USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
The political campaign of 1899 was marked by a strong non-parti- san movement for better municipal government. Samuel M. Jones, of Toledo, who had twice been elected mayor of Toledo on the plat- form of "the golden rule," announced himself as a candidate for gov- ernor without nomination by any party. His principles of public policy, in general terms were: abolition of political parties, public ownership of all public utilities (railroads, waterworks and lighting
1-27
418
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
plants ) ; union wages, hours and conditions, and an eight-hour day for unskilled labor; abolition of the contract system in publie works, and publie provision of work for the unemployed. He received the greatest vote ever given a third party candidate in Ohio, 106,721, and about sixteen thousand votes were cast for the candidates of the Union Reform, Social Labor, and Prohibition candidates, Seth W. Ellis, Robert Bandlow and George M. Hemmell. The Republican candidate, George K. Nash, was elected by a minority vote, 417,000 out of 900,000, but led the Democratic candidate, John R. MeLean, by 49,000.
George Kilbon Nash, inaugurated as governor in January, 1900, and re-elected in 1901, was born in Medina county in 1842, and edu- cated at Western Reserve and Oberlin colleges. While a student of law and a beginner in the profession he taught school, edited the Ohio State Journal for a time and held a clerkship in the capitol. After- ward he practiced law at Columbus and was for two years a member of the supreme court. He had long been active in state politics as chairman of the Franklin county and State Republican committees, and in this respect occupied a position of leadership among the men of the State. In 1901 he was re-elected by a majority of 67,567 over the nominee of the Democratic party, Col. James Kilbourne, a line and staff officer in 1861-65, and afterward a prominent manufacturer and financier of Columbus. He is a grandson of the pioneer, James Kilbourne, founder of the town of Worthington.
The census of 1900 showed a population of 4,157,545, an increase in ten years of 485,229. As the land area of the State is 40,760 square miles, this population is 102 to the square mile. Of the pop- ulation about 99,000 are negroes or of negro blood, and eleven per cent are foreign born. The males are in excess of females, to the extent of one per cent of the whole number, Ohio in this respect occu- pying a position midway between the eastern states, where the females are largely in excess, and the West, where the opposite is true.
Cleveland, by a wonderful increase of nearly fifty per cent in ten years, reached a population of 382,000 in 1900, while Cincinnati had grown from 297,000 to 326,000. A comparison of populations of other cities in 1870 and 1900, covering the period between the Rebel- lion and the Spanish war, will be instructive as well as interesting. Toledo, a town of 31,000 in 1870, gained in thirty years 100,000 by reason of the great development of lake commerce and the diseor- ery of oil and gas in northwest Ohio; Columbus increased almost exactly the same, becoming a great railroad and manufacturing een- ter: Dayton, a city of 30,000 in 1870, grew to $5,000 in 1900, and four little cities of 1870 equalled the larger ones in percentage of increase, Youngstown growing from 8,000 to 45,000; Akron from 10,000 to 43,000: Springfield from 12,000 to 38,000, and Canton
419
THE RECENT PERIOD.
from 8,000 to 30,000. These nine cities of over 25,000 inhabitants each, have a total population of nearly a million, and there are more than fifty towns of over 5,000 population and less than 25,000, that raise the aggregate city population to forty per cent of all the people in the State. Hamilton and Zanesville are cities of 24,000; Lima and Sandusky are over 20,000; Portsmouth, Mansfield, Findlay, Newark, East Liverpool and Lorain are over 15,000; and Steuben- ville, Marietta, Chillicothe, Ashtabula, Piqua, Massillon, Ironton, Marion, Tiffin and Bellaire are over 10,000.
The assessed value of the real estate of Ohio is 1,285 million dol- lars, four-fold the valuation of fifty years before. The farms of Ohio are yielding a hundred million bushels of corn annually, and forty million bushels of wheat. The coal product is 16,500,000 tons annu- ally.
The oil production of the State rose from a million barrels in 1586 to seventeen millions in 1891, but since then has not been so great, but the price has increased. The State vielded in 1900 about 33 per cent of the oil production of the United States. The flow of the Mecca-Belden district was, in round numbers, 11,000 barrels; in eastern and southern Ohio 5,500,000, and in the Lima field 16,000,000 barrels. The average price per barrel was in the first named district over $5.00 ; in the second $1.35, and in the third a lit- tle less than one dollar. The dark and sulphurous oil of the Lima district, at first thought to be unavailable for the making of good kerosene, has yielded to improved methods a better illuminating oil than that from the sandstones of the Apalachian regions, and as early as 1893 it furnished most of the illuminating oil of the United States.
The total product of Ohio oil up to 1576 was estimated at 200,000 barrels. Since then two hundred and forty million barrels have been taken from the Ohio fields, the greatest annual production being one- tenth of that total in 1596. Since 1894 Ohio has produced more than any other state. The total produet of the State from 1576, it is estimated, would fill a row of 30,000-barrel tanks, that, set as closely as possible, would extend for one hundred and forty miles. The petroleum refineries of Ohio, mainly at Lima. Cleveland and Toledo, distill four million barrels of oil annually, for the mannfac- ture of illuminating oil, gasoline, naphtha, lubricants and parathin, of the total value of $8,000,000.
The railroad systems of the State have increased to about ten thou- sand miles of main line and four thousand miles of side tracks. Street railways have been extended to 1,560 miles of cleetrie roads and nineteen of eable, and there were in the year 1900 sixty-right electrie railroads between eities, the beginning of a new era of trans- portation.
The total tonnage of sailing vessels, steamboa's and water craft of
420
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
all kinds owned in Ohio in 1900 was estimated at 461,286, the great- est of any state in the Union except New York. The tonnage of steam vessels built at Cleveland in 1900 was 42,119, one-fourth of the total of steamship building in the United States that year. The ton- nage of the shipping of the Cuyahoga district in 1900 was 376,330, of the Sandusky district 49,000, of the Maumee district 19,000, the total closely approaching one-third of the aggregate tonnage of the shipping on the Great Lakes.
It is in manufacturing that the figures of the census of Ohio for the year 1900 are most impressive. The total value of the product of manufactories in 1850 was sixty-three millions. In 1900 it is eight hundred and thirty-two millions. The total wages paid in- creased in the same time from less than $14,000,000 to $154,000,000. The maximum number of wage earners at work in 1900 was 450,000. The main item in the great total of manufactures was steel and iron products, which had more than doubled and now had the enormous total valuation of $139,000,000. Foundry and machine shop products stood next with a total of $72,000,000, an increase of three-fourths. The total value of the flour and grist mill and grain food products, is $44,000,000. The value of the annual product of lumber and timber and milling of that sort is over thirty millions, and the value of the product of liquors is almost exactly the same. Carriages and wagons and parts of vehicles are manufactured to the amount of $23,000,000 annually: clothing for men and women, $24,000,000, and boots and shoes, $18,000,000, the latter item being double what it was in 1890. The meat packing business shows a gain of twenty per cent, and a total prodnet of twenty million dollars in valne, half at Cincinnati, and three-fourths of the rest at Cleveland. Twenty millions a year also represents the product of each of the industries of printing and publishing and the manufacture of tobacco. The production of pottery. terra cotta and fire elay products, has doubled in ten years and has a total value of twelve millions. Among the industries that do not show sneh large products the most rapid increase is shown in the mann- facture of electrical apparatus, which has increased ten fold in ten years and now has a total of nearly seven million dollars. The pro- duction of soap and candles, mostly subsidiary to the meat industry at Cincinnati, is worth eight millions a year. The grinding and roasting of coffee and spices, largely at Toledo, though not increas- ing, has a total product of $6,000,000.
Other considerable items in the total of Ohio's manufactures are agricultural implements, $14.000,000; railroad car shop products, $13.000,000; furniture, $4,500,000; glass, $4,500,000; paper and wood pulp, $6,500,000; rubber goods. $7,000,000, a five fold increase: leather, $5,000,000, and tin plate, a manufacture that grew from nothing in ten years to an annual product of $6,000,000.
421
THE RECENT PERIOD.
The manufacture of iron and steel is mainly at Youngstown (the leading city of the State in that industry), Cleveland, Lorain, Bel- laire, Mingo Junction, Niles, Steubenville and Canal Dover, which together produce about two-thirds of the total of the State. Colum- bus and Ironton are other important centers.
The production of pig iron in Ohio in 1900 was about two and half million tons, second only to the product of Pennsylvania, and more than the entire product of the United States in 1875.
In 1900 there were forty-three blast furnaces and sixty-four roll- ing mills, in Ohio, the first producing a value of forty millions, and the second of nearly a hundred millions. So great is the develop- ment of this industry that the mines of the State do not produce much more than one per cent of the iron ore used, and the main dependence for coke is upon Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Since 1870 Ohio has occupied second place among the states in the produc- tion of iron and steel. She leads all the states in the manufacture of metal working machinery. She is third in flour and other grain products. Toledo, where the first grain ware house was built in 1817, is sixth among the primary markets of America in grain receipts and fourth in corn receipts.
In regard to liquor production it is of interest to note that the product of malt liquors in Ohio is thirty-seven times what it was in 1850, while the product of distilleries is only four times as great. In grape growing and wine bottling Ohio is third among the states, almost entirely on account of the industry on Kelly's and Put-in-Bay islands, where there are six thousand acres of vineyards. In the field of carriage and wagon manufacture Ohio is first. In agricul- tural implements the great centers are Springfield, Dayton, Canton and Akron. Car construction is centered at Columbus, Cleveland, Dennison and Toledo. Most of the rubber goods are produced at. Akron, which is one of the most important seats of this industry in America. One of the largest plants in the world for the manufac- ture of carbon points for electric lights is at Cleveland. Dayton pro- duees annually about $5,000,000 worth of cash registers, and is one of the chief centers of the manufacture. Glass is manufactured mainly in Belmont, Lueas and Licking counties.
One of the most interesting manufacturing cities of America is East Liverpool, where the making of yellow ware from Ohio clays was carried on from an early day. In 1872 the making of white ware was begun, and the industry has wonderfully developed in the last ten or twelve years, until four thousand wage earners are employed, and the annual product of white granite ware and semi- vitreous porcelain is nearly $3,000,000 worth a year, or nearly half the product of the entire United States. The art tiling of Zanesville and the art pottery of Cincinnati are also famous, as well as the sewer
422
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
pipe of Akron and other places, and pressed brick, the manufacture of which was begun at Zanesville in 1861, and the paving briek that has made a great change in street improvements.
The greater manufacturing eities of the State may be grouped in classes according to the annual value of products, which is given here in round numbers. First are Cincinnati, with $158,000,000, and Cleveland, $140,000,000. In the next class are Columbus, $40,000,000; Toledo, $37,000,000; Dayton, $36,000,000; Youngs- town, $35,000,000; Akron, $24,000,000. In the next, Springfield, Canton and Hamilton, ranging from $12,000,000 to $13,000,000. Other cities having a manufactured product exceeding $5,000,000 in value are Lorain, $9,500,000; Zanesville and Mingo Junetion, each about $7,500,000 ; Mansfield, $7,000,000; Lima and Middleton, each over $6,500,000; with a product between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000, Piqua, Niles, Ironton, and East Liverpool. Bridgeport's product is nearly $5,000,000.
The annual cost of the government of this great State is nearly eight million dollars, including payments upon the old debt, which is now practically wiped out. Two millions of this great expenditure are for the support of common schools, and a third of a million for universities. Three and a quarter millions are used in the main- tenance of the State institutions, the list of which is imposing. There are the penitentiary, a state reformatory, and two industrial schools for the erring; six asylums for the insane, an asylum for epilepties, a state hospital, and four separate institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, and feeble-minded. An admirable home for soldiers and sailors is maintained at Sandusky, and a home for the orphans of sol- diers and sailors at Xenia. Certainly no State has surpassed Ohio in the munificence of her provision for those who have earned the gratitude or demand the charity of the people.
In thus recording the material progress of the State the work that has been done in the fields of literature, science and art should not be neglected. Some names have already been mentioned to exemplify the achievements of Ohio people in these directions. Many others might be given. But, as examples, attention may be called to the honors won by William Dean Howells, born at Martin's Ferry in 1837, son of a country editor : whose fame began after his return from the con- sulate at Venice in 1865, and grew until he is recognized as the fore- most American writer in that field that tells the truth in the form of fiction : William Milligan Sloane, born in Jefferson county in 1850, since 1596 a professor of history at Columbia university and noted as an author: John Q. A. Ward, son of the first settler of Urbana, born in 1550, who has had a studio in New York since 1861, and has pro- duced some of the most admirable sculptures in the United States ;
423
THE RECENT PERIOD.
Kenyon Cox, son of Gen. J. D. Cox, born at Warren in 1856, and one of the foremost American painters.
The presidential campaign of the year 1900 was in a general way a repetition of the struggle of 1896, with the same principal candi- dates for president. Seth II. Ellis being nominated for president by the Union Labor party, Ohio had two candidates in the field, but Mr. Ellis received less than 5,000 votes in the State. Cincinnati had one national convention, that of the "Middle-of-the-Road Popu- lists," while the great development of the United States since 1856, when such national bodies first met in Ohio, was shown by the fact that one convention assembled as far west as Kansas City, and another in South Dakota. In the Democratic convention at Kansas City the Ohio delegates voted for A. W. Patrick as a candidate for vice president. The result of the November balloting in Ohio was that Mr. Mckinley received 543,918 votes, Mr. Bryan 474,882, and the minor candidates 22,000 in all. McKinley's vote in the electoral college was nearly two to one, and his plurality of the popular vote approached one million.
President McKinley's administration was signalized by a general return of prosperity, which, after the impetus given by the short and successful war with Spain, reached a height hitherto unknown in the history of America. The volume of currency per capita in 1900 was greater than ever before, and all forms of the currency were of uniform value, "as good as gold." The exports to foreign countries increased to marvelous figures, and the United States became for the first time in history a lending as well as a borrowing nation in the finances of the world. The fleets and armies of the United States were seen all round the world, spreading the fame of the country as one of the great powers of the earth, and the invasion of older coun- tries by American capital, organizing genius and manufactures, was no less impressive. In all this Ohio had an honorable and promi- nent part.
In 1900, President MeKinley put at the head of the commission to establish civil government in the Philippine islands, the most west- ern of the acquisitions of the United States, Judge William H. Taft," of Cincinnati, and he was made governor of the islands, which have an area much more than twice as large as Ohio and a population three millions greater. Judge Taft was not in sympathy, so far as he had given the subject attention, with the policy of holding
* Governor Taft is a comparatively young man, born at Cincinnati in 1857. son of Judge Alphonso Taft. one of the notable lawyers and public men of Ohio for fifty years from 1840. After studying at Yale college and the Cin- cinnati law school he became a lawyer at Cincinnati, and before going to the Philippines enjoyed various honors in his profession, including the positions of judge of the superior court, solicitor-general of the United States, 1890-92, and United States circuit judge, 1892-1900.
424
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
this region under the dominion of the United States, but after an interview with President MeKinley he yielded entirely to the influ- ence of that persuasive leader of men, left his home and devoted his life to the task of giving good government and a worthy place in the affairs of the world to that long oppressed and largely savage region. In this work he is one of the prominent figures of the world, and suc- cess will make him one of the greatest of the great sons of Ohio.
After his re-election, sustained by the admiration and affection of a united nation, President MeKinley could look forward to four years of peace, umdisturbed except by the rapidly diminishing trou- bles in the islands of the sea, and he certainly hoped to see the pros- perity of his country made permanent by a commanding place in the commerce of the world; peace and prosperity established in all regions under the control of America, and a great canal begun that should unite the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Early in the year 1901, the first of a new century, in a speech at Memphis, he said: "Our past has gone into history. No brighter one adorns the annals of mankind. Our task is for the future. We will wisely and conscientiously pursue a policy of right and justice in all things, making the future, under God, even more glorious than the past."
In the same spirit he made a speech at the Buffalo Pan-American exposition, September 5, 1901, that appeared to embody the ripe fruit of his thoughtful participation in the affairs of the republic for a quarter of a century. But while this utterance was evoking the applause of the whole nation, the startling news was spread by the telegraph that he had been shot down, while shaking hands with the people, by one of that irreconcilable class of humanity known as anarchists. The efforts made to save his life, and his brave endur- ance of pain, were attended with intense sympathy by the people through the following days, but the hope of his recovery, for a time entertained, was disappointed, and with a nation in tears, he passed away in the early morning of September 14th. His funeral services at Buffalo and Washington and Canton were the subject of the mournful interest of all civilized nations, and the day that his body lay in state at Washington was observed by the United States as a day of mourning and praver.
On February 27, 1902, Secretary Hay delivered before Congress an oration upon the life and public services of President MeKinley from which a few sentences may profitably be quoted in honor of one of the men who have most honored Ohio :
"For the third time the Congress of the United States are assem- bled to commemorate the life and the death of a president slain by the hand of an assassin. The attention of the future historian will be attracted to the features which reappear with startling sameness in all three of these awful erimes : the uselessness, the utter lack of con- sequence of the aet ; the obscurity, the insignificance, of the criminal ;
425
THE RECENT PERIOD.
the blamelessness-so far as in the sphere of our existence the best of men may be held blameless-of the victim.
"The man who fills a great station in a period of change, who leads his country successfully through a time of crisis ; who, by his power of persnading and controlling others, has been able to command the best thoughts of his age, so as to leave his country in a moral or material condition in advance of where he found it-such a man's position in history is secure. If, in addition to this, his written or spoken words possess the subtle quality which carry them far and lodge them in men's hearts ; and, more than all, if his utterances and actions, while informed with a lofty morality, are yet tinged with the glow of human sympathy, the fame of such a man will shine like a beacon through the mists of ages-an object of reverence, of imita- 'tion and love.
"It should be to us an occasion of solemn pride that in the three great crises of our history such a man was not denied ns. The moral value to a nation of a renown such as Washington's, and Lincoln's, and MeKinley's, is beyond all computation. No loftier ideal can be held up to the emulation of ingennous youth. With such examples we cannot be wholly ignoble. Grateful as we may be for what they did, let us still be more grateful for what they were. While our daily being, our public policies, still feel the influence of their work, let ns pray that in our spirits their lives may be voluble, calling us upward and onward."
2990
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.