Page 3 of 25 Jan 1917 Issue of Des Moines Iowa Homestead in Des-Moines, Iowa

Des Moines Iowa Homestead January 25, 1917 Page 3 old newspaper archives

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Des Moines Iowa Homestead (Newspaper) - January 25, 1917, Des Moines, IowaE Iowa Homestead lbs Moines Lowi thursday january 25, 1917. The Days Long gone by. I do not want my readers to get the impression that i have reached that they Call i live altogether in the past and think the Days that have gone Are better than those of the present. I believe this is the Golden age of Day of greatest production Prosper Ity plenty and opportunities. But on the other hand i like to think Back to the Days and the scenes of my childhood finding pleasure in com paring conditions As they existed then with those that exist today recalling old time scenes and faces almost forgotten with the passing of the years. I was Reading a Magazine last evening As is my nightly custom when i am not obliged to work and i ran across a most entertaining article in the american by George Ade entitled looking Back from it seems that or. Ade although still a Young Man has just turned fifty and he finds i have so often found doddering of the past instead of planning for the now i am eighteen years or. Ade s senior so you can imagine the pleasure with which i read his recollections finding that they duplicated Many of my own. My older readers will find a per Sonal pleasure i feel sure in these reminiscences the younger ones can laugh at them if they see fit but the Day will come when they will dodder of the too and find their eyes filled with Mist because the Young folks of that future time turn As deaf ears to the Story of the Days gone by As do the Young folks today. Here was the part of Ade s article which particularly unrolled the scroll of time for me. He is describing a mid Western Community in 1870, just three years after i came to the Grain Belt from Ohio the very year i entered the profession of country the world at that time was All Prairie and Corn Fields except for the White houses of the county seat and a dark line of Timber against the horizon. There was a railway in front of our House at the Edge of town. Beyond the railway ran a country and rutty in dry weather Black porridge every Spring. As for the Railroad the soft Metal of the rails was dreadfully Snag ged and the locomotive was mostly smokestack. Wagons canopied with White toiled through the mud All headed for Kansas and populism. It was Only a Short Cut across Fields to unbroken Prairie that never had been touched by plow. Did you Ever try to elude the Man eating upper by sitting in the smoke of a a smudge was an open fire smothered with Diann leaves or fresh grass. The Mosquito purveyor of malaria went along unrestricted and unsuspected chills and fever entered into the program of every life but those who chattered thought they were bounced by the hand of Providence. The is gone and quinine is no longer a Staple the sloughs have gone and after years of Milf drainage and the leveling processes of cultivation the five acre Pond on which we skated is just a gentle swale in a dry and tidy Cornfield. Thirty dollars an acre is no longer a Boom Price. Offer the Man two Hundred and you fail to interest him Reese and Brant mallards and redheads Prairie chickens and plentiful that the Hunters brought in Wagon loads. We used to Tiro of Quail pot pie and Long for meat from the Butcher s. How these words of Ade s recall visions and memories of the old Wood burning locomotives and the brakeman Rushing from one end of the creak ing coach to the other to turn the brakes by hand As the train slowed Down for a town of forked saplings Cut to become the Corner posts for the original pole or Prairie barn of sloughs the grass of which we mowed to thatch the roofs of these barns of cattle driven Overland fifty Miles or so fording streams As we went and so on Good old Days which we thought the hard Days then but which Are so dear in the memories of us older folks nowadays. 1 look upon fifty is nearer Akin to youth than to old age but or Ade has memories such As come to me As i sit with my wife in the Twilight and talk Over the times Long lost to All save memory s aching it is not Well to live altogether in the past nor to do naught but dream of the future. Let us enjoy and use the present to the utmost let us re member the past with pleasure and retell its Story to the Young folks who knew it not let us build permanently for the future. Such a combination will make our lives will rounded useful Happy in every Way. A Lover of history. 1am having Many interesting and valuable suggestions sent to me on the subject of what books to read with pleasure and profit to one self. So much depends of course on individual tastes and circumstances that it is next to impossible to give any list which will do for All end meet every desire but i believe much Good will come from this informal discuss Iii Here among ourselves. Among All the letters received none has inter ested me More than one from or. J. B. Maxwell of it. Carniel Illinois who is not Only emphatic in his likes but advances Good reasons for his Choice. Let me print his letter in its entirety dear or. Want to suggest in helping you to answer your correspondent s question what to Macaulay s history of a Reading of this re Reading and study of in itself a Liberal education for one who has education enough to understand what he reads. I have been consider Able of a Reader myself and i have arrived at the conclusion that next to the Bible this is the most valuable As Well As interesting Book that i have Ever read. It not Only gives one a. Valuable insight into English history and the history of Europe up to the accession of James ii but it gives one a Fine lesson in the use of the English Fine lesson in heroism patriotism Honor chastity virtue economics finance statesmanship banking military equip ment generalship and in fact it lays before the student the whole Range of Domestic and Public. Macaulay gives King William his dues. I wish if i were to acquire Eminence i might have As Able and just a critic As Macaulay was to the King. I wish you would Tell me How you View this Book if you can snatch time from your multitudinous duties mrs. Maxwell and i Are becoming More and More attached to your paper. I am delighted to find such an ardent Champion of one of our greatest writers of English. There will be Many no doubt who will be inclined to argue with or. Maxwell As to the historical accuracy of Macaulay but no More gifted phrase maker Ever lived and every one of us could read his historical masterpiece with pleasure. Macaulay has been Well nigh sacrificing historical accuracy for the Sake of epigram and of allowing personal dislike and partisan Bias to distort his views of men and measures. This simply proves that he was intensely Man s Man a Good fighter and All that. To those who like history the Winter could not be better spent than by Reading this splendid work. After All Why should not historical works be placed at the very first of our lists is it not most important that we should know How the world has progressed from one generation to another who were the leaders of thought in the centuries gone by to whom we owe the great debt for our Prog Ress Prosperity and peace today i have been a great Lover of history All my life history and Biog Raphy entertain me More than any other form of Reading. You and i Are enacting history today a history which thrills entertains and instructs fully As much As the history of the Days which Macaulay wrote about. We Are taking part in the most Brilliant chapter in the history of All the world. Humble though our lot seems at times it is Given the Man who drops the seed into the Earth and who brings the crop through to maturity to feed the armies which conquer the world the explorers who make Light the unknown places of the Earth s surface the thinkers and the doers who give us our inventions our literature and our Art. Back of All his tory stands the Man with the Hoe the Man with the pow. Shall we not read it and study it in the Light of our own endeavours our own aspirations our own achievements in making this the world s Golden age farm life and athletics. I was quite interested in a Little item appear ing in one of our Grain Belt newspapers a few Days ago. It announced the retirement from College of a student who had gained National Fame in the sport world As a runner. It seems that he could cover the distances which foot races Are run in 100 Yards 220 Yards 440 Yards and so on in faster time than any other Man in the Western College world today. The College where he studying delighted to Honor him. Other colleges were clamouring for him to attend them. But this Young Man voluntarily put aside his athletic Hon ors and returned to the farm to help his aging father work the place. I fell to thinking after Reading this How Many of our great athletes have come from the farm and have returned there after their Brief but Brilliant career in the Public Eye. The world s great est wrestler is a Grain Belt Farmer who finds Noth ing More to his liking than to work among the hogs with which he is specializing. The Man who Hopes to win the wrestling championship from him some Day is another Grain Belt Farmer. The world s greatest pugilist is a Farmer not from the Grain Belt but a neighbor a Little farther West. The greatest pitchers in the baseball world Are products of Grain Belt farms and return there when the summer s work is Over Only too glad to Gid. Away from the plaudits of the City crowds Back to Mother nature who nurtured and developed them and sent them Forth with their wonderful strength and prowess. The fact is my friends there is no life in the world better adapted to develop the human body and to realize its full possibilities than farm life. Living close to nature keeps the Eye Clear sparkling the brain Bright and Clear the whole body on the Alert. The wrestler who has made big Fortune and won the acclaim of the world developed his wonderful grip holding to the plow handle As he guided the Plo share through Rock strewn land. The Pitcher who tops All his fellow pitchers practice in his youth by throwing stones at the crows and blackbirds. The pugilist took on the other farm boys of the Community and bit by bit grew into world wide Fame we May not want our boys to be wrestlers Pugil its or baseball pitchers but farm life is develop ing them physically and mentally As no other life could possibly do. A Good Man for a Good farm Home. One of the greatest troubles with the Machin Ery of modern society is faulty distribution there is plenty of wealth plenty of plenty of fuel plenty of clothing but they do not All get distributed properly. Even where there is both the Supply and demand they do not seem to get together. The same is True of men and work there Are plenty of Good positions awaiting Good men in this great country of ours and there Are plenty of Good men looking for positions but some Way or other it seems difficult to bring the two in touch with each other. This thought was brought Home to me again the other Day when i received the following letter Saint Francisville 111., Jan. 13, 1917. Doar or. Are among your most interested readers of the Good old Iowa Homestead and read it from the publisher s views to the last live Stock advertise ment every week. We Are especially interested itt the letters that Are published from time to time. Is e have a desire to see Iowa As we have Learned so much about it from your paper. I am a Man Twenty six years old. I have never had habit of using tobacco liquor or anything else harms the mind and body. 1 am a member of trustee in the United Brethren Church. I am Farmer and have always worked on a farm a present i am walking two and a Quarter Miles Day to work feeding fifty head of horses and and a Hundred and Tifty of hog s. I would iik5 to Hoar from some Iowa Farmer who wants a farm hand for the coming season. I am married and have a very industrious wife and two healthy hoping that i May get in touch with some Farmer through the columns of the Iowa Holmeau and i am yours respectfully l. T. 13. As i read that letter and thought of the thou Sands of Iowa farms where Good help is wanted badly it occurred to me that i could not perform a greater service to some Reader at the same time i was helping an apparently very worthy Youns Man than to try to get them together. While on my vacation last summer i heard of a Man who was Selling his farm on which he had been Bora seventy two years ago because of the difficulty of getting Good help and at the same time a letter from my boyhood Home in Ohio told of the serious difficulty which Farmers there were experiencing in hiring satisfactory help. It seems to me a pity that with such splendid Rural Homes As those in the Grain Belt calling for labourers with the Fields White unto the Harvest and with plenty of willing hands to listen to the Call if it could but read them this difficulty exists. T would like to make the Iowa Homestead a Clearing House for just Suek needs that worthy men May find worthy positions and both the buyer and the setter of labor May thereby be benefited. I hold with old John Knox that every Good Citi zen added to the Commonwealth is that much wealth gained and if there Are any of my readers in Iowa As i am sure there must be who need such a Man and family As described in the letter above and if they will address a response to a. T. Care of James m. Pierce Des Moines Iowa i will fee that in passing it along to the Young Man i have performed not Only a service to each of them but also possibly added to the state another citizen. I

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