THE LEADER OF THE STATE IN WAR--VISION IN
GOVERNMENT IN PEACE TIME
Theodore Roosevelt said that Governor Cox was among the very
foremost of war Governors. The utterance was made after he
had assessed the things done during the fateful period of
hostilities. Presenting complicated problems at all time it was
no less true that in war there were major, not minor, obstacles
to be met and surmounted before Ohio might take her traditional
place as one of the very militant states of the Union. That she
did achieve such place attests the zeal and ardor of the
Governor. Ohio presented to the country a complete division, the
Thirty-seventh, recruited under the personal supervision of
Governor Cox. It led the nation, by long odds, in sale of war
saving stamps, an activity stimulated by Governor Cox. It
preserved good order and set an example in spite of many
conflicting racial antagonisms within its borders by cultivation
of such a spirit as made open or covert disloyalty dangerous to
the disloyal. Withal there was no untoward incident affecting
peaceful alien enemies. In the cities, none led those of Ohio in
war gardening, and the tractor campaign for Ohio farms was
adopted and imitated in other states. The Governor himself was a
dynamo of activity, organizing the first State Council of
Defense and enlisting volunteer aid at no expense to state and
country in quickening all war and related activities. Every
situation affecting the State's power found him ready for the
emergency. When an early frost and severe winter in 1917-18
destroyed much of the seed corn, the Governor uncovered
instances of profiteering and immediately stopped it by vigorous
action. Corn in other districts with similar soil and climate
was brought in and sold at three dollars a bushel.
Soldiers of no state were better supplied with all the comforts
that could be provided than those of Ohio. While the Thirty-
seventh was in camp in the far South a Christmas train was sent
to it. Special funds were raised for entertainment of both the
Ohio camps. In a word, every war activity felt the vigilant care
and sympathetic help of the Governor.
During the war time there were few idle men in Ohio. Through
proclamation attention of local authorities was directed to an
old law making vagrancy an offense and it was applied
rigorously.
No less in reconstruction than in was activities his energies
were tireless. The Governor took the lead in securing
legislation to correct the defects found in educational laws and
one of the statutes placed upon the books at his suggestion
provided for an oath of allegiance on the part of teachers.
Referring to disclosures in certain cities, he said: "We have
had our bitter experiences and love for our children compels us,
in common prudence, to protect them."
Without sympathy for the mischievous spirits who sought to
foment trouble in America, the Governor clearly expressed his
conception of Americanization as a voluntary spiritual, and not
a compulsory, process. The policy he had in mind was indicated
in an address in Chicago in March, 1920, in which he said:
"There must be no compromise with treason, but the surest death
to Bolshevism is exposure of the germ of the disease itself to
the sunlight of public view. We must protect ourselves against
extremes in America. The horrors and tragedies of revolution can
be charged to them. If government is assailed, its policy must
not become vengeful. Our fathers in specifying what human
freedom was, and providing guarantees for its preservation,
recognized that among the necessary precautions was the
protection of individual right against governmental abuses.
"If the alien, ignorant of our laws and customs, cows in fear of
our government, he is very apt to believe that things are much
the same the world over, and he may become and easy convert to
the doctrine of resistance. The skies will clear but meanwhile
government must be firm, yet judicial, uninfluenced by the
emotionalism that breeds extremes. The less government we have,
consistent with safety to life and property, the better for both
happiness and morals. A policeman on every corner would be a bad
index to the citizenship of the community, for it would reflect
a foolish concept of conditions by the municipal officers."
The vision of Governor Cox in legislation is best to be studied
in the statute book of Ohio. The fact is that he was a pioneer
in some of this, indeed in a large part of it. Through the years
he has insisted that government must deal with its problem by
evolution lest revolution overtake it. It was this sentiment
that led him to deal with the industrial injury matter. When he
heard men inveighing against the courts, a discerning eye knew
something was wrong and he gave his attention to righting that
wrong. His creed, not recently as a candidate, but in the years
of his public career, has been expressed in this summary: "Our
view is toward the sunrise of tomorrow with its progress and its
eternal promise of better things."
The expression is found so frequently in his state documents
that it might properly be set forth in the form of a creed. But
there has been more than what the great Roosevelt called "lip-
service to progress. The forward steps became a part of the
laws.
In health affairs he asked for the appointment of a commission
to study the need for adequate local administration and he urged
its adoption before the General Assembly so forcefully that Ohio
to-day has what is universally recognized to be the best system
in America. In placing the state department upon a footing
commensurate with other institutions of government, case was
taken to place it where it cannot be prostituted to
partisanship. There has been a growing number of governmental
departments under Governor Cox in which partisanship is utterly
forbidden. They include the Board of Administration, dealing
with the wards of the state, the social agencies, the
educational, and the Fish and Game Department. An actual census
in all the varied public office activities in Ohio would
disclose that although the Democratic party has been in
possession of the Government for nearly all of the past twelve
years, the number of members of the Republican party on the
public rolls is almost as great as that of the victors. The
Governor has found that men in the world of business employ, at
larger compensation than the state has afforded, the type of men
he has most often selected for responsible posts. It is one of
the curious effects of progress in government that it has
touched and awakened progress in business and in civic life.
In social service there has been evolved the cold storage act
which has served as a model for proposed national legislation.
under its provisions a strict limitation of time is placed upon
the storing of food. With this has gone strict legislation
against adulteration of food and honest enforcement of the laws.
Other states have accepted as a model the social agency
committee now working in effective co-operation with state
departments and bringing into mutual operation all recognized
social agencies. One of the greatest steps forward was the
establishment of a bureau of juvenile research with Dr. L. H.
Goddard at its head.
Second to no other reform has been that effected in handling of
the prison problem. Prisoners now earn their freedom through
work in the healthful out-of-doors on highways, in plants for
making road material, and on farms. There is a system of
compensation to the families for work done as a balance on which
to begin life anew.
Twelve hundred consolidated schools in Ohio attest the
successful workings of the rural school code which was brought
into existence in 1914 after careful study and after the state
in general meetings had carefully studied the plans. The old
one-room school house is giving way in the country to the modern
centralized school and community life is being remade. Through
the raising of the country school to the plane of those of the
cities, it will be possible to check the alarming drift to the
cities and depopulation of the countryside. Governor Cox does
not believe that the federal government should interfere in the
affairs of local communities but he does believe that it "can
inventory the possibilities of progressive education, and in
helpful manner create an enlarged public interest in this
subject."
Along with the improvement of rural schools has gone a most
comprehensive highway programme involving an annual outlay of
millions of dollars. Gradually as highways are improved they
will, under the state policy shaped in 1913, be taken over by
the state.
The agricultural legislation was in consonance with the other
subjects touched. Ohio was long a dumping ground for inferior
fertilizers, diseased livestock and impure seed. Adequate laws
have changed all this. Still, these are police measures not of
necessity a true index of real vision in agricultural matters.
The boldest step ever taken was the establishment of pure bred
herds of cattle by the state with opportunity afforded through
breeding service at institutional farms to extend these pure
strains to the small farms. The success attained is reflected in
numerous heard of thorough-bred cattle.