Quotable Ohio

Sounding Presidential Any discussion of famous Buckeyes must begin with the seven U.S. presidents who were born in Ohio. James A. Garfield (born in Moreland Hills) had one of the most celebrated Ohio quotations. In an address to Williams College alumni on Dec. 28, 1871, he said of legendary Williams president Mark Hopkins: “Give me a log cabin in the center of the state of Ohio, with one room in it and a bench with Mark Hopkins on one end of it and me on the other, and that would be a college good enough for me.”

Garfield’s other well-known utterance illustrates the often-questionable nature of quotations. Allegedly he calmed a crowd in New York after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 by proclaiming “God reigns, and the Government in Washington still lives.” Garfield biographer Theodore Clarke Smith, however, noted that “no clipping of it exists among Garfield’s papers, nor did Garfield himself, so far as known, refer to it in later times.” Paul F. Boller Jr. and John George, in their bookThey Never Said It, went further: “It’s a splendid story, but unfortunately it’s not true. Garfield, an Ohio Congressman at the time, wasn’t even in New York in April 1865.”

Another Ohio President, Ulysses S. Grant (born in Point Pleasant), had two renowned lines while leading Union armies in the Civil War:

“No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” —Dispatch to General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Fort Donelson, Tennessee, Feb. 16, 1862

“[I] propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all Summer.” —Dispatch from Spotsylvania (Va.) Court House, May 11, 1864

Warren G. Harding (born in Blooming Grove), although not one of the more respected presidents, was a titan as a popularizer of phrases. He seems to have coined the phrase “Founding Fathers,” using it in his keynote address at the Republican National Convention, June 7, 1916, and still earlier, running the headline “A Boston Writer Whacks the Founding Fathers” in the newspaper he published, theMarion Weekly Star, on Feb. 19, 1910. In a speech in Boston on May 14, 1920, Harding orated: “America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration; ... not surgery but serenity.” He was widely derided for introducing the term normalcy, but in fact the word “normalcy” is recorded as far back as 1857.

President and Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Taft (born in Cincinnati) had a fine sense of humor, and his self-deprecating quips about his 350-pound weight have lived on. For example, when Taft was stuck at a railroad station and was told that the train only stopped there if a number of passengers wished to come aboard, he telegraphed the conductor: “Stop at Hicksville. Large party waiting to catch train.” Anson Phelps Stokes, who was secretary of Yale University in the early 1900s, would recall that “when I suggested to him ... that he occupy a Chair of Law at the University, he said that he was afraid that a Chair would not be adequate, but that if we would provide a Sofa of Law, it might be all right.”

Ohio was also home to a number of nationally renowned political and military figures. William Tecumseh Sherman (born in Lancaster) was a Civil War general, second in importance only to Grant in the Northern army. He did not aspire to the presidency, and in fact, Sherman so firmly did not want that highest office that, when he was urged to run in 1884, he telegraphed General Henderson at the Republican National Convention: “I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected.” To this day such unequivocal refusals are called “Shermanesque.” This was only one of two immortal quotations by Sherman. The second was his flag signal to General John Murray Corse at the Battle of Allatoona, Oct. 5, 1864: “Hold out. Relief is coming.” The message is usually quoted as “Hold the fort!”

William T. Sherman’s brother, John Sherman, also born in Lancaster, was a significant political figure who inspired the expression “fence-mending.”

The March 27, 1887, edition ofThe New York Times quoted him as saying, “I [have] come home to look after my fences,” along with his explanation: “While I was Secretary of the Treasury I came home to Mansfield for a few days at one time. As soon as I got there there was an influx of newspaper correspondents from all parts. ... One of them came to me and boldly asked me what I was doing in Ohio. It just happened that on that day I had contracted with a man to repair some fences on my place that were in a tumble-down condition. So when that newspaper man asked me what I was doing in Ohio I told him that I had come home to look after my fences.”

Inventive Ohioans

Even more than as a birthplace of presidents, Ohio is known as a producer of great pioneers of invention and aviation and space flight.Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton telegraphed their father from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, after accomplishing the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on Dec. 17, 1903:

“Success. Four flights Thursday morning. All against twenty-one-mile wind. Started from level with engine power alone. Average speed through air thirty-one miles. Longest fifty-nine seconds. Inform press. Home Christmas.”

When the other greatest achievement in the history of human aerospace travel occurred 66 years later, it was again by an Ohioan. Wapakoneta’s Neil A. Armstrong uttered the first words upon landing on the moon on July 20, 1969:

“Contact light. Okay, engine stop. ACA out of detent. Modes control both auto, descent engine command override, off. Engine arm off. 413 is in.”

Then Armstrong told a waiting world:

“Houston. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Finally, upon stepping on the lunar surface, he said:

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

At least that’s what the astronaut intended to say for posterity. The original transmission was heard as “one small step for man,” and this erroneous or misspoken version was initially reported widely.

Probably the greatest American inventor was Thomas Alva Edison (born in Milan). Edison’s most memorable words were “Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration” (quoted in theThe Washington Post, May 10, 1915). An earlier variation by Edison was quoted in the Delphos (Ohio)Daily Herald, May 18, 1898: “Ninety eight per cent of genius is hard work. As for genius being inspired, inspiration is in most cases another word for perspiration.”

Literature is another realm where Buckeyes have left a striking legacy, illustrated by the following quotations:

“I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did His dictation.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe, novelist who lived in Cincinnati,Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1879 edition)

“I don’t see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man shouldn’t fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a poor one.” — William Dean Howells, author, born in Martins Ferry,The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)

“I know why the caged bird sings!” — Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet, born in Dayton, “Sympathy” (1899)

“Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death! Live!” — Jerome Lawrence, playwright, born in Cleveland, andRobert E. Lee, playwright, born in Elyria, “Auntie Mame” (1957)

“I know what every colored woman in this country is doing. ... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.” — Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, born in Lorain, Sula (1973)

Humorist James Thurber, who was born in Columbus, deserves special mention for his witty quotes:

“I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father.” My Life and Hard Times (1933)

“Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?” — Cartoon caption,The New Yorker, June 5, 1937

“How is it possible, woman, in the awful and magnificent times we live in, to be preoccupied exclusively with the piddling?” — Cartoon caption,The New Yorker, Feb. 16, 1946

Popular culture and its repertoire of catchphrases have been greatly enriched by Ohioans:

“When maturity was reached, he [Superman] discovered he could easily: leap 1/8th of a mile; hurdle a twenty-story building ... raise tremendous weights ... run faster than an express train ... and that nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin!” — Comic book writers Jerry Siegel (born in Cleveland) and Joe Shuster (grew up in Cleveland), Action Comics no. 1, June 1938

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.” — Phyllis Diller, Lima-born comedian,Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints (1966)

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” — Cartoonist Bill Watterson (grew up in Chagrin Falls), “Calvin and Hobbes,” Nov. 8, 1989

Ohio-born actors and actresses are associated with the famous lines they have delivered in television or films. For example, Nancy Cartwright, who was born in Dayton, says the following as the voice of Bart Simpson: “Don’t have a cow, man,” “Aye, Caramba!” and “Eat my shorts!”

Cadiz, Ohio’s Clark Gable spoke the No. 1 most memorable American movie quotation, according to the American Film Institute: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” — “Gone with the Wind” (1939).

And who could forget the green-skinned Margaret Hamilton, born in Cleveland, cackling these lines as the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939):

“I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too.”

“Who ever thought a little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”

“I’m melting! I’m melting! Oh, what a world! What a world!”