BIOGRAPHICAL 27 



associates, and he lived the life of the true gentleman and 

 friend. 



He was a Protestant and a member of the Episcopal 

 Church, but Father Loftus, of St. Mary's Catholic Church 

 of Oskaloosa, did not hesitate to pay him this tribute : 



John F. Lacey in his life and in his death has been visibly 

 and signally dealt with of God. He blessed him with a high 

 purpose, an ambition to live a noble life. God blessed him in 

 his search for material out of which to construct the edifice of 

 that life. . . The very suddenness of his death, coming with 

 the sure swiftness and brilliancy of the lightning flash, rifted 

 the clouds that obscured our view, pulled back the curtains and 

 we beheld in all the refulgence of transfiguration, Lacey, as he 

 was before his God, the perfect master piece of the highest and 

 noblest in American life. 



Thus the Clinton Herald : 



With the sudden and unexpected death of John Fletcher 

 Lacey there passed from the world of activities one of Iowa's 

 grandest men. His death will bring universal sorrow and will 

 be mourned as is the death of all good and great men. For half 

 a century he has played an important part in the making of the 

 history of this state. Few men have done more for it ; few men 

 will be remembered with greater reverence. 



Iowa City Citizen : 



That Major Lacey was one of the ablest congressmen Iowa has 

 sent to Washington is conceded. As a debater he had few equals. 

 If he leaned to what seemed conservation in his later years it 

 was not from any lack of courage or progressive ideas, but 

 merely from the habit of considering good what he had helped 

 to fashion and believed to be based on sound and enduring prin- 

 ciples. 



Cedar Rapids Republican : 



Major Lacey is dead. He was a man of varied talents and 

 many activities; a man of tender heart and strong mind. The 

 men of the Civil War period knew him as a fine soldier, cour- 

 ageous and devoted; the lawyers of Iowa knew him as an op- 



