By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer Updated 12:34 AM Sunday, February 28, 2010
Dayton's self-esteem problem has always had a fail-safe cure:
The Wright brothers.
No matter how insecure we feel about ourselves, we can undoubtedly claim two of the world's most renowned citizens -- towering historical figures of a stature no other Ohio city comes close to claiming.
Well, so much for that theory. The Wright brothers finished sixth in a recent committee vote to decide finalists to represent Ohio in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Sixth!
Well, certainly, our homeboys couldn't hope to compete with the likes of Harriet Taylor Upton and James Ashley.
Who are they? you ask. My point exactly. Few people have heard of Upton, a women's suffragist, and Ashley, an abolitionist, yet both ranked higher than the inventors of flight.
Thomas Edison topped the list with 46 points in comparison with 22 for the Wrights. While no doubt a major historical figure, Edison left Ohio when he was about two minutes old and did most of his inventing in New Jersey.
More than half of the committee members didn't list the Wright brothers in their top 10. Please.
Ohio's current Statuary Hall residents (each state has only two) include assassinated U.S. President James Garfield and William Allen, a former U.S. senator and two-time Ohio governor who is being ousted -- and rightfully so -- for his pro-slavery views.
The list of 10 potential replacements is an honorable one, but no one rises to the level of the Wright brothers. Harriet Beecher Stowe comes closest; she is credited by no less an authority than Abraham Lincoln with starting the Civil War with her anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Jesse Owens, the 1936 Berlin Olympics gold medal winner who challenged Hitler's notions of racial supremacy, is certainly a noble figure. But does an athletic feat, no matter how symbolic, merit the same stature as the men who achieved the age-old dream of flight?
I'm not the only one scratching my head over the Wright brothers' poor showing among the National Statuary Collection Study Committee made up of members of the Ohio House and Senate. "This means we have our work cut out for us, getting the word out about the Wright brothers," said John Bosch, chair of the National Aviation Heritage Alliance. "They deserve the honor because their invention was so profound. It changed the world; it changed how we live."
Yet a survey commissioned in 2003 showed that three-fourths of Americans believed the Wright brothers are from North Carolina, Bosch said. All the more reason Ohio should enshrine them in Statuary Hall.
"World visitors would recognize the Wright brothers, and it could be an 'aha' moment -- 'I didn't know they were from Ohio,';" said Amanda Wright Lane of Cincinnati, family spokeswoman and great-grandniece of Wilbur and Orville. Lane testified before the National Statuary Collection Study Committee in Columbus on Jan. 28. "From the beginning of mankind, the one thread that linked all human beings from every corner of our earth was the ability to gaze upon the same beautiful moon," she said. "Orville and Wilbur Wright's flying machine led to the eventual ability of man to gaze from the moon back at all of humanity."
Wherever they went in the world, Lane said, the brothers touted the advantages of growing up in Ohio. Furthermore, she testified, "A statute of the Wright brothers in our nation's Capitol is more than a symbolic honor -- it will give a direct and long-term boost to our vital aerospace industry."
Lane acknowledged a possible sticking point -- traditionally, the Statuary Hall features a single individual. But that's not mandated by law, she said, "and the state of Ohio could once again be innovative in that we honor two."
The good news is that it doesn't really matter, at this point, where the Wright brothers rank in the committee's recommendations. Getting nominated is the critical thing, and Ohioans will have a chance to vote for their top choices at historical sites and museums around the state and other locations from March 20 to June 12. The committee will send its recommendation to the Ohio House and Senate which will vote yea or nay but can't submit an opposing candidate.
The public's vote isn't binding "but it will carry a lot of weight," said Richard Adams, Rep. Richard Adams, R-Troy, the only Dayton-area member of the committee. Adams nominated the Wright brothers but gave his top vote to the late Piqua congressman William McCullough, who was instrumental in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. "I like the polarization of replacing a racist like Allen with McCullough," Adams said. "McCullough was a splendid fellow, and he demonstrates what each of us might strive to do to achieve equality and civil rights."
If a current online Dayton Daily News poll is any indication, the Wright brothers will fare much better with the general public than with the committee, garnering more than 70 percent of the votes compared with 1 percent for Upton and Ashley and 12 percent for Edison.
Lane said that her "Uncle Will" and "Uncle Orv" represent far more than the past: "The things we hope to stand for as a state today -- the innovation and the research and development -- are interwoven with the Wright brothers' history. They make us think about the past, but their message is timeless. And people around the world know the story."
Too bad it hasn't filtered back to the members of the Statuary Hall committee.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
