BIOGRAPHICAL 9 



the Major, "we had better come back this evening." 

 They went back and worked until eleven o'clock. The 

 Major said he could meet him at the office in the morning 

 at seven o'clock, as the court opened at nine. 



That capacity for work Major Lacey also carried into 

 his recreation. His recreation consisted in his love for 

 literature and love of travel. Although not a college 

 graduate, Major Lacey, in the best sense of the word, was 

 a learned man. He turned for rest from his law work to 

 the literature of this and preceding ages, and he became 

 a scholar in the truest sense of the word. His vacations 

 were generally occupied in travel and, while he had visit- 

 ed Europe, he knew the United States as few men have 

 known it. He had visited every state and territory in the 

 American Union, as well as Alaska and its foreign pos- 

 sessions. He acquainted himself by personal investiga- 

 tion with substantially every one of the national parks 

 and Indian reservations, and this habit of travel resulted 

 in his early and constant interest in the preservation, for 

 the use of coming generations, of those natural wonders 

 in which our country abounds, and, as a result of these 

 travels, he fathered and, with tireless energy, secured the 

 enactment of laws which have preserved for all time many 

 of these natural wonders, including not only Yellowstone 

 Park, but the petrified forests of Arizona, Crater Lake 

 in Oregon, and Yosemite Park in California. 



In the community in which Major Lacey lived he was 

 a part of its life. There was no movement in the com- 

 munity of which he was not one of its leaders. It was 

 not the case of a man being too big for a small town ; he 

 was one of us and with us in every good work. He was 

 one of the most willing men to give up his time or money 

 for any public purpose. If it was possible for him to 

 grant requests for addresses in schools, colleges, high 

 schools, and on Grand Army and old settlers' occasions, 



