What the experts say when they told you you cant win you can when. Please help me welcome back to ohio again, David Mcauliff mcau. [applause] thank you, governor, mrs. Joanne and all of you. I have never in my life had such an uplifting appreciated welcome as we have had since we arrived in ohio several days ago to begin our talk about the pioneers. The generosity, the good spirit, the honesty, decency so many of us were brought up on is so prevalent part of the everyday life of your state i hope you dont ever take it for granted and keep it going. You were wonderful. Thank you. Dont get too big for your britches. [laughter] the dedication to community and family which are so important or major objectives in this society, civilization, whatever you want to call it that our predecessors and all of you still believe in. I came upon this subject quite by chance. I often thought the role of luck in life to come and get a commencemengive acommencement so university in 2004. Of course i accepted and i realized i knew nothing about Ohio University, so i began doing a little homework and i was told the oldest building on campus is called cussler hall. I soon found out and once i found out i became entrenched in the mans career. The fact that he had gone on to yale where i graduated and the fact that he lived in massachusetts, where i lived, the fact that his first job after he graduated from college was at a chip supply store on Marthas Vineyard island, and the fact that my wifes family had been part of the life of Marthas Vineyard for over five generations and the fact that his son was born on Marthas Vineyard and the fact in order to get to ohio, you have to go through pittsburgh [laughter] youve got to write that book. And it turns out theres an even further circle to the story. The first copy of the settlement were published in cincinnati that and it was decided that i dont know whether it was by samuel or by whom that they needed a National Publisher and the National Publication of the two books was from new york by a firm called a s. Barnes and that was my wifes greatgrandfather so theres a connection we cant deny or take for granted. The big change and revelation was after i finished the Wright Brothers book and got down to marietta because i heard there was a large collection my assistant who is probably the greatest researcher in America Today and i saw this breathtaking collection i knew that we had opened up king cuts to. It was really thrilling. Let me just try to describe why it was thrilling. It isnt just that there is so much of it. There are literally of letters, memoirs, unpublished journals, matt is common data of all kinds, drawings and magnificent oil paintings. But its the quality of the writing and thinking and the honesty and expressing what they were broken hearted about and fearful of how they were suffering and all the work they had to do and the epidemic disease and the fiascoes of the storms and earthquakes and all of it happening one after another. One year they almost starved to death. Compared to them, we are all a bunch of softies. [laughter] the enlarging of life that i think two of the most important lessons to be learned pass onto our children anon toour childre, tourist is empathy. Be able to put yourself in the other persons place. To imagine what life might have been like and might go through and its the same for people in our own time you get to understand why people feel as they do, put yourself in their place come empathy. Place, empathy. And second, gratitude. Gratitude for all the people its what they have done or did long ago and we should never take that for granted. We should never just say thats the way it is. One of the things we unfortunately do take for granted as the Public School system. Another thing is all men are created equal not just on paper, but in fact our National Life began here. First Public School system anywhere in the country, here in ohio. Why did it happen because of one man primarily. The charter, the ordinance from 87, 1787 states very clearly there will be public education. There will be complete freedom of religion. There will be attitude towards the native americans that is respectful and decent, and there will be no slavery. Remember there were slaves in every onandevery one of the ori3 colonies still so all men are created equal, yes but we had 150 slaves living over here in the slave quarters so its not going to be that way in ohio. And that was due primarily to cussler who wrote the basic tenets of the northwest ordinance. And to his son. They believed in the importance in the essential necessity of the good life and learning. A love of learning like very few anybody i have ever come to know or read about. He never lived here. He came out to see how everything was going but he had too much going on back home. In hamilton, massachusetts which is just north of boston. And, his church and his parsonage are still there and very superb condition. The place where the first covered wagon left to come to ohio is still there. And, his son came out here with his wife and four children. They are young, they are hopeful and somehow they address themselves with hard work and nothing, even the most difficult daily tasks of being a farmer in the rocky grounds of new england was not going to be anything comparable to what they faced here. They came mountain on their way just coming down the ohio river, two of their children died of disease. They had to be buried on the banks of the river imagine, they arrived here in mrs. Butler had stepped off the boat the barge at one point and turned her ankle badly. He was suffering from disease himself when he arrived here. They knew no one. And so, they had to begin as everybody else had to do it, by hard work oh, we have no idea how hard those people were, night and day every day and all of the children began work right away. Now, cutler had not had the education his father had had. He had been raised by his grandparents there were farmers in connecticut. This is very important to keep in mind because of what he then did. Cutler, i was asked in an interview just the other day here in ohio, of all the scenes in my book, which do i wish i could have been there to have watched in first person and i knew right away. There was a big movement that came after the election of Thomas Jefferson the jeffersonians we will call it because they didnt really have a party name but the jeffersonians here decided they were going to get rid of this rule there was going to be no slavery and introduce this into ohio. Two people in the legislature were leading the fight with the charge to stop that to keep it from turning into a slave state. One was general rufus putnam who was the leader of the group along with cutler. The other was ethan cutler himself who is young at this. He is absolutely devoted to stopping this change and he gets quite ill. He could hardly get out of bed there was even some question whether he would survive. The day that the vote was going to take place, rufus putnam came into the room to a boardinghouse room nearby and he was old enough to have been his father they came in and said cutler, you must get well, be in your place, or you will lose your favorite measure. According to one account putnam and another man carried the convention on a stretcher but there is no reliable evidence of this color himself road only, i went to the convention and moved to strike out the obnoxious matter and made my objections as forcibly as i was able. It was an act of fortitude and the result was never ever to be forgotten here it cost me every effort i was capable of making he wrote and it passed by a majority of one vote only because he had gotten up from his suffering and gone in their and voted it was stopped and there would be no slavery. Not just no slavery in ohio, but all of Northwest Territory which included indiana, illinois michigan and wisconsin. Now, imagine if the slaves had been admitted imagine what wouldve happened there would have been no underground railroad there would have been no. Beecher stowe uncle toms cabin, the most influential powerfully influential novel ever written by any american. If this had been a slave there probably would have been no Abraham Lincoln or ulysses s grant. The whole picture would have been different. This one man. One man there is no statue of him, he is not mentioned in any of the history books and he has been in effect totally forgotten. So, imagine the excitement we felt that here were all of his letters all of his private correspondence with his wife and others the putnam collection alone is well over 1000 pieces and then came the others that i had privilege of writing about joe barker, a wonderful carpenter, boat builder, and who became the first architect in all of georgia. In his own writings are simply marvelous and often quite amusing they did have a sense of humor they did like to sing and dance and they like to drink, of course alcohol, whiskey was the only anesthetic they had. If you had a toothache or giving birth to a child are suffering from some awful wound, they could not give you pain killer other than the kind that comes in a glass and taste pretty good. We forget homeport whiskey was they didnt have money to use, they would use whiskey i think too that we have to in this particularly now in this world that we are so actively involved in we have to realize that nobody ever lived in the past there was no pass, there is no past. They lived in the present. It was their present and they did not know any better than we do how it was going to turn out. They did not know they were going to succeed, but they did not give up. And please keep in mind, they didnt come here this particular group, they did not come here to make a lot of money. They did not come here to become famous or own a lot of fancy possessions to show how much money they had or how important they were, they came here to create a good society based on their background. And they came here to create a society for their children for their family, the community and the family mattered if not most, very highest of all. And, they did not come here to move on they came here to settle here, to stay here, to work and live and raise family and i hear and one of the joys of this wonderful concentration of material in marietta, as you can go out the door and walk up the street and theres the graveyard they are all buried in and just beyond their remains mounds ceremony is part of the cemetery and it was rufus putnam who said we have got to preserve this. How can we preserve it, how can we keep developers of some kind from coming in and tearing it down so they decided to make the Community Graveyard and communities cemetery and it worked and is the first example i know of and mike in the country of historic preservation. They had history on their minds. And they had this ideal of education. Which was not easy and which was led once again by ethan cutler now cutler served in the legislature for a long time and toward the end he was finally in the senate and he was communicating at that time constantly with his wife back home marietta and her name was sally, his second wife, his first wife died. Again, like the death of their children it cost him coming here and he tended to overwork except on sunday and one day he was in the legislature and he was in reading the bible through one morning and he was contemplating someone said do you know what day this is and he said sunday and hes had no, its not. So he mistakenly thought it was sunday. So therefore when into his traditional ritual of the tradition of the sabbath. Otherwise, he always worked and he succeeded in what he was attempted to do when very often he didnt. And he would pour out his anguish, frustration, your rotation, whatever to his wife sally. Ill give you a good example i just returned from attending a meeting of our committee and all was hushed and slumber they were in the adjoining room in the boardinghouse the difficulty making thickheaded mortals understand plain questions is sometimes vaccine. This is on the issue of whether there would be Public Schools and therefore taxes but this evening, our committee has had to contend with arts and avarice combined, there is no word to be found where designing scoundrels lurk in suspicious words into mere looks they calculate to entrap the unwary and like bloodsuckers leech and suck the public. See how things have changed. [laughter] he was fed up, truly tired of it. By his hands and harder engage of the labors before me but by no means did he consider giving up. With his new england background, his devotion to the cause of learning it was no less than ever i am not without hope you assured her we will see a change in our system of taxation in getting a law passed or establishing School Districts and encouraging schools and he asked succeeded. Think of that and along with it he succeeded and created the first university, Ohio University. First University West of the mountains now, i cannot overestimate the importance of that success the successful cause, that crusade of his and it all goes back to his father who believe that the establishment of the university was of utmost importance in whistling to everyone who was concerned. He was a quote first object he later told his son and it was great to on my wisdom in mind. Wisdom is the principal thing led the proverbs. Therefore get wisdom and all i can get his understanding. Now, i happen to feel very strongly that people who are doing the most important work in our society are our teachers, our professors. There is nobody doing work that will matter more in the long run. [applause] [applause] and, i dont think we can forget that or underestimate the importance, not just of paying them more, but of giving them more of our gratitude more of our respect, more of our sense of appreciation i very proud to say i have a son who is a High School Teacher i very glad to say i have a son in law besides a daughterinlaw who runs a preschool back in new england, the oldest preschool in the country and i am very, very intended as i know each and every one of you are to certain teachers in school and in college that have uplifted hours since the possibilities of life or encouraged us when we needed encouragement and i think to i have to say that i believe strongly in required courses i think it should be history, particularly American History in a certain quantity of english which would include writing should be required at all levels i think its important because citizens essential to the best kind of education but i also think its important for young people to be reminded that in life some things are required. [applause] now, i have to return a moment or so to the Wright Brothers in the connection was so much i knew about how they were raised and educated with those people who first established education here. The Wright Brothers as many of you know were raised in a home you can put four of them in this room easily. They had no central heat, no indoor plumbing, no indoor water system, no telephone, they had very little at all but it was also house full of books and they were books selected by their father who was a minister and there is mark twain and shakespeare, there were good books. He brought them up to read books and to read above their level in other words, if you dont quite understand shakespeare, all the more reason to read. And he told them learn to use the english language correctly and effectively both on paper and on your feet. No matter what location you intend to pursue. Those abilities will carry you further than you again otherwise. Now, either of those two young men went to college, but that stress that the father made was without any question of lasting importance. I remember the first time i started reading wilbur rights letter the great collection at the library of congress i thought well. What a vocabulary. What a mind now doing my work on my book about americans in paris which is a book that preceded the Wright Brothers i had been researching into which americas were in france at the turnofthecentury in deciding whether to continue my book into the 20th century. And lo and behold i very ran into the wilbur brought right and thought what is he doing in paris he should be in ohio. And i read what he was writing about. There were letters back to his sister and father in which he is describing his excitement over seeing the great paintings at the louvre he went to the louvre in every chance he had in he went to study the interiors of the great gothic cathedrals which of course were reaching up into the sky and i thought, this is not the way most of us think of Wilbur Wright and i am going to pursue this and then i found out about catherine, his sister who is one of the most remarkable americans i have ever come to know. And of course she went to oberland and was one of the first women to go there in her letters to them as well as the fathers letters were extraordinary now one of the greatest lines in my view of everything the Wright Brothers ever said was when Wilbur Wright observed no birds ever soared in a calm what is that mean . He saying, literally you cannot take off into the air if there is no wind blowing at you, you have to take off into the wind. In a way he is saying you are never going to amount to much if you never have to face any adversity. If everything is easy for you and that is exactly the lesson to be experienced again and again in the development of a community in marietta and the lives of these principal characters in the book i have written about pioneers. Suffering david brooks has a new book out which i find very interesting. He talks about the good that comes out of suffering. And thats the story. And the high purpose involved, wilbur and overall rights father told them the good life was in doing work with a worthy purpose. You never worried about how they were going to make money and that was never on their mind much at all. And again, the old values tell the truth, dont lie, dont cheat dont get too big for your britches, be loyal to your friends and your cause in your church and your family and your country an