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BOOK REVIEWS |
FREEDOM'S FORUM: THE CITY CLUB, 1912-1962. By Thomas F. Camp- bell. (Cleveland: The City Club, 1963. 128p.; frontispiece and index. $3.50.) The occasion for this book was the cele- bration of the golden anniversary of the City Club of Cleveland in 1962. The phrase "Freedom's Forum," incorporated in the title, underscores the spirit and purpose of the club. Its dedicated adherence to free speech has been the key to its vigorous life and survival. It was founded during the progressive era, when city clubs sprang up throughout the country in re- sponse to an awakened civic conscience which aroused Americans to action along many fronts in that period. The list of founding members is a roster of the young men who were in the forefront of reform in Cleveland in 1912--adherents of the progressive Wilsonian wing of the Demo- cratic party, led by Mayor Newton D. Baker, and the partisans of Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose party. But the club's membership was not confined to those actively engaged in reform; it spread to attorneys, stockbrokers, doctors, clergy- men, and college professors, who were eager for enlightenment on the political and social issues of the day. At the outset the founding fathers set the policy of "in- formation, not reformation" and of giv- ing a hearing to minority points of view. In this slim volume Thomas F. Camp- bell, who is a Clevelander by adoption and currently an instructor at Ohio State Uni- versity, has sketched the themes and major episodes in the club's many forum activi- ties, for which it is best known to the public. He has aired the dissensions that arose over freedom of speech during the Red hysteria of the post-World War I years, dramatized by the invitation in 1923 |
to Eugene V. Debs to speak. Although the episode caused forty-seven members to resign, it established the club's reputa- tion as a forum for free speech. Perhaps because of this early test of the strength of its convictions, the club weathered the McCarthy period of the 1950's without vio- lating its ideals or dividing its ranks. Also here are the history of the Anvil Revue, which yearly lampoons prominent men (particularly the "stuffed shirts" among them), and an account of the founding and activities of the celebrated luncheon "tables," including the Soviet Table (named as a joke when a florist sent a centerpiece of red roses and a wit quipped, "At last you have shown your true colors -- the Soviet Table"). In a separate section are brief biographies of twenty-four members who have been leading figures in the club, as well as "movers and shakers" in the community, and a list of the club's officers since its founding. The author has shown praiseworthy re- straint in selecting the material for a book of this kind and has produced a his- tory which is a model of brevity. LANDON WARNER Kenyon College HORACE MANN AND OTHERS: CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF ANTIOCH COLLEGE. By Robert Lincoln Straker. With a preface and an introduction to the Antiochiana Col- lection in the Olive Kettering Library by Louis Filler. (Yellow Springs, Ohio: Antioch Press, 1963. 106p.; illustrations. $3.00.) In his preface to this little volume, Pro- fessor Louis Filler pays tribute to the late Robert Lincoln Straker--editor, textbook |
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sales manager, and scholar, but above all most loyal and enthusiastic Antioch alum- nus--from whose diffuse notes, taken in a lifetime of research, this collection of eight essays has been drawn. At the close, Pro- fessor Filler acquaints the reader with the major collections of Straker and other collectors of "Antiochiana" found in the Olive Kettering Library on the campus at Yellow Springs. In between, the reader is treated to an interesting though occasionally disjointed succession of biographical essays, whose principal merits are the lights and shadows they cast on the first quarter-century of the history of Antioch College and of American higher education in that period. Chief among the essays is one on Horace Mann, who turned his back on his seat in congress, declined the Free-Soil nomina- tion for governor of Massachusetts, and journeyed westward to Ohio to accept the challenge of the first presidency of Antioch in June 1852, at a stipulated salary of $3,000 per year (which soon melted to but $1,500 before the first year was over!). Struggling to make Antioch the "Little Harvard of the West," Mann found scant support for his liberal views among the townsfolk of Yellow Springs, a people, ac- cording to the famed educator, with "souls so small that a million sprinkled on a dia- mond would not make it dusty!" Quite an opposing view of the merits of the com- munity was advanced by Judge William Mills, financial godfather of the college, who, in commenting on the healthfulness of Yellow Springs, declared it to be such "that those wishing to die had to leave town to do so." The reader will delight in the biographi- cal vignette of second-president Thomas Hill, a "genial, gentle man,"
"transparent- ly frank and guileless," "faithful to his duty and just and friendly to everyone," who attempted unsuccessfully to trans- plant his folksy ways to the Harvard cam- pus after completing his stint at Antioch, only to find that the academic distance between Yellow Springs and Cambridge was greater than the geographical. Other biographies-in-brief include those of third- president Austin Craig, Trustee Edward Everett Hale, and Professor G. Stanley Hall. Among the latter's contributions was |
the exposing of an undercover organiza- tion flourishing on the Antioch campus that supplied "themes and other papers to college students throughout the country at a stiff fee," an expose that soon produced two bullets and a bottle of acid directed his way by the frustrated leader of the covert group. All this makes for interesting and in- formative reading. The book should be read by all who are interested in the his- tory of American higher education. PHILLIP R. SHRIVER Kent State University GEORGE W. NORRIS: THE MAKING OF A PROGRESSIVE, 1861-1912. By Richard Lowitt. (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syra- cuse University Press, 1963. xiv??341p.; illustrations and index. $7.95.) Having read George Norris' autobiog- raphy (Fighting Liberal) some years ago with intense interest, this reviewer looked forward to the present work, the first in a two-volume life of the Nebraska prog- ressive, with high hopes of an exciting journey into one of the most stimulating chapters of American history. It was a disappointing trip. It is not an easy task to transform such a thrilling figure as George Norris into a prosaic plodder, but Richard Lowitt, associate professor of his- tory at Connecticut College, has succeeded without trying. There are good points in this book, and let me hasten to point them out. The "Un- horsing of Speaker Cannon," the major event in Norris' ten-year tour of duty in the house of representatives (1903-13), is well-handled and at times even approaches the brink of real excitement. Lowitt also paints a valuable picture of Norris as an anti-machine, anti-boss fighter for non- partisanship in politics, a picture which needed painting. Norris' first speech in congress de-emphasized partisanship, his fight against Cannon was designed to lib- erate the house from tyranny, and his proposals for presidential primaries were intended to weaken machine domination at national conventions. We are also indebted to Lowitt for dis- tinguishing between (a) "insurgent" and |
BOOK REVIEWS 121 |
"progressive" and (b) "Republican
prog- ressive" and "Democratic progressive." But since some people may not buy the book after reading this review, I prefer to withhold the above distinctions, as they are among the few inducements of suffi- cient value to cause one to purchase the volume. On the adverse side, we find Lowitt guilty of several questionable interpreta- tions. For example, did Richard A. Bal- linger have "no enthusiasm for and little sympathy with the cause of conservation" (p. 160)? Or did the progressives have to beg La Follette to run in 1911 (p. 217)? And was Taft's renomination in 1912 real- ly a "steal" (p. 251)? A major weakness in the book is Lowitt's uninspired literary style; he rarely rises above the commonplace. Furthermore, his pages are weighted heavily with trifling detail. Preoccupied with minutia -- every illness, every illness of each child, every speech, every trip home between sessions of congress--he spares us nothing. Pre- campaign and campaign maneuvering is so painstakingly set forth that the reader is lost in a maze of bewildering events. In describing Norris' successful bid for the senate in 1912, Lowitt mentions a "preference primary," and adds that (a) the Democrats won control of the state legislature and (b) legislatures still elected United States Senators. We are then told that Norris' victory in the preference pri- mary guaranteed his (a Republican's) elec- tion to the senate. The whole story is too involved to repeat here, but if the reader really wants to learn what happened he must go again, as the reviewer did, to Norris' autobiography (pp. 151-153). Had such matters as this been more expertly dealt with, and had the trivia been elim- inated, we would have had a more solid work. Several questions are left unanswered. What were Norris' views on conservation? Although he was supposed to be a con- servationst (p. 158), we find little in the book to support the statement. The cele- brated White House Conference on Con- servation of 1908 is not even mentioned. Then how did Republicanism survive at all in Bryan-Populist country in those des- perate days of the 1890's? And why, with his humanitarian instincts, did Norris not |
become a Populist? Intriguing questions these, but, aside from a perfunctory re- mark or two, Lowitt does not face them. As an encyclopedia on Norris the book will suffice, but with all this material, and Lowitt's researches are unquestionably ex- haustive, so much more might have been done. Norris' autobiography is a book the reader has trouble putting down; Norris' biography is a book the reader has trouble picking up. EUGENE C. MURDOCK Marietta College PENNSYLVANIA: SEED OF A NA- TION. By Paul A. W. Wallace. Regions of America Series, edited by Carl Car- mer. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962. xii??322p.; maps, bibliography, and index. $6.95.) For the reader who would like to know more about "what is off the turnpike" in our neighboring state of Pennsylvania, there could not be a better book. This is a superb history of Pennsylvania which can serve as a wise introduction to the study of the history of the state, or can he read a chapter at a time as delightful literature. This is true even though the book is not what the title implies. Pennsylvania was certainly not the seedbed of the nation, and it is not a "region" in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather parts of sev- eral regions--the Delaware Valley, Appa- lachia, the Ohio Valley, and so on. But this is a quarrel with the title and not the book. Is Pennsylvania a "sister" state of Ohio, or more properly, a "mother" state? Or both? Whatever the answer, Ohio history as such does not appear often in the pages, although there is an excellent treatment of the origin of the tragic Indian commun- ity at Gnadenhutten. In another sense, however, the book does illuminate a good deal of Ohio history, since the two states have so much in common -- specifically, numbers of "plain people," and a good deal of similarity in economic and indus- trial development. If the book (as opposed to the title) has a flaw, it is that the author overstates the case for the influence of William Penn on |
122 OHIO HISTORY |
the state and nation. Penn, after all, was the result of the same social forces and ideas that produced the United States, and only to a lesser extent the cause. But there is certainly merit in honoring a man who said, "We must give the liberties we ask," and who did exactly that. Wallace excels in relating history to geology. He also is thoroughly familiar with the scholarly literature in the jour- nals, and makes excellent use of it in such a way as must certainly please and reward the authors and editors of such journals, including this journal. Above all, this is an honest book. There is no babbitry in it--always a danger in state and local history. Mr. Wallace does not shrink from referring to the post- Civil War era as "economic feudalism." The labor movement is treated fully and fairly. This reviewer especially enjoyed the chapters on the Tory outlaws of the Revolution, on the underground railway, on transportation, and on logging. And of course what book can help but be richer if Ben Franklin graces its pages? But this volume is luminous not only with the lights of Penn and Franklin, but also with the informed heart of Paul Wallace himself. HUGH G. CLELAND State University of New York at Stony Brook THE MICHIGAN RECORD IN HIGHER EDUCATION. By Willis F. Dunbar. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963. 463p.; illustrations, tables, and in- dex. $9.50.) This book is an important pioneer work in a new dimension of the history of higher education. Part of a series on the history of education in Michigan, it suc- cessfully organizes the scattered informa- tion formerly available only in monographs of widely varying quality devoted to the history of individual colleges and universi- ties. Professor Dunbar's work explains clear- ly the reasons for the early preeminence of the University of Michigan among western universities. He shows how the university profited from the New York model of a state board responsible for all higher edu- |
cation in the state and the requirement that prospective colleges demonstrate evi- dence of financial competence in order to receive a charter, a practice that discour- aged the growth of competing institutions. The wise use of public lands and the for- tunate selection of presidents like Henry P. Tappan and James B. Angell contrib- uted much to the greatness of the uni- versity. The evolution of the Michigan Agricul- tural College into the gigantic rival of the older university is fully described, though the legislative battles that reflected dif- fering philosophies of education in the two institutions are only hinted at in these pages. The story of the denominational colleges, the normal schools, and munici- pal institutions is traced from Kalamazoo's inception in 1836 to the burgeoning of re- gional colleges in the last decade. Although a splendid contribution to an undeveloped area of history, the book has some minor flaws. Closer editing would have produced a leaner style and elim- inated some needless repetition. Especially in the later chapters the author includes too many long lists of names that only result in an imperfect catalog of Michi- gan's educators and their accomplishments. There is some unevenness of treatment. For example, the troubles and triumphs of the medical school and the law school at Ann Arbor are generously portrayed, but the distinction of the dental college is acknowledged and dismissed in one para- graph. Greater use of college newspapers and unpublished primary sources might have enabled the author to explore the is- sues that disturbed academic communities and also the dynamics of student life and thought. In spite of these reservations the book is useful not only as a straightforward ac- count that fills a gap in general knowledge but also, by reference to the Michigan ex- perience, illumines many aspects of the history of higher education elsewhere in the nation. WILLIAM L. FISK Muskingum College |
BOOK REVIEWS 123 |
THE RISE OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN: A STUDY IN AG- RICULTURAL CHANGE, 1820-1920. By Eric E. Lampard. (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963. xii??466p.; bibliography, appendix, and index. $6.00.) This study is actually somewhat broader in scope than the title indicates. In some phases of the dairy industry, developments are mentioned which are as recent as the outbreak of the Second World War. More important, considerable attention is given to phases of agriculture in Wisconsin other than dairying for the purpose of clarifying various reactions and interrelations. Fi- nally, the dairy industry in Wisconsin is not treated as if the state were surrounded by an economic Chinese wall, but is inte- grated fully into the national scene and partially into the international one. The first part of the volume is con- cerned with the settlement of Wisconsin, the pioneer era and its tribulations, and the small-scale development of "domestic" or pre-factory dairying prior to the Civil War. The middle portion is a survey of "the industrial revolution in dairying," by which is meant not only the evolution of the cheese-factory and creamery systems and the growth of the fluid-milk industry, but the impact of these on farm manage- ment and on marketing. The final section is concerned with the problems of the ma- ture dairy economy after about 1890. At one place (pp. 333-335) the author goes to considerable pains to point out that many writers on agricultural history have tended to emphasize the helplessness of the American farmer in the face of the vag- aries of nature and the machinations of eastern capitalists and the dreariness and defeatism of farm life; they echo con- sciously or unconsciously Hamlin Garland and the Populists. He is strongly of the opinion that this picture is really applic- able only to regions of wheat specializa- tion or other forms of monoculture, and that in Wisconsin the dairy farmers were not the victims of their environment but rather were able to maximize its advan- tages and minimize its weaknesses. Even in the area of marketing--to which he devotes much more attention than is com- mon in conventional studies of agricultural history--he shows that the farmers were |
scarcely victimized, and that their com- plaints against the middlemen were at- tributable essentially to lack of under- standing of the complexities and risks in the handling of their produce. The author is an economic historian of repute, but he does not confuse the un- initiated by the use of professional jar- gon, the calculus, or masses of meaning- less statistics. Where it is necessary to make explanations, as for example in con- nection with technical matters like the Babcock test for butterfat, he is careful to be complete, accurate, and non-techni- cal. The author says nothing of importance about the conditions of dairy-farm life, but this is the only omission of much sig- nificance. His book is therefore a well- rounded one which should appeal to all who have an interest in dairying specifi- cally or agriculture generally. ROBERT LESLIE JONES Marietta College OUR COUNTRY. By Josiah Strong. Edited with an introduction by Jurgen Herbst. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963. xxvii??265p.; editor's introduction and index. $4.95.) This modern edition of Our Country comes to us as a volume in Harvard's The John Harvard Series, designed to "make available to the general reader in defini- tive, reasonably priced editions major, book length documents of American cul- tural history which have hitherto been available only in research libraries or . . . in unsatisfactory editions." The series in- cludes books by Ignatius Donnelly, George Fitzhugh, Hamlin Garland, Albion W. Tourgee, Andrew Carnegie, Louisa May Alcott, E. W. Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Gilmore Simms, Frances Wright, and others. The editor of Strong's Our Country, Professor Jurgen Herbst of Wesleyan Un- iversity, provides a fine text as well as a penetrating and interesting introduction. Herbst may take Strong's theology a little too literally and underplay the extent to which Strong was at ease in the social and material world, but in general Herbst is |
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OHIO HISTORY |
very perceptive and a model of what the good editor should be. Josiah Strong's family immigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630 and ultimately moved to Illinois, where Strong was born at Napierville in 1847. Much of his boyhood was spent in Ohio, and in 1869 he graduated from Western Reserve Col- lege (then at Hudson). After studying at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati and serving briefly as a Congregational minister in Wyoming, Strong returned to serve as college chaplain and instructor in theology at Western Reserve. Although he resided during later years in New York as general secretary of the Evangelical Alli- ance for the United States, the larger part of his life was spent in Ohio. In 1886, while serving as the minister for the Cen- tral Congregational Church in Cincinnati, he wrote and published Our Country, which helped to win him a doctorate of divinity from Western Reserve. Strong was first and foremost an evan- gelical Protestant with ties to a wide social and intellectual realm. He brought many themes to the religious reader-- science, progress, the future of America, major social problems, Anglo-Saxon power, the New World mission--and he tied them all to his own religious cause with considerable persuasiveness. Tech- nology and the pace of events had created a new social world and incredible wealth; Anglo-Saxon virtues, the enormous Ameri- can natural resources, and peculiar relig- ious and moral virtue made the United States the future fulcrum of world affairs; and the mission of America was to bring evangelical Protestantism and affluence to the whole human race. The United States was to play the crucial role, and the city and the West provided the keys to Amer- ica; citizens should waste no time in ex- ploiting the never to be repeated Protes- tant opportunities in the crucial areas. The reader now can begin to see why Our Country made
Strong one of the most influential men of his age. He was an expert broker in ideas to a large segment of the native American middle class, a man who related many new ideas and trends to the old psychological needs of the Protestant "Establishment." Moreover, he established precisely the proper tone in |
juggling caution, confidence, and social "dangers." Strong denounced the "malice" of Catholics, Mormons, rationalists, un- churched westerners, and immigrants, but he was not afraid and certainly not pessi- mistic about the future. If he insisted on the threat of foreign "hordes," he thought they could be "civilized." While he was clearly nationalist and imperialist, others were more aggressively and xenophobically so. Strong reconciled positions and built bridges to various parts of his intellectual constituency; and after facing the fash- ionable fears he assured his readers that all would go well. The modern reader in an age tending toward complexity, authen- tic pluralism, and a measure of self-doubt may marvel at the confidence and self- assured righteousness in this spokesman of rural and small town middle-class Protestants of only seventy-six years ago. CHARLES CROWE Western Reserve University THE JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANS IN POWER: PARTY OPERATIONS, 1801-1809. By Noble E. Cunningham. (Chapel Hill: University of North Car- olina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1963. ix ?? 318p.; bibliography and index. $7.50.) Professor Cunningham's new volume is a continuation of his 1957 study, The Jeff- ersonion Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization, 1789-1801, in which he traced the rise of the Republican party to the election of Jefferson in 1800. With equal skill, clarity, and constant quotation from the pertinent correspondence, he re- veals the new party's structure and growth, and how it entrenched itself in power. His twelve chapters deal successively with the patronage, the search for com- petent party leaders, the party machine, party battles, the part the press played in influencing politics, and electioneering techniques in each state. The three middle chapters are devoted to the establishment and functioning of the party machinery in New England, the Middle States, and the South and West, respectively. In the Deep South and West it was little groups |
BOOK REVIEWS 125 |
of influential leaders who did the nomin- ating and influenced the elections. Such groups, of course, included the successful candidates. In Ohio, county, township, and local "societies" endorsed candidates. Strong Federalist opposition in this state, as in New England, was the stimulus for Republican organization and propaganda. Drawn entirely from original sources, the book is an excellent picture of how Jefferson manipulated the patronage of the party he had founded, gave it a na- tional organization, and, through the party press and personnel, established it in power for a forty-year run. He retired to Monticello certain that the future of his country was assured and its control safely lodged in the hands of a patriot-president, James Madison, and a people's party. ALFRED B. SEARS University of Oklahoma VOICES IN THE VALLEY: MYTH- MAKING AND FOLK BELIEF IN THE SHAPING OF THE MIDDLE WEST. By Frank R. Kramer. (Madi- son: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. xvii??300p.; illustrations, bibliog- raphy, and index. $5.00.) Professor Kramer's subtitle -- "Myth- making and Folk Belief in the Shaping of the Middle West"--indicates that his "val- ley" is the American interior and his "voices" are composite and metaphorical. They are not the words of spokesmen and leaders, but the shared hopes, faiths, and aspirations of a people. "We are concerned with the same basic needs as men have had for many thousands of years . . . and our conception of reality, our mental environ- ment, despite the revolutionary impact of science and mass education, is still shaped and fitted as it was in primitive, classical and medieval times by the folk logic." To put it more briefly, this book shows how a people's beliefs affect their actions. Mr. Kramer is thus involved in a com- plex of history, anthropology, sociology, and social psychology, with some simple geography and folklore thrown in. His compressed and pithy chapters span a spacious history. They follow folk migra- tions from the rocky valleys of Vermont to the Iowa prairies, and they trace a suc- cession of folk beliefs from Huron forest |
superstition to the creed of a Detroit industrialist. Through four centuries and across three meridians they pursue a per- sistent and evolving folk logic. In his portrayal of midwestern society Mr. Kramer focuses upon a sequence of institutions. He pictures the self-contained Pennsylvania farm, the frenzied camp meeting in Kentucky, the county fair in Illinois, a Grange meeting in Iowa, a labor meeting in Cleveland in the pivotal year 1886, and Henry Ford's Highland Park assembly line in 1914. In each of these establishments is shown a yeasty folk belief which leavens the encompassing society. Between these institutions Mr. Kramer finds certain kinships, as when he shows farm-born Henry Ford shaping a new myth in the assembly line. "The Engi- neer's ideas had been born on a Michigan farm; they had grown up in the myth of valley and prairie--the myth that ma- chines were 'hired hands' to lighten the work, that they were created to increase the yield, and the market, that they were the natural fulfillment of the promise of the homestead. But the articles of this myth had been transformed one by one from the vignette of the farm to the panorama of the factory. . . . The home- stead had been incorporated." Mr. Kramer's short book tells a long, eventful story. It is both learned and intuitive. For me its interpretive scenes-- camp meeting, fairground, factory--are more effective than its discussions of real- ity, power, and myth; too often its exposi- tion becomes a fabric of quotation weighed down by the terminology of the behavioral sciences. At its best it offers a richness of metaphor, analogy, and paradox. It per- suades a reader to see folk "logic" as a determining force, a groundswell under- neath all history. An evolving folklore could be traced, in other patterns, in other regions; but Mr. Kramer has chosen the most Ameri- can, and so perhaps the most significant, of backgrounds. It was the Midwest that produced the homestead and the assembly line, the Granger movement and the American Federation of Labor. WALTER HAVIGHURST Miami University |
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BOOK REVIEWS |
FREEDOM'S FORUM: THE CITY CLUB, 1912-1962. By Thomas F. Camp- bell. (Cleveland: The City Club, 1963. 128p.; frontispiece and index. $3.50.) The occasion for this book was the cele- bration of the golden anniversary of the City Club of Cleveland in 1962. The phrase "Freedom's Forum," incorporated in the title, underscores the spirit and purpose of the club. Its dedicated adherence to free speech has been the key to its vigorous life and survival. It was founded during the progressive era, when city clubs sprang up throughout the country in re- sponse to an awakened civic conscience which aroused Americans to action along many fronts in that period. The list of founding members is a roster of the young men who were in the forefront of reform in Cleveland in 1912--adherents of the progressive Wilsonian wing of the Demo- cratic party, led by Mayor Newton D. Baker, and the partisans of Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose party. But the club's membership was not confined to those actively engaged in reform; it spread to attorneys, stockbrokers, doctors, clergy- men, and college professors, who were eager for enlightenment on the political and social issues of the day. At the outset the founding fathers set the policy of "in- formation, not reformation" and of giv- ing a hearing to minority points of view. In this slim volume Thomas F. Camp- bell, who is a Clevelander by adoption and currently an instructor at Ohio State Uni- versity, has sketched the themes and major episodes in the club's many forum activi- ties, for which it is best known to the public. He has aired the dissensions that arose over freedom of speech during the Red hysteria of the post-World War I years, dramatized by the invitation in 1923 |
to Eugene V. Debs to speak. Although the episode caused forty-seven members to resign, it established the club's reputa- tion as a forum for free speech. Perhaps because of this early test of the strength of its convictions, the club weathered the McCarthy period of the 1950's without vio- lating its ideals or dividing its ranks. Also here are the history of the Anvil Revue, which yearly lampoons prominent men (particularly the "stuffed shirts" among them), and an account of the founding and activities of the celebrated luncheon "tables," including the Soviet Table (named as a joke when a florist sent a centerpiece of red roses and a wit quipped, "At last you have shown your true colors -- the Soviet Table"). In a separate section are brief biographies of twenty-four members who have been leading figures in the club, as well as "movers and shakers" in the community, and a list of the club's officers since its founding. The author has shown praiseworthy re- straint in selecting the material for a book of this kind and has produced a his- tory which is a model of brevity. LANDON WARNER Kenyon College HORACE MANN AND OTHERS: CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF ANTIOCH COLLEGE. By Robert Lincoln Straker. With a preface and an introduction to the Antiochiana Col- lection in the Olive Kettering Library by Louis Filler. (Yellow Springs, Ohio: Antioch Press, 1963. 106p.; illustrations. $3.00.) In his preface to this little volume, Pro- fessor Louis Filler pays tribute to the late Robert Lincoln Straker--editor, textbook |