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pleasure of hearing, and you must follow my thoughts as I gave sleepless days and nights to the preparation of this impromptu speech and my burlap suit into the tender care of the panatorium to dust and crease, and as I studied time cards for the journey and examined maps to refresh my memory as to the location of Oskaloosa. Constantly the thought kept running in my mind, what if after all these mighty preparations, and what if after the toilsome journey, we should arrive at Oskaloosa and there should be no welcome from Major Lacey, or the bar, or Oskaloosa, or the citizens thereof, but that we should be received coldly? Turning to the thermometer for counsel and to weather reports for June, I was led to hope that the reception would at least be a warm one. Then again I spurred a lagging memory into action and my mind went back to the time of the old Sixth Judicial District, when Louisa was yoked in the bonds of judicial wedlock with Mahaska and before you divorced her that she might marry Henry. Then we used to come down from Louisa at stated periods to help nominate, rather I should say to ratify the nomination of some distinguished member of the Oskaloosa Bar, or to attend the funeral of some respected citizen whom the grim reaper had retired from office, and as I ransack my memory, I also recall the numerous State conventions wherein we met your delegations, presenting some of your most worthy citizens for our consideration, and as I recalled all of these meetings there came to me a surging memory of Oskaloosa hospitality and a keen recollection of the cordiality with which our delegations were received.

And, Mr. Chairman, I have often contemplated the strong lawyers, the able judges and the sagacious statesmen that Mahaska County has furnished to the State of Iowa, and I have said again and again to myself, "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness," while others adopt the simple expedient of moving to Oskaloosa.

It was here in Oskaloosa that on one of these festive occasions I attended a concert generously given by local talent to entertain the visiting guests, when I heard for the first time that beautiful hymn, "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,' rendered by an Oskaloosa quartette. On reflection, it occurs to

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me that it was on the occasion of a Masonic convention and not the funeral of one of Oskaloosa's honored citizens.

The revival of these memories reassured me as to the welcome we would receive at this convention, and so I wandered down the path to the station at Columbus Junction and inquired the distance to Oskaloosa and the price of a ticket, and my spirits arose in buoyant expectation, and as the agent flagged the train, I bade goodbye to Columbus Junction's population upon the platform assembled and began my journey to Oskaloosa, full of hope and courage.

In mentioning Columbus Junction, permit me to digress and to remark parenthetically upon the unanimity of sentiment among our people. They all, male and female, man, woman, and child, stand upon one platform daily (the Rock Island) and I might remark also that barring a few knots and nail heads, it is a perfectly good platform, upon which anyone, Democrats, Republicans, Standpatters, or Insurgents can safely stand.

Let's see, Mr. President, where was I, aboard or on the platform? Well, as I remarked, the agent flagged the Oskaloosa Limited and I said goodbye to my people. Every eye was dry, everybody pleased to have me leave, and anxious I should stay away as long as I could, and with a last look at the elevator and the water tank that marks the site of my home village, I faced toward Oskaloosa and this meeting. The tedium of the long journey through the arid wastes of Louisa, Washington, and Keokuk counties would not interest you, Mr. Chairman and members of the convention, and might tend to aggravate your thirst, so I shall omit many details. I say arid advisedly as to Louisa and Washington counties, as they are absolutely dry, and on information and belief I say that Keokuk County went dry about two years ago.

Seating myself firmly in the smoker, I resisted the efforts of the train butcher to market any of his wares on me, keeping my money for the big show. I kept my thoughts firmly fixed on Oskaloosa and my eyes on the scenery, and as the train sped on at fifteen miles per, I saw my native water tank disappear beneath the horizon, and realized that save for the few hardy and adventurous lawyers that joined us from time to time, looking for

personal injury cases, I was alone with my speech on the Great Rock Island Route, and I firmly resolved to pay no more than twenty-five per cent attorney fees for recovery in case I was injured. The fifty-seven varieties, the talcum powder and the Short Horn tobacco signboards moved by in stately procession, each one recording the miles from Columbus Junction. Mile by mile the distance grew until at last the signboard erected by the generosity of the American Tobacco Company in order to advertise Durham cattle, recorded the fact that the distance was sixtynine miles to Columbus Junction, and then I knew that we were nearing the metropolis of proud Mahaska, Oskaloosa, surnamed Standpatville by my friend Major Lacey, and as the brakeman opened the door to call the station I whiffed the faint odor of roasting veal, and I knew that the fatted calf was being made ready and that we were to be received as befitted prodigal sons.

How vividly I recall the thrills with which I heard the brakeman's clarion call of "Oskaloosa". To me it sounded like the chanticleer on his perch as he flaps his wings and greets the roseate dawn of each new day. The very sound of the name Oskaloosa challenges the imagination, and the true native of Mahaska does not pronounce the name, he crows it, and Mr. Chairman, as I have reflected upon the matter I give it as my mature conclusion that the only reason Oskaloosa is not famed in song and verse is because no word can be found to rhyme with it.

And now that we have mingled in your midst and have had some of your eatables and drinkables mingled in our midst, and we have been so well received, it is our earnest wish that we might remain in the hands of the receiver all summer, and that Oskaloosa might adopt us as her own and teach us to crow the name as the native Mahaskans do, and run us for office, and show us how to win our cases, and instill in us the spirit of her hospitality. We like the spirit of Oskaloosa and we want to be filled with it. We shall regret when necessity compels us to return to the drugstore spirits of our home towns.

Mr. Chairman, we are all here now in the annual meeting of the Iowa State Bar Association, truly grateful for your cordial welcome and we exchange felicitations. The citizens of Oskaloosa and the Oskaloosa Bar tender us the freedom of the city,

and the Iowa Bar tenders—I mean the Bar of Iowa-tenders to the local Bar and to the city its high appreciation of your hospitality. You need not bother to suspend the Ten Commandments, nor the statutes nor ordinances in such cases made and provided. We expect to have a sober, quiet time. We shall none of us exceed the speed limit. We enter into the business of the convention conscious of the fact that we want entertainment, not information. We already have information on the brain. I earnestly hope that this may be a season of rest and enjoyment, where serious subjects may be discarded and only light and trifling legal subjects be mentioned, and now may we turn to a good old-fashioned talkfest. You, our generous hosts of the Mahaska County Bar, come first to tell how and why you have won your cases, and after you, my dear Alfonso, we will explain how and why we have lost ours. The competition will be friendly and I hope generous, and may the laurels be awarded to the best explainers. A maxim of the law should be, "He who cannot explain is lost."

I predict, Mr. Chairman, a pleasant meeting, a most enjoyable time, made more so by your generous greeting, and we hope and expect to so demean ourselves that when we leave your city, you will be glad we came and we will be welcome back at some future meeting of the Iowa Bar.

I predict, Mr. Chairman, and my predictor is adjusted like a chronometer and is not affected by heat, I predict a most successful meeting, and that much good will result from the interchange of courtesies and thought among the members of the Bar, and that when the convention concludes we will all return to our homes, full of praise for Oskaloosa and full of your good things, and with renewed hope and courage for the battle of life. And for myself, Mr. Chairman, I desire to say that when I return to my home, I shall go with renewed determination to give an exhibition of how little a man can do for his money, waiting expectantly for the next Bar Convention and hoping it will be held at Oskaloosa.

Often in the past I have answered inquiries as to where is Columbus Junction, by locating it fifty miles west of Davenport, forty miles north of Burlington, and sixty miles south of Cedar

Rapids, and bounded on the west by the horizon of its hopes and the ambitions of its citizens, and to all such benighted inquirers I have added the information that Columbus Junction was the largest town of its size in Iowa, but now, Mr. Chairman, having again visited your beautiful city and tasted its hospitality, and in the eager anticipation of favors yet to come, on behalf of my native town and of the Bar of Iowa, I want to hand to Oskaloosa the proud distinction of being a larger city of its size than Columbus Junction, and I promise you, Mr. Chairman, that in the future I shall do you the honor to locate Columbus Junction to all inquirers as being seventy miles east of Oskaloosa. Thus will I do my honorable part to repay your hospitality. Thus will I discharge a part of the debt of gratitude I owe, and thus will the name of Oskaloosa become a household word.

THE PRESIDENT: We will next listen to the report of the Committee on Membership, by Mr. Frank T. Nash, chairman.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON MEMBERSHIP

To the Iowa State Bar Association: Your Committee on Membership beg leave to report that they have received applications from the following gentlemen who are recommended for membership in the Association.

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