A recent story and picture on the front page of the Lansing State Journal about a work crew cleaning a statue in front of the state capitol brought big smiles to me and a friend. That clean up idea on the statue of Austin Blair, Michigan’s Civil War governor, was created by Bruce Cornelius and me [...]

A recent story and picture on the front page of the Lansing State Journal about a work crew cleaning a statue in front of the state capitol brought big smiles to me and a friend.

That clean up idea on the statue of Austin Blair, Michigan’s Civil War governor, was created by Bruce Cornelius and me 25 years ago. All this may not dazzle this column’s readers today, but I can’t resist telling you about it because old Austin Blair is my favorite governor and his statue has been there since 1895.

I wrote a daily column for the Journal for 30 years, and the logo at the top of it showed the backside of old Blair looking eastward down Michigan Avenue. My column was called “The Onlooker.” It all made me akin to Mr. Blair, and I often stopped to look him over when in downtown Lansing.

But I began noticing Blair’s face covered with pigeon droppings and the beautiful, old bronze was becoming an ugly black.

I complained to a lot of state officials and got nowhere, so I cornered my old buddy, State Journal chief photographer Bruce Cornelius. We borrowed a long extension ladder from the fire department. We marched up to the statue and propped it there. I climbed up there with a bucket and sponge to wash Blair’s face.

It was mid-afternoon on a bright summer day and we hoped someone would come and arrest us, but nothing happened except for a few looks from curious bypassers.

Then I heard a familiar voice saying: “Hey, Jim, what the heck are you doing up there? On second thought, don’t tell me. I fear I don’t want to know.” I looked down at Gov. Bill Milliken.

Well, we published some pictures of my janitorial work and soon there was an awakening in state government, and Austin has had an annual scrubbing ever since.

Some years ago, there was a trivia question circulated in which seven names were printed along with a question of what each of them had in common. Nobody knew the answer. They were all former Michigan governors. Even some governors more recent didn’t leave much of a mark, but let me tell you why Austin Blair was so special.

He became governor in 1860 and later formed the Republican Party in a big event “under the oaks” at Jackson, Michigan. All modern liberals pale by Blair’s stature in politics. He led the Michigan Republican delegation to the national convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln, but Blair was critical of Lincoln then, saying Abe was too soft on slavery.

As Michigan governor, Blair led a campaign to get the word “white” out of the state constitution as a requirement for voting rights. He fought hard and successfully for women’s suffrage.

After an innocent man was hung for a crime in Michigan, Blair led a campaign to rid our state of capital punishment. That made Michigan the first state in the union to ban it.

During the Civil War, he urged the Legislature to appropriate money to support families of the 100,000 soldiers he sent to Lincoln for the war effort. Ten companies of Michigan volunteers were the first of any western state to engage in combat.

Before the war ended, one in every four young men of Michigan wore uniforms, about 111,000.

Those soldiers urged the Legislature in 1895 to spend $10,000 for the Blair statue. The inscription there reminds us that he was a very famous Civil War governor and was enormously loyal to Michigan soldiers.

One part of the inscription quotes one of his messages to the Legislature, saying: “All the heartbreak and carnage of this war and all the casualties of the battles and the sad bereavement occasioned by it have the same causes, slavery, the greatest, vilest criminal of the world. It must perish.”

Blair’s personal life was one of tragedy, including the childbirth death of two wives in which the child also perished. He died in 1894 and was buried in Jackson.

Autstin Blair was special and his name will never be on one of those trivia questions of forgotten people in Michigan. What’s more, they better keep on cleaning that statue or Cornelius and I will return with our ladder and bucket.

Few have noticed the item draped over Blair’s arm on that statue. It is the battle flag of a Michigan volunteer regiment.