USA > Ohio > Ross County > Chillicothe > Ohio centennial anniversary celebration at Chillicothe, May 20-21, 1903 : under the auspices of the Ohio State Archaelogical and Historical Society : complete proceedings > Part 46
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That every person who, after having been convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned in any workhouse for an offense committed heretofore or hereafter in this state in violation of an ordinance of a municipality or a law of this state, shall be convicted of a second misdemeanor, whether committed in violation of an ordinance of a municipality or a law of this state, punishable by imprisonment in any workhouse within this state, shall for such second offense be punished by imprisonment for not less than double the penalty imposed upon the first offense; and in case of two previous convictions for such misdemeanors, the penalty for a third misdemeanor shall not be less than double the penalty imposed for the last of such previous misdemeanors.
But no greater punishment shall be inflicted for the second or third misdemeanor than the maximum penalty provided for by law or ordinance for that particular offense committed. Every person who, after being three times convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned in any workhouse or workhouses for offenses committed heretofore or hereafter in this state, whether in violation of law or ordinance, shall be convicted of a fourth misdemeanor, whether committed in violation of an ordinance of a municipality or a law of this state, punishable by imprisonment in any workhouse in this state, shall upon conviction for such offense be held and deemed an habitual offender, and shall be imprisoned in a workhouse for a period of not less than one year nor more than three years.
This law has not been in force long enough to furnish statistical results, but so far as tested it has fulfilled expecta- tions, and is certainly a vast improvement on previous conditions ..
COUNTY JAILS.
In each of the eighty-eight counties in Ohio there is a county jail which is near to or adjoining the county court-house,
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in which prisoners awaiting trial are confined. After sentence prisoners committed for felony are transferred to the state pen- itentiary or to the state reformatory, and misdemeanants to a workhouse, although to a limited extent in counties where there are no workhouses misdemeanants for less than thirty days' sen- tence are detained.
Ohio jails, like all other American jails, are a survival of the English jail system of a century ago, but unfortunately they have not kept pace with the improvements in English jails, and the old vicious system which allows the promiscuous associa- tion of prisoners still remains in many counties, and contamina- tion, rather than reformation, is the result.
This evil was early recognized, and the Board of State Charities in 1867, in its first report to the General Assembly, pre- sented it very fully and recommended radical changes based upon the separation and classification of prisoners.
In its next report (1868) the board presented a carefully prepared plan of the jail construction by which classification could be secured, and also cellular separation in each floor could be maintained.
This plan has since been known as the "Ohio Plan" or "Central Corridor" jail, and has been adopted to some extent in other states.
In Ohio nearly all new jails have been constructed upon this plan, and fully one-third of our counties have it; and wherever its requirements have been carried out it has been found very beneficial, not only in reformatory results, but also in its efficiency in preventing escapes.
A law has been passed (Vol. 88, O. L., p. 150) declaring that wherever the construction of a county jail will admit of the separation of prisoners, that such separation shall be maintained ; but for one reason or another the local authorities, to a con- siderable extent, evade the requirements of the law, and the old evil goes on. However, there is a growing public sentiment in favor of the enforcement of the law, and it is likely that in the near future the administration of county jails will be taken away from the local authorities and centralized in the state, as they were in Great Britain in 1877.
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Aside from the evils of associating prisoners together in common halls, Ohio jails, as a rule, are humanely administered, and their sanitary condition is good.
CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, it can be justly claimed that reformatory leg- islation in Ohio has kept abreast and possibly in advance of any other American state, and in the main is in accord with the best in other civilized countries. Our shortcomings are largely due to a faulty administration, to which any system, however perfect, is liable; but this can be, and we have the faith to be- lieve will be, corrected by an advancing public sentiment.
LAND OFFICE OF THE OHIO COMPANY, MARIETTA, OHIO ..
THE OHIO PRESIDENTS.
THOMAS EWING, JR.
Five Presidents of the United States out of the twenty-five were born in Ohio. If President Garfield and President Mc- Kinley had been permitted to live out the terms for which they were elected, we should have had a period beginning with 1869, and em- bracing thirty-six years, within which but one man not an Ohioan by birth occupied the White House.
The history of the country fur- nishes only one parallel for this emi- nence among the states. Within the borders of Virginia seven of the Pres- idents were born. The parallel is sin- gularly close. From 1789 until 1825, a period likewise of exactly thirty- six years, there was but one Presi- dent not a native of Virginia - John THOMAS EWING, JR. Adams, of Massachusetts. The count by birth gives Virginia the advantage by two; but, one of the Virginians, John Tyler, elected as Vice President, may fairly be excluded ; and President William Henry Harrison, who was born in Virginia and was a citizen of Ohio by adoption, is claimed by both states.
Moreover, another splendid Ohioan, William Tecumseh Sher- man, would have received the Republican nomination in 1884 and all but certainly have been elected, had he not announced that he would not permit his name to be brought before the convention, would not accept the nomination if tendered to him, and would not serve as President if elected. There have been notable instances of men who have felt constrained by considera-
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tions of honor to decline a nomination. Major Mckinley twice furnished such an example; Samuel L. Southard is said to have declined the vice-presidential nomination in 1840 (which, as the event proved, carried with it the presidency), because his failure to secure a solid delegation from New Jersey for Mr. Clay had been criticised. But General Sherman is the only man in our history to refuse what he believed to be an offer of the presidency, when free to accept.
There is an incident now quite forgotten, except as a family tradition, which I trust that I may be pardoned for mentioning. In the Whig Convention of 1848, after General Taylor had been nominated to the presidency, a member from Pennsylvania, seconded by a member from Tennessee, put in nomination to the vice-presidency Thomas Ewing, of Ohio. The nomination would have passed almost without opposition, had not an Ohio delegate, in the name of the Ohio delegation, withdrawn it, pro- fessing falsely that he did so with authorization from Mr. Ewing himself. But for this bit of trickery, Millard Filmore's place as thirteenth President would have been taken by an Ohio man.
The explanation of the supremacy of this State has been found in the fact that through it passed by far the larger part of that migration from the East which has shifted the center of population and the weight of political influence into the Ohio basin. It was not a mad rush like that of the argonauts across the plains in 1849. It was like the spreading of a forest, which takes root as it advances ; it was like the maneuver of the Roman legion, when the younger and more lightly armed troopers passed through the line of veterans to engage in the battle.
In a speech delivered before the Ohio Society of New York (May, 1886), Benjamin Harrison said :
"After the feeble thirteen Colonies had struggled through years of bitter war, and had overcome the greatest empire in the world, that grand band of patriots who had made known in bleeding marks of footprints on the snow at Valley Forge their devotion to liberty and constitutional government - these men - poor in everything save honor, turned out of their old-time place by the vicissitudes of the long and wearying war - these men looked to some new field where they could repair the fortunes they had lost. And that high tide of intelligence and patriotism
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was lifted above the crest of the Alleghenies and it poured into the valley of the Ohio. It was the first basin to receive the fresh crystal waters of the spring in their pristine purity, when they broke forth from the mountain-side where devotion, patriotism and courage had seen them born. Ohio stood at the gateway of the West, through which passed the tide that was to people and develop the mighty Northwest."
In 1796 there were 15,000 whites in the Northwest Territory. When General Harrison welcomed LaFayette to Cincinnati in 1825, the population of Ohio alone was seven hundred thous- and; by 1840, with a million and a half, she had become the third state in the Union. This place she held until passed by Illinois in the decade ending with the year 1890.
Kentucky and Tennessee had been settled largely by Vir- ginia and North Carolina, which had owned their territory; but the population of Ohio was formed by the mingling of the blood of all of the Colonial states. Immigrants came from the entire region which includes Maine on the north and the Carolinas on the south. Virginia had her military bounty lands; Con- necticut her western reserve; New Jersey and Pennsylvania founded Cincinnati ; New England, Marietta. Ohio was thus the first-born child, when the young republic grappled with the great problem of continental dominion. Her settlers, as their de- scendants, were native-born Americans, living under free and equal laws, owning their own homes, knowing neither wealth nor poverty, and inheriting in purest form the great ideals and traditions of the Revolution. Such a people sprang to the front instantly and inevitably when our national existence was in jeopardy ; and after the terrible and tragic struggle of the Civil War was over, Ohio's sons, by natural selection, became party- leaders and heads of the nation.
My subject calls for a discussion of all six of our Presi- dents. It is manifestly impossible within the limits set to make more than a passing reference to so many and such great men. But I must, at least, call the honored roll.
Of William McKinley, whose splendid service and lovable character are known intimately to all, it is too soon to speak fully. His administration was generally so successful that it is
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difficult to choose where to bestow special praise. If I may be permitted to hazard an opinion, the Chinese incident called out the finest exhibition of his statesmanship and diplomacy. But of one thing we may be sure: that he will be remembered as the President to whom, above all of the others, fell the great privi- lege, nobly exercised, of drawing together the sympathies and aspirations of north and south for effecting the policies of our re-united country. Deep down under the passions and bitter- ness which slavery and the Civil War aroused was a noble feel- ing of brotherhood, cherished most strongly by those who were actually engaged in the conflict. It found expression in General Grant's historic saying, "Let us have peace." It was dear to General Hayes and General Garfield. It was evidenced by the great number of northern soldiers who, from sympathy for the south, after the warfare was over changed their party affiliation. It found perhaps most lasting expression in the policy of recon- ciliation which was so notable a feature of Major McKinley's administration.
Benjamin Harrison, though a native of Ohio and a graduate of our Miami University, politically was a son of Indiana. Par- tisan ridicule represented him as hidden beneath his grand- father's hat. He far exceeded his grandfather in intellect and training; and in the years (all too few) to which his life was extended after his term as President, his splendid abilities and great labors in his profession won for him a career which has been equalled by no ex-Presidents of the United States other than Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams.
James Abram Garfield, intellectually supreme perhaps among them all, appealed with unrivalled force to the young men of the country. While a member of the House, where, had he re- mained, he would have been chosen Speaker, he was elected to the Senate and to the Presidency. His service as a Representative has seldom been exceded in length, and never in distinction. But he lived for so short a time after induction into the office of President, that, as Mr. Blaine in his eulogy said. "His reputation in history will rest largely upon his service in the House of Rep- resentatives."
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Rutherford B. Hayes, simple christian gentleman and pat- riot that he was, suffered from the fiercest political antagonism since the impeachment-trial of Andrew Johnson. For this, how- ever, he was not responsible. The democratic party controlled the House of Representatives, which joined in the agreement to sub- mit the count to the Electoral Commission. President Hayes' administration was distinguished by its purity, and by the achieve- ment of the resumption of specie payments which has become a part of the settled financial policy of the government. And, how- ever we may differ as to the wisdom of this and other matters of policy, he will always be held by the entire country in grateful remembrance as the President under whom local self-government was restored in the southern states.
Back of these comes Ulysses S. Grant. He stands first among them all by reason of his transcendent military services. Great as a soldier and patriot, rather than as a statesman, his ca- reer, in its truly significant aspects, belongs to the history of Ohio's sons in the Civil War.
It is the first of the Ohio Presidents, General William Henry Harrison, "Old Tip," as his followers lovingly called him, to whose election and administration I chiefly invite your attention. My father's father was his Secretary of the Treasury. My mother's grandfather, General Reasin Beall, of Wooster, Ohio, was one of his companions-in-arms in an early campaign; he was also an elector-at-large, called a senatorial elector, in 1840, and was of- fered, but declined, the secretaryship of war. Harrison's char- acter and career have, therefore, strongly appealed to me. But aside from personal interest, it has seemed to me that at this centennial celebration we should recall the things that have passed from popular memory, rather than discuss and enlarge upon what is known of all men.
William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia in the year 1774, a son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- ence.
Receiving a military commission from President Washington in 1791, Harrison served under General Wayne in the campaign and battle of Miami Rapids, and attained the rank of captain.
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In 1797 he was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory, which embraced Ohio. In 1799 and 1800 he was a delegate to Congress. Here he procured the passage of an act requiring that the public lands be surveyed and sold in small tracts. There- tofore, no lands were sold in sections of less than three or four thousand acres, and it was impossible for the emigrants generally to acquire their own farms. When, years afterward, he was nominated for President, one of the reasons most strongly urged for his election was :
"He is the father of the present admirable system of disposing of the public lands, which has been so perfected that a poor man who can make up $100 may become an independent freeholder."*
A note by Judge Burnet to the fifth of his famous letters contains a reference to General Harrison's political views at this time. It is interesting, also, for its reference to Mr. Jefferson, and I quote it in full, as follows :
"I can now recollect only four individuals in this place and neigh- borhood [Cincinnati] who then [1800] advocated the election of Mr. Jef- ferson against Mr. Adams. These were Major Zeigler, General Harrison, William McMillan and John Smith. There might have been one or two others not remembered. [One man said,] 'When I am convinced that skill in describing the qualities and beauties of a flower or in dis- cussing the wing of a butterfly qualifies a man for the duties of the presi- dential chair, I will vote for Mr. Jefferson.'"
Evidently, knowledge beyond the common in any but one's recognized field of activity was dangerous then, as it is to-day.
After his brief services in Congress, General Harrison was appointed Governor of Indiana and superintendent of Indian affairs. He negotiated thirteen treaties with the Indians, one of which added to the public domain a territory twice as large as the state of Ohio. In an interview at North Bend with a cor- respondent of Horace Greeley's paper, "The Log Cabin," General Harrison spoke of his office as Governor and his services as fol- lows :
* From the Harrisonian, Zanesville, January 22, 1840.
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"Mr. Jefferson, by his commission as Governor of Indiana and Upper Louisiana invested me with an authority greater than a Roman pro- consul.
"I think I have personally obtained for the country from the Indians. more millions of acres of land than the sword of a conqueror ever per- manently won, and I trust, never dishonestly."
Besides his great services as Governor and negotiator with the Indians, he made an heroic defense of Fort Meigs (May, 1813), and fought two important battles, one upon a little stream called Tippecanoe (November 7, 18II), where he broke the charms and the influence of Tecumseh's great brother, the Prophet ; the other on the river Thames (October 5, 1813), where Tecum- seh was killed. In the latter campaign he had at one time as- many as 10,000 volunteer militia in his command. The victory on the Thames and Commodore Oliver H. Perry's victory at Put- in-Bay together saved to this country the State of Michigan ..
The difficulties of campaigning in the wilderness may be judged by the fact that every barrel of flour, by the time it reached the army, had cost one hundred dollars. Judge Burnet, in his speech in the Whig National Convention of 1839, said :
"A person who has not an accurate knowledge of the condition of the northwestern portion of Ohio at the time of the late war, when it was an unbroken wilderness, without inhabitants other than aborigines, without roads, bridges, ferries or improvements of any kind, cannot form any idea of the difficulties General Harrison encountered in feeding, sus- taining and keeping together his army. The difficulties and perplexities. which beset him during his campaigns are known to but few, and cannot be justly appreciated by any; yet by unceasing activity and by the efforts. of his powerful mind, he overcame them all. It is not generally known that the fleet built at Erie by which the command of the lakes. was obtained was a project recommended by General Harrison, and that it was adopted by Mr. Madison in consequence of his unbounded confi- dence in the prudence and sound judgment of him who proposed it."
Subsequently to these military services, General Harrison was a Representative in Congress from Ohio; served in the Sen- ate of the United States from 1825 to 1828; was sent as minister to the Republic of Columbia ; and, in the campaign of 1836, was the most prominent candidate of the Whigs for the presidency, but was defeated by VanBuren whom he in turn defeated in 1840.
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During the later years of his life, the General was living in his famous old residence on the banks of the Ohio at North Bend, where he enjoyed the life and reputation incident to his true position, that of one of the great first-settlers in the Northwest Territory. In person he was lithe and wiry but not tall, simple in manner, plain of dress, with the keen eye and weather-beaten face of the woodsman, and the sturdy, kindly, comfortable counte- nance of the Virginia bottom-lands farmer.
He had received more than the usual education of his asso- ciates. Above all, he was a student of nature and of Indian life. In an interesting discourse on the Aborigines in the Valley of the Ohio, delivered before the Ohio Historical Society at Columbus in the year 1837, he displays an intimate knowledge of the Indians, of the great forests, and of the remains of ancient peoples found along the Ohio River. Arguing for the antiquity of these re- mains and basing his arguments upon the character of the forests ·overgrowing them, he has one passage which is notable for first- hand observation of nature and for genuine eloquence. It is as follows :
"The process by which nature restores the forest to its original state, after being once cleared, is extremely slow. In our rich lands, it is, indeed, soon covered again with timber, but the character of the growth is entirely different, and continues so, through many generations of men. In several places on the Ohio, particularly upon the farm which I occupy, clearings were made in the first settlement, abandoned, and suffered to grow up. Some of them, now to be seen, of nearly fifty years' growth, have made so little progress toward attaining the appearance of the im- mediately contiguous forest, as to induce any man of reflection to deter- mine that at least ten times fifty years would be necessary before its complete assimilation could be effected. The sites of the ancient works on the Ohio present precisely the same appearance as the circumjacent forest. You find on them all that beautiful variety of trees which gives such unrivaled richness to our forests. This is particularly the case on the fifteen acres included within the walls of the work, at the mouth of the Great Miami, and the relative proportions of the different kinds of timber are about the same. The first growth on the same kind of land, once cleared, and then abandoned to nature, on the contrary, is more homogeneous - often stinted to one, or two, or at most three kinds of timber. If the ground had been cultivated, yellow locust, in many places, will spring up as thick as garden peas. If it has not been cultivated, the black and white walnut will be the prevailing growth. The rapidity with which these trees grow for a time, smothers the attempt of other kinds
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to vegetate and grow in their shade. The more thrifty individuals soon overtop the weaker of their own kind, which sicken and die. In this way, there is soon only as many left as the earth will well support to maturity. All this time the squirrels may plant the seed of those trees which serve them for food, and by neglect suffer them to remain, - it will be in vain; the birds may drop the kernels, the external pulp of which have con- tributed to their nourishment, and divested of which they are in the best state for germinating, still it will be of no avail; the winds of heaven may waft the winged seeds of the sycamore, cottonwood and maple, and a friendly shower may bury them to the necessary depth in the loose and fertile soil-but still without success. The roots below rob them of moisture, and the canopy of limbs and leaves above intercept the rays of the sun, and the dews of heaven; the young giants in possession, like another kind of aristocracy, absorb the whole means of subsistence, and leave the mass to perish at their feet. This state of things will not, how- ever, always continue. If the process of nature is slow and circuitous, in putting down usurpation and establishing the equality which she loves, and which is the great characteristic of her principles, it is sure and effectual. The preference of the soil for the first growth ceases with its. maturity. It admits of no succession, upon the principles of legitimacy. The long undisputed masters of the forest may be thinned by the light- ning, the tempest, or by diseases peculiar to themselves; and whenever this is the case, one of the oft-rejected of another family will find be- tween its decaying roots, shelter and appropriate food; and springing into vigorous growth, will soon push its green foliage to the skies, through the decayed and withering limbs of its blasted and dying adversary - the soil itself yielding it a more liberal support than to any scion from the- former occupant. It will easily be conceived what a length of time it will require for a denuded tract of land, by a process so slow, again to clothe itself with the amazing variety of foliage which is the character- istic of the forests of this region. Of what immense age, then, must be those works, so often referred to, covered, as has been supposed by those who have the best opportunity of examining them, with the second growth after the ancient forest state had been regained?"
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