Book Reviews
Alexandra Gripenberg's A Half Year in
the New World: Miscellaneous
Sketches of Travel in the United
States (1888). Translated
and edited
by Ernest J. Moyne. (Newark: University
of Delaware Press, 1954.
xv+225p.; frontispiece and index.)
This volume recounts the observations of
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg,
distinguished Finnish journalist,
author, feminist, and temperance advocate,
during a six months' visit to the United
States in 1888. The baroness came
to America as a delegate to an international
women's congress in Wash-
ington, D. C., and thereafter made a
tour of the country, from New York
to California. Her book was published in
Helsinki in 1889. It was written
in Swedish and translated into Finnish,
and the editor and translator has
used both editions in preparing the text
of this volume.
The baroness, like so many other
European visitors, recorded her im-
pressions of many of America's scenic
wonders, from Niagara, across the
Rockies, to the Yosemite Valley of
California. She looked into spiritualism
in Philadelphia; summarized the tenets
of Christian Science for her
European readers; visited the Mormons in
Utah and discoursed on poly-
gamy; and was conducted through San
Francisco's Chinatown, to see the
night life provided for the tourist
trade. In Chicago she attended the
Republican national convention, and in
San Francisco, the convention of
the National Education Association. In
the course of her travels she met
such American celebrities as Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,
Frances Willard, the widow of Ole Bull,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark
Twain, Robert G. Ingersoll, and Joaquin
Miller. In San Francisco she spent
a little time with the Finns who had
settled there, and in Ashtabula, which
she characterized as a "small,
sleepy, sandy town in Ohio," she visited the
homes of Finnish laborers, and called
upon the publisher of the local
Finnish newspaper. Her references to the
Finns in America hardly were
complimentary to her countrymen.
This volume reflects the charm and the
progressive views of a cultured
Finnish lady, who, despite her
aristocratic antecedents, had real under-
standing for American democracy. Her
observations, however, add little
to our knowledge of American life in the
late 1880's, and cannot be com-
pared in importance with such earlier
works by Scandinavians as the
volumes of Peter Kalm and Fredrika
Bremer. The comments on the pro-
ceedings of the N.E.A. are an exception.
On the agenda were such topics
93
94 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
as "Ought Young Girls to Read the
Daily Newspapers," to which a New
England savant replied with an
unequivocal affirmative, arguing that girls,
like boys, "should enter life with
a knowledge of sin." A proposal to
provide free textbooks and school
supplies in the public schools provoked
an animated discussion of the threat of
such radical innovations to the
whole American philosophy of free
enterprise. The concluding chapter on
"The Homes and Customs of the New
World" is one of the best. In
contrast with many other Europeans who
published travel books after a
quick look at the United States, the
baroness from Finland formed a gen-
erally favorable estimate of America,
and commented specifically on the
wholesomeness of family life.
The editor and translator has performed
his task well. He has corrected
the author's factual errors and called
attention to unwarranted assump-
tions and generalizations. The index is
excellent.
Western Reserve University CARL WITTKE
The French Invasion of Western
Pennsylvania, 1753. By Donald H. Kent.
(Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission, 1954.
vi+91p.; illustrations, maps,
chronology, and selected bibliography.
Paper, $ .40.)
The setting is a familiar one to
students of American history. While the
English were busy establishing
themselves in colonies along the Atlantic
seaboard in the seventeenth century, the
French moved into the valleys of
the lower Mississippi and St. Lawrence
rivers. By the middle of the
eighteenth century, control and
ownership of the Ohio Valley became an
important matter of contention between
the world's two greatest colonial
powers. To be sure, Great Britain and
France were engaged in a world-
wide struggle for colonial supremacy,
and this was only one phase of that
rivalry; but there were special reasons
of significance to the American
scene.
In their charters, in which they were
defined territorially, several of the
English colonies were granted parts or
all of the Ohio Valley area. To
Virginia, whose western charter claims
were the most extensive, and to
Pennsylvania, whose frontier was the
beginning of the Ohio Country,
the natural area for expansion by trade
and settlement was westward. On
the other hand, the French were
convinced that the very life and future
of their Louisiana and Canadian colonies
depended on whether they could
BOOK REVIEWS 95
be linked together by development of the
Ohio Valley. British agents and
traders and French coureurs de bois,
voyageurs, priests, and settlers were
already in the region, competing to some
extent for its fur trade and for
the friendship of its Indians.
To take formal possession of and to
strengthen the French claim to the
Ohio Country, Celoron de Blainville
planted lead plates along the upper
reaches of the Ohio, down that river,
and up the Miami and Maumee
rivers to Lake Erie. As did Celoron
himself, the French realized the
futility of such a gesture. Actual
occupation was necessary. Therefore,
in 1750, Logstown was established as a
trading post a few miles down the
Ohio from its forks; but this was still
not enough.
On paper the French figured that they
would need a force of over two
thousand men to send into the Ohio
Country to erect forts at strategic
locations and to establish control of
the area by overawing its Indians. It
is this, the story of the French
invasion into the headwaters area of the
Ohio in western Pennsylvania in 1753,
that is told by Donald H. Kent
in these pages. Again, the sequence of
events and those who figured
prominently in them are common
knowledge. But this is not a mere
repetition of a familiar story. It is
told this time, except for George
Washington's journal for 1753 and the
deposition of a New England
soldier who had previously been a
prisoner of the French at Quebec,
almost entirely from the French sources.
This, of course, is, as the author
reminds us, as it should be, because,
until Washington served notice of
trespass on the French in 1753 in the
western wilderness, details of French
plans and operations were not known to
the British.
Kent's presentation serves as an
introduction to a newly available mass
of important materials recently
uncovered in the Archives du Seminaire de
Quebec of the Universite Laval. In 1952
a sizeable portion of these were
edited by Fernand Grenier and published
as Papiers Contrecoeur et Autres
Documents Concernant le Conflit
Anglo-Francais sur l'Ohio de 1745 a
1756. That scholars may now avail themselves of the rich
resources of
this Canadian repository is due to a
considerable extent to the enlightened
administration of the present archivist,
Abbe Arthur Maheux.
The story of French decline in the Ohio
Valley area will be told here-
after more completely and accurately
thanks to the publication of the
Papiers Contrecoeur and Kent's The French Invasion of Western Pennsyl-
vania, 1753.
Columbia University DWIGHT L. SMITH
96 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour.
By John Tasker Howard. (New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, rev.
ed., 1954. xv+433p.; il-
lustrations, appendices, and index.
$5.00.)
Song writers come and song writers go;
but, like Old Man River,
Stephen Foster just keeps rolling along.
For more than a century the
music of the youth whom John Tasker
Howard appropriately calls
America's troubadour has maintained
amazing popularity. During the
time between the first publication of
Mr. Howard's biography in 1934
and this revised edition of 1954, Foster
has been voted a place in
America's Hall of Fame and has been
honored with varied memorials.
Greatest honor of all is the way in
which his melodies are still played
and sung in this country, in Great
Britain and Europe, and in the Far
East. There have been innumerable
American programs-movie, radio, and
television-relating to the man and his
music. His songs are in the current
repertoire of British singing societies
and popular orchestras. On recent
trips I have heard "Swanee
River" played by a restaurant orchestra in
Germany and sung in the schools of
Japan, where educators assured me
Stephen Foster is a great favorite of
Japanese children.
As a music critic, Mr. Howard shows high
competence in his judicious
appraisal of Foster as a composer. As a
biographer, he relates Foster's
life story on the basis of documents
collected by that noble Foster enthusiast,
the late Josiah Kirby Lilly of
Indianapolis, and checked by the expert
curator of the Stephen Foster Memorial
Collection at the University of
Pittsburgh, Fletcher Hodges, Jr.
Certain material regarding Foster's life
uncovered since the first edition-
notably by Foster's niece, Mrs. Evelyn
Foster Morneweck-is reported in
various chapters of the book. Happily
rewritten is the final chapter, which
chronicles recent Foster memorials and
honors.
Unhappily not rewritten is Mr. Howard's
section on Stephen Foster in
Cincinnati. This remains a presentation
that fails to summarize the facts
definitely ascertained about the
youthful Stephen's arrival in Cincinnati and
his life and work in the "Queen of
the West," where he wrote songs and
verse during those joyous formative
years, 1847-50.
This new volume is large and attractive
in format and binding; it contains
over forty well-chosen photographs and
other illustrations.
University of Cincinnati RAYMOND WALTERS
BOOK REVIEWS 97
Rendezvous with Chance: How Luck Has
Shaped History. By Walter Hart
Blumenthal. (New York: Exposition Press,
1954. 154p.; related reading
list. $3.00.)
On the dust jacket of this slight volume
the publishers have provided a
note about the author, which refers in
passing to his avocation of collecting
odd books. In his library of
"hundreds of queer volumes" Mr. Blumenthal's
own work, Rendezvous with Chance, must
surely achieve a place of dis-
tinction. For as a minor masterpiece of
the disjointed anecdote, the obscure
historical detail, the colossal non
sequitur, and the pompous rhetorical
flourish, it is more consistently
successful than any sustained piece of satire
could hope to be.
Mr. Blumenthal states his basic premise
on the title page, attempts then
to illustrate it by random examples
drawn from all of time and space, and
buttresses his argument with quotations
so numerous and wide-ranging as to
include the words of Marcus Aurelius and
John Gunther, Shakespeare and
A. B. Guthrie. As a result he has
produced a book with fourteen aimless
chapters, a badly overworked hypothesis,
and a handful of very debatable
implications.
The major theme is the acknowledgment of
the controlling role of luck
in history. "Fatality, fortuity,
fortune--the three f's of the big little word
'if'. These refer, first, to that
element of catastrophe in human affairs and
lives which resides in the haphazard,
hit-or-miss visitation of earthquake,
flood, fire, avalanche, collision;
second, to the random result of unreckoned
premises; third, to the bonne chance which
works a happy consequence from
an unreasoned choice. Like puppets in a
marionette show we obey the
strings, cast for valor or
villainy." So there remains little of what can be
defined as recognizable design in the
past or probable course in the future.
If Washington's mother had not dissuaded
her son from a career at sea, if
Dr. Conneau had not made possible the
escape from prison of Louis
Napoleon, if Darwin's uncle had not pleaded
for Charles' right to set sail
on the Beagle--the road of
history would have run through other hills.
Insofar as Mr. Blumenthal's inquiry
falls into the category of the philo-
sophy of history, it seeks a place on
substantial and important ground. For
historians frequently assume too much,
confusing sequence with cause or
narrow selectivity with substantive
reality. But in setting forth the valid
question of the motor power in history,
the author engages in some serious
logical fallacies and conspicuous
special pleading. Methodologically he uses
frequently the defective device of a
hypothetical statement contrary to fact
as though it were a scientifically
verifiable conclusion. "If, before Napoleon's
98 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
birth, a diptheria bacillus had lodged
in the throat of his mother, with
fatal outcome, is it too much to hold
that the history of the world would
have been changed by a single-celled
germ?" But this is idle rhetoric. In
history certain things happen, and it
profits rather to determine the condi-
tions yielding such events than to claim
so unscientifically that if this had
not happened, that would have
happened.
But there looms an aspect of Mr.
Blumenthal's thinking that is more
distressing by far than the faulty logic
of re-creating history through
fanciful hypotheses. Unless conceived
wholly for its entertainment value
as a curious daydream, the thesis of the
book falls squarely into the
powerful contemporary current of
irrationalism. If the past has turned
merely upon the accidental fall of the
dice, then the record of history is
only as illuminating as a book of
conundrums. And if the future is to be
ruled by mad caprice, then it surely
falls beyond the rational control of
men. But what then remains to Clio? To
enthrone chance is to dethrone
history. For history is no mere grab bag
of events knotted together
capriciously. It is rather creative
insight into the meaning and concatena-
tion of events. And like every great
art, it is a source of measurement for
the present and enlightenment for the
future. Without this meaningful
record man would flounder in an existential
vacuum.
For Mr. Blumenthal, however, the random
quality of history seems to
serve a concrete purpose. "Man
cannot cope with the adventitious. One
can be insured but not assured. Not
planning, programs, and 'progress'
are the way to an economic heaven, but
faith, hope, and charity." Stand-
ing squarely in opposition to
"fiscal squandering and Federalized paternal-
ism," the author mocks the planned
amelioration of the human condition
as a delusion in a world of chance. Make
room beside the law of popula-
tion and the iron rule of wages in the
Encyclopedia of Laissez-faire for
the throw of the dice and the length of
Cleopatra's nose.
Ohio State University HARVEY GOLDBERG
The Social Sciences in Historical
Study: A Report of the Committee on
Historiography. (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1954.
x+181p.; introduction and indexes.
Paper, $1.75; cloth, $2.25.)
The historian lives a strangely
bifurcated life. Enrolled at times among
the creative but impressionistic fields
of the humanities and drawn at other
times to the austere but precise social
sciences, he is by his own profession
part artist, part scientist. But if he
thereby pretends to excellence in two
worlds, his usual accomplishment falls
short of the high requirements of
either. Instead he turns out work that
is essentially a dull compromise,
BOOK REVIEWS 99
without the distinction of the artist's
piercing insight or the scientist's
precise formulation.
Faced with the dilemma of methodological
dualism, the historian might
willingly dismiss the problem from mind
and eye, allowing document to
follow document in his relentless
compilation of books. But critics, both
in and out of the profession, disturb
the peace, exhorting him either to
high style in the fashion of a Parkman or
to rigorous science in the spirit
of a Talcott Parsons. The proponents of
history as an art have been more
conspicuously articulate, urging not
only the cultivation of beauty but also
frank recognition of the limitations of
historical knowledge. But the two
committees on historiography of the
Social Science Research Council--the
first producing a celebrated report in
1946 on Theory and Practice in
Historical Study and the second offering the 1954 report now under con-
sideration--have most convincingly approached
history as a social science.
Whereas the former report consisted of a
series of separate, exciting
essays on a variety of crucial
theoretical questions, the current one deals
largely with a single unifying
theme--the "exploration of how historians
and other social scientists can better
attain profitable intellectual coopera-
tion through more effective knowledge
and use of ideas and methods
dominant in the various social sciences."
The project is a bold and worthy
one in an age in which knowledge has
become disastrously compartmental-
ized on the one hand and increasingly
separated from social usefulness on
the other. For the authors of this
report assume at bottom the possibility
of ordering historical data into
meaningful patterns from which valid
theories of human behavior can be
derived. Short of such order in fact,
there is no history, since "the
truly scientific function involves not only
identifying and describing temporal
sequences; it also involves explaining
them." Implicit in this explication
lies a progress theorem, as difficult to
impress upon the pedestrian,
fact-mongering historian as to effectuate in an
irrational society, that the wisdom
derived from past behavior is the key to
future amelioration. For the meaningful
reconstruction of the past, there-
fore, the concepts, propositions, and
hypotheses of the allied social sciences
are immeasurably important.
The bulk of the report is devoted to
three principal topics: the major
concepts and viewpoints in social
science (divided here into anthropology,
sociology, demography, social
psychology, political science, and economics);
the key problems of historical analysis,
such as the formulation of theory
and the comprehension of change; and the
essential methodology in the
production of historical writing. The
entire analysis as a whole aims to
endow history with a far more meaningful
form and function than belong to
a study which is "just plain
facts" or simply after-dinner entertainment.
100
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Because this plea for conceptualized
history is an important sign of a
profession coming alive at last to the
methods of contemporary social science,
the shortcomings of the report are
doubly distressing. One conspicuous
weakness results from the peculiar
decision to attempt in the long third
chapter a brief summary of the key
conceptions in the chief branches of
social science. To compress the new viewpoints
of anthropology into six
pages or those of sociology into fifteen
is to fragmentize any intelligible
summary into a potpourri of random
comments. For the widely informed
historian the brief references add
virtually nothing new; for the novice in
interdisciplinary study these sections
lack the substance of even a real intro-
duction. However valuable it may be to
utilize the sociological research on
the structure, function, and process of
society, the sterile and limited dis-
cussion of such sophisticated concepts
as status and role, small group
analysis, and ideal types rouses neither
enthusiasm nor curiosity. And cer-
tainly there is no value in such
elementary information as the startling state-
ment in the section on economics that
"the specialization of workers in
limited productive operations is known
as 'division of labor' and is assumed
to increase productive efficiency."
In the subsequent chapters the report is
a sustained defense of viewing
history, not as a planless sequence of
events, but as the study of structure
and process. But in all this there is a
disturbing blanket approval for
virtually everything produced by social
scientists, as though this committee
of historians were doing penance for
those long, lean years when their col-
leagues treated the other social studies
as little more than senseless quackery.
So a method is urged upon historians
embodying theories and hypotheses
for which valid materials are hardly
ever available. "Since the historian
is dealing with the behavior of human
beings in a social context, he will
then proceed . . . to analyze the
structure of the various situations in which
his dramatis personae find
themselves. What social roles do they play? What
systems of sanctions do they encounter
in playing these roles, what groups
or individuals exert these sanctions,
and how effectively are they enforced?"
But how are questions of this sort
answered? For those who have, like this
reviewer, attempted structure-function
analysis for large segments of history
the tone of the report is in this
respect glib and a little unrealistic.
Despite these defects of presentation
and tone, Bulletin 64 is a significant
milestone in the constant quest for the
ultimate comprehension and control
of human affairs. It is essentially more
than a demand for theory; it is a
call for courage, the courage to
conceptualize honestly, whatever the pressure
of the times.
Ohio State University HARVEY GOLDBERG
BOOK REVIEWS 101
The Burr Conspiracy. By Thomas Perkins Abernethy. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1954. xi+301p.;
bibliography and index. $6.00.)
Historians are prone to overwork the
adjective "definitive" in referring
to new monographs on old subjects, but
it would unquestionably seem ap-
plicable to Thomas Perkins Abernethy's The
Burr Conspiracy. In this highly
commendable study the author not only
travels the well-trod paths familiar
to students of the period but, in addition,
blazes a trail through several
largely unexplored sources. These
include Clarence E. Carter's Territorial
Papers, Joseph Cabell's notes of evidence before the grand jury
in Richmond
in 1807, contemporary newspapers, and,
perhaps most significantly, the
Library of Congress photostats from the
Archivo Hist6rico Nacional, Madrid.
It is the information gleaned from these
sources that gives Professor Aber-
nethy's study an air of finality and
renders earlier works obsolete.
To attempt here to unravel the intricate
web of treasonous thoughts and
acts of the principal conspirators,
Aaron Burr and General James Wilkinson,
would be futile. The major steps in the
drama have long been common
knowledge-Burr's scheming, the military preparations
in the Ohio Valley
centering on Blennerhassett Island,
Burr's southwestward junket, and Wilkin-
son's activities in the Louisiana
Territory-but the stage was full of support-
ing players whose secondary yet
significant roles helped to make the affair
one of many facets. Figuring in the
plot, some assisting and others opposing
it, were Harman Blennerhassett, the
Swartwouts of New York, Senator John
Smith of Ohio, and other willing dupes;
Lt. Zebulon Pike, who served his
country well while being exploited by
Wilkinson to advance his own cause;
President Thomas Jefferson, whose
vacillation and indecision gave rise to
serious questions; Chief Justice John
Marshall, whose interpretations of
treason in the Richmond trials gave
evidence, at best, of awareness of the
political implications of the situation;
Spain's minister to the United States,
the Marquis de Casa Yrujo, who was
himself no novice in intrigue; Simon
de Herrera, Governor of Nuevo Le6n, who
disobeyed orders and thereby
singlehandedly averted war with the
United States; Jonathan Dayton, Daniel
Clark, Edward Livingston, and many
others-literally a cast of thousands.
The basic questions, of course, are what
Burr's and Wilkinson's intentions
were and whether they actually committed
treason. Professor Abernethy
presents the facts and asks the reader
to judge for himself. The evidence
against the conspirators is
overwhelming. So great was their duplicity, even
in relation to each other, that Burr
deceived his accomplice by assurances of
British and American naval support,
which was never a remote possibility;
and in the final analysis the failure of
the plot was due not to the belated
action by the federal government but
primarily to Wilkinson's betrayal of
102 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the discredited former vice president.
With some of the facts so shrouded
in mystery and confusion, it is
impossible today to state unequivocally their
specific goal. It is clear, however,
that they had in mind both the separation
of the western states and an invasion of
Mexico, with their ultimate decision
to be predicated, perhaps, upon the
existing circumstances. This reviewer is
inclined to agree with the author, who
views the conspiracy as "the greatest
threat of dismemberment which the
American Union has ever faced" except
for the Civil War. The culprits might
have received the severe punishment
they merited had the affair not become a
political football. Marshall's
Federalist sympathies appear to have
worked to Burr's advantage, whereas
Wilkinson curried favor with Jefferson
by turning on his comrade-in-
treachery.
However dissatisfied one may be with
Burr's acquittal, he cannot avoid a
greater feeling of revulsion toward the
man who made a profession of
treason and disloyalty. Wilkinson, the
pompous, domineering, fawning
sycophant who for years accepted honors
and positions of responsibility
from the United States but gave his
allegiance to the highest bidder, was
perhaps the most detestable and
certainly the most incredible character in
American history. Surely the spectacle
of a conspiracy against the United
States led by a onetime vice-president
and the army's commanding general
is without parallel in our annals,
mid-twentieth-century accusations notwith-
standing. In view of the remarkable
change which the definition of treason,
outside the courtroom at least, has
undergone in 150 years, one can not
refrain from contemplating the field day
current guardians of the nation's
security would have had in Wilkinson's
time.
The Burr Conspiracy, although too detailed for light reading, is an out-
standing historical study in every
respect. Professor Abernethy, the chair-
man of the University of Virginia's
history department, has notably en-
hanced an already lustrous reputation.
Mrs. Abernethy, who claims that
she gave the best years of her life to
Aaron Burr, can sigh with relief,
content with the knowledge that the
Great Conspirator has been disposed
of, once and for all.
Ohio Historical Society JOHN S. STILL
Messages and Papers Relating to the
Administration of James Brown Ray,
Governor of Indiana, 1825-1831. Edited by Dorothy Riker and Gayle
Thornbrough. (Indianapolis: Indiana
Historical Bureau, 1954. viii+726p.;
frontispiece and index. $7.50.)
James Brown Ray was not a great man. A
sketch of his life does not
BOOK REVIEWS 103
appear in the Dictionary of American
Biography, that properly esteemed
repository of information concerning
deceased eminent Americans. The
story of American life cannot be
understood, however, without a knowledge
of the part played by great numbers of
lesser personalities, especially those
who because of official status were of
greater influence than the rank and
file among their contemporaries. Ray, as
acting governor (1825) and then
governor of Indiana (1825-31), obviously
was in a position to influence
actively the course of events in his
state. Hence this volume is a helpful
addition to the readily available
material concerning Indiana political life
during a significant phase of the early
years of statehood.
Previous volumes, published in 1922 and
1924 by the Indiana Historical
Commission (predecessor of the present
Indiana Historical Bureau), dealt
with the territorial and state
administrations before 1825. Thus the present
publication marks the revival of the
publication of the governors' papers
after an interval of thirty years.
Ray's messages and correspondence are
supplemented by some papers of
other state officers, by newspaper
material, and by some contemporary corre-
spondence. Included is a generous
sampling of materials illustrating the
problems of appointments, pardons, and
similar matters. The correspondence
(preserved in the National Archives) of
Ray with various federal officials
is also presented.
Ray was a native of Kentucky, who as a young
man located in Brook-
ville, Indiana. He became acting
governor of Indiana when doubt existed
as to whether he had attained the age of
thirty required by the state con-
stitution for gubernatorial service. The
editors indicate that he was "a
vigorous young man confident almost to
the point of cockiness, ambitious,
well meaning, endowed with a sense of
the dramatic, motivated by both
patriotism and personal political
aspirations." He early gained a reputa-
tion, however, of being undistinguished
in character and in other qualifica-
tions, and after leaving the
governorship he was never again elected to
public office.
Ray was elected as an Adams-Clay man in
1825, but circumstances led to
his being reelected as an independent
candidate in 1828. Among the
projects which aroused animosities
during his governorship were the road
from the Ohio to Lake Michigan and the
Wabash and Erie Canal. He also
became involved in squabbles with the
legislature over his unsuccessful
attempt to prepare a revised legal code
for Indiana and over appointments
to the state supreme court.
The editors assert that Ray's conduct
during the last part of his governor-
ship was "not becoming that of a
chief executive of a state," and on the
104
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
whole his story was "a tragic one
of a young man who rose too fast, and
who lacked the steadying qualities which
would allow him to bear the
responsibilities and honors placed upon
him at so early an age without
losing his balance."
The editors have used great care in the
selecting and editing of the
papers. An adequate index is included.
Ohio State
University FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER
Thurber Country: A New Collection of
Pieces About Males and Females,
Mainly of Our Own Species. By James Thurber. (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1953. 276p. $3.75.)
Ohioans are passionately proud of James
Thurber. To snipe at him in
any wise from any quarter is folly, for
he has become fond legend!
Thurber Country is an anthology of twenty-five of his pieces, many of
which have appeared previously in the New
Yorker. They range from
sharp and fresh satire to
self-conscious, dull pieces that seem to be Thurber
emulating Benchley or S. J. Perelman.
Thurber is best when he's Thurber,
"talking largely about small
matters and smally about great affairs."
"What Cocktail Party?" is a magnificent flow of
inanities, wide-open
satire on banal intellectuals. Thurber
knows the need for being wise before
being witty. "The Interview,"
an account of a reporter's attempt to inter-
view a famous novelist, is superb; the
reader is pained and frustrated along
with the reporter when, after a long,
conscientious afternoon of questions
and alcoholic answers, he leaves the
interview without a story.
"The Case of Dimity Ann,"
although reminiscent of Benchley, is suc-
cessfully funny; "The Pleasure
Cruise, and How to Survive It," "My Own
Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage,"
also Benchley-fashion, are not. As
bright a piece as any is "The
American Scene," a British writer's opinion of
America after a whirlwind tour, not,
however, getting farther west than
"an hotel in the Eighth Avenue, New
York City." It is charming, triple-
barreled satire on the typical Englishman,
the typical Englishman's opinion
of America, and the typical American.
Thurber's is inspired lunacy. His
quaintly wild drawings are often more
to the point than his words, and
sometimes funnier. Thurber Country is
warmly welcomed and treasured by his
loyal readers, of whom there are
legion.
Columbus,
Ohio ARDIS HILLMAN WHEELER
BOOK REVIEWS 105
The Territorial Papers of the United
States. Compiled and edited by
Clarence Edwin Carter. Volume XX, The
Territory of Arkansas, 1825-
1829, Continued. (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1954.
v+967p.; maps and index. $4.25.)
Texas may have achieved more lasting
notoriety as a refuge for derelicts
and adventurers on the edge of
civilization, but in the 1820's Arkansas was
frontier of both northeastern Mexico and
southern United States, and ab-
sorbed drifters from all sides. "It
appears to be the whirlpool that is suck-
ing within its bosom, the restless and
dissatisfied, of all nations and
languages," wrote an Indian agent
on the Red River in 1827 (p. 480);
"parties of broken up tribes are
continually pouring in, and it is become a
receptacle for detached parties from all
parts." The feeble bureaucracy dis-
patched from Washington had to contend
not only with unhappy aboriginal
exiles from across the Mississippi who
rubbed against each other but with
hunters who trapped on their lands and
felt that the authorities were
properly concerned only when white men's
blood was shed. (One of the
more colorful fugitives was William
King, charged with the murder of
William Morgan in New York state in
1826, who became a sutler and
barely escaped Governor Clinton's
deputies.)
The permanent Indian frontier was giving
way in Arkansas even before
it was proclaimed in Washington, while
squatters denounced an admini-
stration that even paused to consider
how it might interpret the meaning
out of the promises of its predecessors,
notably the assurances of James
Monroe to the Cherokees in 1818.
"It is scarcely imaginable," commented
John Quincy Adams in 1828, "that
within so recent a period the President
and Secretary of War should . . . have
given so inconsiderate a pledge"
(p. 639n).
In the main, this second volume of
Arkansas territorial papers continues
the themes of the first (reviewed in
this Quarterly, LXIII, 306-307). Ter-
ritorial political feuds loom larger,
although the editor, faced with an
enormous mass of material apart from the
central theme of administration,
leaves them as much as possible to the Arkansas
Gazette (p. 823n). The
odor of democracy was strong in those
years.
Twenty years after publication of the
first volume under Professor Carter's
editorship, the Territorial Papers continue
to command respect and gratitude.
It would be difficult to find a parallel
among documentary series; certainly
there is none in western history.
University of Oregon EARL POMEROY
106 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Savages of America: A Study of
the Indian and the Idea of Civilization.
By Roy Harvey Pearce. (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press, 1953.
xv+252p.; frontispiece, bibliographical
footnotes, and index. $4.00.)
Mr. Pearce deals with a subject which
has its delicate features-features
not readily to be traced by readers or,
for that matter, writers. On one
level the relationship between
Englishmen who became Americans, and
Indians can be readily understood. The
Indian was a hindrance and a
threat. He impeded progress. He was a
heathen and a savage. The best
Indian was a dead Indian.
But, on another level, white attitudes
were not so easy to generalize. The
conquerors had, perforce, to develop
some consistent approach toward their
subject. There were missionaries among
them who felt compelled to save
Indian souls for Christendom, and others
who could not convince them-
selves that Indians were a depraved
stock. What reassured them all was, as
Mr. Pearce lucidly and at length
explains, the idea of "savagism," which
put the Indian-good, bad, or
otherwise-securely into a position of being,
and properly, a part of the past. There
he could be appreciated, or despised,
or even admired. In any event, there was
no need for him to stand in the
way of his betters.
Here is an important story, which
touches upon matters far from past.
The contour of the Englishman's mind in
this connection, and of the
American's thereafter, is more complex
than frontier warfare and treaty-
making, and the more recent paternalism,
can in themselves suggest. It is
with the larger picture, and with its
deeper meaning and development, that
Mr. Pearce deals, and deals very well
indeed. It is significant that he should,
in his first pages, quote from both the
Rev. Solomon Stoddard, who, early
in the eighteenth century, sought the
Indian's salvation, and Marianne Moore,
whose competence, such as it is, lies
elsewhere. For to illuminate the mean-
ing of the Indian to the white man is
more than a matter of arranging
representative quotations: it is a
matter of weighing their connotative sig-
nificance, of seeing, often, what the
writer himself either did not see, or
did not care to see.
For, as Mr. Pearce shows, the pioneer
was at odds with himself. Plainly,
he wished to better himself, and,
inevitably, at the expense of the Indian.
He must show the Indian to be a lesser
person than himself. Nevertheless,
he shared the frontier with the Indian,
having elements more in common
with him than with scions of the
civilizations he dutifully acknowledged
and aspired to emulate. In one light, he
had to conceive of the Indian as
a savage. In another, he could not help
but see him as "noble." As Mr.
Pearce observes (pp. 146-147):
BOOK REVIEWS 107
We must remember that at bottom
primitivistic thinking in America was
always radical. It protested social injustice and
imbalance, and it feared the
excesses which any society, as a society, was exposed
to. Thus it was just
in purpose, as all radical thinking is
just. Yet, when it was cast in
primitivistic terms, it was fatally
weak. For it was tied to a simplistic
fantasy which confused and corrupted its
radicalism. . . .
Emerson, for example, could accept the
passing of the Indian as in-
evitable, yet wanted still to hold on to
something of the natural life of the
savage . . . . He got nowhere looking to
the noble savage for example; for
noble savages did not exist.
Mr. Pearce has so firm a grasp of his
argument, so keen a sense of its
implications (as when he sees that, in
criticizing our predecessors for find-
ing justifications in
"savagism" for the policy they wished to pursue, we need
to "remind ourselves how certain of
our hypotheses" are intended to support
our own reassuring views) that one
wishes he might have drawn more
freely from his understanding of our
unhappy history of attitudes toward
the Indian. He himself observes--but on
his very last page--that civilized
men "continue to forget . . . that
there is a difference between raising
men and exploiting them and that
civilization should always mean life,
not death." But much of his book is
concerned with building the evidence
and chronology by which we trace the
ideas of Americans--from their first
naive intention of superseding the
Indian while civilizing him; through
their realization that Indians were no
mere receptacles for religious and
civilizing ordinances, but complex in
personality and social organizations;
through their stiff and largely hollow theories
calculated to explain Indians;
through the final victory on the western
plains and an intellectual sweeping
up of Indian remains. It makes a serious
and important story, but is some-
what too intellectualized, too detailed,
particularly on the bibliographic side,
to be ready reading for any but serious
students of "intellectual history,"
and, hopefully, of general American
history and letters.
And this is a pity, for Mr. Pearce has
the qualities of insight, irony, and
relevance, which can serve more than the
formal "students" of particular
"disciplines." His
comprehension of the limitations in Henry Rowe School-
craft's studies, for example, of the
Indian legends, is not available to all
students of that pioneer ethnologist.
Mr. Pearce's literary and critical train-
ing are fundamental to his sense of
Schoolcraft's connotative deficiencies.
Mr. Pearce thoroughly relaxes with his
chapters on "the image" of the
Indian in American drama, poetry, and
fiction. His view of the reality of
Indian life, coupled with that portrayed
in the little and better-rumored
literary work (ranging from Robert
Rogers' Ponteach; or the Savages of
America [1766] to Cooper's tales), results in a balance rarely
found in
108 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
either the archaeological or allegedly
"literary" studies. We need perceptive
and humanistic views of American
attitudes and experience, and these have
too often been advanced by individuals
who have lacked adequate founda-
tions for them. Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo
Frank, to some extent Lewis
Mumford and William Carlos Williams,
among many others, have never
hesitated to pass the most sweeping
judgment upon Americans past and
present, and, too often, upon the merest
intuitions or clique impressions.
Their successes have mirrored the hunger
of Americans for live critiques, as
well as the public's receptivity to (too
often) shoddy generalizations. Mr.
Pearce's study of a basic and difficult
subject reminds us that such cultural
equipment as he possesses can serve us
in more than the creation of mono-
graphs, excellent as they may be; and it
would be pleasant to see his talents
and training, in due course, so employed.
Antioch College LOUIS FILLER
The Papers of Sir William Johnson [The Indian Uprising, 1764-1765],
Volume XI. Edited by Milton W. Hamilton
and others. (Albany: Uni-
versity of the State of New York, 1953.
viii+994p.; illustrations. $5.25.)
Volume XI of the Johnson Papers fortunately
includes many documents
which were thought to be lost in a fire
of 1911. From the Gage Papers at
the Clements Library, the Cadwalader and
Gratz collections at the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, and from the
Indian records at the Public Archives
of Canada as well as other sources, the
editors have brought together an
impressive array of original materials
which parallel and supplement Volume
IV of Sir William's papers. Volume XII
will complete the second chron-
ological series and will be followed by
an additional work including
addenda and appendices. The editors have
also promised an index for the
whole series; and it is hoped that this
index will compare favorably with
the monumental O'Callaghan index which
helped to make the Documents
Relative to the Colonial History of
New York such a useful reference work.
Within the pages of the present volume
are unfolded the final stages of
the last great struggle of the Indians
for self-determination in colonial times.
Herein Sir William is revealed as a
competent representative of the British
government working for a constructive
peace on the troubled frontiers of
the northern Indian superintendency.
Johnson's reports to General Thomas
Gage periodically summarize the stream
of information which was first for-
warded to Johnson. Gage's replies show
wisdom and good judgment in
contrast to the arrogance that
punctuated the correspondence of Gage's
predecessor, Sir Jeffery Amherst.
Pontiac rightly emerges as a key Indian
BOOK REVIEWS 109
leader in his latter stages of the war
and the pacification; and, as Howard
H. Peckham and Francis Parkman have
noted, the foolish conduct of
Colonel John Bradstreet did much to
confuse the constructive work of Sir
William, Colonel Henry Bouquet, and
George Croghan. Although the
documentary material in this volume does
not refute what Peckham and
Parkman have written about this period,
it does serve notice that American
historians might give more recognition
to Croghan, Johnson's deputy and
certainly one of the most remarkable
frontiersmen of this era. Albert T.
Volwiler's scholarly study has called
attention to this remarkable pioneer,
and the present volume gives additional
evidence of his exploits in the
colonial West.
In addition to the Pontiac uprising,
this volume records part of the early
reverberations of discontent before the
Revolution, "Seditious Discourses &
threats" which caused the venerable
Cadwallader Colden much discomfort.
Another point of special interest is the
documentary material covering Indian
land problems. There are some thirty
pages devoted to a Narragansett land
controversy which form an excellent case
history. In view of the recent
litigation over Indian lands, source
material of this kind has become im-
portant in determining what precedents
were established in the colonial
era for the "purchasing" of
Indian hunting grounds.
The editors have maintained the same
high standard of historical editing
that is found in the earlier volumes.
The sources of all the excellent
illustrations are not identified,
however; and occasional cross references
to the preceding volumes and other works
like the Documentary History
of New York would have been helpful to the researcher.
University of California, Santa
Barbara College WILBUR R. JACOBS
Red Man's America: A History of
Indians in the United States. By Ruth
Murray Underhill. (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1953. x+400p.;
illustrations, bibliography, and index.
$5.50.)
Wissler's early classic, The American
Indian, was for many years the only
available general treatise, in one
volume, on the American Indian. While it
accomplished the seemingly incredible
feat of embracing between two covers
the entire panorama of North and South
American Indian culture, its
omissions and inaccuracies, viewed from
the present period, were large in
number. For at least a decade
anthropologists and others teaching courses in
the American Indian have suffered from
the lack of a good, up-to-date,
single volume on the subject. The
general reader was not so badly off,
110 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
because he had a variety of popular
works to choose from on special phases
of Indian life and history.
Dr. Underhill's book is unquestionably
the successor to Wissler-although
it stops short at the Rio Grande and the
Canadian border. It is focused on
the continental United States, but
within these geographical limitations it
does a skillful and penetrating job of
summarizing and depicting the pat-
tern of Indian life and its variations.
The basic technique is to describe
given tribes or groups of tribes for
each of the major cultural-ecological
areas-areas which were established by
Wissler in his original classic and
refined by a generation of ethnologists.
By focusing on these tribal case
examples, a detailed and intimate
picture of Indian life is presented, much
richer in detail and less dry in
presentation than Wissler's approach.
The book begins with two chapters on
early Indian prehistory, which
serve to set the stage for the segmental
treatments of the archaeological
backgrounds to the historic tribes
described in the areal chapters. Dr.
Underhill well understands the new role
played by modern archaeological
research on the Indian cultures: providing
historical depth to the once-
timeless "ethnological
present." Some of the archaeological discussions are
overly stylized and a little too simple;
perhaps the reader might have been
able to take a little more professional
detail. Continued use of terms like
"mound builders" is irritating
to the professional.
Two chapters consider relations of
Indians with the white man-on the
frontier and in the contemporary period,
as the Indian makes a gradual
transition to a rural proletariat. These
chapters do not build carefully
enough on contemporary acculturation
studies; the key issues of "inter-
action without understanding,"
which characterize so many instances of
Indian-white contact on the reservation,
are not fully analyzed, even at the
elementary level.
On the whole this is a fine book, and
one which is a boon to the teacher
of undergraduate courses, as well as the
general reader. The index is
excellent; the illustrations fine but
all too few. Plenty of lists, maps, and
charts assist the reader where needed.
Ohio State University JOHN W. BENNETT
Westward the Briton. By Robert G. Athearn. (New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, 1953. xiv+208p.; notes,
bibliography, and index. $4.50.)
The American West was the British dream
and fantasy of unrestricted
freedom before it became the American.
The exaggerations and stereo-
BOOK REVIEWS 111
types of the Wild West familiar since
the 1920's in the American mass
media were virtually standard
consumption goods in England by the 1890's.
The many Britishers who trekked across
the plains and mountains in the post-
Civil War era left diaries, letters, and
very frequently, published accounts
of their observations, and these
materials became the source of the English
fascination with America in the raw. The
most famous of these accounts,
and by far the most penetrating, was
that of Lord Bryce, and perhaps the
only one of the records to survive as a
classic.
Dr. Athearn writes about these
Englishmen and their observations; they
do not speak for themselves. He would
have been wiser to have simply
edited a book of accounts, letting these
people do the talking, because it is
in the richness of their language, the
uniqueness of their perceptions, and the
quaintness of the frequent and revealing
misinterpretations that the data
lies. The real value of the foreign
engagement with American life lies not
so much in a history of the events
surrounding it, nor in secondary distil-
lations of observations, but in the
observations themselves.
Dr. Athearn divides his volume into the
appropriate subjects: the Indian,
the ranch, the gun, the country and its
climate, and its social types-the
latter centering upon the main object of
English fascination, egalitarianism.
We find in general that the Englishman
was approving of the country and
its people; amused by the rough manners
and sometimes offended; intrigued
by frontier justice but disappointed at
finding so little (the West had pretty
well settled down before the main
English influx); appalled at the vast
distances but profundly impressed by the
Pullman; deeply disillusioned at
the bedraggled Indians available for
inspection; annoyed at the lack of, and
inefficiency of, American servants; and
eager to invest in cattle ranches and
also eager to withdraw when the
financial going was tough. On the whole,
a rather touching picture emerges of a
slightly embarrassed, rather diffident
creature, almost totally unable to hit
the spittoon with the familiar zest of
the cowboy or rancher, but nevertheless
well liked and able to get along
with the country and its indigenes,
white and red.
Not a profound or even thorough work,
this book is an adequate and
readable introduction to what could be a
reasonably important inquiry into
the formation of an image of America by
foreigners. The bibliography at
the end is most complete, and seems to
record all the important available
original sources. The author sensibly
included a batch of eighteen well-
reproduced photographs and drawings of
the Old West and the overseas
visitors enjoying life there, which are
almost worth the price of the book.
Ohio State University JOHN W. BENNETT
112 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Harmony Society: A 19th-Century
American Utopia. By Christiana F.
Knoedler. (New York: Vantage Press,
1954. xi+160p.; illustrations,
appendix, and index. $3.00.)
The parents of Miss Knoedler were
employed by the Harmony Society
in various capacities beginning in the
1880's. She has lived her entire life
in Economy (now Ambridge, Pennsylvania)
and has been since 1926 the
organist for a congregation using the
church building formerly used by the
Harmony Society. She knew some members
of the society in its last years
and has absorbed much lore and oral
history concerning events and per-
sonalities of the society. It is obvious
that she liked Economy before the
days of modern industrial development,
for an air of nostalgia pervades her
narrative.
There are twenty-seven chapters in her
book. Chapters 4-10 superficially
treat of the development of the society
chronologically from its formal or-
ganization in 1805 until its dissolution
in 1905. One chapter is devoted to
the society during its first settlement
at Harmony, Butler County, Pennsyl-
vania, another to the settlement at
Harmony, Posey County, Indiana, and
five to the final settlement at Economy,
Pennsylvania. The other chapters,
some just over one page in length, deal
with assorted topics, such as
"Government,"
"Martins," "Orchards," "Music,"
"Culture," "Economy
Products," "Economy
Customs," and so forth. Few sources from which
the author drew her information are
identified. One may deduce that
the information is, in the main, based
on her own recollections, inter-
views with people acquainted with the
society, a slight use of the more than
half a million manuscripts in the
society archives, and three books, Aaron
Williams, The Harmony Society, at
Economy, Penn'a., John S. Duss, The
Harmonists: A Personal History, and John A. Bole, The Harmony Society:
A Chapter in German American Culture
History. Certain sections of Miss
Knoedler's book, specifically parts of
pages 35, 36, 38, and 58 so closely
resemble, in wording and thought,
paragraphs in the latter volume that
attention is attracted by this literary
coincidence.
When Miss Knoedler writes of people she
knew and events that took
place during her life time, this
reviewer does not find fault with her book.
When she writes of the early history of
the society, many of her state-
ments are either inaccurate or
misleading. For example: (1) She implies
that John Rapp, son of George Rapp, was
a member of the society (p. 10).
The signature of John Rapp does not
appear among the signatories to the
Articles of Agreement of 1805. (2)
"Marriage occurred frequently in the
BOOK REVIEWS 113
Society" (p. 10). Marriage did
occur in the early days within the society
but not often enough to warrant the use
of the word "frequently." (3) She
states that the society purchased 25,000
acres of land on the Wabash at two
dollars an acre (p. 14). Manuscript
records in the society archives reveal
that between May 1814 and August 1824,
the society purchased a total of
29,046.38 acres in the Wabash region
from the government land offices at
Vincennes and Shawneetown and from private
individuals. Prices ranged
from $2 to $8.65 per acre. (4)
"Father Rapp proved to be such a good
ruler that the members never doubted his
wisdom" (p. 10). There was
obvious dissatisfaction with George Rapp
and his theocratic domain from
1826-33, as evidenced by the number of
withdrawals from the society dur-
ing those years.
The book may be of interest to those
whose ancestry goes back to Old
Economy. The serious student of history,
however, will find little nourish-
ment in the volume, for the book merely
serves to emphasize the need for
a current critical study of the Harmony
Society and its manifold activities
based on an extensive use of the extant
archives of the society. The manu-
scripts and other records are preserved
in the Great House at Ambridge and
are available for purposes of research.
Indiana University Library CECIL K. BYRD
General Edmund Kirby Smith, C. S. A. By Joseph Howard Parks. (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1954. xi+537p.; illustrations,
notes, bibliography, and index. $6.00.)
The wellsprings of Civil War historical
literature, seemingly inexhaust-
ible in their depth, annually gush forth
an increasing flood of works. Pro-
fessor Joseph H. Parks of
Birmingham-Southern College has added a new
volume in the Southern Biography Series,
to which he had already con-
tributed studies of Felix Grundy and
John Bell. Pointing out that no satis-
factory biography of Edmund Kirby Smith
existed, Dr. Parks endeavors to
remedy the deficiency. His research has
been painstaking-ranging from
interviews with the general's two
surviving children, through a careful
scrutiny of the Kirby-Smith family
papers, to examination of other manu-
script collections from Washington, D.
C., to Austin, Texas.
Kirby Smith's life is here delineated in
minute detail from his birth in
1824 at St. Augustine to his death at
Sewanee, Tennessee, sixty-eight years
later. The son of Connecticut-born
parents who had moved to Florida,
114
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
where the father served as federal
district judge, Kirby Smith completed his
education at West Point in time to serve
with Taylor along the Rio Grande
and with Scott at the capture of Mexico
City. During the decade of the
fifties military assignments carried him
from teaching mathematics at West
Point to fighting Indians on the western
plains.
When secession came, Smith showed no
hesitation. Promptly resigning
his United States Army commission, he
became a lieutenant colonel in the
Confederate forces. After service at
Lynchburg and at Bull Run, he ad-
vanced to a major general's command of
the department of East Tennessee
in February 1862. Disturbed by Braxton
Bragg's lack of aggressiveness in
the Kentucky invasion, Smith welcomed
reassignment a year later as com-
mander of the Trans-Mississippi
department.
In his new position, however, he faced
staggering difficulties: each gov-
ernor sought to make his own plans for
defense of his state; recruits were
hard to attract, desertions numerous,
and supplies scarce, especially after the
fall of Vicksburg closed the
Mississippi; cotton agents caused no end of
headaches; and intra-army jealousies,
particularly the feud with General
Richard Taylor, mounted. Beset with such
problems, Smith performed re-
markably well, as the repulse of
Nathaniel P. Banks's Red River expedition
amply demonstrated. Even after
Appomattox, Smith was determined to
fight on, only to find his army melting
away. After a brief flight to Mexico
and Cuba he returned to the United
States, tried his hand unsuccessfully at
business, and then settled down to
teaching at the University of the South
for the last twenty years of his life.
The author presents his story directly
and in the main through descriptive
narrative, thoroughly and fully
detailed. Understandably, he leans heavily
not only on the Smith family
correspondence but on the indispensable
128-volume War of the Rebellion:
Official Records, from both of which
sources extensive quotations are drawn.
In places, the narrative becomes
simply a series of lengthy quotes from
the general's family letters and his
official reports, wherein much of the
material is extraneous to the relating
of the story. There is unfortunately
little attempt at explanation, interpre-
tation, or analysis of motives and
actions, nor does the main figure actually
come alive in the book's pages as a real
person. The volume provides
little by way of judgment as to Kirby
Smith's role and importance in the
complex of Civil War history. However,
for the reader who seeks a full
narrative of the general's life, the
record is all here.
Baldwin-Wallace
College DAVID LINDSEY
BOOK REVIEWS 115
William Blount. By William H. Masterson. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1954. xi+378p.;
illustrations, essay on authorities, maps,
and index. $5.00.)
This is a biography of one of the minor
personalities of the early national
period. It will be welcomed by those who
love to walk with the founding
fathers. William Blount led no
victorious armies in a major battle. He
made no significant contributions to the
legislative and constitutional de-
velopments of his day. He was only one
among many equally active in the
westward movement. Yet he was a man
whose career can not be neglected
by the serious student or the general
reader who enjoys a sparkling nar-
rative of an adventurer who willingly
took grave risks and gambled with fate.
William Blount was twenty-six years old
when the opening battle of the
Revolution was fought. The ancestral
home, Blount Hall in Craven County,
was that of an eastern North Carolina
conservative who owned spreading
acres and participated in commercial
ventures. As a young man he was
among the militia that marched against
the Regulators as an upholder of the
king's authority.
Amid the turmoil in North Carolina in
the next few years the Blount
family swung to the patriot cause. Yet
this did not lead William to service
in the army on any of the historic
battlefields of the Revolution. An insight
into his whole career is afforded by the
author's comment, "In the dual role
of business man and paymaster,
therefore, William Blount acted and pros-
pered through the following years"
(p. 35). His was the cold calculation
that never failed to inquire what might
be the personal profit from activity
in state politics, who might be the
leader who could be served with largest
profit to his personal fortunes. Thus
early one discovers the defects of
character that were the source of many
of the troubles and misfortunes of
his later career.
Membership in the Confederation congress
that began in 1782 followed
the same trail. "Blount also sought
private advantage through official in-
formation, and merchant, privateer, and
politician occasionally merged"
(p. 62). The struggle over the cession
of the North Carolina lands west
of the mountains offered a congenial
field for the same practices. The
acquisition of land became his
"paramount lifelong" objective. No con-
sistent fundamental political principles
here.
This land hunger motivated him
throughout the confused and troubled
years of intrigue, speculation, and
sincere devotion to the development of
the West that marked the abortive state
of Franklin. John Sevier, Willie
Jones, James Robertson, Benjamin Hawkins
were only a few of the
116 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
associates, now co-workers and now
opponents, who marked the course
of this "archmanipulator of men and
legislatures" (p. 91). Another term
in congress offered opportunities for
the cultivation of the French and
Spanish diplomats so fateful for his
future.
In the federal convention of 1787 he was
an inconspicuous member of a
delegation of little importance. He
worked for ratification, however, when
he returned to North Carolina. But
always land speculation was upper-
most in his mind. His ardent federalism
at this time won for him ap-
pointment as governor of the Territory
of the United States South of the
River Ohio. "He had played his hand
well to win. At forty-one years of
age, he found place, power, and profit--the
credo of his life--at hand.
The future was unlimited" (p. 179).
In the battle for statehood Blount
achieved success. His support of the
statehood movement contrasted markedly
with that of his contemporary,
Arthur St. Clair, in the Northwest
Territory. For Blount the reward was
the senate of the United States; for St.
Clair, dismissal and poverty.
Blount has now a capable biographer; St.
Clair still waits for his.
The clouds in the political sky now grew
dark. Blount had begun to
disclose pronounced anti-Federalism.
Federalist opposition appeared. His
passion for acquiring ever more land
involved him deeply in debt. In
such a situation he fell an easy victim
to the international intrigue that
ultimately precipitated the attempt at
his impeachment. The senate ex-
pelled him, almost unanimously, but it
dismissed the impeachment charges
on the ground that senators are not
impeachable civil officers. His popu-
larity, however, in Tennessee, was still
great until his death in 1800.
"William Blount," says the
author, "was neither god nor devil." He
was the product of his age, a
businessman in politics, in an age when
every step that promoted the development
of the West was applauded.
As such he rose to fame and power.
Involved was the danger of unprin-
cipled speculation, to whose pitfalls he
fell a victim. Yet "he was the
archtype of thousands of his
countrymen" (p. 352).
The critical essay on authorities shows
an exhaustive examination of
available authorities. There is an
excellent index, well chosen illustrations,
and indispensable maps.
As the reader lays down this volume, he
may wonder whether he really
understands William Blount. This is not the fault of the author.
Ours
is another age of other men and other
principles for official leaders.
Wittenberg College B. H. PERSHING
BOOK REVIEWS 117
History of Marshall Field & Co.,
1852-1906. By Robert W. Twyman.
(Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press for the American His-
torical Association, 1954. ix+249p.;
illustrations, tables, charts, notes,
bibliography, and index. $5.00.)
This is the third book about Marshall
Field and Company to appear in
the past two years. The other two, Emily
Kimbrough's Through Charley's
Door and Wendt and Kogan's Give the Lady What She Wants!,
both
published in 1952, were intended for the
general reader. The present
volume, which in manuscript form was
awarded honorable mention in the
Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Fellowship
in 1951, is directed primarily to
students of business history. It records
the internal history of the firm from
the establishment of Potter Palmer's dry
goods store in 1852 to the death of
Marshall Field approximately fifty years
later. Professor Twyman is now
completing a second volume which will
carry the history of the concern
to 1952.
The material is organized
chronologically and presented in a straight-
forward manner. The tone, although
distinctly favorable to Marshall Field
and Company, is judicious. As is usual
in works of this kind, more
emphasis is placed on the administration
and operation of the company than
on the firm's impact on the community.
The author credits Potter Palmer
with beginning the policies of courtesy
to customers, integrity of business
character, and reliability of
merchandise traditionally associated with Marshall
Field's. He pays tribute to the
contributions to the company's success made
by such men as Levi Leiter, Harlow
Higinbotham, John G. Shedd, and
Harry Selfridge. Of Marshall Field
himself Twyman says: "He was no
innovator.... His ability lay in
recognizing a good idea and building upon
it many times better than anyone ever
had before" (p. 26).
The central theme of the book is the
changing relationship between the
retail and wholesale branches of the
company. For many years retail opera-
tions were much less important than
wholesale, and the retail branch was
subordinate to the wholesale division.
Partly as a result of these circum-
stances the retail outlet was relatively
slow to develop from a dry goods
emporium into a complete department
store. The advantages derived from
connection with a great wholesale house
were an important factor in the
success of the retail branch; but, as
the store grew in importance and
prestige, its managers and buyers came
to resent retail's subserviency to
the wholesale division. At the time of
Marshall Field's death the company
still drew most of its income from
wholesaling. The store, however, was
less dependent than formerly on the
wholesale division, and it was already
118 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
apparent that in the future retailing
would become the major interest of
the firm.
To say that this study is based largely
on original research in the records
of Marshall Field and Company hardly
does justice to the feat the author
has accomplished in collecting,
organizing, and evaluating the data avail-
able. In his preface he modestly
acknowledges som'e of the problems en-
countered in the eight years his book
was in preparation; careful readers
will recognize the difficulty of the
task and appreciate the technical skill he
has brought to it.
Ohio State University ROBERT H. BREMNER
A Traveler's Guide to Historic
Western Pennsylvania. By Lois Mulkearn
and Edwin V. Pugh. (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1954.
xxiii+425p.; illustrations, maps,
bibliography, and index. $3.00.)
Here is another monument to the cultural
growth of western Pennsylvania
made possible by the historically minded
Buhl Foundation of Pittsburgh.
It is probably the most thorough
traveler's guide to historic sites yet pro-
duced. There are about 600 sites listed,
every one of which the authors
have visited and checked for location
and local anecdotes. All source ma-
terial possibly relating to each site
has been studied and often referred to
and even quoted-a real boon to the
searcher for authenticity. The sources
themselves are listed in the
bibliography.
There is nothing careless about this
traveler's guide. The sites are
arranged by counties and listed in the
Table of Contents. Each site is
given a number which appears with the
corresponding item in the text and
on a map of the county heading each
county chapter. On these maps a
triangle denotes a definite spot or
relic; a broken triangle, an approximate
site; and a broken circle, a general
area of interest. The main state and
national highways are marked with the
customary symbols. Special tours
are not arbitrarily blocked out, but
mileages are recorded and the condi-
tions of roads to out-of-the-way places
are noted. There is a large Rand
McNally map of the twenty-seven counties
in a pocket on the back cover.
This map, of course, could not include
the code numbers of the text, and it,
of course, refers to many more villages
and towns than the text could
possibly cover. The pocket map also
contains a fare schedule of the
Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The treatment of each county's sites is
preceded by a short historical
sketch of the county. This is also true
of the larger cities and county seats.
The chief lack is an adequate map and
system of directions for getting
around to Pittsburgh's ninety or so
historic sites. A stranger to Pitts-
BOOK REVIEWS 119
burgh would have a most difficult time
finding his way about. It was
deemed unnecessary to give these
Pittsburgh sites any code numbers.
This book will have a stimulating effect
in many ways. Local people can
search out sites they have only vaguely
heard of before. School teachers
and school children can arrange tours to
their own liking. Others will be
stimulated to supplement the sites
listed with others not listed. All will
be enabled to enlarge their reading from
the citations given. Thus the
disciplinary effect of separating fact
from legend will be of a most whole-
some nature.
University of Toledo RANDOLPH C. DOWNES
Pioneer and General History of Geauga
County. By Margaret O. Ford
and others. (Chardon, Ohio: Geauga
County Historical Society, 1953.
xiv+783p.; illustrations and index.
$7.50.)
As indicated by Grace Goulder Izant in
her preface, this book is a labor
of love, written cooperatively under the
general direction of B. J. Shanower,
president of the Geauga County
Historical and Memorial Society, and Mrs.
Ralph Ford, publication chairman.
Thirty-one persons wrote chapters or
parts of chapters and fifty other persons
contributed facts, stories, and
pictures. All the writing is anonymous,
credit being lumped under an
acknowledgment foreword. Cleveland and
local county newspapers have
been searched for material, which has
been used liberally. The under-
taking required five years to
accomplish.
The first twenty chapters deal with
general county aspects and institu-
tions such as the historical society
itself, the courthouse and jail, agriculture,
the Farm Bureau, county organizations,
the county fair, maple sugar, county
schools, the military record in all
wars, the tuberculosis society, medical
history, county welfare, county
politics, the county bar association, D.A.R.,
and the Amish. The latter is the most
interesting of these chapters, repre-
senting much original research. The fact
that ten percent of the county's
population is Amish shows its
importance.
The remaining sixteen chapters deal with
each of the sixteen townships.
The fact that each is written by a
different person adds variety and interest.
While the main purpose is to fill the
gap between the previous history,
published by an older Historical Society
of Geauga County in 1880, and
the present time, it is recognized that
many of today's readers will not have
access to the older history. Accordingly
there has been a condensation of
the period from the earliest settlement
to 1875 (the period covered in the
1880 history), and a more detailed
account of happenings since then.
While the treatment of each township
history varies with the personality
120 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of the writer, the subject matter
covered is in substantial agreement, in-
cluding early settlers and families,
their descendants, the agricultural de-
velopment in all its phases, especially
dairying (the county is still pri-
marily agricultural, though rapidly
changing to suburban residential on its
western side, bordering Cleveland). The
disappearance of small self-
sustaining home industries and their
replacement with a limited number
of present-day industries, mostly small,
is well depicted. Other phases
covered include the stores and other
businesses, churches, schools, P.T.A.,
clubs, fraternal and other
organizations, the Grange, the Farm Bureau,
township officials, roads, stagecoach
routes, railroads, electric lines, auto-
mobiles and the building of good roads,
politics, doctors and dentists,
immigrant groups, fires, cultural
activities, libraries, postal history, ceme-
teries, sports, social life, livery
stables, hack lines, blacksmiths, garages,
real estate allotments, and stories. The
plan of coverage was apparently
well organized and edited.
With much that is creditable-even heroic
considering the limitations
under which the immense task was
accomplished-shortages are apparent.
Also a certain amount of duplication is
inherent in the plan followed of
county-wide organizations and
institutions in the first twenty chapters,
and the township plan in the last sixteen
chapters. This applies partic-
ularly to the medical. Chapter 12 gives
biographical sketches of many
physicians who practiced in Geauga
County. Under a number of the
township stories the "country
doctors" are again listed and described.
These criticisms are minor compared with
the achievement that has
been accomplished. The objective of the
publishers was to leave no corner
of the county unrepresented, no incident
of consequence unnoticed, and
no personage of significance, humble
though he or she was, neglected.
What would be entirely impractical in
populous industrial centers has
been proven feasible and interesting,
where there are dedicated history
writers, in an agricultural county,
population of which was only 26,646
in 1950.
Stark County Historical Society E. T. HEALD
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. As recorded by Lucien Price.
(Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1954.
viii+396p.; frontispiece, list
of books by Whitehead, and index.
$5.00.)
Members of the historians' craft and,
indeed, anyone for whom dedi-
cation to culture pervades the soul,
gaze admiringly at the specialist who
BOOK REVIEWS 121
can speak on multitudinous matters with
an authority exuding humor
and urbanity. Such a titan emerges in Dialogues
of Alfred North White-
head.
How this book gained birth is an
appealing story. After spending
twenty-five years at the University of
Cambridge, Whitehead, the mathe-
matician, moved to London, where, he
stated, "I took a bottle-washing
job at London University." After
three years he became professor there
and in time president of its senate. At
sixty-three, in 1924, he went to
Harvard as professor of philosophy and
began his most productive
career, which continued until his death
in 1947. At Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, Whitehead and his brilliant
and witty wife held open house to
students and anyone interested. In 1932
Lucien Price came to such a
session, and returned again and again
until the philosopher's death, thus
accumulating material for this book,
which is a true labor of love. Born
in Kent, Ohio, and educated at Western
Reserve Academy and Harvard,
Price has been an editorial writer for
the Boston Globe since 1914.
Particularly stimulating are Whitehead's
opinions concerning this nation.
Recalling the mixed bloods in ancient
Greece which promoted the movement
of ideas, he viewed the American melting
pot as capable of producing the
most sublime culture. For him our
Midwest will lead because of its naivete,
its willingness to treat simple subjects
freshly. He considered the University
of Chicago to be the nearest approach to
Periclean Athens.
Nevertheless, Whitehead detected defects
in his adopted country. One is
the measuring of human worth by economic
advancement. "Two thirds of
the people who can make money are
mediocre; and at least one half of them
are morally at a low level," he
declared. He wanted to be at Montgomery
Ward's in 1944 in order to kick Sewell
Avery.
Whitehead waxed eloquent about founding
new paths. "The meaning of
life is adventure." However,
"adventurers must use their reason and must
know the past, so as not to go on
repeating the mistakes of history. America,
as I see it, is the only hope. There is
adventure here, and a welcome for
novelty."
Humanity will gather intellectual riches
if men of Whitehead's Olympian
stature gain illumination in the way
reverently presented by Mr. Price.
The publisher merits recognition for the
excellent print, superb index,
attractive covers, and pleasing
dust-jacket, which has pictures of Whitehead
and Price.
University of Dayton ERVING E. BEAUREGARD
122 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Tobacco Dictionary. Edited by Raymond Jahn. (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1954. xii+199p.; illustrations.
$5.00.)
This book is intended to deal with
"the interesting, curious and necessary
facts relating to the history,
manufacture and use of tobacco," for the
edification of smokers and casual
laymen. It does contain much useful
information in dictionary form about
domestic and foreign varieties of
tobacco, culture and curing routines,
marketing procedures, manufacturing
processes, and ways of consumption. The
merit of the work lies in its
careful and accurate definitions of
hundreds of technical terms, including
slang ones, and its clear descriptions
of activities and processes.
As for the entries of a historical
character, it is perhaps best to assume
that the compiler was on the lookout
primarily for the kind of thing asso-
ciated with quiz programs. There are
entries not only for John Rolfe, Sir
Walter Raleigh, Jean Nicot (who
introduced tobacco into France), the
Parsons' Cause, and the College of
William and Mary (which was partially
supported by an export tax on tobacco),
but for "den," which is defined as
a place where opium is smoked,
and William Shakespeare, who is included
because there is no mention of
tobacco in his works. Most of the historical
entries are, indeed, quite superficial.
The "histories" of the American
tobacco companies listed could scarcely
be more sketchy, and there is no
mention at all of any foreign ones. Some
of the "history" is, moreover,
quite erroneous. One is not justified in
stating, for example, that the culture
of tobacco in Canada "was virtually
begun in 1932," when the habitants of
the St. Lawrence Valley were growing
tobacco as a garden crop two centuries
earlier. One "historical"
assertion-"A novel advertising campaign was
launched in which people were made to
anxiously await the appearance, in
America, of more Camels than there were
in Europe" (p. 25)-is so un-
intentionally cryptic as to be quite
baffling to the uninitiated.
There are some unaccountable omissions.
"Regie system" is given as the
generic term for the state tobacco
monopolies of continental Europe, but
nothing is said anywhere about the
origin or functioning of these monop-
olies. There is only a single oblique
reference to federal taxation of the
American tobacco industry, and none at
all to state taxation thereof. As far
as any mention of acreage allotment
goes, the book could have been compiled
in the days of Harding or Coolidge. Nor
is this the end of the catalog of
deficiencies, for the several allusions
to antitrust prosecution of the great
tobacco corporations are more
tantalizing than illuminating.
It will be quite apparent from the
foregoing remarks that the book will not
have much appeal for readers whose
interest is other than technical.
Marietta College ROBERT LESLIE JONES
BOOK REVIEWS 123
Buckskin Scout and Other Ohio
Stories. By Marion Renick and Margaret
C.
Tyler. (Cleveland: World Publishing
Company, 1953. 192p.; illustra-
tions. $2.50.)
The work of Marion Renick and Margaret
C. Tyler is known to many
young Ohioans who listen to the Ohio
School of the Air, which these two
writers supervise. Their latest effort, Buckskin
Scout, is a collection of
twenty stories of early Ohioans. The
regular assortment of "canonized"
heroes, such as Tecumseh, Daniel Beard,
and Annie Oakley, appears. But
it will be refreshing for young people
to come upon little-known (or less
frequently written about) characters,
such as Jean Jacques Blanchard, Doctor
Daniel Drake, and Benjamin Hanby.
Mysteries like the escape of General Morgan,
action stories like that of
Mad Anne Bailey's ride, the romance of a
visit to a little Ohio bakery by
a French king, a love story such as that
of Henry Dillingham and his
Amanda, make appealing juvenile fare,
especially since most of the stories
concern incidents in the characters'
youth.
As the authors state in their preface,
"most of the time only the outlines
of a story can be found. All the rest
has to be restored, in much the same
way that an artisan restores a badly
faded painting. . . . If parts of it have
faded away completely, he paints them in
as best he can." The restoration
in this instance, of course, has
consisted chiefly in the addition of dialogue.
This helps the stories along, gives them
the "aliveness" of a radio skit.
It may be a delight for English teachers
who do hard battle for good
usage, but for one who likes the
authentic tang of folk speech the frontiers-
men in these stories show surprising
skill in the use of the proper verb
forms. For example, Henry and
Christopher Miller, born on the frontier
with their boyhood spent as Indian
captives, use but one "ain't" and make
but one grammatical slip of a singular
noun with a plural verb.
However, young readers absorbed in a
good story will probably not mind.
Nor will they perhaps note such
inaccuracies as Henry instead of William
as the given name for the famous scout
Wells. But not a few readers may
be puzzled to find Fort Stephenson
located on the Maumee River, page 115,
only to be moved on page 116 to the Sandusky
River "in the region of
Upper Sandusky." The fort is at
last correctly located at Fremont on page
123--which, of course, was at one time
known as Lower Sandusky.
Remembering the headlong flight of the
British from Maiden with Har-
rison's forces in pursuit, there is a
certain humor in reading that Tecumseh
was with the British "when they
moved against the Americans along the
Thames River."
Toledo, Ohio KATHRYN M. KELLER
124
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Indomitable Mrs. Trollope. By Eileen Bigland. (Philadelphia and New
York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1954.
255p.; frontispiece, bibliography,
and index. $3.50.)
Book readers in Ohio, and especially in
Cincinnati, have remained at-
tentive to Mrs. Trollope and her
opinions ever since her sojourn among us
a hundred and twenty-five years ago. It
might be more exact to say: since
the publication in 1832 of her Domestic
Manners of the Americans. As
recently as 1949 a new edition of that
candid work appeared, with a history
of Mrs. Trollope's adventures in
America, brilliantly edited by Donald
Smalley.
This biography of 1954, written for easy
reading, begins with Frances
Milton's betrothal to Thomas Anthony
Trollope, classical scholar, barrister,
and heir apparent to a crotchety uncle's
wealth. The ensuing years were
sown with vicissitudes for Mrs.
Trollope, in London, Harrow, and America:
a morose husband, ill and dying
children, money troubles, enthusiastic
schemes that never equaled the
expectation, failures and fresh starts, oc-
casional small successes, and eventual
literary recognition. In this account,
Frances Trollope captures the admiration
of the reader. Against that domi-
nating temper and incisive tongue of
hers we must balance off gaiety, bright
wit, gallantry, and invincible courage
in time of trouble.
It was out of defeat that she captured
her successful literary career, after
the age of fifty-two; for her painful
experience at Frances Wright's ex-
perimental colony near Memphis (Nashoba)
and with the Bazaar in Cin-
cinnati produced indignation, and
indignation produced the Domestic Man-
ners. Thereafter, Mrs. Trollope produced fifty books and made
a place for
herself among the best literary society
of England and the continent.
But this biography is actually written
for bedside reading, and it is futile
to criticize it for what it does not
pretend to be. In the sprightly imaginary
conversations, this reviewer was
occasionally taken back to 1914, to a player
piano manipulated by the feet and fed
perforated paper rolls. There must
be a satisfactory synonym for the noun
"ploy"; and trees, by now, must be
utterly fagged, still standing
"like sentinels."
If the author is familiar with any of
the places she writes about, she has
chosen to make no use of the
information. The book seems sketchily worked
up from other books and the author's
fancy, and yet it does manage to hold
the reader's attention and to convey a
rather vivid impression of the heroine.
Those who know a little of Mrs. Trollope
have a chance to extend their
view in this biography, but something a
good deal better is still wanted.
Historical and Philosophical Society
of Ohio VIRGINIUS C. HALL
Book Reviews
Alexandra Gripenberg's A Half Year in
the New World: Miscellaneous
Sketches of Travel in the United
States (1888). Translated
and edited
by Ernest J. Moyne. (Newark: University
of Delaware Press, 1954.
xv+225p.; frontispiece and index.)
This volume recounts the observations of
Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg,
distinguished Finnish journalist,
author, feminist, and temperance advocate,
during a six months' visit to the United
States in 1888. The baroness came
to America as a delegate to an international
women's congress in Wash-
ington, D. C., and thereafter made a
tour of the country, from New York
to California. Her book was published in
Helsinki in 1889. It was written
in Swedish and translated into Finnish,
and the editor and translator has
used both editions in preparing the text
of this volume.
The baroness, like so many other
European visitors, recorded her im-
pressions of many of America's scenic
wonders, from Niagara, across the
Rockies, to the Yosemite Valley of
California. She looked into spiritualism
in Philadelphia; summarized the tenets
of Christian Science for her
European readers; visited the Mormons in
Utah and discoursed on poly-
gamy; and was conducted through San
Francisco's Chinatown, to see the
night life provided for the tourist
trade. In Chicago she attended the
Republican national convention, and in
San Francisco, the convention of
the National Education Association. In
the course of her travels she met
such American celebrities as Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,
Frances Willard, the widow of Ole Bull,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark
Twain, Robert G. Ingersoll, and Joaquin
Miller. In San Francisco she spent
a little time with the Finns who had
settled there, and in Ashtabula, which
she characterized as a "small,
sleepy, sandy town in Ohio," she visited the
homes of Finnish laborers, and called
upon the publisher of the local
Finnish newspaper. Her references to the
Finns in America hardly were
complimentary to her countrymen.
This volume reflects the charm and the
progressive views of a cultured
Finnish lady, who, despite her
aristocratic antecedents, had real under-
standing for American democracy. Her
observations, however, add little
to our knowledge of American life in the
late 1880's, and cannot be com-
pared in importance with such earlier
works by Scandinavians as the
volumes of Peter Kalm and Fredrika
Bremer. The comments on the pro-
ceedings of the N.E.A. are an exception.
On the agenda were such topics
93