|
For Immediate Release: January 4, 2007
NEW GOVERNOR BREAKS WITH RECENT PAST IN GEOGRAPHY, PARTY
Ted Strickland joins other Ohio governors as clergy, college instructors
COLUMBUS, Ohio - When Ted Strickland is sworn in Jan. 8 as Ohio’s 68th governor, the Ohio voters who elected him have cast aside two long-standing patterns: 45 years of Ohio governors hailing from the state’s Big Cs - Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati - and Republican domination of the office in 34 of the last 50 years.
As an ordained Methodist minister who holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has worked as a college professor, Strickland will join a small group of Ohio’s governors who also served in the clergy or in academia, according to the Ohio Historical Society.
Ohio’s first governor, Edward Tiffin, was an ordained deacon in the Methodist church and a lay preacher, when he took office in 1803. John Bricker, a Republican who served in the governor’s office from 1939 to 1945, was a specially ordained minister by his nondenominational church in Madison County. He also was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant and an Army chaplain in World War I but did not serve overseas.
In addition, Gov. Jacob D. Cox, Ohio governor from 1866 to 1868, was a theology student at Oberlin College, but was not ordained. “He had a falling out with Charles Finney, the college’s president over theological issues,” said Tom Rieder, a research librarian for the Ohio Historical Society’s Archives/Library since 1970. “By this time, Cox was married to Finney’s daughter.”
Rieder said Strickland joins other governors who worked as professors and academic leaders. John Gilligan, a Democrat who served from 1971 to 1975, was a college instructor at Xavier University and was a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Cincinnati before entering politics. George Hoadly, a Democratic governor from 1884-1886, was an instructor at the Cincinnati College of Law for 23 years. Judson Harmon, a Democrat, taught at the Cincinnati College of Law before and after serving as governor from 1909 to 1912. After leaving office in 1868 after a two-year term, Jacob D. Cox of the Union Party became dean of the Cincinnati College of Law and president of the University of Cincinnati. And Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat who served from 1983 to 1991, also became a college president after leaving office and is Ohio’s only Rhodes Scholar who became governor.
Rieder notes that Strickland, who represented Ohio’s Sixth Congressional District in southeastern Ohio for the past decade, becomes the first governor since 1960 who is not from one of the state’s three largest cities. “Although Gov. James Rhodes was born in Jackson County in southern Ohio, he conducted his entire political career from Columbus,” Rieder said. “Michael DiSalle was a Democrat from Toledo, and he was the first governor in Ohio elected to a four-year term, from 1959 to 1963.”
Rhodes, a Republican, was Ohio’s longest serving governor at 16 years, having been elected to four, four-year terms. “Since Frank Lausche ran for the U.S. Senate in 1956, Republicans have held the office for 34 of the last 50 years,” Rieder said. “Dick Celeste is the only Democrat to have been re-elected to a second, four-year term.”
Rieder also noted that the last time a sitting U.S. House member was elected Ohio governor was 1914, when U.S. Rep. Frank Willis, a Republican, defeated Democrat James M. Cox. Gilligan was a former Congressman when he was elected in 1970.
“Ted Strickland breaks one of the longest periods - 16 years - of one party holding the governor’s office,” Rieder said. “The other long stretch was 14 years between 1892 and 1906, when Republicans held the governor’s seat. In 1906, Democrat John M. Pattison of Clermont County was elected governor, but he died six months into his term. A Republican, Lt. Gov. Andrew L. Harris, succeeded Pattison and served until 1909, giving Republicans 17 years in the governor’s office, minus Pattison’s brief tenure.
“Harris, incidentally, was the last Civil War veteran to serve as governor and the last governor to wear a beard, with the exception of Dick Celeste, who sported a beard in the final months of his second term.”
Note to reporters and editors:
Additional information about Ohio’s political history can be found on the Ohio Historical Society’s website at www.ohiohistory.org and the Society’s online encyclopedia, Ohio History Central, at www.ohiohistorycentral.org
Some interesting facts about inaugurations of Ohio Governors
- Edward Tiffin was Ohio’s first governor and was inaugurated on March 3, 1803 in Chillicothe, the new state’s first capital.
- In 1810, Return Jonathan Meigs Jr. was elected governor and inaugurated in Zanesville, then serving as the state’s capital. Meigs was the only governor inaugurated in Zanesville. His election as governor in 1807 was overruled by the Ohio General Assembly because he did not meet the Ohio residency requirement.
- In 1816, Thomas Worthington, known as the “Father of Ohio Statehood,” became the first Ohio governor to give an inaugural address in Columbus, the new state capital.
- In December 1830, Duncan McArthur took the oath of office, but became ill. His secretary delivered the inaugural address in his place.
- In 1838, Wilson Shannon delivered the longest inaugural address, which lasted 75 minutes.
- In 1851, the Ohio Constitution moved the term of office to begin on the second Monday in January, following the October election.
- In 1884, Gov. George Hoadly’s inauguration was described in terms of the day’s weather - damp, dull and depressing. John Beatty, a Civil War Colonel from Morrow County, a Republican U.S. Congressman and a Columbus banker who founded Citizen’s Savings Bank, made this entry to his diary for the inauguration events of Jan. 14, 1884.
“A good many people are in the city to attend the inauguration of Governor Hoadly. The Duckworth and Jefferson clubs of Cincinnati are present in force, and with music and banners escorted the Governor elect from the Park Hotel to the State House. The rotunda was packed with people, and from the stage erected on the East side of this, the Governor read his inaugural address, and took the oath of office. On his right was the United States flag and the banner of the Duckworth Club, and on his left the banner of the Jefferson Club. The Governor's voice is somewhat harsh and not very strong, and from where I stood it was impossible to hear him distinctly. The crowd before his was noisy, and as the address was lengthy it manifested considerable impatience, so much that the Governor stopped reading for a moment while Thorp of Ashtabula requested that order be preserved, and the Governor himself said that he trusted his hearers would bear with him to the end as they and not he were to blame for his being where he was. Tonight there are many drunken men in the city. Mr. Joseph Puckrin representative from Erie & his wife, William De Witt & wife and Baker & wife all of Perkins in Erie county dined with us.”
- On Jan. 14, 1957, C. William O’Neal became the first governor to live in the present governor’s mansion in Bexley. On Jan. 28, 1957, Time magazine wrote this about the inauguration:
“Ohio. Former Boy Wonder C. (for nothing) William O'Neill, 40, short, sturdy World War II veteran and state attorney general, led jubilant Republicans into Democrat Frank Lausche's old statehouse precincts as 18 shivering bands marched through the 15° Columbus cold, later made the rounds of a stag smoker, public reception, a three-part inaugural ball.”
Source: Ohio Historical Society research
-end-
Media contact: Michael Ring: 614.297.2313 or mring@ohiohistory.org
|
