Ohio History Journal

MARION CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

 

 

BY J. WILBUR JACOBY

 

OUTLINE OF HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY

In this centenary year for the city of Marion, it is

not inappropriate to preface this article with a brief

outline of the history of Marion County.   Marion

County was named after the famous Revolutionary

General, Francis Marion, and attached to Delaware

County by act of February 20, 1820.  For more than

twenty-five years thereafter the southern limit of the

county was the Greenville treaty line.  This treaty

signed with the Indians in 1795 held back all but "squat-

ter settlements" to the north thereof for almost a gen-

eration.

On August 15, 1820, the first tracts of land in the

county north of the Greenville treaty line were offered

for sale. From that time on, a steady stream of im-

migrants flowed hither into every part of the county.

They came from the older counties to the south; from

Kentucky and Virginia; from the New England States

and New York; from far-off Maine came the founder

of Marion; lastly and most numerously they came from

Pennsylvania - plain, simple, Dutch stock, young and

vigorous, to hew a future home out of the virgin forest.

Thus while the northeast part of our state was settled

by Yankees; the southeast by the Massachusetts sol-

diers of the Revolution; the Virginia Military lands of

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Marion Centennial Celebration    381

 

the Scioto and Miami valleys, by the aristocracy of Vir-

ginia; and the northwestern part by the Germans,

Marion County has, because of location and in the ripe-

ness of time, drawn the best from every quarter of our

State and Nation.

The first settlers in the county were almost all

native-born Americans.  Beginning with 1830, immi-

gration began from Germany, continuing in large num-

bers from 1840 to 1850, many having taken part in the

Revolutionary movements in Germany.   During the

decade from 1850 to 1860 large numbers began to ar-

rive from Ireland. This desirable addition to our citi-

zenship continued for three decades.

In a large sense, it was for the purpose of com-

memorating these pioneer movements that the Marion

Centennial had its inception.  It was not with the idle

thought of passing a few days in sport and carnival,

but rather to pause for a brief time, hat in hand as it

were, reverently to give thanks for the blessings that

have flowed from one hundred years of development,

and to gather new inspiration for the intricate tasks of

the morrow.

The founder of Marion, Eber Baker, was born in

Maine, April 27, 1780. At the opening of the War of

1812, he enlisted in the army, but being dissatisfied with

the inactivity of guard and camp duty to which his regi-

ment was assigned, he employed a substitute and re-

signed.  In the early part of 1813 he decided to go

West, outfitted at Boston, and traveled in covered

wagons to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he occupied

a farm for a year, then moved to Newark, Ohio, ar-

riving there in 1814. After a few years he started on

a prospecting tour, and found a deserted long cabin

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382      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications sheltered under the slope of a hill, afterwards known as the "Hollow." He purchased the land from Heze- kiah Kilbourne. On April 3, 1822, a little more than one year after

his arrival, Eber Baker together with Alexander Holmes, of Newark, surveyed and platted Marion. In January preceding, the Legislature by joint resolu- tion had appointed Isaac Minor, Thomas Hux-

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Marion Centennial Celebration      383 ford, and Cyrus Spink to locate the county seat for Marion County.    After visiting several locations in the county, "the commissioners," says one who was present, "struck the stake at Marion.  Then the en-

thusiasm of the people of that place recognized no bounds and they got up an impromptu jollification, and not having any artillery at hand, they improvised a substitute by boring holes in several large oak trees

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384      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

with a two inch auger, and putting in charges of pow-

der, which they fired. Some of the trees were shattered

to fragments."

In 1825 Marion contained 18 families.   Marion's

growth was at first slow.  For many years the rail-

roads failed to strike the town.   The neighboring

towns, Bucyrus, Kenton, Delaware and Mansfield had

gone through their "boom" period before Marion's first

railroad, the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad, was

built.

The population of Marion by decades is as follows:

1830    .............                    285  1880               .............                   3,899

1840    .............                    570     1890            .............                   8,227

1850    .............                    1,311  1900            .............                   11,862

1860    .............                    1,844  1910            ..... ........                                  18,252

1870    .............                    2,531  1920                   .............                   28,591

MARION CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

The Marion Centennial Celebration was held July

2-5, 1922, inclusive. On Sunday, July 2, appropriate

historical services were held in all of the Marion

Churches.  In the afternoon the Kadgar Grotto Band

and the Marion Choral Society entertained at Garfield

Park. Sunday evening, A. Edwin Smith, D. D., Presi-

dent of the Ohio Northern University, and formerly

Pastor of Epworth M. E. Church of Marion, addressed

a large audience at Garfield Park pavilion.

John H. Bartram acted as chairman of the exer-

cises Monday morning, July 3. Dr. L. L. Strock,

Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, offered

prayer. Mayor Geo. W. Neeley delivered the welcome

address and presented the keys of the city to Captain

Charles Eber Baker of Chicago, a grandson of Eber

Baker, the founder of Marion.    Captain Baker was

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Marion Centennial Celebration           385

 

born and resided in Marion until he was sixteen years

of age, when he enlisted and served four years in the

Civil War. He said in part:

"When Marion was selected as the place for the building

of a home, all the surrounding country was a wilderness and

trees had to be cut and stumps pulled out to prepare the land

for crops. Sometimes this was a business that required years.

This site was selected because of the beautiful prairies and it

required some nerve for the pioneers to come here to the land

of the Wyandot Indians, a tribe of savages as ferocious as any

known. North of us there is a monument to Colonel William

Crawford who was burned at the stake by the Indians. His

torture was made as complete as possible. The Indians took the

bullets out of their guns and shot salt into the colonel. They

also shot him with arrows and continued to torture him even

though he begged them to kill him. That nerve of the Marion

pioneers shows the first display of the spirit of Marion.

"The next call for Marion to show her spirit was in 1848

when the United States went to war with Mexico. Volunteers

first were called on to serve twelve months and Marion's quota

was more than filled. Not only that, a large number of men

organized and drilled in preparation for a second call. The next

display of Marion's spirit came in 1861 when the United States

sent ships to relieve the starving garrison at Fort Sumter and

the Civil War broke out.

"Volunteers first were called to serve ninety days. It was

supposed that the outbreak was only a minor insurrection. In

the North we did not realize then that the South had been pre-

paring for just such a conflict for twenty-five years. The first

call was met and the Fourth Ohio was organized. Shortly after-

ward when it was realized that the war would not be ended in

ninety days, another call came for 300,000 men to serve for a

longer period. The Sixty-fourth Ohio was organized and I went

in. After being in service four years and one month, I couldn't

vote for three months after I returned from the war. I men-

tion this because it was true of almost every soldier in the Union

army. We all were young men, most of us under age.

"We went through a number of campaigns and served two

years. Even at the end of that period there appeared no sign

of an end and the government offered inducements for us to re-

enlist. Money was offered, but no amount of it would have in-

fluenced us one way or the other. Also we were offered a thirty-

day furlough to begin the next day. We were in Tennessee,

located in the woods. There was ice floating in the Tennessee

Vol. XXXI-25.

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386      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

river and it was two degrees below zero. We re-enlisted and

came home and when we arrived we found another manifesta-

tion of the spirit of Marion. We were warmly greeted every-

where and our glorious reception came to a grand climax on

the day we left."

Judge William Z. Davis, former member of the Ohio

Supreme Court, was the next speaker. For many years

prior to his elevation to the bench he practiced law in

Marion. Judge Davis said:

"Ever since I was invited to participate in this Centennial

Celebration, I have often asked myself why I was invited to do

so, for I am not one hundred years old. Nevertheless, I am

considerably more than three-quarters of that age and have

known a large number of the pioneers who founded the pros-

perity and planned for the progress of Marion and Marion

County.

"Recently, when looking over that valuable work, Jacoby's

History of Marion County, I was almost startled into believing

that I was myself a pioneer, for I was so vividly reminded that

I had maintained not only social but also business relations with

so many of the settlers and builders of what you are so proud

and of which you are today celebrating. You will indulge me

I am sure if I pause here to mention some of them. There were

Robert Cratty, who told me that he was a lieutenant in the war

with England in 1812 and who helped to construct the first house

in Prospect and who died in 1887 at the age of one hundred and

three years; Christopher Brady, Robert Kerr, Abram Monnett

and Washington Concklin, all of whom conducted agriculture

on a large scale, also were founders and officers of the Marion

National Bank. Colonel Concklin came from New York City

and he claimed to have seen Robert Fulton's steamboat, the

Clermont, sailing on the Hudson River, which was the begin-

ning of successful steamboat navigation.

"I must mention in this connection James H. Heed and his

brother-in-law, Dr. Henry A. True, and R. H. Johnson, who

came from New York and entered into mercantile trade and in

1839, as I am informed, established the Marion County Bank.

Neither should we neglect to mention General James H. God-

man, who projected and built the first railroad into Marion and

Marion County. He was breveted a brigadier general for gal-

lantry in action during the Civil War. He served in a number

of civil offices in this county and was the auditor of the state

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Marion Centennial Celebration          387

of Ohio for eight years. Of especial interest to me, he was my

preceptor in law.

"Indeed it would be a pleasant task to speak more par-

ticularly of all of those pioneers who deserve especial mention,

but that is obviously impossible and moreover it would just now

be more than I would be physically able to endure. However, I

may say of them collectively that they were a hardy, practical

and adventurous class of men to whom their daily tasks, which,

although they appear appallingly difficult for some of us to con-

template now, were simply tasks that had to be done and en-

dured. They were not all illiterate backwoodsmen. Some of

those who established business and started forward the car of

progress were reared in easy circumstances, some were grad-

uates from Eastern colleges and some came from older civiliza-

tions in foreign lands. They were the kind of stock from which

the progressive citizens of this age delight to claim descent and

to which they are today glad to do honor.

"This wonderful development from malarious swamps,

breeding ague and milk-sickness, into beautiful and wholesome

farms and a growing, substantial, prosperous, beautiful and am-

bitious city are the natural result of the efforts of such founders.

"Nor should the women of these days be forgotten. Our

mothers, our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers did their

duty bravely, with a cheerful sense of their responsibility. The

stalwart men of the present can not justly estimate what they

owe to the pioneer mothers. Nearly all of what is fine in char-

acter and not a little of their strength and soundness of body

they owe to motherly care and motherly teaching. All honor to

the mothers, wives and daughters of the early time, worthy

companions of the pioneer settlers."

At the conclusion of the speaking, J. Wilbur Jacoby,

Chairman of the Centennial Committee, introduced

three of the honored guests, residents of Marion. They

were Mrs. Thomas Day, born in Marion in 1840, a

daughter of Lincoln Baker, youngest son of Eber

Baker; Mrs. Noah Runyan, ninety years old, a step-

daughter of Eber Baker; Mrs. E. G. Allen, born in

Marion in 1840, a daughter of Charles Baker, second

son of Eber Baker.

Two grand concerts were given in the Chautauqua

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388     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Pavilion in Garfield Park, in the afternoon and evening.

Perhaps the best known artist on the program was Mrs.

Genevra Johnstone Bishop of Los Angeles, California,

who has won renown in musical circles both in this

country and abroad.  Mrs. Bishop is a great grand-

daughter of Eber Baker, the founder of Marion. Other

noted musicians on the program were Harry C. Mealey,

of Cleveland; Willard Osborne, violinist; Mrs. Mary

Stockwell Durfee, and Edward E. Hipsher all of whom

were formerly of Marion.

July Fourth was the great day of the Celebration.

Very early in the day the crowds began to gather at the

fairgrounds. The thousands of seats provided for the

occasion were filled long before the exercises opened

and crowds filled the tracks, the paddock and the

grounds surrounding the grandstand.  Fortunately an

amplifier had been installed by the Bell and Local Tele-

phone Companies so that the addresses could be heard

with ease in any part of the fairground.  The crowd

was estimated at from fifty to sixty thousand.

The presidential party, as it drove into the grounds

and approached the grandstand, at 2:30 in the after-

noon, was greeted with cheers and the waving of hats

and handkerchiefs.  In the party were President and

Mrs. Harding, the President's father, Dr. Geo. T. Hard-

ing and wife, Miss Abigail Harding, a sister of the Pres-

ident, Geo. B. Christian, Jr., Secretary to the President,

and Mrs. Christian, Dr. T. H. McAfee, pastor of Trin-

ity Baptist Church, and Mrs. McAfee, General John J.

Pershing, Brigadier General Dawes, Brigadier General

and Mrs. Sawyer, D. R. Crissinger, Comptroller, and

Mrs. Crissinger and their daughter and Mr. and Mrs.

Geo. B. Christian, Sr.

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Marion Centennial Celebration          389

The entire front of the grandstand was a mass of

American flags. At the right of the President sat Gen-

eral Pershing and at his left, Mrs. Harding.

J. Wilbur Jacoby, Chairman of the Centennial Com-

mittee, presided.

Mrs. Genevra Johnstone Bishop was first on the

program with a solo, "I'm Calling You Home." Her

voice was wonderfully full and she was enthusiastically

applauded.

"Military operations in all times have marked out

the paths of civilization," Mr. Jacoby said in introduc-

ing General Pershing:

"The limits of the ancient world were bounded only by the

endurance of its armies. So it was 100 years ago with the ter-

ritory north of the Greenville treaty line, which marks the

southern limits of Marion county.

"General Harrison's armies in 1812 literally cut through the

hardwood forests of this place a military road, which a few

years later became the highway of the early emigrant and the

main street in the city of Marion.

"It is very fitting that 100 years later we should have as

our guest the commanding general of the armies of our Republic.

"Perhaps no high official station in the world is won with

such hard and rigid service as in the American army. General

Pershing's advancement is no exception to the rule. His pro-

motion has been steady, but only in recognition for meritorious

service.

"When congress, by special act, made him general it very

properly conferred upon him a title held only in the entire his-

tory of our nation by Washington, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.

"General Pershing, we welcome you as our guest."

General Pershing's introduction was the signal for

another ovation and as he took his place before the am-

plifier the crowds stood. While the General was speak-

ing an aeroplane circled in front of the grandstand.

The General spoke as follows:

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390       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

"It is a very great privilege to be a guest of the city of

Marion on the occasion of its celebration of the one hundredth

anniversary of its birth, and to participate with you in doing

honor to our greatest citizen.

"Beginning as far back as the Revolution itself, the history

of the people of this section of our common country runs

parallel to that of the Nation as a whole. The same incentive

that prompted the fearless Colonists to brave the terrors of an

uncharted sea, seeking an unknown country where they might

live and worship according to the dictates of their own con-

science, urged your forbears to establish themselves beyond the

Alleghenies into that all embracing Northwest Territory, there

to carve out a commonwealth whose rugged populace should

exert a remarkable influence for good upon the destinies of the

Nation.

"Of old colony stock the people of Ohio have ever been

jealous of their inheritance of liberty, and the sane laws en-

acted in the upbuilding of the state have set high the standards

of law and order, while the wise decisions of your jurists have

become the guide to justice for younger states further on toward

the Pacific. Development in everything that produces wealth

to the people, contentment in the home life and security in gov-

ernment has moved with precision toward the goal set by those

honest, independent pioneers.

"In all our wars adherence to these fundamental principles

has ever been the motive for action. In the days when the

foundations of government were threatened, the patriotism and

loyalty of the people of Ohio stood unchallenged and unsur-

passed. More recently, in the upheaval of a World War, devoted

men and women of this state made every sacrifice that civiliza-

tion should not be overthrown, and their example may well be-

come the guide for all the future. In these achievements the

quiet and unpretentious city of Marion has played her full part,

and proudly may her people point to their service both at home

behind the lines and abroad in the forefront of battle.

"It is especially fitting then that the anniversary of 100

years of well-directed effort should be celebrated on Independ-

ence day, the 146th of this great Republic. This circumstance

must serve more vividly to recall the divine purpose for which

our forefathers ordained a government by the people. Landing

on a barren coast they offered prayer to Him who has ever led

the rightious, and in faith took counsel among themselves as

how best to lay the course of destiny which was to be fulfilled

by their posterity.

"In the establishment of this Republic by a heroic ancestry,

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Marion Centennial Celebration           391

 

after seven years of struggle under conditions of untold priva-

tion, among the people of the new-born Nation and in their gal-

lant armies, the one aim was to safeguard and preserve for

future generations the ideals for which they had endured these

sacrifices. Theirs was a definite objective pursued with an un-

daunted spirit and a purposeful determination.

"It would be well for us to lay aside more frequently our

routine duties and our pursuit of pleasure to study the char-

acteristics of those to whom we of today owe the privilege of

living under and participating in a government dedicated to the

welfare of the people. They found time to consider and deter-

mine questions affecting the community, state and nation. Gov-

ernment to them was a personal responsibility. It would be ad-

vantageous for us to follow in their footsteps and learn that the

price of freedom is a knowledge of the duties of citizenship and

a wise exercise of its functions.

"Among the questions of national significance that present

themselves for solution are the enforcement of law and order

and protection against mob violence, through the intervention

of federal authority, wherever necessary. Another is the elim-

ination of ignorance, through universal instruction of the masses,

both native and foreign born, especially in the obligations of

citizenship. Common sense dictates adequate support of a rea-

sonable measure of preparedness against the calamity of war,

while the maintenance of our merchant marine as a distinct com-

mercial and military asset is a necessity if we are to hold our

position and prestige among the nations.

"Under the constitution every man is guaranteed the right

to live, enjoy liberty and pursue happiness, but there are those

who defy guarantees, and seek to deprive others of these sacred

privileges. Where whole communities openly sympathize with

ruthless murder of inoffensive people in the exercise of the right

to earn a livelihood, and where wholesale murder goes un-

punished, it is imperative that public opinion should demand

that the strong arm of the law, under fearless officials, take

positive action. Overt and inexcusable acts of this character not

only debase the participants, but lower the whole moral fabric

of the Nation and strike at the very existence of self-govern-

ment. Servants of the people on whom is imposed the obligation

of law enforcement mist foresee impending danger, and take

necessary preventive measures, or be regarded as inefficient,

criminally negligent or worse. If such outrages are possible in

orderly communities, then loyalty itself is at a serious discount.

Individuals or organizations that countenance such criminal acts,

or whose leaders, in violation of the law, advocate the use of

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392      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

force against the person or property of others with whom they

happen to disagree, no longer deserve recognition or respect

from law abiding people, but merit only unequivocal condemna-

tion and prompt punishment.

"We must recognize that there is a dangerous tendency

toward disobedience to law, and an appalling laxity in law en-

forcement. Moral standards have become materially weakened,

and the criminal elements of society are less cautious in their

activities. It is time for all citizens who cherish our heritage of

free government to assert themselves and cry out against law-

lessness and immorality. We must stand up for prompt enforce-

ment of the law, or concede that free government is a failure.

Let us invoke the high standards of integrity and patriotism that

prevailed when men and women by the millions sought oppor-

tunity to make the supreme sacrifice for country. Open adher-

ence to lofty ideals is quite as essential now in the post-war days

as during war time when impending danger inspired every one

to unselfish devotion and service.

"The destiny of the Nation is in the hands of its people, and

ignorance among those who cast the ballots stands as a constant

menace to our institutions. Universal suffrage demands uni-

versal education and high standards of moral responsibility

among all citizens of whatever origin or lineage. It is amazing

to think that twenty-five per cent. of the voting population is

illiterate, and that many communities fail to appreciate the dan-

gerous significance of such a condition. Among this class is a

large proportion of people of foreign birth or extraction.

"As to immigration, we welcome among us those who are

willing to accept our institutions and who wish to share with

us the benefits of free government, but we object to those who

oppose all government, or who indulge in political or commercial

propaganda in the interest of any foreign nation, and we must

demand of all our citizens, whether native or foreign born, full

understanding of the principles of our government and complete

allegiance to its sovereignty.

"The voice of the blatant pacifist is again heard in the land.

The unreasoning, the unthinking and those who will not learn

from experience continue to advocate the theory that complete

disarmament will prevent war. In the knowledge that our army

is of the people, and in the face of the loss of life and the cost

in money that we ourselves have recently withstood as a result

of neglect of the most feeble preparation, they pronounce against

any sort of military training or preliminary organization, and

would so reduce the army as to make expansion impossible within

any reasonable period, and possibly again compel the enormous

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Marion Centennial Celebration          393

expenditure of life and treasure under which the country is suf-

fering today. I venture to say that few, if any, of those who

would destroy our small army and navy in times of peace were

found in the ranks with those brave and patriotic men who

fought to destroy the armies of our enemies on the field of battle.

"It must be with deep chagrin that every American recalls

the almost helpless feeling that came over us when at the begin-

ning of the World War we were confronted with the problem

of saving the allies from destruction, and had no ships in which

to transport our armies. Only fortuitous circumstance pre-

vented the last stroke by the enemy that would have made him

the victor, and made it possible for the allies to hold on for the

year necessary for us to build ships. Even then over half of

our armies were transported in foreign bottoms. Prior to the

Civil War ninety per cent of our foreign commerce was carried

under the American Flag. Today we are in a position again to

take our place on the seas as becomes this great nation which

must control the shipment of its own products if it would main-

tain its present prestige in the world of commerce. The develop-

ment of sea power in foreign countries has been successful only

with government encouragement.

"Maritime powers have ever dominated trade. Our own

experience has all too often shown the error of a short-sighted

policy which has left American owners to compete single handed

against subsidized foreign shipping. When the American battle

fleet went around the world, it was supplied by vessels flying

foreign flags, and yet the lesson did not dawn upon those who

still withheld support. Today we would be helpless as a sea

power without an adequate merchant marine. If again it be-

came necessary to transport 2,000,000 men across the seas there

might not be a friendly power whose self-interest would prompt

her to render us aid. Those who oppose the policy of giving

aid to an American merchant marine are working against the

best interests of their country, in which action they are without

doubt strongly supported by the agents of every well-developed

maritime power. We have sea trade and we are becoming more

and more dependent upon it. We have again learned at enor-

mous cost the principles of ship construction, and we have a

population whose ancestors sailed on every sea who would

naturally and efficiently take to the sea if the opportunity were

given. Not only in its commercial aspects would a merchant

marine be advantageous, but national safety demands that it be

maintained.

"At the risk of speaking at too great length, I have under-

taken to mention some questions that seem worthy of considera-

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394       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

tion at this time and on this occasion. The Nation is sound at

heart, but individuals are too often prone to neglect their obliga-

tions to give serious thought to matters of grave national im-

port. Let us invoke the public spirit and the patriotic enthusiasm

of our noble ancestry, and realize that it becomes the duty of

every earnest citizen who believes in the permanence of our Re-

public to assume a more active participation in affairs of the

Nation."

A chorus of sixteen selected soloists, under the di-

rection of Ernst C. Carl, chairman of the music com-

mittee of the Centennial, sang beautifully "The Star

Spangled Banner."

"Marion city and Marion County today welcome

the guests and visitors present from far and near," Mr.

Jacoby stated in introducing President Harding:

"We have tried to make this celebration more than a per-

functory one. In a large sense our celebration here is your cele-

bration, for all over Ohio and our Nation communities have

grown and developed in much the same way, with the same

pioneer conditions to overcome, with hard, stern grinding tasks

to do. And yet, no hundred years of all the centuries have been

so filled with the joys of accomplishment as these just past. For

us today the mark set is a high one. May we gather new in-

spiration from this event to meet the complicated tasks we

have to do.

"In one respect our community differs from most of those

here represented. Most fortunately for our Nation, the high

preferment of our fellow countrymen has fallen upon our loved

and highly esteemed fellow townsman. Nothing I could say

would add to the regard in which he is held by his neighbors.

"President Harding, these, your friends, welcome you

home."

Instantly following Mr. Jacoby's conclusion there

was a tremendous ovation from the crowd, members

of which practically simultaneously stood as the Presi-

dent arose and stepped to the front of the box.      The

first demonstration hardly died down when another

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Marion Centennial Celebration          395

was started.   At its conclusion the President spoke as

follows:

"My Friends and Neighbors: It is exceedingly good to

come home and meet with you again and join you in the cen-

tennial celebration of the founding of Marion. Frankly, it would

be preferable to come simply as a Marionite, and speak as one,

because it is easily possible for me to feel a peculiar intimacy

toward such an occasion.

"It is pretty hard to be president and perfectly natural and

normal. Some days when you have exercised infinite patience

and tolerance and have had the assistance of your friends who

have some measurable degree of wisdom, you retire at night and

think the world is going to roll along all right, but when the

returning tide comes in, it is the same old story over and over

again. You see, when everything goes along lovely the presi-

dent never knows a thing about it, but when there is a struggle

he becomes the chief sponsor. For example, here sits in grey,

the distinguished son of Ohio, General Dawes, who has in-

augurated for you and for me the budget system of government.

General Dawes will go out to save $5,000,000 and never tell me

a word about it, but if some one in the government spends $1,000

more than is needed, he comes to me with a kick.

"If there is anybody in Marion who feels that I have slighted

him, he must understand it just isn't possible to greet every one.

I would love to have the personal touch with all of you, just

as much as anybody in Marion. I wish I could stay a little

longer. I will welcome the day when I can come back to stay

with you permanently. Some of you think it is a very fine thing

to be president of the United States and it is good to keep on

thinking it, because when you wake up from your dream you

will find it a very different thing.

"I cannot justify a claim to any great part in making the

Marion of today, but as a newspaper worker for more than a

third of a century I have done a lot of cheering, which is no less

essential to the forward movement in a community than it is in

football or baseball. Amid the cheering and boosting I did my

share of observing and recording, and I could relate things in-

teresting to me, probably interesting to you of Marion, but they

would seem rather trivial to that larger community which is

habituated to expect some form of broadcasting to every presi-

dential utterance.

"An interesting reminder of the inescapable responsibility

for presidential utterance came to me a year ago. I was on a

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396      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

brief vacation in the mountains of New Hampshire, and my

generous host said we must go to a nearby village which had

been his boyhood home, and meet the people who would be as-

sembled. We motored down the mountain, we had a most agree-

able meeting, and I spoke extemporaneously for probably fifteen

minutes. Sixty days later there came to my desk a newspaper

published in Peking, China, with a verbatim reprint of the

speech.

"Of course, there was nothing in it which I did not say

sincerely. No one fit for public service will ever be guilty

of that.

"My thought is that, ordinarily, there is time and place for

particular speech, but in the presidential office all times and all

places are very much alike. There may be a justified pride in

the manifest interest of all our own people and all the world

being interested in what the United States government is think-

ing or saying, but I confess being human enough to wish to talk

of the intimate things relating to Marion, without misconstruc-

tion or misapplication.

"There is very much of the latter. Maybe it will not be

unseemly to relate an instance. Several weeks ago, when the

returning tide of industrial activity made the time seem oppor-

tune, I invited some forty or fifty captains of the great iron and

steel industry to dine with me, to confer about the abolition of

the twelve-hour work-day. I did not choose to proclaim exces-

sively and accomplish inadequately. Imagine my surprise, yea,

my amusement, to read in an important metropolitan newspaper

that I was dining the steel barons to 'shake them down' for the

deficit in the campaign funds of 1920.

"It would be good to talk about Marion, just among our-

selves. I know nothing more interesting to any man than his

own community. If he isn't interested, he isn't a good citizen.

"A century sounds like a long while at first impression, but

after all, it is only a little while. There are communities in the

world ten or twenty centuries old not half so important in world

activities today; perhaps they have contributed to human prog-

ress infinitely less in all their time than Marion has in one cen-

tury. Nay, in a shorter time than that, for the Marion we boast

has been really only a half century in the making.

"I mean no disparagement of the older and earlier citizen-

ship of sturdy qualities which pioneered the way. Theirs was a

great and highly essential work in blazing the way for the pres-

ent day civilization. It required strong men and noble women

to turn a wilderness into worth-while habitations. Malaria and

• 17
 

Marion Centennial Celebration           397

 

ague sorely tried human bodies even though souls cheerfully

resisted.

"General Pershing spoke of the fearless Colonists, and we

ought to revere them for their surpassing bequest of liberty and

nationality, but the builders of the West, the men and women

who marched with the 'Westward Star of Empire,' were no

less brave, no less heroic, and were more prophetic. They sensed

the greater possibilities, of which the colonists had not dreamed.

"I said a century seemed a long while in which to achieve,

and is yet only a little while. The Nation lacks four years of

boasting a century and a half, but discovery came four centuries

ago, and a century and a half of colonial development preceded

the national beginning.

"It was my fortune to participate in the tercentenary cele-

bration of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a year ago,

and there was the constant reminder that New England had pre-

ceded us two centuries in the making of America.

"But there is a rather more personal reason for the 'little

while' view. I became a citizen of Marion forty years ago, al-

most to a day, and have been a resident of the county just about

fifty years. And it all has the seeming of being but a little while.

Yet I could almost qualify as a pioneer.

"At the risk of being undignified, I will relate an experience.

My father had moved to Marion from a farm near Caledonia in

the winter before I came. When he moved to Marion he left a

mule behind because the mule was so well known in the vicinity

that he could not be sold at a profit, and yet so valuable that he

could not sacrifice it. So, when I came to Marion the first of

July, I was permitted to ride the mule, as it was the easiest way

to bring me here.

"I started early in the afternoon, but this mule had only one

gait. You couldn't put him in second or third, and you couldn't

step on the gas or anything. The evening shades were falling

when I reached the vicinity of the Roberts' farm, three or four

miles out of Marion. The situation was looking dark to me and

I stopped to ask an old fellow, who was smoking his pipe, how

far it was to Marion. Without cracking a smile, he replied:

'Well, if you are going to ride that mule, it is a farther distance

than you will ever get.'

"As I neared the town the evening bells were ringing for the

mid-week prayer. I do not know that I have ever heard a con-

cert of bells that sounded so sweet. If I could somehow go back

to that day, I would make a little more permanent and a little

more influential the tendency to religious worship which is the

softening influence of American life.

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398      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

"The Marion I first saw in 1882 had less than 4,000 people,

but my first impression was that of very much a city, in which I

feared I should be hopelessly lost. The industrial awakening had

not been given notable expression. Edward Huber had begun

the industrial march, but he was still struggling, as most indus-

tries struggle, before they are firmly founded.

"Probably Marion was as countrified as I felt, but I did not

know. It was my viewpoint, my limited vision, which kept me

from knowing. You see, I came from the farm and village, and

the county seat of 4,000 loomed big in my vision, because I had

seen nothing greater. Surely it looked ten times as large as it

does today, though the Marion of today is ten times larger than

then and twice ten times as important in its relationship to the

world of human activities.

"This confession is meant to have application. How im-

portant is the viewpoint to all the impressions and problems of

life. The villager goes to the great city, is confused by the high

tide of activities, and awed by the complacency of those accus-

tomed to them and so reveals himself a provincial, and is so desig-

nated. But those who proclaim him are ofttimes no less provin-

cial, because they too have the narrow vision; they do not know

the village and country life, which is ever freshening and swelling

the current of our national life.

"The early Marion had only the viewpoint of the county

civic and trading center, until industrial genius flashed on the

screen the picture of factory production, balances of trade in

larger circles, and the attending advancements incident to greater

activities. It is not for me to detail the expansion and trans-

formation. We are an outstanding industrial and commercial

community today, and I join you in a very great pride in the

Marion of 1922, and wish for it accentuated growth, magnified

importance, and larger social, educational, moral and patriotic

attainment in the century to come. It would little avail to record

more material enlargements. The consciousness of mental and

spiritual attainments, readily fostered by material growth, is the

real compensation to be striven for.

"Let me turn my thoughts to the natal day of the Nation.

One hundred and forty-six years have passed since the prophetic

beginning, and it will be a patriotic thing to stop for restrospec-

tion, and introspection, and circumspection; to take stock about

our keeping of the legacy bequeathed by the founding fathers.

"In our international relations all is well. They are securer

today, with more assuring prospects of peace than ever before in

the history of the Republic. New guarantees have recently been

added, by the very process of exchanging viewpoints, and bring-

• 19
 

Marion Centennial Celebration            399

 

ing the spokesman of great nations to the conference table, and

for the exchange of views, and to resolve to do together those

fine and nobler things which no one nation could do alone.

"Frankly, we have a broader viewpoint than the founding

fathers; we must have, because human progress has altered our

world relationship, but we have held firmly to all the fundamen-

tals to which they committed us. We can not be aloof from the

world, but we can impress the world with American ideals. I

mean to say it, because it is seemly to say it, the world believes

today in American national unselfishness as never before, and

recognizes our commitment to justice to be no less resolute than

our determination to preserve our liberties. Even Russia, to-

ward whom we remain aloof, except in sympathy and a very

practical proof thereof, looks upon America as friend and ex-

ample.

"But let us turn specifically to introspection, take stock

among ourselves. Materially, we have surpassed the wildest

dreams of the inspired founders. I saw the fifteen-starred flag

the other day, the flag of 1812, unfurled over Ft. McHenry, dur-

ing the attack in which Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Span-

gled Banner". Ohio made the fifteenth star.* You can little

guess the contrast between the blue field with fifteen stars and

the same field with the forty-eight glittering stars of today all

fastened by popular faith and brightened by popular hope.

"We are great, and rich, and powerful as to states and sec-

tions; we are in the full concord of union. This great organic

law has been preserved and its ambiguities removed. Where

there has been enlarged federal authority, the states have wished

it so. The constitution has been amended to meet the popular will.

Our representative form of constitutional government is respon-

sive to the will of the majority, responsive to the expression of

deliberate public opinion. It must be so to endure. Majorities,

restrained to the protection of minorities, ever must rule. The

constitution and the laws sponsored by the majority must be en-

forced. It does not matter who opposes. If an opposing minor-

ity has a just objection, the rising tide of public opinion will

change the law. There is no abiding liberty under any other

plan.

"I mean to sound no note of pessimism. This Republic is

secure. Menaces do arise, but public opinion will efface them.

Meanwhile government must repress them.      The eighteenth

amendment denies to a minority a fancied sense of personal lib-

* Ohio was the seventeenth state admitted into the Union. It was

not until 1818 that Congress enacted a law providing for the addition of

a star to the field of the flag for each new state admitted.

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400       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

erty, but the amendment is the will of America and must be sus-

tained by the government and public opinion, else contempt for

the law will undermine our very foundations.

"The foremost thought in the constitution is the right to

freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Men must be free to live

and achieve. Liberty is gone in America when any man is de-

nied by anybody the right to work and live by that work. It

does not matter who denies.

"A free American has the right to labor without any other's

leave. It would be no less an abridgement to deny men to bar-

gain collectively. Government can not tolerate any class or group

domination through force. It will be a sorry day when group

domination is reflected in our laws. Government, and the laws

which government is charged with enforcing, must be for all the

people, ever aiming at the common good.

"The tendencies of the present day are not surprising. War

stirred the passions of men, and left the world in upheaval. There

have been readjustments and liquidations, and more remain to

be made. In the making there has been the clash of interests,

the revelations of greed, the perfectly natural tendency to defend

self-interests. It has developed groups and blocs, and magni-

fied class inclinations. But the readjustment is no less inevitable,

and it is world-wide. It is the problem of human kind. Your

government has sought to aid, with patience, with tolerance, with

sympathy. It has sought to mitigate the burdens. It has sought

the merging of viewpoints to make the way easier. It believes

the America of our opportunity and unchallenged security af-

fords the way to solution.

"In war we give all we possess, all our lives, all our re-

sources, everything, to make sure our national survival. Our

preservation in peace is no less important. It calls for every

patriotic offering, because dangers from within are more difficult

to meet than the alien enemy.

"My one outstanding conviction, after sixteen months in the

presidency, is that the greatest traitor to his country is he who

appeals to prejudice and inflames passion, when sober judgment

and honest speech are so necessary to firmly establish tranquillity

and security.

"A few days ago I chanced to see in a home paper a quota-

tion from Will Carleton's story of 'The First Settler.' I heard

Mr. Carleton read it in the old city hall thirty-five years ago. It

was the recital of hasty and unheeding speech to the first set-

tler's wife, when he found the cattle had strayed. Stirred by his

reproach she started to find them, brought them back, sank ex-

hausted on the cabin floor, where he found her dead body, after

• 21
 

Marion Centennial Celebration           401

 

his all-night search. In his remorse, he felt the guilt of his

killing words, and in his reciting the story, he said:

"'Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds;

You can't do that way when you're flying words.

Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead,

But God Himself can't kill 'em, once they're said.'

"I leave you that thought on this centennial day, because its

lesson will save many a wound, many a cross current in the happi-

ness of the community. It will save many a menace in the

national life.

"I have no fear about the Republic. We are not only

stronger, but we are morally better than when we began. If

there is seeming excess of exploitation, profiteering, dishonesty

and betrayal, it is only because we are grown the larger, and we

know the ills of life, and read of them more than the good that

is done. I do not wonder that the ignorant and illy-informed are

made restless by the magnified stories of public abuses and pro-

claimed privilege. We need truth, only the truth, the wholesome

truth, as the highest aid to Americanization and the manifesta-

tion of highest patriotism.

"America will go on. The fundamentals of the Republic and

all its liberties will be preserved, and government must maintain

the supremacy of law and authority. Under these liberty has

its fullest fruition, and men attain to reveal the glory of liberty's

institutions."

"Marion, My Marion," the text of which was writ-

ten by Miss Isabel V. Freeland, was sung by Mrs. Mary

Stockwell Durfee, the piano accompaniment being

played by Mrs. H. K. Mouser.

In introducing General Dawes Mr. Jacoby said:

"When the World War broke upon us we were a people un-

prepared in many ways. One of the marvelous things of that

struggle was the manner in which the immense stores of pro-

visions were kept moving to the front for the sustenance of our

vast armies. It was the master mind and indomitable energy of

Brigadier General Dawes that guided this branch of the service

to successful consummation. Born in southern Ohio, his father

a general, he graduated at Cincinnati Law School in the same

class as our fellow townsman, D. R. Crissinger, and our United

States Senator, Atlee Pomerene. He later became comptroller of

Vol. XXXI-26.

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402      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

the currency and he has just now completed the organization of

a budget system for our national government.

"It can be truthfully said of General Dawes that he never

quit a task until it was well and thoroughly done. He has at all

times been versatile, strenuous and successful.

"General Dawes, I take pleasure in introducing you to this

Ohio audience."

The crowds applauded and stood as the general took

his place at the speakers' stand.

General Dawes spoke of business in government.

"The budget law cut down government expenses be-

cause the president of the United States said the de-

partments must economize and conduct their affairs in

a business way," the general declared in his character-

istically emphatic way, and added:

"Until this president took charge of the administration the

cabinet members didn't play the game. The departments for

many years ran as separate and individual corporations as they

pleased. He created by executive order coordinating agencies

who see that economy is practiced.

"We read in the press that President Harding is surrounded

with a strong cabinet. I have no quarrel with that statement. It

is true, but it also is true that the cabinet is surrounded by a

stronger Harding."

At the close of General Dawes' speech, Mr. Jacoby

introduced George B. Christian, Jr., Secretary to the

president, as the great-grandson of the first county

recorder and first clerk of Marion County and the

first congressman from    this district.  Mr. Christian

acknowledged the ovation given him with the statement,

"I am very glad to get home."

D. R. Crissinger, comptroller of the currency, was

introduced by Mr. Jacoby.      Mr. Crissinger occupied

a seat several rows back of the presidential box and

when he stood and started to acknowledge the introduc-

• 23
 

Marion Centennial Celebration          403

tion there were a number of cries of "Down in front,

Dick," and Mr. Crissinger came down to the speakers'

stand and spoke as follows:

"The world has come through a great crisis and the people

of all the world have suffered as people have never suffered be-

fore. I want to remind you that the people of the United States

are the best off, happiest, best dressed and best fed people in all

the world. I say this because we owe it to ourselves and to our

country to be satisfied in this great country of ours. We can

not afford to scatter the seeds of discontent, disloyalty, treason

and all the other ills besetting certain classes of citizens.

"We owe it to our country to stand for law and order be-

cause the good of our fellow citizens requires it and I know the

people will give it when they understand. Every day there come

become me charts that show what is transpiring in all the world

and I want to say that the picture is one of which every Ameri-

can should be proud. It portrays the feeling that in the United

States we have the best institutions of any country in the world

and I believe the American people are proud of them.

"We have listened to three great sermons, sermons on the

Mount. When this administration took hold of the government

it entered upon duties that never before had fallen on the shoul-

ders of man, and, with the greatest soul that ever occupied the

White House, we are going to unravel the problems and bring

to the country the greatest prosperity it has ever known."

Brigadier General Sawyer, introduced by Mr.

Jacoby, declared:    "I am proud of being one of you in

sending this great president to take charge of this great

Nation."

"The program would be incomplete without intro-

ducing the first lady of the land," Mr. Jacoby said in

presenting Mrs. Harding.      As she stood there was a

tremendous wave of cheering.

Mr. Jacoby announced, exactly at 4:08 o'clock, that

the exercises were concluded.    Members of the How-

itzer company, in command of Captain G. V. Paschall,

formed an aisle from the stands to the automobiles and

• 24
 

404       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the crowds cheered and waved their hats and handker-

chiefs until the automobiles bearing the president and

his party passed out of the grounds.

The evening of the Fourth was observed by a daz-

zling display of fireworks, witnessed by thousands.

The likenesses of President Harding, Eber Baker and

General Pershing were reproduced in fireworks display.

The morning program of the Fifth of July was

presided over by George B. Christian, Sr.       The first

speaker was former Governor, James E. Campbell,

President of the Ohio State Archaeological and Histori-

cal Society. His address on Patriotic Ohio and Pa-

triotic Marion follows:

"As today's part in the Marion centennial is largely designed

to honor the American Legion, it would seem appropriate that

this address should be devoted to patriotism as exemplified by

the State of Ohio and the county of Marion. Before Ohio was

a state, even before the Northwest Territory out of which it was

carved had been created, this whole region was consecrated to a

patriotic purpose. In the gloomiest days of the American revolu-

tion when there seemed no hope for the patriots, Washington,

with his wonderful vision and prophetic instinct, said, 'If we are

overpowered we will retire to the valley of the Ohio, and there

will we be free.'

"The patriot cause did not fail, but soon after the treaty of

peace this region was opened for settlement. Great streams of

immigration poured into it. Before they came the ordinance

creating the Northwest Territory had declared that 'religion,

morality and knowledge being necessary for good government

and the happiness of mankind, schools and means of education

shall be forever encouraged;' and, for that purpose there was set

apart a certain portion of the land. Thus there was laid in

morality, in integrity, in intelligence and in honor, the foundation

of our great state. Here then came the Puritan from New Eng-

land, the Knickerbocker from New York, the Swede from New

Jersey, the Quaker and the German from Pennsylvania, the

Catholic English from Delaware and Maryland, the Protestant

English and the Scotch from Virginia, the Scotch-Irish from

North Carolina and the Huguenots from South Carolina. They

• 25
 

Marion Centennial Celebration          405

 

were all young and nearly every man was a Revolutionary soldier

who had boldly and successfully defied the power of Great

Britain.

"Some of those sturdy young Revolutionary soldiers came

to the county of Marion and fifteen of them are known to be

buried here. Doubtless their descendants have had a full share

in making this one of the great counties of Ohio. The early set-

tlers not only had to endure the hardships and privations of pi-

oneer life, but they also had to fight the Indians; and almost

constant warfare against the tomahawk and the scalping knife

raged until the end of the war with Great Britain in 1812.

Thirty-nine veterans of the War of 1812 lie buried in Marion

county-thirteen of them in the old Wyatt Cemetery-in-

cluding Captain Flynn and Captain Drake.

"The next war, that with Mexico, is one of which the Na-

tion is not particularly proud except so far as it demonstrated the

prowess of our soldiers. Marion county was a strong Whig

county; the Whigs opposed the war until it was actually in prog-

ress and the county sent very few men to the war -none of any

prominence except Lieutenant Robinson Stevens.

"In the Civil War the state of Ohio wrote 313,180 names

upon the muster roll of the Union and she wrote them at the

top. There were Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Mc-

Pherson and McDowell, and the Fighting McCooks, and Custer

and Lytle, and a list much too long for this address, who served

to give Ohio an imperishable place in history.

"Marion county and Marion village did their full duty in

that hour of their country's peril. The history of the county puts

the enlistments at 1,800 and a statement by the chairman of this

meeting-himself a gallant Union veteran-gives the number

as 1,755, but a calculation made by your speaker fixes it at

2,285. The history of the county gives the names of Colonel J.

H. Godman, Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Brown and fifty-three

other commissioned officers. On the day of the first call for

troops in 1861, a scene, typical of those occurring in every vil-

lage and city of the country, was enacted in Marion -then con-

taining about nineteen hundred inhabitants. Judge Samuel H.

Bartram was chairman and his speech, voicing the sentiment of

a majority of the men who had voted against Lincoln at the

precedings presidential election, is well worthy of preservation.

He said:

"'I think the South has grievances but the remedy is in the

Union, not out of it. I am a states-rights man, but consider that

we owe duties to the federal government which we cannot violate

with impunity. The confedeate states have transgressed federal

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406       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

rights and are, therefore, guilty of treason. Actual warfare has

begun. What shall we do? As American citizens there is but

one choice. The government must be sustained.'

"At that meeting two companies were raised, although the

total quota of Marion county under that call would have been

about eighty-five men. This shows the high spirit of patriotism

which animated the people of Marion.

"After four tragic years of fraternal strife, death grew

weary of his carnival and the end came. The history of Marion

county places the number of her sons actually killed in battle at

sixty-five, but the total number of casualties has been estimated

at 739.

"To the Spanish War, Marion county sent one company

which was more than her quota. Their patriotism was of the

same high character as that of the soldiers of the Civil War.

In the World War the county of Marion furnished her exact

quota, which was about the same in numbers as her contribution

to the Civil War.

"It should not be forgotten that the new world would not

have participated in the war of the old world, and thereby have

saved mankind from degradation under a military autocracy, if

the United States had not remained an undivided country. It

is the everlasting glory of the American soldier that he carried

our flag into France and Belgium and, ultimately, into Germany

itself. There is no time here to rehearse the stories of Ameri-

can gallantry. The incidents are fresh in public memory; they

will be later embalmed in history, and their glories will never be

forgotten. There is something, however, that ought to be said

about the doughboy. He, almost singlehanded, did the fighting.

In the Civil War each side lost seventy-three generals -146 in

all. In the World War, with practically the same number of

enlistments, only one general was killed and he had not yet been

commissioned. There were some colonels, notably one from

Ohio in the Rainbow division, who were in the front of the battle,

but the death of an officer above the rank of captain was a rarity.

It is not intended by this to impugn the courage of officers of

high rank. Undoubtedly, one and all, they did their duty fear-

lessly, but the mode of warfare has changed in sixty years.

"Our boys in Belgium and France demonstrated the fact that

the free and untrammeled conditions of American life, the wide

liberty given to childhood, and our educational advantages, have

produced soldiers superior to any that the world has ever known.

Their superiority consists in their power of initiative; in their

ability to think for themselves and not to put all of the thinking

• 27
 

Marion Centennial Celebration           407

 

upon their officers; in their ability to act independently and to

take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

"When we consider the causes of our three great wars-

the revolution; the Civil War and the World War - we must re-

member that all of them were forced upon us. The first was

fought to preserve our freedom; the second to maintain the

Union; and the third to save humanity. It has been so since the

dawn of history; every footstep in the long and weary struggle

for liberty, whether religious or political, has left its imprint in

bloodsoaked earth. War is not always an unmixed evil, terrible

as it is. The most righteous causes have succeeded only through

war. No truer line was ever written than the one in our great

Battle Hymn of the Republic which thunders out these words:

'There is fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel.' The

Creator, in his flawless economy, has ever decreed that the bel-

ligerent passions of men shall work out the beneficent purposes

of God.

"In conclusion, looking at this great array of World War

veterans gathered here for their parade, one recalls the glory they

added to the flag of our country when they took it across the

seas; and this brings to memory certain other appropriate lines:

"'Bright hued 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 ever the emblem be

Of all that makes this people free,

And may we cherish liberty,

And to that flag be true.' "

Following the address of Governor Campbell, Gen-

eral J. Warren Keifer, of Springfield, Ohio, spoke in

part as follows:

"We are too apt to overlook and underrate our own environ-

ment and to look abroad for that which is important and great

and thus often to discredit our home surroundings, neighbors and

ourselves. This and like anniversary occasions will do much,

especially in a republic like ours, to remind the people therein of

what has been and can be obtained by honest and patriotic effort

toward safeguarding human liberty and promoting happiness

and also to perpetuate our form of 'government by the people

and for the people.'

"The duties of individual citizenship in a democratic form

of government are greater than in an autocratic or monarchial

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408      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

form of government. We have no royalty or privileged class of

citizens. All are common people with equality of rights before

the law and to worship God according to the dictates of their

own conscience.

"This Nation has just passed its one hundred and forty-

sixth year since its Declaration of Independence, and, though it

has purged itself of much that was evil and subversive of true

freedom of the human race, it yet has signals of danger incident

to a disposition of some of our inhabitants to regard our consti-

tutional form of liberty as tyranny, and to regard liberty as

license.

"Liberty, in a government by the people, must be protected

by the law, well enforced, to secure its perpetuity. Liberty not

so protected leads inevitably to anarchy and all its consequences,

and from it the step is, as history proves, quick and short to

monarchy.

"Marion county, of which Marion became the county seat,

was organized March 1, 1824, and included a three-mile square

Indian reservation on its northern boundary. Marion, the county

seat, was laid out in 1821 and first inhabited in 1822. Both city

and county were named in honor of Francis Marion, of revolu-

tionary fame.

"What has transpired of paramount importance in the United

States in the last one hundred years? Ohio alone has reached a

population far exceeding that of the original thirteen states, and

in wealth is correspondingly great.

"Indian wars have been almost continuous throughout the

whole period. Texas and other large areas of territory extending

to the Pacific ocean were acquired before 1850. A successful

war with Mexico was fought.

"The Civil War, characteristically bloodly, resulted in main-

taining the unity and integrity of the states and the perpetuity

of the Union, cemented and guaranteed by the constitution of the

United States. That war resulted in wiping out human slavery

in our Republic and, in a moral and exemplary sense, throughout

the so-called civilized nations of the earth.

"The Spanish-American war -likewise resulted in freeing

the slaves in Cuba and other Spanish possessions in America, in-

cluding also the Philippines, Hawaiian and other islands of the

Pacific ocean.

"I witnessed a striking secene in the Spanish-American War

while serving therein as major general of volunteers, illustrating

and exemplifying the effect of abolishing slavery in the United

States.

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Marion Centennial Celebration           409

"On January 1, 1899, I commanded the troops that marched

into and took possession of the City of Havana, Cuba, and the

Spanish forces, including warships and forts in and about the

harbor.

"As we marched into the city we witnessed the flag of Spain,

that had floated over Moro Castle on an eminence near the har-

bor, for about four hundred years, protecting human slavery,

suddenly came down and immediately thereafter another flag,

whereon was inscribed - Cuba Libre, take its place, followed by

the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America, indicative

of Cuba's freedom and the abolition of slavery in the thitherto

Spanish-American possessions. This was the thirty-sixth an-

niversary of President Lincoln's proclamation to free the slaves

in the confederate states. Thenceforth Cuba and other thitherto

Spanish possessions in America, have been without human

slavery.

"Returning, in conclusion, to the city of Marion; it can be

truly and boastfully said that in its one hundred years of ex-

istence the people thereof have patriotically performed their part

in propagating the true principles of freedom to mankind and

have maintained the integrity of our democratic form of repre-

sentative government, state and federal.

"The achievements of the past are the heritage of the present,

and impose on all the people the continuing high duty of progres-

sively perpetuating them for posterity.

"We are not to lie supinely on our backs, trusting to accom-

plishments of the past for our safety, lest our liberty, as in other

countries will be undermined, and autocracy become enthroned.

"The idea that true human liberty in the government of a

nation can be succesfully maintained without obedience to law,

well enforced, is too fallacious for discussion. Peace and order

requires obedience to law and order. Civilization in the light of

Christianity depends, in communities and governments, on the

rights of all people being justly and equally protected.

"It remains to be said that Marion has been honored by the

people of the world's greatest republic, choosing for its executive

leader one of its citizens as the chief executive-Warren G.

Harding, president of the United States. His duties and respon-

sibilities as president are immeasurably multiplied by the condi-

tions incident to the recent unparalleled World War. He is

worthy of the high office as has already been proven by his policy

and acts.

"It is the duty of all good citizens to aid, support and even to

advise him, and to refrain from attempts to criticise him in his

honest efforts to do his full duty.

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410      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

"There are too many of our people, who, mistakenly, as-

sume they can be regarded great through doing nothing but criti-

cising those who honestly discharge their public duties.

"For myself I desire to say that while I have served my

country during two wars and have had more men killed and

wounded under my direct command than George Washington

and all his generals in the seven years' war of the Revolution, I

am, and always have been, an advocate for that 'peace on earth

and good will toward men' that the angel from heaven with its

heavenly host around Him, cried over the manger-cradle of our

Savior at His birth of Bethlehem.

"War is only barbarism in all its forms, and unworthy of

the human race."

At two o'clock in the afternoon a wonderfully suc-

cessful historical parade showing the various develop-

ment of Marion and Marion County and an imposing

review of members of the American Legion from all

sections of Ohio was witnessed by the President and

Mrs. Harding, General Pershing, Commander McNider

and other notables present.

Immediately following the parade the members of

the Legion went to the fairground for their reunion

program and barbecue. Grant E. Mouser, Jr., presided.

Shortly after the program   began, President and Mrs.

Harding and General Pershing arrived.        They were

greeted with a roar of cheering.

"You have taken me off my feet," the president said.

"When the demonstration following his introduction by

Grant E. Mouser, Jr., had died down, the president

said:

"You have taken me off my feet. I only came as a specta-

tor, hoping that my presence would convey to you my very cor-

dial greetings. I am not going to complain about it. There is no

complaint in my heart. I feel that I have even come uninvited,

because, somehow or other, you don't invite the president to all

the features of your program and I just trailed in with your

commander-in-chief because I wanted to have the pleasure of

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Marion Centennial Celebration         411

 

looking into your faces. I have been compensated thrice over by

sitting here and listening to the splendid address just delivered by

General McQuigg.

"So long as the American Legion is consecrated to the pres-

ervation of the constitution and the maintaince of law and order in

this Republic, the United States of America is everlastingly se-

cure. Another thing the general said I must elaborate on for

just a moment and then I shall have done. He said your pro-

gram was one of the future. Have you ever stopped to think,

young men, of the wonderful part the Grand Army of the Re-

public has played in fifty years of American progress? The vet-

erans of the Civil War, once they organized, entered into the so-

cial, the political, the business, the moral life of this great Re-

public. There was not anything achieved for fifty years that did

not have the sanction of the conscience of the Grand Army of

the Republic.

"So, men, you are charged with a greater responsibility now

than you were charged with on the battlefield in France, because

in your hands is the destiny for the next half century of the

United States of America, and I have no hesitancy in saying to

you I think it is in good hands, because if you will serve with

conscience and your capacity and with the same devotion and con-

secration with which you defended the flag in France, I know

this will be a constructive and forward contribution to the good

and the welfare of the United States of America.

"I am happy to greet you. I like, as a Marionite, to see that

the visiting members of the Legion have come to join us in our

centennial. It gives me the opportunity to speak to the Legion of

Ohio and to give you my greetings in an official capacity and to

wish you the best that can come to men who have offered all on

the altar of their country."

General Pershing in his opening remarks greeted

the legionaires as, "Comrades of the World War." He

said:

"It is a very great pleasure at any time to meet American

Legion men who served under my command and those who served

in this country preparing to go over. I'd feel remiss if I missed

an opportunity to greet you, if only to say, hello. The American

Legion means a great deal and if the members live up to the

Legion creed they will maintain the highest standard of citizen-

ship ever attained by any nation.

"Each generation inherits responsibilities greater than those

of the generation preceding it and you should take up your duties

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412       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

with great energy and devotion. I am as sure, Mr. President,

they will fulfill their duties as citizens as I was when I ordered

them into the Argonne, that, by their efforts, they would bring

success to the allies."

Hanford McNider, commander of the American

Legion, said in part:

"We can well understand the high pride Marion must feel in

the celebration of its one hundredth birthday-not only from

its splendid history, from the service of its men and women to

the country in our days of need, but in having given to the Na-

tion the chief executive, to have your love and high regard for

this great American shared by all the world. It is fine that he

can come back to you from the pressure and responsibility of the

highest office in the world, still your friend and neighbor to cele-

brate, as a private citizen, the birthday of his 'home town.'

"After all it is to these home towns that still hold some of

the spirit of the pioneers who founded them rather than to the

larger center where we must always look for real America and

things American - for the leadership to carry on all those prin-

ciples our forefathers laid down for us, the principles we like to

call American. It is the inspiration from the people of the home

town that makes the American who serves his country in peace

as well as in war give his best. You know how your faith and

confidence inspired the men who went out in '17 and '18. Those

of us who had the privilege of serving overseas, and when I say

that I bear no slight to the man who did not get over, for in the

American Legion it is the spirit that put a man into his country's

service that counts and not the circumstances over which he had

no control which followed his enlistment, but those of us who

saw this average American boy of yours in action came back

with a new kind of fire inside of us, a new kind of patriotism and

a new realization of what it meant to be an American citizen.

Your boy, your neighbor's boy, the lad who works for you and

whom you pass on the street every day without giving a second

thought to, turned out under the pressure of a heavy fighting to

be as splendid a hero as the world has ever known.

"All America can well congratulate on its centenary, the city

of Marion, the home of the president of the United States. You

told us that this man whom you knew and trusted, lived with and

loved, could lead the Nation well in these difficult days back on

the road to national confidence and prosperity. In that, as I am

sure in all your hundred years of constructive endeavor, Marion

has promised, Marion has delivered."

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Marion Centennial Celebration    413

 

Others who participated in the program were

Brigadier General John R. McQuigg, Charles S. Dar-

lington, State Commander, and Captain Eddie Ricken-

backer.

Immediately following the speaking program the

World War Veterans present were regaled with a bar-

becue.

The final program and a fitting climax to all that

had gone before in this centennial celebration was

staged at the fairgrounds in the evening of the Fifth

of July.

Amid the vari-colored scenic lights and witnessed

by a vast throng which included President and Mrs.

Harding, and members of the presidential party, "The

Building of Marion," an historical pageant by Eleanor

M. Freeland, depicting the stages of development since

the founding of Marion one hundred years ago, was

given by a cast of several hundred under the auspices

of the Marion County Federation of Women's Clubs

at the fairgrounds last evening. The treaty with the

Delaware Indians for the purchase of the land owned,

the choosing of Marion as the county seat, the escape of

the negro slave, "Black Bill," a patriotic meeting dur-

ing the Civil War, President Harding addressing the

Washington peace conference, and an old time singing

school, were all depicted during the pageant.  The

pageant was presented on the race track in front of

the grandstand, with a specially constructed background

of trees and walls.

• 34