Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning.

By John W. Reps. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

xii+827p.; maps, illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, index.

$75.00.)

 

 

For John Reps the West begins in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys

(including the Great Lakes) and reaches to the Pacific. It, or parts of

it, existed as a frontier as early as the sixteenth century and as late as

the 1880s (in Oklahoma). This definition of the region, of course,

rests not on physiographic but on what one might call cultural grounds.

For Reps, the story of urban planning in the West is also a story of

urban growth conceived as a process by which planned urban com-

munities spearheaded the settlement of the western periphery and

finally in the middle and latter nineteenth century penetrated its in-

terior. By 1890, moreover, the era of the urban frontier had ended,

and the urban West essentially looked and behaved like the urban East,

creating an urban-rural division as a major fault-line in American

social, political, and cultural life. On the whole, Reps thinks the plan-

ning was shoddy and that we have not improved much on it since 1890,

leaving for Americans in the latter twentieth century "a new frontier

in urban development whose challenge is not to found new towns in a

wilderness but to replan those that exist in forms and patterns worthy

of man as he approaches the twenty-first century" (p. 694).

That, I think, accurately summarizes the organization, argument,

and moral of this book, and places it in an interpretive tradition

familiar to readers of the work of Carl Bridenbaugh. Blake McKelvey,

and Richard C. Wade. This volume differs from their work, however,

in its concentration on plans, in the variety of planners with which it

deals, and in the amount of illustrative materials it reproduces. The

plans, according to Reps, were astonishingly uniform, although the

planners, sites, and types of places planned for were not, for his dis-

cussion covers pueblos, presidios, villas, speculative towns, communal

utopias, mining camps and towns, railroad towns, river towns, cow-

towns, desert towns, mountain towns, plains towns, instant cities,

cities of Zion, cities of the Saints, and the overnight cities of Oklahoma.

And the book is packed with illustrations (more than one on each page

of text), including maps, sketches, and photographic views in black

and white and in color. It is, in addition, liberally footnoted, embellished

with a bibliography on both the literature and the illustrations, and

comes boxed in a handsome slip-case bearing on its front a view (draw-

ing) of Leadville, Colorado, and on its back a birds-eye view (also a

drawing) of San Francisco, both of which are dated 1878.

Cities of the American West, in short, is an impressive piece of book-

making. Conceived, Reps tells us, by Mitchell A. Wilder, Director of the

Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in Fort Worth, Texas, it took

eight years to research and write. The prose is clear, heavily descrip-

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244                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

tive, spiced with descriptive quotations from past observers of western

towns and cities, and the interpretation is forthrightly stated in the

introduction and explicated briefly in the conclusion. This volume

stands, moreover, as another example of the burgeoning recent interest

in the urban West and the role and nature of sunbelt cities. It will be of

interest to both amateur and professional historians, as well as to

planners, geographers, cartographers, western buffs, lovers of cities,

books, old maps, drawings, and photographs, and to students of latter

twentieth century American civilization.

 

University of Cincinnati                          Zane L. Miller

 

 

A Russian Looks at America: The Journey of Aleksandr Borisovich

Lakier in 1857. Translated from the Russian and edited by Arnold

Schrier and Joyce Story. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1979. xli+272p.; illustrations, notes, index. $15.95.)

 

This represents something of a find. A host of mid-nineteenth cen-

tury British and European travellers recorded their impressions of the

United States, but Aleksandr Lakier seems to have been the only

Russian to have done so. His observations, however, were confined to

his native language and apparently had no impact on American studies.

Now discovered, translated, condensed and unobtrusively edited by

Arnold Schrier and Joyce Story of the University of Cincinnati, they

are at last available in a useful and attractive volume.

Despite his exotic provenance, Lakier adds little to the impressions

left by better-known European travellers such as Harriet Martineau

or Alexis de Tocqueville, but he does reenforce their general conclu-

sions: Americans chewed too much tobacco, were obsessed with money-

making, and were characterized by self-reliance and equalitarianism.

It is said that nineteenth-century Americans used to pester every

foreign visitor with the same question: "What do you think of our in-

stitutions?" They must have been pleased with Lakier's response, for

he seems to have been captivated by almost everything he found here

and indulgently made excuses for American shortcomings (except for

slavery, "the true ulcer of America"). "One may not love certain par-

ticulars in America," he concluded, "but one cannot help loving America

as a whole or being amazed at what it has that Europe cannot measure

up to-a people who know how to govern themselves and institutions

that, unaided, give a person as much happiness and well-being as he can

accomodate."

Coming from the slothful, bureaucratic society of Tsarist Russia,

Lakier was delighted with American bustle-"one feels oneself among

a commercial and enterprising people that knows no fatigue and needs

no rest"-and was puzzled by the absence of visible social distinctions:

"where are the common people? Where are the rich and powerful .. .?"

he wondered. He was amazed to be able to wander about without a

pass and to enter, without prior permission, all public buildings (in-

cluding the White House, which he thought barely "sufficient for a

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Book Reviews                                                245

 

private family"). He was particularly struck by "the fantastic freedom

of women.... If there is any kind of aristocracy in America it con-

sists exclusively of ladies.... "

Lakier's travels took him to Ohio. He had heard much of Cincinnati

as "a model of the true American western city" and he eagerly an-

ticipated visiting that "realm of pure equality." With such high ex-

pectations he was bound to be disappointed to find it a bustling,

smoky city much like Pittsburgh, distinguished chiefly by its unusual

number of pigs and Germans. Lakier dutifully admired all of the

Queen City's sights and even tried to find something polite to say

about Ohio Catawba wine, but the marvel which made the greatest

impression was the new-fangled steam-powered water pump developed

to fight Cincinnati fires.

In Cincinnati Lakier discovered the optimistic Westerner for whom

all things were new and nothing was impossible. Yet, in this same

self-confident spirit Lakier discerned a subtle danger. "Nowhere per-

haps are people generally so well and widely informed about what is

new and current than in the United States, but the past, which pro-

vides no direct and essential benefit, seems to be of no concern to

them. There will come a time," he predicted, "when even for a young

nation the past will be important and they will turn to their history...."

He would surely be pleased to know that that day has arrived and

that his charming, unpretentious narrative can finally be read by the

people he so admired.

 

Cleveland State University                          Allan Peskin

 

Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the

Civil War Era. By Herman Belz. (New York: W. W. Norton & Com-

pany, 1978. xviii+171p.; notes, bibliographical review, index. $10.95

cloth, $3.95 paper.)

 

In this contribution to the impressive Norton Essays in American

History series, University of Maryland History Professor Herman Belz

offers an incisive assessment of how Americans' commitment to con-

stitutional government affected the effort to secure basic rights to

black Americans after the Civil War, and how in turn their commitment

to securing those rights altered the constitutional system. Republicans,

who enacted the post-war civil rights legislation, were committed to

maintaining the federal system, Belz writes, and they tried to protect

ex-slaves' rights within its framework. The import of their legislation

was to leave the obligation for protecting persons with the states, where

it had always lain, but to give the national government a superintending

power to make certain that such protection was available equally to

persons of all races. That included power to intervene if states failed

to offer protection, Belz concludes, as well as the power traditionally

conceded by lawyers and historians to remedy outright legal dis-

crimination.

The determination to guarantee citizens' rights in this way developed

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246                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

slowly and in response to specific circumstances, Belz finds. Therefore

he generally eschews the effort to determine exactly what constitu-

tional enactments meant at a particular time in favor of a description

of how progressively more expansive interpretations germinated in the

hot-house of Civil War and Reconstruction conflict. The crucial decision,

he writes, was to reject the notion of treating ex-slaves as a special class

and to endeavor instead to integrate them into the citizenry as a whole,

so far as the law was concerned. Thus equality before the law, rather

than special help and protection, became the Republican policy. Belz

is impressed with the radicalism of that decision and is critical of those

historians who have complained that Reconstruction was a failure be-

cause it did not go further in securing the freedmen an economic foun-

dation for their legal rights.

Concise and readable, this is the best interpretive synthesis available

of the insights developed over the past fifteen years into the relation-

ship between the Constitution and the issues of Reconstruction.

 

The Ohio State University                    Michael Les Benedict

 

 

A History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States. By

James Leiby. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. vii+

426p.; notes, bibliography, index. $15.00.)

 

Walter Trattner remarked in the introduction to his history of social

welfare in America that most of the studies in this field provide little

more than information about American social welfare activities. These

studies, Trattner observed, fail to place the history of social welfare

in the United States from colonial days to the present within an in-

terpretive framework. James Leiby's recent book, A History of Social

Welfare and Social Work in the United States, purports to do just that.

Leiby argues that the development and institutionalization of American

social welfare programs and work are the result of certain "assumptions

of a quasi-religious character in historic liberalism" (p. 356). These

assumptions, characterized by "rational self-interest" and a "feeling

of sympathy and helpfulness," represent the merger of seventeenth-

century liberalism and the "communal responsibility" of Christianity.

Leiby begins his examination of American social welfare and work

in 1815-a time, according to him, when American society was "more

homogeneous than ever before or would be until 1950" (p. 2). This

assertion, like many in the book, lacks supporting data. He then pro-

ceeds to present in an orderly fashion general information on the poor

law, the treatment of "dependent, defective, and delinquent" groups,

the emergence of "scientific" charity, the professionalization of social

work, and programs designed to provide a minimal level of income

maintenance and accommodation to the existing structure of society.

Throughout his work Leiby assures the reader that he is unimpressed

with "schemes to reorganize society." He supports only those indi-

viduals who display a "pragmatic temper" and who dispense benefits

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Book Reviews                                                 247

 

and services that ameliorate without eradicating structural causes of

social, economic, or psychic distress.

Despite Leiby's insistence that he has written a cogently argued in-

terpretive study, he fails to provide a convincing explication of the

interaction between the institutions, movements, individuals, and events

that comprise the "stuff" of social welfare history. But even if he had

presented such a study, his work would still be seriously flawed. Leiby

fails to understand the dynamic quality of liberalism. For Leiby,

liberalism is static; it does not mean anything different in 1979 than

it did in 1679. But this we know not to be the case. The meaning of

liberalism has changed dramatically between the seventeenth century

and the twentieth century. Sidney Fine's Laissez-faire and the General

Welfare State, as well as numerous other works, traces the evolution

of liberalism from a negative to a positive expression of economic and

political philosophy. Without such an evolution the general welfare

state of the twentieth century, which Leiby clearly accepts, would have

been impossible. Needless to say, it is important to recognize the re-

definition of liberalism in order to understand the development of both

social welfare policies and social work in America. As a result, Leiby's

study not only suffers from a poorly developed argument; it is dis-

turbingly ahistorical as well.

Regretably, despite his discussion of various social welfare programs

and his description of the world of the social worker, Leiby has failed

to increase our understanding of social welfare and work in the United

States. We will continue to await an interpretive history of American

social welfare and work from colonial times to the present.

The College of Wooster                    Patricia Mooney Melvin

Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites. By J. Wayne Flynt.

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979. xvii+206p.; illus-

trations, bibliography, notes, index. $12.95.)

This slender volume was written by a scholar who has a thorough

grasp of his subject. The author is chairman of the Auburn University

History Department, and offers this volume as one of a series en-

titled "Minorities in Modern America." In general, Professor Flynt has

taken a comprehensive knowledge of Southern history and used it as

the canvas on which to portray the immensely important role of the

South's poor whites. He is a native Southerner, as is this reviewer. The

book is tightly knit, admirably written in an almost conversational

style, and contains a superb bibliography.

Some may doubt that Southern poor whites, who are White, Anglo-

Saxon Protestants (WASPS), qualify as an "ethnic group." Flynt as-

sures us that they do, since they are "racially and historically related

people who share [and preserved] a common culture ... (xv). Although

they had the same ancestry as wealthy neighbors, Flynt maintains

that a complex interplay of land distribution and use, technology,

slavery, history, sloth, and ignorance produced the poor white. Before

long a lasting stereotype was applied to these hard-to-define people-

thus the inane adage: "All whites who are poor are not poor whites" (9).

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248                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

Before the Civil War these poor people were already being exploited

by demagogues who, although helpful in small ways, deserted them in

major battles which might have won homestead legislation and common

schools.

The author pointedly observes that most Americans have made a

critical error in judgment by concluding that the material indigence

of these people found its equivalent in poverty of spirit. If there is one

theme uniting this book, it is one revealing time and again the spirit

of these downtrodden Southerners in spite of heavy odds and extremely

harmful stereotypes. We are shown how they have lived in remarkable

harmony with their environment, constructed ingenious buildings,

aesthetically pleasing tools and textiles, contributed, with blacks, to the

only really native-born music, and who made positive contributions to

religious life instead of the old bawl and stomp stuff so often seen in

stereotypes of these folks. In short, we are made aware that they have a

genuine culture of their own.

A second theme reveals how politicians, such as Congressman Frank-

lin Plummer before the Civil War, the Populists afterwards, or Presi-

dent Lyndon Johnson of Great Society days, have almost invariably

failed to realize that throwing money at the poverty problem, while

ignoring the genuine cultural roots of the poor whites, is to invite

failure. Flynt, like Harry Caudill, believes that change must come at

the grass roots: "Southern poor whites will have to change many tra-

ditional attitudes, especially the false racial pride . . ., [and] put aside

their individualism at least enough to organize at the community level.

.... Perhaps no solution can end white poverty in the South. American

society invariably attaches conditions to its offers of assistance. ...

As paradoxical as it must seem to most Americans, poor white culture

demonstrates a relatedness and sense of meaning that they may not

choose to risk for the alleged advantages of affluence" (166).

This book fills a need and fills it well. For years I have watched well-

intentioned city-bred students of a university club go to my Appalachian

homeland to "improve" the folk there; they invariably return much less

naive, and with the astounding admission that they have brought back

more cultural understanding and love than they brought in. But unlike

Professor Flynt, I have lived here in the Midwestern "holy-land" for

nigh on to two decades, and I know how flinty hard it is to break even

the minor "moonshine" stereotypes about any folk living south of the

Ohio! But here is a good shot at it, and I highly recommend it as good

reading for anyone, but especially for use in college courses on the

South and as a necessary volume in America's libraries.

 

University of Dayton                            Frank F. Mathias

 

 

 

Ohio's Natural Heritage. Michael B. Lafferty, Editor-in-Chief. (Colum-

bus: The Ohio Academy of Science, 1979. 324p.; illustrations, maps,

charts, index. $17.95.)

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Book Reviews                                               249

 

Every state should have a book like this: a survey, richly illus-

trated and sensibly arranged, of the principal physical and biological

features of the state, both as they exist today and as we can deduce

them to have existed at various times in the past. To any one with

the slightest curiosity about the environment in which his life is

grounded, this book should make living in Ohio more interesting. It

gives a clear picture of what Ohio is, of the kinds of rock and soil and

water on which we have built our culture, and of the kinds of trees and

grasses and wildlife that have survived our building. If, as the pub-

lishers and their philanthropic underwriters promise, this book is

widely distributed in schools and libraries, Ohioans may cease to be a

people strikingly ignorant about the place in which they live.

The format of the book-a collaboration by twenty-eight authors,

each an expert on a particular region of the state or a particular

branch of natural history-gives the book a thoroughness and ac-

curacy few single authors could have managed. The first chapters deal

with the features of the whole state; later ones deal with the major

geological regions. This arrangement makes for some duplication (one

begins to feel that esker has been over-defined, for example), but it

also permits the reader to use the volume as a guide to a particular

locale. The maps are handsome, plentiful and useful for this kind of

reference, although it would have been helpful if more of the places

mentioned in the text were located on the maps. The photographs are

absolutely first-rate.

At the same time, this division of labor seems to have made it im-

possible to impose a central thesis on the project. The last section,

several rather sketchy chapters on human impact, concludes with an

eloquent, if predictable, plea for hanging on to the few bogs, tall-

grass prairies, and virgin beech-sugar maple forests we have left. But

why do we have so few left, or for that matter, any at all? Why do we

have vast urban sprawl in some parts of the state and none in others?

How has it happened that, as one contributor points out, Ohio has be-

come a society that not only threatens to exhaust many of its own

resources but has been able to persuade places as far away as Bolivia

and Kuwait to exploit theirs in our behalf.

Ohio's "natural heritage" has helped to make possible a certain kind

of culture, just as the kind of culture that has arisen here has dictated

to some extent the uses we have made of that heritage. When Sherman

Frost points out that township lines, a cultural pattern if there ever

was one, have affected watershed patterns because roads were fre-

quently built on the survey lines, he is pointing to one tangible example

of the interpenetration of culture and environment. But this and other

hints of the relationship do not add up to a thesis about just what we

have "inherited" with our heritage.

Understanding that relationship between environment and culture

is crucial if we are to leave to our descendants a "heritage" even remotely

as generous as the one we have received. It is not at all clear that a

culture that has learned to be profligate of lumber, limestone, and water

can adjust to shortages. More profoundly, is there not some connection

between our traditions of freedom and mobility and the "heritage," just

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250                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

as there is demonstrably some connection between the kinds of trees

and stones available and the design of our courthouses and furniture?

I wish these authors, so knowledgeable about those trees and stones, had

given themselves more freedom to speculate about the connections. We

still need the kind of effort here that W. G. Hoskins makes in The

Making of the English Landscape to understand just what our heritage

amounts to.

Nevertheless, this is a handsome, readable book. If nothing else, it

should counteract the notion that many Ohioans and most of their

neighbors seem to share, that the most striking feature of our landscape

is its excellent highways leading elsewhere.

 

Otterbein College                            William T. Hamilton

 

Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings: A handbook for re-

producing and creating authentic landscape settings. By Rudy J.

Favretti and Joy Putman Favretti. (Nashville: The American Asso-

ciation for State and Local History, 1978. 202p.; illustrations, dia-

grams, appendix, bibliography, index. $10.00 paper.)

The Favretti handbook is divided into four sections, each one ad-

dressing a major issue pertinent to the preservation/restoration of

historic landscapes.

Section 1 (American Landscape Design) defines the problem by suc-

cinctly describing the characteristic landscape forms produced by the

culture of their times. The colonial period (up to the end of the

American revolution) is followed by the romanticism of the first half

of the nineteenth century. The authors describe the latter half of the

century in terms of Victorianism, followed in the early decades (to

about 1930) of this century by a return to classic forms derived from

European sources. The descriptive text, copiously illustrated, provides

character analysis of residential gardens and touches briefly on the

historic design of public and semi-public open spaces.

Section 2 (Research and Plan Development) becomes more technical,

as it describes data gathering techniques which help to define existing

characteristics of sites to be developed, methods well known to his-

torians and archeologists, but here applied specifically to the landscape.

This section includes a kind of checklist which should make planning

decisions easier. It addresses the knotty problem of how to select the

specific period to be preserved or restored, as well as how to fit the

forms characteristic of that period into today's world.

Section 3 (Authentic Plant Lists) gives the preservationist/restorer

specific, detailed lists of plants available to landscape gardeners within

given time periods, and, further, lists sources for plants otherwise hard

to find.

Section 4 (Maintenance) covers a matter too often forgotten in the

enthusiasm of recreating a bit of the past for the delight of present

company; that is, maintenance. In these pages, one will find numerous

practical suggestions for resolving conflicts between today's lifestyles

and those of another century.

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Book Reviews                                                 251

 

All in all, although this work cannot be classified as scholarly in

any sense, it has the merit of being a pragmatic guide to historic

preservation/restoration of landscapes. The alternative is to consult

a landscape architect trained in conservation of historical resources.

Unfortunately there are few landscape architects with the skills to

handle such problems efficiently.

 

The Ohio State University                       George B. Tobey

 

 

Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United

States, 1900-1930. By Leslie Woodcock Tentler. (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1979. 266p.; notes, tables, bibliography, index,

$14.95.)

In this perceptive monograph, Leslie Tentler concludes "that paid

work often afforded working-class women more persuasive lessons

about the inevitability of a circumscribed female role than did the

typical experiences of home, school, or neighborhood social life" (p. 2).

Tentler's working class consists of those who labor in factories or blue

collar services in the major Northern industrial cities. Evidence about

their values, behavior, and expectations is drawn from the host of

middle-class investigations of urban life. In spite of the inherent bias

of such materials, the author has produced a sensitive, insightful, and

ultimately speculative description of working-class women. Imbedded in

this study may lie the explanation for working-class apathy with regard

to both women's rights and economic opportunity.

The "persuasive lessons" came from a variety of sources. Low wages

and job ceilings combined to render women economically dependent

first upon their families and later upon their husbands. Inadequate

economic returns did not encourage remedial action either in the form

of unions or governmental legislation, nor did it deter working-class

women from seeking employment. Passivity or even acceptance stemmed

from the fact that most were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-

four and saw their futures determined by marriage. These young adults

sought jobs willingly to escape overcrowded and unsympathetic schools,

to express familial loyalty by contributing to its meager income, and

to join a like-minded peer group. In the youthful, sex-segregated world

of work, conversation normally focused upon marriage and the social

life that facilitated it. Dissatisfaction was directed toward parents, for

they circumscribed these adolescents' social lives. Moreover, since the

women normally turned over their entire paycheck to their parents,

they-not employers-established how much these women had to spend.

Parents and their wage-earning daughters invested little in job searches;

most sought employment in neighborhood industries where friends also

worked. Friendships discouraged investigations of alternative oppor-

tunities and dampened desires for self-promotion on the job itself.

Preoccupation with marriage rather than economic advancement

probably reflected a realistic appraisal of working-class options. The

author succinctly sketches the life of the women "adrift," the single

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252                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

female bereft of kin, who struggles without emotional or financial se-

curity. For mothers without employed husbands, life became almost

unbearable as they struggled in extreme poverty to balance their chil-

dren's needs with their own work schedules. If the older working

woman was an object of pathos, the successfully married women enjoyed

societal homage as she dominated the family circle.

Subsequent research should support this emphasis upon employment

as a conservative rather than liberating force in most working-women's

lives. As further research elaborates upon this theme, it may also alter

some of the broad generalizations. The same reports from which Tentler

constructs her narrative offer a variety of quantitative data that will

test her assumptions about family strategies, the determinants of fe-

male labor force participation, and variations in male-female life-cycles.

The first three decades of the twentieth century witnessed the end

of an era in working women's history. From the 1880s forward, the

proportion of women who worked in the market place climbed sharply,

as the demand for unskilled or semi-skilled labor rose. Single women

responded to the opportunity, in part because native-born were de-

laying the age of marriage or foregoing marital bliss altogether and

in part because the rising tide of immigration supplied large numbers

of women who traditionally had high participation rates. Beginning

in the 1920s, the labor market changed. Rising incomes and educational

aspirations delayed entrance into the world of work, while the de-

clining age of marriage pulled them out. Moreover, continued structural

change in the economy, particularly the rise of white collar services, at-

tracted middle-class women workers. And after 1930, the share of

married women in the labor force would begin its long ascent. To under-

stand this earlier era, indeed to confront the realities of the wage-

earning woman's experience, one can do no better than to read this

outstanding book.

University of Wisconsin-Madison                  Diane Lindstrom

 

Slave and Freeman: The Autobiography of George L. Knox. Edited by

Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. (Lexington: The University Press of Ken-

tucky, 1979. vii+247p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

$15.50.)

Professor Gatewood has edited an excellent and scholarly account of

the autobiography of George L. Knox, barber and editor of the Indian-

apolis Freeman. Gatewood's reconstruction is even more remarkable

since Knox's "success story" appeared in fifty-four installment chapters

in The Freeman between 1894 and 1895. Because the chapters were

published as soon as Knox had written them, many events often ap-

peared in The Freeman out of chronological sequence. Gatewood's

edited version has abandoned the numerous and often meaningless seg-

ments and has inserted other events when it was chronologically appro-

prite. Simultaneously, whenever there was a need, Gatewood explained

and documented certain segments of the serialization which Knox had

left unclear.

Significantly, the life and career of Knox mirror tremendous similar-

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Book Reviews                                                253

 

ities to his close friend, Booker T. Washington. Washington's Up From

Slavery is a classic autobiography which described the triumph and

tragedy of one of the few men to be honored in American history by

having a period named after him. It should be noted that while Knox

and Washington were former slaves, Knox was born in Tennessee in

1841, seventeen years before Washington. Despite a difference in age,

education, religious and political involvement, both men embraced

identical economic and racial philosophy. They "exuded optimism even

in the face of devastating adversity and persisted in the belief that self

help, personal morality, industry, the acquisition of property, and ad-

justment to a segregated society constituted the only feasible means for

black Americans to advance." The theme which dominated both men

was that blacks could surmount racial prejudice through virtuous liv-

ing and productivity.

In addition to the above theme, one is treated to the experiences of

Knox as a slave, Civil War soldier, his freedom through the Thirteenth

Amendment, citizenship through the Fourteenth, and the right to vote

as implied in the Fifteenth Amendment. As a self-educated man, Knox

overcame many racial, economic, and social barriers in the predomi-

nantly white town of Greenfield, Indiana, where he had settled after

the war with his wife Aurilla Harvey, daughter of a prosperous black

Indiana farmer. Despite a strong hostile racial atmosphere, Knox be-

came a successful barber with a prominent white clientele which in-

cluded the poet James Whitcomb Riley.

When Knox moved to Indianapolis eighteen years later, he expanded

his segregated barber shop, invested in real estate, and became editor

and publisher of the Indianapolis Freeman. Knox helped to transform

The Freeman into one of America's most influential black newspapers

and a voice for Republican politics. Like George Meyers in Ohio, Knox

was an astute leader in Indiana politics; but he never held public office.

Knox was also very active in civic, religious, and racial organizations.

He used The Freeman to promote Washington's policy of accommoda-

tion and industrial education. Knox was just as convinced as Washington

that the South was the best place for the progress and future of Blacks.

Consequently, he opposed any mass exodus of southern Blacks to the

North or West and condemned the back to Africa movements of Henry

M. Turner during the 1890s and Marcus Garvey in the 1920s. Knox

editorialized frequently about lawlessness and vagrancy among Blacks

which only "added immeasurably to the existing burdens of the whole

race."

Simultaneously, he praised highly Blacks in business which "extolled

the virtues of work, the acquisition of wealth and clean living." Despite

the strictures imposed upon him by a segregated society and the criti-

cism from Blacks who disagreed with his philosophy of racial accom-

modation, Knox never succumbed to bitterness or despair. He remained

committed to his convictions until his death in 1927 that a brighter

future awaited black Americans. Although he does not make known

the value of Knox's estate or if there is a manuscript collection, Pro-

fessor Gatewood has made a significant contribution to a missing chap-

ter in our American heritage.

Miami University                            W. Sherman Jackson

• 11
 

254                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of

Agriculture, 1900-1930. By David B. Danbom. (Ames, Iowa: The Iowa

State University Press, 1979. ix+195p.; illustrations, notes, biblio-

graphical essay, index. $10.95.)

Appropriately titled and expertly written, The Resisted Revolution

is a worthy addition to the constantly expanding work of scholars in re-

cent American agricultural and economic history. The revolution which

the author refers to was the dramatic change which took place in

rural America during the first thirty years of the twentieth century.

As the century began farmers, averse to urban ways, adhered fiercely

to the old customs and methods of traditional farming handed down

through generations. Yet the technological revolution that swept the

country during that era jeopardized those traditional ways as well as

the entire structure of rural America.

David Danbom explores the origins and motives of an urban group

dedicated to improving living standards throughout what they con-

sidered to be a backward and impoverished rural America. The Country

Life Movement began during the first decade of the 1900s as a result

of an investigation conducted by the Roosevelt administration into the

problems of farm families. This probe into rural America, undertaken

by sociologists and agrarian professionals, inspired the Country Life

Movement. Many Country Lifers were genuinely interested in improv-

ing living standards in rural America, but according to the author, their

primary goal was that of increased agricultural production to meet the

needs of the rampantly growing American cities. This examination

and evaluation of the actions and motives of Country Lifers and their

impact upon country people is the central theme of The Resisted Revo-

lution, and the author is careful to point out that this movement was

urban based and its goals were urban-oriented.

Also important in Danbom's work is his evaluation of the mixed

successes and failures of the county agent as a representative of the

federal government in the years before American entry into the First

World War. He cites several agent accounts which reveal their frus-

trations in dealing with the apathy and belligerence of farmers toward

their aid. Firm in their belief of laissez faire, many farmers resented

strongly the county agent, who seemed to be only a meddler in their

affairs. Faarmers and farm wives were further repulsed by the fact that

the job of the agent was to demonstrate their mistakes to them in farm-

ing and homemaking. This promoted a frigid atmosphere between the

agent and the rural family. The woes of the county agent were also

compounded in those days by an almost complete absence of organized

government in rural areas. Farmers were suspicious of and had little

need for strong local government or ties to the federal government.

Living in isolation far from urban centers, most farmers had little

interest in government. They wished only to maintain their ways of

self-sufficiency and independence. For the agent the possibility of or-

ganizing farmers into efficient businessmen was greatly diminished by

this absence of local government, and this situation was reversed only

by American involvement in the war.

• 12
 

Book Reviews                                               255

 

The war and postwar periods brought about the changes in rural

America that Country Lifers had struggled for but could not achieve

alone. Mechanization, increased production, and efficiency swept

through the countryside as government agencies injected labor and

capital to farms in the name of the war effort. By the early 1920s the

revolution was complete. Agriculture was a profitable, organized busi-

ness, and, by then, the needs of urban America were met with a plentiful

and inexpensive food supply from nation's farms. Yet gone was the

institution which was the foundation the American nation-the self-

sufficient, family farm. Country Lifers were obsessed with making

farms more efficient, but in doing so they hastened the destruction of

a traditional way of life.

While The Resisted Revolution is well-written, its basic weakness

is its generality. Urban influence upon rural industrialization during the

first thirty years of this century is a subject which cannot be dealt with

adequately in 145 pages of text. Thus the author is forced to select

citations from journals, almanacs, and personal accounts from across

the country as if to suggest that agrarian America was homogeneous

around the turn of the century. The greatest value of the work is the

overview of the Country Life Movement, although the author may have

overemphasized its impact upon rural industrialization. The book is

nonetheless worthwhile reading for those interested in agrarian history.

University of California at Santa Barbara     Gregory R. Graves

 

Conestoga Crossroads: Lancaster, Pennsylvania: 1730-1790. By Jerome

H. Wood, Jr. (Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1979.

ix+305p.; illustrations, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $8.50.)

Ever since Frederick Jackson Turner pointed out in 1893 that the

frontier had a very special role in the development of an American

society and democratic ideals, historians have struggled to define and

analyze the key elements and factors of the frontier process. Jerome H.

Wood, Jr., a professor of American history at Swarthmore College, is

among a group who feel that the importance of "the hardy, pioneer

farmer" has been overemphasized at the expense of "the urban com-

munities which appeared before, or simultaneously with, the husband-

men and which were as vital as the virgin land they broke." To urban

historians like Wood's Brown University mentor Carl Bridenbaugh,

and midwesterner Richard Wade, the cities were the centers of eco-

nomic, governmental, cultural, and social activities on the frontier.

Wood chronicles what he terms "the search for community" in the

frontier Pennsylvania city of Lancaster. His period of study begins with

the town's platting in 1730 and continues until 1790, a point at which,

according to Wood, the community's economic function as a distribution

center for western Pennsylvania ceased. The author relies largely on

some excellent primary sources, including private correspondence, pub-

lic records, business accounts, and newspapers to analyze, and in sev-

eral instances to make very astute observations, on the city's eighteenth

century history.

• 13
 

256                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

After a brief discussion of the initial settlement of Lancaster, the

volume is divided into three major segments: political and administra-

tive history; the economic perspective; and the diversity of religious,

cultural, and social activities in the community.

Some of Wood's best work is done in examining and evaluating the

governmental framework of Lancaster during this period. He shows

that by providing for the election of public officials along with rela-

tively non-restrictive voting rights, and by requiring that a majority

of all residents approve ordinances, the original design of Lancaster's

political scene was unusually democratic. Ironically, as the century

progressed and these popular forms of government actually failed, more

restrictive, albeit more efficient, forms were created.

Wood's discussion of the economic life of Lancaster as "a back-

country emporium" holds no real surprises. He finds, for example, that

the individual household and family unit was "at the heart of economic

activity." Furthermore, he illustrates how the "regularized and reason-

ably efficient system of commercial intercourse" with Philadelphia

rapidly created a wealthy elite composed of the larger merchants.

Wood is able, however, to make some interesting quantitative compari-

sons of the various types of handicrafts practiced in the community

through the eighteenth century. According to his figures the em-

phasis shifted from leather processing during the French and Indian

War to textile processing by the 1790s.

The Lancaster area is, of course, today renowed as the center of the

"Pennsylvania-Dutch," and the third part of the volume explains some

of the early manifestations of this modern society. Wood suggests that

it had its roots in the "clannishness'" developed by the "Dutchmen" as

a defense against the sometime hostile environment engendered by the

"Engellander," or English element in the community. Thus a dis-

tinctive German society developed in the religious, publishing, and cul-

tural affairs of the community.

Wood wrote his book with two audiences in mind, what he terms "the

intelligent general reader," and the professional historian. His ad-

mittedly difficult goal of being both popular and scholarly is met with

varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, Wood, at times, seems to fall

into the non-critical antiquarian approach of including long lists of

items and personages. His treatment of economic issues, in particular,

seems to suffer from this tendency.

Another fairly serious omission that should have been easy for the

publisher to correct is the absence of a good map. Those not familiar

with the Pennsylvania landscape will need to consult an atlas, since the

small map on the inside cover is poorly designed and generally in-

adequate.

The urban perspective on Ohio's history has never received the at-

tention it deserves. Wood indicates that Lancaster, Pennsylvania, lost

all frontier aspects by 1770, which coincides with the city's population

passing 2800. Using this simple formula, Ohio had twenty-one com-

munities with at least this many inhabitants or more by the 1850

census, a date sometimes used as a terminus of the frontier period in

the state. Only a few of the largest Ohio urban centers, however, have

been the focus of any serious published analyses by urban historians.

• 14
 

Book Reviews                                               257

 

Wood has written a volume whose three-part approach could easily

serve as a model for some much-needed Ohio urban studies.

Ohio Historical Society                       David A. Simmons

 

America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century. By

Frances FitzGerald. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.

240p.; notes, bibliography. $9.95.)

 

Anyone interested in the state of American history in the schools

should read this book. In a descriptive, if occasionally breathless style,

the author of the much acclaimed Fire in the Lake analyzes the per-

mutations of secondary school American history textbooks from the

days of Jedidiah Morse to the present. What presumably made her

persevere through the dusty stacks of soporific prose was the premise

that the textbooks have been for most American children their prin-

cipal contact with the national past. If she is correct, the current school

population is being poorly served.

According to FitzGerald, nineteenth-century texts were frequently

inaccurate, biased, elitist, and excessively pedantic. Despite their fail-

ings, however, they sometimes possessed literary merit and usually a

recognizable point of view-a particular vision of the American ex-

perience. In the Twentieth Century all that has changed. Since the

Progressive Era the schoolbooks have come to reflect, as in a fogged

mirror, the social and political concerns of the moment. Especially

since the 1960s and the decay of a national consensus textbook pub-

lishers have responded to educationist fads and special interest group

demands. In the names of prominent academic historians (some of them

long deceased) committees of non-authors have simplified vocabulary,

punched-up the visuals, and excised or neutered controversial state-

ments to mollify the textbook adoption apparatuses of large public

school districts. The results have usually been visual feast and literary

famine. The handsome packages of the texts divert attention away from

their intellectual flaccidity and efficiently achieved dullness. FitzGerald

seems to attribute this to American materialism. For the textbook in-

dustry, profit is of course the bottom line. For those in the public and

in the educational establishment anti-intellectualism and indifference

to historical truth are second nature.

The theoretical debates about the purposes and methods of education

among teachers, parents, administrators, and normal school theorists

also contribute directly to the dismal state of the textbooks. FitzGerald

defines three broad ideological orientations among educationists-

Progressives, Mandarins, and Fundamentalists-who perpetually strug-

gle for pedagogical supremacy. Each group fires salvos of buzz words

at the others' smoke screens of jargon. But all, says FitzGerald, share

the belief that education must mold, manipulate, and adjust the be-

havior of the child, not primarily inform his mind.

This reviewer, with a decade's experience at a teachers' college,

shares FitzGerald's major conclusions and hopes her book will have

beneficial effect. Still one must recognize that her thesis over-

• 15
 

258                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

simplifies the difficulties mandated by the national commitment to

"educate" (whatever that may mean) an enormously diverse school

population. And she does not seem to accept obvious historical realities:

that western society is passing from a literary to a visual-electronic

mode of mass communication; that it is most difficult to train com-

petent teachers or produce excellent texts in a fluid and complicated

educational matrix of which schooling is only a part; and that academic

history is being transformed if not supplanted by sociology and psy-

chology. Internal evidence in her text suggests that FitzGerald's knowl-

edge of American historiographical issues is less sure than her grasp

of the late Richard Hofstadter's theses on anti-intellectualism and

Progressivism. Finally, her apparent notion that textbooks should some-

how provide young people with a vision of the American Dream strikes

this reviewer as too romantic to measure up to the intellectual standards

she champions. These caveats aside, America Revised deserves a wide

readership.

 

Fairmont State College                     Charles H. McCormick

 

 

Roots of Modern Mormonism. By Mark P. Leone. (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1979. ix+250p.; tables, appendix, works cited, in-

dex. $15.00.)

 

Utilizing the historical records of Mormon communities along the

Little Colorado River in east central Arizona in the late nineteenth

century and his own observations of contemporary Mormonism, Mark

P. Leone, an anthropologist, has attempted to explain the transforma-

tion of "a nineteenth century socialist commonwealth predicated on a

radical critique of the American economy and class structure to a

twentieth century church endorsing an ideology of acceptance of Amer-

ican society" (p. 27). From establishing a "theocratic state" in the

nineteenth century, Mormonism has come to accept the status of a

"colonial religion," much like other denominations, in the twentieth;

and a persecuted religion of farmers, recoiling against the effects of

industrialism, has become "a successful religion of white-collar work-

ers run by businessmen" (p. 1).

Though one chapter highlights the influence of the United States

government on decisions to end plural marriage, the Mormon political

party, and the church's control of economic institutions, Leone's inter-

pretation of this transformation places substantially more emphasis on

the structure, theology, and institutions of Mormonism itself than on

external pressures toward accommodation. Throughout the work, he

points to a "conflict between two rationalities, sanctity and success,

basic to Mormon history," which undercut the social ideals of the move-

ment's pioneers (p. 166). Isolated on a frontier, intentionally rejecting

some features of industrialism, and technologically backward, Mormons

created a network of institutions and rituals that invested their struggle

for material survival with sanctity, which gave assurance of super-

natural power for their endeavors, made their economic activities re-

• 16
 

Book Reviews                                               259

 

ligious experiences, and provided validation for their faith in their

triumphs over adversity.

However, to oversimplify Leone's complex analysis, when sanctity

brought material success, this led to its undoing as a basis for social

order and transformed Mormon society from within. The desire for

technical improvement increased dependence on the outside world; a

growth in wealth attracted outside interest and created social classes;

and preoccupation with practical matters, rooted in the religion itself

and reinforced by the exigencies of life in the West, gave rise to a

rational approach to problems that disregarded historical precedent and

was marked by "a kind of memorylessness" (p. 148). Moreover, tech-

nological progress encouraged secularization by providing alternatives

to reliance on supernatural power and left the rituals of sanctity with-

out their former meaning.

Such general elements of interpretation run throughout the book, but

the author's comparisons of Mormonism in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries rest on discrete scholarly approaches. The largest-and, to

historians, probably the most satisfying-section consists of three chap-

ters that examine the tithing system, irrigation, and church courts in

the communities along the Little Colorado River. Based on surviving

local records mainly from the 1880s and 1890s, these chapters are a

fascinating source of information on the means by which Mormons

dealt with ecological problems, supported joint enterprises, exchanged

and redistributed their products, provided social welfare, established

definitions of community, maintained unity, and resolved a host of

local issues. Leone chose tithing, irrigation, and church courts because

these were "critical aspects of how the Mormon adaptive strategy

worked" (p. 25). In contrast, his description of modern Mormonism

rests largely on observations and impressions of rituals such as talks in

Sacrament Meetings, testimonies, and Sunday Schools and of the ways

in which Mormons use history. Though Leone attempts to trace some

contemporary characteristics of Mormon thought-for example,

"memorylessness," which, by making them unable to distinguish the

past from the present, renders them incapable of judging current

society by any body of precedents or ideals from their own heritage or

even of understanding their own situation-to the earlier period, the

linkages between the two periods are weak because the data are so

dissimilar.

Nevertheless, this work should be thought-provoking, not only to

historians of Mormonism, but also to all who are interested in how

utopian movements have been domesticated.

 

Wright State University                           Jacob H. Dorn

 

 

 

The Crises of Power: An Interpretation of United States Foreign Policy

During the Kissinger Years. By Seyom Brown. (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1979. xi+170p.; notes, index. $10.95.)

• 17
 

260                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

Henry Kissinger has been evaluated as an imaginative and highly

resourceful foreign policy statesman by many knowledgeable people,

not the least of whom is Kissinger himself. Seyom Brown, an establish-

ment scholar currently teaching politics at Brandeis University, gen-

erally supports this favorable opinion of Kissinger although keenly

aware of Kissinger's failures.

This modest but useful book focuses on Kissinger himself and on

Richard M. Nixon to a lesser degree. Brown discusses Kissinger's per-

ceptions of new world power relationships flowing from Soviet military

parity with the United States, Kissinger's and Nixon's maneuvers to

withdraw from the Vietnam War without disrupting America's internal

order and alliance relationships, the negotiations to establish a more

stable order in the Middle East, and Kissinger's belated moves to ac-

commodate Third World interests.

Kissinger and Nixon perceived Russia as growing in power, danger-

ous to American interests, but possibly tamable. Strategic arms agree-

ments, "playing the China card" and expanding trade with the U.S.S.R.

were the primary means Kissinger and Nixon used to counter Soviet

power or to give Russia a greater stake in peace. In dealing with Viet-

nam, the negotiations proved completely frustrating because North

Vietnam was determined to win and to do so without making significant

compromises. Nixon and Kissinger tried repeatedly to signal North

Vietnam that the U.S. wanted out as long as it was not dishonored and

humiliated in the process. Kissinger's primary concern was not to un-

dermine the value of America's worldwide commitments even as her

commitments to South Vietnam were repudiated.

In the Middle East the major policies pursued were stability and

enhancement of American influence. Kissinger's negotiating skill and

persistence were in part negated by his duplicity. However, American

influence was greatly strengthened in the area by his and Nixon's

policy of evenhanded treatment of Israeli and Arab interests. Whether

this expanded American influence in the Middle East was a positive

long-term development is a question Brown does not address.

In Kissinger's earlier view it was safe statesmanship to ignore the

weaker nations. Great power diplomacy, he believed, must preoccupy

statesmen in this dangerous nuclear age. However, Third World in-

fluence within the United Nations, the American disaster in Angola, the

increasing interdependence of the world economy, and the potential

political coalition between OPEC and Third World nations, alerted

Kissinger that the U.S. must tack to the demands and needs of the de-

veloping nations. For example, in a sudden about-face, Kissinger an-

nounced in 1976 that the U.S. now supported the principle of majority

rule in Africa. It may be argued that such a policy was long overdue,

but the point Brown makes is that Kissinger demonstrated flexibility

on a problem of high concern to his critics.

The overriding theme in the Kissinger years was the search for

stability and order in a world where power was increasingly decen-

tralized and authority was under challenge. Kissinger perceived the

larger changes in international politics, though as Brown points out

Kissinger never developed a comprehensive schema by which Amer-

• 18
 

Book Reviews                                                 261

 

ican policy goals and the need for world order might best be co-

ordinated. Like most politicians he was compelled to struggle with

problems of the moment in contexts that frustrated attempts at re-

flection and judicious evaluation.

Brown's work is fully as useful as earlier books on Kissinger by John

C. Stoessinger, Roger Morris, Peter Dickson, Stephen R. Graubard,

and Marvin and Bernard Kalb. As with these authors, Mr. Brown had

access neither to State Department records nor to Kissinger's memoirs.

The book is therefore already dated. Nonetheless Brown's observations

will prove instructive for scholars and for Kissinger buffs as well.

 

The Ohio State University                     Marvin R. Zahniser

 

A Tissue of Lies: Nixon vs. Hiss. By Morton Levitt and Michael Levitt.

(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1979. xix+353p.; notes, index.

$14.95.)

 

Thirty years have passed since the Hiss-Chambers case alarmed a

public already troubled by charges of subversion and concerned with

loyalty, yet public debate continues over the guilt or innocence of

Alger Hiss, one of the best and the brightest of his time. A Tissue of

Lies is the latest of a long list of books and articles on the subject.

Its thesis is revealed in the title: at one time or another all of the im-

portant figures in the case, including Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers,

Richard Nixon, and Prosecutor Thomas Murphey, lied. Major em-

phasis is given to the HCUA hearings and the two trials, but the un-

derlying theme is the vendetta Nixon conducted against his enemies,

real or supposed. The authors make clear, once again, that throughout

his political career, Nixon used the same underhanded and illegal

methods-press manipulation, news leaks, outright lying, faked evi-

dence, and midnight searches.

Morton Levitt, Acting Dean of the School of Medicine, University of

California-Davis, and his writer son, Michael, successfully demonstrate,

in addition to the web of lies, that the FBI helped to prosecute Hiss and

to protect Chambers, and that the evidence to convict Hiss was con-

trovertible. They also insist, with less success, that the typewriter in

the courtroom was a forgery and that the FBI knew it. Unable to

demonstrate the innocence of Alger Hiss, however, the Levitt's lamely

conclude that he "affects one as a man who was guilty of something"

(p. 325).

Books like this one cannot help us much. The point to be established

is not the career-long continuity of Nixon's tactics, but the guilt or in-

nocence of Alger Hiss. It is clear that he lied when denying having

known Whittaker Chambers, but the authors cannot tell us why-nor

do they work hard to do so.

In part, but only in part, the authors' failures are due to inadequate

research. They have neither worked in most of the important manu-

script depositories nor examined many private manuscript collections.

The printed and typescript records are not fully utilized. They inter-

viewed only Alger Hiss, in person, and Fred J. Cook (The Unfinished

• 19
 

262                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Story of Alger Hiss, 1958), by telephone. A Tissue of Lies rests heavily

on secondary sources. The chapter notes are very brief and give no

page citations. Nor are there chapter titles to guide readers, and just

as importantly, to help the authors order their data. Not surprisingly,

the book has a shapeless quality to it.

It is regrettable that the Levitts disparage the best work available

on the Hiss-Chambers case (Allen Weinstein's Perjury, 1978) without

critically examining its weaknesses. Perjury is described as "poor his-

tory," a "badly flawed" analysis using sources of evidence some of

whom have recanted (pp. 282, 285). Victor Navasky's criticisms are

noted, but Weinstein's response is not (New Republic, April 29, 1978).

It is true that Karel Kaplan, a Czech archivist and former communist

party official, now denies saying that Hiss was involved in communist

espionage in the mid-1930s, but Weinstein has Kaplan's testimony on

tape. Like several other witnesses, Kaplan recanted upon seeing that

his testimony only made matters worse for Hiss.

The Levitts do not agree with Weinstein's conclusion that "the body

of available evidence proves that he [Hiss] did in fact perjure himself

when describing his secret dealings with Chambers, so that the jurors

in the second trial made no mistake in finding Alger Hiss guilty as

charged" (p. 565). Nor do they accept John Chabot Smith's contention,

in Alger Hiss: The True Story (1976), that a "psychopathic" Chambers

victimized Hiss. Instead, they conclude that everyone lied and render

judgments such as the following that are naive and embarrassing to

students of history: "Perhaps the entire McCarthy era, one of the

nation's saddest chapters, might never have occurred if Chambers had

been indicted" (p. 99). The fact is that by the time of the two trials

in 1949 and 1950, the search for scapegoats and the habit of careless

accusation were already in full swing, even though the name of the

junior senator from Wisconsin had not yet been appropriated to name

the phenomenon.

 

The University of Toledo                              Ronald Lora

 

 

With No Apologies: The Personal and Political Memoirs of Senator

Barry Goldwater. By Senator Barry Goldwater. (New York: William

Morrow and Company, Inc., 1979. 320p.; illustrations, acknowledge-

ments, index. $12.95.)

 

In the early 1960s, when novelist John Dos Passos visited the Prince-

ton campus, he was asked whom he wanted as president. "Goldwater"

was his reply. The Arizona Senator was the only candidate with "any

new ideas."

Now, at least fifteen years later, we can have a firsthand view of

these ideas and of some of the rationale behind them. For in these

memoirs Goldwater offers a detailed scenario of recent American his-

tory, one that shows him an unrepentant rightist. Much of the book

presents standard Goldwater fare, with focus upon foreign policy. He

suggests Roosevelt's foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor, opposes the Yalta

• 20
 

Book Reviews                                               263

 

and Potsdam settlements (incorrectly ascribing the latter to FDR), and

sees in the Marshall Plan the seeds of American bankruptcy. He

blames the fall of the Chiang government upon the State Department,

the Korean stalemate on a timid Harry S. Truman. Although he finds

Eisenhower usually maintaining a militant posture, to him the Ken-

nedy presidency was marked by one sellout after another. Lyndon

Johnson too lacked the will to win. Rather than ending the Vietnam

war in twelve weeks, which he could have done by major use of air

and sea power, LBJ foolishly committed ground forces and relied

upon covert action. Goldwater's conclusion reads like a weapons' in-

ventory, as he calls for the adoption of such hardware as the MX missile,

the cruise missile, and the B-1 bomber.

Occasionally Goldwater, perhaps realizing that his analysis is some-

what jaded by now, spices it with some comments of absolute silliness.

Hence he finds Syngman Rhee's South Korea "a democratic republic

seeking to emulate the Western nations" (p. 47), John Birch Society

leader Robert Welch one who has "done much to alert people to the

dangers of communism" (p. 119), and South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem

"an authentic hero to his people" (p. 193). He sees Walt W. Rostow as

too dovish in fighting the Soviet challenge, says Robert McNamara de-

serves punishment for abandoning weapons superiority, and sees the

Sino-Soviet split a mere quarrel "over the purity of Marxist doctrine"

(p. 233). The Arizona senator is obviously fascinated by conspiracies.

From such agents of "international banking" as Colonel House and

Paul M. Warburg to today's Council on Foreign Relations, the nation

is governed by "nonelected rulers." Indeed President James Earl Carter

is the handpicked candidate of "David Rockefeller's newest inter-

national cabal" (p. 280), the Trilateral Commission.

Yet we would be wrong to dismiss the volume as simply another

cranky memoir, for it occasionally offers revealing material on both

the man and his background. He ably draws pictures of his ancestors

and his wife Peggy, though he skips through childhood and adolescence

quickly. Detail begins with his descriptions of civic reform in Phoenix,

the 1952 Republican convention, and the Arizona senatorial race of

the same year.

Some material is a bit surprising, such as his respect for Eisenhower,

admiration for Nelson Rockefeller, friendship for Hubert Humphrey,

and fondness for Henry Kissinger. He claims to have evidence of vote-

buying by John F. Kennedy's forces in the crucial West Virginia pri-

mary of 1960, and he blames Attorney General William Rogers for not

investigating the matter. Lyndon Johnson, he believes, only took the

vice-presidential nomination because JFK threatened to expose Texas

voting frauds and LBJ's intricate financial empire. In 1964 he originally

considered William Scranton as a running mate, and in 1972 told Nixon

to replace Spiro Agnew with George Bush.

The book still leaves us with some questions, particularly concern-

ing the evolution of his thought. Goldwater has obviously mellowed

considerably since 1960, when he found the Brown decision unconsti-

tutional and wanted to end the graduated income tax. He does not,

however, concede to any shift, much less explain it. In addition, we

learn little of such early backers as rancher Frank Cullen Brophy. He

• 21
 

264                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

does not mention his dismissal of F. Clifton White, who engineered

his convention triumph at the Cow Palace. For the historian, this book

is far from being the aid it could have been.

 

New College of the University of South Florida  Justus D. Doenecke

 

 

Versatile Guardian: Research in Naval History. Edited by Richard

Von Doenhoff. (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1979.

xvii+295p.; illustrations, notes, commentary, appendix, biographical

sketches, selected bibliography, index. $17.50.)

 

This volume consists of the papers and proceedings of the National

Archives Conference on Naval History held in May, 1974. In a brief

introduction the organizer of the conference, Richard Von Doenhoff, a

member of the National Archives staff, writes that the purpose of the

conference was to stimulate ideas for research and writing in naval

history since "there has seemed to be a waning of productivity" in this

field since the publication of Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison's

fifteen-volume work on United States naval operations in World War II.

Although it is questionable that there has been a decline in the writing

of naval history, the purpose was commendable.

Versatile Guardian, like most books of this kind, is difficult to re-

view. The unevenness of the papers along with the book's organization

makes it impracticable to evaluate as a whole. The book is divided into

introductory comments, five sections, and a bibliography.

The first section includes two papers, one by Mabel E. Deutrich on

Navy Department records in the National Archives, and a second one

by Dean C. Allard on research resources in the Navy Department's

Historical Center located at the Washington Navy Yard. Both essays

provide an excellent introduction into research materials available in

these repositories.

Sections II through V concern selected topics in naval history. Each

section includes two to three essays and a commentary.

Section II consists of two excellent papers and a commentary on

the "United States Navy in International Relations." Gerald Wheeler's

paper, entitled "Naval Diplomacy in the Interwar Years," concerns the

period between the two world wars. His approach is generally bio-

graphical, describing the diplomatic activities of various naval officers

such as Mark Bristol and William V. Pratt. The second essay, "Inter-

national Law and Naval History: Changes and Continuity in the

Juridical Doctrines of Naval Blockade," by Sally V. Mallison and W.

Thomas Mallison, Jr., is a general survey of blockade in history from

the Napoleonic wars through the Vietnam War and the Egyptian block-

ade of the Bab el Mandeb Straits during the Yom Kippur war in 1973.

Both papers are well documented.

Section III, "Technology and the Navy," includes two papers.

"Bradley A. Fiske: Naval Inventor," by Paolo E. Coletta is based on

the writer's biography of Fiske which has since been published. The

second paper, "The Role of Archival Records in the Search and Dis-

• 22
 

Book Reviews                                                 265

 

covery of the Wreck of the U.S.S. Monitor," by John G. Newton and

Gordon P. Watts is more of a recount of the search for the wreck of the

Monitor than the utilization of archival records in this search. The an-

nounced theme of new ideas in naval research and writing is only ad-

dressed indirectly in section II, primarily through brief mention of

manuscript collections and footnote citations. However, in section IV

the papers do address the theme.

This section is entitled, "The Navy in Earlier Wars: Sources and

Research Potentials." It includes three papers: one on documents of

the "American Navies of the Revolution," by William Morgan; a second

by K. Jack Bauer on "The Navy in an Age of Manifest Destiny: Some

Suggestions for Sources and Research," and a third one on research

opportunities in the Spanish American War by David F. Trask. All

three are excellent papers, not only describing available manuscript re-

sources for these periods, but Bauer and Trask also list suggested re-

search topics.

The final section is disappointing. Three papers are included on the

Second World War. One by Friedrich O. Ruge on the activities of

German Defensive Offshore Forces is semi-autobiographical without

documentation. A second paper entitled, "The Neutrality Patrol and

Other Belligerents," by Henry H. Adams is based almost entirely upon

secondary sources, and the third one by Elmer B. Potter on Admiral

Nimitz as CINCPAC is based on his biography which was subsequently

published. In none of these papers are new ideas for research suggested.

The commentator, Clark Reynolds, does try to bridge this gap but with

only limited success.

A useful but "selected" bibliography is included, although it has no

relation with the various topics taken up in the volume. It includes

National Archives sources and published sources on naval history.

In spite of the inclusion of several papers that have little relation

to the stated purpose, the book is a valuable tool for students of naval

history. A number of the essays provide an excellent introduction to

research opportunities and sources in naval history.

 

East Carolina University                      William N. Still, Jr.

 

 

The Union Cavalry in the Civil War. Vol. I. From Fort Sumter to

Gettysburg, 1861-1863. By Stephen Z. Starr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana

State University Press, 1979. xiv+507p.; illustrations, notes, ap-

pendix, bibliography, index. $27.50.)

 

With this first of a projected three volumes, Sephen Starr em-

bellishes an already notable distinction in Civil War scholarship. He

has produced a thoughtful, well-researched and highly readable study

of mounted operations in the first two years of the war. Students of

military history will find that it compares favorably with the ex-

cellent volumes of the University of Indiana Press's "Wars of the

United States" series. Few writers know the Yankee horsemen as in-

• 23
 

266                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

timately, and fewer have the skill to winnow selectively the mass of

primary and secondary materials to shape such a sprightly yet insightful

narrative as Starr here presents.

Starr begins, interestingly enough, at the end, with an account of

Wilson's raid on Selma, Alabama, in the waning days of the war. This

approach allows him to establish early-on a major thesis: that the im-

portance and effectiveness of the Union's mounted arm increased as

cavalry tacticians gradually abandoned the traditional mounted as-

sault in favor of dismounted action by troopers whose horse-born de-

ployment made them highly mobile. He then flashes back, after a brief

summation of conventional views on the uses and value of mounted

troops on the eve of war, to begin the story of the long and bloody

campaigns in which the tactics used at Selma evolved.

Readers will find in the early chapters an able description of those

factors which interdicted the rapid development of cavalry competence:

the initial reluctance of the government to accept volunteer cavalry

units; the general ineptitude of those in high command; the deficiencies

in training and supply which plagued all branches of the service. Starr

is at his best in describing the conditions of army life and the process

by which a recruit, often reluctantly, became a trooper. He generally

became acclimated to a military existence, but rarely was transformed

into a perfect soldier. He would fight creditably, if properly led, but

never forsook a careless and neglectful attitude toward horses and

equipment, and maintained an abiding disrespect for the niceties of

military discipline. In his defense it must be said that, both strategically

and tactically, he was badly misused. Ultimately, despite these handi-

caps, he did his work.

Civil War buffs, and none such should miss this book, will balk at

swallowing whole some of Starr's assertions. In fact, a part of the

book's charm for many is likely to be in the debatability of some of its

implicit and explicit conclusions. How much of Wilson's success at

Selma was indeed the result of tactical innovation, rather than simply

a defeat, by well-armed, aggressive veterans who smelled final victory,

of an ill-supplied and demoralized defending force containing a large

contingent of militia? Old prejudices die hard, and the Civil War foot-

soldier's oft-expressed skepticism about the possible existence of "a

dead cavalryman" still lives among buffs who will question Starr's

equation of Wilder's Lightning Brigade as the combat peers of the

Army of Potomac's Iron Brigade. A quick perusal of Fox's Regimental

Losses . . . shows that each of the three Wisconsin regiments of the

latter unit sustained greater losses in killed and mortally wounded dur-

ing their service than the combined total for the four regiments of

Wilder's Brigade. Comparative battle-inflicted deaths for the two

brigades were 236 for Wilder's and 1,151 for the Iron Brigade. That

the mounted infantry were tough campaigners is unquestioned; that

they were a match in a stand-up fight, or a series of them, for a first-

class infantry outfit is undemonstrated.

These cavils aside, the book is of exceptional interest and value. It

is a handsome volume, only occasionally marred by editorial lapses such

as the substitution of "access" for "excess" on page 12 and in footnote

• 24
 

Book Reviews                                                 267

 

9, page 49. Starr and the LSU Press may be proud of this work, and

the reviewer awaits impatiently the second volume.

Ohio Historical Society                        James K. Richards

 

The Paradox of Progressive Education: The Gary Plan and Urban

Schooling. By Ronald D. Cohen and Raymond A. Mohl. (Port Wash-

ington: National University Publications, Kennikat Press Corp.,

1979. viii+216p.; appendix, notes, index. $15.00.)

Historians of education have long awaited the publication of a

critical, comprehensive assessment of the Gary or platoon school plan,

one of the more fascinating social innovations of the twentieth century.

Under the leadership of its nationally prominent superintendent, Wil-

liam A. Wirt, the Gary school system combined opportunities for an

enriched and diverse school curriculum with the economic efficiency

desired by the city's corporate founding fathers-U.S. Steel. The mar-

riage of these forces was imperfect in actual practice, but the platoon

plan promised the maximum utilization of the "school plant" and ap-

pealed to reformers of various political stripes in the early twentieth

century. Paradoxically, in the opinion of the authors, both political con-

servatives and radical theorists found something to embrace in the steel

city's schools. By the 1920s, over two hundred cities operated at least

some of their public schools on the Gary platoon plan, including Mid-

western centers like Akron, Toledo, Cleveland, and Detroit.

The major strength of this volume lies both in the importance of the

subject matter and in the depth of the research, which included de-

tailed case studies of Gary and New York City. The platoon plan was

the subject of literally hundreds of popular and scholarly articles, books,

and newspaper editorials during its heyday, and the authors have also

examined voluminous manuscript collections and other unpublished

materials. The "paradoxical" acceptance of the plan by political con-

servatives as well as radicals is best highlighted in an early chapter

which compares the philosophies of the conservative superintendent,

Wirt, with one of his closest associates, Alice Barrows. While Wirt and

Barrows severed their close ties in the 1930s, when he assumed a

paranoid attitude toward the New Deal and she shifted to social re-

constructionism, both selectively championed specific aspects of the

Gary plan. He generally applauded the efficient utilization of school

resources, similar to factory routine; she endorsed the social center ac-

tivities, adult classes, and individualized programs now available for

children. The platoon plan, therefore, provoked vastly different images

in the minds of different reformers. People saw exactly what they chose

to see.

In trying to penetrate social reality and move beyond the history of

ideas, the authors explore the impact of Gary innovations in ethnic and

black communities and the maturity of the system in the 1920s. Through-

out the text parents and ordinary citizens are seen not as docile

servants of the powerful but as active forces in history who often lost

the war but still won some important battles against privileged elites.

• 25
 

268                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

Perhaps the strongest chapter in this area deals with the New York

City school riots, which were primarily led by Jewish children against

the platoon plan during World War I; here the motives of individual

participants as well as the city's highly charged political climate, which

pitted the Tammany victors against Socialists as well as administrative

reformers, are carefully analyzed.

Readers of this useful volume will nevertheless criticize several

aspects of its organization and thematic development. Often previously

published as articles, the individual chapters have retained much of

their separate qualities and lack sufficient integration. A fascinating

chapter on Willis Brown, a journeyman child saver, nevertheless veers

away from a central focus on the Gary plan. Immigrant-based racism

in Gary is also discounted at superintendent Wirt's expense without

sufficient documentation. The precise reason why Wirt permitted free

speech for teachers in the 1930s, when loyalty oaths across the nation

were common and his ultraconservatism was unquestioned, is never ex-

plained. Labor unions are rarely discussed for Gary, though U.S. Steel,

perhaps not surprisingly, always lurks in the shadows. And, finally, the

authors inappropriately label recent critical historians of education as

simply "revisionists"; these individuals, who range from anarchists to

liberals to Marxists, may share a critical stance on history and public

policy but obviously lack a common philosophy, research design, or

social vision. Despite these imperfections, The Paradox of Progressive

Education reflects the new critical perspective which has made the his-

tory of education a lively subject for over a decade.

 

University of Wisconsin-Madison                  William J. Reese

 

 

Alexander Hamilton: A Biography. By Forrest McDonald. (New York:

W. W. Norton & Company, 1979. xiii+464p.; notes, index. $17.50.)

 

One must be a man's friend to understand him. As Professor

McDonald has read Alexander Hamilton with the mind of an eighteenth

century man, he understands him very well. His book is not, however, a

biography as its subtitle claims, for it says little of Hamilton's early

life and wartime experience and even less about his last years. His

family activities and connections, especially with his father-in-law, his

personal habits, religion and law practice are barely treated; what

McDonald says of them is suggestive, but more tantalizing than satisfy-

ing.

McDonald's focus is Hamilton's public career, especially as secretary

of the treasury, and half the book covers but six years of Hamilton's

forty-seven. It is here, however, that McDonald fulfils admirably his

stated aims: to make eighteenth century economic thought and Hamil-

ton's fiscal policies intelligible to the general reader; and "to recon-

struct Hamilton's world view by analyzing his writings in the context

of his personal intellectual milieu." This success is soundly rooted in

primary sources; the bibliography is comprehended in the notes of

which there is almost a page for every four pages of text. The citations

• 26
 

Book Reviews                                               269

 

include much meaty commentary that should be followed as carefully

as the story itself. Unfortunately, the publishers made this unneces-

sarily difficult for the reader by employing endnotes instead of

footnotes.

The book clearly shows Hamilton's intellectual growth. Only one

attitude did not change: championship of liberty, abhorrence of slavery.

But his romantic conception of warfare and trust in politicians gave

way to sober pursuit of virtue, and his imagination was reinforced by

the knowledge of both experience and study. Hamilton's fusion of Hume

and Vattel led him to a keen awareness of the distinction between what

is right and what is expedient; he saw that the best course of action

was always what was both right and expedient. Vattel taught him to

advocate three ends of government: promoting commerce, revenue and

agriculture; facilitating domestic tranquility and happiness; establish-

ing stability and strength to make the nation respected abroad. Liberty

was not an end of government, but an indispensable means to attain

desired political ends. Blackstone's influence on Hamilton was subtler:

a reverent enthusiasm for the law; qualifications of sovereignty that

led to federalism. Reading Jacques Necker inspired him to creativity

as a great minister of finance.

McDonald's work is well-constructed and finely written; its clarity

and lively style are little marred by jargon, infelicity or inaccuracy. It

is a magnificent exposition of Hamilton's virtues, principles and ac-

complishments; carefully revising false and inaccurate history, it is a

persuasive defense of Hamilton against irresponsible and malicious at-

tackers and the historians who have consigned individuals "to roles

they did not actually play ..." Hamilton's passionate efforts to earn

posterity's grateful remembrance and to acquire fame by reconstituting

American society have given rise to a mythology which often has dis-

torted the truth instead of conveying it. In sleuthing for facts amidst

the fictions and setting the record straight, McDonald is an expert; his

arguments are impressive and mostly persuasive.

Countering the canard that Hamilton thought the people a great beast,

McDonald shows that despite a pessimistic view of man, Hamilton

constantly applied his energy and talents in appeals to the intelligence

and virtue of the public-more so "than did any other American in

public life." His legal training taught him that law was less a matter

of commands and prohibitions than of procedures, that liberty and

obedience to rules were complementary and inseparable, not opposites

to be balanced. Freedom and energy could best be combined in a people

and infused "with industry and love of country, by establishing the ways

that things be done rather than trying to order what was to be done."

As Alexander Pope, his favorite poet, put it, "For Forms of Govern-

ment let fools contest; What'er is best administered is best." Nowhere

were these principles applied more clearly than in Hamilton's able ad-

ministration of national fiscal policy. His imitation of the British sys-

tems of funding, banking and sinking funds was superficial, for he

used different principles in different ways to obtain different ends.

The British sought to raise money for the government; Hamilton em-

ployed financial means to achieve political, economic, and social ends.

The mention of but a few of McDonald's corrections of Hamilton's

• 27
 

270                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

story should prompt readers to consult the book, for they will surely

profit from it. Special attention should be paid to the endnotes, page

references to which here follow in parentheses. Evidence shows that

Hamilton's influence in the U. S. Senate and in the Adams cabinet was

far less extensive and powerful than has been thought (pp. 403, 440).

His role in the compromises of 1790 was not as Jefferson led many to

believe; it was the Virginian, "actively interested in all the points at

issue," who was the wily manipulator, not the passive, innocent or dis-

interested statesman he later claimed to be (p. 404). McDonald's de-

scription of when and why the "bogus clash of constitutional inter-

pretations" of the bank was raised by Madison, and his explanation of

how Washington was cleverly pressured to sign the charter act may

surprise and should fascinate most readers. The charges of improper

interference by the Secretary of the Treasury in State Department

business and of his deceit and duplicity are at best exaggerations, for

Hamilton did nothing unnecessary or improper, nor did he act behind

the backs of Washington and Jefferson (p. 393). Hamilton was not

eager to use force in the Whiskey Rebellion, nor was he a provocateur

(pp. 430-433). Contrary views are based on distorted and incomplete

reading of Hamilton's language. The notion of whiskey as a "cash

crop" of honest frontier yeomen is totally mistaken. Hamilton's views

on Jay's Treaty were not as extreme as they usually have been por-

trayed (p. 436). After all, he publicly defended the treaty, and his

supposedly harsh private criticisms of it were alleged by Jefferson

who had no way of knowing them. There was no Hamilton conspiracy

to dump John Adams and elect Thomas Pinckney in 1796; there is no

evidence for this long-standing assumption, and McDonald admits the

necessity of having to correct his own views on this point (pp. 438-439).

Hamilton neither conspired nor angled for a military command in 1798.

Craving military glory was his youthful inclination, but it passed. Pre-

ferring not to reenter military service, he succumbed "out of an intense

sense of public duty" (p. 443). The campaign split of 1800 does not

reveal a division of Hamiltonian and Adams Federalists, but of the

supporters of Adams and Pickering (p. 446). Moreover, Hamilton's

first efforts in 1800 in the New York elections were designed to pro-

mote Adams's reelection; his subsequent maneuvers were designed to

push C. C. Pinckney ahead of Adams, but of course to elect both

Federalists instead of Jefferson and Burr.

These few points in McDonald's work are only suggestive of its im-

portance to all students of our early national history. With such par-

ticulars the broader theme of Hamiltonianism is illuminated; why and

how Hamilton established a successful fiscal policy and so ably ad-

ministered it for the good of all segments of the nation are amply

demonstrated. It is a happy fortuity that McDonald's book celebrates

the 1979 completion of publishing twenty-six volumes of The Papers

of Alexander Hamilton and five volumes of his law practice.

 

University of Akron                              Don R. Gerlach

• 28
 

Book Reviews                                               271

 

The Colonel of Chicago: A Biography of the Chicago Tribune's

Legendary Publisher, Colonel Robert McCormick. By Joseph Gies.

(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979. 261p.; illustrations, bibliography,

index. $12.95.)

 

Frank, to the point, impatient, but "not a demagogue" Joseph Gies

asserts in his description of Robert Rutherford McCormick, the

legendary publisher of The Chicago Tribune. Characterized as a do-

mestic fascist in the 1940s, Colonel McCormick (his World War I

rank) is rehabilitated at every turn in this friendly study. Ironically,

this revisionist biography of a man whom contemporaneous pundits

referred to as "one of the finest minds of the Fourteenth Century" is

written by a self-proclaimed "old left liberal Democrat."

The grandson of Joseph Medill, the founder of the Tribune,

McCormick, after graduating from Yale and Northwestern Univer-

sities, had a brief career in Chicago politics. Trained as a lawyer, he

took over the family newspaper and proceeded to run it with business

acumen and journalistic inventiveness. Thorough coverage of World

War I won widespread readership and aggressive circulation cam-

paigns, assisted by armed thugs, helped keep the readers. Recognizing

the importance of maintaining a good supply of newsprint, he had the

foresight to lease timberlands and build a pulp processing plant in

Canada. Sparing no costs, he sent his reporters wherever the big story

appeared to be developing, whether locally or around the world. Along

with wire service coverage, the Tribune early established bureau of-

fices around the country and internationally.

From  1914 until his death in 1955 at age seventy-five, "Col.

McCosmic," as the rival Daily News satirized him in cartoon, impressed

his personality upon the Tribune. With the paper's daily banner claim-

ing to be "The World's Greatest Newspaper," to front-page cartoons,

to phonetic spelling, the Chicago morning paper embodied his will.

Editorially rational, articulate and ironic, the Colonel's paper inter-

preted events from a point of view derived from Frederick Jackson

Turner's concept of democracy. Romanticizing the midwest as "the

center of the American spirit," McCormick meshed his beliefs with a

good business strategy. Such boosterism fostered loyalty to the paper

among midwestern readers. Neutrality in 1916 and again in the years

before World War II was consistent and reflected midwestern senti-

ments, at least as well as a considerable number of congressmen from

the region. Throughout his career McCormick's opinions and those of

the Tribune, on most political issues, were generally acceptable to

rational conservatives.

What set him apart was his isolationism on the eve of World War II.

Reflecting the anti-interventionist spirit of the 1970s, Gies notes that

McCormick's isolationist views seem less objectionable now. He at-

tributes the Colonel's persistent opposition to Franklin Delano Roosevelt

to genuine fears of a possible dictatorship during an age of dictators.

Charges of treason leveled against McCormick by fellow journalists,

some of them former employees, arose because of aggressive journalistic

scoops by the Tribune and because of overreaction to "mild," after

• 29
 

272                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

thirty-seven years of hindsight, editorial criticism. McCormick was

exercising the right of a free press and deserved the applause of Oswald

Garrison Villard for "keeping alive the historic American right of press

dissent even in wartime."

Gies has written an informative and enjoyable book. Unfortunately,

he failed to gain access to the Colonel's personal papers; they are re-

served for some future official biographer. It is also unfortunate that

the book lacks footnotes. The author seems to have gone to considerable

length to verify many of the anecdotes commonly associated with

McCormick's career. Another shortcoming of the work is its failure

to verify the claim on the dust jacket that the history of the Tribune,

McCormick, and the city of Chicago were "inextricably intertwined."

They undoubtedly are, but it still remains to be demonstrated.

 

University of Cincinnati                         James E. Cebula

• 30