The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 17

Hcs Jfloincs Sunbay Jkgtstrr UCI1ARD DOAK, Editok of rut, Editorial Pages, 515-284-821 1 1 Joke Backfires Donald Raid's attempts at tumor aren't always thought be funny. Page3C SUNDAY, Aug. 4, 1996 Register Editorials PM(D)K Fixtures of everyday life The high-school gym, the local cafe; we must save some for remembrance. Iowa, a place to retire Fortune magazine is right. Iowa can be just as nice as Golf Dulce.

'es, but what about the weather? Last week's assessment in Fortune magazine that central Iowa is one of six great places ast Sunday, readers' suggestions of icons of Iowa worth preserving were featured in the Sunday Register LifeStyle section. Readers thought Iowa should preserve a giant pink flamingo outside the Flamingo Motel in Mar-shalltown, and a 25-foot-talI statue of Pocahontas outside the town by the same name, among Some of these are likely to be forgotten someday. (Everyone knows what a McDonald's restaurant looks like, but how many can recall an Ray used to stop at when in town). A Main Street coffee shop (where farmers gather on rainy days). A Harvestore (those sleek blue grain bins that tower over farmsteads).

A Casey's General Store. An Iowa high-school basketball gym. And, of course, one of Iowa's famous humdrum 1-80 rest areas. Some of these are likely to be forgotten someday. (Everyone knows what a McDonald's restaurant looks like, but how many can recall an original Golden Arches?) Preservationists whose aim is to save pieces of Iowa's present for future Iowans had better get busy.

And, this list is hardly complete. Other suggestions? Send them to us, labeled "Iowa Icons Letters," care of The Des Moines Register, Box 957, Des Moines, 50304. By fax: 515-286-2511. By Internet: lettersdmreg.com. Please include your complete name, address and daytime telephone number.

low cost of living, cultural amenities available at Ames and general ease of living. Actually, almost all of Iowa shares those attributes. The cultural amenities available at Ames are also available to varying degree on some 30 other campuses around the state, and the ease of living in Iowa's Main Street towns is renowned. For retirees, it can be especially nice because they can make use of the weekdays, when other adults are working, to enjoy uncrowded shopping, easily available golf courses, light traffic. Iowa has excellent medical facilities, little crime and lots of friendly senior-citizen centers.

For Iowans who remain here after retirement, it's a perfect place to attend a grandchild's Little League game, or to maintain lifelong ties to church and community. Iowa can be a wonderful place to retire, which is good not just for the retirees but for their communities and for the economy. For many Iowa communities, working to make themselves more attractive to retirees could be the most promising part of their economic-development strategy. original Golden Arches?) in the world to retire inevitably brought the question about Iowa's winters. But, when you think about it, the really rotten things about Iowa winters are almost all associated with getting to or from work.

The car won't start. You've got to get up at 5 a.m. to shovel the driveway. The snowblower won't start. You leave for work an hour early and still get caught in a traffic mess.

The snowplow buried your car. vJf you're retired, none of that applies. If it's snowing, you can go back to bed, or settle in with a good book until the streets are cleared. You can enjoy the restful beauty of winter without the hassle. And if you really don't like winter, you can join the migration of snowbirds to McAllen or Phoenix during the worst months, but enjoy Iowa's gentle beauty the rest of the year.

Fortune may be right. Central Iowa is a great place to retire. It's listed along with Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica; Luberon, France; Ojai, London, England; and New York. Advantages mentioned include a other things. Also nominated: A classic Skelly filling station, and a grain elevator.

Iowa does a pretty fair job of preserving historic landmarks, but what icons of our popular culture are we preserving for the future? A '50s-era filling station, a Maid-Rite counter, a huge statue of a pink bird all fit. But there are many more possibilities things that say something about the everyday lives of everyday Iowans. Oddities should be included, of course. Such as the giant strawberry at Strawberry Point. Albert the Bull in Audubon.

The A-E Dairy cow and calf on Des Moines' east side. And the coffee-pot water tower in Stanton. But we should preserve generic relics that speak of our era, too. A roadside ice-cream stand (the kind former Gov. Bob 1 fl Ml of the vines of the editorial-page staff and of Publisher Barbara Henry and Editor Dennis R.

Ryerson. all collaborating within the framework of The Register's heritage as a voice fir Hie betterment of Iowa and its people. WHO WRITES THE EDITORIALS? The es.su ys in this column are written by the editorial-page staff, which includes Richard Doak, Linda Lantor Fandel, Alyssa Ro.r Laird, Bill Isonard and Suzanne Nelson. The editorials are not opinions of any individual writer, but rather a consensus Tut Rkoistkk'sIjhkany An Iowa icon? We're asking Iowans' advice on how candidates should conduct themselves A 9, 9 .4 irty campaigns. Editor's Notes We despise them.

We ridicule them. We are victimized by them. be restored to campaigning and the political process? How can campaigns be used to educate voters rather than bamboozle them? Some groups are beginning to search for answers. The League of Women Voters, for one, asks candidates to sign codes, under which they promise to wage a fair campaign. Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder has been on his own campaign to encourage the media to include the voices of voters in election coverage, and to more carefully examine the accuracy of political advertising.

At The Register, we've been examining our election coverage and will be looking for ways CAMPAIGN Please turn to Page 2C campaigning works. Too many people are swayed by what they want to hear rather than the truth, and candidates have become all too adept at crafting their massage to take advantage of that. And they get by with it because they, not the voter, are in control of politics. Candidates all say they are for clean campaigns. In Iowa, U.S.

Senate candidates Tom Harkin and Jim Ross Lightfoot each has signed a pledge to avoid negative advertising. But as is typical with such things, they leave themselves an out, promising to avoid negative messages only so long as the other side does the same. 1 can hear the disclaimer already: "But he did it first!" What can be done? How can some respect plucking petals from a daisy. The commercial ended with an explosion of a nuclear bomb with Johnson's voice saying, "These are the stakes. We must love each other or we must die." The commercial didn't mention rival Barry Goldwater's name, but it didn't need to.

Goldwater complained, and the Democrats pulled the commercial after one showing. Fair? Some would argue that candidates have every right to use whatever message they can come up with in order to win. Leave it to voters, they say, to sort the fair from the foul. After all, goes the argument, a candi-date's mudslinging says as much about him or her as it does about an opponent, and just as often backfires. There's one problem with that negative I yv jm A -J Yet we continue to put up with and often elect candidates who misrepresent their records and the records of their opponents.

And we wonder why so many people are so turned off by it all that on Election Day they stay home. There's nothing new in any of this. Candidates have misrepresented themselves since the beginning of political time. More than 150 years ago presidential candidate William Henry Harrison portrayed himself as a humble, "log cabin candidate," when in fact he was born in a very nice farmhouse. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign ran a commercial showing a girl Dennis Ryerson Annie Savery: Pioneer feminist tes Moines woman sought vays to improve the and economic itatus of women.

By Louise rosenheld noun Annie Savery is the most admirable woman 1 have found in my research on Iowa feminists and I am happy that her portrait has recently been loaned to the Des Moines disapproval of Savery's friends and relatives. Yet, as one friendly letter writer to the Des Moines newspaper noted, "At all events, the question is up for discussion. The revolution is begun." Savery was in Europe during most of 1869, but the following year she and Amelia Bloomer of Council Bluffs corresponded about plans for a woman-suffrage convention in Des Moines. Before these plans came to fruition, and much to their surprise, the Iowa Legislature in March 1870 gave first approval to a woman-suffrage amendment. This action followed Iowa's enfranchisement of black men in 1868 and was taken largely in response to promises by legislators that once blacks were enfranchised, women's turn would be next.

The legislators voted for the woman-suffrage amendment knowing it would have to be approved by two consecutive sessions and there would be an opportunity to defeat it two years later. Encouraged by the Legislature's approval of the suffrage amendment, Joseph Dugdale of Mount -Pleasant, a Quaker who had been ac- NOUN Please tarn to Page 2C Grand Avenue home that was long remembered by Annie Savery's friends for the warmth and cordiality with which she welcomed her guests, no matter what their status in life. Part of James Savery's new-found wealth came from his association with the American Emigrant which owned vast tracts of land, a great deal of it in northwest Iowa that it sold primarily to Scandinavians wishing to settle in the United States. Annie accompanied her husband to Europe when he went on business in 1866 and 1869. Her social concerns were widespread.

She was an ardent advocate for public education; in 18(56 she became a generous founding member of the Des Moines Library Association; the following year she was a leader in publicizing the unhealthy condition of the county jail and demanding improvements; in 1868 she donated funds to Grinnell College for scholarships for women. In January 1868, Savery became the first Des Moines woman to publicly speak out in favor of woman suffrage when she delivered a lecture at the Polk County Courthouse. This lecture, delivered for the benefit of the library association, was met not only by an unfriendly, mostly male audience but also by the cold married genial, 32-year-old James Savery in Saratoga, N.Y., in January 1854. The following April the couple settled in Des Moines where James Savery purchased the Marvin House, a log hotel at Third and Walnut Streets with money he had brought back from the California gold rush. Annie Savery managed this hotel while her husband, an inveterate speculator, looked for quicker ways to make a living.

A year later, James Savery sold the Marvin House and with other promoters began construction of the Savery House, a large structure at Fifth Avenue and Walnut Street, now the site of the Kirkwood Hotel. It was not completed until 1805. Although apparently not directly engaged in managing any of her husband's properties after disposing of the log hotel, Annie Savery continued to take an active interest in his business ventures, which turned out to be very profitable in the 1860s. By 1870 the value of James Savery's real estate had increased to $250,000 from the $10,000 reported 10 years earlier. In 1858, the Saverys moved into an elegant new home on the bluff overlooking the Racoon River at 19th Street and Grand Avenue, where they lived until the house was destroyed by fire in 1874.

It was this 'lub where it can once again be seen ifter a long sojourn in storage at the Historical Building. I hope this vili lead to a new interest in Savery's remarkable work, not only is a pioneer suffragist, but also as a noneer in seeking ways to better the ducational and economic status of vomen. Savery, nee Annie Nowlin, was torn in London in 1831 and came to he United States as an infant. She pit- i7iiiniiintniiiipimirrriiiiiiiiiiiiNiiiiiiiii--rT --r-- GARVFA.IH;1v'ThiRj.oimi.h This portrait of Annie Savery was loaned to the Des Moines Club. 0UISE ROSENHELD NOUN of Den Imnes is active in dune affairs.

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