First School-house in Circleville, Ohio. Cost $10,000 in 1851. In 1879 was remodeled by the School Board at a cost of $39,300.
First School-house in Circleville, Ohio. Cost $10,000 in 1851. In 1879 was remodeled by the School Board at a cost of $39,300.
First School-house in Circleville, Ohio. Cost $10,000 in 1851. In 1879 was remodeled by the School Board at a cost of $39,300.
The facilities for the physical culture were greatly in advance of those for the development of the mental; and it is remarkable what the key to education has in its turn accomplished—the Bible, “Buckley’s Apology” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
Most of the present educational influences were unknown to the generation that has given to the United States so many great men. In their youthful days libraries were exceedingly few, and books were expensive and not easily obtained; and little reason had any one to anticipate that the boys living in the backwoods of Ohio, shooting squirrels and hoeing corn, spring and summer; catching rabbits, foxes and coons in the fall and winter, and occasionally attending a “subscription school” in some abandoned log cabin two or three months, would ever become stars of the first magnitude in the literary canopy of the United States.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific—in every city, in every town—boys of the rural districts of Ohio have marched to the front. Even in the National Metropolis it need not be asked: “Whence came Murat Halstead, Whitelaw Reid, John A. Cockerill, Charles J. Chambers, William H. Smith, Bernard Peters, William L. Brown, and others.” The New YorkTribune,Herald,World, Associated Press,TimesandDaily News, and the evidences of success resulting from ability, integrity and business capacity, give the answer, “Ohio.”[15]
Whatever the cause may now be attributable to, there can be no question of the inherited capacity and natural and acquired ability which has enabled the “Squirrel Hunters” of Ohio to give to the nation greater and more useful men during the present century than all the other states combined.
In every channel of advancing civilization theOhio manis found over the entire world, and is known by the stamp he bears—“none other genuine”—“O.I.O.” It may be excusable to name a few of the many national characters which an Ohio man is ever proud to recall with an admiration unknown to egotism—of such—Thomas Ewing, Rufus P. Ranney, George H. Pendleton, Joseph Medell, Richard Smith, Donn Piatt, Ed. Cowles, Samuel Medary, W. McLean, E. D. Mansfield, James G. Birney, Swayne, Springer, Scoville, Chase, Simpson, McIlvaine, Thomas Cole, Hiram Powers, Wm. H. Beard, Quincy Ward; the great inventor, Edison; the arctic explorer, Dr. Hall; the Siberian traveler, George Kennon; the astronomer, Mitchell; geologists, Hildreth, Newberry, and Orton; humorists, Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby; as popular writer, A. W. Tourgee and William Dean Howells. The latter found “Squirrels” in the spring, where they resorted for “the sweetness inthe cups of the tulip-tree blossoms;” and in boyhood made “impressions” with his bare feet in the snow on the cabin floor, and in after life more lasting ones with his pen on the hearts of those who have been favored with his literary productions.
Why was it said on the 4th of March, 1881, the nation was enabled to see “three men of fine presence advanced on the platform at the east portico of the Federal Capitol? On the right, a solid, square-built man, of impressive appearance, the Chief-Justice of the United States (Morrison R. Waite). On his left stood a tall, well-rounded, large, self-possessed personage, with a head large even in proportion to the body, who is President of the United States (James A. Garfield). At his left hand was an equally tall, robust, and graceful gentleman, the retiring President (R. B. Hayes). Near by was a tall, not especially graceful figure, with the eye of an eagle, who is the general commanding the army (Wm. Tecumseh Sherman). A short, square, active officer, the Marshal Ney of America, Lieutenant-General (Phil. Sheridan). Another tall, slender, well-poised man, of not ungraceful presence, was the focus of many thousand eyes. He had carried the finances of the nation in his mind and in his heart, four years as the Secretary of the Treasury, the peer of Hamilton and Chase (John Sherman). Of these six five were natives of Ohio, and the other a life-long resident. Did this groupof national characters from our state stand there by accident? Was it not the result of a long train of agencies, which, by force of natural selection, brought them to the front on that occasion?”[16]
While this painting from life will ever stand as a most worthy compliment to Ohio, it must be looked upon as but a detached part of the great picture of the North-west, in the center of which may be seen the full measure of a wise man crowned with six stars untarnished with slavery—Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, 1787.
The Ohio State Journal says of the 4th of March, 1897, that, “This is a great time for Ohio at the National Capital. The Buckeye State is very much in evidence. The President is from Ohio; the Secretary of State is from Ohio; Mark Hanna is an Ohio man; Secretary Alger was born and bred in Ohio; ... Senator Foraker, who is expected to be one of the leaders in the senate, is an Ohio man; the First Assistant Secretary of State ... is an Ohio man. In short, Ohio politicians will be in the saddle as far as national affairs go, and, compared with them, the Republicans of the other states are small potatoes, so to speak.
“Ohio has for the last quarter of a century been a great state for presidents. But it never occupied a more conspicuous position in the sisterhoodof states than to-day. The Ohio man comes very near being the whole thing.”
Ohio has made her mark politically high, and still manifests a modest willingness to furnish the nation with presidents and other high officials, although the New York World thinks the kissing of the words of Holy Writ by the last favorite son assumed a rather extravagant and monarchical appearance; that it cost only five thousand dollars to seat Thomas Jefferson, while the ceremonial bill for William McKinley and the tenth verse of the first chapter of the Second Chronicles footed two million five hundred and fifty-five thousand five hundred dollars; andbanneredthe fifteenth verse of the same chapter, for the time being at least. For with that “wisdom and knowledge,”—“the kingmadesilver and gold at Jerusalem (Washington) asplenteous as stones.”
And in this line, not of boasting, but of greatness, it is not thought strange, after supplying the nation with a large ratio of leading statesmen, artisans, scientists and men of letters, the state should have had in readiness for the occasion—one general, U. S. Grant; one lieutenant-general, Mr. Tecumseh Sherman; twenty major and thirty-six brigadier generals; with twenty seven brevet major-generals and one hundred and fifty brigadier generals; a secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton; a secretary of the treasury, S. P. Chase; a banker, J. Cooke, with a contribution of three hundred and forty thousandarmed men and twenty-six independent batteries of artillery, and five independent companies of cavalry.
Ohio had the men—had the will—and when the call came, went into the war to fight, and of which she did her share, as the eleven thousand two hundred and ten killed and mortally wounded on the battle-fields, attest.
The finances were so ably managed by the secretary and his advisor, Jay Cooke, that a rebel leader declared the treasury, and not the war department, had conquered the South. To take an empty and bankrupt treasury and agree to find, equip and pay the immense federal army was the portion assigned to secretary Chase. And when Mr. Cooke asked the amount required daily to meet demands—the reply was “two millions, five hundred thousand dollars. Can you raise the money?” “I can,” was the reply.
Mr. Cooke organized a plan for popularizing the loan, and soon had receipts coming into the treasury, averaging over four millions per day. It must be admitted that brains, as well as bullets, gave strength and success to the federal forces, and it can be truthfully as well as modestly assumed, that Ohio furnished her share of both, with honest scripture measure.
Ohio people are not given much to foolish pride, although considered sensitive; and those familiar with the resources, industries, wealthand learning, were surprised that the glorious first-born of the family of the “North-west Territory,” should come so far short of expectations at the World’s Columbian Centennial Exposition, at Chicago. The state was all right, however, and deeply interested. But political favoritism and incompetency often supplants meritorious ability, and determines adversely what otherwise would claim admiration and give general satisfaction.
Ex-Governor Campbell, in an address recently, would mislead a stranger, when he says, “The State of Ohio was at Atlanta in 1864, under Sherman, but is not now at Atlanta as part of the great exhibit of industrial products held there, because, under, and by virtue of the last general assembly, the state credit was reduced so low, and its coffers so depleted, that not money enough could be found for this purpose. The only official representation from our state at Atlanta, in the year 1895, is on the part of a few lady commissioners, who have the freemen’s privilege of paying their own expenses.”
Does anyone believe Ohio is poverty stricken? Has anyone known the state or people to be so since the squirrel hunters traded coon-skins for books, that it could not turn Lake Erie into the Ohio River—the army of the “Southern Confederacy” face about—or make a first-class exhibit in any competitive exposition? As a statement, it is true, “Ohio is not at Atlanta.” But the absenceis not due to the causes assigned, and the wonder is, she is as rich and powerful as she is, after being forced so frequently to play the part of the individual that journeyed from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
Ohio is an agricultural state, populated with those who hold the handles of the plough and fear not poverty, discontent and strikes. The native inhabitants inherited a love of liberty and independence from an ancestry who came to a wilderness to securehomesfor themselves and posterity. And it was in thesehomesa permanent foundation for a superior civilization was laid; and through the providences of a people withhomesand families, supported by natural and cultivated resources, that has transformed unbroken forests into fertile fields and developed an intelligent, happy and prosperous people.
It is an old and well-founded belief that the earth was not made in vain, but is capable of fulfilling all the purposes for which it was created—now as at any other period in its history. It is also worthy of thought that the interest in the well-being of man by creative and governing intelligence is not less than that extended to the beasts of the fields, and that his title to a share of subsistence on the earth is quite as good as that of the cattle that graze upon a thousand hills.
Every one can, and every one should, secure a share in this inheritance while living. His heirshipis indisputable, and on which no mortgage ever found a right, room or reason to rest. If every cast-off from the seductive trusts, combines and monopolies—every one of the millions begging bread—had a definite home upon the soil of the earth, there would be room for millions more, and bread riots and starvation would be unknown in all the land.
Natural civilization—that made in accordance with the laws of nature—does not consist in aggregating the products of labor into the hands of a few and distributing poverty broadcast to the many, but in cultivating intelligence, securing homes, families, subsistence, comfort and happiness, by every man owning and controlling the products of his own labor.
During the first half century of the settlement in the Buckeye State, the equality and advancement of true civilization of the people have never been surpassed in the history of the world. Although their land estates were small, and with that prohibition nature had thrown around the state against all foreign imports, it might readily be imagined the living and populating a great empire on its own developed resources would naturally entail much want and distress. But such was not the fact. They all had enough and to spare, and vagrants were as unknown to public provision as were paupers or want among the sparrows, or the innumerable millions of buffalo that were provided for on the western plains.
Those who had homes they could call their own, with families and friends, plenty to supply the necessities of life, were singularly exempt from avarice, or that which since the world began has been denounced “the root of all evil.”
The first organized money power of serious import, endangering a republican form of government, was the monopoly termed “The Bank of the United States,” incorporated by act of Congress in 1816, for the term of twenty years. And with its millions of easily earned profits, it soon controlled legislation in the interests of wealth and the corporation, causing suffering and disaster to the business of the nation by making prices unstable through contractions and expansions of the mediums of exchange, so that the State of Ohio raised objections to the contemplated establishment of branches of the monopoly within her borders.
After much political discussion of the matter, a legislature was elected largely opposed to the money power, and the state in 1818 passed an act in the nature of a high protective tariff, “taxing each branch of the United States Bank located in the State of Ohio fifty thousand dollars.” The bank refused to pay the assessments when due under the act, and, like most monopolies in sight of a supreme court, disregarded the act of legislation and defied the authorities.
The law-makers in Ohio, even in that early day, had seen enough to understand the defiantinsubordination of wealth, and in the act for collecting the tax from the branch banks due the state, authorized the collector to employ an armed force, if necessary, and to enter the bank and seize money sufficient to cover the claim and costs of collection.
This was done by the collector for the “Chillicothe branch,” and the state became defendant, returning with interest the money taken at the end of the usual course of litigation, by an order of the supreme court. It has often been related by those who took part in the great struggle for supremacy oflaw, orwill of the majority of a producing population, as against the tyrannical usurpations of a money power, with its revolving satellites, that the contest threatened the peace, prosperity and safety of the whole nation.
As stated by Hon. Brisben Walker, the institution “quickly became a political power; established branches and agencies throughout the country tocontrol votes; spent money freely forpoliticalcorruption;” and when it went down, was reported in 1839, by a committee of its own stockholders, to have given “such an exhibition of waste and destruction, and downright plundering and criminal misconduct, as was never seen before in the annals of banking.
“Thirty millions of its loanswere not of a mercantile character, but made tomembers of Congress, editors of newspapers, politicians, brokers, favorites, and connections.” And it continued torule until the will and wisdom of President Jackson put an end to the great monopoly. He removed the government deposits, prevented a re-charter, and in 1833 made a statement to Congress, giving the grounds on which his action was based toward the bank, saying “it was for attempting to control the elections, producing a contraction of the currency, and causing general distress.” The funeral went off quietly, with but few mourners, and the American people were liberated from the bondage of aggregated wealth, and Ohio obtained a lease for a number of prosperous decades. But the war of the Sixties came, and moneyed combines grew in power and audacity, until many persons expressed fears for the laws, labor and liberties of the common people.
Taking into consideration the small number of wealthy persons among the great mass of the people, it is rather remarkable that so many patriotic men in this country, from the days of Washington up to the present time, have expressed emphatically their fears for the welfare of the republic should it fall under the destructive power of concentrated and organized wealth.
President Jackson declared it was “better to incur any inconvenience that may be reasonably expected than toconcentrate the whole money power of the republicin any form whatsoever, or under any restrictions.” He had seen the arrogant influences under all the restrictions law could give, and gave the warning statement that what hesaw were but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into sustaining institutions of “organized wealth.”
President Lincoln said, at the close of the sanguinary struggle: “It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood; ... but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of the country. As the result of war corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until all wealth is aggregated into a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicion may prove groundless.”
These and other prophetic warnings carry with them a vast degree of thoughtful solemnity, due to our knowledge of man and the signs of the times. When the successful candidate for office is made to depend upon the size of the campaign fund, and party success more or less assured in proportion to the length of figures beyond a dollar mark, the liberties of the common people are fraught with danger, if not already destroyed.
Wherever the corrupting influence of money has been permitted to enter politics, it has becomemore successful than just and salutary announcements, and has been used aggregatingly by the wealthy in amounts sufficient to secure their own interests, regardless of party lines or the welfare of the public. This may appear severe in statement, but it is nevertheless true to the experience of one who has seen nearly four score years of our republican form of government. The writer would gladly soften the roughness with charity, had he ever witnessed a compensating virtue or redeeming excuse for permitting the money power to run the government, make the laws and rule the people.
So great is the apparent fear, too, by the money power that the government may pass into the hands of the common people, and those less than multi-millionaires may aspire to political preferment, that organized leagues are spread over the entire Northern states, like political fly-traps, with plenty of the “sticky stuff,” in order to hold the ignorant and indifferent to the support of the rich and their party alliances. The organization of wealth for increasing its influence on legislation, or other purposes, under the title of “The National Business Men’s League,” is not looked upon in any very commendable light by the average American, and has been pronounced “unsavory” by many honest men.
“The promoters of this league,” says Senator Quay, “invokes a class against the masses and all other classes. No league of business men,based upon wealth, can erect a government class in this country. In the United States Senate we havemillionairesand business menenoughto serve all legitimate purposes. Senators are needed who have no specialties,but who will act for the interests of the country in gross, without special affinities.
“The people most deserving ofa representation, and most in need oflegislative protection, are thefarmers, the smallstore-keepers, theartisans, and theday-laborers, and I stand bythem, and against this ‘league.’ I go into the barricades with thebourgeoisieand the men in blouses.
“There must be less business and morepeoplein our politics, else the republican party and thecountrywill go to wreck. Thebusinessissues are making our politics sordid andcorrupt.The tremendous sums of money furnished by business men, reluctantlyin most instances, arepolluting the well-springs of our national being.”
It is unpleasant to look upon the dark side of any question, and especially that of our lovely country, and still go on ignoring the lessons given us by the fathers of the nation. When we compare the administrations of Washington, Adams, and others, with the present ravening greed for place by those who look upon official position as the gateway to sudden wealth, the inquiry suggests itself, and the desire to know the points of compass the nation is drifting, and at whatportthe ship of state is expected to enter if continued on the dark lines of the present chart?
History is full of object-lessons—storms, wrecks and disasters that have ended all attempts to perpetuate a republican form of government by the power of organized wealth. Money is powerful, and may govern for a season. But legislation that concentrates the wealth of the nation into the hands of a privileged few causes the government to rest upon a sandy foundation. The common people will eventually tire, become restless and revengeful.
The money interests of the United States and those of Europe are the same. And when the accumulation becomes so great it can not satisfy personal greed for gain, it finds its way into landed investments, chiefly in the United States. At the present rate of concentration and transfer into realty, the period can not be far in the future when all the valuable lands in the United States will be owned and controlled by a few immensely wealthy families in this country and in Europe. The “money power,” with its “trusts,” “combines,” high fences, barb-wired, armed police on the outside and bulldogs within, may smile at the success giving financial control of the profits of all kinds of labor necessary in the development and manufacture of the resources of nature. Still, the aristocratic pyramid is incomplete until the soil and profits from cultivationare owned and controlled by the “systematic and satisfactory management of a ‘land trust.’”
It is manifest now that wealth is seeking unusual investments in farming lands by the money kings of Europe and America, when a single lord of England can own three million acres in the heart of the most fertile section of the United States, and have his rack-rents sent to Viscount Scully, in Europe. Sir Edward Reid owns two million acres; the Marquis of Tweeddale, one million seven hundred thousand acres, and several others of the titled aristocracy of Europe own farms ranging from forty thousand to three million acres each, making in the aggregate an area of several states. And quite recently fifty million acres more have passed into the hands of the English stockholders in the distribution of the land grants to the Northern Pacific Railroad. These large bodies of land owned by aliens—lords of Europe, with the syndicates and American monopolies and railroad grants,[17]and special gifts by Congress of one hundred and ninety-seven million six hundred and ninety-nine thousand acres to the rich monopolies in this country and Europe, amount to an area greater than the sum of eleven states of average size, and which may ere long be considered sufficient to constitute a respectable nucleus for an “American Land Trust.”