You know about the historic 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland but Cleveland is home to other major political events and politicians.
President James Garfield. The 20th president of the US, Garfield was from Cleveland. Civil War Major General, US Congressman, and US President. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 20th US President for only 200 days, from March until September 1881 because he was assassinated.The tomb of President Garfield is located inside a huge (180′ high) memorial at Lake View Cemetery that includes a 12′ tall marble statue of President Garfield.
Mark Hanna – Political Kingmaker. Mark Hanna is often credited with the invention of the modern presidential campaign and he is called The Kingmaker. His Front Porch Campaign for William McKinley got him elected President.
Judge Sara J. Harper (born August 10, 1926) is a former member of the Eighth District Court of Appeals. She is the first black woman graduate of the Case Western Reserve University Law School; the first woman to serve on the judiciary of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve; one of the first two women to win a seat on the Ohio Court of Appeals; and the first black woman to sit by assignment on the Ohio Supreme Court.
John Hay. John Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. He lived on Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue on “Millionaire’s Row” and is buried in Lake View Cemetery.
Elliot Ness In 1935, Cleveland mayor Harold Burton hired Ness as the city’s Safety Director, which put him in charge of both the police and fire departments. In 1938, Ness declared war on the mob. Ness was also Safety Director at the time of several grisly murders that occurred in the Cleveland area from 1935 to 1938. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Cleveland in 1947
Mayor Tom L. Johnson. Johnson was called the best Mayor of the best-governed city in the United States. His progressive ideas transformed the growing city of Cleveland to world-class status.
Frank Lausche. Lausche served as the 47th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, as the 55th and 57th Governor of Ohio and as a United States Senator from Ohio for two terms (1957–1969). Proud Catholic and Slovenian he championed ethnic Democratic politics.
President William McKinley. The 25th President of the US was assassinated six months into his second term. McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War which yielded Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. He was very closely tied to Canton Ohio, just south of Cleveland.
Republican National Convention of 1880. It took 36 ballots! Senator-elect James Garfield from Cleveland gave the presidential nomination speech for Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman. When neither Sherman nor his rivals – Ulysses S. Grant and James G. Blaine – could get enough votes to secure the nomination, delegates chose Garfield as a compromise on the 36th ballot!
Republican National Convention of 1924 in Cleveland. The GOP nominated President Calvin Coolidge who took over for Warren Harding when he died. This was the first GOP convention to give women equal representation and the first to broadcast its proceedings through radio.
Republican National Convention of 1936 in Cleveland. The GOP nominated Alf Landon to run against the popular FDR. This convention was seen as moving Black voters from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.
Carl Stokes. Carl Stokes was the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city.
Louis Stokes was the first black congressman elected in the state of Ohio. He served 15 terms in the United States House of Representatives – representing the east side of Cleveland.
Terry v. Ohio Case Landmark Stop and Frisk Case. A “Terry stop” is a brief detention of a person by police on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity but short of probable cause to arrest. The name derives from a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court held that police may briefly detain a person who they reasonably suspect is involved in criminal activity; the Court also held that police may do a limited search of the suspect’s outer garments for weapons if they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person detained may be “armed and dangerous”.
Stephanie Tubbs Jones was the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress from Ohio.
The Politician The Politician A Toy is a sculpture by artist Billie Lawless. It is 40′ x 40′ x 35′ and is enclosed by a wrought iron fence forty feet by fifty feet. It The top of the fence is lined with double entrendre’s of political clichés.
George Voinovich
Also of Interest (more coming soon)
Frances Payne Bolton
Republican Congresswoman for 29 years. Supported projects in nursing, health and education. Persuaded Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, to establish an Army School of Nursing during WW1. Believing that nurses should have college educations as well as nurses training, she funded a school of nursing at Western Reserve University, renamed the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.
Dennis Kucinich
From 1977 to 1979, Cleveland-born Kucinich served as the 53rd Mayor of Cleveland.At thirty-one years of age, he was the youngest mayor of a major city in the United States and was called “the boy mayor”. Wikipedia calls it a tumultuous term in which he survived a recall election and was successful in a battle against selling the municipal electric utility. The city went into default on his watch and he was defeated for reelection by George Voinovich. Kucinich also served in U.S. Congress from 1997 to 2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections.
Mayor Ralph Perk.
Ralph Perk served as the 52nd mayor of Cleveland. The national media focused on Perk setting his hair on fire with a welder’s torch at a ribbon cutting and his wife’s supposed rejection of a White House function because it was her bowling night. Perk founded the American Nationalities Movement, an umbrella agency for 35 nationality groups, which continues to work for freedom for people of ‘Captive Nations.’ He also was an early pioneer of regional government.
KInglsey Arter Taft
US Senator. A veteran of World War II, he served as a Major in the United States Army. He served as a United States Senator from Ohio from 1946 to 1947, Member of the Ohio State House of Representatives from 1933 to 1934, and Justice of the Ohio State Supreme Court from 1948 to 1962.
More coming soon
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