Ohio History Journal

THE LEBANON CENTENNIAL.

 

ORATION OF WILLIAM H. VENABLE.

 

[NOTE--On Thursday, September 25, 1902, the people of Lebanon, War-

ren county, Ohio, held appropriate exercises celebrating the one hundredth

anniversary of the settlement of that time honored town. The exercises

were held in the opera house, Mr John E. Smith acting as President. There

were many distinguished speakers present who made addresses. Our space

in this Quarterly will not permit of the extended report which we would

like to make, but on account of its literary excellence and historic value

we produce in full the oration of Professor Venable, the well known author

and litterateur.- E. O. R.]

The loyal American citizen, whenever and wherever he

may chance to hear the familiar words, "My Country, 'tis of

three," thinks first of the United States; but the next moment

his mind is thronged with thoughts of some particular state,

of whose rocks and rills and woods and templed hills, his

heart forever sings. Promptly his patriotism pays homage to

Old Glory and his gratitude spells Nation with large capitals;

then his state pride singles out the One from    the Many-in-

One. If he be an Ohio man, his imagination magnifies that

lesser Commonwealth, until it takes up the entire map of his

affections and the vast sky scarcely affords space for the big

O he would inscribe upon its scroll. But the mighty State

dwindles and fades when his returning footsteps eagerly bear

him toward his unrivaled County, which then appears the

only substantial portion of the globe's surface. Once within

the borders of that blessed shire, the anxious native makes

breathless haste to reach his own Township, to tread the soil

and breathe the air of the district in which he went to school,

to hasten through the hamlet so familiar to his boyish sports,

to run, to fly shortcut across the meadow and down the lane,

to rush in at the open door of the farm-house in which he

was born and to take by surprise the old folks at home!

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The Lebanon Centennial.            199

 

Obedient to a law of human attraction we assemble

here today in social and fraternal reunion. We are at home.

An irresistible influence of duty and love, such as draws the

members of a scattered household to the family mansion and

the maternal embrace, brings more than one stray child or

foster child back to the lap of Lebanon, in these last days of

September, 1902.

Lebanon! How pleasantly upon the ear falls the sound

of the melodious, oriental word. There must have been a

poetical strain in the sober-minded backwoodsmen who chris-

tened the town. The corporate seal which they ordered to be

engraved as emblem, shows in its center, the semblance of a

cedar, and we infer that whoever gave the place its name,

had in mind the Asian mountain province whence Solomon

and the Kings of Assyria hewed timber to build their temples

and royal palaces. Perhaps piety rather than poesy may have

prompted our forebears to fix Bible names upon the settle-

ments they founded as upon the sons they begot. The roster

of the worthies who sought the milk and honey of a new

Promised Land in Warren county, reads like the list of the

generations of the sons of Noah. I find in our early chroni-

cles, Ichabod, Ephraim, David, Matthias, Isaiah, Benjamin,

Samuel, Jacob, Israel, Joshua and Moses. Men who bore up

under the weight of such nomenclature, were of the strength

to lay the ax to the trees of the forest and to saw with saws

the rock from the white quarries of Lebanon. The word

Libanus, el Lebnan, means, to be white, like our limestone.

An eastern poet sang of the Syrian mount, "The winter

is upon its head, the spring upon its shoulders, the autumn

in its bosom, and at its feet slumbers the summer." Fortun-

ately for agriculture, the hills of this neighborhood are not so

high. Nature has here supplied all the conditions favorable

to tillage and the delights of pastoral life, and no one will

gainsay that modern Libanus, of Warren county, Ohio, is

always beautiful, whether robed in snow, or smiling from her

bower of April greenery, or aslumber in the glow of August.

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200      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

or gazing out upon the gathered sheaves of her happy harvest

fields.

Lebanon-urban yet rural, calm, conservative, dignified

borough-teeming with historic associations, rich in a her-

itage of culture and eloquence, celebrated for social charm

and amenity -we have assembled to commemorate her past

achievement, to rejoice in her present prosperity, to predict her

future success and affluence. To many of the men and women

here congregated, the occasion has a personal and sacred in-

terest. Lebanon is or was their home, the birthplace of their

children, the burial place of their ancestors. We have come

together to talk over the by-gone, to recount the annals of

the village--scene of our struggles, triumphs, defeats-thea-

tre of our loves and our sorrows - your town, my town, dear

old Lebanon.

The gentlemen who drafted the centenary program,

deemed it advisable "That there be but one, or at most, but

few formal addresses, either by home speakers or orators from

abroad" in the course of this celebration, and, as they have set

apart a half day to be devoted to informal talks and remin-

iscences, by local speakers and visiting guests," historical

details will not be expected in the general discourse to which

the present hour is appropriated. Only the briefest sketch

of the annals of the pioneers, will claim your attention.

Let no one imagine that the section of Hamilton county,

from which Warren was carved, May 1st, 1803, was then a

waste, howling wilderness or that the cabins found on the

site of Lebanon in 1802, were the first houses built within the

limits of the county. Though the town had its beginning in

the Northwest Territory and is older than the state of Ohio,

it was not located on terra incognita. The agricultural advan-

tages of the Miami country were lauded by the early explorers

who sounded the praise of the Kentucky Blue Grass region.

Ever since Benjamin Stites, n 1787, invested his fortune in a

farm of 30,000 acres, a portion of which took in the site of

Lebanon; ever since John Cleves Symmes came from New

Jersey, to spy out the rich domain which he afterwards pur-

chased, a tract of. 60,000 acres; ever since Daniel Boone, in

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The Lebanon Centennial.           201

 

1778, was led captive by the Indians from Kentucky to Old

Town, where Xenia now stands, and escaping tramped back

through Miami Woods, to the Ohio, and finally to Boonsboro;

ever since in 1752, now a century and a half ago, Christopher

Gist, having traveled on horseback through what he calls the

Mineami Valley, described the lands which he saw as the fair-

est and most fertile it was possible to conceive; nay, ever

since English trapper or French trader had ventured, in 1749,

to traffic with the Red folk on the Big Miami, exchanging

face paint, gaudy calico and gay trinkets, for beaver skins,

the tongue of rumor had reported to the ear of speculation,

the potential wealth treasured in the soil of Southern Ohio.

No wonder that the pioneer, armed with ax and rifle, and

carrying the surveyor's compass, anticipated the rapid spread

of migration over the farmers' paradise lying between the two

Miamis, and that, as soon as the smoke of Wayne's muskets

and the curling fragrance from the peace pipes, at Greenville,

had ascended from the woods to the sky, the block-house-

builders came, and, "chopping out the night, chopped in the

morn," raised cabins in the clearing, and, with mauls of knot-

ted oak, drove into the ground the palisades of Bedle's sta-

tion, Mounts' station, Deerfield, Franklin, and Waynesville.

In the period of seven years, from 1795 to 1802, the rough-

est of the rough work of preparing in the hunting ground of

the savage a secure place of abode for civilized man, was

largely accomplished. It was in that period that our fore-

fathers, the founders of Lebanon, felled the lofty trees - not

cypress and cedar, but walnut, oak, ash, hickory and poplar,

of the magnificent forest through which Turtle creek wound

its soitary way. The trees were cut down, their trunks be-

came timber, the brush was burned, gardens were planted.

In due course of progress, town lots were surveyed and plat-

ted on the lands of Ichabod Corwin, Silas Hurin, Ephrain

Hathaway and Samuel Manning, and lo, Lebanon was.

And so it came to pass that when the ancient mound

builders had vanished, and the Indian had sullenly departed,

the Saxon moved in and took possession. The new town was

organized, and all its activities, public and private, were con-

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202      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

ducted in accordance with the ideas and usages prevailing in

the best communities existing in the western settlements of

the time.

Many of the original settlers were of Southern stock, from

Virginia and Kentucky, others came from the Middle States;

not so many were from New England. For the most part,

they were an industrious, money-making, liberty-loving, king-

hating, devout and large-hearted people. The men were fond

of talking politics and dogmatic theology, being, as a rule,

unequivocal partisans and strict sectarians. Some were Fed-

eralists and others anti-Federal, according as they worshiped

Hamilton or Jefferson, but all were patriots and every voter

regarded his ballot as a syllable of God's own voice. Some

were Presbyterian, some Baptist, some Methodist, and how-

ever much they might wrangle over points of doctrine, or

split on the subject of psalmody, all agreed that the Bible is

true and that church membership is essential to good standing

in society as well as to the soul's salvation.

Approving the spirit and letter of the Ordinance of 1787,

which declares religion, morality and knowledge, necessary

to good government and the happiness of mankind, and that

therefore schools and the means of education shall forever be

encouraged, the inhabitants of Lebanon have always held

good teachers in high esteem. This is a suitable occasion on

which to recall the name and to honor the memory of that

apostle of culture and law, Francis Dunlevy, who, after hav-

ing assisted in establishing the first school in Cincinnati, was

induced to remove to Lebanon, where, within a hut of notched

logs and under a clapboard roof, he taught and trained ambi-

tious boys to become eminent men, and influenced aspiring

girls to develop the sweetest graces and perform the highest

duties belonging to the educated woman. Dunlevy was as a

voice of one crying in the wilderness and making straight the

path for the long line of devoted teachers who have continued

the work he began. Lebanon may justly pride herself on ac-

count of her Union School and her Normal University, her

bead-roll of illustrious educators and the record of scholars she

has sent forth to do service in many fields of intellectual labor.

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The Lebanon Centennial.                  203

 

Ohio boasts that her schools actually do fit men and women for

practical life. The truth is grandly expressed in the words of

the great American poet, Kinney, himself an Ohio man, nur-

tured in Warren county. In his noble Centennial Ode, read in

the State house at Columbus, in 1888, he sings exultantly the

glory of our common schools.

 

"A hundred years of Knowledge! We have mixt

More brains with Labor in the century

Than man had done since the decree was fixt

That Labor was his doom and dignity.

All honor to those far-foreworking men

Who, as they stooped their sickles in to fling,

Or took the wheat upon their cradles' swing,

Thought of the boy, the little citizen

There gathering sheaves, and planned the school for him,

Which should wind up the clockwork of his mind

To cunning moves of wheels and blades that skim

Across the fields and reap, and rake, and bind!

They planned the school--the woods were full of schools'?

Our learning has not soared, but it has spread;

Ohio's intellects are sharpened tools

To deal with daily fact and daily bread

The starry peaks of knowledge in thin air

Her culture has not climbed, but on the plain,

In whatsoever is to do or dare

With mind or matter, there behold her reign."

 

It is this mixing of brain with labor and with definite, in-

domitable purpose that has made Ohio men proverbially suc-

cessful. The thinking student, having, by the mastery of knowl-

edge, made a complete man of himself can do a man's duty in

any sphere, can make a living, can make money, can make ma-

chines, speeches, books, can find the road to Washington, can

lead armies, can materialize and mobilize Ohio ideas into deeds.

By virtue of this education which really educates, were de-

veloped the latent power of such statesmen as John McLean and

Governor Morrow;   such judges as Collett and Probasco and

Smith; such journalists as Mansfield and Scott; such orators as

Corwin and Ward; such an actor as Murdoch; such a poet as

Coates Kinney. These and many more other men of genius and

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204       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

great achievement, were, by birth or adoption, sons, not only

of the Buckeye State, but of Warren county, and their fame is

associated with the renown of Lebanon.

Some of my hearers may remember that, at the head of the

first page of a Warren county newspaper, there used to stand the

somewhat invidous couplet:

"The Western Star is issued forth,

From Lebanon, the seat of worth."

There may be those resident outside of the county capital

who would now take exception to the phrase "the seat of worth,"

and would amend the article so as to read a seat of worth. Per-

haps some one cherishes the secret conviction that Waynesville is

the true emporium of the county; another feels sure that Franklin

is the banner town - or Mason, or Morrow, or South Lebanon, or

Maineville, or Harveysburg. For my own part, I consider Ridge-

ville to be the one really great metropolis of the shire. But no one

can be found in any of the eleven townships, from Woodville to

Carlisle, from Mount Holly to Socialville, who will refuse to

grant that Lebanon holds the political primacy in our local repub-

lic. Lebanon is our Washington on the Potomac. Every voter

has a certain interest at stake and a certain responsibility in the

court house -possibly in the jail. He may have business with

the commissioners, the probate judge, the recorder, the auditor,

the treasurer. Therefore, and for other reasons, he is apt to jump

into his buggy, on Saturday, and drive over to Leb. to look after

his various business fences, criticise things in general and inquire

into the political situation. There is a necessary interdependence

between the people of the county seat and those who live in the

surrounding villages and upon the farms. In celebrating this

anniversary we celebrate not only the town of Lebanon but the

county of Warren. The occasion invites us all to exchange rem-

iniscences, and to contribute for the general pleasure such expe-

riences and observations as appertain to the locality. Life is

made up of little things and history is grateful for every authentic

fact, however trivial or fragmentary.

My own recollections of Warren county run back to the days

of my early boyhood. Many a time I came from my home, in

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The Lebanon Centennial.              205

 

Clearcreek township, to Lebanon, in a wagon or by stage coach,

many a time on foot. Often my father took me through Lebanon

with him as he drove to or from Shakertown, whither we went

in spring or autumn to buy young fruit trees. Starting from the

farm, our adventurous chariot, regardless of mud or dust, rolled

on, bearing us through renowned Utica or remoter Pekin, cities

I have read of in Olney's Geography, and which, before I had

seen them I half expected would burst on my view shining

 

"With gilded battlements conspicuous far,

Turrets and terraces and glittering spires!"

 

but which, alas for childish illusion, appeared, when seen, no

more magnificent than Merittsville or Minktown. Occasionally

my father's affairs required him to extend an excursion as far as

to the Green Tree, the Blue Ball, or even to the Red Lion, way-

side hostelries each identified by its painted sign, a tree intensely

green, a ball vividly blue, a lion redder than a cardinal's gown.

These pictured boards continued to flaunt and swing in the wind

long after the proprietors of the Indian Chief, the Golden Lamb

and the Bull's Head, in Lebanon had taken down their sign and

quit business. It was in the parlor of the Bull's Head that Eng

and Chang, the Siamese Twins, gave a reception once upon a

time. For all roads ran to Lebanon. Lucky the thorp, on the

grange which was close by the pike.

The country folks used to go to the "seat of worth" to pur-

chase dry goods and groceries from James K. Hurin, from Boake

and Hardy or from Noble and Lewis. We never missed a county

fair. I well remember one of those competitive shows, at which

I was elated as only a small boy can be, by receiving a cash pre-

mium of one silver dollar for the finest exhibit of dahlias.

At a period somewhat later, when I, like all Ohio boys, began

to take a zealous interest in the Spread Eagle, the Goddess of

Liberty, the Scales of Justice, and the like, I frequently found

my way to Lebanon, to witness some exciting trial in the court

room, or to attend a political mass meeting for the purpose of see-

ing and hearing some distinguished speaker - Ewing or Chase,

or Stanton, or Schenck, or Campbell or the incomparable Cor-

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206      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

win. I count among the most intense pleasures of my life that

of listening to Corwin address a crowd from a platform. No

other orator disputed his pre-eminence. He never needed to win

an audience; his auditors surrendered in advance, pressing

eagerly to the front, so as not to lose a word or a gesture. The

boys of all ages, understood and relished the utterances of him

they fondly called Tom.

His witticisms were repeated in parlor and kitchen, in every

hotel and barn, and in the school yard where lads, spinning tops

or wrangling over a game of marbles, mixed with their jargon

quips and epigrams from Corwin.

Lebanon was a power house charged with political electricity.

Every man was a dynamo. Hot wires conducted the current to

various stations in the county. Even the boys and girls were

rabid Whigs, Democrats or Freesoilers. Violent personal jour-

nalism was much in vogue in the eighteen-forties and fifties.

Every city and village boasted at least one bellicose editor.

I suppose there are many persons in Lebanon who remember

the veteran newspaper man, Wm. H. P. Denny, for many years

proprietor of the "Western Star," to which he gave the motto,

"Be just and fear not." Dear, amiable, portly, keen-eyed Wm.

H. P. Denny! I can fancy I see him in the printing office, his

shirt sleeves rolled up, his white, small hands a little inky, a

goose quill pen stuck over his ear, as he stands beside the press

ready to pull the lever! That goose quill dripped Whig vitu-

peration, that press stamped ignominy upon locofocoism. But the

man was as gentle as he was valiant. Denny was one of the first

who had a home on the Floraville side of the creek, in the aristo-

cratic quarter, though no man was more demoncratic, more social,

more hospitable than he. His house was that of a St. Julian, his

board instead of groaning, laughed under its festal load.

Lebanon! Lebanon before the wa -she was Athens and

Rome to my unsophisticated, bucolic fancy. The county capital,

that was a place worth going to see. There one might behold the

court house, with its tall, red spire; the prison with its barred

windows; the fine churches, the bank, the stylish stores, the big

hotel, and Tom Corwin's house with the brass knocker on the

door!

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The Lebanon Centennial.              207

 

You might have your daguerreotype taken in Lebanon, by

Mr. Vanneman, who had been a major in the Mexican war, and

whose sword and plumed helmet hung on the wall of his studio.

Or you might have your portrait painted by Marcus Mote, whose

name and diminutive size were in artistic correspondence with the

miniatures he delighted to make. If you wanted to read, you

could find a very respectable library at the Mechanic's Institute;

or you could obtain the latest literature of Ira Watts at his book

store, connected with the postoffice. We had lectures in Leb-

anon, and "revivals," and debates and concerts and theatricals,

and now and then an elocutionary entertainment by Robert Kidd.

Once in a while there came to town a meritorious panorama -

Frankenstein's Niagara, for instance, and a most interesting

canvas, illustrating Kane's Arctic Explorations.

The old Warren county canal began or ended in Lebanon.

I have a dim memory, a shadow picture, of a ruinous canal boat,

lying at rest on its stagnant waters. The reservoir, an artificial

lake, remained, a thing of beauty, long after the canal had been

abandoned. Delightful recollections of the old "Reser" linger

with me -recollections of swimming, skating, rowing; of duck-

shooting on "Goose Island," of moonlight strolls along the bor-

der of the still lagoon and of sentimental talk subdued by the roar

of the "tumbles" where the water overflowed down rocky steps.

It seems but yesterday when the South Western Normal

Schools was organized in the brick Acadamy, and I now solemnly

confess, after the lapse of more than forty years, that however

much the charm of prospective education attracted me to the

Seminary, I was even more enchanted by the bewitching and be-

wildering company of Lebanon girls who flocked to the assembly

hall. Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women" was indeed but a

dream in comparison with that "sober certainty of waking bliss."

No wonder that aspiring young fellows came racing from all

parts of the Buckeye state, smitten with a sudden passion for

learning, and that some of them were a long time in finishing

their elective courses in the "Normal."

Several events of local interest took place in Lebanon within

the period of five years, from 1855, when the Normal School

was started, to 1861, when the breaking out of the Civil War

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208      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

wrought so many changes. I witnessed the dedication of Wash-

ington Hall, in December, 1856, an occasion on which the young

people enjoyed themselves intensely, especially on the evening

of the Firemen's ball. They "danced all night, till broad daylight,

and went home with the girls in the morning."

The scenes of gaiety which signalized the opening of our

first public hall, were in strong contrast with the serious but

dramatic proceedings held on the same floor on the evening of

April 16, 1861, the day after Lincoln sent out his call for vol-

unteers, and four days after the bombardment of Sumter. I shall

never forget that meeting. It was a gathering of men some in the

flower of youth, others verging on four score, but the oldest felt

young and the youngest suddenly grown mature was eager to

prove his manhood by relinquishing all that youth values most

- ease, pleasure, home - to take upon him the soldier's burden,

to fight, and if need be, to die for the Union. Durbin Ward

made a brief terse speech, eloquent for its simplicity. He was the

first man in the congressional district, to enlist. A paper which he

had drawn up, pledged those who signed it to the service of their

country. This paper was passed from hand to hand, and many

names were written upon it. There was no noise, no shouting,

the still white heat of patriotism consumed all smoke of outward

demonstration. The meeting was solemn throughout, and at its

close, the audience dispersed as quietly as a congregation leaving

a church after listening to an impressive sermon.

Only a week elapsed from the date of the Washington Hall

summoning until the day of the departure from Lebanon of the

company of volunteers commanded by Captain Rigdon Williams.

Hundreds of citizens-- men, women and children--assembled

in front of the Lebanon House to bid the boys farewell. A sword

was presented to the captain and the banner to the company. A

parting benediction devoted the young soldiers to a sacred cause

and to the care of God, and they marched away.

There may be, today, in the village, possibly in this hall,

some one who, then a youth, stood in the ranks of that company,

on that spring morning, twice twenty years ago. Now, per-

chance, a scarred veteran, he wears upon his lapel a tiny, unos-

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The Lebanon Centennial.              209

 

tentations button the badge of the G. A. R. We take off our

hats to him.

Let us no longer dwell upon reminiscences of

 

"Old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago,"

 

nor cling over fondly to memories however pleasing, of what

has been or might have been. Too much retrospection clouds

the prophetic eye, and checks the ardor of resolve. Leave it to

old men to dream dreams of past struggle and victory; the young

shall see visions of coming enterprise and glorious achievement.

"The world belongs to them who come the last." The volume

of the century is closed. What shall be written in the book of the

next hundred years? What shall be attempted, what accom-

plished, by those who are to continue the work thus far carried

on? We march to the music of the future. What is Lebanon

to become? The question appeals not to one village only, but

to all the cities and towns of the state and Nation. Ohio alone

has at least seventy municipalities of more than five thousand

inhabitants each, and eight hundred smaller towns. Progress is

relative. Some places have advanced, others have stood still,

others have fallen behind. So it has been, so it shall be. Which

shall decline and die? Which flourish and increase?

Our Saxon ancestors worshiped the god Wish, who, they

believed, could give them all they longed for. Whatsoever the

people of this or that particular place really and earnestly desire,

that they may possess, provided they all will and work with the

wish. Solon, when asked if he had devised the best possible

laws for a certain Greek city, replied: "Yes; the best laws they

are prepared to receive; the best they can appreciate and en-

force." The wise Solon saw that so long as the citizens remain

inert, apathetic, the law giver cannot much help them. There is a

noble discontent which sometimes stirs a community to great ac-

tion. Some persons are fatally satisfied with things as they are.

They say, "Let us alone! Don't bother us with agitating

thoughts! A little more sleep and a little more slumber, and a

little more closing of the eyes in sleep !" These good, inoffensive

14-Vol. XI.

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210       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

drowsing citizens had best rouse up, or some automobile may

run over them. They should heed the pithy slang of the stren-

uous time, and "get a move on them." First, the desire, then

the resolution, then the action. Though the will be the father

to the deed, the will is not the deed. Hercules attended to the

prayer of the Roman warrior, who begged for sword in hand, and

fought while he implored the divine aid.

When Socrates was pleading with the Athenians for his life,

he said: "I would have you know that if you kill such a one

as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me who,

if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of

gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state is like a great

and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very

size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which

God has given the state, and all day long and in all places I am

always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and re-

proaching you !"

Socrates was one of those conscientious citizens who tried

to convince and persuade his fellow townsmen; he strove to make

them see and understand what would be best for the public

in the long run, and to act accordingly. Always and everywhere

there will be more or less need for such gadflies. Sometimes

they are regarded as a nuisance, as was Socrates. They may

come in the disagreeable guise of the kicker and the crank. But

they come also as philosophers and seers, though not always

recognized as such by the world.

The subject of municipal government for the cities and vil-

lages of Ohio has been thoroughly discussed during the last

three months. The Nash code has given rise to endless debate.

We have heard and read much about boards, charters, home rule,

the federal plan, the merit system, and the related powers of the

legislative, the judicial and the executive department. Laws and

ordinances are not self-operative; they are only convenient instru-

ments which human intelligence may apply in the management

of public affairs. There is perennial truth in Pope's maxim,

"Whate'er is best administered, is best." Wise men will conceive

wise measures; good men will give good service. Call the wisest

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The Lebanon Centennial.               211

 

and best to take charge of those responsible offices on which the

common welfare depends. Every councilman and every execu-

tive ought to be "spotless and fearless" - his reputation not only

above reproach but above suspicion. Does this sound trite? sen-

timental? visionary? The voter's duty - if there be such thing

as duty, such function as independent balloting--was and is

and shall be to select and elect none other than high class men

-letter A, number 1 citizens for members of council, for mayor,

clerk, treasurer, marshal, street commissioners, solicitor and

trustees of public affairs. Select them, elect them, then encour-

age, support, honor and audit them with eternal vigilance.

Municipal perfection is unattainable, but prudent and persist-

ent effort may create a village approximately ideal. We conceive

of such a village, so located, so situated, platted, graded, drained,

lighted, shaded, as to meet every requirement of modern sanitary

science. Every street, lot and building within the corporate lim-

its will be so clean that no pestilential microbe can find induce-

ment to move into town. Not a neglected vault, malarial pool

or foul alley, breeding possible infection, will be found on public

or on private property. Plants for the disposal of sewage and

garbage will not be lacking; perhaps public opinion will demand

the erection of a crematory, and certainly a hospital will segre-

gate the victims of contagion and provide for all who may suffer

from bodily accident or disease.

The model town will be healthful, but not only that--it

will be convenient and in every way conducive to comfort.

Houses will be so built and so furnished and provided as to afford

body and spirit the true delights of home. The smoke nuisance

will be abated. There will be appliances by which rooms are

cooled in summer and warmed in winter.

The trustees of public affairs will see to it that the latest

and best inventions for saving the people's money, time and en-

ergy will be adopted. They will economize by providing, with

business sagacity, the most approved system for supplying what

the village demands and is willing to pay for.

The water works will work; the sprinkling carts will sprin-

kle; and the fire engines will put out the fire. The street cars will

run according to promise on the schedule and there will be no

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212       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

abandoned rusty tracks and forlorn wires deluding the stranger

into the fallacy that where there is a line there must be a trolly.

The wheels will spin along the avenues of our village and the

electric lamps will shine like fixed stars not like fitful lightning

bugs.

Every village which expects to live and grow must foster

industries of some description; must produce something which

the world wants, whether from farm, factory, studio or school.

A town can not prosper without the assistance of wide-

awake business men. Not only the commercial traveler, but the

uncommercial traveler, hates to strike a sluggish town in which

there is no activity of trade. Look in at the stores, the banks,

and see whether the town is prosperous. Stop at the hotel and

ask of the drummer what he thinks; he knows better than any

one else that such and such a place is forging forward, or at a

standstill, or going backward.

Rapid transit-ready and cheap transportation-are im-

peratively demanded by the necessities of the age. When trains

fly from New York to Chicago in sixteen hours, nobody will

choose to spend half a day in getting from his farm to the county-

seat. The inhabitants of our well regulated, industrious, enter-

prising village - with its up-to-date methods of trade and travel,

will not be satisfied with only the utilities; they will recognize a

virtue in pleasure and will so provide, especially for the benefit

of the young that no one need go away from home to seek recre-

ation and amusement. The old acetic idea is exploded--

the idea that all gaiety and sport should be relegated to Satan and

his crew. The voice of religion and morality, in these modern

days, advocates joyful living as a means of reforming evil. The

argument is that since people will try to enjoy themselves, in one

mode or another, in a bad way and a bad place, if no better

are provided, the philanthropist should endeavor to make the

innocent pleasures more attractive than the vicious and guilty

ones.

The men, women and children of the town and vicinage we

are picturing, will take pride in calling attention to their gym-

nasium, ball grounds, tennis courts and golf links, as well as to

their libraries, lecture halls, schools and churches. They will be

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The Lebanon Centennial.            213

 

aware that the world is astir with genial pursuits, and that emula-

tion "pongs" to the "ping" of example. If the young folks of

Tipville can have a nice country club, why can not the young

folks of Toptown? If the band plays every Saturday for the

people in Ashburg Park, why may there not be concerts in the

public square at Oakbury? These will not interfere with the

Chautauqua Summer School, nor with the services of the Salva-

tion Army. Many varied notes harmonize to make life "one

grand, sweet song."

People of refinement receive much pleasure and much pain

through the sense of sight. They delight in the beautiful and

abhor the ugly. The municipal improvement league of the town

we are talking about will make war on whatever is hidious or

revolting to good taste. Disfiguring bill boards will be hacked

down. Ramshackle buildings and fences will not be tolerated.

The man who suffers his property to deteriorate, his gutters to

clog with slime, his yard to be overgrown with weeds or littered

with rubbish, is to be frowned upon and regarded as obnoxious

to censure. The village, instead of presenting to the eye any-

thing unsightly, will delight the beholder by its variety of grace-

ful forms and enchanting colors. Every street will afford a lovely

vista. There will be charming driveways and walks, fair lawns

and flowering gardens, choice shade trees and clambering vines.

A pervading sentiment will encourage architects to follow their

best lights and never compel them to outrage the principles of

art. Piety will shrink from dedicating to God a sanctuary such

as Lowell calls a "contract sham, with vaulted roofs of plaster

painted like an Indian squaw." The holiness of beauty shall be

regarded as in complete harmony with the beauty of holiness.

Behold the not impossible village of the future, the consum-

mation of the hope of the social economist and the dream of the

reformer. The lot of those who are shaping the destiny of the

town we celebrate is cast in pleasant places. Years ago, a dis-

criminating traveler from England, the distinguished Canon Far-

rar, declared that in no other part of the world had he observed

conditions better suited to promote human happiness than those

prevailing in many of the towns in the state of Ohio. Not in the

vast and crowded cities, not in the remote and inaccessible ham-

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214       Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.   lets did this foreign sojourner find civilization at its best, but in the smaller cities and larger villages of our own Buckeye com- monwealth. Assuming that his judgment was correct, we surely have cause for self-congratulation, and we may well thank Di- vine Providence that the lines are fallen unto us in a region so favored. A prophet of old rejoiced, even with joy and singing, in the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, and in the glory of Lebanon. The fertile plain of Sharon now lies waste. Carmel is a desolate ruin. Yet thriving villages still smile amid gardens of the date and the olive on Mount Lebanon, where patient husbandry has sustained organized communities, for at least three thousand years. If such survivals are possible in Asia, under the oppres- sion of every species of Oriental misrule, what may not we hope for our young, free-born, untrammeled town, alive with fresh blood from the very heart of the New World ? We predict for our Lebanon a destiny desirable and glorious beyond the augury of dream of any ancient seer or modern bard of Eastern lands. We rejoice, but not with the selfish, vain glory of jealous provincialism. We are proud of Ohio; Ohio is a flourishing branch on the tree America. We love Lebanon; Lebanon is a fair blossom on the vigorous bough. The rich sap of modern civilization, derived from all ages and all countries, feeds the roots of the tree. Here and now, in this village of happy memories and glad omens, we renew our faith in self-government, in human progress, in the essential rightness of the spirit of the age, in the ultimate of the true, the good and the beautiful.

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