Iowa State University - Bomb Yearbook (Ames, IA)

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A Greater Iowa BY F. W. BECKMAN To paint the lily, to gild the sun-that is no more ditlicult than to suggest a way to a Greater Iowa. Iowa is already great. From the beginning it has been richly blessed. When nature smoothed out its broad prairies she planted wonderful treasures in the soil that makes the com- monwealth the richest agricultural domain in the world. Nature gave Iowa beauty also, for she spread endless meadows everywhere and dotted them with beautiful flowers. Here and there hills were rolled up and crowned with green groves. Down from their slopes and across spreading plains, clear streams were sent on their way to the seas. God's country, men say of this garden spot of the Mis- sissippi valley, and they are right. Into this realm came study pioneers who made the most of the riches at hand. They were of the choicest stock and had worthy purpose, they had vision, they had energy and they had courage. To estimate what they and their sons and daughters have accomplished in a material way, requires a whole battery of com- puting machines, for the wealth they have accumulated must be counted in the billions. These pioneers set up schools and churches as soon as they built their own homes and ever since the commonwealth has ranked at the top in intelligence and in morality. There is no pressing poverty in Iowa, there is only a minimum of ignorance, and plague spots of vice and crime are the exception. To every test of citizenship Iowans have responded faithfully in- every emer- gency, whether in war or in peace. To the call of service for mankind, whether from near or far, they have answered generously. VVherever treasure or men are of use in helping the world to better things, there Iowa treasure and Iowa men may be found. - Take him to Iowa, advised James G. Blaine, when the host of an eminent foreign visitor asked years ago how his guest might get the best impression of America and Americanism. Today Iowa is still typically American-intelligent, prosperous, happy, holding fast to the best in thought and life. Iowa is, indeed, already great, to make it greater is a ditllcult task. ' To improve upon what is good is possible in only one way, and that is to make it good for something. The good needs to be active, dynamic, it must be appliedg it must be hitched up to things. Thus far Iowa has been necessarily concerned most with the problem of mak- ing and accumulating, now comes the task of using what has been accumulated and that is the real task in making a Greater Iowa. An old pioneer, Henry Clay Dean, who was a good deal of an iconoclast, used to tell Iowa folks that no fertile plains country every produced great men, because life was too easy there, instead, he said leaders and doers nmst be looked for only in the rugged hills country where life is a hard struggle. Life is easy in Iowa because of its richness and prosperity. What nature has not provided in the way of a stimulus to greater effort, must come from the mind and soul of the people. Iowa's danger lies in a possible smug satisfaction with the good it has. The way out of that danger and into a Greater Iowa lies only in setting ever new tasks to be done. There is need to preserve the spirit of the pioneer, there is need to hear the teaching of men who have vision, there is need to follow the leadership of men who have caught something of the inspira- tion of what Iowa may be. Militancy, not complacency, in citizenship, militancy to establish our ideals in business, in industry, in government, and in every other activity of life, is the essential. There must be a putting aside of the temptation to be at ease and a putting on of even stronger determination for activity. Hunger does not drive men on in Iowa, nor do the hardships of an infertile region, nor misery or dis- content, mental vision and moral courage must.

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