Ohio History Journal

264               OHIO HISTORY

which is invaluable for reference and at

the same time provides ample shares of

good reading.

C. H. CRAMER

Western Reserve University

THE ORIGINS OF TEAPOT DOME:

PROGRESSIVES, PARTIES, AND

PETROLEUM, 1909-1921. By J. Leon-

ard Bates. (Urbana: University of Illi-

nois Press, 1963. ix + 278p.; illustra-

tions, bibliography, and index. $7.50.)

So far as direct pertinence to Ohio his-

tory is concerned, this study makes little

contribution. It could involve Ohio's War-

ren G. Harding only in respect to the

years 1920-21, that is, the campaign of

1920 and the first months of the Harding

administration. It makes no such involve-

ment. The Harding Papers, accessible only

since April 25, 1964, were not, and could

not be, consulted. The nearest approach

to involvement is a series of references to

the contest for Harding's pliable mind by

both "progressives" and "conservatives."

In this contest optimists like Gifford Pin-

chot and Henry A. Slattery expressed

hopes of converting the Ohioan to some

semblance of conservationism, while skep-

tics like William Allen White despaired of

any such thing. If the Harding Papers had

been studied, the greater deference of the

Republican candidate of 1920 to business-

men, anti-conservationists, and the oil-

hungry Californians would have been

more apparent.

In a larger sense Bates's book involves

Ohioans because they are part of the na-

tion that was concerned with the govern-

ment's oil policy. They, therefore, will find

a refreshing block of new knowledge about

the background and implications of Tea-

pot Dome. The episode is no longer devel-

oped within the framework of mere poli-

tics but with benefit of what was happen-

ing to oil-control policies as oil became an

essential ingredient in the nation's econ-

omy. Thus there appears a full display of

the mighty conflict between the Pacific and

Rocky Mountain West, with its depend-

ence on oil, and the eastern conservation-

ists, who suspected the predatory interests

of all exploiters of nature's resources. Out-

standing is the portrayal of the willing-

ness of the oil-conversionist navy men to

play politics with the conservationists. In

contrast with this is the disgust of Albert

B. Fall with such fiddle-faddle, when the

only "right" thing to do was to get the oil

of the naval reserves into use for the navy

in the forthright way that only practical

businessmen and their engineering ex-

perts could do.

Bates is even willing to raise the ques-

tion as to which was "really" progressive:

the professional conservationists or the

professional oil men with their "grand

achievements" in the field of free enter-

prise. Indeed it is actually suggested that

the tempest in a teapot over the few acres

of oil reserves remaining under United

States government ownership and lease

were quite peripheral in relation to the

national and world-wide development of

a mighty industry which created its own

policies, techniques, and morality.

A great service that Bates has perform-

ed in this study, which really smells of oil,

is to require moralists to relate their judg-

ments to more than the mere bribery of

Fall. The history of the entire oil industry

must be known--far more thoroughly than

Bates could be expected to know--so that

judgment may include the possibility that

the development of private oil exploitation

might be found to be a phase of the de-

velopment of conservation, even as the

exploitation of forests, water power, and

the land itself might be.

RANDOLPH C. DOWNES

University of Toledo

THE ECOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA.

By Victor E. Shelford. (Urbana: Uni-

versity of Illinois Press, 1963. xxii +

610p.; illustrations, maps, charts, bibli-

ography, and indices. $10.00.)

North America is a very large and va-

ried continent, and ecology--the study of

the interrelationships between organisms

and their environments--is a science whose

breadth and depth are yet unmeasured.

Thus it is not surprising that I was skep-

tical upon first hearing the title of this

work. Upon reflection, I doubt that any-

one less than a Shelford would have even

envisioned or attempted such a volume--

much less brought it into being.

BOOK REVIEWS                               265

Shelford's purpose in writing this book

was to describe the plant and animal as-

sociations and their relationships in each

of the North American biomes, or habitat

regions, as they were between 1500 and

1600 A.D. His was the task of compiling

and integrating a virtually endless array

of facts from many sources. In order to

accomplish this herculean task he sought

information not only from his own obser-

vations made during a long lifetime of

ecological study in field and laboratory

but also from the published and unpub-

lished accounts of early travelers; studies

made by his colleagues, students, and other

scholars; and data filed at various colleges,

universities, and governmental and private

agencies scattered across the length and

breadth of the North American continent.

That this book will receive a generous

amount of adverse criticism seems certain.

Not only is such a mass of information

difficult to organize, but much of our evolv-

ing natural history has gone unrecorded,

even in recent times. Such gaps can only

be filled by the rather hazardous proce-

dure of interpolating between two points

of knowledge sometimes widely separated

in time. Shelford, dealing with the flora

and fauna of a period observed by few

scholars and recorded by fewer still, was

also forced to extrapolate backward in

time to achieve his goal. If few other

workers can support with additional evi-

dence the accuracy of his inferences, few-

er yet have the data to refute them.

A chapter considering the scope and

meaning of the subject of ecology in gen-

eral terms, with numerous examples from

North America, is followed by a series of

chapters each dealing with a major biome

and its principle subdivisions.

It is doubtful that this book will be

much used either as a text for course work

or as leisure reading by those having a

casual interest in the subject. Its greatest

value undoubtedly will be as a reference

work at the elbow of the serious student

of ecology or one of its many related

studies. As such, it is certain to enjoy a

great deal of use both now and long into

the future.

DAVID H. STANSBERY

Ohio Historical Society

THE WESTERN JOURNALS OF DR.

GEORGE HUNTER, 1796-1805. Edited

by John Francis McDermott. Transac-

tions of the American Philosophical So-

ciety, New Series, Volume LIII, Part 4.

(Philadelphia: American Philosophical

Society, 1963. 133p.; maps, illustrations,

appendix, bibliography, and index.

Paper, $3.00.)

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN

BADOLLET AND ALBERT GALLA-

TIN, 1804-1836. Edited by Gayle Thorn-

brough. Indiana Historical Society Pub-

lications, Volume XXII. (Indianapolis:

Indiana Historical Society, 1963. 372p.;

illustrations, appendix, and index.

Paper, $3.00.)

Although he is hardly known today,

George Hunter was declared by Thomas

Jefferson to be without equal as a chemist.

And before the exploits of Pike, Lewis,

and Clark captured the imagination of the

American people, Hunter's accounts of

Louisiana, "the first authentic and reli-

able information," were widely publicized

by Jefferson.

Trained and experienced as a druggist,

chemist, surgeon, and mineralogist, Scot-

tish-born Hunter journeyed to the West

in 1796 from his home in Philadelphia.

This four-month trip across Pennsylvania,

down the Ohio, into Kentucky, and through

the Old Northwest to St. Louis was ap-

parently to search out promising land for

investment. In 1802 he returned to Ken-

tucky for a shorter visit on a family mat-

ter, but at the same time he investigated

salt licks, ore deposits, and other enter-

prises.

With the acquisition of Louisiana, Jef-

ferson was anxious to learn the extent

and content of this new American terri-

tory. In his characteristic and systematic

way he sought out the best brains to make

extensive surveys and reports. In mid-

1804 he sent Hunter to Natchez, by way

of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, to join

William Dunbar as the co-leader of an

exploring expedition. Their 1804-5 win-

ter venture took them up the Ouachita

River as far as present Hot Springs, Ar-

kansas.

Four rather extensive journals detail

these journeys of Hunter into the West.

They are rich in their perceptive obser-

vations of the Ohio and Mississippi val-

leys of this early American period. It is

266                                   OHIO HISTORY

gratifying that the publishers have per-

mitted Professor McDermott to include his

extensive introduction and editorial com-

ments, which flesh out the journals with

context, identification, and amplification.

His analytical index further enhances their

usability.

A segment of the correspondence of two

Swiss-born Americans focuses on the fron-

tier of the territorial and early statehood

days of Indiana. Albert Gallatin, Jeffer-

son's secretary of the treasury, was able

to secure the appointment of his lifelong

friend John Badollet as register of the

Vincennes land office. The eighty some

letters in Miss Thornbrough's volume are,

except for about twenty, Badollet's obser-

vations, confidences, and commentaries

penned over the years to his death in

1836.

Badollet was an ardent Jeffersonian who

became disillusioned at the intrigues and

petty politics of Indiana Territory Gover-

nor William Henry Harrison and the other

territorial officials. He neverthless served

his adopted country well as a public ser-

vant and actively participated in the civic,

educational, and cultural affairs of his

community.

His generally meaty letters--one goes

on for over thirty printed pages--which

concern land sales and speculation, Indian

problems, slavery, Harrison, frontier so-

ciety, and a multitude of other topics, in-

cluding activities of Gallatin, are a veri-

table mine of information.

The Badollet-Gallatin correspondence

cannot, however, stand by itself, because

Badollet's infrequent letters and Gallatin's

only occasional replies leave many gaps

and do not present a continuous story; and

there is much in the territorial and early

state history that one needs to know to

understand comments in the letters. With

meticulous care, Miss Thornbrough sup-

plies background, explanatory information

and comments, and a model analytical

index to make this collection usable, in-

telligible, and meaningful.

Editors McDermott and Thornbrough

make the Hunter and Badollet manuscripts

readily accessible and place them in their

proper historical setting. They thus be-

come significant additions to the growing

body of published source material on the

American frontier.

DWIGHT L. SMITH

Miami University

McKINLEY, BRYAN, AND THE PEO-

PLE. By Paul W. Glad. Critical Periods

of History Series, Robert D. Cross, gen-

eral editor. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-

cott Company, 1964. 222p.; bibliographi-

cal essay and index. $3.95.)

Here after seventy years is the first book

devoted entirely to the story of the presi-

dential campaign of 1896, though it ap-

pears only a few weeks before the publica-

tion of Stanley L. Jones's longer work on

the same subject. There is every justifica-

tion for including Professor Glad's title

in his publisher's "Critical Periods in His-

tory" series, for the crisis of that year's

political decision is as important to our

historical understanding as any American

election has ever been. Never has a cam-

paign been fought more clearly on eco-

nomic issues, or with greater moral pas-

sion on both sides, and never has one

revealed more clearly the anatomy of our

body politic. A good many of the seventy

years have been needed just to achieve the

scholarly detachment toward the subject

this author displays.

These two hundred pages have not ex-

hausted the story. They do tell most of it,

and provide important background and

sensible conclusions. They are not foot-

noted, but factual inaccuracies are small

and rare (e.g., the "Bimetallic Democratic

National Committee" is not identified, but

must refer to the Democratic National Bi-

metallic Committee). This reviewer's

major complaint is that the rival policy

contentions of the silverites and the gold-

bugs never do receive any clear evaluation.

One side was presumably less wrong than

the other, and some policy would have

been the correct one in the light of pres-

ent economic knowledge. Economic poli-

cies are not simply matters of taste, and

the reader's impression that he is watch-

ing "ignorant armies clash by night"

might have been clarified had the author

troubled himself to measure their ignor-

ance.

BOOK REVIEWS                              267

Nonetheless, this is the best book with

which to begin. It is written with the in-

telligence and vigor that should stimulate

the further reading suggested in the

author's bibliographical essay. Graduate

students, however, may want to go directly

to the still more recent Presidential Elec-

tion of 1896, which is less the story of that

event than Jones's monument to it.

THOMAS E. FELT

College of Wooster

PORTRAIT OF THE MIDWEST: FROM

THE ICE AGE TO THE INDUS-

TRIAL ERA. By Douglas Waitley.

(New York: Abelard-Schuman Limited,

1963. 288p.; maps, illustrations, and in-

dex. $6.00.)

This volume is not intended for the

scholar, and the alert student of middle-

western history will be distressed by the

errors and the obvious omissions. The work

is the expression of the vibrant enthusi-

asm of one who has found much of interest

and excitement in visiting the many places

of unique significance in Ohio, Michigan,

Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota,

Iowa, and northern Missouri. More than a

third of the book is devoted to a "Vaga-

bond Section" with attractive maps of the

whole region and of the individual states.

Included are extended comments on each

of the places of distinct interest.

The author in the preface deplores the

scarcity of books "written with this re-

gion specifically in mind" and the "little lo-

cal history" taught in midwestern schools.

Yet, many careful studies have been writ-

ten about aspects of the area, and Ohio,

for example, requires the teaching of its

state's history in the public schools.

The material presented in the 162 pages

of large print text, giving a "Portrait of

the Midwest from the Ice Age to the In-

dustrial Era" is necessarily highly im-

pressionistic and selective. Thus, political

figures of great significance such as Thom-

as Worthington, Benjamin F. Wade, Cle-

ment L. Vallandigham, Mark Hanna,

Joseph B. Foraker, James M. Cox, and

Robert A. Taft are ignored, as are those

who devoted their lives to the fine arts.

Educational centers of such significance

as Oberlin, Ohio, and Ann Arbor, Michi-

gan, are not mentioned.

There are many errors of fact. The

Land Ordinance of 1785 did not "create

the Northwest Territory" (p. 13); Lin-

coln's attorney general was Edward Bates,

not John M. Bates (p. 127); and the Na-

tional Road was begun in 1811, not after

the War of 1812 (p. 95). The Harmonists

who settled in Indiana did not come di-

rectly from Germany (p. 107), but settled

first in Pennsylvania, and the Amana

Community was not made up of those who

came from Europe to Iowa (p. 110), for

these Germans had long lived in northern

New York. The book may serve a useful

purpose in stimulating among American

travelers a greater interest in the historic

spots of the heartlands of America.

FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER

Ohio State University

IN RETROSPECT: THE HISTORY OF

A HISTORIAN. By Arthur M. Schles-

inger. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and

World, 1963. viii + 212p.; index. $4.50.)

The historians' craft in the United

States suffered its shock of recognition

just after the Second World War with the

publication of Bulletin 54 of the Social

Science Research Council. That widely

distributed pamphlet announced in bold

terms what James Harvey Robinson, Carl

Becker, and Charles Beard had been say-

ing to their younger colleagues for a gen-

eration, namely, that historians must come

to terms with the limitations forced upon

them by time and circumstance; that they

must learn to face their environment

boldly, "aware of the intellectual and

moral perils inherent in any decision--in

their act of faith." Soon after the publica-

tion of Bulletin 54, many graduate schools,

egged on by their own students, established

new courses or refurbished old ones in the

great historians, historiography, and even

in the philosophy of history.

This intense navel-gazing caused the

American historian to become much more

consciously self-reflective and self-critical.

As a result it gave rise to a great interest

in the autobiographical musings of the his-

268                                    OHIO HISTORY

torian, as can be witnessed by the popu-

larity abroad of Marc Bloch's Historian's

Craft, G. M. Trevelyan's An Autobiog-

raphy, and E. L. Woodward's Short Jour-

ney, and in this country in the more re-

flective studies of Becker, Beard, Alvin

Johnson, and Jacques Barzun. To this list

we can now add Arthur M. Schlesinger's

In Retrospect: The History of a Historian.

It must be said at once that Schlesinger

discards the philosopher's pose for that of

the memorialist. As he points out in the

preface, he prefers the role of an observer

to that of an actor. Schlesinger's life be-

gan over seventy-five years ago in Xenia,

Ohio, a bustling town of seven or eight

thousand, with newly macadamized streets,

red brick walks, and picket fences. His

mother, born Katherine Feurle, was of

Austro-German descent; his father's par-

ents were East Prussian Jews, who emi-

grated to New Jersey and then to Ohio.

Young Schlesinger's days were pleasant

enough, although he remembers rather

ruefully that when he arrived in the so-

phisticated community of Columbus, his

Ohio State roommates repeated the old

rhyme:

Tell me, oh tell me please,

Is Xenia a town or a disease?

At Ohio State, he enjoyed the tutelage

of George Wells Knight, Henry Russell

Spencer, Clarence Dykstra, and a fledgling

historian from Frederick Jackson Turner's

seminar at Wisconsin, Homer Hockett.

From Ohio State, Schlesinger journeyed to

Columbia, where he completed his oral ex-

aminations for the Ph.D. degree in 1912

and the same year returned to Ohio State

to begin a decade of teaching. After the

war, he left Ohio to head the history de-

partment at the State University of Iowa,

where among his Ph.D's were such out-

standing students as Bessie Louise Pierce

and Fred A. Shannon. In 1924 Schlesinger

was called to Harvard, first as a visiting

professor, then as a full-fledged faculty

member. It was the golden age of history

on the campus by the Charles, an era

bright with the names of Ferguson,

faskins, Mcllwain, and Merriman in Euro-

pean history, and Channing, Hart, and

Turner in American. Schlesinger obviously

relished Harvard's challenge and the con-

stant excursions it afforded into the realm

of local and national politics. But of all his

adventures, the most exciting were the

quests after historical knowledge which he

shared with his Ph.D. candidates, among

whom were numbered Merle Curti, Carl

Bridenbaugh, Paul Buck, Oscar Handlin,

Richard Leopold, and Donald Fleming.

Through them and through the series he

edited on the history of American life, he

influenced several generations of students

by observing in all his own writings and

insisting in all the work he supervised and

edited on an "impeccable standard of scho-

larship."

JOHN C. RULE

Ohio State University

THE GREENBACK ERA: A SOCIAL

AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF

AMERICAN FINANCE, 1865-1879. By

Irwin Unger. (Princeton, N. J.: Prince-

ton University Press, 1964. 467p.; ap-

pendices, bibliography, and index.

$10.00.)

The Greenback Era is an important

work that significantly revises traditional

interpretations of the early post-bellum

era. Not an easy book to read, it neverthe-

less commands serious attention. It offers

massive and convincing evidence that the

"social and political history of American

finance, 1865-1879," contained infinitely

more complex and subtle patterns of con-

flict than heretofore imagined. Irwin

Unger conclusively and exhaustively docu-

ments his major thesis that the traditional

"Beardian" dichotomy between "agrarian"

and "capitalist" interests was too simple

and therefore could not adequately explain

the tangled web of financial controversy

emerging from the Civil War over such

matters as the new banking system, the

payment of the war debt, the withdrawal

of Greenback currency and the start of

specie resumption, financial reform move-

ments of several kinds, and finally the

start of the "free silver" agitation. Draw-

ing extensively from countless manuscript

collections, pamphlets, and newspapers

(including the labor, business, and relig-

ious press), Unger breaks down tradi-

tional categories of "hard" and "soft"

money men and adds enormously rich and

previously unused data to our knowledge

of the entire era. He also shows that these

controversies and the "attitudes" and "in-

BOOK REVIEWS                              269

terests" they drew upon had their roots

in the pre-Civil War era, so that for fi-

nancial history, at least, the Civil War

was not "the great watershed of the na-

tion's history." A brief review of the entire

book can do little more than thus point

to its great importance, indicate some ser-

ious misgivings about its main themes and

methods, and urge all students of post-

Civil War America, including those espec-

ially interested in Ohio history, to neglect

it at their peril.

Those accustomed to simple "forces"

shaping significant events may find

Unger's display of complexity quite be-

wildering and distressing. And the treat-

ment of these complexities is not without

its shortcomings. Unger's concern with

"ideology" and its subtle interaction with

"interest" often rests on scanty and incon-

clusive evidence. The argument about

"agrarian  anti-Semitism" is based on

flimsy data. The dismissal of the eight-

hour movement as offering "cure," not

"diagnosis," is a misreading of Ira Stew-

ard. The description of labor and agrarian

agitation as reflecting "a strongly chilias-

tic movement" is unwarranted. The notion

that New England's "genteel reformers"

were "political outsiders" and "middle-

class dissenters" is unconvincing. Evidence

on other matters also is questionable. The

analysis of voting behavior in the 1875

Ohio and Pennsylvania elections uses in-

adequate data to make improper infer-

ences. Sources on southern financial at-

titudes before 1877 are neglected. The use

of labor sources is one-sided to gain a

particular point. The 1878 Greenback-

Labor "movement" is too briefly discussed.

Unger argues intelligently that there were

"not two massive contending interests;

there were many small ones" between

1865 and 1879. But one "small one" is

given inadequate attention throughout: the

bondholders. Who were they? Were they

a cohesive pressure group? What role did

they play in politics?

Finally, the book jacket describes the

study as "not a financial history; rather it

is an attempt to locate the source of polit-

ical power in the crucial Reconstruction

years through a socio-economic study of

American financial conflict." That is say-

ing too much. Unger rewrites a great deal

of Reconstruction financial history, but

is it possible to locate "the source of

political power" by isolating only one fac-

tor and developing its complexities in great

detail to the exclusion of other factors that

affected political power? We do not yet

know the relationship of the conflict over

financial policies to other questions of na-

tional importance. These criticisms aside,

Unger's study is deeply researched, in-

telligently organized, and filled with orig-

inal insights about the complexities of

post-Civil War politics. It answers afresh

old questions and raises new ones. This

book should provoke much controversy and

discussion.

HERBERT G. GUTMAN

State University of New York

at Buffalo