The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer LifeJones, N. E. (Nelson Edward)
History
The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life
Jones, N. E. (Nelson Edward)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio; Ohio -- History -- 1787-1865; Ohio -- Social life and customs
The finances were so ably managed by the secretary and his advisor,
Jay Cooke, that a rebel leader declared the treasury, and not the war
department, had conquered the South. To take an empty and bankrupt
treasury and agree to find, equip and pay the immense federal army was
the portion assigned to secretary Chase. And when Mr. Cooke asked the
amount required daily to meet demands--the reply was “two millions,
five hundred thousand dollars. Can you raise the money?” “I can,” was
the reply.
Mr. Cooke organized a plan for popularizing the loan, and soon had
receipts coming into the treasury, averaging over four millions per
day. It must be admitted that brains, as well as bullets, gave strength
and success to the federal forces, and it can be truthfully as well as
modestly assumed, that Ohio furnished her share of both, with honest
scripture measure.
Ohio people are not given much to foolish pride, although considered
sensitive; and those familiar with the resources, industries, wealth
and learning, were surprised that the glorious first-born of the family
of the “North-west Territory,” should come so far short of expectations
at the World’s Columbian Centennial Exposition, at Chicago. The state
was all right, however, and deeply interested. But political favoritism
and incompetency often supplants meritorious ability, and determines
adversely what otherwise would claim admiration and give general
satisfaction.
Ex-Governor Campbell, in an address recently, would mislead a stranger,
when he says, “The State of Ohio was at Atlanta in 1864, under Sherman,
but is not now at Atlanta as part of the great exhibit of industrial
products held there, because, under, and by virtue of the last general
assembly, the state credit was reduced so low, and its coffers so
depleted, that not money enough could be found for this purpose.
The only official representation from our state at Atlanta, in the
year 1895, is on the part of a few lady commissioners, who have the
freemen’s privilege of paying their own expenses.”
Does anyone believe Ohio is poverty stricken? Has anyone known the
state or people to be so since the squirrel hunters traded coon-skins
for books, that it could not turn Lake Erie into the Ohio River--the
army of the “Southern Confederacy” face about--or make a first-class
exhibit in any competitive exposition? As a statement, it is true,
“Ohio is not at Atlanta.” But the absence is not due to the causes
assigned, and the wonder is, she is as rich and powerful as she is,
after being forced so frequently to play the part of the individual
that journeyed from Jerusalem down to Jericho.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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