Albert Shaw of the Review of Reviews
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Political History History 1974 Albert Shaw of the Review of Reviews Lloyd J. Graybar Eastern Kentucky University Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Graybar, Lloyd J., "Albert Shaw of the Review of Reviews" (1974). Political History. 15. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_history/15 Albert Shaw of the Review of Reviews This page intentionally left blank Albert Sha-w of the Review of Reviews * * * * * An lntel/ectua/ Biography Lloyd ]. Graybar The University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 978-0-8131-5271-4 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-80464 Copyright © 1974 by The University Press of Kentucky A statewide cooperative scholarly publishing agency serving Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky State College, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506 To the memory of M and M This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments tx Preface xt 1 Buckeye and Hawkeye, 1857-1881 1 2 At the Johns Hopkins and Elsewhere, 1882-1884 16 3 In Minneapolis and Abroad, 1884-18go 30 4 Dr. Shaw and His Review) 1891-1920 46 5 The Ideal City, 1891-1900 70 6 The Average Man 91 7 Hand in Hand with T. R., 1901-1908 111 8 At Odds with Taft, 1909-1912 131 9 Return to Republicanism, 1913-1920 152 10 Guardian of American Values, 1916-1937 170 11 A Sabbatical at Last, 1937-1947 187 Appendix: Circulation Data for the Review of Reviews 203 Bibliography 205 Index 221 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments In the course of this work, which has taken the better part of a decade, many archivists and librarians have aided me, but my thanks go particularly to the now retired Robert vV. Hill and his colleagues in the Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library and to the many helpful members on the staff of the John Grant Crabbe Library at Eastern Kentucky University. Mr. Dale B. Terry, formerly the regis trar at Grinnell College, and various members of the staff of Grinnell's Burling Library have answered numerous letters requesting information about Albert Shaw's undergraduate achievements at Iowa College. Almost invariably they have been able to supply the information I sought, and then some. Intellectually I wish to thank Professor Eric L. McKitrick and the late Professor Richard Hofstadter of Columbia Uni versity who encouraged me to initiate this study as a doctoral dissertation and to keep at it even when I had my doubts about it. In one stage of revision after another many friends were of invaluable assistance. Whether reading all or portions of the manuscript each had thoughtful suggestions to offer. Among these friends are: Professors James M. Banner, Jr., of Princeton University, Joseph 0. Baylen of Georgia State University, Daniel Leab of Columbia University, Gerald W. McFarland of the University of Massachusetts, and Glen Kleine, Bert M. Mutersbaugh, and Doris Sutton, all of Eastern Kentucky University. A singularly large debt is due Mr. Albert Shaw, Jr., who without trying to influence my opinions on these matters shared with me on numerous occasions recollections of his father and of his own considerable role in the management of the Review of Reviews during its final two decades. His loan of a full set of the Review of Reviews greatly facilitated my research. Pictures and other memorabilia were provided X AcKNOWLEDGMENTS by Mr. Shaw and by Mrs. Jonnie Robinson of Shandon, Ohio. Dean Theodore Peterson of the College of Communications of the University of Illinois, Professor Bruce H. Westley of the School of Journalism at the University of Kentucky, and Professor Herbert Shapiro of the University of Cincinnati clarified some of the intricacies of the periodical publishing industry for me. Professor Arthur S. Link, editor of the Papers of Woodrow Wilson, took a continuing interest in this project and was of much help on several occasions. For financial assistance I am indebted to the American Philosophical Society, which granted me the funds needed to begin the final stages of this study, and to Eastern Kentucky University, which was consistently generous in its backing. Of the many university officials whose support was needed to secure this aid, Dean Frederic Ogden of the College of Arts and Sciences deserves a special note of thanks. The following editors have been obliging in permitting me to reprint in revised form materials first published as articles: Professor ·william D. Metz, for "Albert Shaw's Search for the Ideal City," The Historian) XXXIV (May 1972), 421-35; Professor Guido H. Stempel III, for "Albert Shaw and the Founding of the Review of Reviews) 1891-97," journalism Quarterly) XLIX (Winter 1972), 692-97, 716; and Mrs. Helen M. Thurston, for "Albert Shaw's Ohio Youth," Ohio History) LXXIV (Winter 1965), 29-34. I also wish to thank the women who did most of the typing and who perforce showed great patience in deciphering my handwriting: Mrs. Cynthia B. Napoleon and Mrs. Shirley Wheeler of Bellows Falls, Vermont, and Miss Elsanna Fisel and Mrs. Pauletta Perkins, of Richmond, Kentucky. In my dedication I have expressed my gratitude and devo tion to the two people who in their own special ways con tributed the most to the successful completion of this work. For whatever merits it has I am indebted to the people named above as well as to the many others who furnished their assis tance at different times during the past several years. For the faults that remain I am solely responsible. Preface The contributions of Albert Shaw (1857-1947) to the pro gressive movement were substantial and dated from its very beginnings. Armed with a doctorate in history and political economy from the Johns Hopkins University and motivated by a desire to put his expertise to socially productive use, he became involved in the municipal reform movement of the 1880s and 1890s. Through his influential writings he helped shift the focus of reform away from the prevailing laissez faire liberalism and toward the activism of Bull Moose progressivism. For a generation thereafter, Shaw was deeply involved in reform, taking as much of a personal role in it as his busy career in journalism would permit, keeping in close touch with its political spokesmen like Theodore Roosevelt and Albert Beveridge, championing their efforts in his periodical, the Review of Reviews. In it and in the several books he wrote, he asked many of the questions that troubled thought ful Americans in the years that surrounded the turn of the century. How could the difficulties that attended the amazing growth of cities be overcome? What did the eclipse of privately owned industries by gigantic trusts and holding companies mean? Did labor have a right to organize? Should an attempt be made to preserve rural culture? What was America's mission to the world? Should politics be responsive to the people or to those who sought special favors? In answering such questions Shaw was influenced by human itarian feelings, by his associations as a student at Iowa College and the Johns Hopkins University with such scholars as Jesse Macy and Richard T. Ely, and by the public point of view his ownership of a nationally circulated magazine gave him. His fealty-until 1912 and after 1916-to the national Repub lican party also ought to be considered as an element in his thought. Particularly noticeable, however, in his responses is xii PREFACE a concern with the health of the nation. Its soundness required the well-being of the people, the subordination of selfish interests to the general good, the preservation of America's traditional values in a time of flux. To attain these ends he was willing to see concepts of property sharply revised and the federal balance altered at the expense of the states. Progressivism, of course, was a heterogenous movement, and in his thinking Shaw was most characteristic of that small group of reformers whose ranks included Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Beveridge, and Herbert Croly, all of whom have become known as New Nationalists. But he was representative of a much larger number of progressives in that he recurrently posed the question of what the industrialization of America meant. Until 1916 Shaw did not have to choose between reform and nationalism; previously they had reenforced each other. But when faced with a choice between supporting Woodrow Wil son, who seemed stronger on domestic issues, or Charles Evans Hughes, who appeared to have the sounder ideas on foreign policy, Shaw decided, as did Roosevelt and Beveridge, to rejoin the Republican party and back Hughes. Unlike his two close friends, who died in 1919 and 1927 respectively, Shaw lived a full generation beyond the heyday of progressivism. Through out the 1920s Shaw still thought of himself as a progressive and continued to support certain reform measures, but he grew increasingly estranged from the urban liberalism that emerged as the dominant trend in reform after World War I. Largely for the sake of national unity he upheld the program of the New Deal for an entire year, but by early 1934 he decided that he could no longer support the administration of Franklin Roosevelt.