Ohio History Journal

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

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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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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

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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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