carved, had written the Emancipation Proclamation and laid down his martyr life. In that hour of doubt and uncertainty, when the hope in Johnson had failed, and grave issues were looming up on every hand, the heart of the people turned to that man whose victories had begun at Donaldson and ended at Appomattox.

While Ohio had given Grant a birthplace, and while his early life had been moulded in an Ohio home, yet it was his appointment to West Point that made possible his career. What Grant was, the years of war had proven, and the years of unrest following the war, when wounds were yet unhealed and animosities still unforgiven, tested him again. There may have been mistakes in his life; but his sincerity, his honesty and his unswerving loyalty were never doubted, and his life closed rich in the nation's unfailing love.

To the presidential convention of 1876, came the East with a favorite son whose eloquence and charming manner has scarcely ever been surpassed. But in that convention the Republicans chose for their standard-bearer, not the Plumed Knight of Maine, but Rutherford B. Hayes, a son of Ohio, who had often honored his native state. He had also honored the nation on many hard-fought fields of battle and in the halls of Congress. Three times had he

been chosen as the state's chief executive and his honor and integrity were never questioned.

When the presidential electors chosen in 1876 met, they failed to choose a president. A commission was then formed consisting of fifteen members, five being senators, five representatives and five judges of the Supreme Court. The commission, by a vote of 8 to 7, declared in favor of Hayes, who was inaugurated March 5, 1877.

While the administration of President Hayes was unsatisfactory to the politicians, yet it was a wise and conservative one and met with the hearty approval of the general public. Among the first of his public acts was the withdrawal of the Federal troops from the South, and a restoration of self-government was at once made to the Southern states. The beginning of his administration was marked by distressing business depression, but the splendid management of the nation's finances, and the resumption of specie payments soon occasioned great commercial activity. It was during this administration that the foundations of our present thorough civil service reform was laid. Mr. Blaine said of this administration: "It is one of the few and rare cases in our history in which the President entered upon his office with the country depressed and discontented, and left it

prosperous and happy; in which he found his party broken, divided and on the verge of defeat, and left it strong, united and vigorous. This is the peculiar felicity of General Hayes' public career."

With the expiration of his term, ex-President Hayes returned to private life at Fremont, Ohio, and spent the remainder of his life in mak ing educational reforms.

James A. Garfield, Ohio's next gift to the nation, was born November 19th, 1831, at Orange in Cuyahoga county. The log cabin home of his boyhood, in the woods of Orange, stands for the hardships, the privations and the scant advantages of the pioneer boy. His early life was a continuous struggle to support his widowed mother and four children. Garfield never forgot Ohio. As teacher, as member of the State Senate, as citizen, soldier, and as member of Congress, it was always his greatest pleasure to serve her. In return Ohio placed in him her faith and hope. The 19th Congressional District chose him as its representative to succeed Ben. Wade and Joshua R. Giddings, and continued to re-elect him for nine successive terms, when he was called to a higher office.

But Garfield never hunted for office, as he was always the hunted one. It was his luck to hold at the same time three elective offices

member of Congress, senator-elect and presi dent-elect. Thus it was that Ohio, taking the achievements of his past as pledges of his future, looked proudly forward to their fulfillment. But it was not to be. The nation was again called to mourn the death of her president. A funeral dirge resounded across the land and Garfield's name was added to that of Lincoln's on the roll of martyr presidents; one the victim of sectional hate, the other of official greed.

Ohio's claim on Benjamin Harrison is similar to that on Grant, only stronger; for Harrison was not only of Ohio parentage and birth, but here had his education been secured and his profession gained before he chose another state by adoption. And so it was that Ohio felt a thrill of joy when the second Harrison was added to the list of her presidential sons, and she was proud of his wise and well-ordered administration of the executive office. His administration was one of growth and development, and it was his pleasure to see six stars added to the flag when North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming entered upon the grave duties of statehood.

The importance of the agricultural industry of the country found prompt recognition at his hands, and a new cabinet department was the result. The South American republics were