Joe Butler's Youngstown

[Rick Rowlands]

Glad to be of service!

[irishbobcat]

My language proves I am mad as hell and am not going to sit here and read Ricky's total BS anymore.....back to the ignore button....

his BS writings eat at my skin.....

[northside lurker]

Apparently, Dennis's comment was deleted.  I don't know what he wrote, but, the basic idea might have been similar to what I'm about to write.

I'm OK with the modern government intrusion because, without it in the early-mid 20th century, we were busy destroying ourselves.  The Mahoning River was dead.  I'm told the rain would eat the paint off of new cars.  There was a "Fresh Air Camp" so that children could have a few weeks each year where they could actually breath relatively clean air!

When society is unwilling or unable to control itself, we turn to the government to protect us from ourselves.

[Rick Rowlands]

Green Party Candidate for Ohio Governor!  Bringing the level of public discourse to new lows!  And inventing new words in the process!

[Towntalk]

Dennis what does that sort of language prove. Would you have tolerated any of your teachers using it?

[Rick Rowlands]

During this time period government had not yet completely exceeded its constitutional boundaries, and business was still free to thrive and create (and keep) the wealth that Mr. Butler mentions.  Government was mainly preoccupied with making sure no one company got too big and dominated the marketplace, but otherwise stayed largely out of the way.  It was that climate that brought about the notion of America as a great place to do business, and the best place in the world to create wealth. 

I am amazed at the sheer number of businesses and companies that called Youngstown home in that era. Not only huge corporations such as YS&T and Republic Iron & Steel, but medium sized companies such as William Tod Co., General Fireproofing and William B. Pollock Co. and small concerns such as the Youngstown Iron & Steel Roofing Co., Youngstown Metal Lath, Trussed Concrete Company etc.  Not a single one owed their existence to a "Stimulus grant" from the Federal government. Heck, suggesting such and idea would have caused the person the be ridiculed out of whatever office the person held.

Truly, the best days in the existence of the United States of America was the period from 1900 to 1929, and again during WWII.  Every aspect of this country, from industry, to morality, civility, law and freedom has been in decline since then. 

[Towntalk]

Thanks for the Butler post Rick.

What many seem to forget is we reached that point without a lot of government interference.

During that same period there was also a huge new housing boom in the city, and most of it was middle class housing as opposed to mansions for the wealthy.

[Youngstownshrimp]

And look at us now, we have come a long way replacing raw entrepreneurship and innovation with an entitlement majority in the City.  And we continue to stack our leadership with the ranks of the unqualified, the blind leading the blind.

[Rick Rowlands]

 YOUNGSTOWN
Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

Vice-President, Brier Hill Steel Company, Youngstown, Ohio
(From an address Mr. Butler gave in Cleveland, OH in 1915 at a meeting of the American Iron and Steel Institute)

Youngstown is the heart of the greatest wealth-producing district in the United States. We have four great trunk lines of the country within an area of 200 feet. On an area of three square miles, Youngstown being the center, is produced more iron and steel than on any other single area of the same size in the world.  $200,000,000 are invested in manufactures, $123,000,000 in iron and steel, $10,000,000 more for additions to those steel plants—mostly Cleveland money. In addition to that, many of you know that it is contemplated by the United States Steel Corporation to build at McDonald, a suburb of Youngstown, some additional mills. Mr. McDonald is very anxious to build that, and I am assured by Mr. Farrell that it is the intention to do it. I hope the finance committee of that corporation will take a few minutes off and appropriate about half an hour's income to this purpose.

Youngstown's annual payroll is $35,000,000. We have, in number, more parks in Youngstown than you have in Cleveland. Now, I haven't anything against Cleveland, but in view of the fact that this meeting should have been held in Youngstown, I want to tell you that we have one park that has more acres in it than all the parks in Cleveland put together. We have a 36-hole golf course—you have to go around it twice to make it. The Mahoning and Shenango Valleys produce one-fourth of all the pig iron made in the United States.

By the way, I think I have already mentioned that Mr. Mather made a very illuminating and comprehensive address this morning. He told about the increase in Cleveland's population. In 1860, Youngstown contained 27,000 people, in 1915, 115,000, a very much greater per cent, increase than that of Cleveland.  The birth rate in Ohio, by the authorities, is the largest of any state in the Union, and at least 99 per cent, is pure, the real thing, legitimate.

Cleveland has forty-three of the most modern blast furnaces in the country, located within sixty-five miles of its Public Square. In Youngstown which, as many of you know, is half-way between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, by the same kind of statistics, we have within sixty-five miles of Youngstown 185 plants.