USA > Iowa > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 26
USA > Illinois > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 26
USA > Missouri > Report of the organization and first reunion of the Tri-State Old Settlers' Association of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, 1884 > Part 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
With this progress in the past, and all these elements, which promote the growth of States, what prophetic vision can forecast the future greatness of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa ! As the centuries pass, and our country fills up the full measure of its greatness, these three States, lying mid- way between the British possessions and the Gulf-midway across the continent-midway between the two oceans- midway between the eastern and western mountain ranges -will be the seat of its empire, and the centre of its wealth, population, dominion and glory. It is scarcely a figure of speech to call them sovereign queens. They are invested with more than queenly majesty and power. They are heirs to a great heritage of rule and dominion. They are beauti- ful and radiant with the light of freedom. They were born to a high destiny of imperishable hopes. Surely they are worthy of a right royal welcome. To all their sons and daughters alike, who have honored us with their presence here to-day, we tender the hospitalities of our city, and extend a most cordial welcome.
35
TRI STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
" Ladies and Gentlemen : I have the pleasure of intro- ducing to you a gentleman from the great prairie State of Illinois. A gentleman who has been identified with the interests of that State from the hour of her introduction into the Union-Judge Matheny, of Springfield."
ADDRESS OF JUDGE JAS. II. MATHIENY.
My Friends : I was called over here about a year ago and was pressed into the service. I was picked up as a sort of volunteer and I came wholly unprepared-at least in the character of the gentlemen who preceded me. They all had good, able, well prepared, written addresses, but I did not have last year, nor have I this year.
I undertook that thing of writing out my speech once away back in Illinois, when I was about 21 years of age. I had been invited to make a 4th of July oration. I thought then that I could make a good speech, thought I knew a great deal, but I have long ago gotten over that idea. However, I wrote out my speech, read it over carefully, copied and recopied it until I thought I could read it just perfectly.
The day came around and it was a beautiful day. There was not a cloud in the heavens, a great crowd had gathered and I had my speech spread out before me ready to give it, as I thought in splendid style. I got started off and was saying "It was just seventy years ago" when along came a little infernal baby cyclone, scooped down and gathered up my loose sheets of paper and scattered that speech to all creation. Since then I have never written out my speeches. However, just at that time I did not know what to do, but there was an old hunter friend of mine out there in the crowd and he sung out "let her go, Jim, shoot off-hand."
I took his advice, and so far as speech making is con- cerned, I have been shooting " off-hand " ever since. I miss the mark sometimes, I expect, but I shoot that way all the same. I am not in a very good condition to-day for shoot- ing-off-hand or any other way-but I don't intend to make any excuse. There have been many picnics of the old settlers over in our part of the country, many gatherings and many good times in which I had to take part.
Now I am going to tell you a story. And in the first place, let me say that its an old story. If anybody attempts
36
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
to tell a new story at any of the old settlers' meetings over our way, it is the standing order to shoot him on the spot. I am not telling this as a story but as an illustration. You can see the difference between a story and an illustration, can't you ? If you can't, it is your fault, not mine. [Laughter.] It is about the good old times when the Methodist circuit riders were doing their work. They tell a story about a good old man who started out, preaching like the rest of the circuit riders. He didn't take purse or scrip but took his chances of getting something to eat. This brother started out early one morning. He didn't like the place where he had stayed all night so he started early so that he might get breakfast some place else. He had heard of a good old Presbyterian lady four or five miles off and he started over to her place in hopes of finding a good break- fast. Well, he rode on and when he got to her house, hc says to her "I have not had any breakfast, but I will tell you right now that I have no money."
The old lady says : "Well, that don't make any differ- ence, get right off your horse and come in." She went to work and got him a magnificent breakfast. After breakfast he says to her : "I will pray for any particular blessing that you may want." Now it so happened that there had been a terrible drouth that summer and it was still very dry and all parched up, The old lady had a truck patch on which her living depended. So the old lady very naturally thought of that truck patch and she told the brother she wished he would pray for rain on that garden of hers. Well, of course, he got down on his knees and prayed for rain on that truck patch. He prayed long and earnestly and then he mounted his horse and rode on. After he was gone the old lady looked out and saw a cloud. She went back and put the dishes in the cupboard and then went to the door and looked again, and the cloud had grown considerably. Then she went back and swept up everywhere and about that time the thunder and rain came and winds roared and likely to have blown the door in on the old lady. After the storm was over the sun came out bright and clear and finally the old lady ventured to slip out to view her patch. There were the beans and the corn leveled with the ground and everything torn up generally.
·
37
TRI-STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
The good old lady looked at the ruin and then she said, "That's always the way with those brother Methodists. They always overdo it."
So have I been overdoing it in the way of speechmaking. I don't know why it was, exactly, that this committee insisted on my coming back here. I think the committee must be ashamed of its work-for it is not here. I don't know whether they want to intimate that there are no other speakers over in Illinois or not. If they do, they are mis- taken. They are thick over there, as thick and plenty as potatoes. However, I am here to respond for the State of Illinois. Another thing I want to say. I am getting a little diffident about speech-making. If I was good looking like my friend Gear, I would not care. I used to think that some day I would improve in my looks, for I knew there was plenty of room for improvement. Away back when I was young I had a sweetheart, and I just thought that the sun was made to shine on her. I thought the flowers had nothing to do but to bloom for her to see. But at last we grew up and were separated. Her daddy heard of Iowa and moved over here. And I remember how I rested on the old gate and watched the ox team fading away off down the road and for about nine days after that I thought that everything was done for me. But time is a great healer in that particular, as you old fellows all know. Last summer she came back to Sangamon county. She had married long ago away out here in Iowa and helped to populate the country. Among her other friends she thought of me, and, of course, came around. One day I was sitting in my office when the door suddenly opened. She looked in but there was nobody there she knew and she started back with an air of disappointment. But I had recognized her at once and sung out, "Come in, Kate, it's all right." Then she looked straight at me and says : "Well, Jim, you were ugly enough when we were young, but the Lord have mercy on you now."
My friends, we are all here to-day to celebrate an old settlers' meeting, and you young friends must pardon us if we love to linger over the happenings of the past. There is something about the old cabin, the old fire-place, and the old spinning wheels that we old fellows can't forget. I don't propose, for one, to try to forget them. Not that they
38
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
would do now. Not that they would suit this advanced age, by any means, but still the old memories that cluster around the old homes and the old times, when many of you were boys and girls, are exceedingly pleasant recollections and you must forgive us if we talk of these things that we all once loved. I was born in this State-no not in this State, this is Iowa, but in Illinois. I was born just thirty days before the State of Illinois, and I have been a part and parcel of that State from that day to this. I have watched its wondrous advance-taken part in its growth and all that constitutes the glory and grandeur of that State. I remem- ber it when there was no more than 25,000 people in it, and now there is largely .over 3,500,000. The toils and the struggles endured by that people can never be described. They have advanced since those days at a rate that has been extraordinary. Their changes have been simply wonderful. In all the great avocations of life there is no comparison now with what they were then.
One of the greatest changes is in this very thing that we are doing here to-day. My friend, Craig, and others here remember how it used to be about public speaking. When I was a boy a good stump orator was a king. And why ? For the simple reason that the great mass of the people were ignorant, if I may use that expression. There were no schools then and no newspapers for the great mass of the people. There was no mode of obtaining information except when some one, who had better opportunities, would take the stand and tell the people what he thought. The stump orator was a king then, but he is so no longer. The newspaper rules in his stead.
It tires me sometimes, over there in Illinois, at our great political gatherings. We have great mass meetings over there, of course, in advocacy of some great position or interest. And what are they ? Nothing but a flaunting of banners ; the braying of brass instruments ; the senseless marchings ; the flashing of torchlights, and the infernal hiss of the torpedoes. What about the speaker ? He is a mere appendage-the clown in the circus or the mountebank in the show. Nobody listens to him nor cares much what he says, knowing full well that if it is worth repeating, the morning paper's will give it in full. The scenes on such occasions are painfully amusing. See the orator mount the
·
39
TRI-STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
platform, "his eye in fine frenzy rolling," his bosom swelling with patriotic emotion and his mind o'erburdened with grand and glorious thoughts. See him pound the air in frantic energy ; howl out his "grand thoughts" with increasing fury, in the vain attempt to rise above the rush and roar around him and at the last ingloriously subside amid the dolorous groanings of the bass drum and the - scream of the "ear-piercing fife."
But it is better now. It is a good change. The people are all becoming intelligent, and you could not humbug them now if you wanted to. The merchant will lay down his yard stick and talk to you learnedly about the silver ques- tion. The mechanic comes home and delves deep into the mysteries of the tariff. The farmer comes to town with his wheat and he goes home with a lot of newspapers. This is a glorious change. There are a thousand other advances that I might refer to, that will show to you, my friends, how favored you ought to consider yourselves that you are living in this age of wonderful advancement. One thing I was reminded of to-day that struck me quite forcibly. Manners have changed so. We have changed in the matter of sociability. This is commendable. I am told that I am in a prohibition State when I get over here in Iowa, but I don't believe I would have thought it in walking up the streets of Keokuk.
You would be truly shocked to hear what took place over in Springfield not a great many years ago. One neighbor over there went to another who was a good old deacon in one of the leading churches and told him he wanted to borrow a gallon or two of whisky. "No," says the deacon, "I can't let you have any for we are going to have prayer meeting to-night and we will need every drop." That old deacon was a good man, but he had not advanced far enough to know that he was dabbling with what was harmful.
Another advancement : Take the great question of education. How wondrous is the change in that particular ! Why, as I told you before, and I may refer to it again, when I was a boy there was no such thing as going to school at all. I never went to. school any. What little learning ! got I took by absorption.
-
.
40
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
We had a schoolmaster or two, possibly three or four, before I went out to work. You see I had to go to work early. My father was poor and I have managed to follow in his foot-steps. We did have occasionally a broken down Yankee come along that way out of money who would take up a subscription school so as to get enough money to take him back east. They could make impressions on our backs but very few on our brains.
But, as you have heard to-day, the country now is dotted over with school-houses, and no wonder that this American people, East and West, are giving birth to the wondrous enterprises that are astonishing the world. No wonder that the telephone and the telegraph and the railroads that are bearing the commerce of the country, are here. Why ? Because the intelligence of the world is at work greater than ever before. Again, in the mode of living what an advance ! When I was a boy, 10, 12, 14 and 15 years old, suppose you went to a meeting of any sort, and what would you see ? . Not such people, such faces as I see now. Not such bright eyes and pictures of physical health. Pale, sallow complected women, and why ? Because of the thousand exposures and privations. And then they didn't know how to live.
I have thought a good deal about mental development in making a great people, but you must first sce to the physical development and then the mental is possible, and the advance of this Western people is greater in nothing than it is in the manner of living. I don't know so well how it is over here in Iowa, but I know that in Illinois if I go to one of these picnics I will find myself invited (and 1 always look out for that) to help cat as fine a dinner with all the delicacies and fine cooking, the pics, the cake, the bread, as can be found at any hotel in Chicago.
People in this western country have found out how to live. The school-master is so enlarging the brain of this people that in a generation or two the sun will shine on no such people as inhabit this Western land of ours. We are a wonderful people. We are a mixture, and I have faith in what we will be and in humanity in general. I believe the Almighty when He made man and looked on His work and pronounced it good, knew what He was talking about. You hear some people growling about the world not growing
41
TRI-STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
any better-about its growing worse ; never a thing going right, always something going wrong.
I believe in no such nonsense. The world is getting better every way-physically, intellectually and morally. Better in everything just as God intended it should do. I have no patience with those eternal growlers I was over in Indiana once and I learned a lesson from a little girl over there. I had just got home from the army where I wasn't killed. I am sorry I said that, but I want you to understand I wasn't killed. However, I had got home and all I had was a mortgage over in Indiana put in the hands of a lawyer to foreclose. I had borrowed enough money to get over there and try to collect what was coming to me, but when I got there I found the lawyer had foreclosed, collected the money and spent it. He was broke up and I didn't get a cent. If ever a mortal had the blues, I had them. I started home and I had twenty-five miles to ride in the stage to get to the railroad. Along in some of that beech woods a little girl .got in. We finally went down a long hill where the trees were so thick they made it dark. Just along where the trees were the thickest and the shadows the deepest, the little girl commenced to get out. And I says to her, "you don't live down here in the dark, do you ?" She answers, "yes, I make my own sunshine."
So I say to you all, " make your own sunshine and you won't be growling so much." You don't, at all, know what the old-timers suffered fifty or sixty years ago, and I hope * you will never know. You have a perfect paradise to what they had. You have your pleasant mode of travel ; your fine horses and your spring wagons ; your daughters to play on the piano, and your good wife there to take care of you. No music did those old time fellows hear more than the music of a crying child. That was the music they had. You have everything to be thankful for. You and I have heard to-day from our friend, Craig, that it is only an imaginary line dividing Iowa and Illinois, and I know we are all very friendly, though you growl occasionally, I suppose, as we do over there.
But compare your condition with that of your predeces- sors and you will then see that you ought not to complain but that you ought to send up one continual prayer of thankfulness for your manifold blessings. We have the
42
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
best country in the world, not only in a political aspect, but in its social and moral aspects. In this country there is no man who need ever hear his children crying for bread ; who can not make a living for his wife and children and himself if he will. Of course if he wastes his time and drinks it up, such a thing may happen, but in this land of ours no one need ever hear his children cry for bread. That is not always so in other countries. There are people in other countries who can't make a living ; who are crushed out by tyrannical government, but that is not true here. No man here upon whom God's bright sunshine falls, who has his hands and his strength with which to labor but can have the common blessings of life.
For this you ought to be thankful, and a song of unceas- ing thankfulness go up to the Grand Master instead of the growling of some people who seem to want the whole earth. Those old timers of fifty and sixty years ago had but one wish, that was to make their wives and their babies a home. They had no political ambition which is too much the case now with many people. Every man should be a politician to a certain extent-old settlers and young-enough to enable them to perform their duties to their country. But too many run wild about power and place in this country. I was a pretty good mechanic and they made a poor judge out of what might have been a good carpenter. There is too much of that sort of disposition in this country, and it would be well for us all to try to correct that sort of spirit.
" How like the roaring devil, is the heart full of ambition !"
Another thing that I might speak of as among the wondrous changes. And I know of no better place to speak of it than this. That is the spirit of resistance to law. What is law ? You cannot see it. You cannot touch it, and yet it is the guardian angel that is to-day hovering over your homes protecting all you love from pillage and violence. It is the invisible power of law. There is a spirit growing abroad in the world that is disregarding the law ; that is inclined to trample down this grand super- structure built by you. It is for the young men to guard this grand temple of legalized human freedom with the same sacred fidelity that your fathers have.
We have a grand country that reaches from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; hom the colder regions of the North to the
43
TRI-STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
burning sands of the South, and yet as broad as it is it is not big enough for more than one flag to float in it.
There is no room for the red flag of anarchy. The star- spangled banner is big enough to reach from the North to the South, from the East to the West. When the black flag of treason was reared in the South all men, without creed or distinction, without a moment's hesitation rushed to the rescue of the old flag. And now that another flag is being raised in this country I warn you that whenever the time comes for you to act to trample that flag in the dust just as the Northern heroes trampled the Southern flag.
I have reason to be proud of this country-I love it. And I will tell you why I love it. I love it because it recognizes no grades or distinctions among men. I love it because the ways to power and distinction are open alike to the poor man's son as well as the rich man's. I love it because my boys, if they have the strength and the courage, can win its honors as well as the man's boys whose wealth groans in the bank vaults. My boys will get nothing from ' me. They learned that long ago. I have come to the con- clusion that the best way for a man to do is to spend his last dollar in paying for his funeral services. If you leave thousands of dollars for'your children they will quarrel over it and not thank you for your pains in saving it. I learned that lesson long ago and am trying to follow it out. I want my boys to have the same chance that I had ; I want them to have the same government to grow up in that I had, and I trust and believe that they will. I never exactly under- stood what the word patriotism meant. I never understood fighting for an abstraction. Love of country ! I love this country because it protected Susan and the babies at home when I was away, and I would not have loved it if it had allowed them to be trampled upon. You love that country that youcan rely upon and trust. We have got that sort of a country.
For it men have lived and died. For it men are now living and will live. I believe in the progress of humanity. I believe we have just begun to grow in grandeur. 1 be- lieve there is a good time coming for all men ; when there will be a broader and grander humanity pervading all mankind. The old legend tells us that Camadeva, the Goddess of Universal Love will finally make the earth her
.
·
44
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
perpetual home. Somebody has described her coming in poetic words like these :
"The Sun, the Moon, the mystic Planets seven Glowed with a purer and serener flame, And there was joy on Earth and joy in Heaven When Camadeva came.
The birds on the tufted tamarind spray Sat side by side and cooed in amorous flame ; The Lion sheathed his claws and left his prey When Camadeva caine.
The sea slept, pillowed on the happy shore ; The mountain peaks were bathed in rosy flame, And the clouds went down the sky to mount no more When Camadeva came.
All breathing life, a newer spirit quaffed ; A second life-a bliss beyond a name, And Death hall conquered, dropped his ide shaft When Camadeva came. "
That is but descriptive of that brighter time when the love of humanity will cover the whole earth. Our govern- ment is on that principle ; we are all drawing nearer together and the lines of distinction are breaking down. You may hear of conflicts between Capital and Labor, but I believe these terms are misleading. I believe that Capital must soon descend from his golden throne and clasp Labor by the hand and call him brother. I admit that there are dark clouds and gloomy waves beating against the citadel of human progress but if you will look on that wave and listen intently you will perceive that a spirit is walking abroad on that wave, and from out the gloom will come these cheering words, "It is I, be not afraid."
I conclude by simply saying : I am not here to boast of Illinois. I am not here for any spirit of jealous rivalry with any of her sister States, but I can point with honest pride to Illinois. To her thousands of miles of railway ; to her millions of toiling freemen ; to her broad acres and her happy homes, her prosperous people. I can point to her as the home of the bravest men and the fairest of women in all this earth. Illinois stands pre-eminent in all that consti- tutes the grandeur of a State. We have a right to be proud of her great names. We have a right to be proud of Lincoln and Douglas and Grant and Baker and Logan and of
45
TRI-STATE OLD SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION.
thousands of others who gave their time and their lives for their country.
1 But above all others three stand out proudly pre-eminent -Lincoln, Grant and Douglas-three of the brightest names now glowing upon Fame's immortal scroll. In the very zenith of their power and glory-Atlas wearied of bearing. the world ; Ulysses departed on his eternal wanderings and Hercules laid aside his bow, with none left strong enough to bend it.
Now friends, let us all discharge our duties as citizens of the great Republic-young and old. Let us
"So live that when the summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of deathı,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach the grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him And lies down to pleasant dreams."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.