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Missouri , Historical T^tview Tublhhed by StaktiiMiah' &aehjffllssoHl October 1945 OFFICERS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI, 1945-1948 ISIDOR LOEB, St. Louis, President GEORGE ROBB ELLISON, Maryville, First Vice-President HENRY C. CHILES, Lexington, Second Vice-President RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau, Third Vice-President HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence, Fourth Vice-President RAY V. DEN SLOW, Trenton, Fifth Vice-President LUDWIG FUERBRINGER, St. Louis, Sixth Vice-President R. B. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary and Librarian TRUSTEES OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society ALLEN MCREYNOLDS, Carthage GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City WILLIAM SOUTHERN, JR., Independence Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1946 JESSE W. BARRETT, St. Louis JAMES TODD, Moberly ALBERT M. CLARK, Richmond JONAS VILES, Columbia HENRY J. HASKELL, Kansas City T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marsh field WILLIAM R. PAINTER, Carrollton L. M. WHITE, Mexico JOSEPH PULITZER, St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1947 FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon FREDERICK M. SMITH, Independence STEPHEN B. HUNTER, Cape Girar- E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville deau R. M. THOMSON, St. Charles WALDO P. JOHNSON, Clinton ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville E. LANSING RAY, St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1948 MORRIS ANDERSON, Hannibal HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre LUDWIG FUERBRINGER, St. Louis WILLIAM L. VANDEVENTER, Spring- PAUL C. JONES, Kennett field LAURENCE J. KENNY, S. J., GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, St. Louis St. Louis CHARLES L. WOODS, Rolla HENRY KRUG, JR., St. Joseph EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the University of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. zJWissouri Historical Tfeviezv Floyd Q. Shoemaker, Editor ^Volume XL, Zhfumber One October 1945 The Missouri Historical Review is published quarterly. It is sent free to all members of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $1.00 a year. All communica tions should be addressed to Floyd C. Shoemaker, the State His torical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. "Entered as second-class matter at the postofflce at Columbia, Missouri, under Act of Congress, October 3, 1917, Sec. 4$2." Qontents Page MISSOURI LITERATURE SINCE THE FIRST WORLD WAR. Part I, Verse. By Minnie M. Brashear 1 THE ROAD WEST IN 1818, THE DIARY OF HENRY VEST BINGHAM. Edited by Marie George Windell 21 CONTRIBUTION OF STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. By Allen McReynolds 55 MISSOURI AND THE WAR. By Dorothy Dysart Flynn 61 THE MISSOURI READER: THE FRENCH IN THE VALLEY, Part I Edited by Dorothy Penn 90 The Wilderness 90 French and Spanish Colonial Policy 95 The Settlements 1C3 Riviere des Peres 103 Fort Orleans 106 Ste. Genevieve 107 St. Louis Ill Carondelet 118 St. Charles 120 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS 123 Members Active in Increasing Society's Membership 123 New Members of the Society, May-July, 1945 124 The State of Missouri 125 War and the Society 126 Acquisition of Original Benton Letter 127 Wartime Historical Tours 128 Weekly Feature Articles of the Society 128 Acquisition of Kansas City Newspapers 129 A New Life Member of the Society 130 Platte County Historical Society Organizes 130 Graduate Theses Relating to Missouri 130 Activities of County Historical Societies 132 Anniversaries 132 Monuments and Memorials 134 Notes 135 Historical Publications 141 Obituaries. 145 (i) ii Contents Page MISSOURI HISTORY NOT FOUND IN TEXTBOOKS 149 Through Honest Christian Endeavor 149 If Ever There Were a People 149 The Worse for Wear 150 A Burst of Speed 150 A Dry Sunday 151 Patronize the Home Town Merchant! 151 De-Iced 151 Herculean Effort on the Herculaneum Road 151 A Free-for-all 152 Booby Trap 152 They Need a "Spare" 152 The Surrey with the Fringe on Top 153 Revolutionary 153 Retribution 153 Watch Out Below! 153 Smooth Sailing 154 Attention: Street Department 154 Figures Don't Lie 155 Criminal Negligence! 155 We Take a Bow 155 Missouri Historical Data in Magazines 156 Illustrations Page CARONDELET OR VIDE-POCHE. Cover design from a painting by Henry Lewis, reproduced in his Das lllustrirte Mississippithal, facing page 324. See, "The French in the Valley" 90 AN AMERICAN LOG-HOUSE 27 OLD SAINTE GENEVIEVE, facing 108 MISSOURI LITERATURE SINCE THE FIRST WORLD WAR PART I—VERSE BY MINNIE M. BRASHEAR1 By way of preface it can perhaps be said that in the hundred years or more of making books in and about the State there was never so much good writing being done in Missouri as at the present time. Writers receiving their inspiration from having spent their formative years here at the ''gateway of the West," whether they now live in Mis souri or not, are making contributions to the nation's litera ture which may be preparing the way for a final great epic of this section. In his recent autobiographical notes, Persons and Places (1944), George Santayana, trying to analyze the significance of his sister's life, says " . charity will always judge a soul, not by what it has succeeded in fashioning externally, not by the body or the words or the works that are the wreck ages of its voyage, but by the elements of light and love that this soul has infused into that inevitable tragedy/'2 While such an apologia is not needed for many of the writers dis cussed here, some such defense might be made in general by one who undertakes to describe so private a segment of the world's writings since the first World war as the literature of the State of Missouri. This discussion will attempt to make it clear that such are the "elements of light and love" that have gone into Missouri writing that, however modest a space it occupies in anthologies of American literature, it represents in little the most important trends that are charac teristic of the broader field. JMINNIB M. BRASHEAB, a native Missourian, was assistant professor of English in the University of Missouri until her retirement from teaching in 1944. She attended Radcliffe college and received an A. M. degree from Missouri uni versity. She is the author of Mark Twain, Son of Missouri, and published a series of articles in 1924 in the Missouri Historical Review on Missouri writers. 2Santayana, George, Persons and Places, The Background of My Life, p. 95. (1) 2 Missouri Historical Review To begin with, there has been in nearly all types of writing in the United States in the last twenty-five years a tendency to emphasize the interests and problems of the humbler folk: of the workers and their environment, as in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (1939), of the joys and sorrows of the irre- sponsibles, as in Jesse Stuart's Taps for Private Tussie (1943), of the negroes, as in Roark Bradford's Old Man Adam and His Children (1928), and of just the plain folk as in William Saroyan's The Human Comedy (1942). The demands made upon industry by the first World war led to a more general understanding than ever before of the causes of proletarian unrest, of the condition of those upon whom the success or failure of wars depends. Often this has resulted in a nostalgic plea for the older, agrarian ideal of life in contrast to that of the industrial age. This back-to-the-soil note appears fre quently in Missouri prose and poetry. Moreover, the first World war caused an inquiry into the values of civilization, one result of which has been to revive interest in what is primi tive: sometimes the brutal, sometimes the simple and helpless, sometimes the tragic, sometimes the humorous. All writings representing these ideas belong more or less in a revolt against the sophisticated, a return to an humbler point of view. It was to be expected that the State that sent forth "the president of the little men" would find a place for the little men in its literature. Another tendency that has come to extensive expression in recent American literature has grown out of the spirit of nationalism that followed the first World war. This led to an investigation of the roots of the American democratic system. This reversion to the American past is seen in the renewed interest in old ballads and folk tales, as in Louise Pound's American Ballads and Songs (1922) and Constance Rourke's American Humor (1931). More often this drift has resulted in the revival of historical fiction, as in Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (1928) and Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936). The committee that planned the decorations for the capitol in Jefferson City were amazed at the rich and colorful materials available for Missouri Literature Since the First World War 3 artists in the history of the State, and Missouri writers are taking advantage of these materials. Never have so many historical novels been written in and about Missouri as in recent years. Still another tendency, so prevalent that it seems to form a class in itself, though it often overlaps both the fore going, is the trend toward regionalism, as seen in Sinclair Lewis' Main Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922), and in Willa Gather's My Antonia (1918). In Missouri this emphasis on region is seen chiefly in the prevalance during the period under discussion of writings about the Ozark hill people. They have varied from the so-called local color portrayals of picturesque, sometimes grotesque, characters and customs to real studies of social and economic conditions as they have influenced the development of character.