Elephant & Lincoln

Seven Greek cities claimed to be the birthplace of Homer. Almost as many in the U. S. claim to be the birthplace of the Republican party. When the party came into being in the early 1850's, slavery was the prime issue. When last week the town of Ripon, Wis. (population 4,000) attempted to establish its title to "founding" the Republican party 75 years ago, Prohibition, in the form of Dry raids by U. S. agents, overshadowed the news of the celebration.

As to the exact origin of the Republican party few historians agree. When the Whigs held their national convention in New York City in 1852, the sidewalks buzzed with popular talk of a new party. Editor Horace Greeley of the Tribune seriously pondered the future with his friend Alvan Earle Bovay, Ripon Whig. The stiff, dignified, stoop-shouldered lawyer from Wisconsin insisted a new party be formed on the slavery issue, suggested to Editor Greeley the name Republican. On March 20, 1854 when the Nebraska-Kansas Bill was pending in the Senate, Lawyer Bovay called a meeting of 58 persons at Ripon to unite as Republicans, to pledge themselves to fight the spread of slavery.

Similar independent meetings were held about the same time elsewhere, notably at Friendship, N. Y., May 16, 1854. The first state convention of Republicans met at Jackson, Mich.,* July 6, 1854, the first national convention at Pittsburgh Feb. 22, 1856. Today New York, Ripon, Friendship, Jackson, Pittsburgh all claim to have "founded" the Republican party.

Ten thousand people helped Ripon celebrate its claim last week. President Hoover, as honorary chairman, sent Secretary of War James William Good to represent him, to make a speech. The Good speech did not fully uphold Ripon's claim to Republican primacy. Said he: "The party . . . came up, literally, out of the ground, everywhere, in response to a country-wide demand from the people. Events, not men, called it into being."

Great was Riponites' disappointment when Secretary Good refused to give Lawyer Bovay full credit for "founding" the party.

At Ripon the chief object of political veneration was the one-room schoolhouse in which Bovay held his meeting. The building was later occupied by George W. Peck, author of Peck's Bad Boy and one-time Governor of Wisconsin.

Parades, music, an elephant borrowed from the Sells-Floto Circus, six Lincoln voters riding on a float, speeches, made up the scheduled events. Unscheduled were the activities of a squad of Dry agents under a "Missouri Democrat" who operated through Ripon during the celebration. At the height of the party and before the eyes of Secretary Good and Governor Kohler, they descended upon a soft-drink place directly opposite Jubilee headquarters, found inside several Wisconsin legislators, eight barrels of beer. Incensed celebrants threatened public condemnation by the State Legislature of this harassment by U. S. agents.

* Jackson, Ripon's chief rival for founder's honors, holds its seventy-fifth anniversary celebration next month.