OHIO HISTORY CONFERENCE:
PROCEEDINGS 137
of the Ohio State University, was
attended by over fifty persons,
representing the various organizations
cooperating in the Ohio
History Conference. H. C. Shetrone,
director of the Society,
presided, introducing Mrs. Janet Wethy
Foley of Akron, New
York, who gave an address on "An
Adventure in Genealogy,"
in which she related her own and her
husband's experiences in
adopting genealogy as their profession.
General Session, 8:00 P. M., April 7,
University Hall, O. S. U.,
Arthur C. Johnson, Sr., Presiding
The general session of the Ohio History
Conference, held
Friday evening, April 7, in University
Hall, Ohio State Uni-
versity, consisted of an address on
"Tales of the Presidents, or
Gossip of History," delivered by
the editor of the Toledo Blade,
Grove Patterson, enthusiastically
introduced to an audience of
approximately two hundred persons by
Arthur C. Johnson, Sr.,
president of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society.
Patterson warned his audience that what
he had to say would
not be of great importance, that he
would deal largely with
trivialities, but, he hoped,
trivialities which would prove as in-
teresting to his hearers as they had to
him.
After sketching briefly the rise and
growth of political parties
in the United States, he turned to a
survey of American Presi-
dents from George Washington to Theodore
Roosevelt. An ac-
complished raconteur, he had evidently
selected his material with
care, for the anecdotes which he related
were all illustrative of
the thought which served as theme to his
address: "The big
doors of history swing on little
hinges." This they did, he as-
serted, at the time of Lincoln's
election, caused in part at least
by these three apparently unrelated
things: Stephen Douglas's
dislike of the climate of Cleveland;
Lincoln's fatherly concern
over his son's poor academic record at
Harvard; and Horace
Greeley's hatred of William H. Seward.
Patterson dwelt at some length on the
career of Grant, whom
he considers the most interesting of all
the Republican Presidents,