The Iowans 1900 Atlantic

8/3/2019 The Iowans 1900 Atlantic

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-/tsi^bdTHE

ATLANTIC MONTHLYA MAGAZINE OF

iliterature^ |j>cience, &rt, ana politics

VOLUME LXXXYI

BOSTON AND NEW YOEKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYftifcer^ifce $rc, Camfcritige

. 1900


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The lowans. 195

THE IOWANS.

THERE is, when one comes to thinkseriously about it, a certain resemblancebetween the land of the lowans and Cap-tain Lemuel Gulliver's flying island ofLaputa. For as Laputa drifted fromone realm of earth to another, so the landof the lowans has passed by legal processfrom Spain to France, from France toSpain, then back to France, and thenceto America ; and once within our borders,has flitted through Louisiana, Missouri,and Wisconsin.But Helen, whose tastes are submarine

rather than celestial, likens the HawkeyeState to a delicate sea sponge. Thoughthe sponge, in its tender youth, frolicsabout among its restless, many-eyed andmany - fingered deep - water playmates,it chooses, upon reaching years of dis-cretion, some pleasant weed-grown cragfor its abiding place, and thenceforwardvegetates. And so, when your vagabondIowa at last found rest, it began an evo-lution quite radically different from itsjuvenile, frivolous past. Helen is right ;for what American commonwealth showsto-day a firmer stability, a more judiciousserenity, a calmer conservatism ?Two breeds of migrant men have madethe West, the seven-league-booters andthe little-by-littlers. Early Iowa invitedthe latter class, not the former. Fewpioneer plainsmen came far, or came withthe spirit of rovers. Trekking from In-diana or Illinois, bent upon finding cheaplands, anxious to escape competition, theysought the same chances for frontier for-tune-building which had once enrichedtheir elders. Iowa was therefore a hugeoverflow meeting, thronged with the sec-ond generation of middle - Westerners.Quite naturally, then, the state lacked theera of gorgeous desperado jollity whichfell to the farthest West. It began most

commonplace. Sensible people merelywent there and lived.And why should they not ? Therelies "our Mesopotamia." The Fatherof Waters courses beneath the bluffs ofits eastern borders. The Great Muddybounds it upon the west. Consider thefertility of those fifty-five thousand squaremiles, where the glaciers, scraping theancient soil down to bed rock, broughtrich selected loams from the great North-west, and spread them out in a continuouslayer from a foot to three hundred feetdeep, until there is scarcely so much asan acre of waste land in the state, andthen, to be sure, you say " Mesopotamia "in good faith, and call it, moreover, nogaudy-tinted figure. Besides, just thinkof the climate ! Here are almost tropicalconditions for farming ; nor need anyyeoman fear the hot wind which wreaksits havoc in Kansas and Nebraska. InIowa, the real danger would be excessof rain, not the stint of it ; and Iowaedges the arid region. To merit of soiland sun was added the charm of purebeauty. Very lovely at sunset is the openprairie, when the air is so absolutelyclear, and the spacious world so happy,meadow larks singing, prairie chick-ens thumping and booming, and duckssquawking over the flushed pools andlittle lakes ; and in springtime it is love-liest of all, for then come daisies, thewhite and the yellow ; fragile bloodroot ;sweet William, white or red ; cool liliesthat love the ponds, and oh the deep reddappled lilies of the prairie ! But per-chance the chief lure was this : no fellowhad legally any business whatever to gothere. Iowa was Indian property. Hadnot the miners of Dubuque been oncerouted back across the Mississippi at themuzzle of honest Jeff Davis's blunder-buss ? And had not Jeff Davis been sentto protect the red man from the white


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196 The lowans.man ? Or where, indeed, were those pre-cious homestead statutes, upon whosesole sanction lay based the solemn rightof settlement ? Iowa, like the major por-tion of the middle West, was peopled farin advance of the legislation which gaveit respectability. The case so harried thesoul of John C. Calhoun that he coun-seled a military occupation.The year 1838, however, saw Iowaformally turned territory, and then youhad edicts engrossed and enacted. Youhad also a most engaging disregard ofthose edicts. For an " absent - mindedbeggar " is your pigeon-shooting, rabbit-hunting little-by-littler, who, in blissfuloblivion of the spread-eagle sovereigntyat Washington, made laws of his own.Knots of settlers established neighbor-hood clubs, with rules relating to home-stead rights, the building of schoolhouses,the constructing of highways, the arch-ing of bridges. Sometimes they evenpunished misbehavior. Here, then, wasa truly Mormonite establishment, im-perium in imperio, a fantastically un-American order, or disorder. What todo ? " Aha," said that pleasant old gen-tleman with the stars in his jacket andthe stripes in his trousers, " I '11 have myway yet. I do therefore bid and com-mand that whatsoever these sturdy pi-oneers of mine have wrought or accom-plished be solemnly recognized and sanc-tioned ! " If the people would not obeythe law, the law must obey the people.So the Eden of Iowa was laid open toall, such an Eden, when the truth istold, as few had fancied. For the ear-ly newcomers, accustomed to timberedlands, nested themselves in the " brush."The prairie, they said, was the GreatAmerican Desert When, later, the prai-rie first felt the plough, all skeptics tookthe same doubt upon their tongues." How will you fence it? " they queried.Surely a ponderous question ! The fencesof our American farming countries havecost more than the land itself. Hereposts and boards must be fetched from

far. Value would therefore outvie utili-ty. But in good season a clever fellowcontrived to twist barbs into a strand ofwire. Then an eager throng poured outacross the plains.

It was, upon the whole, an easy life,this Iowa pioneering. Crops flourished.Villages sprang blithely into being. Iso-lation was trying, of course, yet not forlong. Prairie fires were more serious.The chief hardship, however, was thedifficulty of transportation ; indeed, itwas not until 1856, when Iowa had beenfor ten years a sovereign state, that thefirst locomotive crossed the MississippiRiver. With that dawned the day ofgreat things, the moving of vast har-vests, the building of many cities, the allbut incalculable growth of a cheerful,prosperous, contented population.But it is not good for men that theyshould be too happy, and the lowans, inthe midst of their rainbow-mantled fe-licity, sinned a great sin. They did asthe Yankee farmer has done wherever,in this goodly land of ours, he has sethand to plough or spade to clod. Heknows not how to feed the soil while thesoil feeds him. He will pillage his acresfor swift returns, confident that when theevil days have befallen, and the droughtand the chinch bug and the grasshopperhave become a burden, he can move yetfurther westward to rob God's earthanew. Cheerful, the boast of " rich blackloam with its inexhaustible fertility," butwheat, oats, and flax, nevertheless, sappedthe strength from the land, and therewent up a wail from all the people, say-ing, " What shall we do to be saved ? "Then Secretary Wilson, "Father"

Clarkson, and " Uncle Henry " Wallace,made answer in a forcible though sadlyunrhetorical phrase which has since be-come proverbial. " Go to grass," saidthey. "Go to grass, raise cows to eatit, and make butter for the nations ! "The lowans obeyed. And proved the ad-monition. Plant your field with cloverevery fourth year, and the clover will


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The lowans. 197restore to the soil what your crops tookfrom it. You plough it in two inches,you rub your hands with glee as it ab-sorbs pure nitrogen from the atmosphere,you feed your cattle upon it, and whenits roots have long enough been busy let-ting air and water down into the earth,you come upon it (quite as Robbie Burnscame upon his " wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower ") to " whelm it o'er " withthe ploughshare, and bury it deep in themould. That puts back the exhaustedhumus. And I dare say that if you looksharp enough, you will see that there isnothing but four -leaved clover in theHawkeye State." Going to grass " had a further advan-tage. It outwitted the railroads. De-spite their enormous increase in popula-tion and in wealth, the lowans to-dayship fewer carloads of freight than theydid twenty years ago ; and that is be-cause they feed their produce to stock,and freight it away in the condensedform of grunting swine and stampingcattle. If the railroads suffered in con-sequence, the lowans had no pity uponthem. Why should they ? It was notwithout significance that the Inter-StateCommerce Law should be carried throughthe Senate by loyal lowans. Think oftheir grievances ! Cattle were broughtfrom the remote West to Chicago forfifty dollars a carload, while the rail-roads demanded seventy dollars for trans-porting a similar herd from western Iowato Chicago ; whereas forty-five dollarspaid for the long haul from Omaha orKansas City to Chicago, seventy-two dol-lars would scarce meet the cost of theshort haul from western Iowa ; and thecars thus favored or slighted by con-scienceless discrimination might be cou-pled end to end in the same train, and con-signed to the same man. Surely thereare certain oxgoads, against which it iseasier to kick than not to kick, and thelowans accordingly gave vent to theirwrath. Since then, ill content with merelegal redress, they have applied still an-

other stinging thong to the railways.Chicago, they say, is by no means an in-dispensable luxury. Why not Galves-ton ? If Europe is the final destination ofIowa's glossy shorthorns and Galloways,then one need only remind one's selfthat Des Moines lies two hundred andthirty miles nearer to Galveston than toNew York, in order to see the advantageof the southern route. So the lowansgrin at their ancient foes, and chucklewith mellow satisfaction as they watch theeastern railroads shortening their curves,balancing their roadbeds, providing heavi-er rails, larger cars, and stouter engines,and courting by every means, known orunknown, the " wreathed smiles " oftheir aforetime vassals.Beyond the luck of the fragrant cloverand the zest of the fight with the railway

barons, observe what further befell whenthe lowans turned to grass - growing.Population declined. Dairy and stockfarmers bought out their neighbors, andthose neighbors moved farther west to es-tablish themselves anew. Towns former-ly fattened by rural trade grew gauntand lean. A rigid process of social orindustrial selection set in. As a naturalresult, the whole state of Iowa becamemost dismally uniform in aspect andcharacter.

"It is all one," says Helen, "theway of a tourist in Iowa and the wayof a sailor man at sea. You wake up "'(and here I detect literary dependenceupon Charles Dudley Warner) " youwake up morning after morning to findyourself nowhere in particular."And if this is what came of " going tograss," note patiently the next admoni-tion of those fatherly bishops of hus-bandry. " Go to grain," said they.

n." Happy that people who have no his-

tory." From prairie grass to wheat,from wheat to clover, from clover tocorn, such are the short and simpleannals of the lowans.


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198 The lowans.Deprived of due opportunity for the

exercise of a genius for historical sci-ence, the lowans increase their mentalcultivation by the practice of elementaryarithmetic. Whereas an Ohioan beginsthe new day by intoning a list of thenational heroes whom his state has pro-duced in years gone by, faithful lowansdevote a still hour to the precise calcula-tion of the amount of corn annually raisedwithin the borders of their modern Me-sopotamia ; and well they may ! Whatwith their eight and a half millions ofcorn-sown acres, their corn harvest ofthree hundred million bushels, their tow-ered corn palaces and hilarious corn car-nivals, I think Helen had fully half thefact when she said, " The motto of Iowashould be ' Cornucopia,' plenty ofcorn."

There is also wheat, and beside wheata rich store of oats and of barley, of ryeand of flax. But corn leads ; and thecorn feeds cows. Uncle Henry Wallace,who is, upon the whole, the most delight-ful Hawkeye of them all, peers at youslyly through the smoke of his Pittsburgstogy, and propounds the true philoso-phy of cow feed. At the age of thirtymonths, it seems, the Iowa cow should begradually withdrawn from her favoriteblue grass and clover, and tempted withstalks of corn; then must one serve" corn in the ear ; " toward spring youmay surprise her with shell corn, and ofcourse you will add a little oil meal " toput the bloom on her ; " and then alas,and then ! Eighty per cent of the corngrown in Iowa is devoted to just suchpreparation for pathetic denouements.Nor is that the only tragedy. Whereverin Iowa you see cattle nibbling at largeamong the corn, you see also a busydrove of black swine. Those, beggingpardon of good Jean Francois, are TheGleaners. Save for their gleaning thecows could never fare so daintily, as itis only by turning their crumbs into porkthat it pays to feed cattle on corn.Which for the present hour makes glad

the heart of the porker, though to-mor-row " this little pig goes to market."Your happy lowan, lost in a rapturouscontemplation of the vast agricultural im-portance of that "greatest state in theUnion," will cross himself before what hecalls " our dairy interests." I acquiesce.Ah yes, there are certainly fully a thou-sand cooperative creameries in Iowa.Helen pictures Iowa as holding a yel-low blossom beneath the national chinand inquiring whether the Americaneagle " likes butter." The lowans seemalso so to think, for they boast that Iowahas " more farm separators than any oth-er state." And a thoroughly miraculouscontrivance is the farm separator. Youpour in the milk, you set a sheep a-tram-pling in a treadmill, the wheels go whiz-zing, and presto ! out spurts yellow creamat one spigot, and gushing skim milk atanother, all laws of nature to the con-trary notwithstanding. But enough ofthese dairy interests. The world is soconstituted that there is nothing underheaven so hopelessly devoid of interestas an " interest."

Helen once attempted to put all Scot-land into five words Scott, Burns,heather, whiskey, and religion. In Iowayou pack the thing tighter. Three nounsare enough : corn, cow, and hog ! Butas in Scotland a hundred afterthoughtscome clamoring for admission, and fivewords will never suffice, so in Iowa youmake tardy concession to many an eagerclaimant. Great is the Iowa hen ; andif it be true that the geese saved Rome,the Hawkeye hens could in any time ofneed save sunny Iowa. Equally great isthe Iowa goat. Problem : to clear awaybrush. Answer : bring goats. Not onlydo those picturesque Angoras reduce thebrush as if fire had gone through it, butthey afterwards contribute their plenti-ful fleece to the loom at fully half theprice of sheep's wool. Great, too, is theIowa pigeon. At Osage they will showyou a township of pigeon houses four acresin area. And of what use are pigeons ?


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The lowans. 199Pray what, think you, is the ornithologi-cal basis of quail on toast ? But greatereven than hen, goat, or pigeon is thatvenerable by-product of middle Westernagriculture, the retired farmer.Now when I consider the retired farm-er, I think of the preacher who intro-duced a florid passage in his prayer bysaying, " Paradoxical ftiough it mayseem to Thee, Lord." For while inNew England retirement means defeat,in Iowa it means triumph ; whereas inNew England the rush of the young tothe city leaves the old folks in chill lone-liness upon the farmstead, in Iowa theold folks come to town, and leave theirsturdy sons to till their acres. In NewEngland the urban drift is a strugglefor self-preservation ; in Iowa, a move-ment toward luxury, refinement, and re-poseful ease. I saw it first in DesMoines, where you may go a long andcrooked mile among the cheery dwell-ings of wealthy retired farmers. Youknow them by their neat little barns(brown Dobbin has still the granger'saffectionate personal care) ; by " shops "in the yards, where the granger tinkershis harness, or operates upon flexible ta-bles and chairs, or penetrates the inmostmysteries of the eight-day clock ; andshould you seek quarters in that pleasingregion, you may tread your long andcrooked mile in fruitless search for ahouse with a bathroom. Chat with thetradesmen and learn the ways of thisyeoman emeritus. "A monstrous nui-sance ! " say they. " Stingy enough tobite a penny open," he trots nimblyfrom store to store, planting elbows byturn upon a hundred bargain countersand purchasing nothing but " leaders."Or consult the city fathers. " A veryChinese wall of conservatism ! " they cry." He and his ilk would check every ef-fort toward public advancement."

But, for ardent indignation, commendme to the manufacturer. "What wewant," says he, " is capital ; and the re-tired farmer prefers to leave his money-

bag at the banker's rather than hazard amore ambitious venture." True. Andwhat after all has the farmer to show ?A little blue book in a little tin box.

Nevertheless, when you meet Govern-or Shaw, he will surely say : " Have youseen the view looking south from thedome of the Capitol ? Finest view inIowa save one ! "

" And what is that one ? " you ask." The view looking north."And I know what delights the gov-ernor's eye. It is not the rippling river,it is not the city with its myriad soaringspires, it is not the slopes of the valleynor the gently rolling prairie land be-yond. No : it is the gloomy, murky, sun-enveiling cloud of soot that hangs overDes Moines. That and the countlessspurts of white steam that shoot up intoit foretell the industrial future of thecommonwealth. Here and in every partof Iowa the roar and grate of machinerybegin to mingle with the homely soundsof pasture and barnyard. No wonder :half the state is underlaid with coal.What matter, then, that the ladies of DesMoines must sew their ball dresses intobags to keep them from the soot ; whatmatter that the beauties of Des Moineshave twisted their pretty chins awry inattempts to blow cinders from off theirpretty foreheads ; what matter that youcough like the people of Butte in yourvain effort to catch a breath of some-thing better than bitumen ? " No smoke-consumers ? " I gasped. " Sir," said thelowans, "every citizen is a smoke-con-sumer ! "Now the value of smoke is its charmfor the factory. Not long ago a Bostonpreacher wrote letters to absentee pew-holders, inquiring why men so compla-cently deprived themselves of the privi-leges of the sanctuary ; and one of theanswers was this : " Men don't like togo where they can't smoke." Factories,it seems, are not only very human, butvery masculine. So, in Des Moines atleast, the children of this world are wiser


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200 The, lowans.than the children of light. Nor is licenseto smoke the sole art of their wooing.Says a certain Mr. Hubbell, speaking fora company in Des Moines : " We standready to erect a building for any repu-table company that has the backing tocarry on its business during next year.To any firm that will erect a permanentbuilding on the railroad tracks we willgive free rent for ten years, with rent af-ter that period to be at the rate of fourper cent per annum on the value of theground. We propose to do anything pos-sible to encourage new manufactories inDes Moines, and to induce the old onesto increase their facilities. We want tobuild up Des Moines, and are offeringthese inducements for that purpose."Small need, methinks, of such plentifulperspiration. For raw material, thelowans have clay, they have corn, theyhave leather, they have wool ; these, withcheap fuel, can be turned into brick andtile, starch, boots and gloves, and all sortsof woven fabrics. Hence, adding themournful packing of reluctant little pigs,you have innumerable pillars of swirlingblack smoke, many at Des Moines,many more at Dubuque and Davenport,not to mention Fort Dodge, Ottumwa,Sioux City, and a score of other places.Yes, and when raw material is made upinto things to eat and to wear and to use,the lowans easily get them to market.Scarce any other state in the Union is sototally netted over with railroads. In-deed, your rocking carriage is continu-ally bumping across intersecting tracks,avoiding branches or " plugs," and rum-bling past the heavily loaded trains ofcompeting companies ; and nowhere willyou find an lowan hamlet or pocketbor-ough more than ten miles from some tinystation. The year 1899 witnessed thecompletion of three hundred leagues ofentirely new steel roadway. Moreover,the buyers of finished wares are manyand rich, though as yet a trifle timorous.Beside their manufacturing enter-prises the lowans are heaping up wealth

by mining and lumbering. The ancient" mineral holes " of Dubuque still yieldtheir store of gleaming lead ore, and thedull waste material, so long called worth-less, has lately turned out to be zinc. Andas for the lumber trade, the forests ofWisconsin and Minnesota send huge raftsdownstream, to be cut into planks by thesinging saws of the thriving MississippiRiver towns.Very kind, then, is the heaven above,and the earth beneath, and the minerals

under the earth. But what of the queenof the air ? Lest the people of Iowashould grow too proud, the gods haveprepared them a foe.

in.The month, we will say, is June, the

day excessively warm, the hour a littlepast noon. Mirages spectres of for-ests, lakes, and cities float in the quiv-ering air above the prairie. The sun'sheat fairly flames out of the earth', send-ing streams of atmospheric torment upinto the sky ; long currents of hot windrush in from the south ; damp, cool cur-rents are drawn by irresistible suctionout of the north. Hour by hour rainclouds are forming. Humidity increasesalmost to suffocation. There is a spaceof shuddering suspense portending theinevitable ; and having waited till now,as if reluctant to play their part, themeeting winds clash, wrangle a moment,and join in a tumultuous dance.Yonder a black cloud bows ominouslyearthward. Look ! It is dropping aninky cone from its under side. A moundof yellow dust leaps up beneath it. Coneand mound stretch toward each other

writhing unite in a whirling pillarand go crashing northeastward acrossthe state. Timid souls dive into "cy-clone caves ; " daredevils pop kodaksat the flying wonder. Pelting rain andhail, darkness, a demoniac roar and howl,a moment of awful demolition, and themonster is gone. The blessed light breaksin once more, and the timid crawl out of


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The lowans. 201their caverns, while away to the north-eastward the bellowing demon is rippingits path across the prairie, filling the airwith uptorn trees, bits of shattered build-ings, and far-flung rubbish.Nothing can possibly exceed the tor-

nado's studied diabolism. By deftness,by cynicism, and by a hideous waggeryit deepens and heightens the effect.That cloudy funnel, hanging and swing-ing like an elephant's trunk, will effectan all but Castilian indirection of aim.From time to time it will bound fromthe earth, and go tearing through theupper air ; then, with an assumption ofinnocent carelessness, it will touch a vil-lage as with gentle finger tips, and wipeit out of existence. And for all its out-ward rant and extravagance, the tornadoinwardly maintains a cynical imperturba-bility, and somehow manages to imparta certain stoical indifference.

After the storm has passed practicalinterest wakes up. Newspaper reporters,with their accustomed sang-froid, inter-view " eyewitnesses." Insurance agentsquietly jot down in their notebooks theevidences of loss and havoc. The clerkof the weather drives by in a buggy,stopping here and there to take photo-graphs of telltale wreckage ; to-morrowhe will begin the supervision of a coldlyscientific investigation, which will securedata for a map showing the exact routeof the tornado, a time-table to record itsprogress, and a minute topographicalstudy, which, by its accurate determina-tion of the forces at play (as illustratedby the " lay " of fallen trees and the di-rection taken by flying debris), will con-stitute a document of permanent value.Humor adds color to tragedy. MichaelAngelo Woolf understood this when hemade his wretched tenement waifs socomical ; Kipling understood it when hewrote Danny Deever. The tornado alsounderstands it. That is why it pickedup a locomotive and stood it on end ina garden, but left a rosebush in that gar-den uninjured by so much as a crum-

pled petal ; that is why it twitched thewater out of every well in town ; thatis why it gathered up half an acre ofmud and plastered it all over the Meth-odist church ; that is why it carried ababy a mile and deposited it unhurt inthe crotch of a tree ; that is why itplucked the feathers from a rooster andstuck them into an oak plank, while theshivering fowl stared and wondered whatnext ! This is the art of the storm : inthe midst of the tempest see " Laughterholding both his sides."So that was the work of a day inJune! Then how, one cannot choosebut ask, are there any lowans left inIowa ? The answer is easy : The stateis so large and the track of the tornadoso narrow that, although there are fouror five " green - bordered twisters" letloose every season, there is always a cap-ital chance of their failing to kill any-body. Furthermore, the tornado's hab-its are fairly well known : the courseis almost invariably from southwest tonortheast ; and you merely curl up inthe southwest corner of your " cyclone "cave and wait. And on the whole thereis very little likelihood that a tornadowill ever come your way. Indeed, youmay insure all your farm buildings forseventy -five cents a year. Mr. J. R.Sage, clerk of the weather for Iowa, saysthat for thirty years he has been tryingto make the acquaintance of a tornado,but that he has " never been able to getnear enough to one to interview it."

IV.I think it was wise Mr. Lecky who

said the Italians owed half their geniusto their earthquakes. John AddingtonSymonds thought that the spirit of theRenascence sprang out of political dis-turbance, wars, sieges, exile, and fac-tional strife. If both are right, and ifterrors, night fears, are good for the soul,then what shall we expect of the lowans ?A priori, much ; empirically, preciouslittle. Their storms are too few.


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202 The lowans.The sober truth is, the lowans are

aii effect in drabs and grays. The stateis too young for quaintness, too old forromance. Its people are so uniformlyrespectable that they will attempt nothingquixotic or piratical ; so prosily conven-tional that if by chance they do anythingunusual, they undo it next day. Therulers of Des Moines framed an ordi-nance to put that charming city to bed :curfew would ring at eleven, and DesMoines must bury its curls in its pillow ;or if not, then any patrolman might or-der any citizen found upon any highwayto stand and deliver. Yet I had no more'than got the thing written down in mynotebook when the mayor annulled it byveto. The state lacks local color, it lacksunique traits or customs, and beyond pro-nouncing itself " loway " it lacks dia-lect. Result? No one has ever beentempted to write a history of Iowa ; noone has ever made Iowa the scene of anovel ; no one has ever found attractivematerial in Iowa for journalistic exploi-tation. You have here a high level, but

as Helen puts it a dead level.Learning, as one soon learns, that thelowans trace their lineage to New Eng-

land at the one extreme and to Missouriat the other, one threads one's way back-ward along the tempting trail of hered-ity, hoping as in Ohio for fascinatingethnological discoveries. But the lowanshad experienced Illinois or Indiana orOhio before entering Iowa, and theirinherited characteristics had become somodified by successive strange environ-ments as to be no longer recognizable.And once settled upon their spacious,wind-blown prairies, those migrant peo-ples so mingled that the resultant Iowawas not a mosaic, but an emulsion. More-over, the uniformity of the prairie it-self contributed to the uniformity of thelowans by destining nearly all to be farm-ers. At the same time it forbade thebuilding of great cities, and it is only inmetropolitan centres that culture reachesits zenith, or depravity its nadir. Given

time enough and the potent influence ofisolation, and your rural community de-velops a picturesque charm of its ownand a rich and mellow individuality ; butIowa is still young, and its people lovenothing so dearly as a little journey byrail. When cattle are sold, the farmermust betake him to Chicago to see thebargain closed ; when wheat goes tomill, he must find his way to Minneapo-lis ; and to-morrow he journeys west-ward to visit his boy in South Dakota, oreastward for a fortnight with the old folksat home. Farm life itself affords abun-dant communication with one's neigh-bors. The cooperative creameries' cartscarry gossip and letters along with thedaily papers ; telephones are thought noextravagance ; the church is everywherea living centre of social intercourse.There also exists a very genial under-standing between country and city. Thatis partly because the city contains somany retired farmers, and so many bank-ers, merchants, and professional menwho have invested their money in agri-cultural interests. In an Iowa towngood citizenship requires the ownershipof a farm, just as in Sapphira, Montana,it involves the maintenance of a ranch" off somewhere " or a costly u hole inthe ground." Still another basis of mu-tual good feeling is the eminent respec-tability of the Iowa farmer, who wearsirreproachable clothes, rides in a stun-ning carriage, and sends his sons anddaughters to be coeducated at Grinnell.The epithet " hayseed " where willyou hear it ? Climb the broad steps oftheir golden -domed State House, passbeneath its pillared portico, traverse itsechoing corridors (where your heels goclick upon polished marble), and look inupon the rulers of the commonwealthand their deputies : almost every man ofthem is farm-bred.The lowans, then, have founded a

great agricultural state, not remarkablein any particular ; or if in any particu-lar it seems remarkable, be sure that


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The lowans. 203that particular is not representative ofIowa. The red - blanketed Indians atTama, the monastery of the Trappistfathers, the communistic settlement atAmana, the silly purists who insist uponsaying " do not " instead of " don't,"and the beautiful young ladies who an-nually serve as conductors on trolleycars and give their earnings for charity,

all these matters are distinctly asidefrom the main trend, which, whetherregarded politically, educationally, re-ligiously, or socially, remains gravelycommonplace, distressingly normal, hope-lessly sane.Think of a state that will build athree-million-dollar state Capitol and notsteal a penny ; fancy an American com-monwealth without a state debt ; con-template, by way of self-abnegation, apublic of two million people electing aRepublican governor every campaign butone, and then tying the hands of theDemocrat so that for all his term hecould do nothing but mope ; considerthat Nebraska bounds Iowa upon thewest, and that Kansas lies not so verymany leagues to the southwest ; andthen think what the lowans mighthave been, and what they are! Still,seeking to relieve their virtues' sombremonochrome, they cultivate just a littlepolitical corruption, bartering senatorialballots for desirable committee enroll-ments, and lending now and then a veryattentive ear to the bell and whistle ofsome wealthy railroad. But when, bymethods fair or foul, the lowans havemade the makers of laws, they manageto frame so tiresomely sensible a body ofenactments that whoever peeps into theirleather-bound tomes will soon enough feelthe dustman playing the mischief withhis eyes and brain. In only two respectsthe legislative procedures of Iowa affordinteresting reading. The state experi-mented with the abolition of the deathpenalty ; it also experimented with pro-hibition ; and as in the former case itreturned to capital punishment, so in the

latter it came at least half the way back,devised a compromise, and called the lawa " mulct." Prohibition set the wholestate a-glimmering with the red andgreen lights of impromptu apothecaries ;what was worse, it caused the coat-tailpockets of the people to bulge with ill-concealed flagons. So the lowans rubbedtheir eyes and considered. And thenhappy thought came the mulct, whichsays in effect: "Thou shalt sell no in-toxicating liquors in any form, shape, orcondition whatsoever ; but whenever thoudost think best to sell them, thou shaltfeel for thy purse and pay dearly."Benissimo ! Prohibition and high licensehave kissed each other.

In matters of education you find a sim-ilar effort at prairie -like avoidance ofextremes. Thanks to the system of pub-lic schools modeled by Horace Mann,there is scarce another state in the Unionwhere so few people are unable to readand write ; on the other hand, there isscarce another state where so soothing ahand is laid upon ambitious scholasticpretensions. Formerly the small andpretentious " universities," so called,and Iowa has its store of those pitifulinstitutions, gowned their graduatesin learned purple ; but in 1886 the StateTeachers' Association defined "college,"and made it very plain that the worldwould be wiser if the number of thoseDotheboys Halls were diminished. Somesought refuge in total extinction ; othersraised their requirements to the standardset by the association ; and a concert ofpowers decreed that the master's degreeshould be conferred only in recognitionof stated studies duly performed, andthat the doctor's degree should not beconferred at all. Good ! By and by thealphabetic trappings of wisdom will be alittle more in keeping ; the lecture plat-form, the library movement, and the east-ward wending of college students arehaving their effect. But this I say atperil of my ease, recalling the discomfi-ture of a recent lecturer in an Iowa city.


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204 The lowans.*' You found an appreciative audience,"said the mayor, by way of congratulation,next morning. "Oh, well ah, yousee," replied the man of genius, " I didn't give you my best, you know ; I triedto come right down to your level ! " AndI dare say that when that lecturer returnsto the Hawkeye State no salvos of salutewill greet him.

Religiously, and the lowans troopfaithfully to service, the state displaysa happy exuberance of consecrated com-mon sense. Not only have certain de-nominations shown a tendency to estab-lish spheres of influence instead of clash-ing in unbrotherly zeal for precedence,but each has manifested a desire so tomodify its peculiarities as best to adaptitself to the needs of a sober-minded peo-ple. The Adventists, for aught I canlearn, very rarely assemble in robes ofwhite to ascend into heaven ; the Mor-mons at Lamoni decry the polygamouspropensities of their Utah brethren ; andthat charmingly peculiar people, the Gur-neyite Quakers, yield acquiescence to thepopular demand for modernization byestablishing a salaried clergy, by dis-carding their former quaintness of dress,and by building organs in their churches.Penn College, despite its Friendly beliefand practice, supports a football team,and we saw it play. " Aha," quoth Hel-en, " I know what that will be like ! "She looked for silent signals ; the ball inplay only when the spirit moved ; a gen-tly polite deference as a survival of non-resistance ; and a frequent ejaculation of" Does thee mind if I slug thou ? " Butno ; those stalwart youths fell upon DrakeUniversity with intent to kill. I think,too, that I have seen in Iowa a very gen-eral willingness to soften the rigor of old-time morality. Little remains of the Pu-ritanic code, save only in the observanceof the Lord's Day. The lowans haveno Sunday trains except on main lines,and they go without Monday morningpapers that the newspaper folk may resttheir weary brains upon the Sabbath.

Sane in their political, educational,and religious activities, the lowans main-tain a thoroughly consistent attitude to-ward social questions. The MissouriRiver, which separates them from thepopulistic Nebraskans, is a hundred mileswide. The only proletarian uprisingever known in Iowa was the transit ofKelley's army, which swept across thestate on its way to join the meteoricCoxey. Professor George D. Herron,late of Iowa College, complains that hisgospel of Christian socialism has merelyhardened the hearts of the lowans. Inshort, an lowan is a man who regardsthis world as on the whole a desirableplace of residence, and if by any chancehe turns Herronite he ceases to be anlowan. On Boston Common I met suchan exile from Iowa, and to him I said,"What are you doing in Massachu-setts ? " Whereupon the socialist re-plied, " Working my head off to hastenthe coming of I don't know what ! "Then I knew why he left Iowa, for thelowans are bound that nothing shall behastened. A well-fed, respectable, lei-surely, comfortable people, are they not ?The street cars in Des Moines are fittedwith solid doors to keep you from mount-ing in a hurry, yet no one protests. Mybaggage master said, " Yes, I '11 checkyour trunk so you won't see it for amonth."

It is perhaps very fortunate that thelowans are not inviting the existing so-cial order to crumble about their ears ;at all events, it is certainly very natural.A life so uniform and so prosperous pro-duces few original spirits, few blather-skites or demagogues, few sowers andreapers of rebellion. At the same time,however, it breeds few amazing individ-uals of any sort. Were it fair to com-pare Iowa with Ohio, which is three timesas old and twice as populous, I should sayto the lowans, " Where are your presi-dents, your painters, your sculptors, yournovelists, your poets ? " It was, I fear,a little too easy to make the state of


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A Difficult Case. 205Iowa, and to-day the lowans are show-ing the lack of that rigorous pioneer dis-cipline which goaded the souls of theOhioans to fine personal achievements.Or who knows but the featureless prai-rie has tended to broaden, rather thanto heighten and deepen, the genius ofthe lowans ? Besides, one must remem-ber that great men are beckoned forthby great events, and nothing at all sig-nificant ever happened in Iowa. Indeed,were I a public event and about to occur,the Hawkeye State is the last place Ishould select for my occurrence. Still,I have read in a famous old book thatthere are diversities of gifts, and that itis the pinnacle of folly to judge by onesole standard. To see the lowans attheir best, go to the national capital,where, if fortune favors, you will meettheir Allisons and Hendersons, their

Hepburns, Gears, and Dollivers. Soundjudgment, judicial sense, and executiveability, these are the talents that liftthem to power, talents neither rare norlittle prized among the lowans.When all is said, it is the merit of themass, not the merit of the individual,the humbler, and for matter of that themere brown-colored virtues, not the blaz-ing, sporadic flashes of genius or prowess,that establish the real greatness of apeople. Unrelieved industry, morality,intelligence, and loyalty make very mel-ancholy material for literary or artistictreatment ; but when your soul is bentupon finding a happy augury for yourcountry's future, what better can youseek ? Happily this state of Iowa, sotypical of the broad, fertile, populousvalley of the upper Mississippi, standsrepresentative of the bulk of our people.

Rollin Lynde Hartt.

A DIFFICULT CASE.IN TWO PARTS. PART SECOND.

IX.MRS. EWBERT heard old Hilbrook be-

gin at once in a high senile key withoutany form of response to her husband'sgreeting : " There was one thing you saidto-day that I 've been thinkin' over, andI 've come down to talk with you aboutit."

" Yes ? " Ewbertqueried submissive-ly, though he was aware of being quite

as fagged as his wife accused him of be-ing, after he spoke." Yes," Hilbrook returned. " I guessI ha'n't been exactly up and down withmyself. I guess I 've been playing fastand loose with myself. I guess you 'reright about my wantin' to have enoughconsciousness to enjoy my unconscious-ness," and the old gentleman gave a laugh

of rather weird enjoyment." There are

things," he resumed seriously, " that aredeeper in us than anything we call our-selves. I supposed I had gone to the bot-tom, but I guess I had n't. All the whilethere was something down there that Ihad n't got at ; but you reached it andtouched it, and now I know it 's there.I don't know but it 's my Soul that 'sbeen havin' its say all the time, and menot listenin'. I guess you made yourpoint."Ewbert was still not so sure of that.He had thrown out that hasty suggestionwithout much faith in it at the time, andhis faith in it had not grown since." I 'm glad," he began, but Hilbrookpressed on as if he had not spoken." I guess we 're built like an onion,"he said, with a severity that forbade

The Iowans 1900 Atlantic

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