PROCEEDINGS 241
Joint Session, Saturday, April 2,
10:00 A. M., Ohio State
Museum, Harlow Lindley, Presiding
The first speaker of the Saturday
morning session was the
executive director of the Federal
Government's Northwest Ter-
ritory Celebration Commission, Mr. E. M.
Hawes. A resume
of his extemporaneous remarks follows:
THE HISTORICAL PROGRAM OF THE NORTHWEST
TERRI-
TORY CELEBRATION COMMISSION.
By E. M. HAWES
I have had to qualify as an expert on
oxen, building of boats, and as
a pilot, trying to get out of the
mudhole last night. However, the caravan
is now on its way. It left West Newton a
day ahead of time in order to
get out of the river, it having the
lowest water in years. Perhaps it will
interest you to know that we shoved them
off the last rocks at eight o'clock
last night; they were due in Pittsburgh
at nine o'clock.
I do want to say and Dr. Lindley knows
it--It was our hope that
Governor White would come instead of
myself. It isn't easy to tell you,
but I am not going to do any bragging
about what I am doing. The Gover-
nor, as chairman of the Commission, is
trying to make about six towns a
day, so I am here. I asked Dr. Lindley
this morning about phases which
would be most apt to interest a meeting
of this sort. He thought the edu-
cational phase of it, and particularly a
statement of our program. I hope
you will bear with me. I can talk it for
twenty-four hours a day.
We purposely set out to make it
different. We are trying to take the
show to the people. We are not asking
the people to go to one area.
Marietta is one of the 169 points where
the caravan will show. Twenty-
four million people are within an hour's
automobile ride of the Northwest
Territory Celebration. There is no
partiality shown to any community.
There may be some here from those towns.
To give an illustration some
of the towns in the State, both publicly
and privately, have said that Ma-
rietta was getting a great slice of the
appropriation. The appropriation
was for $100,000, the smallest amount
ever made for a program of this
kind; but it is the exact amount for
which we asked. We are trying to
have more historic pageants at a cost
which the people can stand. The
best way to teach the people history is
through pageants, celebrations. The
actual fact is that Marietta is not
getting one five cent piece. We are
treating them all exactly the same.
During the winter we have turned
away twice as many people as could get
into the halls. They showed in
West Newton to 6000, and West Newton is
a town of 3000 people. Last
time they had an outdoor show.
Now let us talk about the program. I am
very sincere, very earnest
in saying that we did not set out to
build a Dallas, a Cleveland, Chicago.
or San Diego. We are trying to get it to
the people. We all want to
know how the United States really came
about. School histories do not
tell it to you. You men know that. We
figured there should be a con-
siderable program. We decided in a
rather crude way to start with the
A.B.C. books and from there on up. The
first was the map which has
been distributed to some three million
people. It is particularly for chil-
dren but a great many adults find it
interesting as well.
242
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The next thing we did was to publish a
brochure on the Ordinance
of 1787 and the Old Northwest Territory.
Dr. Lindley served without
any fee as editor-in-chief and deserves
great praise. A quarter of a mil-
lion books were distributed free, one to
each teacher. We have not had
the cooperation which we expected from
the schools in the use of that book.
They are also being sold at cost price
of 10 cents each. We are selling
more on the West Coast, in Arizona, New
Mexico and some of those
states than in the Northwest Territory.
The next step up in our program was sugar-coated history. The
publishers all told us that where we
would sell 5,000 copies of a soberly
written history, made into a historical
novel the same thing would sell
25,000. We therefore had it written by a
well-known writer. The result
was Black Forest, by Meade
Minnigerode. It is now in its third printing.
A strange thing happened in this regard.
It was only intended to take
available materials and put the story in
one book. We inspired Black
Forest. Yet we
believe that there have been more books currently published
dealing with this phase of our national
history than have ever been put
out at the time of any historical
commemoration. At the present time
there have been twenty-one books,
published in the last fifteen months,
dealing with this subject. We have
written to the authors asking them
"How come?" because we had
nothing to do with it--that we know. They
write back, "This is the most
wonderful period in American history. Why
haven't we known about it?" Or,
"I have just found out about it."
The last phase is the standard work of
history covering the period
for which the historical commission has
offered an honorarium of $1,000.
We did not require people to make a
definite entry. We hope to get the
best authors in America to do it, and
not in a cut and dried manner.
There is another phase. The celebration
will be over in the fall, and
the books will be on the library
shelves. We feel it will be entirely
proper and one of our jobs to put out
material for the future, not just for
today. The permanent expression we have
decided on is the Memorial to
the United States mounted and carved by
Gutzon Borglum, to be dedicated
in July.
The original program was planned for the
15th of July. The date,
however, is changed as President
Roosevelt will be there on the eighth of
July. The Memorial is a symbolic thing
of the march on the move, with
six sailors, four men, a woman and a
child--a circular fifteen-foot pano-
rama, standing twenty feet high. It will
be located in the center of the park
in Marietta.
I will close with one thing more. The
caravan in the Northwest Ter-
ritory Celebration will show in some
fifty-three towns in Ohio. The North-
west Territory caravan is a big thing.
In every one of your towns you
have local history which your own peple
do not know. You can portray
that history, build it around something
significant. The caravan has been
an attraction all across the country. We
have had more than a hundred
thousand dollars worth of advertising
space. The celebration is as nearly
historically correct as we can make it.
We should all know how this
Nation got started--plain people did it,
and the plain people will build the
America of the future.
Harlow Lindley, secretary and editor of
the Ohio State Arch-
aeological and Historical Society,
outlined for the conference the
general plans for the History of Ohio,
which is being sponsored
PROCEEDINGS 243
by the Society as its chief contribution
in connection with the
State-wide celebration of the 150th
Anniversary of the Establish-
ment of Civil Government within the
limits of the State. His
general presentation is printed in this
number of the QUARTERLY
as a part of the "Prospectus for a
History for the State of Ohio."
(pp. 249-259.)
Miss Bertha E. Josephson, editorial
associate of the Missis-
sippi Valley Historical Review, was next on the program.
CRITICAL INVESTIGATION versus CARELESS
PRESENTATION
By BERTHA E. JOSEPHSON
Ever since the rise of the critical
school of historical writing in
America, over half a century ago, there
has been a marked increase in
the total quantity of historical
production. Unfortunately, this has
been
accompanied by a marked decline in the
literary quality of historical presen-
tation. As early as 1912, Theodore
Roosevelt, in his presidential address
before the American Historical Association uttered an
eloquent plea for
the use of the imagination in the
treatment of historical subjects.1
Eight
years later, cognizant that "the
writing of history was not in a satisfactory
state," the American Historical
Association appointed a committee con-
sisting of Jean J. Jusserand, ambassador
from France, chairman, Charles
W. Colby, Wilbur C. Abbott, and John S.
Bassett. These scholars were
requested to make a study of the matter
and to report their analysis and
offer their suggestions as to the
possibility of improving the craftsmanship
and style of historical writing.
This study resulted in the composition
of four inspiring papers in
which the respective essayists treated
the subject in three phases: an ex-
amination of the existing situation,
with some discussion of how it came
about; a consideration of style of
expression in historical writing; and a
recommendation for the training of
historians in effective presentation.2 On
the first point the four members of the
committee agreed in their slightly
overlapping essays: that historical
science had "succeeded or replaced his-
torical literature."3 On
the second, they were unanimous in commenting:
"History must conform to truth . .
. it must at the same time be as inter-
esting as life itself."4 But on the
third point they could only advise that
it took training, time, and effort to
master the technique of the art of
effective historical presentation.5
1 Theodore Roosevelt, "History as Literature," American
Historical Review (New
York), XVIII (1913), 473-89.
2 Jean J. Jusserand, "The
Historian's Work"; Wilbur C. Abbott, "The Influence
of Graduate Instruction on Historical
Writing"; Charles W. Colby, "The Craftsmanship
of the Historian"; and John S.
Bassett, "The Present State of History Writing," in
The Writing of History (New York, 1926).
3 Abbott, "The Influence of
Graduate Instruction." 39. See also Colby, "The
Craftsmanship of the Historian,"
74; Jusserand, "The Historian's Work," 11; Bassett,
"The Present State of History
Writing." 112.
4 Jusserand, "The Historian's
Work," 11-12; Abbott, "The Influence of Graduate
Instruction," 39; Colby, "The
Craftsmanship of the Historian," 67; Bassett, "The
Present State of History Writing,"
113.
5 Jusserand, "The Historian's
Work," 17-18; Abbott, "The Influence of Graduate
Instruction," 55; Colby,
"Craftsmanship of the Historian." 76; Bassett, "The Present
State of History Writing," 116. See
also letter of J. Franklin Jameson in Bassett,
"The Present State of History
Writing," 127-35, especially, 128-29,