APPENDIX D
THE HAYES MEMORIAL LIBRARY - SOLDIERS' ME-
MORIAL TABLET - CELEBRATION OF
HAYES CENTENARY
Dedication of Hayes Memorial May 30, 1916
BY LUCY ELLIOT KEELER
Memorials of our great statesmen have been of various forms
and sources of creation. Mount Vernon was rescued by a private
society which controls its view by the public. "The Hermitage,"
Jackson's hame near Nashville, and Lincoln's modest home in
Springfield are in charge of local societies. The Grant, Gar-
field, and McKinley monuments were erected by appeals to a
generous public. The Hayes Memorial is unique. The beautiful
grove, with President Hayes's books and collections, was given
to the State for the free use of the public. The only conditions
were that the historic Sandusky-Scioto Trail from Lake Erie to
the Ohio River, running a half mile through the grove, should
be preserved as a park drive; that the trees and shrubs should be
marked with their common and scientific names; that the state
park and the monument should be kept suitably enclosed; and
that a fire-proof building be erected to house the treasures of the
home. The homestead is separately endowed by Colonel and Mrs.
Hayes for the Hayes family occupant, and so as to preserve the
house as a typical American home of its period.
Spiegel Grove, a twenty-five acre grove of native forest trees,
was given to the State, for the use of the Ohio State Archaeologi-
cal and Historical Society, by Colonel Webb C. Hayes, together
with the library and collections of his father, as a memorial to
his parents. In the language of the circular of the Archaeological
and Historical Society, issued in 1898, five years after the death
(298)
DEDICATION OF HAYES MEMORIAL 299
of its former president, "this offer of the family is unusual for
its liberality and most worthy of commendation for the filial
desire it expresses to perpetuate the memorial to loved and hon-
ored parents."
The years of planning and erecting this building were cheered
by filial remembrance and a sure faith in its final accomplish-
ment. Every memorial should in some way be a reflection and
interpretation of the facts, beliefs, character, and deeds which
made up the life of the person commemorated. The Hayes Me-
morial possesses in marked degree this beauty of association as
well as an absolute beauty. Here, to keep vivid the memory of
the President and Mrs. Hayes, are gathered all the objects that
devoted family and friends could bring to illuminate the past,
not only of their private lives and poignant personalities, but of
the epoch, rich in history, in which they lived.
The invitation to the ceremonies attending the formal open-
ing of the Hayes Memorial Building to the public was widely
distributed. Special invitations were sent to former State Sen-
ator T. A. Dean of Fremont, and former Governor Judson Har-
mon, who were so active in securing the provision for the erec-
tion of the fire-proof building required under the terms of the
gift; and to President Wilson, Secretary of State Lansing, Sec-
retary of War Baker, and Senators Pomerene and Harding by
the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. The fol-
lowing order of exercises was issued:
MORNING PROGRAM
8:00 A. M. The Memorial Building will be thrown open at 8
o'clock A. M., for the exclusive use of the school
children and teachers of the Public Schools, headed
by the Light Guard Band, and of St. Ann's and St.
Joseph's Parochial Schools, headed by the Wood-
man Band, on their way to the cemeteries to dec-
orate the graves of the soldiers. Firing squad and
special committee from the G. A. R. will be con-
veyed by autos to Spiegel Grove State Park, St.
Joseph and Calvary and Oakwood cemeteries.
Members of the G. A. R. and Woman's Relief
Corps to Oakwood by Trolley Car, returning to
Spiegel Grove by autos.
300 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
9:30 A. M. Croghan Lodge and the Uniform Rank and other
members of the I. O. O. F. will leave their head-
quarters, Front and State streets, headed by
Woodman Band and march to Spiegel Grove.
10:00 A. M. Music by Light Guard Band.
Meeting called to order by John M. Sherman, Esq.,
and presentation of his Excellency, the Honorable
Frank B. Willis, Governor of Ohio.
Exercises Eugene Rawson Post, G. A. R.
Assembly called to order by Comrade Jas. A. Gill-
mor, Commander of Eugene Rawson Post, G.
A. R.
Address by the Rev. A. C. Shuman, of Tiffin.
Dedication of Eugene Rawson Post Memorial
Window in the Hayes Memorial.
11:00 A. M. Exercises Croghan Lodge, I. O. O. F.
Assembly called to order by G. L. Roach, Noble
Grand.
Prayer by W. D. Pearce, Vice-Grand.
Address by Meade G. Thraves, Esq., Historian
Croghan Lodge.
Address by Ivor Hughes, Esq., Past Grand Master.
Benediction by J. E. Courtney, Chaplain.
AFTERNOON PROGRAM, 2 P. M.
Meeting called to order by Prof. G. Frederick Wright, Presi-
dent of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
Invocation by the Rev. C. J. Roberts, pastor of the First Metho-
dist Church of Fremont.
Song by the Col. George Croghan Chapter, Daughters of Amer-
ican Revolution, and the Fremont Church Choirs, led by Prof.
Alfred Arthur, Leader 23rd Regiment Band, accompanied by
the Woodman Band.
Welcome by His Honor, George Kinney, Mayor of Fremont.
Address by Charles Richard Williams. of Princeton, N. J.,
biographer of Rutherford B. Hayes.
Song by the Col. George Croghan Chapter, Daughters of the
American Revolution and Fremont Church Choirs, led by Prof.
Alfred Arthur, Leader 23rd Ohio Regiment, accompanied by the
Woodman Band.
Remarks by the Honorable Newton D. Baker, Secretary of
War, representing the President of the United States.
Remarks by the Honorable Frank B. Willis, Governor of
Ohio.
Remarks by United States Senator, Atlee Pomerene.
DEDICATION OF HAYES MEMORIAL 301
Remarks by United States Senator, Warren G. Harding.
Remarks by the Honorable Arthur W. Overmyer, Congress-
man from the 13th Ohio District.
Remarks by Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young, U. S. A.,
Commander-in-Chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion,
of which Rutherford B. Hayes was Commander-in-Chief at the
time of his death, represented by Captain Alexis Cope.
Remarks by Hon. James E. Campbell, former Governor of
Ohio, Trustee Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.
Remarks by Capt. Elias R. Monfort, Commander-in-Chief of
the Grand Army of the Republic, represented by Past Depart-
ment Commander, Gen. J. Kent Hamilton.
Twenty-third Ohio Regiment Association of which Ruther-
ford B. Hayes was President from its organization after the
Antietam Campaign in 1862 until his death, represented by Cap-
tain John S. Ellen, President.
Eugene Rawson Post, G. A. R., of which Rutherford B. Hayes
became a member May 11 , 1881, represented by James A. Gillmor,
Commander.
Sandusky County Bar Association of which Rutherford B.
Hayes became a member in 1845, at Lower Sandusky, now Fre-
mont, represented by Basil Meek, Esq., President.
Croghan Lodge, I. O. O. F., of which Rutherford B. Hayes
became a member 17th of September, 1849, at Lower Sandusky,
now Fremont, Ohio, represented by Meade G. Thraves, Esq.
Birchard Library Association, of which Rutherford B. Hayes
was President from its organization in 1873 until his death, rep-
resented by Charles Thompson, President.
Sandusky County Pioneer and Historical Society, of which
Rutherford B. Hayes became a member at its organization, 6th
of June, 1874, represented by I. H. Burgoon, President.
Benediction by Rev. E. M. O'Hare, rector of St. Ann's Catholic
Church.
At the Hayes residence, the hosts, Colonel and Mrs. Webb
C. Hayes assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Birchard A. Hayes of Toledo,
Mr. and Mrs. Scott R. Hayes of New York, Mrs. Fanny Hayes
Smith of Washington, and a nephew, William P. Hayes of Ashe-
ville, N. C., received their distinguished guests. First in the day
came the children from the public and parochial schools, some
two thousand strong, marching in order and each carrying a flag,
a moving and inspiring sight.
Not far from the residence, on the beautiful knoll to the south,
302 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
stands the monument in the base of which repose the remains
of the President and Mrs. Hayes, and this spot was one of the
points of pilgrimage throughout the day. After the death of
Mrs. Hayes in 1889, President Hayes devoted much thought to
the design of a simple monument. This was constructed of
Dummerston (Vermont) granite, from the quarries located on
the ancestral farm to which his parents, Rutherford Hayes
of Brattleboro and Sophia Birchard of Fayetteville, moved upon
their marriage in 1812 and which they occupied until their mi-
gration to Delaware, Ohio, in 1817 where they lived ever after-
ward and where the future President was born, October 4, 1822.
The monument was erected in Oakwood Cemetery, but in April,
1915 the bodies of the President and Mrs. Hayes and the monu-
ment were transferred to Spiegel Grove. Beautiful evergreen
trees and shrubs screen the knoll which is further enclosed with
a tall iron fence. The gate was opened on Memorial Day, and
the Fremont school-children strewed a profusion of beautiful
flowers upon the base of the monument. Following an annual
custom, a beautiful wreath of white lilies was placed there by
representatives of the Twenty-third O. V. V. I., General Hayes's
old regiment. Flags intermingled their colors with the floral
tributes.
Led by Commander Gillmor and Post Adjutant B. F. Evans,
Eugene Rawson Post marched to the Hayes Memorial Building
and there dedicated the Eugene Rawson Post window.
Promptly at 10:15 the Toledo and Fremont Cantons, I. O. 0.
F., and subordinate lodge members and Rebekahs formed in line
in Front Street.
Headed by the Woodman Band, escorted by the Maccabees'
rifle company, followed by the Patriarchs Militant, uniformed
rank of the Odd Fellows, and the banner bearers of Croghan and
McPherson local lodges, the subordinate lodges and Rebekah
lodges, they proceeded to Spiegel Grove where exercises were
carried out by the Odd Fellows in dedication of their memorial
window in the Hayes Memorial Library and Museum.
The formal dedication of the Memorial Building by the Arch-
aeological and Historical Society took place in the afternoon.
The speakers' stand was placed on the lawn in front of the resi-
PRESIDENT WRIGHT'S ADDRESS 303
dence. A large throng of people filled the seats on the lawn and
the ample porch. The Rev. Dr. George Frederick Wright, Presi-
dent of the Society, presided, and spoke as follows:-
My Fellow Citizens:
The dedication here today of the Hayes Memorial Library and
Museum, erected in the Spiegel Grove State Park, will serve to
perpetuate the memory of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, whose
services were preeminently valuable in the Union army during
the War for the Union; in Congress, as Representative from his
State; in the office of Governor of Ohio (to which he was elected
three times) ; and as the nineteenth President of the United
States. An additional interest in this occasion is given by the
coincidence that Spiegel Grove, which by dedication becomes the
property of the State, to be preserved as a park perpetuating the
memory of President Hayes, also in some degree perpetuates the
name of William Henry Harrison, the first Ohio President.
Through these grounds may still be traced the trail over which
General Harrison led his army in 1813 to the decisive victories
on land which preceded and followed that of Perry on Lake Erie;
while an impressive gateway to the grove does due honor to this
distinguished citizen of the State and to his brave and noble army.
The event which we now celebrate in the completion of this
beautiful building and in setting it apart with its invaluable
library and its marvellous collection of historical relics, together
with the opening of Spiegel Grove as a public park, may well
arouse the patriotism of the whole nation. Long before the army
of 1813 passed through these grounds, the aboriginal inhabitants
of America had been in the habit of threading their way under
its majestic trees on the trail leading from the Great Lakes to
the Ohio River. Almost in sight of where we now stand, also, is
the monument to Major Croghan and his gallant band who, a
short time before Perry's victory, defended Fort Stephenson
against an overwhelming force of British and Indians, and com-
pelled General Procter to withdraw, thus saving Ohio from in-
vasion.
It is an interesting coincidence that this centre of historic
interest was in early life chosen as his residence by Rutherford
304 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Birchard Hayes, who by his preeminent qualities, both military
and civil, rose to the highest position which a citizen of the
United States may hope to attain. Of the deeds of this most dis-
tinguished citizen of Fremont the orator of the day will speak.
It remains for me only to give a brief history of Spiegel Grove
and the building which we now dedicate.
When about the middle of the last century Spiegel Grove
was chosen for the Hayes family residence, it was completely
covered with a primeval forest. A space in the centre, sufficient
to let in sunlight and to afford a beautiful and spacious lawn,
was cleared, and the future home erected upon it. In later years
additions were made until it assumed its present stately propor-
tions. The original grove consists of about twenty-five acres,
all within the two square miles of the old Indian Free City,
deeded to the United States in 1786 by treaty, and now known as
Fremont. Through the generosity, filial devotion, and public spirit
of a son, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, who had come into possession
of the property, the whole tract was offered to the State as a
public park in memory of his parents. His deed simply required
its maintenance as a state park and:
"That the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society
should secure the erection upon that part of Spiegel Grove here-
tofore conveyed to the State of Ohio for a state park, a suitable
fire-proof building, on the site reserved opposite the Jefferson
Street entrance, for the purpose of preserving and forever keep-
ing in Spiegel Grove all papers, books, and manuscripts left by
the said Rutherford B. Hayes; . . . which building shall be
in the form of a branch reference library and museum of the
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society; and the con-
struction and decoration of the said building shall be in the na-
ture of a memorial also to the soldiers, sailors, and pioneers of
Sandusky County; and suitable memorial tablets, busts, and dec-
orations indicative of the historical events and patriotic citizen-
ship of Sandusky County shall be placed in and on said building,
and said building shall forever remain open to the public under
proper rules and regulations to be hereafter made by said
society."
The Legislature of Ohio generously appropriated fifty thousand
dollars. Of this, forty thousand was used toward the building
PRESIDENT WRIGHT'S ADDRESS 305
and ten thousand dollars for paving the streets surrounding
Spiegel Grove. Impressive entrances to the grounds, through
gateways bordered with massive walls of granite boulders, were
constructed by Colonel Hayes. Two of these gateways are be-
tween immense cannon erected on end and inscribed, in the one
case, to the memory of the French and British explorers, and
the soldiers of the War of 1812 who passed over the Harrison
Trail; and, in the other, to the soldiers of Sandusky County
who served in the War with Mexico and the War for the Un-
ion. The bodies of President and Mrs. Hayes were trans-
ferred to the beautiful knoll in the grove, together with the
modest monument which President Hayes before his death
had erected, in Oakwood Cemetery, of Vermont granite, from
the quarries near his father's birthplace. Colonel Hayes has
expended in increasing the attractions of the grove and the
buildings in it, together with its endowment, about one hundred
thousand dollars in cash. This with adjoining real estate and the
value of the Hayes Memorial Library represents by fair valua-
tion a quarter of a million dollars, which becomes the property
of the State, entrusted to the care of the Ohio State Archaeologi-
cal and Historical Society.
As pilgrims come to this sacred spot from far and near they
cannot fail to be impressed with the importance of the historical
events which are here commemorated, and with the debt which
we owe to the heroic men who did so much here both to obtain
and to preserve the liberties of our country. With Major
Croghan in the nearby Fort Stephenson Park they will, in imagi-
nation, await the psychological moment when the order comes
to let loose the charge from "Old Betsy" that was to destroy the
British forces that were making their final assault. With eager
steps they will march with General Harrison and his army,
through the southern gateway, along the old Indian trail, as he
hastens from his headquarters at Fort Seneca to embark, at the
portage of Port Clinton, upon Perry's victorious ships, to be
landed in Canada for the triumphant victory of the Thames.
Through the western gateway, they will be thrilled by the thought
of the heroes that from this county fell in the Mexican War and
in the War for the Union, and by the memory of General Mc-
20
306 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Pherson, the highest in rank and command to fall upon the field
of battle in the War for the Union. At the grave of President
Hayes and in this memorial building a flood of memories will
come as they recall his gallantry on the field of battle, his wise
administration of the government of his native State, and of the
transcendent service which he rendered in the face of violent
opposition and abuse as President of the United States to restore
that loyalty and good feeling which we now witness in such full
degree between the warring sections of fifty years ago. All these
are monuments to remind us of the extreme and unselfish devo-
tion of private interests to the public good which are shown only
by soldiers and statesmen of the highest rank. Here may we
come in increasing numbers to devote ourselves anew to the
service of our country and our common humanity.
President Wright then introduced the Rev. C. J. Roberts, pas-
tor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, of Fremont, who
delivered the invocation.
This was followed by the singing of "The Star-Spangled Ban-
ner" by the Colonel George Croghan Chapter, D. A. R., and the
Fremont Church Choirs led by Professor Alfred Arthur, leader of
the Twenty-third Regiment Band; accompanied by the Wood-
man Band.
After the music President Wright introduced the Hon. George
Kinney, Mayor of Fremont, who welcomed the assembly in these
words:
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society, through and by whose
grand achievements and devotion to duty we are able to dedicate
this magnificent memorial, this historic mansion, this match-
less grove, this place of beauty, to the sacred memory of Ruther-
ford B. Hayes, I bid you welcome.
To all you aged soldiers of the War for the Union who were
his allies in war and his comrades in peace, who come here to
evidence your love and devotion to your old commander, I bid
you welcome.
To all you honorable gentlemen, representatives of this great
Nation and State, who honor us by your presence in this dedi-
SPEECH OF WELCOME 307
catory service to the memory of one of the noblest of America's
great men, I bid you welcome.
To all other organizations and associations, and especially the
Odd Fellows, of which he was an active and devoted member for
fifty years--some of you have known him all these years, yet
none knew him but to love, and none named him but to praise,
-and any and all of you who come to express your love, re-
spect, and admiration for your townsman and your friend, I bid
you welcome.
The building we dedicate here today has not been erected as a
temporary expedient, but will stand as a monument for all time
to the glory of this society, this State, and the distinguished dead.
It will serve as a perpetual reminder to your children's children
of the many kind acts done, the many kind words spoken by this
noble man and still more noble woman, whose ashes lie at rest
in this consecrated ground.
It will arouse inspirations and aspirations and create ideals for
the young they can never forget. May its influence go with them
through life and when aged and gray, may they be truthfully
able to say:
"Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time the impression stronger makes
As streams their channels deeper wear."
We are not unmindful of the jewels placed in our keeping
this day. By erecting this memorial building of the everlasting
rock, and placing such priceless treasures therein of books and
parchments, you have made this a city of refuge for future
scholars, a Mecca for future ages, for which we are indeed
deeply grateful.
History is always tardy to do justice to the great. It is too
soon for his eulogy, too soon for his history; but a future age
will render the honor and glory to him which has been unjustly
withheld by this.
Possessed of the wisdom of the present and the past, he
knew how to become great without ceasing to be virtuous. Fame
should be earnest in her joy, and proud of such a son. He fought,
308 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
but not for love of strife; he struck but to defend; he never
became estranged from any man before he sought to be his friend.
He stood the firm, the wise, the patriot sage; he cherished
his neighbor, he loved his country, and revered his God.
When time shall have come, and come it will, that the his-
torians will have recatalogued the galaxy of America's greatest
men, you will find written at the poll, or very near the poll, the
fair fame and sacred name of R. B. Hayes.
Once again I bid you all a solemn and cordial welcome, and
ask each and every one of you to register here on this consecrated
spot a solemn vow to preserve this nation forever and forever to
the American--peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must, but for
America, America forever and forever.
Dr. Charles Richard Williams, of Princeton, biographer of
Rutherford B. Hayes, then delivered the following address:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We are met today to signalize the formal dedication of the
Hayes Memorial Building. There has been no occasion like this
in all the history of our beloved country. It is made possible by
the gracious cooperation of filial affection and worthy public
appreciation, for which I recall no parallel in our annals. By
deed of gift, a few years ago, Colonel Webb C. Hayes conveyed
to the State, for the benefit of the Archaeological and Historical
Society, this beautiful historic grove, through which ran the
famous Indian trail by which William Henry Harrison marched
his forces to Lake Erie, and whose ancient oaks had sheltered
savage wigwams and been lighted by the bivouac fires of hardy
frontier soldiers of 1812. The gift was on condition that the
society should procure the erection of a suitable fire-proof build-
ing for the permanent preservation of the books and papers and
personal belongings of President and Mrs. Hayes. Of course the
society, of which Mr. Hayes was long president, and which has
done so much to gather, to investigate, and to preserve records
and documents and objects of historical and archaeological sig-
nificance, was rejoiced to accept the gift and to undertake the
trust. And the State, through legislature and governor--both,
as it happened, Democratic at the time- was not slow to mani-
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 309
fest its appreciation of the gift and to do its share to make the
gift secure, rightly esteeming its patriotic purpose and its large
and permanent worth. To Senator T. A. Dean, of Fremont, for
his effective presentation of the cause before the legislature, we
should not fail, on this day of rejoicing, to give special credit and
praise. He saw clearly, he spoke persuasively - for the honor of
Ohio's greatest President, for the dignity and glory of the State.
So, as I said a moment ago, in dedicating this beautiful structure
of Ohio stone and enduring bronze, built to commemorate the life
and public services of Ohio's preeminent citizen, we are celebrat-
ing today the finished result of the gracious cooperation of filial
affection and worthy public appreciation. Through the long
future, this fair grove, with its immemorial trees and trees of
sentimental appeal, rich in its associations with
"old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago,"
embowering the spacious mansion, still redolent of the unclouded
domestic felicity of which it was the centre, and surcharged with
memories of gracious and abounding hospitality, of numberless
patriotic gatherings in which great and famous men had part, of
peaceful communing of its master with good books and devoted
friends, of self-sacrificing benevolent activities, will remain, un-
desecrated by vandal industry, uncontaminated by commercial
exploitation. Under the protecting aegis of the society and the
State, Spiegel Grove--haunt and habitation of good spirits -
will abide in perpetuity, a grateful source of pleasure and recre-
ation to this community; a shrine for patriotic visitors from afar,
who shall have formed true judgment of the noble part in our
history enacted, through long and strenuous years, by the man
whose home this was. Here men of remote generations shall see
the very surroundings, the very house with its familiar furnish-
ings and objects of use and ornament, in which abode, with his
gracious and beloved consort, the President, whose wisdom of
administration brought the Civil War epoch of our national life
to a just and happy conclusion. And in this memorial building
they shall see the books he used and loved, the manuscripts that
310 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
record his thoughts, and articles innumerable of utility or taste
which give some hint of his varied interests and of his manifold
activities.
Here, too, in close association, they shall behold intimate
memorials of that rare and beautiful woman whose influence and
inspiration were felt in all that he thought and did; whose char-
acter and life are a perpetual honor and example of American
womanhood. Hither students of American history will resort
for study and investigation, and here they shall find treasures
of private and personal information to reward their search, and
to clarify their conclusions touching the measures and the men
of a momentous period.
There is special propriety in conducting this service on this
particular day. It is the day set apart for recalling the deeds
and honoring the memory of the men who served and saved the
country when civil war threatened its destruction. Among those
men, conspicuous for his gallantry and for his devotion to the
country's cause, was the man whose high worth this building
recognizes and commemorates. Well acquainted as most of us
here are with the facts of his life, we shall do well for a little
while to ponder his career and to seek from his example to draw
some inspiration to lofty thought and civic virtue. Of course,
no extended survey of his many-sided life is possible, even if it
were desirable, on an occasion like this. It is sufficient for my
purpose to touch upon his distinctive qualities and achievements,
and to note the principles that governed his thought and conduct.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born at Delaware, Ohio, Octo-
ber 4, 1822. He was of pure New England parentage, of English
and Scotch descent. His American ancestors were sturdy pioneers;
honest, wholesome, industrious, God-fearing folk, doing faithfully
their duty to family and state; and when the War for Independ-
ence came, leaping whole-heartedly to the support of the American
cause. The best part of his heritage from his clean-living New
England forebears was a sound physical constitution, a clear and
active mind, a tradition of conscientious rectitude of conduct,
and a scrupulous sense of duty. What better endowment could
one desire for a lad, provided he have the environment and op-
portunity to develop his powers, and provided he have the will
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 311
to make the most of himself? And all this young Hayes had.
There was nothing in the least precocious or out of the usual in
his boyhood and youth. He was fond of sports; he was fond of
the open-air life and adventures with rod and gun which normal
lads of the country enjoy. But with all this he was conscientiously
industrious in his pursuit of knowledge; and in his college years,
boy as he still was, he began to be conscious of his latent abilities
and to seek by rigid self-examination and appraisal of defects to
follow the Socratic injunction, "Know thyself." This self-
scrutiny, this weighing of his own powers in comparison with
others, did not result in egotism or self-conceit; it only made him
see more clearly his own limitations and spurred him to greater
effort for intellectual growth and attainment. And with this, too,
his character was strengthening into self-mastery and self-
reliance, and he was coming to distinct, clear-minded conclusions
on fundamental questions of life and conduct; on what were
the just aims of ambition; on what constituted true success in
human endeavor.
"As far back as memory can carry me," he wrote at nine-
teen, just entering his senior year at Kenyon, "the desire of fame
was uppermost in my thoughts, but I never desired other than
honorable distinction. The reputation which I desire is not that
momentary eminence which is gained without merit and lost with-
out regret. Give me the popularity which runs after, not that
which is sought for. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.
Defeat without disgrace can be borne, but laurels which are not
deserved sit like a crown of thorns on the head of their possessor.
It is, indeed, far better to deserve honors without having them,
than to have them without deserving them."
In these brief sentences of youthful meditation and aspira-
tion we have not only a noble confession of faith, a noble resolu-
tion of soul integrity, but also a luminous prophecy of the attitude
toward public honors and distinctions that during his long life
should characterize their author. For never, throughout his
career, did Mr. Hayes seek any public office, or ask for any pro-
motion, or endeavor to gain any distinction or honor in any one
of the many social or philanthropic organizations of which he
was a member. Offices, honors, promotions, distinctions sought
312 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
him out and were pressed upon him. Often they were accepted
with extreme reluctance, but once accepted, the duties they in-
volved were performed with conscientious assiduity. Surely, if
ever a man did, he had the realization of his boyhood's wish.
He won "honorable distinction." He enjoyed "the popularity
which runs after, not that which is sought for." He, indeed,
attained "triumph as a man."
In all the years of his law practice, whatever the demands of
his professional engagements or the encroachments on his time
and energy of social life and of his increasing participation in
political effort and civic enterprises, he adhered steadfastly to his
projects for self-discipline and self-culture, and sought ever to
enlarge the sphere of his knowledge. He was always reading
good books; not only books that should amplify his range of
information concerning history and jurisprudence and the prin-
ciples of liberty and government, but the great books of pure
literature which should quicken his imagination, elevate his
thought, fortify and ennoble his character, and give his spirit
fuller and clearer vision. Here is the rule of reading that he laid
down for himself in this period; and who could frame a better?
"In general literature, read Burke, Shakespeare, and the stand-
ard authors constantly, and always have on hand some book of
worth not before perused. Avoid occasional reading of a light
character. Read always as if I were to repeat it the day after-
ward."
So, unconsciously, he was schooling his mind and character
for the larger duties, the vast responsibilities, which, beyond his
wildest dreams of ambition, the future had in store for him.
Being what he was, there could be no doubt how he would
feel and what he would do when Rebellion raised its angry crest
against our Federal Union. In his diary, intended for no eye but
his own, he wrote with calm deliberation: "I would prefer to go
into the war if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it,
than to live through and after it without taking any part in it."
There spoke the pure soul of the man. Looking before and after,
discerning the country's need and peril, laying aside all personal
regard, listening only to the voice of patriotic duty, without hesi-
tation or doubt or fear of consequences, he formed his high re-
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 313
solve, he chose with unfaltering purpose "on whose party he
should stand." And into the war he went, and for four years gave
heart and soul to its bloody business, doing with all his mind and
might every task assigned him, heedless of personal peril and too
busy with the work in hand to give a thought to questions of rank
or promotion. He was glad to shed his blood that the good cause
might prosper. Friends in Cincinnati might nominate him for
Congress, if they thought his name would strengthen the Union
ticket, while the tide of war was at flood in the Shenandoah
Valley. But when they asked him to seek a furlough and come
home to make speeches, that was quite another thing. Instantly,
with something like indignation at the thought, he wrote: "Your
suggestion about getting a furlough to take the stump was certain-
ly made without reflection. An officer fit for duty who at this
crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress
ought to be scalped. You may feel perfectly sure I shall do no
such thing." Let the election go as it might; his duty was with
the colors on "the perilous edge of battle."
It was a crisis in the Republican situation in Ohio in 1875
that forced Mr. Hayes from retirement, much against his will,
and gave him the unprecedented honor of a third nomination for
governor. He had served with credit in Congress during the
stormy early days of reconstruction. He had been governor two
terms-abundant in achievements of permanent value to the com-
monwealth. Then, refusing to be elected senator by disloyalty to
John Sherman, he had retired to Spiegel Grove, intending never
again to take a leading part in political life. In 1873 the Demo-
crats had elected William Allen governor by an insignificant
plurality. In 1874 they had swept the State in the congressional
elections. In 1875 the Republicans, almost despairing of their
chances, were yet determined to spare no effort to regain the
State. All eyes turned with one accord toward Mr. Hayes, who
in his previous campaigns had defeated Ohio's ablest Democratic
champions, Allen G. Thurman and George H. Pendleton; and,
despite his persistent refusal to be a candidate before the nomi-
nating convention, the convention would hear of no other man.
Under the circumstances, he had perforce to yield his personal
preference and accept the nomination.
314 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
The dominating issue of the campaign was sound money versus
Greenbackism--the latter making strong and insinuating appeal
to the unthinking masses, suffering from the severe depression
which followed the financial crash of 1873. The contest in Ohio
was watched with close and anxious attention by the entire nation.
Mr. Hayes fought the good fight for sound money, up and down
the State, with a vigor and convincing power which compelled vic-
tory. This brilliant success made him at once a national figure;
and it was this great achievement more than anything else which
caused his party to recognize his fitness for the Presidency, and
which in 1876 procured for him the nomination.
I can only allude to the troublous and tumultuous times which
followed the election. Through all those bitter months of angry
controversy and threatening partisan recrimination, Mr. Hayes
preserved unruffled poise and dignity, desirous only that right
and justice should prevail, whatever his own fate might be. When
the long and rancorous dispute was ended and his title to the
Presidency was declared indefeasible, he entered the White House
with one sole purpose -to serve the interests of the whole coun-
try to the limit of his ability and his opportunity. In his in-
augural address he gave voice to the principle which should con-
trol his conduct in a sentence which at once became a maxim
of political wisdom: "He serves his party best who serves his
country best."
The judgment of posterity, I believe, will pronounce Mr.
Hayes's Administration one of the cleanest, sanest, most efficient
administrations in our history. No breath of scandal ever sullied
its fair fame. In all its relations, domestic and foreign, honesty,
efficiency, and sound decisions, coupled with dignity and courtesy,
prevailed. And Mr. Hayes has to his enduring credit three
achievements of vast and far-reaching consequence. First: He
settled for all time the dangerous and perplexing Southern ques-
tion on a sound and rational basis. Whatever the past sins of
the Southern States, the National Government, Mr. Hayes saw,
could not go on treating those States differently from other States.
That seems too obvious to mention now. It was epoch-making in
1877. Second: Mr. Hayes, always a defender of sound money,
restored specie payments. He did this, to be sure, under a law
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 315
passed before he became President, but he had to accomplish his
purpose in defiance of a hostile Congress and in, the face both of
wide-spread disbelief in its feasibility and doubt of its wisdom,
which only high courage and steadfast determination could have
surmounted. The national credit was established on a firmer basis
than ever and returning prosperity smiled beneficently upon the
land. And, third, he made the first sincere and serious effort to
bring about genuine civil service reform. He did not do all he
had hoped to do in this respect. But in the face of incredible
obloquy and opposition he took the first courageous step which
made possible and soon compelled the adoption of his principles.
In all these great accomplishments he had the active and per-
sistent hostility of powerful influences in his own party. But he
was undismayed, serene in the conviction that he was right, and
he won in spite of all opposition. The event, he felt confident,
would approve the wisdom of his policies and bring the doubters
and antagonists to confusion. And his judgment was altogether
sound. As I have said elsewhere: "When Mr. Hayes entered
upon his term the country was still depressed and suffering from
the effects of the severe financial panic of 1873; and his party
was discredited, riven by internal dissensions, and on the verge
of collapse. When he left the White House, bounding prosperity
made glad the hearts of the people, and his party was once more
triumphant, confident, aggressive. The wonder is that with a
hostile Congress, and with his own party disunited in its support
of all the great policies to which he was committed by his letter
of acceptance and his inaugural address, and which he determin-
edly pursued- the wonder is that he could accomplish as much
as he did. His Administration proved and illustrated his own
wise maxim that 'he serves his party best who serves his country
best.' In the face of the protests, the denunciation, and the ma-
lignant enmity of men who had long been leaders of his party, he
serenely maintained his course, firmly convinced in his own mind
that the policies he was enforcing, instead of wrecking his party,
as his detractors angrily prophesied, would bring new strength
and new courage to the Republican cause. And the result proved
that he was far wiser than his critics."
316 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Mr. Hayes returned gladly to Spiegel Grove when his term as
President expired, but not to a life of dignified leisure only.
During the twelve years that still remained to him, he devoted
all his thought and energy, freely and without reward, to the
furtherance of worthy benevolent causes - to the interests of the
old soldiers, to education in the South and in the universities
of Ohio, to the advocacy of manual training in the public schools,
to the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen, and to the
great cause of prison reform. In all these fields of effort he was
a leader and not a follower; always an advocate of policies a
little in advance of current popular opinion; just as when Gov-
ernor and President he urged in his messages upon Legislature
and Congress measures of reform and proposals for new legisla-
tion which only after his time men gained wisdom to appreciate
and to adopt. Detractors and malignant critics might scoff and
sneer and seek to belittle his achievements or to deride his pro-
posals, but their silly clamor never provoked him to explanation
or defense; never disturbed his equanimity; never embittered his
thought. He was willing to let his actions justify themselves,
willing to trust the calm judgment of the future to approve the
wisdom and the righteousness of his conduct.
The controlling principle of his life was simplicity itself. It
was, under all conditions and in all circumstances, to do what he
believed to be right. The motto of the Scotch family of Hayes
from which he traced his descent, was the single Latin word
Recte. That is the adverb form of the word that means straight
or right. In all his conduct, public and private, Mr. Hayes ex-
emplified that motto. He was "straight" in thought and action;
he moved in right lines; his dealings were void of indirection
or equivocation.
Mr. Hayes believed intensely but intelligently in America, in
its polity, in its future, in its exalted mission under Divine favor,
for the world - for humanity. His was not a blind, unreasoning
patriotism. His convictions were based on wide knowledge of
history, on prolonged pondering of governmental systems, on
thorough understanding of the common people--their modes of
thought, their beliefs, their aspirations. He knew
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 317
"In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors"
of our Ship of State; and he believed sincerely that
"Humanity with all its fears,
With all its hopes of future years,
Was hanging breathless on her fate."
And yet he was fully conscious of the faults and defects and
dangers of our system, of the constant vigilance necessary to pre-
serve "the jewel of liberty in the house of freedom," of the
perils arising from the prodigious concentration of wealth in a
few hands and from the clash of contending interests and jealous-
ies of class, of the new duties that new occasions were continually
teaching. But he never lost faith in the Republic, never doubted
the essential soundness of the people, never despaired that right
causes would in the end prevail, if men that saw the right
worked on steadily, hopefully, patiently.
In his young manhood, in a letter to his betrothed, he gave
striking expression of his fine spirit of optimism, which increas-
ing years and experience could never quench nor qualify: "When
I see the immeasurable changes which a century or two have
produced," he wrote, "it gives me heart to throw my little efforts
in favor of the good projects of the age, however slow their
apparent progress. Nothing great is accomplished in a day, but
gradually the strong hours conquer all obstacles." Take heart,
take heart, O ye of little faith--even ye who through the lurid
clouds of the mad and frightful war now devastating Europe
seem to hear infernal angels croaking the doom of civilization.
For, be assured, "Our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand
from under"; be assured that, in God's good time, "gradually
the strong hours shall conquer all obstacles."
One quality further of Mr. Hayes I must note and empha-
size, and that was his love for Fremont, his appreciation of the
respect and confidence of her people that he enjoyed, his pride
in her growth and prosperity, his interest in all that contributed to
her welfare. Here only was his real home, and whenever he was
absent from it he longed for the day of his return. He was
deeply touched by the public reception given him here by friends
318 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
and neighbors of all parties after his nomination for the Presi-
dency. As his term was nearing its close, he looked forward,
with eager anticipation, "to the freedom, independence, and safety
of the obscure and happy home in the pleasant grove at Fremont."
When, at Cleveland, the sudden attack which was to prove fatal
came upon him and he was urged to delay his journey home, he
declared: "I would rather die at Spiegel Grove than to live
anywhere else." His regard for Fremont was not confined to
mere sentiment. No project for its betterment but had his sym-
pathy, his counsel, his assistance. It is due to his activity and
to his generosity that the city has its public parks and its library.
And whatever fame or fortune Fremont may attain, to the coun-
try and the world at large it will always be chiefly notable be-
cause it was here that Rutherford B. Hayes had his home.
It will be a perpetual benediction to the people of State and
Nation that Ohio has erected and will maintain this beautiful
building to commemorate the fame and achievements of her
great citizen. The future, in my judgment, will increase his fame,
will come to a clearer and fuller understanding, and so to a just
appreciation of the greatness and value of his achievements. His
character and worth shine more resplendent with every fresh con-
templation of his career. I can only repeat, by way of perora-
tion, what I have already said elsewhere, and what my added
reflection reaffirms and enforces:
"He may not have possessed transcendent intellectual gifts,
nor the brilliancy and imaginative power displayed by great
orators, but he had, in equipoise and under complete control, all
the solid qualities of character and mind which fit a man to win
the confidence of his fellows and mark him for their chosen
leader. These were a clear and penetrating intelligence, impreg-
nable to the assaults of sophistry; a judgment, cautious and de-
liberate in action, but when once formed not to be shaken from
its conviction; a will that did not waver; sincerity and honesty
of mind and act; absolute veracity and candor in speech and
conduct; faithfulness in discharging every obligation imposed on
him or assumed by him; constant and unquestioning obedience
to the commands of duty; a conscience void of offense; a patriot-
ism that rose above party, that was founded on intense faith in
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 319
the American constitution and an abiding belief in the high mis-
sion, under Providence, of America in the world, and that was
ready to give his life for his country's welfare; an understanding
of the common people--the great masses of his fellow country-
men - and full sympathy with their needs and aspirations; un-
selfish interest in all wise endeavors for the public good. And
with all this he was
"Rich in having common-sense
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity, sublime."
Surely, we shall be dull indeed of apprehension if we catch
no inspiration from his ardor for humanity; if we feel no impulse
to emulate the virtues which made his service to the world so
great. I, at least, think of him always as of
"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."
After a song, the Hon. Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War,
representing the President of the United States, was presented
and spoke in part as follows:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Before leaving Washington last night, I was charged by the
President of the United States to convey to you his greetings,
and to say that it is a matter of sincere regret to him that he is
not able to be here on this significant occasion. He would have
paid a tribute, not only to the great office in which President
Hayes preceded him, but as he is a scholar himself he would have
borne a scholar's testimony to the eminent service rendered in
that office by Rutherford B. Hayes.
We have been richly favored here today in the address just
closed. Dr. Williams, whose biography of President Hayes is
and always will be a standard work dealing with that subject, has
detailed for us the life of this President from the days of his
childhood through the testing years of the Civil War, and into
that serene and mellow age of retirement in which the people of
320 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Fremont best knew the ex-President. Little, therefore, remains
to be added to the tribute which Dr. Williams has paid, but I
can perhaps be permitted to recall two incidents in my own life
which associated his personality and political fortunes with my
own thinking.
The first of these was in 1876, when I was between four
and five years old, living in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and
though of very tender age, still an extremely ardent political
partisan. It was the day of party flag-poles, and the custom
throughout the countryside and in all the villages was that the
rival parties should erect great poles, and on the top of them
place their party emblem. In the public square of my native
village, there were erected two such poles, one for Tilden, sur-
mounted by a broom, and one for Hayes, surmounted by a glisten-
ing globe. As I was a very earnest Democrat, and was quite sure
in all the philosophy of my four years of life that that party repre-
sented the truest traditions of the Republic, I naturally was very
zealous for the pole surmounted by the broom, and I discovered
that when I walked on one side of the square the Democratic
pole seemed the taller, while when I walked on the other side
of the square, the one below the globe seemed the higher. I,
therefore, contracted at that early age the habit of walking around
the northwest side of the square whenever my journeys took me
through that place, and to this day when I visit Martinsburg,
and want to cross the square, I follow the same practice, although
the poles have long since been taken down and the broom and
the globe disappeared from every memory but mine.
Later, in 1890, I was a student at Johns Hopkins University
when Mr. Hayes, then ex-President, came there to make an ad-
dress before the historical seminary of which I was a member.
More recent political activities of other men had obscured all
my recollections of the period from 1876 to 1880 and I went to
hear Mr. Hayes with little else in my mind except the childish
recollection of the rivalry of the party poles, but after his ad-
dress, I asked myself: Who is this simple and scholarly gentleman,
so wise and patriotic and generous? How does it come that I
do not know more of his service to his country? And I im-
mediately read his biography, and consulted those American his-
SECRETARY BAKER'S SPEECH 321
tories which covered the period of his service as a soldier and
as a statesman, only to discover that from his earliest youth he
had adopted and lived up to high standards of honor and patriot-
ism, that the idea of service to his country was always the
dominant idea, that he constantly put behind him advantage and
self-seeking and sought only the place of danger or responsi-
bility, trusting always that if he did his best for his country,
his own fortunes could well be permitted to take care of them-
selves. The struggles of the period before the War between the
States and during that terrible conflict developed high capacities,
and yet this Ohio soldier emerged from the crowd, became a
marked man and conspicuous public servant, rose from the sol-
dier's camp to the governor's chair and then to the Presidency,
the greatest office in our great Republic, and then, after he had
fully performed all that could be asked of a citizen, he retired,
unspoiled, simple as he was brave, continuing out of office, as a
sage philosopher and adviser to his country, the patriotic services
he had performed while a trusted and responsible executive. He
engaged in no acrimonious disputes. He assaulted none of his
successors nor their policies, he remembered no personal ani-
mosities, and cherished no envy of those who were still in the
active stages of their lives. But, in the midst of a family life,
sweet and pure, surrounded by a family which could not help
becoming serviceable to its country, reared in such an atmosphere,
he continued to be scholarly and patriotic, and when he died he
left a life, unspoiled and untainted, a reputation too large for this
beautiful city of Fremont, as large and wide as the nation which
he served.
The important thing, however, for us who are here today
is the example for our own lives which lies in this life which is
under review and discussion. Our words can add little to the his-
toric place which he has achieved in our country's annals; but
whether or not his life will achieve the highest good of which it
is capable depends upon whether you and I, and others who may
be now the citizens of the United States, who bear its burdens
and its responsibilities, whose quality determines the quality of
our present day institutions, imitate his virtue and follow his
example.
322 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
The times have greatly changed since the Presidency of Mr.
Hayes. Great as our country then seemed, it is now incomparably
greater; its territory has been increased, its population has grown
enormously; its influence as a world power is now like the in-
fluence of Great Britain, in that it follows the rising sun around
the globe. In the meantime, the industrial processes by which the
life of the community is sustained are made more intricate. We
have emerged from a rural civilization into a machine age. Our
commerce and our industry are much more intense. The con-
gestion of our population in great cities and manufacturing places
presents new problems. The challenge of this day is as great as
the challenge of his day, and the need for patriots and wise men
is as great now as when President Hayes made his contribution
of service to our country. The question we must ask, therefore,
is, are we doing as he did ? Are we offering ourselves for Amer-
ica as he offered himself ? Are we addressing ourselves to the
solution of the problems of our day as he buckled on his sword
or took up the statesman's pen for the solution of the problems
which his day presented? I shall not make any answer to these
questions. Each of us knows by searching his own mind how
far he is worthy to be in any such comparison. Each of us knows
whether he spends the larger part of his life fretting about little
things, or whether he really passes them by and gives his mind to
the large issues of welfare and happiness for his country and his
fellow countrymen. Each of us knows whether he is more inter-
ested by the hurried daily chronicle of small events which the
newspapers present or by serious study of history and politics, in
order to equip himself really to be a servant of the Republic.
But, I can, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, at least be
grateful with you that this splendid memorial has been erected
here in Fremont, and that this grove is hereafter to be consecrated
ground, that the memory of the great service of President Hayes
and that this beautiful life will be perpetuated here, so that for
all time to come as the youth of this city see this place they will
have impressed upon their imagination and their memory the life
of the man who from youth to advanced years really served his
fellow men; and such a memory will undoubtedly be an inspira-
tion to them to take a high view of the calling of citizenship and
SENATOR POMERENE'S SPEECH 323
to prepare themselves by study and thought to render such serv-
ice as is within their capacity and opportunity.
United States Senator Pomerene spoke as follows:
I am glad to have the opportunity to come to the beautiful
city of Fremont to pay a tribute of love and respect to the mem-
ory of President and Mrs. Hayes. They had such fine ideals,
they were truly Christian in every thought and action. The
world is the better for their having lived. President Hayes
was a good lawyer, a brave soldier, a faithful Congressman, an
efficient Governor, and a distinguished and capable President, but,
he was more, he was a good man. Mrs. Hayes was a Christian
wife and mother. Both were devoted to their friends and espe-
cially to those here in Fremont who knew them so long and well.
I want to congratulate the people of Fremont that they have
in their midst Colonel and Mrs. Webb C. Hayes, who have done
so much to preserve the works and memories of their father and
mother.
This home with its fond memories will be an object lesson
to the boys and girls of this county and this State. They will have
before them as an object lesson the lives of a man and woman,
than whom, this State has produced none better or purer.
As I look over the history of President Hayes, I feel that of
all his qualities, and there were many of them, his predominating
characteristic was his intense love for things American; and as
I think of Mrs. Hayes, I could hold her before the world as the
ideal wife and mother.
Fremont is a beautiful city of beautiful homes. No finer peo-
ple are found than reside within her limits, and they have honored
themselves by the opportunity they have taken to preserve Spiegel
Grove.
And I would be doing violence to my feelings if I did not add
a word of appreciation for Senator Dean, who gave his able and
enthusiastic support to the legislation necessary to secure Spiegel
Grove for the public.
The following letters came from President Wilson, who had
hoped to be present; but who was unable to leave Washington
because of the exigencies of the World War.
324 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
SEA GIRT, NEW JERSEY, September 21, 1912.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES:- It is with genuine regret that I find
that the National Campaign Committee has made engagements for
me on October 4, which renders it impossible for me to accept
the extremely interesting invitation so cordially conveyed by
your letter of September 17.
The whole character of the occasion attracts me very deeply.
I should like to be present to pay my respects to the memory of
your admirable father. In the circumstances, I can only thank
you very warmly for having thought of me and express my
sincere regret that the engagements of the campaign render it
impossible for me to come.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
MR. WEBB C. HAYES,
Spiegel Grove,
Fremont, Ohio.
WASHINGTON December 13, 1915.
MY DEAR SENATOR:--I am sincerely obliged to you for your
reminder about the invitation so kindly conveyed to me by your-
self, Representative Overmyer, and Colonel Hayes. As I ex-
plained at the time you were kind enough to call, it does not seem
possible for me to determine the matter now, but you may be
sure that I will keep it in mind, though I would be very much
obliged if I might be reminded of it a little later.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
HON. ATLEE POMERENE,
UNITED STATES SENATE.
WASHINGTON, May 10, 1916.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES :--It is with genuine disappointment and
regret that I find it will be impossible for me to be away from
Washington on the thirtieth of May, the day you have appro-
priately chosen for the dedicatory exercises of the Hayes Me-
morial Library; but I find that disappointments of this sort are
coming thick and fast now, because it is so absolutely necessary
LETTERS FROM PRESIDENT WILSON 325
for me to stick close to my duties here in these times of uncer-
tainty.
I know that you will understand and honor the scruple which
makes this decision necessary. May I not express my hope for
the very best sort of success for the interesting exercises to
which you are looking forward!
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
MR. WEBB C. HAYES,
Spiegel Grove,
Fremont, Ohio.
SHADOW LAWN, November 6, 1916.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES :-- It was gracious of you to send me the
little book containing the account of the dedication of the Hayes
Memorial Library and Museum at Spiegel Grove in May last.
I shall value it as the record of a very interesting ceremony and
of a very well-deserved tribute to your honored father. I wish
I might have been present in person to express my interest and
appreciation.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
MR. WEBB C. HAYES,
Spiegel Grove,
Fremont, Ohio.
The following telegram from Senator Warren G. Harding
was received; and also the following letters from the Hon.
Robert Lansing, Secretary of State; the Hon. A. D. White, who
was appointed Minister to Germany by President Hayes; the
Hon. John W. Foster, who served as Minister to Mexico during
the Hayes Administration, in those troublous times with Diaz
in Mexico, to which the strained relations with Huerta found by
President Wilson in 1913 form an almost exact parallel; and the
Hon. Nathan Goff, the only surviving member of the Hayes
Administration, in which for a few months he served as Secretary
of the Navy.
326 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
WASHINGTON, D. C., May 29, 1916.
COLONEL WEBB C. HAYES,
Fremont, Ohio.
Let me emphasize my genuine regret that I am not to add my
tribute to the memory of President Hayes at Tuesday's dedication
of the Memorial. The combined gentleness and dignity and cour-
age and strength made manifest in the splendid career of Presi-
dent Hayes builded a loving memorial in the hearts of his coun-
trymen, which I trust the Spiegel Grove Memorial fittingly typi-
fies. It is good to dedicate the Memorial on this day of reverent
tribute to the Union defenders, so many of whom he brilliantly
led. It is also good to consecrate ourselves anew to the preserva-
tion of the great heritage he and they bequeathed to us.
W. G. HARDING.
WASHINGTON, May 24, 1916.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES:--I received the formal invitation from
the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society to attend
the dedication of the Hayes Memorial Library and Museum in
Spiegel Grove, on Decoration Day, May 30. Mrs. Lansing and
I both deeply regret our inability to attend the dedication; and if
we had found it possible to do so, we would have been especially
gratified to be your guests on that occasion.
With our appreciation and thanks for your attractive invitation,
and our regret that we are unable to avail ourselves of it, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
ROBERT LANSING.
WEBB C. HAYES, ESQ.,
Fremont, Ohio.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y., May 20, 1916.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES: - Referring to your letter of May 18,
it is a matter of real sorrow with me that I have felt obliged to
decline the kind invitation to the opening of the Hayes Memor-
ial and Museum. I can think of nothing which I would be more
glad to attend in the way of a celebration of any sort than this
tribute to your honored father, and that feeling is increased by
ANDREW D. WHITE'S TRIBUTE 327
the fact that a few weeks ago I read his biography and was
greatly impressed by it. My opinion regarding him was already
very high, for I have regarded him ever since I came to know
him as one of the best and most able men I have ever met,
one of the best prepared for the highest public duties and who
was faithful in the highest degree in his discharge of them. This
feeling was strengthened at various times when I heard him
deliver addresses at Lake Mohonk, Cleveland, and elsewhere,
and when I read his biography, I became convinced that no nobler
and better fitted man had ever held the Presidency.
There is one saying of his that ought to be inscribed in letters
of gold: The last entry made in his diary before leaving for the
war, dated May 15, 1861: "Judge Matthews and I have agreed
to go into the service for the war, if possible into the same regi-
ment. I spoke my feelings to him which he said were also his, that
this was a just and necessary war, and that it demanded the whole
power of the country. That I would prefer to go into it if I knew
I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through
and after it without taking any part in it."
But, also, I am nearing my eighty-fourth birthday and am more
and more obliged to be careful, and on the date you name I have
already an engagement with a doctor which has with difficulty
been put off once. I should indeed feel it a duty to be present
were the circumstances otherwise and were my health stronger,
for among all men whom I have met, President Hayes was one of
those who most impressed me by the evident sincerity and nobility
of his character and by all the qualities which made him a great
and true man. A recent reading of his biography has also greatly
impressed me as showing the development of the characteristics
which led so directly to the high place which he deservedly holds
in the annals of our country. I feel that as time goes on his
fellow citizens of all parties will recognize more and more his
great qualities and that these will emerge from the cloud of
calumny which beset him in such wise that his name and fame
will be ever more and more honored by the American people. I
hope that some day not distant it will be possible for me to make
a pilgrimage of duty to this well-deserved tribute to your father,
and thank you in person for your kind invitation.
328 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
With all good wishes that the commemoration to which you in-
vite me shall be worthy of the man to whom it is given, I remain,
Yours faithfully,
ANDREW D. WHITE.
WEBB C. HAYES, ESQ.,
Spiegel Grove,
Fremont, Ohio,
WASHINGTON, D.C. May 22, 1916.
MY DEAR SIR:--I am in receipt of your letter of the 18th
and the card, inviting me to attend the dedication of the Me-
morial Library and Museum in your father's old home on
May 30.
I should be greatly pleased to unite with his many friends and
admirers in honoring your father's memory in the permanent form
indicated; but of late my health has not been good and I am not
able to travel without serious inconvenience and I could not make
the journey without considerable risk.
I have always regarded your father as one of our most useful
public men, of clean life and unblemished personality, and have
always been proud of having served under him in an Administra-
tion which was an honor to our country. It is with sincere regret
that I will not be able to render this further mark of my respect
and friendship by attending the memorial services on the 30th
instant.
Very truly,
JOHN W. FOSTER.
P. S. - I am sending a photograph as requested. I greatly en-
joyed reading Williams's excellent biography of your father.
WEBB C. HAYES, ESQ.,
Fremont, Ohio.
CLARKSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA, June 1, 1916.
MY DEAR MR. HAYES: - I have been quite unwell lately which
will account for my failure to write you in reply to your kind
favor of the 18th ult. As I did not receive your invitation to be
with you at Spiegel Grove on the 30th ult., until after that day
was in the past, you will readily understand why you did not
MR. OVERMYER'S SPEECH 329
hear from me, and also why I was not with you on the occasion
that would have afforded me great pleasure to have been a par-
ticipant in.
I very much regret this and trust that you will understand my
seeming indifference, which I beg to assure you was not intended.
With kindest regards, Most truly yours,
NATHAN GOFF.
Congressman A. W. Overmyer, of the Thirteenth Ohio Dis-
trict, who came from Washington expressly to take part in the
dedicatory exercises, then delivered the following address:
Mr. Chairman, and Fellow Citizens:
Fortunate indeed are all of us who have been permitted to
witness this ceremony today. The occasion, the place, the day,
the assemblage, all have been appropriate.
The occasion is appropriate, for we meet to dedicate this
splendid memorial, erected by the great commonwealth of Ohio,
to one of its most illustrious sons. The place is appropriate for
here are the hallowed scenes amid which Hayes spent so much
of his mature life as was not devoted to the public service of
his country.
The day is appropriate for on this Memorial Day there is no
more fitting service that could have been performed than to meet
here and recount the deeds and review the life work of one of
America's bravest soldiers and one of her most loyal defenders,
a soldier who had the courage to fight and the ability to lead
others in fighting.
The assemblage is appropriate and such as eminently befits
the occasion, for the President is represented here by a member
of his cabinet, an Ohio man; the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives are represented here, and representatives of the civil
and military authority of the State, the county, and the city; and
the people, to whom he ever turned a listening ear, the people
are here, in masses such as seldom before assembled within the
shadows of Spiegel Grove. They are here to bring their own
heartfelt testimony to the occasion; they are here representing
all shades of religious and political belief, all ages and condi-
330 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
tions of life. All are here as Americans and come to this historic
and sacred spot to fraternize with each other in a fresh act of
homage to the memory of Rutherford B. Hayes.
Many who are here in this audience knew President Hayes
and his devoted wife while they were living; knew them as
neighbors, as friends, as members of the same church. To such
this must be a wonderful day.
I shall always cherish the memory that, as a young boy, I
heard President Hayes deliver an address at a Croghan Day cele-
bration from the old band-stand in the county park before the
court-house. I can see him now as I saw him then, a noble-
looking man with a kindly face, snow-white beard and hair, but
with the vigor of young manhood in his heart.
I do not know what phase of the life of Rutherford B. Hayes
appeals to the people the most; but after having read the splendid
biography of President Hayes written by the orator of the day,
Doctor Williams, I will say without hesitation that the impression
I shall hereafter always carry of him will not be his military
service, valiant and glorious as that was, nor his services as Gov-
ernor and President, valuable and statesmanlike as they were,
but it will be of Rutherford B. Hayes as a man, a superb, un-
selfish, warm and Christian-hearted man whose pure heart went
out in sympathy to all mankind and was wholly incapable of a
selfish or unworthy thought.
As a husband, as a father, as a citizen and neighbor and friend,
Rutherford B. Hayes has left to future generations his richest
heritage. Never seeking public honors, he had them thrust upon
him; yearning, as he continually did for the peace and comfort
of a quiet home life, he was called again and again to perform
high public service, to assume the highest positions of responsi-
bility and trust. This is the stamp of true greatness. Washing-
ton had the same modesty and so did Lincoln; and in the love of
his fellow man, in patriotism, in purity of heart and unselfish-
ness, Hayes was as great as either of them.
I feel honored in having been permitted to be present at these
ceremonies. Through the ages this beautiful memorial will stand
as the testimonial of a grateful people to the life and services of
a truly beloved man. To this building and the beautiful grove
CAPTAIN COPE FOR LOYAL LEGION 331
surrounding it will come generations of American citizens, our
children, grandchildren, and their descendants, and draw in-
spiration to a life of unselfishness and honor as they become
more and more familiar with the life and character of Ruther-
ford Birchard Hayes-that crowned and glorious life.
Captain Alexis Cope, representing the Military Order of the
Loyal Legion, and also an associate of General Hayes on the
Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, spoke as follows:
President Wright, Members of the Board of Trustees of the
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, Ladies and
Gentlemen:
It was only yesterday that I received a telegram from Colonel
Webb C. Hayes informing me that I would be expected to speak
for the Loyal Legion on this occasion; so what I shall say has
come to me in the few moments of reflection I have had since
then, and shall be brief. Indeed the eloquent and scholarly ad-
dress we have just heard from the lips of his distinguished bio-
grapher, Mr. Williams, has left his followers on the program
little to say. All the high and shining points of President Hayes's
great career have been touched by a master hand. I congratu-
late him on his noble address. I also congratulate him on his
biography of President Hayes, in which he has given to the
world in simple and most attractive style the true story of his
life and public services.
I share the regret that every one present must feel that General
Young, who was to speak for the Loyal Legion, is not here. If
he were present, he could speak for it more fittingly than I can,
for he is its present commander-in-chief, and besides being a
good soldier, is an eloquent speaker.
President Hayes was a charter member of the Ohio Com-
mandery of the Loyal Legion, was elected its first commander,
and was reelected four times in succession, serving from 1883
to 1887 inclusive. I recall with gratification and pride that when
I presented myself as a candidate for membership in the order,
it was President Hayes who administered the obligation. He
was commander-in-chief of the national commandery at the time
of his death.
332 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
The fundamental principles of this organization are:
"FIRST: A firm belief and trust in Almighty God, exalting
Him, under whose beneficent guidance the sovereignty and in-
tegrity of the Union have been maintained, the honor of the flag
vindicated, and the blessings of liberty secured, established, and
enlarged.
"SECOND: True allegiance to the United States of America,
based upon paramount respect for, and fidelity to the National
Constitution and laws, manifested by discountenancing whatever
may tend to weaken loyalty, incite to insurrection, treason, or re-
bellion, or impair in any manner the efficiency and permanency
of our free institutions."
Its objects are:
"To cherish the memories and associations of the war waged
in defense of the unity and indivisibility of the republic;
strengthen the ties of fraternal fellowship and sympathy formed
by companions in arms; advance tile best interests of the sol-
diers and sailors of the United States, especially of those asso-
ciated as Companions of the Order, and extend all possible re-
lief to their widows and children; foster the cultivation of mili-
tary and naval science; enforce unqualified allegiance to the
General Government; protect the rights and liberties of American
citizenship, and maintain national honor, union, and independ-
ence."
President Hayes was loyal to these principles and labored
faithfully for these objects. When he died, a committee of the
Ohio Commandery, of which William McKinley was chairman,
said of him: "The country has lost one of its great statesmen
and one of its most noble defenders. His old army comrades
have lost a brave commander, an honorable associate, and a wise
counsellor; the Loyal Legion one of its most devoted and be-
loved Companions."
When President Hayes first became Governor of Ohio in 1868,
he found that in 1862, Congress had passed an act making large
grants of land, or land-scrip, to the several States for the endow-
ment and maintenance of a college in each State for the primary
purpose of teaching the branches of learning related to agricul-
ture and the mechanic arts and military tactics without exclud-
MR. HAYES AND STATE UNIVERSITY 333
ing other branches of a liberal education. The Legislature had ac-
cepted the grant to Ohio of six hundred and thirty thousand
acres of land-scrip, and it had been improvidently sold at a
lamentable sacrifice, realizing only about three hundred and
forty thousand dollars. Owing to local jealousies and the oppo-
sition of the numerous existing colleges, nothing had been done
towards creating and locating a college to be endowed by the
grant. A strong sentiment favored the division of the fund
among several existing colleges, but Governor Hayes gave his
voice in favor of one college, centrally located, which should re-
ceive the entire grant, and he aided in clearing the way for such
an institution.
The necessary legislation was provided by the act of March
20, 1870, during his second administration as governor, and
under this act the institution now known as the Ohio State Uni-
versity was organized and located. He appointed its first board
of trustees, which held its first meeting in his office and was
wisely guided by him in its deliberations. He favored its lo-
cation at Columbus, and largely through his influence it acquired
the large tract of valuable land which is now its spacious campus.
In 1887, after having been governor and President, on the re-
quest of the university authorities, he accepted a place on its
board of trustees.
At that time the institution had made slow progress. It
had encountered violent opposition from the other colleges of
the State, and from the agricultural classes, and such opposition
still to a large extent prevailed. The Legislature had refused to
make adequate appropriations for its support, and for needed
buildings, and it had an enrollment of only about three hundred
students. President Hayes at once took an active part in quiet-
ing the opposition to the institution. He was by nature a har-
monizer, and largely through his influence the agricultural
classes were won to its support and the opposition of the other
colleges to a large extent removed. He attended regularly the
meetings of the trustees, appeared before committees of the Leg-
islattire in advocacy of needed appropriations for buildings and
equipment, and for an annual state levy sufficient for its main-
tenance and to meet its growing needs. These were all pro-
334 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
vided during his nearly six years of service as trustee, and largely
through his influence. He saw the enrollment rise from three
hundred to over eight hundred students, and was assured that
its future was secure. Could he have lived to this day he would
have seen an enrollment of nearly five thousand students, and a
graduating class of nine hundred students which next week will
receive their degrees; and the university which he labored to
establish and so wisely and faithfully served taking rank among
the foremost educational institutions of the land.
President Hayes was an advocate of industrial education and
it was mainly through his influence that a department of manual
training was instituted at the university. On the invitation of
the Legislature he made an address on this subject to the two
houses in joint session, which was so convincing that funds were
provided for a building for manual training at the university
which bears the name "Hayes Hall." He saw this building
completed and properly equipped and was eagerly seeking for
a proper person to take charge of the work, when he was stricken
with the illness which resulted in his death. He attended meet-
ings of the board of trustees, of which he was then president,
January 11 and 12, 1893, and in the afternoon of the 12th
left for Cleveland to see a gentleman who had been recom-
mended as a suitable person to take charge of the department
which was to begin its work in Hayes Hall. It was while return-
ing to his home from this, his last public service, that he was
fatally stricken.
It was during his service as trustee of the University that
I first came to really know President Hayes. I had often met
him in his political campaigns, and during most of the period
from November, 1876 to March 2, 1877, as occupant of a minor
office in the capitol at Columbus, I had seen him almost daily.
I had marked with increasing admiration and respect his re-
markable self-poise during the great and bitter conflict over his
election as President. I was one of the great crowd which
followed him to the railroad station on his way to Washington
to be inaugurated as President,-or to congratulate his com-
petitor, if the Electoral Commission should decide in his favor, -
MR. HAYES AND STATE UNIVERSITY 335
and I heard the wonderfully eloquent and impressive speech he
made from the end of the train before it moved out.
But as secretary of the board of trustees of the university
I was thrown into closer relations with him, and he soon honored
me with his friendship and confidence. He grew constantly in
my estimation. There were no defects in his character, no weak-
ness, no loss of that noble dignity, which "gives the world assur-
ance of a man." At the same time he was gentle, simple in
manner, approachable and kindly to every one. One of his asso-
ciates on the university board described him as "unassuming in
manners, polite, studious, scholarly, accomplished, and made all
who knew him his friends."
"His was no mountain peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,-
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful, and friendly for all humankind,
But also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars."
Mr. President Wright and you, honorable trustees of the Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Society, for the Loyal Legion,
and for the Ohio State University, (for which I have assumed to
speak), I congratulate you and our friend Colonel Webb Hayes
on the consummation of your labors, whereby this beautiful
Spiegel Grove and the stately mansion where President Hayes
lived and died, have been dedicated to the public, and have be-
come the property of the State. I also congratulate you on the
completion of the noble museum in which are stored the relics
of our beloved President. I also congratulate Colonel Hayes
on his generous endowment, which assures that the whole shall
be properly cared for forever.
It needs no prophetic vision to foresee that year after year
the people of Ohio and of the Nation will come in increasing
numbers, as to a shrine, to pay their tribute of reverence and
affection for "the simple great one gone" and his beloved wife,
who sleep side by side under yonder monument. From this
shrine will constantly go forth an inspiring influence which will
help towards preserving our faith in our free institutions and our
336 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
love for our dear country, which makes such a career as that of
President Hayes possible.
Former Governor James E. Campbell spoke as follows:
My Fellow Citizens:
It is with great pleasure that I render my tribute to this beau-
tiful Memorial and to the great character whose memory it so
fittingly preserves. I shall speak to-day briefly of Rutherford
B. Hayes as Governor of Ohio. His administration was one
full of glory and beneficence to the State. His faithful service
left monuments to his statesmanship that will live as long as
Ohio. They were deeds, not of military nor of political glory,
but for the elevation of humanity. It was through his influence
as governor that the Geological Survey was revived and placed
in the substantial position it now holds as one of the most use-
ful branches of the State's service.
To him can be credited the establishment of the Soldiers'
Home.
He enlarged the field of the State Board of Charities. This
was a subject always dear to his heart, and after his term of
office was ended he served many years as a member of that body.
Governor Hayes always had the welfare of the State's un-
fortunate in view, and it was through his suggestion and influ-
ence that increased provisions were made for the insane; that the
graded system was introduced into the penitentiary, and that
many other prison reforms were instituted.
Among the most important acts of this humanitarian states-
man was the founding of the Reform School for Girls at Dela-
ware.
To him more than any one man in Ohio can be credited
the promotion and success of the Agricultural and Mechanical
College now the Ohio State University. He appointed the first
board of trustees of this institution and in its initial stages he
gave to it his wisest and best services. All his life, after he
ceased to be governor, he watched with solicitous interest the
welfare of the university and no public duty was assumed with
more enthusiasm than his entrance into the board of trustees.
He was always a student of history and a natural collector,
GOVERNOR CAMPBELL'S TRIBUTE 337
as the treasures of this Memorial Building will show. It was
this instinct which prompted him to urge the purchase by the
State of the valuable St. Clair Papers; it was through his influ-
ence that they were preserved in the State Library and subse-
quently published.
In these few words I have referred to General Hayes's record
as Governor because others have given you his full-length por-
trait as a national figure. But the people of his native State have
received from his life the heritage of service that comes close
home to them. They can see the results of his life upon their
lives daily. He has indelibly impressed upon the history of Ohio
some of the most important acts and institutions of her existence.
These imprints were deeds of humanity and are helping every
day to uplift the humble and to comfort the unfortunate.
Basil Meek, representing the Sandusky County Bar associa-
tion and chairman of the local committee of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society, offered the following
tribute:
Rutherford B. Hayes was, from 1845 to 1849, an active
member of what has been known as the Pioneer Bar of Sandusky
County, so called because existing prior to the adoption of the
Ohio State Constitution of 1851, and was associated in practice
with the earlier men of that galaxy of able lawyers of this bar,
among whom may be mentioned Dickinson, Otis, Bartlett, Greene,
Watson, Pettibone, Everett, Haynes, Buckland, Glick, and Fine-
frock. This bar was composed of men prominent, not only in
the legal profession, but also in public official stations filled by
the members thereof. From its members were nine State legis-
lators, five members of Congress, six judges of courts, two gov-
ernors, one of Ohio, and the other of Kansas, two generals in
the Union Army, and a President of the United States.
Rutherford B. Hayes, after a thorough course at Kenyon
College, from which he graduated with honor, commenced the
study of law with Thomas Sparrow of Columbus, Ohio, and
afterwards entered Harvard Law School and in 1845 completed
the law course there, and having been admitted to the bar at
Marietta, March 10, 1845, commenced the practice of law in
22
338 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Lower Sandusky (Fremont), where in April, 1846, he formed a
law partnership with Ralph P. Buckland, which continued until
1849, when Mr. Hayes located in Cincinnati, Ohio, where by his
marked ability, he soon attracted attention, as a lawyer taking
rank among the prominent members of the profession there,
among whom were such men as Salmon P. Chase, Caleb B.
Smith, Alphonso Taft, Bellamy Storer, George H. Pendleton,
and George E. Pugh.
He was city solicitor, an important legal position in a city
like Cincinnati, from December, 1858, to April, 1861. The
salary was three thousand five hundred dollars per year.
He was ambitious to excel in the profession, as we learn from
himself for, in 1859 while in active practice in Cincinnati, in his
diary, which he habitually kept, he writes: "Let me awake to
my old ambition to excel as a lawyer-as an advocate." And
later he writes: "Without any extraordinary success, I have never-
theless found what I have sought, a respectable place," thus
modestly assuming that he had reached his desired goal.
It was this ambition, which prompted his location in Cin-
cinnati,-which city necessarily offered a wider arena for activity
and experience in the practice, and consequent enlargement of
his powers, than did Lower Sandusky in that day.
In the midst of his growing and successful practice in Cin-
cinnati, the War for the Union broke out. He immediately re-
sponded to his country's call and joined the army for the Union,
which necessarily caused an abandonment of his practice; and
subsequent events in his public career made the abandonment
permanent; and, though not having resumed the practice, since
giving it up to enter the service of his country as a soldier, fol-
lowed by his public official duties, as Congressman, Governor and
President, he was, nevertheless ever a lover of the theory of
the law in which he was profoundly versed, and would meet
with our bar association after his final return to Fremont and
occasionally would be seen in the court-room, when court would
be in session, thereby manifesting a lingering fondness for the
scene of his early forensic contests in the courts of Sandusky
County; and when his early friend, college mate, and army corn-
SANDUSKY COUNTY BAR'S TRIBUTE 339
rade, Stanley Matthews, died at Cincinnati, in 1889, at his re-
quest a meeting of this bar was called to pay tribute to the
memory of the deceased, who in 1845, was on the recommenda-
tion of Mr. Hayes as chairman of the examining committee on
Mr. Matthews's application for admission, admitted to the San-
dusky County bar, and who had always been regarded by this
bar as an honorary member.
It is an interesting fact that after the lapse of a third of a
century from the admission to the bar of Mr. Matthews on the
recommendation of Mr. Hayes, it was the pleasure of the latter,
as President of the United States to nominate the former to the
Senate of the United States for confirmation as a Justice of the
United States Supreme Court.
Harvard Law School had among its faculty, while Mr. Hayes
was a student there, those eminent professors, Joseph Story and
Simon Greenleaf, whose names as authors of legal text-books
are household words among lawyers. Their high ideals of the
dignity of the legal profession and the principles which should
govern lawyers in its practice, as expressed by them to their
students, evidently appealed to him and found in his own char-
acteristic high sense of justice and right moral action a ready
response, for, in his diary referred to, he makes frequent entries,
quoting from their words--among which is the following from
Greenleaf: "A lawyer is engaged in the highest of all human
pursuits--the application of the soundest reason and purest
moralitv to the ordinary affairs of life. He should have a clear
head and a true heart." Mr. Hayes possessed both of these es-
sential qualifications, a clear head and a true heart, in high de-
gree; and adhering in practice to the ideals held by his distin-
guished professors and believed in by himself, he won the admira-
tion and high esteem of his brethren of the bar both of the
county of Sandusky and city of Cincinnati and indeed of the
legal profession throughout the State and Nation.
The Rev. E. M. O'Hare, rector of St. Ann's church, closed
the dedicatory exercises with prayer.
340 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
UNVEILING OF THE SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL TABLET
ON THE HAYES MEMORIAL BUILDING
AT SPIEGEL GROVE.
The ninety-eighth anniversary of the birth of Rutherford B.
Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States, 1877-1881,
was celebrated with ceremonies of unusual interest on October
4, 1920, at Spiegel Grove, Fremont, Ohio. The day was cloudless
and the people came by thousands. The exercises were held
under the auspices of the Ohio State Archaeological and Histor-
ical Society with its president, former Governor James E. Camp-
bell, presiding. It had been the original intention to lay the cor-
ner-stone of a Library and Museum addition to the Memorial
Building, of like architecture and with capacity for two hundred
and fifty thousand volumes for which Colonel Hayes gave fifty
thousand dollars.
The exercises were ushered in by a parade at one o'clock in
which the veterans of the World War and the War with Spain
marched with flags fluttering in the warm October sunlight, fol-
lowed by the Grand Army veterans in automobiles, the three
divisions headed by the United States Navy Recruiting Band
and the Light Guard and Woodmen's Bands of Fremont. The
procession was reviewed by the distinguished guests as it marched
past the still unfinished Soldiers' Memorial Sun-parlor of the
Memorial Hospital of Sandusky County, and over the uncom-
pleted Soldiers' Memorial Parkway. The impressive procession
then entered the Spiegel Grove State Park and formed in front
of the Hayes Memorial Library, on the northern face of which
was unveiled the artistic bronze Memorial Tablet presented by
Colonel Webb C. Hayes, M. H., in memory of his eighty com-
rades of Sandusky County who died in the service of their coun-
try in the War with Spain, in the insurrection in the Philippines,
in China, on the Mexican border, and in the World War. While
the Navy Recruiting Band played the Star-Spangled Banner,
Grand Marshal A. E. Slessman, chairman of the Soldiers' Me-
morial Parkway Committee, presented Mrs. Webb C. Hayes,
who was dressed in her costume of the Y. M. C. A. in which
she had served in France as hostess and librarian at the Amer-
SOLDIERS' TABLET UNVEILED 341
ican Soldiers' Leave Areas at Aix-les-Bains and Nice. Mrs.
Hayes gracefully uncovered the beautiful bronze tablet and
turned it over to Commander W. H. Johnston of Edgar Thurs-
ton Post, American Legion, and Commander Harry Price of
Emerson Command, Spanish War Veterans. After a careful
inspection of the tablet by Governor Campbell, Senator and
Mrs. Harding, and the members of the Hayes family who were
on the platform, the soldiers of the World War formed a lane
extending from the Memorial Building through to the speakers'
stand under the McKinley Oaks of 1897; and through this lane
walked Senator Harding with Mrs. Hayes, preceded by Presi-
dent Campbell of the Archaeological and Historical Society, at-
tended by former Congressman Overmyer, and followed by
Colonel Hayes and Mrs. Harding and other guests.
Music was provided by the U. S. Navy Recruiting Band of
the central division, and by the combined bands of the Fremont
Light Guard and Woodmen of the World. Mr. B. H. Swift,
Chairman of the Sandusky County War Work Committee, called
the meeting to order and presented Chaplain Ferguson of the
Ohio Soldiers' Home who delivered the invocation. In present-
ing the: members of the Board of County Commissioners of San-
dusky County and its efficient county engineer to welcome the
assembly, Mr. Swift said:
Sandusky County soldiers are indebted to the patriotic mem-
bers of the present and former Boards of County Commission-
ers, and to one of her patriotic soldiers, Colonel Hayes, who
conceived and executed the plan, including the erection of the
bronze memorial tablet and Soldiers' Memorial Sun-parlor, for
the beautiful Soldiers' Memorial Parkway of Sandusky County.
Sandusky County's plan of honoring her soldiers who died in the
service is soon to be realized in the form of this Soldiers' Me-
morial Parkway, of about one hundred feet in width with two
paved drives fourteen feet in width along the border, between
which are planted, at a distance of thirty-five feet apart, two
rows of buckeye trees, the insignia of the Thirty-seventh or
Buckeye Division, to which are affixed white enamel tree-labels,
with four lines giving the name, organization, place and date of
death. It is hoped that the Memorial Parkway plan of honoring
342 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
the dead at the county-seat of each county in the State of Ohio
and in the country, may be adopted generally; and that the re-
mains of the honored dead who fell in battle on the fields of
France may be permitted to remain in the beautiful American
park cemeteries where they now lie and where they will be visited
for countless ages by their countrymen.
The Hon. James E. Campbell, President of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society, was then presented as the
president of the day. He spoke as follows:
Fellow Citizens:
The patriotic people of Sandusky County, remembering and
revering their heroic dead, have called us to join them in unveil-
ing a tablet that shall preserve forever, in enduring bronze, the
names of those gallant sons of the county who, in the war with
Spain and in that unparalleled cataclysm known as the World
War, gave their lives to their country, to mankind, and to hu-
manity. The War with Spain was a small war while the World
War was the worst known to men; but the memory of him who
died in the one is as precious and glorious as that of him who
died in the other. They were all heroes whom the people of
Sandusky County delight alike to honor.
These men carried our flag upon foreign soil; in the first
instance, for the purpose of freeing two oppressed races from
semi-barbaric rule; in the second instance, to destroy a military
autocracy which threatened to extirpate democracy and to make
all nations its abject slaves or dependents. From both of these
wars the Star-Spangled Banner emerged with added and im-
perishable lustre. Especially is this true of the last war for there,
to quote these appropriate lines,-
"Serene and beautiful it waved,
The flag our fathers knew,
In the sunny air of France it laved
And gained a brighter hue.
Oh, may it e'er the emblem be
Of all that makes this country free;
And may we cherish liberty
And to the flag be true."
PRESIDENT CAMPBELL'S ADDRESS 343
To the eminent orators who are your honored guests, who
are much more capable of doing justice to these patriot dead
than I, and who are here for that purpose, I leave such further
eulogy as they may deem appropriate. I consider this a suitable
opportunity, however, on behalf of the Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Society, under whose auspices these ceremonies
are held, to state formally the development and consummation of
the project (born in the mind of Colonel Webb C. Hayes) of
making Spiegel Grove one of the most important monuments to
history and patriotism in the State of Ohio. It is the duty of this
society, and one to which it has faithfully adhered, to collect and
disseminate information as to the history of this State as well as
to collect, preserve, and classify evidence of its occupation by pre-
historic races.
No part of the work of this society has been more important
or more valuable to the historical collections of the State than the
acquisition of Spiegel Grove with the precious personal property
connected therewith. Its history carries one back to a time
long prior to the Revolutionary War, for it is located in the old
Indian Reservation or Free Territory, maintained at the lower
rapids of the Sandusky River, which was a point of interest long
before the white man entered Ohio. Israel Putnam was here in
I764 and during the War of the Revolution over two thousand
whites, captured by the Indians, passed through the Sandusky Val-
ley, stopping at the Lower Falls, now Fremont, from whence they
were transported by shipping to Detroit or on to Montreal. Zeis
berger and Heckewelder, the Moravians, were prisoners here,
and also Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. In 1772 the British
sent troops from Detroit as far as Lower Sandusky, en route to
repel the Crawford expedition, but they arrived too late, owing
to the capture and burning of Crawford on the Sandusky Plains.
During the War of 1812, through these very grounds the old
Harrison Trail-a military road which led from Fort Stephen-
son to Fort Seneca-passed and is preserved intact as its prin-
cipal driveway.
Added to this historic interest is the fact that it typifies an
American home of the latter part of the nineteenth century - a
home fraught with historic memories of Rutherford B. Hayes,
344 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
the nineteenth President of the United States, and his wife,
Lucy Webb Hayes. Of all the homes of our Presidents, cov-
ering a period of one hundred and thirty years, there have been
preserved only those of Washington at Mt. Vernon, Jefferson
at Monticello, Madison at Montpelier, Jackson at The Hermit-
age, and Lincoln's modest home in the city of Springfield. But
in all these instances, more or less time had elapsed before the
homes were acquired and put in a state of preservation; and
but few or no personal relics or memorials were secured. The
families of the Presidents had in most cases parted with the
property, and their historic associations were generally dissipated.
It is gratifying to know that Spiegel Grove met no such impair-
ment. When received by the State it was in a perfect state of
preservation, and all of the valuable historic effects of President
Hayes were there intact. Few Presidents of the United States
have left so large and so complete a collection of documents,
papers, and books. To these should be added all the honorable
mementoes and historical objects that were intimately associated
with President Hayes during his career as a soldier in the Civil
War, as well as that of his Administration as President; and many
personal belongings of his wife, Lucy Webb Hayes, during her
exalted life in the White House. President Hayes was a great
reader and a man of scholarly tastes and attainments. His library
of Americana was not excelled, in his time, by that of any other
private individual in the nation. He had the instinct of a col-
lector and preserved all papers and memoranda, both of his pub-
lic and private life, in an orderly and accessible form. His letters
and his diaries covering a continuous period of sixty years, writ-
ten in his own hand, are in this collection and are now being
prepared and compiled for publication by this society. They will
be a valuable contribution to American history. With the excep-
tion of Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt, no President
of the United States has left such a collection of individual mem-
oranda, literary remains, and personal mementoes as did President
Hayes.
Spiegel Grove, with its contents, upon the death of President
Hayes in 1893, was bequeathed to his children. Afterwards the
entire Spiegel Grove property, with its library and collections,
EXTENT OF COLONEL HAYES'S GIFT 345
became the property of Colonel Hayes by deed in 1899 from the
other heirs in the settlement of the estate. Through the generous
filial devotion and the patriotic spirit of Colonel Hayes, this
whole tract was offered, without cost, to the State as a public
park in memory of both of his parents, by deeds dated March 30,
1909, and March 10, 1910. The conditions upon which Colonel
Hayes donated this property to the State of Ohio simply require
its maintenance as a state park, with the further condition that:
"The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society should secure
the erection upon that part of Spiegel Grove heretofore con-
veyed to the State of Ohio for a state park, a suitable fire-proof
building on the site reserved opposite the Jefferson Street en-
trance, for the purpose of preserving and forever keeping in
Spiegel Grove all papers, books, and manuscripts left by the said
Rutherford B. Hayes, . . . which building shall be in
the form of a branch reference library and museum of the
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, and the con-
struction and decoration of the said building shall be in the nature
of a memorial also to the soldiers, sailors, and pioneers of San-
dusky County; and suitable memorial tablets, busts, and decora-
tions indicative of the historical events and patriotic citizenship
of Sandusky County shall be placed in and on said building, and
said building shall forever remain open to the public under proper
rules and regulations to be hereafter made by said society."
Thus there was given to the nation and to the State a heritage
of which both can well be proud, and I take this occasion on
behalf of the society which I represent, and on behalf of the State
which is represented by the society, to express the fullest appre-
ciation and deepest sense of obligation. These expressions also
extend to the noble and generous wife of Colonel Hayes who has
joined him in making this spot one of historic beauty as well as
a patriotic monument.
In all the years since Colonel Hayes executed his first deed
to this property, the public has been left in ignorance of the
magnitude of his contributions; of his self-sacrifice, and of his
generous patriotism. He has arrived at the age (and so have I)
at which the truth can be told without suspicion of flattery or
adulation, and at which it can be received without undue infla-
tion. Therefore I take it upon myself, as president of this so-
346 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
ciety, to relate publicly and in detail what Colonel Hayes has con-
tributed to this great patriotic monument, aside from the property
itself; and these facts are due historically, not only to Colonel
Hayes, but to the society and to the people of Ohio.
Colonel Hayes spent large sums after the legal steps had
been taken to vest this property in the Ohio Archaeological and
Historical Society, in trust for the State of Ohio. The con-
struction of the Hayes Memorial Building cost when completed
over one hundred thousand dollars, toward which the State paid
forty-five thousand dollars and also paid ten thousand dollars for
the State's share of the paving of the streets on the three sides of
the Spiegel Grove State Park. Colonel Hayes at various times,
and in numerous ways, in order to complete the building and
bring it to the point of perfection which it has attained, expended
fifty thousand dollars to that end; and to further add to its use-
fulness and beauty as a monument, he has provided for an addi-
tion to the building that will cost at least fifty thousand dollars, the
funds for which are now in the hands of a trustee appointed for
that purpose.
Since Spiegel Grove has been dedicated by Colonel Hayes,
he has placed in the hands of trustees for the benefit of the so-
ciety and the State of Ohio other lands contiguous to the grove
which, when sold, the trustees are to place the proceeds thereof
in a trust fund for the use and benefit of this institution. So far
lands to the value of thirty-five thousand dollars have been dis-
posed of, and that amount is in the hands of a trustee for the use
and benefit of Spiegel Grove, as held by this society. The land,
exclusive of Spiegel Grove, remaining unsold is worth at least
one hundred thousand dollars, the proceeds of which, upon sale,
will be held in trust for the use and maintenance of the Spiegel
Grove park and residence with any remainder for books for the
Hayes Memorial Library.
On July first of last year Colonel Hayes placed one hundred
thousand dollars in trust to be used in the maintenance and up-
building of this patriotic memorial. I am within a conservative
estimate when I state that Colonel Hayes has disposed, for the
benefit of posterity, in the form of the beautiful and attractive
EXTENT OF COLONEL HAYES'S GIFT 347
property which you see before you, at least five hundred thousand
dollars; two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash and se-
curities for endowment funds, and two hundred and fifty thou-
sand dollars in real estate and personal property including the
library Americana and collections.
Greater and more far-reaching than the vast funds which
he has so consecrated to others and to the memory of those loved
by him, is his magnificent spirit of unselfishness, of tender de-
votion to the memory of his father and mother, and of his
desire to leave to future generations historic evidence of the past.
Here the people of Ohio forever will come to view the evidences
of a period of American history that will be to them a continuing
lesson and an inspiring heritage. A visit to this place will stimu-
late the study of Ohio history; of her Indian tribes; of the wars
between the British and French and their Indian allies; fol-
lowed by our War for Independence, when this was a British
post; and of her people's heroic defense of our country in the War
of 1812. They will see here many historical mementoes of one
who laid down civil honor to go forth to fight for the Union.
They will see a collection of souvenirs of every President from
Washington to Wilson; manuscripts of great historic importance
and literature rarely found in Ohio libraries. They will view a
monument evidencing the unselfish devotion of private interests
to public good; and viewing this monument they will be inspired
to devote themselves anew to the service of our country and to
common humanity.
At the conclusion of his address there were many cheers for
Colonel Hayes. Governor Campbell called upon him for a
speech but the colonel merely rose to his feet from his chair
several rows back of the presiding officer, bowed to the audience
and sat down. This caused renewed cheers and finally Colonel
Hayes walked forward to the front of the stand. When the
crowd had quieted expecting remarks, he bowed and returned to
his seat.
"Just as modest as he is good," said Chairman Campbell and
the crowd again applauded.
The Reverend Father F. S. Legowski, overseas chaplain in the
348 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Thirty-second Division A. E. F., in the absence of Colonel F. W.
Galbraith, national commander of the American Legion, gave an
extemporaneous address that was well received.
Brigadier-General W. V. McMaken, president of the Thirty-
seventh Division Association, expressed the thanks of his com-
rades of the War with Spain and of the World War to Colonel
and Mrs. Hayes for the splendid recognition of the heroic dead
who died while serving valiantly for their country.
Captain Grant S. Taylor, chief of staff of the commander-
in-chief of the Spanish War Veterans, spoke for his fellow
soldiers.
Commander S. B. Rathbun, of Eugene Rawson Post, responded
for the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic,
in a very effective way, by calling on all members of the Grand
Army of the Republic to rise and salute. The president of the
society, Governor Campbell, and the president emeritus of the
society, the Rev. Dr. Wright, elicited increased applause by rising
and saluting with their comrades of the G. A. R. The Hon.
James M. Cox, Governor of Ohio, and a trustee of the society
found himself unable to be present and Governor Campbell, as
presiding officer, then presented the Hon. Warren G. Harding,
United States Senator from Ohio and a life member of the
society.
The speaker, before beginning his prepared address, said that
he was glad he had kept his word with Colonel Hayes and had
come to Fremont. He had promised to do this before his nom-
ination for the Presidency. He regarded that promise in the
nature of a contract. "I believe in always keeping my contract,"
said he, "and I kept my contract when I came to Fremont
today." Much trouble in the world and many calamities includ-
ing some of our serious wars, he declared, came through the
failure of men and states and nations to keep their contract.
Senator Harding then spoke as follows:
My Countrymen:
It is a fine thing to gather at the shrines of American pa-
triotism. It is fine that we have such shrines. Without them
we would have little soul and less love of country. It is good
SENATOR HARDING'S ADDRESS 349
to pause and note the sacrifices through which we came to
nationality and then to eminence in the world. It is reassur-
ing to dwell afresh in the atmosphere of colonial heroism, and to
be reminded anew that the spirit which triumphed in the early
making of the Republic is with us, after all the years of develop-
ing fulfillment to guarantee its perpetuity. It stirs our hearts to
recall how hundreds fought in Colonial days; it rivets our faith
anew to know how millions fought and more millions were ready
and still more millions available when our nationality and world
civilization were threatened in the great World War.
It is an exceptional shrine at which we are gathered today.
A century and a half ago Israel Putnam came here in command
of the Connecticut battalion, and with other colonial troops from
New York and New Jersey in the British expedition of 1764,
under Bradstreet, and revealed to the northwest territory the
mettle of the men of New England. It was here at old Fort
Stephenson that Major George Croghan defended the new re-
public against the British and the Indians and won the only land
victory within the limits of the United States in the War of 1812
Two companies from this county served with Croghan again
in the War with Mexico. From this hallowed spot came the
brave and gallant Major-General James B. McPherson, the officer
highest in rank and command killed during the War for the
Union.
From Sandusky County came the first American killed in the
war for humanity's sake in all the world--Seaman George B.
Meek. Aye, and from Sandusky County there went the full quota
of American defenders in the World War. Seventy of them
made the supreme sacrifice, and in their memory, in the main,
we are met in grateful, loving tribute today.
Still another glory illuminates this exceptional American
shrine. From this spot came citizen, soldier, patriot, and Presi-
dent, Rutherford B. Hayes. He served eminently in war and
patriotically in peace. I like to recall the helpful, reassuring Ad-
ministration of this fine, firm, unpretentious American, whose
official service to America was both healing and heroic, and left
a sense of satisfying security as a heritage to America.
350 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Today we are a the shrine of American manhood, to reavow
that love of country which fills every American breast and holds
sacrifice a ready offering to our common country. Youth holds
the safety of the Republic its especial obligation. It is no figure
of speech, signifying comradeship, to refer to 'the boys' of our
armies. The soldiers of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the
Mexican War, the War for the Union, the Spanish-American
War, and the great World War, were almost identical in type,
typical specimens of the flower of American young manhood.
Regal in their confidence, robust in their strength, and regnant in
their hopes, American youths have more than responded to the
nation's need; American youths have rushed to the country's
salvation.
When the Baroness Riedesel wrote of the surrender of the
British under Burgoyne at Saratoga, of which she was a witness.
she remarked the "handsome lads of the age of about seventeen";
and we know ourselves now that but for these lads the War of
the American Revolution could not have been won.
The same type of striplings wrought the American victory
under Croghan, and carried the flag in triumph to the City of
Mexico and unfurled it from the heights of Chapultepec. I saw
them go forth for the war to liberate Cuba, and I know the story
of youth's defense of union and nationality in the Civil War.
There were nearly nine hundred thousand boys in the Northern
armies alone, boys of the age of McKinley and Foraker. A half
million youths fought for the Confederate cause, from Bull Run
to Appomattox. At Gettysburg, where the high tide of the Re-
bellion ebbed from its crimsoned flood, the average age of the
veteran armies of that famed battle was but twenty years. Mc-
Kinley enlisted at seventeen, Foraker was a captain before he
was twenty-one, and Miles commanded the Second Army Corps
before he was twenty-six.
Only a few days ago twenty thousand of the American Legion
marched in splendid lines at Cleveland, and there was the same
youth, the same undaunted spirit, the same virile young Ameri-
can manhood which has characterized American soldiery in all
our wars and written again and again our admonition to have
faith in the Republic.
SENATOR HARDING'S ADDRESS 351
Early after our entry into the World War, a young American
of eighteen called at my office in Washington to ask my assistance
in getting a passport to France. I was surprised and I asked,
"Why not fight under our own flag?" He said he wanted to be
an aviator and he was too young for acceptance in the naval air
service. "Then why not the army?" I asked. "Five thousand
awaiting enrollment now, and I can't wait." Then I learned that
he had visited the French Embassy, had seen the military at-
tache, passed an informal examination, and was assured of ac-
ceptance if he could only reach France. I liked his ardor and en-
thusiasm, but I knew him to be an only son; I knew he had come
to me from the college, and I thought I ought to have his parents'
approval. So I said, "What will your mother say?" In a flash
he produced a telegram from her. It read: "I do hope Senator
Harding can help you to France. God bless you. I am glad to
have you go." And he went, and ultimately I hope he found his
place under the Stars and Stripes. I am sure he did his part,
wherever he fought, just as did all the sons of the Republic from
North and South, from East and West, from factory, office, and
farm. I do not say we won the World War, but we helped to win
it, and our American forces wrought new glories for the Re-
public from the Marne to the Argonne, and gave to America new
reverence and new admiration throughout the world. Our boys
were the worthy sons of worthy sires, worthy defenders of a
worthy republic. They never turned back. Alas! they, too
rarely halted, because they could not tolerate the patient methods
of the more seasoned veterans.
Retreat is honorable, often necessary, but the youth from
America could not understand it, or they could not harmonize
it with their purpose. It is said our missing dead in the World
War is relatively the smallest in the records of warfare. The
explanation is that no American battle line moved rearward over
our glorious dead.
I have heard the stories of heroism and achievement which
stir our emotions and magnify our pride, but I have yet to meet
a hero who was conscious of his heroism, or realized that he was
engaged in an act to rivet the gaze of all the world. It is not
difficult to understand, after all. The men of the army and navy
352 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
were committed to a duty, and the performance of that duty
was a simple matter of course. They were upon the supreme
stage of world heroism, but were simply performing the duties
of national defenders, unmindful of plaudits or wondering gaze.
Knowledge of duty well done, of devotion bravely proven, of
service fittingly rendered--these were their inspiration then; but
we utter today and memorialize for all time the honors they won
for themselves, their kind, their land, their people.
I voice today a tribute to the steadfastness, the resolution,
the undaunted courage, the irresistible determination of the
American expeditionary forces. They wrought less in brilliancy,
but more in glory. They were less trained, but profited more
from Europe's costly experience. They were delayed in reaching
the battle front, but they speeded in meeting the enemy. They
made few trenches, but they took many. They had few objec-
tives, but they reached the one big one, and did their full part to
save world civilization. They came home with as little parade as
they went. America never saw the spectacle of their might and
majesty, but America has sensed the bigness of our expeditionary
army and those in camp ready for call, and somehow there is a
feeling of renewed security throughout the Republic.
This is not alone for what you have done under arms. It is
because of what America knows you will do in peace. You
World War veterans are the new leaven in the patriotic citizen-
ship of the Republic, the mightiest influence in American life
for half a century to come. It was your Republic before, but
there is a new intimacy now.
"Let us do more even than is symbolized in memorial tablets
and monuments. Let us pay our sorrowing tribute to the dead,
our grateful tribute to the living, and be resolved all of us, to
meet our duties as they met theirs, undeterred and unafraid, and
hand to our sons and daughters the legacy of liberty and the
temple of security, our own United States of America."
The benediction was then pronounced by the Rev. Dr. George
Frederick Wright, president emeritus of the Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Society.
HISTORY OF OLD BETSY 353
OTHER CELEBRATIONS AT SPIEGEL GROVE
Spiegel Grove has been the scene of many celebrations. The
first of record was the Fourth of July celebration of 1852, which
was of great interest to this community both as marking the
national holiday and as celebrating the return of the old gun,
Betsy Croghan, to the scene of her great victory of nearly forty
years before. Betsy Croghan, the iron six-pound gun, is of French
manufacture and is supposed to have been captured from the
French by the British in one of the battles of the Old French War
of 1759-1763. It is not definitely known when the cannon was
brought to the Lower Falls of the Sandusky to help defend the
old Indian factor's house in the centre of the two-mile square
reservation first ceded to the United States by the Indians in the
treaty of 1785. In 1812 the old factor's house was enlarged
and stockaded so as to include almost double the original space,
with six blockhouses instead of four. It was then named "Fort
Stephenson," after Colonel Stephenson the officer in charge. Its
sole means of defense was Old Betsy and the one hundred and
sixty soldiers under Major Croghan, of whose victory in defend-
ing the fort General Sherman said:
"The defense of Fort Stephenson by Croghan and his gal-
lant little band was the necessary percursor to Perry's victory
on the lake, and of General Harrison's triumphant victory at
the Battle of the Thames. These assured to our immediate an-
cestors the mastery of the Great West, and from that day to this
the West has been the bulwark of this nation."
Old Betsy was taken with General Harrison's army down to
the site of Old Fort Sandoski of 1745 and transported across
the lake into Canada, where she is supposed to have taken part
in General Harrison's victorious Battle of the Thames, October
5, 1813.
For a score or more of years, she was lost sight of, but hav-
ing been presented by Congress to grace the scene of her vic-
tory, which in military parlance was known as the Battle of San-
dusky, she was, after identification, shipped from the arsenal
at Pittsburgh, and the last stage of her journey being on the
water, she was landed at Sandusky City, which had recently taken
23
354 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
that name for at the time of the battle in 1813 it was known
only as Ogontz Point and later Portland.
The authorities of Sandusky City promptly seized the old can-
non and buried her in the sand until such time as it might be safe
to proclaim the old gun as the victor in the defense of Fort San-
dusky "near this spot." This was prevented by the vigilant and
patriotic mayor of Fremont, which also had recently felt the
necessity of changing its name from Lower Sandusky owing
to the multiplicity of towns named Sandusky; for with the as-
sumption of that name by the old town of Portland, there were
five towns bearing the name on the less than one hundred miles
of Sandusky River, viz.: Sandusky City at its mouth, Lower
Sandusky, Upper Sandusky, Little Sandusky, Big Sandusky.
In 1840 mail was sent by water from Cleveland to the re-
cently rechristened town of Sandusky City where the mail was
held to suit the convenience of the citizens of that town but
much to the annoyance of the citizens and merchants of the old
historic Indian towns of Lower Sandusky and Upper Sandusky,
until finally the citizens of Lower Sandusky petitioned the court
to change the name so that they might promptly thereafter re-
ceive their mail. Among other names proposed those of the
gallant Major George Croghan, then properly pronounced as
though spelled Kraun, and the military explorer, Colonel John C.
Fremont, were most prominently mentioned. The petition was re-
ferred to Rutherford B. Hayes, as a commissioner to report to
the court on the desirability of a change. Mr. Hayes, on his last
appearance as a member of the Sandusky County bar prior to
his removal to Cincinnati in 1849, reported in favor of adopting
the name of Fremont, who in addition to his successful ex-
plorations in opening a pathway through the Rocky Mountains
to the Pacific, had recently enlisted the enthusiastic interest of
the Democratic citizens of Lower Sandusky by eloping with the
favorite daughter, Jessie, of the great Democratic Senator Thomas
H. Benton and marrying her in spite of pronounced parental ob-
jections. There was but one protest against the change of name
- by a local poet whose final verse was: "Change the people not
the name of my old home Sandusky."
HISTORY OF OLD BETSY 355
Mayor Bartlett, of Fremont, on learning through private de-
tectives of the spot where Old Betsy had been buried, organized
an expedition and marched to the shore of the lake, disinterred
Old Betsy, and amid jeering cries at the discomfited citizens of
Sandusky City, escorted her in honor to the site of Fort Stephen-
son where she has since remained an object of great interest
to all vistors.
Hence the Fourth of July celebration of 1852 largely partook of
a glorification over the final return of Old Betsy to the fort which
she had made famous as the scene of the one American land vic-
tory on American soil in the War of 1812.
The selection of Spiegel Grove as the scene of many famous
gatherings addressed by statesmen, soldiers, and sailors, began
when its owner, Rutherford B. Hayes was President of the United
States. The first of these celebrations was on September 14, 1877,
in honor of the famous Twenty-third Regiment Ohio Volunteers,
the regiment noted for its gallant record in war, and famous for
the number of its members who afterward distinguished them-
selves in public life. Major-Generals William S. Rosecrans and
E. P. Scammon, both graduates of West Point, and Rutherford B.
Hayes and James M. Comly were its four colonels; Associate
Justice Stanley Matthews and Russell Hastings were liteutenant-
colonels, and its surgeon major, Joseph T. Webb, was brevetted
lieutenant-colonel; William McKinley, captain and brevet-major;
while Robert P. Kennedy and William S. Lyon became lieutenant-
governors of Ohio.
The members of the regiment dined at a long table under
what were then christened and have since been known as the
"Reunion Oaks," enormous white oaks, "General Sheridan,"
"General Rosecrans," "General Scammon," "General Comly,"
and "Associate Justice Stanley Matthews." Other oak trees were
christened after Chief Justice Waite and General George Crook,
the famous Indian fighter, who were also present at the reunion.
During the annual visits of President Hayes to Spiegel Grove,
he was accompanied by many distinguished men who were like-
wise honored by having trees named after them. The most beauti-
ful and stately elm was named after General Sherman who was a
356 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
frequent visitor, and a beautiful red maple was named after Presi-
dent Garfield.
On the occasion of the funeral of President Hayes, in January,
1893, Grover Cleveland, a strong personal friend, after their
joint service on the Peabody Education Fund and other public
philanthropies, at that time the only ex-President, as well as the
President elect of the United States, made the long journey
in the middle of winter to pay his last measure of respect to one
whom he personally esteemed, saying: "He would have come to
my funeral had the situation been reversed." As he entered the
Hayes Presidential carriage which with its horses was still pre-
served the keen air of midwinter and the crowds of men in
uniform caused the horses to plunge forward and for a moment
it was feared that President Cleveland would be thrown to the
ground. He recovered himself promptly by the aid of a mam-
moth shell-bark hickory against which he leaned; and since that
time the tree has been known as the Grover Cleveland Hickory
of 1893 in honor of the great Democrat.
September 1, 1897, the survivors of the Twenty-Third Ohio
Regiment were guests at a reunion in Spiegel Grove. Presi-
dent McKinley, Secretary of War Alger, Senator Hanna of
Ohio, and others prominent in public life, spoke from beneath a
group of white oaks around which a stand had been erected,
while Mrs. McKinley and the ladies of the party were seated
on the porch of the Hayes residence. The group of white oaks
was promptly named the McKinley Oaks of 1897.
In 1904, another reunion of the Twenty-third Regiment was
held, owing to inclement weather on the eighty-foot porch of the
Hayes residence. The guest of the regiment and chief speaker
was Rear-Admiral Charles E. Clark, U. S. N., the captain of the
battleship Oregon, which made the famous run from San Fran-
cisco Bay through the Straits of Magellen. Dodging the Spanish
fleet in the West Indies, she safely joined the American fleet at
Key West, and without a moment's delay proceeded with the
fleet to bottle up Admiral Cervera's Spanish fleet in the harbor of
Santiago de Cuba. When the Spaniards attempted to escape,
on the third day of July, 1898, the battleship Oregon opened fire
on each Spanish ship as it emerged from the harbor "and left
TREES NAMED FOR FAMOUS MEN 357
not one of them until after it had hoisted signals of surrender or
been driven ashore." The Admiral Clark White Oak was chris-
tened during the exercises.
In 1908, in the early days of the Presidential campaign, Judge
William H. Taft was a guest of Colonel Hayes, and on being ad-
vised of the custom of naming trees after Presidents, distin-
guished soldiers, and sailors, and having been invited to select
his tree, promptly chose one of the largest white oaks in the
grove, immediately in front of the residence, and with the re-
mark, "That is about my size," placed his hand on it and chris-
tened it the William H. Taft Oak of 1908.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH
OF RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES AT
SPIEGEL GROVE, FREMONT, OHIO
BY LUCY ELLIOT KEELER
"Of which I was a great part," is the classic motto which for
almost twenty centuries hero after hero has proudly taken to
himself. President Hayes would have passed it by. Perhaps
no other phrase exists, however, which so effectively describes
the pervasion of his personality through all the commemorative
events and the scene in which they were staged, at Fremont,
Ohio, October 4, 1922, the centenary of his birth.
Spiegel Grove. the home to which he was devotedly attached,
and which he had known intimately from boyhood, was never
fairer than on that serene autumnal day basking under the blu-
est of blue skies. Every one of those great trees his hands hall
touched; each fair vista had delighted him; the clearings in the
dense forest, letting in the sunlight. had been planned and ex-
ecuted by him; on many of tie finest trees he had bestowed the
names of his comrades; spot after spot he had enriched with
gathered lore; the homestead which he had reshaped to his fam-
ily life, the rooms he had lived and worked in and in which he
had been the generous, delightful host: the porches and paths
358 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
he had trod; the national colors under which he had fought and
bled and served; the secluded knoll where his mortal remains
lie beside those of his beloved wife; the numberless books he had
gathered and studied; the reunion again of all his children whose
first hero he ever was; the presence of aged survivors of his
old regiment, and of his successors in the State and Federal
government; the city to whose welfare he had given himself and
his fame so generously and which forever becomes his heir in
the enjoyment of Spiegel Grove:-- marching feet, martial music,
happy faces, distinguished guests, ringing tributes of love and
honor and praise-of all this he is still the greatest part.
In the spring of 1845, Rutherford Birchard Hayes began the
practice of law in Lower Sandusky, now Fremont. He had been
admitted to the bar of Ohio at Marietta, March 10, following
his graduation in February of that year from the Dane Law
School of Harvard University, on the completion of his two
years' course at that institution. His father had died some three
months before his birth, which occurred on the 4th of October,
1822, at Delaware, Ohio; but his maternal uncle, Sardis Birch-
ard, who had himself been adopted into the family at twelve
years of age, on the death of his parents, at once assumed the di-
rection and control of his sister's little family and continued to
the end of his life as the fond uncle, guardian, and benefactor.
Young Hayes first visited his uncle at Lower Sandusky (now
Fremont) in 1834, and on entering the Norwalk Academy, in
1836, walked the intervening twenty-five miles to spend his Sun-
days with his uncle at Lower Sandusky.
This place was to him notable for its hunting and fishing on
Brady's Island, at the lower falls of the Sandusky, historically
noted by Washington during the Revolutionary War.
From the Norwalk Academy, he entered in 1837 Isaac Webb's
school at Middletown, Connecticut, a preparatory school for Yale,
whither his mother had taken him in connection with a famous
trip to the New England relatives. Owing to Yale's great dis-
tance from home, however, he was sent later to Kenyon College,
founded by the famous Bishop Philander Chase, which in the
short space of almost its first decade had as students Salmon P.
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 359
Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice;
Dovid Davis, and Stanley Matthews, associate justices of the Su-
preme Court, Davis appointed by Lincoln and Matthews ap-
pointed by Hayes, his college-mate and fellow officer in the
Twenty-third Ohio; Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of
War; and Henry Winter Davis, a distinguished Representative in
Congress.
Hayes entered in 1838 and graduated valedictorian in the class
of 1842. On leaving college he read law for a year in the office
of Sparrow & Matthews of Columbus, before entering the Har-
vard Law School.
An active Whig partisan, even before he was a qualified voter,
he enthusiastically supported General Harrison in 1840, and while
a law student at Cambridge, Henry Clay. It has been related
that on the occasion of a great Clay rally in Boston, noticing the
absence of any banner indicating the support of Ohio men of
Henry Clay, Hayes obtained a rudely prepared placard bearing
the inscription OHIO, and with his uncle joined in the pro-
cession which before the end of the parade had increased from
two to some thirty odd Ohio Clay men, who were the recipients
of enthusiastic applause.
Soon after opening his law office in Lower Sandusky, in 1845,
Hayes formed a legal partnership with Ralph P. Buckland, for
whom he maintained a warm lifelong regard, the intimacy being
strengthened by their joint service in the army during the War
for the Union and in the House of Representatives. So in the
plans made in contemplation of receiving the White House gates
for the Memorial Gateways of the Spiegel Grove State Park,
a Buckland Gateway was built. This, like the Cleveland Gate-
way, is narrow --each to be fitted with one-half of one of the
large double gates.
The place now known as Spiegel Grove was purchased by
Sardis Birchard in 1845 for the future home of his nephew and
ward, but the construction of the house was not begun until four-
teen years later, anticipating the return of Hayes from Cincinnati
to take up his permanent home in it. The return was delayed
because of the war and then because of Hayes's service in Con-
gress (to which he was twice elected) and his two terms as gov-
360 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
ernor. So it was not until 1873 that he made his home in Spiegel
Grove;- where, on the knoll, the mortal remains of his wife
and himself are enclosed in the granite block, quarried from the
farm in Dummerston, Vermont, whence his father migrated to
Ohio in 1817.
Hayes was a loyal Whig who opposed the Mexican War for
the extension of slavery. Nevertheless, after conferring with
numerous friends, it was arranged that he should go into the army
with the company from Lower Sandusky, and be appointed its
second-lieutenant, provided that certain distinguished physicians
of Cincinnati thought his physical condition satisfactory, for he
had broken down in health. He accordingly secured a substitute,
none other than the Hon. Benjamin Inman, later a representative
in the legislature, to accompany him to Cincinnati, where his hopes
for military service were blasted by the decision of the physicians,
and he was ordered to the extreme north, while the late Lewis
Leppelman was commissioned in his place as second-lieutenant of
the company from Lower Sandusky. On recovering his health he
made a trip to Texas, and on his return arranged to remove to
Cincinnati to continue the practice of his profession.
His last appearance at the local bar of Lower Sandusky was
as a commissioner appointed by the court to report on a petition
requesting the change of name of the village of Lower Sandusky.
This was because of the many towns called Sandusky, within the
less than one hundred miles of the river from its source to Lake
Erie, where the old fishing village, known during the War of
1812 as Ogontz Place, and later as Portland, had on account of
the association of the name Portland on Lake Erie with cholera
ravages of those days, dropped that name for "Sandusky City."
The U. S. mails, carried by sailing craft on Lake Erie, were
landed at Sandusky City, with the result that the forwarding of
the mail of the four older Sanduskies, further up the Sandusky
River, had to wait the convenience of the postmaster at Sandusky
City. Mr. Hayes reported to the court that there was but one
remonstrance against changing the name from Lower Sandusky
which was in the form of a poem by the noted character, Thomas
L. Hawkins. Mr. Hayes further reported in favor of the adop-
tion of the name of Fremont in honor of the explorer who had
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 361
further endeared himself to this democratic community by elop-
ing with the beautiful Jessie Benton, daughter of the influential
Senator Thomas H. Benton. The name Fremont was confined
by the court on this last appearance of Hayes before his departure
for Cincinnati in 1849.
Hayes was elected City Solicitor of Cincinnati, in 1857, by the
City Council to fill a vacancy, was reelected by popular vote in
1859, but was swept down in the Democratic tidal wave in Cin-
cinnati in April, 1861, following the inauguration of Abraham
Lincoln and the threatened war to preserve the Union which
would naturally cut off all the Southern trade from Cincinnati.
His last entry in his Diary before entering the Union army was
as follows:
"May 15, 1861.--Judge Matthews and I have agreed to go
into the service for the war, if possible into the same regiment. I
spoke my feelings to him which he said were his also, viz.: that
this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole
power of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew
I was to die or be killed in the course of it than to live through
and after it without taking any part in it."
Both Judge Matthews and himself, who were active supporters
of Salmon P. Chase, were tendered colonelcies through the lat-
ter's influence in Washington, but each declined, preferring to
go in a subordinate capacity under a trained West Point officer
until they could learn the rudiments of military life. Finally
on the 6th of June, 1861, they were appointed by Governor Wil-
liam Dennison of Ohio, Judge Matthews as lieutenant-colonel,
and Hayes as major of the Twenty-third Regiment of Ohio Vol-
unteer Infantry, which was the first regiment recruited in Ohio
"for three years or the war."
It was also the first regiment in Ohio in which the field of-
ficers had not been elected, after log-rolling, by the members of
the regiment, but were appointed directly by the Governor of
Ohio. Colonel Wm. S. Rosecrans, a distinguished graduate of
the U. S. Military Academy, was appointed colonel of the regi-
ment, but his services were within a week demanded as a gen-
eral officer, and again Matthews and Hayes declined the promo-
362 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
tions tendered them to fill the vacancies, and secured the appoint-
ment of another capable graduate of the Military Academy in the
person of Colonel E. P. Scammon.
Hayes's first service was in western Virginia, but in August
1862, as a member of General Jacob D. Cox's division, he joined
the Army of the Potomac, covering the retreat of General Pope's
army after the second battle of Bull Run, and as a part of the
Army of the Potomac when General McClellan was restored to
its command, and marched against Lee's army in Maryland in
the Antietam campaign. He was severely wounded at South
Mountain, September 14, 1862. Here his wife, Lucy Webb
Hayes, joined him and served in the field hospital established
after the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest one-day battle of the
war. He was in all the battles of Sheridan's Shenandoah Val-
ley campaign, Winchester, Cedar Creek, and Opequon, in which
he greatly distinguished himself and was promoted to brigadier-
general on the field, under Sheridan and Crook, the latter hav-
ing cut off his own brigadier-general shoulder-straps and pre-
sented them to General Hayes. He resigned and was mustered
out on the 6th of June, 1865, after his service of exactly four
years in which he had been six times wounded in battle and had
four horses killed under him. In August, 1864, he was nomi-
nated for Congress from the second Cincinnati district, and on
being urged to return home on furlough and enter the campaign,
having in mind the number of officers who had left the army to
electioneer for Congress in 1862 and 1864, he indignantly re-
plied: "Your suggestion about getting a furlough to take the
stump was certainly made without reflection. An officer fit for
duty, who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for
a seat in Congress, ought to be scalped. You may feel perfectly
sure I shall do no such thing."
He had just begun his second term in Congress when he was
nominated for governor and resigned to make the canvass.
He served two terms as Governor of Ohio, and on his retire-
ment in 1872 was solicited again to make the race for Congress
in order to strengthen the Republican ticket under General
Grant's candidacy for reelection as President, but the entire
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 363
Republican ticket in Cincinnati was defeated owing to the de-
fection to Greeley. He returned to Fremont in the spring of
1873 and took up his residence in Spiegel Grove, which he re-
tained until his death January 17, 1893, although absent during
his third term as Governor and his four years as President. He
made yearly visits to his home and held there in September, 1877,
the reunion of his old regiment, the Twenty-third Ohio, the
second of the large gatherings of prominent civilians and soldiers
of the United States held in Spiegel Grove. Other gatherings
were held there annually during his term of office as President
and several times in the years that followed until the date of his
death.
President Hayes's return to Spiegel Grove, after the inaugura-
tion of his successor, was delayed for twenty-four hours by a
head-on collision of his special train in which several pasengers
were killed and members of his personal escort, the First Cleve-
land Troop, now Troop A of Ohio, which had escorted him
from the White House to the Capitol for the inaugural cere-
monies of James A. Garfield, and then as his escort home to
Ohio, were severely injured. Twelve years later, after the death
of President Hayes, Troop A, Captain Jacob B. Perkins com-
manding, served also in the provisional brigade of the Ohio Na-
tional Guard, at his funeral, under orders of Governor McKin-
ley, as the escort of ex-President and now again President elect,
Grover Cleveland.
An interesting coincidence is that this Troop A, now under
Captain Ralph Perkins, a son of the former commander, with
many of the members of his command, also sons or grandsons
of former members of the Troop, again served, thirty years
later, at the head of the parade at the centenary celebration of
the birth of Rutherford B. Hayes, and appeared such duplicates
of their fathers or grandfathers that the old illustration of 1893
is used in this article.
On his arrival at his old home, from the porch of the resi-
dence which had been doubled in size for his return, he made a
short speech in which he outlined his views of what a President
should do after his retirement. He said:
364 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
"What is to become of the man, what is he to do -who hav-
ing been Chief Magistrate of the Republic, retires at the end of
his official term to private life? It seems to me the reply is
near at hand and sufficient. Let him like every other good Amer-
ican citizen be willing and prompt to bear his part in every use-
ful work that will promote the welfare and the happiness of his
family, his town, his State, and his country. With this disposi-
tion, he will have work enough to do and that sort of work that
yields more individual contentment and gratification than be-
longed to the more conspicuous employment of the life from
which he has retired."
So he resumed active control of the Birchard Library which
he and his uncle, Sardis Birchard, had jointly founded. He re-
vived his membership in Croghan Lodge I. O. O. F. to which
he belonged when he left Fremont in 1849; joined the Eugene
Rawson Post of the G. A. R.; organized the Sandusky County
Pioneer and Historical Society and became its first secretary;
became a member of the official board of the First Methodist
Church of which his wife and family were members; interested
himself in the introduction of the manual training department of
the public schools of the State; actively participated as trustee
of the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, the Ohio Wes-
leyan University at Delaware. and began his very active connec-
tion as one of the trustees and later as president of the board
of trustees of the Ohio State University at Columbus.
During his first term as Governor of Ohio, in 1868, he had,
in order to prevent the dissipation of funds among the many in-
stitutions demanding its division, invested the receipts from the
sale of the land grants in the magnificent estate on North High
Street, Columbus, on which are located the Ohio State Univer-
sity and the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society,
of which latter he was president at the time of his death.
He became also the president of the Ohio Board of State
Charities from which he widened his interests, and remained to
the end of his life president of the National Prison Reform As-
sociation; was president of the Slater Educational Fund; and a
member of the Peabody Educational Fund. At the board meet-
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 365
ings of these funds began the warm friendship between Grover
Cleveland and himself, which culminated in the attendance of
Mr. Cleveland at his funeral. His greatest pleasure, however,
was in attendance at the reunions of his regiment, the Twenty-
third O. V. V. I., and the Grand Army gatherings at Detroit and Co-
lumbus and his last in the city of Washington, where he marched
afoot in the long procession down Pennsylvania Avenue to the
reviewing stand, with his Grand Army post, side by side with
its commander. This was in October, 1892, when he was seventy
years of age and but three months before his death. During
that reunion, he presided at the dedication of the rough granite
monument of Major-General George Crook, the greatest hunter
and Indian fighter in the U. S. Army, with its bronze bas-relief
representing the capture of Geronimo in the Sierra Madre Moun-
tains of Mexico in 1883. General Crook was his immediate
commander during the war, and his predecessor as president of the
Society of the Army of West Virginia. At the dedication of
the monument, Major William McKinley delivered the principal
oration.
Last and most enjoyable of all was his membership in the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States of which
he was the commander-in-chief at the time of his death, in di-
rect succession to Hancock and Sheridan, each of whom con-
tinued as commander-in-chief from election till death. He had
joined the Illinois commandery soon after his retirement as Pres-
ident, and later was transferred to become a charter member of
the Ohio Commandery at Cincinnati of which he was elected the
first commander. He was reelected several times as commander
and until his declination, on his election as senior vice-com-
mander-in-chief with Major-General Winfield S. Hancock as
commander-in-chief; and was succeeded as commander of the
Ohio commandery by General William Tecumseh Sherman. On
the death of Major-General Hancock, General Hayes insisted
on withdrawing in favor, as commander-in-chief, of General
Philip H. Sheridan, our greatest battle general; but upon Sheri-
dan's death General Hayes was unanimously elected commander-
366 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
in-chief of the Loyal Legion, which position he held at the time
of his death.
Of the fifteen Presidents of the United States who served in
the wars of our country, none other than General Hayes was
wounded in battle with the exception of James Monroe, when a
lieutenant at the battle of Trenton, in 1777. General Hayes was
wounded six times during his four years of service.
At the reunions at Spiegel Grove, President Hayes instituted
the practice which has since been carried on by his son, Colonel
Webb C. Hayes, of naming trees in the grove after distinguished
visitors. The largest tree in the grove, an enormous white oak,
was originally christened "Old Betsy," in honor of the old six-
pounder used by Croghan in the defense of Fort Stephenson,
and later presented by Congress to be placed on the site of the
old fort which was then usually called Sandusky. This gun had
been stored in the arsenal at Allegheny, but had been recognized
by certain marks and shipped by water till landed at the town
on the lake called Sandusky City, where it was promptly buried
in the sand, in the hope that at some future day the honors and
glories gained in the defense of Fort Stephenson at Lower San-
dusky (which name had been changed to Fremont in 1849)
could be claimed by this newer town. A noted character, Thomas
L. Hawkins, had recognized the gun, and the then mayor of
Fremont, Brice J. Bartlett, organized an expedition of men and
teams which marched over to the lake shore where "Old Betsy"
was disinterred and brought home in triumph to Fort Stephen-
son. On the fourth of July following, 1852, a mammoth
jollification was held in Spiegel Grove under the large oak di-
rectly in front of the future Hayes residence. This was called
the "Old Betsy" Tree until rechristened the Warren G. Harding
Oak at a later celebration on the 4th of October, 1920, when a
bronze tablet erected by Colonel Webb C. Hayes in memory of
his comrades of Sandusky County in the War with Spain and
in the World War was unveiled bv his wife, Mary Miller Hayes.
The dedicatory exercises included an address by Senator War-
ren G. Harding, the Republican candidate for President of the
United States.
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 367
At the celebrations in Spiegel Grove during the lifetime of
President Hayes, many trees were named after distinguished
visitors and christened by the laying on of hands. At the
first reunion of his regiment, in 1877, trees named in honor
of General Philip H. Sheridan, the battle general of the War
for the Union; the great stratgist Major-General William
S. Rosecrans, the first colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio; Briga-
dier-General E. P. Scammon, the second colonel of the Twenty-
third Ohio, of which General Hayes was the third colonel; and
General James M. Comly, the fourth colonel of the Twenty-third
Ohio; and Associate Justice Stanley Matthews, first lieutenant-
colonel of the Twenty-third Ohio, were all duly christened at the
banquet given under the famous oaks, which have since been
called the Reunion Oaks. Oak trees were also named in honor
of Major-General George Crook, the famous hunter and Indian
fighter of the U. S. Army; and of Chief Justice Morrison R.
Waite, a resident of Ohio; and subsequently trees were named
in honor of General William Tecumseh Sherman and of Pres-
ident James A. Garfield. At the funeral of President Hayes, who
died on the 17th of January, 1893, the most distinguished visitors
were ex-President Grover Cleveland, now again President elect,
who made the long journey in the midst of winter from Lakewood
to Spiegel Grove to signify his friendship and high regard for
President Hayes; and Governor William McKinley of Ohio, who
four years later was inaugurated President of the United States,
the second member of the famous Twenty-third Ohio to hold the
exalted office of President of the United States. When the Presi-
dential carriage used in Washington during the Hayes and short
Garfield Administrations and in which all the Presidents of the
United States from Grant to McKinley had ridden, as well as all
the leading generals of the Union army and other distinguished
persons, was driven up to the porch to receive President Cleveland,
the horses, startled at the blare of trumpets and the waving plums
and brilliant capes of the soldiers, plunged forward, almost run-
ning into a large hickory tree against which President Cleveland
placed his hand to save himself from falling; whereupon it was
intimated to him that there was great propriety in naming this
368 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
rugged shagbark hickory, the tree emblem of Democracy, in
honor of the great Democrat.
Four years later the Twenty-third Ohio Regiment again held its
reunion in Spiegel Grove, at which time President McKinley,
Secretary of War Alger, and Senator Hanna of Ohio were the
leading guests in attendance at the reunion, preceded as it was
by the wedding of Miss Fanny, the only daughter of President
Hayes. A large circular platform had been erected around a
group of five or six oak trees which were very appropriately
named the McKinley Oaks of 1897.
At another reunion of the Twenty-third Regiment, held on the
porch of Spiegel Grove in 1906, Rear-Admiral Charles E.
Clark, U. S. N., a frequent visitor of Colonel Webb C. Hayes
since their joint service in the military and naval campaigns of
Santiago de Cuba in 1898, during the War with Spain, made
one of his inimitable addresses, after which he chose for his tree
a beautiful oak southeast of the house; as later did also Lieu-
tenant-General S. B. M. Young, on whose staff Colonel Hayes
served in Cuba and the Philippines, in the latter campaign win-
ning the much coveted Congressional Medal of Honor.
Subsequently the William H. Taft Oak was named on the
occasion of Mr. Taft's visit to Spiegel Grove in 1908. In com-
pany with Judge Taft was Lieutenant-General Henry C. Corbin,
Adjutant-General of the Army during the War with Spain, for
whom also an oak was named.
A large, fine black oak was named in honor of Newton D.
Baker, the distinguished American Secretary of War, during the
entire period of the World War, who represented President
Wilson at the dedication of the Hayes Memorial Building, May
30, 1916. Later, oaks were named in honor of two comrades of
Colonel Hayes, in the wars with Spain, the Philippines, and China,
as well as in the World War: Major-General Joseph T. Dick-
man, of Ohio, the most successful American officer through the
World War; and Major-General Robert L. Howze, appointed in
1925 to command the Fifth Corps area, with headquarters at
Fort Hayes, Columbus, Ohio.
Spiegel Grove was deeded to the State of Ohio for a state
HAYES CENTENARY CELEBRATION 369
park in three deeds in 1909 and 1910, by Colonel Hayes, as a
memorial to his parents, with the single proviso that it should
be maintained as a state park in which the old Sandusky-Scioto
Trail from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, connecting the St.
Lawrence and the Great Lakes with the Ohio and Mississippi,
later known as the Harrison Trail of the War of 1812, should be
preserved and maintained as a park drive for the half mile from
its northern entrance at the Croghan Gateway to its southern
entrance at the Harrison Gateway; and that the trees in the
grove should be marked with their common and scientific
names, to make them instructive and interesting to visitors. Sub-
sequently the residence and all the personal effects, library,
Americana, historical papers and collections of both Rutherford
B. Hayes and his son, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, were tendered
to the State conditional only on the library and collections being
preserved in a fire-proof building north of the residence. The
State of Ohio and Colonel Hayes jointly erected and equipped
what is known as the Hayes Memorial at an expense of about
one hundred thousand dollors. A few years later came the
dedication of the library and museum annex, more than doubling
the size of the museum, and with a stackroom library capacity
sufficient to hold a quarter of a million volumes, which Colonel
Hayes erected to complete his memorial to his father and mother.
In this beautiful addition the plans call for the practical duplica-
tion of the library room of Dr. Charles Richard Williams, the
author of the "Life" of President Hayes and the editor of the
"Sixty Years of Diaries and Letters." It will be known as the
Charles Richard Williams Library and Reading-room, and Dr.
Williams has announced his intention of presenting to it his own
magnificent library. Curiously enough, Dr. Williams's library
at Princeton was the room occupied and used by President
Wilson from the time of his resignation as president of Princeton
University, during his term as Governor of New Jersey and until
his inauguration as President of the United States; while the
house itself was erected on land formerly owned by President
Grover Cleveland after his retirement to Princeton.
At the dedication of the Library Annex, Dr. Williams made
24
370 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
the address on behalf of the Society, prior to which one of the
fine white oaks nearest to his library and reading-room was
named in his honor; as were also oaks in honor of ex-Governor
James E. Campbell, the President of the Ohio Archaeological and
Historical Society; and of Major-General Joseph T. Dickman, a
native Buckeye, who had served with Colonel Hayes in Cuba,
the Philippines, China, and in the World War. General Dick-
man, the foremost American soldier in the World War, took over-
seas the Third American Division of Regulars, which he com-
manded at Chateau Thierry, and until promoted to the command
of the Fourth American Corps, the First American Corps and the
Third American Army, which latter he led to the Rhine as the
Army of Occupation in Germany. Major-General Dickman was
especially deputed to represent President Warren G. Harding at
the centenary celebration of the birth of Rutherford B. Hayes.
The parade formed at Fort Stephenson under Grand Marshal
John R. McQuigg, with his chief of staff, Colonel M. C. Cox,
and aides, representing the military organizations, and his per-
sonal escort, Troop A of Ohio, now Troop A 107th Cavalry. The
troop were splendid in their Hussar uniforms and bearskin
busbies, which they had not worn since their attendance as the
personal escort of President-elect Taft, on March 4, 1909. Since
that time they had appeared only in the olive-drab service uni-
form of the army, notably at the great flood in Fremont in 1913,
when dismounted, they served the city so efficiently, using the
basement of the First Presbyterian church for sleeping quarters;
followed by their service on the Mexican border in 1916-17, and
with America's participation in the World War of 1917 as a
regiment of artillery in France and Belgium.
The parade marched from Fort Stephenson east past the city
hall to Arch Street, thence to State, headed by two automobiles
bearing Mayor Wm. H. Schwartz, Service Director E. H. Rus-
sell, and President of Council J. Bell Smith, in one; and County
Commissioners Clarke, Ritzman, and Rogers, with Surveyor Wis-
mer, in the other; two motorcycle policemen and a platoon of
Boy Scouts of America leading the line of march.
Colonel Frank Halstead commanded the first division, com-
CENTENARY PARADE 371
posed of the Eleventh U. S. Infantry and the Toledo Battery of
the Ohio National Guard, all fully equipped and armed for active
field service. They formed on Arch street south of Fort Stephen-
son.
The second division consisting of the United Spanish War
Veterans of Ohio and the Department of Ohio American Leg-
ion, with Commander Albert D. Alcorn of the Spanish War
Veterans in command, formed on Croghan Street west of Fort
Stephenson; while the third division, under Commander G. M.
Saltzgaber, of the Department of Ohio Grand Army of the Re-
public, with G. A. R. Post in automobiles, formed on High
Street north of Fort Stephenson.
The fourth division of floats, accompanied by members of
the local fraternal organizations under command of Marshal
Frank Ging, formed on State Street right resting on Arch.
The Eleventh U. S. Infantry Band marched at the head of the
military, or first division; the Light Guard Band of Fremont at
the head of the Spanish War and World War Veterans, or the
Second Division; the Modern Woodmen's Band in their spotless
white uniforms headed the third, or Grand Army division; and
the youthful High School Band, in their purple and white capes,
marched at the head of the large delegation of Elks who por-
trayed on a mammoth float a scene of Betsy Ross making the
first American flag.
The line of march was profusely decorated, State Street,
Front Street, Birchard and Buckland Avenues to the Croghan
Gateway of the Spiegel Grove State Park, where over one hun-
dred Campfire Girls and Girl Scouts joined the procession and
marched with it over the old Sandusky-Scioto Trail, under the
great trees of the grove, past the little lakes and the knoll
where, standing guard over the granite monument in which are
encased the remains of their beloved Commander and his wife,
stood the few survivors of the gallant old Twenty-third O. V. V.
I., the regiment of Hayes and McKinley. The veterans had lov-
ingly draped their regimental flag over the monument. The parade
continued along the brow of the hill to where the Trail descends
through the Harrison Gateway to the old French and Indian
372 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
spring, where it halted. Meanwhile the Campfire Girls and Girl
Scouts, passing through the Cleveland Gateway to the McKinley
Memorial Parkway, stationed themselves, each at a buckeye
tree memorializing the Sandusky County heroes who gave their
lives in the service of their country in the War with Spain and
in the World War. At a trumpet signal, blown from the top of
the Overseas Soldiers' Memorial Sunroom of the Memorial Hos-
pital of Sandusky County, each girl knelt and draped a me-
morial tree while taps was sounded on the trumpet. Immedi-
ately thereafter General McQuigg, at the head of the proces-
sion, started up the Memorial Parkway to its intersection with
the McKinley Memorial Parkway, where the reviewing stand
was erected.
Here were gathered Major-General Joseph T. Dickman, U.
S. A., of Ohio, the most successful American general in the
World War, and the special representative at the Centenary of
President Warren G. Harding; Major-General Clarence R. Ed-
wards, a native of Cleveland, who commanded overseas the fa-
mous Twenty-sixth or Yankee Division, through the World War;
former Governor James E. Campbell, president of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society, who wore the uniform of
a comrade of the G. A. R.; members of the Hayes family, and
trustees and officers of the society.
After passing in review, the procession turned sharply to the
right, countermarched on passing the Cleveland Gateway, thence
north through the Parkway to Hayes Avenue, east past the Me-
morial Gateway to the heroes of the War with Spain and the
World War, and was dismissed.
Battery A of Toledo, after passing the reviewing stand, gal-
loped into position and fired the national salute of twenty-one
guns.
Marshal Ging's floats division, as well as the Grand Army
division in automombiles, on arriving at the Croghan Gateway
into Spiegel Grove, continued out Hayes Avenue to the north-
ern entrance of the Parkway and thence south to the reviewing
stand where they witnessed the passing of the military and sol-
dier division before themselves passing in review before the
DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL PARKWAY 373
Grand Stand; thence past the Cleveland Gateway into the Mc-
Kinley Memorial Parkway, and past the Memorial Gateway,
where they too were dismissed.
The dedication of the Soldiers' Memorial Parkway took place
as the procession passed through the parkway and the Memorial
Gates were dedicated at the conclusion of the parade.
The Soldiers' Memorial Parkway of Sandusky County, con-
ceived by Colonel Hayes and tendered to the county in a cable-
gram from France on the day following the signing of the armis-
tice, was laid out in the form of a cross through property pre-
sented by him to the Society. This parkway, constructed jointly
by the Society and the Commissioners of Sandusky County, con-
sists of a strip one hundred feet wide in which two rows of
buckeye trees (the insignia of the Thirty-seventh or Ohio Divi-
sion) have been planted. To each tree is attached a memorial
containing the name, organization, place and date of death of the
soldiers of Sandusky County who gave their lives in the World
War.
The transept of the cross is the McKinley Memorial Park-
way, extending from the McKinley Circle to the Cleveland Gate-
way into Spiegel Grove State Park, on which the memorial trees
in honor of the dead of the campaigns of the War with Spain,
during President McKinley's Administration, have been planted.
Croghan Gateway was the first of the five memorial gateways
leading into Spiegel Grove to be dedicated, and this was done
amid a beautiful and inspiring ceremonial. Grouped at the en-
trance were fuly a hundred Campfire Girls, white-clad, each
bearing a flag. These fell in line with the Boy Scouts who headed
the procession and then took position on the Hayes Avenue side
of the entrance. Lined up on this same side was the magnifi-
cent Black Horse Cavalry, Troop A, all but three overseas soldiers
in the World War. Horse and man stood like one, veritably
moulded together, and this wonderful exhibition won the admira-
of all the spectators. Meanwhile, the officers of the Eleventh
U. S. Infantry, on horseback, took position on the mound directly
in front of the entrance, while Colonel Frank Halstead, U. S.
Infantry, drew aside the flags covering the tablet in honor of his
374 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
fellow officer of the regular army, Major George Croghan, U. S.
Infantry. The grand marshal of the parade, Brigadier-General
John R. McQuigg, O. N. G., late of the Thirty-seventh Division
Seventeenth A. E. F., surrounded by his staff, drew aside the
flags which draped the pink Westerly granite tablet in honor of
the old Sandusky-Scioto Trail, later known as the Harrison Trail
of the War of 1812.
The tablet on the Cleveland Gateway was unveiled by former
Governor James E. Campbell, President of the Ohio Archaeologi-
cal and Historical Society.
The gateways into the Spiegel Grove State Park are six in
number, two for pedestrians only, and each of the gate posts has
either an historic or a memorial tablet. The War Department, a
decade ago, when it learned of the proposed memorial gateways
in honor of Major-General William Henry Harrison of the War
of 1812 and Major-General James B. McPherson of the War for
the Union, gladly presented four huge, 10-inch Rodman cannon,
topped by fifteen-inch balls, to stand as gateposts. President
Harding, on learning of the intention to add split-boulder gate-
ways with memorial tablets, in honor of the soldiers of Sandusky
County who served in the other wars of our country, and of the
desire to secure historic iron gates for each of the entrances, ten-
dered the five double gates on West Executive Avenue, adjoining
the White House, which being a menace to public safety, were to
be removed.
The parade was over a little before noon. Immediately there-
after the speakers and distinguished guests, to the number of
over one hundred, were entertained at luncheon in the residence
at Spiegel Grove. At the same time on the first floor of the Li-
brary Annex the officers of the Eleventh Infantry and Toledo
Battery, and the band of the Eleventh Infantry, together with all
the survivors of the famous old Twenty-third O. V. I., and their
families, were specially served by the daughter, daughters-in-law,
and granddaughter-in-law of their old commander and his wife,
General and Mrs. Hayes. Here, too, luncheon was served to
Troop A, which had been the personal escort of President Hayes
at Washington, on his return to Ohio, and at his funeral. Colo-
DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL GATEWAYS 375
nel Webb C. Hayes had been a member, active or veteran, of
this Troop for over forty-one years. Colonel Halstead of the
Eleventh Infantry, Captain Perkins of Troop A, Major-General
Edwards, and Grand Marshal McQuigg, made addresses between
the songs, at the impromptu meeting of which Colonel Hayes was
the master of ceremonies.
Promptly at I :30 P. M., after a patriotic number by the Elev-
enth Infantry Band, ex-Governor James E. Campbell, President
of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, called
the assembly to order, and the Rev. Dr. William F. Peirce, Presi-
dent of Kenyon College, in academic robe, delivered the invo-
cation.
President Campbell then introduced the Hon. William H.
Schwartz, Mayor of Fremont, who on account of the length of
the program welcomed the guests in the first eight words of his
prepared address, which was as follows:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentleman: You are welcome!
Members of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical So-
ciety through whose efforts we are honored today by this cele-
bration commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the
birth of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth President of the United
States, Fremont bids you welcome.
To all you honorable gentlemen, representatives of this great
Nation and State, who honor us by your presence at this celebra-
tion in honor of one of America's greatest statesmen, we bid
you welcome.
To you soldiers of the Civil War, who fought with him whom
we honor today, we assure you that we are proud to have you
with us today; to you soldiers of the World War and the War
with Spain, who have brought honor to your flag and country
by your brave and heroic deeds across the sea; to the military
organizations that participate in this celebration in honor of a
great soldier and statesman, we bid each and all a hearty wel-
come.
Let us not be unmindful of the wonderful things that have
come to our fair city by having had Rutherford B. Hayes as a
citizen. Let us not forget to give credit and honor to our citi-
376 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
zens, Colonel and Mrs. Webb C. Hayes, who conceived and were
instrumental in having built the finest Soldiers' Memorial Park-
way in the world.
In closing I again thank all of you who have helped to make
this celebration a success. The keys of the city are yours, use
them to unlock its many treasure-houses.
President Campbell then paid a brief but glowing tribute to
President Hayes, with whom he was personally acquainted and
whom he highly regarded. He also spoke in feeling praise of
Colonel Webb C. Hayes for his deep filial affection, especially as
shown in making possible the creation of the beautiful memorial
to his parents here in Spiegel Grove. Because of the length of the
program he excused himself from extended remarks and referred
his hearers to the address that he delivered here October 4, 1920,
on the ninety-eighth anniversary of the birth of President Hayes.
Whereupon he read the following letter from President Warren
G. Harding:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, September 30, 1922.
MY DEAR GOVERNOR CAMPBELL:
I have delayed answering your appealing invitation to come
to Spiegel Grove on October fourth for the dedication of the
Hayes Memorial Library Addition, the Memorial Gateways of
the Spiegel Grove State Park, and the Soldiers' Memorial Park-
way. It being now apparent that I cannot indulge myself in the
satisfaction of personal attendance, and participate in your tribute
to President Hayes on the centenary anniversary of his birth, I
desire to at least express some sentiments which this occasion
inspires.
Perhaps I owe to my Ohio nativity and my neighborship with
the Hayes family the fact that from young manhood I have main-
tained a particular interest in the career of President Hayes and
the period preceding and including his term as President. At
any rate, I have always considered that he was by intellect, by
moral and temperamental qualities peculiarly fitted for the difficult
task of administration which confronted him as Chief Executive.
PRESIDENT HARDING'S EULOGY 377
It is difficult sometimes to understand the inspirations or
hindrances to the full appraisal of a great public service. There
are the prejudices of the hour, the cross currents in our politics,
the embittered conflicts of policy. Surrounded though he was by
these things, President Hayes was yet above them, and the de-
liberate students of history will rate him one of the great Presi-
dents of the Republic.
I suspect that some of my early examinations into the facts,
as contrasted with the prejudices, regarding the Hayes Adminis-
tration, were largely responsible for a theory that our estimates
of American public men have often been distorted by partisan-
ship and prejudice. I strongly feel that more study of the men
and events of our national history would lead us to sounder judg-
ments concerning them, and better understanding of the pro-
cedures by which, under our institutions, the highest aims may
be attained.
It has always been a matter of interest to me that President
Lincoln, the leader in saving the nation; President Grant, the
great soldier of the cause; and President Hayes, under whom
the national reconstruction was brought to so gratifying a con-
clusion, all made visits to the South as young men, and all were
greatly influenced by their observations of the institution of
slavery and its effect on general conditions. I think General
Grant's story of his Southern experiences before and during the
Mexican War is much more familiar than is that of General
Hayes; but both are charming narratives. That of General
Hayes is particularly illuminating because it can be read in the
diary which he kept, and which, like a few other journals of
eminent Americans, has been the source of so much valuable
contribution to history.
To me, the study of the developing character of this man who
was building his way toward leadership of the Nation, has been
intensely interesting. It is certainly suggestive that in the diary
of his early experiences as a young lawyer in Cincinnati, he
should have written down at considerable length and with the
utmost care, the record of conversations with many men whom he
regarded highly. In some of these entries, he tells of his con-
378 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
versation with Ralph Waldo Emerson, faithfully setting down
Emerson's story of experiences while visiting England, and his
estimates of such men as Carlyle, Macaulay, Disraeli, and many
others.
Enlisting in the Union army at the beginning of the war, the
young Cincinnati attorney rose rapidly by gallantry and merit
to a brevet major-generalship. I have read somewhere that al-
though twelve of the Presidents of the United States had served
in its armed forces, Monroe and Hayes were the only two to be
wounded in battle.
The development of political events, following the war, which
brought General Hayes to the governorship of Ohio and thence
to the Presidency, is far better known than his earlier career.
Better understood, also, I venture, than the great affairs which
made up his career as Chief Magistrate. Excepting only Lincoln,
I think it may be said that no President came to the duties of
his high office under more difficult conditions than those which
confronted Mr. Hayes. The bitter fight for the Republican nomi-
nation, the still more bitter contest which was necessary before
the result of the election was determined, and the fact that at no
time during his Presidential service were both houses of Congress
controlled by his political party, made his position as President
uniquely difficult. Regarded by Democrats as the beneficiary
of corruption, and by many Republican leaders as an interloper
in orthodox political company, he clearly realized his difficult
position from the beginning and went straight ahead with a
simple aim of doing what he believed right and best, trusting to
the sound sense of the public to support him, even if the poli-
ticians were not disposed so to do. I think the fine, tranquil
courage which he displayed in the steady pursuit of this policy
marks him as an Executive most fortunately equipped for the
needs of his time.
Looking back from our present point of observation, there
is little disagreement as to his wisdom in withdrawing federal
troops from those Southern States where they were still employed
to maintain nominal governments which did not represent the
communities. Like most thinking men who had taken actual
PRESIDENT HARDING'S EULOGY 379
part in the great conflict, President Hayes had little hatred for
the men who had been such gallant antagonists. His hope and
wish was all for the restoration of national unity on the basis
of confidence and understanding. He believed that the attempt
to enforce hard and unnatural conditions upon the vanquished
could not possibly advantage either section; and one who recog-
nizes the parallel between the problem of our national recon-
struction then, and the problem of a world's reconstruction with
which our generation is called to deal, cannot but feel that a
thoughtful consideration of the Hayes policy would be of vast
benefit in the world today. If it be assumed that wars are in-
evitable so long as humankind continues as it is, it must also
be accepted that periods of peace are inevitable; and the hatreds
and bitterness of war ought not to be carried over and perpetu-
ated in the epochs of peace. This was the basis of the Hayes
philosophy, and its results certainly commend it to earnest pres-
ent-day consideration.
There is another page from the history of the Hayes Admin-
istration which I wish might be read and pondered in these times.
I refer to the resumption of specie payments. The law looking
to resumption had been passed before Mr. Hayes became Presi-
dent; but after its passage there developed a powerful opposi-
tion. The country was full of antagonism to a "hard money"
program; of conviction that the early resumption of gold pay-
ments would have disastrous effect. Mr. Hayes had taken his
stand firmly in favor of the execution of this law, and opposed
all proposals for its repeal or modification. We get a vision of
both his courage and statesmanship, when we recall his attitude
toward the Bland Silver-Purchase Act. In the face of his oppo-
sition as voiced in a message to Congress, the bill passed by such
large majorities in both houses that it was quite apparent a veto
would be overridden. Nevertheless he did veto it, despite that
it had been supported by a majority of the members of both
parties. There were strong reasons in favor of the President
swallowing his scruples and signing the measure. Even so un-
compromising a supporter of sound money and the public credit
as Secretary Sherman opposed the veto. It is only fair to refer
380 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
to Mr. Sherman's attitude, because there has been disposition to
give him an undue share of credit for the sound fiscal and money
policies of the Hayes Administration. In his "Recollections" Sena-
tor Sherman says:--"In view of the strong public sentiment
in favor of the free coinage of the silver dollar, I thought it
better to make no objections to the passage of the bill, but I
(lid not care to antagonize the wishes of the President. He
honestly believed that it would greatly disturb the public credit
to make a legal tender for all amounts of a dollar, the bullion
in which was not in equal value to the gold dollar." The truth
is that President Hayes, in his determination to veto the measure,
was a lonesome figure; then and for a long time afterward.
Yet today I think we would find an overwhelming opinion that
the President was right, that the legislation was unfortunate,
and that a large part of the financial ills of the succeeding gen-
eration would have been avoided if the veto had been sustained.
Once more, I am impressed that a thorough understanding and
fair appraisal of the Hayes fiscal and money policy would be of
value to students of the economic problems of this hour. In-
flation has been carried in many countries to extremes seldom
reached in any of the recurring periods of financial excess that
have marked modern history. I feel that the unalterable com-
mitment of President Hayes to moderation in expenditure and
rigid maintenance of the monetary basis marked the beginning
of the long struggle for financial faith and sound money, which
has brought the American nation to the proud position it now
holds. Contemplating the American dollar as the recognized
standard of a world, we will indulge no error if we give to
Rutherford B. Hayes the first share of credit for putting us on
the path that has led us to this high estate.
His veto, in the closing days of his Administration, of the Re-
funding Bill, on the ground that it contained provisions which
would surely bring disaster to the national banking system, was
a most important contribution to maintain the system which has
since been developed into a banking establishment that is one of
the potent guarantees of economic stability and financial security.
I hope that if in thus recalling some few of President Hayes's
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 381
many notable contributions to wise administration, I have in-
truded upon your patience, I may excuse myself on the ground
that on this centenary occasion I have sincerely wanted to pay
tribute to one who has not had the fullest measure of recognition.
I know, in view of what I have said, that you will give me credit
for utmost sincerity when I repeat my keen regret that it has
not been possible for me to be with you in person and join in
the testimony to the memory of a great, courageous, and particu-
larly unselfish American.
Most sincerely yours,
WARREN G. HARDING.
HON. JAMES E. CAMPBELL, PRESIDENT,
The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society,
Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Charles Richard Williams, of Princeton, New Jersey, the
author of the two-volume "Life" of Rutherford B. Hayes and edi-
tor of the sixty years of "Diary and Letters," to which he has
devoted his time since completing the "Life," so that the combined
publication of a Hayes Series of seven volumes could be issued
under the name of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical
Society, thereupon delivered the following eloquent address:
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
In the little village of Delaware, one hundred years ago, in a
modest home, of parents undistinguished by wealth or fame but
of clean and wholesome quality, Rutherford Birchard Hayes
was born. There was nothing at the time --unless in the secret
recesses of the widowed mother's heart, jubilant that a man-child
was born - to give one the faintest adumbration of the greatness
of character and achievement Fate had in store for him.
A hundred years ago! Can you think back to the conditions
of that day? James Monroe was President--the fifth in the
line. The battle of Yorktown was nearer by almost twenty years
than Appomattox is to us. Men that fought with Washington,
and helped to frame the Constitution and establish the Republic,
were living and active in affairs. The Government was still an
382 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
experiment- the world expecting its speedy collapse, even its
most ardent friends doubtful of its enduring success. The steam-
boat was a novelty; agriculture pursued primitive methods;
chemistry and the cognate sciences were feeling their slow way
in the early stages of development; medicine and the knowledge
of disease had made slight progress beyond the attainment of
Galen. The railway, the telegraph, the telephone, all the uses of
electricity, and a hundred other things, which are now common-
places, that add so much to our daily comfort and pleasure, that
broaden our intellectual horizon to embrace the world, were yet
to come. Surely no century in the history of the human race
since our first parents,
"hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way,"
has seen so great advancement in all the arts and sciences by
which life is enriched and made easier and more interesting, or
has won such access of power in discovering and utilizing the
hidden forces of nature. Hard, indeed, to think back to the
narrower mode of life of pioneer days in Ohio, in the first quar-
ter of the nineteenth century, into which Hayes was born.
But, however great the changes in the externals of existence,
men remain the same in spiritual and moral life--subject to the
same emotions, swayed by the same motives, fired by like ambi-
tions. So, we can understand the men of the past, can enter into
their lives and thoughts, can sympathize with their defeats or joy
in their triumphs as easily and fully as if they abode among us
now.
And it is good for us to dwell on the life of such a man as
Rutherford B. Hayes. It was so clean a life, so wholesome, so
noble; it was so normal, in every stage of his growth, and in
every phase of his private activity and of his public career. "The
chief aim of life," in his opinion, "is to become better, to get
character." Whatever he did or said in professional endeavor,
on the field of battle, or at the helm of State, you feel the man-
the character--behind it all. Many eulogists, at the time of his
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAMS 383
death, applied to him the significant words written by Tennyson
of the great Duke:
"Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity, sublime."
No characterization of Hayes could be more appropriate;
none could better define his dominant qualities. Curiously
enough, before he was nineteen, Hayes himself became conscious,
as he records in his diary, that he was "possessed of a good share
of common sense, by which [he adds] is meant a sound practical
judgment of what is correct in the common affairs of life." And
he impressed his companions with this quality. A fellow student
at Kenyon, Stanley Matthews, wrote: "Hayes was notorious
for having on his shoulders, not only the levelest, but the oldest
head in college." Search his life through; you shall find that
common sense, sound practical judgment, prevailed with him and
determined his conduct in every critical period of his career. He
was never carried off his feet by any popular craze, however
insinuating and plausible its appeal. He could not be led away
by Know-nothingism, which seduced so large a portion of the
Whig party; he saw the futility of attempts at compromise and
bargaining with the slave barons after the banner of secession
had been unfurled; he never made a fetish of high protectionism;
he was quick to perceive the fatuousness of the Liberal Repub-
lican movement in 1872, with its fantastic nomination of Horace
Greeley. He could see the virtues as well as the faults of Gen-
eral Grant's Administration and appraise them justly. He re-
fused to shut his eyes to the excesses of Republican misrule in
the South, and had the strength and courage to defy party tradi-
tion by reversing the policy long pursued and passionately de-
fended. He stood like a rock against every effort-though at
times by party friends-to relax the financial obligation of the
Government, or to debase our money standard by greenback in-
flation or cheapened silver. He recognized the evil and peril of
the spoils system, and made the first serious and sincere execu-
tive effort to create the merit system. He never believed, nor
384 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
professed to believe, that all political virtue was lodged in the
party of his choice. Personal feeling and partisan bias could
not blind his judgment to the force of opposing public opinion.
He was fair to Arthur; he was prompt to acknowledge the high
patriotism and imperious sense of right displayed by Cleveland.
No President, at least up to his time, was ever subjected to
such malignity of misrepresentation and unmerited censure. Per-
sistent obloquy and detraction, of a variety and ingenuity which
could be inspired and invented only by insane hatred, pursued
him into the retirement of private life-filled to the full with
unselfish philanthropic activities. To lies, however base, to
calumnies, however malevolent, he made no answer. He disre-
garded them with silent and amused contempt. He felt con-
fident that in the calm judgment of history-when "the loud
vociferations" of the time had been stilled-he would come into
his own. Already, in his later years- to his great joy and satis-
faction -due recognition began to be accorded to him by the
better public opinion of the day. And steadily-as the passions
of his time have become a memory-this recognition of his
character and of the very great and important services he ren-
dered to the nation, under most difficult conditions, and in a most
critical period, wisely, farsightedly, patriotically, has become
clearer, stronger, and more general. Indeed, he is among the
few Chief Magistrates whose fame has constantly increased and
grown more assured with every passing year. The worth of his
achievements gains in appreciation and significance with every
fresh survey of his pure and purposeful Administration. His
appeal to the judgment of history has been heard. And History,
proudly and with benignant approbation, places on his brow a
wreath of deathless laurel.
RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
(Born October 4, 1822-Died January 17, 1893.)
Who best serves country serves his party best!
So Hayes proclaimed, and so he lived his days:
Serene and unbewildered, through the maze
Of wrangling factions, onward straight he prest
CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT'S TRIBUTE 385
In steadfast effort, with unflagging zest,
For Right and Truth, for nobler, gentler ways:
Calm when approved, unruffled by dispraise,
Obedient aye to duty's high behest!
Maligned, misjudged, misprized - he made no plea;
The rage of partisans he knew would pass;
What he had wrought would stand imperishable;
Time would correct perspective ! -True! Men see
With vision cleared now all he did and was;
And Fame enwreathes his brow with immortelle!
After a number by the Eleventh Infantry Band, President
Campbell read the following letter from ex-President Wil-
liam H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
WASHINGTON, D. C.
HON. JAMES E. CAMPBELL, PRESIDENT,
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society,
Columbus, Ohio.
I knew President Hayes. He was a great friend of my wife's
father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Herron. Mr. Hayes
came into the Presidency under a very great burden, because
of the contest over the legality of his election. He conducted
his Administration with the aid of one of the ablest Cabinets
that was ever gathered together in the history of the country.
He devoted his entire attention to the efficient administraion
of the Government, and strengthened the civil service, and in
spite of the fact that his inauguration had aroused the indigna-
tion of many Democrats who thought he had been improperly
installed in the Presidency, he administered his office with such
satisfaction to the people that the Republican party was able
to elect his successor, President Garfield. His Administration
was not theatrical, and did not involve events that forced them-
selves into the history of the country as critical, unless it be
the resumption of specie payments, which came so quietly, in
spite of the prophecies of disaster, that it did not disturb the
386 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
financial situation, but laid the basis for the enormous conse-
quent prosperity of the next decade. His Administration, too,
marks the turning over to the Southern white people the con-
trol of politics in the Southern States, and the end of the racial
war in those States, so far as it was political. When President
Hayes retired he was not a candidate in the next convention,
and he retired into a dignified leisure, pursuing his tastes for
study. His Administration is a notable one in the history of the
country, and he is entitled to the credit of the substantial prog-
ress that was accomplished in it.
Sincerely yours,
WM. H. TAFT.
Major-General Joseph T. Dickman, U. S. Army, retired, a
native born Buckeye and by many considered the best and most
successful American general in the World War for which he
trained and later commanded the Third Division of Regulars
at Chateau Thierry, the Fourth Corps at St. Mihiel, the First
Corps in the Argonne; and, appointed to the command of the
Third American Army, he marched it to the Rhine, where at Co-
blenz he commanded the American Army of Occupation in Ger-
many; as the representative of the President of the United
States, delivered the following address:
Mr. Chairman, Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We are assembled on this solemn occasion to perform a duty,
which is at the same time a labor of love, namely, to honor the
memory of one of the most illustrious sons of our great State.
The setting as to time and place for this historic event could not
be more appropriate. This day is the hundreth anniversary of
the birth of the great citizen whose life is so inspiring to us,
and this scene is located in the most interesting region, his-
torically, in the United States in connection with the War of
1812. We need to mention only Perry's victory on Lake Erie,
the siege of Fort Meigs at Perrysburg, and the defense of Fort
Stephenson here in Fremont to call to mind the campaigns and
battles of over a century ago. The resistance made by Major
GENERAL DICKMAN'S ADDRESS 387
George' Croghan and his band of one hundred and sixty heroes
against General Proctor's force of eight hundred British regulars,
reinforced by two thousand Indians under Tecumseh, was unique
in that it was almost the only success on land achieved by the
United States in the War of 1812, in which we raised four
hundred and fifty thousand troops. The effect of Croghan's
victory was of the highest importance for it raised the spirit
of the American troops and gave them confidence in ultimate
victory. General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to Presi-
dent Hayes on July 15, 1885:
"The defense of Fort Stephenson by Croghan and his gallant
little band, was the necessary precursor to Perry's victory on
the Lake, and of General Harrison's triumphant victory at the
Battle of the Thames. These assured to our immediate ancestors
the mastery of the Great West, and from that day to this the
West has been the bulwark of this nation."
When Rutherford B. Hayes first saw the light, but a score
of years had passed since Ohio joined the family of common-
wealths forming the American nation. The populous cities of this
State were then mere villages, and the primeval forests covered
the greater part of the land. The federal law for the public land
survey had not been enacted, and the memory of battles with the
savage tribes, by troops under Anthony Wayne and St. Clair,
was still fresh in the minds of the settlers.
When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Hayes was nearly forty
years of age, a time of life when most men have settled down
and have established their families. Nevertheless, he immediately
offered his service in the great conflict then going on for the
preservation of the Union. With an established law practice and
family ties, this action of Mr. Hayes sheds a strong light on the
sturdiness of his character and the quality of his patriotism. Mr.
Hayes was the ideal American volunteer, one of the class of men
of strong character and ardent patriotism who, coming out of
what then was considered the Great West, cast a decisive weight
into the scales of national conflict.
Mr. Hayes's military service was of the highest order. He was
388 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
one of Sheridan's trusted commanders. Although at the time
only a colonel, he commanded a brigade and division in the Shen-
andoah campaign, and General Sheridan refused to accept any
and all general officers sent from Washington to replace him.
Grant wrote of him: "His conduct on the field of battle was
marked by conspicuous gallantry, as well as by the display of
qualities showing a higher order than that of mere personal
bravery." This might well have been expected of one who
could write at the time he did: "An officer fit for duty who
at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in
Congress ought to be scalped."
Having entered the army as major of volunteers at the be-
ginning of the war, Hayes attained by meritorious service the
grade of brigadier-general and brevet major-general of vol-
unteers.
It is interesting to note that Hayes enlisted in the first Ohio
regiment organized "for three years or the war"; that he refused
a colonelcy at the beginning and accepted a majority because he
believed he was not fitted at that time for higher command; that
he refused all political appointments at a time when that evil was
at its worst; that most of his service was as colonel, his elevation
to the grade of brigadier-general and major-general by brevet,
being tardily awarded near the close of the war; that he was
wounded six times while leading his men in battle; and that he
lay wounded between two lines faint from the loss of blood.
Wounds received in battle are evidence which no man can gainsay
of presence in action and bravery in the presence of the enemy.
A simple resume of the important battles in which General
Hayes bore a worthy part is more significant, impressive, and
eloquent than laudatory phrases:
He commanded the regiment which led the attack and suc-
cessfully opened the Battle of South Mountain, in the Antietam
campaign, where he was severely wounded.
He commanded the brigade which led the assault which car-
ried the works of the enemy in the fierce Battle of Cloyd's Moun-
tain, where General Jenkins was defeated and killed.
He was in command of one of the two brigades which cov-
GENERAL DICKMAN'S ADDRESS 389
ered the retreat that saved Crook's Army after his defeat at
Winchester.
He commanded one of the two brigades selected by Sheridan
to lead in repeated attacks on Early's lines in the Shenandoah
Valley.
His was one of the two brigades which fought at Berryville,
and by great gallantry saved the day.
He was in command of the brigade which led the flank at-
tack which turned Early's left and defeated him in Sheridan's
great victory at Opequon; and it was while marching to secure
position to strike the enemy that Hayes performed one of the
most daring feats of the war, charging through an almost im-
passable morass upon a battery.
He commanded the division of Crook's Army which led the
way in scaling North Mountain and striking on the left flank
made certain the victory of Fisher's Hill.
He commanded one of the divisions which retained its or-
ganization and gained great distinction in the Battle of Cedar
Creek.
This is a military record of which the descendants of Gen-
eral Hayes, natives of the States of Ohio, and indeed any true
American may well be proud. It was achieved in grades which
placed him in intimate contact with his men, whom he inspired
by his sterling qualities as a citizen and a soldier and by his
personal bravery, and at the same time exposed him to all the
dangers of the humblest soldier in the ranks. The annals of the
Civil War record no case of an officer exhibiting greater devotion
to duty and more steadfast courage in the face of the enemy.
And if we scan the records of the Spanish-American war, the
Philippine Insurrection, the Relief Expedition in China, and the
greatest of all wars, which involved practically all the civilized
nations of the world a few years ago, and the echoes of which
have not entirely subsided to this day, we find no nobler example
of the true patriot and brave soldier than that typified by General
Hayes.
In the huge armies of today, with the range of modern wea-
pons and the distance at which a large part of the battle is
390 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
fought, there is not the same opportunity in grades above com-
pany commander for personal leadership that existed in the cam-
paigns of the smaller forces of sixty years ago. In the World
War many of our officers and soldiers never saw the enemy
during the battle in which they were engaged, while inflicting and
suffering tremendous losses in the use of the long-range fire of
artillery and small arms. The qualities displayed by General
Hayes are, however, still of the greatest importance in battle;
for courage under fire covers a greater multitude of shortcom-
ings in times of war than charity does in time of peace.
As long as America has such leaders, she will be victorious
in any international conflict which may be forced upon her, pro-
vided sufficient forethought is exercised by the legislative branch
of the Government to place our men on an approximately equal
footing with the enemy in numbers, training, and equipment.
It is perhaps not out of place to call attention to the teach-
ings of history and to issue a note of warning against being
swayed by sentiment rather than by cool reason; and against
making our wishes the fathers of our beliefs in international mat-
ters, thus running the risk of being placed in the predicament
of those zealots, who one week pass resolutions for the elim-
ination of our land and naval forces, and next week call on the
President to stop the massacres of Christians in the Near East.
What means do they expect the President to employ to restrain
the victorious forces of a people far removed from our standards
of justice and liberty?
At the critical period of our history, when the country was
recovering from the wounds of the protracted Civil War, Presi-
dent Hayes by his calm, just, and dignified conduct of affairs com-
pleted the work of reconstruction and started the Nation in the
great strides towards progress and prosperity which have event-
ually made it the foremost among the nations of the earth.
The leaders of the great conspiracy who for four years at-
tempted to disrupt our Nation could not defend their action by
frank confession that they were fighting to perpetuate the in-
stitution of human slavery which had been abolished by all the
civilized nations of the earth, but instead appealed to the doctrines
GENERAL DICKMAN'S ADDRESS 391
of "the rights of the State." The hollowness of this pretext is
clearly shown by the fact that in the present generation, while
many of the participants of the great struggle are still living,
their descendants have repeatedly and eagerly surrended a large
part of the powers which they formerly contended were reserved
to the States, and have been foremost in the advocacy of amend-
ments to the Constitution to accomplish such purpose.
General Hayes was one of the soldiers whom the American
people have entrusted with the highest office in their gift- a
position which now is the most influential in the government of
all the nations of the earth. It is a matter of pardonable pride
and profound satisfaction to realize that all of our Presidents
have been patriots and statesmen rather than mere politicians,
and that they have steadfastly performed their duties regardless
of the effect upon their personal fortunes. None of them was
more deserving of the word "patriot" than General Hayes. At
the outbreak of the Civil War lie wrote: "I would prefer to
go into it, even if I knew I was to be killed in the course of the
war, than to live through and after it without taking part in it."
Owing his election to the efforts of his political party, he
said in his inaugural address: "He serves his party best, who
serves his country best." Because he believed that a President
could serve his country best by serving only one term, without
thought of reelection, he not only announced that he would serve
only one term, but firmly refused to even consider a second four
years in the White House. A man who placed duty to country
on such a high plane, and above all party and personal con-
siderations, certainly was a patriot. We can all be proud of
the fact that he first was a soldier; and it is not too much to ex-
press the conviction that his military service and experience in
times of great stress helped to develop in him that high concep-
tion of duty to country which was the grandest feature in his
character.
The rectitude of his intentions and his firmness of purpose
have never been doubted. The purity of his domestic relations
and the dignified poise of his character prevented the slightest
of those suspicions which unfortunately have marred the record
of some other Administrations.
392 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
General Hayes gave us an example of such pure and lofty
patriotism that were he living today he would undoubtedly cast
all the weight of his influence in the direction of more thorough
Americanization of the youth of our land. That problem is not
so difficult as it looks. The natural tendency is toward homo-
geneity. If the boys and girls, of whatever foreign parentage,
are not interfered with, but are allowed to mingle freely with
their American contemporaries, they will readily learn the lan-
guage and customs of the country and be thoroughly American
before arriving at the age of maturity; but if they are exempted
from attendance at public schools and a large part of their in-
struction is conducted in a foreign language, we must expect
to see perpetuation of alien characteristics.
In these days when crimes of violence against persons and
destruction of property appear to be on the increase; when mass
murders go unpunished; when classes of people receive special
exemption from compliance with provisions of law made for the
whole people; when organized minorities intimidate our legisla-
tive bodies and cause members to vote contrary to their own
convictions; when the economic life of the nation is menaced by
organized groups of foreigners under leaders of foreign birth;
when certain laws are freely violated by high officials of national,
state and local governments; when in fact we are threatened with
a great relaxation of public regard for all law; the life and char-
acter of Rutherford B. Hayes should serve as an inspiration to
those who carry on the fight against the shams, frivolities, and
hypocrisies of social and political life. His career is a proud
heritage to the people of Ohio who will cherish his memory as
long as her brave sons and noble daughters control affairs of
state.
In introducing Senator Atlee Pomerene, Governor Campbell
was most happy in his vein of optimism.
I thought this was Hayes Centenary Day, but from the looks
of the faces on the platform, it must be Senatorial Day. We
have two United States Senators and a third who is willing to
become a member of the Senate if elected to the office. Senator
Pomerene has been an honest, faithful public servant of character
SENATOR WILLIS'S ADDRESS 393
and ability about whom I could say other good things -but that
would be politics.
Senator Pomerene's address, sustained the high reputation for
forceful oratory justly enjoyed by the senior Senator from Ohio,
who had been a frequent visitor at Spiegel Grove and knew of
the literary treasures which it contained.
In referring to the patriotic attitude of Hayes at the outbreak
of the Civil War, he quoted:
"I would rather be killed in the war than not have taken a
part in it," said Hayes to his friend and adviser, Stanley Mat-
thews, at the time of the crisis that tried men's souls. He was
commanding but modest and could "walk with kings, nor lose
the common touch."
Senator Pomerene thought the two greatest outstanding acts
of the Hayes Administration were the removal of the federal
troops from the South and the resumption of specie payment. He
voiced the beautiful sentiment in McKinley's tribute to Hayes
following his death in 1893, by reading the proclamation issued
at that time.
President Campbell then called upon the Hon. Frank B. Willis,
the junior United States Senator from Ohio, who delivered
the following address:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens:
I cheerfully concur in all that has been said by the distin-
guished speakers who have preceded me in tribute to Ruther-
ford Birchard Hayes whose character and achievements we cele-
brate in the observance of this centennial day.
I cannot claim, as can the veterans of the Civil War who
honor this occasion, your distinguished chairman, and others
present today, to have personally known President Hayes. I do
recall, however, that when a mere boy I went from home in
Delaware County to attend a great public meeting in Columbus.
The papers for some time had announced that President Hayes
and General Sherman would be among the distinguished guests
at that meeting. When I saw them I was somewhat disappointed.
In my boyish fancy Presidents and generals and other great men
394 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
had been of larger stature than their fellows. I was like the
boy of inquiring mind who is represented in the McGuffey read-
ers as asking, "How big was Alexander, pa?"
I expected to see the President and the great general loom
high above other men in physical stature, and so I was a little
disappointed at first to see that they were not taller than other
grown-up folks around them. I esteemed it a great honor, how-
ever, to have had the rare privilege of seeing them. I felt some
way or other that this opportunity had distinguished me. I
could tell the other boys in our neighborhood that I had seen a
President of the United States. In after years, however, as I
read the history of our country and the lives and administra-
tions of our Presidents, I learned to appreciate the patriotic
service and the moral grandeur of him whose name and memory
we honor today. His fame increases with the passing years.
It is a significant fact that many of his contemporaries of both
of the great political parties who criticized certain of his exe-
cutive acts and policies, in after years reversed their hasty judg-
ments and joined those who accredited merited fame to this
worthy President and manly man.
We of Ohio take especial pride in the career of this man who
has been properly accorded a prominent place among the jewels
of our State. We take a just and peculiar pride in all our Presi-
dents, in Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKin-
ley, Taft, and Harding, all of whom were born in Ohio, and in
William Henry Harrison, grand old Tippecanoe, who was an
Ohioan by adoption, and in the early history of our State, in the
War of 1812, led his soldiers through these very grounds upon
which we have assembled today.
Much has been said about eminent Ohioans. Virginia was
long the Mother of Presidents but that distinction is passing from
the Old Dominion to the Buckeye commonwealth. Much has
been said in praise of our citizens who have acquired fame in
statesmanship and war and other fields.
The ubiquity of the Ohioan is an inviting and inspiring theme.
He is found everywhere. Through our commonwealth has
flowed the tide of migration which has peopled the States farther
SENATOR WILLIS'S ADDRESS 395
west. I was impressed with this fact some years ago when in
company with friends I made a visit to the Pacific Coast. On
that delightful trip it was our pleasure to spend some time at
the Canyon of the Colorado. One day in company with two of
my uncles and a few other friends we visited that remarkable
gorge. It made us almost dizzy to look down to the depths
below. Some of our party proposed that we follow the road
down to the river's bank. I at first declined but two of my
uncles insisted upon making the descent. From our vantage
ground we watched them as they went down farther and farther
into the great canyon, and they went down and down diminish-
ing to our vision as they went. They went down until they
reached the river bank and those two old uncles looked like two
ants. (Laughter.) A little later I myself went down over the
same road and I discovered there some muleteers driving their
teams. Some of them were using the language which is said to
be peculiarly adapted to the muleteer. Some say that it is en-
tirely excusable in persons serving in that capacity. I believe
General Grant in commenting upon his experience in the Mexican
War made a remark to that effect. He said that while he did
not indulge in this language himself he considered it excusable
in those who drove mules. Well, those men down in the canyon
were using that language. I met very pleasantly the chief mu-
leteer and in answer to a question he stood proudly up and de-
clared that he was from Lucas County, Ohio. A little later
we made the ascent of Pike's Peak. Away up there near the
summit, above the clouds, was an enterprising citizen who was
publishing a newspaper. After chatting with him a few minutes
I asked if Colorado was his native State. "No," said he, "I am
proud to say that I was born in the Buckeye State. I came to
Colorado some years ago from Tuscarawas County." The
Ohioan is widely distributed and in other States and lands and
in stations humble and exalted is reflecting credit upon the land
of his birth.
It is worthy of mention in this connection that Rutherford
Birchard Hayes was thoroughly Ohioan. He was born in Ohio,
lived in Ohio his entire life with the exception of a very brief
396 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
period in his school days. All his public service was in and from
Ohio.
His loyalty to Ohio is illustrated by an event which occurred
in the campaign of 1844 while he was a student in college. A
great parade had been organized in Boston in connection with a
Whig meeting to be addressed by some great national leaders.
As the parade passed along the streets young Hayes observed
there was no Ohio organization and no Ohio banner. Hastily
improvising a banner this young collegian drafted two of his
classmates and formed an Ohio delegation of them. This was
augmented to hundreds before the parade reached Boston Com-
mon and the Ohio delegation became one of the largest, noisiest,
and most notable of the day.
General Hayes, though a loyal Ohioan, felt his obligation to
the Nation was first. His devotion to the Republic was by
straight line to Washington, not by a circuitous route through
the state capitol. He was a thoroughgoing nationalist; he would
never have surrendered his country's independence for inter-
nationalism.
When he had concluded his term of office in the highest posi-
tion within the gift of his countrymen, he returned to his native
State and spent his remaining days in the comfortable home that
stands before us. We are told that this is preserved as a typi-
cal residence of the latter half of the nineteenth century. It
may be typical of its class, but the extensive improvements that
have been made here suggest something more than this modest
designation. I am sure that those of you who have viewed the
beautiful grounds and the treasures within these buildings will
support me in the statement that this is more than typical, that
it is ideal in its appointments and historic suggestion.
The citizens of Ohio owe a debt of gratitude to Colonel Webb
C. Hayes and his devoted wife for their self-abnegation in de-
voting their private fortunes and their lives to the perpetuation of
this historic shrine and its permanent dedication to the public
good. History affords no finer example of filial devotion, and
future generations will continue to learn lessons of history and
SENATOR WILLIS'S ADDRESS 397
patriotism from contemplation of this benefaction by a devoted
son in fond memory of an illustrious father.
I cordially agree with all that has been said this afternoon
in the way of tribute to President Hayes. I was especially im-
pressed with the scholarly address by Dr. Williams, by the
tributes to Hayes as a soldier from Generals Dickman and Ed-
wards, by the appreciation of Hayes as a statesman expressed
in the eloquent address of my colleague, Senator Pomerene, by
the remarks of our distinguished chairman, Governor Campbell,
and the very appropriate letter that he read from the Presi-
dent of the United States, Warren G. Harding. I heartily in-
dorse all that has been said in praise of his service in the Civil
War, in the office of Governor of Ohio, of his Southern policy
as President of the United States, of his contribution to the
resumption of specie payments and the preservation of the finan-
cial honor of the Republic. It would be difficult to add anything
to the words of generous appreciation to which we have listened.
In private station, in public life, or on the battle-field, Ruther-
ford B. Hayes was a man of dauntless courage. He was bold
enough to do the thing that he believed to be right even though
such action was not immediately popular. He had the type of
courage so needful in this very hour. Most people know well
enough what they ought to do, but many have not the courage
to act. Republics can live only when their citizens have the
vision to see the right and the courage to defend it. In a critical
hour, when suspicion was rife and accusations bitter, President
Hayes had the courage to say, "He serves his party best who
serves his country best." His public service was an exemplifica-
tion of this principle. In private life and in public station, Gen-
eral Hayes always stood unflinchingly for obedience to the law
and maintenance of the Constitution. He fully understood that
if one man may select one law and break it because of personal
taste, then every other man has the same right and there is an
end to all laws. There is no middle ground; either this Re-
public will stand on the rock of constitutional government and
observe the law or it will sink in the hopeless morass of lawless-
ness.
398 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
I may be permitted to add, I am sure, that in the residence
yonder was a home that may well be considered ideal in its
character, a model American home.
By inheritance and early environment Hayes was peculiarly
fortunate. He was of worthy pioneer ancestry. The record of
his life that he has left us in written form extends back to his
early school days. From the beginning he seems to have been
modestly conscious of his powers and wisely interested in their
conservation and direction to worthy and beneficent ends. He
was throughout life completely master of himself. He was at
no time the slave of passion or prejudice. He was at all times
devoted to the service of country and a high conception of duty
in all the relations of life.
It is the universal testimony of those who knew him well at
different periods of his career that he was under all circumstances
a gentleman, considerate not only of the rights but the opinions
and attitudes of those around him. Uncompromising in his
views on essentials, he yet accorded to others the privileges of
independent opinion that he claimed for himself, and thus it
was that wherever he moved, whether in college or law office,
on the tented field, in legislative halls or in high executive posi-
tion, he numbered among his friends men of varied political and
religious faith. He was always considerate of his fellows. Carp-
ing criticicm, personal denunciation, partisan jealousy, and burn-
ing resentments were foreign to his nature. Continued success
and the elevation to the highest position within the gift of the
Republic did not separate him in sympathy from those whom
he had known in the humbler walks of life. To his comrades in
war time who served in the ranks he was always a fellow com-
rade. When his Presidential term was at an end, he came
here and simply resumed his service as a private citizen. Here
again he entered with genuine interest and enjoyment into neigh-
borly association with the citizens of Fremont and his native
State. He was called upon to serve on various committees, some
of them purely local and humble in character and others of
nation-wide and world-wide scope. In all of these the question,
and the only question, that he considered in accepting the tendered
SENATOR WILLIS'S ADDRESS 399
trust, was whether or not he could be helpful in the position.
Having once accepted the proffered opportunity for service, he
faithfully assumed the duties of the position and was scrupu-
lously punctual in their discharge. Many who are now living can
bear testimony to his fidelity to trusts, humble and exalted. Thus
it is that as his life is studied in detail from his boyhood days
down to its close in this beautiful Spiegel Grove, the apprecia-
tion of the man, the soldier, the public servant, and the citizen
is heightened with the passing years. What a legacy he has left
to his family, his State, and the Nation; what an inspiring ex-
ample to those who study his life and character!
No sketch of his career would be complete without recogni-
tion of the influence of his partner through the years of his il-
lustrious service. If Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the model
husband and father it should be remembered here that he was
fortunate in his life partner, Lucy Webb Hayes, who was recog-
nized while she lived, as she is today, as the model wife and
mother. A woman of culture and refinement, responsive to all
the nobler impulses of her sex, she so bore herself at the side of
her illustrious husband as to win a secure place in the hearts of
the whole American people. She is affectionately remembered
for her generous services in the hospitals of the Civil War and
for the example that she set in the White House as first lady
of the land. Here the two very happily spent the remaining
years of their life in this home surrounded by this grove, a rem-
nant of the forest primeval, with all of its historic associations
dating back to pioneer days. Here they saw life's sun set in a
horizon that was cloudless. Here their remains lie in yonder
tomb. Their work and their example have not altogether fol-
lowed them. They still endure to bless the American people and
the Nation that they loved so well.
The next speaker was Major-General Clarence R. Edwards
of Cleveland, who organized, armed, and equipped the Twenty-
sixth or New England Division so expeditiously and thoroughly
that it was sent overseas as the First National Guard Division
without being placed in a Southern training camp. General Ed-
400 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
wards made a patriotic plea for the maintenance of the army, with
side remarks at his long-time friend and present host, Colonel
Hayes, with whom he served overseas in Cuba, Porto Rico, Phil-
lippines, China, and the World War, "who might soon be en
route for Turkey."
"Don't ask me what I said," General Edwards wrote a few
days later from the First Army Corps headquarters in Boston
to Colonel Hayes: "I haven't the least idea, or enough of an idea,
to dictate it. I knew that it would be carrying coals to Newcastle
to attempt to recount your father's great deeds, so well known
and so well uttered that day; so just upon the inspiration of the
moment in that beautiful grove I tried to show what an inspira-
tion his life was to the youth of today, and how his principles need
putting into force to avoid another great sacrifice to the country."
Congressman Simeon D. Fess, of Ohio, in response to some
smiling remark of the chairman that he would have to make his
best speech to win his vote from Senator Pomerene in the en-
suing senatorial election, then delivered so telling and scholarly
an address that he claimed President Campbell's vote. He spoke
in part as follows:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens:
History must decree to President Hayes a very high place as
a public servant. His nomination and election were justified in
his marked fitness and in achievements before and after his elec-
tion.
In birth all that a notable ancestry both paternal and ma-
ternal can supply was his.
In childhood training, nothing was wanting to fit him for the
highest career.
In education both at home, college, and university he was the
most favored.
In choice of associations he was equally highly favored: I.
Teachers--the greatest. 2. Friends and associates--the best.
3. Books--such as serve to develop great soul power.
The result of this training is what would be expected where
a youth of all the advantages of birth, family connection, simple
CONGRESSMAN FESS' SPEECH 401
and frugal habits, yet abundant financial resources, high ideals
and family pride in the possibility of achievement, is started on
a career marked out by an aspiring and wealthy relative am-
bitious for family renown.
His were the college days before the arrival of the intellectual
prig. He thrived upon the intellectual democracy of his law
professor, Judge Story, and the vigorous nationalism of his chief
study, the decisions of Chief Justice Marshall. He reveled in the
fundamentals of American political ideals and never apologized
for the Federal Constitution or the American institutions de-
veloped under the organic law.
The aspirations for this nation begun in the Hayes home were
carried out in his college days at Kenyon and later in his university
days in the law school of Harvard. Colleges in that day did not
deem aspirations for high ideals, both personal and professional, as
inconsistent with a virile manhood. They maintained an atmos-
phere in which a student was stimulated to high resolutions. Young
Hayes in his famous diary is witness to this university product. It
found unmistakable expression in a New Year's resolution, January
1, 1845: "I will strive to become in manners, morals, and feelings
a true gentleman."
His conception of success was well expressed in an early entry
of his diary: "I never desired other than honorable distinction.
The reputation which I desire is not that momentary eminence
which is gained without merit and lost without regret.
Let me triumph as a man or not at all."
When the Civil War came it found him in the early days of a
struggling lawyer, who had recently been married to Miss Lucy
Webb. The Hayes brand of patriot is best expressed in his own
words then uttered: "I would prefer to go into the war if I knew
I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through
and after it without taking any part in it."
This statement was corroborated by a career from Gauley
River to Fisher's Hill, which saw the major in a series of pro-
motions to major-general, after a service of four years in which
there were shot from under him four horses, and in which he
was wounded six times, and during which time he received the
26
402 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
highest commendation of his superior generals, including General
Grant.
At South Mountain he continued to command his troops after
his left arm was shattered. Of the thirteen other Presidents
of the United States who had served as officers only Monroe
was ever wounded in action. It was later said of him that he
was a man "who during the dark and stormy days of the Re-
bellion, when those who are invincible in peace and invisible in
battle were uttering brave words to cheer their neighbors on, him-
self, in the forefront of battle, followed his leaders and his flag
until the authority of Government was established from the Lakes
to the Gulf, and from the river round to the sea."
His gallant leadership was no less popular at home than on the
field. Having been nominated for Congress while in the thickest
of the fight, his friend Smith urged him to come home to elec-
tioneer. His reply is the Hayes brand of patriotic duty: "An
officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to
electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped. You may
feel perfectly sure I shall do no such thing." Of course he was
triumphantly elected.
The war had brought to the nation problems of great serious-
ness, whose solution demanded the best brain, the highest type
of courage, and the most powerful prestige within the country.
The Thirty-ninth Congress stands out in history for its ability
in great statesmen. The most outstanding delegation in that body
was from Ohio. To the powerful group numbering Garfield,
Ashley, Bingham, Delano, Lawrence, Schenck, and Shellabarger
was now to be added Hayes. He immediately took front rank
in important war legislation. Before the end of the Thirty-ninth
Congress he was drafted to make the contest for the governorship
in Ohio, where the militant Democracy was endangering Repub-
lican success by putting forth as its standard-bearer the distin-
guished national Democratic leader, Allen G. Thurman. General
Hayes brought to the governorship not only a highly trained
mind well grounded in political science, but an experience which
at once guaranteed a high degree of success.
His various messages and state papers at once marked him as a
CONGRESSMAN FESS' SPEECH 403
statesman of sound and fundamental principles. He was unani-
mously renominated and was reelected governor over another
distinguished national leader, George H. Pendleton. His second
term was so signally successful that his name was persistently
mentioned in connection with the senatorship until he authorized
the statement that he would not allow his name to be presented
for the seat then occupied by Senator Sherman. He was nomi-
nated without his consent and over his protest for Congress in
the Second District. He had sent dispatches to Smith, of the
Gazette, and Davis, declining to accept. But in party interests he
finally accepted what he declared must be a losing fight. Here he
suffered his only defeat after running far ahead of his ticket.
While he was defeated by 1500, his Republican colleague in the
First District was defeated by more than double that figure. In
this campaign he sounded the warning against the Democratic
policy for an unsound currency. They had carried the elections
in Ohio in 1873 on the soft-money issue, and under the leader-
ship of the famous Bill Allen. In 1874 they again carried most
of the State offices and a majority of the delegation in Congress
-thirteen out of twenty. In 1875, with this handicap, Repub-
licans turned for the third time to General Hayes, who had to
his credit the defeat of two of Democracy's leaders and national
figures, Allen G. Thurman and George H. Pendleton. Notwith-
standing that he had persisted up to the very last moment against
the candidacy, he was nominated without his consent by a vote
of 396 to 151 for Judge Taft, who moved for unanimous nomi-
nation. In the campaign he defeated the popular governor, Bill
Allen, by a decisive vote on the issues before the country.
In the midst of his third term, the National Convention was
held in Cincinnati. General Hayes's name and fame were eclipsed
by the more popular names of Blaine, Morton, Conkling, etc.
His was not a magnetic career. It was only distinguished and
substantial. The only contingency needed for the highest promo-
tion was a deadlock between the favorites in the convention.
In such a situation Hayes supplied all the qualifications of educa-
tion and training, of ability and courage, of prestige and reputa-
tion, of a splendid standard-bearer by having defeated three times
404 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
as many national figures. He was the inevitable choice to lead
the Nation as he had led his own State.
His great success was in what he did, notwithstanding his Ad-
ministration was not popular with Republican politicians. While
he was distinctly a party man, he was not a spoilsman. His
determination to inaugurate reform in the civil service won for
him enemies in his own party, such as Conkling. His policy to-
ward the South won for him enemies among Republican leaders,
such as Blaine. His attitude for sound money which compelled
him to veto many measures won for him enemies tinctured with
soft-money heresies. These cumulative disaffections among
leaders in his own party compelled him to abide by his announced
decision when first elected that he would not stand for reelection
in 1880, --in sharp contrast with recent utterances of the modern
opportunist. Rutherford B. Hayes was a man whose promise was
law so far as his conduct could make it; in him no mental nor
moral dishonesty could find place.
Mr. Fess referred to the difficulty of saying much that was
new after the speeches that had already been made.
"Fame is a bubble, money has wings, but the character and
soul power of Rutherford B. Hayes will live, in spite of the
lapse of time," said Mr. Fess, whose tribute went also to the
clean college life of the young man when at Kenyon college.
The speech for the American Legion of Colonel John R. Mc-
Quigg, who commanded the One-hundred-twelfth Regiment of
Engineers, Thirty-seventh Division, A. E. F., in France, and
represented here the commander-in-chief of the American Legion,
evoked much applause. Colonel McQuigg said:
It is but proper for me to state that, owing to an engagement
made several weeks ago, our national commander, Hanford
Macnider, is unable to be present today, much to his regret.
If he were here I am sure he would say that no words from
him were necessary to convince this audience that the American
Legion is in most hearty accord with the spirit of the ceremonies
and events of this day.
The whole atmosphere and environment could not have been
COLONEL McQUIGG'S ADDRESS 405
more to our liking if the American Legion had made them to
order. I know of no more fitting place for such an occasion.
The whole region is rich with historic events, the mere recital
of which thrills the blood of every real American.
Fort Meigs, General Harrison; Fort Stephenson, Major Cro-
ghan. My! what a wealth of patriotic devotion and pioneer hero-
ism those names and places recall.
Croghan, a mere youth, twenty-one years of age, a native of
Kentucky, whose Irish father fought under Washington at
Brandywine, Monmouth, and Germantown; Croghan the boy, who
on August 2, 1813, within sight of the spot where we now are,
with one hundred and sixty men defeated and routed a force
of five hundred British and two thousand Indians in as brilliant
an incident as adorns the history of American arms. My! but
Croghan and his men would make good Legionnaires if they were
alive today.
Even in that pioneer age, Ohio was playing a conspicuous
part in defending the Nation and the cause of civilization. Yes,
a part she was to duplicate on a mighty scale one hundred and
five years later in a foreign land and under foreign flags.
It's no wonder that a State whose founders were possessed
of such love of country, such daring, and such tenacity of pur-
pose, eventually became the mother of Presidents. She couldn't
help it. It's from such ancestors that Presidents are descended.
It is around one of those Presidents that the events of this
day cluster. Rutherford B. Hayes. A name that stands for all
that's worth while in clean, pure, Christian American citizenship.
Obedient child; industrious youth; conscientious student; ideal
husband and father; a soldier whose ability and devotion to duty
were inspirations to all who came in contact with him; a states-
man, the soul of honor, whose only concern was the good of his
country and the welfare of those whom he represented; an able
and painstaking governor, three times chosen to that office. A
President whose courageous stand on sound money and resump-
tion of specie payments laid the foundation of that prosperity and
development which the country enjoyed for the next quarter
of a century. His treatment of the South and the termination of
406 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
military control in that section was an act of patriotism that did
much to unite the country and wipe out the distinction between
North and South.
In 1884, while touring Ohio, as a candidate for President,
James G. Blaine said of President Hayes's Administration: "It
was one of the few and rare cases in our history in which the
President entered upon his office with the country depressed and
discontented and left it prosperous and happy."
Naturally we of the Legion like to think of Rutherford B.
Hayes as the typical citizen soldier.
On the threshold of a promising civilian career, at the out-
break of the Rebellion, he promptly volunteered and laid all he
had on the altar of his country. Compelled, like thousands of
others, to struggle against the lack of technical military training,
a lack chargeable to the Government and the spirit of the times
rather than to himself, by close application, incredible exertion,
and a spirit to win, he finally attained the rank of major-gen-
eral. His ability as a leader and commander was demonstrated
at Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek.
He was a typical son of Ohio. His devotion to the Union
was sublime. The intensity of his patriotism was illustrated
when he said just before leaving to join his regiment, "I would
prefer to go into it, if I knew I was to (lie or be killed in the
course of it, than to live through and after it without talking
any part in it." And thousands of men can testify to the sound-
ness of that patriotic philosophy when applied to a later war.
On another occasion, when speaking of the three hundred-
thirteen thousand men Ohio sent into the Union army, he said,
"God loves Ohio or He would not have given her such a galaxy
of heroes to defend the Nation in its hour of trial."
The living embodiment of such sentiments, and loving his
State with an intensity little less than sublime, it is not to be
wondered at that his son has arranged that the home the father
cherished so much is to become the property of the State. As
the tree is bent the twig's inclined. The unselfish, patriotic life
of the father has been reflected in the lives of his children, and
the community, State, and Nation are to benefit thereby.
COLONEL McQUIGG'S ADDRESS 407
From time immemorial it has been the wont of nations to
pay tribute to those who have fallen on the field of battle. Tab-
lets, monuments, triumphal arches, and palaces, erected in honor
of their heroic dead, have dotted the capitals and high places
or nations, ancient and modern. The memory of those who perish
amid the clash of armies is cherished through the centuries.
To this all but universal custom of paying lasting tribute to
the battle dead America is no exception.
But the people of Sandusky County are indebted to Colonel
Webb C. Hayes for a new type of memorial: a new style of
architecture direct from the draughting room of the Almighty.
Instead of a single monument of granite or marble or bronze,
on which the passing years must inevitably levy their tribute
of decay and distintegration, Sandusky County is to have as a
living monument to each fallen soldier of the World War and
the Spanish War, a buckeye tree-a monument to which the
years will add size and strength and beauty rather than weakness
and decay; monuments whereon the budding leaves and blos-
soms of each recurring season will fitly typify the growth and
perpetuity of the principles and high ideals for which these men
made the supreme sacrifice.
These living monuments, in symmetrical arrangement, spread-
ing their shade over the green turf and flowers of the beautiful
parkway, constitute memorials unique in the country's history
and worthy of imitation throughout the length and breadth of
the land.
And so, Mr. Chairman, the American Legion joins the people
of the State and Nation in expressing our appreciation of and
thanks for the generous action that has given to Ohio this splen-
did estate with its cherished memories, precious relics, historic
archives, and its splendid memorial parkway.
President Campbell introduced Captain W. L. Curry, the pres-
ent commander of the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion,
who read the following letter from Lieutenant-General Nelson
A. Miles, U. S. A., retired, commander-in-chief of the Loyal
Legion of which President Hayes was commander-in-chief at
the time of his death:
408 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
WASHINGTON, D. C., September 30.
Your very kind invitation is at hand and in reply I would
say that I regret exceedingly that prior engagments render it
impossible for me to attend the celebration on October 4 next.
Nothing would give me more pleasure than to join with others
in paying due honors to the memory of Rutherford Birchard
Hayes, one of the Nation's best Presidents. The purity of his
character, the sincerity and nobility of his ambition, the justice,
humanity, and eminent ability of his Administration will long be
an example and blessing for the people of these United States.
With great respect,
NELSON A. MILES,
Lieutenant-General U. S. Army.
Captain Curry, in his remarks, referred to the fact that Gen-
eral Hayes was the first commander of the Ohio Commandery
of the Loyal Legion, being succeeded, when elected senior vice-
commander of the Commandery-in-Chief, by General William
Tecumseh Sherman, as commander of the Ohio Commandery.
At the time of his death, General Hayes was the commander-
in-chief of the order, in direct succession to Hancock and Sheri-
dan, each of whom, by successive elections, retained the high
position of commander-in-chief of the order, until his death.
In the unavoidable absence of Commander-in-Chief James E.
Willett, of the Grand Army of the Republic, Commander Gay-
lord M. Saltzgaber, Department of Ohio, G. A. R., spoke as
follows:
Only last week the national encampment of the Grand Army
of the Republic met at Des Moines, capital of the great State of
Iowa. On Wednesday was held the grand parade where it was
estimated there were twenty thousand in line. Their heads were
proudly upright, their bodies erect, and their movements alert and
vigorous, inspired by martial music and the plaudits of the watch-
ing multitude. It was a grand and glorious manifestation of
American patriotism.
These men were the survivors of an army of over two mil-
MR. SALTZGABER SPEAKS FOR G. A. R. 409
lion men who marched, suffered, and fought for the integrity
and unity of our national life. The assembly and banners and
march of these white-haired old men was a tribute and a symbol
for the citizen who heeded in days of danger his country's call
and volunteered to suffer all of the agony of war that the Union
might be preserved and saved for its supereminence in grandeur
and goodness.
When you see these aged men with faltering step you are
thrilled as you are reminded of the awful war from 1861 to 1865
and you look beyond this thin and wavering line to that grand
aggregation of citizens who responded then to the call of duty.
No praise is too great for that noble band of heroes who were
not soldiers by profession, who surrendered voluntarily the com-
forts of home and the companionship of family and friends to
brave all the dreadful accidents of an awful war. These men
were stirred by high ideals. It was no common brawl in which
they ventured but a surrender of the highly prized comforts of
peace to wage war against the wicked evil of secession. As a
class the American citizen soldier stood unrivalled. He went, not
in quest of glory, but his mind and heart were stirred by his coun-
try's peril and he laid all upon his beloved country's altar. He
was willing to sacrifice everything, even life itself, that the best
government on earth should not be destroyed.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, at the age of thirty-nine, was
one of that noble band of heroes. We are proud to pay his
memory tribute today for he was one of the brightest and best
of the citizen soldiers. At the outbreak of the war he was a
successful lawyer and could have continued a career of civic
honor and emolument in his chosen profession. He was favored
above most men in the affection and esteem of his fellow citizens.
He had a loving and loved family. There was nothing wanting
to make his success and happiness complete, but he surrendered
it all to serve his country. As a lawyer, he knew the same as
Abraham Lincoln, that this nation was conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, and
that the great Civil War tested whether that nation, so conceived
and so dedicated, could long endure.
410 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Comrade Hayes was one of the first to enlist and in the
Twenty-third Ohio Regiment, and afterward as general, he valor-
ously proved his devotion to the cause of union and freedom in
many hard-fought battles. We followed his lead in war. We
come now to the celebration of this anniversary with love and
praise for his services to our country and humanity. His deeds
are known to fame and shall shine on with undiminshed lustre.
His conspicuous example inspires us to pledge anew allegiance
to our glorious flag and to the republic for which it stands - one
nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Commander Albert D. Alcorn, Department of Ohio Spanish
War Veterans, spoke in part, as follows:
It is a rare privilege to have a part in these exercises com-
memorating the one-hundreth anniversary of the birth of the
Great Commoner of Ohio, Rutherford Birchard Hayes.
Among my earlier recollections was the Hayes-Tilden cam-
paign. It is remembered chiefly by reason of the fact that the
boys, the rooters of those days, wore neck scarfs in which was
interwoven the name of the Presidential candidate.
My mother, rearing a large family of boys, was and still is
a great admirer of that noble Christian woman, Lucy Webb
Hayes, and has never lost an opportunity to laud to the skies
her courageous stand, as first lady of the land, in prohibiting the
service of wine at the White House table.
President Hayes entered upon his duties as the nineteenth
President of the United States under more trying circumstances
perhaps than any other President we have ever had.
Three incidents of his life stand out in bold relief. First, his
voluntary enlistment, not for three months, not for a year, but
"for three years or the war."
Second, that last entry in his diary before leaving for the
war under date of May 15, 1861: "I would prefer to go into
it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to
live through and after it without taking any part in it."
How many of us can measure up to such a high standard of
patriotism? That these were not mere idle words, his wounds,
his promotions, his whole war record attest.
ALCORN FOR SPANISH WAR VETERANS 411
The third incident I refer to was his reply to a friend, who
suggested that he take leave of absence from the army in the
field for the purpose of making a campaign for Congress for
which he had been nominated: "An officer fit for duty who at
this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in
Congress ought to be scalped."
One cannot read his biography without admiring his cour-
age in peace as well as in war.
It took courage to advocate and promote civil service reform.
It took courage to advocate his Southern policy. It took courage
to oppose those who would deplete our national forests, even
in that early day. It took courage to fight and win his battle
for honest money. It took courage to face and overcome the
thousand and one obstacles he had to overcome during his in-
cumbency of the Presidency.
Like Cincinnatus of old, that ancient model of virtue and
simplicity, who having been called from the plow to perform
a great service for his country, returned to his plow when it
was finished, Rutherford B. Hayes, who rivalled Cincinnatus in
patriotism, virtue, and simplicity, returned to this his quiet coun-
try home, where to the day of his death his chief ambition was
to be of service to his fellow man.
It has been said: "A character is not built on a prospectus
but upon a good record, not of what you agree to do, but of the
good things you really have done." The record of the things
Hayes did makes his a noble character.
Mr. President, for myself and on behalf of the United Span-
ish War Veterans of Ohio, I thank you for the honor of being
present on this occasion.
Commander Gilbert Bettman, representing the American Le-
gion of Ohio, closed the program with an eloquent tribute to Pres-
ident Hayes.
The exercises of the afternoon concluded with a reference to
the resolutions adopted by the Sandusky County Bar Associa-
tion, of which Mr. Hayes became an active member on his ad-
mission to the bar of Ohio. The resolutions which were to have
412 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
been read by the Honorable Arthur W. Overmyer, were omitted
on account of the lateness of the hour. They are as follows:
The committee appointed to prepare resolutions of the San-
dusky County Bar Association on the occasion of the one-hun-
dreth anniversary of the birth of General Rutherford B. Hayes
submitted the following report:
It is fitting and proper that the Bar Association of Sandusky
County pay its tribute of respect to the memory of General Hayes
upon this one-hundreth anniversary of his birth. General
Hayes was admitted to the bar of the State of Ohio at Marietta,
on the 10th day of March, 1845, and very shortly thereafter be-
gan the active practice of law in Fremont (then Lower San-
dusky) in partnership with General Ralph P. Buckland. During
the entire time after his admission to the bar he always mani-
fested a keen interest in the bar of Sandusky County and the
welfare of the bar association.
At the age of fourteen years the subject of this sketch was
sent to Norwalk, Ohio, to become a pupil in what was then
known as "The Norwalk Seminary," a Methodist school, of
which the Rev. Jonathan E. Chaplin was principal, where he
spent his school year of 1836; and in the autumn of 1837, he was
sent to a private school at Middletown, Connecticut, conducted
by Isaac Webb. Mr. Webb was a graduate of Yale College;
had been a tutor in the college, and was highly commended
by the president, Jeremiah Day. It was not a large school,
the number of pupils being restricted to twenty; great care
was exercised to receive only boys of diligence and good char-
acter. Mr. Webb intended that the reputation of the school
should rest on thorough study, faithful instruction, and steady
discipline; correct habits, principles, feelings, and tastes were to
be assiduously cultivated and truth, justice, and honor, to be re-
garded as the cardinal points of character.
On November 1, 1838, General Hayes entered Kenyon Col-
lege as a freshman, where he graduated with high honors in
1842, and on the 11th day of October, 1842, at the age of twenty
years, he began the study of law in the office of Sparrow & Mat-
thews at Columbus, where he remained for ten months and in
SANDUSKY COUNTY BAR'S TRIBUTE 413
August, 1843, enrolled as a law student at Harvard University.
Among the students who attended Kenyon College and who were
warm friends of General Hayes were David Davis, Edwin M.
Stanton, Henry Winter Davis, Stanley Matthews, and Salmon P.
Chase, all of whom attained marked distinction in public life.
As evidence of the character of the man we quote from his diary
written on November 12, 1842, just after he had graduated
from Kenyon College: "I have parted from the friends I love
best, and am now struggling to enter the portals of the profession
in which is locked up the passport which is to conduct me to all
that I am destined to receive in life. The entrance is steep and
difficult, but my chiefest obstacles are within myself. If I knew
and could master myself, all other difficulties would vanish. To
overcome long-settled habits, one has almost to change 'the stamp
of nature'; but bad habits must be changed and good ones formed
in their stead, or I shall never find the pearls I seek."
On January 1, 1845, we find this significant entry in his diary:
"This is the beginning of the new year. In two or three weeks
I shall leave the Law School and soon after shall begin to live
Heretofore I have been getting ready to live. How much has
been left undone, it is of no use to reckon. My labors have been
to cultivate and store my mind. This year the character, the
whole man, must receive attention. I will strive to become in
manners, morals, and feelings a true gentleman. The rudeness
of a student must be laid off, and the quiet, manly deportment
of a gentleman put on--not merely to be worn as a garment,
but to become by use a part of myself. I believe I know what
true gentility, genuine breeding, is. Let me but live out what is
within, and I am vain enough to think that little of what is
important would be found wanting." The ability of General
Hayes as a lawyer was clearly recognized by the courts, because
during the month of August, 1845, he was appointed and acted
as a member of the committee that examined Stanley Matthews
for admission to the bar of Ohio; and in March, 1889, he de-
livered a brilliant oration before the Sandusky County Bar As-
sociation in commemoration of the death and works of Stanley
Matthews. Judge E. F. Dickinson, a member of this association,
414 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
had been a lifelong friend of General Hayes and upon his death
he submitted a beautiful tribute to the life and works of Judge
Dickinson; and likewise upon the death of General Buckland,
General Hayes delivered very fittingly, before this association,
an oration referring feelingly to his association with General
Buckland, not only as a lawyer, but as a comrade in arms and as
a fellow citizen. General Hayes early manifested that military
spirit which was characteristic of the young men of his day; and
in 1847, he made an; effort to enlist in the service of his country
while it was engaged in the War with Mexico, but on account of
his physical condition, he was not permitted to enlist; and when
it became manifest that civil war in this country was imminent,
his patriotic zeal was awakened and he immediately prepared
himself for active participation in the Union cause.
As an evidence of his patriotic zeal and determination to fight
for that which he thought was right, we quote the following:
"Judge Matthews and I have agreed to go into the service for
the war--if possible into the same regiment. I spoke my feel-
ings to him which he said were his also, viz., that this was a
just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power
of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was
to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and
after it without taking any part in it."
As to the life of General Hayes as a soldier, executive, states-
man, and philanthropist, we will leave it to others upon this oc-
casion to recount. He was of singular purity and uprightness
in public and private life. As a soldier, statesman, and President,
he rose to the foremost rank and never lost that true kindness to-
wards every human being, great or small.
As a public official he grappled with and successfully mas-
tered perhaps more complex and serious problems than any other
citizen of America. When Sandusky County builds a new court-
house, may we not now suggest that a statue of General Hayes
be provided for as a part of the building, that his memory may
be thereby honored and perpetuated, because of his membership
in the Sandusky County Bar Association and in view of the fact
that he achieved high and distinguished honors as President of
LETTERS OF REGRET AND EULOGY 415
the United States, as three times Governor of the State of Ohio,
as a Member of Congress, and as an eminent soldier, in addition
to long residence in this county.
Respectfully submitted,
T. P. DEWEY,
DAVID B. LOVE,
J. T. GARVER,
JAMES G. HUNT,
A. W. OVERMYER,
A. E. CULBERT.
COMMUNICATIONS AND PRESS NOTICES
It had been hoped that Secretary of State Hughes and Secre-
tary of Commerce Hoover would be present. Secretary Hughes
wrote:
WASHINGTON, September 27, 1922.
MY DEAR COLONEL HAYES:--I have received your letter of
September 25 and have also had the pleasure of talking with
your brother, Mr. Scott R. Hayes, who has today strongly urged
the acceptance of your kind invitation. It is needless for me to
say that it would give Mrs. Hughes and myself the greatest
gratification to be able to attend this centenary celebration of the
birth of your distinguished father, President Hayes, and especial-
ly to have the opportunity to join in the tribute to his memory.
You will understand, however, that having just returned from a
month's absence (in Brazil), I find an accumulation of work
and it will be absolutely impossible for me to leave Washington
in order to be present at the celebration on October 4. I am very
sorry to disappoint you, but I have no alternative.
Mrs. Hughes joins me in kind regards to Mrs. Hayes and
yourself.
Very sincerely yours,
CHARLES E. HUGHES.
The American Ambassador to France during the American
participation in the World War, the Honorable William G.
Sharp, wrote:
416 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
DEAR COLONEL HAYES: - I have before me the kind invitation
to attend the centenary celebration of the birth of your illustrious
father, the former President of the United States, which was
evidently sent me soon after my departure for Europe. I am
acknowledging it first of my unanswered letters to express my
appreciating of your remembering us for such a noted occasion.
I am sure that the celebration, as well as the dedication of
the several worthy projects which are enumerated in your invi-
tation, must have been very impressive as well as interesting.
Please accept my hearty thanks.
Cordially and sincerely yours.
WILLIAM G. SHARP.
The next governor of Ohio wrote as follows:
COLUMBUS, OHIO, September 26, 1922.
DEAR COLONEL HAYES: - I beg to acknowledge receipt of your
invitation to attend the dedication of the library addition to the
Hayes Memorial, at Spiegel Grove, on October 4. You can rest
assured that if it is at all possible, I will be present, as I remember
the very pleasant time I had on a similar occasion several years
ago.
I am deeply interested in your work and will always be glad
to have any literature you have in connection with the same.
With kindest personal regards and best wishes for you and
yours,
I am very truly yours,
A. V. DONAHEY.
The centenary celebration drew interesting comments from
high officials of the previous national Administration. Secretary
of War Baker, of President Wilson's cabinet, who represented
President Wilson and delivered an eloquent address at the dedi-
cation of the original Hayes Memorial on May 30, 1916, in send-
ing his regrets, wrote:
CLEVELAND, September 25, 1922.
MY DEAR COLONEL HAYES:-I have just received the invitation
to be present at the celebration of the centenary of the birth of
LETTERS OF REGRET AND EULOGY 417
your distinguished father, on Wednesday, October 4. I deeply
regret that engagements already made so far preempt that day as
to make it impossible for me to be away from Cleveland until
late in the afternoon, when I must leave for a supreme court en-
gagement in Columbus. I think I have already said to you, but it
gives me pleasure to repeat it, that as the years go by and my
experience and reading grow larger, I come to have a larger and
more sympathetic view of your father's life and services. Surely,
no one could have been called to high executive office under cir-
cumstances more trying or at a time when the country itself was
more disturbed and unsettled. His fairness, dignity, and clear-
sighted integrity were a rock of strength to the Government in
trying days. I am glad this significant centenary is to be observed
and I hope that the utmost use will be made of the occasion to
impress the lessons of your father's life upon the country which
he served.
Cordially yours,
NEWTON D. BAKER.
STEAMSHIP FRANCONIA
AT SEA,* March 25, 1924.
DEAR COLONEL HAYES:--I am returning the pamphlet ["The
Hayes Centenary"] which you so kindly lent me this morning and
which I read with great interest.
I am so glad that President Hayes, your illustrious father, is
to have a lasting monument which will perpetuate his memory.
I was not in public life when your father was President and per-
sonally I was not at that time in the way of knowing much of him
or his Administration intimately.
But not long before our dear Cardinal Gibbons died [March
24, 1921] we were discussing the relative merits of the various
Presidents whom he had personally known and he said on that
occasion: "I have known them all well and intimately from Lin-
coln until now, and to my mind the most scholarly and genuinely
refined of them all was Rutherford Hayes."
* Between Jerusalem and New York, completing trip around the world.
27
418 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
The old Cardinal was a keen observer of men and this appre-
ciation of your distinguished father is worthy of record. I am
happy to pass it on to you to use as you like.
Very sincerely,
W. CARD. O'CONNELL, ABP. BOSTON.
Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels wrote in reply to an
inquiry of his estimate of General Hayes's Administration:
"Following the election of 1876, it was impossible to give an
appraisal of public servants that would be just or free from par-
tisanship. With the passage of time, however, I feel that there
has come an appreciation of the fact that the action of President
Hayes in withdrawing the troops from the South indicated high
moral courage and a resolute desire to bring peace and opportunity
for development to the Southern people.
"The situation which President Hayes had to encounter when
entering the White House was a very difficult one. The Demo-
crats believed that Mr. Tilden was elected. President Hayes
owed his election to the electoral vote of South Carolina, Louis-
iana, and Mississippi [Florida], States in which the Democrats
believed the votes had been cast for Mr. Tilden. The withdrawal
of the troops from these three States automatically put in power
the Democratic state governments, who had been chosen in the
same election when the electoral vote was counted for President
Hayes. Of course President Hayes knew when lie withdrew these
troops that the results that did take place would follow. He knew
that such results were necessary for good government in those
States.
"No one understood better than he that the withdrawal of the
troops would be regarded by many of his countrymen as a con-
fession that his election was not free from partisan setting-aside
of the voice of the people in these States. I have, therefore, al-
ways regarded it as a matter of high moral courage for him to
have restored peace in the South at such a cost to his prestige.
"His courage showed that he preferred to be the recipient of
much criticism [rather] than to perpetuate in the South conditions
that were intolerable and unbearable.
LETTERS OF REGRET AND EULOGY 419
"Thus, when one looks back at the Administration of Ruther-
ford B. Hayes, he sees a serious effort made to reform the civil
service, an effectual resumption of specie payments, and a con-
ciliatory policy inaugurated toward the distressed Southern States,
which has altogether inured to the honor, integrity and stability
of that Union for which General Hayes fought on many Southern
fields; whose integrity he proclaimed in every political contest
and which he endeavored to maintain in his three terms as gov-
ernor of his native State, and which he finally greatly advanced
by his four years in the White House at Washington."
Rear-Admiral William S. Sims, U. S. Navy, who as admiral
so efficiently commanded the American naval forces in European
waters during the World War, expressed his regret at his in-
ability to be present in the following letter:
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
NAVAL WAR COLLEGE, NEWPORT, R. I.
DEAR SIR:-- I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
September 3, containing the very flattering invitation for me to
attend the centennial celebration of the birth of your father,
Rutherford B. Hayes, on October 4, your invitation kindly includ-
ing Mrs. Sims.
Needless to say we should be very glad indeed to attend this
celebration, but unfortunately October 4 will be but a few
days before my retirement from active service and I shall be so
much engaged in closing up my active duty as president of the
Naval War College that this and certain other engagements will
make it impossible for us to be absent from Newport at that
time. I need not assure you again how much we are gratified
that we have been included in this invitation and how much we
regret our inability to accept it.
Very sincerely yours,
WILLIAM S. SIMS.
Commander-in-Chief James W. Willett of the Grand Army
of the Republic, in a letter from Des Moines, Iowa, to President
420 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
Campbell, expresses his keen regret at being unable to attend the
Hayes centennial exercises, and notes that Mrs. Willett was
born in Tiffin, Ohio, which would have been an added induce-
ment to draw them to Ohio, "aside from the honor conferred
upon me had I been present."
The New York Sun which was a bitter opponent and critic
during and after the Hayes Administration, says in an editorial
on the centenary, headed "Hayes Abolished Carpetbags":
"The judgment of a later day has put unpredicted value on
both the ability and the services of President Hayes. While he
may not rank with Washington, with Lincoln, or with Roosevelt,
his firmness and foresight have earned recognition not at first
granted them. He appears to deserve the credit for bringing
to an end the post-bellum course of political laxity in the North
and retrogression in the South.
"Congressional reconstruction had proved by 1877 its inability
to carry out the majority's plans of restoration and idealistic
advance for the reconquered Southern States. Hayes, with-
drawing the Federal troops, permitted the unsuccessful policy
to fall of its own weight. He had apparently concluded that
the Nation could not attain full prosperity while one great sec-
tion remained on the rocks. He broke with the traditions of his
party in this respect to perform a service to his country."
The New York Herald in a comprehensive, discriminating, but
highly laudatory article on President Hayes brings out the fact,
too often overlooked: "All attempts to induce him to accept a
renomination failed." Also, that "some of his ablest political op-
ponents conceded that President Hayes's Administration, taken
as a whole, had been no less honorable to himself than creditable
to his country."
An editorial in the Ohio State Journal emphasized the fact
that "the soundness of his measures soon proved itself and made
possible the Republican success in 1880. It has been said of
him that never once in all the trying days following his election
and throughout his Presidency did he lose his temper. He com-
bined great firmness of character with unfailing good nature,
an effective combination not often found in Presidents or other
NEWSPAPER COMMENDATION 421
men. . . . As President he soon proved a complete and un-
pleasant surprise to the managers of his party machine. His
manners were mild, but his backbone was stiff as a ramrod.
With the utmost good nature but with the grimmest determina-
tion he proceeded at once to antagonize the party leaders, wiping
out carpetbag government in the South, upholding Sherman in
his great fight against the insistent unsound-money sentiment of
the day, and inaugurating civil service reform to an extent un-
dreamed of by the disgusted practical politicians."
A comprehensive editorial in the Boston Herald of October 4
says in part:
"A century ago today, on Oct. 4, 1822, at Delaware, Ohio,
of ancestry reaching far back into New England, Rutherford
Birchard Hayes was born. He fought bodily weakness as a
young man, manifested great interest in books, studied in Ohio
and Connecticut, and after having spent two years at the Har-
vard Law School and in attendance upon special classes in the col-
lege, he was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1845. He had gained
some distinction in Cincinnati when the Civil War came. Several
times wounded and with a fine record for bravery, he entered
Congress at the end of 1865 and became governor of Ohio in
1868. He served two terms, then after an interval a third, tak-
ing the nomination against his preferences and making the cam-
paign on the sound-money issue; there were many in Ohio in
those days who believed that the only thing necessary to make
real money was the stamp of the United States, no matter how
much or how little of actual value might be back of it. It was
this fight against 'Fog-Horn' Allen and inflation that gave Hayes
the nomination for the Presidency.
"Few Presidents have assumed office under more difficult
conditions than did our nineteenth Executive. Few have borne
themselves with greater dignity under excoriation of the mem-
bers of the opposing party and the cross-fire of the factions of
their own party. Hayes deserves far more credit for vigor,
steadiness, and fulfillment of campaign pledges than has usually
been granted him. No one knew who his cabinet were to be until
the actual inauguration. When they were announced the country
422 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
could not miss the conclusion that Hayes intended that the war no
longer should dominate our politics. He had avowed his inten-
tion of restoring home rule in the South, cleaning up the national
administration, and maintaining the public credit. He went to
work with a body of advisers representing all these aims but with
a Congress split against itself. He had few friends in the Re-
publican Senate once he had sent in his cabinet list, and the Demo-
cratic House wanted most of all to hamper the Administration.
Hayes withdrew the federal troops from the South, he vetoed
the Bland-Allison silver act, he showed the country that 'the way
to resume "specie payments" is to resume,' to quote the Horace
Greeley dictum ; and in spite of the quarrel between Half-Breeds
and Stalwarts and his unpopularity with his party, he issued an
executive order forbidding office-holders to take active part in
party management.
"Hayes grew in popular estimation steadily through the four
years of his incumbency. There is reason to indorse the state-
ment of Carl Schurz that the Republican party in Hayes 'had
nominated a man without knowing it.' His Presidency over, he
retired to Spiegel Grove at Fremont, Ohio, where a celebration
will be held today, and in simple and useful pursuits passed the
remainder of his years. He was a 'great commoner,' an able
and 'straight' man."
The Indianapolis Star in a discriminating article on the Hayes
centenary, by Miss Margaret M. Scott, says in part:
"The elaborate celebration in Fremont, Ohio., Oct. 4, of the cen-
tenary of the birth of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth Presi-
dent of the United States, at his former home, Spiegel Grove,
now a state park through the generosity of his son, Col. Webb C.
Hayes, had special interest and significance for the people of
Indianapolis because an ex-citizen, Charles R. Williams, long the
editor of the Indianapolis News, was one of the speakers and
was honored by having a room in the new addition to the Hayes
Memorial Library dedicated to him under title of 'The Charles
Richard Williams Reading-Room.'
"The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society of which Gen.
Hayes was president at the time of his death, had charge of the
NEWSPAPER COMMENDATION 423
centenary exercises, invitations for which were sent to the dis-
tinguished guests of the society in civil, military, and official life.
"The city of Fremont, where Gen. Hayes spent the major por-
tion of his life, when not actively connected with state and na-
tional affairs, cooperated with the historical society and had direct
charge of the parade and historical pageant, which was dismissed
on entering Spiegel Grove. Dedicatory exercises then were held
for the Croghan Gate, the Harrison Gate, the McPherson Gate-
way, in memory of the soldiers in the War with Mexico and the
War for the Union; and the Memorial Gateway in memory of the
soldiers in the War with Spain and the World War.
"This new addition to the Hayes Memorial, equal in dimensions
to the original structure, will house the large and valuable library
collected by Gen. Hayes during his army service in the Civil War
and as Governor of Ohio and as President of the United States,
as well as during his long career as a lawyer.
"Rutherford 13. Hayes. after the passion of years has sub-
sided, is growing in worth to the American people. The great
accomplishments of his Administration, with the reconstruction
of the South, the establishment of sound currency, and the main-
tenance of the civil service system, have given him his proper
place in history. It is now worthy and fitting that this celebra-
tion should be held where the mementoes of his civil, military, and
Presidential life are assembled. Added is the fact that the
Spiegel Grove State Park in itself is a historical monument to the
wonderful days of the past.
"Under the sweeping branches of its gigantic hickories, oaks,
elms, and maples sped the bronzed messengers of Pontiac carry-
ing the war wampum to the southern Indian tribes; over the
same trail marched Gen. Harrison and his army to resist the
British invader, and in a later era gathered the great generals
of the Union army to do honor to its distinguished occupant.
Here Sherman, Sheridan, Rosecrans, Crook, Comly, and Scam-
mon were visitors. Here, too, at various times, came Presidents
Garfield, Cleveland, McKinley, Taft, and Harding.
"Few writers, Republican or Democratic, have written as dis-
passionately and fairly of Hayes and his Administration, few
424 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
have done as much as, and none has done more than Mr. Williams
to draw attention to Hayes's personal worth, his scholarly attain-
ments, his splendid civic services, and the great accomplishments
of his Administration. This is all the more remarkable when it
is remembered that Mr. Williams is a Democrat.
"It will be recalled that after leaving the News (1911), Mr.
Williams devoted three years to writing the 'Life of President
Hayes'--a task inherited from his father-in-law, William Henry
Smith, who died in 1896. The latter, who had been Hayes's
closest personal and political friend, was to write the life, but
had hardly begun it. On his death-bed, he insisted that his son-
in-law should go on with it.
"This Mr. Williams promised to do, supposing the arrangement
would not be acceptable to the Hayes family. But the family
urged it, and Mr. Williams loyally fulfilled his promise. And
no one knows better than the writer, who acted as his literary
secretary for a great portion of those years both in Indianapolis
and at Spiegel Grove, at what cost to his nerves, his eyesight, his
pleasure, his health, his welfare, he did indeed loyally fulfill that
promise.
"The Life was published in 1914, and was received most favor-
ably by critics and historians. Andrew D. White pronounced
it one of the three or four best biographies in the English lan-
guage; and there were other similar commendations.
"This same year Mr. Williams removed to Princeton, N. J.,
and later bought the house at 25 Cleveland Lane, which had been
occupied by Woodrow Wilson while he was Governor of New
Jersey, and from which he went to the White House. The house
was remodeled and the grounds enlarged and developed until the
place, named 'Benedict House' in memory of his mother whose
maiden name was Benedict, became noteworthy among the many
beautiful places for which Princeton is famous. There he has
led a life of busy leisure among his books and with abounding
hospitality. During the first two years of residence there he
wrote a history of the Cliosophic Society of the university in com-
memoration of the 150th anniversary of its founding (in 1765)--
NEWSPAPER COMMENDATION 425
the oldest literary society in America. Critics have characterized
it as the best book of its sort they have ever read.
"After America entered the war against Germany, he became
one of the speaking staff of the National Security League and
of the New Jersey State Council of Defense, doing his bit by
making speeches, in stimulating patriotism and explaining and
defending the policies of the Government.
"Not long after the publication of the 'Life of Hayes,' the Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical Society began to plan for the
publication of Mr. Hayes's 'Diary and Letters.' At the solicita-
tion of the society, Mr. Williams, who was most familiar with
all the Hayes papers, consented to edit them and prepare them
for the press. The normal income of the society, however, was
not sufficient to justify so ambitious an undertaking. Appeal was
made to the Legislature of Ohio, which the Governor seconded
and approved, and early in 1921 the Legislature provided the
society with ample means for the execution of its worthy project
"Mr. Williams had already begun his task, which he found de-
manded an incredible amount of minute research and painstaking
labor. To this he devoted, all told, some three years of almost
continuous effort, assisted by copyist and secretary. The result
is seen in five large volumes, which not only abound in valuable
historical information, but which vividly reveal the development,
character, and accomplishment of a typical American gentleman
of noble qualities, who rose to the highest distinction.
"Mr. Williams's work is a model of good editing. With char-
acteristic modesty, the editor himself never obtrudes, but his
presence in the background is constantly felt."
Much of the success of the speaking program was due to the
presiding officer, Hon. James E. Campbell, who introduced the
speakers with a wit and readiness of repartee greatly enjoyed
by all. Despite the length of the program, many unable to find
seats stood throughout the afternoon. Comparisons are barred,
but many declared that the mayor's speech of eight words was the
triumph of the day! In all the elaborate preparations for the
day, Mayor Schwartz was, next to Colonel Hayes himself, the
426 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
main motive force. Mr. Ging's handling of the float section was
also highly efficient.
LETTER FROM COLONEL WEBB C. HAYES
As a fitting conclusion to the foregoing pages, the following
tribute of Colonel Webb C. Hayes to former Governor James E.
Campbell, President of the Ohio State Archaeological and His-
torical Society, on the occasion of the celebration of the eightieth
anniversary of the birth of the latter, is herewith appended.
DEAR GOVERNOR CAMPBELL:-Thank you sincerely for send-
ing me a copy of the very beautiful menu of your eightieth an-
niversary birthday dinner given in your honor on July 7, 1923, at
the Scioto Club.
It is worth while to have an eightieth birthday when it is com-
memorated in such a manner by one's admiring friends and
neighbors.
Mrs. Hayes deeply regrets that it became impossible for us
to be present and participate in the enthusiasm of the gracious
occasion. We were called to the East, fully expecting to be able
to return in time for the dinner; but we were only able to reach
the Delaware Water Gap on July 7, from whence I telegraphed
our congratulations and regrets. None of your friends could
have rejoiced more heartily than we in doing you honor. It has
been a constant source of gratification to me to be associated with
you on the board of trustees of the Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Society.
I recall with peculiar pleasure the several interesting occasions
at Spiegel Grove to which your presence added lustre. On May
30, 1916, you were on the list of speakers as a representative of
the board of trustees at the dedication of the Hayes Memorial
Library and Museum, when President Wilson, who was unable
to be present was represented by the Honorable Newton D. Baker,
Secretary of War, following the scholarly address of Doctor
Charles Richard Williams, biographer of Rutherford B. Hayes.
On October 4, 1920, my father's birthday, you presided, as
president of the Society, at the unveiling of the bronze tablet
COL. HAYES TO GOVERNOR CAMPBELL 427
on the Hayes Memorial Building in memory of the soldiers of
Sandusky County, who died in service during the War with Spain
and the World War. Your patriotic and eloquent speech of
that day, with its all too flattering reference to my wife and my-
self for our efforts to honor our father and mother by bequests
made to preserve forever their old home in Spiegel Grove as a
typical American home of the last half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, touched us deeply, and was made the subject of favorable
comment later by Warren G. Harding, who followed you on the
program.
Similarly, on October 4, 1922, you presided at the exercises
commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birthday of
Rutherford Birchard Hayes. The dignity and propriety of your
opening address at the dedication of the library and museum annex
to the Hayes Memorial, and the aptness and felicity of your
words at the dedication of the Soldiers' Memorial Parkway of
Sandusky County, and at the unveiling of the historic tablets on
the five memorial gateways leading into Spiegel Grove, won ap-
preciative applause and were beyond all praise. During the exer-
cises a beautiful oak tree, located near the memorial trees here-
tofore christened by the laying on of hands and named the "War-
ren G. Harding Oak," the "William H. Taft Oak," the "Grover
Cleveland Hickory," the "William McKinley Oak," and the "Gen-
eral Sherman Elm," was christened the "James E. Campbell Oak"
in your honor.
In all the activities of our society as trustee and as presi-
dent, you have uniformly displayed an intelligent interest and
zeal.
Within the last year, through your personal initiative, you have
secured the necessary funds for the erection of the World War
Memorial annex to our main society building in Columbus, and
thus rounded out your soldier activities begun sixty years ago in
the War for the Union.
It is because of my interest and belief in the society, of which
for the last seven years of his life my father was president, that
when I deeded Spiegel Grove as a state park and endowed the
homestead for permanent preservation, it was with the expecta-
428 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES
tion of including in this memorial an American historical library
which would be the nucleus of a library for an Ohio Historical
Society, for which my wife and I hope to provide an endownment
fund for the purchase of historical books.
I cannot help reflecting on the singular good fortune of our
society in its choice of presidents. I doubt if any similar society
in America can show a more distinguished list. All have been
men of state-wide reputation or of national fame. I recall with
pride the names of your five predecessors: Allen G. Thurman,
who for a generation was one of the political leaders of the na-
tion, statesman and jurist; Francis C. Sessions, eminent banker
and philanthropist; Rutherford Birchard Hayes, who needs no
characterization; General Roelif Brinkerhoff, soldier, lawyer,
student of politics, and distinguished penologist; George Fred-
erick Wright, erudite in theology, and long the most learned geolo-
gist in America; and now you, so aptly characterized by the
dinner committee on arrangements, as "A patriot of the war of
1861-1865, a statesman of long service, a former governor of
Ohio, an outstanding man of affairs, a courteous and unassum-
ing gentleman." The society rejoices in having a president who
most worthily continues the great tradition.
My earnest hope is that, in the future, the society may be as
wise and fortunate in the choice of presidents as it has been up
to this time.
With renewed felicitations and high respect,
Sincerely yours,
WEBB C. HAYES.
THE HONORABLE JAMES E. CAMPBELL,
Columbus, Ohio.
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