Book Reviews
Financing Unemployment Compensation:
Ohio's Experience. By Edison L.
Bowers, Paul G. Craig, and William
Papier. Bureau of Business Research
Monograph Number 89. (Columbus: Ohio
State University, College of
Commerce and Administration, 1957.
xx 314p.; bibliography. $4.00.)
An important function of state
government in the industrialized society of
our day is the organization and
administration of an effective system of
unemployment compensation. Ohio, which is
well on the way to becoming
the leading industrial state in the
nation, has given systematic attention to
the problem of unemployment for over six
decades, beginning in 1890
when she became the first state to
establish free employment offices.
Despite this record, it was not until
1936 (four years after Wisconsin's
pioneer effort) that Ohio passed its
first unemployment compensation act.
The basic principles of this law still
remain on the books although on
various occasions subsequent
legislatures have changed its provisions for
weekly benefit amounts and rates of
employment contributions.
Since this law has been in operation,
the state government has paid weekly
benefits to unemployed persons ranging
in annual total amounts from
$1,000,000 to $126,000,000 and has
accumulated a reserve fund of over
$679,000,000, due partially to the fact
that unemployment in Ohio has
been at a much lower rate than had been
anticipated. The increasing size
of the reserve against the background of
low unemployment figures has
raised a number of questions concerning
the financial aspects of the state
unemployment compensation, such as (1)
how large a reserve is needed
at a given time? (2) at what point might
the reserve fund be lowered
without endangering the solvency of the
system? (3) how are the costs of
unemployment compensation likely to be
affected in the future by the legis-
lative changes and economic conditions
which affect the income and outgo
of the reserve fund? and perhaps even
more importantly, (4) can the
unemployment conditions of past years be
looked upon as indicative of
future conditions?
It was for the purpose of examining
questions such as these that the
authors of this volume have attempted
the first comprehensive analysis that
has been made of the financial aspects
of the Ohio unemployment compensa-
BOOK REVIEWS 69
tion system. Their study, which was
suggested by the state advisory council
on unemployment compensation, has been
given great strength by the fact
that its authors have had a long
first-hand experience with the unemployment
compensation system. For example, Edison
L. Bowers, the economist, has
been associated in a major advisory and
consultative capacity with the Ohio
system since its inception and William
Papier has long served as director
of the division of research and statistics
of the Ohio Bureau of Unemploy-
ment Compensation. The study has also
benefited from the advice and assist-
ance of numerous other individuals with
wide experience and special com-
petence in the field.
The net result is a most informing study
of the financial aspects of the
unemployment compensation system. In ten
closely packed chapters the
authors examine the basic character of
the Ohio economy (with the assist-
ance of Dr. James Yocum), the
legislative and financial history of the Ohio
unemployment compensation law, the
legislative and economic assumptions
underlying the law and possible
alternatives; the problem of cost; the effect
of wage guarantees upon unemployment
compensation; the role of reserves in
financing unemployment compensation and
the development of tax policy;
and various related problems. As Dr.
Viva Boothe points out in the foreword,
the authors do not attempt to evaluate
the administration of the system but
rather to establish relationships
between changing legislation and the fast-
moving Ohio economy on the one hand and
the costs of unemployment
compensation on the other. Neither do
they try to predict the future,
although their informed review of past
experience and their projection of
that experience into the future based
upon a series of carefully considered
assumptions should be helpful to those
who are called upon to formulate
policies for the days ahead.
In short, we have here a careful
analysis of one important aspect of the
Ohio governmental program, made in a
workmanlike fashion, which throws
much light on the problem considered.
This is the kind of study that could
be followed with profit in other areas
of the public service. An appendix
and bibliography are included, but there
is no index.
Ohio State University FRANCIS R. AUMANN
American Radicals: Some Problems and
Personalities. Edited by Harvey Gold-
berg. (New York: Monthly Review Press,
1957. x 308p.; bibliographical
notes. $5.00.)
The radical tradition is an integral and
legitimate part of our national
experience--I would prefer the word
"heritage," but it is too early to use
70
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
it in any but a sentimental sense. The
problem is to assay accurately its
more uncomfortably relevant aspects.
There should be no necessary difference
between judging the past and judging the
present. One can be perceptive in
writing about Granville Hicks and of the
New Republic. One can be asinine
in writing about Thoreau. But no writer
can avoid speaking from some frame
of reference, unless he speaks in terms
of some of the emptier types of
academic exercise.
Professors Goldberg and William A.
Williams, in their introduction to
the present volume, speak in behalf of
radicalism, which they equate with
responsibility, action, and steadfast
adherence to progress. Obviously, these
are heavily loaded words, less unique to
radicalism than descriptive of their
hopes for radicalism. They oppose
radicalism to easy American optimism
based on the realities of frontier and
expansionist thinking. They consider,
too, possibilities for action which
might enable virile radicals to combat
"the sometimes exceedingly rational
corporatism of such men as Herbert
Hoover, Peter Drucker, and the Fortune
intellectuals"--and this, within
what they consider to be a
"framework of hostility" to radical formulations.
Radicals have been "intransigent
and unyielding," they have refused "to
compromise and to split truth or
principle," they have been non-conform-
ists. Such claims must be seen against
the remarkable background created by
the more recent history of the first and
fifth amendments to the constitution,
so different from the history made by
European and other martyrs who defied
courts to do their worst, who thundered
their convictions aloud, and who
marched singing to prisons and gallows.
But then, the individuals whom this
book raises before us for praise and
emulation, for the most part lived in
other times and circumstances, which
must be allowed for in judging their
relevance to the present.
There is a fine catholicity to the plan
of these essays, and a thoughtful
separation of categories in which
radicalism is presumed to function. So elite
a figure as John Jay Chapman rubs elbows
with so sociologically shabby a
figure as Theodore Dreiser; both are
conceived of as individuals who opposed
conformity. Others deemed radical
include figures who made attacks on
privilege, who spoke for or to minority
groups, or who sought socialism
directly. There are intriguing sections
on "Obstacles to Radicalism," and on
evaluations of American capitalism made
by Veblen and Charles Beard.
An effort has been made to give
scholarly substance to the essays, using
footnotes and bibliographies. It is
interesting that the most challenging essays
are not always the most academic. The
most common difficulty to run through
them is with the concept
"radical," which they fail to distinguish from
"liberal." Involved here is no
mere question of semantics. Essential integri-
BOOK REVIEWS 71
ties are at stake: the bases for judging
an individual's achievement. One
cannot ask the radical and the
non-radical to accomplish the same ends by
the same means. The weakest essay in the
volume, that on La Follette, by
Charles A. Madison, terms him "The
Radical in Politics." It has the fault of
all this author's work: it assumes that
which has to be proved. It tells an
over-familiar story which does not so
much as note the strategic questions:
what quid La Follette gave his
constituency for which quo; how his political
machine functioned; the relationship of
western to eastern Progressivism;
and, above all, the mechanics by which
La Follette was successfully deprived
of the Progressive nomination of 1912.
The Henry D. Lloyd essay by Harvey
O'Connor also suffers from superficial
thinking.
Most of the contributors to this volume
have a sense of being removed
from present-day American thinking. Yet
it is surprising how little effort
they make to fathom it. The writer on
John Brown was formerly with the
Nation and is now with Labor's Daily in Iowa. He admits
that Pottawatomie
is a hard stone to swallow;
nevertheless, he swallows it, and appears to
invite us to do likewise. Although he
has read Robert Penn Warren's
psychological view of Brown, he has
either not heard of, or has been unable
to interest himself in, Malin's
unappetizing but astonishing John Brown and
the Legend of Fifty-Six. It would seem that a revitalized radicalism would
have to be a more energetic and
resourceful radicalism: a radicalism which
would face up to and assimilate
Dreiser's ugly views about the Jews; face
the fact that he and Veblen are not now
read by the intellectuals, coldly com-
forted by avant-gardism and mathematical
economics; the fact of Ralph
Chaplin's Wobbly, which the
author of the essay on William Haywood
cites, but does not cope with; the
charges against Vito Marcantonio embodied
in Reinhard Luthin's American
Demagogues essay, which is merely observed
to be unfriendly, by a friend. Above
all, a revitalized radicalism might wish
to face up to the fact that the burden
of proof is on the accuser, not the
defendant. In other words, that the
"radical" needs to prove the need for
"radicalism"--having, of course,
first defined it.
The essays, generally, seek to make
their case in terms of the cruel end-
products of capitalism with which their
protagonists were forced to deal.
They show insufficient awareness of the
efforts others were, in their own
ways, making to improve society. I don't
mean that the present authors ought
to think like liberals, who, by the way,
they seem to imagine are necessarily
both-sides-of-the-fencers, and somehow
less courageous. But to the extent
that radicalism premises a measure of social
support, it would be desirable
for it to satisfy questions and demands
which might be voiced by supporting
elements. The present authors are keenly
aware of the infirmities of capital-
72
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
ism. They are less penetrating in their
understanding of the infirmities of
"socialism." They need to
study more closely the dynamics of radical-
conservative relations. Why was Big Bill
Haywood acquitted in the Steunen-
berg murder trial of 1906, and why have
"radical" perjurers and subversives
had to serve time in prison more
recently? Russell Fraser, in "The Rene-
gades," puts much of the responsibility
on what he terms the American
Dream. (This essay, heavy with
personalities and judgments, merits a book,
rather than a few pages, and must be put
down as "thought-provoking,"
rather than the "study" it
hoped to be.) It is not clear, however, whether the
"Dream" has corrupted radicals
or corrupted the public, or both; and, if
the former, what circumstances permitted
the heroes of this volume to
resist the "Dream" in their
various fashions.
"The Achievement of Debs," by
Bert Cochran, editor of the American
Socialist, is one of the best essays simply because it attempts to
see issues
and meet them. It is discontented with
the fatuous grins which pass for
admiration of Debs's folksy
loving-kindness; it analyzes his qualities and
his role, and seeks to relate them to
the present situation. I don't think
it is successful; perhaps it can't be,
at this point in time. But its subject
makes it less liable to sharp criticism
for avoiding The Problem: an analysis
of the role communism played in American
affairs of the 1930's and 1940's.
And it attempts to work constructively
for a rebuilding of socialist integrity
and consequence, rather than flatter
itself with dissatisfaction over society's
perspectives and contempt for
non-"radicals."
There are essays dealing with Heywood
Broun, John P. Altgeld, Daniel
De Leon, Walter Weyl, and "The
Ideology and Techniques of Repression,
1903-1933." The problem of
radicalism, however, is not what there is of it
to repress, but what it has to express.
Radicalism in some form is inevitable;
and it would be desirable to have one of
substance and dignity. For it is one
of the somber facts of the present that,
as the twenties have manifestly
returned in much of their original garb
and character, so the thirties and
after could succeed them in futile and
repetitive turn.
Antioch College Louis FILLER
James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1795-1843.
By Charles Grier Sellers, Jr. (Prince-
ton, N. J.: Princeton University Press,
1957. xiv 526p.; illustrations,
essay on sources, and index. $7.50.)
After an exhaustive study of available
manuscripts, newspapers, govern-
ment publications, and other sources,
Charles G. Sellers, Jr., presents here
BOOK REVIEWS 73
the first volume of what will presumably
be the definitive life of James K.
Polk. His work reflects the growing
trend in American historical scholarship
toward detailed studies of the nation's
past political leaders. Sellers follows
his hero, almost literally step by step,
from his birth in North Carolina
through his college years at Chapel
Hill, his career as a lawyer in Tennessee,
his adventures first in the Tennessee
legislature and then in congress, to
his years as speaker of the house, his
single term as governor of Tennessee,
his vice presidential aspirations, and
his loss of power and prestige in the
Whig deluge of the early 1840's. The
story ends in that dark hour before
the dawn of Polk's great day; ahead lies
another volume on Polk's years
as president of the United States.
Polk was, of course, not a dark horse
candidate in 1844. But neither did
he loom up as a tremendously important
figure in the national politics of
the thirties and early forties. As
Sellers makes clear, he was a competent,
hard-working politician, without any
particular originality or insight into
his times. A routine and rather dogmatic
Jeffersonian Democrat, aside from
his industriousness his chief political
asset was his association with Andrew
Jackson, whom he admired and loyally
served. Because it paints this minor
figure on such a broad canvas, this
volume is somewhat weighted down
with a great deal of detail about relatively
unimportant matters, and with
long discussions of important events in
which Polk played only minor roles.
The so-called general reader is not
likely, therefore, to find this book very
appealing, unless he has made a hobby of
Tennessee politics in the Jackson
era. Historians, on the other hand, will
find it an invaluable reference work
for the period, for Sellers is a careful
scholar, and his judgment, if one
will discount a slight and
understandable bias in favor of his hero, is
eminently sound throughout. His next
volume, dealing with the period in
which Polk really influenced his times
and the future development of the
nation, will no doubt excite more
general interest.
Sellers tries to show the reader Polk's
personality as well as his career, a
difficult task with one who (in J. Q.
Adams' words) possessed "no wit, no
literature . . . no gracefulness of
delivery . . . no philosophy, no pathos . . .
nothing but confidence, fluency, and
labor." Sellers calls Polk "an introverted,
unrelaxed man" with a personality
"unbelievably methodical and calculated."
Yet he succeeds in making Polk
believable and even in exciting the reader's
sympathy for this limited, inhibited,
but well-meaning and industrious poli-
tician. Thus, while the present volume
is rather difficult going, one finishes
it wanting to read the rest of the
story, soon, one may hope, forthcoming.
Michigan State University JOHN A. GARRATY
74
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The Amish Year. Photographs by Charles S. Rice; text by Rollin C.
Steinmetz.
(New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1956. 224p.; illustra-
tions. $5.00.)
This is an informal and pleasant book.
It takes us, through text and
photograph, nicely balanced, into the
Amish community of Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania. The style is easy and the
manner informative and warm.
The authors start out with the usual
note about how camera-shy the
Amish are. It is true that they are, by
religious conviction first, and secondly
by the desire not to be snapped as
freaks by every tourist, yet all of the
many books and articles about the Amish
in recent years have been generously
illustrated by photographs taken with or
without the consent of the Amish.
They rank with Smoky Mountain bears and
Skid Row wrecks as desirable
photographic material.
The photographs in this book are among
the best to appear in any story
about the Amish so far. They cover
virtually all the homely, daily activities of
the people. The text, arranged in twelve
chapters, one for each month, is
written with sympathy and convincing
knowledge of the Amish. Judged by
comparison with other similar material,
it shows a just handling and accuracy
that make the book a welcome item in any
library of American life.
There are two related facets of Amish
life which are of great interest.
One is that they maintain their ways not
in isolation but in the midst of
farm and town areas in Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, and other heavily
populated states. The second is that
they seem quite able to carry them
into the future, with local adaptation
and slow changes as appear right to a
deeply religious folk who are also
highly skilled husbandmen.
The outside may wonder how young people
can be kept in an environment
which shows itself to the world in queer
clothes and a comedy accent. Perhaps
this bit from the "December"
chapter will help to show the real values. The
author is talking about two young
children coming home from school
through the shops and past the new
houses of suburban Lancaster:
At last Hannah and Danny mount the
foot-worn limestone steps of their
own porch. . . . Hannah and Danny are
inside the sheltering arms of home.
In the warmth of a kitchen bigger than
the whole floor space of any ranch
house in . . . Lancaster, the children
are received into such a security of love
and family unity and group tradition as
today's hasty civilization does not
offer elsewhere. Forgotten are . . . the
store-bought toys of which other
children dream. Danny and Hannah are
home. They are enveloped in a
featherbed of Amishness. Shut away from
the world, supremely happy in a
BOOK REVIEWS 75
household where there is seldom an angry
word spoken, they know too well
the good things of their own way of
living to be jealous of any other.
Against this, one sets the knowledge
that some young Amish men slip
away from home to do a little
hot-rodding, and the recent sight of a young
Amish maiden driving along Route 42 near
Plain City wearing her little
white cap--but driving a new Ford, not a
horse. Conclusions are to be
cautiously made if at all, but one may at
least guess that the old values are
stronger than shiny cars. If they are,
the young people who will stay with
them are lucky.
Cincinnati, Ohio NORMAN L. SPELMAN
William Boyd Allison: A Study in
Practical Politics. By Leland L. Sage.
(Iowa City: State Historical Society of
Iowa, 1956. xiv 401p.; illustra-
tions, bibliography, and index. $6.50.)
Theodore E. Burton: American
Statesman. By Forrest Crissey.
(Cleveland:
World Publishing Company, 1956.
viii 352p.; frontispiece and index.
$5.00.)
William Boyd Allison belongs to that
second string of Republican poli-
ticians of the post- Civil War period
who offered little or no real leadership
during the great westward expansion and
industrial development of the
nation. Like many of his colleagues in
the house of representatives, where
he served for eight years, and in the
senate, where he sat for thirty-six years,
he made only feeble gestures toward
solving the really important problems
which faced the American people, and
without hesitation aided and abetted
railroads and industries in their
demands for government favors. Like many
of his colleagues he was a Radical
Republican, a representative "up to his
ears in railroad politics and railroad
promotion, sometimes a shady business,
nearly always a 'high-pressure' type of
promotion," a ridiculer of "snivel
service" reform, a presidential
candidate in 1888, a high tariff advocate (by
1890 although not in 1870), an
expansionist, and a bimetallist. After 1897
he came to have considerable power in
the senate chiefly because of his
seniority and long experience.
Like the subject of his biography, Mr.
Sage is cautious and is loath to
extend many judgments although he is not
uncritical. Quite understandably
he found it difficult to warm to Allison
because this "Nestor of the Senate"
was not a dramatic figure, indeed
appears to have been downright dour.
Apparently too the senator was a poor
businessman. Certainly he was not
76
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
a good speaker or a good campaigner, and
from reliable sources had little
charm. Indeed after reading this
biography it is difficult to understand why
he was one of Iowa's senators for
thirty-six years.
Students of the late nineteenth century
will find this an impartial volume,
for Mr. Sage has made careful use of the
voluminous Allison correspondence
in the Iowa state department of history
and of other important papers.
His understanding of the intricacies of
Iowa politics is penetrating and
should prove a boon to students of that
state's history. Regrettably for the
close reader of this biography, the
footnotes are relegated to a second section
of the book and are not carried on the
bottom of the appropriate page.
Stories of Allison's extreme caution in
dealing with personal and political
problems abound in the literature of the
period. Senator Foraker's is one
of the best. While campaigning in Iowa a
flock of sheep went by a farmer's
house where he and his group were
visiting. A friend observed that these
were very fine sheep. Allison replied,
"While I am not a sheep expert, yet
I can see that they do appear to be a
very fine flock indeed." The friend
ventured a further remark, "They
have been recently sheared." To this,
the senator responded, "Yes, they
do appear to have been sheared; at least
on this side."
Students of recent American history may
find a number of interesting
stories about one of Ohio's important
legislators in the biography of Theo-
dore Burton. Unfortunately, the late Mr.
Crissey gives us only a partial
biography of this long-time statesman
(thirty years in congress, first in the
house, then in the senate, then in the
house, and then back again to the
senate). Although the author knew the
senator for many years, he gives
us no clue as to the materials used in
writing this book. There are liberal
quotes from newspapers and certain older
and somewhat questionable biogra-
phies but none from the new critical
works. If any of Burton's papers were
used there is no indication.
Ohio State University EVERETT WALTERS
Dream and Thought in the Business
Community, 1860-1900. By Edward
Chase Kirkland. (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1956. xiv
175p.; notes and index. $3.00.)
This is a collection of essays on
"dreams and thoughts" of American busi-
nessmen in the age of the "robber
barons." Presented originally as the
Messenger Lectures at Cornell University
in 1956, they now appear in book
form with an attractive format and with
suitable scholarly apparatus.
BOOK REVIEWS 77
Edward Chase Kirkland, distinguished
professor of history at Bowdoin
College, can speak with authority on
American economic developments. He
has authored a widely used text on
American economic history, an outstand-
ing two-volume study of Men, Cities
and Transportation in New England,
and an earlier set of essays on
conservative thought in the Gilded Age.
Professor Kirkland returns to the Gilded
Age in the present volume. He
has not joined the current movement to
rehabilitate the "robber barons"--
he comes to us with clean hands in this
respect--but he has sought a better
understanding of the business mind, and
he corrects several generally held
misconceptions. As a result he leaves
the barons somewhat better than he
found them. If they are no more liberal
or lovable, they are at least less
culpable on a number of social
questions.
The opening chapter points out that the
attitudes of American business
leaders after 1860 were shaped by forces
attending a phenomenal industrial
growth punctuated by recurring panics
and depressions. Success was more
the exception than the rule. There was
little security in such an age, even for
a robber baron. Thus when the barons
turned to Social Darwinism or, as was
more often the case, to social science
of the more prosaic sort, they did so
hoping to find some principle of
order--some measure of certainty--in the
midst of chaos. Defense of vested
interests was not the first reason.
Subsequent chapters deal with the homes
of the business elite (wives and
architects must share the blame); their
feelings on public education (they
were for it); and their support for
higher education (it should be more
practical). On the question of
government, Professor Kirkland shows that
their attitude was again determined by
their desire for certainty, not just their
desire for business liberty.
Legislatures were inconstant things. Courts and
commissions were much more reliable. So
if there must be government con-
trol, let it be exercised here.
Finally, the author deals with the
robber baron's conception of his social
role. It is clear that business leaders
of the Gilded Age often thought of
themselves as true instruments of social
progress, honest benefactors of all
the American people. They would not have
the public be damned. They
were proud of what they had done for
their fellow man. Were they justified
in their pride? The author does not
attempt to judge.
Written with the infectious enthusiasm
and good humor characteristic of
all Professor Kirkland's work, Dream
and Thought makes an instructive and
entertaining evening's reading.
Ripon College GEORGE H. MILLER
78
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Henry Churchill King of Oberlin. By Donald M. Love. (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press for Oberlin
College, 1956. xi 300p.; illustrations,
appendix, and index. $4.50.)
This biography of a distinguished
college president might serve as a his-
tory, on a small scale, of the
transition from the old American college to
the new. At Oberlin the change occurred
during President King's connection
with the institution and largely in his
administration. For exactly three-
fourths of his seventy-six years, King,
as student, teacher, and president, was
connected with Oberlin College. His
connection began when American
colleges still retained many of the
marks of their colonial origins. It was a
time when a bright graduate could teach
almost any course on a college
roster. Professors and officers were
home-grown. The first Oberlin professor
with a Ph.D. degree was appointed in
1884. It was a time when Oberlin
was known less for scholarship than for
its causes: coeducation, women's
rights, racial equality, and the
prohibition of student secret societies, liquor,
tobacco, dancing, and cards. The theater
was just within the pale but the
reading of Shakespeare in mixed classes
was not always tolerated.
When King arrived on the campus in 1877
the elective system had been
recently introduced. He took nearly all
the philosophical courses, but only
the required classics, and no
mathematics. The omitted subject became his
teaching field, first in the academy but
later in the college as well. Mean-
while he graduated from Oberlin Seminary
and spent a year and a half in
study in the Harvard Divinity School and
College. From the latter he received
the master's, his highest earned,
degree. Even in that institution he spent
his time on philosophical and
theological subjects although he also audited
some classes in mathematics. After 1890
he taught only philosophy and
theology. He spent a sabbatical year
(1893) in such studies at the University
of Berlin.
His election to the presidency was not
unanimous. Several of the trustees
wanted an expert in finance and
administration rather than a minister, an-
other sign of the new day in higher
education; but they were mistaken in
this instance. He had already made his
notable investigation of the high
schools of Ohio and studied the means of
closing the gap between secondary
and higher education. The widely
circulated report of this investigation
landed King on the Committee of Ten of
the National Educational Associa-
tion and he also became active in the
North Central Association. As professor
and president he used and favored
laboratory, seminar, and other original
and investigative methods. As president
he chose many men with far more
advanced training than he had secured.
He was a popular speaker and the
BOOK REVIEWS 79
author of many popular books, usually of
an ethical and religious character.
He was democratic and a liberal of sorts
and though loyal to the old Oberlin
he wished to usher in the new, but to do
it gradually, not offending any-
body. It was his skillful handling of
alumnus Charles M. Hall that secured
the famed bequest of $14,000,000 for
Oberlin. He was in the center of
other financial campaigns that helped to
keep Oberlin affluent or at least
well-off.
The book asserts that President King had
the united support of the faculty.
It also reports that he discharged a
dean of women who was too hasty in
her efforts to bring in the new Oberlin,
and that she attracted a group of the
faculty to her side. In the middle of
his twenty-five year term the president
sought for means to gain "greater
faculty unity." From these and other ex-
amples it appears that the author has
not been entirely consistent. President
King was optimistic, moderate,
temperate, and "soft" to students.
We do not have space to speak of King's
services in World War I and in
public commissions afterward. The volume
is well planned and well written.
The material came from letters, official
documents, the Oberlin Review, and
the president's own writings. The documentation
is adequate. The book is
worthy of a place beside Professor R. S.
Fletcher's excellent A History of
Oberlin College in two volumes which brings the story down through
the Civil War.
Ohio State University H. G. GOOD
Congressman Abraham Lincoln. By Donald W. Riddle. (Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1957.
vii 280p.; bibliography and index. $4.50.)
The mystery of Abraham Lincoln remains
unsolved. How did an unedu-
cated, untraveled, uncultivated,
small-town lawyer develop into a great states-
man, a man of infinite mercy and
understanding, a man who epitomizes
the American dream, not only to his
countrymen, but to the world? Nothing
in his early career foreshadowed what he
was to become. No scholar has
yet satisfactorily traced the
transformation from clever politician and lawyer
into immortal folk hero.
Mr. Riddle, continuing his study of
Lincoln's pre-presidential career,
does not even try. Perhaps he is wise
not to attempt what may well be
impossible. (What sources remain to be
examined?) His work is purely
descriptive, covering Lincoln's
congressional term and the following months
in great detail. A brief epilogue
chapter carries the story forward to Lincoln's
re-entry into politics and his defeat
for the senate in 1855.
80
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The portrait Mr. Riddle offers us is
unflattering. At no time does
Lincoln appear as more than a hack
politician, an office-seeker, trimming
his sails to every prevailing wind. A
man without principles, he followed
the Whig party line wherever it led,
even to sedition and misrepresentation.
Lincoln's most famous congressional act,
the "Spot Resolutions," the author
characterizes as a "shrewd, clever,
and opportunistic means of discrediting
the President." Repeatedly, as
Riddle shows, Lincoln performed disreputable
deeds for his party, denouncing Polk as
a war monger and the Mexican
War as improper. Lincoln's insincerity
is emphasized when we read that
while a candidate for congress he had
supported the war, and had even
assisted in recruitment. Not until he
took his seat did he speak out
against the war. His only concern was
partisan advantage. As it turned out,
Lincoln guessed wrong and alienated even
his Whig constituents so violently
that at the next election, although not
a candidate himself, a Democrat was
chosen to succeed him. Involuntarily
retired to private life, Lincoln sought
unsuccessfully an appointment as land
commissioner, and turned down offers
of the secretaryship and then the governorship
of Oregon. Even Lincoln's
return to politics in 1854 Riddle says
had no real principle behind it.
Hoping by then that feeling against him
had cooled, Lincoln cast desper-
ately about for an issue. He pounced
eagerly on slavery never to let go
until he reached the White House. Riddle
doubts Lincoln's sincerity. He
sees no moral principle behind anything
Lincoln did during the campaign
of 1854. Not even the Peoria address,
which has since been acclaimed as
one of the greatest indictments of
slavery ever delivered, commends itself
to him. Instead Riddle writes, "In
his Peoria speech, with its specious argu-
ments against popular sovereignty,
Lincoln was not fighting for a cause.
He was using the slavery issue,
conveniently presented by the Kansas-Ne-
braska Act, to advance his own political
standing." To say the least, this
interpretation is open to question.
Mr. Riddle's views are interesting.
Certainly it does not detract from
Lincoln's greatness that he had human
failings. If Mr. Riddle's account is
correct, we are indebted to him for
setting us straight. If anything, he shows
us how great Lincoln really was, in
overcoming his weaknesses. Perhaps in
a later study, Mr. Riddle will show
this. But in portraying the young
Lincoln, the author goes too far in the
other direction of building up the
opposition. He goes out of his way to
show the brilliance, excellence, and
worth of such Democrats as Polk and
Cass. At times the book reads like an
arraignment of Lincoln at the bar of
history, and/or campaign biographies
of Democratic candidates.
The work, although the research is
complete enough, loses much of its
BOOK REVIEWS 81
value because of its poor literary
quality. Either the author has no narrative
skill, and no feel for language, or he
did not pay sufficient attention to the
writing. His style is wretched.
Riddle also commits some errors of fact.
The sub-treasury plan, which
was enacted before Lincoln entered
congress, but which the author discusses
anyhow, has been superseded by the
federal reserve system (according to
his colleague Shannon) and is no longer
in operation, although on page 23
we are told that it is still
functioning. The Free Soil convention was not
held in Utica, New York, June 22, 1848,
and did not nominate Henry
Dodge for vice president.
Perhaps more careful re-writing and
checking and editing would have
corrected the flaws in this book. Mr.
Riddle's scholarship is good. His
theme is important. He should take more
pains with his presentation.
Kent State University HAROLD SCHWARTZ
The Railroads of the South,
1865-1900: A Study in Finance and Control.
By John F. Stover. (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press,
1955. xviii 310p.; maps, bibliography,
and index. $5.00.)
How northern capital after the Civil War
acquired control of an import-
ant segment of southern economy, notably
the railroads of the South, makes
a story worth telling. From a very minor
role in 1865 "northern men and
money were in positions of dominance in
nearly 90 percent of the mileage of
the major southern railroads" by
1900.
Generally speaking there were two causes
for this shift in control. First,
the financial difficulties of the years
between 1873 and 1880 and in 1892-
93 forced more than half the lines of
the South into default, and then
drove them to the only sources of money
available, those in the North.
Second, in the years of prosperity the
trend toward consolidation and the
building of great rail systems offered
opportunities for profit to those with
capital to invest, namely the northerners.
Interestingly enough, the carpetbag
regimes played almost no part in this
shift.
For the purposes of his work the author
has arbitrarily defined the South
to include only the eight Confederate
states east of the Mississippi plus
Louisiana and Kentucky. Further to keep
the book within workable bounds
the study in general has been limited to
roads of one hundred or more
miles in length. The number of
northerners on a board of directors has been
taken as a measure of northern control,
in addition to evidence gleaned
from news reports and common knowledge.
82
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The book under review is a meticulous
study of how the shift in control
took place, buttressed with an
impressive outpouring of statistics and many
adequate maps. The sources cited are
reliable and the methodology is
unexceptionable.
Exception must be taken, however, to the
general unreadability of, and
lack of leaven in, this account of what
was essentially a dramatic affair:
the reaching out of northern capital to
gain control of the transportation
system of its erstwhile foe. The
reactions and attitudes of the local southern
communities to the shift in control the
author specifically puts beyond the
scope of his work. It is to be
regretted, however, that he is almost equally
silent about the important and at the
same time colorful figures who were
involved in parts of the story. Tom
Scott, the one-time boy wonder of the
Pennsylvania Railroad and a dynamic
empire builder, is one of them.
Another was Calvin S. Brice, the Ohioan
turned New Yorker whom the
newspapers used to refer to as the
"smartest man in America." Brice's
associates, Samuel Thomas and George I.
Seney, deserve more than casual
mention. And so do Henry M. Flagler and
H. M. Plant, to name two more.
Although a reviewer may not blame an
author for not doing what he did
not set out to do, he may be allowed to
express his opinion that some of
the scholarly effort an author expends
in an unlimited elaboration of detail
to prove his point time after time might
better have been applied to giving
us fewer of the trees and more of the
woods.
Martha Kinney
Cooper Ohioana Library WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN
Imprints on History: Book Publishers
and American Frontiers. By Madeleine
B. Stern. (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1956. [viii]~492p.;
illustrations, supplement, chronological
list, notes on sources, and index.
$7.50.)
Miss Stern's collection of essays
dealing with the history of individual
nineteenth-century publishing houses
(plus a brief concluding section on
twentieth-century survivals) is
appropriately entitled Imprints on History.
Her subtitle, Book Publishers and
American Frontiers, is less fortunate,
since more than two-thirds of the
seventeen publishers treated have no
connection with any actual frontier. An
attempt to remedy this difficulty
is apparent in the device of grouping
the essays under the separate headings
"Frontiers of Space" and
"Frontiers of the Mind." However, even these
categories are violated in the
distribution of the essays. In the first group,
John Russell of ante-bellum
Charleston--the publisher of William Gilmore
BOOK REVIEWS 83
Simms's romances and of the short-lived
literary review, Russell's Magazine--
could hardly be identified with the
physical frontier. Also, the essays dealing
with the transcendentalist publishers,
James P. Walker and Horace B. Fuller,
and the abolitionist publisher, James
Redpath, would seem more prop-
erly to belong in the second section,
"Frontiers of the Mind," with such
studies as those of the publishers involved
in the Alger tradition of individ-
ualism and the promotion of the causes
of labor and woman's rights. As
for the essay on Elliott, Thomes &
Talbot, Boston publishers of dime novels
--which had already been established as
a type by Erastus Beadle--neither
category would seem to apply.
Apart from these inconsistencies in the
plan of the book, Miss Stern's
pieces are, for the most part,
well-written historical essays based on careful
research and selection of pertinent
detail. Among the publishers actually
representing the American frontier is
James D. Bemis, who settled in Can-
andaigua, New York, in 1804 and became a
regionally-influential newspaper
publisher and bookseller. His limited
list of book publications includes
James E. Seaver's Narrative of the
Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison (1824), a
story of a white woman's captivity and
life among the Indians of western
New York. Robert Fergus, the Chicago
"Prairie Printer," published the first
regular city directory and Mrs. John
Kinzie's Narrative of the Massacre at
Chicago, August 15, 1812 (1844). In the Far West, Anton Roman, a native
of Bavaria who crossed the plains with
the Forty-niners, shifted from gold-
mining to migratory bookselling, and
finally to a career as a bookseller and
publisher in San Francisco. In 1868, he
launched the famous Overland
Monthly, with Bret Harte as editor. The most conspicuous
omission in Miss
Stern's representative coverage of book
publishing frontiers is the lack of
any reference to the extensive activity
in the Ohio Valley, particularly in
Cincinnati. From a period antedating the
histories of the houses in Miss
Stern's book, numerous pioneer
publishers on the banks of the Ohio were
supplying the regional needs of the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys.
A number of Miss Stern's individual
essays (some of which first appeared
as articles) have considerable interest
as intellectual and cultural history.
Her discussion of James Redpath as an abolitionist
publisher and reformer
rounds out our knowledge of a figure
heretofore celebrated primarily for
the Lyceum Bureau which he managed from
1868 to 1875. Essays of
comparable interest include those on A.
K. Loring, the Boston publisher of
the Horatio Alger books (undoubtedly to
be ranked with the McGuffey
readers as a nineteenth-century cultural
influence); on G. W. (George Wash-
ington, of course) Carleton, the
publisher of "Artemus Ward" and "Josh
84
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Billings," the spectacular
precursors of the more-gifted "Mark Twain,"
whose own nom de guerre (as he
styled it) is a relic of his apprenticeship
in their tradition of popular humor; and
on John W. Lovell, whose cheap
editions of works by Jean Godin,
Laurence Gronlund, and Henry George,
among others, made up a potent phalanx
in the massed protest and socialist
reform literature of the 1880's.
Appendices to Miss Stern's work include
a useful list of book publishing
houses surviving from before 1900 and a
section of bibliographical notes on
sources. As a book dealing with the
history of book making, it can be noted
that Imprints on History is
itself a well-printed but indifferently-bound
volume.
Syracuse University WALTER SUTTON
A History of Presidential Elections. By Eugene H. Roseboom. (New York:
Macmillan Company, 1957. vi~568p.;
bibliography and index. $8.50.)
The literature on American political
history is enormous, and despite the
modern interest in social, cultural, and
economic history, more political
history is being written today than ever
before. Because of this tremendous
mass of secondary literature touching on
his subject, Eugene H. Roseboom
is to be admired for his courage in
trying to compress all the essential
information about American presidential
elections and nominating conven-
tions from the beginning to 1956 into a
single volume. He is also to be
congratulated for his successful
accomplishment of his challenging task.
A book such as this must embody the
findings of the latest and best
secondary authorities. It must be
accurate and complete, and the judgment
of its author must be of high quality.
In general, Roseboom's book is an
amazingly complete resume. If you want
to know who defeated whom on
what ballot and by how-many-and-a-half
votes in any convention--this is
your book. In it, for example, you can
discover exactly how the electors
pledged to Horace Greeley in 1872 voted
in the electoral college after
Greeley's death relieved them of their
obligation to support him; you can
also learn that one H. J. Bushfield
received nine votes on the first ballot
in the Republican convention of 1940.
Such information may not be very
important, but it has its interest, and
the wealth of it makes the book a
valuable work of reference.
But Roseboom's most notable achievement
is his monumental objectivity.
He occasionally interjects an opinion:
"Successful Presidents have been those
who accepted the responsibilities of
party leadership." "By and large [the
BOOK REVIEWS 85
convention system] had not worked badly.
If it had rejected front runners
in favor of a Pierce or a Harding, it
had also produced a Lincoln . . . .
Where the public voice was clear, it had
responded." But it is difficult,
after reading this book, to guess which
party Professor Roseboom belongs
to himself! Here, for example, is his
delicately balanced account of Nixon's
TV appeal in the 1952 campaign after the
Democrats had unearthed his
secret campaign fund:
That defense saved his career.
Skillfully shifting from the fund issue where
he was vulnerable, to a defense of his
reputation for honesty and integrity,
he related the history of his personal
finances . . . . His wife (who was
with him), her "respectable
Republican cloth coat," and their children's
dog were brought into his affecting
story . . . . The result was a deluge
of approving messages, and he went East
to be greeted by Eisenhower
as a man of courage and honor who had
been subjected to "a very unfair
and vicious attack." Democratic
critics called his performance "ham acting"
and "a financial strip tease," but he had
emerged as a popular hero.
Roseboom makes little effort to probe
into the causes and results of the
political developments he describes, but
to do so would have required
another long volume. His book is
primarily a work of reference, although,
like many good reference books, it can
be employed rewardingly as "bedside"
reading. Its only serious defect is its
index, which is largely a collection of
hundreds of names, lacking many topical
references that would aid the
reader interested in special aspects of
presidential politics. This, however,
is a minor blemish on a fine and useful
book.
Michigan State University JOHN A. GARRATY
The Wild Jackasses: The American
Farmer in Revolt. By Dale Kramer.
American Procession Series. (New York:
Hastings House, 1956. xi~
260p.; illustrations, bibliography, and
index. $4.50.)
Sometimes a dust jacket catches the
spirit of a book admirably. It does
so here. The reader is promised--or
warned--that what lies between the
covers is "gusty,"
"colorful," "a human story--of flesh and blood and excit-
ing events," "enthralling and
often uproarious." The author is praised, with
unintentional irony, for writing with
"reportorial accuracy." So, then, the
reader is prepared for what he gets--a
"souped-up" survey of agrarian protest
movements in the United States, with
emphasis on the "human-interest
angles" beloved of journalists.
Whatever claim may be made for the
scholarship of the book evaporates
86
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
on critical reading. There are no
footnotes, and the bibliography of twenty-
two books, articles, and dissertations
contains several items which can have
been only of marginal value. No use
appears to have been made of farm
journals or similar contemporary
materials. Well-known secondary works
seem to have been the main source of
information.
It would be more generous than accurate
to state that the book justifies
its subtitle.'It barely mentions either
Shays' Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebel-
lion, blandly ignores the Helderberg War
against the Hudson Valley pa-
troons, and fails to consider the
western agitation for pre-emption and
homestead laws. It is, indeed,
essentially confined to the Patrons of Husband-
dry (Grangers), the Greenbackers, the
Populists, the Farmers' Alliance, the
Non-Partisan League, and the Farmers'
Union.
The treatment, in general, is to
concentrate on a few leading individuals
in each movement, the more picturesque
the better, and on a few episodes,
the more startling the better. Thus, the
central figures are Ignatius Donnelly,
James B. Weaver, Mary Ellen Lease,
William Langer, A. C. Townley, and
Milo Reno, and the chief episodes the
Populist Convention of 1892, the
Kansas "legislative war" of
1893, and the Iowa "cow [i.e., anti-tuberculin-
test] war" of 1931. This technique
is no doubt so effective in catching and
holding the attention of the reader that
he may never notice that the Granger
movement trails off in the 1870's
without so much as a passing mention of
Munn v. Illinois; that it is
never again considered, though the modern
Grange is surely of some significance;
and that nothing of importance is re-
lated of the American Farm Bureau
Federation because "it never moved as
a tide." (But would it not be true
enough to state that this is about how it
did move?) If the reader is a townsman, he will be amused
at some of the
antics of the "wild
jackasses," but he will seldom appreciate the quiet
desperation of the farmland victims of
national laissez faire and will
probably never come to understand the
real quality and the real achievements
of the leaders of agrarian protest.
The book does have one merit. The author
had a close association for two
years with Milo Reno of the Farmers'
Union, was acquainted in varying
degree with several leaders of the
Non-Partisan League in North Dakota and
Minnesota, and served as national secretary
of the Farm Holiday Association.
The chapters dealing with these
organizations and leaders are accordingly
largely first hand. They will therefore
in due course serve as source
material for other historians. The book
as a whole, however, displaces no
other work in its field.
Marietta College ROBERT LESLIE JONES
BOOK REVIEWS 87
German Culture in America:
Philosophical and Literary Influences, 1600-
1900. By Henry A. Pochmann with the assistance of Arthur R.
Schultz
and others. (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1957. xv~865p.;
notes and index. $7.50.)
Stories constantly circulate about
"great works" long in progress, about
such various items as Joyce's Finnegans
Wake, Katherine Anne Porter's No
Safe Harbor, Robinson's Chaucer, and Porkorny's Indo-European
dictionary.
Among academic people, the tone of
stories about scholarly works is not
always that of hushed expectancy, for
one reason because skeptics and cynics
remember prodigious studies of
Shakespeare that, talked about for half a
century, go with their authors to the
grave, epochal histories of the middle
ages that, for all the world ever sees
of them, belong with supposititious
compendia by medieval wise men. For
another thing, a shift in academic
temper has diminished the reverence once
paid to lengthy gestation or
bulky product; historical studies
competing in size with unabridged diction-
aries tend to inspire an uneasy
amazement such as we might feel on shuffling
out in search of the morning paper to
find a buffalo browsing on the lawn.
In our Age of Criticism (and
Shorthorns), magna opera of the historical kind
are not extinct, but many might consider
them obsolete.
At their worst, vast projects are simply
masks behind which their inventors
hide, as Sidney Quarles does behind his
"labour of Hercules," his empty
filing cabinets. Yet we must remember
that at their best, they result in
germinal books like The Golden Bough.
Good or bad, scholarly works of
monumental dimensions--the realities,
not the fictions--involve their authors
in hazards almost unknown to writers
of shorter volumes. Note cards may
become so numerous that the writer
loses control, fails to thread his way
through the data, and never brings his
task to completion. Partial loss of
control may result in obviously makeshift
solutions to problems of exclusion,
inclusion, and interpretation. Sometimes,
perhaps most sadly, the comparative
unimportance of the subject and lack
of a sufficient market result in
rejection by apathetic publishers, who must,
after all, consider the cost of
manufacture.
This is a moderately long preamble to a
short review of this massive new
volume, German Culture in America; but
some of the most important things
to be said about the book relate to its
magnitude; and, if we knew the whole
story, undoubtedly some of the most
interesting things to be said about it
would have to do with problems growing
out of magnitude. The Preface
and internal evidence tell us something
of these problems.
The book is the result of studies
pursued by Henry A. Pochmann of the
88
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
University of Wisconsin, its chief
author, over a period of twenty-five years.
Mr. Pochmann was aided by a succession
of research assistants--including
Arthur R. Schultz, who did spade work on
some of the book's most important
sections for two years as a
post-doctorate fellow. As it stands, the work
runs to 880 pages and approximately
670,000 words. (The notes alone, and
they are almost as valuable as the text
proper, come to about 300,000 words.)
This, however, is only a sample of the
original manuscript. In order to
secure publication, that manuscript was
reduced by almost two-thirds, partly
by condensation and partly by omission.
Not taken into account in these
statistics is the separate publication
in 1953 (University of Wisconsin Press)
by Mr. Pochmann and Mr. Schultz of a
bibliography listing some twelve
thousand titles. For the benefit of
students interested in the full version
or in the omitted chapters on
educational influences, radicalism in the
Midwest, and writings in German, a copy
of the original manuscript has been
deposited with the University of
Wisconsin library.
By drastic measures, then, was the
danger of non-publication circumvented.
A second great peril, that of
incoherence, of lack of unity of the whole, is
not significantly in question, as scope
and subject are left vague and the
publication is essentially encyclopedic
in nature, an atoll-like accretion made
useful by an analytical table of
contents and an excellent index. Mr. Poch-
mann says that he found it impossible to
define precisely the terms German
and American or to distinguish
between German Geist and American spirit.
The word culture he leaves
undiscussed.
The text is divided into two
"books," one on German thought in America,
the other on German literary influences.
Topics treated range from brief
mention of the interest in German
learning displayed by a person like John
Winthrop, Jr., to extended essays on
German philosophy in nineteenth-
century England and France en route to
America. Important sections have
to do with New England
Transcendentalism, Emerson, the St. Louis move-
ment, German thought in the colleges,
and the early vogue of German
literature. A large part of the contents
is, of course, synthetic--a reordering
and summing up of past scholarship--but
the authors have also done very
substantial original work, filling in
gaps and expanding existing coverage.
Experts will be able to point to
omissions or to topics that they would
like to see treated in more detail.
Material on the South and on the West
(west, that is, of St. Louis), is thin,
perhaps unavoidably so. The chief
complaints of this reviewer are that the
book was not cut enough and that
it is deficient in ideas and in the
treatment of ideas. It contains a quantity of
matter that could easily have been
excluded for the simple reason that it
reveals no particular German cultural
influence. Biographical sketches of
BOOK REVIEWS 89
Francis Daniel Pastorius, Peter Zenger,
and similar figures are hardly
needed to convince the reader that
Germans have taken prominent parts in
American life. Also for example, and in
despite of Mr. Pochmann's special
proficiency as the author of a book on
New England Transcendentalism and
St. Louis Hegelianism (1948), the
section on the relationships between St.
Louis and Concord is much more valuable
for biographical information
than it is for information on German philosophical
influences and their
diffusion in America. In a few places,
notably in the sketch on Emerson,
German ideas and their effects are given
detailed treatment; but character-
istically, in both of its two main
divisions, the volume fails to disclose
or point up material that might be
expected in a history of thought and
literature. One might hope for better
treatment of such topics as nationalism,
romanticism (except for
Transcendentalism), realism, the idea of progress,
and the idea of nature. In this respect,
it is disappointing that the survey
of so many writers and of so much
scholarship was not more fruitful.
It must be admitted that these
complaints and regrets are captious,
though not picayune. An encyclopedia
need not contain penetrating analyses
and revolutionary concepts to be
extremely useful. Students of German-
American cultural relations will have to
lean heavily on this work: together
with the bibliographical volume, it is
now the starting place for almost
any investigation of German culture in
America. And no matter what ques-
tions may be asked or what complaints
registered, there is something (vide
Burke) impressive about size. One may be
somewhat unhappily amazed at
the sight of a buffalo on the lawn; but
one will, nonetheless, shout for the
family to come look.
Washington University of St.
Louis GUY A. CARDWELL
Wild Train: The Story of the Andrews
Raiders. By Charles O'Neill. (New
York: Random House, 1956. xviii~482p.;
illustrations, map, and biblio-
graphy. $6.00.)
For a score of young Ohioans the Civil
War was fought on April 12, 1862.
All else was prelude or aftermath to
eight thrill-packed hours on that day
during which they accomplished the most
sensational abduction of the war,
the theft of the famous locomotive, The
General. This daring exploit was
the historic Andrews Raid, or, as it has
popularly been called, "The Great
Locomotive Chase." In Wild
Train, Charles O'Neill instills new life into
a long-familiar story and vividly
illuminates another that has dwelt in rela-
tive obscurity. His minute-by-minute
account of the ninety-mile race through
90 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
northern Georgia is powerful drama, and
his study of the events that fol-
lowed is analytical, thorough, and
intensely absorbing.
James J. Andrews of Kentucky, the leader
of the so-called "engine
thieves," was a man whose life,
except for the year 1862, was shrouded in
mystery. Early in the war, however, his
penchant for intrigue induced him
to become a federal agent. In the guise
of a blockade-runner dealing in
contraband merchandise, he traveled openly
in the South and brought back
useful information. Like a handful of
military strategists, Andrews perceived
the potentially vital role of railroads,
and he soon hatched a daring scheme.
If he could seize a train deep in Dixie
and run it northward, he reasoned,
he could burn bridges and disrupt
communications, with the ultimate goal
of separating the eastern and western
armies of the Confederacy. Finding
an important ally in General Ormsby
MacKnight Mitchel, Cincinnatian,
former railroad executive, a division
commander under Buell, and something
of a daredevil himself, Andrews won
approval of his plan. He set it in
motion, after one abortive attempt, in
the spring of 1862.
From the 2d, 21st, and 33d Ohio
Volunteer Infantry came twenty-three
enlisted men who had been handpicked for
the secret mission. One of
these was subsequently replaced by a
civilian, William Campbell of Saline-
ville, and two others were obliged to
enlist in the Confederate army on
their way southward to avoid arousing
suspicion. Further reduced by a pair
who overslept on the fateful morning and
missed the great adventure, the
raiding party consisted finally of
Andrews, Campbell, and eighteen Ohio
soldiers. After infiltrating enemy
territory in small groups, they rendezvoused
at Marietta, Georgia, on Friday, April
11. Early the next morning they
boarded the northbound train that was to
carry all of them to glory and
hardship, and some of them to the
gallows. During the breakfast stop at
Big Shanty within a few feet of a Confederate
army installation, Andrews
had part of the train uncoupled, ordered
most of the men into a box car,
and then joined the remaining three--two
experienced engineers and a
fireman--in the cab of the General. They
rolled away from the station, first-
round victors by virtue of sheer
audacity.
In the ensuing eight hours and ninety
miles the raiders' initial advantage
melted away before a combination of
fantastically adverse luck and the
passionate determination of two
railroadmen to recover their stolen train.
William A. Fuller, the youthful
conductor, and Anthony Murphy, a Western
and Atlantic Railroad official, looked
ridiculous chasing the General on foot
but their stamina and resourcefulness
paid off. They eventually com-
mandeered a handcar, then a yard
locomotive, the Yonah, and finally the
Texas, a worthy competitor for the General. Andrews and
his men stopped
BOOK REVIEWS 91
frequently, little suspecting that they
were being pursued, cut telegraph wires
to prevent spreading an alarm, tore up
sections of rail, and piled obstruc-
tions on the track. After their early
success, however, their luck deserted
them; southbound traffic was unusually
heavy that day, causing agonizing
delays at stations and sidings, a
drenching rain saved wooden bridges from
their attempts at arson, and ever closer
came Fuller and Murphy. Time,
fuel, and hope ran out simultaneously.
Their hair-raising odyssey ended less
than twenty miles from their objective,
Chattanooga, when Andrews
ordered his men to abandon the General
and, against their better judgment,
to scatter in flight instead of fighting
it out with the handful of troops
Fuller and Murphy had picked up.
The debacle was completed by the capture
of the entire party, but this
was merely the beginning of another
aspect of the adventure. For Andrews
and seven others, imprisonment and
interrogation were followed by trial
and execution at Atlanta. Eight of their
more fortunate companions escaped
and miraculously threaded their way by
various routes through hostile
territory to Union lines. Here again fact
is more melodramatic than fiction,
for the raiders' perilous flight to
freedom demanded a full measure of
courage, ingenuity, and
resourcefulness--an appropriate climax to one of
the most incredible episodes of the war.
The others, who either failed to
get away or escaped briefly and were
recaptured, were eventually ex-
changed by the Confederate government.
All of the survivors were sum-
moned to Washington to receive President
Lincoln's personal thanks and to
be awarded the first Medals of Honor
issued by the United States.
In an unhappy sequel the next
quarter-century witnessed a widening
schism between certain of the raiders.
The majority of them were arrayed
on one side against William Pittenger on
the other. After being exchanged
in March 1863, Pittenger had remained in
the army only five months. He
then entered the ministry and in the
same year published Daring and Suffer-
ing: A History of the Great Railroad
Adventure, which has long been the
basic source relative to the raid. To
subsequent versions he applied different
titles, including The Great
Locomotive Chase and Capturing a Locomotive.
Not only did Pittenger appear to be
reaping considerable benefits at the
expense of his comrades, in a sense, but
the latter detected a gradual glori-
fication and whitewashing of the author.
During the trials of the eight who
were hanged one of the raiders was
alleged to have collaborated with the
prosecution and Pittenger was the only
possibility. The long-smoldering
suspicion finally erupted violently and
publicly in the 1880's in the form of
widely published accusations and
denials. The dispute was never unequivoc-
ally resolved but, whether he was guilty
or not, there was little about
92
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Pittenger to inspire admiration. It is
irksome to note that because his book
was the basis for both a recent
fictionalized account and a motion picture,
Pittenger emerged as the leading
character and the first recipient of the
Medal of Honor, a distinction which
actually belonged to Jacob Parrott of
Kenton.
Charles O'Neill's masterful treatment
consists primarily of allowing the
various participants on both sides to
relate their own story, to which he adds
frequent cogent editorial comment. From
Pittenger's works and from accounts
by other raiders, from testimony,
newspapers, government documents, and
from many additional sources came the
myriad details which O'Neill pains-
takingly gleaned and skillfully blended
into a fast-moving, extremely read-
able adventure story. His judicious and
impartial selection of material marks
him a conscientious craftsman and
unquestionably renders Wild Train the
best study of the Andrews Raid.
Ohio Historical Society JOHN S. STILL
Chicago Giant: A Biography of
"Long John" Wentworth. By
Don E. Fehren-
bacher. (Madison, Wis.: American History
Research Center, 1957.
ix~278p.; frontispiece, bibliographical
note, and index. $4.50.)
"Long John" Wentworth was a
colorful editor-politician who strode
his way noisily through the early years
of Chicago's history. His major
accomplishment seems to have been his
ability to sound his own trumpet so
loudly that it could be heard even above
the clamor of the many other
boisterous figures in this tumultuous
city. Wentworth arrived in Chicago
in 1836 to find a fast-growing town of
some five hundred crude frame
buildings lying on a low marshy plain.
Sensing opportunity, he purchased
a newspaper called the Democrat, and
during the next twenty-five years made
it into a decidedly vocal organ of first
the Democratic, and later the Re-
publican party, as suited his political
ambitions. Scorning objectivity in
news reporting as a sign of weakness, he
filled the Democrat's pages with
partisan invective and calumny seldom
surpassed even in that rough and
tumble era. Wentworth raised up a host
of enemies and libel suits; but
nevertheless became a political power in
Illinois whom even Lincoln,
Douglas, and Trumbull had to reckon
with. Wentworth succeeded in win-
ning a seat in congress where he served
a total of six terms, from 1843 to
1851, 1853 to 1855, and 1865 to 1867,
during which time he underwent an
interesting transformation from a
Jacksonian Democrat to a Radical Re-
publican. In between terms he found time
to serve as mayor of Chicago in
1857-58 and 1860-61.
BOOK REVIEWS 93
Mr. Fehrenbacher has done a very
creditable piece of work in writing
this book. The thoroughness of his
research is attested to, not only by the
extensive bibliography and source notes
listed at the end of the book, but
by the surprisingly thorough coverage
given even to the years before the
Great Fire of 1871. Source material on
Chicago history preceding that date
is not easy to obtain. Furthermore, the
author evidences a definite flair for
writing. When dealing with "Long
John" Wentworth many other writers
of Chicago history have unashamedly
blended legend with fact. By this
means they have emerged with saleable
books but ones which offer a
slightly riotous picture of early
Chicago. Mr. Fehrenbacher has resisted
this temptation and has held to the
facts, but he handles his information
with skill and the results are good.
The primary appeal of this book will, of
course, be to those interested
in local Chicago history; nevertheless Chicago
Giant will make some contribu-
tion to the story of the growth of grass
roots anti-slavery sentiment and to
the history of the general political
development of the ante-bellum Middle
West.
Bowling Green State University ROBERT W. TWYMAN
John Johnston and the Indians in the
Land of the Three Miamis. By Leonard
U. Hill. With Recollections of Sixty
Years by John Johnston. (Piqua,
Ohio: privately published, 1957.
ix~198p.; illustrations, maps, and index.
$2.50.)
As Indian factor and agent at Fort Wayne
(1802-11) and at Piqua
(1812-29), John Johnston played a
notable role in Indian-white relations
on the Ohio-Indiana frontier. At the
outbreak of the War of 1812, he "with
his nine years of observations,
experience, and demonstrated ability, was,
uniquely, a key man, fortunately
located" (p. 61). He helped to keep the
Indians within his province friendly to
the United States during the ensuing
conflict. In the post-war years Johnston
became involved in the haphazard
policy of the war department relative to
the removal of the Indians west
of the Mississippi. Removed from his
post in 1829, erroneously stated in
this book as 1830 (p. 111), Johnston did
not participate in the subsequent
negotiations in the 1830's with the Ohio
tribes for the cession of their
reservations and removal west. In 1841,
however, the Harrison administration
wisely commissioned this old friend of
the Indians to treat with the Wyan-
dots, the last redmen in Ohio, for the
surrender of their lands. With the
successful completion of this assignment
in 1842, Johnston closed his career
in the Indian service. He died in 1861
while in Washington to further the
94 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
passage by congress of a bill to
reimburse him for services to the Indians
for which he had never been paid.
This little volume is divided into two
parts, the first of which is a
fragmentary treatment in eleven chapters
of Johnston and Indian-white
relations in the "Land of the Three
Miamis" (the Great Miami, Little Miami,
and Miami of Lake Erie, the then current
name for the Maumee, river
valleys). The second is a reprint of
Johnston's autobiographical sketch,
Recollections of Sixty Years, published in 1915 by John H. Patterson, grand-
son of Johnston and founder of the
National Cash Register Company.
The narration in Part I centers around
the activities of Johnston as Indian
agent and is based upon original
sources, particularly the Johnston records
in the Indian files of the National
Archives. The extensive use of direct
quotations by the author, as he phrases
it, "for greater accuracy and to pre-
serve the original flavor" (p.v),
and the "scissors and paste" technique of
piecing the materials together renders
the presentation somewhat ineffective
and disorganized. Furthermore there is
little evidence of any digestion or
interpretation of these "raw
materials." In fairness to the author, however,
one should note that he is not a trained
historian and presumably did not
intend or write this book primarily for
the scholar but rather for the un-
initiated reader of local history.
This reviewer, nevertheless, regrets
that so much space is devoted in this
account to events in Indian-white
relations that have already been told. In
his treatment of Johnston's relations
with the Indians Mr. Hill overlooks
or chooses to ignore the role of this
agent in effecting the "voluntary"
migration west of the Delawares and the
Shawnees from Indiana and Ohio
in the 1820's. His chapter on the
Johnston negotiations with the Wyandots
in 1841-42 is probably the best in the
book.
There are some errors of fact such as
the dating of the Ottawa Treaty of
1831 as August 20 (p. 114) instead of
August 30 and the statement that
the Hunter negotiations with the
Wyandots were called off due to his death
(p. 120). The war department terminated
these negotiations because of
the reduced state of the appropriation
for such a purpose.
The book contains no bibliography, the
footnotes are generally incom-
plete, and there are a few typographical
errors. The format of the volume
is enhanced by some excellent portraits
and illustrations. Mr. Hill has made
accessible in one more place the
autobiographical sketch of Johnston and has
paved the way for a needed and fuller
biography of one Scotch-Irish friend
of the Indians, John Johnston.
Heidelberg College CARL G. KLOPFENSTEIN