Ohio History Journal

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RAILROAD DISCUSSION NOT FORBIDDEN

RAILROAD DISCUSSION NOT FORBIDDEN

BY LANCASTER SCHOOL BOARD

 

FACTS AND FICTION RELATING TO A WELL WORN STORY.

 

On September 13, 1927, appeared a news article of

considerable length in the Lancaster Daily Eagle, rela-

tive to the story that is semi-occasionally the subject of

inquiries addressed to the Ohio State Archaeological and

Historical Society. We are under obligation to Judge

Van A. Snider, of Lancaster, Ohio, for the clipping

from which we quote liberally.

The news story opens as follows:

For a half a century or more there has appeared in the

public prints a paragraph which somewhat reflects upon the intel-

ligence of the citizens of Lancaster and which has been clipped

out by former residents of Fairfield County and sent to the

Eagle. They came from the far and near, from the golden

shores of the Pacific States, from the middle west and from all

the states bordering on the broad Atlantic.

We have printed it, oh, a score of times and denied its

authenticity, but still it is printed and the latest to take it up

was the Liberty Magazine, whose editor comments upon it edi-

torially. It has to do with the use of a schoolroom for a public

debate as to whether or not railroads were practical. The reso-

lution that was supposed to have been passed by the Lancaster

School Board reads as follows:

You are welcome to use the schoolroom to debate all proper questions

in, but such things as railroads and telegraphs are impossibilities and rank

infidelity. There is nothing in the Word of God about them. If God had

designed that His intelligent creatures should travel at the frightful rate

of fifteen miles an hour by steam He would have foretold it through His

holy prophets. It is a device of Satan to lead immortal souls down to hell.

The best explanation to the above was written some years

ago by Will Scott, a former Lancasterian and a son of Dr.

Hervey Scott, who many years ago wrote a history of Lancaster

and Fairfield County.

At this point the story, as published in Dr. Scott's

history, in 1877, is here reproduced in full as follows:

(148)