Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

 

And Then the Storm. By Sister M. Monica. (New York, Long-

mans, Green & Co., 1937. 231p. $2.50.)

Few foreigners have been privileged to study Spain from

so many and widely different viewpoints as the author of And

Then the Storm, and little escaped her discerning and com-

passionate eyes. Chaperoned by the two charming sisters of

Don Juan de Cardenas, the then Spanish ambassador at Wash-

ington, Sister Monica had intimate contact with the old aristoc-

racy, and found the Spanish women "kind, elegant, spiritual-

minded and alert."  The wife of our ambassador, Mrs. Irwin

Loughlin, was another of the good angels, who befriended the

writer through the first difficult weeks of adjustment in a strange

country. The historical researches were capably guided by the

distinguished scholar, Don Miguel Marques del Saltillo, and the

equally eminent historian, Doctor Palencia, who recognized in

the American nun a kindred spirit. Sister Monica spent many

hours poring over the ancient documents in the National Archives

of Madrid, and the famous Archives of the Indies at Seville.

However, the keen-witted nun was never too wrapped in the dim

past that she failed to observe the momentous happenings of the

present. Even in 1932, she caught something sinister in the

Spanish capital at Madrid. Most of the powerful aristocrats

had fled the city at the advent of the Radical Republic taking

with them as much of their fortunes as they could salvage. It

did not escape the notice of Sister Monica that while the graft-

ing Republic stripped the nobility, it was not the poor who profited

by the confiscation, although it was being done in their name.

The author liked better the tortuous streets of Seville. Its tradi-

tion and people had a strong fascination for her. The convent

where she lodged sheltered a constant throng of servant girls

and working women. The kindly Religious gathered in the little

waifs from the byways, fed, clothed, and instructed them. There

was a small group of gentle-women living at the convent en

pension. Listening to their conversation as they sat around a

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BOOK REVIEWS                    261

 

"brasero," which "tempered the room softly and warmed the toes

and knees of the gray-haired ladies, her fast friends," Sister

Monica had added opportunity to study the Spanish people as a

race. Day by day she witnessed the events that led to the final

revolt of the Nation against the Soviet-controlled Government at

Valencia. But the Spanish Nation is proud and stubborn. It

will never submit to be ruled from the Kremlin in Moscow.

Once she has conquered the Communists the new Spain will

realize the exalted ambition of General Franco, its national hero,

and Gil Robles, the deposed leader of the Right: "To guarantee

liberty and organization for labor; to get rid of the Socialistic

concept of property, and substitute the Christian concept instead,

of a small landowner, guaranteed in possession of his property.

For social justice will come, not by expropriation and violence

but by scientific studying of resources and economic possibilities."

Sister Monica writes in the delightful manner of a woman who

has traveled in many lands and observed much, so that her com-

ments and conclusions, told with pungent humor and tolerance,

merit attention and thought.

 

ANNA SHANNON McALLISTER

 

 

The Ohio Gateway. By D. E. Crouse. (New York, Charles

Scribner's Sons, 1938. xiii, ¹⁴⁶p. illus. Cloth, $3.00.)

It is a concern of many persons connected with the educa-

tional professions that most of the effective methods for trans-

mitting ideas are being usurped by purely recreational institutions

in society. At the present time much lost ground is being made

up by educators of one sort or another in adapting the newer

technics to their work. One phase of this process is represented

by those individuals who have attempted to change the book-

making industry to meet modern competition. The essence of

this movement is popularization. The Ohio Gateway by D. E.

Crouse will be longest remembered as an experiment in book

popularization. As such an experiment it has much in common

with the first of the Gold Seal Books--The United States: A

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262    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Graphic History by Louis M. Hacker, Rudolf Modley and George

R. Taylor.

Like the Gold Seal Book, The Ohio Gateway can be used

either by examining the plates in sequence or by reading the text.

Paper and type-face have been selected to please the reader's eye

and the style has been selected to capture the reader's imagination.

The Ohio Gateway goes beyond the scope of the Gold Seal Book

in revealing the possibilities of applying this type of graphic

presentation of history to a smaller political division than the

Nation.

As has been intimated, one must not judge The Ohio Gate-

way merely as a history of the state of Ohio. As a history it is

a victim of generalization and over-simplification, characteristics

often found in this type of book.

One would not expect careful documentation or original re-

search in a volume of the general character of The Ohio Gate-

way. The author used only secondary sources according to his

Bibliography but he evidently made a fairly good selection of the

important works on Ohio Valley history. He must have wished

for a larger selection of books on the effects of transportation

and immigration on the history of the region. These fields,

emphasized by Mr. Crouse, have never been adequately examined

by historians. There are, however, several conspicuous absentees

from the Bibliography, among them Beverly W. Bond's Civiliza-

tion of the Old Northwest, Randolph C. Downes' Frontier Ohio,

Jacob Burnet's Notes on the Early Settlement of the Northwest

Territory, and The American Pioneer. Robert E. Chaddock's

Ohio before 1850, a Study of the Early Influence of Pennsylvania

and Southern Populations in Ohio, and Rufus King's Ohio, First

Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787, would have been of assistance

to the author. The printed Bibliography apparently does not

include all of the author's sources. The Cleveland Herald is

quoted on page 107 and The Scioto Gazette is quoted on pages

125 and 135, but neither is listed in the Bibliography.

In some cases the author has allowed his similes and meta-

phors to get out of hand as in the first statement in the book

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BOOK REVIEWS                     263

 

(p. xi) "The angry tantrum of Nature that raised the area now

representing Ohio from its lowly position as a hole in the bot-

tom of the sea to its present altitude also thrust upward count-

less peaks of vertical rock strata . . . "--somewhat fantastic to

say nothing of the geological inaccuracies. The following speci-

men is found on page twenty-three: "When Nature, in a playful

mood for change, used the gigantic glacial eraser to wipe out the

existing watersheds of the northwestern Appalachian slope . . ."

and on page 138, the last statement in the book is typical: "The

miniature pedestrian stream, that trickled through the mountain

crevices as pioneers, has swollen into a mighty torrent of high-

way, railroad and air traffic that finds--even with the skyway--

that the mountain, lake and river sentinels, which Nature placed

to designate the best route toward the setting sun, maintain the

prestige of the Ohio Country as the Gateway of the West."

The author did not intend the book to be a history of the

state but merely "a graphic presentation of the story of how and

why the great-grandfathers of the present Midwest came to the

northwest wilderness." The volume is not a final answer to the

"how" and the "why"--such an answer probably will never be

written. The book does succeed, however, with the "graphic

presentation" of its story and as such it will be a valuable lesson

to those persons interested in popularizing history. The volume

can be recommended for study to teachers of history and for

reading to persons who want to learn the story of Ohio's history

"painlessly."

K. W. McK.

 

The Life of Blackstone. By Lewis C. Warden. (Charlottesville,

Va., Michie Co., 1938. 451p. illus. $5.00.)

Warden, the first biographer of William  Blackstone, has

made a significant contribution to the understanding of one of

England's greatest legal minds. It has been the author's task

to sketch the life and analyze the character and writings of a

genius who, although influencing the legal profession in Europe

and America, effecting the interpretation of constitutional issues

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264    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and revolutionizing the teaching of the law, has heretofore been

neglected by historians.  William  Blackstone, the posthumous

son of Charles Blackstone, was born in Cheapside in 1723. He

attended Charter House, where he distinguished himself in litera-

ture and poetry, obtaining the Benson prize medal for verses on

Milton, and later, at the age of fifteen, entered Pembroke Col-

lege, Oxford. Abandoning the study of literature and architecture,

studies for which he displayed an unusual aptitude, Blackstone

turned to the study of the law, registering in the Middle Temple

as a law student in 1741. Five years of law at All Souls' fol-

lowed, after which he received his degree of Bachelor of Civil

Laws (1745). A year later he was called to the bar. During the

years immediately following his graduation Blackstone, not encum-

bered with clients, continued his studies at Oxford, eventually re-

ceiving the Degree of Doctor of Civil Laws, served as bursar of

laws in All Souls', during which time he was responsible for the

completion of the Quadrangle of Codrington Library, as steward

of the College Manors, as common law assessor, as assessor in the

university vice-chancellor's court, and as bursar of arts. At the

bar, after seven years' practice, his prospects were so indifferent

that he returned to Oxford on his fellowship, which, granted

in 1744, he had not relinquished.

The turning point in his career came in 1753 when, after

being denied the privilege of filling the chair of Civil Law at

Oxford, he proposed and was occasioned the privilege of reading

a series of lectures on the common law, which, at this period,

was in its formative stage. Six years later, Blackstone, having

fallen heir to the generosity of Charles Viner, was unanimously

elected the first Vinerian professor of the English common law,

a position which he held until 1766 when he abandoned teaching

and returned in triumph to the scenes of his earlier reverses to

resume the practice of the law. In 1761 he was granted Letters

Patent of Precedence which gave him the rank of king's council;

in the same year he was appointed principal of the New Inn Hall,

and in 1763 was made solicitor-general to the queen. Although

not especially interested in politics Blackstone was elected re-

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BOOK REVIEWS                     265

 

corder of the Borough of Wallingford, a position which he held

for twenty-one years, served in Parliament for the Borough of

Hindon (1762-68) and afterwards for Westbury (1768-70). In

1770 Blackstone, after having refused the post of solicitorship to

the king, accepted the appointment as judge of the court of com-

mon pleas, received the honor of knighthood, and ended his career

on the bench.

The author, not eschewing the "psychological" school of

biographies, attempts to explain Blackstone's backwardness, oc-

casional period of melancholia, and aversion to publicity, either

to something inherent in his nature, or to a spirit of defeatism

occasioned by his early reverses as an attorney at law in London,

or to an unfortunate love affair which caused the future com-

mentator to revert temporarily to the "muses."   It is indeed

gratifying to learn that Blackstone's unfortunate love affair did

not completely shatter his faith in womankind, that he married

Sarah Clitherow, after an anxious but proper courtship, that she

bore him eight children, who, although not unwelcome, had a

tendency to disturb the tranquility of the orderly household which

he had established. The author also gives intimate glimpses of

Blackstone as a serious student, as an exacting professor, as a

writer, as a husband and father, as an idealist, and as a country

gentleman at Castle Priory, an estate which he purchased in 1753.

It is interesting also, to note the diversity of Blackstone's in-

terests. He served as a delegate to the Clarendon Press, as a mem-

ber of the Antiquarian Society, interested himself in architec-

ture and the rebuilding of St. Peter's Church in Wallingford

which had been practically demolished during the Cromwellian

Wars, promoted the construction of turnpikes and later, as a

judge of the court of common pleas, concerned himself with

road-mapping, prison reform, and an "augmentation of judges'

salaries."

Perhaps the most interesting years of Blackstone's life, how-

ever, are those associated with his writings. Of his works the

best known are the Commentaries, the writing of which covered

a period of fifteen years. The Commentaries, based on Black-

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266    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

stone's carefully prepared Oxford lectures, offered a popular

exposition of the laws of England. This work, containing in-

accuracies, irreconcilable contraditions and evidence of plagia-

rism, was first published in four volumes (1765-69). Since no

clear statement of the English common law had heretofore been

compiled and published, the Commentaries became an immediate

success not only in England, but also in France, Germany, and

America. The author, in a chapter devoted to an analysis of the

Commentaries, which, in some instances appears to be a com-

pilation of evidence rather than a digested evaluation of the work,

points out that Blackstone represented the conservative constitu-

tional school, that he displayed a pronounced aversion to reform,

and that he definitely erred in his analysis of the English separa-

tion of powers. Other of Blackstone's writing, including such

titles as an "Essay on Collateral Consanguinity" (1750), "A

Treatise on the Law of Descents in Fee Simple" (1759), and the

"Law Tracts" (1762), gives a better impression of Blackstone

as a serious student. The "Essay on Collateral Consanguinity,"

written during his student days, was designed to defeat the claims

of people, who were related to the founders of All Souls', to

fellowships. Of the many legal controversies in which Black-

stone participated perhaps the most interesting and yet the most

damaging to his position and reputation as an authority on legal

matters was the famous Wilke's Case. Warden, after sketching

this controversial case, concludes that Blackstone, contrary to

contemporary Whig opinion, was not entirely inconsistent, in the

light of present evidence, in reversing his position as stated in

the Commentaries and maintaining in Parliament that a legisla-

tive body may exclude a member for a sufficient reason on a vote

of pro re nata.

As stated earlier, the author has made a significant contribu-

tion to the understanding of one of England's greatest legal minds.

Aside from a slight tendency toward hero worship, the author's

treatment is fair and impartial. While the narrative flows

smoothly and the style is for the most part good, the reviewer

feels that such words and phrases as "legal hatchery" (p. 52),

"Dame Law" (p. 43), "wet blanket" (p. 39), "failed to click"

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BOOK REVIEWS                        267

 

(p. 68), "running in the red" (p. 110), "batting for Oxford"

(p. 136), have no place in a biography written either in a popular

or serious style.  Then, too, the use of the personal pronoun

"I" in formal writing (pp. 42, 200; 13 times in 16 lines on pp. 232,

247, 249) is annoying. Several errors, particularly in reproduc-

ing quotations have been noted (pp. 266, 275, 276, 309, 317, 318,

323, 339, 387, 390). It is to be regretted that the first biographer

of Blackstone did not see the necessity of using more extensive

footnote items. Certainly such statements as "Blackstone's heart

jumped into his mouth" (p. 140) cannot stand without a proper

citation to the source of information.   The bibliography, unor-

thodox and incomplete, is neither classified nor critical.    The

volume is attractively bound, well-printed, contains four illustra-

tions, a list of works and a chronological table of Sir William

Blackstone, and an index.                             J. 0. M.

 

 

R. F. D. By Charles Allen Smart. (New York, W. W. Norton

& Co., 1938. 314p. $2.50.)

Of all the delightful pastoral literature which we are heir to,

Charles Allen Smart's R. F. D. leads the parade. This is true

because he has given expression to those thoughts, moods and

enthusiasms which are the gratifying rewards of all true farmers

of the soil--feelings which the majority of us have difficulty in

describing. His writing reveals sincerity and a genuine love for

the bucolic life, born of actual experience. And this is the more

remarkable in that he was not farm-raised, but a graft, having

been city-bred, with a number of years spent as editor, teacher

and novelist, taking up life on a farm with misgivings, only after

inheriting one near Chillicothe, Ohio.

This book is not an idyllic idolon, pleasing to the fancy

merely, and lacking in reality. Witness:

That first year, only one of my ewes had trouble. You are supposed

to wait half an hour before helping. I waited three-quarters, disinfected

myself, remembered the pictures in my book, and finished the process and

the pain. This lamb became the biggest of all.... I was quite alone with

these sheep in the middle of a cold, raw night, with one flashlight. Along

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268    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

with moments of writing, my first trick alone at the wheel of a ship, my

first class as a teacher, and a few others, that simple little act was one of

the major excitements of my life so far.

This and many such opportunities for grappling with funda-

mental things, reveal the farmer as living every moment of every

day for all that life has to offer. Smart has written a vital story

of people and nature, exhibiting them through the sensitive lens

of understanding, in all their humor and pathos. Perhaps there

are some readers who will feel that certain experiences and

incidents of farm life are outside the bounds of propriety to de-

scribe or mention, even in a review of the book describing them.

Yet one of the best bits of humor in the book concerns the

author's first experience in the breeding of cattle. He does this

in such a clean and straight-forward manner that it would be

prudish to find objection to it. However, should there be yet a

few who find such matters improper, though their Sunday's

roast beef depend upon it, the book should not be cast aside un-

read, for the author has much of value to say on such a variety of

things.

To this reviewer, the author's social views are very significant.

He believes the wider adoption of cooperative enterprise will

"force reconsideration of the profit motive, the profit system, and

all the rest," without stigmatizing its practitioners as communists.

A new direction must be followed if some of the evils which have

gained footing in American civilization are to be choked out.

Production for use, rather than profit; service, rather than ex-

ploitation; cooperation, rather than competition--these are the

challenging ideals, and more than that--they have been tested and

found workable. For the farmer the Farm Bureau is leading the

way; for others the consumers' cooperatives, dealing through pro-

ducer cooperatives, can prove advantageous to all concerned.

The volume closes with a chapter on reflections, the last of

which is on death, and because of the poetic beauty of his con-

ception, his third from the last paragraph is quoted here.

It is not hard, here [on the farm], to keep calm, and look at this

thing [death], long enough to see the whole of life on this planet as the

flowering of a little garden, the checkered and sanguinary flourishing of a

little farm, in one brief spring, summer, and autumn, between two winters,

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BOOK REVIEWS                      269

 

the first without beginning and the second without end. It is not hard to

see it all as a little accident, a brief improvisation, a folk song between

silences, but as more than enough to send the chance listener in happy awe

through the rest of his life to his grave.

C. L. W.

 

 

 

Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century.  By

Arthur Cecil Bining. Publications of the Pennsylvania His-

torical Commission, IV. (Harrisburg, 1938. 227p. illus.,

maps.)

This monograph, the result of extensive and painstaking re-

search, treats of one phase of eighteenth century American indus-

trial life. After sketching the beginning of iron manufacturing

in New England, the author discusses the establishment of iron

plantations in Pennsylvania, plantation management, which, in

some respects, presented problems comparable to those of a cotton

plantation in the old South, the development and expansion of the

industry into the Schuylkill, Delaware, and Susquehanna Valleys,

the Juniata region, and over the Alleghenies. Other chapters deal

with the technique of iron manufacturing, improvements, and in-

vention. The author also discussed such topics as the working

and living conditions of both the employer and employees, the rate

of wages, price of commodities, the problems of obtaining a

sufficient labor supply during the intercolonial wars, the contribu-

tion made by the German and Irish immigrants to the successful

operation of the plants, the volume of export trade to England

during the pre-Revolutionary period, the struggle between the

English and American ironmasters for control of the iron market,

and the services rendered by the iron manufacturers in producing

armaments to be used by the patriots in their struggle for inde-

pendence.

This little study is a valuable contribution to the understand-

ing of one of America's leading industries. It is to be regretted

that the author limited his investigations to the eighteenth cen-

tury, and it is to be hoped that this beginning will lead the way

to a comprehensive study of the iron industry in America. The

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270    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

lengthy classified bibliography and extensive footnote citations

evidence the author's wide search for materials. The placing of

the footnote items at the end of each chapter, however, is incon-

venient for those readers wishing to follow both notes and text.

A short appendix, listing the date of establishment, name, loca-

tion and founder of eighteenth century Pennsylvania furnaces as

well as a table giving the production in tons of representative

furnaces, adds to the understanding and utility of the text. The

volume is well-printed, contains illustrations, maps, and a useful

index.

J. O. M.

 

 

The Founding of American Civilization--The Middle Colonies

By Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker. (New York, Charles

Scribner's Sons, 1938. 367p. illus. $3.00.)

Because of the variety of Pennsylvania's contribution to the

making of Ohio civilization, anyone interested in Ohio history

will be interested in Dr. Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker's recent

contribution to the literature of American history entitled The

Fouunding of American Civilization--the Middle Colonies. This

illustrated book of 367 pages presents the cultural history of these

colonies, tracing the evolution of American civilization for a cen-

tury and a half as it sprang from the English, Dutch, German,

French Huguenot, and Swedish cultures planted in New York,

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The author has pre-

sented his material with a new emphasis. Political history has been

touched only lightly because, as the author says, so much emphasis

has already been placed upon it. The accompanying photographs,

maps, drawings, and copies of old documents add to the value and

attractiveness of the book. It is planned to trace the founding

of civilization in the New England and Southern Colonies in later

volumes.

H. L.

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BOOK REVIEWS                    271

 

A Check List of Manuscripts in the Edward E. Ayer Collection

[The Newberry Library]. Compiled by Ruth Lapham Butler.

(Chicago, Newberry Library, 1938. 295p. $5.00.)

About fifty years ago Edward E. Ayer began to collect a

library with the idea of specializing in the archaeology and

ethnology of the American Indian. His plans grew and he in-

cluded many phases of exploration, colonial and frontier history,

pre-Columbian geography, and the development of the cartography

of America and later American expansion.

In an edition of 500 copies, this list has been issued to ac-

quaint a greater number of students with this material. The col-

lection is classified under the subject headings of North America,

Spanish America, Philippine Islands, Hawaiian Islands, Indian

Languages, Philippine Languages and Hawaiian Languages, and

a very comprehensive index of seventy-two pages referring to

item numbers increases its value. The Newberry Library has

rendered a real service to students of American history by mak-

ing possible for them to learn of the manuscript resources of the

collection, known previously to a comparatively small group of

specialists.

H. L.

 

 

Jacob Piatt Dunn; His Miami Language Studies and Indiana

Manuscript Collection. By Caroline Dunn.  (Indianapolis,

Indiana Historical Society, 1937.)

The Indiana Historical Society has begun the publication of a

Prehistory Research Series consisting of occasional publications

upon American anthropology, archaeology and allied subjects. The

second number of this series was issued December, 1937, and is

entitled Jacob Piatt Dunn; His Miami Language Studies and

Indiana Manuscript Collection. It was prepared by Dunn's daugh-

ter, Miss Caroline Dunn, a member of the staff of the Indiana

State Library. Dunn was a lifelong student of Indiana and

Indiana history and was recording secretary of the Indiana His-

torical Society from  1886 to 1924. This booklet of fifty-nine

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272    OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

pages gives a sketch of Dunn's life and enumerates his many con-

tributions to history. It also includes a list of his manuscript

Indiana material which is now in the Indiana State Library, and

a bibliography of his published works.

H. L.

 

 

Children of Light in Honor of Rufus M. Jones. Edited by

Howard H. Brinton. (New York, Macmillan Co., 1938. xii,

416p. $3.50.)

This book was published in honor of Rufus M. Jones the

great Quaker historian and philosopher on the occasion of his

seventy-fifth birthday. It is a record of the history, thought and

achievements of Friends here and abroad. The book contains

fifteen chapters, with a list of the books of Dr. Jones and an

index. Each chapter has been written by students of Quaker

history, four chapters being written by English writers and eleven

chapters by American writers. The book opens with a sonnet to

Rufus M. Jones by T. Edmund Harvey, a member of the British

Parliament. Two chapters have to do with Quakerism in the Ohio

Valley. One of them is entitled, "The Quaker Contribution to

the Old Northwest," by Harlow Lindley and the other, "Timothy

Nicholson, Candle of the Lord," by Walter C. Woodward.

 

 

The Story of Ohio. By William Harvey Van Fossen. (New

York, Macmillan Co., 1937. 250p. illus.)

A review of this book was published in the February, 1937,

issue of Museum Echoes.

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