Arizona republican., 1903-03-23

| is no less a parsonage than the venera- ble Senator Hoar oi Massachusetts, In | the course of his Washington birthday address there he said:
 Tt was only in the year 1SiS, little over half a century ago, that lit tie body of men met on Worcester com
 mon on the twenty ninth day of June
 I myself had the Eonor of being pres
 ent-and founded the republican par ty."
 Four days after the senior senator from the Old Bay state made this as sertioh, Elias Colbert, addressing a
 Chicago historical society, referred to head of the Chicago Tribune, as the father of the republican party" MT. Colbert said that many times he had | had it from Mir. Medills lips that the | first gathering of citizens to start a | new political party and call it "Repub- | lican" was in 1853 in the office of the | Cleveland Forest City, q newspaper | then controlled by MT. Medill who. ac
 cording to MT. Colbert. went so far as | to draw up the platform of princi pies that was formally adopted after | ward.
 Chicago, some years afterward. had another claimant to the honor of founding the republican party. He was 1 Dr. O. c. Gibbs who, according to the stories told from some mouths, called a
 meeting of distinguished citizens in
 Chicago on July 5, 1854 Cassius M Clay of Kentucky was in the city at the time, and it was arranged to meet with him and talk over the expedi- ency of organizing a political party to fight slavery.
 Some things are of record, and there fore definitely known. On March 20, | 1854. there was a meeting held at Rip
 on, Wis, and it was we'll attended by politicians and "agitators" from nu- merous parts of that section. The purpose of this meeting was to take preliminary steps toward organizing new party, and the name "Republi- can" is known to have been made by persons who attended the Ripon meet | ing, and those who were there and still survive regard Ripon as the "cra- the claim that Ripon was the birth place of the party say that, while con- ceding that such a meeting was held there, the gathering was of discontent- l ed whigs- and recalcitrant democrats and was merely a spasmodic manifes- tation of the growing enthusiasm. | One thing is stamped as certain, and that is that the first state convention to declare itself republican was held
 at Jackson, Michigan. July G. 1854. The
 next was held in Ohio, and the next ir Wisconsin. The "opposition' to the
 democrats met in Bloomington, H., in 1 the spring of 1856. Abraham Lincoln,
 Richard Yates. Owen Lovejoy, Rich
 ard Oglesby and other celebrated men
 were present at the meeting as dele
 gates, but, 1t is said, the name Re
 publican" was nowhere mentioned in
 the proceedings.
 A Chicago "old timer''-a man who
 remembers about everything of na-
 tional importance that has happened
 since 1s45, upon being asked to tell what he knew of the birth of the re-
 publican party. said:
 T think the republican party has a
 dozen birthstone really definite
 enough to be classed as a real birth. When the republican party did spring
 into existence it sprang from all sides.
 l was in the spring with the rest of
 the hosts. but I don't know where the
 spring really started from. There are
 all kinds of stories. regarding the mat ter. and this fact makes the question
 practically out Of the question: One
 claim Is made here and another there,
 and so long as those claims are made definite and satisfactory, understand
 ing will never be reached If, as they
 say, George Hoar was a founder of the
 party back in 1S4S, he wins.''