Though he suffered defeat for re-election in 1914, neither the Industrial Commission Law nor the Workmen's compensation Law nor any other major piece of social legislation was disturbed by his successor. In reviewing four years of the history of the law at his re-accession to power in 1917, he said:

"Since the adoption of the law there have been 300,000 industrial accidents and only seventeen suits have been brought against employers who paid into the state insurance fund. There was but one single verdict rendered by the court against the employer in the list of seventeen and that was for $2000. Five cases were settled out of court, four were decided in favor of the employer, one was dismissed by the employee, one was dismissed by the court and four are still pending. More than one thousand firms carry their own insurance under state consent, and against these institutions but five suits have been brought. Against the employers who have reinsured with the liability insurance companies, eight suits have been instituted, making a total of thirty law suits from all sources. These figures are procured from the official records of the Industrial Commission."

Two years later, in 1919, a further chapter is given:

"The experience of our state with the Compulsory Workmen's Compensation Law bears so vitally on the industrial life of our people that it is deemed proper to report the outstanding features of the situation. The amount of money in the fund held by the State as trustee for the injured workmen and their dependents, as of date, January 2, 1919, was $15,401,429.74. So carefully measured has been the cost of human justice that employers pay a smaller premium-rate in Ohio than elsewhere, and the injured workmen and their dependents are given larger compensation. A dramatic circumstance which bears eloquent testimony in behalf of this law is here recited: Not long since a workman was injured in a factory through which runs the boundary line between Ohio and Pennsylvania. The accident occurred a few feet east of our state, but the poor fellow crawled back onto the soil of Ohio because he knew the difference between our law and the law in Pennsylvania. As a further evidence of the basic soundness of the law and the character of its administration, I have directed the Industrial Commission to have an actuarial audit of the fund in its charge, with the imposed condition that the Ohio Federation of Labor, the Ohio Manufacturers' Association and the State Auditor be consulted in the employment of the most competent actuary, obtainable outside the state service, to do the work."

This, then, is the story, but not all of it. Having its genesis in the meetings between labor and capital, there has been worked out by the two an elaborate code of safety rules which have been officially promulgated by the commission and have the binding effect of law. To-day capital and labor will demand of his successor that his heart and mind be in accord with the program carried to fruition in his six years as Governor. There are other points in his service, briefly covered here, in these lists:

Laws Pertaining to Business

A public utilities law providing property re-valuation as a basis for rate making.

Provision for court appear from the utilities commission decision to the court of final jurisdiction, preventing delay and loss.

Prohibition against injunction on rate hearing without court investigation.

A uniform accounting system applied to utilities.

A state banking code with close co-operation with the federal reserve system, bringing all private banks under state supervision.

State expenditure on a budget system to reduce cost of government and lessen taxation.

A blue-sky act to encourage proper investment and protect against fraudulent securities.

Labor Legislation

A State Industrial Commission with powers to handle all questions affecting capital and labor, with a state mediator as the keystone.

Complete survey of occupational diseases with recommendation for health and occupational insurance.

Full switching crew in all railroad yards.

Strengthening the user in the state of railroad safety appliances.

A full crew law.

Twenty-four foot caboose.

Reduction of consecutive hours of employment for electric railroad workers.

Obstruction of fixed signals prohibited.

Safeguarding of accidents in mines by proper illumination.

Extra provision for dependents of men killed in mines.

Increased facilities for mine inspector operation.

Protection of miners working toward abandoned mines.

Elimination of sweatshop labor.

Provision for minimum time pay day.

Prohibition of contract labor in workhouses.

Provision for minimum wage and nine-hour working day for women.

Eight-hour working day on all public contracts.

Codification of child laws with establishment of child welfare department.

Compulsory provision for mothers' pensions.

Verdict by three-fourths jury in civil cases.



CHAPTER VII

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.



CHAPTER VIII

FIGHTING "SLUSH FUNDS"

Developments of the present campaign have given a peculiar interest to past history with respect to the record of Governor Cox in dealing with campaign expenditures. The Governor's reports, which have been filed under the Ohio Corrupt Practice law, show that he has never been an extravagant spender in campaigns. In his various races for the Governor's office in Ohio one of the points which he has claimed is the redemption of pledges made to the people. Under one of these pledges he advocated and secured the enactment of an anti-lobby law, designed to reduce the evils attendant upon the presence of a legislative lobby. He found upon the statute books of Ohio a corrupt practice act and this was strengthened by laws passed during his term. In taking hold as Governor in 1913, he demanded and secured a rigid lobby law. Of this he said:

"Conditions not only justify but demand drastic anti-lobby law. Any person interesting himself in legislation will not, if his motive and cause be just, object to registering his name, residence and the matters he is espousing, with the secretary of state, or some other authority designated by your body. If his activities be of such nature that he does not care to reveal them in the manner indicated, then the public interest is obviously endangered. It is no more than a prudent safeguard to have it known what influences are at work with respect to legislation. There ought to be no temporizing with this situation."

In the first year of his administration he combated an attempt to annul the workmen's compensation law by an improper referendum and vigorously cleaned up the situation by causing the arrest of those who had conspired to falsify names to petitions. The Governor followed up his activity for clean administration of the referendum system by comprehensive laws in 1914, since when no abuses have been discovered. What he said to the General Assembly gave a further indication of his policy in this respect. He said:

"The underlying spirit of the corrupt practice laws in the state and nation is the ascertainment of the influences behind candidates or measures. We can with profit compel a sworn itemized statement when the petition is filed showing all money or things of value paid, given or promised for circulating such petitions."

In the campaign of 1916, in which Governor Cox was re-elected, assertions were made of large improper expenditure of money in defiance of the law. In the following January at the regular session of the General Assembly, the Governor indicated his position by calling for a special legislative inquiry. The statements he made furnish an interesting background for the developments of the year. At that time he said:

"Let me lay particular emphasis on the necessity of safeguarding the suffrage thought of the state from the dangers of corrupt influences. The sums of money expended for so-called political purposes are assuming such magnitude as to cause seemingly well- founded alarm, if not to justify the belief that the legitimate purpose of campaigning is being exceeded. Unfettered by law, this tendency might result in the waters of our free institutions being poisoned at their very base. Reduced to simple terms, the object of a campaign is to inform the voters on every subject that legitimately and germanely joins to the issues and the candidates. Any step beyond this, and any project opposed to it in motive, cannot but be regarded as dangerous. Human frailties should not be played upon by vast treasures of money advanced by men or movements whose huge disbursements can hardly be looked upon as of patriotic inspiration. It is not necessary to expend large amounts of money for the promotion of a worthy cause, and, inversely, any cause or candidacy having behind it unprecedented financial support is likely to be regarded with suspicion. It may, through legislation, be necessary to restrain irresponsible organizations whose existence and activities are born of a hidden design, conceived by some interest afraid to operate in the open. I recommend that a legislative committee of investigation be appointed with the power to employ counsel, and the authority to summon persons and papers and to swear witnesses in order that it might be known just what organizations have been entering into campaign activities, and how much money they expended and collected—also the names of the contributors. This should extend also to candidates. The facts as adduced will then be a safe guide as to the necessity of strengthening the corrupt practices act, or more rigorously enforcing existing law, or both."

The legislative session had hardly concluded before the war with Germany broke out and it was deemed unwise at that time to proceed to any agitation on the subject. The functions of the committee were, accordingly never fulfilled. Early in the year of 1920, the Governor gave warning of the report that huge funds were to be raised in this year for election purposes. At the very outset of his campaign in addressing the members of Democratic National Committee at Columbus, the Governor said:

"I hope I do violence to no member of this committee when I submit to you this proposal: That we purpose not only to deal with eminent good faith with the electorate of this nation in November with reference to platform pledges, but we mean to let every man and woman understand where every dollar comes from, and for what purpose it is spent. We not only urge that as a matter of high principle, but in order to guarantee the triumph of our cause which deserves to triumph. We do not want the publication of expenditures after the election. There is no point in advising the voters what has been done. We want them to be fully advised of every circumstance with reference to the collection and the disbursement of funds in order that from the circumstances they can gain a correct index, and understand that when the Democracy is continued in power in Washington, it assumes its responsibility without a single obligation except to the conscience that God has given us.

"Therefore, gentlemen, let us make up a budget which will carry the full details and information—recounting the legitimate expenses of this campaign, render an accounting daily or weekly, and the source from which it came. And more than that, we shall insist upon the senatorial investigating committee continuing in session until the ballot has been closed in November. You know full well that a campaign fund sufficient in size to stagger the sensibilities of the nation is now being procured by our opponents. If they believe that is correct in principle, God speed them in the enterprise, It will be one of our chief assets in this campaign."

This, then is the record.



CHAPTER IX

THE LIFE STORY

Born at Jacksonburg, Ohio, March 31, 1870, son of Gilbert and Eliza Cox; educated in public schools; reared on farm; worked in printer's office; taught country school; became newspaper reporter; secretary to Congressman Sorg, 3d Ohio District; bought Dayton Daily News, 1898, and Springfield Press Republic, 1903, forming News League of Ohio; member 61st and 62d Congress (1909-13), 3d Ohio District; Governor of Ohio; elected in 1912, defeated in 1914, elected in 1916 and 1918; now serving third term; home, Trailsend, Dayton.

The family of Cox seems to have had its origin in England in the generations gone, but its Americanism is of two centuries in duration. At Freeboard, New Jersey, lived General James Cox, one of the early speakers of the New Jersey House of Representatives and later a member of Congress. Tillers of the soil and artisans, the closer forbears attained to no distinction in public life. To Ohio the family came sometime in the early years of the last century, and at Jacksonburg the paternal grandfather, Gilbert Cox, established himself. On the ancestral farm of 160 acres, his son, Gilbert, Jr., lived, and on it James M. Cox first saw the light of day. His uncles and aunts, for his father was one of a family of thirteen, were of the people who migrated westward. The youngest of a family of seven children, he learned the routine of tasks of a boy on the farm. In the little one-room country school he attended, his teachers found him an ordinary pupil but with a fondness for newspaper reading.

Cox's first public job was the humble position of janitor in the United Brethren Church, and even now his favorite reminiscence is the difficulty he had in making the old wood stove function properly. The thrifty farmers in those days were accustomed to commute part of their dues in cord wood for the church, and often the quality they supplied was not of the best. The boy became a member of the Church, a membership which is still retained.

At fifteen he left the elementary school to enter the Middletown High School, living with his sister, Mrs. John Q. Baker, whose husband was a teacher in the High School and owner of the Middletown Signal. Board was paid in working as a printer's devil until the apprenticeship was served and the county newspaper business was mastered from both the counting room and the editorial side. Upon completion of his high school course, the young man passed the county examination and obtained a position as teacher of the school he had in earlier years attended, but a pedagogical career was not to his liking and he returned to work on the Signal staff. He became also the local correspondent for the Cincinnati Enquirer and attracted the attention of the main office by a neat scoop which he landed regarding a railroad wreck. Graduating into the reportorial work, he became assistant telegraph and railroad editor of the Enquirer. He retired from the newspaper life for a time to become Secretary to Congressman Sorg, remaining in his capacity until his 28th year, when he purchased the Dayton News, giving $12,000 in notes and beginning with a capital of just $80. The times were hard enough for the young chap with creditors constantly upon him. Once his paper was forced to suspend by reason of an unpaid bill, and the opposition paper heralded its death. The struggling publisher retaliated with an "extra" announcing its continuance. Then again there were plenty of libel suits for the young editor-publisher, setting out to be a reformer, and the ruling powers in the city strongly disapproved his methods, but the militant editor brought readers and the readers brought advertisers, and the venture became a success. Five years from his first venture he bought the Springfield Press Republic and the Springfield Democrat, combining the two in the Evening News. Each is now housed in its own modern newspaper building and each is highly prosperous as a business institution, although the owner's supervision has been of a general character.

His associates always speak of the "Cox luck" in politics, but upon analysis it seems that it consists either of seizing or making the opportunity. In 1908 his Congressional district, originally Democratic, had become Republican, but a factional quarrel breaking out in the opposition camps, the Governor took the Democratic nomination and won out, again riding to victory in the great landslide of 1910. In Congress his career afforded him no opportunity to attain to high distinction, but he became a member of the appropriations committee and there became most deeply impressed with the waste in public funds and the unbusinesslike methods of arriving at appropriations. One of his services was the disclosure that the care of Civil War veterans in the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton was shattered, and he won the contest for increased allowances. The gratitude of the veterans was expressed in a majority from the Home in his re- election in 1910, thus breaking an historical precedent.

Two years later he became the champion of the constitutional amendments proposed by the Fourth Constitutional Convention of Ohio, then sitting, and as such was unanimously nominated by his party for Governor, on a platform which demanded a "new order" of things in Ohio. As soon as he was nominated he took the platform before the people for the adoption of the constitutional amendments in a special September election. These amendments included one providing for the initiative and referendum of which he had been an advocate for years, and one for the removal of officials failing to enforce the laws, giving the Governor the weapon with which he established his law- enforcement record. There was very little to the campaign in that year, the historical Republican party splitting in two upon the issue of progressiveness, and he was elected by an enormous plurality. Facing the tasks imposed by the new constitution, the Governor insisted upon legislative fulfillment of each popular mandate, and in a busy session of three months he accomplished his programme.

Aside from the legislation suggested by the amendments, his greatest constructive step was the enactment of a budget system, which sought to place the financial affairs of Ohio upon a businesslike basis. Its worth as a saver of money and promoter of efficiency has never been challenged. The previous Ohio fiscal system had grown grossly archaic. Appropriations were made by the Legislature to the departments in lump sums or in the form of granting all receipts and balances, some of the departments being maintained by the fees from interests they regulated. Of the departments having receipts of their own, many had deposits of their own in banks and their own checking accounts, so that their funds never passed through the State Treasury or through the hands of the State Auditor. Other departments got much or little from the Legislature, depending upon whether they had a gifted representative to appear for them before the legislative finance committee. Institutions vied with each other in providing the best entertainment to these committees as they made their week-end junket trips over the State during legislative sessions.

All this was changed in one sweeping stroke in the first administration of Governor Cox. All receipts of all departments now go into the State Treasury and none leave the treasury until it is appropriated in specific sums for specific purposes within specific departments. The state auditor has a check on every expenditure.

The Ohio budget department is composed of one commissioner appointed by the Governor, an assistant and a clerk. All departmental requests for funds desired of the next succeeding Legislature are filed with the Budget Commissioner, to be brought before the Governor. He investigates all items, ascertains the reasons for any increases that are asked, and fixes the sums he deems proper. Also, he estimates what the State revenues during the next biennium will be and prunes the budget to come within the total of expected revenues. The budget as prepared by the commissioner is submitted to the Governor, who frequently makes changes of his own after advising with department heads.

The Governor then presents the budget to the Legislature, which refers it to the finance committees of the two houses. The committees, and, in turn, the Legislature, have full authority to make any alterations, increases or decreases, desired, but the spellbinding by department representatives and wire-pulling by lobbyists are reduced to a minimum because the Budget Commissioner sits as the agent of the Governor at all sessions of the finance committees and at all times is prepared to defend the allowance he thinks a department should have.

The first budgetary appropriation bill repealed an existing appropriation law. It reduced appropriations aggregating $9,709,288 to $8,762,664, a saving of $946,624. Since that time the Ohio budget system has effected savings of millions, not, of course, in the sense that expenditures of the State government now are less than in 1913—for they have increased as governmental activities have enlarged—but in the sense that expenditures each year have been vastly less than they would have been without the budget plan of pruning and scaling down demands of existing State departments with a view both to general economy and avoidance of deficits.

The Ohio Budget and consequently its appropriation law classifies expenditures in two divisions: (1) Operating expenses and (2) Capital outlay (or permanent improvements).

Operating expenses are subdivided into personal service and maintenance. Personal service in turn is divided into salaries and wages, and maintenance into supplies, materials, equipment, contract or open order service, and fixed charges and contributions.

Elasticity of funds within departments is afforded by periodical meetings of a board of control, composed of the Governor (who may be and usually is represented by the Budget commissioner), the State Auditor, the Attorney-General, and the chairmen of the two legislative finance committees. If any new need develops within departments, funds for the purpose may be provided by a four-fifths vote of the board of control. Effort first is made to transfer the needed funds from one classification to another within the department. If no fund within the department has a surplus, and the need is great enough, relief may be granted by the emergency board, having the same membership as the board of control, which has at its disposal an emergency fund for contingencies arising between legislative sessions. Perfection never has been claimed for the Ohio system. Governor Cox himself realizes certain weaknesses in it and is making a fight now for strengthening features, which, however, necessitate a change in the constitution. One defect is that, regardless of probable income, the Legislature may increase items in the budget (or rather the appropriation bill based on the budget), and it may make other appropriations in separate bills as it sees fit without regard to prospective revenues.

In his 1919 message to the General Assembly, a Republican body, the Governor urged submission to the people of an amendment to the constitution providing that the Legislature shall have the right to diminish any item in the executive budget by majority vote or to strike out any item: that, however, it shall not be privileged to increase any item or to add a new one unless it makes legislative provision for sufficient revenue to meet the added cost. Such an amendment was not submitted. Unless it is done by an early legislature, adherents of Cox in Ohio say it may be undertaken by initiative petition.

Good Roads

Another notable achievement of Governor Cox is the advance of the Ohio highway system. Roads were in deplorable shape when he became Governor. There was no hope for rural counties with small tax duplicates, the ones in greatest need of good roads never being able to lift themselves out of the mud except through liberal state aid.

One of the Governor's first acts was a survey of road conditions. A complete network of 10,000 miles of inter-county roads was mapped out. It connected the eighty-eight county seats. Of the 10,000 miles of inter-county highways, 3000 miles, connecting the larger cities, were designated as main market roads. The scheme of financing called for improvement of the main market roads entirely at state expense, which the remainder of the system was to be built on a fifty-fifty basis, the state furnishing half the funds, and the county in which the road lies, the other half.

All road improvement under the Cox administration has been given such an impetus that the State, county and township programmes to-day call for an expenditure of $30,000,000 annually, including federal aid. Popular demand for highway improvement is greater than the State Highway department and county commissioners are able to meet.

Revitalizing the Schools

As a pupil in a one-room country school and as a teacher, he had first knowledge of the shortcomings and possibilities of the Ohio educational system. It was his firm conviction that the country boy and girl should be given the same educational advantages that accrued to those of the city.

The purpose of the Governor's school programme was to give Ohio a co-ordinates system of State, county and district supervision, to require normal or college training of all teachers, and, above all, to pave the way for speedier centralization and consolidation of the one-room district school. Results have been beyond the expectations of school men, every breath and opposition to the system has blown away, and it may truthfully be said that it has become an idol of the people of the state. The re-organization has stimulated interest in education in all respects and has made possible a more recent establishment of a state-wide teachers' pensions system and a complete revamping of financial support of schools through a State and county aid plan. Salaries of teachers have been increased the last six years from a minimum of $40 a month to a statutory minimum of $800 a school year. The teacher shortage occasioned by the war will be solved without much delay in Ohio, as county and state normal schools report prospective increases in attendance of fifty to one hundred per cent or even greater for next year.

The time had come in 1913 when the little district school with its narrow curriculum and crude methods of instruction did not meet the needs and purposes of modern industrial and social life in Ohio. It had not kept step with rural economic progress. In the whole State it was the one evidence of retardation, an institution of bygone days which had deteriorated instead of having improved. The right of every child to educational opportunities for development to the fullest extent of his possibilities was not recognized by the State in the school system as it existed at that time. Governor Cox, in his first message to the general assembly in January, 1913, recommended that a complete school survey be made. A survey commission was created. To acquaint school patrons with the object of the survey in progress and to get them to discuss in their own communities the defects and the needs of the schools, November 14, 1913, was set apart as "School survey day" and a light burned in every school building in the State that night. Delegates were appointed to attend a state-wide educational congress the next month, and in January, 1914, the Governor called a special session to enact the rural school code.

The survey report disclosed that not half of the teachers of the State ever had attended high school, nor had normal training. Rural schools were mere stepping stones for young teachers before securing positions in village and city schools, agriculture was scarcely taught, schools were without equipment, three-fourths of the buildings were twenty years old or older, unsanitary, poorly lighted, without ventilation and insufficiently heated.

With one stroke the new school code created county supervision districts under the control of county boards, elected by the presidents of village and township boards; provided for county superintendents and supervisors over smaller districts within the county; required academic and professional training of all new teachers henceforth, and gave communities wider powers to centralize and consolidate schools.

At present ninety-five per cent of the elementary teachers have had professional training, and high school teachers are required to be college graduates or have equivalent scholastic attainment. The most common faults of class-room instruction have been to a great extent eliminated. Standard methods of presentation are being practices in an attempt to give to each child opportunity for development of his possibilities.

A great stimulation of public school sentiment is manifested by a closer co-operation and correlation of the school and the home, resulting in boys' and girls' club work, achievement courses, home projects and other school extension and community activities; a growth of the feeling of responsibility to the community on the part of the teacher; an attitude of greater interest and responsibility of the boards of education toward the school; a willingness of the people to vote money for new school plants and enterprises; a growing demand for consolidation and centralization; a better trained class of teachers, increased school attendance, especially in high schools where it has increased from fifty to one hundred per cent.

School administration is much more efficient as is demonstrated by a uniform course of study for elementary and high schools, vitalized by its articulation with the industrial activities of the community, county uniformity of textbooks, selection and correlation of textbook material and its adaptation to the varying interests and needs of childhood, uniform system of reports and records, and the like.

School centers have been made to coincide with social and business centers. Convenient districts have been formed around centers of population. village and surrounding rural districts have been united in accordance with the trend of the community interests and activities. Weak districts have been eliminated by the transfer of their territory to other districts, thereby strengthening property valuations.

A centralized school in Ohio was almost a novelty in 1914. A year ago there were 310 centralized (township) schools and 599 consolidated (embracing several contiguous districts) schools, and the number has been materially swelled during the year. Seventy of the eighty-eight counties now have such schools and the trend is toward them throughout the State. One such school replaces, on the average, eight one-room schools. They have brought to the rural pupils trained teachers, well-equipped buildings, courses of study related to the interests of the farm and home by being well-balanced between the cultural and vocational. They have made it possible for the country boy who remains on the farm to obtain a high school education in his own community that is directly related to his needs. Scientific agriculture under trained instructors is taught in all of these schools. The possibilities of the farm and of rural life are thus revealed to the boy and he will be equipped with knowledge necessary to the scientific performance of his work. From the farm instead of the law office and the counting room will come those who know what the needs and interests of the farmer are and who will be qualified to represent those interests.

While the system still may be said to be in its infancy, the progress of transformation of Ohio schools under it has been nothing short of wonderful, and unending results may be expected of it.

This extensive legislation had aroused many prejudices particularly, in the rural sections, of which his opponent, Congressman Frank B. Willis, took advantage. The bold challenge of the Governor to his opponent was stated by him on the platform in many parts of Ohio "Which law will you repeal?" The question was never answered, but the tide of opposition to the changes swept Governor Cox out of office, although he ran many thousands ahead of his associates. In the succeeding sessions of the General Assembly popular sentiment began once more to swing to Governor Cox and two years later he was re-elected by a small plurality. Improvement in the various laws was sought during his next term, but the shadow of the world war was already beginning to fall, and the greater part of his efforts were devoted to preparation for Ohio's part.

In general administration the Governor's supporters are fond of saying that he met successfully

In his first term a flood, In his second term a war, In his third term reconstruction.

The flood story was the one that really introduced him first to the country at large. Ohio was hit by a calamity greater than any that had befallen a state. Columbus, Dayton, Marietta, Hamilton and other cities were under water for days, many villages were almost washed off the map, and hundreds of lives and untold millions of property were lost. Bridges everywhere were washed out and transportation was practically at a standstill. The eyes of the State and Country were on the then untried Governor Cox. He met the situation in a manner that will never be forgotten in Ohio. The Ohio National Guard was called out, stricken communities were placed under martial law, civilian relief armies under the command of mayors and other designated leaders organized everywhere, Ohio's motor truck, automobile and other facilities commandeered, and the work of feeding, clothing, cleaning up and rehabilitation carried on from the beginning with astounding efficiency.

The New York World at that time said of him:

"The man who has dominated the situation in Ohio is Governor Cox. He has been not only chief magistrate and commander-in- chief, but the head of the life-saving service, the greatest provider of food and clothing the State has ever known, the principal health officer, the sanest counselor, the severest disciplinarian, the kindest philanthropist and best reporter. He has performed incredible labors in all these fields, and his illuminating dispatches to the World at the close of the heart- breaking days have given a clearer vision of conditions than could be had from any other source. Reared on a farm, educated in the public schools, a printer by trade, a successful publisher and editor of newspapers, a great Governor and a reported who gets his story into the first edition, James M. Cox excites and is herewith offered assurance of the World's most distinguished consideration."

The flood revealed the necessity for conservancy legislation and the measure recommended by the Governor was enacted to give local communities the right to protect themselves.

The time has gone by when in Ohio the major things in the programme of Governor Cox can be attacked successfully before the people of the State. He does not claim perfection. Suggestion as to improvement has found him ready to listen. There is still a short time for him to serve, but the public judgment has been made up, and Buckeye citizens, without regard to party affiliation, says that he has been a "good Governor."

THE END