Ohio History Journal

BOOK REVIEWS

 

Ohio in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1938. Planned and com-

piled by Harlow Lindley. The History of the State of Ohio.

Edited by Carl Wittke. Vol. VI (Columbus, The Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society, 1942. xiv + ⁵⁶3p.

Illustrations and maps. $25.00 per set of 6 vols.)

Ohio in the Twentieth Century, final volume in the six

volume History of the State of Ohio, is the fourth in the series

to be published. Previously presented have been Bond's Foun-

dations of Ohio, Utter's Frontier State, and Weisenburger's Pas-

sing of the Frontier,¹ with the periods 1850-73 and 1873-1900 yet

to be treated by Eugene H. Roseboom and Philip D. Jordan, re-

spectively.

Unlike the other five volumes, which have been or will be the

work of individual historians, volume six is the product of con-

tributions by fifteen different persons, the separate subject chap-

ters having been planned and compiled by Harlow Lindley, Sec-

retary, Editor and Librarian of the Ohio State Archaeological and

Historical Society. This organization has sponsored the entire

History, which is one of the most significant outgrowths of Ohio's

participation in the observance of the one hundred and fiftieth

anniversary of the setting up of the Northwest Territory and the

establishment therein of civil government under the Ordinance

of 1787.

To estimate properly the worth of volume six, one must

keep in mind the framework upon which it is constructed: a sin-

gle compiler designing, arranging and synthesizing the diverse

monographs produced by a group of able specialists. The list of

contributors is a brilliant one. Approximately two-thirds of the

authors are specifically associated with academic Ohio while the

remainder have vocational or avocational connections which make

their pronouncements authoritative.

 

1 These three volumes will be reviewed in a forthcoming issue of the Quarterly.

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286    OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

It was, of course, necessary for the compiler to find some

common denominator for technical differences of style and in

this respect the book testifies to painstaking editorial care. That

this was accomplished without sacrificing the imprint of each

author's individuality upon his work shows editorial discrimina-

tion and discernment on the part of the compiler and his staff.

Another difficulty inherent in the scheme of this particular

volume has been well met. Some kind of arbitrary date-line had

to be set to guide the authors, and the final time-limit chosen was

that of 1938, the year which marked the completion of the first

century and a half of civil government in Ohio. In a few cases,

however, the narratives have been carried beyond this date in

order to bring to a logical conclusion the story of certain main

aspects of life in the Commonwealth during the first four decades

of this century. The final chapter (written by the book's com-

piler, Harlow Lindley), which is an account of the Sesquicenten-

nial Celebration of the Ordinance of 1787 and the setting up of

government in the Old Northwest, demonstrates the appropriate-

ness of selecting 1938 as a terminal date.

Because of space limitations only a summary treatment of the

chosen period, 1900-38, has been possible, but within these boun-

daries the compiler and contributors have worked skillfully. The

book opens with two chapters on Ohio government and continues

with sections on labor, agriculture, transportation, business, fi-

nance, conservation, education, the various cultural arts, religion,

social service, etc. One of the later chapters deals with Ohio's

participation in the first World War. The content of the con-

cluding chapter has already been described.

The same difficulties which must have presented themselves

to the planner and compiler of this volume in its inception and

development confront the reviewer and critic.  Given such a

diversified treatment of a comparatively narrow and artificial field

it is impossible for one person to judge with assurance of the

necessarily summary handling of major developments within Ohio

during the period of 1900-1938. It is impossible, too, for such

a volume to be definitive. The period treated is too close at hand,

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BOOK REVIEWS                            287

 

the necessary but artificial restriction to 1938 (or thereabouts)

too rigid to allow for a thoroughly natural recounting.

To overcome these inherent difficulties it was necessary for

the compiler to choose the contributors2 carefully and to rely with

confidence on their ability and willingness to present their mate-

rials and views in the most suitable manner. This Dr. Lindley

did and from a mass of valuable and heterogeneous historical

data a work which is both compact and useful has been evolved.

Choosing with care and acumen the features of Ohio life to be

presented through his volume and the authorities who should

write of them, the compiler gave cohesion to the individual mono-

graphs by a policy of careful editorializing, judicious chapter

arrangement, and a repeated emphasis on 1938 as a terminal point

suitable for a History of Ohio, since it marked the completion of

one hundred and fifty years of significant Ohio history.

The book is well and thoroughly indexed and the nineteen

charts and illustrations are attractive and appropriate.

Pennville, Indiana                            Lois R. McKinley

 

2 Francis R. Aumann, "Ohio Government in the Twentieth Century: From Nash to

White," and "Ohio Government in the Twentieth Century: From White to Bricker";

Frank T. Carlton, "Labor in the Twentieth Century"; John I. Falconer, "Agricultural

Changes"; John M. Weed, "The Traveled Ways," and "Business as Usual"; Virgil

Willit, "The History of the Banks and Building and Loan Associations of Ohio, 1900-

1939"; Paul B. Sears, "History of Conservation in Ohio"; William D. Overman,

"Education in Ohio since 1900"; Harlan H. Hatcher, "Ohio in the Literature of the

Twentieth Century"; James E. Pollard, "Ohio Journalism, 1900-1939"; Mrs. Edna M.

Clark, "The Arts"; Mrs. Mary H. Osburn, "Twentieth Century Music in Ohio";

Benjamin H. Pershing, "Religion in the Twentieth Century"; H. Clyde Hubbart, "Ohio

in the First World War, 1917-1918"; J. Otis Garber, "Depression Activities"; and

Harlow Lindley, "The Sesquicentennial Celebration."

 

 

Pathway of Progress--A Short History of Ohio. By David W.

Bowman. (New York, American Book Company, 1943.

⁵⁴⁶p. cloth, illus. $1.48.)

The importance of Ohio history has been quickened by the

appearance of this attractive book which is bound to stimulate

the interest of not only school children but general readers as

well.

The author, a newspaper editor and an instructor in journal-

ism at the University of Cincinnati, has attempted and succeeded

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in writing a new type of history, featuring the interesting episodes

in the State's history. His method of approach to the subject

is suggested by the first sentence of his preface: "The news of

today becomes the history of tomorrow, so history is just the news

of other days." His idea seems to have been occasioned by a re-

quest from his young son for something more interesting in his-

tory than the usual factual routine treatment found in the ordinary

text book.--And Mr. Bowman's volume proves that history may

be written so as to give information and at the same time stimu-

late interest in the subject. One really sees the characters and

incidents portrayed in action. Such a book carefully handled

by the teachers should inspire new interest in the State's history.

One might go into detail in outlining some of these chapters

but the better way is for the reader to get the book, for once

begun, it will not be put down until it is completed.

One of the greatest hindrances in the development of a pro-

gram on the study of state and local history in the schools has

been the lack of suitable material available for both teacher and

pupil. This book is the first satisfactory answer. In its twenty-

three chapters, beginning with "Before Man Came" and ending

with "Ohio's Government" there is presented a "moving picture"

of Ohio.

The many illustrations are well chosen. Chapter headings

arouse interest. The book ends with a clearly written exposition

of state, county, township and city government and an index

of 24 pages following an appendix with data on the Governors,

counties and larger cities of the State. The foreword is written

by Dr. Howard L. Bevis, president of Ohio State University.

Such a book cannot help but develop a sense of greater pride in

the State and a feeling of responsibility and healthful patriotism.

H. L.

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BOOK REVIEWS                     289

 

A Short History of Westmoreland County, [Pennsylvania], the

First County West of the Appalachians. By C. M. Bom-

 

front. (county seal), illus., ports., maps, music, tables, vig-

nette, map on lining papers. $2.00.)

Mr. Bomberger is a Jeannette, Pennsylvania, newspaperman

who believes that local history may be stream-lined to advantage

in a terse, compact journalistic style, and presented in slender

form. With this in mind he has offered an attractive volume of

an even hundred pages setting forth the history of Westmoreland

County, Pennsylvania, which will lead the student to extended

study, present the busy teacher and pupil with a quickly grasped

text, and give both authoritative facts and figures, and entertain-

ment to the general public. What a welcome contrast to the

multiple-volumed, and thousand-paged sets of old-style county

history! Not that the old-style history, for all its faults, does

not have its value to the seeker of lost ancestors.

The book is divided into 11 chapters on names, geography,

geology, the Indian, events of 1753-1773, the county as a part of

a new nation, government, personalities, transportation, industries

and products, and educational facilities. Helpful suggestions for

further study are appended to each chapter and bibliographical

references are given on pages 91-92. There is an adequate index.

The book's value is enhanced by the inclusion of 27 illustrations

and eight useful maps.

C. L. W.

 

 

Come Back to Wayne County. By Jake Falstaff [Herman Fetzer].

(Boston, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1942. vi+244p. Endcover

and title-page illustrations. $2.00.)

This is another in the Falstaff series of stories about city-bred

Lemuel Hayden, now in his middle teens, enjoying a long sum-

mer vacation in rural northwestern Ohio. This time he works

as a hired hand, falls in love, visits a poolroom, helps at a haying,

enjoys apple-butter-making, and hunts in the big swamp. Like

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its predecessors, Jacoby's Corners and The Big Snow, the volume

is also full of homey saws, pet remedies, and realistic folks:

"Homesickness is like a cold that settles in the back. It comes

back day after day, but every day it's a little easier." "Pete Gurdy

and his wife lived lonesome. Nobody--not even the fertilizer

salesmen or the school enumerators went to see them." " 'I always

trust a man's job of scrubbing about as far as you can throw a

cow.' " These are but a few samplings of the picturesque expres-

sions which abound throughout the chapters.

Except for the first two chapters, the material has been

organized, by Fetzer's widow and a friend, to make a continuous

story of what was really a series of several seasons of vacations.

The result is not as even in tone as were the two preceding

volumes but perhaps that is only because the standard set in

those others was very high.

The volume concludes with "Dessie Tinseler's Song," re-

printed from another Falstaff volume, The Bulls of Spring, and

it is the first line in this poem which gives the book its title. This

should make a good gift book. It revives memories of not so

long ago and makes pleasant reading.

B.J.

 

 

Window by the Sea. By Tessa Sweazy Webb. (Columbus, O.,

C. C. Carlton Hartley, c1942. 79p. $1.50.)

Mrs. Webb, who is on the staff of the Agricultural Extension

Service of Ohio State University, is well known in literary circles

of her native Ohio, for she is active in several literary and poetry

societies, edits the Singing Quill, a magazine of poetry published

by the Presbyterian poetry society of the same name, and long

has been editor of poetry columns in the Columbus Sunday

Dispatch, "Voices and Echoes" and "With the Poets." Her poetry

appears frequently in newspapers and periodicals of the State and

nation. In addition to the present volume she has published Life's

Tilted Cup and Sittings in Sentiment.

Window by the Sea is in attractive format, is introduced by

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BOOK REVIEWS                     291

 

Harlan Hatcher of the English Department of Ohio State Uni-

versity, and carries an imposing list of "Acknowledgments." The

poems are grouped under three headings: "Storm and Calm,"

"Love and Chimera" and "Death and Requital," each bearing an

appropriate poetical text.

The most outstanding characteristic of this gracious lady's

poetry is, that, while the conventions of a true craftsman have

been observed, it flows without effort, revealing depths of feeling

and loftiness of soul. In reviewing a book of poems the tempta-

tion to quote is strong. This reviewer usually cannot resist, and

so closes with the following:

"April, what is this strange but certain thing

That blows bright flames across the open wold,

And lifts the dull brown breast of ancient sod

To ghosts of charm, fragrant with blossoming?

Your age-old secret has not yet been told,

But in each flower I see the face of God."

--From "April," p.37.

"What if the rose become frost-kissed and slain?

April brings pregnant buds to bloom again;

Life is not made of texture of moth wings.

And for each dream that leaps to flame, and dies,

Time brings a solace, redolent and wise."

--From "Strict Decision," p.57.

"Ah, if to die,

Is but to know awhile the loam's caress,

I glory in the autumn's loneliness."

--From "Autumn's Miracle," p.⁷⁸.

C. L. W.

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The Amateur Spirit in Scholarship. The report of the Committee

on Private Research of Western Reserve University, by Wil-

liam S. Dix. (Cleveland, Western Reserve University Press,

1942. ⁹⁶p.)

This is a report on the activities and conclusions of the Com-

mittee on Private Research, set up at Western Reserve University,

Cleveland, on a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, to investi-

gate the participation of the layman in scholarship. Because of

lapse of the grant, the work of the committee at this time has

been greatly curtailed, temporarily, it is hoped.

The Committee on Private Research is an outgrowth of the

fertile mind of the late Professor Robert C. Binkley of Western

Reserve who, over a period of years just preceding his death, had

given the matter of layman scholarship a great deal of his time and

thought.

Without going into details, it may be said that the ideas

which found expression through the committee are destined to

receive serious consideration in educational circles, particularly

in view of prospective change in methods of instruction which

must follow the present world conflict.

As a scholarly bit of thinking and writing, Dr. Dix's con-

tribution should appeal to all persons interested in education and

the humanities. Those who read the book are certain to feel that

the work begun by the committee must continue when conditions

are favorable for its further development.

H. C. S.

 

 

On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American

Prose Literature. By Alfred Kazin.  (New York, Reynal

& Hitchcock, 1942. 541p. $3.75.)

"They will have seen the new truth in larger and larger de-

gree; and when it shall have become the old truth, they will per-

haps see it all"--these words of W. D. Howells open and close

this new, in many ways pioneering, study of American literary

thought for the half century, 1891-1941. Mr. Kazin, former

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teacher of English and American literature at the College of the

City of New York, The New School for Social Research and

Queens College, now on the editorial staff of The New Republic,

subtitles his book, "An Interpretation of Modern American

Prose." It is really more: it is a summary analysis of critical at-

titudes accounting for significant writing in this country for

fifty years, and as such it becomes substantially a story of Amer-

ican ideas in more than a mere literary sense. The book is un-

doubtedly an important one, at least for the current decade.

Howells' words have special meaning for Kazin's book, be-

cause the entire half century has been dominated more or less by

the rise of realistic attitudes and techniques among American

writers. Kazin analyzes, therefore, as the central story, Howells'

critical realism, Garland's "veritism," Dreiser's naturalism, Mrs.

Wharton's chronicling of the Gilded Age aristocracy, the muck-

raking and the insurgent scholarship of the "progressive" period,

the disillusion of the postwar scene, the new realism of Sherwood

Anderson and Sinclair Lewis, the elegiac novels of Willa Gather

and the satirical ones of Ellen Glasgow, the lost generation of the

beginning thirties, the revival of naturalism in men like Steinbeck

and Farrell and the mountains of reporting about the American

scene at the very end of the fifty-year period. The attendant

divergencies are equally well chronicled--the romantic revolt in the

nineties, the Nietzschean individualism of the Progressives, the

exquisite decadence of such men as Cabell, Hergesheimer and

Van Vechten in the twenties, the new humanism of Babbitt and

More, the critical neoclassicism of the late thirties and the recent

search for a new idealism in American life past and present.

Some of the patterns in this intricate interweaving of ideas,

Kazin has traced either for the first time or with new and strik-

ing emphases.   Of special note are his chapters on Howells,

those dealing with the group of related insurgents, Thorstein

Veblen, John Dewey, Charles A. Beard, J. Allen Smith and Ver-

non L. Parrington, the one on the critical points of view in the

thirties, and especially those on the recent explorations of Amer-

ica via history, biography, regional analyses, folk lore, WPA

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294    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

guides, novels, what not, as writers in the face of approaching

world catastrophe have tried to revaluate the native element and

trace there the roots for a saving way of life.

There is much of Ohio in this book. Six of the sixteen chap-

ters open with quotations by Ohioans either native or acquired.

Howells and Sherwood Anderson one expects. Words of Gamaliel

Harding stand counter to those of T. S. Eliot to introduce "The

Postwar Scene." A remark of Kenyon College's neoclassicist, John

Crowe Ransom, sets the scene for "Criticism at the Poles" dur-

ing the past ten years. Ludwig Lewissohn, one leg of whose

upstream struggle was passed at Ohio State University, occupies

an important critical role. And there are others.

Yet On Native Grounds is neither regional nor conducive to a

merely regional feeling. It is to be read only with the long view,

for Kazin, like many of the writers he has weighed, is seeking

the essentially American thing. One may not agree wholeheartedly

with every detail of opinion ("Steinbeck's people are always on the

verge of becoming human, but never do." Hemingway is "a

profound romanticist"), but one finds here a searching examina-

tion which will leave him with a securer understanding of the

cultural terrain across which America is moving now as she faces

into the mid-century.

Ohio State University                      Robert Price

 

 

Cheerful Yesterdays and Confident Tomorrows. By Carl Gregg

Doney. (Portland, Oregon, Binfords and Mort, 1942. 190p.

$2.00. Securable through Williamette College.)

Many Ohioans know Carl Gregg Doney, and as many more

would like to. His whole book is written with a twinkle, a whimsy

that adds rare charm to all writing, but most thankfully, to an

autobiography.

This little volume could have been very dull. After all, Dr.

Doney was a lawyer, a minister, a college president--all imposing

accomplishments--but so learned a man could so easily, and with

license, have written statically and classically as many lawyers,

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BOOK REVIEWS                      295

 

ministers and college presidents do.  Instead, he writes a very

live, humble, jaunty story, and, without definite design, impresses

his readers with a life happily and religiously spent.

Mr. Doney's boyhood was spent on an Ohio farm, and per-

haps his account of those early days is the most charming in his

story. As his college days approached, he drove a loaded spring-

wagon into Columbus three times a week, backed it against the

curb in the public market square and sold his way through college.

After four years at Ohio State University and a year at Harvard,

he tried his hand at law, but made a hard decision, a year or so

later, to become a preacher. In 1893, he took his bride, Jennie

Evans, to his first appointment at Bainbridge, Ohio. From Bain-

bridge to Granville, to Delaware, to Columbus' King Avenue

Methodist, and then to Washington, D. C., in fourteen years, is

Dr. Doney's distinguished record in the ministry. In 1907, he

was invited to the presidency of West Virginia Wesleyan College

and after eight stimulating years there, he went to Oregon's

Williamette.  When Williamette stale-mated, as most small col-

leges do in war crises, Dr. Doney, its president, went to the wars

as a lecturer, and the short, seven-page account of his experience

in the tumult over there and the evolution of Dr. Doney's phi-

losophy of peace provide very real, practical, intense strength to

this unpretentious little book:

I am glad to have gone overseas. One grows up quickly under the

impingement of intense experiences. Since then I better understand the

source and power of mass emotion; I saw it fumbled with and used for

wicked purposes. My sympathy is for men. . . . Objectively, the world has

now become a family; but in order to save itself, the world must become a

family of essential like-mindedness. . . . Not more intelligence is needed for

our leaders, but more plain righteousness.

There are many exciting thoughts between these covers. Dr.

Doney humbly offers his views on many subjects: education,

good living, war, love, literature, grandfathers, music, politics,

gardening, and on and on, colorfully, and often, challengingly.

The Doneys' home ties were strong in Columbus, so, upon

retirement in 1934, they came east again where they are still

much in the heart of things--so much, in fact, that, with their

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many generous occupations, they must find very little time, indeed,

for "retirement."

A. H. W.

 

 

The Years Like Foxes. By Hazel Shinn Krumm. (Columbus,

O., The F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1942. 79p. $1.50.)

Mrs. Krumm, well-known and much-loved Columbus, Ohio,

poet, editor and club-woman, as well as president of the Poets'

Round Table, has produced one of the most delightful volumes

of poetry of the year.    The poems have all the qualities that

characterize work of the highest merit: beauty, individuality, per-

ception, vitality and deftness. Many of them have the same quali-

ties to be found in William Blake's Song of Innocence and Songs

of Experience--simplicity, reverence, sensitivity.

"I shed a tear

That furrowed my face--

It took away Beauty

But left me Grace."

--From "Grace," p. 16

"Below, the village lies a scimitar of light,

A jeweled motif on the frock of Night."

--From "Winter Night," p. 31

"Where my lovely lady treads,

Flowers sweetly bow their heads,

O'er the mountains, in the dell

Where lives my lady, Cherrybelle--

Bluebells ring forth the hour

Telling every other flower,

O'er the mountain, in the dell,

'Here comes lovely Cherrybelle!'"

--From "My Lady Cherrybelle," p. 60

Her distinctive title is taken from the first poem,

"My life is lived

Upon a bleak

Unending moor--

Where years like foxes

Swiftly pass my door."

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BOOK REVIEWS                    297

 

A long list of publications which are credited with first pub-

lishing her poems is included. Tom Burns Haber of the English

Department of the Ohio State University wrote the foreword. The

book is well printed and bound in black cloth with red lining

papers.

C. L. W.

 

 

Shining Rain. By Helen Welshimer. (New York, E. P. Dutton

& Co., 1943. 157p. $2.00.)

This little book is a collection of popular poems by Helen

Welshimer, of Canton, Ohio. The poems serve their purpose,

in presenting familiar moods in an arresting fashion. In keeping

with the general, light tone of such poems, feeling, and not

thought, dominates. Metaphors, perhaps not quite suited, are

terminated with an unusual abruptness or twist. A first reading

finds these poems pleasant, while a rereading may, in some in-

stances, raise questions, to the critical person, as to the correct-

ness of individual words. Helen Welshimer's poem to Mark

Twain is outstanding in appeal and as an expression of national

feeling, calls to mind Wordsworth's words,

"Milton! Thou should'st be living at this hour;

England hath need of thee."

A. M.

 

 

Our Landed Heritage, the Public Domain, 1776-1936. By Roy

M. Robbins. (Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press,

1942. x + 450p. $5.00.)

Whether a people are the product of the land in which they

live, or a nation bears the imprint of those who develop it, is a

matter of opinion. Roy Robbins, nevertheless, has traced the

first 300 years of our national life through this history of our

public domain.

The era of our public lands consists of four distinct periods:

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the first period, 1780-1850, characterized by the individual pioneer;

the second period, 1850-1862, during which time corporations

threatened to supplant the pioneer in the West; the third period,

1862-1901, when our national resources were ruthlessly exploited

by money interests; and the last period, 1901-1935, at which

time steps were taken toward conservation, resulting in the abolish-

ment of the public domain.

Mr. Robbins' pleasing style, unusual in historical studies of

this type, arises from two technical devices: the use of short

paragraphs and a definite variety of sentence structure. The book

is heavily documented, a great many of these references pertaining

to original newspaper articles. Roy Robbins wisely refrains from

any political interpretation of presidential actions, other than one

purely national in viewpoint. Both in his analysis of state and

party movements as well as in his comprehensive presentation of

our landed heritage, this book presents a unique view of Amer-

ican history.

A. M.

 

 

The Wright Brothers. By Fred C. Kelly. (New York, Harcourt,

Brace and Co., 1943. 340p. $3.50.)

A new account of the work of Wilbur and Orville Wright

made its appearance on May 13, 1943. The author, an Ohio man,

who is a writer of books and for magazines, spent more than two

years in its preparation. He not only had access to a mass of

original documents but he also had the benefit of suggestions and

criticisms from Orville Wright.

As a result the book contains many facts about the Wrights

and their work which have never before been made known. It

tells of the relations of the Wrights with the United States De-

partment of War and with foreign governments. The biography

traces step by step the preliminary scientific work the brothers

carried on before their final successes became possible. The in-

credulity expressed by newspapers and the general public is also

presented.

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An important part of the book is devoted to a detailed ex-

planation of the long controversy between the Wrights and the

Smithsonian Institution.

The book contains sixteen pages of photographic illustrations

and these add to its attractiveness. It is authorized by Orville

Wright.

H. L.

 

 

Jake Home. By Ruth McKenney. (New York, Harcourt, Brace

and Co., 1943. 503p. $3.00.)

Jake Home is a provocative novel with a strong message

which will be welcomed in some quarters and attacked in others,

for its protagonist is an American Communist with a sincere and

passionate desire to improve the pitiful status of the workers

from whom he has sprung. As the title indicates, it is essentially a

one-man story.

The character Jake Home is first viewed in the cruel setting

of an impoverished Pennsylvania mining town where he enters

the mining pits at eleven and becomes a leader of the men while

yet in his early teens. His subsequent successes and failures,

vividly painted against the historical background of America in

the 1900's, take Jake to all parts of the great land which he

loves. The reader views him with disappointment as a whimper-

ing factory boss in Altoona; sees him vindicate himself as a

courageous labor organizer in New York City; accompanies him

on a heartbreaking tour of the nation in a vain attempt to save

the lives of the already doomed Sacco and Vanzetti; and wit-

nesses his leadership of the New York hunger march during the

depression years.

Ruth McKenney has injected into her characters a kind of

realism which makes them live and breathe. Jake has his short-

comings; there are lapses in his career when a passive acceptance

of rosy circumstances almost defeats the genius which enabled

him, as a child, to memorize all of Hamlet. But the real Jake

emerges as strong as granite, proudly proclaiming as his dictum:

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"I am not distinct from the pain, the humiliation, the frustration

of the poor. These things are mine as well as the burdens others

bear. I have no way of knowing if I shall live to see free men

conquer. But I know I have no other choice except to spend my

life--my whole life, my whole strength--in one great rebellion

against slavery . . . For me, this is the only dignity."

The author's approach is colored by her preconceived con-

victions, and no attempt is made to camouflage this fact. Her

analyses, projected in Jake Home's decisions, are based on the

Marxian dogma that man's destiny is shaped by economic forces.

In its political candour lies much of the novel's strength. No

punches are pulled and the result is refreshing--whether or not

one agrees with the author's philosophies.

A criticism which some readers may level is that the author,

in her use of labor and "party" parlance, presupposes too much

knowledge on the part of her readers. (This is understandable,

however, when one recalls that Miss McKenney is the author of

Industrial Valley, a documentary account of the labor movement

in Akron, wherein she provides a historical background for much

of the terminology in Jake Home.)

This is the first major work of Ruth McKenney, a former

student at Ohio State University, who is best known for her

delightful My Sister Eileen and other light "New Yorker"

sketches. With Jake Home, however, she has achieved the pro-

portions of an outstanding writer of our day whose purpose it is

to depict an important segment of American life which has been

sorely neglected in contemporary American literature.

The Ohio War History Commission     Ruth Joseph Fischer

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BOOK REVIEWS                         301

From Peace to War. By Ernest Hatch Wilkins. (Oberlin, Oberlin

Printing Company, 1942. 189p.)

This little book, by Ernest Hatch Wilkins, president of

Oberlin College, talks straight-forwardly to all Americans.     In

the collection of thirteen talks and one letter (most of them

directed toward students of Oberlin during the time-span from

peace to Pearl Harbor), Mr. Wilkins speaks sincerely and simply:

his thoughts are both chastisement and challenge. "Ex Uno Plura"

(the world-secessionist's motto), his first chapter, is a chest-

pounding, air sawing isolationist satire that leaves the America-

for-the-Americans individual flatly without argument. In perfect

consistency with what has happened and is happening Wilkins

assumes that we, as American people, might assert our "natural

right and become forty-eight separate and independent nations,

each sovereign and indivisible." For example, he pictures the

sovereign nation of Ohio under such a development:

We could have our own national flag; our own national anthem: "Ohio,

my Ohio, the Land Where the Buckeyes Grow"; our own national motto:

"Ohio for the Ohioans"; and our own national salute.... The army, navy

and air force of Ohio should be second to none. Even though our intentions

are, and always would be, peaceable, you can't trust these foreign nations.

It would hardly do to let Pennsylvania get ahead of us in infantry, or

Indiana in tanks, or West Virginia in submarines, or Kentucky in colonels.

. . . Our frontiers would be heavily fortified in steel and concrete. About

fifty miles inside the frontiers we should have the Hindenburg Ring; and

well within that ring we should have our munitions factories, disguised as

colleges.... All professors in our colleges would be enrolled as Champions

of the Truth--the truth, our truth, Ohio truth.... Of course the danger

of war for any state would be greatly lessened. As things are now, if Siam

should attack California, the whole country would get mixed up in it. But

since on the new plan we should all maintain a strict neutrality, Siam might

conquer California without its affecting the rest of us at all. [!!!]

His "Jericho Road," a paper on "true neighborliness," is a

vigorous ten pages that turns the nation in on itself with sharp

self-analysis. Here he cites the parable of the Good Samaritan

in seven versions, each with circumstances altered, conditions

changed--and, at the end of each telling, he asks the same question,

"Which of these . . . acted in fullest neighborliness?"

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302     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Perhaps his most daring chapter is the one entitled "Dear

John: A Letter Written to a Man Who Was Thinking of Regis-

tering as a Conscientious Objector." Not in any argument is it a

war cry, but instead it may be called a simple reasoning-out of

the dilemma facing all youth who are still mindful of the hood-

winking of the first World War.        Mr. Wilkins is all-out for

Peace, but not a supine, blind, heart-cold kind of peace:

I, for one should be a conscientious objector if my country should

embark on a war which I regarded as aggressive. But defensive war is an

utterly different thing. Defensive war is in its essence a means of stopping

aggressive war . . . Defensive war is to aggressive war precisely what

police action--which usually involves violence and may involve infliction of

death--is to crime . . . It seems to me that the parallel between defense

against crime and defense against aggressive war is absolutely sound. I

have never seen a single argument against defensive war which did not

seem to me to apply just as much to police defense against crime. If

police defense against crime is justifiable, then, by the same token, national

defensive war--that is to say, national defense against aggressive war--is

justifiable. If national defensive war is wrong, then police defense against

crime is wrong.

This is not a thesis for dreamers, for its honest evaluation

(whether or not the reader feels it undue or unkind or even

untrue) makes it a very up-and-doing book--a challenge to works

and deeds.

A. H. W.

 

 

 

Indian Villages of the Illinois Country. Vol. II, Scientific Papers,

Illinois State Museum.     Part I.  Atlas. Compiled by Sara

Jones Tucker. (Springfield, Ill., Printed by the authority of

the State of Illinois, 1942. 54 maps from 1671, with notes

and bibliography.)

The importance of publication, which so often lags behind

research, is of general recognition. This is particularly true with

respect to early American history, as it concerns itself with con-

tacts between the American Indian and the white explorers and

adventurers. Archaeologists, who for the most part have been

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BOOK REVIEWS                     303

 

accustomed to work from the unknown to the known, now are

finding it advantageous to reverse this procedure.

In this connection, a current publication of the Illinois State

Museum, entitled Indian Villages of the Illinois Country is most

timely. The publication, compiled by Sara Jones Tucker, is in two

parts: Part I, the Atlas, comprises a collection of more than 50

early maps, with brief descriptions, while Part II, to follow, will

elaborate these in their relation to the early historic documents

and records with which they are correlated.

Making its appearance at a time when pretentious publication

is definitely handicapped, this contribution of the Illinois State

Museum is outstanding.                           H. C. S.

 

 

Myth and Society in Attic Drama. By Alan M. G. Little. (New

York, Columbia University Press, 1942. xi+95p.   Illus.

Cloth. $1.50.)

This study is the first of its kind--an examination of ancient

social psychology. It treats mythology as primitive thought and

shows how the great dramatists of Athens used myths in their

works as a method of transition from tribalism to democracy. The

evolution of Attic drama in the fifth century and the Hellenistic

period is a product of the social mind of Athens. The literary,

archaeological, social and psychological implications of the drama

are presented, with emphasis on the social and psychological. The

author briefly applies his findings to the present world in these

words (p.12-13):

"The Athenian process is the reverse of the modern. Today

we are proceeding counterclockwise to a more integrated, less in-

dividualistic society. But there is a further difference in the two

processes which should also be noted. The Athenians emerged

from an inarticulate but coherent group into an articulate but

disorganized congeries of individuals. In the process their social

coherence, with all the proud confidence it gave a representative

like Socrates, was lost. The free ethos of the fifth century yielded

to the pathos of the fourth. The form of thought today is no

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304    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

longer mythological nor our acquiescence in society largely in-

stinctive, as with primitive folk. Events, however, have proved

that it might well become so, and a new calculated primitivism

emerge again. It is the balance which is important for the future,

a balance which combines the solidarity of the group with the free

and conscious acquiescence of the individual."

The author is Associate Professor of Greek at Hobart College.

His ancient authorities are cited in Notes (p.81-85), while the

modern works used are listed in the Bibliography (p.87-88), and

an Index completes the volume.                   C. L. W.

 

 

 

California, a Landmark History; Story of the Preservation and

Marking of Early Day Shrines. By Joseph R. Knowland.

(Oakland, Calif., Tribune Press, c1941. xviii+245p. 100

photos. Cloth. $3.50.)

Mr. Joseph R. Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune,

chairman since 1902 of the Historic Landmarks Committee of

the Native Sons of the Golden West, one time chairman of the

California State Park Commission, and member of Congress,

1904-1915, has compiled an historical account of California,

uniquely presented in a series of stories of the landmarks of the

state--missions, historic houses, and places of interest. The many

distinctive photographs are carefully reproduced and give the

volume more than monetary value. Lists of markings placed,

restorations made, and monuments erected, by the Daughters of

the American Revolution, the Native Daughters of the Golden

West, and the Native Sons of the Golden West, are added. There

is an index.                                    C. L. W.

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