1919: Lucasville's Centennial Year

Beautiful Ohio

I sailed away;
Wandered afar;
Crossed the mighty restless sea;
Looked for where I ought to be.
Cities so grand, mountains above,
Led to this land I love.

CHORUS:

Beautiful Ohio, where the golden grain
Dwarf the lovely flowers in the summer rain.
Cities rising high, silhouette the sky.
Freedom is supreme in this majestic land;
Mighty factories seem to hum in tune, so grand.
Beautiful Ohio, thy wonders are in view,
Land where my dreams all come true!

ORIGINAL CHORUS (written by Ballard MacDonald):

Drifting with the current down a moonlit stream,
While above the Heavens in their glory gleam,
And the stars on high
Twinkle in the sky,
Seeming in a paradise of love divine,
Dreaming of a pair of eyes that looked in mine.
Beautiful Ohio, in dreams again I see
Visons of what used to be.

In 1969, the Ohio legislature adopted "Beautiful Ohio" as Ohio's state song. Mary Earl, whose real name was Robert A. "Bobo" King, composed the music. Ballard MacDonald wrote the original lyrics to the 1918 song. The song became a big hit in 1919 – almost 100 years ago as recorded by artists such as Canadian Henry Burr and the Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra. The melody is partly based on "Song of India" by Rimsky-Korsakov and "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster.

In 1919, Ohio and the town of Lucasville found their beautiful way into the hearts and minds of the nation. In celebration of Lucasville, Ohio's 200th birthday in 2019, let's turn the clock back 100 years to 1919, the year of the Lucasville Centennial.

What was it like during that time? Thanks to historical chronicles we can better answer that question. Our town and our America were going through some defining changes. Let's explore our past. I hope you enjoy the time travel.

In 1919, Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat from New Jersey, was president. He had been re-elected in 1916 over Republican Charles Evans Hughes, the only sitting Supreme Court Justice to serve as a major party's presidential nominee, in a very close election. Wilson won the state of Ohio with 51.86 percent of the popular vote. 

A declaration of war by the United States against Germany passed Congress by strong bipartisan majorities on April 4, 1917, with opposition from ethnic German strongholds and remote rural areas in the South. The United States had entered World War I. 

A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on June 28, 1919.

After the Germans signed the Armistice, Wilson went to Paris to try to build an enduring peace. He later presented to the Senate the Versailles Treaty, containing the Covenant of the League of Nations, and asked, “Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?” But the election of 1918 had shifted the balance in Congress to the Republicans. By seven votes the Versailles Treaty failed in the Senate.

Wilson's influence? He helped transfer American foreign policy from isolation to internationalism. He also had success in making the Democratic Party a “party of reform.” The man also had the ability to shape and mobilize public opinion – something that surely fashioned the modern presidency.

The Progressive Era

The 1890s to the 1920s was known as the Progressive Era, a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the country. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were eliminating problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption. Doesn't that sound familiar? I guess some things never change.

Progressives were people who believed that the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace. Progressives lived mainly in the cities, were college educated, and believed that government could be a tool for change. A hallmark group of the Progressive Era, the middle class, became the driving force behind much of the thought and reform that took place in this time.

Ohio Progressives like Tom Loftin Johnson and Samuel Jones became prominent. In 1897, Jones received the Republican Party's nomination for Toledo's mayoral office. Workers united behind Jones's candidacy, and he won the election. Jones proceeded to implement Progressive reforms. During his time in office, Jones worked to improve conditions for the working class people of his community. The mayor opened free kindergartens, built parks, instituted an eight-hour day for city workers, and did much to reform the city government. Jones encouraged voters and politicians to renounce political parties.

After World War I, the Progressive Movement began to decline in popularity. The era of the Roaring Twenties began, and many Americans sought a more carefree and less moralistic lifestyle. Aspects of Progressivism remained until the Great Depression and beyond, but it failed to exist as a concerted movement by the early 1930s.

World War I Treaty

One of the most important dates of 1919 was June 28. On this date, the Treaty of Versailles was signed and thus ended World War I. American losses in World War I were modest compared to those of other major conflicts, with 116,516 deaths and approximately 320,000 sick and wounded of the 4.7 million men who served. The U.S. lost more personnel to disease (63,114) than to combat (53,402), largely due to the influenza epidemic.

Many Americans felt that the Treaty was unfair on Germany. More importantly, they felt that Britain and France were making themselves rich at Germany's expense and that the United States should not be helping them to do this.

The treaty would largely come to be seen as a failure for Wilson, however. Congress, concerned about conceding individual power in order to become a member of the League of Nations, refused to ratify it. Wilson had been the driving force behind the League of Nations, and while the other signatories of the treaty embraced the League, American isolationism quashed enthusiasm for it at home. Many were concerned that belonging to the League would drag the U.S. into international disputes that were not their concern. In the end, the Congress rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

In place of the Treaty of Versailles, Congress passed a resolution, known as the Knox–Porter Resolution, in 1921 to formally end the war with Germany. The League of Nations would be resurrected after the Second World War with a proposal to create a United Nations along similar lines.

Soldiers who survived the Influenza outbreak awaiting transport back 

to Camp Sherman from downtown Chillicothe. c.1918

The Deadliest Pandemic: Spanish Flu

There is good argument for the flu being the most important event of the time. The influenza pandemic (January 1918– December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic. It was recorded as the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide – about one-third of the planet's population – and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans.

In Ohio, Camp Sherman in Chillicothe was affected more by the epidemic than any other training camp in the nation. The disease swept through the camp in the late summer and early fall. Approximately 5,686 cases of influenza were documented among Camp Sherman soldiers in 1918. 1,777 of them were unable to ward off the disease and died before the epidemic ended.

The National Park Service offered these gruesome details of the pandemic …

“With the high mortality rate at Camp Sherman, The Majestic Theater on 2nd Street in Chillicothe became a temporary morgue. Bodies would be 'stacked like cordwood' at the theater while it was operated as a morgue. Body fluids that were drained during the embalming process ran off into the alley next to the theater giving it the dubious nickname of 'Blood Alley.' Once victims' bodies completed the embalming process, they would be transported by wagon back to the camp so they could be sent back to their hometowns by railway. As these wagons made their way through Chillicothe, funeral hymns were played to reflect the somber mood. As with all public places in the U.S., meeting places, bars and theaters were closed to try to prevent further spread of the disease. All personnel at Camp Sherman were quarantined from Chillicothe as well.”

Statewide in Ohio, hundreds of thousands of people became infected and tens of thousands died from the influenza. During the last week of October 1918, 1,541 Ohioans died. Between October 1918 and January 1919, almost six hundred Dayton residents perished. In an attempt to stop the spread of the disease, many colleges temporarily closed their doors. In some cases, campus buildings were made into makeshift hospitals to treat those who had contracted the illness. Many other parts of the country also experienced tragedy as a result of the influenza epidemic.

The First Red Scare

Once the United States no longer had to concentrate its efforts on winning World War I, many Americans became afraid that communism might spread to the United States and threaten the nation's democratic values. Fueling this fear was the mass immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans to the United States as well as labor unrest in the late 1910s, including the Great Steel Strike of 1919.

Therefore, in 1919, the U.S. was plunged into the First Red Scare – a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism due to real and imagined events; real events included the Russian Revolution and anarchist bombings carried out by the Italian anarchist followers of Luigi Galleani from April through June 1919. How strange it seems that the terrorists of the day were Italian. Yet, how much the threats of foreign and domestic terrorism then parallel those of modern times.

At any rate, in late April 1919, at least 36 booby trap dynamite-filled bombs were mailed to a cross-section of prominent politicians and appointees, including the Attorney General as well as justice officials, newspaper editors and businessmen, including John D. Rockefeller.

Both the federal government and state governments reacted to the fear and the events by attacking potential communist threats. They used acts passed during the war, such as the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, to prosecute suspected communists. The Ohio legislature passed a law known as the Criminal Syndicalism Act, which allowed the state to prosecute people who used or advocated criminal activity or violence in order to obtain political change or to affect industrial conditions.

The obvious patriotism coming out of World War I, as evidenced by anti-German sentiment in Ohio, helped to fuel the Red Scare. The federal government's fervor in rooting out communists led to major violations of civil liberties. Ultimately, these violations began a decrease in support for government actions. But, once again, history would repeat itself in the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy when another Red Scare born of Cold War tensions would fuel fears of widespread Communist subversion.

Postcard with a color image of the Seal of Ohio with a woman's face in the center. The woman's face is framed by the rising sun and the slogan "Let Ohio Women Vote." The postcard was sent from Columbus, Ohio by Elizabeth J. House to Mrs. C. L. Martzolff in Athens, Ohio, 1915.

The 18^th and 19^th Amendments

And, two important amendments were enacted in the year. 

First, on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition, went into effect in the United States. In what later become known as a misguided and ineffective effort to fight alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption, activists led by pious Protestants and social Progressives supported the ban on alcoholic beverages. However, within a week after Prohibition went into effect, small portable stills were on sale throughout the country while private and large-scale bootlegging began in earnest ushering in an era of rampant organized and widespread criminal activity.

Considering that John Lucas, the founder of Lucasville, operated a local tavern until his death on July 31, 1825, at age 37, I wonder how many residents secretly imbibed with a toast or two to the good old days. In 1919, I'm sure many were singing the bars of the old Irving Berlin tune “The Near Future.”

“How dry I am, how dry I am
Nobody knows how dry I am... Hooow dryyy I aaaaaam!"

The other amendment that made news in 1919 was the 19^th Amendment. On June 4, the United States Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would soon guarantee suffrage to women, and sent it to the U.S. states for ratification. Women had fought for the right to vote since the mid-1800s. They marched, protested, lobbied, and even went to jail.

Ohio women were actively involved in the struggle for suffrage. The Women’s Suffrage Movement first gained popularity in Ohio largely due to the second Woman’s Rights Convention having been held in Salem, Ohio from April 19-20, 1850. Cleveland was home to one of the nation’s earliest suffrage conventions, in 1869. The state legislature approved women voting in school board elections in the 1890s, but progress was much slower for other political offices and at the state level. Women formed the Ohio Woman's Suffrage Association in the late 1800s and participated in a number of other local, state, and national organizations.

Ohio History Central reports …

“An Ohioan, Harriet Taylor Upton, was instrumental in both the state and national campaigns for women's suffrage. She served as president of the Ohio Women's Suffrage Association for a number of years, as well as acting as treasurer of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1912, supporters were able to persuade Ohio's Constitutional Convention to take up the issue. As a result, Ohio voters went to the polls that year and voted on an amendment to the state constitution that would allow women to vote, but the amendment did not pass. Women's suffrage was entangled in the debate about Prohibition by the early twentieth century. Manufacturers of alcoholic beverages successfully campaigned against the amendment. Brewers feared that, if women had the right to vote, they would support Prohibition.

“During World War I, women contributed significantly to the nation's war effort. As a result of their service and because more and more politicians began to realize that women could be an important source of votes, the United States Congress supported passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Passage of the 19th Amendment was not easy. The United States House of Representatives originally approved the amendment by only one vote more than required, and the United States Senate held three different votes before passing it as well. The majority of Ohio's representatives voted in support of the Nineteenth Amendment.

When the amendment came before the Ohio legislature for ratification, support was much stronger. The state Senate voted in favor of the 19th Amendment by a vote of twenty-seven to three, and the House of Representatives passed it with a vote of seventy-three to six. As a result, Ohio was the fifth state to ratify the 19th Amendment. On June 16, 1919, Ohio voted in favor of the amendment. By August of 1920, 36 states approved the proposal and the 19^th Amendment became law.

One must wonder what Lucasville lady at the time of the Centennial led others as a local suffragette. I believe it likely that many took an active role in favor of the amendment. I'm certain the celebration of the town's 100^th Birthday was buzzing with hope and a little controversy. I bet this quote by the late Susan B. Anthony was familiar to progressives of the time: “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. ... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”

The Red Summer

1919 was also the year of Red Summer, a national racial frenzy marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the United States, as a result of approximately 25 anti-black riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities and one rural county.

As early a May 1, riots broke out in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Charleston, South Carolina. In most instances whites attacked African Americans, who, of course, fought back. The racial riots against blacks resulted from a variety of postwar social tensions related to the demobilization of veterans of World War I, both black and white, and competition for jobs and housing among ethnic white people and black people.

The highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where five whites and an estimated 100–240 black men, women and children were killed. Violence erupted when whites attacked a meeting of black sharecroppers who were organizing to demand fairer treatment in the cotton market. After a white person was shot, federal troops were called in to “quell” the violence, but instead they joined white mobs in hunting black residents for several days.

Chicago and Washington, D.C. had 38 and 15 deaths, respectively, and many more injured, with extensive property damage in Chicago.

The New York Times lamented the new black militancy: "There had been no trouble with the Negro before the war when most admitted the superiority of the white race." A "Southern black woman," as she identified herself, wrote a letter to The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), praising blacks for fighting back ...

"The Washington riot gave me a thrill that comes once in a life time ... at last our men had stood up like men. ... I stood up alone in my room ... and exclaimed aloud, 'Oh I thank God, thank God.' The pent up horror, grief and humiliation of a life time -- half a century -- was being stripped from me."

In the fall of 1919, Dr. George Edmund Haynes, co-founder and first executive director of the National Urban League, completed a report on the causes and scope of Red Summer. He reported that “the persistence of unpunished lynching” contributed to the mob mentality among white men and fueled a new commitment to self-defense among black men who had been emboldened by war service. “In such a state of public mind,” Dr. Haynes wrote, “a trivial incident can precipitate a riot.”

I can only assume Red Summer had a direct emotional effect on the residents of our small Ohio town. Even though the Civil War and emancipation were in the distant past, race relations in 1819 Southern Ohio were tenuous considering that de facto segregation was firmly established. Integrated and segregated mindsets surely clashed. Of course, Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the South had been upheld in 1896 by the U.S. Supreme Court's "separate but equal" legal doctrine.

From its beginnings, Lucasville felt the need to confront inequality. It must be noted that the William Lucas, father of our founder, did this in the early 1800s:

“In leaving the slave state of Virginia for the free embryo commonwealth of Ohio, which had not as yet been admitted into the Union, performed one of those noble and generous acts so characteristic of the better class of those who were bred under the patriarchal system in the olden time. He freed every one of his adult slaves who wished to remain in Virginia, and provided for the younger ones, most of whom he took with him to Ohio, till they became of legal age and able to support themselves.”

The 1919 World Series

If you were a Cincinnati Reds fan, 1919 was a great year … well, kind of. It was the year of the infamous Black Sox Scandal in which the Chicago White Sox “threw” the World Series to the Reds. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of intentionally losing the series against Cincinnati in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein.

On October 1, the day of Game One, there were rumors amongst gamblers that the series was fixed, and a sudden influx of money being bet on Cincinnati caused the odds against them to fall rapidly.

However, most fans and observers were taking the series at face value. On October 2, the Philadelphia Bulletin published a poem which would quickly prove to be ironic:

“Still, it really doesn't matter,
After all, who wins the flag.
Good clean sport is what we're after,
And we aim to make our brag
To each near or distant nation
Whereon shines the sporting sun
That of all our games gymnastic
Base ball is the cleanest one!”

Yet, sometimes nasty rumors prove to be true ...

On October 1 after throwing a strike with his first pitch of the Series, Eddie Cicotte's second pitch struck Cincinnati leadoff hitter Morrie Rath in the back, delivering a pre-arranged signal confirming the players' willingness to go through with the fix.

The fallout from the scandal resulted in the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner of Baseball, granting him absolute control over the sport in order to restore its integrity.

In perhaps less-noteworthy news of 1919, people began dialing numbers for themselves as the rotary dial telephone by Western Electric was put into public use. You can also thank the U.S. Congress of this year for the continual cycle of Americans aimlessly “springing forward” and “falling back” since the often maligned daylight-saving time was first put into effect. And, let's never forget that 1919 was the year Charles Strite invented the Pop-Up Toaster. Still, the problem back then was that all bread was cut by hand, making the machine largely ineffective to uniform slices. It took another ten years during which bread slicing machines gained great popularity to give rise to the invention of the Pop-Up. (Sorry for the hackneyed pun.)

Just a couple more interesting notes about 1919 to close the entry ...

Molasses Flood

On January 15, 1919, the Boston Molasses Disaster (aka the Great Molasses Flood) killed 21 people  and injured 150 (revised totals) more in north-end Boston, Massachusetts. The event entered local folklore and for decades afterwards residents claimed that on hot summer days the area still smelled of molasses.

The tragedy occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility. At about 12:30 in the afternoon a molasses tank 50 ft. tall, 90 ft. in diameter, and containing as much as 2,300,000 gallons collapsed.

Witnesses variously reported that as it collapsed they felt the ground shake and heard a roar, a long rumble similar to the passing of an elevated train, a tremendous crashing, a deep growling, or "a thunderclap-like bang!" [emphasis added], and as the rivets shot out of the tank, a machine gun-like sound.

The collapse unleashed a wave of molasses 25 feet high at its peak, moving at 35 mph. The molasses wave was of sufficient force to damage the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and tip a railroad car momentarily off the tracks. Author Stephen Puleo describes how nearby buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet. Puleo quotes a Boston Post report:

“Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage ... Here and there struggled a form‍ – whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was ... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings‍ – men and women‍ – suffered likewise.”

Cleanup crews used salt water from a fireboat to wash the molasses away, and used sand to try to absorb it. The harbor was said to be brown with molasses until summer. (Of course this was Boston, home of the lyrical “Dirty Water.” Sorry, I couldn't resist this colorful, gooey reference.) The cleanup in the immediate area took "weeks" with more than 300 people contributing to the effort.

The Curse of the Bambino

Finally, sticking to the subject of Boston (And, excuse me once more for the tacky pun.), December 26, 1919, Babe Ruth was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player at that time.

Although Ruth twice won 23 games in a season as a pitcher and was a member of three World Series championship teams with the Red Sox, he wanted to play every day. He was fresh off a sensational 1919 season, having broken the major league home run record with 29 and led the American League with 114 runs-batted-in and 103 runs.

In addition to playing more than 100 games in left field, he also went 9-5 as a pitcher. With his prodigious hitting, pitching and fielding skills, Ruth had surpassed the great Ty Cobb as baseball’s biggest attraction.

Realizing the adulation that came with home runs, Ruth no longer wanted to pitch. But the team needed their star pitcher, not this home-run foolishness, so they pacified him with bonuses or whatever else it took to get him back on the mound. Then, sometime later, Ruth would threaten to leave, or he’d miss a few games in protest, and the process repeated. The team finished in sixth in 1919, and after the 1919 season Frazee started selling players to the New YorkYankees.

After that season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees amid controversy. The Yankees had not played in any World Series up to that time. The trade fueled Boston's subsequent 86 year championship drought and popularized the "Curse of the Bambino" superstition. In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth helped the team win seven American League (AL) pennants and four World Series championships.

Te term "Curse of the Bambino" was not in common use until the publication of the book The Curse of the Bambino by Dan Shaughnessy in 1990. It became a key part of Red Sox lore in the media thereafter, and Shaughnessy's book became required reading in some high school English classes in New England.

Postscript: Linda Scott messaged the following:

"You ask who in Lucasville might have led the charge for women’s right to vote. I think it would’ve been Alice Barker‘s mother, Bertha Rockwell Moulton. She was famous for her temperance movement activities and it was said she was responsible for Lucasville becoming dry.

"See Juli Phillips’ poem in the Backward Glance II Page 84. Women had good cause to ask for temperance because too many men were drinking up their pay And treating their families roughly. So yes, the alcohol industry had good cause to fear women’s voting because they would support temperance a as a general rule."

Here is the poem from Backward Glance:

U.S. Immigration -- "Living With 'Em and Without 'Em"

The United States must adopt an immigration system that best serves the national interest. We, the American citizens, agree upon this simple statement. This time of globalization will see America either descend into isolation or affirm its openness. Illegal immigration – what to do about a growing problem? It seems the key phrase that defies a singular interpretation is “best serves the national interest.” The real solution – the “best” solution – should be addressed with attention to the American heritage, not with fear generated from xenophobic political interests.

Speaking of the immigration issue, did you know …

* During recent decades, the economy, society, politics and culture of the United States have become ever more intertwined with those of Mexico and the countries of Central America and the Caribbean.

* There is an overwhelming difference between U.S. relations with these countries in our “near abroad" – Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and our relations with the rest of the world.

* Conditions in the northern tier countries of Central America – Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – are desperate and getting worse;

* More than 60 percent of Mexicans have relatives in the United States. 15 percent of those alive today who were born in the Caribbean or Central America now reside in this country.

* Remittances from migrants abroad are crucial for the economies of a number of Caribbean and Central American countries, and important for Mexico.

* Contrary to popular belief, Mexico is not encouraging people to flow into the United States. In January and February of this year, Mexico detained and deported over 15,000 Central Americans. In 2015, Mexico deported more Central Americans than did the United States.

* There is a legal obligation for Mexico and for the United States to allow migrants to make their case if they feel they fear for their lives if they're returned.

* The numbers of Mexicans going to the United States is way down. We're actually at net zero migration – more Mexicans leaving the United States than entering.

* Migrants from El Salvador and Honduras often come from larger cities, where gang violence is rampant, while those from rural areas in Guatemala often note family or domestic violence as a driving factor. Migrants from across the highlands of Guatemala or the rural areas of Honduras may seek to leave behind grinding poverty, exacerbated at times by a shifting local economy or climate change.

There is a stunning disconnect between everyday reality and the concepts, policies and rhetoric of immigration in the United States and its “near abroad” neighbors. All the political wrangling is a veritable sideshow, a mishmash of truths, half-truths, and lies designed to elicit more emotion than thought. Border agents, armed troops, massive walls – much of the Washington “fix” is centered on response and not on tackling causes of discontent. Any effective policy seems destined to fail until the United States seeks new solutions to help quell the enemies of the Latin human population.

Abraham F. Lowenthal of Brookings Institution says ...

“The issues that flow directly from the growing mutual interpenetration between the United States and its closest neighbors — human, drug and arms trafficking, immigration, environmental protection, public health, law enforcement, border management, medical tourism, portable health and pension benefits, drivers’ licenses and auto insurance — are all difficult to handle. This is largely because the democratic political process pushes policies, both in the United States and in the neighboring countries, in counterproductive directions.

“The pressure in many states to deny drivers’ licenses and access to public education and social services to undocumented immigrants who are here to stay illustrates this tendency. On the other side, it is difficult for countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to manage these issues because of the power of criminal syndicates, deep socioeconomic inequities and very weak state capacity.”

What should be done to improve and sustain border security? It is evident much more attention must be given to economic, social, and political realities of the countries in the region. Consider how the U.S. deports criminals back into the area without providing information to local authorities. Consider that the demand for narcotics in America fuels the international drug trade. And, consider that most of the weapons used for terrible violence in Central America and the Caribbean come from the U.S. More must be done to reduce the high murder rates and widespread violence by gangs and drug cartels.

Human Rights Abuses

How does America fight human rights abuses in these countries? Domestic violence? Overwhelming poverty? Human trafficking? Civil war, land disputes and military rule are just some of the factors that have affected human rights conditions in Central America.

Honduras, home to most of the caravan people, has faced terrible times. After decades of military rule, setting limits on the actions of law enforcement agencies became one of Honduras’s most pressing challenges. Generations of young people have realized that in Honduras the self-perpetuating cycles of violence, corruption, and poverty have robbed them of their right to grow old.

Honduras and El Salvador remain two of the most dangerous countries on earth not at war. El Salvador led the world in homicides per capita in 2015 and 2016, wresting the infamous title from Honduras, which held it the previous year. In Honduras and El Salvador, youth are under assault: as victims of gangs; as gang members killed in gang violence; as victims of organized crime. They are also victims of state violence. Of the top countries in the world with the highest child homicide rates, in 2015, the last year available, all are in Latin America, and Honduras is number one, El Salvador number 3.

Teenagers and children are forcibly recruited by gangs. Gangs levy extortion taxes that affect everyone from tortilla sellers to restaurant owners; people are threatened or killed for being unable to pay. Young women and girls are affected by sexual violence. Youth are killed in gang warfare and by state security forces. Many Salvadorans have to leave their homes due to violence, are internally displaced, and then may have to flee the country.

WE, the United States of America, need to meet the challenges people face in these countries. It is in our best interest to do this – OUR neighbors' and OUR own interests. Why historically hasn't this occurred?

History of U.S. Relations

Relations between Anglo-Saxon America and Latin America have long been in conflict in both economy and ideology. J. F. Normano, lecturer on economics at Harvard University and author of The Struggle for South America says, “For more than a century the two Americas have been accustomed to the word Pan-Americanism; but sincere Pan-American sentiment has not synchronized with the reality.”

Allow me to share this bit of history by Lisa García Bedolla, associate professor of Education at UC Berkeley, in the Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies (Spring 2009) ...

“The United States’ relations with Latin America have been deeply influenced by two important U.S. principles: manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine. The idea of manifest destiny – that the United States was “destined” to be an Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation stretching from coast to coast – had its roots in colonial political thought. Since the colonial period, many Americans have believed that it was God’s will that the United States should control the North American territory and that the nation needed to be based on a common set of political ideals, religious beliefs and cultural practices. Over time, the idea that it was the United States’ destiny to control a particular geographic sphere would expand beyond the North American continent and extend across the Western Hemisphere through the Monroe Doctrine.

“John Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, developed the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, when he was President James Monroe’s secretary of state. Formulated when many Latin American countries were fighting to gain independence from the imperial European powers, the doctrine sought to ensure that Europe did not re-colonize the Western Hemisphere. In his State of the Union message in December of that year, President Monroe declared that the United States would not interfere in European wars or internal affairs. Likewise, he expected Europe to stay out of the affairs of the New World. European attempts to interfere in the Americas would be interpreted by the United States as threats to its “peace and safety.”

“In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which defined U.S. intervention in Latin American domestic affairs as necessary for national security:

“All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

“This corollary was used to justify U.S. intervention in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. It was officially reversed in 1934 with the advent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “good neighbor” policy towards Latin America. Nonetheless, the principle that the United States’ political and economic interests are intimately related to that of Latin America remained. Throughout the 20th century, the United States’ economic interests played a central role in the development of Latin American banking, infrastructure and industry. Similarly, the U.S. government, particularly after the start of the cold war, continued to intervene in Latin American governmental and military affairs. This, in turn, has had important effects on the timing and make-up of Latin American migration to the United States.”

There's an old saying: "When the United States sneezes, Latin America gets pneumonia." In many ways, those words capture the United States' tendency to exert its economic, political and military influence over its neighbors to the south.

The role of the U.S. in governmental intervention has been generally negative. The U.S. is infamous in the region for propping up Right-wing dictators and funding violent paramilitary groups. In the 1980s and 90s, the United States was intimately involved in the civil wars of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Through strong U.S. support and intervention, these became protracted, proxy wars characteristic of the Cold War era, which had lasting and devastating economic, political, and social consequences. Decades of U.S. deportations of gang-affiliated youth and young men followed and significantly contribute to a cycle of violence in the Central American region today.

Solutions

Since his election in 2016, President Trump has regularly demonized asylum seekers as ‘criminals’ or accused them of taking advantage of “loopholes” in the immigration system when referring to the asylum process and threatened a series of hostile measures to “stop them”, including building a wall along the USA’s 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

Yet in reality, the administration has sought to dismantle the US asylum system through policies and practices that include mass illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border; illegally breaking up thousands of families by separating children from their parents; limiting where and when individuals can apply for asylum and by increasingly relying on the use of arbitrary and indefinite detention of people seeking protection.
Here are five steps on how U.S. policy can contribute to solutions as seen in the publication by the Human Rights Commission Hearing on Human Rights and Humanitarian Challenges in Central America:

1. The State Department and Congress should work to enforce the smart human rights (balance between integration and fragmentation) and anti-corruption conditions in the State, Foreign Operations law, and use them as leverage for human rights improvements and progress in combatting corruption.

2. Congress, the State Department, and other relevant U.S. government agencies should reiterate one clear message to the Honduran and Salvadoran governments: public security must respect rights.

3. U.S. assistance should address the roots of violence and forced migration, such as promoting community violence prevention programs and sustainable development projects designed with local communities.

4. U.S. diplomacy should emphasize, as a central element, respect for human rights defenders, of all descriptions, including indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders, environmental activists, LGBTI and women activists, journalists, student leaders, and union members.

5. Finally, U.S. immigration policy must not undermine avenues to progress in El Salvador and Honduras, especially progress in reducing violence and poverty and addressing the roots of migration Ending Temporary Protected Status for some 250,000 Salvadorans and Hondurans in the United States, ending protections for Dreamers, ramping up deportations, and cutting off access to asylum for refugees fleeing violence will just escalate the violence as returned migrants and refugees will have few alternatives.

Sources

Lisa García Bedolla. “The U.S. Is Making Things More Dangerous In Central America, Again.” Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies. Spring 2009.

Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and Tom Lantos. Challenges for Public Security & Human Rights in Honduras and El Salvador. Testimony Human Rights Commission Hearing on Human Rights and Humanitarian Challenges in Central America. November 1, 2017.

Abraham F. Lowenthal. “The Underlying Significance of Central American Immigration.” brookings.edu. August 3, 2014.

Eric Olsen. “Here's What Enforcement At Mexico's Southern Border Is Really Like.” wbur.com.

April 04, 2018.

Save the Children, End of Childhood Report 2017, 23. 2017.

Katie Sizemore. “Young Professionals in Foreign Policy” Huffington Post. February 09, 2017.

"She's Smarter Than Me" -- Emasculation

I have known many, many intelligent women. Not only in my personal life but also in my professional career – I taught high school for nearly 30 years – I have been around ladies who exude success with a combination of brains, beauty, and personality.

Often I marveled at how some of these most outstanding individuals handled all the trappings of being female while maintaining academic excellence. It had to be very difficult juggling busy days with the added pressures of femininity. I thought, surely a young man would love to date such a smart girl.

Well, what do I know?

According to six studies conducted by Lora Park, associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo (2015), the closer intelligent females get to men, the less attractive they look.

According to the research:

“When men expected to interact with a woman who was spatially distant (e.g., in another room), they expressed greater desire to interact with her when she outperformed versus under performed them (in intelligence) ...

“However, when men interacted with a real woman who was spatially near (e.g., in a face-to-face interaction), men showed less romantic interest and desire to interact with her when she outperformed versus under performed them.”

Professor Park suggested that men, when interacting with a woman who is smarter than them, can feel a “momentary shift in their self-evaluation” (such as feeling of being emasculated i.e. deprived of their male identity), which leads them to feel less attracted to smarter woman. She said ...

“There is a disconnect between what people appear to like in the abstract when someone is unknown and when that same person is with them in some immediate social context.”

The studies also found that this disconnect between abstract and the reality of meeting a woman, only occurred when the 'domain', (in this case intelligence), mattered to the man. Park continued:

“The domain matters. If you don’t care about the domain, you might not be threatened. Yet, if you care a lot about the domain, then you might prefer that quality in somebody who is distant, then feel threatened when that person gets close to you.”

Consider all of this, and ...

A later study reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology led by Park (2016) found that female preference for a male partner who was more intelligent than they were, was preventing the women from advancing in STEM industries (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

Time to recap. Of course, these findings do not apply to all males and females; however ...

Men prefer smarter women at a distance (in abstract = “in thought” and “unknown”), but up close and personal (in reality = “actually exist”), men do not prefer smarter women. And, women who seek smarter men are hampered from advancing in certain jobs.

Advice? Intelligent women are the best. That is what I maintain and that is what I told young men and young women during my teaching career. The more intelligent the individual, the more success that person is likely to encounter … that includes success with life, love, and society. Never apologize for being intelligent. A man who feels less of a man in a relationship with a smart woman needs to evaluate his own shortcomings.

I say this: most men would say they wanted a smart, independent, successful, beautiful woman (yada yada). However, when one of these men looks for reasons to discount a date (a reason perhaps expressed as “she thinks she's so smart”), he may go rogue and hide his intimidation by distancing himself.

Psychologists call this the “Love Gap.” – the reason men don’t always pursue the women they claim to want. The Love Gap is “a modern phenomenon that now exists between the sexes. The dynamics are unique to 21st-century men and women with evolved desires for a relationship, who also have to get around generations and generations of the ingrained male provider/female nurturer framework.”

Ladies, never dumb yourself down to attract a man. Journalist, researcher, adviser and CEO Jenna Birch says men should seek what she calls the “End Goal” ...

“End goal, n. (1) a smart, successful, “full-package” woman whom men admire, date, and deem aspirational; she contains the sort of substance and carries the type of connection they want to lock down — someday; (2) a modern woman who knows what she wants in love and in life; she has an ultimate objective in mind for her future, and she is unwilling to settle in getting there. “

I agree with Jenna. The reality of finding an End Goal may cause a young man to question his own intelligence and compare it with this potential mate. And, if he finds himself in that domain looking up a few rungs at his smarter partner, he should not be intimidated, he should be inspired to reach ever higher. Smarter females are better in every way. Just ask older, wiser men who deal in reality, not in the unknown. They know … and how.

Sources:

Lora E. Park. “Desirable but not smart: preference for smarter romantic partners impairs women's STEM outcomes.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology. October 2015.

Joe Vesey-Byrne. “Study reveals what men really think about smart women, and it's disgusting.” The Independent. 2017.

Hey, Turkeys, Take the Thanksgiving Quiz

Happy Thanksgiving to all. All daring souls, I challenge you to take this Thanksgiving Trivia Exam. Don't cheat and look at the answers (following the test). You may even learn a little of information to share with those at the holiday table. You will need a piece of scrap paper numbered 1-25 to record your answers. Who is the Big Turkey with the most correct answers? Now, go ahead. Gobble these questions up.

1. ___ The religious group of Separatist Pilgrims were originally from

a. London, England,
b. Scrooby, England,
c. Liverpool, England,
d. parts unknown.

2. ___ When the Pilgrims left England to practice their religion freely, where did they go?

a. Leiden, Holland,
b. Boston, Massachusetts,
c. Jamestown, Virginia,
d. Timbuktu, Kentucky.

3. ___ In order to finance their journey to the New World, the Pilgrims promised to work together as a company for

a. 20 years,
b. 15 years,
c. 7 years,
d. minimum wage.

4. ___ The Pilgrims wrote an agreement signed by all the men on board-including the indentured servants-promising to abide by laws that would be drawn up and agreed upon by all male members of the community. This agreement is known as 

a. the Mayflower Compact
b. the Articles of Confederation,
c. Pilgrim's Progress,
d. the “I'm All In” Post-It Note.

5. ___ How many Pilgrims were on the Mayflower?

a. 250,
b. 102,
c. 67,
d. 3 drunken sailors.

6. ___ Who was the captain of the ship?

a. Christopher Jones,
b. Miles Standish
c. William Bradford,
d. Louis Armstrong Hornblower.

7. ___ How long was the voyage from England to the New World?

a. 102 days,
b. 66 days,
c. 41 days,
d. a three hour tour.

8. ___ The Pilgrims arrived in North America in

a. January 1492,
b. November 1517,
c. December, 1620.
d. February, 2016. 

9. ___ The original, intended destination of the Pilgrims was

a. the Hudson River,
b. Barbados, British Commonwealth,
c. Nantucket, Massachusetts,
d. Disneyworld, Florida.

10. ___ Five weeks before coming ashore in Plymouth, the Pilgrims docked in what is today

a. Newport, Rhode Island,
b. Provincetown, Massachusetts,
c. New York, New York,
d. the International Space Station.

11. ___ Of the original Pilgrims, how many survived to celebrate the first Thanksgiving?

a. 162,
b. 53,
c. 28,
d. only Ben Franklin and Rutherford B. Hayes.

12. ___ What Native American tribe celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims?

a. the Iroquis,
b. the Delaware,
c. the Wampanoag,
d. the Cleveland Indians.

13. ___ The Pilgrims were met by a Native American who had been kidnapped by a sea captain, sold into slavery, taken to London, then found his way back home on an exploratory expedition, learning English along the way. He became their savior by teaching the malnourished settlers how to cultivate corn, catch fish, forage, extract maple sap, and avoid poisonous plants. His name?

a. Sacagawea,
b. Hiawatha,
c. Squanto,
d. Me Pee on Moccasin.

14. ___ Why is the male turkey often referred to as "Tom Turkey”?

a. After Thomas Jefferson,
b. Because Indians would catch them by pounding on tom-tom drums to lure them in,
c. From an 18th century political cartoon,
d. After Tom Foolery and his trained turkey act.

15. ___ Under which president did Thanksgiving become an annual holiday?

a. George Washington,
b. John Quincy Adams,
c. Abraham Lincoln,
d. Alfred E. Newman.

16. ___ The woman who convinced the president to recognize Thanksgiving as a national holiday was Sarah Josepha Hale. She is also responsible for

a. writing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,”
b. designing the first U.S. postage stamp,
c. being the mother of Nathan Hale,
d. being the first to coin the term “Jumping Jehoshaphat.”

17. ___ Which president was the first to establish Thanksgiving as a legal national holiday to be held the 4th Thursday in November?

a. Abraham Lincoln
b. Franklin D. Roosevelt
c. Millard Fillmore,
d. Thursday Thor, the originator of Hammer Time.

18. ___ Roasted turkey dinner with all the trimmings was the first meal to be eaten

a. in the original White House in Washington D.C.,
b. after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House,
c. by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren on the moon,
d. at the original Bob Evans Restaurant

19. ___ The first Thanksgiving parade (in 1920) was sponsored by what department store chain which shut down in the '80s (so nope, it's not Macy's)?

a. Neiman Marcus,
b. Sears and Roebuck,
c. Gimbels,
d. Lox, Stocks, and Bagels.

20. ___ James Pierpoint composed a song in 1857 for children celebrating Thanksgiving. What was it?

a. “Jingle Bells,”
b. “O Tannenbaum,”
c. “Let It Snow,”
d. “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.”

21. ___ In 1953, after Thanksgiving, Swanson had so much extra turkey (260 tons) that

a. they packaged the first TV dinners,
b. started producing turkey sausage,
c. stopped selling turkey for the next ten years,
d. developed the now-defunct turkey ice cream.

22. ___ What statement about turkeys is true?

a. Turkeys cannot fly.
b. The birds were named after turkey vultures.
c. Turkeys can drown if they look up in the rain.
d. Turkeys are notorious drinkers of alcohol and have been known to smoke marijuana.

23. ___ What statement about turkeys is true?

a. Only male turkeys gobble. Female turkeys cackle instead.
b. Only female turkeys gobble. Male turkeys cackle instead.
c. Both male and female turkeys gobble and cackle.
d. Male and female turkeys sing in three octaves during mating season.

24. ___  What state raises the most turkeys?

a. Iowa,
b. Minnesota,
c. South Carolina,
d. the State of Confusion.

25. ___ What is the wobbly red piece of flesh on top of the beak of a turkey?

a. a crown,
b. a caruncle

c. a snood,

d. an extra nose so the bird can hear what it eats.

      ____________________________________________________________________

ANSWERS:

1. B     2. A     3. C     4. A     5. B    6. A     7. B    8. C   9. A    10. B

11. B     12. C      13. C     14.  *A   15. C    16. A    17. B    18. C     19. C   20. A
21. A    22. C    23. A    24. B     25. C

(* Ben Franklin was angry that Thomas Jefferson opposed his idea of making the turkey the National Bird, so Ben mockingly called it "Tom Turkey.")

Early Politics and Government -- Lucas In Ohio

From the beginnings of state government, Southern Ohio and its inhabitants played a crucial part in politics. Robert Lucas became a key player in Ohio and in national public affairs. Both his political and military reputation made him a widely respected figure. It was a critical time for leaders dealing with the future of the young nation as it was expanding its western boundaries and adding new states to its Union.

Robert Lucas was elected to the Ohio General Assembly for the first time in 1808 as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Then, after his service in the War of 1812, Lucas's political career blossomed, and in 1818 he was named Speaker of the Ohio State Senate

Lucas was the Ohio Presidential elector in 1820 for James Monroe, a Virginia Democratic-Republican was heir apparent to James Madison. In 1822, Robert lost the State Senate election to his former brother-in-law and political rival, William Kendall. However, Lucas regained his State Senate seat in 1824, and actively campaigned for Andrew Jackson.

The Election of 1824 was contested by four members of the Democratic-Republican Party – Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. No candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, necessitating a contingent election in the House of Representatives under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president. The 1824 presidential election was the first election in which the winner of the election lost the popular vote.

Robert Lucas was again an Ohio Presidential elector in 1828 for Andrew Jackson. Lucas again lost his senate seat in 1828 to Kendall, and Lucas was part of the electoral congress that elected Jackson President that year over John Quincy Adams. Adams's supporters rallied around the president, calling themselves National Republicans in contrast to Jackson's Democrats.

Jackson was the nation’s first frontier president, and his election marked a turning point in American politics, as the center of political power shifted from East to West (Of course, Ohio was part of the western frontier of the time).

“Old Hickory” and his supporters and opponents shaped themselves into two emerging political parties: The pro-Jacksonites became the Democrats (formally Democrat-Republicans) and the anti-Jacksonites (led by Clay and Daniel Webster) were known as the Whig Party.

Lucas won his senate seat back in 1829, in a special election after Kendall resigned; again, he was elected Senate speaker. In 1831, Lucas ran for the state assembly and lost, but he quickly rebounded.

Perhaps the highlight of Lucas's career was to serve as the chairman and president of the1832 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party's first national convention. The convention nominated President Andrew Jackson for a second term and nominated Martin Van Buren of New York for vice president.

Delegates to the 1832 Democratic convention refused to renominate John C. Calhoun as vice president. Many Democrats opposed Calhoun because of his tariff policy and his defense of the doctrine of nullification, which claimed that a state had a right to nullify federal laws within its own borders. South Carolina, with Calhoun’s backing, supported the nullification doctrine. The nullification debate foreshadowed the slavery controversy that would become the most divisive national political issue in U.S. history.

The 1832 conventions played a crucial role in making organized parties a fixture of the U.S. political system. The Democratic convention adopted rules that succeeding conventions retained well into the 20th century. One rule based each state’s convention vote on its electoral vote, an apportionment method that remained unchanged until 1940. The 1832 convention also adopted the procedure of having one person from each delegation announce the vote of his state.

Lucas was also nominated the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1832, and won after a vitriolic campaign. Lucas County, Ohio, was established and named for the governor during his second term, in defiance of the Michigan Territory, which also claimed the land around the mouth of the Maumee River – thus provoking the almost-bloodless Toledo War.

Early Ohio Politics

The General Assembly first convened in Chillicothe, then the Ohio capital, on March 1, 1803. This body consists of the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. Ohio's original constitution created the General Assembly in 1803. Originally, senators served unlimited two-year terms, while representatives served unlimited one-year terms.

The legislature held the most power in state government, with the governor not having the power to appoint state officials or to veto legislation. The first General Assembly consisted of thirty members of the House and fourteen members of the Senate. Each county received a certain number of legislators based upon the county's population. Forty-nine General Assemblies met under the Constitution of 1803.

The story of Ohio's statehood dates back to the Ordinance of 1787 and the creation of the Northwest Territory – a large body of unsettled land that encompassed what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The territory was ruled by a governor, a secretary, and three judges, who were all appointed by Congress. These five officials performed the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government.

It wasn't until 1798 – after the male adult population of the territory reached 5,000 – that the settlers were given the right to elect a house of representatives. The first meeting of the legislature convened in Cincinnati in 1799. The body elected Edward Tiffin as Speaker of the House and William Henry Harrison as the territory's representative to Congress.

Though the territorial government was just getting on its feet in 1799, Ohio settlers were already clamoring for statehood. And just a few years later, in 1802, Congress passed an enabling bill that authorized the formation of a state government in Ohio.

The Ohio Constitution

Ohio's first constitutional convention convened in Chillicothe. In November 1802, thirty-five delegates met to draft an Ohio state constitution. In order for Ohio to become a state in the United States, representatives of the territory had to submit a constitution to the United States Congress for approval. This was the final requirement under the Northwest Ordinance that Ohio had to meet before becoming a state.

Thomas Worthington personally carried the document to Washington, DC. He arrived on December 19, and formally presented the Constitution to Congress on December 22. The Constitution became law on February 19, 1803, when Congress passed an act stating that the citizens of Ohio had adopted a constitution in accordance with the 1802 Enabling Act and the said state had become one of the United States of America.

The majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention favored the platform of the Democratic-Republican Party. Democratic-Republicans favored a small government with limited powers. The legislative branch should hold the few powers that the government actually possessed. Some delegates to the convention were members of the Federalist Party. Federalists believed in a much stronger government. Since the Democratic-Republicans controlled the convention, Ohio's first state constitution established a relatively weak government with the legislative branch holding most of the power.

The Ohio Constitution of 1803 provided all white men with the right to vote, assuming that they paid taxes or that they helped build and maintain the state's roads. The governor's term was for two years and he did not have the power to veto acts of the legislature. The legislature was called the Ohio General Assembly and consisted of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representatives served only a single year before having to be reelected, while senators served two years. The General Assembly had to approve all appointments that the governor made. The legislature also selected Ohio's judges. The Ohio Constitution of 1803 prohibited slavery, honoring one of the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance. The convention members failed to extend the suffrage to African-American men in the constitution by a single vote.

The Ohio Constitution of 1803 was one the most democratic state constitutions in America to that time. The Democratic-Republican delegates to the convention distrusted a strong governor. The governor of the Northwest Territory had been Arthur St. Clair. St. Clair had pursued his own policy goals and had not worked well with the territorial legislature. That would not be possible under Ohio's first state constitution.

Ohio's Constitution of 1803 remained in effect until the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1851 adopted a new one.

Ohio Admitted to Union

Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803. Chillicothe served as the temporary capital for the new state until 1810 when the legislature moved the capital to Zanesville. The capital was shuttled back to Chillicothe in 1812, while the legislature searched for a more centralized location. The legislature finally decided to build a new capital on "the high banks of the Scioto River." Columbus became Ohio's permanent capital in 1816.

For the first several decades of Ohio's existence, the Democratic-Republican Party dominated the General Assembly. With the advent of the Whig Party in the 1830s and then the Republican Party in the 1850s, these two organizations battled the Democratic Party for control of the legislative branch. Throughout the late 1800s and most of the 1900s, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party commonly alternated control in the General Assembly.

The Lucas Family, Quakers, and the Strong Lucasville Connection

John Lucas, founder of Lucasville, moved to the Scioto Valley with his two older brothers and a cousin around 1800. John was the son of William Lucas and Susannah Barnes. This Quaker family had roots that stretched back to 1679 in Pennsylvania, though the family had recently moved to Virginia. The Bicentennial of 2019 is an appropriate time to explore the times of the Pennsylvania Lucas family.

The patriarch of the family was Robert Lucas, of Deverall, Longbridge, County Wilts. He was a

yeoman (a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate) who arrived at Philadelphia on April 4, 1679 in the "Elizabeth and Mary" of Weymouth. Elizabeth, his wife, arrived in July 1680 in the ship "Content" of London with her eight children, John, Giles, Edward, Robert II, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Mary and Sarah.

Robert Lucas received a grant of 177 acres of land, below the Fails, on the west side of the Delaware, from Edmond Andross, Governor General under the Duke of York, and it was confirmed by patent from William Penn, May 3, 1684. This land he devised to his son, Edward.

Robert Lucas was a Justice of Upland Court, 1681; a member of Provincial Assembly, 1683, 1687 and 1688; and was a member of the first grand jury in Pennsylvania, summoned March 2, 1683. His will was signed in 1687, and he died in Bucks county in 1688. His will mentions his wife, Elizabeth, and sons, Edward, Robert, Giles and John, and provides for his younger children who are not mentioned by name.

Quakers – First Arrival

George Fox was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The term “Quaker” arose as a popular nickname used to ridicule this new religious group when it emerged in seventeenth century England. It arose from the perception that, when experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, some Friends physically shook and trembled in meeting for worship. Since the term was so widely recognized, some Quakers began using it informally.

Quaker missionaries had arrived in North America in the mid-1650s.The first was Elizabeth Harris, who visited Virginia and Maryland. By the early 1660s, more than 50 other Quakers had followed Harris.. In 1656 Mary Fisher and Ann Austin began preaching in Boston. They were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to “the Inner Light.” They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned under terrible conditions, then deported.

* Note of Interest – The Inner Light refers to the presence of Christ in the heart. Quakers took this idea of walking in the Light of Christ to refer to God's presence within a person, and to a direct and personal experience of God. The Quaker belief that the Inward Light shines on each person is based in part on a passage from the New Testament, namely John 1:9, which says, "That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

William Penn and Pennsylvania

The History of colonial Pennsylvania begins in 1681 when William Penn received a royal charter from King Charles II of England, although human activity in the region precedes that date. Penn established a colony based on religious tolerance; it was settled by many Quakers along with its chief city Philadelphia, which was also the first planned city. In the mid-eighteenth century, the colony attracted many German and Scots-Irish immigrants. It became one of the original 13 colonies.

Note of Interest – Charles II of England granted the Province of Pennsylvania to William Penn to settle a debt of £16,000 that the king owed to Penn's father. Penn founded a proprietary colony. Charles named the colony Pennsylvania ("Penn's woods" in Latin), after the elder Penn, which the younger Penn found embarrassing, as he feared people would think he had named the colony after himself.

Although born into a distinguished Anglican family and the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, William Penn joined the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers at the age of 22. The Quakers obeyed their "inner light", which they believed to come directly from God, refused to bow or take off their hats to any man, and refused to take up arms.

William Penn was a close friend of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers. In times of turmoil after Oliver Cromwell's death, the Quakers were suspect because of their principles which differed from the state-imposed religion and because of their refusal to swear an oath of loyalty to Cromwell or to the King. (Quakers obeyed the command of Christ in Matthew 5:34 – “But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne.”)

Penn's religious views were extremely distressing to his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, who had earned an estate in Ireland through naval service and hoped that Penn's charisma and intelligence would be able to win him favor at the court of Charles II. In 1668 William Penn was imprisoned for writing a tract (The Sandy Foundation Shaken) which attacked the doctrine of the trinity.

"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."

–William Penn

In time, the persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided that it would be better to try to found a new, free, Quaker settlement in North America. Some Quakers had already moved to North America, but the New England Puritans, especially, were as negative towards Quakers as the people back home, and some of them had been banished to the Caribbean.

In 1677, Penn's chance came, as a group of prominent Quakers, among them Penn, received the colonial province of West New Jersey (half of the current state of New Jersey). Penn, who was involved in the project but himself remained in England, drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement. He guaranteed free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment and free elections.

Penn marketed the colony throughout Europe in various languages and, as a result, settlers flocked to Pennsylvania. Those Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) fled persecution not only in England, but also in Germany, Ireland, and Wales for the shores of the North American colonies

From 1682 to 1684 Penn was, himself, in the Province of Pennsylvania. Penn began construction of Pennsbury Manor, his intended country estate in Bucks County on the right bank of the Delaware River, in 1683. After he completed the building plans for Philadelphia and put his political ideas into a workable form, Penn explored the interior of the country. He befriended the local Indians (primarily of the Leni Lenape (aka Delaware) tribe) , and ensured that they were paid fairly for their lands. Penn even learned several different Indian dialects in order to communicate in negotiations without interpreters.

* Note of Interest – William Penn introduced laws saying that if a European did an Indian wrong, there would be a fair trial, with an equal number of people from both groups deciding the matter. His measures proved successful: even though later colonists did not treat the Indians as fairly as Penn and his first group of colonists had done.

What is a less assuredly myth – or fact – is whether Penn ever signed a 'Great Treaty' in 1682 at the village of Shackamaxon. As we have seen, for many Americans (and non-Americans such as Voltaire) this deed proved the most inspiring “event” of Penn's life. Francis Jennings believes that Penn signed the treaty and never broke it, but that his less scrupulous successors destroyed the document, presumably so that they could renege on its provisions. We do know that Penn did buy much land, so must have made at least one such agreement, instituting what was known in Indian terminology as a “chain of friendship.” And there do exist several references to this chain being made between Penn and the Delaware.

Penn had wished to settle in Philadelphia himself, but financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. His financial advisor, Philip Ford, had cheated him out of thousands of pounds, and he had nearly lost Pennsylvania through Ford's machinations. The next decade of Penn's life was mainly filled with various court cases against Ford. He tried to sell Pennsylvania back to the state, but while the deal was still being discussed, he was hit by a stroke in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or take care of himself.

Quakers In America

The Quakers’ arrival in the New World helped shape its moral and political fabric, including the eventual abolition of slavery. It is recorded that the first two prominent Friends to denounce slavery were Anthony Benezet and John Woolman. They asked the Quakers, "What thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries.”

In 1688, a group of Quakers along with some German Mennonites met at the meeting house in Germantown, Pennsylvania, to discuss why they were distancing themselves from slavery. Four of them signed a document written by Francis Daniel Pastorius that stated, "To bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against." In 1758, Quakers in Philadelphia were ordered to stop buying and selling slaves. By the 1780s, all Quakers were barred from owning slaves. They were the first Western organization to ban slave-holding.

From the efforts of the Quakers, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were able to convince the Continental Congress to ban the importation of slaves into America as of December 1, 1775. Pennsylvania was the strongest anti-slavery state at the time, and with Franklin's help they led "The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting The Abolition of Slavery, The Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race" (Pennsylvania Abolition Society).

Though the Quaker beliefs of gender equality, universal education, and positive relations with Native Americans were rejected by most colonists, by 1700 more than 11,000 Quakers had made America their home and come to dominate politics and daily life in Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey.

A number of Quaker beliefs were considered radical, such as the idea that women and men were spiritual equals, and women could speak out during worship. Based on their interpretation of the Bible, Quakers were pacifists and refused to take legal oaths. Central to their beliefs was the idea that everyone had the Light of Christ within them.

Their differences extended into social settings. Quakers did not bow as a popular greeting. They popularized the handshake. They typically lived plain, disciplined lives as farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans, but in Massachusetts, some faced the gallows for their religion, while others were banished. Many other Christians believed that the Quaker practice of silent worship undermined the Bible. Even so, Quakers remained loyal to their convictions, and over time inspired progress.

* Note of Interest – While all Quakers met in worship to hear more clearly God's "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12), Friends in the unprogrammed Quaker tradition based their worship entirely on expectant waiting. They took the Psalmist's advice literally: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

The congregation met in plain, unadorned rooms because they had found that, in such places, they were less distracted from hearing that still small voice. There were no pulpits in our meeting rooms because they ministered to each other. Their benches or chairs faced each other because they felt they are all equal before God. They had no prearranged prayers, readings, sermons, hymns, or musical orchestrations because they waited for God's leadings (guidance and direction) and power in our lives.

Prison reform was another concern of English Quakers. During the 1800s, Elizabeth Fry and her brother Joseph John Gurney campaigned for more humane treatment of prisoners and for the abolition of the death penalty. They played a key role in forming the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate, which managed to better the living conditions of woman and children held at the prison.

As a primary Quaker belief is that all human beings are equal and worthy of respect, the fight for human rights has also extended to many other areas of society. In the early days Quaker views toward women were remarkably progressive, and by the 19th century many Quakers were active in the movement for women's rights. Many of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. were Quakers, including Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul.

Early suffragettes Quaker minister Lucretia Mott was a fierce abolitionist who refused to use cotton cloth, cane sugar, and other slavery-produced goods. Frustrated by anti-slavery organizations that would not accept female members, Mott set about establishing women's abolitionist societies.

In 1848 Mott helped bring together the first American women's rights meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, and was elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Association after the end of the Civil War. When slavery was outlawed in 1865, she didn't stop her activist aims and began to advocate giving black Americans the right to vote.

Another Quaker, Susan B. Anthony, also dedicated her life to attaining equal voting rights for women in America. Born into a Quaker family and committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. When she first began campaigning for women's rights, Anthony was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. She founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866.

Ignoring opposition and abuse, Anthony traveled, lectured, and canvassed across the nation for the vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and retain their earnings, and she advocated for women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women.

* Note of interest – To date, two U.S. presidents have been Quakers: Herbert Hoover and Richard M. Nixon. Other famous Quakers include author James Michener, philanthropist Johns Hopkins and John Cadbury, founder of the chocolate business bearing his name.

In 2007 there were approximately 359,000 adult members of Quaker meetings in the world, with about 87,000 in the United States. This includes all the various branches of the Religious Society of Friends.

Quaker meetinghouses were unadorned spaces where men and women worshiped equally. 

On Sundays, which they called “First Day,” Quakers worshiped in silence, waiting until 

“the spirit found them,” and inspired them to speak. 1735, Pennsylvania. 

(Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Lucasville Connection

The remarkable history of the Lucas family includes many early American references. Even Robert II's wife had a decidedly strong Quaker connection – On the March 7, 1816, 35-year-old State Senator Robert Lucas II married Miss Friendly Ashley Sumner, a daughter of Edward Sumner, who had accompanied her parents in their migration from New England. Friendly was Robert's second wife. He had been married to Elizabeth Brown, his landlord's daughter, in 1810. Elizabeth died in 1812 leaving him with an infant daughter. How fitting a name for a member of the Religious Society of Friends – Friendly.

About this time, or shortly after, Robert and Friendly moved north into Pike County (then newly organized) and settled in the town of Piketon on the main street, which, for many years was to be his home. Residents there remarked of Robert's “tall, straight figure and stern face.” Of Friendly, many recalled her “delicious currant pies.” Of course, John Lucas was busy platting the town of Lucasville, just a few miles to the south.

In July of 1819, Lucas united with the Methodist Church at Piketon, and throughout the remainder of his life he remained a prominent worker in the cause of that denomination. Lucas was as intense in his religion as he was in political activities or military matters. His Quaker roots likely served him well in his work with the new denomination.

Shortly after, Robert Lucas built himself a house on the Jackson road two miles east of Piketon which was said to be “among the finest in all Southern Ohio.” A biographer wrote of the idyllic home ...

“The Lucas house was a large, two-story brick house with a hall in the center and sitting-room and parlor opening on either side of the hall. Each room, upstairs and down, was provided with a fireplace. Over the front door was placed a stone on which were cut the following words: 'Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.' Beneath the word 'Liberty' appeared a five-pointed star; while below the motto were carved name and date: ''K. Lucas, 1824.' Located on a farm of four hundred thirty-seven acres, surrounded with large trees and with sweet brier and eglantine growing in profusion about the place and over the walls, it was indeed a home of wonderful attractiveness.”

The grove about the house was the distinctive feature of the farm; and so, in honor of his wife, Lucas fittingly named his new home "Friendly Grove.” The Lucas family lived there, and Robert and his wife “entertained in great state” for fifteen years. Political friends came “to discuss weighty matters of public concern and to laugh at the quick-witted sallies of Mrs. Lucas.”

Methodist circuit rider also stopped there and “found spiritual improvement in religious conversation with the serious minded legislator – while they incidentally nourished their gaunt frames upon the ample and delectable meals outspread by their hostess.” And history also records “not least eagerly came the nephews and nieces from Piketon and the neighborhood to spend a week or so amid the charms of Friendly Grove.”

Virtue, liberty, independence – these were not just words but rather revered applications to the Lucas family. Their dedication to these behaviors proved their undying American commitment. From Pennsylvania to Virginia and from Virginia to Southern Ohio, the pioneers forged a righteous chapter of settlement, one of superior determination and service. Children of a Revolutionary War veteran, soldiers of the War of 1812, and public servants of Ohio and the Iowa Territory, the Lucases lived their lives with integrity and honor. And, just as impressive, they did so with friendly reverence to all. Their forefathers established tenets that proved truly fundamental to a growing society in a very young country.

* Final Note – I would like to acknowledge the wealth of information taken from this source: The Independence Hall Association, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1942. Publishing electronically as ushistory.org. On the Internet since July 4, 1995.