the most trust-worthy of the early writers on Iowa is Lieut. Albert Miller Lea. He had spent some years in the "Ioway District"; he had made a tour of observation across the state; he had most excellent opportunities for observing and studying the character of our first settlers. His testimony cannot be impeached, for he was a man far above the practice of deceit. In his _Notes on the Wisconsin Territory_, particularly with reference to the Iowa District or Black Hawk Purchase, published in 1836, he gives this vivid and truthful picture of our early inhabitants:

"The character of this population is such as is rarely to be
found in our newly acquired territories. With very few
exceptions, there is not a more orderly, industrious,
active, pains-taking population west of the Alleghenies,
than is this of the Iowa District. Those who have been
accustomed to associate the name of _Squatter_ with the idea
of idleness and recklessness, would be quite surprised to
see the systematic manner in which every thing is here
conducted. For intelligence, I boldly assert that they are
not surpassed, as a body, by an equal number of citizens of
any country in the world.

"It is a matter of surprise that, about the Mining Region,
there should be so little of the recklessness that is usual
in that sort of life.... This regularity and propriety is to
be attributed to the preponderance of well informed and
well-intentioned gentlemen among them, as well as to the
disposition of the mass of the people."[G]

Two years later another personal observer says: "He who supposes that settlers ... who are now building upon, fencing and cultivating the lands of the government are lawless depredators, devoid of the sense of moral honesty, or that they are not in every sense as estimable citizens, with as much intelligence, regard for law and social order, for public justice and private rights ... as the farmers and yeomen of New York and Pennsylvania ... has been led astray by vague and unfounded notions, or by positively false information."[H]

These people knew the pioneers, and their testimony is entitled to credence. As a class even the "Squatters" were not idle, or vicious, or ignorant. They were young men, strong and hardy, full of courage and adventure. "There was not a better population on the face of the earth," is the testimony of Senator Benton. "They made roads," says Prof. B. F. Shambaugh, superintendent of the Iowa State Historical Society, "built bridges and mills, cleared the forests, broke the prairies, erected houses and barns, and defended the settled country against hostile Indians. They were distinguished especially for their general intelligence, their hospitality, their independence and bold enterprise. They had schools and school houses, erected churches, and observed the Sabbath.... The pioneers were religious, but not ecclesiastical. They lived in the open and looked upon the relations of man to nature with an open mind. To be sure their thoughts were more on 'getting along' in this world than upon the 'immortal crown' of the Puritan. And yet in the silent forest, in the broad prairie, in the deep blue sky, in the sentinels of the night, in the sunshine and in the storm, in the rosy dawn, in the golden sunset, and in the daily trials and battles of frontier life, they too must have seen and felt the Infinite."[I]

No greater tribute has ever been paid to the pioneers of our state than that given by a distinguished native of the state, Hon. Robert G. Cousins, on Iowa Day at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha on Sept. 21, 1898. The following extracts from that masterly oration are worthy of preservation here:

"I have asked five of the ablest and most noted Americans
what they regard as the chief thing or leading feature of
the Trans-Mississippi region and they have invariably
answered, 'Its men and women.' The other day I met one of
the oldest settlers of eastern Iowa--one of those original,
rugged characters whose wit and wisdom have lightened the
settlers' hearts and homes for many a toilsome year--one of
those interesting characters who never bores you and whom
one always likes to meet--a man whose head is silvered and
whose countenance is kind--and I asked him what he regarded
as the principal feature of our Trans-Mississippi country,
and he replied: 'Well, I'm no scholar, but I've been round
here nigh onto sixty years and I reckon 'bout the most
important thing is the folks and the farms.'

"Iowa became a separate territory, with the capital at
Burlington, in 1838, and was admitted into the Union in
1846, and has been in it ever since. It makes little
difference whether it was first settled by the whites at
Dubuque for mining purposes in 1788, or, for trading
purposes, at Montrose, in 1799, or opposite Prairie du
Chien, in 1804 or 5, or in Lee county at Sandusky in 1820,
or on the lower rapids at what is now known as Nashville, in
1829; or whether the first settlements for general purposes
were made at Burlington and Davenport in 1832. The main fact
is that it was well settled--not by dyspeptic tourists nor
by invalids who had come west out of curiosity and New
Jersey, nor by climate seeking dilettanti with two servants
and one lung--but by the best bone and sinew of the middle
states, New England and the old world. I do not know that
there were any dukes or lords or marquises or duchesses, but
there were Dutch and Irish and Scotch and Scotch-Irish and
English and Americans, and they had home rule right from the
start--at least they had it in the first school which I
attended. The men and women who settled the Hawkeye state
were not those who expected to go back 'in the fall,' or as
soon as they could prove up on their claims. They were
stayers. They were not men to be discouraged by winter or by
work. They were men who knew that nobody ever amounted to
much in this world unless he had to. Most of them began
simply with the capital of honesty, good health and their
inherent qualities of character. They built their cabins in
the clearings and, watching the smoke curl up in the great,
wide sky, felt just as patriotic for their humble rustic
homes as e'er did princes for their castles or millionaires
for mansions grand.

"To build a home is a great thing. It doesn't matter so much
about the dimensions. 'Kings have lived in cottages and
pygmies dwelt in palaces,' but the walls of a home always
add something to inherent character. In the formation of
character there are always two elements, the inherent and
the adventitious--that which we bring with us into the world
and that which our surroundings give us. Somebody said
'there is only a small portion of the earth that produces
splendid people.' Our pioneers got into a good place. They
had left doubt sitting on a boulder in the east and packed
their things and started for the west. Rivers had to be
forded, trees to be felled, cabins had to be built--the
rifle must be kept loaded--so much the better, there was
self-reliance. Corn and coffee had to be ground, and on the
same mill--so much the better, there was ingenuity. Teeth
had to be filled, and there was no painless dentistry.
Disease and injury must be dealt with, and the doctor fifty
miles away. Life must be lightened, lonely hearts must be
cheered, and the old friends and comrades far back in the
states or maybe away in fatherland, and the cheering letter
tarrying with the belated stage coach--hold fast, thou
sturdy denizen and gentle helpmate of the rich and wondrous
empire, infinite goodness guards thee and the fertile fields
are ready to reward.

"Ah, pampered people of the later generations, when you
imagine modern hardships, think of the courage and the
trials and the ingenuity of pioneers when there were no
conveniences but the forest and the axe, the wide rolling
prairie and the ox team, the great blue sky, the unsolved
future and the annual ague! Complain of markets in these
modern times and then think of your grandmother when she was
a blooming bride, listening through the toilsome days and
anxious nights for the wagon bringing home the husband from
a distant market with calico and jeans purchased with
dressed pork sold at a dollar and a half a hundred, and
maybe bringing home a little money, worth far less per yard
than either calico or jeans. Maybe it is all for the best,
human character was being formed for the development of a
great and loyal and progressive state to shine forever among
the stars of the federal union....

"Civil government in Iowa proceeded with its rapid
settlement. The pioneer became a model citizen. He knew the
necessity for the laws that were enacted. He did not feel
oppressed by government. He had experienced the losses of
robbery and larceny and knew something of the embarrassment
and inconvenience of being scalped. There was no hysteria
about trusts and combines because they had practiced
combinations themselves for mutual protection. If any one
would learn the true genius and exemplification and
philosophy of self-government, government of and for and by
the people, let him study the records of pioneer life, the
institutional beginnings, and the evolution of their laws.
It would be worth our while on some suitable occasion when
time permitted to talk over the interesting incidents
attending the administration of justice in the early days of
Iowa, the incidents of its territorial legislatures, the
birth and growth of its statehood and the character of its
officials. But the greatness of our state is not contained
in any name. Its official history is the exponent of its
industrial life and character. Its greatness is the sum
total of its citizenship. In order to be just, John Jones,
the average citizen, must be mentioned along with our most
illustrious officials. Somebody said that the history of a
nation is the history of its great men, but there is an
unwritten history which that averment overlooks. The growth
of a state is the progress of its average citizen. The
credit of a commonwealth is the thrift of its John Jones and
its William Smith, and the character, prosperity and
patriotism of the individual citizen is the history of Iowa.

"The population of 97,000 which she had when admitted into
the union had increased to 754,699 at the close of the Civil
war. Of these about 70,000, almost one-tenth of the
population, were in the war--a number equal to nearly
one-half of the voters of the state. Who made the history of
Iowa during that great struggle of our nation's life? John
Jones, the average citizen, whether he carried a musket
helping to put the scattered stars of state back into the
constellation of the Union, or whether he toiled from early
dawn to lingering twilight in the fields or in the shop. The
best civilization is that which maintains the highest
standard of life for its average citizen.

"Since the Civil war the state of Iowa has increased in
population to almost 2,225,000 of people, and most of the
time has had the least illiteracy of any state in the Union.
Doubtless for that we are indebted to many of the older
states, whose enterprising and courageous citizens
constitute so large a portion of our population. With but a
century of statehood and with an area of but 55,475 square
miles, the state of Iowa produces the greatest quantity of
cereals of any state in the Union. As long ago as the last
federal census, taken in 1890, it produced more corn, more
oats, more beef, more pork than any state in the Union. Not
long since I was introduced to a gentleman from New York
city. He said, 'Oh, from Iowa--ah--let me see, that's
out--ah--you see, I'm not very well posted on the geography
of the west.' 'Yes,' I said, 'it's out there just across the
Mississippi river. You can leave New York about noon and get
your supper in Iowa the next evening. It might be worth your
while to look it up. It's the state which produces more of
the things which people eat than any other state in the
Union. It has more miles of railroads than your state of New
York, more than Mexico, more than Brazil and more than all
the New England states combined.'

"The value of Iowa's agricultural products and live stock in
round numbers for the year 1892 was $407,000,000, to say
nothing of her other great and various industries and
enterprises. She produced that year 160,000,000 pounds of
the best butter on earth of the value of $32,000,000. The
Hawkeye butter ladle has achieved a cunning that challenges
all Columbia. The Iowa cow has slowly and painfully yet
gradually and grandly worked her way upward to a shining
eminence in the eyes of the world. The state of Iowa has on
her soil today, if nothing ill befalls it, ninety million
dollars' worth of corn. The permanent value of land is
estimated by its corn-producing qualities. Of all the
products of the earth, corn is king and it reigns in Iowa.

"Industry and nature have made the state of Iowa a creditor.
Her soil has always been solvent and her system of farming
does not tend to pauperize. She is a constant seller and
therefore wants the evidence of the transaction to be
unimpeachable. She has more school teachers than any other
state except the Empire state and only three and six-tenths
per cent of her population are illiterates. The state of
Iowa has yielded the greatest dividends on her educational
investments. She has become illustrious on account of her
enlightenment. She has progressed further from 'primitive
indifferent tissue' than the land even of Darwin himself,
and in her escape from protoplasm and prejudice she is
practically out of danger. Marked out in the beginning by
the hand of God, bounded on the east and west by the two
great rivers of the continent, purified and stimulated by
the snows of winter, blessed with copious rainfall in the
growing season, with generous soil and stately forests
interspersed, no wonder that the dusky aborigines exclaimed
when they crossed the Father of Waters, 'Iowa, this is the
place!' Not only did the red men give our state its
beautiful and poetic name, but Indian nomenclature runs like
a romance throughout the counties and communities. What
infinite meaning, what tokens of joy and sadness, of triumph
and of tears, of valor and of vanquishment, of life and love
and song there may be in these weird, strange words that
name to-day so many of our towns and streams and counties:
Allamakee, Chickasaw, Dakota City, Sioux, Pocahontas,
Winneshiek, Keosauqua, Sac, Winnebago, Tama, Nodawa,
Competine, Chariton, Comanche, Cherokee, Waukon,
Muchakinock, Washta, Monona, Waupeton, Onawa, Keota,
Waudina, Ioka, Ottumwa, Oneska, Waukee, Waucoma,
Nishnabotna, Keokuk, Decorah, Wapello, Muscatine, Maquoketa,
Mahaska, Ocheyedan, Mississippi, Appanoose, Missouri,
Quasqueton, Anamosa, Poweshiek, Pottawattamie, Osceola,
Oskaloosa, Wapsipinicon.

"Ere long some westland genius, moved by the mystic
inspiration of the rich and wondrous heritage of Iowa
nativity, may sing the song of our legends and traditions,
may voice in verse the wondrous story of his illustrious
state. Maybe somewhere among the humble homes where blood
and bone and brain grow pure and strong, where simple food
with frugal ways feeds wondering minds and drives them
craving into nature's secrets and her songs--somewhere along
the settler's pathway or by the Indian trail where now the
country churchyards grown with uncut grasses hide the forms
of sturdy ancestors sleeping all in peaceful ignorance of
wayward sons or wondrous progeny--somewhere where rising sun
beholds the peasantry at early toil and leaves them in the
mystic twilight ere their tasks are done, where odors of the
corn and new-mown hay and vine-clad hedges by the shadowy
roadside linger long into the night-time, as a sweet and
sacred balm for tired hearts--somewhere, sometime the song
of Iowa shall rise and live, and it will not omit the
thought of that gifted son who said: 'Iowa, the affections
of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an
inseparable union.'"