Wisconsin Magazine ^ of History

A Light Look at Frank Lloyd Wright HERBERT JACOBS Franklin Welles Calkins: Romancer of the Wilderness JOHN T. FLANAGAN William Langer: A Maverick in the Senate LAWRENCE H. LARSEN Julia Grace Wales and the Wisconsin Plan for Peace WALTER I. TRATTNER

Published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin / Vol. XLIV, No. 5 / Spring, 1961 STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN

LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Director

OflScers ROBERT B. L. MURPHY, President GEORGE C. SELLERY, Honorary Vice-President WALKER WYMAN, First Vice-President GEORGE HAMPEL, JR., Treasurer MRS. HOWARD GREENE, Second Vice-President LESUE H. FISHEL, JR., Secretary LUCIUS BRYAN DABNEY, Honorary Vice-President

Board of Curators Ex-Officio GAYLORD NELSON, Governor of the State MRS. DENA A. SMITH, State Treasurer ROBERT C. ZIMMERMAN, Secretary of State CONRAD A. ELVEHJEM, President of the University GEORGE E. WATSON, Superintendent of Public Instruction MRS. SILAS SPENGLER, President of the Women's Auxiliary

Term Expires 1961 M. J. DYRUD JIM DAN HILL MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES FREDERIC SAMMOND Prairie du Chien Superior Madison Milwaukee FRED H. HARRINGTON E. E. HOMSTAD CHARLES MANSON DR. WILLIAM STOVALL Madison Black River Falls Madison Madison A. EUGENE HATCH MRS. VINCENT W. KOCH EUGENE W. MURPHY WALKER WYMAN Ripon Janesville La Crosse River Falls

Term Expires 1962 GEORGE BANTA, JR. HERBERT V. KOHLER WILLIAM F. STARK JOHN TORINUS Menasha Kohler Pewaukee Green Bay GEORGE HAMPEL, JR. ROBERT B. L. MURPHY STANLEY STONE ANTHONY WISE Milwaukee Madison Milwaukee Hayward SANFORD HERZOG GERTRUDE PUELICHER MILO K. SWANTON CLARK WILKINSON Minocqua Milwaukee Madison Baraboo

Term Expires 1963 SCOTT CUTLIP MRS. ROBERT FRIEND JOHN C. GEILFUSS WILUAM B. HESSELTINE Madison Hartland Milwaukee Madison W. NORMAN FITZGERALD EDWARD FROMM MRS. HOWARD T. GREENE JAMES RILEY Milwaukee Hamburg Genesee Depot Eau Claire J. F. FRIEDRICK ROBERT GEHRKE DR. GUNNAR GUNDERSEN CLIFFORD SWANSON Milwaukee Ripon La Crosse Stevens Point

Honorary Honorary Life Members WILLIAM ASHBY MCCLOY, Winnipeg PRESTON E. MCNALL, Madison MRS. LITTA BASCOM, Madison DOROTHY L. PARK, Madison MRS. LOUISE ROOT, Prairie du Chien Fellows Curators VERNON CARSTENSEN (1949) HJALMAR R. HOLAND, Ephraim MERLE CURTI (1949) SAMUEL PEDRICK, Ripon The Women's Auxiliary OFFICERS MRS. SILAS SPENGLER, Stoughton, President MRS. MILLARD TUFTS, Milwaukee, Vice-President MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee, Secretary MRS. E. J. BIEVER, Kohler, Treasurer MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES, Madison, Ex-Officio VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3/SPRING, 1961 Wisconsin Magazine of History

Editor: WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD

A Letter to the Postmaster General 162 A Light Look at Frank Lloyd Wright 163 HERBERT JACOBS

Franklin Welles Calkins: Romancer of the Wilderness 177 JOHN T. FLANAGAN

A Piece of Frontier Strategy 184 FRANICLIN WELLES CALICINS

William Langer: A Maverick in the Senate 189 LAWRENCE H. LARSEN

German Timber Farmhouses in Wisconsin: Terminal Examples of a Thousand-year Building Tradition 199 RICHARD W. E. PERRIN Julia Grace Wales and the Wisconsin Plan for Peace 208 WALTER L TRATTNER

Readers' Choice 214 Accessions 232 Contributors 240

Published Quarterly hy the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published not assiuue responsibility for statements made by contribu­ quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 tors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distributed to members Copyright I96I by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. as part of their dues (Annual membership, $5.00; Family l*aid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial membership S7.00; Contributing, $10; Business and Profes­ Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. Wisconsin news­ sional, S25: Life, $100; Sustaining, $100 or more annually; papers may reprint any article appearing in the WISCON­ Patron, $1000 or more annually). Single numbers, SI.2.5. SIN MAC;AZINE OF HISTORY providing the story carries Microfilmed copies available through University Microfilms, the following credit line: Reprinted from the State Histori­ 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Communica­ cal Society's Wisconsin Magazine of History for [inseit the tions should be addressed to the editor. The Society does season and year which appear on the Magazine^. THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 816 sT.-v'rj-: si'RKJ-rr MADLSON 0, WISCONSIN

March 15. 1961 Honorable J. Edward Day Postmaster General of the I nited States Post Office Department

Washinelo'5^ n 25. D. C. Dear Mr. Day: Together with colleges and historical agencies all over the United States, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin respectfully suggests and will support the issuance of a special commemorative postage stamp during the year 1961 to honor the historical pro­ fession and a great movement in American history. This year marks the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest historians this nation has produced, one whose influ­ ence as a teacher and a scholar has been world-wide, Frederick Jackson Turner. Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861-March 14, 1932) first came into nalional prominence in 1893, when he read his epochal "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before a special meeting of the American Historical Association. He developed a hypothesis which marked a significant interpretation of American history. In this essay and in subsequent historical writings he pointed out that men behave differently in a free environment as compared to their behavior under social and economic coercion, that equality of opportunity gave a substance to democ­ racy in politics, that the social and governmental institutions which the frontier created were a constructive amalgam of the old and the new, and that the frontier as it moved from east to west, left a legacy of freedom with responsibility of which our nation can be proud. Dr. Turner believed that the frontier was less a place than a process which swept the American continent. Noting that by 1893 much of the physical frontier was gone, he foretold a future much different from the past insofar as the open physical frontier had been a positive force. His belief in the quality and power of the American demo­ cratic experiment permeated his work. We would like to suggest a stamp of the size and horizontal arrangement of the re­ cent "Conservation Series,'' a portrait of Dr. Turner to occupy its central panel to be flanked by right and left line drawings of Bascom Hall of the University of Wisconsin, where Dr. Turner taught, and of the building of the State Historical Society of Wis­ consin, which collected and housed the library and archival materials upon which Dr. Turner's monumental thesis was established. It was the man, the materials, and the necessity for communicating to the future through students of the day which brought about the doctrine, and in honoring the man and the two institutions the whole pro­ fession of historian will be honored. We would like further to suggest that design, engraving and printing of the stamp— whatever form its final design may take—be hastened so that the stamp may be issued in Madison, Wisconsin, on the centennial of the date of the birth of Frederick Jackson Turner, No\ember 14, 1961. Very truly yours,

LESLIE H. FISHEL. ,7R.

162 A LIGHT LOOK AT

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

By HERi5Eirr JACOBS

TN writing of Frank Lloyd Wright I want tory, reproving, sometimes downright savage •*- to make it clear at the beginning that I am —and the genial gaiety of his less public ap­ dealing with only one aspect of the man: his pearances among clients and friends. faculty of self-critical evaluation; or his sense Let us remember that he was as much ad­ of humor, if you prefer a blunter term. I aim vocate as architect: a perennial and highly ar­ to show the man, not the demigod. ticulate partisan for a new kind of architec­ It is a light look because my trade is enter­ ture—which has now largely prevailed, one tainment, and this deals with Wright's less needs to remind oneself. But along the way serious side. It is light also because it touches he was battling conformity, ignorance, preju­ only a few of the high spots in a field so rich dice, the god of Things As They Are, and this that one could truly say, "Here is God's is seldom an endearing role. plenty!" Light also in the hope that it will I am not going into a discussion of the wis­ shed some. dom or the necessity of his role as architectural Among the nine categories of architectural prophet, but some commentators feel that he endeavor—domestic, church, commercial, etc. could not have acted differently in trying to —Frank Lloyd Wright has built outstanding steer America toward something more in tune examples in each of the divisions. He has been with our own life and times than what our an­ acclaimed, bemedaled, and honored probably cestors brought over from England and the more than any other Wisconsin native. The continent. jury verdict of the world is pretty well in, and It was my fortune to cover many a speech I am not qualified to add to it. in which Mr. Wright laid about him with his I speak from personal experience of Wright's cudgel. Perhaps two samples of the platform architecture. He designed three houses for me expressions will remind you of his approach. and my family, two of which were built in Wis­ Addressing the Chicago Real Estate Board consin. I knew him fairly closely as a friend in 1938 he said: "If real estate were to go be­ for the last quarter of a century of his life; fore some bar of judgment where human val­ and in news stories covering twenty-five years ues were uppermost, it would be taken out and of speeches, parties, and other events I have shot at sunrise as it stands. The good it has perhaps written as much about him as any done is so little as compared to the injustice man. and misery it has deliberately caused for its During the many years of "covering" Mr. own profit."^ Wright, I was frequently struck by the con­ The bridges which the Wisconsin highway trast between his public utterances—admoni- department used to build, and the poles with which the ulililics (lullcrt^d ihc landscape were frequ<'nl and juslidcd largels for Wright's NOTE: Tn slif^lilly ilifTcrent form this i).i])cr wa.'; presented before tlie Madison Literary Club, January crilicisin. (iominenling on llie Spring (irccn 9, 1961. All statements of Mr. Wright, unless other­ wise noted, are from the author's personal recollec­ tions. ' Madison Capital Times. May 8, 1938.

163 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 bridge which he fought hard and unsuccess­ impetuous client, suggest an arrangement of fully he said: "Our highway commission is flowers to grace a stone wall, or develop and committed to the high-truss steel bridge. The enrich a drawing which had been already bureaucracy it represents has therefore com­ started. mitted the state to the old-fashioned contrap­ It was an informal, creative atmosphere thai tion which belongs back in pioneering days promoted quick decisions. A client who with the public service corporations' poles and thought he had a problem could appear, catch wires. Both are an outrage upon the landscape the eye of Mr. Wright, and state his case. Usu­ and an insult to the culture of the state."^ ally an apprentice was at hand to whisk the Wright got a particular joy out of it when client's plans onto the board and the architect a passing truck swatted the new Spring Green would give an immediate solution. bridge superstructure, putting it out of use "You think glass doors nine feet high are for some weeks. It was just what he had pre­ too big for your small children to handle dicted would happen. alone?" he might ask—as he did to me. "Hmm. Twice the highway commission refused his That's a good point. Well, how about cutting offers of a free design for bridges without down the end doors to six and a half feet, and beams or a steel truss. The commission insisted putting in a transom? Let's do that." And he on continuing its long-standing love affair with did. trusses. And then, shifted away from trusses While he was talking he would have sketched to a beam type of construction. in the new arrangements, leaving the appren­ I said, before I cited these two examples of tice to draw it up in proper form later. platform manner, that I wanted to contrast It was an atmosphere that especially pleased Wright the advocate, the compulsive haranguer wealthy clients. Wright remarked once, at a of an indifferent public, with the man who did time when his personal life was causing clients not feel he had to carry a chip on his shoulder, to drift away like autumn leaves, that he him­ and who in the presence of understanding self was "getting a worm's eye view of so­ friends could be more natural. ciety."'' And he also said, at about the same His deep-throated chuckle as he relished a time, "There's nothing so timid as a million happy turn of phrase, his consuming interest dollars." in people, and particularly children and their The dollars might have been timid, but not importance as individuals, his willingness to their owners, who would have resented the kind laugh at small discomfitures, or to turn a wry of lecturing that Wright did from the platform. phrase at greater ones—all mark a different What they got instead, when they visited him side than that shown to the public. It is to at Taliesin, was an easy give and take of con­ this side of him that I am turning. Naturally versation in esthetic surroundings, from a man I do not expect to disarm his critics, but I who did not stand in awe of them. Perhaps do hope to remind his friends that his genius part of the pleasure was that they were insu­ was warmed by the saving grace of laughter. lated from the business world. Telegrams were hard to send, and the telephone was even more NSTEAD of thinking of Frank Lloyd Wright difficult to use. There was nothing left but con­ I hurling a few choice thunderbolts and epi­ versation, but it was top quality. thets from the lecture platform, picture him, if Sometimes an insistent client who might not you will, at a tilted drafting board at Taliesin, have relished a straight answer was left to dealing out sociability and architecture with study the drafting-board design, while Wright equal zest. The snowy hair, thin on top but wandered to another part of the room. By the bushy at sides and back, was carefully brushed time the client looked up, Wright would have backwards, and perhaps fluffed up a trifle to vanished, and efforts to locate him again would frame the face. On cool mornings he would be met with the bland statement that "He's have a coat thrown around his shoulders. In resting," or, "He has left for a dental appoint­ half an hour at the board he might advise on ment." ilioice of foods for liindi, diclale ;i reply lo an 'Frank Lhiyd Wri!.;ht, A Testament (New York, " Madison Capital Times, Novem})er 25, 1948. 1957), 229.

164 JACOBS FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

The late Gus Pabst of the Milwaukee Jour­ Perhaps his most-quoted statement, appear­ nal, who had come out for an interview, sat ing in the Autobiography and repeated by so cooling his heels for many a minute, and when many commentators that I might as well get Wright still failed to appear, was told demurely it out of the way, too, is this one: "Early in life that the master was busy killing flies. After he I had to choose between honest arrogance and did appear, in five minutes Wright slipped out hypocritical humility. I chose honest arro­ of the room and two hours later Pabst learned gance and have seen no occasion to change."* that he had gone to the dentist in Spring Green This has the merit of boldness and the ring and was then napping on a couch in the den­ of honesty, but it also suffers from compres­ tist's office. It took Pabst three columns to sion. Behind the statement, written near his work off his steam over this reception, but he sixtieth year, lay the triumph of the prairie did it amusingly. houses, the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel Nevertheless, he bore no grudge. Later, in Tokyo, the great plastic California experi­ when the S. C. Johnson and Son office building ments in block and concrete. These had set the was put on public view in Racine, Pabst coined imagination of Europe afire, though they had a phrase that Wright treasured and repeated in struck few sparks in this country. his own writing. Pabst described the building Behind it also lay this country's slavish dedi­ as being "Like a beautiful naked woman, bath­ cation to Cape Cods, Colonials, variations of ing in a forest pool." Michelangelesque domes, and many another Wright was capable of bold and seemingly imitation of the past. We kept our backs turned outrageous statements, but the twinkling eye to the possibilities of concrete, that ancient and the deep, hearty laugh drew the sting from plastic; of steel in tension through the canti­ them. Unfortunately, the disarming smile and lever; of trapping "air in space" by means the infectious gaiety did not always carry over of plate glass, which Wright called "the glory when the statements were set in cold type, and of a house." his reputation as an egotist grew. * Madison Wisconsin State Journal, June 3, 1956.

Photo by author Drafting room at Taliesin West, Seottsdale, Arizona.

165 WISCONSLN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

I should like to contrast the statement about the architecture of the capitol. It is a style "arrogance" with another one, in which that won't live, that died, in fact, many years Wright characterized Louis Sullivan, the "Lie- ago. But you can't put that much stone into ber Meister" to whom he was apprenticed as one pile without creating some dignity and a young architect, and in whose debt he so fre­ majesty. Anyway, there it is, and we should quently acknowledged himself to be. Was he, make the most of it."' perhaps, thinking of himself when he wrote Fifteen years later he dropped any critical this of Sullivan? "Like all geniuses he was an comment on the state capitol. Discussing the absorbed egocentric—exaggerated sensibility, plan for the Monona Terrace Auditorium and boundless vitality. This egotism, of the ab­ Civic Center, he said that it would serve as "a sorbed egocentric, is more 'armor' than char­ fitting setting for the state capitol." acter, more shell than substance. It is usually However, both in his early, middle, and later a defense for exaggerated sensibility—a de­ years he never lost the feeling for, nor gave an fense become a habit."•'' inch of ground on, the doctrine that there was Let me add a later statement, to show the a difference in men. He made no bones about man's thinking. In an interview near his it that he was an uncommon man himself, and eighty-sixth birthday, twenty-five years after he had the peculiar idea of democracy that the the statements in the Autobiography were writ­ ballot should be restricted to those who had ten, when fame was being heaped on him from shown achievement. all sides, he said: "I am a little nervous for "The 'common' man is a man who believes fear that I may now be with the current. It only in what he sees and sees only what he can has turned, and I am a little afraid of going put his hand on," he wrote in his book entitled downstream, when all my life, I have been A Testament.^ going upstream."" The acclaim at his eighty-seventh birthday party in 1956 gave him some hope that per­ ly/FR. Wright himself was capable of chang- haps the antithesis of the common man was -'-'-'- ing publicly a firmly held opinion. As coming into his own, for he commented, many are aware, our state capitol dome is "Maybe we are turning now to celebrate the something of an architectural fraud, because it uncommon man."" Yet up to his last days he is essentially a steel skeleton on which slabs of remained the patrician, and gave this defini­ granite have been hung, rather than a dome tion : "The common man not only believes that of stone whose stresses have been calculated to he is as good as every other man, but if the produce equilibrium. Wright said that Michel­ truth were only known, a damn sight better." angelo started the fashion for high domes when 1 find it fascinating that this same common he "impulsively" set the dome of St. Peter's man, especially the artisan, is usually a more too high above the supporting arches, and had understanding and sympathetic supporter of to hurry up with a big chain around the base Wright's buildings than the intellectual or the of the dome to keep it from collapsing. Chris­ businessman. topher Wren did the same sort of thing with Wright had equally strong views on his fel­ St. Paul's in London. low architects, for most of whom he had little In his earlier years Wright was caustic use—and said so. At one such gathering he about this "fraud" of the capitol dome, but addressed them as follows: "Gentlemen, you by 1941 he had modified his views somewhat. are withering on the vine."'" In a speech at the University of Wisconsin's He was touched—but not to the point of los­ Memorial Union he said: "I hold no brief for ing his head—when the American Institute of Architects awarded him its gold medal, highest honor of the society, in 1949. He had spoken 'Frank Lloyd Wright, An Aiitohiography: frank so often, and so disparagingly, of his fellow Lloyd Wright (New York, 1932), 105. All quotations ate troni this edition. In 1943 an expanded version appearetl under the title. Frank IJovd if right: An Aiitohiography (l)iii-ll, Sloan, ;inil I'earce, New • Madison Capital Times. .ScplcMdic]- l.'i, I'/ll. York). In the later edition Mr. Wright made many '• Wright, A Testament, 99. changes in the wording of tlie text. '' Madison Capital Times, .Iiine 6, 1956. "Madison Wisconsin Slate Journal, May 3, 1956. '" Madison Wisconsin State Journal, June 3, 1956.

166 cordwood at his eighty-fifth birthday party. He went over them, delightedly, as some of the guests clustered round. (Commenting on the King George VI medal from England, awarded in 1939 but for which he had to wait until after World War II because England was using its gold for other purposes before that, he said with relish, "Feel how heavy it is! Real solid gold!" And then he came to the medal given him at the time of the Florence exhibit in 1951, the exhibit that included two Madison houses and which toured Europe and the Far East, as well as parts of this country. Taking the medal up tenderly, and swinging it by its ribbon, he said sofriy: "The de Medici medal. It is the one I Carmit \ I prize the most. It is the one that Dante is said Courtyard of Taliesin East, Spring Green, Wisconsin. to have coveted—and never got." architects that the president of the society A moment later, as he shuffled through more asked him not to disclose that he had been honors and medals, he looked around the room tendered the honor until he was willing to ac­ with a twinkle in his eye and commented, "The cept it. Wright had consistently refused to join only way you know whether they have any the society, and at the time of the honor a value or not is when you see whom they give voluble minority of the membership protested the next one to. And sometimes, then, you feel the award. like giving it back."*^ Just before the great day came, Wright tele­ graphed the architectural journals the follow­ TN his autobiography Wright gives many ing handsome statement: "When a professional -*- pages to his devoted life with his children society dignifies itself by awarding the highest in the early years in Chicago, but I would like honor within its gift regardless of affiliation, to add one or two later touches, to show his bias or rebellion, it shames non-cooperation. continuing interest in children. When my old­ My hat is off to the A.I.A."" est daughter was not yet in her teens, he in­ When the actual medal was given to him in quired on one of our visits to Taliesin whether ceremonies at Houston, Texas, on March 17, she was learning any musical instrument. On 1949, he was viewing it with a trifle more per­ being told that it was the piano, he promptly spective. He said: "It's been a long time com­ ing—but here it is—and I'm extremely grate­ " Madison Capital Times, June 9, 1955. ful. I don't think it is going to have any effect on my future."^- In this euphoric atmosphere "Bridge" over entry to apprentice court, Taliesin West. the leaders of the A.I.A. clustered round him, Photo by author and one of them said, rather wistfully, "Of course, you'll join us now, won't you, Frank?" "No, of course not," he replied. The first of his medals and honors came in 1919, but in later years the honorary degrees, awards, medals, and memberships in learned societies almost needed a separate catalog. One of his architectural assistants put them in wooden frames, and they were stacked up like

" Capital Times files, telegram copy. " Capital Times files. law limiting parents to no more than three children." "Mr. Wright," I replied, thinking of his seven children, ""You should talk." He looked at me quizzically for a moment, got the point, and burst out laughing. Sometimes he created his own setting for a joke, which did not come off so well in cold print. For instance: "Why, oh why," said his wife, "when you were on the witness stand in Dodgevifle in that tax case, and the opposing lawyer asked you if you considered yourself the world's greatest Photo b\- atUhor architect, why did you have to agree with Wright watching test of heating system in the first floor- heated house in the U.S., the Herbert Jacobs house No. 1, him?" Madison, 1937. His eyes dancing, Wright looked at her and replied, "I had to. I was under oath." And had her sit down and play, commenting after­ then he broke into one of his heartiest laughs. wards, "A little heavy on the pedal." Then he But it was the kind of statement his enemies went to his own gleaming harpsichord and loved to seize on in order to paint him as ego­ charmed her with some playing of his own. tist rather than humorist. Later, when my young son stood looking up Mrs. Wright, with her own great apprecia­ at him curiously, at about the age of five, with tion of a good joke, had more occasions than finger to his nose, he smiled and said, "It anyone else to be aware of the architect's well- won't grow if you pick it." And noting a developed sense of humor. Several times she resemblance between father and son, he has told of their gay sparring over his love of pointed to the son and said, "As long as he foreign cars, which were often laid up in re­ lives, you will never die." pair shops, and her dependence on sturdy Throughout the time I knew him, Mr. Wright American ones, which she would mischievously kept this strong interest in children. He loved invite him to use when his own car was being to watch their development, enjoyed seeing tinkered with.*^ them perform musically or otherwise, and I have mentioned Wright's hard veneer in knew the names of most of them. chiding America for being content with copies But this feeling did not always carry over of an earlier architecture, rather than insisting to the clients. He said to me one day, harassed on an architecture of its own. This front or by a client who had several children and shield behind which he sheltered himself while wanted separate bedrooms for each—all at a he hurled invective at the Philistine, perhaps very low price—"I think there ought to be a produced an even softer body within. Consider this statement, from the man called "difficult" The completed Jacobs house, viewed from the street, Toepfer Avenue, Madison, photographed in 1958. to work with, the man who supposedly domi­ Photo b\ authoi nated and insulted his clients: "Hardest of an architect's trials, to show his work, first time, to anyone not entirely competent, perhaps unsympathetic. Putting off the evil contact as long as possible—letting all simmer. The simmering process, too, is valu­ able. There is seldom enough of it."^^ One of his constant trials was the tendency of clients both to run out of money and to in-

" Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, Our House (New York, 1959),22-25. '" Wright, Autobiography, 162. JACOBS : FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT sist, either for sentimental reasons or because At another point, some twenty years later, they had no more cash, on bringing their old he commented that "all my life my legs have furniture into a new house. He wrote that he been banged up somewhere by the chairs I tried to convince the clients that some furni­ have designed." And he had his own summa­ ture should be built in, and the rest designed tion of the difficulty of designing houses and to match the built-in furniture, as an integral furniture: "Even nature can't please everybody part of the house. all the time."'*^ "But when the building itself was finished Some of his remarks on nature, incidentally, the old furniture they already possessed usually show that he could admire a different kind of went in with the clients to await the time when construction. Here are two statements from the the interior might be completed in this sense," Autobiography: he said. "Very few of the houses, therefore, "Has anyone sung the song of the calf-bear­ were anything but painful to me after the ing, milk-flowing, cud-chewing, tail-switching, clients moved in and, helplessly, dragged the slow-moving, with the fragrant breath and horrors of the Old Order along after them." beautiful eyes, the well-behaved, necessary What to do with all this old furniture? cow, who always seems to occupy the choicest Wright had some drastic suggestions: "About ground anywhere around?" three-fifths of the contents of nearly every And this one: "Someone should do the home could be given away with good effect to barbed-wire fence in song and story. It would that home," he said. "But the things given be the story of our civilization. Together with away might go on to poison some other home. the tin can, it has made man's 'conquest' too So why not destroy, at once, these undesirable easy?"!" things?"" That ffuestion mark reminds me of one of my We had a taste of this ourselves, with furni­ earliest encounters with Wright's sense of the ture both lovely and reminiscent. We gloried incongruous. I was at Taliesin in the spring of in an inlaid mahogany dropleaf table which 1937 when he and Baker Brownell were dis­ had been a wedding present to my parents, a cussing a book they were jointly producing.^" walnut chair given to my father in his Univer­ Wright told me that he had put a comment in sity days by Orsemus Cole of the State Su­ the book to the effect that the new Tokyo archi­ preme Court, and a cherrywood circular table tecture would be shaken off its foundations at some fifty years old. the next big earthquake. The publisher's law­ When Wright called at our rented duplex yers had objected, saying that this could be on Sherman Avenue in Madison there was no construed as libelous. doubt in our minds. One look at these lovelies, " 'But,' " Wright said they told him, " 'you and he would instantly welcome them for the could put the statement in the form of a ques­ new house. As we had imagined, the reaction tion.' " And that is just what he did. Whenever was indeed instant. "This stuff is all prehis­ he felt that he was on parlous ground, the toric, and of course it will have to go," said question marks began to spring up like the for­ Mr. Wright—and it did. We even lived with est on the way to Dunsinane. the new furniture before the house was done. But Wright had a wry understanding of T said earlier that I thought Frank Lloyd some of his own furniture, designed as it was -*- Wright was perhaps thinking of himself to complement his own houses. He conceded when he described Louis Sullivan as a genius. that he found it difficult to design furniture to It certainly stuck in his mind. Alexander fit the architecture of the house and at the same Woollcott said that if he had to reserve the time fit the human frame. He wrote: "I have word for any one man, it would be Wright. been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, The epithet was certainly bandied about almost all my life from too intimate contact with my own early furniture."''' '"Frank Lloyd Wright, The .tSulural House (.New York, 19.54), 173,176. '" Wright, Autobiography, 21, 45. '" Ibid., 144, 145. "" Baker Brownell and Frank Lloyd Wright, Archi­ "•/6W., 145. tecture and Modern Life (New York, 1937),

169 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 enough to come to his attention. Near the end Wright's preoccupation with good crafts­ of his life, Wright looked at the question him­ manship was a long-standing affair, as was the self in these words: respect that he drew from workmen. Fred Mc- "Philosophy is to the mind of the architect Caddon, a plasterer in the brick house built for as eyesight to his steps: The term 'genius' when Francis W. Little in Rockford, Illinois, back applied to him simply means a man who un­ in 1901, had this to say about the Wright of derstands what others only thought. A poet, sixty years ago, as reported in the Rockford artist or architect, necessarily 'understands' in newspaper after Wright's death in 1959: this sense and is likely, if not careful, to have "Mr. Wright appeared on the job several the term 'genius' applied to him; in which times during construction. He was a fairly case he will no longer be thought human, trust­ young man, slimly built and very active. He worthy or companionable."-! was insistent on things being done the way he If this sounds portentous and oracular, con­ wanted and was quick with answers if anybody sider another statement given in answer to a disagreed with him.'-' question during a speech at the Memorial One of Wright's great achievements was to Union when he was seventy-nine. bring architecture back into the human scale. "What do you consider your greatest The rooms with nine and fourteen-foot ceilings achievement?" asked a student. gave way to those anywhere from six and one- "The fact that I'm alive and kicking today," half to nine feet. Himself a man of five feet was the blithe response.-- eight and one-half inches, he probably lowered Even in his advanced years, Wright took ceilings a trifle more than was needed. "It has enormous delight in clambering around among been said that were I three inches taller all scaffolding, derricks, concrete forms, and all my houses would have been different in propor­ the clutter of a building site. The smell of tion," he said.-! freshly sawed wood newly put in place, and the He loved the freedom of the casement win­ dank, somewhat musty odor of concrete just dow—the outward opening, full-size aperture. out of the forms, gave him perhaps greater "If it had not existed I should have invented pleasure than to see the completed building, it," he said.-^ ready for the client. There may also have been Wright never really doubted that architec­ a feeling that even the worthiest client might ture was the mother and superior of all the not be fully up to the building. other arts, as he frequently asserted, but he Wright took a particular pleasure in the first was willing to acknowledge the others, now and house he designed for us, built and occupied then. For instance, speaking of architecture during the period that the huge Johnson Wax and music, he said: "Architecture is a greater firm office building was on the Taliesin boards art than music—if one art can be said to be and rising from its footings. Our house was on 'greater' than another. I believe one can say the way to or from Racine, and Wright fre­ it only for the sake of argument. Nevertheless quently stopped by to see how things were I have secretly envied Bach, Mozart and the going. He thought nothing of arriving before great music-makers."-" eight in the morning and rapping sharply on A master of the sharp phrase, Wright was at the windows with his cane to rouse the occu­ his most incisive when he was setting up an pants. exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Institute in the A memorable occasion was a visit in com­ year 1930. A friend of mine, Florence Hig- pany with Alexander Woollcott, the drama gins, then a reporter for the Milwaukee Jour­ critic. As soon as both had stepped inside— nal, was sent to get a story about the exhibit, the hour was shortly after 7 A.M.—Wright and to interview Mr. Wright. As a routine waved his cane and said, "Alex, this is modern question, she asked him what he thought of architecture." He also got great joy speculat­ Milwaukee's new courthouse. "The new court- ing, aloud, on how Woollcott would look and fit in the square tub in the bathroom. -' Rockford Star, April-May, 1959. •' Wright, Autobiography, 139. '' Wright, A Testament, 15. •' Wright, Natural House, 40. " Madison Capital Times, September 15, 1948. ''' Wright, Autobiography, 225.

170 hi ri

'\ ••'•'•d

Photos by atuhor Mr. Wright demonstrates how the roof line of his Unitarian Church in Madison imitates the angle of hands folded in prayer; (right), interior view of Unitarian Church shows Wright addressing a capacity crowd, August, 1955. house will set Milwaukee back fifty years from In 1904, some eleven years later, the Larkin any cultural standpoint," he declared briskly, building had been built, designed by Wright. and then added, "Make it a hundred. I've been A caption accompanying a photograph de­ thinking it over.' scribes it as "A fireproof, air-conditioned Later he elaborated: "That great stone mass building furnished throughout with steel. over steel is memorial to a backwater in civili­ First in many ways—all-glass doors, double zation and can only advertise to posterity that glass windows, complete air-conditioning, es­ Milwaukee was neither scholar nor gentleman. pecially designed steel filing systems, steel desk No scholar because Milwaukee was ignorant of furniture and seats, telephones and lighting the current of advanced thought abroad in systems especially designed in steel, etc."^° the world at the time, and no gentleman be­ Then comes the sad conclusion: "Building cause regardless of its duty to the future."-'' demolished in 1950," which was nine years Few men can say they spanned an era with before Wright's death. a prediction of the nature of a building, fol­ lowed by its design and construction, its useful TIKE a big industrial firm, the rich client building life of nearly half a century, and fi­ -L' was naturally prized, because he repre­ nally its destruction as obsolete, a decade be­ sented the possibility of some great new build­ fore its creator was himself to die. Wright went ing. But Wright was not a man to let the client through that cycle, however, with the Larkin get the upper hand, no matter how much Company office building in Buffalo. It helps to money he had. remind us that his creative work span covered Herbert Johnson, head of the Johnson Wax nearly seventy years. Company, had laid out some $300,000 on the In a lecture at Hull House in 1893, on "Art firm's office building, but workmen had not and Craft of the Machine," Wright assailed carefully sealed all the joints in the glass tub­ the architecture of the Chicago World's Fair ing which formed part of the roof. In its early as a senseless reversion, and this brought forth days, this roof leaked—one spot being right at an editorial in the Chicago Tribune stating the desk of Johnson himself, according to one that "An American artist has said the first version of the story. Brimful of indignation, word for the appropriate use of the machine Johnson telephoned Wright at Taliesin to re- as an artist's tool.""-^ ' Ibid., 334. ^ Wright, A Testament, 33. -" Ibid., 48.

171 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 port that the roof was leaking right above his kidding the list of distinguished guests. Spot­ chair. ting the bright new blue suit which Price was "Move your chair,'' Wright suggested im- wearing, he shoulcd in high glee: "How did it perturbably. happen that I ever left you enough money for Of course the roof was eventually fixed, but that suit? I must have overlooked something." the story went the rounds. Johnson used it I had a triple role at the breakfast, appear­ himself in the hour-long "Biographies in ing as guest and as reporter and photographer Sound" program which NBC did on Wright for the Madison Capital Times. At least three some years ago. times during the morning Wright stopped me, A little rain may have come into Johnson's pointed to the two cameras hanging round life, but it should be pointed out that after my neck, and said, "The camera is a liar. It the office building, he commissioned the gigan­ makes me look old." tic "Wingspread" home north of Racine from He meant that the pitiless lens emphasized Wright, to be foflowed, after World War II, the droop of jowls and the lines around nose by the 134-foot glorious tower-laboratory ad­ and mouth which even a vigorous architect of joining the office building. One further note: eighty-nine manifested. Part of his distaste the courtyard surrounding the tower is being for pictures came because he had a tendency added to by Taliesin Associated Architects, to "freeze" in front of the camera. Being so the group of devoted followers who are con­ frequently pictured, it came to be somewhat of tinuing the Wright tradition. a boring experience, and most photographers, Johnson got into the redistribution of wealth in awe of the great man, did not do the jolly­ and the creation of jobs in Racine, as repre­ ing or inspiring which they might have used sented by his palatial home, through a sort of for an ordinary person. back door. He was so delighted with the office Wright was fascinated by the trade terms building that he told Wright he planned to put of some of the industries he came in contact a cot in the office and sleep there. "Oh, no," with, but I think the jargon of the undertakers Mr. Wright replied. "I'm going to build you a interested him most. A flamboyant California home." funeral director called at midnight one night He did: four wings, each 150 feet long, to say that he had acquired the most beautiful going like a pinwheel around a living room lot in the world and wanted Mr. Wright to twenty-eight feet high, with a central stack design the world's most beautiful funeral par­ of four fireplaces, and another riding pick­ lor. Having done some buildings in California, aback above them on the mezzanine—all for Wright was naturally familiar with the re­ some $250,000, pre-war prices. Mr. Johnson strained language of the natives, and agreed to has just turned it over to the Johnson Founda­ go ahead. tion to serve as a cultural center. Although the building was never built, it Another multiple-building client was the Ok­ went to working drawings, and Wright spent lahoma oilman, Harold C. Price, whose sons many hours mastering the intricacies of the persuaded him to try Wright as an architect."" funeral business. He was especially taken with The result was the gorgeous Price Tower in what he understood was the word for the un­ Bartlesville, Oklahoma, described by Wright dertaker's basic stock in trade. Pointing to a as "the tree that escaped the crowded forest.""^ lower-level service entrance, away from the This was followed by an impressive Wright general area, he said, "That's where they bring house for the Prices in Phoenix, Arizona, and in what they call the merchandise—meaning a house in Bartlesville for Harold, Jr. the bodies." Another phrase that tickled him Mr. and Mrs. Price, Senior, appeared at the was "slumber chamber" as a designation for celebrated Easter breakfast at Taliesin West rooms where a coffin and its occupant could in 1959 at which Wright, unaware that death be on show for the reception of friends and was only two weeks away, had immense fun relatives. I have a suspicion that the apprentices of the 1930's and early 1940's were a more rau­ " Harold C. Price, Sr., speech at Memorial dinner, cous group, who stood less in awe of Wright June 8, 1959. "' Wright, A Testament, 196. than did the postwar crop. Now and then, as

172 JACOBS : FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

"v;*-''SisR\'-.' i. • ft.

Easter Breakfast at Taliesin West, March, 1959: guests at the Wright's table (left to right above) include Mrs. Wright's brother, Vlasto Lazovich; the Wright's grand­ daughter. Actress Ann Baxter; Mrs. Wright; Mr. Wright; Mr. Wright's son, Lloyd Wright; (back to camera), Mrs. Harold Price, Sr., in flowered hat; next to her, William T. Evfue, publisher of the Madison Capital Times. (Below), a general view of the Easter Breakfast, showing the Taliesin chorus singing on the balcony preceding the meal. All photos by Herbert Jacobs. Mr. and Mrs. Wright greet their guests. One of the last photographs taken of Wright before his death on April 9, 1959. WISCONSIN -MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

a variant from the music which featured Talie­ doing a little kidding of his own. Probably not. sin gatherings, the apprentices would put on They took the master much more seriously skits or lakc-olfs. One rousing chorus, lo iht^ than he sometimes took himself. tune of "On, Wisconsin,'" CV(MI imokcd the sacred name of Taliesin itself with a verse that FTEN Wright's formal prose style seems began: O considerably less effective than his short jabs of conversation. The Autobiography was Taliesin, Taliesin, good old Sfiining Brow, written before Mies van der Robe appeared on Run the pencil round tlie paper: the American scene with his doctrine that Try to please Jack Howe:'' "Less Is More." Wright made two comments that could apply to Mies, one indirect and the The architect roared with delight as the other direct. Here is what he said in the young men belted out this irreverent parody, Autobiography: "In architecture, expressive and had them repeat it on several social occa­ changes of surface, emphasis of line and espe­ sions, including at least one in Madison. cially textures of material or imaginative pat­ Sometimes Wright would take a hand at tern may go to make facts more eloquent— reading aloud. One favorite was St. Claire Mc- forms more significant. Elimination therefore Kelway's "An Affix for Birds," being the ac­ may be just as meaningless as elaboration, per­ count of the troubles of an American in Japan haps more often is so."''' trying to learn the language with the aid of a This is elegantly puL but involved. Later, tutor—and constantly getting tripped up by when he got a good look at some of the things what the tutor cafled "the affix for birds," Mies was doing in Chicago, he said it more which changed the meaning of sentences. Tears simply when he snorted, "Flat-chested archi­ would come to Wright's eyes, and he would tecture!" have to halt several times, as he wrestled with The pupil may have strayed later, but this New Yorker classic. Doubtless the delight Wright wanted the record set straight at least was fortified by his own recollections of at­ once on where he thought the younger man had tempting to learn Japanese while constructing first obtained his inspiration. At a dinner for the Imperial Hotel. Mies in Chicago, following interminable I recall another instance where the master's speeches, it was Wright's task to introduce sense of humor needed all its strength. The Mies. The hour was near midnight, and he cut apprentices took their turns at cooking in those his introduction to these words: "I give you days, and were allowed a pretty free hand. Mies van der Robe." We were there for dinner one night when an Then, with a smile, he repeated the words apprentice proudly presented what he called an but changed the emphasis: "/ give you Mies "organic salad." Organic architecture was the van der Robe." name Wright applied to his own designs, but I An instance in which Wright invaded a sis­ have never seen a thoroughly satisfactory defi­ ter art, but in which things turned out with nition of it—except that it is the kind of archi­ more gaiety than progress, came a few years tecture Mr. Wright did. ago when an artist was at Taliesin to do a bust The apprentice had taken "organic" in a of Wright. The clay stayed in Wright's private very literal sense. He had put in entire quarters, and soon, each night before retiring, oranges, with the skins still on, as well as heads Wright tried his hand at remodeling his own of lettuce and whole vegetables, all stirred by features, giving the bust a touch here and a big wooden paddle. Wright gave it his there—and then trying to restore all as before. thoughtful attention and made no comment, The sessions ended when the disconsolate but I was sure I detected a twinkle in his eye sculptor, who could not understand what in as he muttered, "Quite an idea." The unre­ the world was happening to his masterpiece, solved question is whether the apprentice was chanced to look through an unshaded window one night while wandering moodily on the ter-

'• John H. Howe, chief of the Taliesin drafting room. ' Wright, Autobiography, 144.

174 Photos b\ atuhoi Winter view of exterior of Jacobs house No. 2, Middleton, Wisconsir, race—and discovered that the sitter had turned "Will you walk into my parlor, said the artist.'" spider to the fly," was the prophetic way he Although he was often thought of as the greeted us, and led the way to the drafting rich man's architect, Wright made a few ex­ room. When we asked whether he would be cursions into moderate-cost home design. One interested in designing a low-cost house for us notable example was done in Madison for my —something for about $5,000 (I am speaking own family—followed by scores of others near of pre-World War II, naturally)—he smiled, that price range. He even did a special design looked at us keenly, and said: "Do you really for Robert Berger at San Anselmo, California, want a $5,000 house? Most people want a who wanted one he could build entirely him­ $10,000 house for $5,000. Are you willing to self. Berger finished it eight years later. give up the things that go with a $10,000 Nevertheless, Wright had a well-founded house, to bring the cost down to $5,000?" suspicion that the low-cost client could also be Just for the record, I would also like to the most demanding. In fact, in a speech at quote a statement from the Autobiography, the University of Wisconsin late in his life, written by a man who is often spoken of as after many a small client had followed the trail dictating to clients. "No client must take any­ we had broken, he commented: "There is no thing he doesn't want from any architect what­ low-cost housing problem. It's only a problem soever. To dictate to any client would be to lose of people who want to get too much too the client."'"' cheaply.""^ This probably would sound brutal Wright had a strongly optimistic nature, to an advocate of a subsidized public housing but I think nothing fortified it quite so much project, and perhaps it is too blunt. Maybe the as the time he arranged for his first million- many instances of coping with the light-pursed dollar fee for designing the Rogers-Lacy hotel client had soured him, after the enthusiasm in Dallas, Texas. It was the sort of thing that with which he tackled our own small housing would encourage anybody, naturally, but com- project. "Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, Our House, 263-267. •'" Madison Capital Times, October 13, 1955. °° Wright, Autobiography, 118.

Interior view of the Jacobs hniis WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 ing as it did after the lean years of the De­ any help from me or from Dick Carney, his pression and the difficult war-time period, driver, and even ignoring the handrail. Pretty when many of his most dependable apprentices good for a man of eighty-five. were forced to leave Taliesin, it must have seemed wonderful. He couldn't help telling A S I look back on Frank Lloyd Wright, one about it. However, the hotel did not get past •^ of the things that stands out was his abil­ the working drawings stage. ity to put things neatly into a sentence—an Shortly after the million-dollar fee, Wright epigram often found in the middle of a para­ said that he would thenceforth speak only graph that was not in itself remarkable. Some twelve times a year, and it would have to be of them were refined into pithy statements, a $1,000 fee or better. It was a fine idea, but simply through being repeated so often in his he did not carry it out. He could never resist writings and talks. The sentence as his best the blandishments of the TV sirens to appear vehicle was a faculty he shared with the New on their programs whenever he was in New England transcendentalists, whom he resem­ York. In his eighty-eighth year, returning to bled in many ways. Wisconsin, he boasted to me that in a single Among some of the many: week's period he had appeared on eight pro­ "An expert? Generally a man who has grams in New York. stopped thinking because he knows i''^' This was also the year in which he took on "A highbrow is a person educated beyond the redoubtable Mike Wallace in a television his capacity." interview which was supposed to be ruthless. "A doctor can bury his mistakes. An archi­ But the popular verdict went to Mr. Wright, tect can only adyise his client to plant vines.'' rather than to Wallace, whose bullying tactics A comment about his early days in Chicago, failed to get him past Wright's rapier. The when he was raising a family of six children, legend I heard was that during the commercial was typical of most of his life. He said of break, or while Wallace paused to light a cig- that period: "So long as we had the luxuries, aret, Wright leaned forward and quietly ab­ the necessities could pretty well take care of stracted Wallace's notes. themselves so far as we were concerned." And this observation about his ancestors, TF you think of Wright's platform manner the Lloyd Jones tribe which once peopled the -•- and its sledgehammer attacks on conven­ Wyoming Valley where Taliesin now stands: tional design and thinking, it is well to recall "The luxury of the Lloyd-Joneses was not his own statement from the Autobiography laughter, but tears. Until you had water in the that the country school Friday afternoon speak­ eyes of them, you really hadn't got them."'''^ ing practice had given him butterflies ever Nearly two years after his death, I still find since, when he got up to speak. myself thinking of him in the present tense, I had an echo of his feeling myself when he as though he were still alive, and I have learned appeared with the then current Madison that many of those close to him share that same mayor, George Forster, on WHA-TV. I was feeling. one of those interviewing the two men, and In that spirit, and I hope it will not be con­ after we finished the broadcast Wright turned sidered irreverent or frivolous, I would like to to me and said, "Well, that wasn't so much of close with the comment of Charles Manson, a a hanging party as I feared." The broadcast Wright client and friend who was led to his was also notable for Wright's crack to Forster, own Wright house through seeing my first one. who had commented while we were on the air At the news of Mr. Wright's death he wrote that his friends had not been impressed when me a comment that yvould have delighted the he drove them by my first house. "What kind master himself: of friends do you have, Mr. Mayor?" Wright "I know most people have to die, but I was asked. b(-ginning to think the old boy had talked It was t:liarucleristic of Wright that after God out of it." the broadcast he stepped off briskly into the warm August night, walking down the dark­ ' Wright, A Testament, 99. ened steps at 600 North Park Street, disdaining ' Wright, Autobiography, 15, 176 Sketch by Paul H. Hass

FRANKLIN WELLES CALKINS, ROMANCER

OF THE WILDERNESS

BY JOHN T. FLANAGAN

'T^HE death of Franklin Welles Calkins on cal dictionary. But Calkins was omitted from -*• December 20, 1928, in Elsinore, California, the Dictionary of American Biography, and provoked little attention. Readers of the brief today even the basic facts of his life are ob­ and inaccurate obituaries knew little about the scure. man, and those who remembered with pleasure Originally identified as a "literary journal­ his magazine stories and wilderness novels had ist," Calkins was born in Iowa County, Wis­ probably forgotten the author's identity.^ Yet consin, on June 5, 1857, the son of John Frank­ Calkins wrote seven interesting and authentic lin and Abigail Welles Calkins. His ancestry books about the woods and the plains, and for was Welsh, and his pride in his family lineage forty years was one of the chief contributors to is revealed by a comment inserted in a late Youth's Companion. Indeed a brief sketch of biographical resume: "desc. Sir Jean Carmont Calkins had appeared in every edition of Calquens, granted estate in Wales, 1066." Cal­ Who's Who in America from the second kins attended district schools and probably had through the sixteenth volume of that biographi- some further schooling although he commonly spoke of himself "as self educated in langs. and ^ Apparently no major newspaper reported Calkins' lit." Subsequently he studied law and may death. Brief obituaries appeared in the Elsinore (CaliL) Leader-Press, December 28, 1928, and in the have practiced it sporadically, but the western Dodgeville (Wis.) Chronicle and Dodgevilte Sun- country soon lured him away from the Wiscon­ Republic, both on January 3, 1929. Calkins, who died sin River Vafley, and he spent considerable unmarried, was survived by his brother, J. B. Calkins, and by his 93-year-old mother. time in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the

177 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Black Hills area.^ According to Alice Marple, If one can trust the physical location of his he resided with his family in Clay County, stories as evidence of Calkins' own travels, he Iowa, in 1865, and was accordingly lisU-d as must have roamed the ])lains and the high an Iowa author.' Certainly many of his shorter country rather widely. Not only did he know tales reflect life as he had experienced it in the Wisconsin and the Des Moines rivers well, southwestern Wisconsin and in the Des Moines but also the ranch country of Nebraska and and Little Sioux river valleys of Iowa. South Dakota, the Bad Lands, the mountains As a young man Calkins was attracted by of Wyoming, the upper reaches of the Mis­ the wild life of the plains and by the excite­ souri, and the arid plateaus of New Mexico ment of gold hunting and railroad building. and Arizona. From his early maturity in the He apparently worked with railroad contrac­ 1870's to almost the end of the century. Cal­ tors in Nebraska and South Dakota at a time kins lived the life of the hunter, the rancher, when the plains tribes were still hostile and and the railroad builder in various parts of dangerous, and his interest in the Indian led the West. him to study the culture, the folklore, and the Some time after the official passing of the languages of the aborigines. The dedication of frontier in 1890 Calkins may have decided to one of his novels. The Wooing of Tokala, terminate his wanderings. More plausibly, he reads: "To those who love justice and whose discovered that he had genuine literary ability search is after truth. To those, in fact, who and a fund of experience in dealing with wild have passed out from the red lights of war's animals and Indians to draw upon, equaled by heritage to attain the clear vision of men, this few men of his time. In his foreword to a col­ book is dedicated by one who knows the native lection of stories entitled My Host, tlie Enemy race, at least as well as he does the men and and Other Tales, published in 1901, he wrote: women of his own." "The incidents of actual adventure upon our A footnote in the same story, inserted as a remote frontiers have often been of a startling kind of documentation in a chapter describ­ nature, surpassing even the inventions of the ing the Sioux sun dance, states unequivocally fiction writer. Out of the experience of a boy­ that Calkins "was one of the first to reach these hood spent in the upper Missouri country, and hiOs [Black Hills] after the incomplete explo­ ten years of after life as a plainsman and ration of General Custer in 1874."* He added mountaineer, this little volume of stories is that he still remembered his surprise in finding written." the animals and birds of the region relatively A little earlier an editorial note in The tame and apparently unused to the presence Midland Monthly of Des Moines, to which he of man. To the Indians, the Black Hills, partly had contributed a serial in 1896, paid him this because of their elevation and the presence in high tribute for the authenticity of his writ­ them of thermal springs, were regarded as mys­ ings: "Probably there is no one living who terious and therefore as a kind of sanctuary. has collected so much of unwritten history,— so much of unpublished incident in the early life of this Upper Mississippi country; cer­ tainly no one as yet who has used them so well • Calkins is the subject of a brief sketch in The in story-writing."^ Encyclopedia Americana (New York, Chicago, Wash­ ington, 1960), V:224. Additional biographical ma­ In the early 1900's, during his most prolific terial cited in the text is from Who's Who in Amer­ period of story writing. Calkins resided in ica, 1901-1902, 1910-1911, and 1924-1925. Iowa County, Wisconsin, first at Wyoming ' Alice Marple, Iowa Authors and Their Works (Des Moines, 1918), 351. from 1899 to 1906 and later at Dodgevifle. ' Calkins, The Wooing of Tokala (New York, 1907), Subsequently he moved to Minnesota and spent 225. In his story called "A Trapper's Proteges," Cal­ kins begins as follows: "In the summer and autumn several years in Otter Tail County in the west­ of 1875 I was one of a company who perilously lo­ ern part of the state, living at Underwood and cated placer claims on French Creek, in the Black Dent from about 1910 to 1916. A year later Hills of South Dakota." See My Host, the Enemy and Other Tales (Chicago, New York, Toronto, 1901), 267. In some of his fiction, of course, he used the autobiographical viewpoint without specifically referring to himself, but this particular assertion ^The Midland Monthly, VI:574-575 (December, coincides with other statements about his activities. 1896).

178 FLANAGAN : ROMANCER OF THE WILDERNESS he changed his residence to Aladdin, Wyo­ suggest themselves; one geographical, the other ming, and by 1920 he was living in California, thematic. first at Porterville and finally at Elsinore." Calkins' earlier tales, those perhaps most closely linked with his own youth, reflect ex­ AS early as the 1880's Calkins began to cori- periences in Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Missouri -'"*- tribute to the periodical press stories Valley. Certain locations in the Wisconsin based on his experiences. His work appeared River Vafley, at Prairie du Chien, along the in such diverse places as Outing, The Midland Mississippi, and in the lake country of north­ Monthly, St. Nicholas, and Youth's Compan­ western Iowa recur frequently and suggest ion. To the last-named periodical he contrib­ Calkins' intimate knowledge of the region. uted several stories a year for almost four Landmarks such as bluffs, marshes, and islands decades. A good many of the earlier stories are used authoritatively, and the trappers, were collected in three volumes which were hunters, and homesteaders introduced into the all published by the Donohue firm of Chicago tales seem authentic even though they are sel­ in 1893: Frontier Sketches, Indian Tales, and dom given full portraiture. Later Calkins uti­ Hunting Stories. The publisher reissued them lized lake scenes from northern and western in a single volume in 1899 under the title Boys' Minnesota, mining territory in the Black Hifls, Life on the Frontier. There were also two other ranches in Nebraska, Wyoming, and even collections of Calkins' tales. Herbert S. Stone Montana, and occasionally the Red River Val­ & Company of Chicago and New York issued ley of Texas as backgrounds for his narratives. The Cougar-Tamer & Other Stories of Adven­ Most of the stories published after 1900 are lo­ ture in 1899 (copyright 1898), and My Host, calized in the trans-Mississippi area and relate the Enemy and Otfier Tales appeared under to the cattle country and the high plains. the Fleming H. Revell imprint in 1901. Since In subject matter Calkins' stories can be there were no other collections published and subdivided into three classes. A great many of since Calkins continued to contribute sketches the tales picture the quest for game of some and stories to various periodicals for at least kind. The hunters, often quite youthful, go out a dozen years thereafter, it is obvious that in search of deer, elk, bear, big horn sheep, much of his work remains uncollected. buffalo, and, in the fall of the year, for ducks Calkins also wrote longer stories which and geese. Occasionally the object of the expe­ sometimes appeared serially in magazines. A dition is lost because of the appearance of pred­ good example is "The Young Homesteaders," atory wolves or vicious cougars. Eagles are which ran through eleven issues of The Mid­ also legitimate prey and some of Calkins' more land Monthly in 1896-1897. The biographical exciting tales narrate climbs to aeries high sketches of Calkins in the various editions of atop the mountain crags. In these tales of hunt­ Who's Who in America allude to other maga­ ing exploits, weather conditions are often an zine serials but do not give the titles of the important factor, and many a hunt is compli­ stories or of the periodicals. Calkins was also cated by the unexpected appearance of a bliz­ the author of at least two novels of Indian zard or a freshet. life. Two Wilderness Voyagers, which appeared As Calkins moved westward in the 1870's he in 1902, and The Wooing of Tokala, published inevitably became interested in ranch life and by Revefl in 1907. soon turned his attention to the breaking of Seven volumes of fiction and a host of un­ horses, cattle herding, the protection of the collected tales indicate that Calkins was an in­ livestock from depredators, human or animal, dustrious and prolific author. One might well and the life of plainsman and mountaineer. ask what kind of pattern can be imposed upon The ranching scene becomes fully as vivid and his work. How can his stories be classified realistic as the Wisconsin pineries remembered and best interpreted? Two categories at once from his boyhood. Finally there is his interest in the Indian. Calkins was in ihe Wt^st between the New Uhn massacre in 1862 and the Custer massacre 'Who's Who in America, 1910-1911; ibid., 1916- 1917. C/. also Collections oi the Minnesota Historical of 1876. He knew the plains tribes when Sioux, Society (St. Paul, 1912), XiV:100. Cheyenne, Crows, and Pawnee were still hos-

179 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 tile and still autonomous, although doomed by chief Fire Cloud, who are sent to the mission the transcontinental railroad and the virtual school at Traverse des Sioux, Minnesota, to extinction of the buffalo. Yet there is no indi­ learn something of white civilization. Fire cation that Calkins himself became an Indian Cloud had led his branch of the Sioux people to fighter nor that he participated in tribal feuds. war but after 1860 realized the futility of fur­ He apparently had a deep and sincere interest ther belligerence and hoped to have his son in the Indian as a man, as a representative of a and daughter benefit from the arts of peace. particular culture. He learned a good deal of But The Right Hand (Etapa) and his sister the psychology of the Indians; he observed Yellow Bird (Zintkala-Zi) grow restless at the their rituals and ceremonies; he described mission and finally flee. They are captured by their dances. There is evidence to prove that he Assiniboin who sell them to an Ojibwa chief became proficient in the language of the plains living near Red Lake in northern Minnesota. aborigines. Although most of his stories which Mistreated by their captors, the children de­ present the clash of races show the triumph of camp and with limited equipment but with an the white man over the red, they almost always astonishing sense of direction start out to re­ reveal an insight into the Indian mentality as join their parents in the Sioux country west well as the conviction that the Indian—des­ of the Missouri. The rest of the narrative is tined as he was to become subordinate to a simply the chronicle of their wanderings and more numerous and more powerful race—was their eventual success in finding the Ogallala well worth attention as an individual with a village. history and a tradition. The bits of Indian Calkins tells in great detail and with ap­ mythology and folklore which frequently ap­ parent authenticity of the long journey by pear in the stories indicate Calkins' interest in canoe, by horse, and on foot. The children live the imaginative side of savage life. instinctively off the country, snaring rabbits A few tales picture the invasion of Indian and partridges, catching fish, eating berries territory and the bold but unsuccessful at­ and nuts, finding ginseng roots and fresh water tempts of the red men to repel the invaders. clams, occasionally managing to kill a duck or " 'Go!' An Episode of Invasion" introduces the a goose and once even an old buffalo bull mired famous Sioux chief Red Cloud and describes in the mud. From the animal's skin they fa­ his effort to bar white men from the Black shion a very useful bull boat. They are, of Hills. Some stories pivot on the strategy which course, pursued by the Ojibwa but manage to permitted lone hunters or dispatch riders to conceal their tracks by taking refuge in a elude Indian pursuers. "A Race Against Odds" swamp. They suffer from hunger and exposure and "The Feat of Michael Detaye" are good and the boy falls sick, but his sister manages examples.' "My Host, the Enemy," on the other to reduce his fever and strengthen him so that hand, pictures a solitary traveller who seeks he can travel again. Since their flight takes refuge in a Sioux wigwam during a blizzard, is place in warm weather, no permanent harm reluctantly given food and shelter, and then is comes to thein, and after hundreds of miles of pursued by his quondam hosts.* But Calkins' travel they reach the tribal camp in a sanctu­ best Indian fiction is the novels. Two Wilder­ ary in the Bad Lands. ness Voyagers and The Wooing of Tokala, in The narrative concentrates naturally on the which the life of the plains Indian is the cen­ fortitude, strength, and intelligence of the two tral theme and white men play only minor wilderness children. They are by temperament roles. quiet and watchful, and their ability to find Two Wilderness Voyagers is the account of food and shelter in the most forbidding situa­ a brother and sister, children of the Ogallala tions reveals the remarkable acclimatization of the plains Indians to their environment. But Calkins was also aware of the imaginative life ' " 'Go!' An Episode of Invasion," in My Host, the of the red men, and his characters enter- Enemy; "A Race Against Odds," Youth's Companion LXXII;57: (February 3, 1898) ; "The Feat of Michael lain themselves in camp and sometimes build Detaye," in The Cougar-Tamer & Other Stories of u[) each other's courage by reciting tribal tra­ Adventure. ditions. Etapa especially likes to tell stories * "My Host, The Enemy," twelfth story in the vol­ ume with the same name. from Dakota folklore, notably the various feats

180 FLANAGAN : ROMANCER OF THE WILDERNESS

of the spider Iktomi, a fabulous, trickster-like depiction of Indian life. Yet many vivid pic­ character who could count coup in his own tures are given of aboriginal courting prac­ way. The spider is curiously like the Anansi tices, domestic life, and village ceremonies. of the Caribbean natives, although the children The account of the Bear Butte sun dance might are understandably unaware of the analogy. weU be compared with George Catlin's descrip­ On the whole. Two Wilderness Voyagers is a tion of the Mandan ceremonies, and the asser­ remarkable picture of the way in which the tion that chiefs such as Red Cloud, American Indian hunted, traveled, and survived before Horse, Gall, and Sitting Buff participated in the the white man arrived to compound his Assiniboin viflage dance which followed the troubles. sun dance suggests a close tie with historical The Wooing of Tokala is both a more ro­ events. Calkins again employs a good deal of mantic and more historic tale. Tokala Noni is folklore, particularly in the third chapter when the daughter of Yellow-Iron, chief of the Ogal­ Koska submits to the test of young manhood lala, and is courted by several braves. Her and waits for visions induced by Inyan Wakan preference is Koska, a Brule, and an extra­ among the mysterious rocks of the Bad Lands. ordinary dancer and chanter. Eventually the Indeed in both of his longer Indian stories lovers are united but not before much action the author blended quite successfully a reliable and many years intervene. Koska, irritated by account of external events with an appreciation his reception in Yellow-Iron's village, goes off and understanding of the cultural life of the to win honor and fame by killing several Crows plains tribes. but so impresses the Crow tribe that they If Calkins did not venture to collect and ignore his offences and make him their leader record the myths and traditions particularly of in war. Rebaptized Cloud Chief, he becomes the Sioux, as Schoolcraft did for the Ojibwa in celebrated throughout the high plains area his Algic Researches of 1839, he nevertheless and when he again comes in contact with Yel­ seemed thoroughly familiar with the Indian low-Iron's band he is a respected leader. To­ imagination. Certainly he employed Indian kala has in the meanwhile been courted by folklore to re-enforce his descriptions of Sioux others, notably by a brave known as Catches life in a way which never occurred to Hamlin Eagles (in commemoration of an early exploit) Garland when he wrote the short tales which who has not defected like Koska to an enemy make up his Book of the American Indian, tribe. When Crows and Ogallala eventually go (1923). It should be observed, too, that Cal­ on the warpath following a sortie made by the kins wrote about the plains Indians at a time Crows during the supposed amnesty initiated when they still retained their sovereignty and by the sun dance. Cloud Chief and Catches before they were reduced to a reservation Eagles engage in a barbaric duel on horseback status. in lieu of a tribal fight, and Cloud Chief dis­ arms his opponent. When Cloud Chief once more comes to the lodge of Yellow-Iron to re­ N general, the truthfulness of Calkins' por­ claim his Sioux nationality and to seek Tokala I traiture of wilderness life is just as apparent as a wife, his suit is accepted. It is interesting in his stories of pioneer Wisconsin and Iowa that Calkins introduces Father De Smet briefly as it is in his novels of the plains Indians. At into this tale as he had introduced Bishop least twelve stories in the collected volumes of Henry B. Whipple briefly in Two Wilderness tales have Wisconsin settings, almost all of Voyagers. them localized in the Wisconsin River Valley or in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien. In The action of The Wooing of Tokala takes theme they are about evenly divided between place mostly in Nebraska, South Dakota, and encounters with Indians and hunting exploits. Wyoming, with many of the principal events Two of the fifteen stories in Indian Tales occurring along the Platte and Niobrara rivers utilize Wisconsin scenes. Tn "Wapper-Jaw or in the Black Hills. Since the story is mote John." Calkins relates the deed of a friendly highly plollcd ihan the |)re\ ious lale, (Cal­ \Vlrni(l)ag() who kidnaps a while woman and kins ])aid greater attention to his diief char­ her child—not to molest them but to carry acters and correspondingly It^ss to the general them to safetv during the Black Hawk War

181 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 while the husband is absent. "McLeod's Adven­ while maneuvering a bateau on the Wisconsin ture" tefls of two brothers who feud with the River. He captures the Sioux chief by a ruse Winnebago tribe in Richland County and lose and then releases his captive at Prairie du a dugout when they can not apprehend the Chien after he has defeated him in a knife brave who has stolen it. duel. The story called "A Pioneer Woman's In Frontier Sketches there are three Wiscon­ Peril" presents wild animals as the evil oppo­ sin stories. "A Piece of Frontier Strategy" pic­ nents of the heroine, Mrs. Sarah Gibson, wife tures the successful scheme of two brothers of a pioneer preacher, living on the Wisconsin who expel claim jumpers from their cabin site side of the Mississippi. When she hears noth­ at Sac Prairie. "The Mystery of the Valley" ing of her husband, she ventures to cross the is concerned with a strange animal (a wild river on the ice but is marooned on an island "broot baste" in the Yorkshire dialect of the when the channel suddenly opens. Although protagonist) which turns out to be a starved she has no food besides the flesh of a stranded wolf-dog, the hunting companion of a friendly river sturgeon and although she is menaced by Indian. In "The 'Moaning Rock' at Bogey's cougars, she survives and is finafly rescued by Bend," a supposedly haunted rock on the Wis­ a coulee trapper. consin River emits singular noises partly be­ There are also two Wisconsin stories in The cause of a rockslide caused by the current, and Cougar-Tamer & Other Stories of Adventure. the mystery is solved when a cave which ap­ "An Adventure at Coon Rock," which Calkins parently had sheltered a gang of counterfeiters said concerned "a bluff fronting the Wisconsin is discovered by curious neighborhood boys. valley, near my old home in Iowa County," My Host, the Enemy contains five stories narrates the story of three boys who went to with a Wisconsin background. "Sandvig and this famous landmark to hunt raccoons, only St. Xavier," a tale attributed by the author to to find themselves confronted with timber Hercules Dousman, the Astor fur company wolves." They are, of course, equal to the occa­ agent at Prairie du Chien, concerns two part­ sion. "Babette's Loup-Garou, A Tale of French ners, one a herculean Norwegian, the other a Prairie du Chien," deals with the kidnaping dwarfish and swarthy Frenchman. They had of a village child by a renegade Winnebago been trapping together when Indians stole who uses the superstition of the loup-garou or their traps. Infuriated, they fire on the village werewolf to further his plan. The Indian is ap­ and the Indians pursue them. They skate down prehended in time and the child restored to its the Mississippi south of Prairie du Chien, and mother. when St. Xavier's skates break Sandvig ties Of the uncollected stories with Wisconsin the smaller man to his belt and pulls him to settings, some of which appeared in Youth's safety in an exciting race over the black river Companion, a particularly vivid one is called ice. The same general location is the back­ "The Wolves of the Baraboos." Loggers at ground for "The Bullet Maker's Strategy," in work on a slope cutting timber stop their activ­ which the leadmaker and gunsmith Jean De ity to kill a fawn which had strayed into the Bois repels an invasion of British and Winne­ clearing. Shortly afterward a pack of wolves bago in Mackinac bateaux by making "can­ appears, thirty-eight in number, and only when nons" out of hoflow logs and simulating en­ the woodsmen throw the wolves the carcass of trenched troops. "Beaupre's Tale of Bolerat" is the fawn and begin to roll logs down upon them based on an episode which was common in In­ can they escape. This tale, like other maga­ dian-white warfare. Winnebago had invested zine contributions by Calkins, is brief and Etienne Bolerat's trading post at the confluence compact.^" of the Black and Mississippi rivers, chiefly be­ Calkins also frequently used Iowa, especially cause they resented the trader's marriage to the northwestern portion of the state, for the an Ojibwa wife. I nable lo drive off lh<^ in­ scenes of his stories. Again Indian tales and vaders, Bolerat escapes with his wifi' by blow­ ing up his powder magazine atui destroying the fort. In "The Trader's Dilemma" a fur trader * '/'Ac Coui;ar-l'irnn'r KK: Other Stories of AdveiUure. named McAndrew is attacked by Ponca Sioux '" "The Wolves of the Baraboos," Youth's Compan­ ion, LXXIV:329 (June 28, 1900).

182 FLANAGAN : ROMANCER OF THE WILDERNESS

hunting tales predominate. "Boyer's Strata­ painted by Hamlin Garland (whose Main- gem," a narrative which reveals how a clever Travelled Roads had appeared in 1891) and trader oulwillcd Chief liikpaduta, wi^ll illus­ the assertion that Garland had overemphasized trates the first category.^^ Among the numerous the pessimism and squalor of the farmer.^'' hunting stories, "In the Scrogs," an account The Hewitts and their friends feel that Gar­ of boys who had gone to hunt geese but became land was being deliberately propagandistic lost in a peat marsh in the Little Sioux Valley, rather than accurate. Among other episodes in is particularly graphic.^^ "The Young Homesteaders" is an exciting ac­ Among the other Midwestern states which count of a wolf hunt and a digression to explain Calkins knew well and used for fictional back­ why a nearby lake, Le Marais des Chevaux ground, one must cite Minnesota and the Da- Moris, acquired its name. kotas. A feud in the Minnesota pineries is the theme of "A Timber-Cruiser's Defense," and NE might well ask at this juncture how suc­ the lake country of northern Minnesota pro­ O cessful was Calkins as a writer of fiction. vides the scene for such stories as "Rivals in It is at once apparent that he was a storyteller Ginseng" and "An Arbor-Day Cruise."^^ "The who emphasized action. Calkins seldom an­ Adventure of Foote, the Tankman" tells the alyzed or interpreted his characters; he was unusual tale of the driver of a tank sled in a content to place them in situations of danger, lumber camp who is attacked by wolves on with animal or human enemies; and the inter­ his return to camp. Even though the sled is est of the narratives generally depended on how upset by the bolting horses, the man manages the protagonists extricated themselves from to drown the animals in his tank of ice water.^* their difficulties. Because so many of his stories Most of the Dakota tales relate to ranching or were written for the pages of Youth's Compan­ mining in the Black Hills area at a time when ion, Calkins must often have had a juvenile the Indians were still a menace. But "The audience in mind. Yet Youth's Companion, it Young Homesteaders" narrates the story of two should be remembered, commanded the pens orphans who leave a Wisconsin farm to home­ of such writers as Garland, Kipling, HoweOs, stead on prairie land southwest of a town called Jack London, and Woodrow Wilson, and many Marionette in South Dakota.^" of the articles and stories that appeared in that Calkins' account of prairie farming is fa­ periodical were not necessarily intended for miliar but realistic. Tom and Maisie Hewitt adolescents. Certainly Calkins often wrote face the same problems that other farmers en­ about and for younger readers, whether his countered: a cyclone, a blizzard, a prairie fire, heroes were white or red. But probably more crop failures due to drouth, and difficulties in frequently he utilized the wilderness life, which marketing surplus grain after they had suc­ he knew so wefl, as a background and theme ceeded in raising it. There is mutual misun­ for tales which were designed to appeal to read­ derstanding with a nearby community of Rus­ ers of afl ages. sian Mennonite farmers, but there are also There was undoubtedly a strong autobio­ cultural opportunities afforded by the pros­ graphical element in his fiction, although not perous prairie town. One of the most interest­ all the stories written from the first person ing tangents in the narrative is a long discus­ point of view concerned his personal life. In sion of the picture of Middlewestern farm life the first place, certain locations which Cal­ kins knew intimately—the Wisconsin River Valley, Prairie du Chien, the lake region of northwestern Iowa, the Black Hills—frequently " "Boyer's Stratagem," in Indian Tales. provide the settings for his narratives. Sec­ " "In the Scrogs," in My Host, the Enemy. " "A Timber Cruiser's Defense," in Youth's Com­ ondly, the events pictured—homesteading, big panion, LXXV:653 (December 12, 1901); "Rivals in game hunting, ranching, prospecting, the final Ginseng," in ibid., LXXVIII:195-196 (April 2], 1904); "An Arbor-Day Cruise," in ibid., LXXX:143 hostilities between Indians and settlers eager (March 22, 1906). to take over new land—reflect the life which " "The Adventure of Foote, the Tankman," in ibid., LXXV:419 (August 29, 1901). '° "The Young Homesteaders," in The Midland Monthly (May, 1896-March, 1897). '• Ibid., VI :272-276.

183 WISCONSIN :\IAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

he had experienced as a young man. Calkins In the short tales the Indian is not treated un- wrote no fiction which is not associated with sympathetically, but he is the familiar hostile, the out-of-doors—forest, plains, mountains. the relic of a passing era, the still dangerous In general his characterization is mediocre. but already moribund final obstacle to white The brevity of his tales did not permit much settlement of the West. But in Two Wilderness elaboration, and he wasted no time on motiva­ Voyagers and The Wooing of Tokala, Calkins tion or personal description. On the other hand, showed his interest in more than the external he was careful to establish the scene: the lair life of the aborigines, and his appreciation of of the cougar, the habitat of the grizzly, the the Indian's heritage. range of the cattleman, the hunting grounds The lure of the West and his own adven­ of the Indian. His compulsion to provide sus­ turous spirit carried Calkins far from the Iowa pense and excitement never caused him to County of his youth, and his later stories re­ neglect verisimilitude. One must note also veal his interest in the life of the plains and that Calkins had some command of style. He wrote simply but accurately, he avoided cliches, mountains rather than in that of the forest and and his vocabulary was that of a literate man. lakes. But for many years he was a Wiscon­ Even if he had a juvenile audience in view, he sin resident, and his early fiction is a valuable seldom catered to it in his diction. addition to the literature of his native state. Perhaps the most interesting thing about His stories deserve the attention of anyone the literary work of Calkins, especially in his who relishes an honest picture of pioneer life longer fiction, is his handling of the Indian. and adventure in the upper Mississippi Valley.

(As an example of Calkins' Wisconsin tales, the following is reprinted in full from the book. Frontier Sketches, published in 1893. Despite the lack of literary distinction, the torturous dialect, and the total absence of characterization, this straightforwardly told little story manages to con­ vey a sense of reality and to furnish some measure of insight into condi­ tions and problems of frontier living. EDITOR.j

A PIECE OF FRONTIER STRATEGY

By Franklin Welles Calkins

'T' N the early days of the settlement of Wis- The claimant, if he were of age or the head ^g consin there were neither land surveys nor of a family, was entitled to one hundred and government laws by which lands could be held sixty acres of timber land and the same amount with perfect security by the settlers. There was, of prairie land, which he must first locate, and however, in most counties an unwritten law, then proceed to measure by "stepping it off." much like that which governs claim-taking in There was usually some one in every or­ mining districts, and which generally protected ganized township who was regarded as an ex­ the claimant who complied with its require­ pert in measuring land. Eight hundred and ments. These requirements which were adopted eighty steps of three feet each along the four in nearly afl the new communities as "neigh­ sides of a square, beginning at a given land­ borhood by-laws," and in most of them strictly mark and returning to it, were allowed as a enforced against all persons who tried to vio­ quarter-section. late them, were usually something like the fol­ The corners were established on the prairie lowing: by marked stakes, and in timber by blazing

184 CALKINS : A PIECE OF FRONTIER STRATEGY trees and carving the taker's name or initials been across the river hunting, and had staked upon them. Then within a reasonable time, say and blazed claims for themselves—two "quar­ three months—the time was not definitely ters"—upon which they had subsequently fixed—the squatter must build a cabin and erected a snug log cabin, which they had cov­ move his family, if he had one, his effects if he ered with boards of their own make. had not, into it, and there make his home They spent the greater part of two winters until the land should be surveyed and "come in this cabin, hunting and splitting rails dur­ into market," when, by appearing either him­ ing the short days, and during the spring, sum­ self or in the person of the "township bidder," mer and autumn while working on their at the regular "land sale" for his district, bid­ father's place, they watched jealously for any ding the minimum price, one dollar and a movement toward a settlement on the "other quarter an acre, and paying the money to the side." registrar of the land-office, he received a gov­ The winter before Jake came of age several ernment patent which made his claim valid other claims were taken, above their own, on and final. the west side of the river, on Sac Prairie, one It was not well for an interloper to attempt of the most fertile prairies of the state. The to jump one of these claims, or to bid more boys now determined to move over finally so than the minimum price above a claimant who soon as they should gather the spring crops had complied with the by-laws of his district. upon their father's place. Generafly, as I have said, the squatter, who In March, upon going home from their claim, complied with these "right of discovery" land they left their cooking utensils and other be­ laws, was safe enough to hold his claim, and if longings inside the cabin, and closed the door he had not the ready money saved to pay for and window by nailing some heavy strips it at the land sale, he could easily borrow it of across them. It was not until May, after corn the money-lenders in his district. But some­ planting, that they moved across the river. times there were disputes, in which whole They swam over two yoke of steers, their break­ neighborhoods took sides, and occasionally a ing team, and rafted across their wagon, squatter's claim was the scene of an affray in ploughs and some other effects. It took them which blood was shed. nearly all day to cross, and it was late in the evening when they reached their cabin. f I ^ WO young men, Jacob and Jared Steb- The cabin had been built in the edge of the -*- bins, who lived in the region between Blue valley timber, and they had cleared a space Mounds and the Wisconsin, very early in the around it. As they drove out into this open history of that country, belonged to the pioneer space, they were surprised by the yelping of a class above mentioned. Their father had moved dog, which came rushing toward them, and up there from Galena some time before the flew at the faces of the steers, so that they Black Hawk troubles, and, though they were halted and lowered their horns to fight off the but lads of sixteen and seventeen, they had brute. Jared ran forward and drove the animal taken part in the defense of Mound Fort, and away with his whip, giving it a cut which sent in the battle of Wisconsin Heights. it back to the cabin. As they grew up and Jake came of age, they "Somebody's here?" said he. became ambitious to have land of their own. Jared went forward. The dog snarled at him They had helped clear, grub, break up, fence from under the covered wagon as he ap­ and cultivate one hundred acres of land on proached. As he came up to the cabin, he saw their father's "patent" in Mound Creek Valley, that the boards had been ripped from the door, and now it was high time to begin for them­ and that a light was shining through a crack. selves. Up to this period the broad Wisconsin, un- "Hallo, thar!" he called, standing close to fordable except in the driest seasons, had acted the door. as a check to the tide of Northern and Western There was a moment of waiting, a murmur settlement in their district. There was much of voices inside; then the door swung inward, choice land upon the other side, and some two and the tall, gaunt figure of a middle-aged wo­ years before Jake was twenty-one the boys had man stood in the open space.

185 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

"Who be ye?" she inquired, gruffly. Jake told them they had no business inside "I'm one of the owners of this claim," said the cabin, which belonged to himself and his Jared, "an' wo'd like ter shar' the cabin with brother; that this claim had been made and ye till we c'n get some supper." held for two years, and that they were liable to "Wal' ye can't come in hyer!" said the prosecution for assault on his brother. woman, coofly. "This hyer claim an' this hyer The elder man answered back that he and cabin b'longs ter us!" and she stepped back to his son had found an old trapper living in the shut the door in his face. cabin; that they had bought his right to it, Jared was hot-blooded and was naturally and laid claim to the land, and, what was more, angry at this turn of events. He sprang towards they should hold it against all comers. It was the closing door, and threw all his weight against it. The woman was large and strong enough to have offered stout resistance, but she was taken by surprise; the door flew out of her grasp, back upon its hinges, and Jared was propelled against her with a force that made her stagger half-way across the room. Jared had gained admission, but found him­ self facing two big, bony men who had arisen from their stools before the fire-place as he burst the door in. They sprang at him, knocked him over, sat on him—one on his shoulders and the other on his legs—and then, with buckskin straps, pro­ ceeded to bind him hand and foot. Jared struggled for a moment, and then, finding it useless, gave it up. He was soon relieved of the weight of his captors, but lay helplessly bound upon the floor. All this had happened so quickly that when Jake, who had heard the scuffle, had tied the steers and come cautiously up to the door, gun in hand, he found himself confronted by the muzzles of two rifles, which protruded through a crack which had been made by removing a board from the nearest window. "Drop that gun!" came from within the cabin. But instead of dropping his weapon, the quick-witted young settler sprang to one side, I'lom tiontier Siietcfies and ran behind the wagon, under which the "Who be ye?" she inquired, gruffly. belligerent dog was still barking. Then he called to his brother: "Say, Jerd, have they hurt ye?" also stated that a colony of setders from Illinois Jared shouted back that they hadn't, but had come in some three weeks before, having that two men had tied him hand and foot. crossed the river at "The Portage," and Jake picked up a club and threw it at the squatted along on that side; that a general dog to drive it away; then he called to the men meeting had already been held, and the usual to know what they meant by such outrageous regulations adopted, and that the speaker in­ acts. One of them—the old man—answered side the cabin had been diosen constable until back that they had taken up a man for assault a regular election was held. and battery, and meant only to protect them­ The young fellow was astounded and cha­ selves and their rights. grined at this intelligence. The situation was

186 CALKINS A PIECE OF FRONTIER STRATEGY puzzling enough, for he saw that these claim- could not be seen, and the man, who had prob­ jumpers had greatly the advantage over him. ably come out to see what was going on upon He and Jar(-d could really prove; nolhing; not a li(-aring ihe wagon rattle, turned again and settler on the other side whom they knew had entered the cabin. ever visited them here or knew of the location It was fifteen minutes' drive down to the of their claim except by hearsay. Their only creek, by the nearest approach for a wagon, callers had been two or three stray trappers but, as Jake wefl knew, the stream could be and an occasional Winnebago Indian who had approached on the opposite side of the cabin, at various times spent a night with them. which was situated in a bend of it, by a very It was one of those trappers, a rascally- short cut through thick brush. It was from looking fellow whom he remembered he had that quarter, in fact, that he and Jared had disliked, who had pretended to sell this claim brought their water for cooking purposes. to the present occupants—and there was a However, it just suited a plan which had whole neighborhood to stand by them in pos­ flashed upon him that the boy should be at the session. pains of selecting for him the best camping- The situation was discouraging even if place—it got them out of sight and hearing of Jared had not—according to the code of the the cabin. region—been lawfully arrested for an assault. Jake walked well up by the steers and talked Jake went out near his own wagon and sat to the boy as they went forward and learned, down on a stump to think. as he had expected, that the lad was the son of The night was not dark; the moon was shin­ the man who had jumped his claim. The boy ing faintly and a light wind was moving the said he had gone over to a neighbor's who had tree tops, and as Jake sat with his face between just moved into a new log-house one mile west his hands in a brown study, the figure of a and was to have stayed all night, but finding person came across his range of vision. A boy that a number of land-seekers had claimed the emerged from the woods a short distance west neighbor's hospitality, he had spent the eve­ of the cabin and came toward him. As he ap­ ning at play with their boys and returned. He proached the dog ran out and began leaping said his father's name was Burrel. upon him. They reached the creek, and Jake, having "Huflo, mister! w'at ye doin' out hyer?" quickly matured a plan of action, stopped his The voice was that of a lad of fourteen or oxen and while untying a long, slender lead- fifteen. rope from the horns of the "near" steer at the Jake answered, warily, that "he'd jes' druv head of the team, kept the boy near his side by up a bit ago, an' was wonderin' where thar talking to him. might be some water fer the oxen." He added When he had secured the rope, however, he that he thought it rather late to wake people up turned, flung an arm around his listener, and to find out—there was no light that could be with a quick trip threw him to the ground. seen from the cabin. The boy struggled and screamed with fear and "Oh, I'll show ye," said the boy. "It's about anger, but Jake quieted him with a stern com­ forty rod, though, the way ye'll hev ter drive mand and then, holding him fast, told him just t' git down ter the crick." what had happened at the cabin, and also gave "That don't make any differ'nce—the dis­ him a truthful account of his own and his tance," said Jake. "I want to camp by water," brother's labor in making the claim, which had —which was true enough, as matters had been jumped regardless of their rights. turned out. "An' now, youngster, I'm goin' ter tie ye Thereupon he untied his oxen, turned his up, an' bring yer ole dad ter terms, an' the wagon about and drove after the boy, who led more ye cut up the wuss it'll be for ye." him back very nearly over the way he had The boy evidently believed his story and come. Jake, looking back as they entered the saw both the point and the justice of the case, timber-line, saw the cabin door swing open, for he sullenly submitted, gritting out between and some one come out and look after them. his teeth that "Dad 'n' Bob'll get ev'n with ye But fortunately the boy was straight ahead and fur this."

187 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Jake tied his prisoner securely, unhitched me. Then yer pick up yer duds, 'n' bring 'em his oxen and turned them loose, with the yokes out 'n' pack 'em in this wagon 'n' take yerselves on, to graze, and then, getting some quills out off 'n ihi? claim, 'n' when ye've done that I'll of the wagon, made a bed under it, picked up turn yer boy loose, 'n' when ye've gone 'n' took the captive and laid him upon it. He then ate a claim 't ye've got a right ter squat on, 'n' git a cold bite of bread and meat, and taking his settled onto it, yer c'n send one o' yer neigh­ rifle went slowly back to the cabin. bors after them guns. Now yer c'n jes' do that When he arrived there he again seated him­ er I'll hoi' ye in thar till the crack o' doom, 'n' self upon a stump and gave his mind to yer boy's tied up out thar in the woods c'n stay thought. He had gained one advantage, at thar till the b'ars eat 'im up, er the wolves, 'n' least, he could exchange prisoners and get his they's plenty o' both round hyer. I've got brother free, which had been his object in so plenty ter eat in my pockets 'n' good shelter roughly treating the boy, but could he do any­ commandin' the winders 'n' door." thing more? At the close of this speech there was another He determined to try. Accordingly he got up wail inside the cabin. The woman, rough as and stole softly behind the covered wagon she was, loved her boy and was terribly fright­ where he had stood before—the dog seemed ened, and the men seemed subdued and im­ to have exhausted its animosity or else it had pressed with the gravity of the situation. After foflowed the wagon and gone rabbit-hunting. a long parley the men, moved by the entrea­ Jake now shouted loudly at the cabin: ties of the woman and gready to Jake's sur­ "Ho, Burrel! Burrel, I say!" prise, did accept them and sent Jared out with There was a movement inside, a light shone the guns. through a crack and an angry voice—the old They brought out their household goods and man's again—replied: "Wall, what ye yawpin' the men sullenly packed them in the wagon 'bout now?" while Jake and Jared with the guns stood Jake briefly related the story of the boy's guard at a safe distance. They got up their capture, only being interrupted every few sec­ oxen and hitched them to the wagon, and then onds by ejaculations of wrath and chagrin from the woman, who had silently helped bring out his auditors, or at least from two of them. their bedding, clothing and cooking utensils, Jared was listening also, and Jake heard him broke down again, and begged that the boy give a shout and a hearty laugh of triumph might be "turned loose 'n' fetched." at the conclusion. This was more than Jake could stand, and For a moment there was confusion inside the though he knew the lad was safe and fairly cabin, and a gabble of excited discussion, then comfortable, he had tied him so that he felt the door opened cautiously, and Jake heard certain he could not get loose. He, therefore, somebody—evidently a woman—crying pite- left Jared with two guns to guard the claim- ously. jumpers and went and got the boy. The whole "Oh, they'fl kifl 'im! they'll kifl my babby!" party then drove off without a word. she moaned. It was nearly two weeks before a neighbor "Shet up!" said one of the men, roughly. with whom they had become acquainted, and "Say, mister!" he called, poking his head who sided with them upon learning all the facts in the case, came over and got the guns, out of a crack in the doorway. and brought the information that the Burrels "Now, look hyer!" cafled Jake, sharply, had settled about twelve miles down the river. "none o' that! Keep inside if ye want to keep He had previously told them that he and some a whole skin." other neighbors, who had elected the elder The head was hastily withdrawn. Burrel a constable, had not been acquainted "Now, lookee hyer!" repeated Jake, "I'm with the family long, having only fallen in with a-goin' ter hold this hyer cabin in a state o' them while "moving." siege till ye come ter my terms. My terms is After getting acquainted with all the new­ these: comers of their neighborhood the two boys "Yer turn my brother loose; give 'im ev'ry found good friends and good neighbors among gun ye've got an' let 'im bring 'em out hyer to them.

188 WILLIAM LANGER:

A MAVERICK IN THE SENATE

BY LAWRENCE H. LARSEN

A study in Midwestern Isolationism . . . conduct is a necessity. In Langer's case a se­ exposing a few of its curiously tangled ries of questions might serve as a starting point and complicated roots. in determining the significance of his role. Who, anyway, was William Langer, and what were his opinions on foreign affairs? Was he, in his Senatorial actions and utterances, mak­ NE man repeatedly tagged with the "isola­ ing a calculated appeal to his constituents? O tionist" label in the 1940's was Wifliam Was he influenced by ethnic or religious con­ Langer, a bull-voiced, cigar-chewing maverick siderations? Did the voters of North Dakota from North Dakota. A Republican Senator who know or care about their Senator's view of the voted with the New Deal on domestic matters, world? Langer failed to follow the Vandenbergs and Langer, a veteran of over thirty storm-tossed Wileys of his own party down the road that years in North Dakota politics when elected to turned in the direction of "internationalism," the Senate in 1940, was the product of a com­ "collective security," and "bipartisanship." plex political environment in which personality Instead, he seemed to stand alone against the meant more than party affiliation. Over the hopes and aspirations of a large number of the years "Wild Bill" had held numerous elective American people. He denounced; he opposed; or appointive state offices and, during the he filibustered. But although he won some no­ 1930's, was twice North Dakota's governor. toriety—especially when he led an unsuccess­ An unusual aspect of his career centered ful fight against ratification of the United around his sixteen arrests on such varied Nations Charter—he failed in his efforts to in­ charges as instigating a riot and embezzling fluence national policy. The New York Times, federal relief funds. Always, however, the perhaps, summarized majority opinion of the courts acquitted him, and just as regularly he Senator's activities when its editors wrote: converted his arrests into political capital. He "Let Langer go his way, he is no menace."^ implied that he was a martyr in the cause of To anyone interested in what the leaders and the common people; that he was the victim of people of the Upper Midwest thought about persecution by political enemies who were the foreign affairs in the first half of the turbulent kept henchmen of great corporations. forties, some knowledge of William Langer's Ordinarily Langer campaigned as a member of the Nonpartisan League (NPL), a third ' New York Times, December 23, 1945. party founded in 1915, which worked through

189 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 the Republican primary. The NPL's leaders Some of the new Senator's bitterest enemies claimed that they were carrying out the Na­ brought accusations against him that added up tional Progressive ])lalform of 1912. Although lo the catch-all cJiarge of "moral turi)ilude." the leagues enemies branded the parly as As a result, Langer was seated temporarily, "Red," "Bolshevik," "Communist," "Pro-Ger­ "without prejudice." After a lengthy and costly man," and "Socialist," the organization won investigation the Senate Committee on Privi­ the backing of a significant segment of the leges and Elections recommended, in a ma­ farming population of agrarian North Dakota. jority report released four days after Pearl In the early years of its existence the NPL, Harbor, that Langer was unfit to be a United standing against monopoly, plunged the state States Senator because it was impossible for into various business enterprises designed to him to avoid the serious consequences of past get the cultivators of the soil out from under "acts of grave impropriety, lawlessness, shot­ the unctuous thumbs of "red necked fat bellied gun law enforcement, jail breaking, violation plutocrats." Following World War I, however, of oath as an attorney, rabble-rousing, civil the NPL rapidly lost its old crusading zeal. disobedience, breach of peace, obstruction of By the 1930's Langer controlled the League, the administration of justice and tampering and his enemies alleged he transformed it into with court officials."" The Senate, however, re­ an instrument dedicated to his personal ag- jected the committee's findings by a 52 to 30 grandizement.- vote—mainly on the grounds that it was im­ Foreign policy did not loom large in North prudent to question a Senator's past, and on Dakota elections during the twenties and thir­ the assumption that North Dakota's voters ties, and the Senatorial contest of 1940 was no knew what they were doing. exception. Langer, who gave hundreds of speeches and shook thousands of hands in the ° Report of the Committee on Privileges and Elec­ tions on the Protest by Various Citizens of the State course of the campaign, made little reference of North Dakota to the Seating of William Langer, as to the ominous international situation beyond a Senator from the State of North Dakota, United declaring that he favored a strong national de­ States Senate Documents, 77 Cong., 2nd Sess., Ser. no. 10656, Doc. no. 1010 (Washington, 1942), pL 1, fense and opposed sending American soldiers p. 34. outside the Western Hemisphere.^ His oppo­ nents attacked his past record and his campaign /^\ tactics. They said he was a paragon of corrup­ tion, an unscrupulous demagogue who used the cloak of progressivism and reform to en­ rich himself at the public trough. Langer fi­ nally emerged victorious following a series of complicated primary and general election wrangles, but was unable immediately to follow the advice of the editor of the Hettinger County Herald: "Be seated; Senator Langer, then rise again a statesman."*

" Lawrence H. Larsen, "William Langer, Senator from North Dakota" (Unpublished M.S. thesis. Uni­ versity of Wisconsin, 1955), 1-37 passim. The best available study of the NPL is James Morlan, Politi­ cal Prairie Fire (Minneapolis, 1955). ^' Langer stated in one advertisement: "As your United States Senator I will never vote to send your boys to die on Europe's battlefields. I will fight with you for adequate defense, for a navy and air force UNSURPASSED, ready to defend us against any foreign foe at a moment's notice." Rismarck Nonpar­ Society's Iconogiaphic Collection tisan Leader, October 31, 1940. ''What Makes More Noise than a Fig Under a * New England Hettinger County Herald. January Gate?''' A Nonpartisan Leader ccirtoon ridiculing 16,1941. the opposition.

190 LARSEN A MAVERICK IN THE SENATE

TN North Dakota, colorful politicians like Washington at afl and if those in authority -*- William Langer were the rule rather than were barred from spending the money of the the exception. Arthur Townley, the founder of taxpayers in entertaining that motley crew, the NPL, helped to dramatize himself by cam­ who never worked, who do not work, who paigning in an airplane. William Frazier, gov­ never will work." "The farmer in the North­ ernor, United States Senator, and University west gets up at four o'clock in the morning graduate was described by his supporters as when it is twenty degrees below zero and "the modern Cincinnatus . . . called from his pulls the cow's teats so he can get a little milk, plow to head his people and to govern a great a litde butterfat, in order to keep his family commonwealth."'' William Lemke, long-time alive. He is paying for Blair House [where Congressman and the presidential condidate visiting dignitaries stayed in Washington] so of the Liberty party in 1936, delighted in wav­ that kings and ex-kings, queens and ex-queens ing a rumpled dollar bill that served as his per­ can sleep and sleep." "This bunch of blue sonal trade mark.'^ Gerald Nye, a leader of the bloods who can not or will not marry a com­ America First party, was a spellbinding and moner who shed their red blood in their de­ long-winded orator in both English and Ger­ fense sickens me, and I have no regrets if there man. All of these men were persuasive public were a revolution in everyone of these coun­ speakers, well-versed in the art of stirring up tries, and these kings and queens and emperors crowds against railroad monopolies, grain were wiped from one end of the world to the syndicates, and "bloated top-hatted" men who other, and the common people took charge of absconded with the people's money. their governments." William Langer, too, was an expert at play­ ing on the emotions of his constituents. On nnHE Senator from North Dakota further the radio or in a rural town hall, in his Sunday -*- vented his wrath upon certain other insti­ best or in his shirtsleeves, in English or in tutions which he felt posed a threat to the German, Langer convincingly contended that security of the United States: the British Em­ he had a special knack for bringing the ancient pire, the American State Department, and the enemies of the agrarian classes to heel. When United Nations. He delighted in twisting the the "champion of the poor and the helpless"^ British lion's tail. Only once in six years did went to the Senate he took his oratorical prow­ he mention Great Britain in a favorable light ess with him. In speech after speech he as­ —when he praised Sir William Beveridge's sailed "rye speculators," "super business mo­ cradle-to-grave security plan and urged the nopolies," "millionaire gangsters," "autocratic Roosevelt administration to adopt a similar powerful monopolies," and asserted that the program. More characteristically, at other American people had "been robbed, cheated, times he charged that Great Britain was "again hornswoggled, fooled and lied" to with great getting us in a poker game in which she holds regularity by this interest or that." the winning hand," that the United States was Increasingly, however, Langer turned his fighting against the Axis Powers to make the rhetorical skills to foreign policy during the world safe for British imperialism, and that course of his first term. His comments on Winston Churchill had been "fighting on the titled persons, some of his favorite targets, side of aristocracy and fascism all his life." typified his flamboyant style: "So far as I'm Moreover, Langer had contempt for the State concerned, I think the world would be better Department, which he claimed was dominated off if the ex-duchesses and the ex-kings and the by "six columnists, represented by young, cal­ ex-queens were barred from ever coming to low college graduate fledglings, most of whom have never worked a day with their hands, and don't know what it means to earn an honest ° Morlan, Political Prairie Fire, 54. dollar with the sweat of their brows." The ' Park River Walsh County News, October 31, 1946. Senator's resistance to world organization also "Bi.smarck Nonpartisan Leader, July 4, 1940. reflected his fear of aristocracy, imperialism, "Unless otherwise cited ail (piotes by Langer are from the Congressional Record for the period be­ and bureaucracy. When he learned the results- tween 1941 and 1946. Langer spoke long and often of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, which laid on the floor of the Senate, and he entered his major outside addresses in the appendix of the Record. the groundwork for the United Nations, he

191 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

warned an inattentive Senate that "we are of communism. After calling attention to eco­ following a formula which wifl lead to certain nomic and racial inequalities in the United and more terrible wars in the future." In the States he contended that the Soviet Union was summer of 1945 Langer and Henrick Ship- doing more to solve existing abuses than Amer­ stead of Minnesota were the only Senators who ican democracy. "That is why Russia is so voted against the United Nations Charter. Dur­ strong; because it has a people's government ing December of the same year he gloomily which at the present time [1945] is weaned predicted that the atomic bomb made the away from Communism and has wiped out United Nations' failure inevitable. Of the new cartels and monopolies and it is struggling, organization itself he said that it represented struggling, struggling, to give the small man "in plain English 'a phony' foisted on the the four freedoms." Nevertheless, Langer be­ American people through a total lack of con­ lieved that American democracy possessed the sideration of the real issues and the real cir­ potential to triumph over communism. He re­ cumstances which all the nations of the world called his own experience. "We wiped out the now face." Communist party in North Dakota while I was In his attitude towards the Soviet Union governor, not by force, not by taking their Langer showed a measure of inconsistency. names off the ballot, but by having a govern­ China, he declared, would never be democratic ment there of the people, for the people and if the Allies demanded that Chiang Kai-shek by the people—a government where there is let Communists into his cabinet, and it was his no corruption in ballot, and where the common belief that the United States and Great Britain people are organized, a government where a would probably not oppose the Russian colos­ man digging a ditch has the same to say about sus if it moved into Korea. Yet he claimed that the government as the richest banker." Russia was not concerned with dominating the Langer's approach to foreign policy was not world, but was rather interested in the develop­ entirely negative. He had, in fact, definite ment of a series of buffer states designed to ideas about how the world should be recon­ protect her wartime gains. While the Senator structed after the defeat of the Axis Powers. saw Russian ideology as a "menace," he de­ He urged the United States to support the aspi­ clared that international cartels and monopo­ rations of subject peoples and to work for the lies were as undesirable as the Marxist brand dissolution of the British Empire. For instance, he demanded an end of the British mandate in Palestine and voiced support for Indian inde­ pendence. "All over the world," he said, "the common man is awakening . . . you see it in riots in Egypt, in India, in Palestine. Our moral duty is obvious. A country founded by refugees seeking a haven where all races can live in freedom from oppression must not re­ pudiate the Declaration of Independence, the 'four freedoms.'" The Senator contended, moreover, that collective security through the United Nations would be unsuccessful because it was based on a wartime alliance system only as strong as American and Russian friendship which, he noted in 1945, "was not very strong." As an alternative to collective security he suggested that the United States could stay on friendly terms with the Soviet Union through a co-operative spirit of concessions on tariff and trade issues. He called for the es­ tablishment of a trade commission to facilitate President Roosevelt and Governor Langer in Grand Forks, the extension of American trade on the world 1938, from John Holzworth's The Fighting Governor. market. Such a commission, he argued, would

192 LARSEN : A MAVERICK IN THE SENATE compete peaceably and effectively with Marx­ arrogant and haughty aristocrats who slept late ist collectivism, protect American interests, in the morning and lived off of the sweat of offer Russia an opportunity to obtain a place in honest tillers of the soil. But, then again— the world that would satisfy her patriotic aims, and this also is only speculation—he may have and avoid world chaos. acted out of habit, out of what might be cafled Langer offered one other proposal for the contrariness, rather than on the basis of a close post-war period—the so-called "Ziff plan." He analysis of the issues. said that modern war made smafl nations im­ Possibly something specific can be discov­ practical and that the only solution was a ered by turning to the North Dakota scene. common-sense reorganization of the world. He Samuel Lubell, a student of American election claimed that the impulse to war would end if trends, wrote in his Future of American Poli­ the earth were consolidated into a number of tics that "North Dakota has the heaviest con­ regions—none small enough to make aggres­ centration of Russian-Germans and they have sion attractive—which would have enough re­ been a major factor in keeping it the most sources and a large enough internal market to isolationist state in the Union . . . The Russian- ensure a self-sufficient economy. He also de­ German counties were also the backbone of clared that the State Department would be in Senator Nye's political strength . . . From these much better hands if it were staffed with a same counties has come the margin of victory greater number of loyal North Dakotans. in the Republican primary for Senator William Langer." John Gunther, in Inside USA, TN attempting to formulate a logical struc- reached approximately the same conclusion -•- ture from a whole series of Langer's pro­ and advanced the idea that Gerald Nye's 1946 nouncements there is a great temptation to defeat stemmed from the fact that North Da­ read deep meaning into what he had to say kota was moving toward internationalism. A about the conduct of foreign affairs. A number reporter, Carey McWilliams, writing in the Na­ of suppositions as to why he thought and spoke tion, believed "sectional, ethnic, socio-economic as he did may be put forward, none of which lines" explained North Dakota politics and constitutes a final answer: Langer reflected the claimed that the poor NPL Russian-German traditional isolationist feeling of the North Roman Catholics, living in the western part of Dakota farmer; he had a socialist orientation the state, opposed the rich eastern Norwegian because some of his early friends had socialist Lutherans.^^ On the basis of these observations, leanings; he worried about wheat surpluses at can it be concluded that Langer's stand on home and the intentions of British wheat mer­ international affairs was motivated by ethnic chants abroad; he spoke for the American and religious factors? tradition which opposed monarchy and en­ When Langer went to Washington, North tangling alliances; he knew that his predeces­ Dakota was the most rural and one of the least- sors from North Dakota in the Senate had fol­ known states in the Union. A national publica­ lowed an isolationist path and consequently he tion called it "the state that nobody knows."^- concluded that it was good politics to act in a About 40 per cent of its approximately 600,- similar fashion; he had deep convictions about 000 people lived in the Red River Vafley, a the world responsibility of American democ­ fertile thirty-mile-wide strip of land along the racy. Minnesota border. To the west stretched over One point that must be understood is that 300 miles of rolling prairies. The state was Langer enjoyed a reputation in North Dakota rural except for a few cities such as Bismarck for helping the underdog and unpopular and Minot. The majority of the population causes. Furthermore, it was perhaps only a short step from thundering against big cor­ porations from outside the state that prey on ^^ Samuel Lubell, The Future of American Politics (New York, 1955), 156; John Gunther, Inside USA the souls of those who work,^" to lambasting (New York, 1947), 239-246; Carey McWilliams, "North Dakota Showdown," in the Nation, 174:295- 296 (March 29, 1952). '" Beverly Smith, "Most Baffling Man in the Sen­ " Louis Cook, "They Didn't Bury Him on the Lone ate," in the Saturday Evening Post, 226:27 (January Prai-ree," in the Saturday Evening Post, 213:29 23, 1954). (June 7, 1941).

193 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 lived either on lonely, semi-isolated farms rais­ cording to Lubell, German was still the lan­ ing wheat, flax, barley, and rye, or in one of guage used in these communities as late as the countless little agricultural villages that World War 11,^" but while this may have been dotted the virtually treeless landscape—forlorn the case in one or two small villages, it was places with ordinary sounding names like Bow- almost a total exception rather than a rule. By doin, Hurdsfield, Woodward, and Bergen. the 1930's there were many native non-Ger­ Places where stately sentinel-like grain eleva­ man-Americans in the counties, and because of tors were silhouetted against the sky; places intermarriage and acculturation Russian-Ger­ with old-fashioned white stores with high fa­ man cultural isolation had broken down. The cades, a couple of dingy taverns, wooden inhabitants of the so-called Russian-German churches, red-brick schools, decrepit houses areas lived, played, and worked in the same standing on dusty dirt streets, no trees or cut manner as other North Dakotans. lawns, and no indoor plumbing. Places where The state's largest religious denominations the wind seemingly never ceased to make the in 1936, when the federal government took its telegraph wires sing and where people boasted last census of religious bodies, were the Lu­ that the temperature in January averaged therans and Roman Catholics, each with ap­ eighteen degrees below zero. Places with grimy proximately 125,000 members out of a total town halls where political speakers were heard church-going population of some 300,000. The and where were counted the votes that won or Lutherans, who were divided through seven lost North Dakota elections.'^'^ different sj'nods, and the Roman Catholics, Over half of all North Dakota's population were found everywhere in the state.^' The in­ were either immigrants or their children. Only fluence of religion on political matters is hard two ethnic groupings were statistically impor­ to ascertain. Some of the Russian-German tant. If figures have any validity—and they counties had more Lutherans than Roman probably do not because of the problems in­ Catholics, and in the rural areas manv villages volved in measuring the effects of what sociolo­ were without a single fufl-time priest or mini­ gists cafl "acculturation"—it should be noted ster. that there were 124,532 Norwegians and 87,- Thus, there are numerous pitfalls and snares 072 Russian-Germans in the state in 1930, the that have to be considered if generalizations last time the Census Bureau kept special statis­ based on ethnic and religious considerations tics enumerating the children of foreign-born are used to explain what North Dakotans parents.^^ Many of the Norwegians came to thought about foreign affairs. the wind-swept Dakota plains during the Langer's most zealous adherents lived in the 1880's, lured by railroad propaganda describ­ western agricultural regions. The Red River ing the lush farm land and "banana belt" crop Valley farmers and all of the cities opposed him conditions. By the thirties the Scandinavians in almost all of the nineteen primary and gen­ lived in all corners of the state. The Russian- eral elections in which he was a candidate be­ Germans were Germans who immigrated to the tween 1916 and 1946.^^ The westerners par­ United States from the Ukraine and Lithuania. ticularly supported him following the dark, The Northern Pacific Railroad had brought dreary, disastrous days of the Great Depres­ them over in the 1890's, and settled them in a sion. As governor he was responsible for a block of fourteen south-central counties, to the series of debt moratoria and crop embargoes west of the Red River Vafley.'^'^ that helped alleviate economic distress. The Because they were used to a close-knit so­ fourteen Russian-German counties, which tra­ ciety and were settled in a relatively isolated ditionally favored NPL candidates, received and uniniviting area, the "Volga Germans" adjusted to American life at a slow pace. Ac- '" Lubell, Future of American Politics, 157. ^' The author taught high school in Hurdsfield, "Religious Bodies: 1936, vol. 1, (Washington, North Dakota, 1953-1954. 1941),787-798. ""^Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. " James Byne, Official Compilation of Election Re­ 3, pt. 2 (Washington, 1932), 429. turns: 1914-1928 (Bismarck, 1929) ; Thomas Hall, "Ibid.; North Dakota Blue Book for 1942 (Bis­ Official Compilation of Election Returns: 1930-1940 marck, 19421,235-236. (Bismarck, 1941).

194 LARSEN A MAVERICK IN THE SENATE the greatest benefit from the governor's poli­ favorable weather cycle and a good grain cies, and they rewarded him accordingly at market. The westerner was a gambler, and the pofls. In ensuing elections his percentage many times his gambles failed. At such times of the vote increased in every one of these Langer reminded the farmers that he stood counties by 10 per cent or more. Even in behind them in their time of trouble. He never 1938, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Sen­ ceased to emphasize real or imagined economic ate against the incumbent, Gerald Nye, Langer misfortunes or to remind the voters of his bat­ tles against the old corporate dragons.

N Washington the Senator worked hard to I make sure that the electorate remembered his efforts in its behalf, claiming he was a per­ sonal "errand boy" for the people of North Dakota. Little of what Langer said or did made headlines in Dakota papers, but his small services were of a sort that would be recalled in the future. A farmer would not soon forget that Senator Langer helped him obtain a cream separator in 1943, sent him birthday and anni­ versary cards, or personally telegraphed him not to sell his barley until the price went higher.^^ Langer also introduced a great num­ ber of bills and resolutions which died, for the most part, in committees.^^ His legislative suc­ cesses lay in such achievements as obtaining Campaign cartoon from The Fighting Governor. additional fruit juices for the navy. Maybe the carried all fourteen counties in the primary fact was not important that he was able to tell and general elections by big majorities. The farm wives that because he had prevented a farmers may have approved of Nye's munition change in the narcotics law they could still maker's investigations against the "merchants legafly raise poppies in their dooryards; how­ of death" and his neutrality legislation, but ever, his record on the issue was clear. apparently Langer's more tangible accomplish­ When Langer entered the Senate it looked ments—his moratoria and embargoes—carried on the surface as if North Dakota was oriented the greater weight.^^ toward "isolationism." Gerald Nye seemed to The westerner showed a greater interest in speak for the state, and many editorials ap­ economic panaceas than his eastern cousin in proved of his position. In the year of Pearl the Red River Valley where adequate rainfall Harbor the Wishek News, one of the numerous and good soil usuafly promised a farmer an small weekly newspapers, vigorously expressed adequate return on his investment. The west the prevailing position of the North Dakota was different. The soil was poorer, and what press when its editor alleged that "Washington, was worse, the precipitation was marginal for John Adams, Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, and grain production. The typical agrarian owned every other American President was an isola­ or rented a farm of between one and two thou­ tionist until British propaganda backed by the sand acres, which was worth less than $15.00 House of Morgan and misplaced Wilsonian an acre.^" He hoped for a combination of a idealism, bamboozled this country into the first world war. ... In short, we are for anything ^^ Ibid.; A Protest to the Seating of William Langer, and everything that will keep this country from A Senator from the State of North Dakota, Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections, United States Senate, 77 Cong., 1 Sess., November 3 to 18 (Washington, 1941), 513. " Bismarck Nonpartisan Leader, April 29, 1943 ,- '"Census of Agriculture: 1940, vol. 1, pt. 2 (Wash­ Steele Ozone, September 7, 1944. ington, 1943), 382-386. The author's thesis contains " His enemies claimed only three bills he intro­ a more detailed summary of voting trends, ethnic and duced became law. See C. R. Verry, Take Him Out religious groups, and economic conditions. (Grand Forks, North Dakota, 1946).

195 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 going to hell along with Europe and if our publican held on September 17, 1942, that home brewed Anglo-Maniacs don't like that "Had the doctrines of the isolationists pre­ they have our permission to jump in the ocean vailed, in all probability America would have and swim over there."-'' lost the war." On March 5 of the following There were a few signs that pointed in the year the Litchville Bulletin stated: "This paper direction of a different viewpoint. The Steele believes that the days of isolation for this coun­ Ozone maintained: "If America must choose try are gone forever, and that any political between the schools of thought represented by party or group that does not recognize this the President and by Senator Nye, their choice fact will have short shrift at the hands of the will not be a difficult one. They want peace American people." The editor of the Barnes but they will choose war above national sui­ County News took a self-incriminating ap­ cide."-' The Nonpartisan Leader, the official proach on April 15, 1943, when he said: "We organ of the NPL, said on September 19, 1941, chose the road to isolation. We would not be that Nye, who was an archenemy of the bothered with the world's troubles. But it did League, opposed national defense and that a not work out. The world got into another mess, "great majority of American people are with and we were drawn into it inevitably, perhaps, the President in his stand against would-be but if inevitable, then we may as well awaken dictators of the world." A poll was also pub­ to the fact that we are going to be messed up lished which claimed to show that 25 per cent in any war that comes along. Knowing that, of the Leader's readers agreed with "shoot on we should build an organization which will sight" and 55 per cent felt war with Germany hold the peace now and forever." inevitable. Perhaps an incident reported by Langer's ideas on foreign affairs found less the Harvey Herald of October 31, 1941, came and less visible approval at home, and a great closer than the poll to catching the temper of deal of what he said on the subject never ap­ North Dakota opinion. "A large crowd saw the peared in a North Dakota newspaper. The famed Duke of Windsor at the Soo Line station press associations ignored his activities and no when his train made a 15-minute stop at 9:45 North Dakota paper retained a regular Wash­ a.m. Sunday. The friendly throng that jammed ington correspondent. The Senator's opposition into the space about the rear platform of the to the United Nations Charter, however, caused private car represented residents not only of a minor furor of sorts, and received some na­ Harvey and surrounding country-side but from tional publicity. The daily papers in the state, towns and cities for many miles in each di­ which opposed anything Langer did, con­ rection . . . almost from early Sunday crowds demned his lack of judgment and praised Mil­ began to form at the station stops of the train ton Young, North Dakota's other Senator, for carrying the duke and duchess across North favoring the Charter.'"^'^ Still, a mild note of Dakota." warning about the future effectiveness of the During the war, manpower problems and world organization was sounded by the weekly farm machinery shortages received more at­ Lidgerwood Monitor of August 9, 1945. "Right tention than foreign policy in the state's rural now it is politically fashionable to be interna­ press, much of which supported Langer, even tionalist in thought and we are inclined to though a few editors commented on the phe­ ridicule those who are still wearing high-button nomenon of "isolationism."'-" The Center Re- shoes and side-whiskers, but fashion in thought '' Wishek News, February 6, 1941. All newspapers and politics change just as they do in clothes cited are in the State Historical Society of North and in mode of living. Tomorrow we might Dakota in Bismarck. The author read the front page, find that the San Francisco Charter is not the editorial page, and news columns of thirty-four North Dakota papers for the period 1940-1946. All the daily magnificent document we believe it is today. papers were culled and an attempt was made to cover We are not inclined to agree with Langer's a representative sampling of both pro and anti-Langer weekly newspapers, ranging from the Nonpartisan Leader to such picturesquely named papers as the Nonpartisan Leader, April 22, 1943, August 16, 1945; Mouse River Farmers Press. Steele Ozone, and Bot­ Fargo Forum, October 17, 1943; and Lidgerwood tineau Courant. Monitor, May 25, 1944. '"Steele Ozone, September 12, 1941. "For instance see the Fargo Forum, July 31, 1945; "° Minot Ward County Independent. July 23, 1942: Jamestown Sun, August 8, 1945; Devils Lake Daily Harvey Herald, July 29,1942, July 14,1943; Bismarck Journal, August 9, 1945.

196 LARSEN A MAVERICK IN THE SENATE vote at the moment, but we are willing to with­ Langer's thoughts on the subject. But whatever hold our judgment to such times as when the the Senator's reasons for speaking out as he machinery of peace begins to function." did, it would seem that he was not motivated The Senator's vote against the Charter by a desire to placate specific ethnic and re­ forced the editors of the Nonpartisan Leader to ligious groups or any other single element of reverse themselves. On July 12, 1945, they the population. Whether the voters approved wrote that the American people were united or disapproved of Langer's personal Weltan­ behind the aims of the Charter, and that they schauung, evidence indicates that he depended were "determined that this nation shall em­ on old domestic issues, his campaigning ability, ploy its full weight and its utmost efforts to friendships built over the years, his reputation bring about an enduring peace. The least of as a maverick, and an excellent service office to these efforts will be the demand that the Charter of the United Nations be ratified." After Lang­ er's dissenting vote the editors changed their tune. "United States Senator Uanger of North Dakota and United States Senator Shipstead of Minnesota, in voting against the so-called San Francisco Charter, may go down in his­ tory as having cast the most courageous votes ' ^''i^:: '^ in history. Well informed observers know it is merely a military alliance as strong as our friendship with Russia and no stronger—which is not too strong."'-" Image The Benson County Farmers Press predicted that Uanger's vote on the United Nations would suppressed cost him few local friends in the 1946 elec­ tion. "North Dakota has always been an isola­ pending tionist stronghold. Folks paid little attention to Langer's vote on the United Nations. Many copyright who support him this fall wifl have no diffi­ culty in reconciling their vote for Langer with clearance their desire for international co-operation. Such is the characteristic of North Dakota poli­ **-• -If :•- ><:, tics and our thinking. Situated as we are, far '<'" from the coast lines of the country, we have a tendency to view the international situation in the same light as radar contact [with the moon]—too far-fetched for us to worry about."^'^ Senator Langer during the election of 1952. Did "too far-fetched to worry about" explain the extent of the average North Dakotan's in­ hold his following, rather than on his United terest in the world's problems? Probably not. Nations vote or his opposition to the British Any American living in the 1940's would have Empire. found it difficult to avoid taking some cogni­ zance of foreign affairs—a fact as true on the ANGER stayed on in Washington, winning prairies of the Upper Midwest as on the Atlan­ L the election of 1946, a victory which came tic and Pacific seacoasts. It is doubtful, how­ in the same primary in which Gerald Nye, at­ ever, if a majority of the North Dakota elec­ tempting a political comeback, was disastrously torate knew, cared, or worried about William defeated. The lesson was clear: Nye had waxed fat in the nation's capitol, failing to tend his political fences. Langer was too good -' Bismarck Nonpartisan Leader, August 16, 1945. a politician to be caught in either trap. His "* Minnewauken Benson County Farmers Press, August 12, 1946. 1946 opponents, concluding that North Dakota

197 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 sentiment approved of international co-opera­ vate life and whfle the names of Lemke, Fraz­ tion, spent most of the campaign assailing ier, and Townley disappeared from the North Langer's "isolationism" along with his "in­ Dakota scene, Langer kept rolling along. Vic­ effectual rantings in Congressional haUs." For toriously re-elected in 1952, he survived a split his part, "slippery Bifl" ^^ bragged about his in the NPL to win again in 1958, even though domestic accomplishments and ignored foreign he did not bother to campaign, and remained a policy in all of his major speeches. He swept United States Senator until his death in Wash­ to easy victories in both the primary and gen­ ington on November 8, 1959. eral elections.^" Again he was free to fire at will against the '" Fargo Forum, June 6, 1946; interview with Joseph forces in the world he did not like. From time Bridston, Langer's opponent in the 1946 Republican primary, March 13, 1955; Grand Forks Herald, June to time his name flashed across national head­ 23, 1946; Park River Walsh County News, May 21, lines, as on the day in 1947 when he said that 1946. a visit by Winston Churchill should be accom­ ™ Two newspapers that attacked Langer with regu­ larity claimed that his victory in the Republican panied by another ride by Paul Revere, or primary, which was tantamount to election, had noth­ when he used his powers as chairman of the ing to do with foreign policy. The Fargo Forum edi­ Senate Judiciary Committee to block tempo­ torialized on June 27, 1946, that "we didn't give the slightest clue because we didn't decide the election on rarily the nomination of Earl Warren as Chief national or international issues. We decide them upon Justice of the Supreme Court in a fit of bitter­ the personal whims of the individual voter." On the ness over post office appointments in North same day the Grand Forks Herald attributed the Senator's victory to "political cleverness and a wide Dakota. While the voters returned Nye to pri­ personal following."

WISCONSIN HISTORY FOUNDATION RECEIVES LILLY GRANT

A research and publication grant of duced by scholars receiving the grants- 3,000 to support a three-year program in-aid and works of others falling within on the history of the American Midwest the area of the project. The Society's Ed­ has been received by the State Historical itorial Committee will review all manu­ Society of Wisconsin and the University scripts, and Dr. 0. Lawrence Burnette, of Wisconsin. Announcement of the grant Jr., Book Editor of the Society, wifl serve from Lilly Endowment, Inc., of Indian­ as general editor of the titles and as sec­ apolis, Indiana, to the Wisconsin History retary of the committee. Titles published Foundation for the co-operating institu­ under this program will be in addition to tions was made jointly by Dr. Leslie H. the Society's normal publication pro­ Fishel, Jr., Director of the Society, and gram. Subjects to be included in the Dr. Fred H. Harrington, Vice-President program are agriculture, tariff, currency, for Academic Affairs for the University. railroad regulation, rise of industry, civil The research and publication program service reform, culture and education, will cover the period from the Civil War immigration, politics, and foreign policy. to World War I. Approximately one-third The sole criteria for publication in all of the grant will be for grants-in-aid to cases will be whether a manuscript makes post-doctoral scholars doing research in a contribution to an understanding of this phase of American history and will be for research expenses such as typists' how the Midwest was evolved from a fees, travel, and photo-duplicating costs. predominantly rural to an economically The grants, with a maximum of $1,000 balanced section, and of its role in the per year, will be awarded by a joint com­ development of modern America. mittee of the University and the Society, This is the first such grant to be made and recipients wifl give first publication to any historical agency in the United rights to the resulting manuscripts to the States and it reflects the special compe­ State Historical Society of Wisconsin. tence and facilities of the Society and the The balance of the Lilly grant will be University in the historical research and used to publish selected manuscripts pro­ publication field.

198 GERMAN TIMBER FARMHOUSES IN WISCONSIN:

Terminal Examples of a Thousand - Year

Building Tradition

BY RICHARD W. E. PERRIN

' I ^HE Germanic peoples of the European con- chip masonry—frequently pargetted with lime -*- tinent and the countries around the North plaster on both sides. The German name for Sea seem to have been habitual builders in this is Fachwerk, and the settlers who brought wood since prehistoric times. The Celts who it to Wisconsin called it deutscher Verband. preceded and the Slavs who succeeded the Teu­ In his penetrating analysis of pre-Roman, tons in their migrations across central Europe Northern European architecture Josef Strzy- were also wood builders. Thus, a rich tradition gowski'^ speculated that all of Western Europe of timber construction was developed in Ger­ may at one time have had a tradition of solid many and eventuafly brought to America. timber construction, making the transition to Gradual depletion of German forests coupled the open frame when the forest no longer with the greater durability and fire resistive- yielded an unlimited supply of wood. Recent ness of stone and brick construction brought archeological finds suggest an alternative. De­ extensive timber building to an end around the scribing a cluster settlement of timber build­ beginning of the nineteenth century. Eastern ings found below the marshes of Enzinge in Germany was the last stronghold of the tim­ Province Groningen, Holland, which date from ber house and it is, therefore, no coincidence the fourth century B.C., Walter Horn^ shows that the East German idiom is so apparent in braided wattle walls filling the voids between southeastern Wisconsin where immigrant Pom­ posts as the rudiments of half-timber work. eranians and related ethnic groups erected While earliest open frame work may have re­ their familiar log and half-timber houses and sulted from a scarcity of timber it seems barns. equally plausible that because of the limitations Broadly speaking. Eastern Germany under of their tools Late Bronze and Early Iron Age perceptibly Slavic influence developed a strong builders simply did not feel inclined to tackle tradition of Blockbau, a massive timber tech­ solid timber, which for the most part may have nique in which logs were hewn, shaped, and been oak or other hardwoods. Instead, they laid horizontally one upon the other, notched and joined at the ends to form a solid wall. Western Germany developed the open frame, and bv the sixteenth century half-timber was ' Josef Strzygowski, Early Church Art in Northern the predominant form of building. Half-timber Europe, (Harper and Brothers, New York and Lon­ is made up not of wood alone, but of a wooden don, 1928), 77. frame filled in with other materials such as ^ Walter Horn, On the Origins of the Mediaeval Bay System, in the Journal of the Society of Archi­ wickerwork, straw and clay, brick or stone tectural Historians, XVII: No. 2, 5 (Summer, 1958).

199 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1961

roof. Here again the separate dwelling is basic­ ally an East German tradition and the com­ bination of house and barn typically West German. The fact that both are found in the Eastern provinces is a good example of the interaction of building practices caused by the migration of people. The half-timber frame likewise had been carried into Eastern Ger­ many between the twelfth and eighteenth cen­ turies when West Germany colonized'^ the Eastern provinces in order to relieve overpopu­ lation pressures at home.

TOURING the early and middle nineteenth All photos supplied by tlie atitlioi •L^ century, immigrants from Eastern Ger­ A typical prototype of Fachwerkbau, the Kuetherhof, a many entered southeastern Wisconsin in large seventeenth-century farmstead near Wismar, Pomerania. numbers. In Blockbau and Fachwerk thev built felled young trees and after notching the poles prodigiously not only houses and barns but also together, simply filled the spaces with the light­ half-timber churches* of considerable distinc­ est and handiest material available—braided tion. Now, barely a century later, the churches wickerwork covered with mud on both sides. are gone and unless prompt steps are taken, in At any rate, since the Enzinge finds in 1934 the course of a few more years it will be impos­ and up to 1958, over 200 houses of this con­ sible to find one genuine, unaltered half-timber struction type have been excavated in North­ house. The few unspoiled specimens that have ern Europe, so that today we are able to trace survived are located in Ozaukee, Washington, their development into and through the Mid­ and Dodge counties. dle Ages to their modern survival forms. As to Wisconsin German Blockbau. which is The German Bauernhaus, including the Wis­ also becoming increasingly scarce, it would be consin transplantings whether solid timber or difficult to cite a finer example than the house half-timber frame, may be further divided into built by Christian Turck near Kirchhayn, two broad classifications. They are (1) the Washington County. Now about 125 years old, detached dwelling, usuafly grouped rather the house owes its survival to the present owner loosely with related or dependent buildings, and occupant, Mr. Fred Schottler. Built of and (2) combined house and barn under one squared cedar logs which were taken from a nearby swamp, the house has a salt-box profile Southeast elevation of the LangholfJ house and barn and is set into the slope of the land so that its near Watertown, Wisconsin. back with the broad roof expanse is turned to the north, and the front is opened up to the south. This orientation, incidentafly. is much favored in German farmhouses and occurs reg­ ularly in Wisconsin. The plan of the Turck house is a typical, central-hall type with two rooms on either side. A heavy summer beam

' Wahrhold Drascher, "Die Auslandsdeutschen" in Hermann Stegemann, Des Deutschen Vaterland (Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart und Berlin, 1934), 468. ' See R. W. E. Perrin, "Fachwerkbau Houses in Wis­ consin," in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XVIII: No. 1, 29; and idem, "A Fach­ werk Church in Wisconsin," in the Wisconsin Maga­ zine of History, 43; 239-244 (Summer, 1960).

200 PERRIN : GERMAN TIMBER FARMHOUSES

Above, view of pyramided schwarze Ktiche ascending to the chimney, as seen in the attic of the Schultz house in Herman Township, Dodge County.

The Christian Turck house, near Kirchhayn in Wash­ ington County, showing the ruinous remains of the outdoor combination bakery, smokehouse, and sum­ mer kitchen.

Below, plan of Hof Haase in Ukermunde, Pomerania. Except for minor details, this house plan is strikingly similar to that of the Schultz house in Dodge County.

I M M 0 feet 10

201 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

spans the house longitudinally at all floor lev­ walls taper up toward a central chimney in els and the transverse beams are fitted in with pyramid fashion, and charred oak cross beams mortise and tenon connections. The log walls are fragrant reminders of the hams, sausages, are heavily chinked with clay, rye straw, and and sides of meat that were smoked here. The lime plaster, and this is not an afterthought. house also had a fireplace or Kamin, probably While the Norwegians, for example, built their very much like the one found in the old Stein- log walls with snug, tight-fitting joints^ the bach house near Mayvifle, which is also a clay Germans deliberately left spaces which could and straw panefled Fachwerk structure, but be chinked and re-caulked as necessary, because without a schwarze Kiiche. Relating the Schultz of shrinking in the wood. Just a few yards house to European prototypes discloses an from the house, to the south, are the remains amazing similarity, both as to plan and con- of the combination smoke house, bake oven, construction, with a seventeenth-century house and summer kitchen which, while typically on the Hof Haase at Viereck, Kreis Uker- miinde in Pomerania. The location of the schwarze Kiiche is identical and the integral Kamin is similarly constructed. The main dif­ ference in the Haase building is the adjoining barn under the same roof. The Schultz house is detached and the barn is some distance away. Searching for house and barn combinations in Wisconsin has resulted in a single find thus far. It is a Fachwerk structure on the Lester Langholff place in Section 36, Emmet Town­ ship, Dodge County, believed to have been built ca. 1848 by Friedrich ICliese. Typically, this building originafly had clay and straw filling between the oak frame, which was later replaced with handmade clay brick. The schwarze Kiiche is also built of brick and has Christian Turck house near Kirchhayn, southwest elevation. a vaulted ceiling. The barn area, about 30 by 35 feet in size, has a hay loft above, and was German, nevertheless show a departure from used exclusively for the stabling of cattle. the earlier practice of an indoor schwarze Horses, swine, sheep, and Federvieh were Kiiche (black kitchen) which goes back into housed separately. While the Langholff house- many centuries of German building tradition. barn is by no means ruinous, its future is prob­ A half-timber house with just such an in­ lematical. The only feasible way to save this door schwarze Kiiche still intact is the vacant precious old building and others like it is to old Schultz place on Highway 33 in Section 11, develop a "Pioneer Park"—an open air mu­ Herman Township, Dodge County, and now seum—into which they can be brought and owned by Dr. E. J. Zirbel. The house, although where, restored and preserved, they may be considerably altered on the outside, is genuine studied and enjoyed by generations to come. Fachwerk with clay and flax straw filling in the panels between the 8 by 8-inch hewn oak timbers composing the frame. The walk-in ^' R. W. E. Perrin, "John Bergen's Log House: An schwarze Kiiche, about 10 by 12 feet inside, Architectural Remnant of Old Muskego," in the Wis­ consin Magazine of History, 44; 12-14 (Autumn, occupies the center of the house. The brick 1960).

202 JULIA GRACE WALES AND THE WISCONSIN

PLAN FOR PEACE

By WALTER I. TRATTNER

i iT^HERE she was at dinner, this girl with ULIA Grace Wales was born on July 14, -*- the great idea, painfully embarrassed, J 1881, in the small town of Bury, Quebec, in and trying to keep in the background." eastern Canada between the St. Lawrence and The modest girl was Julia Grace Wales, New England. The eldest of three talented Canadian-born instructor of English at the daughters of a dedicated rural physician, she University of Wisconsin. The idea referred to could trace her ancestry to New Englanders had been revealed in her recently published who had emigrated to America before the pamphlet containing a plan to hasten the end Revolutionary War. One sister wrote music; of the Great War which now, in its first seven one became a nurse in a Montreal hospital. months, had already cost the belligerents al­ Julia Grace, after having been educated in most a million casualties and a hundred mil­ part at home, entered McGill University in lion doflars. The speaker was Hamilton Holt, Montreal and in 1903 was graduated, after crusading, pacifist editor-owner of the influ­ having secured the coveted class honor—the ential journal. The Independent. Shakespeare gold medal—and having been That afternoon, February 24, 1915, Holt had awarded a scholarship to Radcliffe College. addressed an audience in Music Hafl on the Following a year of graduate study she re­ University campus, choosing as his topic "In­ ceived her Master's degree, and in the same ternational Peace." After the lecture E. A. year the bright Canadian came to the Uni­ Ross, one of the nation's leading sociologists, versity of Wisconsin as an instructor in the took him to dinner at a friend's house where English department. She was serving in that Miss Wales was also a guest. "She told us," capacity in August of 1914 when the war broke Holt vividly recalled later, "the horrors of the out in Europe. war had sickened her physically. . . . She To the young, idealistic Shakespearean dreamed of them. She pondered over the crisis scholar who also wrote publishable poetry and until finally she evolved a plan which—at the who had been reared in a home in which duty very least—offers the most feasible way to end to humanity had not only been preached but the war." Thereafter, on a lecture tour which also practiced, the war seemed a denial of all took him from Los Angeles to Boston, Holt Christian principles. A month after hostilities devoted at least fifteen minutes of each lecture began she wrote in a letter to Dr. Graham to a discussion of what was becoming known Taylor, prominent settlement worker and edi­ as the Wisconsin Peace Plan.^ The extent to tor of The Survey, that she was convinced that which the young English instructor and her ideas had impressed Holt may be judged by his words, as reported in the Madison Wiscon­ ^ Madison Wisconsin State Journal, February 25, sin State Journal of April 8, 1915: "The World May 12, 1915; Kansas City Star, March 6, 1915. In the Madison Democrat of March 9, 1915, only twelve War now dishonoring Europe is not barren. It days after Holt's visit to Madison, David Starr Jor­ has produced its great woman, produced her dan, former Wisconsin resident, and currently Chan­ in the quiet, academic town of Madison. She cellor of Stanford University, predicted "One thing that will make Wisconsin famous is its plan to stop is Julia Grace Wales." the war. . . ."

203 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1961

Was it not possible. Miss Wales increasingly wondered, that the nations now at war had been paralyzed by a conventional mode of thinking and were mistaken in supposing that they were helpless in the face of a calamity which they had brought upon themselves? Might there not be some human and simple solution to the difficulty if we could but '"clear our minds" and sufficiently think out the prob­ lems? Over and over again she asked herself, "What is the natural thing to do?" Sometime during the University's 1914 Christmas recess Julia Grace Wales conceived and wrote in long hand the first draft of her •^' plan—a proposal which if applied might be the means of averting what she believed to be a prolonged, irrational, and un-Christian war. The plan's basic idea was embodied in the title she assigned the manuscript, "Continuous Me­ diation Without Armistice," and in her open­ ing paragraph she posed the question her plan was designed to answer: "Can a means be found by which a confer­ ence of the neutral powers may bring the moral forces of the world to bear upon the Frank Licslic',s Illtistrated Weekly present war situation and offer to the bellig­ erents some opportunity, involving neither Julia Grace Wales in 1915. committal to an arbitrary programme nor hu­ miliation on the part of any one of them, to in the "spiritual suffering of the multitudes of consider the possibility of peace?"* the warring countries, multitudes were . . . try­ In essence. Miss Wales' plan as it was finally ing to take the Christian attitude" and that evolved urged that the United States call a "there are currents of hidden energy that need conference to which each of the then thirty-five in some way to be liberated, liberated and com­ neutral nations of the world would send dele­ bined, and made active."^ gates. The conference, or International Com­ In the words of Louise Phelps Kellogg, Sen­ mission of experts, would mediate—w ith armis­ ior Research Associate of the State Historical tice if possible, without it if necessary—but Society of Wisconsin, secretary of the Wiscon­ in such a way as to not endanger the neutrality sin Peace Society, and intimate friend of Julia of any nation. It would constitute a court of Grace Wales: "The pity and horror of it seized continuous mediation, the members of which upon her . . . [and she] said to herself and were to have a scientific rather than a diplo­ others, 'There must be some way out.' Gifted matic function: they were to be without the with great sympathy and a philosophical love power to commit their respective governments for getting at the bottom of things, she thought to any proposals. This International Commis­ night and day of some possible exit from the sion of inquiry, or "world thinking organ" as entanglement in which she felt the world had Miss Wales often referred to iL was to sit as been unwittingly plunged."' long as the war continued. It would invite suggestions from all the warring nations and simultaneously submit to all of them reason­ ^ Julia Grace Wales to Dr. Graham Taylor, Sep­ tember 14, 1914, in the Wales Papers, Manuscripts able proposals to end the war ("Will vou . . . Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. " Louise Phelps Kellogg, "A Brief Sketch of the Life and Work of Julia Grace Wales," in the Wales * Julia Grace Wales, "Supplementary Notes on a Papers. Plan for Continuous Mediation."

204 TRATTNER JULIA GRACE WALES if the rest will?"). Each proposal would be posal for a conference of neutrals. . . . Not based on two principles: first, that peace must being in touch with the international move­ not mean humiliation to any nation; and sec­ ment I had not, however, heard of her pro­ ond, that it must not involve compromise which posal at the time my pamphlet was printed. might later result in a renewal of the war. Such Various presentations have been worked out a conference would exert every possible effort independently by persons of various national­ to prevent any of the neutral nations from ities, showing that the idea is 'in the air' the being drawn into the conflict.' world over."" Thus Miss Wales' plan, as she conceived it, was not in itself an actual plan for peace, since AVING summoned the courage to commit it lacked any specific indication of the precise H her plan to paper, Miss Wales first showed areas to be mediated, such as indemnification, it to Louise Phelps Kellogg, who was imme­ boundary disputes, colonial settlements, and diately won over by the scheme and arranged the like. Rather it was a proposal for the crea­ for Miss Wales to present it to the Wisconsin tion of machinery whereby thoughtful propo­ Peace Society. The Society at once incorpo­ sals could be formulated and then communi­ rated the plan into its charter, and under its cated to all the belligerents. In a sense, it was auspices had it printed in pamphlet form. From an attempt to extend the Wisconsin Idea— early in 1915, "Continuous Mediation Without drawing upon technical experts to help the Armistice," thereafter known as the Wisconsin state formulate public policy—to the realm of Plan, spread rapidly, attracting numerous con­ international relations. verts and advocates and achieving both partial Although the idea of "continuous mediation success and widespread acclaim. without armistice" as eventually formulated by The Wisconsin Peace Society immediately Julia W ales was somewhat novel, the propo­ sent printed copies to various influential fig­ sal that the United States call a conference of ures prominent both in public and private life. neutrals was not original with her. Hamilton Joseph Tumulty, President Wilson's friend and Holt had long advocated such a meeting in The private secretary, acknowledged receipt of a Independent, and bills had been introduced in copy on January 13, 1915, and stated that the Senate by Senators La Follette and New- ". . . at the first opportunity I shall bring it to lands asking the President to convoke such a the attention of the President." A few weeks conference. Venezuela had also made a formal later Tumulty once again wrote to the support­ recommendation to that effect." And more than ers of the Plan, saying that President Wilson once Miss Wales acknowledged her indebted­ was calling it to the attention of the Secretary ness to others for many of her basic points. of State. Joseph E. Davies, former Wisconsin She even credited Mme. Rosika Schwimmer, resident and Chairman of the Federal Trade the Hungarian pacifist, with advocating contin­ Commission, acknowledged interest in Con­ uous mediation prior to its appearance in her tinuous Mediation, and conveyed the news that own pamphlet. To the editor of the Univer­ he, too, would talk to the President about the sity's student newspaper, she wrote: Plan.'^ David Starr Jordan, internationally "Although so far as I know, my pamphlet prominent scientist and Chancellor of Stan­ was the first detached development of some ford University, as well as one of the nation's aspects of the plan of continuous-mediation and leading pacifists, after having read a copy of some arguments in its favor to appear in print, the pamphlet wrote, "It seems to me the most I was not even the first to publish the idea. forceful and practical thing I have yet seen." During the autumn of last year—I think almost On the next day he again declared, "Among immediately after the outbreak of war—a small folder was issued by Madame Rosika Schwimmer, containing in a few lines a pro- ' Julia Grace Wales to the editor of the Daily Cardinal, October, 1915. ' Joseph Tumulty to Joseph Jastrow, January 16, 1915; idem to Ralph Owen, February 5, 1915; Joseph ' Mimeographed pamphlet written by Julia Grace E. Davies to Ralph Owen, February 5 and 15, 1915, Wales, "Continuous Mediation Without Armistice" in the Wales Papers. Jastrow and Owen, University (Madison, 1915). faculty members, were both active in the Wisconsin " The Independent, 81:434-444 (March 29, 1915). Peace Society.

205 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING. 1961

the many documents, averaging several a day, Following its adoption by the National Peace suggesting plans of disposing of the war, I Conference, the Wisconsin Plan met with fur­ don't know of anything better than this es­ ther success. Hamilton Holt wrote to Miss say. . . ." Jordan was so enthusiastic that he Wales, saying: "Now that I have had time to suggested that the Wisconsin Plan be presented muU over the 'Wisconsin Plan' I am coming to at the National Peace Conference to be held in believe it has fewer objections than anything Chicago, February 27 and 28, 1915. To this yet suggested. I hope and pray that somehow end, he asked Louis Lochner, a Wisconsin your ideas will prevail. You have done a great graduate, former editor of the Wisconsin Alum­ thing."^^ He also vowed to give the Plan nus and a successful journalist, to secure a copy much favorable publicity in the pages of The of the pamphlet.' Independent. Although Woodrow Wilson re­ Lochner, the secretary of the Emergency fused to receive the National Peace Conference Peace Federation which had been organized delegation,^'^ Continuous Mediation was in Chicago on December 19, 1914, to develop adopted by the Wisconsin Legislature in the a constructive peace program, was also the form of a resolution which was to be forwarded manager of the National Peace Conference, to the President.^' In Wisconsin's capital city, of which Jane Addams was chairman. Both both the Board of Commerce and the famed he and Miss Addams took to the Wisconsin Thursday Club endorsed the Plan. Plan warmly and worked in its behalf through­ In the meantime, under the leadership of out the war. Julia Grace Wales, modestly pre­ Louis Lochner, Jane Addams, and Miss Wales, ferring not to let it be known that she was the a campaign was started to spread the idea of plan's creator, did not even attend the Chicago Continuous Mediation throughout both Amer­ Conference. Her desire for anonymity stemmed ica and Europe. Numerous press notices were partly from the fact that as a Canadian citizen secured, as well as favorable resolutions in and a belligerent in the struggle she thought state legislatures. Miss Wales received many it best to keep in the background, and partly letters of encouragement and congratulation, because she felt that her ideas would receive afl taking an optimistic view of the Plan's fu­ more careful consideration if they were be­ ture. Dr. George Nasmyth, president of the lieved to have originated with a man. World Peace Foundation, located in Boston, Put on the program for the first session of became a fervent supporter. "The Wisconsin the Conference, the Wisconsin Plan was pre­ Plan," he declared, "grows upon me every day, sented to the delegates by United States Dis­ and the World Peace Foundation is consider­ trict Attorney John A. Aylward of Madison. It ing the possibility of reprinting the pamphlet received instant acclaim, and after having been in one of its regular pamphlet series."'^'' In endorsed by the Boston merchant-philanthro­ response to a letter inquiring about the Admin­ pist E. A. Filene, Continuous Mediation With­ istration's view. Secretary of State Wifliam out Armistice was unanimously approved and Jennings Bryan replied that ". . . other copies embodied in the platform of the Conference. of the so-called Wisconsin Plan have come to "Supporting Aylward's speech," the Wisconsin my attention. It has created a great deal of State Journal reported on February 27, was interest."^^ Senator Robert M. La Follette, who "wired the Conference urging it to ask the President Illinois, John A. Aylward of Wisconsin, Morris Hill- and Congress to call an international confer­ quist of New York, George Nasmyth of Massachu­ setts, and Jane Thomson of Missouri. Miss Wales was ence." But even before La Follette's telegram invited to join the delegation. arrived, the Conference had already resolved " Hamilton Holt to Julia Grace Wales, March 6, to appoint a delegation to carry the Plan to 1915. '^ Wilson wrote Jane Addams refusing to see the President Wilson and the Congress.^" delegation on the grounds that because he had re­ ceived more such requests than he could comply with, he had decided to see no delegations at that time. See " David Starr Jordan to John K. Bonnell, February Louis Lochner to Julia Grace Wales, March 11, 1915. 16 and 17, 1915; night letter, Jordan to Bonnell, Feb­ " Jt. Res. No. 39 S, passed March 16, 1915. ruary 18, 1915, in the Wales Papers. " George Nasmyth to Louise Phelps Kellogg, April " Platform of the National Peace Conference, in 23, 1915, in the Wales Papers. the Wales Papers; Wisconsin State Journal, February '" William Jennings Bryan to John A. Aylward, 27, 1915. The delegation included Jane Addams of April 6, 1915, in the Wales Papers.

206 TRATTNER : JULIA GRACE WALES

A month after the Chicago conference Jane at the State Department and in diplomatic cir­ •^-^ Addams wrote Miss Wales, inviting her cles over the proposal for a conference of neu­ to attend an international congress called by trals and continuous mediation without armis­ women of both the neutral and warring nations tice adopted by The Hague Conference of and to be held at The Hague. "It might," Miss women to which it was presented by Miss Julia Addams wrote, "be the one [great] opportu­ Grace Wales of the University of Wisconsin. nity to push forward your plan."^" Accordingly, This . . . will be given consideration at the on April 13, 1915, Miss Wales sailed for Eu­ State Department as soon as official copies can rope aboard the Dutch-American liner Noor- be received from The Hague."^* dam. In a series of letters to the Wisconsin After organizing the International Commit­ Peace Society, written from the ship only four tee for Permanent Peace, with Jane Addams as days later, she related, "Everyone to whom I its chairman, The Hague Conference dis­ have talked takes to the Plan most kindly" and banded. The delegates, however, were divided that "The forty delegates on board have into several groups, each of which travefled to adopted my Plan." different parts of Europe talking on behalf of However, the prospect of getting her Plan Continuous Mediation. Julia Wales travelled adopted at the Women's International Peace as secretary of the delegation to Scandinavia Congress was not very promising. Assembled and Russia, accompanied by a British delegate, in the huge hall, the Dierentum, in the Zoo­ Chrystal Macmillan; a Dutch woman, Madame logical Gardens at The Hague, were women Ramondt-Hirschman; Rosika Schwimmer; and from every belligerent nation except France Emily Balch, a Weflesley professor from Amer­ and Russia, as well as from most of the neutral ica. The natural route for the group to take countries. "You see," wrote Miss Wales on the was overland through Germany, but since Miss eve of the Congress' termination, "the neutrals Wales and Miss Macmillan were belligerents here are scared to death; they don't dare to and could not cross enemy territory, it was de­ breathe—much less try to do anything. . . ." cided that they would make the trip by sea But in her characteristic manner the optimistic while the others proceeded by land. Miss Wales vigorously continued, "In spite of All that could be procured for the trip, and the almost certain defeat of the resolution . . . luckily at that, was a little freighter, the Mars, I do not feel discouraged in the least. . . . We with no cabin but that of the captain, and with are going 'to keep on and keep on keeping room for only one passenger. Miss Wales was on.' " selected to go ahead, with Miss Macmiflan to Much to her surprise and delight, the high­ follow later. As the ship lurched and tossed light of her dangerous trip across the Atlantic through mined seas, the ship's sole passenger was reached the very next day when, on the spent an uncomfortable night and later de­ last day of the Congress, the Wisconsin Plan scribed her harrowing experience: "I tell you for Continuous Mediation was unanimously she did roll. I heard later that two of the old accepted by all the women delegates. The hands were sick; so I don't think I could be pamphlet, which had by then undergone sev­ blamed much." The next day, feeling better eral editions, was reprinted at The Hague in and watching the calm seas off the Swedish three foreign languages and distributed coast, Miss Wales wrote movingly of her im­ throughout Europe. The Wisconsin State Jour­ pressions of the castles at Kronsberg and Elsi­ nal reported that someone suggested that the nore. ". . . Everything mixed itself up in my University of Wisconsin establish a permanent brain," she recalled. "Shakespeare and his im­ Chair of Peace, with Miss Wales as the first aginings of Denmark, all the old stories of the incumbent,-"^ and a leading Chicago newspa­ North, the sea, the terrible war, and the un­ per announced that "There is much interest known life that is to come out of it, and the new heavens and the new earth. . . ."^^ ^^ Jane Addams to Julia Grace Wales, March 25, 1915. " Julia Grace Wales to Louise Phelps Kellogg, April 30, 1915; idem to Committee, May 11, 1915; " Chicago Herald, May 3, 1915. Madison Democrat. Mav 2, 1915; Wisconsin State " Julia Grace Wales to "Dear Committee," aboard Journal, May 12, 1915. the Hellig Ollav, June 4-15, 1915.

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v'..-«*i,Br •?"-*T Photo touites> Louis P. Lochner Delegates to the International Congress of Women at The Hague, April, 1915. In the front row, second from lejt, is Jane Addams. Miss Wales is fifth from the left, third row. Louis Lochner, the sole male, is second from right, top row.

In Copenhagen Miss Wales was reunited Miss Wales wrote that "Those who were able with her companions, and from there the to get into Germany . . . report much latent women continued on their mission. After wide international sentiment, which, however, is travel, many interviews, and much discussion denied a voice. . . ." Louis Lochner, after at­ throughout a large part of the Continent, the tending The Hague conference, had gone into envovs to the International Conference, con­ Germany and reported that Montegelas of the vinced that Europeans were sympathetic to German Foreign Office and Zimmerman, Ger­ Continuous Mediation and that it would suc­ many's Undersecretary of State, were sympa­ ceed if put into effect, issued the following thetic to the idea of a mediating conference of Manifesto: "Our visit to the war capitals con­ neutral nations. In addition, there was a good vinced us that the belligerent governments deal of agitation and favorable sentiment for would not be opposed to a conference of neu­ the Wisconsin Plan in Australia, Canada, Eng­ tral nations; that while the belligerents have land, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, rejected offers of mediation by single neutral Switzerland, and Denmark.-^ nations, and while no belligerents could ask for mediation, the creation of a continuous "D^ no means was all of the European reac- conference of neutral nations might provide -'-' tion to the Plan favorable, however. Ever the machinery which could lead to peace."-" since the sinking of the Lusitania and the re­ sultant loss of nearly 1,200 lives. Miss Wales " See Louis P. Lochner, Always the Unexpected (New York, 1956), 51 #., and Jane Addams, "The "' Julia Grace Wales to William Drysdale, October Revolt Against War," in The Survey, 34: 355-359 25, 1915; Louis Lochner to Louise Phelps Kellogg, (July 17, 1915) ; Text of the Manifesto Issued by the July 26, 1915. For evidence that Sir Edward Grey Envoys to the International Congress of Women at favored a neutral conference of mediation, see The Hague, October 15, 1915, p. 15, in the Wales Charles Seymour, ed., The Intimate Papers of Colonel Papers. House (Boston, 1926), 88-89.

208 TRATTNER : JULIA GRACE WALES had been forced to devote some of her limitless did not consider herself a mere dispassionate energy to rebutting her critics at home and onlooker in the struggle—nor, for that matter, abroad. Increasingly, as the opposition made was anyone else—and that she truly believed itself heard, she clarified and restated her that the whole world had a stake in the out­ ideas. She constantly emphasized that the con­ come of the war. It was true that Continuous ference of neutrals would have no power to Mediation was "neutral" in that it did not dog­ will or decide anything; its official function matize about which side was "right," and in was merely to think, for it was meant to be a that sense it appeared too visionary to many of world brain. The interested governments in those people who were caught up in what they their official capacity could accept or refuse believed was a just war. Julia Wales agreed any proposal. In reply to the argument that and admitted that she felt England was fight­ mediation had already been offered and re­ ing for "eternal principles of freedom and fused. Miss Wales stoutly declared that, on the justice," and she confided to a close friend that contrary, her Plan was new and had never she had sympathized with England from the been tried. beginning. But uppermost in her mind were Typical of the rising criticism from abroad the innocent human lives which were being was that presented by James Muirhead, Lon­ destroyed each day. The fighting must be don correspondent for The Nation. Essentially, brought to an end, and Continuous Mediation he, like many of his fellow critics, voiced two was nothing more than one possible device for grievances. First, in an accusation clearly attaining that cherished goal. Since some kind aimed at Miss Wales, he charged that the pro­ of settlement would eventually have to be made, ponents of Continuous Mediation were oper­ why not begin to carve it out intellectually? ating under the false assumption that "the Julia Grace Wales was certain that "In the moral delinquency of the belligerents is ap­ end, some such plan, if carried out, would tend proximately equal." His second and related to give speedy victory to the right—would tend grievance was to the effect that "the facts" to thwart wrong motives and to assist and re­ should not be ignored by those who held "a ward right motives in every country."^* priori views" and maintained their detachment In spite of the criticism, the peace advocates from the struggle. "We recognize," he argued, did not slacken their efforts to persuade the "that war is on certain rare occasions more Administration to endorse the Wisconsin Plan righteous than peace," concluding that "There and call a neutral conference. President Wil­ is no place for those who wish to ride off on a son received thousands of telegrams from in­ general condemnation of war; some decision dividuals and groups all over the United must be made on the merits of the case."^^ States, urging him to offer mediation. In Oc­ Calmly, but no less emphatically, Julia tober, 1915, the San Francisco International Wales replied. First, she made it clear "that Peace Conference endorsed the Wisconsin Plan no assumption was intended in . . . [her] and commissioned David Starr Jordan to see pamphlet that the belligerents are all equafly the President about the possibility of its im­ wrong." The Plan neither stated nor implied plementation.^° any moral judgements. "It was the earnest Louis Lochner was to accompany Jordan to desire of the writer of the pamphlet," she as­ the White House for his Presidential inter­ serted, "To find some common ground, how­ view. On the way from the West Coast to ever slight, on which estranged friends could Washington, the two men stopped in Madison meet. . . ."'" for two days to speak with Miss Wales about In addition, she once again took the oppor­ her Plan and to visit with President Van Hise, tunity of making it clear to her critics that she another of the Plan's supporters. Dr. Jordan endorsed the Plan in Madison and again com­ mended its author at an all-University convo- ^^ James F. Muirhead, "A Restatement of the Eng­ lish Point of View—The Fear of Misapprehension in America," in The Nation, 101:195-196 (August 12, "•' Julia Grace Wales to Louise Phelps Kellogg, Au­ 1915). gust 28, 1915; Wales, "Continuous Mediation," loc. " Julia Grace Wales, "Continuous Mediation With­ cit., 435. out Armistice," in The Nation, 101:434 (October 7, '" David Starr Jordan to Julia Grace Wales, Oc­ 1915). tober 20,1915.

209 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

cation before an immense audience on Novem­ When in Washington, Jordan and Lochner ber 9.^" He and Lochner then proceeded to were also cordially received by Chairman Da­ Washington. vies and former Secretary of State Bryan, both David Starr Jordan's forty-minute interview of whom still expressed considerable interest in with President Wilson was encouraging to the the Plan. Their interview with Secretary of friends of peace. The President refused to com­ State Robert Lansing, however, was unsatis­ mit himself to Continuous Mediation, but, ac­ factory. The highly partisan administrator cording to Jordan, he was "mellow" and "more kept them waiting outside his office until he inclined to listen than ever before." He had only seven minutes to speak with them. seeemed to grasp what Jordan said and even to Lansing did not favor Continuous Mediation "like" the idea. Wilson ended the interview by because he thought the plan would be unaccept­ remarking, "I assure you gentlemen that you able to the Allies.^^ have done me real good."-' Meanwhile, the peace advocates made a Lochner wrote that "It was evident to us that powerful convert. Thanks to the efforts of President Wilson has no plan outside of a fight Louis Lochner and Rosika Schwimmer, the to the finish. . . . Further, it seemed to us that energetic Hungarian pacifist, Henry Ford was he was decidedly interested in our presenta- persuaded to endorse Continuous Mediation. He also announced that he would see the Presi­ dent on the matter of a neutral conference.'"' WESTERN UNION Ford entered the ranks just in time, for by NIQHT LETTER then money was desperately needed by the OtOROfi W. E ATKiVS. Vl«.p«.fd.ot NEWCOMB CAfitTON, »f eildmt BELVIDBHE BROOKS. Vic«.(^»W«l friends of peace. His purse was heartily wel­ j KECEtVEB-a S'o, TIME FILED CHSCK comed by the pacifists, and he responded gen­ erously. SHND the foilowine Nlshl Letter, Subject to the tertn* ofl back herfcof, whltfi «re her eby agreed lo Once again. President Wilson appeared to be swayed by the idea of a conference of neu­ HON. WOODROW WILSON, trals, and within two weeks granted three sep­ PRESIDENT OF THE I NITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. 0. arate interviews to advocates of Continuous CITIZENS OP {NAME CIl Y) RESPECTFULLY URGE YOU TO CO-OPERATE Mediation. At the least, his interest in the sub­ WITH OIHEK NEUTRAL SC YERNMBNIS IN CALLING CONFERENCE OF HEUTEAL ject must have been aroused.^'^ NATIONS, WHICH WOULD CONSTITUTE A VOLUNTARY COURT OP CON- TltJUOUS MEDIATION, 11 VITE SUGGESTIONS FOR SETTLEMENT PROM - ' WABRING NATIONS, AND IN ANT CASE SUBMIT SIMULTANEOUSLY TO ALL OP THEM REASONABLE PB OPOSALS AS BASIS FOR PEACE.

(NAME OF OESANIZATIOH) "" Ibid. Lochner's impression of the interview was CHAIRMAN OR SECRETAKY. verified by Lansing in his War Memoirs (New York, 1935), passim. Colonel House also feared that the Society's Manuscript C^oUections Allies would not favor Continuous Mediation. See Charles Seymour, ed.. The Intimate Papers of Colonel Copy of telegram urging Wilson to call conference of neutrals. House, 82 §. Ray Stannard Baker, in his monumental work on Wilson, also wrote that both Lansing and tion, and that there seemed to be more of a House were against the Wisconsin Plan for the same reason. In a footnote Baker wrote: "This reason deferential attitude and a willingness to listen which House and Lansing continually advanced— than seemed characteristic of his interview that we must keep our influence strong by never mov­ with Miss Addams and previous interviews ing toward mediation until success was guaranteed— was throughout, the basic cause for Wilson's hesita­ that Dr. Jordan had." He concluded by opti­ tion in acting publicly for peace." See Baker, ed.. mistically asserting that "The President may Life and Letters of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1937), VI:122-123. yet be won. . . ."^* ™ Louis Lochner to Julia Grace Wales, November 20, 1915: Roger Burlingame, Henry Ford (New York, 1955), 82-83; "The New Kind of Militant Peace '" Wisconsin Slate Journal, November 10, 1915. Plans," in The Survey, 35:227-228 (])ecemi)er 4, •'I.ouis Ijodmer, "Wliite House Interview, i^resi- 19151. dent Wilson and D. S. Tordan," November 12, 1915, "'Following the November 12 interview with Jor­ in the Wales Papers. dan and Lochner, Wilson interviewed Lochner and "* Louis Lochner, "Additional Data Regarding Our Ford on November 22, and Mrs, Snowden and Mme. Interview," in the Wales Papers. Schwimmer on the 26th.

210 TRATTNER JULIA GRACE WALES

' I ^HE story of Henry Ford's Peace Ship is a licized items from the press of the belligerents -*- familiar one. When it became apparent that indicating a desire for peace along liberal, con- Wilson would not lake ihc initiatives in an at­ slruclivc lines, and in so doing the Conference tempt to bring the war to an end. Ford decided liccamc lioth a clcaringhousi^ and sounding to do it himself. His plan included a spectacu­ board. As a result, "something was done to dis­ lar end-the-war drive to "get the boys out of pel the ill effects of the widespread and bitter the trenches by Christmas," mainly by organiz­ propaganda which was settling in the veins of ing a crusade of publicists and leading Amer­ European peoples a venomous hatred of one ican advocates of peace who would arouse pub­ another."^* lic opinion in such a fashion that the neutral But from then on the peace movement in nations would be forced to call a mediating the United States rapidly disintegrated. While conference. The venture was also to include the the idea of a league of nations was not new to choosing of an unofficial international commit­ Americans, the idea of a League to Enforce tee which would meet in Stockholm. Acting in Peace was, and in attracting many people to its a private capacity it would draw up peace pro­ program of using force to insure peace, the posals and work out all the necessary arrange­ League helped deplete the ranks of the stanch ments for the official conference of neutrals pacifists. President Wilson vaguely endorsed which would then, hopefully, be cafled. the League's principles, and when Grey, Bal­ At first Miss Wales, chosen as a delegate, four, Briand, and Bethmann Holwegg followed was skeptical, although she admitted that "the suit, more followers were attracted. Later, Wil­ sincerity, earnestness, and generosity of the en­ son's Fourteen Points and his proposal for a terprise, [was] ... of course, beyond ques­ League of Nations turned the war into a strug­ tion." Unable to decide whether she should gle to "make the world safe for democracy" make the trip, she appealed to David Starr Jor­ and a "war to end all wars." Wilson's ideal­ dan for advice. "I merely want to be certain," istic preachments were much too persuasive she wrote, "that it is the wisest next step in for the dwindling band of peace advocates, and furthering the course of continuous-media­ many Americans abandoned pacifism to sup­ tion."^^ Evidently she was reassured, because port the President's calls for preparedness, rec­ when the Oscar III sailed from Hoboken, Julia onciling their opposition to war and their sup­ Grace Wales, having received a leave of ab­ port of preparedness by their interest in the sence from the University, was aboard.''"' proposed League of Nations. Wilson's call to Regardless of what can be said of the Peace the belligerents to state their terms and the Ship's objectives or the reasons for its failure, constant reiteration of his appeal for a just and the Stockholm Conference was somewhat of a lasting peace was the death blow to the paci­ success. Financed by Ford, an unofficial con­ fists; even the unofficial Conference for Con­ ference of neutrals met, made up of representa­ tinuous Mediation at Stockholm was then tives of the United States, Denmark, Holland, abandoned. By March 1917, most Americans Sweden, and Switzerland. In the mere fact were ready to go to war, end it, and return to of its organization the Neutral Conference for a permanent peace. Only a few uncompromis­ Continuous Mediation "fulfifled a useful pur­ ing and courageous pacifists, often exposing pose," but more concrete results were achieved. themselves to danger, stood their ground. The Conference drew up an appeal to the gov­ Julia Grace Wales was one of the victims ernments and peoples of the belligerent na­ of the President's idealism, and even she was tions, and co-ordinated the scattered peace ef­ caught up in the course of events. In Septem­ forts of publicists and idealists in neutral ber of 1917 she acknowledged that "the neu­ countries. In addition, it collected and pub- tral governments, anxious to preserve their neutrality, were not wifling to begin this kind of public, unsolicited and continuous media­ '' Julia Grace Wales to David Starr Jordan, Novem­ tion. Unofficial agencies couldn't do anything. ber 26,1915. Finafly, the United States took action alone. " At a great financial burden to herself. Miss Wales continued her leave from the University and remained abroad during the 1916-1917 academic year =" Merle Curti, Peace or War (New York, 1936) to study international relations in Sweden. 245-246.

211 WISCONSIN .VIAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

President Wilson's simultaneous question to tion of this deficiency when she confessed that the belligerents, asking for statement of terms, "the strength of our cause has been in its very was, as far as it went, application of the prin­ weakness, in the fact that it has been led by a ciple. So also was his enunciation of the Four­ few idealistic citizens of the world. . . ."^** In teen Points." In conclusion, she said: "It seems addition, and probably most important, the to me that the idea of the standing challenge Wisconsin Plan never won the Administra­ . . . which was the kernel of the theory of me­ tion's support. On the whole, only a few public diation without armistice, has now prevailed officials ever really believed in the Plan or ex­ and become the definite policy of the govern­ erted any official pressure in its behalf. Al­ ments. . . ."•^' Moreover, the President's call though at times Wilson seemed receptive to for a League of Nations appeared to her to be Continuous Mediation, in the end he remained a close enough application of the principle for aloof to the idea. Without official support the which she had fought. She did hope, however, Plan had little chance of success. that the specific idea of Continuous Mediation Also, the Plan was too passive: it offered the would be made a permanent device of the American public little that was positive or ma­ League.''"' terial. Julia Grace Wales was aware of this de­ fect in 1915 when she perceptively observed: TT is quite clear that there was no single "That is the funny part of peace work; it is -•- cause for the defeat of the peace movement harmless. We seem to be like the Salvation in the period of the First World War. Most Army or the Society of Friends. Nobody mo­ pacifists did not perceive or question the eco­ lests us. I hope, however, that we shafl soon nomic relationship between war and profit- be taken seriously as well as kindly."^" making in America. They rarely attacked the From 1914 to 1917 the war did not seem to yeflow press or American loans and shipments threaten most Americans, the majority of of supplies to the belligerents. The pacifists whom, feeling that they had nothing to lose in also dissipated some of their energies in in­ the "European War," were not ready to act ternal rivalries and conflicts. Futhermore, unless their interests were directly challenged. many pacifist leaders tended to oversimplify Many others, while opposed to war, were even certain forces which draw men to war. As more opposed to a German victory and feared Merle Curti has pointed out, the pacifists that mediation by the neutrals, especially after failed to understand the glamour and lure that the initial German military successes, would war exerts on the great masses of people.'" insure the Kaiser's victory. The failure of the Wisconsin Plan for Peace America's entry into the war completed the was, however, the result of several very distinct disintegration of the peace forces and sounded factors. In the first place. Continuous Media­ the death knell of Continuous Mediation. By tion never really succeeded in winning the sup­ 1917 the war was popular with most Ameri­ port or approval of the public. Those favoring cans. National war hysteria had closed the the Plan were mostly members of the educated door to any rational decisions on the war issue, classes, and there is no evidence of support and the great majority of the peace advocates, from the middle and working classes. The ma­ including Julia Grace Wales, became interven­ jority of Americans, in fact, were not aroused tionists and supported the war effort. Gone by the issue of peace. Across the nation peace were the early idealism and belief in pacifism organizations were run by a small group of which had motivated Miss Wales. By 1918 leaders who made a lot of noise but never suc­ the author of the Wisconsin Plan for Peace ceeded in reaching a nation-wide audience. was able to write that "The community of na­ Miss Wales herself made an implied recogni­ tions as a whole has a duty to resist any aggres-

^"^ Julia Grace Wales, "A Statement of My Present Position, September, 1917." ' Julia Grace Wales to Louis Lochner, November, •"Julia Grace Wales to Jane Addams, November 1915. 27,1917. ' Julia Grace Wales to the Committee, May 13, ^' Curti, Peace or War, 306. 1915.

212 TRATTNER : JULIA GRACE WALES sor who vitally threatens the freedom of future more terrible war. Miss Wales again took up generations."" her ]ien in the defense of her ideals. Her small After 1919 Julia Grace Wales' efforts on be­ book, Democracy Needs Education,'''- pub­ half of international friendship, understanding, lished in Canada, awakens echoes of her Wis­ and peace were submerged in her dedication consin Plan for Peace and suggests that she to the teaching of literature. From 1919 to never entirely abandoned her earlier convic­ 1921 she was in England, teaching at Westfield tions. Five years later she retired as Associate College in London and later at Girton and Professor Emeritus and returned to Canada Newnham in Cambridge. Returning to Madi­ where she died on July 15, 1957, in the little son in 1921, she resumed her responsibilities town of St. Andrews East in County Argenteuil at the University, giving courses in Shake­ in Quebec. speare, the Bible, and advanced composition. Although she continued to write poetry, her '" Julia Grace Wales, "The Conscientious Objector and the Principle of International Defense," reprint publications were mainly in the field of Shake­ from The Advocate of Peace (American Peace So­ spearean criticism in scholarly journals."*^ ciety, Washington, D. C, 1918), 10. Throughout her long years of service to the " Writings of Grace Wales, a bound volume in the University of Wisconsin Archives, contains a com­ University Miss Wales took a leading part in prehensive collection of Miss Wales' published works. the activities of many campus organizations. Her poem, "The Dream Fleet," appeared in The In­ During the Depression she voluntarily carried dependent, 83:496 (June 16, 1917). The Archives voL ume also contains much biographical material about heavy responsibilities in various WPA pro­ Miss Wales in the "Memorial Resolutions of the grams, especiafly in the development of "De­ Faculty of the University of Wisconsin on the Death of Emeritus Associate Professor Julia Grace Wales." pression gardens" in Madison. In 1942, as the Document 1190, November 4, 1957. world found itself engulfed in a second and *' Democracy Needs Education (Macmillan, 1942).

t'i!i\(isit\ ot Wisconsin Auln\t Faculty of the University of Wisconsin English Department, 1922-1923. Julia Grace IS ales is second from right, front row.

213 readers' Ichoice

STATE AND REGIONAL and he became the protege of Professor Roland Irving, and took over, on his behalf, more and Charles Richard Van Hise, Scientist Progres­ more of the laboratory work of his courses. sive. By MAURICE M. VANCE. (The State His­ Van Hise also assisted Irving in his field work, torical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1960. where he was chief of the Lake Superior divi­ Pp. 246. Notes and bibliography. $6.00.) sion of the United States Geological Survey, and incidentally got his master's degree on one The kinship of this book with the Curti-Car- of his reports to his chief. stensen history of the University of Wisconsin The lamentable death of Irving in 1888 at is clearly stated by the author in a footnote (p. the age of thirty-one led to the appointment of 200) : "The author served as a research as­ Van Hise to succeed him as chief of the Lake sistant to Professors Curti and Carstensen in Superior Geological Division. Thereafter, Van the preparation of this work [The University Hise's progress was steady. In 1892 he was of Wisconsin], and has benefited greatly from promoted to a full professorship in geology, the opportunity to use the material collected, which led to a readjustment of his teaching not only by himself but by several other work­ hours and his survey duties. By arrangement ers in the development of that project." But with the regents he was permitted to give a the angle of vision of the biographer of a six-weeks course annually or semi-annually in man who is a university president is neces­ his special field of structural geology at the sarily different from that of the historian of University of Chicago. a university of which a man is president. Van Hise's research was unremitting and The story of the schoolboy Charles on the profound, and his thesis, later published in farm and in the country store of his father is 1904, was accepted for the first Ph.D. degree well told. (The first footnote in the book deals awarded by the University of Wisconsin. It is with the ancestry of his parents and the spell­ entitled A Treatise on Metamorphism and in ing of his name.) His mother was a believer the introduction Van Hise speaks of it as "an in education, and Charles followed willingly attempt to reduce the phenomena of metamor­ in the steps which led to entrance to the Uni­ phism to order under the principles of physics versity of Wisconsin, ending his preparation and chemistry, or, more simply, under the laws with a year at the Evansville, Wisconsin, of energy. It is but a part of the larger task Academy. or reducing to order under the same laws the At the University he lived in South Hafl, entire subject of physical geology" (p. 53). found his chief diversion in one of the debating This reviewer saw the massive Treatise with societies of the day, and showed such promise a large reading glass on top of it in the presi­ as a student that Professor Irving of Geology, dent's office. It is nearly 1,300 quarto pages Professor Daniels of Chemistry, and Professor long! Sterling in Mathematics, were glad to have his The appointment of Van Hise to the presi­ aid as a young teacher and to bid for his serv­ dency of his alma mater, 1903, curtailed his ices. His degree of Bachelor of Metallurgical work in geology, but he kept on, chiefly in the Engineering—1879, with honors—he now felt summer vacation, as a consulting geologist; was too narrowly vocational, and he spent the but other important interests kept crowding in, necessary time to round out the literature and and in 1915, when asked to contribute to a new philosophy courses of the B.S. program to se­ scientific journal, he ruefully declined, saying, cure that degree in 1880. "As a matter of fact I am geologically bank­ It was geology that captured his affections. rupt" (p. 141).

214 READERS CHOICE

One of these important interests was conser­ of Public Instruction Cary, 1905-1915 or vation, in the State of Wisconsin and through­ thereabouts, to have the University's inspection out the country. It was marked in 1910 by the and accrediting of high schools done away publication of his book. The Conservation of with (pp. 122 ff.) was bothersome to President Natural Resources in the United States (p. Van Hise, for it had some merit. Mr. Cary, 160). The book was the first of its kind and ex officio a regent of the University, pushed was influential with Theodore Roosevelt and his case in meetings of the regents, and then other leaders in the study of the problem. in the legislature, but without success, and Another important interest which engaged without the support of the teachers of the State, Van Hise's thought was the handling of the who showed where their sympathies lay by trusts, the great industrial corporations. He electing Van Hise president of the Wisconsin presented his views in 1912 in a book entitled Teachers Association in 1915. Concentration and Control: A Solution of the Trust Problem in the United States. Here he argued for a discrimination between good trusts, helpful to conservation, and bad trusts, and urged that the laws should be revised to encourage the former (p. 165). Meanwhile, University problems of various i sorts had faced Van Hise and these he handled as best he could. Let us look at some of them. The student rush on the lower campus needed improved supervision. Why not enlist the aid of the students themselves? And accordingly Van Hise, shortly after his accession, invited the student organizations to set up a confer­ ence committee to talk over matters of student interest with him (p. 99 ff.l. The idea took hold, in spite of natural suspicions, and a per­ manent conference committee was set up which developed student self-government. In 1910, faculty unrest over what appeared to be regent interference with educational poli­ Unhersity of Wisconsin .'\uhi\cs cies, capped by the news that Turner was going Van Hise as a college senior, 1879. to Harvard, threatened real trouble, and Van Hise met it by arranging for a liegent-Eaculty Part of the satisfaction of the State's teach­ conference committee (p. 118). The air was ers probably was due to the successful opposi­ cleared by the frank discussions that ensued. tion of Van Hise to Governor Philipp's bill to And the committee has remained, to this day, establish a central Board of Education to gov­ as a valuable institution. ern all State supported educational institutions The AUen survey of the Liniversity lasted (p. 130 ff.). Van Hise argued that the best men about a year (1914-1915). It is treated some­ would not run for the Board, and he fought what briefly (pp. 128-129). The president for a watered-down bill which would create a turned the matter of handling it over to a com­ Board of Estimates and Apportionment made mittee of chairmen, since he was busy with up from the various administrative educational the legislature, and the committee in turn ac­ boards in the state. The fight was stiff on both quiesced in transferring the direction to two sides and canvassed the educational leaders of of the staff. The emphasis rightly lies on the the nation. In the end, the governor's bill was way in which Mr. Allen's charges were met. further modified along lines which Van Hise and the survey did the University no real believed would enable the University to carry damage. on substantially as usual. The "Round Robin" protest against La Fol­ The development of Extension and of the lette's stand on World War I came out in Wisconsin Idea of having professors partici­ January, 1918 (pp. 180-182). One correction pate in the framing of legislation within their is necessary. The text of the document was aj)- fields and in the activities of the commissions proved by the president before it was mimeo­ at the Capitol has done much to establish graphed and released for circulation. the reputation of the University (p. 108 et pas­ The prolonged effort of State Superintendent sim) . Extension excited no hostility, but the

215 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 work of the commissions, inspired by the prin­ marily upon the banking problem. Second, by ciples of conservation, tells a different story. investigating the processes of incorporation be­ Perhaps it is reasonably associated with the tween 1848 and 1871, he concludes that the name of G. D. Jones, industrialist and regent legislative and judicial branches were far more (see index). important than the executive branch in pro­ November 8, 1918, Van Hise presided at a moting economic development, and that the large meeting in Madison of the League to dual system of incorporation failed. Allowing Enforce Peace. The League was working to­ promoters to choose between general or spe­ ward a League of Nations, in which Van Hise cial laws had to be abandoned by constitu­ was deeply concerned. November 11 came the tional amendment in 1871 because it burdened armistice. November 19 Van Hise was dead. the legislature with more business than could R.I.P. It was good to be a professor at Wis­ be effectively handled. Third, by analyzing the consin in the days of Van Hise. It was to many regulation of business corporations, he ad­ "the age of glory." vances the thesis that the responsibility for The organization of Professor Vance's book supervision was gradually shifted from the leg­ demands a word. The footnotes are massed islative to the executive and judicial branches, toward the end of the book. (They are not so and that for railroads, in particular, a concept easy to get at as informative running headlines of public utility gradually dominated regula­ would permit.) The bibliography precedes the tory principles. For the thorough and crafts­ index, and its most precious part is the four manlike fashion in which Dr. Kuehnl has and a half pages listing the published works of charted a course through a maze of archival C. R. Van Hise. materials, for the precision with which he has G. C. SELLERY categorized and analyzed the chief features of Modi both the general and special incorporation acts, and for his pioneering effort in a hitherto unexplored facet of Wisconsin and Midwestern legal and economic history, students will be The Wisconsin Business Corporation. By indebted for many years to come. GEORGE J. KUEHNL. (University of Wiscon­ There are, however, two weaknesses in this sin Press, Madison, 1959. Pp. xi, 284. $6.50.) study that limit its utility, one derived from its scope, the other from its method. First, Kuehnl makes little effort to relate the Wisconsin ex­ Despite its importance in American eco­ perience to the history of corporations along nomic and legal history, relatively few students have focussed on the role of the business cor­ the Atlantic seaboard. Whether Wisconsin fol­ poration in the nation's growth. And no won­ lowed Eastern practice or whether it took a der. For it takes dogged persistence, as Dr. path of its own in such matters as limited lia­ Kuehnl demonstrates, to hack through the bility, the reservation of legislative powers to jungle of legislative history to uncover and amend, alter, or repeal charters, in requiring analyze the 1,130 Wisconsin corporations char­ annual reports to stockholders, or in limiting tered by special acts during the period from the number of votes any shareholder could cast 1848 to 1871. The Handlin, Cadman, and at a corporation meeting are areas he has left Hartz studies of Massachusetts, New Jersey, unexplored. Second, Kuehnl generally accepts and Pennsylvania aside, it has been legal schol­ politicians at their word. Yet, as Robert S. ars rather than historians who have shown the Hunt has shown in his Law and Locomotives: greatest willingness to grapple with these com­ The Impact of the Railroad on Wisconsin Law plex materials. But whether as students of the in the Nineteentli Century (Madison, 1958), law or of history, until now the domain has a work which Kuehnl occasionally cites in its been the Atlantic seaboard, not the trans-Ap­ S. J. D. thesis form, legislators and lobbyists palachian West. then, as now, selected arguments for effect After meticulously tracing the emergence of rather than for veracity. That eight times as the business corporation during Wisconsin's many business corporations were created un­ territorial period, Kuehnl takes up three ma­ der special instead of general acts only serves jor questions. First, by delineating the popu­ to emphasize the probable political overtones of lar issues, he demonstrates the importance of much of the history of early Wisconsin busi­ the corporation question in the constitutional ness ventures. Too, perhaps the legislature was conventions of the forties and argues that re­ less of a rubber stamp than Kuehnl implies. jection of the 1846 Constitution turned pri­

216 READERS CHOICE

For like Eastern assemblies, it amended special GENERAL HISTORY charters before giving its ratification. But if these weaknesses detract from an otherwise Army Exploration in the American West, solid study of a difficult problem, they are 1803-1863. By WILLIAM H. GOETZMANN. bound to provoke further investigation. Hope­ (Vol. IV, Yale Publications in American Stud­ fully, it will reach as high a standard as that ies, Yale University Press, New Haven, Con­ achieved by Dr. Kuehnl. necticut, 1959. Pp. XX, 509. $6.50)

PETER J. COLEMAN The author of this book has sought "to de­ Washington University scribe, analyze, and evaluate the role played by the U.S. Army in exploring the trans-Mis­ sissippi West, and in particular the role of the Topographical Engineers between the years 1838 and 1863" (vii). He seems persuaded Beloved Professor: Life and Times of William that historians and others have largely ignored Dodge Frost. By RUSSELL E. FROST. (Vantage the achievements of the Topographical Engi­ Press, New York, 1961. Pp.350. $3.75.) neers even though ". . . no other group of com­ parable size contributed so much to the explo­ Writing in an author's note, Mr. Russell ration and development of the American West" Frost says that "Father helped me write the (4). He sees the Corps as a "focus for na­ book." This is the key to this warm reminis­ tional enthusiasms" and as "the agent of a cence about a dedicated teacher and leading democratic collective will . . . aiding the yeo­ citizen of Madison. man and the cattle raiser and the storekeeper The story of Dr. Frost's life is the familiar to take proper possession of his fee-simple em­ one of a young man with determination and pire in the unspoiled West" (pp. 17-18). ambition. From the Minnesota prairie to the The book is divided into three unequal state university was a giant step; yet young parts: the first covers the years from 1776 to William Frost took it in stride, working all the 1842; the second, which embraces more than way, earning his every advantage. His college half the book, deals with the activities of the interest in botany flowered into a professional Corps from 1842 to 1854; the last carries the interest in bacteriology, and it was as a bac­ story to 1863. Another fifty pages or so are teriologist at the University of Wisconsin that given to an epilogue, appendices, and bibliog­ Dr. Frost made his mark. He was particularly raphy. The result is a useful book that brings skilled at presenting this complicated subject together a great deal about exploration of vari­ to untrained students; but he was also a con­ ous kinds by the Topographical Engineers. The stant resident in the laboratory, working on value of the book is increased by a number of cultures, working with animals, and developing excellent illustrations and maps. new laboratory techniques. A testimonial letter The description, it must be noted, is much written in 1952 by Dr. Selman A. Waksmann, better than the analysis and evaluation. Even Nobel-prize winning scientist, records that Dr. in the author's bibliography there is little to Frost made "outstanding contributions" to the support the charge that the work of the Corps field of "microbial interrelationships." has been ignored by historians, although it is Over and above the narrative in this book true that few if any earlier writers have been is the mass of detail concerning the man him­ wifling to accept as irrefutable evidence of self. Here is where "Father" helped the au­ achievement what members of the Corps re­ thor. There are anecdotes for all to enjoy, and ported to be the accomplishment of their or­ they are enjoyable because they reveal the man ganization. There is in the book a touch of as a man. Frost, the son, was fortunate that that special pleading that, under other circum­ Frost, the father, had such a retentive memory. stances and for other purposes, in an earlier Frost, the father, is fortunate that Frost, the century gave rise to the Marcus Whitman Leg­ son, cared enough to record these memories. end. Nobody would deny that the Corps of And those who enjoy appreciative memoirs Topographical Engineers did some good sur­ well-sprinkled with remembered stories wifl veying, made a great many excellent maps, col­ want to read this book. lected geological, botanical, ethnological and other data, and also arranged to print and dis­ LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR. tribute a great deal of information, most of it State Historical Society fairly accurate. But it is hardly to be sug­ of Wisconsin gested seriously that westward migration was

217 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OV HISTORY SPRING, 1961 postponed until the Corps mapped or marked sions in the military. He believes there are out the trails or that farmers awaited -word two groups struggling for power within the from the Corj)s to know where they should establishment: the advocates of total war, who settle (pp. 426, 4-30). Had they listened to identify themselves as Douglas MacArthur sup­ S.H. Long, a large part of the plains area porters, have a Far Eastern orientation, and would be empty still, and had they bothered to are labeled "absolutists" by Janowitz; and the pay any attention to McClellan, the Yakima advocates of limited war, who identify with Vafley would stifl be covered with sagebrush. George Marshall, are oriented towards Europe, The Corps did a good job and no more needs and are labeled "pragmatists." The poles in to be claimed for it than the work it did. Janowitz' definitions are too far apart, and This book has value, but it would have prof­ they do not adequately describe the situation ited from some of the astringency of Jesse within the armed forces. The professional at­ Applegate, who wrote to U.S. Senator James titude towards war is complex and encompasses Nesmith in December, 1863, complaining that a broad spectrum of opinions. The tension be­ surveyors stayed away from the wild country. tween absolutists and pragmatists is neither as He went on to declare: "It is fortunate for our clear or as new (it goes back at least to Clause- progress as a people the practical and useful witz and Joniini) as Janowitz believes. does not wait upon the scientific. The passes as Part eight, the Epilogue, is Janowitz' plea well as the wealth of the Mountains are for a new orientation. The military establish­ searched out by men, who know nothing of ment should become a "constabulary force" barometers, or the learned names of Strata or which is "continuously prepared to act, com­ Stones. They eat the animals whose flesh is mitted to the minimum use of force, and savory and wholesome without paying much [which] seeks viable international relations, attention to their teeth, and test soil by culti­ rather than victory, because it has incorpo­ vation without waiting for an analysis." rated a protective military posture." Strategic deterrence should be controlled by civilian VERNON CARSTENSEN University of Wisconsin scientists, who are better equipped than the professional soldier to handle the problems of atomic warfare. The armed forces should be unified into one professional service. Tlie Professional Soldier: A Social and Politi­ None of Janowitz' proposals are new, nor cal Portrait. By MORRIS JANOWITZ. (The Free are they a logical conclusion to his work. They Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1960. Pp. ix, 464. reflect his own bias rather than the fruits of $6.75.) his scholarship. The Professional Soldier would be a better book without the Epilogue. How­ Morris Janowitz' book contains more than ever, it is a significant contribution to the the title promises. It is a detailed sociological knowledge of a seldom studied, but highly im­ portrait of the modern American Army, Navy, portant segment of the American people. and Air Force regular officer, an historical STEPHEN E. AMBROSE study of developments in the armed forces over Louisiana State University the past fifty years, and a polemic calling for in New Orleans an entirely new organization and purpose for the services. Janowitz, of the Department of Sociology of the University of Michigan, divides his work Why the North Won the Civil War. Edited by into eight parts. The first five contain a schol­ DAVID DONALD. (Louisiana State University arly evaluation of the professional soldier: the Press, Baton Rouge, 1960. Pp. xv, 128. Bib­ material is informative, impressive, and dull. liography, index. $2.95.) Parts six and seven, on political behavior and technique, refute many of the assertions of the These five essays are the outgrowth of pa­ foflowers of C. Wright Mills. Janowitz demon­ pers delivered at the Annual Civil War Con­ strates there is little substance to the fear that ference at Gettysburg College in 1958. In the military elite will join with the other elites each, a noted historian re-examines a familiar to impose their will upon the nation as a whole. interpretation of the war and attempts to throw The military is diffuse, torn by inter- and new light on the problem posed in the title. intra-service rivalries, and has shown no ten­ The result, as might be expected, is five con­ dency to dominate the civilian leaders. flicting views, ably presented and eminently Janowitz oversimplifies the internal dissen­ readable.

218 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Norman A. Graebner accounts for Northern said of his devastating march through Georgia victory in terms of Southern failure to win and the Carolinas, "This may not be war, but recognition from Britain and France and of rather statesmanship." Northern insistence that European intervention In another interpretation of Northern vic­ would mean war. Whatever sympathy existed tory, Richard N. Current contends that the in Europe for the Southern cause was chilled vast material differences between North and by the knowledge that recognition of an unes- South, rather than Southern failure to resolve tablished insurrectionary government "would its financial, industrial, and political difficul­ have defied one of the most significant and ties, assured a Northern victory. Current alone thoroughly established traditions of modern of the five writers is unwifling to admit that diplomacy." Thus Southern hopes for interven­ the South had more than a slight chance of tion were only as strong as Southern armies winning the war, and while his interpretation in the field, and when Lee retreated from is perhaps the least novel, it possesses the merit Maryland in 1862 "all wartime diplomacy re­ of grim realism. "It would have taken a mir­ ceded into insignificance." acle," he concludes, "a direct intervention of David Donald suggests that the Confed­ the Lord on the other side, to enable the South eracy, and not the Union, embodied "the demo­ to win. As usual, God was on the side of the cratic forces in American life" and argues heaviest battalions." that the result of the war stemmed from South­ Attractively designed and supplemented by ern unwillingness to regiment an undisciplined a brief but wefl-annotated bibliography. Why people and direct its energies toward victory. the North Won the Civil War is a slim but In the armies, straggling and desertion were worthwhile volume. A foreword by the ubiqui­ continuing problems; on the home front, oppo­ tous U. S. Grant III contributes nothing to its sition to conscription, to impressment of goods, value, however. and to the government itself prevented the soli­ PAUL H. HASS darity which characterized the North. In sharp University of Wisconsin contrast with Lincoln, Jefferson Davis tolerated carping politicians, suppressed no newspapers, instituted no reprisals against disloyal ele­ The United States to 1865. By MiCHAEL ments, and seldom suspended the writ of ha­ KRAUS. (University of Michigan Press, Ann beas corpus. The Confederacy insisted upon Arbor, 1959. Pp. xiii, 529. $7.50.) retaining its liberties, even in wartime; in the end, the South "died of democracy." Similarly, David M. Potter says that despite The United States Since 1865. By FOSTER the material differences between North and RHEA DULLES. (University of Michigan Press, South, the difference between Lincoln and Ann Arbor, 1959. Pp. ix, 546. $7.50.) Davis ultimately accounted for Southern de­ feat. Until the summer of 1863 the issue was These two volumes of the University of in doubt, but Davis' failure to exert vigorous Michigan History of the Modern World (Aflen leadership sealed the doom of the Confederacy. Nevins and Howard M. Ehrmann, editors), Conservative, unyielding, prone to "thinking constitute an excellent answer to the question in abstractions and speaking in platitudes," he of what to suggest as an all-around introduc­ was not cast for the role of revolutionary. Pot­ tion to our country's history. Interpretive, ter concludes that had Lincoln been President wise, and balanced, they avoid a superficial of the Confederacy, the result might have been survey on the one hand, and on the other they different. do not make the error of swamping the reader T. Harry Wifliams, appraising "The Mili­ with detail as do so many of the recent double- tary Leadership of North and South," empha­ columned texts now on the market. sizes the effect of Antoine Jomini on Civil War Rarely have two volumes of history fulfilled generalship, dismisses aU but Lee, Sherman, their aspirations as set forth on their jackets and Grant as "no better than average sol­ as well as these. It is not often that a profes­ diers," and explains victory in terms of Grant's sional historian can read a textbook summary (and Lincoln's) ability to grasp the concept of of United States history and be re-inspired total war, directed against the morale as well aboiil the course of American history. as the military stretiglli of the enemy. The The editors seek to jirovide historical hack- Joniinian generals, of which Lc(^ was the great­ ground for a comprehension of the fast-chang­ est, did not recognize that war and politics ing world situation, combining political, social, were inextricably bound together. As Sherman and cultural history, and offering an intercon-

219 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 nected view both lively and scholarly of the cartoons, and leading figures, as well as from great modern powers. The authors have meas­ the ubiquitous Mr. Dooley. ured up to this aim for the United States, trac­ In providing an understanding of the mak­ ing the emergence of this country from Europe, ing of modern America and its place in the with fresh perspective on the vital early years world these two volumes are eminently success­ and the gradual development of a uniquely ful. Shorter than many such histories, they will American culture and new concepts of gov­ disappoint some readers in their lack of de­ ernment. They provide a panorama of the vast tails, which precludes their use as references energies awakening from the Civil War to for some facts. They omit illustrations except sweep America on into the twentieth century for maps and their use as texts may be ham­ and the age of nuclear energy and Sputnik. pered by the absence of the usual tables and Professor Kraus exhibits a gift of phrase charts found at the end of many textbooks as and an appreciation of the inspirational quali­ well as the omission of appendices providing ties of our history seldom found in general his­ lists of states admitted to the Union, Presi­ tories, recapturing the excitement of the often dents and Cabinets, Supreme Court judges or told story. He carefully avoids overly techni­ text of the Constitution. Nevertheless, it is dif­ cal matters to give a reliable picture of the ficult to think of another history of this coun­ breadth and flow of events. He devotes more try written with such flair and imagination, than the usual space to the colonial period, per­ providing a lively yet sound account of the full mitting an adequate understanding of the foun­ sweep of our development along with the mean­ dations of the new nation. His handling of the ing of recent affairs for our future. Revolution, the early years of the republic, and G. M. WALLER the coming of the Civil War is abreast of cur­ Butler University rent scholarship and offers the generally ac­ cepted interpretations. He provides, in addi­ tion, a remarkable survey of developments in Erastus Corning, Merchant and Financier, the arts and sciences in pre-Civil War America. 1794^1872. By IRENE D. NEU. (Cornell Uni­ Although not as inspirational as the account versity Press, Ithaca, 1960. Pp. 212. $4.00.) by Kraus, the volume by Professor Dulles ex­ hibits admirable clarity and good sense as well This is not a definitive biography, but rather as careful organization, often missing in treat­ a survey of the principal economic activities ments of the second half of American history; of the nineteenth-century Albany, New York, and in its latter half it conveys the excitement businessman and politician who became the of nearly contemporaneous events. Mr. Dulles first president of the New York Central Rail­ subscribes to the usual custom of emphasizing road. It is documented profusely and presents the dominance of features other than political an ample bibliography and a full index. The in late nineteenth-century American life, de­ author is thoroughly versed in the economic laying a systematic treatment of politics until history of the United States in the last century chapter 8, while he discusses the West, the rise and has explored the available sources in a of industry, monopoly, and finance capitalism, most competent manner. The book is narrow changes in agriculture and labor, and the so­ in conception and coverage, it dwells not at all cial and cultural scene. He provides an excel­ upon Erastus Coming's political career and lent chapter on the westward movement in eliminates his social life almost completely, and which he avoids reliance on the Turner hy­ thus represents really commendable specialized pothesis. His treatment of Reconstruction is a spadework rather than exhaustive biography. model of careful organization. Corning the person is a very flat image in In the controversial aspects of the period he the work. Almost equafly faint are the times treats, Mr. Dulles is specific and concrete. His and the places in which he lived and where he interpretation is evident and follows the lib­ labored to build personal fortune, prestige, and eral tradition of most historians of recent power. What he did as a merchant, manufac­ American history, but he avoids the trite labels turer, and financier is surveyed well, the why often attached to persons, events, or periods. and where are sketched in lightly. Part of the He manages to dispense with the details of reason for this is the unavailability of records. many acts, treaties, tariffs, and court decisions Extant outgoing correspondence was difficult which in their bewildering varietv now serve lo find and evidently some pertinent records, little pur])ose but to confuse and dull ihe reader such as those of the "^ew York Central Rail­ and clog the narrative. He offers an abundance road, were not available or do not exist. Read­ of apt quotations from contemporary songs, ers who have worked in the field of earlier

220 READERS CHOICE business history will sense that the author has steadily in his commercial ventures. He rose made much of limited sources, but all will wish from hardware store clerk to tycoon in a few that there had been more whole cloth with short years. He surely must have been pointed which to work. out to the young as inspiration and example. The limitations of source materials and the No one has cafled him a robber baron, and restricted scope of the book are noted in the there is no evidence in this new book to indi­ author's preface. She does not pretend to have cate that he was anything but forcsighted, dealt with all phases of Coming's long and clever, and careful. active life. Still, it is unlovely to present a man More often than not. Corning was the an­ out of context and perhaps the natures of his swer to a shareholder's prayer. Still he was not close family relationships and some community without his failures, most notably in his Mount attitudes toward him—especially toward the Savage iron works venture, but even that stringent labor policies of some of his compa­ brought profits for a time. His judgment was nies—might have been explored with profit to not infallible. His apathy about getting control the reader. It seems unfortunate, too, that of the Hudson River Railroad opened the way Coming's own political attitudes had to be neg­ for Commodore Vanderbilt's supremacy over lected in the book for they must have been the New York Central Railroad. Yet, judged part and parcel of his economic activities. That by the standards of any century. Corning was he was a Democrat, well-connected with the a success, a builder of the nation, and a finan­ Albany Regency, and that he held mixed views cial giant. Although Professor Neu's evidence on the tariff are made plain. It would be in­ does not make Corning as colorful a figure as teresting to know what this empire builder many of his contemporary financiers were, the thought of the Mexican War, the influx of Irish author has performed the services of defining and German immigrants, popular sovereignty, his stature and explaining its bases. The book or Congressional Reconstruction. Perhaps this is a definite contribution to our knowledge of side of Corning can be the subject of future a neglected figure in American economic his­ essays if more source materials are uncovered. tory and the interest in it should not be con­ One might quarrel with the author's habit fined to students of New York State history. of placing in the footnotes information that is As an example of the many-sided nineteenth essential to her main story. Nevertheless, one century American businessman, Erastus Corn­ must be grateful for her extensive documenta­ ing is worth the consideration of scholar.* tion. To build up the store of documented re­ everywhere. search in New York State history is a necessary GLENN E. THOMPSON undertaking. This is especiafly true in the field State Historical of local history. The author had to rely on some Society of Wisconsin nineteenth-century histories of persons and places, histories that are sparsely documented and savor of the anecdote and the reminis­ Vicksburg: A People at War, 1860-1865. By cence, but she stands clear of the charge of PETER F. WALKER. (The University of North reperpetrating such history. She has produced Carolina Press, Chapel Hifl, 1960. Pp. xvi, a work that is solid within its limitations. 235. $5.00.) The iron manufacturing and marketing ca­ reers and the railroad banking, and land in­ "The story of a city and a people besieged terests of Erastus Corning are surveyed in the has fascinated man since Homer told his stor­ book. Coming was not at all provincial in his ies," Peter F. Walker notes in his introduc­ financial interests. His investments ranged tion. In Vicksburg: A People at War, he pre­ from New York to Maryland and out to sents the story of the only American city ever Michigan and Wisconsin. His talents for man­ to be completely—and violently—besieged. agement, promotion, and organization were The siege of Vicksburg, however, occupies formidable. His skill at obtaining and keeping only approximately one-third of the book, the the proxy votes of shareholders in his compa­ major part of which is concerned with the ac­ nies was noteworthy. He might have been tions of a fairly typical people in a fairly typi­ called a manipulator, but he stood for sound, cal city in the Southern Confederacy during dividend-paying business through eras of debt the Civil War. This section is the rather ordi­ defaulting, securities speculation, frenzied nary, and often dull, account of the struggle by business expansion, and recurrent panics. the citizens of Vicksburg against secession, Corning smacks of the Horatio Alger hero. their hesitant movement toward war, and fi­ Partly crippled but honest, he forged ahead nally the War itself as seen from the home

221 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 front. With minor changes the same words medical profession as a study of the history of could have been written about the citizens of a social institution. "The state of Medical any Southern city of 5,000 or so population. Science is only one of the elements of the in­ The siege itself—seen almost entirely from quiry; for the problem is—given a certain the civilian point of view—is exciting, vibrant, quality of science, how has that science been and of course the raison d'etre of the book. brought into contact with people, by what For over a month Vicksburg was cut off com­ classes of persons, by what institutions, and pletely from the outside world. As a result her with what effect?" The entire third chapter inhabitants printed their newspapers on wafl- and part of the fourth are concerned with pub­ paper, ate mule meat, and during the almost lic health. Far from merely chronicling im­ constant shellings, lived in caves. Generally, portant events, the writer is careful to set them they took everything Grant threw at them and in proper perspective. Thus he links the ten­ kept their spirits high; many citizens protested dency to sentimentalize illness which prevailed when Pemberton finally surrendered. in the first part of the nineteenth century to the Inevitably one draws comparisons with the same romanticism dominant in the literature devastated cities of the Second World War. and art of the period. By this standard, the siege of Vicksburg was Shryock takes issue with the view that the an extended Fourth of July celebration. Prob­ medical profession in America deteriorated ably not more than five civilians died as a re­ during the period 1820-1860. He presents an sult of the bombardment; the greatest damage impressive list of accomplishments which took suffered by the city itself came as a result of place both here and abroad, such as the ap­ a fire in the business district set by residents pearance of "something like systematic medi­ incensed at the local merchants' speculation. cal research" coming out of the Paris schools, Still one Vicksburg citizen felt—correctly— the introduction of such useful instruments as that "No men in the world have ever been the stethoscope and clinical thermometer, the called upon to endure so heavy a fire . . ." The increase in number of medical publications, progress of the Twentieth Century was yet to the introduction of anesthesia, and advances in come. chemistry resulting in the production of qui­ Professor Walker's work is a contribution, nine. He points out that the dentists of this if not an outstanding one, to the literature of country had by the 1840's surpassed the Eu­ the Civil War. The writing is marred by exces­ ropeans in several important areas and had sive generalizations and unsuccessful attempts reversed for the first time "the usual direction to dramatize. The scholarship is excellent. of cultural exchange" between Europe and JUDITH 0. AMBROSE America. What made the situation appear dis­ New Orleans tressing was that the "regular" physicians had learned that they really could do very little against most types of illness. Not satisfied with this approach, they turned to tradition. This Medicine and Society in America: 1660-1860. explains, according to Shryock, why they were By RICHARD HARRISON SHRYOCK. (New York still bleeding and purging in the 1840's and University Press. New York, 1960. Pp. vii, 1850's and why such "sects" as botanies and 181. $4.00.) Homeopaths sprang up in reaction. Though he chose 1860 as the terminal date In 1959 Professor Shryock delivered the for this study Shryock often touches on prob­ Anson G. Phelps Lectures at New York Uni­ lems of present-day concern. Some examples versity. Four in all, the lectures constitute this are: the "prepayment scheme" by which some volume and give a concise interpretation of planters and families even in colonial times medical developments in America prior to secured a form of medical insurance by paying 1860. They are entitled: "Origins of a Medi­ a physician an annual fee covering all his serv­ cal Profession"; "Medical Thought and Prac­ ices; the concept of medical ethics of the early tice: 1660-1820"; "Health and Disease: 1660- 1800's, "which seems to have been forgotten 1820"; and "Medicine and Society in Transi­ in present professional attitudes toward mal­ tion, 1820-1860." practice suits" which justified "criticism of .Shryock draws bolh upon primary sources one physician's praclice by anolher in cases and upon the S|)ecializcd sliidies which have involving ignorance or neglect"; ihe ]iroblem appeared in increasing volume in recent years. of whether laymen or re[)resenlatives of the In the opening quotation of the first chapter medical profession should control hospitals and he defines his approach to the history of the medical schools; and the social and educational

222 READERS CHOICE gap between doctor and patient as a factor in suffered an end not uncommon to enterprisers, establishing a good therapeutic relationship. dying in debtors' prison after his last great .Shryock's book deserves lo be read by mem­ projects-seeking the governorship of Massa- bers of the medical profession, by historians, chusclls falh'd. and by laymen. It is well written, can-fully As the subject of a biograjdiy. Vetch lacks documented, and docs not fail to hold the source material for significant periods of his reader's interest. Since each of the tour essays life. This is evident in several chapters where can be read as a unit, the volume is suitable he hardly appears at afl. Waller has met this reading for busy people in spare hours. Medi­ difficulty by discussing the events of the day cine and Society in America is a landmark in and the politics of both England and America its field, and this reviewer hopes it will stimu­ as they must have affected his hero. The re­ late interest in an area which deserves more sult is not weak biography, but an exceflent attention. historical study based upon the life of an im­ PETER T. HARSTAD portant and interesting man. This reviewer University of Wisconsin believes that in Samuel Vetch the reader may learn about Colonial America from 1700 to 1730 with less pain than from afl the other excellent, but impersonal, studies of the period. Samuel Vetch, Colonial Enterpriser. By G. M. WALLER. (University of North Carolina Press NEIL R. STOUT University of Wisconsin for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Chapel Hfll, 1960. Pp. x, 310. $6.00.) The Federalist Era, 1789-1801. By JOHN C. MILLER. (Harper and Brothers, New York, Samuel Vetch was more than a soldier, more 1960. Pp. XV, 304. Illustrations, map, bibliog­ than a merchant, more than a politician. He raphy. $5.00.) was one of that special breed of Colonial Amer­ icans that Professor Wafler has aptly named "enterpriser." By serving their own ends, they helped build the British empire. Vetch's life The Federalist: A Classic on Federalism and would be worthy of study for his role in the Free Government. By GOTTFRIED DIETZE. colonial expeditions against Canada in the (The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1960. early 1700's alone, but Waller has recognized Pp. ix, 378. Bibliography. $6.50.) that Vetch is fully as important as a representa­ tive of the enterpriser type. He could serve the John C. Miller's The Federalist Era of the empire while flouting its regulations, press a New American Nation Series, like John war against the French while profiting by Spencer Bassett's The Federalist System of the trade with them, and co-operate with Whig or old, is an outstandingly successful attempt to Tory, Mather or Dudley, whichever suited his synthesize present knowledge in the field. Both plans. Those who have read Baxter's House of books are primarily political and diplomatic Hancock or Pares' West India Fortune wifl history, and neither author is at a loss to find recognize the type. significant trends of development between Vetch's life was fifled with intrigue. His 1789 and 1801. In fact, they find the same father was a rebel Scottish clergyman with a three developments to be the all-important ones. price placed on his head by the Stuart mon- Bassett emphasizes the successful working of archs. Samuel himself was first a soldier of the national government under the new Con­ fortune in the Netherlands before becoming a stitution. Miller presses the same point and prime mover in an ill-fated and illegal Scottish even harder. In the fifty years between Bas­ venture to colonize Central America. Coming sett and Miller there was a tendency to down­ to New York after the expedition failed. Vetch grade this achievement of Washington, Hamil­ married into the powerful Livingston family ton, and their supporters, but the importance and soon embroiled himself in colonial politics of building up a strong operative government and trade. His plans for the reduction of Can­ is not now ignored by anyone: Leonard D. ada were frustrated more by the lethargy of the White's work in administrative history has British government than by his own short­ seen to that. Miller's judgment is forthright— comings. He was rewarded for his successful the Federalists "did what was needed to pro­ assault on Port Royal by being made governor mote the growth, prosperity, and cohesion of of the conquered province. Nevertheless, he the United States."

223 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Both Bassett and Miller point up the signifi­ respects to Charles A. Beard, but ignores cance of an opposition, the Jeffersonian Re­ Claude Bowers. The New American Nation publicans, organized on the platform of popu­ .Series belongs to the Age of Research. lar government. Mifler, bulwarked by Irving The index is inadequate, but, as in the other Brant's biography, lays more stress on Madi­ volumes in the series, the bibliography is both son as the organizer and policy maker who ample and annotated. A glance at the sections gave the Federalists good cause to lament his labelled "Coflected Works" and "Biographies" defection from their ranks. While the business indicates the need for modern editions of many and professional-minded Federalists reasoned of these collected works and for up-to-date that "men could not live by liberty alone," biographies for many figures of the second Madison, Jefferson, and their party of "south­ rank. Mr. Miller shows us where we are now. ern grandees" countered that skilled govern­ There is much still to be done. ment alone was not enough either; the people Gottfried Dietze, author of The Federalist: must be protected in their liberties. The A Classic on Federalism and Free Government, fight became bitter, and it was a question is one of those who argue that if the confusions which party, in its efforts to gain partisan ad­ of modern America are ever to be straightened vantage, "gave the lowest blows." out, our best hope is to apply to them the wis­ Finally, Miller as well as Bassett calls atten­ dom of 1787. The essence of that wisdom, Mr. tion to the steady adherence of Presidents Dietze finds, lies in the Federalists' advocacy Washington and Adams to a policy of neu­ of decentralized government and judicial re­ trality at a time when we were threatened with view to protect individual freedom. In mak­ serious foreign complications. To paraphrase ing his point, Mr. Dietze's systematic analysis one of Miller's statements, seldom have peace­ of the origins, nature, and influence of the makers been more blessed. Avoiding war was Federalist is valuable history; his outspoken not always easy. Miller, using Bradford Per­ dislike of modern centralized government and kins' recent studies to advantage, is particu­ majority rule is a matter of opinion. larly effective in describing the touch-and-go LEE NATHANIEL NEWCOMER situation with regard to Jay's Treaty, its rati­ fication and implementation. Wisconsin State College-Oshkosh As an imaginative historian developing his themes of union, liberty, and neutralism. Mil­ ler offers candid shots of many self-assured, strong-minded personalities: Hamilton, "a Searching for Your Ancestors: the How and 'damned sharp' young man"; John Jay, in Why of Genealogy. By GILBERT H. DOANE. many ways "the quintessence of Federalism: (3rd ed.. University of Minnesota Press, Min­ high-minded, public-spirited, devoted to the neapolis, 1960. Pp. xvii, 198. $3.95.) cause of Union, and a paragon of integrity"— but an aristocrat; and Jefferson, to whom "the The shelf of how-to books in the field of industrialization of the United States was com­ genealogical research includes many of special parable to the exodus from Paradise." Above use and importance. Of them all, only one or all stood a personage who could not be bent to two have had a continuing popularity and only any man's wifl, Washington. He " 'consulted one has proved to be of such enduring worth much, resolved slowly, resolved surely' "—and as to have attained its third edition, a tribute "made it a point to serve only American-made to the permanent value of Dr. Doane's Search­ beer and cheese." ing for Your Ancestors. It remains as perhaps Mr. Miller has written before on this era, a the most readable how-to book ever written in biography of Hamilton which also develops the its field. Not only has it value to the advanced union theme and a study of the Alien and scholar at a loss for a fresh approach, but also Sedition Acts. He knows a great deal about the to the complete novice feeling his way in a new, period and has thought about what he knows. unfamiliar, and personally exciting study. It is Into his text he has worked not only older ma­ the work which almost automatically comes to terial available to Bassett and the much later mind when the librarian or consultant is asked research of White, Brant, and Perkins, but also to recommend a basic handbook on genealogy. many more of the newer studies. Most useful to For its third appearance the book has been him are Bray Hammond on banking and poli­ rewritten in part, with the aim of correcting a tics. Manning J. Dauer on the Adams Federal­ very few errors and in order to modernize the ists, and Noble E. Cunningham—not Joseph approach. These textual revisions add some Charles—on the Republicans. Miller pays his new material, and at the same time change and

224 READERS CHOICE correct emphases and modify previous judge­ This is not the TV settler as he never was, but ments. A wholly new chapter, "Getting Ready the ordinary man who wanted a home in the to Cross the Atlantic," has been added as a 1780-1800 period. help to the researcher who has traced back to The author destroys the myth of the pio­ the immigrant ancestor and now wishes to tie neer's ingenuity and inventiveness. In fact, up to overseas family connections. Additions lazy Virginia and Carolina settlers imported to the bibliographies and appendices (which goods from England rather than make them together constitute a catalog of those sources for themselves. Established in their little bit of without which the practising genealogist could Britain, the wealthy sent their sons to England not operate) are selective and reflect the in­ to be educated. Farmers shipped their tobacco formed choice of a scholar and Fellow of the in exchange for goods and never saw any cash. Society of Genealogists. The index to the work Though the new land supplied flax, hemp, enhances its value as a ready-reference hand­ sheep, and furs, clothes were still made abroad. book. There was plenty of wood, but woodenware, EDWIN W. TOMLINSON chairs, cart wheels, bowls, and birchen brooms were still imported by coastal dwellers in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1700's. Nor was the white American superior to the Indian from whom he had to learn nearly everything. Needing better rifles, hunting Seedtime on the Cumberland. By HARRIET S. horses and dogs, he finally learned how to kill ARNOW. (Macmillan Company, New \oxk, meat, build log houses, make bark canoes, 1960. Pp. xviii, 449. Maps, explanation of moccasins, temporary rafts, and take care of bibliographical references. .$7.50.) any emergency that arose. Nor were the In­ dians the only scalpers. Quite the reverse. Draper on the Cumberland, this book might Wild highlanders scalped and were more cruel. also have been called, as the footnotes referent Nor were the settlers poor with little to eat. to the Lyman Draper Manuscripts in the State Though wild game had been hunted out on the Historical Society of Wisconsin make a mighty Cumberland before 1797, there were plenty of pile. Indeed they should, for Kentucky and domesticated animals. All-important corn sup­ Tennessee were a large part of Draper's collect­ plied horse fodder, fattened hogs, fed people. ing bailiwick and accounts of settlers there To the end of the Revolution historians and must depend on him. And the author speaks of travelers in southern colonies found no pov­ her "heavy use" of his material. erty, nothing of a "low class." For settlers on It will probably be a shock for some Wis­ the Cumberland were unlike the Pilgrims of consin readers to meet Nicolct landing on their New England who had neither rifle, nor log soil and discovering the headwaters of the Mis­ house, nor one good horse among them. sissippi in 1639. Mrs. Arnow's fanatic source- Nor were they able woodsmen. "There are checking centers on the Cumberland. Even bloodcurdling accounts of men and boys, such documents as the Mayflower Compact are grown up on the border, who unfitted for lone­ ignored as she states that the Watauga Associa­ liness among the trees, got lost and so lost their tion of 1772 was the first attempt at self-gov­ reason." It took generations of living in the ernment in America. But though Kentucky woods for the white American to learn his way and Tennessee are all her world, there she is about. Nor was Daniel Boone a good marks­ completely at home. She may see history small, man. "Practicafly all hunters had more luck but in a dazzling miniature. And the micro­ than Boone, but Boone talked his way into im­ cosm does not diminish the stature of the book mortality. Men believed him." —probably the most exciting ever written Nor have we a native culture. Everything about the pioneers. came to this country with someone or was Throughout the book is the author's quiet found here. The author states, "I have never but persistent philosophy that there was no found anything—food or custom—that f could such thing as the pioneer mind. These folk . . . say was purely white American." were called pioneers only by later men, who, Nor was Indian Summer to the setder a time unable to see them with pioneer eyes, judged of glory. Ill the 1750's women "learned lo fear long after, by their own latter-day standards. the calm and beautiful weather that came after Mrs. Arnow demolishes boringly repeated frost . . . but before the deep snows of winter, legends of the American settlers, one after the the last weather suitable for long journeys; it Other, page after page, sometimes ad tedium. was then the Shawnee came for gcalpg and

225 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 horses, and so the frontier settler called the sea­ both published and in manuscript. \et not son Indian Summer." So many settlers were until this volume by David Donald, professor killed by Indians their first year or two on the of history at Princeton, has there been a first border that when someone's death was reported rate biography of Sumner. people asked, "How did he get killed?" In the present volume, which covers the period And these are only a few of the negations— from Sumner's birth in 1811 to 1861, the em­ applicable in particular to the settlers of the phasis is on Sumner's development, rather Cumberland. than on the historical milieu in which he lived. Through details in wills and inventories we Hence, new interpretations are primarily of learn what pioneers cherished enough to carry Sumner, not of the period. And there are many with them, or what they devised when they got new interpretations—new both in techniques there. (No conclusions, of course, can be drawn of analysis and in content. Professor Donald about the possessions of pioneers killed intes­ explains Sumner's social and political posi­ tate.) For home was the center of the pio­ tions and actions in terms of his psychological neer's world and it is there that the author background and development. For example, shines. There are ear-teasing sounds, "the for­ throughout the book run themes of Sumner's ever ringing axes, . . . ring of blacksmith ham­ constant search for a father figure; implicit mer, meat frying, whir of spinning wheel, suggestions of Sumner's being a latent homo­ thumpety bang of a loom, whispering scratch sexual; and the psychic basis of his becoming of flax or hemp running through the hackle, a reformer. and through and over and under everything This last may serve as an example of method the sound of the human voice." and technique. After a brilliant career at Har­ In spite of six maps of the Cumberland and vard Law School in the early 1830's, and a Tennessee River valleys, it is difficult for the triumphal two-year tour of Europe at the end reader to orient himself immediately. Places of the decade, Sumner returned to Boston. are hard to locate on the maps as the type face Although his family background was undis­ is similar for towns, rivers, creeks, and licks. tinguished, his career thus far gave him entree The author's affinity with the past, her Ken­ into the best of Boston society. But Sumner be­ tucky childhood, her success in seeing with pio­ came overwhelmed by loneliness, insecurity, neer eyes, her poetic love for the Cumberland, self-pity, and oversensitivity. This malaise was as well as her fine scholarship, give a remark­ not the result of external factors, such as finan­ able picture. There are some involved sen­ cial worry, not being offered a chair at Har­ tences, but most is fine writing. There are some vard, or lack of success as a lawyer. Donald broad historical facts jumbled, but this living, probes deeper, suggesting that Sumner's un­ pulsing story is well documented. Wisconsin successful search for a father figure forced him historians might look again to Draper and a to stand alone, until he sought a cure for psy­ book like this to recreate what actually hap­ chic maladies in social reform, soon finding a pened in their own state. "fresh sense of power and a new feeling of DORIS H. PLATT belonging." Occasionally, as in his statement that Sumner gained a "sense of security, of State Historical Society of Wisconsin belonging to a group with a mission" from his association with the "Young Whigs," Donald applies almost mechanically the formulas of Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil social science popularizers. But these instances War. By DAVID DONALD. (Alfred A. Knopf, are few, and his own analyses show greater in­ New York, 1960. Pp. xxii, 392. Iflustrated, sight into the relationship between character notes, bibliography, index. $7.50.) and society. (Why is it that even the best his­ torians, when they use sociology and social Charles Sumner played a crucial role in the psychology, tend to borrow rather than to inte­ drama of sectional conflict, symbolizing abso­ grate—to use the disciplines as categories of lute moral righteousness to many in the North, synthesis rather than tools of analysis?) Sum­ and becoming "perhaps the most perfect im­ ner emerges as humorless, oversensitive to him­ personation of what the South wanted to se­ self and insensitive to others, child-like, un­ cede from." During his life this New England original in thought, a puritan in politics with reformer in politics suffered violent attacks, a martyr complex; but withal, a man of vital both verbal and physical, and received ardent impact for the good or evil of his society. praises of defenders. He left a vast body of The book is written with grace and clarity, letters, speeches, and other literary sources, and in many instances, such as Sumner's tour

226 READERS CHOICE of Europe, with real literary distinction. Pro­ fn preparing this bulletin the author must fessor Donald has set a high standard for him­ have faced many times the problem of how self: he will have done a genuine service lo much or how little technical information lo in­ historical scholarship and letters if ihe sinond clude. The Guide, for example, will not tell ihe volume maintains the level reached in this one. novice curator where to obtain the suitable ERNEST ISAACS storage boxes or the acid-free folders recom­ University of Wisconsin mended on pages 354 and 368. Instead, the exceflent selective and annotated bibliography should lead the new manuscripts librarian to A Guide to the Care and Administration of deeper study, as well as provide the more ex­ Manuscripts. By LUCILLE M. KANE. (Bulletins perienced curator with a convenient reference of the American Association for State and Lo­ tool. This attractive manual should be given an cal History, Volume II, Number 11, Madison, enthusiastic welcome and a thoughtful perusal Wisconsin, 1960. Pp. 64. Paper, $1.25.) by everyone responsible for the preservation of American manuscript resources. Approximately a quarter-century has elapsed JOSEPHINE L. HARPER since the appearance of any general manual on State Historical Society of Wisconsin manuscript care. During this interval an in­ creasing number of libraries and historical agencies have entered the field of manuscript collecting, the number of searchers desiring collections for study has multiplied, twentieth- David Lloyd, Colonial Lawmaker. By ROY N. century collections have proved much more LOKKEN. (University of Washington Press, massive than those of past eras, and new tech­ Seattle, 1959. Pp. 305. $5.00.) nical devices and processes to aid in preserva­ tion have been developed. Although many arti­ Roy N. Lokken has joined the assault on the cles on individual topics and problems have "dark ages" of American history. Too long, appeared in the American Archivist and li­ he obviously believes, have historians concen­ brary journals, there has been a growing need trated on the planting and early years of the for a new introductory manual which would colonies and the revolutionary generation. Mr. synthesize current thought on manuscript proc­ Lokken is more interested in the middle period essing. To fill this gap in professional litera­ of colonial development, when colonists experi­ ture, this Guide to the Care and Administra­ mented with politics and government and took tion of Manuscripts has been clearly and several steps toward that political maturity concisely written by Lucile M. Kane, talented which later made independence possible. administrator of the Minnesota Historical So­ The scene is Pennsylvania and the particu­ ciety's manuscript collections. lar colonist is David Lloyd, an "aggressive In six chapters Miss Kane has discussed, Welshman" and lawyer, who came to the colo­ with appropriate examples, the principles and nies in 1686 as William Penn's attorney gen­ techniques needed in the preparation of manu­ eral. But Lloyd quickly identified himself with script collections for research use: establishing the strong Quaker faction, and through a num­ control through accessioning and preliminary ber of appointive and elective posts, chiefly examination; methods of organizing and ar­ Assemblyman, Speaker of the House, and Chief ranging manuscripts; the physical process of Justice of the Supreme Court, he challenged sorting papers; the difficult responsibility of the proprietor's prerogatives right down the evaluating manuscripts for preservation or re­ line. Although Penn's proprietary powers were jection; methods of restoration, repair, and never as great as those of Lord Baltimore and storage; and classification and cataloging. A the Carolina group, much of the authority flexible choice of procedures has been de­ written into his charter of 1681 was whittled scribed, for the author has balanced what is away by the political and lawmaking genius of ideal against what may be feasible or practical. David Lloyd. By the early years of the eight­ Several of the pictorial iflustrations show ideal eenth century the colony had a unicameral equipment—cleaning apparatus, laminator, legislature, the judicial system was in the and fumigation tanks—beyond the financial hands of Pennsylvanians, and the Assembly resources of most repositories; one, however, enjoyed most of the rights and privileges of the depicts a very useful pigeon-hole sorter, which House of Commons. Lloyd's great disappoint­ can be built inexpensively by amateur carpen­ ment was his failure to relieve Penn of his ters in any smafl library. proprietary rights over Pennsylvania lands.

227 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Lloyd opposed not only proprietary rule but of George Keith, the Christian Quaker, and any interference with the self-governing inter­ the impeachment of James Logan offered the ests of the Quaker oligarchy. When Penn lost author two dramatic evenis which might lia\(' his colony to the crown between 1692 and lent considerable color to Lloyd's activities, 1694, Lloyd obstructed Governor Benjamin but he describes the first in half a page and the Fletcher in the same way he had the proprie­ second seems almost to have occurred through tor's appointees. Nor was he any more co­ the mails. Mr. Lokken's book should be read operative with Edward Randolph, Surveyor along with Frederick B. Tolles's more vivid General of the Customs, and Robert Quary, and better-written James Logan and the Cid- Judge of the Admiralty Court, who tried to ture of Provincial America, for each describes enforce the Navigation Acts in Pennsylvania. substantially the same period from a different Adept use of the power of the purse enabled point of view. Surprisingly, Tolles's book is Lloyd and the Assembly to work closely and on not listed in Lokken's bibliography. The vol­ friendly terms with Governors Sir William ume is a handsome job of photo reproduction Keith and Patrick Gordon. The "era of good of typescript. The margins are precise and the feelings" paid off in a series of paper money titles italicized. emissions which Lloyd and his friends believed DAVID S. LOVEJOY necessary to cure the ills of the colony's grow­ University of Wisconsin ing but erratic economy. The issue of paper money and the legality of proprietary instruc­ tions to the Governor precipitated a vigorous pamphlet controversy (1725-1726) between Edison, A Biography. By MATTHEW JOSEPH- Lloyd and Governor Keith on one side and SON. (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, James Logan, the proprietary secretary, and 1959. Pp. xii, 511. $6.95.) council on the other. The issues at stake were the essence of the Pennsylvania constitution Among the giants in American folklore are and the limits of the proprietary form of gov­ two tycoons, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. ernment; the results were clear statements of Other tycoons may have their places in Ameri­ legislative supremacy and proprietary right. can mythology, but these two have become su­ Mr. Lokken's book explains a good deal preme examples of the great national belief about politics and political leadership in early that any boy can become a miflionaire—to un­ Pennsylvania, the rise of the legislature, and numbered miflions of our people a more im­ the separation between the Quaker government portant belief than any American boy can be­ and the interests of the proprietor. But is this come President. The process by which a mortal enough? The focus is so intent on Lloyd's poli­ man becomes a semi-mythical man-god is ticking that he seems more a political machine complex, but it includes two essential factors. than a human being. Indeed attempts are made One is outstanding success in the man's chosen to sketch in other aspects of the protagonist's field of endeavor, be it banditry or invention. career, such as his successful speculation in The other is possession of the trait known as land, but these do little to round out his life. the common touch, earthiness, or whatever you Presumably Lloyd's chief interest besides poli­ choose to call that mole of complexion which tics was Quakerism, but the reader is entitled enables Everyman to identify himself with his to know specifically what his relationship was chosen ideal. Of this characteristic both Ford to the Society of Friends. Did he become a and Edison possessed a full measure. Not un­ Quaker for political reasons or was he a true naturally, the lives of both have attracted nu­ convert to the teachings of George Fox? If his merous biographers, the latest being Matthew religious beliefs were sincere (and the ques­ Josephson. tion above does not mean to imply they were A biographer usually approaches his quarry not), what was the connection between them with one of three intentions: to glorify his and his political principles, his struggle for hero, flay his villain, or present a straightfor­ legislative supremacy, his identification with ward account of a man's life. Frequently, the the people of Pennsylvania as against the pro­ latter objective may be coupled with one of prietor? the other two, and this is the case of Joseph- Mr. Lokken's writing is usuafly clear. He son. Edison, he tells us, is a "latter day Pro­ explains complicated political arguments well, metheus" who, in an age dominated by the but often abstractly, failing to tie down his an­ spirit of acquisitiveness, typified the "Spirit of alysis to actual physical events and the politi­ Workmanship." But it is not just worship of cal push-and-pull between live people. The trial Edison which brought Josephson to write this

228 READERS CHOICE book; in the thirty years since Edison's death A Bibliography of American Autobiographies. much new evidence about him has accumu­ Compiled by Louis KAPLAN in association with lated. Seeing no useful pur[iose in jireserviiig James Tyler Cook, Clinton E. Colby, Jr., Dan­ the apocrypha and false legends that have iel C. Haskell. (University of Wisconsin Press, grown up around Edison's memory, Josephson Madison, 1961. Pp. xii, 372. $6.00.) has set out to remove the "veils of myth," but to leave Edison's "true stature undiminished." The title of this book is a straightforward Josephson is a craftsman, but he has set statement of its scope and character. The com­ himself a task that demands more than crafts­ pilers have described for us, within the terms manship. To write such a biography as he pro­ of their definition, all the autobiographies writ­ poses cafls for great artistry, and a deep ten by Americans up to 1945. They have ex­ understanding of the spiritual subtleties within cluded works properly defined as journals or the subject. These qualities are not apparent, collections of letters, accounts of only an epi­ and the book lacks the powerful sweep of Allan sodic character, and those in which the auto­ Nevins' biography of Ford or the majestic biographical element is slight or only inciden­ grace of Catherine Bowen's Yankee from tal. They have not imposed any limitations of Olympus. length or weight, gathering in everything from As a result of relying solely on his crafts­ the massive multivolume memoirs to the mere manship Josephson has given us a two-sided pamphlet of twelve or fourteen pages, from the portrait of his subject. Edison the inventor, classic Education of Henry Adams to the Rem­ passionately devoted to his work, and Edison iniscences of George Throckmorton, a Kansas the businessman, a tycoon in spite of himself, youth of the 1870's who will probably never are clearly developed images. The third dimen­ be mentioned again. sion of Edison is blurred and distorted. Edison There are many surprising things about this as a man never quite comes through, although compilation. At least I was astonished that there are brief glimpses—as in the incident of never before had there been a serious attempt the trick cigars—of the person behind the veils to construct a bibliography of all the auto­ of fact. Unfortunately, for this illumination biographies written by Americans; it seems of spirit we must still go to the apocrypha and such an obvious project. I was equally as­ false legends. It is unfortunate, because this tounded that the thorough searching which is a good book. It is a vast collection of facts went into this, covering years of time and nu­ about the life and work of Edison. (How many merous foundation grants, could produce a persons, for example, know that he invented total of only 6,377 entries. I would never have that indispensable weapon of modern bureauc­ believed before that among the millions of lit­ racies, the Mimeograph?) Nor has Josephson erate and not-so literate Americans so few had let admiration for his hero blind himself to yielded to the urge for self-perpetuation Edison's shortcomings, although some of them through autobiographical writing. are qualified by rationalization. For those An analysis of the types of persons who did whose interest in business history and biog­ yield—as revealed in the index to this bibliog­ raphy is less than scholarly this is an excellent raphy—might make a very interesting study work. The story of Edison and his works is in social psychology. It is at least suggestive fully told, unobscured by pedantic minutiae. that one-seventh of the total, nearly 1,000, were His early life is given a much fuller treatment written by clergymen. To mention a few of the than in any other biography, and, oddly, it is other groups; 163 are identified as criminals, in this part of the book that we get the clearest 140 as college professors, 79 as adventurers view of the Edison personality. To repeat, it is and vagabonds. But there was only one chef, a good biography. With a clearer view of the one fireman, and one genealogist. spirit of Edison it would have been a great one. Without meaning to detract one iota from the praise due the compilation by reason of its JOHN C. COLSON thoroughness and textual excellence, it should University of Chicago be pointed out that the real glory of the work is its index. It is this which transforms the naked list into a thoroughly usable research tool. Through it four approaches are provided to the content of the titles described—the occu­ pation of the writer, the time period in which he lived, the region of his residence, and the important event (if any) with which he was

229 WISCONSIN IVIAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 peculiarly associated. Researchers being what York during the French war and the 2,000 they are may want more, but it is difficult to Palatine refugees sent to the colony in 1710. conceive of any impro\(>nicnt for which ihcy J'his victualling system perfectly illustrates could ask with real justification. the corruption and inefficiency of imperial ad­ Considering the prime importance of auto­ ministration at the time. Livingston sought biographical writings as historical source ma­ personal profit by underfeeding the soldiers terial, this bibliography wifl be of great as­ and Palatines, "never disbursing six pence, sistance for many years to scholars in many but with the expectation of twelve pence," as fields. No research library can afford to be Governor Fletcher commented. But he was without it, and better public libraries will find constantly frustrated by the even greater ava­ it indispensable. rice of Fletcher and the other royal governors, and by the petty factionalism of the colony BENTON H. WILCOX councilors, who refused to honor his victual­ State Historical Society of Wisconsin ling claims. When Livingston appealed to the Board of Trade, he found that the home gov­ ernment's neglect of the soldiers and Palatines Robert Livingston, 1654^1728, and the Poli­ was equally irresponsible. Livingston was in­ tics of Colonial New York. By LAWRENCE H. defatigable: after thirty years of continuous LEDER. (University of North Carolina Press petitioning and two trips to England, he ex­ for The Institute of Early American History tracted more than £20,000 in payment for his and Culture, Chapel Hill, 1961. Pp. xii. 306. services, secured an Assembly seat for Living­ $6.00.) ston Manor, and closed his career as Speaker of the New York Assembly, 1718-1725. None of the thirteen colonies has been so Mr. Leder's research in the Livingston pa­ poorly served by historians as New York. pers has been very thorough, with fruitful use Many problems in the colony's history are in- of hitherto unread Dutch manuscripts. His sufl'iciently explored; the effect of the transfer assessment of Livingston's achievements and from Dutch to English control, the deep-seated limitations is fair. One may question, however, passion accompanying Leisler's rebellion and whether his method of narrative biography its long factional aftermath, the colony's slow is suitable for his subject. Neither Living­ economic development, her pervading lack of ston's personality nor his adventures are intrin­ political and intellectual leadership, her aston­ sically interesting, and the man was a relatively ishingly negative role throughout the revolu­ minor statesman, with a council seat for only tionary era. Mr. Leder's book, winner of the four years and a voice in policy-making only first Annual Manuscript Award of the Insti­ in his old age. Had Mr. Leder analyzed Liv­ tute of Early American History and Culture, ingston's career as a case study in colonial necessarily deals with most of these problems. business politics, he could have divided his Through the career of Robert Livingston, book into topical chapters, systematically dis­ founder of the famous eighteenth-century dy­ cussing Livingston's role as victualler, land nasty, Mr. Leder seeks to explain New York speculator, secretary for Indian affairs, and politics, 1675-1725. Livingston's "role in public office holder. The book as it stands is bridging the transformation of New York overly long, discursive, repetitious, and stylis­ from a ducal proprietary into a royal province tically clumsy. This reviewer would like more . . . helped formulate the fundamental patterns dissection of New York's political groupings, and practices which succeeding generations of family connections and rivalries, and less de­ politicians would utilize." pendence on stereotyped party labels, Whig v. The story Mr. Leder unfolds is an unpleas­ Tory and Leislerian v. Anti-Leislerian. Though ant one. Livingston himself was a grasping Mr. Leder's theme is the transformation from Scot who came penniless to Albany in 1675, ducal proprietary to royal province, he seems promptly married into the Van Rensselaer to show that the changes in New York's politi­ family, failed to grab control of the vast Manor cal patterns and practices from Andros to Bur­ of Rensselaer-wyck, but pushed his way into net were really rather slight. Despite the very the local Anglo-Dutch aristocracy and staked real merits of this book, there remains a press­ out his own 160,000-acre Livingston Manor. ing need for further analysis of the politics of When Leisler seized power in 1689, Livingston colonial New York. fled, but he returned in 1691 to take up his chief public employment—victualling the four RICHARD S. DUNN companies of English troops stationed in New University of Pennsylvania

230 READERS CHOICE

Songs of the Civil War. Compiled and edited of the Republic," a Southern camp-meeting by IRWIN SILBER. Piano and Guilar arrange­ air. It is doubtful if today many Southerners ments by JERRY SILVERMAN. (Columbia Uni­ would recognize the stirring strains of "The versity Press, New York, 1960. Pp. 385. Bonnie Blue Flag," or many Northerners the $7.50.) melody of "Afl Quiet Along the Potomac," both of which merit revival. These, and many The Civil War was no exception to the more, including marching, minstrel, campaign, axiom that a war seldom produces great and Abe Lincoln songs as wefl as a selection music. Most of the songs presented in this of interesting and little-known Negro freedom anthology—described on its dust jacket as the spirituals, are all contained in this durable and most complete coflection of Civil War Songs splendidly manufactured volume. The piano ever published—are deservedly forgotten. and guitar arrangements are melodic and Many, however, such as the haunting "When playable, well within the scope of the average This Cruel War Is Over" are poignant survi­ home musician; the brief histories ot indi­ vals of a mood and a period and as such are vidual songs are concise and informative. historically instructive. This is clearly a book for the library of the Ironically, the two most enduring tunes to serious Civil War collector and the student emerge from the conflict were on the wrong of American musical history. sides of the Mason-Dixon Line; "Dixie," a ELOISE K. BOELL Northern coon-show ditty, and "Battle Hymn Madison

BOOK REVIEWS: Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, reviewed by Doris H. Platt 225 Dietze, The Federalist: A Classic on Federalism and Free Government, reviewed by Lee Nathaniel Newcomer 223 Doane, Searching for Your Ancestors: the Hoiv and Why of Genealogy, reviewed by Edwin W. Tomlinson 224 Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, reviewed liy Ernest Isaacs.... 226 Donald, ed.. Why the North Won the Civil War, reviewed by Paul H. Hass 218 Dulles, The United States Since 1865, reviewed by G. M. Waller 219 Frost, Beloved Professor: Life and Times of William Dodge Frost, reviewed by Leslie H. Fishel, .Jr 217 Goetzman, Army Exploration in the Am-erican West, 1803-1863, reviewed by Vernon Carstensen 217 Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, reviewed by Stephen E. Ambrose 218 Josephson, Edison, A Biography, reviewed by John C. Colson 228 Kane, A Guide to the Care and Administration of Manuscripts, reviewed by Josephine L. Harper 227 Kaplan, et al., A Bibliography of American Autobiographies, reviewed by Benton H. Wilcox 229 Kraus, The United States to 1865, reviewed by G. M. Waller 219 Kuehnl, The Wisconsin Business Corporation, reviewed by Peter J. (Coleman 216 Leder, Robert Livingston, 1654—1728, and the Politics of Colonial New York, reviewed by Richard S. Dunn 230 Lokken, David Lloyd, Colonial Lawmaker, reviewed by David Lovejoy 227 Miller, The Federalist Era, 1789-1801, reviewed by Lee Nathaniel Newcomer 223 Neu, Erastus Corning, Merchant and Financier, 1794-1872, reviewed by Glenn E. Thompson 220 Shryock, Medicine and Society in America: 1600-1860, reviewed by Peter T. Harstad .. 222 Silber and Silverman, Songs of the Civil War, reviewed by Eloise K. Boell 231 Vance, Charles Richard Van Hise, Scientist Progressive, reviewed by G. C. Sellery 214 Walker, Vicksburg: A People at War, 1860-1865, reviewed by Judith O. Ambrose 221 Waller, Samuel Vetch, (Colonial Enterpriser, reviewed by Neil R. Stout 223 231 ACCESSIONS

Manuscripts Services for microfilming and photostating all but certain restricted items in its manuscripts collections are provided by the Society. For details write Dr. Josephine L. Harper, Head, Maps and Manuscripts Section. IV/f AN\' notable manuscript collections in the -'-'-'- field of Wisconsin history have been or­ ganized by the State Historical Society in re­ cent months. These include: papers, 1847- 1958, of Wifliam Martin Blanding, St. Croix Falls businessman, land speculator, and politi­ cian, presented by Pearl and Agnes Blanding, St. Croix Fafls; papers, 1836-1952, of Albert D. Bolens, Stalwart Republican newspaper edi­ tor and publisher, purchased from Douglas W. Bolens, Milwaukee; papers, 1818-1908, of Sherman Booth, journalist and abolitionist, in­ cluding correspondence and family records of his wife, Mary Corss Booth, presented by Mrs. Sherman Booth II, Chicago; correspondence, 1894-1937, research notes, 1907-1930, speeches and class notes of John R. Commons, econo­ mist, presented by the University of Wisconsin Society's Iconographic Collection Department of Economics; papers, 1865-1947, John Rogers Commons, as he appeared in 1924. of Harry E. Dankoler, curator of the Door novel. Giant, presented bv Miss Ferber, New County Museum, relating to his work as a York; papers, 1926-1949, of Joseph Otto writer and to the building of the museum at Frank, professor of chemistry and -writer of Sturgeon Bay, presented by Dewey Moore, science textbooks, State Normal School, Osh­ Sturgeon Bay; correspondence, 1916-1948, kosh, presented by Mrs. Glenn Sharratt, Madi­ minutes of meetings, and articles concerning son ; papers, 1925-1949, of William A. Free- Friends of Our Native Landscape, added to the hoff, farmer, politician, writer, presented by John S. Donald Papers, presented by Mrs. Mrs. William A. Freehoff, Waukesha; addi­ James G. Woodburn, Madison; papers, 1906- tions to the Howard Greene Papers, 1683- 1920, of Matthew S. Dudgeon, Madison attor­ 1955, including the journals of Welcome Ar­ ney and secretary of the Wisconsin Free Li­ nold Greene, history of the Milwaukee Drug brary Commission, relating to the Library Company, family letters, 1776-1955, auto­ Commission, co-operatives in Europe in 1913, graphs and genealogies, presented by Howard and personal matters, acquired through Jesse Greene, Milwaukee, and Howard T. Greene Boell, Madison; papers, 1859-1941, of William and John M. Greene, Genesee Depot; papers, Henry Dudley, University of Wisconsin libra­ 1811-1954, of the Carlisle V. Hibbard Family rian, including correspondence, 1859-1868, consisting primarily of correspondence. 1902- received by his father Bela De Loss Dudley, 1954, of Carlisle V. Hibbard, Y.M.C.A. official, with a personal narrative of the father's Civil and of his daughter, Esther L., missionary and War experiences written in 1906-1907, pre­ teacher in Japan, presented by Mr. and Mrs. sented by the William Henry Dudley estate Hibbard, Madison; diaries and an expense through Harrv Lichter, Portland, Oregon, and book, 1846-1888, of Eli Hooker, Waupun at­ Paul Vanderbilt, Madison; papers, 1888-1944, torney, presented by Trayton H. Davis, Mil­ of Herman L. Ekern, attorney, national author­ waukee; papers, 1896-1937, of Charles A. ity on insurance matters, and Progressive Re­ Kading, Congressman, including correspond­ publican politician, relating to Progressive ence, 1923-1924, of Mrs. Elizabelh Kading, party politics and campaigns, insurance prac­ president of the State Board of (Control, pre­ tices and legislation, and the Great Lakes water sented by Charles E. Kading, Watertown; diversion controversy, presented by Mr. Ekern, papers, 1949-1954, of Arthur Kaftan, Green Madison; -working papers, manuscripts, and re­ Bay attorney, consisting of correspondence and views, 1948-1957, concerning Edna Ferber's reports of water pollution committees in eon-

232 ACCESSIONS nection with the work of the Izaak Walton made by Olive J. Thomas, professor of geog­ League, presented by Mr. Kaftan, Green Bay; raphy at the University of Wisconsin, in prep­ a number of letters and manuscripts added to aration for a Ph.D thesis on the geography of the papers of Bishop Jackson Kemper by Mrs. the Green Bay area, acquired through the Loyal Durand, 1959 and 1960, and Frank W. courtesy of Frederick I. Olson, Milwaukee; Radford and Gilbert Doane, 1959; papers, papers, 1820-1927, of John Russefl Wheeler, 1833-1920, relating to the work of Joseph G. Columbus banker, presented by Fred Stare, Lawton, DePere businessman, presented by Columbus; papers, 1908-1924, of John M. C. A. Lawton, DePere; papers, 1909-1945, of Whitehead, Stalwart Republican and state sen­ Orland S. Loomis, attorney and Progressive ator, concerning state and national politics, Republican politician, relating to politics, legis­ presented by Mrs. Juliet Whitehead, Janes­ lative bflls, 1929-1933, and public utflities viUe; typewritten manuscripts, 1849-ca.l942, cases, presented by Mrs. Loomis, Mauston; of the autobiography of John M. Work, Mil­ papers, 1940-1955, of Virgil J. Muench, Green waukee socialist and editor of the Milwaukee Bay attorney, pertaining to the Green Bay Leader, presented by Mr. Work, Milwaukee. Trade Independent Association and the Izaak Walton League, presented by Mr. Muench, GENEALOGY. The Waukesha County Histori­ Green Bay; papers, 1894-1954, of Wifliam J. cal Society has donated to the Society a sub­ Patterson, commissioner of the Interstate Com­ stantial amount of genealogical materials gath­ merce Commission, dealing primarily with his ered in Waukesha County. These include: Ru­ career with the Commission, presented by Mrs. ral Home Cemetery records. Big Bend; East Wifliam J. Patterson, Washington, D. C; pa­ Pioneer Cemetery records, town of Brookfield, pers, 1845-1956, of Marvin B. Rosenberry, 1840-1936; Oak Hill Cemetery, Brookfield; chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tabernacle Cemetery records, town of Dela­ relating to his elections, civic projects in Madi­ field, 1849-1936; St. Peter and St. Paul Ro­ son, 1920-1952, and personal affairs, presented man Catholic cemetery records, church yard, by Justice Rosenberry, Madison; additions, Duplainvifle; St. Theresa's cemetery records. 1893-1951, to the papers of Edward A. Ross, Eagle, copied from tombstones; Forest Hill sociologist and political economist, consisting Cemetery records, Pewaukee; Jerusalem Cem­ of correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and etery records, town of Genese; St. Catherine's scrapbooks, presented by Professor William H. Roman Catholic Church cemetery records, Sewell, Madison; business records, 1850-1948, Mapleton, town of Oconomowoc; Melandy of three generations of doctors, Newman C. Prairie cemetery records, township of Eagle, Rowley, Antinous A. Rowley, and A. Gilbert located on the west side of Highway ZZ, Sec­ Rowley, presented by Dr. A. Gilbert Rowley, tion 7, Eagle township, copied from tombstone Middleton, and Mrs. Philip L. Keister, Free- records; Mukwonago Cemetery records, lo­ port, Iflinois; papers, 1908-1950, of Wifliam cated in the viflage of Mukwonago; Holy In­ B. Rubin, Milwaukee attorney, dealing with nocents Church cemetery, town of Merton, his work as counsel for national labor unions records copied from tombstones with addi­ and his campaigns for state office, presented tional church burial records, located on the by Mr. Rubin, Milwaukee; office records and west side of Highway C, north from Nashotah account books, 1905-1948, of John E. Shein, Station; First German Reformed Evangelical Oshkosh physician, presented by Mrs. Shein, Church cemetery records, township of New Oshkosh; papers, 1857-1948, of Horace J. Berlin, July 1860-July 1946, with plat of cem­ Smith, DePere and Green Bay attorney, con­ etery by Reverend F. Heilert; Oak Ridge cem­ sisting chiefly of family correspondence, pre­ etery records. Eagle; Ottawa Cemetery rec­ sented by Robert C. Smith, DePere; papers, ords, town of Ottawa; Richmond Cemetery 1660-1909, of Thomas Steel, Waukesha records, township of Lisbon, section 29; County physician and farmer, relating to Saylesville Cemetery records (South Wauke­ homesteading in Wisconsin and to his asso­ sha) copied from tombstones; Stone Bank ciation with the Socialist Society of Equality, cemetery records, township of Merton, section presented by Harriet Steel; papers, 1894^1936, 20; St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, of Magnus Swenson, Madison businessman Stone Bank; Sunnyside Cemetery records. and philanthropist, relating to his business in­ Highway Y Section 32, town of New Berlin, terests, his service with the American Relief 1841-1936; St. Alban's Episcopal Church cem­ Administration, 1921-1936, and his tenure as etery records, Sussex; German Evangelical regent for the University of Wisconsin, 1907— Church cemetery records, Sussex, copied from 1911; drafts, notes, and maps, 1931-1939, tombstones in cemetery; St. Paul's Evangeli-

233 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 cal Church cemetery records, Tess Corners, Museum's Arms Gallery, shows the develop­ town of Muskego; Trinity Lutheran Church ment, especially in America, of firearms as the cemetery records, town of Brookfield; Vernon tools of history. The Rosebush Collection of Cester cemetery records, 1842-1936; .Summit historical firearms currently numbers some 343 cemetery records. separately described and cataloged individual pieces. Newspapers Newspaper files on microfilm recently ac­ quired by the Library through purchase •'•*!*•* include: Charleston (S.C) Daily Courier, Jan­ uary 1, 1852-April 5, 1873; Chattanooga (Tenn.) Daily Rebel, August 9, 1862-August 30, 1863, February 23, 1864-April 27, 1865; .Salt Lake City Deseret News, November 21. 1867-December 31, 1903, January 1, 1945- December 31, 1957; Dubuque (Iowa) Herald, January 1, 1860-December 31, 1865; Galena (III.) Weekly Gazette, November 29, 1834- October 18. 1878; Lexington Kentucky Re­ porter, March 12, 1808-December 29, 1830; Natchez (Miss.) Daily Courier, January 3, 1861-October 4, 1865; New York Age (Ne­ gro), January 5-December 28, 1905, April 26, 1906-December 29, 1910. The following newspapers have been made available for microfilming through the cour­ tesy of libraries and individual collectors: Rockford (III.) Crusader (Negro), July 3, 1953-March 29, 1957, Mrs. Robert K. Richardson, Beloit; Milwaukee Domacnost (Czech), October 6, 1897-September 27, 1905, October 7, 1908-December 24, 1930, the University of Texas; Chicago Duch Casu Societ\'.s Iconogi.ipliic C'ollection (Czech), October 9, 1892-September 20, Waldo E. Rosebush. 1903, May 12, 1912-September 24, 1916. July 4, 1920-July 23, 1939, the University of Of comparable interest and importance to Texas; Milwaukee Excelsior (German), Sep­ the Society's arms collections are several dona­ tember 8, 1883-September 26, 1946, Catholic tions by Mr. Frank R. Horner, Madison, dur­ Central Verein, St. Louis, Missouri; Milwau­ ing the past year. Among the most highly kee Die Rundschau (German), August 31, prized of antique high art arms are the wheel- 1882-April 9, 1929, Milwaukee Public Li­ lock muskets and pistols of the German gun­ brary; Baltimore American & Commercial smiths and artisans of the late 16th and early Daily Advertiser, May 16, 1799-May 13, 1800, 17th centuries. Mr. Horner has presented the Micro Photo Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Society with splendid, selected examples of both the massive long wheellock gun and the Museum pistol, the latter in the form of a matched pair, HIEF among the many important larger beautifully ornamented. Also from Mr. Horner C acquisitions of the Museum to be reported is a fine small collection of air guns repre­ and acknowledged here is the Waldo E. Rose­ senting both European and American makers. bush Firearms Collection, received in 1954. A third noteworthy acquisition of firearms What appears as a rather obvious delay in came from Mr. Frank Leisen, Neenah, filling formally acknowledging this important acquisi­ gaps in the Society's series of foreign military tion was occasioned by the unusual complexity rifles. A Sharps pepperbox pistol was received of the collection and the very specialized study from Mrs. Harry Stroebe, Sr., Appleton. and attention prerequisite to its processing, in­ Through the good offices of Mr. Waldo E. ventorying, and cataloging for exhibition and Rosebush, we have received, from Mrs. Janet reporting as an accession. The Rosebush Arms Reid Kellogg, Palmetto, Florida, a fine speci­ Collection, as presented in exhibition in the men of the H. Aston I'.'S. Pistol, Model 1842,

234 01 antique Saxon -ivheellock pistols. These unique speci­ mens, 30 inches in length, bear the marks of Zacharias Herold, court gunsmith at Dresden, 1584-1628, and of the gunsmith, Hans Fleischer, also active for the Saxonian court from 1575 to about 1610. They -were probably designed and executed by these artisans for Johann Georg (March 15, 1585-October 18, 1656), Administrator of the Archdiocese of Merseburg-Dresden about 1610, and Archduke, 1611. The wheellocks bear the respective coats-of-arms of the Saxon Archduchy and the Archdiocese of Merseburg. The stocks are of hand-carved walnut, decorated with gold and engraved inlays of ivory. Gift of Mr. Frank R. Horner, Madison.

Brass medallion, three inches in diameter. This extra­ ordinary piece belonged to Stephen Nicholas, an American Indian of tbe Narraganset or Stockbridge Doll, made in 1873 by Joel Ellis of Springfield, Mas- tribes, relocated from New York State to Chilton, sat^husetts, who manufactured these rock maple dolls Wisconsin, in the 1840's. "Steve Nick," as he was pop­ only during that one year. The heads were slightly ularly known, served throughout the Civil War with carved, then steamed and jjressed in a mold. The mor- Company "D," First Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, as tise-and-tenon joints were patented, and are like no a scout and spy. Captured and threatened with execu­ others. The hands are of lead, and the wrists of the tion, he killed his guards and escaped. During his wooden lady were dipped in the little molds so that conliiicnicnt, a fellow prisoner I'asliioried this meilal- they joined perfectly. The feet are of cast iron, and lion and engraved the alert eye symbol to indicate- are fastened on by ankle pegs. Bodies were hand that "Steve Ni( k" was a scout. turned on a lathe. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon R. Wolff, Chilton. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon R. Wolff, Chilton.

235 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961 a like-new Smith & Wesson Safety Hammerless famed circus band director Mr. Merle Evans, Revolver of the 1880's in its original merchan­ Sarasota, Florida; a "banjo" type circus torch dising carton, and an original standard pack from Mr. Johnnie Marietta, Pittsburg, Kansas; of caliber .32 cartridges for the latter arm. a clown suit from Mrs. Adelia Huber, Madi­ Through the State of Wisconsin, the Society son; five circus sideshow banners, the gift of received four matched Model 1873 Winchester Mr. Claude Elder, Missoula, Montana; and Repeating Rifles bearing consecutive serial thirty tent poles donated by Mr. Marion Dillon, numbers from the Waupun State Prison. From Richland Center. Mr. Robert Van Engel, Milwaukee, we re­ Special note is made of several more dona­ ceived a most welcome addition to our coflec­ tions of considerable importance. By will from tion of Wisconsin-made firearms—the famous the estate of Henry C. Moeller, Jr., Baraboo, Lee single-shot cartridge carbine—invented the Society has received, in three huge wooden and manufactured by James Pariss Lee of chests, selected tools from the shop of the Moel­ Stevens Point and Milwaukee. Mrs. Fred R. ler Wagon Works in Baraboo. The Henry Stienecker, Plymouth, donated a cartridge shell Moellers, father and son, built parade and loading tool. utility wagons for many circuses for more than When it was announced, somewhat over a a half-century between the 1880's and the year ago, that the Ringling Bros, and Barnum 1940's. From Nebraska, the gift of Mrs. E. & Bailey Circus was planning to dispose of its G. Larson, came the venerable, octogenarian show properties long in storage at the Sara­ circus band wagon of the F. J. Taylor Circus, sota, Florida, winter quarters, prompt action transported to the Circus World Museum at by Mr. Charles Philip Fox, Director of the Baraboo through the courtesies of Mr. Wilbur Circus World Museum at Baraboo, resulted in W. Deppe, Baraboo, and Mr. Frank L. Van a rather astonishing series of acquisitions of Epps, Portage. Mr. Karl K. Knecht, Evans­ extraordinary nature. Through the direct per­ ville, Indiana, newspaper cartoonist emeritus sonal efforts of Mr. Fox, the Ringling Circus and lifelong student of the history of the itself donated to the Society for the Circus American circus, has donated his large collec­ World Museum the railroad coach "Texas" tion of photographs and other materials docu­ and a railroad stockcar, and eight circus wag­ menting his study of the circus. ons, including a giraffe wagon, a stake driver, With the Wisconsin Museum of Medical and five baggage wagons. Also released by the Progress at Prairie du Chien in its second sea­ Ringling Circus was a wealth of physical prop­ son of operation under the auspices of the Wis­ erties and equipment, too much and too varied consin State Medical Society and the State to be detailed with these accessions. Also se­ Historical Society of Wisconsin, materials in cured, by private donations, were a railroad the fields of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy flatcar, the gift of Mr. R. F. Newman, Milwau­ continue to accumulate. Items of medical in­ kee, and a railroad circus advertising car, the terest have been donated by the following indi­ gift of Mrs. Arthur Waite, Baraboo, in memory viduals: homeopathic materials, Mrs. Frederic of her late brother, Henry C. Moeller, Jr., W. LaCroix, Milwaukee; a surgical syringe, Baraboo builder of circus wagons. One addi­ Mr. Sterling Stearns, Omro; a trephine set. Dr. tional railroad flatcar was acquired by the So­ Walter A. Brussock, Lebanon, Pennsylvania; ciety for the Circus World Museum. Mr. Jack Hurlbut, Madison, medical lantern Additional materials accruing to the vastly slides, a dessicated human head, a human increasing collections for the Circus World skull, and a doctor's fitted satchel; Mrs. Vin­ Museum were circus animal cutout posters cent W. Koch, Janesville, two medical kits, a from Mr. Harvey Preuss, Milwaukee; a circus plastic ring, and a Bull Moose pin. Items of "starback" seat and posters from Mr. Don B. dental equipment received have been a drill­ Francis, San Francisco; an elephant tethering ing machine from Dr. M. C. Neely, Madison, stake and ring from Mr. Ollie Miller, Peru, In­ and a foot-operated bellows from Mr. Ray diana; a trunkful of circus sideshow materials Parkinson, Appleton. from Mr. William Cowen, Oshkosh; a circus In the field of pharmacy, the Society has poster from Mrs. F. Prottengeier, Hales Cor­ received materials from the following: Mr. Ar­ ners; two distorting mirrors donated by Her­ thur W. Quan, Madison, a fine selection of pre­ man's Restaurant, Baraboo; a clown suit from scription shop equipment from his own drug "Bozo" (.'ooper, Chicago; a circus animal store, recenlly closed; the .Sumner Estate trainer's uniforin, donated by Mr. Bernard through the courtesy of Mr. Luci<"n .S. Hanks, Baranowski, Kansas City, Missouri; a circus Madison, an apothecary scale, weights, and band leader's uniform and a cornet, gift of two door or window signs from the old Sum-

236 ACCESSIONS ner drug store in Madison; Dr. Glenn Sonne- research on the collections, has donated a num­ decker. Director of the American Institute of ber of items to fill these needs. the History of Pharmacy, Madison, transfer of Wefl in advance of the beginning of this historical pharmacy materials sent to the In­ commemorative quadrennium, the Wisconsin stitute; Mr. John C. Helenore, New York City, Civil War Centennial Commission initiated the a collection of pharmaceutical catalogs and search for materials of afl kinds from all manufacturers' literature; Mr. Ray M. Ander­ sources to document and enhance Wisconsin s son, Merrill, a formalin disinfecting lamp and observance of this important centennial. This a Simplex vaporizer; Mr. Walter Bade, Ply­ search did bear some fruit, and the materials mouth, a collection of pill and salve boxes and thus acquired were gathered and held by the tins, a manual for the operation of a soda foun­ Wisconsin Civil War Centennial Commission tain, and a pharmacy scrapbook; Emma L. until just recendy when the holdings of the Glens, Madison, a pamphlet, "Prescriptions Commission were turned over to the State His­ for Home Treatment." Materials received in torical Society for processing, accessioning, other scientific areas have been a select and and cataloging. The immediate agents of this representative collection of early twentieth-cen­ transfer were Mr. Donald M. Gerlinger, Mil­ tury chemical laboratory equipment from Pro­ waukee, Chairman of the Commission, and Mr. fessor H. A. Schuette, University of Wisconsin, Robert S. Zigman, Whitefish Bay, an associate Madison, and a geological field assay portable member of the Commission. The primary laboratory kit and two historic Wisconsin geo­ donors who responded to the appeal for Civil logical relief maps prepared in the early days War materials by presenting their respective of the science of topographical relief mapping holdings to the Commission are acknowledged before advances in techniques made present- herewith: Mrs. Roy Moore, Burlington; Mr. day accuracy and detail possible. Niles W. Aflen, Milwaukee; Mr. Edgar C. Mey Anticipation of the opening of the National and Mrs. Glen Schwemer, Milwaukee; Mr. Railroad Museum at Green Bay in 1961 has Melvin C. Hicks, Milwaukee; Mrs. May tended to stimulate activity in the acquisition Gensch, Wauwatosa; Mr. Edward T. Hoffman, of railroad materials. Mr. Edward Larsen, Fox Point; Mr. Fred Kropf, Milwaukee; Mr. Green Bay, donated a locomotive whistle; Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Jorgensen, Kenosha; Miss Alfred Hanson, Duluth, Minnesota, has given Marie Gottschalk, Whitefish Bay; Mrs. Frank railroad-car coupling equipment; the National A. Theiss, Milwaukee; Mrs. 0. W. Roberts, Railroad Museum, Inc., Green Bay, gave a Milwaukee; and Miss Daisie Richmond, Mil­ folding window for a caboose; and the Na­ waukee. tional Railroad Museum, together with the Additional Civil War memorabilia received Green Bay & Western Bailroad, Green Bay, were a surgeon's scarf from Mrs. W. A. Cal- presented a collection of railroad materials. dow, Lodi, and from Mr. W. Horace Johnston, The opening of the long-awaited period for Portage, a fork-spoon combination, a leather the commemoration of the Centennial of the shot bag and three powder horns. Civil War was expected to feature a coinci­ Materials of military interest from periods dental expression of public interest as evi­ more recent than the Civil War have been do­ denced by large-scale donations of materials nated by the following individuals: U. S. Army memorializing that conflict. Such has not Officer's dress uniform coat and cape of Colo­ been the case. In fact, quite the opposite ob­ nel Wilson Giflhan Heaton, Mrs. Carl Welty, tains, and the situation, for the present at least, Beloit; a World War I uniform, Mr. Maurice is marked by the paucity in accessions of Civil Stanley, New Britain, Connecticut; a World War materials. Fortunately, an element of qual­ War I signal lantern, Mrs. Chester F. Aflen, ity does attend in several instances of items Madison; a 37-miflimeter artillery shell and a which have been donated. For one example, World War I German Army flag captured from a complete U. S. Cavalry saddle with full the enemy in battle by the donor, Mr. Charles mounted accouterments all in splendid condi­ Zimmerman, Jr., Madison; a U. S. Naval uni­ tion used by Sgt. Samuel Blake of the Wis­ form jacket, Dr. Earl R. Thayer, Madison; Of­ consin Volunteer Cavalry was presented by ficer's riding spurs, Philip F. La Follette, Mrs. Henry D. Blake, Madison. For another, Madison; and a World War II Red Cross uni­ Mr. Frederick M. Benkovic, Milwaukee, a stu­ form hat, M. T. Sargent, Waukesha. dent and collector of (^ivil War uniforms and Accessions to the Museum's general collec­ equipment, having noted certain serious gaps tions reflect the diverse backgrounds and ifie in the Society's series of uniforms while doing varied interests of the body of donors. Some of the gifts are difficult to identify, many are dif-

237 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1961

Amberina finger bowl set. The pale coloring of this clear glass set is more delicate than most Amberina glass, but it has the fine clear amber color in the rims and the true rose-red shading in the i)ases. Both pieces are of thin blown glass, with puntil-marks ground off. The rims are threaded and fluted. Gift of Mrs. John Strange, Appleton.

Silver ladle, part of the large collection of Mary Stuart Foster, a former librarian in the State Histor­ ical Society. The remainder of the collection consists of fine glass and china ware, including a complete set of rice china. Punch ladle has walnut turned handle and ivory tip.

I :\ I IN.

Tiffany bowl. This highly lustrous, iridescent little American Eagle Flask, acquired through a transfer of blown bowl is finished with metallic oxides by a artifacts from the f.afayette (iounty Historical .Soi-i- method developed by the Tiffany Company. It is done ety. This rare old green glass Hask is mold-blown, ft on a I'lear glass base which is pinched into shape by is qiiiti^ thick and uneven, with fine light green color­ hand. 'I'he color is a bright, gleaming gold, with deep ing. .Such llasks were used as canteens and olten held bluish-rose and pale blue-green highlights over the whiskey or brandy. Some date back to Revolutionary entire surface. times, and this is of the type which could easily be C}ift of Mrs. John Strange, Appleton. that old.

238 ACCESSIONS ficult to classify, but all have their place even­ Estate. Political ephemera were added to the tually in the scheme of historical coflections. collections by Mrs. Ben Mason, New Lisbon; In the acknowledgements which follow, like ob­ Mr. William J. Schereck, Sr., Madison; Mr. jects arc grouped together wherever possible, Eugene H. Klee, Madison; Mrs. Hazel Buch- into generalized categories, reflecting cither binder, Fish Creek; Republican Party Head­ civil or commercial activities, whole collections, quarters, Madison; Mr. John W. Winn, Mad­ estate residuals, or the manifold variety of ma­ ison; and Mr. William Mueller, Two Rivers. terials, domestic and personal. Among the materials donated to the Society Mrs. Ray Dvorak, Madison, has donated for the Mass Communications History Center band director's uniforms and cap used by her by Mr. Cecfl Brown, New York, NBC Radio husband. Professor Ray Dvorak, director of and TV Commentator, were a helmet used by the University of Wisconsin Bands, a wedding the donor in Singapore during World War II, dress, kid gloves, and shoes. Mrs. B. J. Schu- and Yugoslavian straw shoes worn by Mr. bring, La Jofla, California, gave nurse's aide Brown when captured in the retreat before uniforms. Mrs. Harold T. Meyer, Madison, the German advance into that country in April, donated medals presented to members of the 1941. Ground Observers Corps. For the Society's Gifts to the Museum for the collections of exhibit on the History of the Wisconsin Legis­ Archeology and Ethnography have been re­ lature, Mrs. W. D. Bird, Madison, gave a chair ceived from the following individuals: Mrs. used in the Assembly of the 1848 Legislature. Howard T. Greene, Genesee Depot, a collection There have been two recent acquisitions of of Plains and Woodland ethnographic speci­ a singular nature, one of considerable distinc­ mens and prehistoric artifacts; Miss Virginia tion, the other of unusual, but timely interest. Orton, San Francisco, five ethnographic speci­ From the Office of the Governor of Wisconsin mens of the Dakota Indians; Mrs. Scudder the Director of the State Historical Society McKeel, Madison, a Sun Dance drum; Mrs. has received the State of Wisconsin flag which Henry D. Blake, Madison, two ethnographic had been planted in the eternal ice of the Ant­ specimens of the Algonkian Indians; Mr. Ar­ arctic subcontinent and carried to the South thur W. Quan, Madison, a collection of pre­ Pole in recognition of the contribution of Wis­ historic artifacts, principally from Wisconsin; consin men to the success of Operation Deep and Mr. and Mrs. Gordon R. Wolff, Chilton, a Freeze. From the office of Colonel Alfred B. large brass medal worn by a Wisconsin Indian Plaenerl, Supervisor of Census for the Second from Chilton who served as a Union spy and Congressional District of Wisconsin, in Madi­ scout during the Civil War with Company D, son, the Museum has received a complete 1960 1st Wisconsin Cavalry. Census Enumerator's Field Portfolio, unused, The following materials from the realms of with samples of all forms, instructions, and re­ the trades and business have been received: ports for the recording of the basic data for from Mrs. Howard T. Greene, a collection of the compilation of the Census. blacksmith tools; from Mr. Eric Thompson, An interesting variety of flags has come into Viroqua, items of stock from his general store; the collections during the past period. From from Dr. Anna Coyne Todd, Washington, Mrs. A. C. Hough, Janesville, flags of the D. C, equipment from the old Coyne Grocery Perry Centennial; from Mrs. Herman Becker, and domestic items from the Coyne home, Kiel, a U. S. flag and collection of G. A. R. Madison; from Mr. Frank Burton, Madison, a medals; from Mrs. Anna E. Stoddart, Fond du collection of old locks; and from Mr. S. W. Lac, a flag of that city's centennial; from Boy Palmer, Beaver Dam, materials for the repair Scout Troop No. 20, Madison, a 36-star flag; of ship's canvas. Mr. Gene Zaske, Red Dot from Miss Catherine Grossman, a Civil War Potato Chip Co., Madison, donated three busi­ flag and a small miscellaneous collection; and ness machines; Miss Anna Stoddart, Fond du from Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Kern, Mobfle, Ala­ Lac, a stenotype machine; Mr. Edward Kantol, bama, two Confederate States flags (reproduc­ Madison, a typewriter; Mrs. James D. White, tions) . Madison, a demountable typewriter; Mr. Ray Medals and badges of a non-political nature Brussat, Janesville, a Densmore typewriter; were donated by Mr. W. E. Kasparek, Austin, and Mr. Allan Oakey, Madison, a Hammond Texas; Mr. Taylor Hall, De Pere; Mr. George typewriter. Cameras were donated by Mr. Phil- Hafl, Milwaukee; Mr. Dwight Fowler, Madi­ leo Nash, formerly Lieutenant Governor of son; Mrs. Hans Kuether, St. Petersburg, Flor­ Wisconsin, now in Washington, D. C; Mrs. H. ida; Miss Lena Conrad, Monroe; the John I. J. Schubert. Madison; and by Mr. Ralph Beggs Estate; and the Matthew S. Dudgeon Looper and Frederic Early, Jr., Madison.

239 Cianttllj-uio-tJi...

HERBERT JACOBS, one of Wis­ LAWRENCE H. LARSEN, a na­ consin's most widely known tive of Racine, -was graduated journalists and writers, was from the Washington Park born Aprd 8, 1903, in Milwau­ High School of that city in kee, and was reared in the 1949. His B.S. degree was at­ University Settlement House tained at Lawrence College in which was run by his parents, 1953 and his M.S. two years Herbert Henry and Mary Belle later at the University of Wis­ Jacobs, on the south side of the city. Follow­ consin where he is now a candidate for the ing his graduation from Harvard in 1926, Mr. Ph.D. in American history. His thesis will be Jacobs spent two years in France, besides hold­ on Glenn Frank, former University President. ing a health publicity job for three years. In Mr. Larsen has taught school in North Dakota, 1931 he joined the staff of the Milwaukee Jour­ at the University of Wisconsin Extension Cen­ nal, serving first as a night police reporter and ter in Racine and Kenosha, and at present is later in the Sunday room as Waukesha bureau a part-time instructor in American history at man, general assignment, and on the state desk. the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. In Since 1936 he has been with the Madison Cap­ 1960 he was appointed Assistant State Archiv­ ital Times and is currently its farm editor as ist for Wisconsin. For additional biographical well as author of the popular column, "Try and information, see the Spring 1959 issue of the Stump Me." Among his published books are Magazine. We Chose the Country (1948), Try and Stump Me Yearbook (1949), and A Practical Guide for the Beginning Farmer (1951). He also ed­ For biographical information about RICH­ ited the Middleton Centennial Yearbook in ARD W. E. PERRIN, see the Summer, 1960, 1957, and is active in the newly organized issue. Dane County Historical Society. Mr. Jacobs is married to the former Katherine Wescott of Ripon, sister of novelist Glenway Wescott. The WALTER I. TRATTNER is a Jacobs have three children. graduate teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate at the te. <«!v JOHN T. FLANAGAN, professor University of Wisconsin. He of English at the University of .^ L^llto "^^^ boi'n in New York City Illinois, is currently a Ful- ^KW^M in 1936, where he attended bright scholar at the Universi­ ••*®"™ the New Lincoln School. He ties of Liege and Ghent in Bel­ earned his A.B. degree at Wil­ gium. He was recently hon­ liams College in 1958, a Master of Arts in ored with the Great Medal of Teaching at Harvard University in 1959, and the University of Ghent for an an M.A. degree in history at the University of outstanding series of lectures he delivered Wisconsin in 1961. His Master's thesis at Wis­ there. Mr. Flanagan received his academic de­ consin was entitled "Progressive Thought and grees from the IJniversity of Minnesota and World War I, 1914-1917," and his projected has previously taught at the University of doctoral dissertation is concerned with Homer North Dakota, the University of Minnesota, Folks, a pioneer New York social worker. Mr. and Southern Methodist University. In 1952- Trattner was married in 1958. 1953 he received a Fulbright lectureship to the University of Bordeaux. His special interests center about American folklore and the litera­ ture of the Middle West. His publications in­ clude James Hall, Literary Pioneer of the Ohio Valley (1941) ; America is West (1945) ; The The sketches and maps which have done American Way (1953) ; Folklore in American much to enliven this and the last issues of the Literature (with A. P. Hudson, 1958), and nu­ Magazine are the work of Paul Hass, a gradu­ merous articles in American professional liter­ ate student in American history at the Uni­ ary and historical journals. versity of Wisconsin.

240 New Books from the Society for Summer Reading

TrimmerS/ Trucklers, and edited by Temporizers: Notes of WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE Murat Halstead from the Political and Conventions of 1856 REX FISHER

Murat Halstead, a young Cincinnati newspaper reporter, covered the political conventions of 1856 and reported his disgust with the "trimmers, trucklers, and temporizers" in both parties who compromised the issue of slavery and gave the voters a Hobson's choice between James Buchanan and John C. Fremont. The notes and editorials, often written with acid, have a curiously contemporary flavor. J28 pages oi spicy politics, Spring, 1961, $3.SO

Legal Foundations of American by Philanthropy, 1776-1844 HOWARD S. MILLER

During the early years of the Republic, American lawyers and judges acting in curiously contradictory ways, simultaneously relied upon and condemned English principles and precedent, and developed a law of charitable trust, the product of Anglo-American jurisprudence. This historical study reveals how the law of philanthropy, conditioning and in turn conditioned by contem­ porary life, helped shape the character of American Society. 96 pages on the oiigins of the law oi giving away money, Spring, 1961, $3.00

Wisconsin Witness to Frederick Jackson Turner: compiled by A Collection of Essays on the Historian O. LAWRENCE BURNETTE, JR. and the Thesis

In commemoration of the centennial of Turner's birth, this collection of twelve essays previously published in the Wisconsin Magazine oi History or elsewhere by Wisconsin authors has been assembled as Wisconsin's Witness to Turner. About 224 pages. Spring, 1961, Probably $4.00

Ask for these and other titles at your favorite bookstore or write THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 816 STATE STREET, MADISON 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 be and of the Middle West.

Second class postage paid at Madison, Wis. Return postage guaranteed