John F. Lacey: Champion for Birds and Wildlife
Writings and Quotes

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Writings and Quotes by Major Lacey
"For more than three hundred years destruction was called 'improvement' and it has only in recent years come to the attention of the people generally that the American people were like spendthrift heirs wasting their inheritance."
--Major John Lacey

"I was anxious to see real wild and unbroken prairie and soon we began to see them, covered with waving grass and flowers. We took our time for the trip and I nearly all the way full of wonder and delight at everything that we saw."
--Major John Lacey, 1901, description of a trek in the prairie in 1854.
The native Iowa prairie had great appeal to Lacey, even as a boy.

Writings and Quotes About Major Lacey
"Lacey was the first American congressman to become an avowed champion of wildlife. The proud state of Iowa may well regard John F. Lacey as one of her most illustrious men. To him, the people of Iowa, and the bird-lovers of America, owe a monument as lofty as his own purposes , and as imperishable as his fame."
--William T. Hornaday, prominent zoologist and conservationist, 1913

"The one place that was always first in my father's thoughts was Iowa. His favorite description of Iowa was how the first settlers found it - beautiful rolling prairies, the... streams and rivers full of fish, and the woods filled with game."
--Berenice Lacey Sawyer, Lacey's daughter, 1916

"Major Lacey has done more for the protection of wildlife and to stimulate forestry than any other man ever did in our national life."
-- Dr. Louis Pammel, father of Iowa's state parks, 1915

"This boulder is dedicated to Major John Fletcher Lacey, eminent lawyer, statesman, soldier, and citizen, for his constructive work in conservation, by the Iowa Conservation Association."
--Plaque at one of Iowa's finest parks, Lacey-Keosauqua State Park in Van Buren County, named in honor of Major Lacey.

During the 1920s, several annual Lacey Conservation Days were held at this park to commemorate Lacey's work and to encourage others to carry forth the work which he began.

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