OHIO. 



679 



In the year 249 new schoolhouses were erected, 

 at a cost representing nearly $1,000,000, and there 

 are now 13,077 schoolhouses. The value of all 

 school property is $41,446,838. There are 25,712 

 teachers employed, and the total enrollment of 

 pupils was 798,000. In the universities and col- 

 leges of the State there are 6,438 students, and 

 in private schools there are 37,413. The balance 

 on hand in the school fund is $6,432,973.55. 



Labor Troubles. The most important labor 

 trouble in the State in 1899 was the street-car 

 strike in Cleveland, which, in addition to the 

 usual characteristic features of a great strike, 

 w*as attended with continuous rioting, murder- 

 ous assaults, destruction of property, and paraly- 

 sis of business for some time by the rioting and 

 a general boycott. The trouble began on the 

 morning of June 10, when a strike on the Big 

 Consolidated system tied up a dozen lines and 

 involved more than 850 men. The attempt to 

 run one car to the center of the city precipitated 

 a riot, which the police were powerless to check, 

 and further attempts were abandoned. The State 

 Board of Arbitration endeavored to effect an ar- 

 rangement, but without success. After nearly a 

 week the company attempted to open some of the 

 lines with nonunion men, when rioting began and 

 continued for several days, cars being wrecked 

 and persons injured. After two weeks the strike 

 ended through the intervention of a committee 

 of the City Council, and all the lines resumed 

 operation on June 25, the company taking back 

 80 per cent, of the old employees at once and put- 

 ting nearly all the others on the waiting list. 

 July 17, without warning, all the former strikers 

 left in a body, and the company began filling 

 their places with nonunion men. July 18 a switch 

 was blown up with dynamite and a waiting shed 

 set on fire. That was the beginning of a series 

 of outrages, which continued without intermis- 

 sion nearly two weeks. Cars with passengers 

 were blown up with dynamite, nitroglycerin, and 

 giant powder in different parts of the city, and 

 several persons were injured. Cars full of passen- 

 gers were stoned, trolley wires cut, and the tracks 

 blockaded with obstacles of all kinds. A bomb 

 was thrown through the roof of the car house 

 where the nonunion men slept. Car crews and 

 rioters shot at each other, and one rioter was 

 killed by a conductor, who was tried for mur- 

 der some months afterward and acquitted. After 

 all the local militia had been called out State 

 troops were ordered to Cleveland, until there 

 were about 1,200 soldiers under arms, in addition 

 to the police and special deputy sheriffs. This 

 had the effect of quelling the more serious rioting, 

 and nearly two weeks after the first call to arms 

 the troops were gradually withdrawn. Rioting 

 was then succeeded by a general boycott by all 

 the union labor organizations against every per- 

 son who patronized Big Consolidated cars or sold 

 anything to the Big Consolidated Company or 

 its employees or to persons who rode in the com- 

 pany's cars. The boycott was enforced with such 

 universality and merciless severity that great 

 hardship and distress were caused. It continued 

 until the approach of winter made it impossible 

 to enforce it against the working people who 

 were compelled to use the cars, and by a general 

 understanding it was abandoned without being 

 formally declared off. 



Political. The Prohibition party opened the 

 political year by the adoption of the usual plat- 

 form and the nomination of the following ticket: 

 For Governor, J. W. Bashford, for whom George 

 M. Hammell was afterward substituted; Lieuten- 

 ant Governor, A. S. Caton ; Judge of the Supreme 



Court, Gideon F. Stewart; Attorney-General, 

 Walter S. Lister; Treasurer, C. M. Wise; Audi- 

 tor, Fred W. Barrett; Member of Board of Public 

 Works, John Banner. 



The Republican State Convention was held in 

 Columbus, June 2. The ticket nominated was as 

 follows: For Governor, George K. Nash; Lieu- 

 tenant Governor, John A. Caldwell; Judge of the 

 Supreme Court, William Z. Davis; Attorney-Gen- 

 eral, John M. Sheets; Treasurer, Isaac B. Ca/n- 

 eron; Auditor, Walter D. Guilbert; Member 

 of Board of Public Works, Frank A. Huffman. 



The platform, after reaffirming the principles 

 declared by the St. Louis platform, went on to say: 



" We earnestly indorse the great administration 

 of William McKinley. It is distinguished to a 

 remarkable degree in the history of national ad- 

 ministrations. Under the last Democratic admin- 

 istration and as a result of Democratic principles 

 and policy our industries were destroyed, capital 

 and labor were unemployed; the poor suffered 

 as never before in our history; agricultural prod- 

 ucts could not be sold, because consumers could 

 not earn money with which to buy, and every 

 branch of trade felt the blighting influence of the 

 Democratic tariff-reform hard times; the Treas- 

 ury of the United States was depleted, and the 

 gold reserve disappeared. The Government bor- 

 rowed money to pay current expenses, increasing 

 the public debt in times of peace by hundreds 

 of millions of dollars. 



" The Democratic party proposed to the people 

 as a remedy for all these Democratic ills a de- 

 preciated and dishonest currency, which intensi- 

 fied every evil. 



" During all that period of depression and dis- 

 tress the Republican party stood fast for the 

 principles and policies under which American in- 

 dustries had been built up and had flourished 

 beyond example the principles and policies under 

 which the people had prospered and the nation 

 had grown great for a generation stood fast for 

 a sound and honest currency, and in 1896 elected 

 to the presidency William McKinley, the best 

 exponent of Republicanism and true American 

 ideas and policies, the friend of every American 

 industry, and the wise and patriotic defender and 

 advocate of honest money. 



" Under his splendid Republican administration 

 public credit has been restored, the prosperity 

 of the people has developed, our commerce has 

 grown great, our trade domestic and foreign 

 has increased to a degree never before known, 

 and the people are looking with confidence for 

 greater things to come. 



" The magnificent achievements of our army 

 and navy in the war with Spain for the libera- 

 tion of the downtrodden and oppressed people 

 of Cuba from the domination of Castilian des- 

 potism, accomplished under the master guidance 

 of a Republican administration, are necessarily 

 subjects for highest encomium by a convention 

 of Ohio Republicans. 



" We are proud of the brilliant and conspicuous 

 services rendered to the people of the State and 

 the country by the Senators from Ohio, Hon. 

 Joseph B. Foraker and Hon. Marcus A. Hanna, 

 and of the matchless record of the delegation 

 of Ohio congressmen now representing the Buck- 

 eye State. 



" The present administration of State affairs 

 under Gov. Asa S. Bushnell has been able, wise, 

 and economical. It is pure, free from scandal, 

 and eminently satisfactory to the people of the 

 State, without regard to party. 



"We commend the action of the seventy-third 

 General Assembly of Ohio in passing the stringent 



