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of this is due to the inspiration of Professor Herman Schneider. Much also to the services of its able faculty. A wonderful park system, the result of the untiring service and philanthropy of Mr. A. E. Ault. A great unequalled public school system, a monument to the inspired efforts to Dr. John M. Withrow. The most modern municipal hospital in the world. A great music hall. An art museum. An art school, all largely the result of princely gifts from citizens. Two great scnools of of music. An astronomical observatory. Musical festivals. Public libraries. These are but a few of the many attractions of the city. And with it all a spirit of friendly hospitality.


CHAPTER XLV.


REAL ESTATE INTERESTS.


When John Cleves Symmes made what is known as the Miami Purchase, including the land lying between the two Miami rivers and extending northwardly from the Ohio River for a considerable distance, he possibly did not dream of the great possibilities of this area. He nevertheless must have had considerable vision in addition to good judgment in selecting this location. When one considers the two Miamis flanking the purchase and Mill Creek bisecting it giving ample rich bottom lands along these streams for agriculture, with the Ohio River on the south for transportation, and the Licking River opposite, and three general levels on which the city of Cincinnati now stands, we must concede that Symmes was a man of much foresight.


These numerous river valleys in addition to giving moisture for farming and transportation by water also afforded locations for easy grade roads extending for considerable distances north, south, east and west—all these factors combined made for the growth of a large community. Through these valleys came later two canals and the railroads paralleling the wagon roads previously established.


Cincinnati, first known as Fort Washington and then as Losantiville, due to the commerce on the Ohio River commenced its development on the lower level or river bank, and for a great many years all the development in way of business was in this section. The Spencer House, situated at the corner of Broadway and the Public Landing, considered at the time one of the finest hotels of the country, was finished in 1850. In this section also was the Broadway and Cincinnati hotels and the Madison House.


The development of real estate on the second level (Fourth Street to McMicken Avenue) began before the completion of the Spencer House, as is evidenced by the fact that the northeast corner of Fourth and Vine streets, a lot 50x50 which is the southern half of the lot on which the Ingalls Building stands, sold in 1852 for $30,000, or $12 per square foot, or at the rate of $1,200 per front foot for a lot one hundred feet deep. The lot 200x260 (fronting 200 feet on Fourth Street and 260 on Vine Street) of which the 50x50 is a part, sold in 1798 for five dollars, and in 1831 the lot 190x323, of which the two foregoing named pieces were a part. (This 190x323 being bounded by Fourth, Vine, and Fifth streets and Stone Alley) sold for $14,000, or a little less than 23 cents per square foot, or at the rate of $23 per front foot for a lot one hundred feet deep. It would have been very nice for a boy born at that time, for the father to have purchased one hundred feet front for $2,300 and turned it over to him when he became of age with a value of $120,000. These


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advances were not of a speculative type, but were controlled by the irresistible force of expansion and growth.


The block bounded by Third, Fourth, Vine, and Race streets, on which the Union Central Life Insurance Building and the Burnet House stand was sold in 1798 by John Cleves Symmes at the rate of two to six dollars per in lot. An in lot was generally about one hundred feet front by two hundred feet deep. A large portion of the downtown portion of the city was originally so divided. In 1848 the company that built the Burnet House paid $45,700 for the lot comprising something over 50,000 square feet, or at the rate of about 8o cents per square foot.


The movement from the lower level of the city to the Fourth Street level marked the practical end of an architectural era. South of Fourth Street there still exists some residences with fronts of a distinctive type ; the kind that are still numerous in the older parts of Boston. Apparently only a few of this kind were ever built north of Fourth Street.


With the rapid business development of the second level and the great growth of the population the residence section was being constantly pushed out. The more pretentious homes seeking locations on West Fourth Street, West Sixth Street, West Eighth Street, Dayton Street, parts of Broadway, East Fourth Street, and Pike Street. The development of the fine residence district except for a few houses on West Fourth Street, was above high water.


Eastern Avenue, that part that was known as Fulton, was fairly well built up, a great many of the residents of that section being connected with the river interests. In Fulton along the river most of the river craft was constructed and it was the usual place for tying up steamboats during the periods of low water.


In the West End some of the residence property sold for as much as $500 per front foot. These high prices were due to the comparative inaccessibility of the suburbs. However, there was a steady but slow growth of Clifton, Avondale, Mount Auburn, Price Hill, Walnut Hills and other suburbs. These places were reached by busses, a very slow method of transportation. Other places like South Side, Delhi, Home City, Wyoming, Glendale, Norwood, Madisonville, and such localities depending on commuter trains, were also growing.


Beginning before and continuing after the Civil War, freestone was very much used in the construction of business blocks and residences. Numerous buildings of this kind are still standing, many of them of artistic and pleasing designs. The move of residences to the third level changed the character, and in many cases, the material of which residences were constructed. These newer structures were built on wider lots thereby giving more light and air and a different kind of architecture. Blue limestone brick and frame residences were built in the suburbs, freestone being used only in some instances for trimming, but only in a very few cases for the fronts of houses.


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The congestion on the first and second levels became very acute, but relief came through the suburbs by the third level becoming more accessible, first by the construction of incline planes and horse car lines, then the installation of several cable lines, followed by the general construction of electric car lines reaching into practically all the suburbs including those that had been getting their service by trains. The exodus from the basin of the city assumed, due to the better means of transportation, large proportions, resulting in nearly a complete change in the character of the population in the city proper. This movement while it concerned a great many people was some years in duration, so that the West End was able to fill up the houses left vacant with a different class of people.


With this large influx of people into the suburbs came the opening up of numerous subdivisions, so many, in fact, that the present generation is seeing the last of them being utilized for building. This development of so many subdivisions has been the cause of keeping down during many years the price of suburban residence lots. It is only now that prices for suburban lots are being obtained that should have prevailed for many years back. The prices for this kind of property has been much lower here than it has been in cities much smaller than Cincinnati.


As the residential and business locations were constantly changing industrial real estate was mainly confined to the bottoms with some factories located in the Mill Creek Valley along the line of the railroads. Factories could not very well go out of the congested area on account of the difficulty of obtaining the necessary amount of labor. With the advent of this century and the ending of the conditions caused by the panic of 1893, real estate for residences and factories was in g00d demand, and from 1900 to 1919 was fairly constant. Since 1919 all kinds of real estate have been active and prices have been materially advanced.


About 1900 there commenced an active buying of industrial acreage in Norwood, followed by Oakley, with a constant buying of this kind of property in the Mill Creek Valley. This movement was an economic one, as it was difficult to expand in the old locations and handle the business without too much lost motion, as it was, business was being conducted in many adjoining buildings in many instances, and to expand was to use other adjoining buildings or build on land that was being sold by the front foot instead of by the acre.


The manufacturers that have moved out put up buildings economically suited to their line of business and acquired plenty of ground for future expansion. Practically all of the concerns that made such moves have been very successful with next to no failures. The economy affected no doubt being a large contributor to the success. Factory acreage that sold at about $1,000 per acre in 1900, could readily be sold today for $1o,000 or more per acre.


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In reviewing the industrial development of Cincinnati one is struck with the fact that ever since the beginning of the city there has been a constant development. Cincinnati has lost prestige in many lines of manufacture, but there was always other lines to take up the vacant factories. Good industrial acreage on railroad and near car lines is getting scarce. It behooves us not to place undue restrictions on factory development as it may drive the factories further from the center of the city thereby causing the people to move out in the neighborhood of their employment, creating new retail centers of large size and importance which will seriously disturb values in the retail section of the city.


A number of outside industrial concerns have bought either factories or land in Cincinnati in the past few years, and there will be others to follow. Industrial managers are carefully weighing the source of raw material, the opportunity for getting a good class of labor, facilities for reaching the consumer quickly, and other things that go to cheapen the cost of manufacturing and distribution.


Cincinnati with her numerous trunk lines of railroad reaching to all points of the compass, in addition to the cheap transportation now available on the Ohio River is in touch with all kinds of material necessary for manufacturing, such as lumber, iron, clay, coal, leather, etc. In turn these means of transportation reach over half the population of the United States in less than a day thereby giving quick deliveries. On account of these trunk lines Cincinnati products shipped in less than carload lots can reach such cities as Atlanta, New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and intermediate points without breaking bulk. Due to the economical situation of Cincinnati industrial real estate therein will be in ever increasing demand, as the outsiders gradually learn of its wonderful advantages. And another point that goes to make Cincinnati a desirable manufacturing point is that Cincinnati leads any city in the world in the diversity of the articles manufactured. On which account industries needing parts or machinery for their business can get them quickly right at home.


The industrial areas are constantly moving out into new territory. Industry is following mainly the railroads while the residences, owing to the use of the automobile, are spreading out and going far beyond the electric cars.


More industries whose incoming and outgoing material is in less than carload lots will probably leave the down-town section of the city when the present method of handling less than car-load freight between freight stations is perfected so such freight will be handled without breaking bulk from the door of the consignor to that of the consignee.


With the great changes made in the factory and residential districts one would suppose that the retail center would have changed in location.


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The high prices for retail property seventy-five years ago was on Fourth Street, today the highest priced retail property is at the corner of Fifth and Vine streets. The two northern corners at this intersection are valued at about $20,000 to $22,000 per front foot or about $220 per square foot. While the retail sections in all large cities have changed due to the shifting of population and other factors, Cincinnati has not charged hers and is not likely to do so. The principal reason for this no doubt is that about twenty per cent of the metropolitan area of Cincinnati lives on the other side of the Ohio River and this population lands at Fourth Street. In addition to this realty owners on Fourth Street have backed the street by putting into improvements in the last twenty-five years, millions of dollars. During that period more than twice as much has been put into the street as has been put into any other street of the city. This downstown retail section has expanded, is expanding, and will continue to do so, but no radical change in location will be made for years to come.


In the last fifty years and more there has been no booms in Cincinnati real estate except in a mild way ; the opening up in the late eighties and early nineties too many subdivisions might be termed one.


Cincinnati real estate will develop on lines herein indicated, with a constant trend upward in values ; in other words, the history of the past fifty to seventy-five years or more can be taken as a criterion of the future, except that the demand for real estate will probably increase at a greater rate than in the past. [HIRAM S. MATHERS]


The Frederick A. Schmidt Company —Among the greatest realty concerns in Greater Cincinnati is this company whose offices are at Fifth and Main streets. From the January number of the industrial section of the Cincinnati "Enquirer" for 1924 the following high light paragraphs appeared and are so replete with business facts concerning the company and the city in general, that it is here reproduced in part :


1. Transactions closed by The Frederick A. Schmidt Company in the past year in all its departments involved Cincinnati real estate having a value of $54,521,275.56.


2. The company has directly added to the tax duplicate of Hamilton County in the past eight years the sum of $15,335,000. Indirectly by the promotion of real estate transactions, there has been added to the duplicate at least triple this amount.


3. The company has constructed, through its Building Service Department, 34o buildings in Cincinnati in the past twelve years.


4. It has constructed, in the last eight years, without a cent of expense to the city, 6o,000 square yards of roadway (approximately five miles of street), 38,000 feet of curb, 40,000 square feet of sidewalk, 12,000 feet of lead water lines, 24,000 feet water main, 25,000 feet main sewer and 14,000 feet house sewer lines.


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5. Bank deposits for year ending July 31, 1923, $3,284,079.95.


6. The amount collected last year by The Frederick A. Schmidt Company in the way of rents and other payments totaled $2,418,311.21.


7. The business handled by this company during the last year was divided as follows :




Management

City sales

City leases

Suburban sales

Insurance

Liebold-Farrell Bldg. Co.

Auctions

Appraisements

$20,340,000.00

3,881,250.00

6,450,000.00

2,361,975.00

13,046,401.56

1,554,215.00

300,000.00

6,587,435.00

Total

$54,521,276.56




This company had its beginning in a modest, simple way in 1878 when D. K. Este and Frederick A. Schmidt, under title of Este and Schmidt, formed a partnership to conduct a real estate business. From its inception the firm specialized in management of estates. They commenced at No. 133 East Third Street, near Walnut. They employed only one clerk. Today more than seventy competent clerks and experts are engaged with this concern, while the actual employees of the company in its various building operations amounts to 333, or a grand total of 403. Many of the largest department houses and office buildings of today stand on grounds leased or sold through the Schmidt company. Among the large buildings which owe their existence to this company, directly or indirectly, are these : The Gwynne Building, Sixth and Main streets, erected in 1914 the Carew Building, Fifth and Vine streets, thirty-odd years ago ; Senator Apartments, Clifton Avenue ; Rose Hill Residence ; the Herschede Building, 1918; The Oakland, Gilbert Avenue, 1920, cost $75,000; the Southern Railway Building, 1923; Dixie Terminal Building, appraised by the Frederick A. Schmidt Company. There are scores more superior buildings erected under the management of this company. In the list may be noted the Rollman Building, Washington Bank and Savings Company, Railroad Brotherhood Building, the Mabley & Carew Building, the McAlpin Building, etc.


CHAPTER XLVI.


LIBRARIES OF THE CITY.


The first public library established in the great Northwest Territory was established in Cincinnati in 1802. It was on February 13 of that year that a meeting was held at Yeatman's Tavern, to consider the matter of establishing such an institution, and it was there decided by the citizens present, that an effort should immediately be made in that direction. A committee of representative men formed a committee including Jacob Burnet, Lewis Kerr, and Martin Baum. The subscription paper read in part as follows : "We, the subscribers, being desirous of establishing a public library in the town of Cincinnati, agree to take as many shares in the stock of such an institution as are annexed to our names respectively, and pay for the same at the rate of ten dollars for each share." This document is still preserved. Among the signatures attached to this subscription paper were the following: General Arthur St. Clair, Peyton Short, Judge Burnett, General James Findlay, Jonathan S. Findlay, Griffin Yeatman, William Ruffin, Joel Williams, Isaac Van Nuys, David E. Wade, Joseph Prince, John R. Mills, John Reily, C. Avery, Jacob White, Patrick Dickey, W. Stanley, Stuart C. Killgore, Martin Baum, Jeremiah Hunt, Lewis Kerr, James Wallace, Samuel C. Vance, and Cornelius R. Sedam. Nine subscriptions were for two shares each. The whole subscription of thirty-four shares amounting to $340. Some books were purchased at once and others were cheerfully donated. March 6, 1802,—one hundred and twenty-three years ago—this library was opened, with Lewis Kerr as librarian. The history of this organization was evidently brief, for it is known of record that certain citizens in 18o9 presented a petition to the Legislature for an act of incorporation, but for a reason now unknown this request was denied.


Judge Turner, in 1811, led a subscription movement and obtained shares amounting to several hundred dollars for the purpose of founding a library. A constitution was adopted and an appeal was made to the Legislature for a charter. In 1812 an act of incorporation was granted for the Circulating Library of Cincinnati. The library, after long delay, was finally opened for public use in April, 1814. The next year the reports show the library had eight hundred books and included Rees' "Encyclopedia" and Wilson's "Ornithology." This library was in charge of a president and seven directors. By 1826 the number of volumes had only increased to 1,300. It was then located in the old college building.


It was then only accessible to the public on Saturday afternoons. In 1821 there was established the "Apprentices' Library," for the improvement of young mechanics and laborers in general. In 1826 it had about


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as many books as the Circulating Library of Cincinnati. The last named was located on Main Street, near Third ; the Circulating Library was on Fourth between Main and Walnut streets. What was styled the Sun Library was on Third Street, between Main and Walnut streets. In 1844 the Apprentices' Library contained 2,200 volumes. Four hundred books circulated weekly. The librarian's salary was then $r00 per year.


The first regular reading room in Cincinnati was established by Elam P. Langdon in 1818. It was located in the rear of the post office. Transient strangers in the town had the free use of this room. It was not long continued, however.


Concerning the Mercantile Library, in 1879, John W. Ellis wrote in the interesting manner here quoted :


"The Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of New York, which originated in 1822 was the pioneer of many similar institutions since formed in various cities of the country. This association had accomplished so much good as to excite a feeling in favor of establishing similar institutions in other cities. Several prominent young men of Cincinnati had considered this matter and several preliminary meetings were held, but the formal meeting at which the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association was founded, was held April 18, 1835, in the second story of a building then used as a fire-engine house, on the north side of Fourth Street.


"There were forty-four persons present. I was probably the youngest person present and then not much more than a boy. The association was formed and constitution adopted, and every one connected went to work vigorously. As cash in those days was much scarcer than it is now, the salaries of clerks being very small, it worked on very limited means for a long period. It was located for the first few months in the second story of a building belonging to Daniel Ames, on the west side of Main Street, below Pearl. During the summer months, not having the means to pay for some one to stay in the rooms, the place was usually closed until the heated season was over.


"For a few months the entire duties of librarian, porter, janitor, etc., were performed in turn by the officers and directors. They gave out the books, swept the floors, and cleaned the lamps. There was no gas or electric lights in those days.


"In the winter of 1836 Mr. Doolittle was elected librarian, and a special charter was obtained for the association from the Legislature. For the next three years, viz., 1836-37-38, embracing the period of the greatest financial revulsion the country ever knew, not excepting 1873, the existence of the institution was constantly imperilled for the want of money ; and it was only sustained by the constant and untiring exertions of a few gentlemen, who were determined at all hazards to


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carry it through. They gave their own personal labor and exertions night after night. They advanced money to it; they became security for its debts ; in fact did everything to accomplish a successful result. There was one person above all others who should be known as the father of the association, and that was Mr. Moses Ranney.


"In 1837 Mr. Doolittle vacated his office and Mr. Holly was appointed librarian. In 1838 the first printed catalogue was published and sold at a moderate price to such members as chose to purchase. In 1839 the number of paying members was increased to five hundred, and all the debts of the association, for the time being, discharged.


"In 1840 a special collection of $1,000 was sent to London to purchase choice editions of books, and resulted in the importation of seven hundred and sixty-eight volumes. It was about this date that the association moved quarters from Fourth Street to the old college building on Walnut Street, paying a rent of $300. That building was the predecessor of the present one.


"Among the notable events in which the association participated in a body were the funeral of President Harrison (William Henry) in 1841, and the laying of the foundation of Mount Adams Astronomical Association Building in 1843, when the oration was delivered by ex-President John Quincy Adams.


"It may seem strange to mention the fact ; but a very important event in the history of the association, in a small way, was the introduction of gas into the library and reading room in 1843. Previous to that time the association, like the community at large, had depended for light on the use of tallow candles and lard oil.


"Sunday morning, January 19, 1845, the college building was entirely destroyed by fire, but by the great exertions of the members and citizens generally, all the books of the association were saved, and the little damage done was covered by insurance. This fire, however, resulted in an arrangement with the trustees of the Cincinnati College for the present quarters occupied by it.


"By great exertions there was raised, chiefly by subscriptions from merchants, the sum of ten thousand dollars to pay the fee-simple of its quarters, and one thousand and six hundred dollars additional for the furnishing of the rooms. The association took possession of its new quarters in May, 1846, amid the congratulations of all the members and their friends. About that date Mr. Cist was elected librarian, to take the place of Mr. Wildey, deceased.


"Another fire broke out October 21, 1869, by which many of the books were badly damaged by water. Rooms were then engaged at 137-39 Race Street, where a reading room was opened. The functions of the library were suspended until the college building could be repaired and again occupied.


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"In 1905 the Young Men's Mercantile Library Building was ready for occupancy, and has since been its headquarters. It now has (in 1912) 78,000 books and a circulation of about 65,000."


The library of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio had as the first depository for its books, a room at the top of a brick house at Third and Race streets. They were placed about 1853, in the basement of the college. Next they were taken to the store of Mr. Buchanan. About 1860 these books were boxed and placed in the public school library, which at that time was located in the Mechanics' Institute. When the society was reorganized in 1868, the library was also revived and the books were arranged in the rooms of the Literary Club. In 1871 the library was changed in its quarters from the Literary Club to rooms in the college. In 1885 it was moved to 107 West Street. In 1901 it was moved to the Van Wormer Library on the university grounds. It then contained 17,450 books and 66,000 pamphlets.


The Lloyd Library and Museum is a unique institution of special value. It is devoted almost entirely to botany and pharmacy, with a section on eclectic medicine. It has over 25,000 volumes, and is used by a large number of persons who consult its contents for bibliographical information concerning special subjects. While this is legally a stock company it is really owned by Curtis G. and John Uri Lloyd, or was a few years ago. It will ever remain a free library, however. The institution is housed within numerous buildings and has interesting departments. Provisions have been made for shelving about 100,000 volumes.

The following account of this library was written not long since by one of the directors, Mr. Charles B. Wilby, an attorney-at-law, and as it contains much of historic interest and value it is here added to what has already been said concerning the institution :


This association was organized ninety years ago and was one of the evidences existing even at that time, of the unusual intellectual activity of the people of Cincinnati. Other evidence of the predominance there of the intellectual spirit is found in the early establishment of a public library ; its law library, unequalled by any in the country save that at Harvard ; its law school and the Cincinnati College founded in 1815 which grew out of the Lancaster Institute of an earlier date.


The first of its kind west of the Alleghany Mountains this association was organized April 18, 1835, by a number of young business and professional men of the city, among them Moses Ranney, Rolland G. Mitchell, William N. Greene, John Buchanan, James F. Torrence, E. B. Hinman, John W. Ellis, Morgan Ewing, Joseph H. Wilby, J. Y. Armstrong, P. Outcalt, George W. Jones, Thomas Spooner, Edward Sargent, George P. Stedman, and L. B. Harrison.


The board of directors of this association in 1843 caused the organization of the Chamber of Commerce of Cincinnati. The committee


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which drew the plan for the foundation of that chamber, R. M. W. Taylor, John W. Hartwell, and Moses Ranney, were all active members of the Library Association. The report of October, 1846, of this association gives a history of its "Changed Department" as the Chamber of Commerce was called, as follows :


The project of the Merchants' Exchange was suggested in the winter of 1843 by a number of the old merchants of the city, and at their urgent request its entire management was undertaken by the board of directors of this association; active exertions were at once made to carry out the plans, a subscription paper was put into circulation and a sufficient number of subscribers having been obtained, the necessary preliminaries were effected and an Exchange room opened on the first of May ensuing. Owing either to the want of concert of action in those interested, or to the fact that the business of the city did not require its adoption, one object of the institution—the establishment of regular Change hours—was not attained. The reports of the arrival and departure of steamboats, of the exports and imports to and from the city by river, canals, and railroads, and of the arrivals of the principal hotels, all of which were recorded daily in books kept for the purpose, open to the examination of the subscribers, were, however, deemed of sufficient importance as valuable commercial statistics to justify the continuance of the department, and to this end its organization has been maintained from year to year by the several boards of directors until the first of September last, when it was transferred to the more legitimate guardianship of the Chamber of Commerce.


In recognition of the services of the Library Association in its birth the Chamber of Commerce has always given to the library the use of its auditorium when this was needed for purposes of election or otherwise.


Soon after its organization the Chamber of Commerce caused Cleveland Abbe, who was then the astronomer at the University Observatory on Mount Adams, to make for it weather reports covering predictions for the Ohio Valley. These reports and predictions proved to be of great benefit to the members of the Chamber of Commerce and gradually attracted so much attention that Professor Abbe was some years later called to Washington to establish the National Weather Bureau. The entire country is thus indebted to the Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati for the great service rendered by that bureau.


The Mercantile Library Association established the first regular course of lectures which was given in the West, and for many years this course provided gratuitous instruction of great benefit to the people of Cincinnati. Among the lecturers during the first years were : Ormsby M. Mitchel, the astronomer ; Judge Timothy Walker, Salmon P. Chase, Charles C. Mcllvaine, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and later there were lectures by Horace Greeley ; Robert Dale Owen, Alexander Campbell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. M. Thackeray, Wendell Phillips, Edward Everett, and many more, who were brought to Cincinnati by the Library Association.


The library at first had its home on the second floor of a building on the north side of Fourth Street, east of Main, with an equipment of about seven hundred volumes. In 1840 the library moved to the old


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college building on Walnut Street, where the Mercantile Library Building now stands.


In 1841 the first catalog of the library showed some 3,000 volumes. Among the events in which the association participated about that time were the funeral of first President Harrison and the laying of the foundation of the Mount Adams Observatory, when the oration was delivered by ex-President John Quincy Adams, who was the guest of the Mercantile Library Association.


In 1848 the old college building was burned. Through the exertions of the members many of the books were saved. The trustees of the Cincinnati College were unable to rebuild unaided, and the library came to their assistance by donations secured by it from its members and the community generally. The library raised the sum of $10,000, which was paid to the trustees of the Cincinnati College in consideration of a lease without rent for the term of ten thousand years, for a library room in the new college building to be constructed on the same site. This lease was drawn by Alphonso Taft, and bears the signatures of John W. Hartwell, president, and Joseph C. Butler, recording secretary, and is dated January 1, 1849.


In 1867 Andrew McArthur bequeathed a handsome sum to the library for the purpose of purchasing rare and useful books, which have been separately shelved and are known as the "McArthur Library." Later, Timothy C. Day made a bequest to the library for the purchase of memberships to be distributed annually among the meritorious pupils of the public schools of the city, and some 2,500 young men and women have thus been given access to the library.


When, in 1902, Thomas J. Emery and John J. Emery bought the building of the Cincinnati College a contract was made by them with the library Association, whereby the library was to receive in exchange for the perpetual leasehold of its quarters on the second floor of the old building, the entire eleventh floor and part of the twelfth floor in the new building, to be called the Mercantile Library Building, which was immediately thereafter erected by the Emerys on the same site. There the association has beautiful rooms commanding a charming view in every direction of the river with its charming banks, the hills of Kentucky, and those back of the city. Ninety-seven thousand volumes now grace the library, including many valuable books of reference, with a reading room equipped with most of the periodicals and daily newspapers from all over the United States and some from Europe.


The officers in 1925-26 are as follows : George Hoadly, president ; Clinton G. Galway, secretary ; and Hugh Collville, treasurer. The board of directors are, the above-named officers together with the following: A. M. Cressler, J. D. Ellis, Frank Hinkle, A. M. Hopkins, David Philipson, C. H. Stephens, G. H. Sykes, C. B. Wilby, and R. L. Black


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The Cincinnati Law Library is one of the institutions of vast importance. It received a charter from the Ohio Legislature in 1834, but for various reasons even the able lawyers of the organization failed to take a very active part in it until 1846, when a meeting of the bar was held in the old Superior Court room. A committee was appointed consisting of William R. Morris, Daniel Van Meter, W. M. Corry, Alphonso Taft, and George E. Pugh. Mr. Morris sought funds by circulating a subscription which was signed liberally by most of the attorneys. In 1847 about $1,400 was expended for books ; a book case capable of holding several hundred books was purchased and placed in the court room of the Court of Common Pleas, Bernard Bradley was appointed librarian. The men who were interested as contributors organized themselves into a corporation early in 1847. The court house was burned in 1849, but most of the books were saved from the flames. The books were placed temporarily in a private building on Court Street, where also the county officers and court rooms were. In 1852 the law library obtained quarters in an adjoining building to the east. The library then had over i,000 volumes--half of them reports of Eastern States. Coming on down until 1884 when the library had books to the amount of 14,000, it was burned, but a new library came into being, and in 1912 it contained 30,000 volumes. The present (1925) law library is among the most extensive and useful in the land.


The law library of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals was removed to the Federal Building; this consists of more than 15,000 volumes. Another law library a dozen years ago was reported in the Law School Building.


Lane Theological Seminary has a very large collection, as also do St. Joseph's College, St. Xavier's College, the Cincinnati Hospital and the Ohio Mechanics' Institute.


The University Library —The Van Wormer Library Building is of stone, fireproof throughout, and built after modern plans. The University Library in this structure contains about 65,000 volumes besides 10,000 pamphlets. The periodical room contains the current numbers of three hundred and seventy-five periodicals. There are also several "Special Collections" such as the Robert Clarke Library, 6,761 volumes in 1913 ; the Enoch T. Carson Shakespeare Library, 1,420 volumes ; the Bruehl Library, 2,000 volumes, rare books on Mexico and South America; the Wilson Library, the gift of Judge Moses F. Wilson ; the Merrill Library of Engineering works ; the Whittaker Medical Library, 1,500 volumes; the Thomas Library ; the Laura Seasongood Alcove, books purchased annually from the proceeds of a gift of Laura Seasongood ; the Brown Philological Library ; the Charlotte Hillebrand Memorial Library; Library of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 6,000 volumes ; the Historical and Philosophical Society of


714 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


Ohio has deposited its valuable collection in the Van Wormer Library building.


A statement made regarding the volumes of this library in 1912 showed "84,000 volumes and 77,000 pamphlets. To these collections must be added the libraries of departments of the university situated in other parts of the city. In the libraries of the observatory, the College of Law, the College of Medicine and the Cincinnati Hospital there are 35,889 volumes."

At the date last named the libraries of the university, taken together, there were in excess of 91,110 volumes and 8,900 pamphlets.


Cincinnati Public Library —The history of this institution, if written in full, would indeed be very lengthy—too long for this volume. At various periods the history of this library has been written by different persons, but none has covered completely all of the historic points to the present time.


Probably the following attempt will not succeed any better than previous ones, but the writer will at least draw from the most authentic sources extant and also bring the history down to the year 1925, only aiming to give the important historic happenings with such statistics as will be necessary for an intelligent understanding of the present Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Due credit should here be given, on the start, to former compilers, including those connected with the library management itself, as well as Rev. Charles Frederick Goss, who handled the subject about 1912 in an acceptable manner, and from his article we quote freely. The preceding chapters have made mention of numerous forerunners of this library, in connection with the schools, etc. From its organization in 1855, under the law of 1853, until the passage of the law of 1867, it was governed by the library committee of the Board of Education. From the year of 1890, the entire library board was elected from the membership of the Board of Education.


In 1891 and at other dates the law was modified as to the management of public libraries. Since its establishment this library has gone under various titles. Originally, it was known as The Ohio School and Family Library, as it was especially designed for the use of the families of the district schools, although "no member attend, any of the schools of the township." Later it was called The Ohio School Library. Next, in 1867, it was known as the Public and School Library of Cincinnati. In July, 1867, however, it was styled the Public Library. At present its official title is the Public Library of the School District of Cincinnati, but it is known generally as the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Now it is fully recognized as belonging to the people generally, without regard to schools, etc. Old and young, black or white, student or beginner, citizen resident, each and all have free access to the library.




LIBRARIES OF THE CITY - 715


As has ever been the case with libraries, this one, too, has had its periods of prosperity followed by disaster and depression, and Mr. Goss, from whose historic sketch we are largely quoting, says : "These periods may be divided as follows :


"First Period—From the organization of the Ohio School Library, under the act of 1853, to the enactment of the law of 1867. This indicates the occupation, under contract of lease, of the rooms in the Mechanics' Institute, and the merger of the library of that institution with the Ohio School Library. Librarians : Dr. J. C. Christin, from the organization to July 3, 1855 ; John D. Caldwell, clerk of the School Board and librarian, from, July 3, 1855, to March 16, 1857 ; N. Peabody Poor, from 1857 to 1866; Lewis Freeman, from April 22, 1866.


"Second Period—From July, 1867, (act of March 18, 1867, providing for a board of managers), to the opening of the library in the front part of the present library building, December 9, 1870. Librarians : Lewis Freeman, until November 5, 1869; W. F. Poole, from November 15, 1869.


"Third Period—From December, 1870, to February 26, 1874, when the rear building was occupied. Librarians : W. F. Poole, to December 31, 1873 ; Thomas Vickers, January 1, 1874.


"Fourth Period—From the beginning in the rear building, February 26, 1874, to May, 1891, the date of the organization of the board of trustees, appointed under act of the General Assembly of Ohio, passed April 30, 1891, providing for the appointment of the board of trustees in place of a board of managers. Librarians : Thomas Vickers, to December 31, 1879; Chester W. Merrill, from January 1, 1880, to November, 1886; Albert W. Whelpley, from November, 1886.


"Fifth Period—From May, 1891 to 1898, the date of the passage of the act of the General Assembly of Ohio, transferring to the board of trustees complete control of the library, extending the privileges of the library to the country-at-large, and authorizing a levy by said board upon the tax duplicate of Hamilton County, in which Cincinnati is situated, the trustees to have the disbursement of the funds realized therefrom ; providing for the appointment by the judges of the Court of Common Pleas of a trustee who should succeed the president of the Board of Education, who had previously been an ex officio member of the board of trustees, and providing for such an election of trustees as that the board should be a continuous body, and further providing for the establishment of branch libraries and delivery stations throughout the county. Librarians : A. W. Whelpley, to February 19, 1900; N. D. C. Hodges, May 11, 1900."


In 1853 libraries were usually under State supervision. The first mention of school libraries in Cincinnati is found in the report of Hon. Rufus King, president of the School Board in 1854, wherein he says : "In conclusion, we must not omit to render just acknowledgement to Win-


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throp B. Smith for a handsome donation to be applied to the foundation of a teachers' library, to be aided and conducted under the auspices of this board. The amount of this donation was $700.


Under the provision of the State law each school was entitled to a library, and in 1854, sixteen libraries had been sent to Cincinnati under the direction of the school commissioner, and distributed, one to each school. In December, 1854, the Board of Education adopted a resolution that there should be but one library in Cincinnati for the use of the public schools. Mr. King gave his personal attention to the purchase of a list of books, and reported in 1855: "The past year is worthy of being signalized in the history of our schools as the era of the introduction of the free school library, established in the late general school law, and to be sustained by a State tax of one-tenth of a mill annually." He said further, as to the purchase of books : "Due reference was had to the use of the library which is to be allowed by law to the older and more mature population of the city."


July, 1856, a contract was entered into with the Ohio Mechanics' Institute, by which the school library was to occupy the second floor and part of the first floor, fronting Sixth Street, of the institute building. A perpetual lease was entered into on a consideration of $io,000 in city bonds. The institute library was to be transferred to the school library, with the provision for a transfer should the same become necessary by reason of surrender of the lease to the School Board. They also agreed to pay the $10,000 if the School Board desired to cancel the lease, upon receiving twelve months' notice thereof. To this building the books were moved, and in July, 1856, the library was opened to the public with 11,630 volumes. Of these, 6,583 belonged to the Mechanics' Institute, and 5,047 to the school library proper. The latter volumes had cost $7,451.


Thus was the foundation laid for the great Public Library enjoyed today by the citizens of Cincinnati, which city owes a lasting gratitude to such far-seeing men as Rufus King, Dr. C. G. Comegys, and John D. Caldwell, who labored in season and out, for the starting of this library. Hard financial times were the fate of the country in the fifties, and the State tax was suspended for two years, but again in 1858-59 the tax was again imposed, and the school report for 1859 said : "This recent appendage of our schools proves more and more useful and popular as it becomes better known." In March, 1860, the portion of the act of 1853 relating to the assessment of taxes for the purpose of furnishing and increasing school libraries and apparatus was repealed. The report of 186o said : "Henceforth the excellent public library in the possession of the city must stand upon the favor of our citizens."


At that time the library had on its shelves 22,648 books, besides more than 3,000 books of the Ohio Historical Society.


LIBRARIES OF THE CITY - 717


In 1861 and 1862 Mr. King appealed earnestly to the public for financial aid for the library, as State help had been cut off. Money was needed for new books and rebinding old ones, and for other expense bills. These appeals were but little heeded. This was in the days of the Civil War, and many of the best readers of library books were off at the South land in defense of their country. Their absence so long told on the interest in the library, the circulation thus fell off alarmingly. Just when the ebb and flow was at the lowest in the history of the library, April, 1866, Lewis Freeman became librarian. He made appeals to the people for subscriptions and thus secured $5,000. The Legislature also came to the rescue and created a fund it could use.

The library tax authorized under the law of 1867 for the purchase of books was limited to $13,500 annually. The restoration of public aid in 1867 placed the library upon a sound footing again.


During 1868, a library committee purchased at sheriff sale, for $83,000 a lot eighty feet frontage on Vine Street, one hundred feet south from Seventh Street. It was one hundred and ninety feet deep through to College Street. It had been designed for opera house purposes, but the enterprise failed. Fifty thousand dollars had been placed on this lot in improvements, most of which could be utilized for library building. Plans were immediately made for a new building by James W. McLaughlin, architect, and consisted of three buildings. The main library hall was to occupy the rear structure. The library committee in making its report on construction went into enthusiasm by stating : "When completed this will be the finest and most imposing library hall in the United States."


In 1870 the library had 22,537 volumes, and a circulation of over 50,000 books. The report in 1871 showed an increase in books used and it was not long before the number amounted to 4,000 volumes weekly. In 1872 there were employed in the library nineteen persons, twelve during the day and seven in the evening hours. The circulation for home reading was 191,000. Thomas Vickers was elected librarian in January, 1874.


Dedication—The main building was dedicated February 25, 1874, the Hon. George H. Pendleton delivering the address. The report of the building committees showed the total cost was : Main building, $237,480; front building, $59,203; lot and interest, $86,910; total $383,593. This total cost was paid from the regular annual income of the Board of Education, commencing in 1868 with the purchase of the lot. No bonds were ever issued for this library institution. In 1878 the library had increased to 100,621 books and 11,229 pamphlets.


Librarian Vickers made the first suggestion for branch libraries in Cincinnati. It remained, however, for the board of trustees in 1899 to


718 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


establish a practical system of delivery stations. Now all Hamilton County is provided with such stations.


Historic Gleanings —A branch library was opened in Cumminsville with nearly 5,000 volumes in June, 1879. A pioneer settler of that section left a bequest from which the board received $12,000. Another bequest was made by Sarah Lewis.


Following Mr. Vickers, librarian, came Charles W. Merrill, who had forty-four assistants. The report in 1884 showed the library had an aggregate of 730,544 books, pamphlets, and newspapers.


In 1886 A. W. Whelpley was elected librarian. In 1888 the circulation increased to 852,151. Mr. Whelpley in 1890, raised the question of a new library building. In 1891 the library contained 167,735 books and other publications, enough to make the grand total of volumes over 408,000. After many suggestions concerning the suburban places having from this public library, finally in 1897, W. T. Porter prepared a bill to be presented to the Legislature which should cover the case. The provision for a county levy necessarily took the matter out of the hands of the Board of Education of the school district of Cincinnati. The bill passed the General Assembly April 21, 1898. After January, 1899, a complete separation took place between the library and the Board of Education, and the library passed into the sole control of the Board of Trustees. In June, 1898, the board organized under the new law by the election of W. T. Porter as president ; Thomas P. White, vice-president ; L. L. Sadler, treasurer ; and James A. Green, secretary.


Not until the new officers had made a long tour of investigation concerning the best manner to conduct a large public library, which tour took in many cities, East and West, did they settle down to using for the most part the system found in use in the best libraries in this country. This committee recommended among other things, a public card catalogue; two books, one of fiction, should be allowed to be drawn at one time by each borrower ; a library school should be established ; magazines should be covered and placed in racks for the free use of readers, without request or slip ; branch libraries should be established as soon as possible ; a children's room should be opened, furnished with suitable books, and the children should be allowed to draw and return the books in that room.


June 10, 1899, fifteen delivery stations were installed under supervision of W. A. Hopkins, well calculated for such work. Just when this innovation was taking place Librarian Whelpley died, the date of his decease being February 19, 1900, having served as librarian since 1886. Succeeding him came Nathaniel Dana Carlile Hodges. He was of the class of 1874 in Harvard University. He served faithfully and well until his resignation, September 1, 1924, and was immediately succeeded by Chalmers Hadley, former librarian of Denver Public Library.


LIBRARIES OF THE CITY - 719


Carnegie Branch Libraries —The great ironmaster, Andrew Carnegie, in 1902 offered $180,000 for the building of six branch libraries, which offer was accepted, and after legal difficulties were out of the way the buildings were constructed. In July, 1902, the Cincinnati Library was made a depository for the Congressional Library catalogue, by which system books for students may be drawn from the great Washington library. This is an excellent feature of the Cincinnati system of libraries. Not alone can patrons here have the benefit of the Congressional Library, but an arrangement has long since been made by which books may be had from many other large city libraries throughout the country.


In 1902 the six branch libraries in Cincinnati were : Wyoming, Madisonville, Lockland, Pleasant Ridge, Harrison, and Hartwell. At the same date there were forty-two delivery stations, twenty travelling libraries, thirty-six firemen's libraries, thirteen school libraries.


Other gifts from Mr. Carnegie were the Walnut Hills branch ($40,000) ; Norwood ($40,000). February 9, 1905, it was decided to inscribe on the exterior of the Walnut Hills branch building : "Public Library, Walnut Hills Branch," and a tablet was ordered made for the interior of the building containing these words : "This building is the gift of Andrew Carnegie to the people of Cincinnati, 1905."


The Corryville (North Cincinnati) library branch was erected in 1905-06. East End Carnegie Branch Library was opened March 22,

1905.


The Libraries in 1925 —The officials of the Cincinnati Public Library system in the autumn of 1925 gave out the following statistics concerning the present condition of the main library and numerous branches :


The report shows the number of books lent for home use exclusively, totaled 2,067,269 volumes, an increase of about 56,000 over the preceding year. In addition to books, there were loaned 110,827 lantern slides, 541,000 mounted pictures, and 1,1130 music rolls. Fifty-seven per cent of the books read last year were of the fiction class.


The opening of the Madison Branch Library in February, 1925, marked another step in advancement of the Public Library of Cincinnati. This branch is one of the largest and most thoroughly modern in its appointments. The village of Madisonville formed a library in 1898, but when the village was merged with Cincinnati in 1918 it became a branch library of Cineinnati. The cost of the present building and fixtures was $80,000.


Circulation By Branches—The 1924-25 annual report shows the book circulation by branches to be :



North Cincinnati

Walnut Hills

Dayton Street

131,571

121,168

103,430

Norwood

Cumminsville

Madville

89,771

88,251

75,558

720 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE

Avondale

Hyde Park

Price Hill

Grant

East End

Camp Washington

Stowe

Pleasant Ridge

West End

Westwood

Elmwood Place

70,287

64,336

64,007

58,276

50,710

48,776

44,478

43,574

38,918

36,035

35,001

College Hill

St. Bernard

Lockland

Hartwell

Sayler Park

Harrison

Winton Place

Douglass

Wyoming


Total

29,181

28548

25,080

2467

19,214

17,961

425

17,142

1,895


1,3570




Finances —The total receipts in the regular library fund in the city in 1924-25 was $338,012.47, while the disbursements were the same amount, less balance on hand in treasury, $4,o68.83.


Miscellaneous Items —Population of county and city, 540,000 ; assessed valuation, $1,060,000,000; days open during the year, 359; total number of volumes at close of year 679,157 ; lost or withdrawn, 20,811; present number of pamphlets, 125,000; number pictures and photographs, 73,303 ; number newspapers, periodicals, proceedings, etc., of learned societies, 1,130. The number of persons using the library for study or reading, 110,883. The total number of staff service, not including pages, 132.


Operating Expenses —Librarians' salaries, $159,079; books and periodicals, $53,241; binding, $18,588; furniture and equipment, $2,758; telephone, postage, express, and freight, $9,277; other items, $34.15.


Board of Trustees and Officers —W. T. Porter, H. W. Bettmann, C. W. Handman, Louise H. Pollak, J. A. Green, R. H. West, Agnes Hilton. Officers : Charles W. Handman, president ; James A. Green, vice-president ; W. T. Porter, treasurer ; Louise H. Pollak, secretary ; librarian, Chalmers Hadley ; executive secretary, C. L. Stanley.


CHAPTER XLVII.


THE CINCINNATI MUSEUM ASSOCIATION.


The Cincinnati Museum Association was incorporated in 1881, but was so intimately associated with preceding developments in Cincinnati that it is necessary to look farther back for the real beginning of the movement which culminated in the establishment of this institution. Cincinnati and the Ohio River Valley region generally had shown even before the beginning of the nineteenth century a capacity for art expression in one form or another. To this region came settlers from Virginia, Eastern Pennsylvania, and New England bringing with them much of the culture and many of the differing ideals of the Eastern States. This population had become thoroughly blended when it was followed in the '40s by an influx of the best of the early German immigration, though some of the latter had begun to flow even earlier. There had also been a smaller immigration of French settlers drifting down from the neighborhood of Gallipolis.



Already in the '20S artists were practicing and giving instruction, and modest collections were beginning to be formed. The most notable figure among artists in the early '30s is that of Hiram Powers, the sculptor, born in Vermont, but making his professional start here through his work in modeling wax figures for a popular museum (Dorfeuille's Museum). It was somewhere about this time that Mrs. Trollope, mother of Anthony Trollope, came from England to establish here a bazaar.


The review of a few significant dates will help to show the steps by which the Art Museum and Art Academy developed as an outgrowth of community life rather than a standardized institution. The successive efforts to focus art interests may be roughly classified thus. Efforts of artists on behalf of painting and sculpture :


1828—Frank's Gallery of Fine Arts.

1835—Academy of Fine Arts, Mr. Frankenstein, president.

1838—Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts, John L. Whetstone (sculptor), president.

1866—Associated Artists, C. T. Webber, president.


Efforts of patrons on behalf of painting and sculpture :


1847—Western Art Union.

1854—Ladies' Gallery of Fine Arts, Mrs. Peter, president.

1868—Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts, W. S. Groesbeck, president.

1869—McMicken School of Design.

1874—Women's Centennial Committee, Mrs. Peter and others.

1876—Women's room at Centennial Exposition.


Cin-46


722 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


Interest in art industries added to that in painting and sculpture:


1877—Women's Art Museum Association (modelled on South Kensington Museum), Mrs. Aaron F. Perry, president.

1878—Loan Exhibition in Connover House.

1881—Cincinnati Museum Association, Incorporated.

1884—McMicken School of Design, transferred to Cincinnati Museum Association, becomes the Art Academy of Cincinnati.


Prominent in the group of men who, in founding the Cincinnati Museum and Art Academy made stable and permanent the persistent efforts of earlier workers were : Joseph Longworth, Julius Dexter, Melville E. Ingalls, Charles W. West, David Sinton, Reuben Springer, George Hoadly, Elliott Pendleton and others. A. T. Goshorn, for years active leader in the important industrial expositions held in Cincinnati and in 1876, commissioner general for the Centennial, became the first director of the Museum and Academy, with Mr. J. H. Gest, who succeeded him as director after his death as his secretary and assistant.


The museum building was dedicated in 1886, added to (The Emma Louise Schmidlapp Building) in 1907 and again (The Ropes Gallery) in 1910. The school building (David Sinton Gift) was opened in 1887.


The right to use 19.71 acres of Eden Park for buildings was given by the city, but otherwise the Cincinnati Museum Association receives no support from taxation. During the first thirty-four years of its existence nearly $2,000,000 have been given to it by public-spirited citizens.


The original Museum and Art Academy Buildings are of rough, native limestone, designed by J. W. McLaughlin in the Romanesque style, under the influence of Richardson. A departure to classic was made in the Schmidlapp Building by Daniel Burnham, and is adhered to in the drawings by Garber and Woodward for a great group to crown the museum's hilltop of twenty acres. Important additions in prospect are the Mary M. Emery Wing, given by Mrs. Emery to hold her very important collection of paintings by old masters and other collections already in the museum, and the Frederick Alms Wing.


The Cincinnati Museum Association was organized in 1880, in consequence of Charles W. West's offer to give $150,000 toward establishing an art museum in Cincinnati on condition that other citizens should give as much more. Within thirty days $166,500 were subscribed. It was incorporated in 1881 "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in Cincinnati a museum wherein may be gathered, preserved, and exhibited valuable and interesting objects of every kind and nature, and for the purpose of using the contents of said museum for education through the establishment of classes and otherwise as may be found expedient." Therefore, the Cincinnati Museum, though popularly known as the "Art Museum," contains besides paintings and sculpture, collections of primitive art, textiles, ceramics, metal work, wood and


THE CINCINNATI MUSEUM ASSOCIATION - 723


ivory carvings, costumes, arms and armor, musical instruments, etc., and a library in which all branches of art may be studied.


Notable among the permanent collections are a very fine and complete collection of modern American art, which includes the unique collection of paintings, sculpture, and etchings by Frank Duveneck, the Memorial room filled with paintings, studies, drawings, and etchings by Robert Blum as well as a full representation of the other leading American painters and sculptors. An extensive collection of casts of Greek sculpture and of carved ivory from the Roman to the Renaissance periods is beautifully installed in the Schmidlapp Building, and the large group of American archaeology is noteworthy. The decorative arts are lavishly represented, the department of metal work, including, beside the Elkington Reproductions, a group of original armor and the important Conner Collection of original silver. Special mention should be made of the Doane Collection of musical instruments, the Longworth Collection of India shawls, and the historic collection of Rookwood pottery—the Cincinnati art industry with which the museum is closely connected. A very fine reference library covers the entire field of art.


Unique, indeed among museum collections is the group of works by Frank Duveneck. His life was linked to the Museum and Art Academy by many years of service, which he crowned with this gift.


The lists comprise in all two hundred and fifty individual works of art in sculpture, paintings, drawing, and etching by various artists, and include one hundred and sixty of his own works. The gift was made in the year when he received the grand medal of honor at the (P. P. I. E.), Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with the desire as he expressed it "to help students and others in Cincinnati who are interested in art."


A sketch of his life from the Memorial printed by the museum should be placed on record here :


"Frank Duveneck, 1848-1919. Born in Covington, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati. Died in Cincinnati, Ohio.


"An artist preeminent as a painter, as an etcher, and also distinguished for his few works in sculpture. A teacher of his art, sought after by many pupils throughout his life, and by them held in continued reverence for his guidance throughout their professional careers. As a man, whether teacher or friend, beloved for the generosity and the kindly consideration with which his help was given to all who sought it. Always an uncompromising searcher for truth in the practice of his art and in his judgment of the performance of others, yet always inspired by a tolerant kindliness toward all who worked with sincerity, even though their achievement might be relatively small.

"Boyhood experience in a workshop, making and gilding altars, was followed at eighteen by employment as assistant to an important decorator of churches then in Cincinnati. This gave him experience in the


724 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


handling of brush and paint such as artists rarely gain so young. The materials of his profession thenceforth presented no obstacle. Consequently, when in 1870 he entered the Royal Academy in Munich, his progress was so phenomenal that by 1872 and 1873 he had painted some of his very notable canvases, such as the 'Whistling Boy' and the 'Portrait of Professor Loeffts.'


"The year 1875 is marked by an exhibition of his work in Boston that attracted notice on account of its 'extraordinary freshness, vitality, and absolute newness of point of view ; and apparently no one was more surprised than he was himself.' Among artists, this exhibition of his in 1875, followed in 1877 by contributions to the National Academy Exhibition in New York from Duveneck, Chase, Weir, Shirlaw, and others from both Munich and Paris, has been referred to as the beginning of a new era in American art history.'


"We have now come to one of the most important contributions he was to make to American art, the beginning of his career as a teacher, a work that was destined more and more to absorb him thenceforth, so deeply did he become interested in the training of those who came for help.

"On Duveneck's return to Munich in 1879 he started a school of painting which became so popular that he soon had two classes, one of Americans and English, the other of different nationalities, numbering about thirty in each class. The following year (1879) when he decided to go to Florence, nearly half of them insisted on going with him, and for a time the Duveneck boys were a feature in the artistic and social life of Florence. They are the 'Inglehart Boys' of one of W. D. Howells' stories of Florentine life—'Indian Summer.' Among them were John W. Alexander, Joseph DeCamp, Julius Rolshoven, John H. Twachtman, 0. D. Grover, Otto H. Bacher, Theodore Wendel, Ross Turner, Charles Forbes, G. E. Hopkins, Julian Story, Louis Ritter, Charles Mills, R. G. Harper Pennington, C. A. Corwin, J. 0. Anderson, C. H. Freeman, A. C. Reinhart, H. M. Rosenber—Gronwold, and others. `They worked in Florence during the winter, and in summer went to Venice. This continued for a couple of years, when Duveneck decided that it would be better for the students to go to some large place, such as Paris or Munich, on account of exhibitions, etc.; so he disbanded the class.'


"About 1880 he became interested in etching through some experiments of his pupil, Otto Bacher. During that year and the following years until 1884 he etched in Venice and Florence. Though many plates were destroyed through experimenting, there remain eighteen or twenty which he thought important. Nearly all of these plates he finally gave to the Cincinnati Museum. Very few prints were made with the exception of two or three plates which were published in the usual way. The




THE CINCINNATI MUSEUM ASSOCIATION - 725


original exhibition of some of them in London established his rank as an etcher.


"The same opinion that had prompted him to urge his pupils to go to Paris in order to be in touch with the exhibitions of current work led him to go there himself in 1885 for several years of work. In the year 1887 he married Miss Elizabeth Boott, of Boston, herself a painter of much ability, and formerly a pupil of his. Her death within two years was destined to have a marked effect upon his activity as a painter, and seemed to cause his interest to center more and more upon teaching, upon the companionship of pupils whose development he loved to watch and foster. To give them helpful criticism and then to paint for them innumerable studies from the model in demonstration of what he meant ; that was his life. He had taught a small class in Cincinnati when first returning there in the winter of 1873-1874. We have spoken of his class in Munich in 1878, and afterwards in Italy. Again in Cincinnati he took up teaching in a special class established by Mrs. Bellamy Storer in the museum from the fall of 1890 until the spring of 1892. Continuing to work in Cincinnati he became in 1900 regularly associated with the Art Academy, the school of the Cincinnati Museum, and from that time until his death he taught there constantly. He was throughout the companion and friend, the guide and inspiration of every artist member of the Academy faculty as well as the teacher of his actual pupils. Equally close were the ties with those engaged in the administration of the museum, particularly in all that related to its encouragement of American artists through exhibitions and the acquisition of works of art for the collections of painting and sculpture."


The Blum Memorial ranks with the Duveneck Room in interest, being filled with paintings, color studies, pen and pencil drawings, etc., by Robert Blum (1857-19o3) also a Cincinnatian and famous artist. This collection was given to the museum after Blum's death by his sister, Mrs. Henrietta Haller. The artist, William J. Baer, the close friend and studio mate of Robert Blum and administrator of his estate, shares with her the honor of establishing this memorial to him.


The extensive collection of textiles and costumes has personal as well as educational value. The large and carefully chosen series of cotton prints from India, and the important group of laces given by the Women's -Art Museum Association should be especially mentioned as well as a considerable number of early American costumes and embroideries directly connected with Cincinnati history.


Supplementing the permanent collections, about twenty special exhibitions of fine or applied art are shown each year of which the annual exhibition of work by American artists is in many respects the most important. These have been held since 1894, antedating almost all similar exhibitions held elsewhere.


726 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


Since 1892 the museum has made a practice of purchasing works of art by Americans, entirely on their own merit and without reference to the previous distinction of the artist. One result of this is that the Cincinnati Museum was the first to recognize by purchase of their work, J. H. Twachtman, E. C. Tarbell, Joseph DeCamp, Childe Hassam, F. W. Benson, Elmer Schofield, and a considerable number of other men and women now famous.


The museum is open every day : Week days from 9 to 5, Sundays from 1 to 5. On Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays it is free to all. On all days during the summer vacation it is free to all young people of sixteen and under. Adults pay admission ranging from ten cents on Thursday and twenty-five cents during the week except the Saturday and Sunday free days, but they can buy tickets, ten for one dollar, good any day.


The annual membership is a family ticket securing to the member, his family, and visiting guests all the privileges of the museum for a year. It secures the prompt mailing of all announcements, catalogues, etc., relating to exhibits, as well as the annual reports, and in general keeps the member in touch with the work of the museum. There is also a class of life membership.


Since 1908 the museum has conducted a variety of work to extend the knowledge and appreciation of art, the interests of the public schools being served first of all. Some of the things accomplished along these lines are : Free admission to teachers with classes. Lecture courses for teachers and other groups of students. Special lectures, talks, and conferences by members of the staff for individuals, clubs, or committees working in the field of art. Typical groups of lantern slides and prints have been prepared for the public schools, and photographs, prints, and handbooks on the collections as well as reports and catalogues have been published. Cooperation with the Municipal Art Society in the work of their school decoration committee, their city planning committee, etc. Help of gifted young artists after the student stage to successfully enter the professional field. Free classes for children have been conducted in the museum.


Among the art associations bearing a very close relation to the museum is the Crafters Company, organized in 1911 through the joint effort of craftsmen and art lovers in Cincinnati "for the purpose of promoting the creation and sale of the products of the arts and crafts." Its work has been twofold—educational through lectures, exhibitions, and demonstration of processes, and industrial, in securing for craftsmen increased facilities for the sale of their handiwork. Many of the Crafters' meetings are held in the Museum or Art Academy, and there is thorough cooperation.


The Art Academy, where professional training may be had in draw-


THE CINCINNATI MUSEUM ASSOCIATION - 727


ing, painting, modeling, and designing, is under the same management as the museum, and is located beside it in Eden Park. The Art Academy is one of the oldest and best known art schools in the country. Owing to the large endowment the tuition is very low. There are generous scholarship funds which are applied not as prizes, but to enable students of ability to pursue their studies in the school. Through the special course for high school students (started in 1909) which permits them to specialize in art by devoting their afternoons to study at the Art Academy, a thorough training can be begun very early without interfering with general educational work.


The courses include drawing, painting, and modeling, from the elementary grades onward, composition, sketch, illustration, and portrait classes. There is special work in designing from plant form and decorative modeling and wood carving, porcelain painting, metal and leather work, and bookbinding are taught as well as the history of art. The academy cooperates with the College for Teachers and the public schools in conducting a normal class for teachers and supervisors of art. Beside teaching, a practical outlet for students equipped through the training of the academy has been found in the higher grades of work done by the local art industries—the Rookwood Pottery and various lithographing establishments, and in similar work done elsewhere. Commercial art is, naturally, a well-worked field. As a rule the more ambitious students belong to those who are earning their own education, and they find employment in a great variety of fields. It speaks well for the general usefulness of the academy's training that in addition to the successful artists it has equipped great numbers of men and women who have been students there, have built successful careers of every sort in which their art training has been a prime factor. This is true because the Art Academy devotes itself to fundamentals without regard to shifting demands for the secondary applications. This is not an easy standard to adhere to. It takes time, patience and a passionate conviction of its value on the part not only of instructors fully qualified for their work, but of those who direct them.


On the list of those who have gone out from the Cincinnati school are Robert Blum, J. H. Twachtman, Joseph DeCamp, Kenyon Cox, C. H. Niehaus, Albert Jaegers, Solon Borglum, Bryson Burroughs, Daniel Garber and many more of high distinction.


Among those who remained to teach are the late Frank Duveneck, L. H. Meakin, Vincent Nowottny, T. S. Noble, L. T. Rebisso. At present, Clement J. Barnhorn is head of the department of modeling, and H. H. Wessel is head of the department of painting and drawing. With these are associated as teachers a dozen men and women of individual achievement to whom teaching is a labor of love as well as a profession based on sound knowledge of their own technique, and of the great fundamental facts that underlie all enduring art.


728 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


In speaking of art, institutions and monuments must always make way to the vital interest and importance of the artist himself. The chief contribution of any city is through the character and achievements of her individual citizens. Cincinnati lays claim to three deathless names among the artists of the generation which has just passed—Blum, Twachtman, and Duveneck, and she counts by the score the names of men and women of high artistic achievement who, whether or not they were able to live out their lives here have developed their talent, received their inspiration and won their early triumphs in Cincinnati.


CHAPTER XLVIII.


THE POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI.


(By Oliver G. Bailey.)


When Congress granted to John Cleves Symmes and his associates the land bounded on the south by the Ohio River and on the east and west by the two Miamis, the proprietors and promoters of the proposed settlement issued prospectuses which would challenge the attention of the most enthusiastic real estate boosters of Florida, but even they did not predict that from this tract extending about thirty miles along the Ohio River there should come four Presidents of the United States.


In this small territory were born two Presidents of the United States, Benjamin Harrison and William Howard Taft, the latter being the only individual in the history of the country to become President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.


Another President, William Henry Harrison, received here his nomination and election, and Rutherford B. Hayes is justly claimed by Cincinnati, for in Cincinnati he made his reputation, was elected twice to Congress and twice to the Governorship, and his nomination to the Presidency was made at a National Convention held in Cincinnati.


Cincinnati was not content with furnishing Presidents to the United States, for the first President of the Republic of Texas, after its declaration of independence of Mexico, was a Cincinnatian, David Burnet, a brother of Judge Jacob Burnet.


Another President, U. S. Grant, was born at Point Pleasant, just a few miles up the river from the Symmes purchase.


There have been nine chief justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Three of them came from Ohio. No other State can claim more than one. Of the three Ohioans thus honored, Salmon P. Chase and William Howard Taft were from Cincinnati. Chase was the only Chief Justice who presided at the trial of articles of impeachment of a President, Andrew Johnson. The ablest of Johnson's counsel was Senator William S. Groesbeck, a Cincinnati lawyer.


When one contemplates these names and the long list of other Cincinnatians who have become associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio, Governors, cabinet officers, Senators, Representatives and ambassadors, the boast of the Greek that a stone thrown at random in his native city could not miss a leader of men, seems almost literally true of Cincinnati.


At the present time a Cincinnatian in Washington can visit the Supreme Court and see William H. Taft presiding over the highest court in the land, can then step into the gallery of the House of Representa-


730 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


tives and find Nicholas Longworth in the Speaker's chair, and pass to the Senate gallery and observe vice-President Dawes, a graduate of the Cincinnati Law School, presiding there.


While he cannot claim the Presidency for Cincinnati, he can recall that at a recent New Year's reception at the White House, Mr. Chief Justice Taft remarked to the Chief Magistrate : "This house seems very familiar. I must have been here before."


For distinguished sons given to the public service, Hamilton County holds a record which is out of all proportion to its population and territorial extent, and is not excelled by any equal area in the United States.


This prominence is not fortuitous. It is attributable to many causes, such as the pivotal character of the State of Ohio, of which Cincinnati was the metropolis for many years, the location of Cincinnati as the gateway of the South, and the cosmopolitan character of its citizenship.


Another important factor was that the municipal elections were held in the spring for many years, and as State officers held office for only two years, there was at least one, and sometimes two, elections each year and party organizations were kept in a constant state of preparedness.


For a long period the State and National elections were held in October, making success in Ohio a prophecy, and a cause of victory elsewhere, thus increasing the political importance of the State.


Most of the first settlers who followed Judge Symmes from New Jersey and nearby were Federalists. It is said that at the time of the Adams-Jefferson campaign (1796) there were but four supporters of Jefferson in Cincinnati, then a town of seven hundred and fifty inhabitants. To the east of the Little Miami was the Virginia Military District, extending to the Scioto, which was allotted to Virginia soldiers for their services in the War of the Revolution, and these Virginians were nearly all followers of Jefferson, called Republicans or Republican-Democrats. Marietta and the Western Reserve were settled largely by New Englanders, who were Federalists.


Immigration soon destroyed the Federalist majority in Cincinnati. While many came from Federalist New England, Republican Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky were nearer, and the Ohio River was a more convenient highway than the overland journey from the far east. Cincinnati thus became the most cosmopolitan of the Ohio settlements.


The local downfall of the Federalists was aided by controversies between the Federalist Governor of the Territory, General Arthur St. Clair, and prominent local men. St. Clair was a soldier and a friend of Washington, and had rendered good service to the country in the Revolutionary War. He sincerely desired to promote as he deemed best the interests of his territory, but he was arbitrary and autocratic, and unable to understand or deal with civilians. His personal unpopularity proved a detriment to the Federalist party in Ohio.


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 731


The first election of importance was for a General Assembly for the Territory. The House of Representatives, numbering twenty-two, was to be elected by the people. The upper house was a council of five, to be selected by the Congress of the Confederation from a list of ten, to be submitted by the House of Representatives. Seven of the representatives were elected from Hamilton County, then containing much more territory than the present county. These seven included William McMillan, a strong Federalist, and John Smith, Republican, who afterwards became a Senator of the United States and who was ruined by undeserved charges of complicity in Burr's Western plot.


The first meeting of the new Assembly was held at Cincinnati on September 16, 1799. As the Congress of the Confederation had expired, President Adams appointed the five members of the Council, including Judge Jacob Burnet, the strongest Federalist in the territory, who was afterwards judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, United States Senator, and a member of the French Academy, and James Findlay, a soldier and later a member of Congress as a Jackson Democrat.


A test of strength between the parties soon came in the election by the lower house of a Territorial Delegate to Congress. The Federalist candidate was Arthur St. Clair, Jr., son of the Governor, while the Republicans supported a young man who was to be a prominent character in the history of the State for the next forty years, William Henry Harrison, of Cincinnati, a native of Virginia, and son of Benjamin Harrison, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The younger Harrison had been an officer in the regular army and was a son-in-law of John Cleves Symmes. He was elected by twelve votes to St. Clair's ten.


The Republicans followed this initial victory with a campaign for Statehood. They were opposed by St. Clair, Judge Burnet, Charles Hammond, lawyer and editor of Cincinnati, and other Federalists, but the young and zealous Republicans prevailed, and in 1802 the enabling act for the State of Ohio received the signature of the. President, Thomas Jefferson, well pleased to establish another Republican State before the next National election.


The State Constitution was formed by a convention which was distinctly Republican in its tendencies. Manhood suffrage, with neither religious nor property qualifications for voting or holding office, was established, thus placing Ohio in advance of most of the original States, where such property and religious qualifications remained in force for many years thereafter. Randall ("History of Ohio") terms the fight for statehood under a liberal constitution "the first fight and victory for democracy under our Government."


This defeat almost destroyed the Federalist party in Ohio. William McMillan, of Cincinnati, the candidate of the Federalists for the first


732 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


representative of the new State in Congress, received in June, 1803, only 1,960 votes as against 5,568 for Jeremiah Morrow, Republican, who had been one of the Hamilton County leaders in the fight for Statehood. John Smith, of Cincinnati, another Republican proponent of Statehood, was elected as the first United States Senator by the House of Representatives. By 1808 the Federalist party in the State had lost its political life completely and did not even nominate a candiaate for Governor. Those who were unwilling to join in the election of Edward Tiffin, Republican cast blank ballots. Judge Burnet and some other Cincinnati Federalists seem to have held tenaciously to their opinions, but with the exception of 1824, when Clay carried the State against Jackson by eight hundred votes out of 50,000, its electoral vote was cast consistently for the Presidential candidates of the Jeffersonian or Republican-Democrat party until 1836, the year of Harrison's first campaign, when he received 8,000 votes over Van Buren.


Partisan politics had little to do with Cincinnati municipal elections until 1828, the year of the Jackson and Adams contest. The Jacksonians organized to carry the spring election of the council, three members of which were to be chosen from each of five wards, but succeeded in electing their candidates in only one ward, the fourth, lying west of Main Street and south of Third Street.


Aroused by this defeat the Jackson men increased their activity and carried the city for Jackson by one hundred and fifty plurality at the fall election. Jackson had a plurality of 4,000 over Adams in the State. The independence of the voters of the period is shown by the narrow margins of victory.


The city and county were not in accord, as evidenced by the fact that in a contest for State Senator William Henry Harrison and James W. Gazlay were even in the city, each receiving six hundred and five votes, but the county gave Harrison a plurality. In 1821 the results were reversed, Gazlay defeating Harrison.


After the formation of the Whig party, the Whigs were frequently able to carry the city, but in the county elections the Democrats overcame the city vote, showing the affiliation of the farming element with the Democrats.


It has been said that "the democratic principle is revived whenever the people become irked by the restrictions of the previous crystallized organization."


The crystallized organization of the Federalists was broken by the Jeffersonians calling themselves Republicans, Republican-Democrats, and Democrats. The long tenure of their party became irksome in turn, and when it seemed that the Congressional caucus aspired to become the dictator of Presidential nominations, the crystallized organization was broken by the followers of Jackson, who were called Jackson Democrats,




POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 733


and eventually Democrats, to the exclusion of the name of Republicans, which term lapsed from political use until 1856.


Many of the people, particularly in the West, felt that Jackson's successor, Van Buren, was far removed from true democracy. He was denounced as a tyrant and a waster of the public revenues. The fragments of the Federalist party joined with these dissatisfied elements in the formation of a new party, which in token of its liberal principles, assumed the name of Whigs, the historic title of the liberal party of England.


For a candidate this party turned to a Cincinnati man, William Henry Harrison. The choice was a wise one. Harrison, the victor over Tecumseh and Proctor, and protector of the Northwest Territory in the War of 1812, was as legitimately the hero of the Northwest as Jackson was of the South. His record as a statesman and public servant as condensed on his monument at North Bend shows a remarkable range of activities and experience:


William Henry Harrison,

1773-1841.

Ninth President of the United States.

Hero of Tippecanoe.

Major-General in the War of 1812.

Secretary of the Northwest Territory.

Delegate of the Northwest Territory to Congress.

Governor of the Territory of Indiana.

Member of Congress from Ohio.

United States Senator from Ohio.

Minister to Colombia.


Harrison's first campaign against Van Buren in 1836 was unsuccessful, though he carried Ohio by 8,000 votes. He was nominated a second time in 1839 as the candidate of the whigs, and the campaign, which continued until the election in 1840, is described as "the bitterest, longest, and most extraordinary in the history of the United States."


Early in the campaign a Democratic newspaper presented the Whigs with a slogan by saying that Harrison was "better fitted to live in a log cabin and drink hard cider than to rule in the White House." This was hardly an appropriate description of a man who even as a young officer in a frontier garrison was noted for his sobriety and correct deportment, and whose recreation was to read to literary societies his very scholarly essays on the Indian tribes, but it appealed to the voters, although Omar Khayyam had not yet been translated. Miniature log cabins were a prominent feature of the political processions and hard cider proved such a potent argument that temperance societies were formed to counteract the effects of the campaign.


It was charged that the horse chestnut trees which Van Buren had imported from France to beautify the White House grounds were only


734 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


common buckeyes such as grew wild in Ohio, and the buckeye became an emblem of the Harrison men. Buckeye canes were sold all along the National Road and were carried into the Eastern States. One thousand four hundred and thirty-two buckeye canes were carried in one parade. Political processions sang:


Come all ye jolly Buckeye boys

And listen to my song.


From this campaign dates the name of the Buckeye State for Ohio.


The writer's grandfather, who cast his first vote for William Henry Harrison, used to explain the presence of a horse chestnut tree in his yard by saying that he bought it "to find out whether they had lied about Van Buren."


A strong Cincinnati supporter of Harrison in the campaign was Bellamy Storer, lawyer, editor of the "Crisis," and member of the Twenty-fourth Congress.


Harrison's triumph was complete, but his administration, well commenced with an inaugural address in which he deprecated partisanship, was terminated by his death within a month after inauguration, leaving the Whig party with a President by succession, John Tyler, who was not in sympathy with the party.


Harrison was the first president from Cincinnati as well as from Ohio. Cincinnati had played its part in two Democratic movements, one for Statehood, the next for overthrow of an obnoxious political ring. In the national see-saw of the Whigs and the Democrats for the succeeding twenty years, Cincinnati was preparing to take a prominent part in launching a new political party based on the extension of liberty to the enslaved.


Cincinnati was the storm centre of controversy on the question of slavery. The ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory, and Ohio was always a free State, but Cincinnati being the gateway to the South, many Cincinnatian felt sympathy with Southern views and described themselves as "Northern men with Southern principles." Others opposed agitation of the question of slavery as tending to cause strife.


The political importance of Cincinnati as the metropolis of a pivotal State was probably the reason for holding the Democratic National Convention here in 1856, when James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was nominated for President and John C. Breckenridge, of Lexington, Kentucky, for vice-President, and were elected, the last Democratic National victory until the election of Cleveland in 1884. A few years after this election Breckenridge was a general in the Confederate Army.


The same year, 1856, the Republican party held its first national convention and nominated John C. Fremont for President. It has been said that the Republican party was born in the law office of Salmon P. Chase on Third Street, in Cincinnati.


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 735


Salmon P. Chase, who was twice Governor of Ohio, twice United States Senator, Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was born in New Hampshire January 13, 1808. He studied law in the office of William Wirt, attorney-general of the United States, and in 1830 entered the practice of law in Cincinnati. Originally a Whig, he became convinced of the correctness of Democratic principles and allied himself with the party of that name. Chase believed that the existence of slavery was inconsistent with the spirit of democracy. He represented fugitive slaves in their efforts to avoid being returned to the South under the provisions of the Federal fugitive slave law. Advocating the repeal of that law and of similar statutes of Ohio known as the Black Laws, he became known as a leader of the Free Soil Democrats, and in 1849 was elected to the United States Senate by the General Assembly of Ohio.


His election was effected by two Free Soil legislators who held the balance of power in an almost evenly divided Legislature and negotiated frankly with both Whigs and Democrats for a combination which would result in the election of an anti-slavery Senator, whether Democrat or Whig. The Democrat's proposition being satisfactory to the negotiating Free Soilers, Chase was elected Senator, while two Democrats were elected to the Supreme Court by the Legislature which then had that power.


One cause of the desire to control the selection of judges of the Supreme Court was that the preceding Legislature had attempted to divide Hamilton County into districts for the election of members of the General Assembly, and the Democrats expected this situation to result in litigation in the Supreme Court.


Chase was twice elected Governor of Ohio after his service as Senator, and believing that war would come from the clash over slavery he caused the militia to be reorganized so efficiently that when war came no State was better prepared than Ohio.


In conjunction with Alphonso Taft, George Hoadly, and others who were, or became, outstanding men not only in Cincinnati but in the Nation, Chase made the plans which welded the Free Soilers, the Anti-Slavery Democrats, and the Whigs into a new party opposed to slavery, which adopted the name of Republican, implying that the party would be animated by the same devotion to the principles of liberty which had characterized the Republicans in Jefferson's day, and emphasizing their belief in the power of the National Government, the Republic, as distinguished from the doctrine of State's rights, which was the bulwark of the supporters of slavery.


George Hoadly was a young lawyer in Chase's office and was a delegate to the first National Republican Convention, where he supported Fremont in preference to Justice John McLean, a Cincinnatian, because


736 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


he believed that McLean was too much a Whig and not enough a Republican.


Chase's strength was in the State rather than in Cincinnati, where abolitionist sentiments were still unpopular. Another young Cincinnati lawyer who braved obloquy in those days by representing fugitive slaves was Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected city solicitor in 1859 but defeated for reelection in 1861, showing that neither party had a permanent majority.

Notwithstanding Cincinnati's friendship with the South, Lincoln received a plurality in the Presidential election of 1860, the vote being as follows :



Lincoln, Republican  

Douglas, Democrat  

Bell, Constitutional Union  

Breckenridge, Southern Democrat

Total

12,226

11,135

3,090

242

26,693




Strong national feeling is shown by the insignificant vote for Breckenridge, the only candidate who threatened secession from the Union in the event of his defeat, and when Fort Sumter was fired upon a few months later, the previous sympathy with the South was submerged in loyalty to the Nation.


James Parton, the historian, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, said, in 1867, that the Civil War was for Cincinnati a regenerating influence, breaking up the old aristocracy. This statement may be extravagant as to the existence of, or necessity for breaking up any aristocracy, but it is true that during and after the war was the time of high tide of Cincinnati's military and political importance. No other large city in the North was s.o exposed to attack, so inviting because of its location and great wealth, or played a greater part in the prosecution of the war, at the beginning of which a Cincinnatian, William Dennison, a son of the founder of the old Dennison House, was Governor of Ohio. He established near Cincinnati a camp named Camp Dennison, which was a depot for soldiers for four years. Here came James A. Garfield and Jacob D. Cox, Republican members of the General Assembly, armed with commissions as generals which the General Assembly had granted them. Richard Bishop, Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, presided over a great Union meeting. Rutherford B. Hayes, his friend Stanley Matthews, and others converted the Cincinnati Literary Club into a military company, almost every member of which gained fame in the field. General William H. Lytle, soldier and poet, who in the previous fall had been chairman of a great Douglas meeting, offered his services to the Union Army, in which service he fell on the bloody field of Chickamauga, one of the most illustrious of Cincinnati's war heroes. The magnificent Barnard statue of Lincoln stands in the old homestead of General Lytle, now known as Lytle Park.


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 737


The Republican party in Ohio wisely combined with the "War-Democrats" in the formation of a temporary "Union Party," which elected two Democrats as Governors, David Tod and John Brough, the latter being a Cincinnatian and one of the first proprietors of the "Cincinnati Enquirer."


In Cincinnati the political pendulum swung to and fro. Following the election of Lincoln the Democrats were successful in the municipal election of 1861, and Charles Hammond, editor of the Republican "Gazette," said that this was because the Republican National administration had been too hesitating in its policy.


George H. Pendleton, a Cincinnati Democrat, was reelected to Congress from the First District and served during the war, voting for all appropriations necessary for its prosecution. Alexander Long was Democratic Congressman from the Second District from 1863 to 1865, but was defeated for reelection in 1864 by Rutherford B. Hayes who, rising by most gallant and able military service to the rank of general, would not leave the field to conduct a campaign. Hayes was reelected to Congress in 1866, elected Governor in 1867, defeating George H. Pendleton, was twice reelected, and in 1876 was nominated for the Presidency at the Republican National Convention held at Cincinnati, Alphonso Taft being the chairman.


For a number of years Cincinnatians seemed to have a prior lien on the United States Senatorship from Ohio. Among the successors of Chase were George E. Pugh, Democrat ; Stanley Matthews, who had been a Democrat before the Civil War, occupying the position of United States district attorney at Cincinnati under the Buchanan administration, and George H. Pendleton, Democrat, all of Cincinnati. The first Governor of Ohio elected after the Civil War was General Jacob D. Cox, of Cincinnati, a Republican, who had gone from the Legislature into the army, his command at one time including two future Presidents of the United States, General R. B. Hayes and Major William McKinley.


Cox became Secretary of State in Grant's administration but resigned. He was dean of the Cincinnati Law School in his later years. Many lawyers remember the old "Governor," whose blue eyes were still keen, although his hair was white, instructing his classes in "Blackstone's Commentaries." Sometimes a fortunate allusion turned a recitation into reminiscences of war and statecraft, to the great relief of any unprepared students.


Alphonso Taft, one of the founders of the Republican party, became judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, Attorney-General of the United States in the Hayes administration, and foreign minister.


The Republican party, while producing men of this type, began, soon after the close of the war, to show the natural results of its heterogeneous


Cin--47


738 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


composition. Not all of its members were crusaders for freedom like Chase, Hoadly, Hayes, and Matthews. The party not only included the remnants of the Whigs, but attracted by its successes, those practical politicians, who are always ready "to fly to the succor of the victors." 'The war once won, and the freedom of the slaves obtained, the great spiritual motives which had brought the party into existence were spent. Grant's election in 1868 was not by an overwhelming majority, and the unfortunate scandals which followed caused great dissatisfaction in the party, culminating in the Liberal Republican Convention, which met in Cincinnati in 1872 and adopted a platform based on universal amnesty, local self-government, universal suffrage, civil service reform, and criticism of governmental extravagance and corruption. Stanley Matthews was temporary chairman. Carl Schurz, a Lincoln Republican and a Union general in the Civil War, joined forces with Henry Watterson, former Confederate soldier and brilliant editor, in criticism of the administration.


At the same time another organization, opposed to the administration, held its convention in Cincinnati, and under the leadership of such men as Judge Rufus P. Ranney, of Columbus ; J. B. Stallo, Charles Reemelin and E. W. Kittredge, established "The Reunion and Reform National Party." If the dissatisfied elements had combined their forces and nominated a strong candidate, they might have swept the country. Salmon P. Chase, one of the founders of the Republican party, and at the time Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a receptive candidate for the nomination of the Liberal Republican party and might have obtained it but for his ill health.


The nominee, however, was Horace Greeley, and although the Democratic National Convention endorsed him, he was defeated by an overwhelming vote.


The strength of the revolt was shown by the fact that Hayes was defeated for reelection to Congress when he ran at the time of the national election in 1872.


The condition which brought about this revolt caused some of the ablest men of the Republican party to face the question whether they should try to better these conditions from within the party or whether they should treat it as having completed its mission in the abolition of slavery and return to the Democratic party as more nearly in accord with their liberal principles.


George Hoadly took the latter course and later was elected Governor of Ohio on the Democratic ticket. With him went Judson Harmon, a young lawyer, who had been a Republican, but was to be twice Governor of Ohio, elected on the Democratic ticket. Hayes, Taft, Matthews and many others remained in the Republican organization.


Others formed, in 1873, a new party called the People's party, whose


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 739


candidate for Governor was Judge Isaac C. Collins, a prominent Cincinnati lawyer, and whose platform declared that both the Republican and Democratic parties had outlived the issues in which they had their origin and had outlived their usefulness ; urged a reduction of the functions exercised by the Federal Government, and asserted that " a continually increasing army of Federal officers is an evil, increasing in danger as the country grows."


The People's party enlisted the support of such men as George Hoadly, E. W. Kittredge, and William S. Groesbeck, who had been attorney for President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial, and United States Senator as a Democrat.


The platform of this party and a speech of E. W. Kittredge in which he compared Congress then "considering" farm relief to the


Piper who had a hungry cow

And had no corn to feed her ;

He took his pipe and played this tune—

Consider, cow, consider.


have such a familiar sound as to cause one to doubt whether there is anything new in politics.


The People's party received few votes, but probably took enough from the Republican candidate to turn the result in favor of William Allen, Democrat, by a plurality of eight hundred and seventeen in the State over General Edward F. Noyes, of Cincinnati, Republican, soldier, judge, and Governor, who was a candidate for reelection.


R. B. Hayes and Alphonso Taft, of Cincinnati, were candidates for the Republican nomination for Governor in 1875. Hayes received it, Taft withdrawing, and succeeded in defeating William Allen on a platform of sound money as against greenbacks, bringing out the largest vote ever polled in the State to that time.


This success gave Hayes great prestige, and in 1876 he was the candidate of the independent Republicans for President as against the Stalwarts of James G. Blaine and Roscoe Conkling.


The convention was held in Cincinnati, Alphonso Taft being the chairman. Hayes received the nomination and won the election. This victory of the independent Republicans kept many Republicans in the party, and the clean administration of Hayes went far to redeem the party from the effect of the scandals of previous administrations. His election as President being contested by Samuel J. Tilden, was decided by an electoral commission by a strict party vote, which caused great feeling.


George Hoadly's ability as a lawyer was recognized when he was retained by Tilden to represent him in this contest, while Stanley Matthews was the chief advocate of Hayes. By terminating the military occupancy of the South Hayes put an end to carpet bag rule and healed the wounds of war.


740 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


He appointed as his Attorney-General Alphonso Taft, of Cincinnati, and nominated for the Supreme Court Stanley Matthews, who had been his associate in politics and in arms, but factional opposition in the Senate prevented confirmation, the fact that Matthews had originally been a Democrat and United States district attorney under the Buchanan administration and had been temporary chairman of the Liberal Republican Convention, making him persona non grata to the Stalwarts. He was subsequently nominated by President Garfield and his appointment to the Supreme Court confirmed by the Senate.


Cincinnati claims Hayes although he had moved his home to Fremont shortly before his election to the Presidency, for it was in Cincinnati that he spent his early and active years, and first held local office, and from Cincinnati he went to war and gained high honors as Congressman and Governor.


The oscillation of Ohio's political pendulum resulted in the election in 1877 of Richard M. Bishop to the Governorship. Bishop, a Democrat, was mayor of Cincinnati when the Civil War began. His opponent, R. H. West, a blind jurist who had been a judge of the Supreme Court and who had gained the nomination over Alphonso Taft, alarmed the conservatives by promising to railroad employees higher wages and a share of the railroads' profits, anticipating the Plumb plan by forty years.


A Democratic Legislature was elected with Bishop, and George H. Pendleton was chosen United States Senator in 1878 over Stanley Matthews.


Pendleton was for many years the most prominent Democrat in Cincinnati, and his ability and popularity might have made him President except for the disruption of his party by the Civil War.


His grandfather, Nathaniel Pendleton, was a Federalist, and so intimate a friend of Alexander Hamilton as to be his second in the fatal duel with Aaron Burr. His father, Nathaniel Green Pendleton, who moved to Cincinnati, was a Whig. George H. Pendleton, in early life allied himself with the Democratic party and became State Senator and then a member of Congress.


In 1864 he was the Democratic nominee for vice-President on the McClellan ticket. In 1868 he was at one time within a few votes of receiving the Democratic nomination for President, but lost to Horatio Seymour, of New York, though Pendleton would probably have been the stronger candidate. In 1869 he was defeated for Governor by Hayes. He was one of the earliest advocates of civil service reform, and proposed also that Cabinet officers be given seats in Congress without votes, in order to coordinate the legislative and executive departments of the

Government.


When the Democrats returned to National power by the election of Cleveland, he appointed Pendleton minister to Germany.


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In 1880 the Democratic National Convention was held in Cincinnati for the first time since the convention in 1856, which had nominated Buchanan. General William S. Hancock was nominated for President, but was defeated by James A. Garfield.


Both candidates for Governor in 1883 were Cincinnati men, George Hoadly, Democrat, and Joseph Benson Foraker, Republican. Both had been judges of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. Foraker had a brilliant war record and was an able campaigner in politics. Hoadly was elected after a hard battle, but was defeated for reelection by Foraker in 1885, after which he ceased to be active in politics. He twice declined appointment to the Supreme Court of Ohio, and declined a place in Cleveland's Cabinet.


Foraker was reelected in 1887, but in 1889 was defeated by James E. Campbell, of Hamilton. No other Cincinnatian was to occupy the Governor's chair until the election of John M. Pattison in 1905, but in 1888 Hamilton County furnished to the Nation another President in Benjamin Harrison, who was born in the homestead of his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, near North Bend, and studied law in Cincinnati in the office of Judge Bellamy Storer, who had been one of the staunch supporters of the first Harrison in 1840. Benjamin Harrison engaged in the practice of law in Indianapolis, rose to the rank of general in the Civil War, was United States Senator and President. His defeat for reelection was due largely to the opposition of men in his own party, whom he had offended by doing his duty.


The decade from 1870 to 188o was one of great material progress in Cincinnati. Expositions which attracted National and even foreign attention were held each year. The Southern Railroad was built. The May festivals were established in 1872. Music Hall was built. The Tyler Davidson fountain was donated. Eden Park was laid out, and the Art Museum was begun, but the high tide of political life in Cincinnati began to ebb with the close of Hayes' administration in 1881. In default of great issues, elections turned largely on personal popularity, and nominations were procured largely by trading and trafficking in delegates.


An honored Cincinnati judge now dead, told the writer that in the '80s his messenger, bringing bulletins from the convention at which the judge was a candidate for renomination, caused excitement by bursting into the court room and shouting from the door : "Judge, it's all right. They just bought the —th Ward for you," instead of discreetly approaching the judicial bench and "bringing the good news from Ghent to Aix" in a whisper.


There was no Australian or secret ballot. There was no registration. Corruption and illegal voting were rampant. Efforts were made by good citizens to correct these conditions. In 1883 the Municipal Re-


742 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


form Association endorsed candidates on both tickets, including Judson Harmon, Democrat, and William Worthington, Republican, for judges of the Superior Court, and John A. Caldwell, Republican, for prosecuting attorney of Police Court, all of whom were elected. In 1884 the association put up an independent ticket, being unwilling to endorse the candidates on either of the party tickets, but its candidates received only a small vote.


Bad political conditions were reflected in laxity in the courts in criminal cases, which resulted in the riot of 1884. Republicans returned to power in the election of Amor Smith as mayor in the spring of 1885. In October, 1885, just before the fall State election, a "Committee of 100" was formed by citizens of both parties. I. J. Miller, a Democrat, was president. William H. Taft was a member of the executive committee. A registration law had been passed in the spring of that year. Rufus B. Smith and Alfred B. Benedict had charge of prosecutions, and the ballot was purified to some extent.


The most remarkable feature of politics in the '80s and '90s was the rise of one man to almost absolute power in the city.


George B. Cox began his political activity about 1880. He was able in 1882 to deliver the vote of one ward, while Amor Smith, as dispenser of Federal patronage, controlled four or five and George Moerlein, through his great influence with the German vote, had about the same strength as Smith.


Cox, by skillful trafficking in votes, which he was said to deliver as agreed, made combinations and gained a foothold from which he gradually overthrew all rivals and absorbed their followings until no one in the party dared dispute his dictates, though he was never elected to any office except councilman, being twice defeated for clerk of the courts of Hamilton County.


When Foraker first ran for Governor he was defeated by Hoadly by 12,529 in the State and by 2,531 in Hamilton County. In 1885 Foraker carried the State by 17,457, but lost Hamilton County by 446.


Foraker was advised that Cox was the best man for his lieutenant in Hamilton County. The Legislature abolished the Board of Public Works and substituted a Board of Public Affairs, to be appointed by the Governor. Foraker appointed men who would cooperate with Cox, thus giving the latter from 1,200 to 2,000 political jobs to dispense. Cox proved himself a good lieutenant, as under his management Foraker in 1887, in his third campaign for Governor, carried Hamilton County for the first time, his plurality being nearly 7,000.


In 1890 Cox defeated George Moerlein in a test of strength in the city convention. Moerlein died soon after, and from that time until the closing of his bank in 1911, Cox's position as head of the party organization was never questioned seriously.


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 743


Foraker came to resent Cox's power, newspapers denounced him, national publications held Cincinnati up to scorn for tolerating his rule, men whose forefathers had helped to found the Republican party chafed at the necessity of submitting to Cox their honorable aspirations to public service, but no revolt within the party could break his control of the organization, and when invited to visit Tammany and learn its methods, he replied that Tammany could give him no pointers. This was not an extravagant statement, for the Cox machine represented the most efficient manipulation of the support of different and even hostile elements, including respectable citizens desiring office or other favors, the public service corporations, the loyal party men, the ward captains and precinct executives, the underworld, and the humble job holders who contributed two and one-half per cent of their meager pay for "campaign expenses."


The franchise hunters, the "good party men," and the job holders provided the funds, while the ward captains and precinct executives did the hard work of maintaining the organization and the button hole campaigning which kept the voters in line. Cox contributed the management and received the profits, for while in most cities there was grafting all along the line, such was not the case to any great extent in Cincinnati. The public officials and their deputies were in most cases personally honest and reasonably efficient.


Cox's system, whereby others did all the hard work, bears a certain resemblance to Tom Sawyer's method of whitewashing the fence by proxy and obtaining compensation for the privilege thus extended.


An observer who was by no means friendly to him, wrote in 1905: "Cox's ability to maintain power lies in his producing a fairly satisfactory government with good police protection ; in conferring many favors ; in threatening those of a timid nature ; and in demoralizing the Democratic party."


The extent of the demoralization of the Democratic party was shown by the remark of Lewis G. Bernard, the Democratic "boss," that when a few more Democrats joined the Blaine Club he would join it, get himself elected president and turn it into a Democratic Club.


The dark side of the picture shows the starving of the schools, extravagance where it could not be easily detected, as in the water works and the payment for improvements and even repairs by bond issues, the subservience of some judges, the deadening of the public conscience, and the stifling of initiative.


The tickets nominated by the Cox organization could be defeated only by a fusion of the Democrats and the independent Republicans, and these elements waged vigorous campaigns, beginning in 1894 when the independents nominated for mayor, Theodore Horstman, who had been elected corporation counsel as a Republican, but had shown his


744 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


independence of Cox. Horstman's election seemed probable, but John A. Caldwell, Republican member of Congress, was called upon to make the race against him, and Isaac J. Miller, a Democrat, who had been chairman of the committee of one hundred in 1885, was induced to run on a Democratic ticket, whereby the anti-Cox vote was divided and Caldwell was elected.


To prevent fusion movements the General Assembly then enacted the Dana law, making it unlawful for a candidate to have his name on more than one ticket.


At the 1897 spring municipal election Cox met defeat by a Fusion movement which elected Gustav Tafel, a Democrat, over Levi C. Good-ale, Republican, and elected the entire Fusion ticket. The newly elected officials were hardly installed before some changed their allegiance to Cox. First of these was Michael Mullen, who frankly announced that there was "nothing in being a Democrat in this town" and took his ward bodily into the Republican ranks.


Hanna and McKinley advised Cox to withdraw to the background and he consented to the appointment of a committee of twelve to manage the party's affairs in Hamilton County. At the first real test of strength, the Committee, irreverently called "The Dozen Raw," was ignominiously defeated by Cox and soon ceased to function.


Cox, on election day in November, 1897, announced that he retired from politics, but by the spring of 1898, dissatisfaction with the Fusion administration and desertions of even Fusion officials to Cox, placed him again in the saddle with increased power, and by Hanna's help, he gained control of the Federal patronage.


In 1900 Cox's candidate, Julius Fleischmann, was elected over Alfred M. Cohen, Democrat, and in 1903, Fleischmann, renominated against his own wishes by Cox's orders, defeated Melville E. Ingalls, president of the Big Four Railroad, running on a Citizen's ticket.


Cincinnati's municipal election of 1905 was not merely spectacular but played an important part in State and National history.


In 1905 Roosevelt was in the first year of his elective term. Reform and the overthrow of bosses was in the air. The Republicans nominated for mayor, Harry L. Gordon, an able lawyer and popular speaker, who had been lieutenant-governor and vice-mayor. Edward J. Dempsey, former judge of the Superior Court, a Democrat, was nominated on a Fusion ticket by the Democrats and Independent Republicans. The campaign was extremely bitter. It was charged with convincing exactness of detail not only that the Republican County Treasurers had retained as their own, the interest on public funds, but that Cox had received a large share of such interest. Homer Davenport, a cartoonist of national reputation, was brought to Cincinnati to aid in the fight




POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 745


against Cox. Lincoln Steffens and other "muck-rakers" excoriated the Cox organization.


A local politician, confusing Steffens with Charles H. Stephens, attorney, who had been a Fusionist candidate for vice-mayor in the 1903 campaign and whose partner's name was Lincoln, disposed of the Lincoln-Stephens attacks to his own satisfaction by saying, "Oh, well, Lincoln and Stephens don't know a damn thing about politics, anyhow."


The campaign was brought to a climax by the speech of William Howard Taft at Akron. Taft's first political activities had been for purer politics as a member of the executive board of the Committee of One Hundred in 1885. From this beginning his rise in public service had been steady and he had discharged with credit the duties of assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, succeeding Judson Harmon by appointment of Governor Foraker, Solicitor General of the United States, Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the sixth circuit, and Governor-General of the Philippines. He was, at the time of the Akron speech, Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet, and Roosevelt, by saying when away from Washington that everything was all right as he had "left Taft sitting on the lid," had indicated him as Roosevelt's choice for his successor.


Taft had been chairman of the Republican State Convention which renominated Herrick for Governor, and was speaking for the State candidates. At Akron he condemned Cox and the Hamilton County organization and said that if he were in Cincinnati at the time of the election he would vote the Republican State ticket but not for the local organization nominees. This denunciation not only turned the Cincinnati campaign into a rout for the Cox municipal ticket, the entire Fusion ticket being elected, but Hamilton County sent a Democratic delegation to the General Assembly for the first time in many years and John M. Pattison, of Cincinnati, a Democrat who had been active in the movements to purify the ballot in 1883 and 1885, was elected governor, being the first Democratic governor since Campbell in 1890-1892. Pattison's almost immediate illness and incapacity until his death five months later, prevented any notable action by him.


Among the Democrats elected to the Legislature from Cincinnati was Henry T. Hunt, a young lawyer who was to be the nemesis of the Cox organization. The General Assembly appointed a committee to investigate conditions in Hamilton County. As soon as it started to examine the charges which had been made in the campaign as to the use of interest on public funds, its authority was challenged in the courts and the Supreme Court held that the committee had no power to compel witnesses to testify. This was fatal to the investigation. It also proved fatal to the aspirations of certain judges for reelection.


746 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


A Republican prosecuting attorney ordered a grand jury investigation, after which civil actions were brought against certain former treasurers for the recovery of the interest, and refunds aggregating more than two hundred thousand dollars were obtained. Cox appeared before the grand jury and testified that he had not received any of the interest.


The city administration, under Mayor Dempsey, was unable to work harmoniously and the forces which had elected him divided in 1907, Dempsey being a candidate for reelection on the Democratic ticket, and vice-Mayor Frank L. Pfaff heading a citizens ticket. Colonel Leopold

Markbreit, Republican nominee, was elected.


Markbreit was the last veteran of the Civil War to be mayor of Cincinnati. As a young lawyer Rutherford B. Hayes left him in charge of Hayes' law office when Hayes entered the army. Hayes was surprised when he met Markbreit in uniform in the field and inquired why he was not at the office, to which Markbreit replied that there being no law business during the war, he had closed the office and joined the army. He was for a time a prisoner of war and suffered hardships which injured his health permanently. As a veteran and as the editor of a leading German paper he had great influence.


The presidential and gubernatorial elections were held at the same time in 1908, by virtue of a constitutional amendment adopted in 1905. Cincinnati had the distinction, which is probably without precedent, of being the home of the candidates for the highest places in the Nation and State respectively, William H. Taft for President and Judson Harmon for governor, both of them being successful. The distinguished careers of these two Cincinnatians have touched at many points. Personal friends, in spite of political differences, it is said that Harmon asked Taft's advice as to accepting the Attorney-Generalship under Cleveland, and Taft asked Harmon's views as to the advisability of taking the position of governor of the Philippines.


The independence of Taft's Akron speech not only defeated the Cox organization in 1905, but made Taft the logical successor to Roosevelt. He did not command the enthusiastic support of the local organization in 1908 but carried the State by a plurality of 69,591. During the campaign George B. Cox sent to Taft a request for a conference in order to make some suggestions concerning the campaign. Taft's reply by the same messenger was that he would be glad to consider any suggestions in writing which Cox might make. The negotiations went no further.


The voters of the State had learned how to vote a mixed ticket, for, while Taft, Republican, carried his own State for president, Harmon, Democrat, was elected governor, and in Hamilton County two Democrats, Henry T. Hunt and Frank M. Gorman, were chosen as Prosecuting Attorney and Judge of the Common Pleas Court respectively. Their campaign slogan was further investigation of the interest scandal and


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 747


other matters which the Drake committee had been barred from investigating.


Another important result of the election of 1908 was the rise of Thomas J. Noctor to a commanding position in the Democratic organization, superseding Lewis G. Bernard who had long been known as the "Little Boss."


Hunt's aim was to prosecute Cox before Judge Gorman but the assignment of the judges to the criminal court was made by the joint session of judges of the Common Pleas Court and Judge Gorman's turn would not arrive until Hunt's two-year term would expire. There was cause to believe that this lack of conjunction in the orbits of a judge and prosecutor of the same party, was not entirely accidental. Hunt made it an issue in his campaign for reelection in 1910 and received double the plurality that was his in 1908.


His new term began in January, 1911, and Judge Gorman's turn to preside in the criminal court came at the same time. He immediately appointed special grand jurors, described by an organization man as being the "whole City Club," as the non-partisan organization opposed to Cox was called.


The grand jurors thus chosen, who were prominent business men of the city and most of whom were independent Republicans, heard the testimony of the former county treasurers and others and on February 21, 1911, indicted George B. Cox on the charge that he had committed perjury in testifying before the grand jury in 1906 that he had received no part of the interest on the county funds. Applications for change of venue, motions to quash affidavits of prejudice and pleas of former jeopardy followed and Cox was never brought to trial, but his power was broken and the newspaper bulletin, which at the November, 1911, election, announced the election of Hunt as mayor, was followed by a bulletin stating that Cox's trust company was in the hands of liquidators.


Cincinnatians played an important part in the amendment of the Constitution of Ohio in 1912. A non-partisan coalition of civic bodies and other organizations elected delegates representing almost every shade of political belief, from Judge William Worthington, whose father and grandfather had been, like him, lawyers and landholders, and who was recognized as the final authority on the law of real property, to the Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow, minister of the People's Church, single taxer and leading advocate of the initiative and referendum, who was elected president of the convention.


Hiram D. Peck, formerly judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, completed his life of public service as chairman of the committee on judiciary, which revised the judicial system of the State, creating courts of appeals with final jurisdiction in the majority of cases, and thus reducing the delays by which a poor litigant was exhausted. The same pro-


748 - GREATER CINCINNATI AND ITS PEOPLE


posal contained a provision that no law should be held unconstitutional and void by the Supreme Court without the concurrence of at least all but one of the judges, except in the affirmance of the Court of Appeals.


Almost all of the forty-one proposals were adopted at a special election on September 3, 1912. The more important were the establishment of the initiative and referendum in both the State and municipalities, optional home rule for cities, revision of the judicial system, and authorization of legislation for the regulation of the sale of securities (Blue Sky Laws), registration of land titles, nine juror verdicts in civil cases and workmen's compensation.


Judson Harmon was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1912. If he had been successful Cincinnati would have been the home of two presidential candidates, Taft and Harmon, but the latter did not obtain the nomination while Taft was defeated for reelection. With their party elected in the country and the State, with the Congressmen elected from both districts, the city administration and most of the judges elect, the Democratic party in Cincinnati reached its greatest success in the election of 1912, but disintegrating elements soon began their work.


Many business men who had supported Hunt for the sake of clean government became alarmed when he placed a receiver in possession of the ice companies during a strike of their employees and threatened the traction company with similar action when its men struck. The strikes were settled but Hunt lost the support of certain business interests which was not compensated by any tangible evidence of the support of the working men, nor was the more radical wing of the Democratic party in sympathy with him, and at the fall election of 1913 he was defeated by Frederick S. Spiegel, former judge of the Common Pleas Court and of the Superior Court and an organization Republican.


While Hunt was defeated, Cox did not regain his old personal domination and he died not long after. Rudolph K. Hynicka assumed chief place in the organization while Michael Mullen managed the council, but an advisory committee was established consisting largely of business and professional men. The organization thus gained the support of business interests which had previously aided Hunt, while these interests obtained a certain amount of authority in matters relating to party policy and nominations. It might be called a city manager government of an informal kind except that the governing body was not elected by, or responsible to, the people and that the time might come when the manager would decide that he was not subject to the control of the committee. It was considered so far an improvement over the previous regime, that Elliott H. Pendleton, who for ten years had published the "Citizens' Bulletin," the organ of the independents, discontinued the publication, feeling that its work was accomplished.


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CINCINNATI - 749


The Republicans under the new management had no difficulty in electing George Puchta as mayor, defeating Charles Sawyer. At the next election John Galvin, Republican, was successful by a narrower margin over Alfred G. Allen, former Democratic Congressman from the first district.


By the adoption of a city charter in 1917, Mayor Galvin's term was extended to four years. As a delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1920, he persuaded the Ohio caucus by a ringing speech to remain loyal to Harding for another day, and on that day the Ohioan obtained the nomination while Hynicka's support of General Wood sowed seeds of dissension in the party.


Galvin declining renomination on account of ill health, was succeeded by George P. Carrel, who had been City Auditor and who was successful in 1921 over Dr. C. L. Bonifield, Democrat, and Judge Joseph B. Kelley, independent Republican.


Carrel's administration experienced many difficulties. Statutes limited the amount of the total tax levies, and authorized county officials to apportion, the taxes among the county, the board of education and the city. Other statutes compelled the application of a large part of the city's income to the payment of principal and interest on bonds already issued. The administration, claiming not to have sufficient funds to carry on the city's functions, appealed to the electors to vote for additional bonds and taxes but they refused. Attempts to use for general purposes earnings of the water works plant and the receipts from taxes on automobiles were stopped by court action.


The passage by council of an ordinance increasing gas rates aroused great indignation among the people, which was increased when it was learned that Hynicka had dictated the action of council by telegraphic orders from his New York office.


Mayor Carrel broke with Hynicka by vetoing the gas ordinance but council passed it over the veto and Carrel was unable either to control his associates or to satisfy the public.


These conditions afforded an opportunity to enlist public support for a new departure in city government. When the city charter was adopted in 1917 little change was made excepting in lengthening the terms of city officials, but by adopting a charter Cincinnati had become a home rule city with power to change its form of government from time to time.


A group of the younger business and professional men, most of whom were members of the Cincinnatus Association and most of whom were Republicans, formulated an amendment to the charter, providing for the adoption of the city manager plan of government with a council of nine to be elected by proportional voting on a non-partisan ballot and a city manager to be chosen by this council.


This was indeed a radical departure from old time politics and the