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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > May > 27 > Entry
Editorial: Wright brothers ties to Ohio should count
Strange thing about this business of picking a bygone Ohioan to be immortalized at Statuary Hall in Washington: Some of the biggest competitors weren’t really Ohioans.
Thomas Edison? He was born here, but didn’t even grow up here, before going off to fame on the East Coast.
Ulysses S. Grant? He grew up here, but, even outside the military, lived in Illinois and Missouri as an adult, then settled in New York after the presidency.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? Grew up elsewhere, spent 20 years here as an adult, then went east, where she wrote her book and spent the rest of her life. (She did say she based her book in part on experiences she had in Cincinnati.)
Dr. Albert Sabin, creator of the oral polio vaccine? He did spend 30 of his 87 years in Cincinnati (with time out for World War II).
Wouldn’t it be kind of pathetic to pick somebody who might be picked more legitimately by another state? Does Ohio want to remind people of North Carolina, with its overestimation of its role in aviation history?
The names above are among the 10 finalists culled by a special legislative committee from 90 nominations. Others: Jesse Owens, Rep. William M. McCulloch (a congressman from Piqua who played a role in historic civil rights legislation), astronaut Judith Resnick, Harriet Taylor Upton (a prominent suffragist) and James Mitchell Ashley (a Toledo congressman and abolitionist).
Then, of course, there are Orville and Wilbur Wright, who are counted as one entry.
They started from modest beginnings, changed the world through vision, determination and ingenuity — and spent their lives in Ohio.
Wilbur was born across the Indiana border. Orville was born in Dayton and died here 76 years later.
Is there any point in worrying about which Ohioans are immortalized in statues? Some people have treated the subject as a just-for-fun thing. One journalist nominated Roy Rogers. What the heck.
Well, true enough, the state has bigger things to worry about. But a decision has to be made. And the occasion has functioned as, to use the fashionable phrase, a teachable moment. School children have been confronted with the case for a wide array of people, learning their stories in the process.
But as to who gets selected, there is simply the principle of the thing.
Other finalists might reasonably be considered as worthy as the Wright brothers. But they are not equally Ohioans.
If you traverse the Internet, you will see cases made for Mr. Owens, Rep. McCulloch, Ms. Stowe and others; and for a woman generally. Some of the agitation is local boosterism. Ms. Resnick gets support in her hometown of Akron, for example.
Some people see the campaign for the Wright brothers as local boosterism, too. But come on. The case is so clear.
The Ohio Historical Society is running a vote. You can cast yours at www.legacyforohio.org, or physically at the Dunbar House in Dayton, or the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce. The vote continues to June 12.
But the final recommendation to the state Legislature will be made by the committee. Those who have joined in the push for the Wright brothers include Congressman Mike Turner, the Dayton Development Coalition and the National Aviation Heritage Alliance. So have people from less visible walks of life.
This is entirely appropriate. Having Dayton’s most famous sons officially embraced as the state’s historical representatives certainly couldn’t hurt.
But, really, above and beyond that, it’s the principle. What’s Wright is right.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Local History, Martin Gottlieb
Comments
By David K. McClurkin
May 29, 2010 11:31 AM | Link to this
Only one of the nominees died in service to America - Judith Arlene Resnik. On Memorial Day at least, could the Dayton Daily News please just take the time to correctly spell her name?
By Max
May 30, 2010 11:13 AM | Link to this
There was once a time - the post Civil War years - when it actually mattered who was a favorite son and why. I don’t think that’s the case anymore for reasons too lengthy to address here. We live in a time when, for example, Civil War battlefields in Virginia are being scarfed up for commercial development. The continued battle between Dayton and Kittyhawk over the Wright’s is another episode of “don’t you have better things to do with your time?” John Patterson is another Dayton example of “what do we do with all his namesakes around Dayton/Oakwood since his company is no longer here?” It is an overt provincial mentality which relies on drawing attention to a locality because Geoge Washington might have slept there. But, a drive through of the Wright Historical District comes with the risk of being in the crossfire of a gunfight. I guess it’s a matter of perceiving the real problems of today vs. self images of the past.