Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-08-05
Why Ohio Furnishes Presidents.

Why Ohio Furnishes Presidents.
The development or Ohio in recent
years has been somewhat phenomenal.
The pace at which presidents, distin.
guished generals, judges, statesmen,
discoveries, literary men, artists. and
geniuses Of evey fashion are turned out
OF this great provincial civilization
to meet the exigeneies Of the nation is
without precedent. The Ohio of to-day
boasts of as many universities as Con.
tinental Europe. Her larger cities
have become the seats of wealth and
social refinement rivaling the best cos
mopoliian capitals. The city of Gin
cinnati, recently the accredited center
Of American musical culture, has also
instituted, within short period !.
schools, and achieved success in several
fine arts not elsewhere cultivated within
the limits of the Union. every strange!
How do you account for it?" says the
New Yorker in bis cups. Massachu-
sets accoun a for it. She patronizingly
admits that Ohio is the " NJ assach usetts
of the West" and complacently COM
plains that Ohio contains large col.
opy from B sston, aud not an inconsid-
cradle sprinkling of other, even if
inferior, New England settlers. Ohio
in return ungraciously refuses the COM
pliment, and rejects the graceful dag
Dosis. Ohio civilization ia not New
England civiliz alton at all. Cincinnati
culture is not Boston culture-differing
from it even as widely as the pronun-
nj oe he -.
respective cities. The New England
settlement in the Eorther area of the
State, an intelligent, progressive poPu-
lation in itself, IN no degree affect the
general characteristics of Quo society,
which is local and peculiarly Western
in its development. All this Ohio
rightly asserts. Why, then, does this
uncomfortable territory, barricading
between the great lake and the great
river, the march of Western EN-.
pire, fling also precocious and
apparently abnormal civilization ir
the way OF the symmetrical develop
ment and equable administration of the
Republic? An answer equally ingen
ious and more plausible than the
Massachusetts, one, is to affirm thai
Ohio civilization is the civilization
Of the south or northern territory
or, in other words, the civilization
Of the Southern race under the best
conditions of American development
Slavery arrested and finally deadened
the social development of the cavaliers
Considerably more than three.qusrteri
ofacentury ago Virginia magnanimous'
lylceded to the General Government the
magnificent and mighty reach OF ter
ritory sweeping from her frontier to
the southern borders Ct the great
Michigan lakes, and opened up the
spacious West to American empire.
Into the gap of civilization thus opened
first expanded her own population
then followed later an immigration
from the sitting civilization of her sis
ter States of the Sop:h. Ohio is the
child of Virginia. First on her fertile
soil came the beggared descendants Of
her cavaliers, and here under spacious
untrsmmeled opportunity marked the
outlines and developed the ideal of the
best civilization of which the Southern
race is capable-a civilization bland,
eQuable, industrious, liberal. easy, con
tanned, cultured; q civilization de-
marked and distinguished in its atmos-
phere and in every salient quality from
the society of New England. But il
such an explanation appear not q wholly
adequate account of the phenomenal
Ohio of to-day, the easy and natural
additional reasons of her advanced
social condition are not far to seek.
Her superior position, historical and
local, as the first of the Western States
on which, surmounting the Aileghanies
struck the first waves Of advancing pop
ulstion from the South and East. HeI
supreme advantages of fertile soil, gar.
nished with abundant woods and waters
and unwasted by mountain ridges. hel
commercial facilities by great water
ranges on her north and south, heI
royal stand in the path of empire be.
tween the two oceans, making her 9
licensed imperial tollman on the com
MERGE of the East and West as it passes
her borders-all these causes, taken
into consideration with the institutions
and culture that come Of accumulated
and accumulating wealth, leave no rid
die to be solved in connection with thu
present commanding attitude of Ohio
in the sisterhood of American States
Brooklyn Eagle.