Senator John Young Stone View All Years

HON. JOHN Y. STONE

MR. SPEAKER: Your committee appointed to prepare a resolution commemorating the life and services of the Honorable John Y. Stone, late of Mills county, Iowa, beg leave to submit the following memorial:

The Honorable John Y. Stone, who represented Mills county in the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth sessions of the Iowa legislature, and was Speaker of the House in the Seventeenth session, was born in Illinois in 1843. In 1856 he left the native haunts of his home, came west and located in Silver Creek valley in Mills county. Less than five years came and went until the rumble of war drums came echoing into Iowa. John Y. Stone enlisted in the Union forces in 1861, where he fought bravely and consistently during the four years of the struggle, until 1865, rising to the rank of a first lieutenant. At the close of the war we find him returning to Mills county again and engaging in publishing, acquiring an interest in the Glenwood Opinion. Meanwhile, a certain Attorney Hale welcomed him into his law office, where he read the law of the state and nation until 1868, when he was admitted to the bar, and eventually became one of Iowa’s foremost attorneys. It was while General Stone was home on a furlough from his service in the army, early in the year of 1864, that he learned of plans to establish a newspaper in Glenwood, and also met P. T. Ballard, a printer who had recently arrived in the little city, and was engaged in sorting some badly pied type. The close of the war brought a strengthening of the acquaintance with Ballard that crystalized into friendship, resulting in their entering into a publishing enterprise together. Mr. Stone acquired a half interest in the paper, known at that time as Our Opinion. He assumed the editorship of the publication at the age of twenty-two, and edited it in a creditable manner, indicating his natural mental ability that was destined to carry him into a field of wide and more famous activity. The end of the two-year period of editorship may have marked the close of a career that might have resulted in a journalist of national distinction.

Mr. Stone was a Republican in politics, and eventually became a figure of national recognition. It is not generally known that he was one of a small group of men selected to manage the pre-convention campaign of United States Senator Allison for the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States. Had the latter individual been successful, is it difficult to assume where General Stone’s political career would have eventually led him.

Mr. Stone began his political activities in the state legislature. He was selected to serve in the House during the Twelfth and Thirteenth sessions, at the close of which time he was chosen to represent his district in the Iowa Senate during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth sessions, and then was returned to the House again for the Sixteenth and Seventeenth, being chosen Speaker of that body during the latter period. It was probably in the latter position that he won for himself sufficient distinction in the ranks of his party to be selected as its candidate for Attorney General of the State of Iowa, and served in that capacity from 1889 to 1895. We are told by those who were high in the political councils of the state at that time that Mr. Stone was tendered the support of the G. O. P. for the governorship of the state, but declined the honor and returned to private life and the resumption of his law practice in Glenwood, Iowa. At two different intervals he was chosen as a delegate to the National Republican Convention and on one occasion served as chairman of the Iowa delegation.

Mills county rightfully treasures the thought that the state feeble­ minded institution would not have been located at Glenwood had it not been for the efforts of Mr. Stone during his service in the legislature, where he secured the necessary legislation creating a school for sub-normal children and later lent his influence toward having it established in its present location and fought for its retention when efforts were directed toward moving it to another location. Dr. George Mogridge, the present head of the institution, has characterized this work of General Stone’s as being one of the most forward looking achievements for the benefit of society which Iowa has experienced during its entire existence as a state.

Throughout the entire period of his life Mr. Stone was an attorney of marked ability in the court room, and was known from boundary to boundary in Iowa. One of his colleagues characterized him thus: “He was always courteous and gentlemanly with all his legal adversaries, actuated by the highest motives of honor and integrity in all his legal battles, appreciative of the rights of others, fighting with all the power of his mighty intellect to secure a victory, but scrupulously careful that that should be an honorable victory.

An eminent attorney once made the statement with reference to Mr. Stone: “I consider him Iowa’s foremost attorney, and one of the ten greatest which the United States has ever produced.”

Through contact with literature in its many forms a man acquires that interest in those things outside his own life’s activities which make him of the highest value to society. General Stone was a voluminous reader and possessed a knowledge of a wide range of men, things and affairs. With this vast knowledge and inborn ability to comprehend and accurately analyze, coupled with his keen sense of fairness, his gentlemanly, courtly manner, it was possible for him in writing and speaking to defend his views in a striking fashion without offending those who differed with him. During his lifetime in Glenwood, he was an outstanding figure in a group of philosophical friends that have at different times received the recognition of men and journals of mark, in the state of Iowa. His philosophical writings show the mark of genius, and always, when read aloud in his even toned voice, held his listeners spellbound. There was a quiet unassuming dignity about the man that marked him as one of distinction. Great as were the honors heaped upon him, and many the titles he deservedly earned, none is greater than that which everyone who knew him best gave him, the respect always paid to a loyal citizen and a gentleman.

In the Attorney General’s office of the capitol building of the state of Iowa, there hangs a beautiful picture of General Stone done by the state in order that future generations may be acquainted with the physical likeness of this man of mighty intellect who has left an impression of his forceful personality and his progressive thought in the statutes of this great commonwealth which he served so eminently. The community, the county and the state which he honored by his residence for more than three-quarters of a century, miss the spirit of his presence.

Therefore, Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Forty-third General Assembly, That in the death of the Honorable John Y. Stone the state has lost a public spirited man of the highest quality, and this House, by this resolution, tenders its sympathy to his circle of friends and relatives surviving him.

Be It Further Resolved, That this resolution be spread upon the Journal and an enrolled copy be sent to the surviving relatives.

OTHA D. WEARIN,

HOMER HUSH,

WILBER F. HUBBARD,

Committee.

Unanimously adopted April 8, 1929.