BOOK REVIEWS
Miracle at Kittyhawk: The Letters of
Wilbur and Orville Wright. Edited
by Fred C. Kelly. (New York, Farrar,
Straus, and Young, 1951. ix+482p.,
frontispiece, illustrations, and index.
$6.00.)
The publisher of this volume of letters
has chosen to call Wilbur and
Orville Wright "two of the greatest
and most fabulous figures of modern
times." Those who have been closest
to the lives and the work of these men
will probably approve that characterization,
for history can identify few
notable persons who might so easily have
been drawn from the pages of
fiction.
The executors of Orville Wright's estate
have deposited some thirty
thousand of the Wrights' letters in the
Manuscript Division of the Library
of Congress, where they will be closed
to general use until 1960. Of these,
about one-third are believed to have
been written by the brothers them-
selves. From the entire collection, Mr.
Kelly has selected approximately six
hundred letters "to provide a
record approaching the equivalent of auto-
biography." The letters are
arranged chronologically. The editor's notes are
interpolated to supply biographical and
explanatory data and, occasionally,
as editorial commentaries upon
information contained in the letters.
Here, chiefly in the words of Wilbur and
Orville Wright, is a revealing
account of the thinking and the labor
which attended one of the most re-
markable achievements in history. In
1895 the brothers were reading about
the gliding experiments conducted by
Otto Lilienthal in Germany. Four
years later, Wilbur asked the
Smithsonian Institution for copies of pub-
lications on flying, explaining that he
was "about to begin a systematic
study of the subject in preparation for
practical work." His simple announce-
ment was prophetic. No two words better
describe the Wrights' approach
to the flying problem than do
"systematic" and "practical," for the
brothers moved in simple, logical progression
from one aerodynamic prob-
lem to another until December 17, 1903,
when Orville made the first
"free, controlled, and sustained
flight" in a power-driven, heavier-than-air
machine.
The momentous importance of their first
successful flights has tended
to make the Wrights' activities in later
years seem anticlimactic. It is
fortunate, therefore, that three-fourths
of the letters in this collection cover
the period after 1903; for the later
correspondence establishes the significance
of the Wrights' patent litigation, of
the negotiations with their own and
97
98 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
foreign governments, and of their
relations with other pioneers in aeronau-
tical science and aviation. Students of
aviation history will find the letters
on business affairs useful in evaluating
Elsbeth Freudenthal's thesis that
the Wright brothers' role as practical
businessmen was more important than
their performance as inventors (Flight
into History: The Wright Brothers
and the Air Age, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1949).
Much of the information, and many of the
letters and editorial notes in
this volume have appeared in Mr. Kelly's
earlier book, The Wright Brothers,
a Biography Authorized by Orville
Wright, and in other publications. As
a result, this book will probably be
most appreciated for its depiction of
two personalities which are at once
appealing and enigmatic. A few quota-
tions seem especially suggestive: Wilbur
to Octave Chanute (1901): "I
must caution you not to make my address
a prominent feature of the
program as you will understand that I
make no pretense of being a public
speaker. ... As to the presence of
ladies . . . I will already be as badly
scared as it is possible for man to be,
so that the presence of ladies will
make little difference to me."
Wilbur to George A. Spratt (1903): "You
make a great mistake in envying me any
of my qualities. Very often what
you take for some special quality of
mind is merely facility arising from
constant practice." Wilbur, writing
from Paris (1907): "When I first
came over, Berg & Cordley thought
that they were the business men and
I was merely a sort of exhibit.... Now
they realize that ... my judgment
is more often sound, and that I intend
to run them rather than have them
run me." Chanute to Wilbur (1910):
"... I am afraid, my friend, that
your usually sound judgment has been
warped by the desire for great
wealth." Orville to Spratt (1903):
"If we all worked on the assumption
that what is accepted as true is really
true, there would be little hope of
advance." Orville to C. H.
Hitchcock (1917): "We thought that we were
introducing into the world an invention
which would make further wars
practically impossible." Wilbur to
Chanute (1910): "My brother and I
do not form many intimate friendships,
and do not lightly give them up."
One cannot read this fascinating
correspondence without acquiring in-
creased respect for the Wright brothers
and for their accomplishments.
The volume is informative and highly
entertaining. In so far as it has been
possible to check the letters, they
appear to have been transcribed accurately.
Mr. Kelly has approached his task as a
journalist, publicist, and long-time
friend of Orville Wright; he is clearly
the Wright brothers' champion. If
his editorial presentation does not
reflect the fine hand of deliberative
scholarship, historians may regret it,
but they dare not protest; for after
Book Reviews 99
all, it is only very recently that
professional historians in any number have
foregone their preoccupation with the
traditional areas of research. ,The
non-professional votary can hardly be
censured for taking advantage of pro-
fessional neglect.
Air Materiel Command PAUL M. DAVIS
Dayton, Ohio
The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period,
1815-1840. Two volumes. By R.
Carlyle Buley. (Indianapolis, Indiana
Historical Society, 1950. xvi+
632p.; x+686p., illustrations, maps,
bibliographical essay, and index.
$12.00.)
A rich and industrious season of
research has been brought to a brilliant
climax in this monumental study of the
Old Northwest. The newspapers,
magazines, pamphlets, books, and
historical society publications of five states
have yielded their grist to the exacting
standards of Buley's scholarship.
Buley says, with characteristic modesty,
"Patience and time only 'are re-
quired to comb from these and other
items a considerable content of
material." He is wrong. Orderliness
of notation, a penetrating sense of
discrimination, a masterly ability to
judge and digest, and a deep con-
ditioning by such historical mentors as
Esarey, Paxson, and Quaife were
also required. Moreover, we cannot fail
to applaud the sense of humor
which occasionally seasons the narrative
when the going has been rather
heavy.
The growing rule of "economic and
social history first and political
history second" largely governs
Buley's sequence of analysis. The story
opens on the theme of men and women
versus the wilderness as of 1815
with, thank goodness, full recognition
of the presence of the French
pioneers who preceded the Americans in
so much of the Old Northwest.
Then follows, for the rest of Volume I,
an exhaustive expose of the details
of pioneer life. Nothing is left to the
imagination. The pioneer cabin is
constructed before our very eyes down to
the last hinge and door latch.
The interior furnishings are described
from the "cat and clay" fireplace
to the various bowls, piggins, firkins,
peelers, trenchers, platters, gourds,
jugs, and so on ad infinitum. The fish
were bigger in those days, and Buley
knows why. And so was the family larder
with its meats, butter, maple
sugar, barrels of kraut, apples,
cabbage, potatoes, turnips, beans, cheese,
mush, et al, producing, of course, large
numbers of "rawboned, hollow-
chested but pot-bellied youth, in spite
of the outdoor life and physical
exercise." The mosquitoes of August
and September brought the inevitable
100
Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly
fever and ague (malaria), and, with the
lack of quinine, the brews and
potions of calomel, sassafras, and
spirits of niter. Babies were "reared, not
raised . . . and instead of a vitamin,
baby got a bacon rind." The self-
reliance and resourcefulness required by
frontier conditions led to a self-
confidence often verging on
recklessness. Says Buley, "It was this volatile
self-confidence, willingness to support
all claims with a fight, which led
the young physician to find no
difficulty in the most unknown case, and
the young attorney to start on a scale
of utmost grandeur and terminate in
a sublime tempest of eloquence."
The days of the keelboat, steamboat,
canals, taverns, and turnpikes come to
life under the same exacting standards.
The urge to speculation in towns, lands,
railroads, and banks is analyzed
and fitted into the course of American
life better than it has ever been
done before.
Volume II, which deals with politics,
religion, education, literature,
science, and reform, continues to amaze.
The treatment is by state units. It
stresses the early personal political
contests, the elimination of the Indian,
the emergence of Jacksonian democracy,
and bank and canal politics. The
economic history of the 1837 panic and
post-panic period is told, with
special emphasis not only on the
speculative western fever, but also on the
stabilizing after-effects. As James H.
Lanman said in 1840, "Under the
guidance of moral and intellectual
education, the territory will soon grow
to ripeness." In the literary field
a similar story is told, with something
of that ripeness emerging in the
writings of Timothy Flint and James Hall.
(I believe that the place of early Old
Northwest literature is now cearly
enough defined to risk placing it
generally in courses of midwest high schools
and colleges with profit and perspective
for the serious students of letters.)
Ohioans and Michiganders will be glad to
have a clear and understandable
account of the Toledo War. Buley
understood the strength of Michigan's
case, but he could have made it stronger
by showing that Michigan law
was administered in the disputed area
and is so recorded in the archives
of both Monroe, Michigan, and Toledo,
Ohio.
Local history is total history. Its
categories are much more numerous,
its nuances much more elusive, its
sources much more varied than national
history. Therefore Buley is justified in
warning that, in respect to the
content of the materials selected and
presented, "no historian can achieve
more than an approximation of the
history in the selection and presentation
of the content." For that reason we
must work to supplement what Buley
has done. For instance, he states that for
two decades following the War
of 1812 "the political history of
these states was characterized by personal
Book Reviews 101
politics and Republican
solidarity." However, I am certain that Buley
will admit that state political history
in that era was also characterized
by a rivalrous sub-regionalism
conditioned by factors of geography, natural
resources, relation to raw materials and
markets, and matters of population
origins. This is markedly true of the
creation of the structure of Ohio's
pattern of canals and steamboat trade
routes within the framework of state
political action. I imagine that it is
also true of the other states. It is cer-
tainly true in Ohio in the matters of
taxation, the emergence of consolidated
schools, growth of ports, bank control,
shaping of legal service and standards,
and attitudes toward racial and national
minorities. Thus the combings that
Buley has so painstakingly presented
will be combed again and merged
with new combings as each sub-region
yields to the industry of scholars yet
to come and new syntheses yet to be
presented. But always it will be said
that Buley created a standard of
painstaking, gruelling-hard and self-
sacrificing research, to which those who
follow must adhere if they expect
to be significant.
University of Toledo RANDOLPH C. DOWNES
Liberty and Property. By R. V. Coleman. (New York and London, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1951. xiii+606p.
$5.00.)
It is sometimes said that the title of a
book should suggest its substance.
But in Liberty and Property there
is nothing about either liberty or property.
An incidental use of the phrase near the
end of the volume is the sole
justification for its appearance on the
title page. If a deeper implication is
sought, the title had better be Liberty
or Property, for in the subsequent
Revolution the property group had little
desire for liberty and the liberty
group had little property.
In reality the book is a series of
somewhat disconnected chapters on the
high points of colonial history from
1660 to the dose of the Seven Years'
War. The most distinctive feature is the
inclusion of a great deal of
material on Indian relations and the
penetration of the back country by
both French and English as far as Texas and
the Great Plains. One gets the
impression that the choice of events to
be treated is much influenced by the
existence of original documents offering
lively narrative material.
The method of the author's work seems to
have been to lay out a section
from a few good secondary works, either
specialized or general, and then
draw from some of the most prominent
documentary collections many in-
teresting details to enliven the story.
Thus, while much of the volume
102
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
seems very fresh, it cannot be looked
upon as a substantial contribution to
new historical knowledge.
The treatment is almost entirely
factual. Economic affairs are mentioned
only in so far as a picture of William
Byrd cannot be painted without
a hogshead in the background, or a
meeting be held with Indians without
the odor of fresh pelts and rum. There
are few generalizations or conclusions,
and no discussions of controversial
questions.
The old mental cliches are uniformly
assumed. Whenever the imperial
authority is heard off-stage, it is a
portent of persecution and misgovern-
ment, and every minor criticism of an
English official is a road sign to the
Declaration of Independence. It seems
that anyone acquainted with the
violence of politics and the abuse that
even patriotic Americans have always
heaped on their own officials would be
on guard against taking too seriously
the words of a colonial who spoke
disparagingly of a governor or the king.
The scarcity of such outbreaks recorded
might even be considered an indi-
cation of incredible loyalty to the
existing regime. This work, however,
like many others, maintains a constant
lookout for any triviality that could
be interpreted as incipient treason.
Questions may be raised about the value
of a book of mere facts, pre-
senting no point of view, and repeating
handed-down ideas, many of which
stand in need of reconsideration. Those
who do not read history purely for
enjoyment without a thought to values
beyond the pleasure of the moment
might find it difficult to justify the
allotment of any time to this volume.
On the other hand, those who do find
interest in conditions and events
of the past will welcome it as a pure
delight. Rarely has history been so
interestingly portrayed. Conditions seem
real and persons alive. Some six
pages and two maps allotted to Madame
Knight's journey from Boston to
New York give a keen realization of the
difficulties of travel, and almost
make the reader feel some of the
discomforts of a long trip to those not
hardened to horseback riding. Mr.
Coleman's interest in personalities leads
him to point out the same individuals
participating in various events, until
the book seems to have a corps of
dramatis personnae whom the reader
accepts as old friends. The format,
illustrations, and maps are exceptionally
fine and in keeping with the sparkling
presentation of the material. For
fascinating reading Liberty and
Property is recommended to all the historically
minded.
Youngstown College CLARENCE P. GOULD
Book Reviews 103
Mr. Lincoln's Contemporaries: An
Album of Portraits by Mathew B. Brady.
By Roy Meredith. (New York, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1951. 233p.
$6.00.)
It would be difficult indeed to publish
a book of Mathew Brady's photo-
graphs that did not rank as a first-rate
work. Brady himself insures that
distinction. This latest collection by
Roy Meredith, his third "picture book,"
is no exception to the rule. There are
172 portraits, some groups, and a
field photo or two by the most
famous-justly famous-photographer
America has ever known. The title of the
book tells what the portraits
are and the times the subjects lived in.
Here are the faces of some leading members
of the cast and quite a few
extras of that great American tragedy
called the Civil War. They are the
people with whom Lincoln rubbed elbows
and whose names he surely
must have used in his dinner table
conversation. To read this book, and
look at the pictures, is as though
sitting down for an evening of light talk
with Mr. Lincoln, because the text is as
intimate as the photos.
Mr. Meredith has taken from the Brady
files an assortment of generals,
patriots, politicians, profiteers,
writers, actresses, female spies, and poets.
They had their little day while Lincoln
lived. Some of the names and
faces are those of persons long
forgotten, except by Civil War scholars.
But they were important personalities in
their time. If they hadn't been
important, they would not have sat in
front of Mr. Brady's camera.
There is Henry Ward Beecher, with arms
folded senator-like across a
chest that held a heart in which a
fanatical cause took precedent over the
Union. There is Greeley, engrossed in
his morning edition. Sherman's
fighting face shows why he was "a
little careless with fire" on his march
across Georgia. We also see the
lion-hearted Stephen A. Douglas, and that
most astute of all political bosses, Thurlow
Weed. The tellrtale photos
prove that the stage darlings of
Lincoln's era couldn't hold a candle to the
current crop of Hollywood glamour girls.
Custer's personality shows so
clearly that it may evoke cheers for
Sitting Bull.
These photographs would be interesting
even though we didn't know
the subjects or what they stood for. The
subjects are flamboyant, warm-
hearted, cold-hearted, ambitious. Some
are plain liars, double crossers,
sinister, sour, and stiff. If a portrait
photographer were to make portraits
so soul-searching and revealing today,
he would be sued for libel.
It appears to a layman that photography
has receded rather than pro-
gressed in the century that has elapsed
since Brady shuffled his wet plates.
It is quite obvious that his portraits
are superior to anything offered today.
104
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The miracle of it is that he worked with
crude implements and without
any form of artificial lighting. Today's
portrait photographer attempts-
and often succeeds- in making his
subject a thing of beauty. Trick lighting
performs the wonder. Brady's portraits
are character delineations.
In addition to the running commentary
supplied by the author as cut
lines, a brief but highly informative
biography of Mathew Brady forms
the opening chapter of the book. Perhaps
this is going out of the way to
find fault, but the dust jacket of this
book refers to the 1861-65 struggle
as the "War Between the
States." Let's take Lincoln's word for it and call
it the Civil War. If you don't think
that is correct, read the Gettysburg
speech again.
Columbus,
Ohio
ROBERT S. HARPER
The Territorial Papers of the United
States. Compiled and edited by
Clarence
Edwin Carter. Volume XV, The Territory
of Louisiana-Missouri, 1815-
1821, Continued. (Washington, Government Printing Office,
1951. v+
834p. $5.00.)
This third and final volume of documents
pertaining to the history of
Missouri Territory (called Louisiana
Territory, 1805-12) is the first under
the imprint of the National Archives,
which took over the project of pub-
lishing The Territorial Papers of the
United States in 1950. The change
seems to have made no difference in the
high quality of the product. Pro-
fessor Carter's series continues to be
the mainstay of the student of western
political institutions. The present
volume, like its predecessors, will be
supplemented but not replaced by the
recently completed series of the State
Records Microfilm Project, which have a
different scope and, being in micro-
film, do not share the benefits of
Carter's editing.
Documents concerning land claims and
expanding settlements are es-
pecially noteworthy, representing the
postwar boom. Officials were less con-
cerned about the quality and the
patriotism of settlers than in earlier years.
Squatters increased faster than land
offices, and public opinion supported
them, especially "as those who may
be found on public lands are the
persons who have borne the storm of the
Indian War." The register of the
land office at St. Louis said that
"five Militia men of the Territory would
not march against the intruders"
(p. 112). The new immigrants induded
many "Men of respectabillity,
property & enterprize" (p. 209); even the
squatters on Indian lands south of the
Arkansas were "peaceable, honest &
industerous, having errected two water,
and six horse Mills possessing many
well improved Farms on the Wauchataw
River and its waters" (p. 177).
A Virginian reported that "to the
man of Capital [Missouri] now offers a
Book Reviews 105
certain prospect of wealth, &
compleat independence. Nor is the state of
society such, as is generally met with
in newly settled countries; it is
polished beyond any thing, that I could
have expected" (p. 203). The
panic of 1819 and the new land law of
1820 brought the usual train of
appeals for relief for purchasers, but
settlement continued, shifting in part
from farming to lead mining:
"seduced by prospect[s] of extraordinary
profit planters are deserting their
farms in Kentucky & seting down, upon
the public domain" (p. 720). The
settlers were numerous enough to ignore
the Indians' claims with fair assurance
that they would be safe; the govern-
ment was shortly (in 1822) to withdraw
the protection to the Indians'
interests that the trading houses
constituted; the Cherokees had learned
quietly to follow the creoles on their
"Tallowing" expeditions to the
buffalo hunting grounds for the sake of
the meat that they might bring
home (p. 51).
The materials are now at hand not only
for a history of the territorial
system but for a general reassessment of
the frontier. With the Draper
collection and a wide selection of
territorial and state records on microfilm,
the published series of state historical
societies, and, probably most im-
portant among single series, the first
nine territories represented in Professor
Carter's volumes, any good university
library can easily offer more data than
Turner had at his command in Madison
fifty years ago.
University of Oregon EARL POMEROY
Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom. By Benjamin P. Thomas. (New
Brunswick, N. J., Rutgers University Press,
1950. 307p. $4.25.)
This first full-length biography of
Weld, without a table of contents and
with notes in the back, is based largely
on the Weld-Grimke manuscripts
at the William L. Clements Library and
on the published correspondence
of the abolition leader. Other
manuscript material and papers of an anti-
slavery mold are used, but notable by
their absence are such periodicals as
the Anti-Slavery Record, Human
Rights, and the Quarterly Anti-Slavery
Magazine.
It is a well-rounded biography of this
eccentric, sincere, and zealous re-
former. His home life, his wife,
formerly Angelina Grimke, and his con-
temporaries who were associated with
various reform movements are por-
trayed in interesting fashion. There are
accounts of Weld's attempts to
further the temperance cause, the manual
labor education movement, and
the woman's rights movement, though it
is noted that he never outwardly
took a stand in behalf of a better day
for the industrial laborer.
The central theme of the book is, of course,
the part played by its
106 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
subject in the abolition crusade. In
this connection there is an analysis of
the Lane Seminary debates, of Weld's
antislavery tracts, and of his part
in the spirited controversy over
petitions. He is credited with supplying
much of the ammunition for congressional
leaders who opposed the "gag
resolution," and his works are
represented as quite an inspiration toward
the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He
opposed Garrison's no-government
ideas, and tried to steer clear of the
serious rift in abolition ranks over par-
ticipation in politics. He was an
influential public speaker in his cause,
but trouble with his voice caused him to
abandon public speaking in the
early 1840's, not to be resumed again
until the Civil War era. His constant
theme was that slavery was entirely a
moral and ethical question, and that
the idea of the inequality of races,
upon which the institution was based
in part, was erroneous.
In this well written and very
worth-while biography there are some
points with which the reviewer cannot
agree. That the cotton gin brought
changes in southern life no one will
deny; but ito say that "until this new
development, most slaveholders owned
only a few slaves" (p. 59) is to
suggest the erroneous idea that most of
them owned many slaves after the
development. The disproportion in
slaveholding was, of course, greater
in 1860 than in 1790, but in the former
year the overwhelming proportion
of slaveholders had only from one to
nine. Another point is the matter of
petitions. The writer makes no effort to
define the right of petition, but
refers to it as "a cherished
American right" which was abridged. Yet the
abolitionists were not sure just what
constituted the "right," and both major
parties were at times inconsistent in
their interpretation of the principle
at issue.
Finally, it is difficult to agree with
the view of the author that the slavery
controversy had become almost entirely a
moral issue between the sections
by 1860. He states that "as long as
slavery could be dealt with as a con-
stitutional, an economic, or a political
issue, there was always room for
give and take," but that compromise
was impossible after it became a moral
issue. The fact remains that the
abolitionists tried to make it a moral issue
for years without much success, and that
not until political and economic
factors became deeply entwined was
compromise impossible. The author
himself gives evidence of the numerous
hardships and indignities to which
Weld was subjected during his active
speaking years, and he does not
present convincing evidence that there
had been such a complete moral
revolution in the North between that time
and 1860.
Ohio State University HENRY H. SIMMS
Book Reviews 107
Midwestern Progressive Politics: A
Historical Study of Its Origins and De-
velopment, 1870-1950. By Russel B. Nye. (East Lansing, Mich., Michigan
State College Press, 1951. 422p. $5.00.)
Russel B. Nye, the author of George
Bancroft, a Brahmin Rebel, and
Fettered Freedom, is chairman of the English Department at Michigan
State College. This study is a pioneer
synthesis of the midwestern radical
movement from its Granger origins to
what seems to the author to be its death
in 1950, a death caused by its own
weaknesses--its insularity, inflexibility,
and lack of world perspective. Today Mr.
Nye sees this section emerging
politically and economically from
regionalism into nationalism as the
nation merges into one world.
The basic cause of midwestern unrest and
protest the author attributes
to its sense of colonialism in relation
to the East, the home of the business
and intellectual elite who came to
dominate the country in the post-Civil
War era. The midwestern problem was to
reaffirm eighteenth century
democratic faith and preserve it against
the rising tide of eastern
"plutocracy." In their quest
for solutions midwestern radicals displayed a
temper characteristically
American--optimistic and pragmatic--preferring
the evolutionary process of correcting
known evils piecemeal to the Marxian
prescription of political revolution.
The tap root of their philosophy was the
Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition. Yet
to achieve their democratic goals
some concluded that the Jeffersonian
concept of limited government might
have to be exchanged for the Hamiltonian
system of a powerful govern-
ment exercising some positive control
over the economic and social life of the
people. The result was that midwestern
progressivism became "a melange
of old and new tendencies"--a
conflict between individualism and col-
lectivism, between traditionalism and
change, between the backward-looking
group personified by William J. Bryan
and the forward-looking school
embodied by Robert M. La Follette.
Mr. Nye's focus in this study is on men
and their ideas. He has limned
deft, well balanced portraits of the
leading figures in the midwestern
radical movement from the
Granger-Alliance-Populist period, through the
state and municipal reformers of the
progressive era, to the Non-Partisan
League and the ephemeral organizations
of the 1930's. Outstanding are his
appraisals of Bryan (pp. 110-113), La
Follette (pp. 206-224), William
Allen White (pp. 235-237), and such
lesser-known figures as Arthur C.
Townley (pp. 313-316) and Thomas Amlie
(pp. 368-369). Equally
intuitive and penetrating are his
observations on the two national pro-
gressive leaders, Theodore Roosevelt
(pp. 239-251) and Woodrow Wilson
108 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
(pp. 297-307). Although midwest
progressives operated mainly within
the Republican party, profiting from
their early mistake of trying to triumph
through the Democratic or third parties
in an area traditionally Republican,
Mr. Nye concludes, paradoxically, that
the Democrat Wilson did more
for their cause than the Progressive
Republican Roosevelt. Not only was
Wilson's New Freedom program closer than
Roosevelt's New Nationalism
to midwestern progressive thought, but
the first Wilson administration
put into effect many of the latter's
principles.
In tracing the origin and evolution of
the midwest radical program
the author has again shown insight and has
drawn many useful distinctions.
The major planks, he points out, were
set by 1896. The progressive
politicians of the twentieth century, in
the words of William Allen White,
"caught the Populists in swimming
and stole all of their clothing except
the frayed underdrawers of free
silver" (p. 125). Progressivism
merely
accentuated the trend toward
"socialized politics" already foreshadowed.
The real change from Populism was not in
the program but in personnel
and procedure, especially in the
emphasis on the technical adviser and
commission of experts as reflected in
the "Wisconsin Idea." At later points
in his study, particularly in examining
the Progressive parties in 1924 and
1948, Mr. Nye has made equally valid
distinctions. La Follette's program
in 1924 harked back to 1896; it owed
little either to Roosevelt's program
of 1912 or to Socialist doctrine (p.
344-345). In 1948 the Wallacites stole
the label for their own ends-ends which
bore no organic relation to
historic midwestern progressivism (p. 350-351).
Politicians, their programs, and their
campaigns are not Mr. Nye's only
concern. He has extended his panorama to
include the intellectual ferment
inside the universities and the
churches, dynamically integrating the new
movements in economics, sociology,
education, and religion with the trends
in politics. Furthermore, he has added
depth and balance to his analysis
by documenting the conservative defense.
Regrettably the book is an alloyed
mixture, and it is necessary to say
something about its baser parts. A
champion of his native Midwest, Mr.
Nye sometimes claims too much for its
uniqueness and draws or implies
distinctions where none exist. The
"hayseed radical," the "maverick,"
is not a type "that belonged solely
to the Midwest" (p. 65). South Carolina
produced "Pitchfork Ben"
Tillman and Oklahoma "Alfalfa Bill" Murray.
Again the author implies that
progressivism under such leaders as Hiram
Johnson in California, Charles E. Hughes
in New York, Woodrow Wilson
Book Reviews 109
in New Jersey, and Robert Bass in New
Hampshire was "simply a swing
toward honest government"; whereas
in the Midwest it was considerably
more (p. 224). Certainly this greatly
underestimates the accomplishments
of Johnson and Wilson.
More serious is Mr. Nye's treatment of
Ohio, which is pockmarked with
errors, most of which could have been
eliminated by consulting the standard
Ohio histories and articles which have
appeared in this Quarterly and other
reviews. A few should be corrected here.
Samuel M. Jones was not an
avowed single taxer (p. 98); he had some
sympathy with Henry George but
he rejected his panacea as too limited.
Herbert Bigelow, far from with-
drawing from active politics in 1905 (p.
165), did his most important work
thereafter as a leader in the campaign
for the constitutional convention of
1912 and as president of that body; long
after that he was active in Cin-
cinnati municipal affairs. Tom Johnson
ran for governor in 1903, not 1902,
and died in 1911, not 1907, when he was
reelected mayor for the fourth
time (p. 191). The gravest distortion is
the statement that progressivism
never held complete sway in Ohio because
the state was controlled from
1900 to 1914 by Republicans like Joseph B.
Foraker, Charles Foster, Henry
B. Payne, and Calvin Brice; that the
state had a succession of Republican
governors for twenty years after 1900;
and that the progressive legislation
came primarily from the Roosevelt
influence within the party (pp. 224,
238). Payne and Brice were reactionary
Democrats, not Republicans, and
were dead by 1900; Foster was
politically inactive after the mid-1890's,
though he lived until 1904; and
Foraker's power was broken in 1908. The
Republicans lost the governorship in
1905 and did not win it again until
1914. Progressives were in the saddle in
Ohio from 1911 to 1914, dominating
the constitutional convention,
controlling both the executive and legislature
in James M. Cox's first administration,
and writing into the fundamental
law and the statute books the leading
political and economic reforms of
the day. Leadership came from the
Democrats, not from the Republicans
or even Roosevelt's Bull Moose party,
though many rank and file Pro-
gressives staunchly supported the cause.
Such shortcomings and errors mar but do
not destroy the value of this
history. Its scope, perspective,
balance, and, in general, sound judgment
commend it. The writing has flow and
pungency. There is a general
bibliography and a special list of
references for each chapter in lieu of
footnotes and also an index.
Kenyon College LANDON WARNER