. .•:,.•,:.•!.«,.V,^",'-:,:,.V..?;V-"X';''- Wisconsin Magazine of History

Theobald Otjcn and the United States 'Njivy CHARLES E. TWINING A Mission to the Menominee: Part Four ALFRED COPE E. A. Ross: The Progressive As Nativist .JULIUS WEINBERG A German's Letter From Territorial Wisconsin Edited by JACK j. DETZLER

Published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin / Vol. 50, No. 3 / Spring, 1967 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN

LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Director

Officers SCOTT M. CUTLIP, President HERBERT V. KOHLER, Honorary Vice-President JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President E. E. HOMSTAD, Treasurer CLIFFORD D. SWANSON, Second Vice-President LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Secretary

Board of Curators Ex-Officio WARREN P. KNOWLES, Governor of the State MRS. DENA A. SMITH, State Treasurer ROBERT C. ZIMMERMAN, Secretary of State FRED H. HARRINGTON, President of the University WILLIAM C. KAHL, Superintendent of Public Instruction MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, President of the Women's Auxiliary Term Expires, 1967 THO.MAS H. BARLAND E. E. HOMSTAD MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES F. HARWOOD ORBISON Eau Claire Black River Falls Madison Appleton M. J. DYRUD MRS. CHARLES B. JACKSON CHARLES R. MCCALLUM DONALD C. SLIGHTER Prairie Du Chien Nashotah Hubertus Milwaukee JIM DAN HILL MRS. VINCENT W. KOCH FREDERICK I. OLSON DR. LOUIS C. SMITH Middleton Janesville Wauwatosa Lancaster Term Expires, 1968 GEORGE BANTA, JR. MRS. HENRY BALDWIN WILLIAM F. STARK CEDRIC A. VIG Menasha Wisconsin Rapids Pewaukee Rhinelander H. M. BENSTEAD ROBERT B. L. MURPHY MILO K. SWANTON CLARK WILKINSON Racine Madison Madison Baraboo KENNETH W. HAAGENSEN FREDERIC E. RISSER FREDERICK N. TROWBRIDGE STEVEN P. J. WOOD Oconomo"woc Madison Green Bay Beloit Term Expires, 1969 E. DAVID CRONON MRS. ROBERT E. FRIEND MRS. HOWARD T. GREENE ROBERT L. PIERCE Madison Hartland Genesee Depot Menomonie SCOTT M. CUTLIP ROBERT A. GEHRKE BEN GUTHRIE J. WARD RECTOR Madison Ripon Lac Du Flambeau Milwaukee W. NORMAN FITZGERALD JOHN C. GEILFUSS WARREN D. LEARY, JR. CLIFFORD D. SWANSON Milwaukee Milwaukee Rice Lake Stevens Point

Honorary Honorary Life Members WILLIAM ASHBY MCCLOY, New London, Connecticut PRESTON E. MCNALL, Clearwater, Florida MRS. LITTA BASCOM, Berkeley, California DOROTHY L. PARK, Madison BENTON H. WILCOX, Madison

Fellows VERNON CARSTENSEN MERLE CURTI ALICE E. SMITH

The Women's Auxiliary Officers MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee, President MRS. EDWARD H. RIKKERS, Madison, Vice-President MRS. ALONZO FOWLE, HI, Milwaukee, Secretary MRS. MILTON W. FLADER, Kohler, Treasurer MRS. JOSEPH C. GAMROTH, Madison, Ex-Officio VOLUME 50, NUMBER 3 / SPRING, 1967 Wisconsin Magazine of History

WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD, Editor

The Golden Spike 196

Theobald Otjen and the United States Navy 197 CHARLES E. TWINING

A Mission to the Menominee: Part Four 211 ALFRED COPE

E. A. Ross: The Progressive as Nativist 242 JULIUS "WEINBERG

"I Live Here Happily": A German Immigrant in Territorial Wisconsin 2.S4 Edited by JACK J. DETZLER

Communications 260

Book Reviews 261

Contributors 278

Published Quarterly by The State Historical Society oj Wisconsin

•fHE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published not assume responsibility for statements made by contribu- quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, tors. Second-class postage paid at Madison and Stevens 816 State Street, Madison, "Wisconsin 5370(5. Distributed Point, "Wis. Copyright 1967 by the State Historical Society to members as part of their dues (Annual membershii?, of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon $5.00; Family membership, $7.00; Contributing, $10; Busi­ Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. ness and Professional, $25 ; Sustaining, $100 or more annual­ Wisconsin newspapers may reprint any article appearing in ly; Patron, $1000 or more annually). Single numbers, $1.25. the WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY providing the Microfilmed copies available through University Microfilms, story carries the following credit line : Reprinted from the 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Communica­ State Historical Society's Wisconsin Magazine ot History for tions should be addressed to the editor. The Society does [insert the season and year which appear on the Magazinel. to earlier days, the border between the lino­ leum and the floor tile neatly outlines the two areas where once the University Library and the Society Library service desks stood, one The Golden Spike to the north and one to the south. The cata­ logue cases have been moved, too, but they still jut out into the reading room more obtrusive­ ly than they should, like big tickler files re­ T has finally dawned on me why officials minding us that there are still problems to be I of the Union Pacific Railroad decided to solved. make the last spike a gold one. I am sure it had And the rest of the addition, with one ex­ nothing to do with money or public relations ception noted below, stands empty, except for or Utah. They may have believed it was an occasional workmen. The Madison area build­ historic moment which needed commemora­ ing trades strike has cut these to a minimum tion, or they may have hoped for political cap­ and extended that hoped-for time when we ital from the occasion. But all these pale in could drive the golden spike. The archives- significance before what I believe to be the manuscripts division is ready to move on short real reason: the euphoria of finishing the darn notice, but until it moves the Library cannot thing. complete its move. And the stock room activi­ Here at the Society we are not completing a ties, now inefficiently on the first floor, using railroad, just a building addition. But already the lobby for storage, must wait until the the pressures to finish the darn thing have north basement is cleared before they can set­ built up so that I am positive we will want to tle down. match the tradition of the golden spike, in The exception, like spring, gave us all hope. some modern, historical way. And our sole On May 6, we dedicated our new auditorium. motivation, really, will be the sigh of relief, President Scott M. Cutlip, presiding at the the joy of release, the pleasure of getting the opening session of the conservation centennial thing finished. symposium which was held in the auditorium, Not that we don't love every square inch expressed the debt of all of us to Governor (with a couple of exceptions where pipes are Warren P. Knowles, the legislature, and the too low or the doors too narrow) ! Even in state building commission for making the au­ its almost-completed state, we are proud of ditorium a reality. Governor Knowles, in his it and looking forward to full occupancy. We remarks, dedicated the auditorium "to history have even begun to sneak into some new areas. and its many uses" and charged the Society Most, but not all, of the museum staff is located "to use this room often and well in the spirit in new quarters on the lower level, and the of that dedication." That the symposium was elevator sometimes lets a visitor off at that lev­ the first use of the auditorium was symbolic. el. The archeologists, who, strangely enough, It was a bringing together of history, educa­ were the first to move down, have been in tion, and the conservation of the state's re­ their new office long enough to make it look sources, a combination of responsibilities as if they lived there. The carpenter shop, which has involved the Society's effort for which was partially remodelled while the staff more than one hundred years. continued to work there - our wood lathe is neurotic; it was moved so often it didn't And now we look forward to the driving of the golden spike. We are not sure when it know which way to turn —- is larger, brighter, will come, but we are beginning to plan for the and has new neighbors: a paint shop and spring of 1968, a time, we hope, when our use an electrical workshop. of the building addition will be full and active, Meanwhile, back on the fourth floor waiting" a time when we will invite everyone to share for space to be readied, the museum registrar, with us the sublime joy of finally having fin­ curator of decorative arts, and two exhibits ished the darn thing. curators guard the collections in storage, the museum library, and commute to the lower Oh, yes. I forgot to mention one thing. level by elevator. When you come for that ceremony next spring walk carefully and excuse the mess. You see, The Library on the second floor has also we are planning to remodel the existing build­ made its first move. The service desk has been ing, and we will probably be in the middle moved west so that the service staff can use of that project by that time. part of the work area assigned to it in the addition. In the process, as mute memorials L.H.F., Jr.

196 THEOBALD OTJEN AND THE UNITED STATES NAVY

By CHARLES E. TWINING

same year as village attorney. In 1887, he was elected to the Milwaukee Common Coun­ cil, on which he served for the next seven years. In April, 1892, Mr. Otjen was an unsuc­ 'X'HEOBALD OTJEN is not one of the cessful candidate for city comptroller of Mil­ -*- better-known figures in Wisconsin's waukee and later that year he received a du­ history. Few, in fact, outside of the Bay bious honor when local Republican leaders View section of Milwaukee where he began selected him as the sacrificial candidate to his public career are likely even to recognize oppose the incumbent Democratic Congress­ his name. His six terms in Congress were un­ man from Milwaukee, John L. Mitchell. When distinguished; no important legislation bears Mitchell resigned the following year to accept his imprint; but as a case study of a conscien­ appointment to the Senate, Otjen was again tious if less than brilliant practicing politician, the Republican candidate for the vacated con­ Otjen's contributions are worthy of review. gressional seat and was again defeated. In Born in West China, St. Clair County, Mich­ 1894, however, after effectively fighting off igan, on October 27, 1851, young Otjen at­ a concerted effort to drop him from the ticket, tended private schools in Marine City and he received a third opportunity and was Detroit prior to entering the University of elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress. This Michigan. In 1870, he interrupted his studies political victory, narrow though it was, was and for two years worked in Milwaukee as but the first in a series of successes, and Otjen a foreman in the rolling mill of the Milwaukee served as Congressman from Wisconsin's Iron Company. Returning to the University Fourth District without interruption until of Michigan in 1872, he received his law de­ March 3, 1907. His congressional career gree from that institution three years later ended when, falling victim to inter-party war­ and commenced to practice in Detroit. En­ fare, he failed to receive the nomination in countering little success in that city, in 1883 1906. Following this disappointment, he re­ Otjen moved to Bay View (a village later sumed his law practice in Milwaukee but re­ mained active in city politics. His final op­ incorporated into Milwaukee) where there portunity for official public duty occurred was greater opportunity for inexperienced during the Great War when he served as chair- lawyers, as evidenced by his appointment that

197 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 man of the local draft board. Theobald Otjen died on April 11, 1924.' 1 : ^^^fe^ . If a politician's first concern is election and his second is re-election, it must be agreed that Mr. Otjen enjoyed better than average "^:|i!|j| success. But from an historical perspective, politicians achieve prominence by their per­ formance rather than their position. The gen­ ^^^m eral lack of prominence accorded Mr. Otjen »^ ^S^ummBU is not undeserved. Although able, he was not :^^^ a political leader and his contributions in any national sense were, in the main, insignifi­ 1 cant. Furthermore, if at all possible, he did not permit the responsibilities of public office to interfere with his Milwaukee law practice. 1 1w> His job in Washington was seasonal and even much of the in-season activities were neces­ sarily devoted to matters involving the next election. Congressman Otjen, like all public officials, liliit 1 il also had to devote considerable time and en­ f .,x%y-rMI§f0i^: 1 ergy to matters whose importance can only be ^-%Mm:^::^ assessed by the politician. The historian might ::.:::mm^ consider mere distractions many of the mat­ ters which Otjen, the Congressman, had to re­ Usher, History of Wisconsin gard as duties. An examination of his corre­ Theobald Otjen, Congressman from Wisconsin from spondence reveals an abundance of these polit­ 1895 to 1907. ically significant minutiae. There were, for example, multitudinous appeals from veterans ance of Wisconsin's gift to the national gov­ and their survivors of which Otjen, as a mem­ ernment, a statue of Pere Marquette. Needless ber of the House Committee on War Claims, to say, the Marquette Alumni Association, the doubtless received more than his share. Catholic Citizen Company, and numerous in­ There were repeated demands from the offi­ dividuals repeatedly expressed impatience as passage of the resolution was delayed until cials of Milwaukee that captured Spanish can­ January 29, 1904, almost eight years after nons decorate their beautiful parks ("If Ga­ the arrival of the missionary in Statuary Hall." lena has secured a gun we do not see how we In addition to these troublesome problems can go without one . . .")" when such post­ Otjen, of course, had to direct much of his war procurement was at least as difficult as attention to the various House committees of the original capture. One of the more aggra­ which he was a member. He served on the vating but politically important tasks at which Committee on War Claims for twelve years, Otjen labored for some time involved his at­ the Committee on Foreign Affairs for eight tempts to force out of the House Committee years, the Committee on Revision of the Laws on Library the bill authorizing formal accept- for four years, and the Committees on Manu­ factures and Coinage, and Weights and Meas­ ures for lesser periods. Also, in 1900, Speaker Thomas B. Reed appointed him to the newly ^ House Document No. 607, Biographical Directory created Industrial Commission on which he of the American Congress, 81st Cong., 2 sess. (1950), 1639; John G. Gregory, History of Milwaukee, Wis­ consin (Chicago-Milwaukee, 1931), 111:86-88. ^ H. C. Campbell, Managing Editor, Milwaukee Journal, to Theobald Otjen, April 5, 1899. This and subsequent similar citations are to the Theobald ^ See the Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2 Otjen Papers, Milwaukee County Historical Society, session (1904), 1356, for Otjen's resolution (H.C. Milwaukee. Res. 38) of January 28, 1904.

198 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN

served until that body had completed its grams of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. lengthy investigation two years later. It was the second of these chief executives, Otjen considered his appointment to the however, who had the greater influence over Committee on Foreign Affairs as the most the Congressman, and on those few occasions important opportunity of his career, and years when Otjen did attempt to influence his col­ later he proudly recalled that in the Fifty- leagues, usually the issues were international ninth Congress, his last, he was "the third and the ideas in accord with those of Roose­ member" of the Committee.* Just how Otjen velt. While his view of these issues may not secured this favored assignment is unclear, have been unique, the fact that he was moved but certainly his friendship with Committee to express his vision of America provides in­ Chairman Robert R. Hitt of Illinois was of sight into Otjen as an individual and into the some benefit. He had earlier provided valu­ spirit of the period. The central theme of this able assistance to Hitt in securing passage of vision involved America as a world power and a Consular and Diplomatic Appropriations as the center of a great commercial empire, Bill, and also had personally introduced a and he took what actions he could to hasten its measure which "called attention to an impor­ realization. tant defect in existing law concerning sureties of Consuls. . . ."^ While this concern with consular affairs INTEREST AND INVOLVEMENT in for- -*- eign affairs was not unusual for a fresh- did not escape Chairman Hitt, he may not have ma n Republican representative in 1895. been aware of the reasons which prompted Whether or not the American frontier was no Otjen's interest. The Milwaukee Congressman, more, there is no doubt that at this time who acted as legal advisor to the Illinois Steel American industrialists, farmers, and politi­ Company, had been involved in a case in cians were becoming increasingly aware of which an officer of that company died while the importance of other frontiers and increas­ in Paris and the American consul, whom the ingly preoccupied with the commercial ad­ French police had entrusted with the funds vantages which would accompany an aggres­ of the deceased, had embezzled the entire sive foreign policy. The Republican party amount. Subsequent investigation showed platform of 1892 looked forward to "the that not only was there no requirement for the achievement of the manifest destiny of the posting of bond by United States consuls, Republic in its broadest sense." In this ex­ there was also no criminal statute against a panded concept, freed from the continental consul embezzling such funds." Otjen saw to restrictions of the "manifest destiny" of the it that these deficiencies were corrected. But 1840's, battleships rather than prairie such contributions, even if important, are not schooners would be the vehicles of progress. long remembered. Congressman Otjen, how­ If not immediately apparent to all, there were ever, did have more to offer his country than many ready to demonstrate that the marriage a bill requiring consuls to provide surety of commercial strategy and naval strategy was bonds. not only desirable but necessary. There are occasions when the most insig­ nificant politicians, becoming excited about It is uncertain whether Otjen, at the start a particular issue, speak out with unexpected of his congressional career, had any definite eloquence and excellence. While Congressman preconceptions as to the role of the navy in Otjen enjoyed such moments, on most ques­ the new national mission. But certainly the tions he was content to vote quietly with the debate over the Naval Appropriations Bill of Republican majority in support of the pro- 1895, and particularly the battleship clause of that bill, must have influenced the Milwau­ kee Congressman's thinking on the subject. This debate involved a question far more •* Unpublished autobiographical notes, in the Otjen Papers. basic than merely the number of ships to be " Congressman Robert R. Hitt to F. X. Boden, July constructed; and when the House, once again 25, 1900, in the Otjen Papers. under Republican control, voted overwhel­ " Unpublished autobiographical notes, in the Oljeii Papers. mingly to build four battleships instead of two

199 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 as requested by the administration, its mem­ impulsively, and it is significant that Long bers could not fail to realize that they had did not revoke the important actions taken on taken a significant step. If Congress had not February 25. Perhaps he was relieved that charted the new policy course based upon the these decisions, tactically correct, had been concept of command of the sea, they had made for him." The wisdom of such pre­ conclusively indicated their readiness to fol­ paredness would be clearly demonstrated by low such a course. Thus, with commercial Admiral Dewey at Manila Bay. In any event. expansion providing the justification, the Long would later recall the activities of that capital-ship theory of naval defense would day without reference to the Assistant Secre­ operate as the touchstone in the creation of tary, apparently willing to accept full respon­ the new navy. sibility and credit for the results.'" As indicated previously, Otjen became an Regardless of the military wisdom of Roose­ early admirer and supporter of Theodore velt's actions, he had disobeyed a direct order Roosevelt, and he took advantage of a series and violated a personal trust, and Secretary of unusual events, when Roosevelt was Assist­ Long had no choice but to chastise him. But ant Secretary of the Navy, to express this these were exciting times and there were many, esteem. On February 25, 1898, Secretary of including Congressman Otjen, who applauded the Navy John D. Long left the office early Roosevelt's courage and who thought it akin to enjoy a few hours of relaxation at his to treason for one to submerge a proper mili­ home outside the city. Assistant Secretary tary solution to a system. Otjen recalled that Roosevelt thereby became Acting Secretary, "Secretary Long had been telegraphed to come and for the next few hours exercised his back and hold 'that fellow' down, or so the power vigorously. Secretary Long, making papers had reported." He therefore felt com­ no attempt to hide his disapprobation, re­ pelled to write to Roosevelt and, if we can counted Roosevelt's actions: "He immediately trust his memory, the letter went something began to launch preemptory orders: distribut­ like this: "I was pleased with the course that ing ships; ordering ammunition, which there the Navy Department was pursuing. We all is no means to move, to places where there hoped that there would be no war but it was is no means to store it; sending for Captain part of the wisdom to be prepared for war. Barker to come on about the guns of the We had many people in the United States Vesuvius . . . sending messages to Congress who talked of whipping the entire world but for immediate legislation, authorizing the en­ they proposed to do it with their tongues. We listment of an unlimited number of seamen; couldn't whip even Spain with that kind of and ordering guns from the Navy Yard at material."" Washington to New York." The Secretary, who thereafter stayed until closing time, con­ A short time later Otjen accepted an invita­ cluded that his assistant had "gone at things tion to call upon Roosevelt, but the Congress­ like a bull in a china shop" and had "come man failed to leave any record of the meeting. very near causing more of an explosion than His only recollection of the affair was that happened to the Maine."' There is no denying upon arriving at the office of the Assistant that Roosevelt had been insubordinate, par­ Secretary, Roosevelt broke off a conversation ticularly since Secretary Long had specifically "with five or six" others, hurried over to warned his assistant to take no step "affecting Otjen and declared, "You are a patriot! You the policy of the Administration without con­ are a patriot!!"'" Two and a half years sulting the President or me.'" It is wrong, later, in August of 1900, Theodore Roosevelt however, to presume that Roosevelt had acted

" See William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Respon­ sibility, the Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1961), 96-97. ' As quoted by Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roose­ '"John D. Long, The New American Navy (New velt and the Rise of America to World Power (Bal­ York, 1903), 1:172-179. timore, 1956), 61-62. "Unpublished autobiographical notes, in the Otjen " loseph Bucklin Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and Papers. His Time (New York, 1920), 1:86. '= Ibid.

200 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN took a few moments during the presidential 1890's. There was, for example, considerable campaign to write a testimonial letter in be­ concern over the number of foreigners serv­ half of Congressman Otjen. "He is a genuine ing; as late as 1897 they constituted almost and patriotic American," McKinley's running- twenty-five per cent of the navy enlisted men.'" mate asserted, "and while I was assistant Sec­ Otjen realized that the training stations at retary of the Navy he aided me in every way." Newport and San Francisco were not situ­ This type of tribute may not have been unusu­ ated so as to attract the young men of the al, but Roosevelt had at that time little ex­ Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi regions perience with such correspondence. Indeed, into naval service. He pointed out that there his final sentence directed the recipient to was no finer material available anywhere and clear the letter with the Republican National argued that the navy should not delay in Committee "before you use it for it may be tapping this splendid source of potential that as a vice-presidential candidate I ought sailors. The majority of his congressional col­ not to write such letters.'"' leagues, however, did not share this enthusi­ Although he was doubtless influenced by asm for Midwesterners and accordingly failed Roosevelt to a considerable extent, Otjen's to see the need for a third training station. interest in imperialism in general, and the Thus the Fifty-fourth Congress adjourned on navy in particular, developed prior to any March 4, 1897, without taking action on personal contact with the future President. It Otjen's proposal. On March 19, 1897, during the first session of the Fifty-fifth Congress, first became a matter of record on May 2, the Milwaukee Congressman reintroduced the 1896, when Otjen introduced a bill (H. R. bill but could not prevent it from suffering 8650) calling for the establishment of a "naval the same fate." Although he did not forget training station on Lake Michigan, at the city his project, events in Cuba soon forced him of Milwaukee, in the State of Wisconsin."" to concentrate on matters of more immediate The bill, subsequently referred to the Com­ mittee on Naval Affairs and forgotten, might cynically be dismissed as just another piece of pork-barrel legislation. But such an as­ TTAD CONGRESS listened to Otjen when sessment would seem to do an injustice to its -*--*- he first introduced his bill, the nation author. Although Otjen was most desirous might have had a naval recruiting center and that Milwaukee be selected as the site of the training station nearing completion in the training station, he was, as later events proved, Midwest by April, 1898. But since war was far more concerned about its establishment an imminent possibility and his project was and operation than its location. not, Otjen turned his attention from the fu­ Convinced of the need for a Great Lakes ture navy to a concern over the degree of naval training station to complement the two preparedness of the existing force. Years similar establishments already operating on later he recalled that in the months preceding either coast. Congressman Otjen worked the declaration of war he had been "con­ quietly to build support for his project. It cerned about the matter" of naval prepared­ was apparent that Otjen considered recruit­ ness. Not that the impending struggle was to ing equally as important as the training re­ be any life or death affair but, as Otjen ex­ sponsibility for such a station. Today when plained, "I felt that we were going to get into selective service acts insure an adequate sup­ this war and knew that the United States was ply of young men, willing or otherwise, to poorly prepared for a war, [and] that it would fill the requirements of the military services, be humiliating for the United States to have it is difficult to appreciate the manpower prob­ difficulty in handling Spain."" lems of the peace-time American Navy in the

^^ Long, New American Navy, 1:92. " Theodore Roosevelt to F. X. Boden, August 20, " Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 1 session 1900, in the Otjen Papers. (1897), 92. " Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1 session " Unpublished autobiographical notes, Otjen Pa­ (1896), 4761. pers.

201 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

During this exciting and emotional period Otjen, like Theodore Roosevelt, had difficulty in containing" his intolerance for those Ameri­ cans who questioned the propriety of military adventure. Otjen had no more sympathy for or understanding of the "misguided profes­ sional philanthropists'"" than the future hero of San Juan Hill. Just prior to the declaration of war, Otjen received a letter from Wade H. Richardson, a prominent member of the G. A. R. in Milwaukee. Mr. Richardson re­ marked that he had learned that the principal of the West Side High School, Charles McLenegan, spent "some time each day with his pupils, trying to convince them that we have no cause for war with Spain.'"" Presi­ dent McKinley's resolution was history by the time Otjen answered Richardson's letter, and the Congressman observed that "Since war has been declared, it is immaterial by what agencies it was brought about." Therefore, it only remained important for each of us to do our duty "to bring it to a successful end Society's Iconographic Collection and a man who fails in his loyal support of David Rose, Milwaukee's mayor from 1898 to 1906 and again from 1908 to 1910. the government is but little different from a traitor." Otjen concluded by declaring that able to all who could read German. The Mil- Professor McLenegan had the responsibility wau/cee Journal wasted little time in translat­ "to mention to his pupils the 200,000 starving ing the correspondence back into English and, women and children and to remind them of in an editorial entitled "No Cause for Criti­ the unfulfilled promises made by Spain after cism," reproved Otjen for his remarks, based the last ten years' war. While he makes a plea as they were on "rumor only," and defended for the cause of Spain, he should not forget McLenegan, stating that "his patriotism can­ to show his pupils the reverse side, as he is not be doubted for a moment.""' employed by the American public."''" On May 9, Otjen, who by this time must Although it was intended that the letter to have felt abused by friend and foe alike, Richardson be strictly confidential, Otjen's wrote to John G. Gregory, then acting editor private secretary gave a copy of it to his of the Evening Wisconsin, explaining the cir­ brother-in-law, who was the Washington cor­ cumstances of his unfortunate correspondence. respondent for Der Herold, one of Milwau­ The letter was unnecessary. Gregory had al­ kee's German newspapers. When the Con­ ready come to the defense of his friend in an gressman learned of this "breach of trust," editorial on May 7 in which he stated that he immediately telegraphed the editor of Der "Newspapers inimical to Mr. Otjen have tried Herold and requested that it not be published. to twist the affair to his detriment." And he But freedom of the press carried the day, and added, with words faintly familiar to Ameri­ Otjen's letter to Richardson was made avail- cans of the 1960's, that "they are likely to find it difficult to make loyal Milwaukeeans think that aggressive loyalty is a bad trait.""'^

" Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913), 228. "As quoted by Theobald Otjen, May 9, 1898, hotter to John G. Gregory, in the John G. Gregory Papers, Milwaukee County Historical Society. '" Ibid. =° Milwaukee Journal, May 3, 1898. "Evening Wisconsin, May 7, 1898.

202 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN

Gregory was correct. Theobald Otjen was tary victories were but a portion, a prelude, in the mainstream and the issue of a high to an equally important naval responsibility school principal's patriotism was, at most, a in the world of the new century. His desire minor distraction. It was the navy that was for a powerful and efficient fleet was simply important. In his personal investigation of a means to an end since it was only through naval preparedness, Otjen was not satisfied sea power that American commercial expan­ with published reports or high-level opinions sion could be assured. but questioned every United States naval of­ At no time did Otjen offer a clearer insight ficer he came across "as to the relative into his vision of the future than he did on strength of the navies." To his questions it June 11, 1898, when he addressed the House seems he always received the reply that "we of Representatives in support of the bill pro­ could handle Spain.""" But this confidence viding for the annexation of the Hawaiian failed to satisfy the Congressman: he wanted Islands. In the course of this address, it was to "handle Spain" with ease and without Otjen's intent to emphasize the strategic value embarrassment. of the Hawaiian Islands and to point out that Shortly after the sinking of the Maine, a their possession was essential from the stand­ warship steamed up the Potomac to Wash­ point of national security. The gist of his argument was: ington. Otjen, predictably, took this oppor­ tunity to make a first-hand check into the morale of the American sailors. As he later That Hawaii is a strategical point in the recalled the incident: North Pacific of immense value to us can hardly be questioned. We all know that I went aboard the ship and there was a the usefulness of the great warships of to­ common seaman on duty pacing the deck. day is limited by their coal supply, and the I thought I would draw out of him how coal-carrying capacity of no warship is he felt about the war. I said to him, "It great enough to steam from an Asiatic port looks as though we are going to have a war across the ocean to our Pacific coast and with Spain." He said, "I hope so." I said, return. Hawaii in our possession will stand "You hope so? You don't seem to be afraid as a sentinel, the Gibraltar, in defense of to meet the Spaniards." He said, "Why, it our Pacific coast, while, on the other hand, will be a picnic," and followed this state­ Hawaii in the possession of a power at war ment with, "if the United States did not do with us would be of the greatest damage anything to avenge the blowing up of the to us, where it could fit out its ships, sup­ Maine, they will not be able to get a man ply them with coal and other supplies, and to walk the decks of a warship.'"^ send them forth to prey upon our com­ merce and ravish our Pacific coast."" Clearly Otjen, as well as the majority of "common seamen," believed that the sinking In support of these views he proceeded to of the Maine had to be avenged, and when quote the London Times, General Schofield, war was finally declared the Milwaukee Con­ Admiral Belknap, Admiral Dupont, George gressman was much relieved. Courage and W. Melville, Engineering Chief of the United patriotism had carried the day and Otjen, States Navy, and of course Captain Mahan along with many Americans, looked forward as to the military importance of Pearl Har­ to the fruits of victory. bor, noting that "We who are not versed in Throughout the unequal contest with Spain military science should be willing to give Otjen was naturally pleased with the perform­ weight to the opinions of . . . experts.""" But ance of the navy, but he realized that mili­ the major difficulty with strictly a strategic approach in expounding the expansionistic

^^ Unpublished autobiographical notes, Otjen Pa­ ^ Appendix to the Congressional Record, 55th pers. Congress, 2 session (1898), 499. 'Ibid. '"Ibid., 500.

203 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 cause was the absence of any real military confident that recent developments would threat. Thus, as was common in such de­ assist him in gaining its acceptance. bates, the speaker seemed unable to keep to On January 12, 1900, Otjen introduced his the subject, and the speech, which began with training station bill (H. R. 6061) for the statements expressing a fear for American third time"" and three days later wrote a letter security, closed with statements expressing a to the Milwauftee Journal explaining the bill hope for American commercial expansion. in some detail and adding that he thought ". . . Let us construct the Nicaraguan Canal, that the necessity for "the establishment of annex the Hawaiian Islands and in a short a training station on the Great Lakes will time you will see upon this great highway of eventually be recognized by Congress.""" It commerce numberless ships, not grim battle­ is significant that in this statement to the ships of war, but the white-winged ships of newspaper Otjen spoke of a Great Lakes sta­ commerce, carrying the products of our coun­ tion rather than a Milwaukee station, although try to the East and bringing back their prod­ his bill still contained specific reference to the ucts to us. It is our duty as legislators not to Wisconsin port. Immediately following the legislate for today, but also for the generations publication of this letter, many of Milwau­ that are to follow. It seems to me that if we kee's prominent citizens, including John I. do not avail ourselves of this opportunity, it Beggs, Washington Baker, James H. Stover, will be an irreparable loss to future genera­ William McLaren, Oliver C. Fuller, RoUand tions of our great country.""' B. Mallory, Edward C. Wall, Samuel W. Tall- madge, John Johnson, Edward P. Hackett, The apparent inconsistency, confusion, or and Major C. H. Ross, endorsed the project. at least uncertainty regarding the considera­ In addition, on January 19, the Citizen's tions of national security and economic ex­ Business League of Milwaukee added its sup­ pansion seem not to have troubled Otjen. He port and went on record as desiring to do did not consciously employ a security argu­ whatever it could to bring about passage of ment as simply a political means towards an the bill."" Ten days later, the city's Common imperialistic objective. He saw no need to Council passed a resolution endorsing H. R. distinguish between security and commercial 6061 and requesting that all Wisconsin mem­ expansion; they were, in fact, not mutually bers of Congress assist in its passage."' exclusive, but inseparable. As a disciple of Mahan, Otjen accepted the need for a strong Although evidence of public support in the navy for the protection of the merchant ma­ Milwaukee area did reach Washington, the rine which, in turn, would nourish the navy Committee on Naval Affairs was still not suf­ in time of war. And if the new navy, ranging ficiently impressed to take any action on the far at sea, required bases for coal and repairs, measure. Otjen, however, did finally receive and if naval bases meant colonies, these colo­ a letter from a high-ranking naval officer in­ nies would mean increased opportunities for dicating that the navy was at least aware of trade. Otjen saw the "grim battleships of the Congressman's efforts in its behalf. The war" and the "white-winged ships of com­ substance of this correspondence from Ad­ merce" as equal arcs in a perfect circle. But miral William S. Cowles, then Acting Chief regardless what was said or believed, there of the Bureau of Navigation, was none too was little immediate need for any real con­ encouraging. Although the Admiral stated at cern about national security and a great deal the outset that "in reference to House Bill of interest in commercial expansion. No. 6061 . . . the Bureau is in hearty accord with the movement, believing that a training

HEOBALD OTJEN envisioned the Great T Lakes Naval Training Station, a center for increased interest and enlistment in the ""Ibid., 501. navy in the great Midwest, as his contribution ^ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1 session to this expansion. Thus, as soon as the situ­ (1900), 791. '^ Milwaukee Journal, January 15, 1900. ation permitted, he again concentrated his ^"Milwaukee Journal, January 16, 18, and 19, 1900. efforts on securing passage of his measure. ^'•Milwaukee Sentinel, January 30, 1900.

204 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN

Station located on the Great Lakes would be means of furnishing to the Naval service a invaluable to the Naval service," he immedi­ large quantity of excellent material, sturdy ately qualified his support by noting that and intelligent boys and young men. "under the conditions of the treaty with Great And, further, such an establishment Britain regarding armed vessels on said Lakes would greatly aid in increasing, in that it is doubtful if a training station could be section, the interest in the Navy, which has made effective, as it would be absolutely been aroused as the result of the war with necessary to have a vessel of war attached to Spain, and for other reasons."* such station for the proper training of Ap­ prentices.""' But Otjen knew, as the Admiral Realizing that interest in the project had should have known, that very few things are at last reached a point which assured the "absolutely necessary." attention of the Committee on Naval Affairs, Furthermore there were other admirals who, Otjen introduced the naval training station either uninformed or unconcerned about bill (H. R. 1332) for the fourth time on De­ agreements with foreign powers, offered un­ cember 2, 1901."° On January 6, 1902, Sec­ qualified support to Otjen's proposal. On retary of the Navy Long wrote a letter to February 24, 1900, just prior to assuming Committee Chairman George Foss of Illinois command of the Asiatic Station, Rear Admiral in which he expressed his belief that a naval George C. Remey, after admitting that he had training station should be established on the not as yet read the bill, stated in a letter to Great Lakes, asserting "that the experience the Milwaukee Journal: of the department has shown that a large amount of good material for service in the ... I heartily endorse such a proposition navy is available in the northwest section of in the interest of the Navy and the Gov­ the country which would be tributary to ernment, and I hope it will be done. [such] a training station. . . .""° Also included There is no better material, boys and in the Secretary's letter was the draft of an young men, to be found in the whole coun­ amendment to the Naval Appropriations Bill try for the naval service, than on the shores which would provide the funds necessary for of the Great Lakes and the Upper Missis­ the selection of the site. sippi valley. Besides, the establishment of Eight days following Long's letter to the such a station and the procuring of boys House Committee on Naval Affairs, the Navy and young men for the navy from these Department's Chief of the Bureau of Naviga­ regions, would stimulate and keep alive an tion, Rear Admiral A. S. Crowninshield, ap­ interest in the navy by the people removed peared before the Committee. His testimony from the coast, which is very desirable. covered the wide range of appropriation bill Being a native of Iowa and of the Upper subjects which concerned his Bureau, includ­ Mississippi valley, I take a special interest ing the desirability of establishing a training in the project."" station on the Great Lakes. Admiral Crownin­ shield indicated that about 70 per cent of naval A few days later Rear Admiral G. W. Sumner, enlistments were currently coming from the commandant of the newly established naval interior, and also admitted that "a station of station at Port Royal, South Carolina, echoed a moderate capacity in the West" would be the sentiments of Remey, also in a letter to of some benefit since "A great many boys the Milwaufcee Journal: become discontented, and it is better to weed them out before sending them to sea." But ... I consider the project a most excellent to the direct question of whether a station on the Great Lakes could be as efficient as one one and trust that it will be carried out, as I have no doubt but that it would be the

"* Ibid., March 1, 1900. *" Admiral William S. Cowles to Theobald Otjen, ^ Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1 session February 3, 1900, in the Otjen Papers. (1901), 56. •" Milwaukee Journal, February 27, 1900. "" Milwaukee Journal, January 13, 1902.

205 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 located on the seacoast, the Admiral replied while officially still in effect, had long been in the negative. Admiral Crowninshield, how­ ignored by both parties. Otjen, for example, ever, was an old salt of Civil War vintage was well aware that warships sailed on the who also believed that all sailors ought to be Lakes, although they were conveniently desig­ trained aboard sailing ships."' nated "revenue cutters," and he was entirely On January 13, the Milwaufcee Journal fea­ correct in stating that he could see no neces­ tured an article bearing the headline, "Otjen's sity in classifying the ships used for training Naval Training Station Looks Like a Sure seamen as warships.'" Thing." The text of the article asserted that Although Otjen could not refrain from while there was "little doubt that a naval calling attention to the distinct advantages of training station will be established on the Milwaukee, he emphasized that "The impor­ Great Lakes," there was no assurance that tant thing is the establishment of this station Milwaukee would be selected as the site: somewhere upon the Great Lakes." He sim­ "Whether it will be located at Milwaukee will ply wanted it to be "located at the best . . . doubtless depend on the decision of a board place possible," and added: "As far as I am of expert naval officers. . . .""" Two days later, concerned and as far as the city of Milwau­ Mayor David Stuart Rose of Milwaukee called kee is concerned, we are willing to leave that a mass public meeting for the purpose of to the judgment of an impartial board.'"" One taking steps to assure that his city would be need only read the testimony of other groups selected as the site of the Great Lakes Naval who appeared before the Committee on this Training Station."" Needless to say, mobiliza­ subject to appreciate the sincerity of the tion of a similar sort was occurring at other Milwaukee Congressman's remarks. As an lake ports. example of strictly self-interested appeals, a member of an Erie delegation argued that On January 28, 1902, Congressman Otjen Pennsylvania's Great Lakes port was "entitled accepted an invitation to appear before the to some consideration," since it had contrib­ Committee on Naval Affairs in behalf of his uted fifty-two "naval officers' wives, and I do bill. In the course of his testimony, he re­ not know how many mothers"; whereupon an minded the Committee members that when amused Committee member wondered aloud considering the great Middle West they were how much consideration Chicago might de­ not dealing with a landlocked interior peo­ serve, if the basis of determination was to be pled solely with landsmen; indeed, the Great the number of wives provided naval officers." Lakes region comprised a vast and flourish­ ing seafaring community. He then offered As a result of its investigation of the Great facts and figures demonstrating "the great Lakes Naval Training Station Bill, the Com- importance of the commerce on the lakes." Otjen repeated the now-familiar arguments that "Not only would this establishment aid '' House Document No. 57, Hearings Before the the Navy in securing Naval Apprentices, but Committee on Naval Affairs, House of Representa­ tives, on Appropriation Bill Subjects, 57th Congress, I believe it would be a station where the Navy 1 session (1902). would secure all kinds of men needed upon "" Milwaukee Journal, January 13, 1902. war ships." He added that "the establishment "° Milwaukee Journal, January 15, 1902. *° House Document No. 90, Hearings Before the of this station will also form a link or bond Committee on Naval Affairs, House of Representa­ of union between the Navy and this important tives, on Appropriation Bill Subjects, 57th Congress, section of our country.'"" 1 session (1902). ""^ For the original treaty see Senate Document No. It is interesting to note that Otjen, when 357, Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Pro­ tocols and Agreements between the United States of questioned as to the possible effect existing America and Other Powers, 1776-1909, 61 Congress, agreements with Great Britain might have on 2 session (1910), 630. See also John Watson Foster, the establishment of such a station, admitted Limitation of Armament on the Great Lakes, reports of Secretary of State to the President of the United that he had not inquired into the matter and States, December 7, 1892 (Washington, 1914). had not personally even read the treaty. Ac­ *^ House Document No. 90, Hearings . . . 57th tually, the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 Congress, 1 session (1902). *" House Document No. 92, Hearings . . . 57th which limited armaments on the Great Lakes, Congress, 1 session (1902).

206 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN mittee on Naval Affairs inserted the following begins to look as if Mr. Otjen might be the clause into the general Naval Appropriations only man in the House from Wisconsin who Bill, which was subsequently included in the would not support every measure calculated Naval Appropriations Act of July 1, 1902: to bring relief from monopoly taxation. Mr. Otjen makes a great mistake if he thinks that The Secretary of the Navy is hereby di­ his constituents want him to oppose such rected to appoint a board composed of legislation."'" naval officers, whose duty it shall be to Another problem which faced the Milwau­ select on the Great Lakes a suitable site for kee legislator during this session involved the an additional naval training station, and question of Chinese exclusion. Although he having selected such site, if upon private was vehement in his opposition to the immi­ lands, to estimate its value and ascertain, gration of Chinese laborers to the United as nearly as practicable, the cost for which States, Otjen approached the matter with some it can be purchased or acquired, and of hesitancy, not out of any sympathy for the their proceedings and actions to make full Chinese, but simply because it was important "to establish friendly relations and encourage and detailed report to the Secretary, who the growth of trade and commerce with that shall transmit such report, with his recom­ country. Such growth in trade and commerce mendations thereon, to Congress for its will be mutually beneficial to both nations. action; and to defray the expenses of said China in the near future, it seems to me, board the sum of $5,000, or so much thereof presents great commercial possibilities, at as may be necessary, to be immediately least until she has developed her home re­ available, is hereby appropriated out of any sources." Almost as an afterthought. Con­ moneys in the Treasury not otherwise ap­ gressman Otjen added: "Not only should a propriated." due regard for our growing trade and com­ merce with this great nation inspire friendly On July 5, 1902, the Secretary of the Navy relations and fair dealing, but national honor appointed Rear Admiral Henry C. Taylor, • "t 5)47 the new Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, requires it. and Civil Engineer Harry H. Rousseau as But the progress of the Naval Board in its members of the board to select the site. Lieu­ study of possible locations for the training tenant Commander Cameron Winslow was station naturally interested Otjen more than appointed the third member a short time later. such questions as those involving the tariff or Chinese immigration. The Board presented its ONCURRENT with observing the prog­ initial report to the Secretary of the Navy, Wil­ C ress of his project, Otjen faced the less liam H. Moody, on November 29, 1902, and pleasant task of dealing with the tariff prob­ after endorsing it, the Secretary forwarded lem. In this matter, despite his concern for the report to Congress on December 13. commercial expansion and despite pressure In this preliminary report the Board made from some of his constituents, he remained the general recommendation "that the site of inflexible in his opposition to any reduction the naval training station ... be fixed on the in tariff levels. Whether he possessed any shores of Lake Michigan below latitude 43° basic understanding of the problem is ques­ 30'," or somewhere south of a line running tionable. He may have seen the issue as he east-west just below Sheboygan, Wisconsin. had in 1897 when, during debate over the It was further recommended "that an appro­ Dingley Bill, he stated: "A tariff is simply priation of $250,000 be made by Congress for a toll collected from the foreigner, a license fee for the privilege he enjoys of selling his goods in our market.'"" Stated in these terms, " Senate Documents, 57th Congress, 2 session (1902), Vol. 3, serial 4420, Appendix B. Otjen could confidently maintain his position " Appendix to the Congressional Record, 54th regarding reductions even when Ellis B. Congress, 2 session (1897), 238. Vescher, editorial writer for the Milwaufcee ^ Milwaukee Journal, February 6, 1902. •" Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1 session Journal, observed on February 6, 1902: "It (1901), 3731.

207 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

...-i*f-.. wm

f^ttr- -^rr' rri., ^ w|r^ li f ^^

Buzzell, Great Lakes Training Station Sailors practice rowing on dry land at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station during World War I.

the purchase of land and the development of Illinois, "32 miles north of Chicago," was the station, the exact locality to be determined "the most suitable site for a naval training by the board . . .'"" station." The report recognized, however, Secretary Moody, in commenting on the that the price of land at that location might report, attempted to meet the arguments which be prohibitive and for this reason four other had been and would be offered in opposition sites were suggested as "suitable," including, to the Great Lakes station. He noted the "in order of their desirability," Racine, Mus­ "large number of recruits for Naval service kegon, Milwaukee, and Michigan City.™ in the Central West." And although he con­ The report of the Board prompted consider­ sidered these recruits fine prospects, he ad­ able activity in Congress and in the days im­ mitted that "the larger part of them are with­ mediately following publication of the report out any knowledge of sea conditions." In a number of bills were introduced for the this connection, the Secretary added: "Ex­ purpose of having the station located at a perience has shown that a short preliminary particular lake port.''' Naturally the Board's training upon land brings much better results recommendation of Lake Bluff as the most than appear when the landsmen and appren­ suitable site was attacked by representatives tices are placed at once upon the deck of a of lake states other than those from Illinois. vessel. After such preliminary training, it is But Theobald Otjen did not participate in the purpose to give them subsequent training upon salt water and in the ships of our Navy."" The Naval Board's final report, submitted to the Congress on November 11, 1903, con­ ''" House Document No. 45, 58th Congress, 1 ses­ sion (1903), vol. 1, serial 4565. tained the recommendation that Lake Bluff, '" Within a week following the puljlication of the report, Representative James H. Southard of Ohio introduced H.R. 11884 proposing Toledo; Repre­ sentative Arthur L. Bates of Pennsylvania introduced H.R. 1928 proposing Erie, Pennsylvania; Senator Bois Penrose ot Pennsylvania also proposed Erie in *' Senate Document No. 45, 57th Congress, 2 session his chamber; and Representative Roswell P. Bishop (1902), vol. 5, serial 4420. of Michigan introduced H.R. 4515 proposing Muske­ '•' Ibid. gon, Michigan.

208 TWINING: THEOBALD OTJEN these attacks on the judgment of the Board; the purchase of land and the establishment of the establishment of the station was a cer­ a station. In addition, the President was "... tainty and he remained content to leave the authorized and empowered to appoint a board final arrangements to the navy. consisting of not less than three members, Still there were some who maintained op­ none of whom shall be a resident of any State position to the project itself. One of the more bordering on the Great Lakes, whose duty outspoken members of this group was Con­ it shall be to select the most available site for gressman John F. Rixey of Virginia, a mem­ such Naval Training Station on the Great ber of the Committee on Naval Affairs and Lakes . . . and to make a detailed report of a longtime critic of naval expansion. Con­ their findings and proceedings to the Presi­ gressman Rixey considered the manpower re­ dent, who upon approval of such report shall quirements of the navy as being adequately authorize the purchase of such site and the satisfied under the existing arrangements. establishment of such Naval Training Sta- Furthermore, he thought it absurd to train tion. seamen to serve on battleships and cruisers Under the authority thus granted him. at a place where they could not even see a President Roosevelt appointed a new board battleship or a cruiser. The Virginian sar­ which, after considering thirty-seven possible castically concluded that he could see no rea­ sites, made the same recommendation as the son for establishing a training station on the original board—Lake Bluff, Illinois. The only Great Lakes unless we had decided to train remaining obstacle was that the owners of the our admirals, paraphrasing Sir Joseph Porter, 172 acres would not agree to sell for less than Gilbert and Sullivan's distinguished Lord of $1,000 per acre and there was no possibility the Admiralty, "by keeping them at their that Congress would agree to the purchase at desks and never going to sea."'"^ By this time, that high price. This obstacle was quickly however, the real debate concerned the loca­ removed, however, when the Merchants Club tion of the station rather than the desirability of Chicago offered to donate the land to the of its establishment. government and, with this assurance. Presi­ The Senate rejected the Lake Bluff recom­ dent Roosevelt approved the Board's recom­ mendation of the Board and amended the mendation on November 24, 1904, and au­ Naval Appropriations Bill (H. R. 12220) so thorized the establishment of the station.™ as to provide for the appointment of an en­ The Merchants Club had little difficulty in tirely new board. Congressman Henry Cooper raising the $175,000 necessary for the pur­ of Racine led a similar movement in the chase, largely as a result of the contributions House,''" contending that the North Point of the Chicago and North Western Railroad, (Racine) location had not received fair con­ the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad, and the sideration by the existing Board. Accordingly Chicago Edison Company. The property was he moved that the House "recede and concur then turned over to the federal government in the Senate amendment." Although Cooper's for "$1.00 and other good and valuable con­ motion was defeated, 108 to 83, the subse­ sideration" on May 20, 1905. Rear Admiral quent Senate-House conference committee re­ Albert A. Ross raised the flag over the site port recommended that the House recede on July 1, 1905, taking formal possession for from its disagreement to the original Senate the United States government, and the sta­ amendment.'* tion was officially opened on October 28, The Naval Appropriations Bill finally re­ 1910, by President Taft." ceived the approval of both houses and was signed by the President on April 27, 1904. The new appropriation provided $250,000 for

'" Congressioiml Record, 58th Congress, 2 session (1904), 5844. «= Chicago Daily Tribune, April 28, 1904, and No­ '"''' Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2 session vember 25, 1904. (1904), 5194. °'Ibid., July 2, 1905, and September 7, 1918. See °" Ibid. also Francis Buzzell, The Great Lakes Naval Train­ •" Ibid., 5381. ing Station (Boston, 1919), 6.

209 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

Years later, Otjen correctly observed that world, capable of transferring 10,000 men to the most important bill "passed through my sea duty every three weeks. From April 6, efforts was the Naval Training Station Bill." 1917, to November 11, 1918, 125,000 young While admitting that he had "hoped of course men received training at Great Lakes,™ and that it would be located a little nearer Mil­ in view of this achievement, Theobald Otjen waukee than it was,'"'" Otjen was nevertheless had reason to be proud, if somewhat surprised, proud of this memorial to his concern for at his own foresight. And today, as Milwau­ national power and destiny. The Great Lakes keeans take Sunday strolls along Wisconsin station, originally designed to accommodate Avenue, the Great Lakes Naval Training Sta­ a maximum of 1,500 apprentice seamen, ad­ tion seems not the least bit distant. mitted a total of 1,743 recruits on the single day of July 27, 1918. Struggling to meet the demands of an America at war, it became "* Unpublished autobiographical notes, in the Otjen the greatest naval training station in the =" Buzzell, Great Lakes, 3, 5, 25.

Buzzell. Great LaivCs Training Station Thirty-five thousand World War I sailors spell out the name of their training station.

210 A MISSION TO THE MENOMINEE:

Alfred Cope's Green Bay Diary {Part IV)

ticulously kept. Cope has left us a vivid and valuable picture of Indian-white relations in Synopsis Wisconsin's first year of statehood and of the contemporary social scene. In previous installments Cope has described TN A BRIEF SPAN of seventeen years the his and Wistar's reactions to Green Bay, to the -*- Menominee Indians were, by means of Menominee chiefs whom they summoned to treaties forced upon them in 1831, 1836, and Fort Howard to draw up a list of recipients of 1848, stripped of the whole of their ancestral the tribe's generosity, to the living conditions lands. In total, the tribe ceded to the federal of the nearby settlements of the Brothertown government twelve and a half million acres of and Oneida Indians, and to Wisconsin's sights some of Wisconsin's loveliest and most desir­ and sounds. In the preceeding issue (Winter, able countryside—at a price of about 9V2 cents 1967), Cope, left alone while Wistar journeyed an acre. Harshest of the three treaties was that East to pick up the $40,000 in gold specie, of 1848, which the Indians resisted stanchly filled his diary with commentaries on the local but futilely. Under its terms the Menominee flora and fauna, the habits and appearance were given $350,000 for their last remaining of the Menominee, and an account of an tribal holdings and were required to move en Oneida Fourth of July celebration. masse to 600,000 acres on the Crow Wing As this final installment in the series opens. River in Minnesota, an area they had visited Cope is preparing to meet with and counsel a and cordially disliked. group of Oneida friends in his quarters inside At the tribe's request the treaty stipulated Fort Howard. He is also expecting Wistar mo­ that $40,000 of the sum to be paid them be mentarily to return from the East. By now both set aside as a gift to those persons of mixed men were anxious to return to their homes and Menominee blood who had befriended them families, especially in view of recent disquiet­ in the past. To assure himself that the gift ing rumors of a cholera epidemic in Philadel­ would be fairly distributed, President Zachary phia. So far the two Quakers had reason to Taylor, whose military experiences on the Wis­ congratulate themselves on the success of their consin frontier had left him with a sympathy mission: the Indians had been co-operative; for the Indian's plight, appointed a well-to-do, what seemed to be an equitable apportionment liberal Quaker from Philadelphia, Thomas of the $40,000 had been arrived at; and no Wistar, Jr., to serve as commissioner and to obstacle had been placed in their path by the oversee the payment. Wistar in turn chose a white community. Neither Wistar nor Cope friend of similar background and convictions, had any inkling of the ludicrous and frustrat­ Alfred Cope, to accompany him on the mis­ ing circumstances that would surround their sion, and the two arrived in Green Bay in the departure from Green Bay. late spring of 1849. In the diary which he me­ W. C. H.

211 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

T^HE TIME appointed for the conference After this Daniel Bread opened their busi­ -*- with the Oneidas arrived, and the Com­ ness by referring to the confidence he and his missioner had not yet returned. This was a people felt in the Quakers from their recol­ disappointment, but the Friend with whom the lections of the friendly acts they had done for arrangement had been made put everything in them before their removal from New York, readiness for their reception by the tenth hour, and by expressing his regret that they had not which had been agreed upon. The hour came then more profited by the counsel and aid and passed and the eleventh arrived, without afforded them. They feared the Quakers had the appearance of an Indian. But soon after become discouraged: it was so long since they came Shonenses and Ho-ner-er-a-her, the in­ had been to see them." terpreter, to say that the council with their But after their emigration, he said, a great Canadian friends had been prolonged beyond change had taken place among them, and the expectation and would prevent the arrival of good seed sown by the Quakers had produced the others before half-past one. This delay, some fruit. They were now industrious, im­ the Friend hoped, might still give them the proving their land, and using the utmost exer­ company of the Commissioner, who was hour­ tions to promote the advancement of their chil­ ly expected. dren in knowledge and civilization. They had The message delivered, Shonenses and his taken hold of religion and worshipped God companion departed, with an invitation for the truly, he believed, according to their knowl­ chiefs to dine when they came in. Accordingly edge and ability. at 1% o'clock they made their appearance, ten They were anxious to be secured, if possible, in number, and having tasted salt with the in their possessions. They were alarmed by Friend proceeded to the council chamber. rumours afloat that the Government was dis­ There were present seven from Duck Creek posed to force them to become citizens or and three from Canada, viz: Daniel Bread or oblige them to remove again. They did not Tegawiatiron (pronounced Te-gaw-we-aw-te- know that it was so, but felt extremely anxious rong), the Sachem; Elijah Skenado or Sho­ about it. They were desirous that a faithful nenses; Adam Swamp or Ganongwe-uia; representation of their present condition and Thomas King or Kanatohare; Henry Powlis deportment by a disinterested eye-witness or Hahjatonnentha (all of Duck Creek) ; might be conveyed to Washington and inter­ Moses Schuyler or Shonagares, Augustus Cor­ cession be made on their behalf that no at­ nelius or Hakuntyakhon, and Cornelius Island tempt be encouraged to disturb them and again or Olatshetee (of the Canada settlement) ; break up their plans of improvement. John Dantford or Rathetseinrihe, a warrior; and Jacob L. W. Doxstater or Honereraher, the interpreter, the last two also of Duck Creek. Some general conversation first took place, a reservation of 5,271 acres in Delaware Township, in which Moses Schuyler stated that the Ca­ Middlesex County, near Strathroy, Ontario, which is on the Sydenham River, not the Thames. Frederick nadian Reservation on which he and his fel­ Webb Hodge (ed.). Handbook of American Indians low delegates lived lay from 50 to 60 miles North of Mexico (Bureau of American Ethnology Bul­ [east] of Fort Gratiot and consisted of about letin No. 30), part 2:127. '^ The Oneidas were the first Indians to receive mis­ 4,600 acres of good land worth about six dol­ sionary aid from the Friends. In 1795 the Indian lars per acre, and that they lived much as Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was their brethren at Duck Creek.^ established, with Thomas Wistar, Sr., father of the 1849 commissioner, as clerk. Its first activity involved sending three missionaries to the Oneidas in 1796, and later a blacksmith. The Friends concentrated on teaching the Indians farming, homemaking, and sim­ ple scholastic subjects. In 1799 the Friends turned over the mission activities to the Oneidas, who felt ^Fort Gratiot (1814-1879) was in Michigan on they could progress more rapidly on their own. In the west bank of the St. Clair River, one-half mile 1807 the New York Friends began work among the from the outlet of Lake Huron. Francis Paul Prucha, Oneidas, Stockbridges, and Brothertowns. At one A Guide to the Military Posts of the United States, time the Friends vaccinated about 1,000 Oneidas and 1789-1885 (Madison, 1964), 76. The exact location Brothertowns against smallpox. Rayner Wickersham of the Oneida settlement on the Thames River has Kelsey, The Friends and the Indians, 1655-1917 (Phil­ not been found. In 1906 the Canadian Oneidas had adelphia, 1917), 92, 95-96, 115, 116.

212 fit^isif.jr'r.ig; Society's Iconographic Collection The old barracks at Fort Howard.

They earnestly desired that Government their messages did not go forward. This had might lay no temptation in their way. The been the case for some years past. Of late sight of a sum of money, though much under they thought they had particular reason for the value of what it was designed to purchase, jealousy on this account and were, therefore, had often tempted the Indian to sell that which anxious to avail themselves of the help of the he ought not to have sold. They themselves Quakers now near them to intercede for them. in the State of New York had parted with land They were greatly in need of a sincere friend, at ten to fifteen cents an acre which would for they seemed to have none. now bring one hundred dollars. They thought They also felt for their brethren, the Me­ they had an equitable claim upon the govern­ nominees, who, they were sorry to see, had ment for the undervaluation of lands which through ignorance of the value of their lands they had ignorantly sold, not knowing their lately parted with them for a very small remu­ value as the white man did. If such claim neration. They thought it remarkable that the were allowed, their situation would be widely Government, which had expressed such con­ different from what it is now. It is the spoils cern that the New York Indians had bought of their people which at this day constitute land of the Menominees so low, should be un­ a large part of the riches of the wealthy state able when itself became a purchaser to see its of New York. But they were disposed to be own acts in the same light." They did not contented with the pittance which remained to them of their ample possessions, could they only have assurance of permanence. " Cope refers to Colonel Samuel C. Stambaugh's They believed the Quakers were their real dealings with the Menominee and the New York In­ friends and were induced on that account to dians from 1830 to 1832, when Stambaugh sided with the Menominee who refused to recognize the New avail themselves of the only opportunity they York Wisconsin Indians' claims dating from 1822. had for a long time enjoyed of laying their The difficulties were settled in 1832 when the United case before them. They felt disposed to open States Senate provided the Stockbridge, Brothertown, and Oneida Indians the lands they held when Cope their hearts to their friend, believing he would visited them. For a full explanation of the Menomi­ not betray them. They felt as if the channel nee and New York Indian controversy see Albert G. of their communication with the United States Ellis, "Advent of the New York Indians into Wis­ consin," State Historical Society of Wisconsin Col­ Government was obstructed: they believed lections (Madison, 1903), 11:415-419.

213 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 allude to this and other unpleasant circum­ Oneidas; that they have a good tract of land, stances with any feeling of anger, but only are farming it well, have comfortable houses, that it might be known they were not uncon­ and are sending their children to school; and scious of them. it would be exceedingly satisfactory to them As to themselves, experience had taught to believe that no further attempt would be them something. They were firmly resolved made to disturb them in their possessions; never again to make a treaty to sell. This was that they have at last found a place which they the sentiment of all the chiefs; they were per­ can improve, with a reasonable expectation fectly united on this point. They might be that their children will be permitted to enjoy driven away—and would yield to force—but the benefit of their labours. But the Quakers would never again treat for the sale of land. hope their friends the Oneidas may not suffer As they interfered with no one, they could themselves to fall into a false security. A time not understand why they might not be per­ of trouble must be looked for and ought to mitted to live in peace on their farms under be provided against. There is a great deal of their own laws and customs, a little nation fine land yet unoccupied in this country by by themselves. white men. They are sending away the In­ dians from the best tracts that they may take T^HE FRIEND, in reply, expressed much their place. The day will come when the land -*- satisfaction at the firm and united deter­ of the Menominee and others will be filled up, mination of the chiefs to sell no more land. and when even the land covered with heavy He hoped they would keep to it. But lest they timber and laborious to improve will be sought should be buoyed up by expectations of in­ for by white settlers. "Then," he added, "they fluence to be exerted on their behalf with Gov­ will begin to crowd upon you, and once more ernment by the Friends on the Menominee try to get you out of the way. It is the part mission, he explained to them that the powers of wise men to look forward to this state of the Commissioner were limited and related of things and see whether any plan can be exclusively to the distribution of a sum of adopted that will afford you better protection money among the Mixed Menominees; that than you have heretofore enjoyed. as Commissioner he had no power beyond that "You have sincere and hearty friends among one object, but that as private persons and the white people, who would love to help you, members of the Society of Quakers, both he but they are weak and can do but little. More and his companions would be glad to serve depends upon yourselves than upon them. them if they could. . . .' Your true friends would impress this upon Both the Friends had been pleased with the you—that with regard to your future welfare, opportunity thus afforded them of becoming more depends upon yourselves than upon them. acquainted with the Oneidas and of rubbing up "You have laid one large stone for a foun­ the old chain of friendship which had grown dation to build upon in establishing temper­ a little rusty, but it was not broken nor had ance among you. It was delightful to witness it ever been allowed to fall to the ground. The the sobriety which prevailed at your late con­ Quakers had kept firm hold of their end of vocation. It is a great step and inspires your it and hope their Oneida brethren have not friends with much hope for the future. Ad­ dropt theirs. If they would pull at it they here to this good resolution with firmness. It would find their old friends, the Quakers, still will do much for you. It takes from your ene­ had fast hold of it. (This declaration was re­ mies a powerful weapon. ceived with a good many ughs.) "Encourage schools among you. Encourage The Friend assured them that his fellow- your people to adopt all that is good and valu­ members at Philadelphia would be glad to able among the white people and endeavour hear of the prosperity of their brethren, the to become like the better part of them as rapid­ ly as you can. It will increase their sympathy and friendship for you and foster a feeling of fellowship. You will seem less like a strange people with whom they have no bonds and * Omitted is a long recapitulation of the Quakers' relations with Indians since the days of William Penn. ties of affection and interest.

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"When your people understand how to read would find them disposed to befriend and write the English language, evil and cun­ them. . . . ning men will be less able to deceive you into The conference closed at half-past four. Two the signing of papers, the meaning and intent hours after, the Commissioner arrived with of which you do not understand. the specie for the Mixed Menominees. "Another thing which will tend to strengthen your hands is the reunion of the scattered \ T THE COUNCIL held on the 21st of branches of your people. It is pleasant to hear -^~*- Sixth month by the Sub-Indian Agent that your Canadian brethren and you have the [William Bruce] with the Menominees, the subject under consideration. May you come latter declined returning to Green Bay to ap­ to an agreement that our friends, the chiefs portion the $30,000 for the traders. They ob­ now here from Canada—whom their brother jected to the expense it would cause them, as is glad to have the opportunity of taking by the agent said he had no means of providing the hand—may return, prepared to recom­ for them. mend this measure; that they may become It is always to the interest of certain parties participators in your benefits and give you the that the disbursement of Government money help of their counsel. Your friends wish to should take place in their vicinity. It brings see you so united in that which is right and in people, helps trade, and affords chances for proper that you may be a strength to each replenishing the pocket in several ways.'' When other in all good things. the objection made by the chiefs became known at the town of Green Bay a contribution "There is still one matter on which your of money and other things was set on foot for brother would like to communicate to you the their benefit, should they consent to come. The opinion of your true friends, the Quakers. It expedient answered the desired end, and the is their sincere belief that the sooner you chiefs agreed to revisit the town. qualify yourselves to become citizens and hold The Indian agent was anxiously expecting your lands in fee, every man for himself, the the $30,000, and accounts came which induced better it will be for you. It will be a great him to suppose the money was at hand. To change from old and venerated usage they lose no time, he notified the chiefs, and as the know. But your situation is very different Fort had proved so pleasant a retreat, obtained from what it was when your present custom the consent of Captain [Ephraim] Shaler to of holding land was established, and the insti­ have them there. Thus, on the 5th of Seventh tutions of a people ought to change as their month the Friend at the Fort had, he might circumstances change, and be accommodated truly say, the unhappiness of again seeing some to them. of his Menominee acquaintances of whom he "Your friends would be very glad to hear supposed a final leave had been taken. More of a portion of your lads receiving instruction agreeable impressions would have been left on in mechanic arts that you might be less de­ his mind had that leave been final indeed. pendent upon white men for many things. On the evening of the 5th, Oshkosh, Oshke­ Your being obliged to employ white men— henannew, Big Man, and some others were sometimes of doubtful character—as millers, introduced to their former lodgings, but how sawyers, smiths, &c., is a means of introducing fallen from their former estate! It was no upon your lands a class of people who may longer possible to feel respect for men who one day give you trouble. . . ." had degraded themselves to the level of brutes. The Sachem could not stand: in attempting The Sachem and some of the chiefs were restless when spoken to on the manner of hold­ ing their lands, and when the Friend had done, briefly replied that they would bear in mind ° For a graphic account of a payment made to the what had been said and were thankful for it. Menominee at the Wolf River Payment Ground in 1841, see A Merry Briton in Pioneer Wisconsin The Friend told them that if at any time they (Madison, 1951), 81-101. This account, which sheds desired the aid or counsel of their friends in further light on the personality of Oshkosh, concludes with a description of a wild alcoholic debauch follow­ Philadelphia and would write to them, they ing the payment.

215 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 to step from the porch to the ground he fell on all fours and with difficulty scrambled into his quarters. This was a sad sequel to the former good experience. F. J. Bondeuil [sic], the Roman Catholic missionary stationed at the Lake, also came to the Fort. He was a small, intelligent-looking man of winning manners. He reported La­ motte and some others to be in town and that they had refused to come over with the drunken chiefs." A number of persons called at the Fort on this day and previously during the absence of the Commissioner to talk about Indian affairs and the approaching payment. Some of them were well-informed men, of very respectable standing. One, particularly, who seemed to have much feeling for the Menominees and to be intimately acquainted with their affairs, told the Friend that he was present at the Lake when the treaty was formed under which this payment was to take place. He said it was forced upon the chiefs; that it was represented to them that by a previous treaty made with Gov. Dodge in 1836 they had agreed to cede Society's Iconographic Collection their lands in Wisconsin to the Government Father Florimond T. Bonduel. "whenever the Government should require it; that the time had now come, and a price was the treaty of 1836, as published in the 7th offered to them, which they might now secure volume of Statutes at Large, no such stipula­ by complying with their agreement, but if they tion is to be found. It was a treaty for the should be obstinate and refuse, Government purchase of specific tracts whose metes and would insist upon its literal fulfilment and bounds are duly set forth, and not a word is take the land without paying for it. This story said about future purchases or cessions. The was substantially confirmed by two other in­ Indians, as one would expect, are represented dividuals, both persons entitled to credit as to have replied that they knew of no such well as the first and who, like him, were pres­ agreement. The treaty, it is related, was then ent at the treaty of 1848. Upon referring to read, with a clause such as it had been asserted to contain. The Indians then said it must be an interpolation; it had never been sanctioned by them.' " Father Florimond T. Bonduel, a Belgian mission­ ary who came to Wisconsin in 1837. He is credited One of the persons who gave this account with having said the first mass in Milwaukee, in to the Friend declared that he was present at Solomon Juneau's home. He served at Green Bay, the reading of that treaty on the occasion of 1838-1843; among the Menominee at Lake Poygan in 1843; at Prairie du Chien from 1844 to 1846; its being signed and no such clause was then again among the Menominee, apparently until 1858; read, though he was now under the impression and from 1858 to 1861 at St. James Church, Green Bay. Father Bonduel, a Capuchin priest, died in Green Bay on December 13, 1861, at the age of sixty- two. "Letter of Father F. J. Bonduel," in Wisconsin Magazine of History, XX: 328 (March, 1937) ; Green Bay Advocate, December 19, 1861; Joseph A. Marx, God's Acre: A Necrology of the Diocesan Clergy of ' Cope's reading ol the 1836 "Articles of Agree­ the Diocese of Green Bay (Green Bay [?], [1939?]), ment"—or the famed Treaty of Cedar Point—is cor­ 40. The headstone on Father Bonduel's grave credits rect. See U.S. Laws and Statutes, Statutes at Large, him with having established the Keshena Indian Res­ 7: Treaties Between the United States and the In­ ervation, now Menominee County. dian Tribes, 1789-1845 (Boston, 1848), 506-509.

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it was there but suppressed in the translation. proximation which cannot be far from the The interpreter [Charles A. Grignon] who truth it would appear, that for the 12% mil­ acted upon the occasion, he said, received ten lions of acres taken by the United States from thousand dollars. This seemed almost incredi­ the Menominees according to the terms of the ble, yet on referring to the Statutes it was several treaties, about $1,184,500 were to be found to be even so; and more—that thirty- paid, or about 9% cents per acre. As, how­ five thousand dollars additional were paid to ever, this sum was not to be paid at once but different members of his family, eight in num­ much of it in annual instalments extending ber, under the 2nd article of the treaty which through a series of years, the Government is runs on this wise: "And whereas the said a gainer in interest of not less than 2% cents Indians are desirous of making some provision per acre. So that the actual price, if paid ac­ and allowance for their relatives and friends cording to treaty, would be about seven cents of mixed blood," &c., &c. Under this article per acre for some of the most desirable land eighty thousand dollars were distributed in the United States. How desirable may be among about forty individuals, one of whom inferred from the fact that in one neighbour­ received about fifteen thousand dollars, and hood alone, as a late paper published in that another, ten thousand dollars. No wonder region exultingly informs the public, no less when such people came to receive from the than 500 families of emigrants have settled present Commissioner their fifty and seventy- during the past year within a circuit of ten five dollars a-piece, they should have flounced miles. They who have seen the beautiful roll­ a little. . . .' ing prairies of Wisconsin—woodland and meadow intermixed—will not marvel at this. The healthfulness of the climate, the excellence NE THING is certain: the poor Indians of the soil, the green slopes—shaded here and were convinced at the treaty of 1848 that O there by natural groves—the dancing streams Government was bent on having their lands and crystal lakes, render it a far more attrac­ by hook or by crook, and having no means tive region than the low, unvaried, and fever­ of putting by so powerful a customer, they ish tracts of country which lie more eastward. must receive with humility whatever price he How must the poor Indian lament his expul­ might choose to pay. What that price was sion from scenes so delightful in themselves, cannot be told with precision from the only and so endeared to him by many fond ties and data accessible to the writer, but by an ap- pleasant recollections! . . . Bondeuil remarked that the reluctance of the Menominees to remove arose from various causes, some real, some imaginary. They have 'The schedule of the special payments was: John Lawe, $12,500; Augustine Grignon, $10,000; William lived here from time immemorial and are at­ Powell and Robert Grignon, $4,250; John Lawe & tached to the country. They find here in Co., $6,000; Charles A. Grignon, $10,000; Walter abundance the food they prefer—fish, venison, T. Webster, $100; John P. Arndt, |550; William Farnsworth and Charles R. Brush, $2,500; James and wild rice. They do not like to go farther Porlier, $7,500; heirs of Louis Beaupre, $1,500; north to a more severe climate where the Dominick Brunette, $231.50; Alexander J. Irwin, means of subsistence are less and the winters $1,250; American Fur Company (western outfit), $400; Charles Grignon, $1,200; Joseph Rolette, longer, and they are afraid of the Sioux, who $1,750; Charles A. and Alexander Grignon, $750; are to bound them on the west. James Reed, $700; Peter Powell, $1,750; Paul Grignon, $5,500; William Dickinson, $3,000; Robert He thought the Indians were mistaken in M. Eberts, $74; Joseph Jourdain, $50; James Knaggs, believing they had seen the country intended $550; Ebenezer Childs, $200; Lewis Rouse, $5,000; for them and had too bad an opinion of it." William Farnsworth, $2,500; Samuel Irwin and George Boyd, Jr., $105; Aneyas Grignon, $2,500; He expects to go with them and according to Pierre Grignon (deceased), by Robert and Peter B. Grignon, $6,000; Stanislaus Chappue, $100; John Lawe, $1,200; William Dickinson, $250; Stanislaus Chappue, $2,500; and Louis Grignon, $7,250. Appar­ ently persons named more than once in the list were * The Indians claimed to have wandered into the given sums both as businesses and as individuals, or Crow Wing River area in Minnesota in the course were given a special sum for extra services performed. of hunting trips. See part III of the series, 50:123 Ibid., 508-509. (Winter, 1967).

217 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 his information it is well watered with running borders of the lakes are verdant with the wild streams and lakes, supplied no doubt with fish; rice (Zizania aquatica) which affords in itself along the margins of the water courses there an agreeable and nutritious article of diet and are woods, and probably game and the soil is the means of attracting immense numbers IS good. of waterfowl—geese and ducks, particularly. J. P. Bardwell, a missionary to the Chip­ Of the latter, the inhabitants tell you, they pewas on the upper waters of the Mississippi, have the canvas-back and three others that has lately been in Philadelphia." He is per­ are better. Then there are quails, rails, grouse, sonally acquainted with the country set aside and pheasants, and plenty of deer, bears, and for the Menominees and does not give so good hares as large as our English rabbits. an account of it as Bondeuil's informant. It The word Menominee signifies wild rice and is more than well watered. Too much of it is is given to this Nation because it is so impor­ under water. Fish is plenty, at certain seasons, tant an article of their subsistence." game always scarce, wild rice pretty abundant. But a portion of the Menomonies have a bet­ On sandy spots with a good exposure the short ter dependence. When Government set apart Canada corn will ripen. The Chippewas are a tract for the ostensible purpose of instruct­ in a similar country, but as far north as 48°. ing them in agriculture, a number of them They suffer often for want of food, and Bard­ embraced the opportunity thus offered of ac­ well says some die every year of starvation. quiring that art. They were the Roman Catho­ He has often seen children of ten to twelve lic converts, and according to reports made years old so weak for want of food as to be to the Indian Department are 500 in number. unable to stand. They resort to many ex­ These reports, which the Friends did not see pedients in order to prolong life through these till after their return home, give a favourable periods of famine, such as boiling the bark of view of the progress made by the Christian trees and drinking the water, boiling deer skins Band; much more so than any accounts given and old moccasins and eating them. They beg to the Friends while at Green Bay. But, mak­ from the missionaries the water in which fish ing all allowance for the partiality of their or any other article of food has been cooked missionary friends, there would appear to be and drink it for the sake of the little nourish­ good ground for the belief that a remnant of ment it contains. To such sufferings as these this people might be brought within the pale the poor Menominees are to be exposed. They of civilization. They were making hopeful will not, to be sure, be so remote from white progress and had come experimentally to know settlements if that will be any advantage, but something of that better state to which they against that benefit, if it be one, they may set might fully attain by patient perseverance in the proximity of the Sioux. . . . The fears of well doing. This gratifying improvement had the Menominees, it would appear, are far from taken place under considerable disadvantages, being imaginary. Starvation on one hand and the chief of which was the unsuitableness of violence on the other may terminate the period the Reservation, "which was along the bor­ of their sufferings. der of the lake Powawhaykonnay, low, wet, but destitute of running water, and very un­ The country which they now inhabit is pecu­ healthy." liarly blessed. It is wonderful to find in so high a latitude, such a profusion of the gifts "The Menomonies," says the report of the of Nature. The waters abound in fish of the Sub-Indian Agent for 1848, "are just begin­ finest kinds—the white fish and trout and the ning to change slowly, but surely, from the sturgeon on which the Indians feast are plenti­ savage to the civilized state. Until within the ful, and besides these there are bass, pike, and perch and many other kinds. The streams and

^^ Menominee derives from the Chippewa word for ^° A Congregational missionary who became a gov­ wild rice—meno, meaning good, and min, meaning ernment Indian agent and also superintendent of the a grain or seed. The full tribal name in Chippewa American Missionary Association's Minnesota Indian is Menominiwok ininiwok, the latter word meaning missions. "they arc men." Hodge (ed.). Handbook, part 1:842.

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last few years, but very few of them made any Bay Advocate had given the discontented in­ attempts to draw their sustenance from the formation upon which to act. Oh, that mine soil. Now 104 families derive their support enemy would write a book, then I could pen mainly from agriculture. Of these, 57 live in him in a corner! They espied weak points, good substantial log houses of their own con­ as they thought, which the Commissioner struction. They have under cultivation 200 would not be able to maintain. But happily acres of land, well cleared and fenced. They he had proceeded by the letter of his instruc­ are reported to have raised, the past season, tions and his position was not to be disturbed. 6000 bushels of corn, 500 bushels of potatoes, But in addition to this defence he was forti­ 125 bushels of oats; collected 1000 bushels of fied by the testimony of good, competent, and rice and made 30,000 lbs of sugar. When it disinterested men. is considered, that this infant settlement was One who had held a judicial station called commenced five years ago, by wild Indians, at the Fort and voluntarily declared that "It with no resources but their hands, and but was the most satisfactory apportionment that slight aid from the Government, it may be any Commissioner to that country had ever adduced as evidence of a fixed purpose, on made; and though not without defect, he their part, to make full proof of the advantages thought any attempt at amendment would be of farming over the chase for support. unsuccessful, and in all probability, result in "Their example is having its influence on something less satisfactory". . . . other portions of the tribe. The last season, Many bugbears were conjured up to scare Oshkehennanew joined the farming band. He the Commissioner withal when he should is regarded as an important accession from reappear at the Bay. Some of the Mixed- the pagan ranks. Besides this brother of the Menominees, used to the lion's share of Indian Head Chief, a very influential chief has also plunder, got around the Interpreter [Jean lately joined the farming band.'"" Baptiste Jacobs, Jr.] and raised such a clatter Two schools are reported to be in prosper­ about his ears because he had not got the ous condition, in which 48 children—24 of chiefs by the nose and led them in a track each sex—are instructed in English. The pu­ more to their liking that he grew nervous, not pils attend pretty regularly, though some live knowing what retaliation they might visit upon at a considerable distance from the school- him. To re-establish himself in their good houses; the settlement being scattered along graces he too came to the Fort to protest, the lake shore for eight miles. gently, against that which he had countenanced How cruel, after exciting the desire for im­ before. Being asked why he did not make his provement and imparting a foretaste of the objections before the Commissioner in coun­ superior comfort and happiness of a settled cil, he excused himself on the ground that life, just when they had fairly engaged in the Lamotte absolutely controlled the council and mighty effort to discard deeply-rooted and all hands were afraid of him. time-honoured usages and assume habits of living heretofore strange and odious, thus to The Indian agent likewise had his complaint obscure the light that was dawning upon them, to make, not of the intentions but of the con­ and plunge this people again into the darkness clusions of the Commissioner. He was one of of barbarism. . . . those who wanted the council to be open. In consequence of the method pursued, he al­ "TV URING the absence of the Commissioner leged, "Numbers of the mixed blood from a ^-^ many rumours were set afloat of schemes distance, and orphans who had no-one to rep­ concocting to upset the awards agreed upon resent them, had been entirely overlooked." by the chiefs. Their publication in the Green The Friend replied to these and other ob­ jectors that general allegations verbally made could not claim the serious attention of the Commissioner; that if certain parties thought ^- Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian themselves aggrieved they should state their Affairs, 30 Congress, 2 session. House Executive Doc­ grievances, in writing; that if they believed ument no. 1, pt. 1, pp. 566-568. The reporting sub- agent was Albert G. Ellis. persons had been wrongfully enrolled they

219 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1967 should communicate their names in writing, with the objections to them; and if any had been omitted they should in like manner re­ port their names and claims; and all such rep­ resentations should be signed by the parties presenting them. These expressions of discontent rendered the prospect of a quiet payment and agreeable termination of this affair rather uncertain. There were symptoms of a storm brewing. But storm or no storm the Commissioner arrived with the glittering gold on the evening of the seventh of Seventh month [Saturday], and proceeding with it at once to the vault of the United States Land Agent there left it for safe keeping during the first day of the week. In the same vault was a large sum in specie, just boxed up and ready to be forwarded on the morning of the 9th overland in a light vehicle to be driven by the agent without companion or guard down to Chicago, there to be added to a still larger sum and transported to New York for Government account—the very spot from which the Commissioner had just come Detail of full-length portrait oj Morgan L. Martin by with his valuable charge. The wisdom of this Samuel M. Brookes and Thomas H. Stevenson made method of circulating the precious metals is in 1856 and owned by the Society. hidden from common eyes. The inventors of the Sub-Treasury system are entitled to the give the new applicants a fair chance, if any credit, whatever it may be. of them had claims for admission, they would make an effort to hold a short council with Near 10 o'clock, the hour when orderly peo­ the Indians. Of this conclusion Martin was ple begin to think of bed, the Friends being informed in a respectful note. With regard quietly engaged in relating their experiences to past decisions it was not deemed prudent during the late separation, the first rumbling to reopen them. of the impending storm saluted the Commis­ Early next day, the 8th, messages were sent sioner's ears. The secretary of the Indian to the chiefs requesting them to meet the Com­ agent made his appearance at the Fort with missioner in council at 6 o'clock A.M. the suc­ a thick packet in form of a letter addressed ceeding day: at 8 o'clock on that day the pay­ to the Commissioner. It proved to be a com­ ment was to begin. This left very little time munication with enclosures from Morgan L. for deliberation, but under the circumstances Martin, a prominent lawyer of Green Bay, well nothing better could be done. known in the political world. He was the at­ torney of the malcontents and represented how A T 6 o'clock on the appointed day the greatly they were dissatisfied with the pub­ -^~*- Friends and Charles A. Grignon, U.S. lished awards and their exclusion from the interpreter, met in the council chamber. After council. The letter enclosed two lists—one of waiting an hour most of the chiefs appeared, persons alleged to be wrongfully entered; and and the business was opened to them. The the other of 81 individuals, who, it was as­ Sachem had not come, and it was somewhat serted for reasons assigned, were not but ought of an experiment to undertake business with­ to be enrolled. out him and what the Friends had been as­ The Friends, considering this and the fact sured could not be done. The chiefs, it was of the chiefs being then at or near the Bay, said, would never open council or consider concluded in order to silence all cavillers and any subject without the presence of their

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Sachem. They did, however, on this occasion, fluence their decision. He reminded them that as time was very precious, make a beginning, the Half Breeds had been promised their but business had made little progress when money that day and must have it, and there­ he came in and without noticing the indignity fore this council must be short. by any outward sign took his usual seat, which The names of the eighty-one claimants were had been left vacant, and went forthwith at then read; twelve were found already on the the old occupation of chopping kinni-kinnic roll, and eight were admitted. The rest, or and tobacco as if there was nothing amiss. sixty-one, were decided by the chiefs to have All the chiefs who had before assembled were no claim whatever. now in, with the addition of the venerable Proof being produced in council that nine I-ah-me-taw [.sic], or Fish Spawn, who took individuals under different appellations were place next the Sachem, claiming precedence of twice upon the roll, correction was directed Old Silver. He was a man of medium size, to be made so that no one should come in for plainly and comfortably attired, with a full, two shares, and it being stated that one lad open brow and a sedate and thoughtful coun­ who had been entered, was deceased, the name tenance. If there be truth in physiognomy he was ordered to be erased." must be quite superior in intellect and morals This repetition of individuals under differ­ to the Brave. The Friends could only judge ent appellations arose in part from habits pre­ by the aspect and bearing of the man, for he valent among the Indians and persons of was silent.'' Mixed-Blood, and partly, perhaps, from evil The Commissioner remarked to the chiefs intent; which intent, however, must have been that this meeting was unexpected and that he defeated at the payment, as no individual was glad to see them once more. could easily present himself twice before the He told them that the object of calling them Indian Committee of Supervision without de­ together was not to undo what they had be­ tection. For, although the Indians might have fore concluded; that what had been done been confused in a few cases about names, should be left just as they had fixed it; that they were not likely to be so with regard to it had been published and the Government persons. People of the classes just mentioned would expect that it should stand; and that about Green Bay have a very loose and uncer­ no name should be taken from the roll that tain system of nomenclature which in a busi­ had been deliberately placed upon it in council. ness community would lead to endless blunder­ But, he added, upon his return he had found ing and perplexity. The Indian habit of chang­ an account of some names said to be entitled ing names with advance of age and change of to a place upon the roll which he was going circumstance may do very well in a primitive to read to them. When they had been read state of society, where neither people nor trans­ the chiefs would say whether they approved actions are numerous and everybody knows or disapproved them. If they disapproved, he everybody; but, as was demonstrated in the would reject them. This work was to be the present case, in the complexity of civilized so­ work of the chiefs. What had been before ciety it becomes a mighty inconvenience. A done was their work, and what they now did great deal of time was spent by the council should be their work, and he would not in- in endeavouring to identify men and names, but it was some compensation for the trouble that in 777 which came under examination, but nine errors were detected. It was a matter '" I-om-e-tah, born about 1772, was a brother of of wonder that many more were not made, Chief Tomah. As head war chief of the Menominee he fought with the British from 1812 to 1815 but considering the variety of names by which the sided with the Americans during the Black Hawk same individual was frequently designated. War. Writing in 1858 Augustin Grignon said of I-om-e-tah, "He is among a very few Menomonees who contract debts, and pay them as they promise. He is the oldest chief of his nation, being now about eighty-five; his hunting days are past, his sight is growing dim, and his manly form and benignant coun­ tenance we shall soon see no more." See "Grignon's ^' The roll was published in the Green Bay Advo­ Recollections," in State Historical Society of Wiscon­ cate, June 28, 1849. Five additional names were sin Collections (Madison, 1904), 111:284. printed in the same paper on July 5, 1849.

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In 1858 the Society commissioned Samuel M. Brookes to paint this portrait of the widely respected Menominee chief, I-om-e-tah. At the time, I-om-e-tah was in his late eighties, having been born in 1772.

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If a woman was a widow she would be called tionary presented himself on this wise, a rather by her maiden name or that of her deceased formidable list was anticipated from what he husband, as people might fancy. If she had had at other times said of the numbers omitted, been married several times, of which a num­ but the presentation proved a very modest one ber of instances were reported, she was called indeed, amounting to three names only, which sometimes by her maiden name and some­ were admitted. times by the name of one or other of her hus­ The Commissioner now told the chiefs they bands, as the memory or predilection of the must close. He had been at the council room speaker might determine; and children were as he had appointed by 6 o'clock, and must called at one time by the father's patronymick now attend to the Half Breeds. He was sorry and at another by the mother's, and besides, to be abrupt, but now adjourned the council all had Indian names. The tracing of families with a request that all the chiefs would quit, developed a very corrupt state of society at except the four deputed to attend at the pay­ Green Bay, such as one would not expect in ment. a rural population elsewhere than in the Weft Oshkosh and his people, with the exception Indies or some pagan country, much less in mentioned, moved slowly off as if reluctant one of our free states. The number of children to depart, and this was the last seen of them represented to be abandoned by their fathers by the Friends. was a very unpleasant circumstance and indi­ A daguerreotypist at the Bay, being desirous cated a low state of morals. of adding to his collection portraits of some of the principal Menominees, obtained their But to return to the council. The addition consent and one day several went to his room, and correction having been agreed upon, it and the likeness of one of them was taken.'" was decided that as in consequence of the But when the chiefs saw how the thing was proximity of the payment, there could be no done, they were seized with qualms, suspect­ examination of the revised Roll and Supple­ ing supernatural agency in the business: they ment in council: the four chiefs before ap­ knew not what mischief might befall the sub­ pointed to assist on that occasion should be jects of such dealings with invisible powers, authorized to attest them on behalf of the and to keep on the safe side prudently refused chiefs. This was the more needful as the in­ to permit further proceedings until they had crease of names would cause a reduction of consulted their Medicine-man, or Juggler, the residuary sum to be equally divided among whose business it was to decypher prodigies the favoured fifty. and bring to light the hidden things of The Commissioner then decided to close the darkness. council, the time for payment having arrived, The oracle, no doubt, was unpropitious, for but Carron on behalf of the others said he the chiefs—though without assigning a rea­ had some names to offer for insertion on the son—persisted in declining the honour of hav­ roll, which, on being read, were agreed to, ing the memory of their faces perpetuated by being seventeen in number. The first, a female, so incomprehensible a process. her proper name not being known to the Like other people still groping in the origi­ chiefs, was directed to be entered as the nal darkness of human nature, they are daughter of Waw-pa-noh-met-tah-a-moh. This troubled with many superstitions. One which formed a pretty appropriate finale to its eu­ is rather amusing is the notion that there is phonious predecessors on the list, such as bad luck in telling one's own name. On sev­ Bah-me-ke-zhe-go-kew, Pee-quo-chee-na-nieu, eral occasions, forgetting the obstacle, the Ah-yan-e-wah-quah-o, Nah-mah-tosh-eeh-qua, Kah-kah-kee-ugh-kew, and Elizabeth Squan- ob-pun-nock. The Commissioner was again moving for ^" The daguerreotype has not been found. If it still exists, it would be one of the earliest known photo­ an adjournment when the Sub-Indian Agent, graphs of an Indian. The daguerreotypist was a "Mr. who had come in during the proceedings, re­ Patterson" who the Green Bay Advocate on July 12, 1849, said "will remain in town but a few days quested that the council might consider some longer." No Patterson is known to have been a names which he had to offer. When this func­ daguerreotypist during that period.

223 K UI ogi iphK CUIIL' ru.n Menominee village near Green Bay; a lithograph from the Count de Castelnau'i Vues et Souvenirs de I'Amerique du Nord, published in Paris in 1842.

Friends attempted to get this delicate piece of be mentioned, were engaged by the agent who information by direct inquiry, but never could considered himself responsible for the main­ retain any more satisfactory response than a tenance of order. The Commissioner would simpering smile from a woman or a stupid have preferred dispensing with them. stare from a man. A bystander generally put The council room being cleared, the specie an end to the embarrassment by pronouncing brought, and the Commissioner with an assist­ the forbidden name, to the evident relief of ant and the four chiefs locked in and the other the subject of the question. Friend outside the window under the porch with a big table, pen, ink, and the much- T^HE 8TH HOUR appointed for the pay- disputed roll, it was deemed proper to open -*- ment had passed before the council was the gate and let the flood pour in. over. Crowds of people had collected about Notwithstanding some little irritation at the the sally-port and were impatient to get in. detention—which was natural enough—all The sheriff who was stationed there had to proceeded quietly and orderly without any exercise his good-humoured firmness to pre­ farther show of dissatisfaction. Each one vent them from making a rush. He was a man seemed entirely disposed to pocket the share of portly dimensions and brawny arm—as be­ assigned him without demur or dispute, quite came his function—of excellent temper and untroubled by the foolish threats which had of a resolution not to be trifled with. The been made against any who should dare to people knew what mettle he was made of, and sanction this unrighteous distribution by par­ when in reply to a bravado that they would taking of it. The very parties reported to have come in whether he pleased or not, he an­ uttered the threats took their allotment with swered, half in joke and half in earnest, that as much meekness as the rest. they must then get ready for some buryings, Eight sweltering hours were spent in this they concluded it would be safest to wait his occupation. The sun shot down his hottest time. rays into the sandy area of the Fort, the com­ Inside were his deputy, a constable, the In­ pact enclosure around which and the crowded dian agent, and Captain Shaler—all intent on multitude within caused an atmosphere that preserving order. The police officers, it might reminded one of the sweatings of Sahara

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These preferred ones, or some of them, not being expert at figures had considerably over­ estimated their good fortune, and when it be­ came known that the special favours were worth but twenty-five dollars a-piece no little chagrin was felt, nor was the expression of it -s. i«S: altogether suppressed. Jealousy crept in and suspicion of foul play: part of the forty thou­ sand must have been absorbed on the way.

% i soaked up somewhere. Scowling faces peered upon the Commissioner counting at his post within and disagreeable innuendos were mut­ tered about the window. ^^^^^^^^^SK^m By 12 o'clock the payment ceased. Of the seven hundred and seventy-seven parties on the rolls all had appeared, in person or by BHiiill^^^p' proxy, but twenty-two. These, though repeat­ '' ^^^HH edly called, were not forthcoming. As the Commissioner had been authorized by his in­ structions after arranging the awards to leave Society's Iconographic Collet tion the payment of the money to the Indian agent, Charles 1). Robinson, who with his brother Albert he concluded to hand over to him the shares C, edited the Green Bay Advocate from 1846 to 1885. of these twenty-two to be repaid to the parties respectively; and to clear himself in the prem­ rather than the breezy refreshments of the ises he, as soon as opportunity offered, took northern lakes. Thirty-five thousand dollars measures to have their names and awards pub­ were paid when approaching darkness sus­ lished in the Green Bay Advocate with notice pended proceedings till the morrow. to call upon the agent for payment. This trans­ At 10 o'clock on the morning of the 10th fer being made, he still had in his hands of Seventh month the payment was resumed. $650—the shares of orphans—which he was As but $5,000 remained for distribution, the bound to pay into the United States Treasury Friends hoped to close the business and em­ to be invested for their benefit till majority. bark in the steamer Micftigan, which was to This money was lying on his table when it sail at 6 that evening for Buffalo. The news was announced to the people that the payment of cholera on the seaboard made them anxious was concluded. A number of the sharper sort, to rejoin their families. The $30,000 for the who do not take things on trust, must needs traders not having arrived, the agent was again peep in at the window to verify the fact, and disappointed and the Commissioner pleased: seeing the Commissioner scraping the yellow there was no need of detention on that score. heap into a strong bag, fancied they beheld with their own eyes the reality of their worst But this day was not to pass over so smooth­ suspicions. "Ah, he is just like the rest of ly as its predecessor. The additional awards agreed upon in the late council required a them," says one. "He will take care of him­ supplementary roll and caused a diminution self," says another. A third cries out, "Mr. of the residuary sum for the fifty and, of Commissioner, you say you have put away course, would lessen the proportion of each. the $40,000; what is it that you are putting As from want of time the first roll could not in your bag?" The querist, being told it was be readjusted in this particular and the Sup­ the orphan money, shrugged his shoulders plement properly prepared for operations on with a significant look and marched off. the 9th, it was concluded to pay none of the It has been mentioned several times that fifty their secondary awards till this day. Government had placed $2,000 in the Commis-

225 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 sioner's hands for expenses. The letter from the Indian Department transmitting him the draft for that sum described it as being "for expenses, &c." The Commissioner understood this expression to cover compensation. His personal expenses, including an allowance to carry him home, did not reach $500; the main­ tenance of the Indians and fees of officers rather exceeded that sum. The surplus—about $1,000—he believed to be at his disposal. He had said from the beginning that he would receive for himself nothing more than the re­ imbursement of the charges he might incur. But as this money was under his control, he bethought him whether a more useful disposi­ tion might not be made by himself or a por­ tion at least of it than by the Government, to which, if unexpended, it was his intention to return it. This large surplus was proof that the Com­ missioner had practised unusual economy. It would have been perfectly easy for an un­ scrupulous man to swell his expenses to the full amount of the allowance. The most con­ siderable saving was in the freight from New Society's Iconographic Collection York which, it had been ascertained, would Eleazer Williams, who befriended Cope and Wistar. cost $400, and in the insurance, in transitu, which at the customary rate would have to Capt. Shaler for himself, Solomon Juneau, amounted to $350 more, making altogether late Mayor of Milwaukie, and Morgan L. $750 for the safe transportation of the money. Martin aforesaid, in trust, and requested Capt. His journey after it cost rather less than $160, Shaler publicly to announce this arrangement so that there was a clear saving by this opera­ at the close of the payment. tion of nearly $600. He felt, therefore, as if Proclamation was accordingly made by the he had a moral as well as a legal right to worthy captain as contemplated, without, how­ direct the disposition of a part of that he had ever, naming the trustees; but as the jaundiced saved by dint of gratuitous exertion, exposure, eye sees everything through a discoloured and risk. medium, so it was in this case. The announce­ As he had seen unmistakable evidence of ment taking place shortly after the notable poverty among the Mixed Menominees and discovery of the Quaker Commissioner bag­ had received intimations from sources entitled ging a part of the gold, the idea was immedi­ to respect that a few individuals—without ately suggested that this was a sop to fill the friends to direct and ignorant themselves how mouths of the clamorous and silence their in­ to get their claims timely before the council— dignation. As in a lottery every adventurer had notwithstanding all his care been over­ fancies the prize his own, so each of the looked, he concluded to place $500 of this hearers of this pleasant advertisement might $2,000 in the hands of three trusty men, to fancy himself the object of the Commissioner's hear such claimants after his departure and liberality, especially should he govern his afford such relief as in their judgment might tongue discreetly. This notion, fermenting and be right, or to distribute the money to any swelling in the heated imaginations of the dis­ poor and distressed persons of Mixed Blood appointed, aided by the forming hand of some whom they might deem deserving. In con­ master spirit, presently took on a shape of formity with this intention he handed that sum such ominous dimensions as it was thought

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The storm did not subside till near dark, when the Friends, kindly aided by the reputed dauphin [Williams],'" took their luggage to the waterside and, taking an affectionate leave of their kind hostess [Martha Stoddard] and family, embarked in an open boat and were soon on board the Micftigan. The rain, how­ ever, had hindered the preparations for her departure, and it had been decided to detain her till daybreak next morning. This gave the Commissioner a chance of seeing the Indian agent with whom he had some unfinished business. The Friends ac­ cordingly left the steamer to proceed to his office, but had scarcely left the wharf when BUI eau oi American htlinology a man stepped up to the Commissioner and Menominee women with infant in cradleboard. asked leave to have a word in private. The word was in manuscript and proved to be nothing less than a warrant requiring his ap­ would suffice to block up the road of this pearance before a magistrate to answer to the roguish Commissioner and, at least, prevent formidable charge of embezzlement! his sudden escape by the Michigan. But of all His accusers were several of the principal this frothing and fermenting the Commis­ men among the Mixed Menominees, persons sioner knew very little as yet. who had on previous occasions received con­ siderably larger shares of the money appro­ nPHE PEOPLE being dispersed and sundry priated by Congress under Menominee treaties -*- claims for services settled, the Friends than they did in this instance. For example, once more had for a short time quiet and sole under that of 1836 one of these [William possession of the premises. They took their Powell] had received out of an appropriation dinner in peace, and then went to packing of $80,000 the sum of $2,125; another [Peter for the voyage. Before this was accomplished, B. Grignon], $3,000; a third [Robert heavy rain accompanied by high wind came Grignon], $5,125. The last individual referred on and prevented for some time their passage to had likewise, according to the treaty as across the river. This circumstance, which originally made by Gov. Dodge, assigned to looked adverse to their getting off as the him—"the sum of $1,000 each year, during steamer might start before they could join the term of twenty years," which sum had her, proved in the end the means of securing been previously, designated to be "applied to their passage. While waiting for the storm to the education of the Indian youth; and the cease they had the good company of Eleazer said Indians." So runs the treaty: "Having Williams and some talk with him on Indian declared that they were not desirous of apply­ affairs. He confirmed the accounts previously ing that sum to the aforesaid purpose, and that received from other sources of the unfair and they wished to give that amount to their friend menacing language employed in 1848 to ex­ and relation Robert Grignon, for valuable tort a cession of their lands from the Menomi­ nees. He was a witness likewise to the force put upon the inclinations of the chiefs at the " Williams, an Episcopal missionary to the Indians, treaty of 1836. He and others present well proclaimed himself as early as 1839 the "Lost Dau­ knew that the language of the instrument exe­ phin" of France, Louis XVII. Later he claimed that cuted on that occasion was an imposition and, the Prince de Joinville, son of King Louis Philippe, while on a visit to Green Bay in 1841, asked him to so far as regarded the wishes of the Indians, sign an abdication. In the early 1850's Williams be­ fictitious. "But," said he, raising his hands, gan openly advancing his claim as pretender, even going so far as to sign all his writings "L.D." (Louis, "What could we do? We dared not open our Dauphin). No evidence has ever been found to cor­ lips." roborate Williams' fantastic claim.

227 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1967 services rendered by him to their Nation, Counsellor Fisk at length arrived; the other therefore, the United States do agree to pay could not yet be found. It was concluded, as the said Robert Grignon, &c." This remark­ the evening was fast wasting, to proceed to able agreement did not pass the ordeal of the the magistrate's, leaving word for Counsellor Senate. It was ordered to be stricken out (one Agry to follow.'' A good many people were would be glad to add), to the honour of the out of doors to see the procession pass, but Government. But, unhappily for the Indians, all were quiet and civil. when Government lays hands on the plunderer It was a novelty for a village magistrate to of their property it too often happens that the assume the functions of the Executive of the benefit does not enure to them. In this in­ United States by requiring its agent to ac­ stance, the United States once more swallowed count to him for the faithful discharge of his the oyster and bestowed the shells." The duties. The office of this important function­ school fund was irrecoverably diverted from ary was in the second storey of a wooden the Menominees. . . . building to which access was had by a steep The officer who served the warrant con­ and narrow flight of stairs ascending along ducted civilly; he did not interfere with the the gable end outside. The court room, some intention of the Commissioner to visit the In­ 30 feet long by 20 broad, was dimly lighted dian agent. Indeed, it would seem that he was by a tallow candle and contained a motley expected there, from the crowd collected about assemblage, white, red, and mixed, convened the office door. On the entrance of the Friends on this interesting occasion. The Mixed Me­ the people pressed in. The agent was there and nominees constituted a considerable propor­ requested the officer to clear the room, which tion of the congregation. The benches were he being in no mood to do the agent did him­ not sufficient to accommodate the unusual con­ self, the people quietly withdrawing. Counsel course, and, as an upright posture did not were sent for and while waiting for them the accord with the habits of the plaintiffs, they Commissioner entered upon the business which and their associates squatted on the floor in had brought him to the agent's office. He a row against the wall behind the magistrate, found, however, that he had left on board the presenting a rather odd and certainly not very Micftigan certain necessary papers which he formidable array. The Commissioner and his only could readily find, and the question arose adjuncts faced them from a bench on the op­ how to get them. On the agent's assurance posite side of the room. The magistrate was that he would be responsible for the return stationed at a table between the contending of the Commissioner, the officer agreed to let parties. He was a thin-visaged man, of a seri­ him go alone for the papers. He went, and ous countenance and simple manners. was soon back again and finished his busi­ ness, counsel not having yet arrived. Present­ ly, however, Pierre Bernard Grignon, one of " Wistar's legal advisors were Joel S. Fisk and the plaintiffs, came in and demanded of the David Agry, both pioneer Green Bay attorneys. Fisk Commissioner his payroll for examination, as was born in St. Albans, Vermont, in 1810 and came he said, by the magistrate. To which the Com­ to Green Bay at the age of twenty-five, living on the Fort Howard side of the Fox River. He was Green missioner replied that he should be happy to Bay postmaster in 1846 and register of the land office meet the gentlemen who were discontented in 1848. See Charles R. Tuttle, An Illustrated History with his proceedings, at Washington, and there of the State of Wisconsin (Boston, 1875), 779. David Agry was born in Pittston, Maine, August 2, 1794, undergo the most rigid scrutiny; but that he and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1815. should not part with his roll until he deposited While practicing law in New York City in 1840, he it in the hands of the officer of the Govern­ met Joseph Rolette of Prairie du Chien who was re­ sponsible for his settling in Green Bay where he first ment to whom it appertained. practiced law with Morgan L. Martin before estab­ lishing his own office with Joel Fisk. They later set up separate firms. In 1842 and 1843 Fisk was elected to the territorial bouse of representatives. He was a member of the first stale constitutional convention of 1846, and in 1850 was elected judge of Brown "Cope is paraphrasing the couplet: County, an office he held until his death on January 30, 1877. Agry never married. See Parker McCobb A shell for thee, and a shell for thee; Reed, The Bench and Bar of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, The oyster is the lawyer's fee. 1882), 371-372.

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All parties being posted, proceedings began said Wister and Bring him Before me to by the reading of the warrant or indictment, Be Delt with according to law for the instrument was economically adapted to the two-fold service of accusation and ar­ Given under my hand the JO Day of rest. From internal evidence afforded by this July 1849 document it is plain enough there is need of J. W. DUNLAP the excellent school system adopted in Wis­ Justice of the Peace"" consin and that the schoolmaster has work before him there. But we must have patience. Cotton and Martin were the champions of The state is young yet. She has not done root­ the assailants.^ Martin, singularly enough, ing out the trees and the savages. Time will was one of the men to whom the bestowal of work wonders. The period of her labours in the offending gift was entrusted. He was like­ the field of literature will commence anon. wise the man who by common report would With some boggling at scarcely intelligible himself have been the Commissioner to the characters and a truly original orthography, Menominees for the distribution of these forty the reading was completed and the battle be­ thousand dollars had the friends of the late gun. The document ran on in this wise, ver­ Administration succeeded in electing their batim et punctuatim: President. It required a degree of magnanim­ ity not common among politicians to look with complacency upon the stranger who had thus Peter B. Grignon, Wil­ unexpectedly stepped into his shoes and dis­ liam Powell, Jofin B. appointed him of the honour and emolument. Dubay and Robert Which circumstance, peradventure, did not in­ Grignon. crease his reluctance to perplex and pester this ! unwelcome intruder.'''

Being duly sworn do deposets and sais that thay the afforsaid ar of Mixed Me- nomine Blood and as such are persons for "Presumably John W. Dunlap, who the 1850 manuscript census lists as a thirty-nine-year-old tan­ whom with others the sum of fourty thou­ ner and currier. sand dollars was set apart and apropratide "° Stephen Rossiter Cotton and Morgan L. Martin, By the 4th Article of the treaty maid on attorneys for the plaintiffs, were also pioneer Green Bay lawyers. Cotton was born in 1818 in Plymouth, the 18th October 1848. Betwene the United Massachusetts, a descendant of John Cotton, first States of Ameraca and the Menomen tribe minister in Boston. At eighteen he was made princi­ pal of the Newport, Rhode Island, schools, and was of Indians that they are informed and Beleve admitted to the bar there in 1841. The next year he that one Wister has received the said sum came to Green Bay and practiced law until 1855 of Money as Commissior or Disbursing when he was elected judge of the newly created tenth judicial circuit. He declined to seek re-election when agent of the United States in Gold or Sil­ his term ended on July 1, 1861, resumed the practice ver Coin with instruction to pay the same of law, and died in 1867. WPA Biographical Sketch, Manuscripts Library, State Historical Society of Wis­ in fulfillment of said treaty stipulations consin. Morgan Lewis Martin (March 31, 1805-De- that the said Wister as they were informed cember 10, 1887) was born in Martinsburg, New and believe has failed to pay over a large York. After graduating from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, he established a law practice in amount to wit the sum of fiv hundred dol­ Detroit. On the advice of his cousin, James Duane lars part of said sum of fourty thousand Doty, he moved to Green Bay, then a part of Michi­ gan Territory, and from 1831 to 1835 served as a mem­ dollars according to law and instructions ber of the Michigan territorial legislature. When But has fradulanty and faloneously con­ Wisconsin achieved territorial status and later state­ verted the said sum of money to other uses hood, Martin became prominent as a lawyer, judge, politician, and land speculator. From 1866 to 1869 not authorised by said treaty or his instruc­ he served as U.S. Indian agent. Dictionary of Wis­ tions or such Disbursing agent contrary to consin Biography (Madison, 1960), 241-242. statute in such cases made and provide to "' Martin had supported Lewis Cass's unsuccessful the Sheriff or any constable of said County bid for the Democratic presidential candidacy in 1848. Cass had been governor of Michigan and was you ar here By Commande to Appehed the probably a friend of Martin's. After Taylor's election,

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What benefit these Half-Breeds expected to and subjected the perpetrator to the pains and gain by arresting the Commissioner it is diffi­ penalties prescribed for that offence. cult to divine. No doubt they really thought Moreover, the whole of the $40,000 was, he had been guilty of an irregularity in the agreeably to the act of Congress, to be paid appropriation of the $500, which, they fancied, to persons of Mixed Menominee blood and to was part of the $40,000 and therefore only to such only. If any part of it were paid to per­ be given to such persons as he and the chiefs sons not of that description, such payment was in council should designate. But they and their likewise embezzlement. For to apply funds en­ learned counsel could scarcely have believed trusted to one for a special object to any other that they could make him render an account object was embezzlement. Several such pay­ of his stewardship to a police magistrate at ments had been made and, therefore, several Green Bay, or obtain redress for damage im­ acts of embezzlement had been committed. agined to be done by his mismanagement from such a tribunal. If they were influenced purely Besides, the Commissioner had not held by a spirit of spite and were willing, if they such a council as was usual. This was an un­ could not bite, at least to bark and snarl at precedented assemblage and not what was con­ the object of their suspicion and displeasure, templated by the treaty. The Commissioner the course they chose might be accounted for. had shut out information and had treated the If worriment and vexation was the end of their Half-Breeds as if they had no interest in the ambition, that might be effectually attained by matter. He had not treated them like men; getting him into such a position as would pre­ they had asked for justice but had been treated vent his departure by the Michigan; and that like dogs. It might be that certain parties to they had no nobler aim looked the more prob­ whom he had paid money had been designated able from an attempt made on the opening by the chiefs, but not by the chiefs in council, of the case to induce the magistrate to post­ for the Commissioner had really held no coun­ pone the hearing till the next morning, when cil. A council is an assemblage of Indian the steamer would have been cleaving the blue chiefs to which the public, and especially those waters of the lake. The Commissioner, how­ immediately interested in its decisions, are ever, remonstrating strenuously against delay freely admitted to look out for their rights and and pressing immediate proceedings, the Jus­ see that justice is done them. He had held no tice snuffed his candle" and quietly requested council, but a secret conclave. counsel for the prosecution to open. Being defeated on this point, the charge was To make good these general charges several stated. It was alleged that at the close of the witnesses were called up, being, so far as can payment that morning proclamation had been be recollected, the prosecutors themselves. made by Capt. Shaler at the Fort to the people They testified that they had been at the pay­ present that the Commissioner had placed ment and had seen persons, not entitled, draw $500 of the $40,000 in the hands of certain money; that they knew of persons entitled, but persons, to be thereafter made known, for the not on the roll; that the council at which the benefit of those who might have been omitted roll was prepared was secret; that they had on the roll. This was an act of embezzlement in vain attempted to get into it to advocate their claims; that they had heard the procla­ mation relative to the $500 and understood Captain Shaler to say that it was part of the Martin first sought the Wisconsin senatorship, losing $40,000. to Isaac P. Walker of Milwaukee, then he solicited Indian Commissioner William Medill to be named commissioner for the Menominee treaty of 1848. See On being desired to tell who were excluded letters to Martin from J. A. Noonan, Milwaukee, that ought to be on and who entered wrong­ August 20, 1848; Henry Dodge, Washington, January 5 and February 20, 1849; and William Medill to fully upon the roll, there was a good deal of Dodge, February 20, 1849, all in the Morgan L. Mar­ hesitation. They seemed to have no mind to tin Papers, Correspondence, reel 10, Manuscripts Li­ brary, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. descend to personalities in this respect. A few "" Snuffing a candle means to trim the excess specifications, however, were elicited. One burned wick, usually with a scissors-like device, in order to brighten the flame. witness said that Captain Shaler's little black

230 COPE: MENOMINEE DIARY boy was on, and that he had seen him get tisement made by the Commissioner some 23 three weeks before the last council was held some money. informing them that claimants should leave The witness felt, no doubt, quite sure the their names with his assistant, Robert B. boy had got a share of the plunder and Haines, at the Astor House for the purpose of thought he might venture to say that he had ac­ having them transmitted to the council ;''* tually seen him get it as that would strengthen whether they had not been well received at the the case a little. He, however, had committed Astor House and their names taken without a blunder in the premises so laughably stupid difficulty; and whether the Astor House was (one would like to use a softer word if the not a more convenient place for them to go to dictionary furnished one to meet the case) than Fort Howard on the opposite side of the that one might be excused for doubting river? To all of which with one exception whether witness were not in his cups on this they were obliged to answer in the affirmative. occasion. The exception was that difficulty had been The matter fell out on this wise: Captain made about taking their names. On being Shaler was seated by the table at which the asked in what the difficulty consisted, witness payments were made. His boy wanted to speak testified that he and others had gone to the to him and came elbowing his way through Astor House one day and reported their names, the crowd. In his endeavours to work a passage and the number of their families, and the next up to his master he was brought almost into day were required to go again and report the contact with the Friend stationed at the table, names and ages of their wives and children and he, having been in the habit of joking and the sex of the latter! little ebony, who was a comical child, asked That this hardship was imposed upon them him as he was pushing along whether he could not be denied, any more than that the wanted some money, at which question he Commissioner's instructions rendered it neces­ made a considerable display of ivory. The sary, which the assistant had not at first under­ question and the grin were probably noticed stood. by the witness, who certainly was not a man gifted after the fashion of the famous Swiss guide, "A geologician and metaphysician, who /^ OUNSEL for the defence now took up the searches how causes proceed." Witness had ^^ cudgels. But antecedently they protested evidently not got much below the surface of against the jurisdiction of the Court and went things. Out of tenderness for his feelings this into some argument to show that whatever the explanation was not given in court. His asser­ delinquencies or irregularities of the Commis­ tion was simply rebutted by the counter testi­ sioner might have been, he was amenable only mony of the Friend that the boy was not on to his master and the Courts of the General the roll and did not, to the best of his knowl­ Government. They, therefore, moved for the edge and belief, get any of the Half-Breed's dismissal of the case. This motion being over­ money. ruled, counsel contended that the prosecution Witnesses for the prosecution, having com­ had entirely failed to show cause for action. plained that they had been denied the oppor­ The greater part of their testimony was alto­ tunity of presenting their claims to the coun­ gether irrelevant, and not one witness had been cil, were asked whether their names had not able to say that the $500 were any part of the been presented; whether portions had not been $40,000, which in fact they were not. They, awarded them; whether their portions were therefore, on this ground asked the magistrate not as large as those of any other persons on to dismiss the case without longer detaining the roll and whether they had not been prompt­ the parties at so unreasonable an hour to hear ly paid; whether they had not seen an adver­ testimony on the other side.

^ Lloyd Chase, ten, a Negro born in Wisconsin, was listed as living in the Shaler's household in 1850, according to the manuscript census of Brown County, 1850. ' Green Bay Advocate, June 21, 1849.

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To this the magistrate replied that if the gated this proceeding were dumb. They gave, defendant had anjr testimony to offer he had however, perceptible evidence in the expres­ better produce it. sion of their countenances that they were not Alfred Cope was then called up and testi­ impervious to the sense of shame, though a fied that the councils had been held by the mixture of perplexity and incredulity was Commissioner agreeably to his instructions strongly impressed on the features of some. with the chiefs only, and that no one else was Martin, with a softened manner, inquired for present but the United States' and another in­ the names of the trustees. Previously to this terpreter and the witness and occasionally Wil­ they had not been made known to any but liam H. Bruce, the Sub-Indian Agent. Witness Solomon Juneau and Capt. Shaler, who had attended the council throughout. The names been consulted on the probability of Martin's of all applicants were laid before the chiefs accepting the trust, but no opportunity had yet occurred for speaking to him on the sub­ in council. They were derived from various ject. He was, therefore, probably unprepared sources, viz: from the list made by the assist­ to hear his own name pronounced in reply to ant at the Astor House, written memoranda, this question. The answer put a stop to all transmitted through other channels to the cross-questioning of the witness and caused Commissioner or chiefs and by them intro­ renewed sensation in the ranks of the opposi­ duced to the council, and from the chiefs them­ tion. At the enunciation of his name, they selves. None were entered upon the roll but opened their round eyes. Was there treason in such as were directed to be entered by the the camp? Had their very champion been chiefs. Witness had prepared the roll in con­ corrupted by this incomprehensible Commis­ formity with the decisions of the council, had sioner? stated the awards, paid them, and taken the receipts of the recipients. The whole of the Bruce, the Indian agent, was then called. $40,000 was awarded and paid with the ex­ He testified, in a few words, that he had re­ ception of a few unclaimed shares, the amount ceived the amount of the unclaimed awards, of which was handed to William H. Bruce, the viz., $1,100, with instruction from the Com­ Sub-Indian Agent, with instructions from the missioner to pay them to the proper parties. Commissioner to pay the parties respectively This closed the evidence on the part of the in conformity to a list left with him, and with defendant. Cotton, the junior counsel for the the exception, likewise, of $650 awarded to plaintiffs, summed up. Nothing daunted, he the orphans. reiterated the charge that the $500 had been The $500 which had been spoken of were embezzled, even though it had been taken from no part of the $40,000 but of the $2,000 al­ the $2,000, for the Commissioner had no right lowed the Commissioner by the Government, to use any part of that allowance except for the whole of which was understood to be his, expenses, and any surplus beyond expenses he and any surplus beyond actual expenses, at was bound to return to the Treasury of the his disposal as he saw fit. Finding that there United States. On the showing of his own wit­ was an expression of dissatisfaction in some ness, he had been guilty of another act of the quarters at the awards, and fearing there might same nature in handing $1,100 of the $40,000 be some hard cases of parties omitted, not­ to the Sub-Indian Agent. withstanding his precaution, he had concluded The law looked to principles and actions, to leave that sum in the hands of three trustees not to motives. His honour, the Justice, had to distribute according to their discretion nothing to do with the motives of the defend­ among any such or any poor and distressed ant. An ignorant man with the best motives persons of the Mixed Blood, as they might might bring himself justly under the lash. The see fit. law did not excuse ignorance—least of all in The announcement that this $500 was a free a public officer. He, of all men, was bound gift of the Commissioner out of his own allow­ to know his duties and powers; and if he ance to the Mixed Menominees took the audi­ undertook public business without acquaint­ ence by surprise and effected quite a revolu­ ing himself with these, the fault was his and tion in their feelings. The men who had insti­ his the peril, and if he tripped, the penalty

232 COPE: MENOMINEE DIARY was also his, and rightly. He pitied the Com­ of the Michigan. By two o'clock in the morn­ missioner—a man who very likely had never ing they were snugly stowed away in their seen an Indian before he came to Green Bay berths, and by break of day paddling off from and knew nothing of the right way of doing the mosquitoes and Mixed-Breeds of Green business with them—but he could not help Bay, well pleased to be out of reach of the him. stinging and biting of either. He insisted that the Commissioner be bound After all this hubbub about embezzlement, over, to be tried for the crime of embezzlement. the money was without further demur, peace­ As there was in this specimen of forensic ably divided among sundry individuals who in acumen an indirect admission that the motives the judgment of the trustees were suitable sub­ of the Commissioner were unimpeachable, jects, and notice of the fact inserted in the the defendant did not feel much troubled at Green Bay Advocate with the names of the the cuts at his ignorance, et cetera, which the beneficiaries, about 35 in number, that this learned barrister ventured haphazard, not thing might not appear to have been done in from malevolence, but by way of exercising a corner.'^ his powers, and practising upon the old axiom A copy of their notice was duly transmitted that it is the natural function of lawyers, like to the Commissioner. About the same time scissor blades, to cut what comes between advice came to hand from the centre of intelli­ them. gence on Indian affairs at Green Bay that the Justice Dunlap, revolving the matter in his Commissioner had left a very good name be­ mind, his candle being now pretty low on the hind him for impartiality and honesty among stick and the witching hour already past, gave the people thereaway, whether White, Red, or utterance to his decision: "I see no evidence Mixed, with the exception of a few individuals of embezzlement in this case. The defendant whom an upright man could not have pleased. is discharged." The Commissioner made his acknowledge­ N THE JOURNEY homeward no inci­ ments to the Justice, and advancing to the O dent of much interest occurred. The Half-Breeds still squatting by the wall he as­ Friends separated at Detroit, one of them de­ sured them that he loved them as much as siring to visit the settlement of coloured peo­ ever and if any of them should ever be in his ple in Mercer County, Ohio; the other made neighbourhood he would be glad to entertain no stop and reached Philadelphia near noon them at his house and would promise not to on the sixth day after starting from the Bay, serve a warrant upon them, as they had done or in 5V2 days' travel— equal to about 275 upon him for doing his best to help them. miles a day. This was confusion worse confounded: the All that now remained for the Friends was Mixed Bloods stared at him and each other to render an account of their stewardship to in dumb silence. the Government. This they wished to do at He informed Counsellor Cotton that by his a time when an interview could be had with instructions he might have paid the whole of the President. In the latter part of the Ninth the $40,000 to the agent, but did not doubt, month, he having returned from his tour and notwithstanding his remarks, he was content with the decision. To Martin he gave his hand, saying he did not question but he was glad to see an honest man delivered from trouble, ^° Persons who shared the $500 gift from Wistar were: Marguerite Yott's children; Louise Bullock to which the attorney, with some twisting of and children; Catherine Bentere; Agatha Dupre; the face, assented. Melissa L'Andrie and children; Pauline Brunette and children; Louise Laborde, daughter of Charlotte; This manner of smoothing off asperities Lisette Jeanvine; Charles Gardipie; Jean B. Brunei seemed to be new in that latitude and elicited and daughter; Margaret Webster; Jean B. Webster; J. B. Lavine's children; Elizabeth Decoteau; Made­ some ejaculations of surprise. line Thibo's children; Angeline V. Swan; children The Friends were right glad to escape from of O-pan-ish; Joseph Powell; George Powell; Mary Laplante; Ursula Grignon; Tarique AUie; and the tallow twilight and heated atmosphere of Charles Mercei's daughter. Green Bay Adovate, July the court room to the cool and cheerful cabin 19, 1849.

23S WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 recovered from the sickness consequent upon This was all that could be asked. When it it, information was received from the Secre­ was remarked to him that the terms in which tary of the Treasury that it would be season­ the Menominees appealed to the Friends for able to make report. Accordingly the Friends, their intercession with the Government had on the 26th, presented themselves at Washing­ deeply affected their feelings, he observed that ton. On the evening of that day they called in the course of his life he had spent the upon Secretary Meredith who received them greater part of forty years on the frontiers in courteously and desired them to be at the frequent contact with Indians, and his feelings President's house at noon next day and wait had often been affected by injuries inflicted till the adjournment of the Cabinet, when he upon them, and he had often thought if ever would introduce them. we were visited by a national calamity for our sins as a people by Him who rules over On the 27th, after waiting about an hour all, it would be for the great wrongs we had in the reading-room opposite the President's committed upon our Red brethren. . . .'^ apartment, the Cabinet adjourned and they The Friends then proceeded to the office were taken in by the Secretary. They found of Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior, the President [Zachary Taylor] as he has and delivered to him the Commissioner's re­ often been described, a short, robust, weather- port, minutes, account of expenses and the beaten man of mild and simple manners and pay-roll. He received them very kindly and kindly countenance, with none of the mock expressed much interest in the Indians. After dignity so common to official men, or of the glancing at the documents he transferred them pomp and circumstance of a military hero. to Charles E. Mix, the head clerk of the De­ His demeanour betokened the plantation, partment, who he said had been familiar with rather than the camp. He was not fluent, ap­ Indian affairs for twenty years. parently being in the habit of weighing his That was all that could be done that day. words and fitting them to the occasion. The The public offices close at 3 o'clock, after easy friendliness of his manners was very which no business can be transacted. They^ agreeable to his visitors and opened the way open at 9 in the morning, and at 10 all hands for any communication they might desire to are mustered and work is fairly begun. This make. They were gratified by the interest with makes an official working day only 5 or 6 which he conversed about the Indians and with hours long. This, however, is during the recess the determination he expressed to have, as far of Congress. When that inquisitive body is in as in him lay, full justice done them. session the clerks have work enough, night Copies of the Report to the Secretary of the and day, to prepare material for those orators Interior and the minutes of conferences and who like to be put in possession of facts to councils held with the Indians were placed in use or pervert for public or party purposes. his hands, and reference made to the messages At 10 on the morning of the 28th, the embodied in them from the Menominees and Friends presented themselves before the head- Oneidas. It was stated to him that both these clerk for the examination of their accounts. Nations had complained that their messages To understand what follows, some explanation to Government of latter time had not been is needful. transmitted, and that they were desirous of It was agreed in council, as before stated, using the Friends on this occasion as a medium that after all parties on the roll had been of communication in which they felt confi­ awarded a certain sum the residue should be equally divided among fifty of them. The roll dence. When the uneasiness of the Oneidas was prepared conformably and all the awards was mentioned to him, he promptly said that stated and receipts written in readiness for he would not consent to their being disturbed in their present possessions unless with their own full and free assent, and that before act­ ing upon any representations which might be ™ Omitted is a long passage in which President made to him he would take means of his own Taylor expressed his wish that a Quaker be selected to ascertain their wishes. lo act as agent for the Chickasaw Nati(m, in which he was personally interested.

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Souligny, head war chief of the Menominee, painted for the Society by Samuel Marsden Brookes in 1858. Souligny was born in 1785 and was the descendetit of an early French fur trader of the same name who settled in Green Bay in 1745 and was a son-in-law of the Sieur de Langlade.

235 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 the payment of the 9th of Seventh month. At party appeared the amount of his award was the council held early on the morning of that also called aloud that all present might hear. day an additional roll was prepared—the par­ The Commissioner and his assistant, each sepa­ ties on which, it was agreed, should be put on rately, counted the money and handed it to an equality with those first enrolled; conse­ the Friend at the disbursing table, who, when quently their portions must be taken from the he could, counted it again. It was then handed residuum which had already been apportioned to the party who counted it either at the table on the first roll among the preferred fifty. The or after withdrawing. That no error was made residuum being thus reduced, the favours to is the more probable, as no complaint of short the preferred ones would be proportionably payment has been heard to this day from any reduced. There was no time to restate the ap­ quarter. It would, therefore, appear that the portionment and prepare a complete roll, and Commissioner had taken the overplus with it would not do to make erasures which would him and that the error had occurred by some invalidate the whole as evidence should it ever mistake, now inexplicable, in converting the be required in court. It was concluded, there­ specie from gold to silver and back again to fore, to append an explanatory note to the first gold. roll and to place the receipts of the fifty for the reduced awards against the amounts originally Large sums in coin are not usually counted, awarded them. These awards were $41 each; but weighed. Should there be any light pieces they were reduced to $25—an abatement of this method would not detect them and the $16, to satisfy the new claimants. The awards, receiver might get a numerical surplus. An therefore, stood at $41 while the receipts were error might take place, also, in the packing. for only $25. This surplus was duly noted in the accounts rendered to the Government and verbally men­ This apparent discrepancy required repeated tioned to the President, who told the Com­ explanation to the several officers through missioner his purse was something like the whose hands the accounts had to pass. But, un­ widow's cruise—not easily emptied. These fortunately, in the hurry with which the thing things were, likewise, fully explained to was done, an error in the figures occurred. Charles E. Mix, an intelligent and obliging The amount deducted from the first residuum man to whose kind aid in putting the accounts was not enough, by $100, to pay off the supple­ into requisite form the Friends were much mentary roll. This was not discovered till con­ indebted. The process through which an ac­ siderable progress had been made in the pay­ count with Government must pass is tedious ment, and then it was too late to correct the and not a little troublesome to the uninitiated. mistake. Those who had been paid could not It is common to employ on these occasions be recalled and those who came after would a broker or agent. Many persons in Washing­ not be docked. Thus, $40,100 had been appor­ ton follow this business. They are frequently tioned. This gave the Commissioner no un­ ejected office-holders, who, by the rolling of easiness, as he had saved much more of his the political wheel, have come down to the $2,000 than would suffice to cover the de­ common level. Their past experience thus of­ ficiency. But besides this resource, there was fers them some indemnity for loss of place. A in the winding up another brought to light, great deal depends upon mere form in these whence derived is among the mysteries of the matters. That which in one shape would be Sub Treasury. Notwithstanding $100 more rejected, in another would pass though sub­ than the $40,000 had been appropriated, the stantially the same. There are various funds, Commissioner at the close found in his hands each for a special purpose. If an item of ex­ $183 over and above the Congressional appro­ penditure be appropriately charged to one of priation, his own compensation, and the afore­ these it will run the gauntlet whole-skinned; said blunder into the bargain. The payment if not so charged, it will be flayed on the spot. was made in such manner that error appeared A thing may be rightly chargeable, but the impossible. The name of each party was first manner of making the charge is essential to called aloud by the Friend who paid the money success. From ignorance of these things a and repeated by a police officer. When the man may be defeated in a just claim or put

236 COPE: MENOMINEE DIARY off indefinitely. But the Friends had no cause 'y HE BUSINESS by this time began to look to complain of technical obstructions. Every -*- pretty blue. This was the most alarming aid was kindly rendered. The most formidable feature of all, for though the Commissioner personage to whose arbitrament an accountant had exacted from men of white or mixed at Washington is subjected is the second con­ blood, the usual powers, from Indians who troller. Mix advised a consultation with him knew nothing of such things, he had not; and on certain points, if he would allow it, before quite a considerable amount had to be paid a regular presentation of the accounts. The to persons of the latter description, simply by Friends found him a dignified and venerable direction of the chiefs in council and under man. He courteously assented to the proposal, the superintendence of the four chiefs ap­ and the accounts were informally laid before pointed to see that the proper persons received the money. It would have been idle to demand him. His comments upon them were not very Powers of the Indians. They were entirely agreeable. The charge for premium paid at ignorant of the nature and use of such instru­ New York for the purchase of silver could ments and had forms been prepared could not not, he said, be allowed. It was contrary to have signed them or done anything by which all rule. Gold was a legal tender. The Half- the correctness of the payment could have been Breeds could not refuse it. The $100 overpaid as well secured, as by the method they adopted could not be allowed. It was a blunder for of a supervisory committee. Until this objec­ which the Commissioner was liable and from tion was raised the Friends felt pretty easy, which he could only be relieved by an act of for the Commissioner still had it in his power Congress. The $500 presented to the Half- to make a charge to the Government for his Breeds was in a similar predicament. The services, which would have covered the items Commissioner had mistaken the purpose for before rejected, but the amount now invali­ which the $2,000 was placed in his hands. The dated would be likely to exceed compensation Act of Congress limited the appropriation to and surplus too. expenses. The letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs was, to be sure, indefinite and The informal interview with the 2nd Con­ calculated to mislead. But if an agent of Gov­ troller at first did not promise to facilitate ernment suffered from ill-defined instructions a satisfactory settlement of the accounts. Un­ of his superior that would not screen him: the expected difficulties had been started and a law was supreme. Nobody at Washington was rigorous construction put upon the duties and above the law. The remedy in this case also responsibilities of the Commissioner. But as lay with Congress. the darkest hour precedes the returning move­ ments of the sun, so in this case when the Here then were three important items clouds had grown blackest the breaking forth amounting to $733.75, pronounced by an of­ of light was at hand. The 2nd Controller, hav­ ficer from whom there was no appeal, inad­ ing laid on pretty thickly the darker colours, missible. To counterbalance this the Commis­ began to dip his pencil in more cheerful hues. Perhaps that the intended grace might appear sioner had but the surplus of $283. So that more gracious, he thought it well to let the by his benevolent enterprise he seemed likely Quaker emissary feel how he could annoy, to be out of pocket some $450. But this was and mayhap fleece him if he had a mind; and, not all: the controller, turning over the roll, in truth, there is no denying that the Friends observed that a considerable number of pay­ were for a time held mighty uneasy by this ments had been made to persons subscribing grave and dignified arbiter of accounts. But themselves the attorneys or representatives of the austerity of his brow at length relaxed. parties in whose favour awards had been de­ On second thought, although it was contrary clared. He demanded the Powers under which to all rule to allow a premium for exchanging these payments had been made, and added one lawful tender for another—as gold for that no such payment could be allowed with­ silver—yet as the Commissioner's superior had out the production of a regular Power of instructed him to pay the Mixed Menomonies in American half dollars only, and as the Sub Attorney.

237 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

Treasurer at New York, not having them, had that to cover all deficiencies per diem and recommended their purchase at the market mileage should be charged; that is to say, $8 price, the Controller concluded to waive the per day and 10(5 per mile; and. he kindly gave rule, provided the Secretary of the Interior it as his opinion that the Commissioner should was consenting. With regard to the Powers be paid for the transportation of the specie of Attorney, as in fact it did not seem quite from New York to Green Bay, it being the reasonable to expect Indians to do business province of the Government to place funds for like white men and as due care appeared to public purposes where they are wanted. He have been exercised to prevent fraud, he would wound up all these favourable conclusions very not insist upon their production if the Secre­ courteously by a neat compliment to the So­ tary aforesaid, did not. As to the overpayment ciety of Friends with whose character and and the gift, he held up the encouraging idea deeds of charity he had long been acquainted, that Congress would not hesitate, on a repre­ and by the expression of his disposition to do sentation of the circumstances to justify what every thing for the Commissioner, consistent had been done by a bill of Indemnity. with his legal obligations. So that the Friends had reason to be well satisfied with the inter­ A minor difficulty had arisen out of the view after all. desire of the Commissioner to render a pre­ cise and detailed statement of expenses. For They then returned to the Secretary of the many trivial items he had not and could not Interior to submit the points left for his de­ have had vouchers. Yet no item may be cision. He at once removed all obstructions charged in account with Government without by saying that although the regulations which the correspondent voucher. But a man may had given rise to them were useful and neces­ in another form charge what will greatly ex­ sary as preventives of fraud and dishonesty, ceed actual expenses—unless he be an extrav­ yet in the present case there could be no diffi­ agant fellow, indeed. The Controller decided culty—the charges made were proper in them-

«!feS«fe;

(.)Li.ikL: Biogi.Lphics, .Sciies 11 Fairfield, Alfred Cope's estate near Philadelphia, built in 1705. Here Cope developed one of the finest private botanical gardens in the East.

238 COPE: MENOMINEE DIARY selves, and he directed the Head Clerk to put urer said he had nothing to do with it and no the accounts in such form as would facilitate account to which he could place it; whoever their passage and accomplish the object in it belonged to, the Government had no claim view. upon it. He added his advice to that of the 2nd Con­ So much time was consumed in these pre­ troller, that the Commissioner should make the liminaries that the two days allotted to the usual charge for service rendered, which would business were spent before the accounts were more than cover every thing and leave a sur­ adjusted. Charles E. Mix kindly undertook to plus, which he could appropriate as he pleased. do this and have them all ready by the time The idea of making such a charge was not the Commissioner should visit Washington agreeable to the Commissioner, but there was again. . . ."' no alternative between that and a petition to Here ends the visit to the Menominees. Will Congress for relief, which would have been it result in any good? We can only hope it more unpleasant, unless he chose to submit may. For the poor Menominees it seems like to a loss, which he did not feel incumbent hoping against hope. Sad accounts come from upon him. He therefore concluded to render them. Unwilling to wait the expiration of the his account in the customary manner and to short term alloted them, the whites are crowd­ observe the spirit of his original intent by ing in upon their lands. Irritation has followed making some disposition of the surplus for and blood has flowed. The son of Oshkosh, the benefit of the Indians. This being deter­ whose piercing voice and handsome form at­ mined, he expressed a desire to the Secretary tracted the admiration of the Friends, has been that he and the Secretary of the Treasury joint­ slain by the hands of an assassin. Another ly would allow him to place in their hands member of his family—a near female rela­ in trust, for the benefit of the Indians, any tive—has fallen a victim to violence. Other balance that might be due him, on the settle­ disasters are apprehended. Lamotte lives in ment of his accounts, that the same might ap­ fear of his life. Serious conflicts are antici­ pear on record in the office and thus the evi­ pated, and the old Fort resounds once more dence accompany the account that he had with the clangour of arms."" This is a sorrow­ acted agreeably to his expressed intention of ful termination of a sorrowful story. receiving no compensation beyond actual ex­ penses. To which the Secretary replied that Epilogue he would repeat what he had said at first, that the Commissioner ought to take the full com­ TN THE late summer of 1850, Indian Agent pensation allowed him by law, yet if he did -*- William Bruce, Oshkosh together with not choose to retain more than would reim­ nine of his chiefs, and William Powell, a Me­ burse his actual expenditure he might pay the nominee interpreter who had served as a lieu­ surplus into the Treasury of the Society of tenant in the Black Hawk War, visited the Friends, and, if he liked, address a note to him Crow Wing River tract in Minnesota. The explaining the circumstances which had led chiefs were dismayed afresh at the thought of him, contrary to his original design, to make a charge for compensation on the face of his account and stating his intentions with regard to the disposition he should make of the sur­ " Omitted is a lengthy account of why no Quaker plus, which note should be placed on record. could conscientiously accept President "Taylor's mis­ sion to the Chickasaw Nation. First, the Chickasaw He was aware that the Society of Friends had held slaves; and second, an agent might easily become an Indian Fund and was sure that money involved in actions requiring the use of military placed there would be better applied than if force. Taylor accepted this explanation regretfully. "" Shortly after Cope and Wistar left Green Bay, left in the manner proposed. the government, apparently apprehensive of trouble in removing the Menominee to Minnesota, regarri- The Friends then proceeded to the Treasury soned Fort Howard with two companies of men under Department and paid in the $650 orphan the command of Colonel Francis Lee. Bella French, The American Sketch Book: A Collection of His­ money and tendered the $183 left of the torical Incidents with Descriptions of Corresponding $40,000. The latter was refused: the Treas­ Localities (Green Bay, 1876), 111:125.

239 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 their impending removal to this alien land, and, as Cope had maintained against doubters, were fearful of living so close to the neighbor­ ing Sioux who "were continually engaged in intertribal war." Thereupon the chiefs were summoned to Washington to present their objections to Millard Fillmore, who had succeeded to the presidency following the untimely death of Zachary Taylor on July 9, 1850. Arriving in Washington on September 4, the Menominee delegation waited nearly two weeks before be­ ing granted an interview. Oshkosh himself presented the Menominees' case to the Presi­ dent, pleading that they preferred "a home somewhere in Wisconsin, for even the poorest region in Wisconsin was better than that of the Crow Wing." The upshot was that the Menominee never removed to Minnesota. In­ stead they were permitted to remain where they were until 1854, when a new treaty was negotiated assigning the tribe to a reservation near Shawano which now comprises Menomi­ nee County. Society's Iconographic CoUcctum On their return journey home from Wash­ William Powell, a half-breed, who served the Meno­ minee as an interpreter. ington the chiefs were taken to the principal cities of the Eastern seaboard. In New York drive in Philadelphia which contributed $2,000 they lingered a week, paying daily visits to to aid the hard-pressed Indians. Character­ P.T. Barnum's Museum. Oshkosh declined istically the Green Bay Advocate blamed the Barnum's invitation to hear Jenny Lind sing, Oneidas' difficulties as much on "natural in­ but some of his retinue attended a concert by dolence" as on weather and economics. Ac­ the celebrated Swedish soprano "who, they re­ companied by Samuel Bettle, Jr., Wistar ar­ ported, "made a big noise and then a little rived in Chicago in June of 1860, purchased noise. The white man must have a great deal supplies, and took them to Green Bay for dis­ more money than he [needs] to pay so much tribution. Theirs was a princely gift indeed: to hear this lady sing."™ 573 bushels of potatoes, 225 bushels of corn, Cope and Wistar, the Philadelphia Friends, forty-seven bushels of buckwheat, three bags lived out their lives in dissimilar fashions. of seed corn, 1,500 pounds of Indian meal, Cope, who never revisited Wisconsin, returned ten barrels each of pork, beans, and flour, to his estate, "Fairfield," where he continued fifty bushels of oats for seed, forty-eight Testa­ to combine his philanthropic and horticultural ments, and fourteen Bibles. Even the Advocate interests. In 1856 he married his second wife, was impressed by the Quakers' generosity, Rebecca Riddle, with whom he made a trip to noting that "about forty teams went out at Europe, taking along on the ship a cow to one time with supplies.'"" provide fresh milk for their infant son. Cope died on December 11, 1875."° Thomas Wistar made two more visits to """William Powell's Recollections: In an Interview Green Bay, the first in 1860 when he traveled with Lyman C. Draper," in Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison, 1913), to the Oneida reservation on a Quaker relief 173-175. mission to alleviate the distress caused by a •" Alfred C. Garrett, "Alfred Cope," in Quaker drought and a depression in the lumber busi­ Biographies: Series II (Philadelphia, n.d.), 166, 172. ^'^ Green Bay Advocate, July 5, 1860; The Friend, ness. He and Cope had led the fund-raising May 26, 1860, July 21, 1860.

240 COPE: MENOMINEE DIARY

Wistar made many other journeys in behalf session, "whereupon many were affected to of the government and the Friends to Indian tears." Shortly after returning to Philadelphia areas throughout the nation. His last trip, he became gravely ill and died on January 16, made in the summer of 1875 when he was 1876.'"' seventy-seven, brought him back to Wisconsin where he again met with the Oneidas. The aged man was greatly affected by his visit, which he seemed to realize would be his last, and he " Mary Lawton Comfort, "Thomas Wistar, gave a moving religious speech at the final Quaker Biographies: Series II: 68.

(This is the last in a series of four articles

whicfi began in the Summer, 1966, issue.)

Society's Iconographic C

241 E. A. ROSSt THE PROGRESSIVE AS NATIVIST

By JULIUS WEINBERG

T^HE social thought of Edward Alsworth spoken antagonism to Southern and Eastern -*- Ross provides a fruitful ground for an European immigrants brought Ross to an in­ analysis of the relationship between the re­ fluential position in the immigration-restric­ formist thrust of the late nineteenth and early tion movement. After the war he flirted with twentieth centuries and the nativism expressed the racist wing of the eugenics movement and, by many of these reformers of the same peri­ on nativistic grounds, he supported the na­ od.^ For more than three decades of his tional prohibition of liquor. On one hand, lengthy and productive career as teacher, lec­ Ross was a social optimist, an environmental­ turer, and writer, the highly popular sociolo­ ist, and a believer in the equality of peoples; gist served with distinction in both camps. on the other, he was fearful about the coun­ First as a populist and later as a progressive try's future, hereditarian in many of his ex­ and New Dealer, Ross pungently supported a planations of human behavior, and elitist in variety of liberal proposals to enhance the his attitude toward non-Anglo-Saxons. quality of American life: the regulation of Upon closer analysis the seeming paradox public utilities, unions and unemployment between Ross's views as a reformer and those compensation for workers, curbs on child la­ he espoused as a nativist can be explained, al­ bor, suffrage and better working conditions though the logical contradictions between them for women, and most prominently, freedom of cannot be dissolved. Ross was a Middle West­ the press, freedom of speech, and academic erner by birth and his values were fashioned freedom. by the piety of his Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian As a nativist, Ross was equally articulate. parents and the mores of the agrarian Middle At the turn of the century, his writings were Border. The world view of crossroads America pervaded by his own reading of the Anglo- left a deep impression on the youngster, and Saxon myth. Before World War I his out­ his mature writings reflect his deep commit-

60, 90-92; Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: EDITOR'S NOTE: This paper was originally delivered From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York, 1960), 179-180; before one of the sessions of the Organization of John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Historians in Kansas City, Missouri, April American Nativism, 1880-1925 (New Brunswick, 23, 1965. 1955), 109-110, 117; and Barbara Miller Solomon, ^ Edward Alsworth Ross, Seventy Years of It: An Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New Eng­ Autobiography (New York, 1936), is a boastful, yet land Tradition (Cambridge, 1956), 120, 130, 133- accurate account of Ross's life. Julius Weinberg, 135, 169-170. Strangers in the Land is an acute and "Edward Alsworth Ross: An Intellectual Biography," comprehensive account of modern American nativ­ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of ism; Ancestors and Immigrants is less analytic and Michigan, 1963), is an extended treatment of Ross's comprehensive, focusing on New England nativists, career and an analysis of his thought as sociologist, primarily, and on the activities of the Brahmin-led reformer, and nativist. A number of historians have Immigration Restriction League. A more recent work, noted Ross's progressivism and nativism: Eric F. Thomas F. Gosset, Race: The History of an Idea Goldman, Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of in America (Dallas, 1963), surveys the growth of Modern American Reform (rev. ed. New York, 1956), the race concept in America.

242 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS

ican life was not unique. With variations, similar formulas were suggested by John R. Commons and Frederick Jackson Turner, both colleagues of Ross at the University of Wiscon­ sin, and by two other Midwesterners, Josiah Strong and William Jennings Bryan." Narrow ethnocentrism and constructive humanitarian- ism were imbedded in a number of movements that flourished in the populist-progressive era: in the Americanization and the temperance crusades, and in the eugenics and in the settle­ ment house programs.* Native Americans, many of them working with Anglo-Saxon defi­ nitions of the good society, enrolled in these movements for contradictory reasons: some out of compassionate idealism; others for ethnic prejudice. And a goodly number— Ross was among these—served in the spirit of both.

"Edward A. Ross, Social Control: A Survey of the Society's Iconographic Collection Foundations of Social Order (New York, 1905), esp. 432-433. Edward Alsworth Ross, from a photograph taken "A sampling of John R. Commons' ethnic prejudice in Germany. will be found in his Races and Immigrants (New York, 1907) ; Turner's is evident in his "Studies of ment to the men and women of rural America American Immigrants," Chicago American-Record, September 4, 11, 18, 25 and October 16, 1901 (photo­ and an ambivalence about the city, its inhabit­ stat copy in State Historical Society of Wisconsin). ants, and their ways. More perceptively than See also the discussion on Turner in Edward N. Sa- veth, American Historians and European Immigrants: any other writer at the turn of the century, 1875-1925 (New York, 1948), 123-137. Josiah Ross predicted the demise of the face-to-face Strong's attitudes can be traced in The New Era of "community" of his youth, one held together the Coming Kingdom (New York, 1893) ; The Twen­ tieth Century City (New York, 1898) ; and The Chal­ by "living tissue," and its replacement by a lenge of the City (New York, 1907). Ross and Bryan corporate "society" held together by "rivets shared a number of notions and disagreed on others: both men idealized the agrarian Middle Border, dis­ screws. trusted the city, and favored prohibition. The pri­ Ross was not at all pleased by what he fore­ mary difference between the two stemmed from their respective religious beliefs. As a Fundamentalist, saw. A singularity of purpose dominated Bryan was suspicious of the "new" immigration on Ross's writings: to mediate between an ideal­ religious grounds; as a Victorian agnostic, Ross ized legacy from the past and the realities of couched his hostility in Darwinian terms. Bryan's views are discussed in Paul W. Glad, The Trumpet change that threatened its destruction. Until Soundeth: William Jennings Bryan and His Democ­ the 1930's, Ross saw no great disparity be­ racy, 1862-1912 (Lincoln, 1960), especially 113-120; tween the melioristic and nativistic facets of and Lawrence W. Levine, Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan: The Last Decade, 1915- his social thought. And for good reason. Both 1925 (New York, 1965). stemmed from a single source and were di­ "* The Americanization movement is discussed in rected to a single goal: to preserve the virtues Higham, Strangers in the Land, 234-263. James H. he ascribed to the geographical frontier and Timberlake, Prohibition and the I^rogressive Move­ ment: 1900-1920 (Cambridge, 1963), stresses the to prevent their corrosion by an emerging in­ reformist aspects of the temperance program; An­ dustrial and urban social order. Nativism, in drew Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess (Bos­ ton, 1962), emphasizes the crusade's nativist origins Ross's hands, was merely another weapon in and goals. See also Hofstadter, Age of Reform, his well-stocked arsenal of social reforms. 288-293, 298-299. Mark Haller, Eugenics: Heredi­ tarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Bruns­ The amalgam of nativism and reform fash­ wick, 1963), is a judicious survey of the eugenics ioned by Ross to improve the quality of Amer­ movement.

243 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

An instance of Ross's employment of nativ­ vociferous sociologist at the earliest opportu­ istic rhetoric in order to ameliorate what he nity. Ross's outspoken prejudice had offended considered to be a social injustice came early the patrician dowager and brought back mem­ in his career and triggered his dismissal from ories of Dennis Kearny, who had organized the faculty of Stanford University.' the workmen of California against the rail­ Ross went to Stanford in 1893, two years roaders and their coolie laborers. According after he had received his Ph.D. in political to Mrs. Stanford, Ross excited "evil passions economy from Johns Hopkins University. As . . . drawing distinctions between man and a disciple of Lester Frank Ward, the reform- man—laborers, and equal in the sight of minded sociologist (and Ross's uncle by mar­ God. . . ."'" riage) , and Richard T. Ely, the country's fore­ In the eyes of Mrs. Stanford, Ross was a most exponent of the "new" economics, Ross sinner on two counts: for his outspoken re­ quickly established himself as an academic formist zeal and for his unseemly nativistic enfant terrible by attacking the conservative bias. These two threads, closely interwoven, status quo that had dominated West Coast were to color the fabric of Ross's public pro­ politics for several decades. nouncements, albeit with less disastrous per­ sonal consequences, for the next three decades In 1894, knowing that the very existence of of his life. the university was the product of Leland Stan­ ford's railroad ventures, Ross supported the Pullman strikers, and later, in a speech to the 'C'THNOCENTRIC pride in the critical role Socialist Club of Oakland, he proposed the -'-^ played by the Scotch-Irish in the history public ownership of municipal transportation." of the United States was an important theme In 1896 he further alienated California con­ in the over-all pattern of Ross's nativistic servatives by favoring" Bryan's candidacy and rhetoric." Descending from a family of hardy permitted his public address supporting un­ pioneers and reared along the Middle Border, limited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to Ross tended to identify with America's native 1 to be distributed in tens of thousands of copies throughout the country.'

Inevitably, the liberal views of this young '^ The accounts of the participants in the Ross- academic populist were to bring him into con­ Stanford controversy are summarized in Jane Lathrop Stanford's justification for dismissing Ross in her flict with the authoritarian, generous, and "Address on the Right of Free Speech ... to the high-strung widow of the university's founder, Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford University, April 25, 1903," Ross Papers in the Manuscripts Li­ Jane Lathrop Stanford—the final authority on brary, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and in faculty appointments." Ross's ouster from the Ross, Seventy Years of It, 64-86. See also the fol­ university was made a certainty when, in the lowing accounts: Orrin Leslie Elliott, Stanford Uni­ versity: The First Twenty-five Years (Stanford, spring of 1900, he addressed a labor rally in 1937), 251-308; Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. San Francisco in opposition to further Japa­ Metzgar, The Development of Academic Freedom in nese immigration into the country. Ross the United States (New York, 1955), 432-455; and Laurence R. 'Veysey, The Emergence of the American pointed to the damage inflicted upon the stand­ University (Chicago, 1965), 397^18. ard of living of the white, native workman ''Ross, Seventy Years of It, 70-71; Elliott, Stan­ forced to compete in the labor market with ford, 339-340; and Edward McNall Burns, David Starr Jordan: Prophet of Freedom (Stanford, 1953), the Japanese newcomer. As reported in the 13-14. San Francisco Call, Ross roused his audience 'Edward A. Ross, Honest Dollars (Chicago, 1896), by suggesting that "should the worst come to was a reprint of a pro-silver address he gave at the University of Chicago where he taught in the sum­ the worst it would be better for us to turn our mer of that year. See also Ross, Seventy Years of It, guns on every vessel bringing Japanese to our 66. shores rather than to permit them to land."" " Burns, Jordan, 16, describes Mrs. Stanford as having the "power of life or death over the institu­ Although it is not certain whether Ross de­ tion." This assessment is simplistic out of context, but true. parted from his prepared text and uttered this " Cited in Elliott, Stanford, 340-341. offensive passage, Mrs. Stanford assumed that *" Stanford to Jordan, May 9, 1900, quoted in J. L. he did and immediately ordered David Starr Stanford's "Address," 9-10. " See Ross to Woodrow Wilson, November 19, 1912, Jordan, the university president, to dismiss the in tlie Ross Papers.

244 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS

stock; consequently, he evaluated all immi­ blond, blue-eyed, truth-telling Anglo-Saxons, grants who came in the middle decades of the since the virtues he ascribed to them were vir­ nineteenth century and later, on the basis of tually synonymous with his idealized portrait how well they assimilated to the social values of the Scotch-Irish frontiersman. Both were he had acquired in rural Iowa. The Scotch- intensely individualistic, highly moral, and Irish, according to Ross, were outstanding for energetic. their pugnacious character, individualistic Although the problem of social control in temperment, and "iron will." Fighting the the United States, Ross contended, was com­ British and the Indians and conquering the plicated by the "dolichocephalic blonds of the West, the Ulstermen decisively molded the West," Ross was generally pleased with their vibrant character of the American people. "If character and predicted a great future for the today," Ross asserted, "a losing college crew Anglo-Saxons.^'^ rows so hard that they have to be lifted from The meliorist in Ross discovered that the their shell at the end of the boat race, it is Teutons possessed enormous gifts of social because the never-say-die Scotch-Irish fighters conscience and political organization. "While and pioneers have been the picturesque and the long-skulled blond of central and north­ glowing figures in the imagination of Amer­ western Europe is mediocre in power of sym­ ican youth.'"" pathy and weak in sociability, he is strong in that most important of political attitudes—the Ross's pride in his ethnic origins assumed will to justice." Anglo-Saxons, Ross noted nativistic proportions when he buttressed it with pride, were the only people to have an with a belief in the Anglo-Saxon myth. Along account in their public treasury for "Con­ with a number of others who affirmed that science Money."^" America's political and social institutions In Ross's need to explain the sources of hu­ could be traced to the primitive, yet freedom- man behavior as a sociologist, he again satis­ loving Teutons who inhabited the Black Forest fied his liberal leanings and his nativistic as­ of medieval Germany, Ross believed in the sumptions by creating a theory of personality superiority of the Anglo-Saxon peoples.^' Re­ that took into account hereditarian as well as inforced by a generation of imagination and environmental factors. Ross would, at times, scholarship, Teutonism came in many varie­ stress one or the other depending upon his ties : John Fiske's and Herbert Baxter Adams' audience or his proclivity for reflecting the scholarly interpretations of American institu­ current mood of public opinion. In his series tions as an evolutionary outgrowth of English of guest lectures on sociological theory given and German sources; Francis A. Walker's dire at Harvard University in 1902, Ross rejected prognostications concerning the declining the whole range of biological determinism and birthrate of the American Anglo-Saxon; Rich­ ard Mayo-Smith's faith in the ethical superi­ ority of the Anglo-Saxon; and John W. Bur­ gess' belief in his political superiority. Then, ^Edward A. Ross, The Old World in the New ultimately, there was the hereditarian view, (New York, 1914), 12-23, summarizes Ross's portrait the notion expounded by the out-and-out rac­ of the Scotch-Irish. ists, Madison Grant and Charles B. Davenport, ^^ Ross, Social Control, 3, 9, 15, et passim. See also two articles by Ross: "The Causes of Race Superiori­ that the Anglo-Saxons were biologically supe­ ty," Annals of the American Academy of Political and rior to all other peoples." As one of H. B. Social Science, XVIIl:67-89 (July, 1901), and "The Value Rank of the American People," Independent, Adams' students at Johns Hopkins, Ross LVII: 1061-1064 (November, 1904). Both articles had every opportunity to become familiar with were later reprinted in Ross's Foundations of So­ this doctrine. In many of his writings Ross ciology (New York, 1905), 353-395, and subsequent citations will refer to this source. expresses the Teutonic idea in his own char­ " The varieties of Anglo-Saxonism and its many acteristic way. uses are discussed in Higham, Strangers in the Land, 132-149, et passim; Solomon, Ancestors and Immi­ The Teutonism expressed by Ross was re­ grants, 67-69; Saveth, American Historians, 65-89; fracted through his psychological needs, his and Haller, Eugenics, 144-159. sociological research, and his interest in re­ "* Ross, Social Control, 3-17, et passim; Founda­ tions, 384-385. form. Ross enjoyed self-identification with '" Ross, Social Control, 32-35.

245 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 attacked with great vigor the hereditarian these immigrants "do not really take the place ideas of Guiseppe Ferraro, G. Vacher De La- of the unbegotten sons of the granite men who pouge, Carlos C. Closson, Cesare Lombroso, fell at Gettysburg and Cold Harbor." The and Francis Gallon." Denigrating their work, optimism and the prosperity of the progres­ Ross admonished his listeners to stress the sive decade, however, tempered Ross's despair; social and the psychological factors in human his fears were assuaged by the hope that the behavior, the influence of the environment, "electrifying ozone" of American life would and the role of human volition in the affairs make good citizens of the "dull, fat-witted im­ of man. "The time-honored appeal to race is migrant." "Dilution," he could temporarily . . . the resource of ignorance or indolence.'"'' conclude, "need not spell decline.""' Two years later Ross forgot his own ad­ vice when he referred to non-Anglo-Saxon 73 Y 1912, Ross's optimism concerning the Europeans as "aboriginal men" and "lesser -*-' assimilability of the newcomers receded, breeds.'"" and he moved from an uneasy acceptance of Ross's ambivalence on the nature-nurture is­ Southern and Eastern Europeans to a gar­ sue is contained in his suggestion that the so­ rulous antipathy to them. The reasons for cial scientist must avoid two fallacies: the Ross's change of heart are not clear. His environmentalist position that "belittles race dormant hostilities may have been energized differences and has a robust faith in the power by several factors: the myriad immigrants of intercourse and school instruction to lift flocking to the United States and their impact up a backward folk;" and the racist's fallacy upon the city; a subtle, yet significant altera­ that "regards the actual differences of peoples tion in the temper of the progressive move­ as hereditary and fixed."^ ment; a rising tide of xenophobia in the South, Ingeniously, Ross constructed a personality the East, and in the West; and his own inten­ theory based on racial and social grounds. sive study of the immigration problem."' There exists, he explained, major and minor In 1911, Ross accepted an invitation from differences between men; major differences Robert Underwood Johnson of Century maga­ are congenital in nature, while minor ones are zine to do a series of articles on the immi­ the product of the environmental factors. For grant as a factor in American life.''' For three example, the Negro "is not simply a black months Ross traveled with notebook and cam­ Anglo-Saxon deficient in schooling, but a be­ era throughout the country interviewing immi­ ing who in strength of appetites and in power grants and their leaders, immigration officials, to control them differs considerably from the and settlement house workers.^ In 1914, the white man."""^ Ross summed up this position ten Century articles, along with several addi­ in his sociology text of 1920: "Some contrasts tional chapters, were published under the title may be due to opportunity, stimulation or so­ The Old World in the New!''' The magazine cial inheritance, but surely not all."" From about 1900 to 1910, Ross's vacillation between environmental and hereditarian expla­ nations of human behavior was reflected in an ambivalent attitude toward the "new" immi­ ^ Ross, Foundation, 391-394. ^ The rise of nativism in the progressive era is grants pouring into the United States through traced in Higham, Strangers in the Land, 158-193; the gates of Ellis Island. Calling them "cheap progressive Anglo-Saxonism is discussed in George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt: 1900- stucco manikins," "beaten men of beaten 1912 (New York, 1958), 92-94, 186-188. See also breeds," Ross complained that the children of Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti- Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962) ; and Fred H. Mathews, "White Community and the Yellow Peril," Mississippi Valley Historical " Ross, Foundations, 309-348. Review, L:612~^33 (March, 1964). "/6id., 309. ^Johnson to Ross, May 18 and June 8, 1911; '"Ibid., 393. Ross to Johnson, May 25, 1911, in the Ross Papers. ™/6irf., 353. '"^ Ross's field notes are in Box 31, in the Ross ••^Ibid., 355-356, n2. Papers. '^ Edward A. Ross, The Principles of Sociology ^ Edward A. Ross, The Old World in the New (New York, 1920), 63. (New York, 1914).

246 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS

former teacher at Johns Hopkins, on behalf of restrictionist legislation then before the Congress.''" Tracing the historical background of the country's many ethnic groups and delineating their social and economic characteristics, Ross's profiles of America's immigrant groups were colorful, if not always accurate. The Old World in the New further elaborated upon a number of ethnic stereotypes taken from the nativists' handbook. Although deftly, and oc­ casionally perceptively drawn, the sterotypes of many groups—the Italians, the Jews, and the Slav, particularly—were not worthy of a social scientist. Ross's generalizations were often faulty, his language gauche, and his characterizations cruel. Lacking the well-struc­ tured hereditarian doctrine of the extreme rac­ ists, Ross frequently had to rely upon visual impressions and his not inconsiderable literary gifts to denigrate those to whom he was hostile. On one occasion, Ross's imagination was disciplined by his editor, Clarence Cough Buel, whose desire to sell magazines was tempered by his concern for the Century's reputation. A Slav womcm poses with her Italian husband before "Scandinavians 'with smooth white hair' might debarking in New York; an illustration from Ross's feel aggrieved at being pilloried as less reliable The Old World in the New. than the 'dark or sandy haired fellows.'" "Is it quite fair," Buel asked, "to publish a sort articles and the book constitute Ross's most of test of trustworthiness, predicated on any­ intemperate and influential contribution to na­ body's looks?"'' tivist thought in the United States and to the immigration-restriction movement then mov­ One further example will suffice. Ross noted ing to its pre-war zenith. that the immigrants of New York City's Union During these years Ross began to corre­ Square looked out of place in "black clothes spond with the Eastern restrictionists and ac­ and stiff collar," since clearly they belong in tively campaign for their cause."" Ross ac­ "skins, in wattled huts at the close of the cepted membership on the National Commit­ Great Ice Age." "To the practiced eye, the tee of the Immigration Restriction League and physiognomy of certain groups unmistakably actively lobbied on behalf of literacy tests de­ proclaims inferiority of type. ... In every signed to curb large-scale immigration.™ On face there was something wrong—lips thick, several occasions, Ross communicated in writ­ mouth coarse, upper lip too long, cheek bones ing and in person with President Wilson, his too high, chin poorly formed, the bridge of the nose hollowed, the base of the nose tilted, or else the whole face prognathous. There

"'See Prescott F. Hall to Ross, March 13, 1913, March 6 and August 18, 1914; Robert DeC. Ward to Ross, April 7 and 27, 1912; Robert Stein to Ross, '"Ross to Wilson, November 19, 1912; and manu­ June 11 and 19, 1913; Ross to Roger Babson, No­ script entitled "Remarks of Professor Edward A. vember 21, 1914; Joseph Lee to Ross, February 21, Ross on the literacy test at the hearing on the Immi­ 1914 and January 9, 1915; and Ross to Lee, February gration Bill, held in the White House, January 22, 25, 1914, all in the Ross Papers. 1915," both in the Ross Papers. -'Prescott F. Hall to Ross, March 13, 1913; Robert •" Buel to Ross, February 10, 1913, in the Ross DeC. Ward to Ross, April 27, 1912, in the Ross Papers. Papers.

247 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1967 were so many sugar-loaf heads, moon faces, and goose-bill noses that one might imagine a malicious jinn had amused himself by cast­ ing human beings in a set of skew-molds dis­ carded by the Creator.'"' The blatant nativism of The Old World in the New should not obscure, however, its authentically melioristic thrust. Ross's gau- cheries were the product of a genuine concern for the integrity and the stability of the coun­ try's egalitarian, open society. An ardent pro­ gressive, Ross directed his anger at both the helpless immigrant and the profit-hungry in­ dustrialist who exploited him. In Ross's Amer­ ica there was no room for either. "No wonder, then," Ross wrote, "that in the forty years the American capitalist has had Alladin's lamp to rub, his profits from mill and steel works, from packing house and glass factory, have created sensational 'prosperity'. . . .'"^ In addition to lowering the standard of liv­ Ross, Old "World in the New ing of the American worker, unrestricted im­ A pair oj Slav sisters at the New York immigration migration produced a number of other social center. maladjustments that concerned the progressive Ross: illiteracy, yellow journalism, urban but his attitude toward proposed legislation slums and tenements, pauperism and crime, was more humane and less prejudiced than the and muncipal corruption. demands of the League." In the decade after 1918, Ross's liberalism Ross conceived of the Southern and Eastern separated him from the conservative nativists European immigrants as major contributors on a number of significant issues. He took to the country's social ills. Despite its ethno­ no part in the "Red Scare," the persecution centric hostility towards the newly-arrived im­ of anarchists and assorted other radicals in migrants. The Old World in the New repre­ 1919 and 1920. During "The Tribal Twenties," sents the anguished outcry of a confirmed as John Higham has so aptly labelled this democrat, fearful of ethnic tension, class con­ decade, Ross avoided the crude anti-Semitism flict, social injustice, and political chicanery. of Henry Ford (as earlier he had avoided the To Ross's progressive mind, all these problems more sophisticated variety of Henry Adams were obstacles to the establishment of a just and others), the hysterical anti-Catholicism and tranquil society. and negrophobia of Tom Watson, Lothrop After 1914, Ross remained keenly interested Stoddard's fear of the Asiatic "Under-Man," in the restrictionist movement, but took no ac­ and Charles B. Davenport's obsession with tive part in it." On a number of occasions his Nordic eugenics.'' advice was sought by Prescott F. Hall and the other activists who headed the Immigration Alienating Ross even further from the xeno­ Restriction League.'' Invariably Ross replied. phobia of the twenties was his admiration for the Russian Bolsheviks, whom he depicted as

=" Ross, Old World, 286. ^Ibid., 201. ** Ross to Robert Ferrari, April 15, 1916, in the Ross Papers. "Ross to Hall, May 6, 1919; Ross to Sidney Gu- •"Ross to Hall, March 3 and 17, 1917; Hall to lick, October 15, 1919, in the Ross Papers. Ross, March 10 and April 22, 1917, in the Ross "'' Higham, Strangers in the Land, 264-269, et pas­ Papers. sim.

248 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS social planners and agrarian reformers.'" Ross population. In one study, Ross confirmed his took no part in the Fundamentalist crusade fears that better-educated Americans were be­ and had nothing to do with the latter-day ing outbred by unskilled natives and unas- Know-Nothings, the Klansmen, whose support similable immigrants. "The natives," Ross was welcomed by the Eastern restrictionists sadly concluded, "are a thinning strand in in their post-World War I struggle to enact the American people."" Standing Room legislation based upon the "national origins" Only?, the only dull book ever written by formula. Ross's academic insights, his politi­ Ross, was an attempt to prove that population cal liberalism, and his belief in the efficacy of explosion would soon become a worldwide environmental reform enabled him to remain problem. In a dreary neo-Malthusian survey more scholarly in his efforts and more humane of population and food resources, Ross con­ in his outlook than a number of his nativist cluded that the world's population would correspondents. double every sixty years and that the food supply could not keep pace with human needs. 'T'HE INTEREST displayed by Ross in eu- Ross warned the men of the West against the -*- genics during the twenties was a depart­ population potential of the backward peoples. ure, although not an unexpected one, from While the Asiatics, for example, altered their his disdain of the movement before World religious and social customs to meet the de­ War I."' New anxieties contributed to Ross's mands of a civilized standard of living, Ross loss of confidence in the efficacy of environ­ demanded that a "Great Barrier" be estab­ mental reform: fear that the immigrants lished between East and West.'" would not limit their fertility; a less optimistic Eugenics, in the twenties, attracted biologi­ view of the capacity of the American experi­ cally-minded nativists as well as humane re­ ence to uplift the unschooled native and the formers; the former were less interested in a unskilled, illiterate immigrant; and serious realistic program for the uplift of humanity doubts as to the capacity of any country to than in the preservation of an imaginary elite absorb, in a comfortable way, the projected class." For several years Ross retained a nod­ population increase produced by twentieth- ding acquaintance with both groups; by the century advances in medicine and public end of the decade, he was quite firmly in the health." liberal camp. Cautiously at first, and later Focusing on the social aspects of eugenics, quite openly, Ross supported the compassion­ two issues were of paramount importance to ate birth control program headed by Marie Ross: the quality of our domestic population Slopes and Margaret Sanger." Widespread and the sheer quantity of the growing world use of an "adaptive fecundity," Ross felt would relieve much misery and poverty and have a salutary effect on the standard of living of all peoples. The final strand in the fabric of Ross's '* Ross's views on Soviet Russia, which remained nativistic thought was his support of the pro­ fairly consistent until the late 1930's, will be found hibition movement. The Eighteenth Amend­ in his Russia in Upheaval (New York, 1918) ; The Bolshevik Revolution (New York, 1921) ; and The ment and the Volstead Act were promoted by Russian Soviet Republic (New York, 1923). a variety of interests: by fundamentalists. ™ For Ross's pre-war attitude towards eugenics, see "Western Civilization and tbe Birth Rate," Amer­ ican Journal of Sociology, XII:609-617 (March, 1907). '" Ross's contributions to eugenic thought may be traced in "The Menace of Migrating Peoples" and " Ross, Social Trend, 57. "The Necessity of an Adaptive Fecundity," in Ed­ "^Edward A. Ross, Standing Room Only? (New ward A. Ross, Social Trend (New York, 1922), 3-,33; York, 1927). "Who Outbreeds Whom'?" and "Slow Suicide of Our •'"' The distinction between the various wings of the Native Stock," in his World Drift (New York, 1928), eugenics movement is made in Haller, Eugenics, 92- 25-69. The latter was initially published as Ray E. 93. Baber and Edward A. Ross, Changes in the Size of ^^ Ross lo Sanger, October 25, 1921; Slopes to Ross, American Families in One Generation, {University of June 27, 1922; Ross to Sanger, February 12, 1925 Wisconsin Studies in Social Science and History No. and August 28, 1926; Ross to Annie Porritt, July 10, 10, Madison, 1924). 1929, all in the Ross Papers.

249 1 must dnni^ ©ould the alcoHo! to prisons sustain life , lasyiums I cannot be filled read f my kind this SiON had no By »¥hai ri^h* child-en? have I .^ children

Underwood and Underwood Eugenic forces picketing the office of the editor of the Medical Review of Reviews on Wall Street in 1915.

femininists, Protestant clerics, reformers, and and the Scandinavians, only recently intro­ nativists. For many, temperance was a nostal­ duced to these pleasures, lacked this historical gic means of preserving ideahzed. Puritanical, process of selection. "Broadly seen," Ross rural values that appeared to be threatened by averred, "prohibition is the device of the young godless, immigrant-ridden cities. For others, northern peoples to overcome their constitu­ the movement represented a realistic enterprise tional handicap in competing with the older to alleviate the personal and family problems and soberer races.'"" of the alcoholic and erase the social blight cre­ As a reformer, Ross ably delineated the evils ated by the saloon. Ross was receptive to both of drink: pauperism, crime, broken marriages, facets of the temperance movement; his op­ unhappy housewives, and neglected children. position to drink was triggered by his nativist For the rural-bred Ross, intemperance went prejudices and his reformist zeal.'"' hand-in-hand with bribe-hungry politicians The nativist assumptions behind Ross's sup­ and greedy distillers who, together, polluted port of compulsory and nationwide prohibition the political and social institutions of the city. included a rather fanciful theory of "alcoholic The choice for the American people was to selection," the stereotyping of ethnic groups, submit to a century-long process of alcoholic Anglo-Saxonism, and an idealization of agrari­ selection, or to prohibition. Ross chose the an values. With some ingenuity Ross de­ first until 19,30, when the depression convinced veloped a theory of alcoholic selection to ex­ him that the country had more important plain why Jews, Italians, Greeks, and Portu­ things to talk about than "booze," as John guese possessed a higher tolerance for "the Dewey commented.*' blood of the grape" than Anglo-Saxon peoples. At about the same time Ross abandoned the Over several millenia, Ross explained, the prohibitionist cause, he began to shed other Mediterraneans had been able to eliminate nativistic attitudes. By 1930, the tension be­ those strains in their society that were unable tween the hereditarian and the environmental­ to tolerate the rigors of alcohol; the English ist had at last been resolved in favor of the

"" Ross's growing interest in prohibition may be " Ibid. traced in Seventy Years of It, 2; Memphis News, " See the undated manuscript by Ross, c. 1930, on -fVpril 10, 1914, newspaper clipping in Ross Papers; prohibition; see also Ross to John G. Thompson, and "Prohibition as a Sociologist Sees It," Social November 2, 1932; Ross to C. E. O'Beirne, October Trend, 136-160. 5, 1933, all in the Ross Papers.

250 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS

latter. His mea culpa on nativism came in his malady but separate from its conservative autobiography, although he expressed it in his wing in motivation, in expression, and in de­ correspondence earlier. "Far behind me in a sign. ditch lies the Nordic myth which had some The melioristic nativism of E. A. Ross can fascination for me forty years ago.'"" Ross be distinguished from conservative nativism accounted for this change of heart as the con­ in several important ways. It was Midwestern sequence of his foreign travel, but this ex­ in temper, rural in origin, optimistic in tone, planation is inadequate.'" Other motives sug­ liberal in politics, partly environmental in so­ gest themselves: in the Depression Decade, cial theory, reform-minded and egalitarian in the eugenics movement and the prohibition purpose. It was articulated by a man upward­ crusade crumbled and Ross found nativism ly-mobile in status and content with his rank to be as unfashionable in sociology as it was in the social order. useless as a weapon of reform. The thirties As a rural Midwesterner Ross assessed the did not provide an interested audience for social realities of twentieth-century America hortatory essays on population problems, the in terms of his agrarian background. He only evils of drink, or migrating Asiatics. The ris­ tolerated cities. He decried factories and tene­ ing status of the ethnic minorities he had ments and was quite certain that children denigrated, and the liberalism of the New Deal reared in urban centers were handicapped in he shared with them, extinguished the remain­ their chances to grow up as responsible citi­ ing embers of Ross's earlier ethnocentricism. zens. "Not the least among the multiplying Never fully committed to racism per se, Ross symptoms of social ill health in this country went along quite happily with the antiracist is the undue growth of cities," Ross observed. climate of the 1930's and 1940's. "A million city dwellers created ten times the amount of 'problem' presented by a million TTAVING outlined Ross's nativistic career, on the farms."'" -'--'- we are now in a better position to under­ Ross believed that the frontier had been an stand its melioristic quality and how it dif­ important factor in the democratization of fered from other varieties of American nativ­ American life, and its alleged disappearance ism. Nativism, for Ross, was a part of his compounded the problems that beset the Amer­ reform temper, albeit an unkindly one. Im­ ican people. Along with Frederick Jackson migration restriction, eugenics, and prohibi­ Turner, Ross assumed that without the invigo­ tion were instruments through which twen­ rating influence of the frontier, newcomers tieth-century America could be made to con­ would have little opportunity to benefit from form to Ross's remembrance of an outmoded the individualistic, egalitarian environment Eden, the Middle Border of his Iowa youth. that molded the contours of American de­ Immigrants, ghettos, slums, factories, distill­ mocracy."' ers, and saloonkeepers seriously threatened a Reverence for these values was naturally triad of tenets that dominated Ross's life and more pronounced in Ross than in the thought thought—opportunity and dignity for the in­ of the Eastern nativists. City-bred Madison dividual, personal and social morality in the Grant and Prescott Hall placed less stress on tradition of frontier Puritanism, and the con­ the immigrants' incapacity to settle on the tinuing progress of society. Social maladies farm than his impact upon their patrician, ur­ were to be exorcized through liberal and na­ ban way of life. As Barbara Miller Solomon, tivistic techniques. Both were Ross's means of the historian of Eastern nativism, has ob­ retaining the virtues of nineteenth-century served, urban unseemliness rather than the America in the twentieth. Ross's melioristic vanishing frontier formed the background of nativism was a major form of the general restrictionist agitation among the Easterners.

•"* Ross, Seventy Years of It, 276; Ross to L. L. Ber­ '" Ross, Old World, 239. nard, July 23, 1932, Ross Papers. "' Ross's rural bias will be found in "Doing With­ '•' Ross, Seventy Years of It, 275-279. out the Frontier," Social Trend, 52-77.

251 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1967

in twentieth-century America, Ross never felt marginal to it."' Ross did share, although for different rea­ sons, the Easterners' dissatisfaction with tht changing social order. Each was repelled by the personal crudeness and the social irrespon­ sibility of the nouveau riche. Here the simi­ larity ends, however. Ross opposed the ex­ cesses of industrial capitalism from the van­ tage point of an underdog Populist and egali­ tarian-minded progressive; the Easterners op­ posed them as urban Mugwumps and as elitist conservatives. Melioristic nativism was an ef­ fort to maintain social democracy as idealized in a rising and prosperous Middle West; con­ servative nativism sought to retain the elitist Republicanism of a fading Brahmin East. In­ Ross, Old World in the New dustrialists, using the immigrants, had de­ A dependent Italian family photographed by Ross in prived the Easterners of their rightful place Cleveland. of leadership into which they had been born. To the Iowa-born professor, this duo posed For these urban blue bloods, immigration was a threat to a society that had heretofore made a sectional curse, restricted largely to the At­ it possible for the competent, though lowly lantic seaboard. For Prescott Hall, the "avail­ born, to achieve social status and economic able acreage" issue was an irrelevant matter. affluence. Unlike Ross, Hall insisted that "if immigrants be undesirable, the fact that there is land The liberal rhetoric of Ross's nativism was enough for many times the population . . . sincere and, in contrast with the reactionary would be generally conceded ... to be an in­ texture of the Easterners' sentiments, it was adequate reason for admitting them."""' consonant with his progressive ideals. The anti-immigration arguments of Ross and his Despite his ethnocentric hostility to immi­ colleagues Commons and Turner were, to be grants and his interest in eugenics and temper­ sure, harsh and undemocratic."* Yet, they were ance, Ross's nativism carried with it a note of couched in terms of social welfare, inasmuch optimism, confidence that some solution would as these men were genuinely concerned with be found. This was in marked contrast to the the damage inflicted upon democratic institu­ pessimism and the psychological insecurities tions by rapidly multiplying immigrants, ward of many Eastern nativists. The trajectory of heelers, and saloonkeepers. As spokesmen for Ross's career was upwards; the trajectory of progressivism, these men were sincerely fearful theirs, downward. Ross found fulfillment in of the impact of cheap labor upon the Ameri­ life; they experienced frustration. A profes­ can worker, his wages, his unions, and his sorship at the University of Wisconsin was the conditions of work. Both their nativism and realization of Ross's dreams; for Henry their progressivism were intended to prevent Adams a similar post at Harvard University social tension and class distinctions. Ross, was a consolation prize to be scorned. Ross Commons, and Turner shared a vision of an was unaffected by the disillusionment that ab­ egalitarian and homogeneous America. Ross sorbed Charles Francis Adams, Jr., the fin de siecle thoughts of his brother Henry, the phobias of Hall, or the malevolence of Grant. In contrast to Ross, the Easterners were en­ gulfed by personal loneliness and social isola­ ''" Ibid., 22-42, et passim. "'On Commons, see his Races and Immigrants; on tion. Much as he was displeased by conditions Turner, see Frederick Jackson Turner, "Studies of American Immigrants," Chicago American-Record, September 4, 11, 19, 25 and October 16, 1901. See too Saveth, American Historians, 123-137, and Solo­ "Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 108-109. mon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 131-132.

252 WEINBERG: E. A. ROSS thus favored the elitist private academy of the vironment that had been made by human be­ Brahmin Unitarian no more than he did the ings and could be changed by human beings, parochial school of the Polish Catholic. determined the characteristics of . . . all men, Ever fearful of class distinctions, Ross op­ institutions, and ideas.""' posed the impositions of any disabilities upon His failure to accept all the implications of members of minority groups, once they were this liberal social philosophy, his ambiguous settled in the United States. During World posture on the nature-nurture issue, accounts War I he protested to Prescott Hall concern­ in some measure for the nativism Ross ing the efforts of several states to prevent espoused. Ross never assimilated into the main foreign-born, nonnaturalized residents from stream of his sociological thought the concept enjoying their freedom. Discrimination of any that was so central to the new social-science kind, he insisted, should end "at the ports of movement—the immanence of the social. Evi­ entry." "I am convinced that we ought not to dence of this failure on Ross's part may be admit into this country any type of person found in all of his major works: the use of whom we are not willing to fellowship with.""" "social forces" in his sociological theory; his The public school, the free homestead, the dependence upon the "imitation-suggestion" state university, and the direct election of Sen­ personality theory of Gabriel Tarde in his ators were all means to strengthen a society social psychology; and the emphasis Ross of free and equal men. Ross could not share placed upon external restraints as a means of the Brahmin conviction that "neither the eco­ social discipline in his conceptualization of the nomic nor the social promises of democracy problem of social control. "Interactionist" so­ seem to work. . . ." Melioristic nativism was cial psychology—the notion that human per­ intended to make them work.'" sonality is formed through internal, subtle, and wholly social experiences, a concept elaborated Environmentalism—the belief that social ex­ on by George Herbert Mead, Charles Horton periences determine human behavior—was at Cooley, and John Dewey—eluded Ross. This the base of Ross's disagreement with the con­ failure in Ross's social theory went hand-in- servative nativists. Consciously or not, the hand with the nativism he espoused in matters conservatives were hereditarians, firm in their affecting public policy."" conviction that biological factors determined personality and cultural traits. By accepting In the final analysis the purpose of melio­ a triad of European racial types (Grant), by ristic nativism was similar to the purpose of dividing men into fixed categories of white progressivism: to discipline and constrain the and colored races (Stoddard), and by seeking forces of industrialism and urbanism which the sources of personality in germ plasm were changing the configuration of American (Davenport), the conservative nativists re­ life, and retain a society in which earlier values jected the liberal, humanitarian tradition in would still be valid. Ross's nativism and pro­ American thought. Despite the Anglo-Saxon gressivism both stemmed from the breakdown assumptions in progressive thought, many pro- of the Gemeinschaft of his youth. His error, gessives were convinced that better schools, and that of many fellow-progressives, was his more settlement houses, and improved recrea­ lack of faith in the capacity of the American tional facilities— a more wholesome environ­ experience, in the uplifting processes of a free ment—would produce better citizens. Gener­ and democratic society, and in the inherent ally, the conservative nativists, like the con­ equality of all men, including the immigrant. servative Darwinists of whom they were a part, disagreed with the proposition that "an en­

'" Goldman, Rendezvous with Destiny, 78. '^ A lucid summary and explanation of the various •'•'•Ross to Hall, March 17, 1917, and May 6, 1919; schools of social behaviorism is Louis Wirtli, "Social Ross to Sidney Gulick, March 11, 1918, and October Interactionism: The Problems of the Individual and 15, 1919, all in Ross Papers. the Group," American Journal of Sociology, XLIV: ™ Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 102. 965-979 (May, 1939).

253 I LIVE HERE HAPPIirt

A German Immigrant in Territorial Wisconsin

Edited by JACK J. DETZLER

TN THE LATE 1840's Johann Balthaser Koe- scribes American life, noting the social and -*- nig of Arzberg, Bavaria, received two let­ business customs, attitudes, and characteris­ ters from friends and former neighbors who tics. The constantly repeated theme is that had emigrated to America. The first, received America is better than Germany—better for in the summer of 1846, was from Johann rearing a family, better in matters of justice, Wolfgang Schreyer, who had left Germany better in economic opportunities, and better in three years before to settle in northern In­ providing a full enjoyment of life. Even as diana.* The second, received in the winter of he wrote he recognized and was bothered by 1847, was from George Adam Fromader, late­ the scepticism his statements might arouse in ly of the nearby village of Bernstein, who in Germany. His friends had never been exposed the past year had also emigrated with his wife to such abundance and opportunity as he pic­ and three children to settle in Jefferson City tured and would, he believed, naturally tend (now Jefferson) in territorial Wisconsin. to discount his report. Both letters describe the Middle Western But Fromader's fears were unjustified. Let­ farming frontier of the period, and both bear ters such as his and Johann Wolfgang Schre- eloquent testimony to the democratic spirit of yer's were widely and eagerly read and be­ the area. The Schreyer letter characterizes lieved. Many Bavarians read Fromader's let­ American life in broad, sweeping terms, al­ ter, sold their possessions, and traveled to the though some attention is given to detail. How­ American Middle West, seeking the good life ever, at times it seems to be an essay aiming that he described. In fact, when in 1849 Jo­ at literary effect; and indeed the Schreyer hann Balthaser Koenig and his family them­ family spent the whole winter writing it! By selves migrated to America, among the treas­ contrast, the Fromader letter concentrates on ures they brought with them were the Schre­ presenting specific information useful to the yer and Fromader letters." German immigrant. Fromader's letter, which follows, though no Keeping in mind the problems facing Bava­ literary masterpiece, has a simplicity and sin­ rians, Fromader writes enthusiastically of the cerity which make it one of the more piquant impressive advantages of America. He de­ of its genre.

^ The Fromader letter has remained in possession of the Koenig (King) family and is held today by 'Donald F. Carmony (ed.), "Letter Written by Mrs. Thekla King Detzler of South Bend, Indiana. Mr. Johann Wolfgang Schreyer," in the Indiana Mag­ The translation given here was done by Mrs. Detzler, azine of History, XL: 283-307 (September, 1944). Mrs. Hedwig Leser, and Miss Thekla Sack.

254 DETZLER: FROMADER LETTER

Jefferson City, Jan. 15, 1847

For a long time I have been wanting to write to my dear good friends but I have waited until I had information about various things. As to the trip, my friends, the first day was the hardest of all since with one last handshake we had to say farewell to our good brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. Our first night we spent at the Inn at Juchhoh, four hours ride from Hof. Then we began to cheer up and console one another. Our journey to Bremen took 13 days, our wagon was too heavily loaded and the horses were not equal to the load. However the trip was not tedious since the passengers got along nice-

The voyage from Bremen to Quebec took Happiness and remorse mingle as an immigrant boat unloads; from an engraving in Gleason's Pictorial 77 days. It was very tedious, but we may say Drawing Room Companion, June 14, 1851. it was not very uncomfortable and still less dangerous. On the whole trip we had good Consul who immediately ordered a steamboat wind on only 5 or 6 days, when we were able to come and take off the passengers' posses­ to make 5 hours [fifteen miles] distance in sions. The captain had to prove that he had one. The rest of the time we had mostly con­ treated the passengers with due considera­ trary winds but no storm for even one hour. tion, and we really had no complaint. In the same week most of the passengers be­ The trip from Quebec to Milwaukee on the came seasick, with headache and vomiting steamer cost 11 dollars or 27^2 fl- per person." usually lasting two weeks. When we caught On Aug. 20 we arrived in Milwaukee and sight of America everybody was well and rented a room where we could do our own happy. The 120 passengers began singing cooking and keep our boxes. We stayed 8 happy songs and thanked God for the safe days and looked at land here and there and voyage. bought property on the road from Milwaukee Three children were born at sea, of which to Jefferson. The road is in the same condi­ the first was dead, but the two others were tion as the one from Bernstein to Pegersgrum." sound and well. We arrived at Quebec in the I bought the land IV2 miles from Jefferson evening and spent the night on our sailing from a man named Sam.' 3 miles is a Ger­ vessel, called the Petrel. It was early on the man "hour." The land is called a "Fratsche," morning of July 30 when the luggage was that is 60 acres or 75 days work in Bavaria. landed and the landing boats came to take On the land is a good frame house with a the passengers to town. We were impressed shingled roof and a stone lined well with very with the splendid order in this city. Our captain Henry Seth of Sunderland* was going to make an extra charge of one dollar to each ^ In the course of his letter, Fromader uses the passenger, or delay the unloading until later. following table ot monetary equivalents: Then several passengers went to the German One dollar = one thaler or 2% florins One cent = 10/125 schillings One schilling = 12^A cents One florin =: 40 cents One kreuzer z= .7 cents " Of all the Bavarian place names mentioned '' Beginning in 1827, Bremen became the leading throughout the letter, this is the only one which can port of emigration in Europe. The Fromader party not be identified. traveled from Bernstein to Bremen, a distance of '' The earliest deed to George Fromader recorded over 300 miles, at a rate of approximately twenty- in Jefferson County is dated November 3, 1848, at ihree miles a day. which time he purchased land for $100 from John * A County Borough, northwest Durham, England. Adam Schmidt in the Town of Sullivan.

255 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 clear and fresh water. Ten acres of this farm from Bernstein to here for our family of five have been cleared, from which I got the crops. amounted to 626 fl., so the whole expense is The wheat had already been harvested and 18771150 [$752]. stacked. A "stack" is a round mound. From For that we own a fine stretch of land that it we threshed 110 bushels; a bushel is a is both beautiful and good. The most splendid Bavarian Metze. We harvested 100 bu. of corn fruits grow on it. The remaining woodland and some buckwheat. On our arrival we were is covered with large trees, oak, linden, wal­ able to dig potatoes; we had been wanting nut, elm, cherry, ash and maple, a kind of oak some very much. They are very large and that is very hard, a kind of larch which grows quite good. For the digging we also get 50 very tall and is used for building material. bushels of pumpkins, called Kurbis in Ger­ One can also sell firewood and boards. many, 5 wagon loads, very good fodder for There are stretches of land extending 100 pigs and cattle, some cabbage, cucumbers, miles where there is no timber at all, where beets, onions and radishes, also small sweet the farms are immense and are called home­ melons, both in quantities. Also 22 pigs and steads. This is called openland; timberland 60 chickens. is called "bushland." On the openland there This land, including what is on it, cost 212 are farms with 100 acres sown in wheat, clear­ dollars that is 530 fl., but is the very best and ing being easy there. I do not want to buy cheapest purchase. Of all those who bought there, because I know what a scarcity of wood property in the wooded country the Land Of­ means for I experienced that in Germany. fice charged 10 schillings, that is 1^/4 Thalers People come 20 to 30 miles for boards. Un­ or 3 fl. 714 Kreuzer, that makes 75 Thalers for less I want to clear land I do not cut down 60 acres. It may be that the land will cost 20 trees. Clearing one acre costs $10, but the schillings. This is not quite certain until word wood once cut brings returns. But I do not comes back from Washington, the capital like to clear much more land. There are 20 where the President lives. It's common talk in acres adjoining mine, 13 of which are already America that the land should not be sold for cleared. This is owned by an American who more than 10 schillings [$1.25] an acre, the wants to sell it to me. He wants $200 for the market price. Most buyers have not paid any­ 20 acres. I have offered him $150 since the thing yet. By 1848 the land is to be paid for. land was bought for 20 schillings at the Land So my land with the above mentioned crops Office. If it cost 10 schillings you would get costs me $287 or 717 fl. 30. No one ought 20 acres of government land besides. I could, to expect to buy a farm for less in America, of course, easily buy 60 acres for $150, should for in this region such farms are known to it cost 20 sch. but it would not be as close to have sold for from 1000 to 1100 fl. I immed­ town and would not yet have been cleared. I iately bought a pair of oxen for $60. They are will get it some time because here people very large and fine. I bought a new wagon don't like to snatch somebody else's bargain. for $52, so that I could transport my baggage We could soon establish two homesteads on and myself from Milwaukee to here. I then this land, since we do not want to move away bought two cows for $32, a plow for $10, a from each other. It is much better here for me, harrow for $4, 6 chairs for $5, a sleigh for $4, and for my children, ten times better than a table for $3, 2 bedsteads $5, washing, drink­ in Germany. We need not suffer want, hav­ ing, and milking equipment $5, butter making ing this home which is as good and complete equipment $4, an iron stove with pans and as we had in Germany. We sold two mother kettles $16, a large kettle and pans for boiling pigs for $11% and slaughtered nine others. sugar, with a box for drying $6, a pair of Now we have let two young ones grow up and scales, fire shovel, and ax $8. So our whole have again 24 head. property with all equipment costs us $501 or Here in America one eats meat every day, 1252 fl. 30. We are as well equipped as we sometimes twice—mornings and evenings we ever were in Germany and our present pos­ have coffee. The Americans have meat on the sessions represent material far superior to table three times a day and many kinds of what we had before. The traveling expenses vegetables which we do not know of in Ger-

256 DETZLER: FROMADER LETTER many. The bread is made of the finest wheat thing about that. Unless blood is shed, there is flour**, baked with leaven, and there is no trou­ little conflict with the law. Everything is very ble in getting yeast to bake fried cakes. On closely investigated before any one is sen­ Saturday evening everybody makes fried tenced to prison. Few people let things go that cakes for Sunday. For coffee we usually ex­ far, for they cherish personal honor and like change eggs, for 1 doz. eggs you get a pound to have the confidence of their fellow men. of coffee. One egg costs 1^ or 1% sch. A An American is ashamed even to quarrel with pound of fine wheat flour costs 2^, a pound others, let alone to resort to violence. If a of pork 3^, beef 2%^ in summer, but 6-8 person finds something, he avoids taking it [in winter]. You can sell anything here but home, but takes it to the nearest house to not just when you want to. You must always make it public. So there is the greatest order bide your time. We sold 3 cords of wood in in everything. town for 10 schillings, but it must be chopped In art and science the land is astonishingly before taken to market. A schilling is 18 Kreu- far advanced, and in all things the Germans zers. At this price the chopping and hauling are far behind and acknowledge it readily. is paid for, but you cannot charge for the The country at large has already made great wood because it would have to be burned any­ advancement in arts and science, over which way. the people rejoice generally. But the Ger­ I have built a threshing floor. I traded logs mans have much to learn. for the boards I needed for it. I traded 100 For church and school we can go to Jeffer­ ft. of logs for 50 ft. of boards. I paid the son. Every 2 weeks a clergyman comes to carpenter with 6 bu. of wheat, 2 bu. potatoes, us and preaches in some private home, which, 25 lbs. wheat floor. In summer it would have of course, seems very strange to us.*" cost me again as much. I can tell you, friends, whoever can bring On Oct. 25, our son John and his betrothed into the country $200 in cash can become a Elizabeth Zeidler were married." Also John prosperous farmer. He can buy 40 acres of Adam Jahn was married, both of the weddings land. If it is priced at 10 schillings, $100 is were at our house. So we had a joyful wed­ enough. For another $100 he can buy the most ding celebration. On November 21 our young necessary equipment. And if he has grown-up wife gave birth to a girl, to our great joy. children they can easily help their father, for They are both quite well and sound. We are here there is no scarcity of work and income, all well and live very happily together. We do especially for women and girls. A girl of 9 not care to be back in our unhappy Germany. or 10 years can earn a few dollars a month, There we would have had to waste many words at the same time she attends school. A good and coax the law court and community offi­ hired man or maid, here called help, each can cials to give permission for the marriage. In earn monthly 8, 10, to 12 dollars, the sum de­ this country everybody is free to do as he pending on how he adapts himself to the pleases as long as he remains orderly and re­ work. Men and women have the same op­ spectable. Hunting is permitted for everybody portunity. In this country there is no distinc- in places not fenced in, even on Sunday in the country. Hunting is forbidden in town during church hours. In Germany we hear strange things about '" Jefferson City was laid out as the seat of Jef­ being hanged in America for stealing 5fS ferson County in 1839, when land was first offered for worth of goods, but nobody here knows any- sale. Catholics predominated among the first settlers and began holding services in a log cabin as early as 1842. Prior to the organization of a German Evangelical Lutheran Church by Bavarian and Prus­ sian settlers in 1851, services were held in the various dwellings of members. The first school was estab­ *' Obviously considered a luxury, since the staple lished in 1839 in a log cabin, then moved into a flour of Bavaria was rye. frame house in the early 1840's, and finally into ° The Manuscript Census for 1850, four years after a brick structure in 1851. Historical Atlas of Wis­ the wedding, lists John as being twenty-four, Eliza­ consin (Milwaukee, 1878), 215-216; John Henry Ott, beth two years older, and their two children, Mary Jefferson County, Wisconsin, and Its People (Chi­ and John, as four and one respectively. cago, 1917), 1: 101-102, 116.

257 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 tion between master and servant at the table. wrote to Lorenz Koenig in Syracuse*" and re­ Caste is unknown in this country. Nothing ceived an answer at once. Five of our travel­ is known about nobility and different names ing companions who had settled 13 miles from and titles. Everybody enjoys the same respect, us have died: two Grubers from Hanent, whether he be a servant, a farmer, a minister young Karl Muller, Marie Ubelhak from Neu- or a president. Honor is granted to all if de­ hasu, and Achziger from Weissenbach. I served. Everybody works. People work for talked to the doctor to find out the cause of each other, all for pay. Nothing is known their deaths. He said they had a fever, should about the forester's work, which is considered have eaten more moderately, worked too hard, the hardest in Germany. Every man here is a and drank impure water. All this caused their marksman and carries his gun. deaths. Elizabeth Hofner from Holzmuhl On 80 acres of land you pay $1 tax and 2 brought her illness with her from Germany. days road work, if the land is occupied as a When they arrived everybody thought she home and is properly worked. was pregnant, she thought so herself, but she I can assure you, friends, a man who brings had dropsy and was doomed. 500 fl. can buy a farm on which 50 to 75 acres What I am writing to you and am going to are sown in winter wheat, where there are 10 write is true. Often our letters are regarded to 12 cows, 6 to 8 oxen, 4 to 6 horses, 60 as untrue. I can vouch for all my statements. to 70 pigs, 50 to 100 sheep are kept. And Anyone who has a desire to follow us may all this without a shepherd since all tilled acres do so confidently if he can bring a little are fenced in, so nothing can be destroyed. money along, whether it be a father or a Whatever I look at, I find everything is easier family or a single person, man or woman. A and more practically managed to earn a living skilled and industrious woman even though in this country than in Germany. she brings no money into the country may Our nearest neighbors are Jahn from Stem- soon become a housewife. Women are high­ meragrun, Robisch from Grafenreuth, Bueh­ ly respected in this country. They do not work ler from Biebersbach. We three can speak to in the fields and may be quite genteel. Who­ one another from our own houses. Walder ever wants to make the trip need not bring a and Strets from Thiersheim live a few miles great deal except a supply of shirts and away, the two Porllen and Benker live about woolens. Do not bring tools of any kind, nor % hour from us, master carpenter Grumme- extra shoes, for the German ones are not worth nauer, Schrauker from Gross-Wendern are carrying across the sea. No matter what you 1% miles away, and the 50 German families need or want, it is much better than in Ger­ live close to each other." many. The cost may be higher, but they are I could have sent this letter a few weeks sure to be worth twice as much as the German ago, but I wrote to my cousin Kiessling in product. St. Louis, also to Christoph Freiesleben in The best route, also the cheapest, is via Jefferson for information about the widow Bremen and New York. The provisions to take Stohn, also about my late cousin Lindhardt's on the trip are: good rye bread, cut small and widow because I would like to know how the toasted, oatmeal fried in lard, dried pork, two widows are getting along. But I have no dried noodles, coffee and sugar three parts, answer from them. I believe they are no longer dried prunes, salted butter, white hard tack. holding their positions. If I had known the All this you buy in Bremen at the lowest price. widows' addresses I should have written to You have no need of more advice, for I have them directly and received answers. I also told you all that is necessary. Michel Jahn is also well, he stays with us, is a good fellow. Our brother-in-law Zeidler

" The census taker often did not write legibly and obviously had difficulty in understanding and tran­ scribing German names. Therefore, in the Manu­ '^ The Manuscript Census of 1850 lists Koenig un­ script Census for 1850 we find Fromather for Froma­ der his anglicized name of Lorenzo King. At that time der, Bucher for Buchter, Walther for Walder, and he was a forty-four-year-old fanner, living in Jeffer­ Seitz for Strets. son County.

258 DETZLER: FROM.ADER LETTER now also wants to buy a farm, two miles from them good health and long life. My regards us, but he has been waiting so long.*" If we also to our worthy judge Riter von Wachter cannot buy the 20 acres then we will buy and to his whole respected family, and to all another 80 acres together. 80 acres are 1000 the officials of the Court, wishing them also ordinary steps long and 500 wide, 40 acres health and a long life. As I have remarked are a square 500 steps long. before, dear friends, give an answer as soon Now I wish this letter may reach you in as possible. as good health as we were when it was written. I do not advise a father of a family with You dear friends, good night! many little children to move to this country I have accomplished the voyage unless he has money, for things are not as That I intended to taJce they were a few years ago when you could And have come to a good land. have cleared a piece of land. Now if a man I tfianfc God for this way wants land, he must be able to pay for it. The Of getting a free life. distance from Milwaukee to Jefferson is 16 I have much wood and good land. German "hours" [forty-eight miles]. Five Were you here you would have it, too. years ago this was a dense forest with only I live here happily two small towns just started. Now all this And wish you could have it the same way. land is thickly settled and there is not an Good night, all you friends! acre of government land along that road to be Germany is a vale of tears. had. In many places you cannot believe that it once was timberland. The towns and farms Jefferson, January 15, 1847 spring like mushrooms from the ground. The address to: I want to tell you or anyone who may wish George Adam Fromader," to come to make the drive to Bremen in your Jefferson City own wagon and arrange to take only a limited Post Office, Jefferson City number of persons and only as many trunks North American Territory and boxes as are necessary so that you can Wisconsin sleep nights on the wagon. Inns are expensive and of poor quality. I read in German news­ papers that food there is high priced. Now please let us hear from you as soon " According to the present burgomeister of Arzberg, as possible, for our little Margaret speaks the local Evangelical-Lutheran Church baptismal re­ daily of her godmother. Please tell our rela­ cords show that a Georg Adam Fromader and his wife, Anna Catherine, emigrated to America to­ tives and friends about this letter or make a gether with their three children, the two eldest copy of it, for it is impossible to write such a being boys and the youngest a girl whose age was recorded at the time. However, the Manuscript Cen­ long letter to each one. We again send cordial sus of 1850 for Jefferson County lists George Adam greetings to all and beg you to answer us, as being fifty-one and his wife (registered as Mag- especially my dear brother-in-law and god­ dalena) as being fifty-four, a chronological impos­ sibility since the church records show that George father Cristoph Poruker, also my good broth­ was born in 1811 and his wife in 1808. While it is er-in-law George Kiessling of Ober-Rasslaw possible that two men of the same name and family and our dear godfather Adam Fromader, to­ circumstances may have emigrated at about the same time, it is more probable that the census taker was gether with cousins and sponsor Michel Fro­ in error concerning the elder Fromaders' ages, since mader, both at Ober-Thalau. I further send those of their children remain constant from one census to another. Curiously, no identifiable Froma­ greetings to all my neighbors at Bernstein, der is listed in the census of 1860, although Wis­ to your good and excellent employers of Bran- consin Volunteers: War of the Rebellion (Madison, denstein in Sachsgrun, once again wishing 1914) lists three men of that name as having served in the Union army—John Frohmader [sic], Henry Fromader, and Michael Fromader. Although all were from Jefferson County, their relationship to George Adam Fromader has not been established. The family name seems subsequently to have been " The Manuscript Census for 1850 lists Michel standardized as Frohmader. Ten persons bearing this Jahn as a thirty-four-year-old laborer, and Adam name are listed in the current Jefferson telephone Zeidler as a thirty-four-year-old farmer, with a wife book. and two small sons.

259 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

bright Papers.) Incidentally, while thumbing through the National Geographic, CXXIV: 545 (October, 1963), I recently found a pic­ ture taken by Horace Albright, showing Gil­ Communications bert Grosvenor during the Mather mountain party of 1915 as he bedded down for the night in a canvas-covered sleeping bag. Per­ haps Mr. Hafstad would be interested in look­ ing up this picture. To THE EDITOR:

I was much interested in reading the ar­ DONALD C. SWMN ticle by Donald C. Swain concerning the Na­ University of California, Davis tional Park Service Act (Autumn, 1967, pp. 4-17). One small question comes to my mind, though. On page 10 Mr. Swain writes that "Each man had a new sleeping bag and air mattress." This was in July, 1915. To THE EDITOR: This seems to me to be too early for equip­ ment of this description. I wonder if the While I was reading in preparation for a letter Mr. Swain used in his reference actually paper on Captain John Montgomery (1717, or calls the equipment "sleeping bag and air 1725-1802), the excellent footnote concerning mattress." this Montgomery family on page 225 of Reu­ ben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg GEORGE E. HAFSTAD (eds.), Tfie Documentary History of Dun- Middleton more's War, 1774 which your Society pub­ lished in 1905, came to my attention. The John Montgomery who was the author of the letter quoted on pages 224^225 served as a To THE EDITOR: Captain in the Sandy (Creek) Expedition against the Shawnees in 1756. A native of Although the letter to which I referred Donegal in Northern Ireland, he settled with in my article did not actually contain the his father, James Montgomery, in Augusta terms "sleeping bag" and "air mattress," these County, Virginia, about 1746. In 1752 John items of camping equipment were in common Montgomery bought land in the present coun­ use in 1915. The Funk & Wagnall New ty of Wythe where he continued to live and Standard Dictionary of the English Language, is buried. His land adjoined land that later which was published during the World War I became Fort Chiswell. Since this was a period era, defined "sleeping bag" as "a large bag, of rapid formation of new counties in Virgin­ usually of peltry, used to cover outdoor sleep­ ia, John Montgomery's estate was—during ers, as arctic explorers or those undergoing his lifetime—successively a part of five coun­ the outdoor treatment for consumption." A ties, in three of which he served as magistrate. few weeks after the Mather mountain party, He served in the Virginia House of Delegates Horace Albright wrote good-naturedly to from Montgomery County in 1777. Emerson Hough offering "to blow your bed Often confused with this John Montgomery up next year if we happen to be out in the is the younger Colonel John Montgomery, born mountains together." (Albright to Hough, in Virginia about 1748, whose relationship October 7, 1915, Albright Papers.) to the older John I cannot verify at this time. Many years later Albright reminisced about The younger John served with honor under the same trip: "Mr. Mather had arranged to General George Rogers Clark during the buy new sleeping bags with rubber mattresses Revolution. He settled in Tennessee and was for his guests, and everybody had fun inflat­ killed by Indians in western Kentucky in 1794. ing them at night. Some of us younger fel­ lows, accustomed to the high altitude, would MRS. HERBERT PARKES RILEY amuse the guests sometimes by lying on the Lexington, Kentuclcy mattresses and inflating them with air from our lungs, instead of using the bicycle pump (The Society Press eventually plans to re­ available to all." (Albright, "The Mather publish The Documentary History of Dun- Mountain Party of 1915," MS, p. 4, Al­ more's War, which has long been out of print.)

260 REVIEWS

Truman and the Historians: A Review Article

By RICHARD M. DALFIUME

Traditional historians have generally taken litical colleagues, historians have generally a sympathetic view of Truman and the accom­ agreed that he was usually right on the big plishments of his Administration. In a poll things (his Cold War foreign policy, his stand conducted among prominent historians in on civil rights, his Fair Deal proposals, and 1962, Truman was ranked ninth among all his general defense of the New Deal from American Presidents as "near great." Bor­ those who wanted to tear it down) and wrong rowing the assessment of one of Truman's po- mainly on the small things (his threat to thrash a critic of daughter Margaret's singing, his appointment of cronies to federal office, and his subsequent reluctance to move quickly The Truman Administration: A Documentary when these same cronies accepted mink coats History. Edited by BARTON J. BERNSTEIN and and deep freezers from those seeking favors). ALLEN J. MATUSOW. (Harper and Row, New In short, the standard textbook picture of York, 1966. Pp. viii, 518. Illustrations, notes, Truman is that of a common man who grew bibliography, index. $10.00.) in office to make big decisions and to cope successfully with tremendous challenges. The Truman Presidency: The History of a Recently, however, there has appeared a Triumphant Succession. By CABELL PHILLIPS. group of revisionists who are challenging the (Macmillan, New York, 1966. Pp. xiii, 463. traditional assumptions. The revisionists at­ Illustrations, notes, index. $8.95.) tack on two fronts. On foreign policy they suggest that the international situation was not Housing Reform During the Truman Adminis­ as threatening in 1945-1946 as Truman imag­ tration. By RICHARD 0. DAVIES. (University ined; therefore, he and the United States bear of Missouri Press, Columbia, 1966. Pp. xiv, great responsibility for the beginning of the 197. Notes, bibliography, index. $5.50.) Cold War. The revisionist critique of the domestic scene insists that the conservative Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Man­ coalition of Republicans and Southern Demo­ date. By R. ALTON LEE. (University of Ken­ crats was not as formidable as we have as­ tucky Press, Lexington, 1966. Pp. viii, 254. sumed and that a more effective and com­ Notes, bibliographical note, index. $7.50.) mitted President could have accomplished

261 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 much more at home. Clearly, Truman's liber­ been subverted to make the United States a alism is being questioned, as is the assumption "world policeman." If containment is unde­ that he was generally right in his answers to sirable today, then the presentist reasons that the big questions. it was a bad idea from the beginning. A more subtle element in the revisionist The neo-traditionalists have not failed to critique is a resentment of Truman's political criticize Truman's presidential leadership, but style. Certain liberal intellectuals seem to re­ they have conducted their critique within the sent the fact that he looked and, all too fre­ context of the conditions in which he operated. quently in their eyes, acted like a small-town After all, they argue, the conservative coali­ politician; he lacked charisma and could not tion in Congress, the disaffection of the lib­ make beautiful speeches. In other words, Tru­ erals, the problems of postwar reconversion, man was not a Roosevelt. Such was the re­ and the need for a new foreign policy would action of many liberals after World War II, have restricted the options and achievements and it is no accident that much of the "new" of any man who was President between 1945 critique of Truman and his policies and lead­ and 1952. To ignore or de-emphasize these ership is only a revival of criticisms made by problems is to run the risk of distorting the the Nation, the New Republic, and Henry Wal­ climate in which Truman made his decisions. lace (among others) after the war. This scholarly debate is evident to some ex­ Neo-traditionalists describe the revisionists tent in the works under review. It is far more as "New Left" historians and point out that discernible, however, in papers read at pro­ much of the new criticism of Truman displays fessional meetings and in articles in the scho­ a presentist bias; that is, the revisionists ignore larly journals. or de-emphasize the political context in which Professors Barton J. Bernstein and Allen J. Truman operated and judge him instead in Matusow have produced one of the most use­ terms of the present. Today a policy of con­ ful scholarly contributions for the study of the tainment appears to have outlived its useful­ Truman years to date. Both are young men ness and, indeed, many feel that the idea has who have been involved in examining the his­ tory of the Truman Administration for several years, and they present here many of the fruits of their research. In their Truman Administra­ tion: A Documentary History not only do we find the standard fare of documentary histo­ ries, excerpts from periodicals, government re­ ports and hearings, but also many documents previously unpublished.

Society's Iconographic Collection Two famous photographs of the Truman era: (left) actress Lauren Bacall sits atop a piano while Truman plays it; (right) a gleeful Truman holds aloft a copy of the Chicago Tribune erroneously announcing his defeat in the presi­ dential election of 1948.

262 BOOK REVIEWS

In addition to selections from unpublished other important topics. Civil rights, housing, sources, the editors have provided a bonus the national health proposal, and farm policy with their penetrating introductions to each are just a few of the important subjects slight­ major group of documents. Furthermore, the ed. Some of the deficiencies in research and editorial prefaces raise the pertinent questions emphasis could have been avoided if the of the revisionists. "Too few have investi­ author had made fuller use of the sources gated," Bernstein and Matusow write in their available at the Truman Library. After spend­ introduction, "whether Truman's failure to ing only several days at the Library, Phillips win acceptance for most of his Fair Deal pro­ was discouraged because many of Truman's gram was not partly the result of his own lack personal papers are still in his possession and of political skill. Much of Truman's current not available to researchers. Now he labels all reputation rests on his conduct of foreign af­ presidential libraries as "sentimental mauso­ fairs, but even here it is not yet clear whether leums" of no value to the serious researcher. he halted the spread of Communism in Europe This reviewer has spent some time in two or seriously misjudged the expansionary in­ presidential libraries, including the Truman tentions of Marshall Stalin, thereby contri­ Library, and simply cannot agree with Phil­ buting unnecessarily to the deterioration of lips. If he had been willing to spend more time Russian-American relations." This volume researching, as well as utilizing the unpub­ provides an excellent place to start for anyone lished studies available at the Truman Library^ interested in examining the major issues of in dissertation form, Phillips could have pro­ the Truman years. duced a better study. Cabell Phillips, long a reporter in the Neiv Monographs form the foundation for con­ Yorfc Times Washington Bureau, has written structing the history of a particular period. In a journalistic account of Truman's presidency. Housing Reform During the Truman Adminis­ This book has no new interpretation of Tru­ tration, Richard 0. Davies has an excellent man. Phillips is intrigued by the popular con­ book on the major domestic achievements of sensus: "Harry S. Truman was a quite ordi­ the Fair Deal. One never loses sight of the nary man. He was also a quite extraordinary whole picture while Davies focuses on his President." In the end, the author explains the particular subject. paradox like so many before him: Truman Upon becoming President, Truman demon­ grew in office. The Truman Presidency is not strated his liberalism by taking command of a complete history of the Truman Administra­ the housing reform movement that had deep tion, although it is the closest thing to one in roots in the progressive and New Deal past. print. Phillips' work does take the place of the Unlike the revisionists, Davies emphasizes the best journalistic accounts of the subject. It strength of the Congressional conservative replaces Jonathan Daniels, The Man of In­ coalition. Despite overwhelming public sup­ dependence (1950), which still has the most port, aroused by a shortage of housing in the satisfactory account of Truman's early life, postwar years, federal housing legislation was and Alfred Steinberg, The Man from Missouri defeated through 1948. This was largely the (1962), in this category. work of a powerful, rural antireform coali­ Although Phillips provides no new inter­ tion in Congress, allied with organized realtors pretation, he does disclose new information. who saw the specter of socialism in all pro­ Because of his position as a respected report­ posals for government housing legislation. er, important individuals in the Truman Ad­ Truman made housing a major issue in the ministration, such as Clark Clifford and Dean 1948 campaign and with his election victory, a Acheson, granted interviews and access to Democratic Congress, and public support, the their private files to Mr. Phillips. An exam­ President was able to achieve one of his few ple of the new information thus brought to legislative victories in the Housing Act of light is the existence of a liberal group of 1949. advisers who worked behind the scenes to According to Davies, however, the act was shape Administration policy and who played "a hollow victory." The core of the Housing a considerable role in formulating the 1948 Act was the proposal to build 810,000 low-cost election strategy. housing units over a six-year period. By 1964, The most serious criticism of this book is less than half of these units had been built. its lack of proportion. While Phillips devotes But the failure of public housing lies deeper, adequate attention to domestic issues such as in the progressive assumption that a decent inflation and the government's loyalty pro­ place to live would remake the character of gram, he fails to discuss in sufficient detail the urban poor and thus break the cycle of

263 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 poverty. The American experience with pub­ lic housing indicates that the housing reform­ ers of the past were concerned with symptoms (slum housing), rather than the illness itself (poverty). STATE AND REGIONAL The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 altered a major New Deal policy, the Wagner Labor Relations Act. Significantly, it was passed by the Eightieth Congress, the first Republican- George Smith's Money: A Scottish Investor controlled Congress since 1930. Labor viewed in America. By ALICE E. SMITH. (The State Taft-Hartley as a "Slave Labor Bill," and con­ Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, servatives viewed it as a measure to "equalize" 1966. Pp. vii, 197. Illustrations, bibliograph­ labor's power in the "public interest." Presi­ ical essay, index. $4.50.) dent Truman's veto of the act, and its sub­ sequent passage over his veto, produced a When George Smith died in London in 1899 major issue for the 1948 campaign. Promis­ at the age of ninety-one, he left an estate worth ing that if re-elected he would repeal Taft- more than $50 million, which placed him Hartley, Truman rallied labor support to his among the richest men in the Western World. side, which provided an important margin for This fortune was acquired largely in the United his surprising victory. But lack of support in States, particularly in Illinois and Wisconsin, a conservative dominated Congress prevented and by a somewhat paradoxical mixture of Truman from ever redeeming his pledge, and, inherent Scottish conservatism coupled with in fact, Democratic administrations since then risk-taking in three of the most speculative have sought to redeem it and failed. areas open to nineteenth-century American Professor R. Alton Lee's book, Truman ami businessmen—land, banking, and railroads. Taft-Hartley: A Question of Mandate, fails to As presented by Dr. Alice E. Smith (no be more than a survey of the passage of the kin), the title of this book carries a double Taft-Hartley Act and the fight to repeal it. meaning. One theme is the acquisition of This failure results from a lack of significant George Smith's money or fortune, its rein­ analysis. Lee uses the general and vague con­ vestment into railroad ventures such as the cept of a split constituency — Congress re­ Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, and the Chi­ presents business, middle-class, and agricul­ cago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, and its ulti­ tural interests, while the President represents mate disposition after Smith's death. How­ the interests of urban labor — to explain the ever, "George Smith's Money" also meant the Taft-Hartley controversy. Unfortunately, the paper currency which dominated the circulat­ author never digs much deeper than this. We ing media of southern Wisconsin and northern learn little about the basic assumptions and Illinois during the 1840's and early 1850's, attitudes of Truman, Taft, or those groups for and which made Smith the single most im­ and against the Act. We are told that some portant banker in pre-Civil War Chicago. His opposed Taft-Hartley and some supported it, currency also passed virtually at par in east­ but we are never quite really told why. ern commercial centers, giving Smith an en­ The Truman years, heretofore rather un­ viable reputation as a shrewd and responsible productive of scholarship, are of increasing financier (as well as an extremely successful interest to recent United States historians. The one) in a period known primarily for its scholarly debate and this group of new books banking excesses. are evidence of this. Smith's rise to fame and fortune as a note- issuing private banker occurred because he proved more able than any other individual in Illinois and Wisconsin in filling the vacuum created by the frontier's insatiable demand for (Ricfiard M. Dalfiume is assistant professor of capital and credit, and the financial uncer­ American history at the University of Wis­ tainty and chaos which followed the demise consin.) of the Second Bank of the United States and the Panic of 1837. Although essentially honest by the standards of the day, bachelor Smith had only one goal in life—to make money— and in relentlessly pursuing this goal, his maneuvers were not always above reproach.

264 BOOK REVIEWS

Western hostility against chartered banks The Waterfall That Built a City. By LUCILLE and the note privilege caused Smith and his M. KANE. (Minnesota Historical Society, St. colleagues (the most important of whom was Paul, 1966. Pp. X, 224. Illustrations, notes, Alexander Mitchell) to resort to such subter­ maps, index. $5.00.) fuges as establishing an insurance company to issue "certificates of deposit," but as prac­ "Winding its way southward through Minne­ ticed by Smith's Wisconsin Marine and Fire sota, the Mississippi River leaps over a sixteen- Insurance Company such techniques were rela­ foot precipice known as the Falls of St. An­ tively orthodox compared to the unabashedly thony. This waterfall, which was responsible wildcat Georgia bank notes which Smith pro­ for the birth of Minneapolis, is the most abrupt moted in the mid-1850's to vanquish com­ drop in the Mississippi's entire 2,200-mile petitors who also sought to supply Chicago's course. . . ." Discovered in 1680 by Father currency needs. Yet despite the dubious nature Louis Hennepin and named for his patron, of some practices. Smith possessed a funda­ St. Anthony of Padua, the falls attracted set­ mental integrity, for he never defaulted on tlers and stimulated milling and city growth any note obligations, and backed both his wild­ until they diminished in importance as new cat notes and the more respectable certificates industries developed. Dissatisfaction over the of deposit with his own personal fortune. French place-name relaxed when Minnehapolis, Already wealthy before the age of fifty, and Sioux for laughing waters and Greek for city, alert to growing business uncertainties. Smith was suggested in 1852. With deletion of the began to curtail his operations, and was able "h", citizenly displeasure was quieted. to weather the Panic of 1857 without undue In the struggle for growth between east and difficulty. In addition, banking was losing west-side milling districts, the east, or St. its appeal for him as a consequence of in­ Anthony, leased water and sites in a hit-and- creased use of demand deposits, a "bank war" miss manner and added few improvements. over his wildcat notes, and unwelcome banking The west, or Minneapolis side, mainly Minne­ restrictions imposed by the Illinois legislature. apolis Mill, was more hardheaded in its con­ At the beginning of the 1860's, Smith termin­ tracts and established a unit for leasing water ated his banking activities, and thereafter con­ known to engineers as a Minneapolis mill- fined himself to managing his extensive Mid­ power. The story traces the struggles of land west railroad investments, at first from New and waterpower promoters who made their York, later from London via agents in the town the queen flour city of America from United States. 1850-1930. In writing this book, the author (former It may jolt Wisconsinites to learn that director of research at the State Historical So­ Minnesota erected the first hydroelectric cen­ ciety of Wisconsin) has done all that can tral station in the United States on September reasonably be expected in overcoming an un­ 5, 1882, twenty-five days before the station fortunate shortage of detailed information claimed as first at Appleton, Wisconsin. about Smith. Despite his tremendous wealth and the diversity of his business interests, he Miss Kane's scholarship is thorough and left no collection of personal or business rec­ her prose spare. She has done a meticulous ords, and his associates, most of whom were job of tracing the rise and fall of managers, also Scots, were not of much more help. In waterpower, and net profits. Her interest is addition, the great fire of 1871 destroyed most concentrated, always, on the waterfall rather of the public and private papers and news­ than on personalities. papers in Chicago which would have shed ex­ Excellent photographs cover a wide range tensive light on Smith's career there. How­ of years but the end paper map of the St. An­ ever, to the extent that the sources have per­ thony district might have been supplemented mitted, the author has written a carefully bal­ by another showing Meeker Island and down­ anced account of a genuinely important chap­ river sites. ter in the economic development of the Mid­ This book on urban development is another west, and also placed Smith and his activities outstanding contribution among those recent­ in an adequate national context to provide ly published by the Minnesota Historical So­ some sense of his role on this larger stage, too. ciety on the history of the state.

RICHARD W. BARSNESS DORIS H. PLATT Northwestern University Tfie State Historical Society of Wisconsin

265 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

tant was factionalism within Democratic ranks. Indeed the major theme of this volume (so GENERAL HISTORY too, one gathers, of its forthcoming sequel) is Polk's heroic attempt to hold together a party torn by dissension. Much of the De­ mocratic tension stemmed from "long-running, impersonal tendencies": the feud between James K. Polfc: Continentalist, 1843-1846. By hard-money locofocos and entrepreneurial CHARLES SELLERS. (Princeton University Conservatives; "the impatience of ambitious, Press, Princeton, N.J., 1966. Pp. x, 513. younger politicians with continued domina­ Illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, in­ tion by the old regulars" and the quadrennial dex. $12.50.) scramble for the presidency. Other sources of dissension were more recent. Bitter inter­ When in May, 1844, faction-ridden Demo­ necine fights over the tariff, gag rule, and crats gave their presidential nomination to Texas in the months before Polk's inaugura­ James K. Polk, a good many Americans shook tion added an ominous sectional tone to their heads in disbelief. "The idea of Jem Democratic schism and left Young Hickory Polk being President of the U.S.!!!" sneered "only the difficult task of administering the one Tennessee Whig. "We are more disposed Jacksonian legacy by a delicate brokerage to laugh at it here than to treat it seriously." among rival groups." Even some Democrats, especially the embit­ Realizing that the success of his plans de­ tered Van Burenites, found cold comfort in pended upon party unity, Polk strove to play Polk's nomination. Stanch Jacksonian editor no favorites, to build support in all quarters. Frank Blair complained that he felt "strong­ His patronage policy, for example, was ex­ ly inclined" to throw over his Washington plicitly designed "to do equal & exact justice Globe "& give myself to my 'farm & garden.'" to every portion of the Republican party." Yet despite the doubters and dissenters, He deliberately expanded the powers of the Polk went on to win the 1844 election and presidency — especially in initiating legisla­ within his first year and a half in office to tion —^ as a means of bending his party, and establish "the most impressive record of ac­ Congress, to his will. Likewise, Polk's ag­ complishment in the history of the presidency gressive diplomacy was calculated to unite thus far" (p. 486). By midsummer 1846 Democrats behind an expansionism which (where this volume closes) Polk could boast offered something for everyone: Oregon and of an amicable settlement of the Oregon dis­ California, together with Texas and New Mexi­ pute, tariff reduction, and establishment of co. With incredible skill and audacity, play­ the Independent Treasury. Texas had joined ing one faction off against another, Polk the Union (thanks as much to Polk as Tyler) shoved his program through Congress. and war with Mexico, begun that spring, Yet his victory carried the seeds of a promised to add California and New Mexico greater defeat. For not only had this dogged to the American family. and humorless President made many enemies That Polk succeeded in realizing virtually in winning it, but his program of continen­ all of his grand design was, as Sellers shows talism inevitably raised the explosive issue of us, a victory of political ambition and shrewd­ slavery expansion. When that happened the ness over singularly unfavorable circumstanc­ forces of disunion could not be long re­ es. There were, first of all, seemingly in­ strained. superable obstacles blocking Polk's path to This volume, like its predecessor (James the White House: his twin defeats for re­ K. Polfc: Jacfcsonian, 1957), is broadly con­ election to the governorship of Tennessee, ceived and handsomely executed. Sellers splits among Tennessee Democrats, and the writes with force and clarity, and his unex­ presence of more lustrous presidential aspir­ celled mastery of the sources permits Polk's ants. In masterful detail Sellers traces the life and times to illuminate one another bril­ delicate maneuvers by which Polk overcame liantly. His third, and final, installment can­ these barriers. After his razor-thin victory not come too soon. over Clay, Polk found still more impediments to his bold new continentalism and his Old RICHARD H. SEWELL Republican reforms. By far the most impor­ University of Wisconsin

266 BOOK REVIEWS

Society's Iconographic Collection Richard T. Ely (third from left) and his associates at the Institute for Re­ search in Land Economics and Public Utilities, University of Wisconsin, about 1925.

The Academic Mind and Reform: Tlie In­ E. A. Ross, John R. Commons, Frederic C. fluence of Richard T. Ely in American Life. Howe, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Wood- By BENJAMIN G. RADER (University of Ken­ row Wilson all took courses from him. tucky Press, Lexington, 1966. Pp. i, 236. Establishing the American Economic Asso­ Notes, index, bibliography. $7.50.) ciation in 1885, Ely launched his career by attacking classical economics. Historical ex­ Some men's lives encompass a considerable perience, insisted the young professor, had portion of the intellectual history of a gener­ eroded the old theory; time had produced ation. Such a figure was Richard T. Ely, changes in custom and habits, and economic whose career as an economist extended from theory must change with them. The New Eco­ the period of the Knights of Labor to the New nomics would fuse the scientific method with Deal. Professor Benjamin Rader of the Uni­ ethics: facts and figures would convince men versity of Montana has provided a detailed that interdependence was the rule of society. study of this fascinating and exasperating And in a period of burgeoning industrialism, figure in The Academic Mind and Reform. capital and labor would see that it was to their Based on extensive research in the Ely Papers, advantage to co-operate. Class strife would the biography is an attempt to explain why disappear and brotherhood would prevail. and how an academic tried to dominate As Rader points out, Ely's commitment to the field of economic theory during the Gilded reform was often tenuous. When conserva­ Age. tives attacked him at the University of Wis­ Born in 1854, Ely left his family's farm in consin, Ely avoided controversial issues; when western New York and received his degrees at the Progressives had control of the state, he Columbia University and the University of re-enlisted as a reformer. Above all, Ely was Heidelberg. Studying in Germany, he was an elitist who believed that reform must come inculcated with a belief that ethics and reality from experts like himself. The masses must be could be juxaposed into a meaningful econom­ instructed and led, and he wanted to do the ic theory. A distinguished career at the Johns leading. Hopkins University and the University of Wis­ Rader's volume raises some interesting ques­ consin followed, and the list of his students tions. Why did Ely shift from philosophy to reads like an intellectual history of the period. political economy as a graduate student? Was

267 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 there something in the social sciences that perceived that his troopers—half of them so drew individuals like Ely? The autobiography green they had never fired a shot in anger— of Frederic Howe suggests that many intellect­ were riding into a veritable sea of hostiles. uals of that generation were enormously self- The attack faltered, and the cavalry retired conscious about their careers. Had Rader ad­ amid confusion and slaughter to the bluffs dressed himself to these problems, his study above the river. There, thanks largely to the would have been more impressive. coolness and bravery of Reno's junior officers, they repulsed repeated Indian assaults until RICHARD W. RESII the engagement was broken off next day. University of Missouri—St. Louis In the meantime, about four miles down­ stream, Custer and his men had been annihi­ lated. Partisans of the Boy General—they were many and vocal—made much of Reno's Faint the Trumpet Sounds: The Life and precipitous retreat to the bluffs and his failure Trial of Major Reno. By JOHN UPTON TER­ to "rescue" Custer, and though Reno was RELL and COLONEL GEORGE WALTON. (David exonerated by an army court of inquiry in McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1966. Pp. 1878, his critics were never stilled. xvi, 332. Maps, illustrations, bibliography, It was understandable, indeed almost in­ index. $6.95.) evitable, that Marcus Reno should be made the scapegoat for the disaster which befell the Seventh Cavalry. Faint the Trumpet Sounds is a well-wrought biography of a man Tfie Battle of the Little Bighorn. By MARI who went through life with a leering, malicious SANDOZ. (Great Battles of History Series, J. Fate at his heels, shattering his hopes, souring B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and his successes, and quite literally driving him New York, 1966. Pp. 191. Maps, bibliogra­ to an unmarked grave. Reno was apparently phy, index. $4.50.) a decent man, and at least a competent soldier, but from the time he entered West Point in Across the Big Horn's crystal tide, 1851 to the day he died in 1889, his career was Against the savage Sioux, little more than a ghastly series of personal A little band of soldiers charged. tragedies and public humiliations. Whether Three hundred boys in blue. he merited a biography is questionable, but this is a good one, and it convincingly demon­ strates that Reno bore no responsibility for So begins a lugubrious ballad of eighteen Custer's defeat. stanzas celebrating "Custer's Last Charge." Like most folk ballads, it contains a modicum If Reno gets somewhat the best of it in of fact and a liberal dose of apocrypha; for Faint the Trumpet Sounds, Custer gets de­ example, Custer's doomed detachment num­ cidedly the worst of it in The Battle of the bered a little over two hundred, and did not Little Bighorn. The late Mari Sandoz did not cross the Little Big Horn, the waters of which, count Custer among her heroes, and in this even in 1876, were far from crystalline. But slim book she comes down on him like a the song nonetheless conveys the essential band of war-crazed Sioux. She asserts that truth about the fight: Custer charged boldly, Custer's headlong attack on the vast Indian and died gloriously, and thus attained a perm­ throng at the Little Big Horn was predicated anent niche in the hagiology of the American upon his notion of becoming the Republican frontier. His legendary luck held to the very candidate for President of the United States: end, for it is not too much to say that if he "There was probably never a better year to had survived, the balladeers might well have stampede a political convention than at St. sung of Custer's Last Folly. Louis in 1876, and who ever voted against a national hero?" Witness the case of Major Marcus A. Reno, an ill-starred soldier who also fought the This is a novel and interesting thesis, but savage Sioux that day—but who had neither it is based upon insubstantial evidence, and the luck nor the foresight to be killed. It was it leads Miss Sandoz to obscure or ignore Reno who commanded that portion of Custer's some well-documented reasons for Custer's cavalry which forded the Little Big Horn and behavior during the campaign. To the best attacked the upper end of the Indian encamp­ of his knowledge, the Sioux encampment con­ ment while Custer circled to the right. Reno tained less than two thousand warriors, a num­ took the Sioux by surprise, but he quickly ber that the Seventh Cavalry could probably

268 BOOK REVIEWS handle. Moreover, the Indians were expected frontier, that of New Netherland proved cor­ to fly at the first approach of the cavalry, and rosive to the great distinctions of class and standard Indian-fighting procedure dictated wealth prevalent in Europe. . . ." (p. 29) that Custer strike them before they dispersed. Concerning Braddock's defeat in 1755 Mr. He divided his force just prior to the engage­ Leach observes: "This was a victory for wil­ ment because he was not yet certain that he derness terrain and wilderness men." (p. 200) had located the main body of hostiles—and Not only does this oversimplification ignore not, as Miss Sandoz infers, because "it was the penetrating analysis of the battle by L. of overwhelming importance that neither P. Gipson, but it leaves the reader astonished Benteen nor Reno share in any victory." at the rapidity with which the British presum­ This is sheer foolishness. Custer was a vain ably became "wilderness men" under General and ambitious man, but he was not an espe­ John Forbes only three years later. cially political one; he was a daring, even a Nevertheless, the sprinkling of Turnerisms, reckless soldier, but he was not a lunatic. many of which seem to have been injected Tfie Battle of the Little Bighorn is far too largely out of a sense of duty, does not serious­ polemical to add much to the literature on the ly detract from a sprightly and informative Custer fight. story. A book intended for the general reader as well as the scholar is difficult to write, and PAUL H. HASS Mr. Leach has succeeded admirably. The ac­ The State Historical Society of Wisconsin count is succinct, fast-moving, and well writ­ ten. Details of the chronic border warfare, already well recounted by recent scholars, are omitted, and the story is focused on the in­ habitants of the frontier themselves — their The Northern Colonial Frontier, 1607-1763. agricultural methods, living habits, and econo­ By DOUGLAS EDWARD LEACH. {History of the my. A series of excellent population maps, American Frontier Series, Holt, Rinehart, and showing the advance of settlement and the Winston, New York, 1966. Pp. xviii, 266. establishment of towns, provides a graphic Illustrations, notes, bibliography, maps, index. description of the conquest of the wilderness. $5.75.) There is also much to interest the scholar. The role of land speculation in colonial poli­ It was almost inevitable that this study of tics, diplomacy, and warfare has never been the first Northern frontier would be filled with fully understood. The work of Thomas Per­ references to the work of Frederick Jackson kins Abernethy a generation ago treats a later Turner. The general editor of the series, Ray period and concentrates on Virginia. Although Allen Billington, is the leading disciple of Mr. Leach's investigation centered on New Turner among contemporary scholars, and the York, he has uncovered much that is new, and initial volume in the series is a brilliant ana­ his findings tend to counter the recent view lysis of Turner's scholarship, written by Mr. that land speculation was a common and legiti­ Billington himself. Yet the applicability of mate form of investing surplus capital. Specu­ the Turner thesis to the colonial frontier re­ lation in western lands, he suggests, was in­ mains doubtful. Professor Leach himself ad­ extricably entangled with corruption. Many mits that until the mid-eighteenth century, tracts, especially the largest, were acquired, when settlement reached the mountains, vir­ not with investment funds, but by political tually everything was "frontier." Except for influence and bribery. Speculators, moreover, a few tiny urban centers, there was little that were inclined to cheat the Indians, whose title distinguished the "East" from the "West." had to be removed. Small parcels described in The Turner thesis thus provides more a frame­ Indian deeds were expanded through vague work for the book than a sustained interpreta­ boundary descriptions into colossal tracts. tion. Mr. Leach seldom misses an opportunity The thorny question of relations between to point out that American frontiersmen were whites and Indians, which has much agitated democratic, ingenious, practical, and capable historians in recent years, the author handles of improvisation, though he admits that they with good sense. Tending toward a fatalistic were never entirely self-sufficient. In most view of the problem, he suggests that it was cases the author's use of such adjectives is an inevitable conflict of cultures in which both properly substantiated, but occasionally he sides were at fault but for which neither was lets drop an unproved and dubious assertion to blame. In the end, he adopts the wistful such as the following: "Like many another suggestion first advanced by Theodore Thayer

269 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 that the situation would have been alleviated federal finally approved the Constitution. if only the Quakers had removed to the fron­ There is insufficient data to demonstrate any tier. The Friends would surely have adopted sectional, economic, or social division between a more realistic view of the need for frontier the two parties. She finds no evidence to show defense, and they might have moderated the that the Antifederalists were affected by the deceit, thievery, and treachery that character­ news of New Hampshire's and Virginia's rati­ ized the colonists' treatment of the Indians. fication. Nor did they appear to be worried by talk of the City seceding from the State. Solidly based on original research and laced with imaginative and balanced interpre­ On the other hand, she marshalls no posi­ tations, this work is a noteworthy contribution tive evidence for this interpretation. First, to the literature of the period. she attributes the virulence of the struggle to Hamilton's personal attack on Governor Clin­ NoRMAN K. RISJORD ton, but nowhere does she show directly how this attack shaped the debate or how it was University of Wisconsin reflected in the ratification campaign. In fact, nowhere in the book is there any discussion of Antifederal ideas or programs, other than statements that the Antifederalists wanted amendments. Second, she claims no Anti- The Eleventh Pillar: New Yorlc State and the federalist urged an outright rejection of the Federal Constitution. By LINDA GRANT DE Constitution. While this statement may be PAUW. (Published for the American Histor­ valid, the quality of Antifederalist attacks ical Association by Cornell University Press, made their opposition unmistakable. Favor­ Ithaca, New York, 1966. Pp. xvi, 328. Map, able public statements by Antifederalists were tables, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. very few, and they did not privately express a $6.50.) willingness to ratify (p. 175, n20; p. 177, n25) until the Poughkeepsie convention had In this thoughtful study, winner of the 1964 met, when it was obvious the old Confedera­ Beveridge Prize, Professor Linda De Pauw tion was dead. To pass off all their attacks as explains how New York, after electing a con­ campaign exaggeration is an oblique and un- vention more than two-thirds Antifederal, persuasive argument. Third, she sees the rapid came to ratify the Constitution of 1787. She disappearance of Antifederalism as evidence describes the struggle and its background— of its insubstantial nature. But she confuses New York's relations with the Confederation, Antifederalist activity with Antifederalism. its delegation at Philadelphia, the personali­ And since the issues were fought purely on ties, newspaper wars, the voters, voting pat­ the question of adopting or rejecting the Con­ terns, the election of the convention, and the stitution, active opposition would naturally climax at Poughkeepsie. The research is ex­ disappear once the decision was reached. Rati­ tremely thorough, the narrative clear and fication merely shifted the ground from de­ powerful, and the analysis penetrating. She bating the Constitution to questioning the carefully considers previous interpretations, powers and politics of the new government. and with the exception of Forrest McDonald's, revises them with a common sense and im­ This last point does, I think, illustrate a partiality that does much to redraw the pic­ certain lack of depth in the whole study. Re­ ture of ratification in New York. jecting Beard and the whole socio-economic approach in favor of a straightforward polit­ Professor De Pauw's chief argument is that ical study, a look at "what the men of 1787- Antifederalists and Federalists differed very 1788 wanted to achieve politically and how little over the Constitution. Both wanted the they went about getting it" (p. xiii) is quite Union strengthened, and both felt the Consti­ valid. But Professor De Pauw focuses the tution furnished a better alternative than the study on the surface of politics, seeing the Articles of Confederation. The Antifederalists Antifederalist program only in terms of wished amendments, and the only issue was amendments, and not what these amendments, how to ratify; whether to have the Constitu­ or even the Constitution itself, represented. tion amended before New York approved, Concentration on the tactics, rather than on after, or as a precondition to the State's ac­ the substance behind political activity, fails ceptance. The thrust of her argument is es­ to uncover the real meaning either of Anti- sentially negative. No other interpretation federalism or of the whole struggle over the explains why a convention so solidly Anti- Constitution.

270 BOOK REVIEWS

Despite these deficiencies, and some annoy­ bert arrived with Cleveland in 1893, he found ing word games (pp. 24-27, 279), this book that Harrison had left no money in the Trea­ is a useful contribution to the literature of the sury, and that the Gay Nineties depression period, and Professor De Pauw's skill and was having unwholesome effects upon the sophistication will be appreciated. Unfortu­ public passion for trinkets of national glory. nately, her distorted conclusions make the Even so, gallant fighter that he was, Herbert over-all interpretation unconvincing, and his­ overcame the handicaps and presented his torians will be hard pressed to accept her ex­ country with five of the prettiest white battle­ planation of Antifederalism and New York's ships the world yet had seen. entrance into the Union. It is next to impossible to write respectfully of foreign affairs in the 1880's and '90's. Pa- RICHARD H. KOHN tronization is mandatory, shown in satisfying University of Wisconsin manner by the author in his chapter covering the comic war with Spain. Yet the book is somewhat uneven in tone, being much in awe of Tracy and Mahan. Tracy is the dominant figure, probably because the work grew out The American Naval Revolution. By WALTER of a dissertation on that secretary. A grad­ R. HERRICK, JR. (Louisiana State University uate student may recognize his subject as a Press, Baton Rouge, 1966. Pp. ix, 274. Illus­ blundering fool (Tracy's interference ruined trations, notes, bibliography, index. $7.50.) four projected coups by the State Depart­ ment) , but usually he is persuaded that he The subject is the growth of American naval is too inexperienced to dabble in Schrecfclich- power from post-Civil War doldrums to those fceit. Therefore, in writing the book, it be­ brave days in 1898, when there were more than comes necessary to change, cleanse, and sup­ enough new battleships on hand to defend the press all evidence which might reveal that this nation against the onslaught of Spain. was once a dissertation. The author also takes Mahan too seriously. Mahan had a famous The revolutionaries were those farsighted theoryr. The possession of colonies justified public servants who provided the battleships— building dozens of battleships to defend them. Captain Alfred T. Mahan, Benjamin Harrison, Or was it that possession of battleships justi­ Secretaries of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy fied taking colonies as bases? Desiring both and Hilary Herbert, and assorted supporting chicken and egg, Mahan's entranced readers actors. And there was also young Theodore were not in the mood to demand clarifica­ Roosevelt, lurking in every background, wan­ tion—or proof that a use could be found for gling bit parts in almost every naval contro­ either of his expensive projects. Modern writ­ versy. At first the revolution was fought ings on the Darwinists demand the light touch against navy graybeards who preferred sail in style. to steam, wood to iron and steel, smoothbores to rifles, and coast-defense monitors to far- ranging cruisers and battleships. Later ene­ ROBERT A. HART mies were pacifism, anti-imperialism, econo- University of Massachusetts my-mindedness, and public disinterest. The fight was not at sea, but in the War College, the Navy Department, Congress, and the draw­ ing rooms of Pittsburgh. The first significant American Intellectual Histories and Historians. victory—once postwar apathy had been mas­ By ROBERT ALLEN SKOTHEIM. (Princeton tered—was won by Secretary William E. University Press, Princeton, 1966. Pp. xi, 288. Chandler in 1883. His Navy Act resulted in Appendix, bibliographical essay, index. the "ABCD" cruisers, the nation's first steel $6.95.) ships. Chandler's successor, William C. Whit­ ney, came up with Maine and Texas, proud At the beginning of American Intellectual vessels even if foreign cynics argued that they Histories and Historians, Robert Allen Skot­ were cruisers, undeserving of the majestic label heim tells us that he is not writing a "defini­ "battleship." To Tracy, Harrison's man in tive" history "of all the problems and achieve­ Navy, goes credit for three of the Oregon ments of Americans who have dealt with their class, plus Iowa. These were really and truly country's intellectual past." He is not, he battleships. Even the British admitted it, and writes, going to discuss the ways all of Amer­ that settled the matter. When Secretary Her­ ica's intellectual historians have dealt with

271 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967 problems of method and the uses of evidence. 1945 historians have shown that the prob­ Nor is he going to attempt to evaluate the accu­ lems are vastly more complex than the pro­ racy of what all of them have said. Nor is gressives and their challengers supposed. They he going to relate the writings of all of them have, therefore, remodeled the issues and re­ to the climates of opinion of their day. Rath­ shaped the terms of the debate. All this is er, he continues, he is going to do or not do true enough, but John Higham and others have all these things selectively. And this he does. said it in both similar and dissimilar contexts. with more or less skill, through discussions of Mr. Skotheim has merely elaborated on their writers from William Bradford and Edward ideas at great length. Not to sell him short, Johnson to Moses Coit Tyler and Edward however, it should be said that he has done Eggleston; and then from the prophets of the the service of bringing together the ideas New History, Robinson, Beard, and Becker of others in an orderly form, and he has added and their heirs, Parrington and Curti, to their some incidental insights into the writings of challengers, Samuel Eliot Morison, Perry Mil­ some of the historians he discusses in detail, ler, and Ralph Henry Gabriel, and down to which many people should find interesting. "other writers" such as Henry Steele Com­ Of course, to tax Mr. Skotheim simply be­ mager, Stow Persons, Richard Hofstadter, cause he has not written a marvelously original Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Henry Nash book would be silly. What is important is the Smith. reason he has not been more than incidentally It would be easy to quarrel with the severe insightful in his analyses of the various his­ limitations of what Mr. Skotheim chose to do torians and histories he discusses. This failure and the way he chose to do it, and it would springs from the fact that he used only pub­ be worthwhile to do so if there were not other, lished sources and apparently made no attempt more serious matters to discuss. These other to gather and use private correspondence and matters are the staleness of his main theme interviews. Because of this he ignored some and his use of sources. extremely interesting questions and skipped Mr. Skotheim's main theme, which he lightly over many others. For example, Mr. warms up to only after meandering through Skotheim rather offhandedly suggests that some seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth- Samuel Eliot Morison's deep roots in New century historians' treatments of ideas, is that England and Harvard history played some in the years before about 1945 there was a part in shaping his respect for the Puritans conflict between the ways historians in "the and classical education and in some measure progressive tradition" wrote histories of ideas prompted him to attack progressive intellectual and the ways their challengers wrote them. history and progressive education. While this The progressives stressed the shaping influ­ is probably true, the author does not provide ence of environment on ideas, celebrated the satisfactory evidence to prove such an inter­ social sciences as tools of learning, and tended pretation; he probably could have obtained to be somewhat relativistic about values. The it from sources other than printed ones. challengers of the progressives, a much more Another problem he slides over or ignores mixed lot, tended to be more interested in altogether is the transmission of ideas in an the "internal" analysis of ideas and in ideas institutional setting and through personal con­ as causes of historical change; they also tended tact. For example, there is nothing in the book to be unenthusiastic or actually sour in their about the possible or actual influence on Merle estimates of the value of the social sciences, Curti of his graduate work under Frederick and they tended to emphasize the importance Jackson Turner or of his friendship with of tradition and enduring ideals in American Charles Beard; and it is simply unreasonable life. After 1945 historians such as Schlesinger to believe that these things did not in some and Hofstadter wrote off part of this conflict way affect his thinking about the goals and in a characteristically American way: with a practice of historical writing. Another prob­ compromise. Today, the compromisers and lem Mr. Skotheim skips over lightly is the their legion followers tend "to attach more impact of neo-orthodoxy on the writing of in­ importance to ideas in history than to histo­ tellectual history. While there are allusions to ries of ideas." They tend to write histories in the rise of neo-orthodox theology and the great which ideas play a part, rather than histories books Reinhold Niebuhr wrote during the "organized around ideas." The other parts of 1930's and 1940's, there is no lengthy or we\\- the conflict between the progressives and their informed analysis of the influence of this challengers—over values and the social sci­ movement on the thinking of Perry Miller and ences—have not been resolved. Rather, post- Ralph Henry Gabriel. It would be fascinat-

272 BOOK REVIEWS ing to know what contact these men had with the general validity of his interpretation of Niebuhr himself or with his books during the McCarthyism. 1930's, when Professor Miller was beginning Unhappily, the book suffers from a number to publish his monumental studies of the Puri­ of serious shortcomings. Latham has attempt­ tans and when Professor Gabriel was begin­ ed to treat both the Communist problem (the ning the research which would culminate in presence of Communists in federal agencies) The Course of American Democratic Thought. and the Communist issue (the political ex­ Also, it would be interesting to know what ploitation of the problem). In so doing he has contact Professor Gabriel had with H. Richard shortchanged the latter without significantly Niebuhr (both taught at Yale) and how this contributing to our knowledge of the former. and his early training for the ministry may More than two thirds of the book are devoted have influenced his thinking. to a survey of the Communist problem, in­ As Mr. Skotheim himself notes, he has not cluding an unnecessarily long and involved written the last word on American intellectual chapter on the appeal of Communism during histories and historians. Nor is his book the the 1930's. For the most part, he has done most incisive and stimulating piece of writing little more than summarize the findings of on the subject. What it is, is a fine manual for various congressional investigations into com­ graduate students studying for examinations munism in government. and a good source for professors' instant lec­ The last portion of the book touches upon tures. the Communist issue, yet even here the expo­ sition does not do justice to the author's thesis. Latham would have done well to have exam­ STANLEY MALLACH The State Historical Society of Wisconsin ined the careers of politicians like Richard Nixon, Karl Mundt, Harold Velde, George Dondero, Fred Busbey, Homer Ferguson, and a host of others who quite literally paved the way for McCarthy during the late 1940's. A The Communist Controversy in Washington: similar study of newspapers and periodicals From the New Deal to McCarthy. By EARL during this period would have made the re­ LATHAM. (Harvard University Press, Cam­ action of the liberal and conservative press bridge, 1966. Pp. viii, 446. Notes, index. to the Tydings Committee investigation of $7.95.) McCarthy's first charges a good deal more intelligible than Professor Latham would seem During the early 1950's that shrewd ob­ to suggest. server of senatorial politics, William S. White, The book has other faults. Its presentation defined "McCarthyism" as the description of is fragmented, perhaps unavoidably, by a con­ the fight back toward power of a group of tinual movement between the event the author Republican partisans denied national office is describing and the congressional hearings for nearly twenty years. Since 1954 this in­ upon which he bases his narration. The book sight has been obscured by sociologists prob­ abounds in learned irrelevancies — the num­ ing the appeal of McCarthyism for signs of ber of persons ostracized during the history status anxiety, and by intellectual historians of Athens, the culture of Trobriand Islanders, exhuming the rhetoric of the fifties for neo- a six-page introduction to American govern­ populism, paranoia, and incipient fascism. ment, a three-page survey of United States In 1960 Nelson Polsby re-emphasized the history. The absence of a detailed and an­ political aspects of McCarthyism in a provoc­ notated bibliography is especially unfortunate, ative article, "Toward An Explanation of since many of the memoirs which Professor McCarthyism," in Political Studies (October, Latham uses are of dubious validity. 1960). Professor Latham has done much the I suspect that at times Professor Latham same in The Communist Controversy in Amer­ has become the prisoner of the language and ica. For Latham, McCarthyism was the func­ concepts which he has studied. Thus he de­ tion of a conservative drive for power which, scribes individuals as "identified as Commun­ frustrated by the re-election of Harry S. Tru­ ists" (By whom? When? In what context?). man in 1948, asserted itself through the legis­ There are references to "pro-Communist and lative branch. Although many students may fellow traveler attitudes," whatever these may quarrel with the assumptions which Professor be. At times Latham appears to accept un­ Latham advances concerning the nature of critically the elastic memories of ex-Commun- the American political system, few will deny ists like Louis Budenz and Elizabeth Bentley.

273 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

He all too readily assumes that the Fifth seers, and the steward. Based on a wide range Amendment is a silent witness of guilt. He is of materials, especially manuscript plantation a master of the ambivalent adjective, finding records in various depositories in Alabama, things "curious," "unusual," "disturbing," or Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina, "unsettling," whenever his evidence is too the study concentrates on the four principal weak to support a positive assertion. staple crop areas of the Old South—the to­ Despite these faults. Professor Latham has bacco and grain region of North Carolina, the written an adequate summary of the Com­ rice coast of South Carolina and Georgia, the munist controversy, and his interpretation of Louisiana sugar parishes, and the cotton belt McCarthyism is an especially valuable contri­ of the Lower South. In effect, the author has bution to the continuing debate over our very properly decided to let the experience of recent past. selected regions stand for the whole. How well has the author succeeded in pro­ ROBERT WILLIAM GRIFFITH, JR. viding an analytical portrait of the overseer? University of Wisconsin There can be no doubt, I think, that the book will be widely used and quoted, partly because it is packed with solid information and partly because it demonstrates that the stereotype of the overseer did not so much apply to the pro­ fessional class of overseers as it did to the The Overseer: Plantation Management in the floating population of amateur managers who Old South. By WILLIAM KAUFFMAN SCAR­ were especially common in the cotton and BOROUGH. (Louisiana State University Press, sugar regions of the Southeast and who gave Baton Rouge, 1966. Pp. xvi, 256. Illustra­ the class as a whole its stereotyped bad reputa­ tions, notes, bibliography, tables, index. tion. But it does not follow that Professor $7.50.) Scarborough has written the definitive study of the overseer. There are three main reasons. The overseer was the Southern equivalent In the first place, the study has all of the of the English bailiff and was an accepted qualities of the revised dissertation—solid, part of the plantation system almost from its careful, thorough, and clearly organized and inception in America. His importance in the written, but heavily dependent upon long ex­ Southern economy was widely recognized by tracted quotations, overly larded with editor­ contemporary observers. Historians, though ial asides ("Extant plantation records indi­ they have acknowledged the importance of cate . . .") and oh so mechanical, as note the overseer, have generally been content to card succeeds note card in the relentless march study him as but one element in the slave sys­ from cover to cover. Much more serious is tem. Indeed, until the present work, the only the problem of portraying the overseer extended treatment of the overseer was one through selected examples and the author's published by John Spenser Bassett a genera­ apparent reluctance to synthesize his data. In tion ago, and even that dealt only with the a book of this character, or so it seems to this overseer on James K. Polk's plantation in reader, the author's job is to generalize about Yalobusha County, Mississippi. What has the data and to select examples to illustrate come down to us in the historical literature, the synthesis, but one has the feeling that Pro­ therefore, is an impression of the overseer that fessor Scarborough's method has often been portrayed him as important but brutal, crude, to select the examples, then to string them to­ unreliable, barely literate, intemperate, and gether by connecting generalizations. The dishonest. reader can never be really sure that the ex­ William K. Scarborough has set out to re­ amples given are representative and speak for examine this stereotype. He has chosen the a body of experience or practice. Finally, the entire South between the Revolution and the author pays little attention to the ideology of end of the Civil War as his canvas and he has the overseer group. Perhaps he found little organized his material under a series of head­ evidence of the overseer's view of himself in ings—the overseer's contractual and social relation to the South in general or the slave relations, the overseer as revealed in the manu­ system in particular. Yet there were almost script census records for 1860, the overseer's 26,000 overseers in the leading plantation duties and responsibilities, discord between states in 1860, the institution had been in overseer and planter, the overseer during the existence for two centuries, and the overseer Civil War, vignettes of some successful over­ was conceded on all sides to have a vital func-

274 BOOK REVIEWS tion in the maintenance of the plantation were discovered and copied by later American economy and the institution of slavery. scholars. Some of these weaknesses are simply the After 1794 state records were kept in gov­ consequence of the problems presented by a ernmental offices in Raleigh. Despite consid­ subject so large and so institutional in char­ erable shifting of records from building to acter. Professor Scarborough has given us building, steady turnover of government offi­ an extremely useful study. It is unlikely that cials and varying degrees of interest and dili­ a better one will be written for many years gence in their maintenance of the records, to come. and destruction of the capitol building by fire in 1831, losses of records were much less serious than in the earlier years. In 1865 PETER J. COLEMAN many records were removed from Raleigh in University of Illinois at Chicago Circle advance of Union armies and hauled about the countryside in wagons and railroad cars, but on the whole the losses from the Civil War ap­ pear to have been less than might have been For History's Safce: The Preservation and expected. The constitution of 1868 gave the Publication of North Carolina History, 1663— secretary of state increased authority over the 1903. By H. G. JONES. (University of North state's archives, and by the close of the nine­ Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1966. Pp. xvi, teenth century fairly good facilities had been 319. Illustrations, notes, bibliography^, in­ provided for the archives in the capitol. Nev­ dex. $7.50.) ertheless, responsibility for state records re­ mained divided among the various depart­ ments of government until creation of the For the past decade H. G. Jones has served State Historical Commission in 1903. as the state archivist of North Carolina. He has combined his knowledge of records with While the author understandably and pro­ painstaking historical research to produce this perly concentrates on state records, he has study, which is a history of the production, also studied the problem of local public re­ preservation, and publication of the public cords. County and local records appear to records of North Carolina from the beginning have suffered even more grievously than state of organized government under the charter of records from fire, neglect, normal deteriora­ 1663 to the establishment of a central archival tion, and the insistence of officials on keep­ agency in 1903. Few other states have as ef­ ing the records in their own homes. fective an archival program as North Caro­ Chapters 5-7 consist of individual sketches lina, and none has such a comprehensive his­ of North Carolina's nineteenth-century his­ tory of its archives as this volume presents. torians. Seven of the eight historians who The first major section of the book (chap­ worked before the Civil War published his­ ters 1^) describes the record-keeping prac­ tories, but their lasting contribution was the tices and problems of state and local officials collection of public records which had fallen through the entire period. Until the state gov­ into private hands and manuscript materials ernment took up residence in Raleigh in 1794, of nongovernmental origin. The post-Civil North Carolina had no permanent seat of gov­ War period was marked by the monumental ernment. The legislature met at different work of William L. Saunders and Walter places, and its records were carted from city Clark in the publication of The Colonial Rec­ to city as occasion demanded. Public officials ords of North Carolina and The State Rec­ kept the public records in their own homes ords of North Carolina, which provided the or offices, which resulted in confusion and basic documentary resources for the new losses difficult to imagine today. Because the genus of professional historians emerging at colony lacked a printing press for so many the turn of the century. years no printed compilation of the laws was The final chapter describes the seven his­ issued until 1751, and even such basic records torical societies established in North Caro­ as land grants and transfers were so con­ lina during the nineteenth century which made fused that colonial governors found it impos­ some pretence of being statewide. The first sible to compile accurate and complete rent two perished with almost no trace. The His­ rolls for the proprietors and the crown. For­ torical Society of the University of North tunately for later historians and administra­ Carolina lasted from 1844 to 1868. It was tors, colonial officials often sent copies of im­ primarily the creature of David Swain, former portant documents to England, where they governor and president of the university, who

275 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1967

used the society as a base from which to intervention and German war guilt — has at­ amass one of the state's most celebrated his­ tempted to explicate this emotional involve­ torical collections. Two later societies existed ment and demonstrate the way in which "re­ for the principal purpose of recovering Swain's visionist" ideas influenced United States for­ collection from his widow, an interesting story eign policy between the two world wars. in itself, and one for which many archivists Cohen has focused his study primarily on could possibly cite parallels in their own states. five leading historians — Harry Elmer Barnes, A sixth society also had an unsuccessful try Charles Beard, C. Hartely Grattan, Walter for the Swain Collection, then gathered a con­ Millis, and Charles Callan Tansill. His book, siderable collection of Civil War era ma­ however, covers the entire controversy and terials and collected what became the nu­ touches upon almost every important contri­ cleus of the present Southern Historical Col­ butor to the "revisionist" interpretation. The lection. Finally, in 1900 the State Literary author wisely avoids taking sides in the de­ and Historical Association was formed, and bate: his primary concern is with describing at its request the legislature in 1903 estab­ the controversy in which his subjects were en­ lished the State Historical Commission, which gaged and with examining their suppositions. in 1943 became the State Department of Ar­ Given this limitation in scope, Cohen has suc­ chives and History. ceeded quite well in his task. The establishment of the commission Although all the revisionists came to be­ marked the beginning of a modern archival lieve that American intervention in World War and historical program in North Carolina. I was a mistake, they disagreed among them­ To trace the development of that program, selves over such crucial questions as war guilt, which is one of the nation's best, would re­ the reasons for American intervention, and quire another volume. We can only hope that the nature of international politics. Their ma­ it will be done as well as the present study, jor concern in writing and promoting revi­ which is very thoroughly researched, well or­ sionist history likewise differed. Barnes and ganized, and presented in a clear and read­ Beard were "reform-oriented" intellectuals able narrative. When an author has done so who, despite their original support for the war, much so well, a reviewer is hesitant to ask came to believe that it had endangered demo­ for more, but the study would have gained cracy in the United States and cut short Wil­ perspective if the author had made some com­ son's domestic reform program. Tansill, on parisons with developments in other states. the other hand, was primarily an Anglophobe and viewed intervention on the side of Great This study will be indispensible to students Britain as a grave error. What was common of North Carolina history. It will interest to all the revisionists, however, was their de­ professional archivists, and it should also be sire to persuade their countrymen not only useful in seminars in historical method, as an that United States entry into the war had been example of how one state has handled (and a mistake, but also that the lessons of the war mishandled) its documentary resources. could and should be applied to foreign policy decisions. It was this intense concern with the RICHARD A. ERNEY didactic purposes of history that led these men Tfie State Historical Society of Wisconsin to take their cause so seriously and to pro­ mote it so zealously. Although the author states at the outset that he wishes to avoid a purely historiographical The American Revisionists: The Lessons of study, he could have greatly strengthened his Intervention in World War I. By WARREN I. book by devoting more space to the revision­ COHEN. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago ists' philosophy of history. It is especially clear and London, 1967. Pp. xiv, 252. Notes, index. in the case of Barnes, and to a lesser extent in $7.95.) the case of Beard, that their acceptance of the New History, with its concept of "presentism," There are few events in American history had much to do with their losing "sight of the which have caused as much emotional con­ historian's search for truth" in their passion troversy among historians as World War I to reveal what they "believed to be a higher and American intervention in 1917. Warren truth." I. Cohen, in his study of American "revision­ While there is no way to determine the exact ists" — those historians and social scientists influence of the revisionists upon their genera­ who challenged the assumptions of American tion, Cohen convincingly argues that they did

276 BOOK REVIEWS much to further the isolationism of the thirties. refutation after American intervention in The debates over the Neutrality Act of 1935, World War II. Yet it also has its disadvantages for example, were more concerned with the in that it obscures the development of re­ reasons why the United States went to war in visionism in each of his principal subjects and 1917 than with the Italian-Ethiopian war. The prevents him from delving very deeply beyond author also argues, however, that it is incor­ their written word. rect to equate isolationism with revisionism, Although he might have devoted more space for such leading revisionist historians as to the distinctive qualities of the revisionist Barnes and Beard supported the concept of the historians, Cohen has produced an important League of Nations and called for international contribution both to the understanding of re­ co-operation as the only way to lasting peace. visionism as an historiographical school and The author's chronological approach has its to the growing literature on American isola­ advantages in that it allows him to examine tionism during the interwar period. the way in which current events influenced the revisionist argument, leading to its general HAROLD JOSEPHSON acceptance in the mid-thirties and then to its University of Wisconsin

BOOK REVIEWS:

Bernstein and Matusow, The Truman Administra­ Leach, The Northern Colonial Frontier, 1607-1763, tion: A Documentary History, reviewed by Richard reviewed by Norman K. Risjord 269 M. Dalfiume 261 Lee, Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Man­ date, reviewed by Richard M. Dalfiume 261 Cohen, The American Revisionists: The Lessons of Intervention in World War I, reviewed by Harold Phillips, The Truman Presidency: The History of a Josephson 276 Triumphant Succession, reviewed by Richard M. Dalfiume 261 Davies, Housing Reform During the Truman Ad­ Rader, The Academic Mind and Reform: The In­ ministration, reviewed by Richard M. Dalfiume 261 fluence of Richard T. Ely in American Life, re­ De Pauw, The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and viewed by Richard W. Resh 267 the Federal Constitution, reviewed by Richard H. Sandoz, The Battle of the Little Bighorn, reviewed by Kohn 270 Paul H. Hass 268

Herrick, The American Naval Revolution, reviewed Scarborough, The Overseer: Plantation Management by Robert A. Hart 271 in the Old South, reviewed by Peter J. Coleman 274 Sellers, James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843-1846, Jones, For History's Sake: The Preservation and reviewed by Richard H. Sewell 266 Publication of North Carolina History, 1663-1903, reviewed by Richard A. Erney 275 Skotheim, American Intellectual Histories and His­ torians, reviewed by Stanley Mallach 271 Kane, The Waterfall That Built a City, reviewed by Doris H. Platt 265 Smith, George Smith's Money: A Scottish Investor in America, reviewed by Richard W. Barsness .... 264 Latham, The Communist Controversy in Washington: Terrell and Walton, Faint the Trumpet Sounds: The From the New Deal to McCarthy, reviewed by Life and Trial of Mafor Reno, reviewed by Paul Robert William Griffith, Jr 273 H. Hass 268

277 (1953), and two histories of South Bend, both published by the Northern Indiana Historical Society. Contributors

JULIUS WEINBERG, a frequent CHARLES E. TWINING, a native contributor to the book re­ of Kansas, received his A.B. < view section of the Magazine, from the University- of Akron is a member of the history de­ in 1956, with a major in po­ partment of Cleveland State litical science. Prior to begin­ J^S^Sh^^^^Kk University. Formerly he ning his graduate studies in taught at Wayne State Univer­ history at the University of sity, and since 1962 has been a visiting lec­ Wisconsin he served two years with the United turer in the University of Michigan Graduate States Army in Germany, then taught one Extension Program at Detroit, Dearborn, year in the Akron Public Schools. In 1960- Flint, and Grand Rapids. He has also served 1961 Mr. Twining taught at the Monona as rabbi and director of the Beth Israel Com­ Grove High School in Madison and the fol­ munity Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan. His lowing year was recalled for a brief tour of B.A. in sociology and history was obtained duty with Wisconsin's 32nd Division. In June, from Western Reserve University and his M.A. 1963, he received the M.S. degree in history and Ph.D., both in history, from the Univer­ from the University of Wisconsin. He is cur­ sity of Michigan. Mr. Weinberg is one of rently Assistant Dean of the College of Letters the contributors to the revised edition of the and Science at the University of Wisconsin- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences and is Milwaukee and teaches courses in military currently finishing an intellectual biography history. of E. A. Ross.

JACK J. DETZLER was born For a portrait of and biographical information July 20, 1922, in South Bend, concerning ALFRED COPE, whose Green Bay Indiana, where he also attend­ diary is concluded in this issue, see the Sum­ ed high school. After receiv­ mer, 1966, issue of the Magazine. ing his B.A. with Honors from g;J| Indiana University in 1943, he taught school for several years before resuming graduate studies which won Clio's Servant: The State Historical Society him an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin of Wisconsin, 1846-1954, by Clifford L. Lord in 1946 and a Ph.D. from Indiana University and Carl Ubbelohde, is now in the final stages in 1952. From 1947 to 1950 he served as aca­ of production. This 600-page history, co- demic counselor at the Indiana University authored by the former Director of the So­ Center in South Bend and until 1964 as its ciety and illustrated with sixteen pages of director. At present he is assistant professor photographs, is available to members at a of history at the Indianapolis Campus of In­ discount of 10 per cent off the list price of diana University. His published books include $10.00. Address Business Office, State His­ The History of the Northwest Indiana Confer­ torical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, ence of the Methodist Church, 1852-1951 Madison, Wisconsin 53706.

278 See History Where It Happened

This summer take your family to Old Wade House, the stage coach inn at Greenbush, which depicts the story of early nineteenth century transportation in Wisconsin.

Villa Louis Stonefield Circus World Museum

A family membership in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin enables you and your family to see history where it happened with a year's pass to the Society's four historic sites. In ad­ dition, members receive a year's subscription to Badger History, Then and Now, and the Wis­ consin Magazine of History. The nicest thing about a family membership is the price—it's just seven dollars. To promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage The Purpose with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement, of this and dissemination of knowledge of the history of 'Wisconsin Society shall he and of the Middle West.

State Historical Society of Wisconsin 816 State Street Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Second-class postage paid at Madison. Wisconsin, and at Return Requested additional mailing offices.