Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-01-19

the care bestowed upon t,andrepad this fidelity TO
its interests until from being recognized and guar
anteed by the Constitution it has become itself the
strongest guaranty of the perpetufty of the consti
tuition itself. And should it to morrow withdraw
its sustaining care that instrument would shrivel
away like an old parchment, and should it decree
its dissolution, no power on earth could stay the
execution of that doom.
The American Press is no imitator of any Euro
pean product, and owes nothing to the old world
for its popularity. Our Yankee Editors. eschew-
ing all ponderous five column leaders, express
their sentiments in short, pithy paragraphs
Americans will not read-much less pay for,-what
they do not like, and they cannot be coaxed or bull
lied into it..
The origin of the Press, in that craving restless
seepess curiosity which is the characteristic of the
true Yankee, and that disposition to enquire into
and find out everything, is one grand reason of its
ubquity, and its omnipotent power.
Wohever has a word to say. and very many who
have not, say it through the Press. A patent su
gar coated pill, or a Balm in Gilead is announced
through the Press, and fortunes are made, and Off
GERS gained through the same medium. The Press
has the ear of every body and draws to itself the
best and the worst talent of the country 1t builds
up and pulls down, establishes and ruins. 1t de-
mands new States and, 10 Colonies are planted
and States come trooping in. 1t asks foreign ac-
QUESTION and all Europe is dismembered and
should its united voice demand Cuba to night, it
would be taken to morrow.
4lu OH1O-1Q6 SDu5 Ol the Kew
stone State and the land Of the Pilgrims were her
Pioneers; their sons have inherited their virtues
and avoided their vices
Mr.. A G. Riddle responded as follows:
Mr.. PRESIDENT hear myself called upon to
respond to your sentiment, and am unable to frame
an excuse for attempting it.
Without any personal connection with the press
there is no man more indebted to it for the little be
is-an obligation must on this occasion be per
n1itf to ryitb
in the woods of this then rude Ohio, and hedged
in and away from the poorest, cheapest aud COM
monest appliances of the cheapest and commonest
schools-then most uncOmmon-our minds like
the young ravens, were left to be fed by the hands
of gracious accidents. Happily for some of u.s. we
were brought into the woods by New England
mothers, who also brought few priceless old
books, which they taught US to read at time ear
ier thanthe backward grasp of memory can reach
Odd, quaint, strange old volumes they were-many
with the binding, title page beginnings and endings
gone, yet whose soied leaves enveoped rich, great
thoughts fragments of grand old poems-legends
of the herOlsm and devotion of other days, and
the tales of our own heroic age-the living frag-
ments of which were still around US.
Then came the newspapers, and all and every
thing that your printers wondrJus art had given
US, were eagerly and passionately devoured, till
heart, brain, sonl and imagination were possessed
of them as by so many inspiring spirits. And the
sun Drowned, bare headed, bare footed bare legged
bare generally, rustic boys 10 liking up through the
huge old tree tops, to the sky above passiOnately
and lovingly dreamed of the great world far away
outside of their forest homes, And that first
neWspaperl-a little rude, brown, dingy thing,
yet to us wonder, full of mysterious beauty =
News ! old gray headed news-years old-dead of
old age! let the freshest, newest news to US =
What ,erudite informed chaps we became Pub
lished in a distant village und brought ouce week
to the far off post Office, by an adventurous youth
no langushing village maiden can so sigh for the
mail day that shall bring to her expeeant arms the
New York Ledger, with lthe continuation Of Syl-
Vanus Cobb, JI.s everlasting stOry!-as did we for
our newspaper.
When observe the luxurious intellectual profu.
sion that lies wasted and neglected by the pathway
of the present generation ofloitering Chdren-all
that wisdom can apply 10 their needs, with time
and opportunity, like golden-winged, yet staying
angels, waiting on their tardy footsteps, cannot
but contrast them with the scanty. mental fare
CLEANED up by their elder brothers and sisters in
the exodus of Ohio through the wilderness And
yet those few books and little newspapers were
gathered and boarded up as stray leaves from the
far-Of paradise of knowledge.
What IS true in the humble instance referred to-
is more or les: true of all the men and women OF
our commonwealth,-is true of Ohio herself In
debted as she is to Virginia and Connecticut for her
| imperial domain, and indebted as she is to the
popu1auon, sne Is yet infinitely more indebted 10
the institution you represent It is the press that
til6I
| books, and newspapers, that underlie all that we
love and revere in her social, political, moral and
| religious institutions.
Ohio what need here to eulogise herl she is
| here in preseneel When you say she has made
| her own the virtues of her sister mothers, you
/ speak her highest praise and she lifts her eyes
| with rebuking wonder that their vices should be
named here! Faults and follies-vices if you will
they may have; but, like the pious sons of Noah
she spreads their garments over them with an
ayerted face.
To Ohio belongs a peculiar distinction. The
first born of the Old Ordinance of Freedom-of al
the new States, her soil alone was pressed, in the
chivary of his first adventure, by the foot fall OF
Washington
Not unmingied with sorrow are tbelrecollections
other infancy, stained as her forests were from
Pennsylvania to Indiana with the blood of a saw
age conflict; when our mothers defended their
cabins and little against the battle painted In
dians, while the husbands and fathers were away
on the red war path. 3 fsi'iet A.
1t was on her territory that the great struggle
of the Revolution was finally teHnipeted, by
Wayne's victory. Fort Stephenson and Fort Meigs
both stood in her borders, and it was her general,
at the head of her sons, aided by their gallant Ken
lucky brothers, that drove an invading army from
her soil-from the soil of our common country into
their own dominions, and achieved the solitary in
stance in American bistory-they fought, conquer-
ed and captured an entire British army on British
ground
Not unmingled with sadness is the memory of
fthat triumph, for there fell the heroic Tecumseh,
drawer than Phillip, and more eloquent than Logan,
and Ohio remembers that be too was her son. 1t
was in her waters that Perry ''Het the enemy and
her forests gave hack the tbunders ofthat conflict
that still echo and echo through the corridors
f of time," as one of the great sea fights won for
freedom. TF7T II
Stretching from the great valley of the st. Law
renee, to the Greater valley of the Mississippi
ar,1
der the councils of her Statesmen, Ohio early and
: earnestly devoted her young energies to her own
deVelopement, until the construction other roads,
her canals and her railways. and above ALL thees-
Establishment of her magnificent scheme of univer.
! sal education moulded her composite masses into
5 one people, aud raised her to the grandeur and
J dignity Of great State. Passing and surprising
her parents and elder sisters, she already oOnsti
tutes one Cf the grand trio of States, that stand
around the head Of this great confederacy. There
5 too is she equal to her position. Firmly and
strongly doee she demand that the everlasting ee-
ments Of right and truth, shall be incorporated in
to the national legislation Yet she does not seek
to interpolate new provisions into the Constitution
/ or attach new Constitutions to the Union. Loyal
to both and faithful to herself she adheres to them
t in the purity Of their first formation.
i It is in the ehasted beauty of Der domestic char
acter, that we love most to contemplate her Lift
ing herself from her valleys and shopping from her
hil-sides TO care for the lonely, the unfortunate
and the cast away sy,-leading her bright troops OF
wide hrowed children along The golden rays of lit
erature, virtue and on-6reathng her lessons
in whispers so sweet that the sealed up Of her
mutes drink them insisting by the darkencd
hearths Of her unseeing ones, until her presence
lights up even the night and oaverns of Blindness
themselves All lovingly with her mothers hon.
she gathers Hp Ehe sparkling fragments of shat
tered reason, and re-enthrone the mind and soul
till her nnanacs and demaniacs are found sitting at
. her feet "ciothed and in their right minds" r
u What marvel the career Of Ohio present.-
Among this great Western Archipelago of giant
young nations, she sits crowned wonder .-
Scarcely half century ago. strong hearted men