Ohio History Journal

Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association. 161

 

commemorated in our own beautiful memorial building holding

his library and numerous family relics, while his remains with

those of his wife, lie beneath the family monument on the beau-

tiful knoll in Spiegel Grove which is approached only by travers-

ing the original Harrison trail of the war of 1812.

As coworkers in this field of historic investigation we wel-

come you to our capital and lay open freely before you for your

inspection and study the rich treasures of our archaeology, our

historical documents, and our monuments commemorating the

deeds of our great soldiers and statesmen. Our common field

is one of surpassing interest and we shall all rejoice in the con-

tributions which any are able to accomplish in making our past

more real to the present generation. May our younger scholars

be encouraged by what has already been done to accomplish still

greater things in the future. Standing on our shoulders they

may see farther than we have seen and be able to combine facts

into a more consistent whole than we have been able to do. To

such work we welcome you all and bid you God speed.

 

 

RESPONSE AND PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

 

H. W. ELSON, LITT. D.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In behalf of the Ohio Valley Historical Association I beg

to express our extreme gratification at the gracious words of

welcome accorded us by the executive of the great institution

on whose grounds and by whose courtesy we are privileged to

assemble, and also, to the representative of the State Archaeo-

logical and Historical Society to whose kindness and courtesy

we shall be deeply indebted ere we separate. It was by a happy

arrangement that the meetings of the kindred societies, the Ohio

Valley Historical Association, and the Ohio State History Teach-

ers' Association be held at the same time and place, for certainly

each will be inspired and benefited by its contact with the other.

I make no pretense of speaking for the latter; nor is there any

need. Prof. W. H. Siebert, president of that association, who

refused to permit me to put his name on the program in that

capacity, is hereby again urgently requested to make some state-

Vol. XXV-11

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162      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

ment at least of the past history, aims and purposes of that asso-

ciation.

The Ohio Valley Historical Association, which I have the

honor to represent had its birth eight years ago in the University

of Cincinnati.

The annual meetings have proved to be of great interest.

They have fostered the cultivating of old friendships and the

making of new ones. But these are by-products. The primary

purpose of the Association is to promote and encourage historic.

study, especially that of the great valley drained by the beauti-

ful, winding river whose name it bears; and to prepare papers

from the original sources. These, being published in our annual

reports, will prove a treasury of information and historic lore

of priceless value to the future historian.

History is the story of human development, as Dr. Bury

defines it, or a biography of society, in the language of Dr.

Arnold; or as Froude puts it, a voice forever sounding across

the centuries, the laws of right and wrong. Yes, it is all that

and more. History is the record of the origin and growth of

the institutions we enjoy and it is a study of humanity, the most

absorbing of all studies, that in which we are all engaged, con-

sciously or unconsciously, every day as long as we live.

The history of the past modifies our views of the present

and aids us greatly in planning for the future. It fosters patriot-

ism and makes for good citizenship. What is this thing we call

patriotism and whence cometh it? patriotism of the sort that

leads a man to give his life for his country? Is it geographical

unity? If so, how can we explain the indisputable oneness and

patriotism of the British Empire, which exists in spots all over

the world? Is it language? Then why are the Swiss character-

ized by an almost fierce devotion to their country? Switzerland

is tri-lingual, 15 of the cantons being of German speech, five

French and two Italian. Even our own great land is without

a language of its own. We must seek further for the fountain

of patriotic fervor.

Is it religion? Least of all is it religion. In nearly all

modern countries the people are hopelessly divided in their

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association. 163

religious dogma, and religion has, for the most part, ceased to

be national and has become personal.

Is it then race that binds a people into a unit? Where is

the modern Caucasian race of pure blood? We speak of the

Teutonic peoples at war with the Allies. Note a few facts: The

English people of today, as is well known, are chiefly Teutonic

in their origin. The French are in a great measure descended

from the immense body of the Franks, a Germanic tribe that

crossed the lower Rhine during the dying years of the Roman

Empire. Even the Italians are largely the descendants of the

invading Ostrogoths and Lombards.

The old Romar race, if I may turn aside for an instant,

largely died out because of the refusal of the so-called better

classes to raise families. And France is not the only modern

nation going in the same direction. In our own America, if it

were not for the immigrants and the larger families of the

farmers and laborers, our population would decrease instead of

increase from decade to decade.

To return to our unanswered question--whence cometh

patriotism? The agents I have named may all make their con-

tribution, but none of them is paramount. There is another

factor surpassing all these. It is the common heritage of the

past. If our old friends seem dearer to us than the new, it is

because of our common experiences. The people of a nation

are welded together more by their common memories and tradi-

tions, as a modern writer puts it, by their common achievements

and failures, than by any other agent. And this is history. It

is therefore the history of a people, intelligently understood, that

unifies the spirit, that makes them a nation and furnishes the

foundation of their hopes and aspirations.

The Swiss people are without a separate language or religion:

they are divided into a hundred communities by almost impas-

sable mountains; but they have in common the memory of Arnold

Winkleried and of William Tell, mythical or true, and this

memory binds them together as nothing else can do. The French

nation would hardly be today what it is were it not for the

memory of that strange, frail girl of dreams and visions who

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164      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

came from among the vine-covered hills of Domremy to lead

the royal armies to victory. For two centuries Scotland has

been one in government with England; but you can still fire the

heart of the Scots and make them feel a people apart from all

the rest of the world with the magic names of Wallace and Bruce

and Burns.

Few of us appreciate the potency of history in shaping na-

tional character. Few realize what history has done for us in

making us what we are. It is an astonishing fact that until the

last few decades history was not a required study in our public

schools.

But, it may be argued, we have no history, we are but of

yesterday. What a brief span in the world's life is the time

since the founding of Jamestown; and even after that event the

Ohio Valley lay for nearly two centuries unoccupied by civilized

man. But, perhaps it is true that to a man of four score, youth

seems no farther away than events of five or six years ago to

a child of ten. If this holds good with respect to a nation, our

little span of national existence may be quite as inspiring to us

as long vistas of past centuries would be. But there is another

viewpoint from which every American has reason to be proud

of his country.

Among the great governments of the world ours is not the

youngest, but one of the oldest. The German Empire is only a

third as old as our national government, and the same is almost

true of Austria-Hungary and of Italy. After we had long been

settled as a stable government the states of Germany, of Austria,

and of Italy were still floundering in the abyss of disunion and

only dimly dreamning of national unity. And what of France?

Since the adoption of our Constitution in 1789 France has under-

gone fourteen changes of government, many of them very radical,

ranging from the absolute monarchy to the wild, unrestrained

sans culotte democracy. Even old stable England underwent a

change in 1832 far more radical than any recorded in our na-

tional history.

In short, the only great modern nation west of Russia that

has held, during the past century and a quarter, a steady, un-

swerving course without a single, radical change in its form of

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Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association. 165

 

government is the United States of America. Have we not much

in our history to be proud of?

In conclusion permit me to refer to the one uppermost

thought in the world's mind -the Great War; or rather to the

American attitude towards war, as emphasized by this colossal

conflagration.

A noted writer of Europe said recently that this war will

strengthen the heroic in man at the expense of the esthetic, add-

ing that the change in his opinion will not be for the worse. He

might have added that by the heroic he means the bull-dog

nature -the very thing that Civilization and Christianity have

been trying to train out of man for thousands of years. In all

the zoological world the prince of fighters is your bull dog. To

characterize him in a phrase, he fights like a European.

America is devoted to peace as no other great people in

the world's history has ever been. Why is this so? There are

various contributing causes. First, we desire no more territory,

while nearly every nation in Europe is obsessed with the land-

grabbing fever. Second, we have a vast safeguarding ocean to

the east of us and another to the west of us. These facts may

have their weight and doubtless do contribute much to the fixing

of our national character in this respect. But we must search

deeper for the true cause of our passionate devotion to peace.

Is it fear or a sense of weakness? Hardly. No braver

soldiers live than our own, and our resources far exceed those

of any other nation. Is it the devastation of the land, the destruc-

tion of the cities and of works of art? Is it the undeserved suf-

fering of the men in the trenches and on the battle line, or

the greater suffering of the wives and mothers at home? Is it

the stupendous national debts that will wring the life-blood from

the toiling millions for generations to come?

All these we deplore to the last degree, but the most potent

cause of our hatred of warfare is yet to be named. It may be

expressed in the single word - Individualism. We have come

to regard the individual life as too sacred to be sacrificed whole-

sale to the war-god without the gravest of reasons. It is the

slaying of multitudes of young men that we deplore above all

things. Why cut down a young man when he is only beginning

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166      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

to live, before he has had a chance for self-realization? Why

cut off a man's opportunities in his youth? Why rob him of

the holy right to live and to make the best of himself? There

are doubtless moments of exhiliration and glory in the dangers

of battle, but these are as nothing when balanced against the

wholesale slaughter of men.

Herein then lies the secret of our anti-war spirit. Not that

we would not fight if necessary. No people is more jealous of

its rights and its honor. And in the language of Dryden, "Be-

ware of the fury of the patient man." But unless war is un-

avoidable, we are for peace at all times. This intense devotion

to peace is, I believe, strengthening with the years, is becoming

deep and ineradicable in the American heart. The fact that at

this time there is a national impulse for greater preparedness

does not change this basal truth in the least, and when the his-

torian of the remote future sums up the qualities and character-

istics of the nations of our age, perhaps he will place this Devo-

tion to Peace as the most pronounced, distinctive characteristic

of the American people.

 

WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVEN-

TION OF OHIO.

 

BY D. C. SHILLING, MONMOUTH COLLEGE, ILL.

The question of extending the franchise to woman on an

equality with man is an outgrowth of nineteenth century democ-

racy, and a tribute to the progress woman has made in almost all

fields of human endeavor. It is no longer a local issue, but has be-

come a national one and from a broader point of view, an inter-

national one. It, therefore, may be worth our while to analyze

the movement in Ohio as reflected in the Constitutional Conven-

tions of 1851, 1873 and 1912, especially the first two.

Ohio, like several of the states which entered the union in

the early part of our national history, has changed her organic

law by a subsequent constitution, incorporating to be sure, many

principles of the older yet altering what progress and experience

taught should be altered. This constitution adopted in the middle

of the nineteenth century together with several amendments con-

stitutes the organic law of the state.

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