308 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Here today we meet without discussing political or re- 

 ligious creed, and commemorate the generation that 

 founded the state of Iowa. 



In the old world the first inhabitants of mountain re- 

 gions believed in many gods ; each cloud, as it gathered 

 upon a mountain peak, and spoke in thunder to the dis- 

 tant clouds, was peopled by mountaineers in their my- 

 thology with a separate god. Each valley, lake, and cavern 

 had its ruling spirit. But on the plains of Asia the arch- 

 ing sky and the level earth brought up the thought of 

 unity, and the one God of revelation there found ready 

 believers. 



By the Indian, who first inhabited the plains of Amer- 

 ica, the great spirit was looked upon as controlling every- 

 thing. That spirit of unity in all nations prevails among 

 the Indians of the plains today. 



The first settlers of this county are no longer numer- 

 ous, neither are they all dead. Many persons present 

 were born before this city was founded. Measuring time 

 by events, rather than by years, it is wonderful, indeed, 

 what these old settlers have seen. The old man born in 

 1809 is only eighty-six years of age. He was born the 

 same year with Lincoln, whose martyrdom occurred 

 thirty years ago ; and with Gladstone, who is still a pow- 

 er in English affairs. The lives of these men stretch 

 back to the days when Napoleon was in all his glory. 



The younger generation will recollect when Italy was a 

 chaos of little principalities, and Germany an aggrega- 

 tion of little kingdoms. He will recollect when Mason 

 and Dixon's line divided this country into rival sections, 

 a line no longer referred to, except in history. 



The records of the first settlers of other lands have 

 been made centuries after the events which they purport 

 to record. But the settlers of this region are involved in 

 none of the myths of fable. The European settlers sailed 



