i?'mi&'-'^m Wisconsin Magazine of History
An Abolitionist in Territorial Wisconsin: Part ll EDWARD MATHEWS Tke Wisconsin Reform Coalition; La Follette's Rise to Pouter KENNETH ACREA Alraham Lincoln: Realist E. B. SMITH
Published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin / Vol. 52, No. 2 / Winter, 1968-1969 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Director
Officers THOMAS H. BARLAND, President GEORGE BANTA, JR., Honorary Vice-President JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President E. E. HOMSTAD, Treasurer CLIFFORD U. SWANSON, Second Vice-President LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Secretary
Board of Curators Ex-Officio WARREN P. KNOWLES, Governor of the State HAROLD W. CLEMENS, State Treasurer ROBERT C. ZIMMERMANN, Secretary of State FRED H. HARRINGTON, President of the University MRS. EDWARD H. RIKKERS, President of the Women's Auxiliary
Term Expires, 1969 E. DAVID CRONON MRS. ROBERT E. FRIEND MRS. HOWARD T. GREENE WARREN D. LEARY, JR. Madison Hartland Genesee Depot Rice Lake SCOTT M. CUTLIP ROBERT A. GEHRKE BEN GUTHRIE J. WARD RECTOR Madison Ripon Lac du Flambeau Milwaukee W. NORMAN FITZGERALD JOHN C. GEILFUSS WAYNE J. HOOD CLIFFORD D. SWANSON Milwaukee Milwaukee La Crosse Stevens Point
Term Expires, 1970 THOMAS H. BARLAND MRS. EDWARD C. JONES HOWARD W. MEAD DONALD C. SLIGHTER Eau Claire Fort Atkinson Madison Milwaukee JIM DAN HILL MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES FREDERICK I. OLSON DR. LOUIS C. SMITH Middleton Madison Wauwatosa Lancaster E. E. HOMSTAD CHARLES R. MCCALLUM F. HARWOOD ORBISON ROBERT S. ZIGMAN Black River Falls Hubertus Appleton Milwaukee
Term Expires, 1971 ROGER E. AXTELL KENNETH W. HAAGENSEN MOWRY SMITH MILO K. SWANTON Janesville Oconomowoc Neenah Madison MRS. HENRY BALDWIN ROBERT B. L. MURPHY MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE CEDRIC A. VIG Wisconsin Rapids Madison Milwaukee Rhinelander H. M. BENSTEAD FREDERIC E. RISSER WILLIAM F. STARK CLARK WILKINSON Racine Madison Pewaukee Baraboo
Honorary Honorary Life Members WILLIAM ASHBY MCCLOY, New London, Connecticut PRESTON E. MCNALL, Clearwater, Florida MRS. LITTA BASCOM, Berkeley, California JOHN C. JACQUES, Madison DOROTHY L. PARK, Madison BENTON H. WILCOX, Madison
Fellows VERNON CARSTENSEN MERLE CURTI ALICE E. SMITH
The Women's Auxiliary Officers MRS. EDWARD H. RIKKERS, Madison, President MRS. GEORGE SWART, Fort Atkinson, Vice-President MRS. WILLIAM F. STARK, Nashotah, Treasurer MRS. CONRAD A. ELVEHJEM, Madison, Secretary MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee, Ex-Officio VOLUME 52, NUMBER 2 / WINTER, 1968-1969 Wisconsin Magazine of History
WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYCOOD, Editor WILLIAM C. MARTEN, Associate Editor
The Generation Gap: An H. T. Webster Cartoon 116
An Abolitionist in Territorial Wisconsin: The Journal of Reverend Edward Mathews; Part II 117
The Wisconsin Reform Coalition, 1892 to 1900: La Follette's Rise to Power 132
KENNETH ACREA
Abraham Lincoln: Realist 158
E. B. SMITH
Book Reviews 169
Accessions 198
Contributors 202
Published Quarterly by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin
THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published not assume responsibility for statements made by contribu quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, tors. Second-class postage paid at Madison and Stevens 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Distributed Point, Wis. Copyright © 1969 by the State Historical Society to members as part of their dues (Annual membership), of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon $5.00; Family membership, $7.00; Contributing, $10; Busi Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. ness and Professional, $25 ; Sustaining, $100 or more annual Wisconsin newspapers may reprint any article appearing in ly; Patron, $1000 or more annually). Single numbers, $1.25. the WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY providing the Microfilmed copies available through University Microfilms, story carries the following credit line: Reprinted from the 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Communica State Historical Society's Wisconsin Magazine of History for tions should be addressed to the editor. The Society does [insert the season and year which appear on the Magazine]. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969
The Generation Gap, I920's Version
^/?^ \A/tLF
>'''^"'ju'- ''.^i^-^^
:'^^ P i =,£(3_W>^ ^e^\^^ -b"^" e^^ ^S r,^ ,c^ •^O,- "'^r^ ^o THt FLAPPL'R One o/ iAe more than 5,000 original H. T. Webster cartoons given to the Society's iconographic collection by his widow. 116 AN ABOLITIONIST IN TERRITORIAL WISCONSIN: The Journal of Reverend Edward Mathews (Part II) Introduction the institution continued to exist at all, Mathews called on Governor Henry Dodge. TN THE FALL of 1838 the Reverend Ed- Dodge, who had a few years previously freed •'- ward Mathews, a native of Oxford, Eng the five male slaves he had brought with him land, and a recent graduate of the Hamilton from Missouri, received the minister hospi Literary and Theological Institution of Ham tably, assured him of the illegality of slavery ilton, New York, arrived in the new Terri in the territory, and expressed the opinion tory of Wisconsin to assume his duties as that any slave was automatically free the a missionary for the American Home Bap moment he set foot on Wisconsin soil. En tist Mission. Earnest, energetic, and an im couraged, Mathews then went on to visit placable foe of slavery, he set about organ the proper officials and was grudgingly al izing Baptist churches wherever enough set lowed to see the census returns and to copy tlers had located to warrant a congregation. down the names of the owners of the eleven And always, as each new church was estab Negroes held in bondage. One of the names lished, he insisted that it adopt two rules: was that of Reverend James Mitchell, a Meth one, that each member must sign a pledge odist Episcopal pastor whose wife owned of total abstinence from spiritous liquors; two slaves. Mathews immediately crossed and two, that any member owning slaves swords with Mitchell who thereafter became must emancipate them forthwith. the target of his special outrage, as well as In the course of his vocation Mathews a resourceful and persistent opponent. was appalled to discover that slavery, though As he went about his ministerial duties, expressly forbidden by the Ordinance of the plight of the eleven slaves continued to 1787, nevertheless existed, if only in a some prey on Mathews' mind. Once, journeying what rudimentary state, in Wisconsin. The on horseback from the Brothertown Indian 1835 census of Brown, Chippewa, Crawford, settlement where he had been invited to and Iowa counties (then a part of Michigan preach, he lost the feebly marked trail lead Territory) reported a Negro population of ing to Sheboygan and spent three days and ninety-one, twenty-seven of whom were slaves. two nights hopelessly lost in the dense woods. The census taken in 1840, after Wisconsin During his lonely ordeal he reassessed his achieved territorial status, showed that out conscience, finally determining to withdraw of a total population of 30,945 persons, eleven from the American Baptist Home Mission— were listed as being slaves. Appalled that which permitted its officials and missionaries 117 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 to own slaves—and to devote his entire en Church went so far as to say, that he knew ergies to the antislavery cause. Accordingly that if the question of slavery were brought he applied to the Illinois Anti-slavery Com before the people—it would put a stop to mission and was appointed its agent in Wis the conversion of sinners; it would turn the consin, and began at once to tour the terri minds of the people away from the salvation tory, preaching abolition and organizing an of souls, and call out the latent enmity which tislavery societies whenever and wherever he was known to exist against emancipation. could. In the evening I attended a religious meet As this second portion of his journal opens, ing and was requested to give an address. Mathews is leaving Sheboygan where his an The subject I selected was "Growing in tislavery efforts had received a mixed recep grace." In describing the various graces of tion and is starting for Green Bay, haunted the spirit, I observed that gentleness was one by the recent murder in the Territorial Coun of them; and that an institution existed in cil Chamber of Charles C. P. Arndt, a tragedy our land exceedingly hostile to the cultiva which Mathews, with deep conviction but tion of this grace—an institution which fos questionable logic, attributed solely to the tered boisterous passion on the one hand, evils inherent in the system of African slav and degrading servility on the other. It was ery. slavery. It educated the master to quickness of resentment, taught him to go armed, and W.C.H. thus exposed both himself and others to the most fatal calamities. His habits would be retained even if he removed from the at mosphere of a slave state and resided where the influences of freedom were diffused. Yes, T PROCEEDED from Sheboygan to Green even then, he would be likely, if he were -*- Bay, the town which Mr. Arndt^ repre contradicted or corrected, to commit acts of sented, and in which he resided. I thought, the most appalling character. That I was not as I approached it, surely the people will see describing mere abstractions, but sad reali in this loss of their member and townsman, ties, of which the recent loss of their late that the welfare of the North requires the member was a striking evidence. The inhab abolition of Southern slavery. I was inform itants of the Territory wept with the bereaved ed that there was a revival in the churches: widow and fatherless children, but slavery and as religion softens the heart, it was an should be regarded as the real cause of the additional reason why the subject of slavery should be considered. I asked for the use of the Presbyterian pulpit for two evenings to lecture on slavery, Porter thus describes the reaction to the news of but it was not granted because there was a Arndt's murder: "On the last day of our meeting a most awful fact was poured upon our astonished revival of religion.^ One member of the hearts. It came like the bursting of seven thun ders from a cloudless sky. It was the awful mur der of C.C.P. Arndt, in the council chamber of this Territory by a fellow member: Mr. A. was the son of one of the members of this church who ^ Following an altercation, Charles C.P. Arndt came in during the revival a year since; & his was shot to death by James R. Vineyard of Grant wife had taken a decided & delightful stand as a County in the Council Chamber of the Territory Christian a few days previous to his death. She of Wisconsin on February 11, 1842. had written concerning the change in her feelings, ° In a letter to Rev. Milton Badger, secretary of & was most confidently anticipating that when he the American Home Missionary Society in New should return from the Legislature he would unite York, Rev. Jeremiah Porter, pastor of the local with her in the service of God. ... No tongue can Presbyterian Church, described the revival in Green describe her agony when the awful truth was brought Bay, although he did not mention Mathews' pres to her that her beloved husband, the father of ence in the town. Not only the Presbyterian but her three dear children was shot thro, the heart also the Methodist and Episcopal churches parti & died without speaking a word, at noon day, in cipated in the revival. Bishop Jackson Kemper the presence of his own father!" Porter to Bad journeyed to Green Bay to preach for seven days ger, March 21, 1842, in the American Home Mis in the Episcopal Church; the Catholic Bishop sionary Society Letters, Archives-Manuscripts Di ordered mass said for nine successive days. Rev. vision, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 118 MATHEWS JOURNAL bereavement, and the same grave that re ceived the chains of the slave would receive also the Southern bowie-knife and pistol, and the temper that employed them for the destruction of human life. All this was borne quite as well as I an ticipated. I called on the father of Mr. Arndt and expressed my sympathy with him in the dreadful trial he had been called to endure. I believe the dead body of his son reached the town before my departure from it. As innocent blood had been shed, there ought to have been a public meeting of the town to express its detestation of the crime. But there was not one. Had there been, some punishment would have been legally awarded to Vineyard.^ The voice of Arndt's blood cried to God and to the whole Territory from the floor of the Assembly room. It was a loud call. But in Green Bay the people were John Penn Arndt, Green Bay pioneer and jalher of deaf to it, because there was a revival of Charles C. P. Arndt: from the Society's portrait by religion! As if religion did not recognize the Samuel M. Brookes. relations which men sustain to God and to each other, and the duties growing out of nection with slaveholders. To condemn slav those relations; and as if the power of reli ery would be to condemn themselves for sup gion could be manifested in any other way porting it, and open the whole question of than in the faithful performance of those reconstruction. This they wished to avoid, duties. and were glad of the excuse that discussion on slavery would put a stop to the conver The slave party ignored all duty so far as sion of sinners. it related to the slave population and required Reconstruction was desired neither by the religious and political parties to ignore Whigs nor Democrats in Green Bay; hence it also, on pain of division. A pure Christian they desired no movement in the case of ity demanded the separation of these parties Arndt's death, for the Whigs were labouring from slavery, and their reconstruction on the to place Henry Clay in the presidential chair. principle of justice. But the churches and If they had met and condemned Vineyard ministers sought a revival without such re for going armed, it would be censuring Hen construction. It was so in Green Bay. It was ry Clay also, for he went armed—as did so throughout the United States. every Southern Whig legislator—all of whom Arndt was the victim of the slave party. were slaveholders. If they had condemned The Churches could not meet and consider Vineyard's hasty passion, it would have the cause of his death, without acknowled brought them into collision with the slave- ging this fact. But they were in Church con- holding Whigs, and endangered the unity of the party. I have shown in the previous chapter the quick resentment and violence " Vineyard tried to resign from the legislature of slaveholding legislators. The Whigs held but was expelled instead. He was tried in Grant County for manslaughter and was acquitted on the their peace, lest their party should be divided. grounds that he had acted in self defense. In 1849 The Democrats sustained similar relations he was elected to the state legislature from Grant to slaveholders, and fearing a disruption of County and the following year he moved to Cali fornia where he was also elected to the legislature their party, desired to keep in abeyance any of that state. He is said to have been deeply movement which by leading to an anti-slav remorseful for his murder of Arndt. Milo M. Quaife (ed.), The Convention of 1846 (Madison, 1919), ery agitation would lead to a collision with 797. slaveholdina; Democrats. 119 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Besides, their leaders were then plotting for T^ROM GREEN BAY I proceeded south- the annexation of Texas and a war with Mex west to Brothertown; the road is near the ico in order to obtain more territory and eastern shore of Lake Winnebago. This lake increase the number of slave states. A meet is fifteen miles from east to west and thirty ing to consider the death of Arndt would from north to south and in winter is usually lead to an examination of this policy and covered with one great sheet of ice on which place the people on their guard against it. persons travel. In the states, the farther you This would have proved inimical to the suc advance west the milder the climate becomes. cess of the Democrats—hence they did not In New England the winter lasts six months, desire agitation on the subject. in Wisconsin three months, and at the shores A revival of religion conducted so as to of the Pacific there is no winter. But the require no reconstruction of the religious winter in Wisconsin is severe while it lasts. and political parties, as then organized, was It was important to enlist the Brothertown of great advantage to Vineyard and to the Indians in the anti-slavery cause. They had entire slave party. votes and could elect anti-slavery legislators; My design was to continue my efforts for an effect would also be produced by their the liberation of the slaves held in western setting a good example to the white people. Wisconsin: to do this I must labour among I preached to them in a large house, belong Vineyard's constituents; and if he could ing to Mr. Dick,* an Indian, one of whose take the life of a fellow legislator with im daughters I had baptized. At the close I punity, it would not be surprising if the gave them an account of the reasons which mob should count on the same impunity in led me to become agent of the Anti-slavery taking the life of an anti-slavery lecturer. Society, of my having, after visiting them, I felt confident, however, that the work would lost the trail at twilight in the woods; that go on, and if my life were sacrificed. Provi during the forty hours spent there, as I re dence would raise up and send into the field viewed my life, and as memory rested on more labourers. some effort for the slave, it seemed a sunny spot, and hence I had decided to labour for We often commenced our anti-slavery emancipation. I announced that I should meetings by the audience singing the follow preach twice on slavery on the approaching ing piece: Sabbath. In many settlements the people would hear Let us raise our supplication me preach on slavery if I would give them For the wretched suffering slave. a sermon on prayer, or the atonement, or All whose life is desolation. some other kindred subject. This they called All whose hope is in the grave; a Gospel sermon. The Rev. Mr. Manning, God of mercy! an anti-slavery friend of mine, designated it From thy throne, 0 hear and save. as "buying the privilege" when I took this course. Those in bonds we would remember Among the Brothertowns. as among; the As if we with them were bound; Stockbridges, there are different shades of For each crushed, each suffering member Let our sympathies abound. Till our labors Spread the .smiles of freedom round. ' Alonzo Dick served one term, in 1849, as as semblyman from Calumet County. He also served as census taker in 1850 and was a tribal headman. For more detail on Dick see "Mission to the Me Even now the word is spoken; nominee: Alfred Cope's Green Bay Diary," in the 'Slavery's cruel power must cease, Wisconsin Magazine of History, 4: 315-317 (Sum mer, 1966). Besides Alonzo Dick, two other Brother- From the bound the chain be brofcen. town Indians served in the legislature—William Captives hail the Icind release,' Fowler and W.H. Dick. Thomas Commuck, "Sketch of the Brothertown Indians," in State Historical While in splendor Society of Wisconsin, Collections (Madison, 1906), Comes to reign the Prince of Peace. IV: 297. 120 MATHEWS JOURNAL complexion. I knew a man at Sun Prairie to the other extreme. In preaching to them, who had a Stockbridge Indian wife. There I soon ascertained their sympathies; and if were several nice-looking children faintly they enjoyed the sermon they would rise copper coloured. He was, however, despised when the last hymn was being sung and shake for having a coloured wife; so he sent her hands, singing as they did so, throughout and the children to live among their Stock- the chapel. bridge relatives, and married a white wife. After the close of the sermon I gave an The difference of complexion can be traced invitation to any who were willing, to rise usually to some act of similar injustice. But up in the presence of the audience and bear among the Brothertowns, negroes as well as testimony against slavery as a sin. There was white persons have intermarried with the a pause; then Collins Fowler, a young In nation.'^ Hence there are shades of com dian, and a young disciple of Christ, arose plexion from black to red, and from red to and apologized for speaking first. He stated white, and the lighter the Indian the more that he had a mingled feeling of joy and sor does he esteem himself, and the darker he row in his heart; and while he mourned for is the more is he despised. The prejudice the slaves he felt grateful for the mercies of the white against the black finds its coun of God to himself; that he had been con terpart among the light and dark-complexion vinced by what he had now heard that the ed Indians. American nation was increasing in guilt daily The Sabbath came, and there was a large before God; and whatever others thought, assemblage. I preached on the sinfulness of and he had no wish to injure their feelings, slavery. There was an intermission for re he was willing to offer his testimony against freshment before the next sermon, during slavery, even if for doing so his life should which some of those who were light com- be sacrificied. plexioned wished to speak to me. They pro Mr. Charles Bull, a white man, arose and posed that the afternoon should be occupied remarked that he had lived in the slave states by my preaching on some other subject than and had seen that the slaves were very great slavery. The aristocracy of complexion is not sufferers, and he believed that they ought to limited to the whites. I told them that the be set free. He was not particular as to the subject had been announced. That if they means employed, so that it was done. Mr. preferred, however, a conference in the af Cummach, [Commuck],^ who is a descendant ternoon, and each of them would make a short address on religion, I would postpone my sermon and would leave it to the master "^ "Brothertown custom, which the peacemakers of of the house to decide which course should the tribe declared was Indian custom in general, be taken. He left me to decide, and I decided decreed 'That if any Indian woman or Girl married a Negro-man or anyone who had a mixture of Ne to preach on slavery. I showed that God had gro blood, she forfeited all her rights and privi committed unto us the "Word of reconcilia leges as an individual of the Nation. . . and in tion." That if men were reconciled to God, particular all right and title to Lands belonging to the Tribe. . . .'" Records of the Brothertown they would, as his children, be reconciled to Indians, September 22, 1788-1901, pp. 44-45, in each other—the white, the red, the black, the Archives- Manuscripts Division, State Histori cal Society of Wisconsin. The quotation is taken the rich, and the poor. That thus national from John 0. Holtzheuter, "Negro Admixture Among antipathies and class antipathies would be the Brothertown, Stockbridge, and Oneida Indians removed, and they would be all one in Christ. of Wisconsin," a paper read before the Society's staff seminar. May, 1966. At the close of the sermon I felt very desirous ° Thomas Commuck, a Brothertown Indian, was to ascertain the effect on their minds. By also the tribe's historian. At Lyman Copeland Drap watching their countenances I learned that er's request he contributed two articles for publi cation by the Society. They are: "Sketch of Calu they gave good heed, but nothing beyond. met County," State Historical Society of Wiscon They are trained to sit quite still, to look sin, Collections, (Madison, 1903), I: 103-106; and grave, and to control their emotions, and this "Sketch of the Brothertown Indians," ibid., (Mad ison, 1906), IV: 291-301. In the winter of 1856 they will do for three hours, making no dem Commuck fell through a hole in the ice near his onstration. The negroes in the slave states go home in Calumet County and was drowned. See ibid., IV: 298n. 121 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 of the Pequods, and something of a poet, the peace society and would under no cir arose. He stated that he would embrace the cumstances use weapons of war; that by our opportunity presented of testifying against constitution we promised never to strike a slavery. He then referred to the enslavement single blow with any weapon of war, but of the Indians in the early history of the to change public opinion by the press, the country; to the efforts of Las Casas for their platform, and the pulpit. liberation, and the substitution of the negroes Mr. Smith, an Englishman, and a Metho as slaves instead. "We see the slaves," he dist local preacher, now arose. I counted on added, "enduring that very slavery that at his supporting the movement. He had told first was designed for us; they have, there me in private conversation that the state of fore, a strong claim on our sympathies." An society at the South was neither creditable other arose and said that ever since he had nor comfortable, and had quoted the golden arrived at years of discretion slavery had ap rule as opposed to slavery. To my surprise, peared to him to be a sin, and he designed he objected to forming an anti-slavery society, in all his intercourse with others to use his because persons preached on the subject on best efforts to promote emancipation. the Sabbath, because those who joined the Another arose and stated that he was of society would be published in the papers as African descent, that he had been sold early abolitionists, because some abolitionists had in life, had spent a good portion of his said that they would accomplish their object youth in bondage, and thus had been de though blood should flow, and because in prived of an education; he mourned over some places colonizationists and abolition the disadvantages of those in slavery; he ists had disputed till blood had been shed. wished to see them all set free that they Finally, he admonished them that they had might all be educated; and he often remem newly become citizens, that they had enemies bered them in his prayers. and should act with caution. I met his ob Another arose, also of African descent, jections, showing that they were entirely and stated that his heart had often been dependent on God, that they should do his pained at the thought of his brethren and work, "Remember those in bonds as bound sisters in bondage; and one of his chief sor with them," and trust the results with Him. rows arose from the fact that the Methodist The subject was discussed till past midnight, Episcopal Church, of which he was a member, but no society was formed. Whether sectari had in many of its conferences restrictions an rivalry or the pro-slavery white people by which the preachers were not allowed to induced Mr. Smith to take the above course preach against slavery. I do not know. But we never had an anti- slavery society among the Indians, though Squire Mathews, an Indian magistrate, I doubt not many fell in the war. arose and said he thought it was the work of the Good Spirit to cause them to feel thus A white man, a Wesleyan, passing through for the poor slaves. Squire Johnson observed Brothertown, heard of my meetings and of that being a new thing they needed time to the proposal to form an anti-slavery society. look into it and that they ought not to be He stated that he thought the agitation would hasty. Another Indian arose and stated that cause division, and inquired what the pro as the slaves had been in bondage two hun posed society was to accomplish? Mr. Cum dred years it could scarcely be called some mach, before replying, asked him what was thing new, and his mind was already made the reason for the existence of churches; Up on the subject. We agreed to meet the were they not formed in order to destroy next night and form an anti-slavery society. the works of the devil? To this the white man We assembled the next evening. Mr. Cum readily assented. "Then," said the Indian, mach said he understood the movement was to change public opinion, as in the temper "the proposed society will have the same ance reform, and that no weapons of war object. Slavery is the work of the devil and were ever to be used. I arose and stated that the anti-slavery society will be formed to many of the abolitionists were members of destroy it." 122 MATHEWS JOURNAL A T AZTALAN, though there were many having just come out after a severe fit of -'*- opponents, I formed a good anti-slavery the ague. He accosted me thus: "Well, Elder," society by the following arrangement. I gave (in the West ministers are called Elders) notice that on the approaching Sabbath I "you seem to enjoy good health. I expect should preach in the morning, and there that the business in which you are engaged would be no sermon in the afternoon, but a (referring to my anti-slavery labours) is such prayer meeting for the emancipation of the that the ague cannot take hold of you." slaves, at the close of which I should form There was one Democrat who was never an anti-slavery society. wearied in opposing me. He would go round On Sunday there was a good audience. and urge the people not to listen to a minis I preached in the morning and announced ter who preached "niggerology." He was the arrangements for the afternoon. Usually boarding at the house of a relative of his, I had two or three invitations to take dinner who was a friend of mine, who invited me after preaching, but that day there was no to visit him, take tea, and stay over night. invitation, evincing that my proposal was not I went, and after tea, taking the Bible, sat very well approved. However, I went for a down with our Democratic friend, proposing gentle walk. In the afternoon there was a that we should together examine the scrip good audience and very earnest praying by ture argument relative to slavery. Instead of both men and women. doing this, he said, "Where is my hat?" One woman pleaded thus; "Lord, how and taking it, he went to the barn. He could should we feel if our dear children were not be persuaded again to enter the house. taken from us and sold in the market and His relative said, "If he is so warm as that sent into slavery; and the slave mothers love he will not take cold." He stayed in the barn their children as much as we love ours. Oh all night. The next morning Mr. Merriam, break the chains and deliver them." The one of our anti-slavery friends, and a Metho hearts of the people were melted. I was per dist local preacher, heard the Democrat ut suaded we should form a good society. But tering rather strong expressions in the house just as I was about to go round to take down of a neighbour, and going in inquired what the names, a person of considerable influ was the matter? "Why," said the Democrat, ence arose and contended that it would be "Mr. Mathews is preaching federalism! Yes, the wiser course to postpone the formation federalism!" "But," said Mr. Merriam, "what of the society as there were persons who were is federalism? It is tyranny! And what is not prepared to commit themselves either slaveholding? Tyranny of the worst descrip way. I replied that I believed the sympathy tion! And what is democracy? That all men with fthe suffering slave which pervaded are born free and equal! And what does the meeting was the work of the Holy Spir Mr. Mathews preach? That all men have it, and that we should grieve that Spirit by a right to liberty. Why the fact is he is as delay. I then went round, and about thirty good a Democrat as you are!" persons gave me their names as members of The Democrat went to Illinois to visit his the anti-slavery society. son and found him a warm-hearted abolition There was the trifling loss of a dinner, ist. At once his opposition ceased. We were as I had not anticipated the feeling in that particular, but there was the great gain of an anti-slavery society; and its members did good service for the cause; the Rev. J. F. ' John Henry Ott, in his Jefferson County, Wis Ostrander was one of the most active mem consin, And Its People. . . (Chicago, 1917), I: 110, credits Mathews with having formed an antislavery bers.'^ society among the Baptists of Aztalan in 1839. Rev. One person, Mr. P., had said that he would J. F. Ostrander was ordained into the Baptist Church in New York in 1835. His ordination pap be one of six to tar and feather me if I ers, filed in the Jefferson County register's office preached on abolition and produced any ex in 1839, are the first on record. The record also shows that for four or five years Ostrander was the citement. Some time after, passing his house, only pastor in the community to solemnize mar I observed him lying down in front of it. riages. 123 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 ever afterwards friends. I visited him short ly before his death, which was caused by a cancer in the face. One day after riding through the woods fifteen miles I came to a log-house and rode up to the door to obtain a glass of water. The farmer came to the door, glanced at me, and said, "Are you a minister or a doctor. Sir?" I replied, "My labours are devoted to secure the emancipation of the slaves!" "Then we don't want you here!" "But I am here, so I have the advantage of you. Come please to let me have a glass of water?" "You can have that. Sir." The water was brought, and the farmer continued: "My son has got the ague, that is why I asked you if you were a doctor." Society's Iconographic ( l.^Liii n "Well, go and peel some bark from the Reverend Edward Mathews. young poplar saplings, and make a good strong basin of tea with it." I accepted the invitation. We were ever af For this and some other directions which terwards friends. I gave him he thanked me, so that in saying Several slaves had been brought by their he did not want me there, he was mistaken. masters to western Wisconsin—were held At Sun Prairie I formed an anti-slavery by them for three or four years—and had society of thirty-four persons. Dining with been sent back to the South as slaves, usu Mr. Adams, a farmer, a pro-slavery neigh ally passing through Galena, being there bour came in and observed that the slave placed on board the steamboats. There were holders thought a great deal of their slaves, a few abolitionists in Galena, but their vigi and he did not believe they treated them lance was not always a match for the cun cruelly. Mrs. Adams replied: "Well, we ning unprincipled supporters of slavery. The thought a great deal of our cow—but we kill following letter from my friend Mr. A. H. ed it and are now eating a part of it. They Campbell, dated Galena, September 25, 1844, might think a great deal of them as property, furnishes an instance: but we wish that they might think a great "About the 15th of May last, I was in deal of them as members of the human fami- formed one evening, by a coloured man, that ly." there was a coloured woman in the jail of Passing through Madison I called on an this county (Jo Daviess), who wished for old friend who had heard that I would mar some assistance. My informant stated that ry persons who differed in complexion. He she had been brought at midnight of the inquired, therefore, of me, whether I would night previous in a wagon, secretly thrust officiate in marrying parties if one was black into jail, and was expecting to be carried and the other white. I replied certainly, un away under cover of the coming night. Ef less he could show me that the Bible forbade forts were forthwith made to get out a writ it. He showed me the door immediately. His of fiabeas corpus, that she might be entitled wife wept the rest of the day at this con to a trial for her freedom. These efforts oc duct on his part. Passing through Madison cupied considerable time, and while they again I attended a prayer meeting. He was were in progress, a wagon with the woman, present and came and made a handsome guarded by several men, and attended by the apology, requesting me to pardon him; I jailor, passed down toward the steamboat did so. He invited me to take tea with him. landing. The wagon was followed to the land- 124 MATHEWS JOURNAL ing by one who observed it pass, where the slavery another man's wife who was legally woman was seen to be carried on board, as free as himself. I determined next to lay the jailor attending. Before the writ could be the subject before the grand jury. In the issued and the sheriff could get to the land United States any person who believes the ing, the boat was gone. Thus our jail has law has been violated may lay the case be been prostituted to the purposes of the slave fore the grand jury. I obtained also from holder and kidnapper. The jailor, without Galena a duly certified copy of the trial in any authority whatever, has taken upon him that city in which Hannah attempted to gain self to incarcerate a woman who, for aught her liberty, for the proceedings of the court we know, was as free and innocent as any in one state are recognized as authority in of us. From all that can be learned of this the court of another state. It was a proof woman's history it would seem that she was that the woman was taken from Wisconsin. brought from Fort Winnebago (Wisconsin). I called also on the judge before whom the According to the primary law of the land, woman was tried, to learn on what ground she was free, and was sent somewhere to he could give up one who was legally free, the south, no doubt to perpetual slavery." to a man who was about to plunge her and Mr. Madan [Madden], to whom reference her free-born child into slavery for life. He has been made, resided at Elk Grove, in stated that he had decided that he had no western Wisconsin.* He had purchased a jurisdiction in the case, and therefore gave slave woman, Hannah Brown, and after hold up the woman to the man claiming her as ing her as a slave some years, sent her, and his slave. her child born in Wisconsin, as slaves into Missouri. I received the facts from her hus fyHE GRAND JURY met at Mineral Point. band, who had formerly been a slave to Mr. -*• I knew the danger I incurred and had Madan. Passing through Galena on her way duly arranged my earthly affairs in case I to Missouri Hannah made an unsuccessful should be dirked or shot. I went to Mineral effort by a legal process to obtain her liberty. Point. One of the Galena aldermen had prom I resolved to call on Mr. Madan. It was re ised to send me up a person as a witness ported that he had threatened to shoot any who was present at the trial at Galena, but abolitionist who came on his farm. It was he did not succeed in doing so. Lawyer Hyde, my rule never to go armed, believing that however, who was engaged at the trial of He whose will I was obeying was able and Hannah in Galena, happened to be at the willing to protect me. time in Mineral Point. I waited on the jury I called on Mr. M. and stated that I should and made a statement of the case; handed be glad to have some conversation with him in a copy of the trial at Galena and referred with reference to Hannah Brown who I learn them to Lawyer Hyde as a witness who knew ed had been sent as a slave to Missouri. His the facts. The foreman of the jury was a reply was, "I allow no one to interfere in son-in-law of Governor Dodge, and brother- my domestic arrangements." By this mode, in-law to Mr. Madan. The jury, professing therefore, I could do nothing. He called it that the evidence was insufficient, did noth "his domestic arrangements" to send into ing. I decided to take with me at the next meet ing of the grand jury John Brown, Hannah's husband. He resided at Galena and was glad 'William Israel Madden, probably from Missou to accompany me. When the time came we ri, came to the lead mines in 1827 with Henry Dodge, whose second daughter, Louisiana, he later started in company. It was a new occurrence married. Madden took up land in the Dodgeville for a white and a black man to ride side area and engaged in mining and also operated a by side. Mr. Brown was mounted on a splen smelting furnace. He was elected to the Constitu tional Convention as a Democrat from Elk Grove, did black horse. We halted at the tavern to then in Iowa County but now in Lafayette Coun dine. The landlord informed me that the ty. In 1850 he joined the Gold Rush to California where he died shortly after his arrival. T.W. Wood company had just sat down, and there was ward, Dodge Genealogy (Chicago, 1904), 60. room for one. I told him if there was not 125 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 room for two I could wait, as I wished to the judge's lodgings and was ushered into dine with my companion. He made some re the room where he was. I said I called for mark about "niggers dining with white the purpose of asking whether he would folks," but in due season the dinner was pre kindly give evidence to the grand jury with pared for us. The landlord would be able reference to Hannah Brown, who had been to say that a black and a white person in sent by Mr. Madan into slavery in Missouri. his house ate at the same table! Then an He gave me an indescribable look. It was attempt would be made to fathom the my an assumed air of dignity thinly veiling a stery. It was already reported that I was a strong feeling of amazement. After a short British spy, receiving six hundred dollars a pause, he said, "When the grand jury sends year. I had food and raiment and was there for me, I shall go!" I hastened back to the with content. jury room and stated that I had secured I proceeded with John Brown to the jury a white witness, that Judge Dunn would come room, was admitted, related the facts, and when they sent for him. The sheriff accord referred them to the woman's husband who ingly went and summoned the judge. I saw was waiting outside. The foreman of the jury him go into the room. I never fully ascer was the editor of the leading Democratic tained the results, but from what I could paper of Wisconsin. He asked me if I had gather the judge told them to pass by the any white witnesses? I stated I had not— case. Such was the power of the slave party. but the laws of Wisconsin allowed a coloured At noon Mr. Brown left me to get some re man to be a witness. The foreman stated that freshment. I told him to return to the grand it was not their usage to receive the evidence jury room and I would meet him there, as of coloured persons, and they should decline I had not yet given up all hope. When he doing it. I withdrew and stated to Mr. Brown went to the tavern he was so severely threaten how much I regretted that the jury refused his ed that he left the town alarmed, and I think evidence on account of his colour, that they we never met again. I returned to the grand would only hear a white witness. "Well," he jury room after dinner and while waiting replied, "Judge Dunn^ knows all about it, outside, William Schuyler Hamilton," a son for when my wife found they were going to of Alexander Hamilton, who fell in a duel run her off to Missouri, she went and told with Burr, came up to me. He is a small man the judge and tried to get the protection of with a cadaverous complexion, and has a the law." This was the judge who presided sharp, shrill voice. The editor of the Genius at the sessions then being held. I called at of Liberty^^ said of him, "He often boasts of his descent, without considering how great that descent is." The following dialogue oc curred between us: ° Charles Dunn (1799-1872), lawyer, politician, "I understand you are an abolitionist." and judge, was a Kentuckian who migrated to Illi nois, served in the Black Hawk War and in the "I am." Illinois lower house. In 1836 he was appointed by "Now, if you don't leave the town at once President Andrew Jackson chief justice of the Wis consin territorial supreme court, a post he held you shall be tarred and feathered, and I until Wisconsin became a state in 1848. He was will be the leader of a mob to do it." also a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and served as state senator from 1853 to 1856. "I think I can endure it." Defeated for Congress in 1858, he returned to the practice of law until his death. There is evidence that in another case involving a Negro—a slave named Sam who brought suit against his master, George Wallace Jones for wages—Judge Dunn also " Hamilton staked out a claim on a lead des- ruled against the Negro. Jones was the first man posit near the present site of Wyota in 1827 and to prove up pre-emption rights in the Mineral Point later built a smelter and constructed a port at land office, and established a trading post at Muscoda on the Wisconsin River. From 1842 to Sinsinawa Mound where he held more than a dozen 1843 he was a member of the lower house of the slaves whom he had brought from Missouri. Dic Territorial legislature. In 1849 he joined the Gold tionary of Wisconsin Biography (Madison, 1960) ; Rush to California where he died. Dictionary of John Nelson Davidson, "Negro Slavery in Wiscon Wisconsin Biography (Madison, 1960). sin," in Proceedings of the State Historical Society " An antislavery periodical published in Lowell, of Wisconsin, 1892, p. 83. Illinois. 126 MATHEWS JOURNAL He went away to try his power. At the to throw me down. Mr. Martin requested that end of the street there was a house which I might be allowed to proceed without inter jutted beyond the others, so that a person ruption, and any who wished to reply could from the window could see the entire length do so at the close. "Martin," said Crawford, of the street. In it resided the Rev. Mr. Heat- "are you an abolitionist?" "I am," said Mr. on, a Congregational minister, a good aboli Martin. "Then," replied Crawford, "you had tionist and a friend of mine. I went to him, better clear out from this place pretty quick." told him how matters stood, and requested "Why," said Mr. Martin, "have I not been leave to watch from his window the effect a useful and well-behaved citizen among you, of Hamilton's attempt, so that if the mob why do you wish to drive me away?" Con should come I might escape. He kindly con tinuing my discourse, I showed that the slave sented. But Hamilton was unsuccessful. There had no right by the laws of the South to any were threats of throwing me into one of religion, and gave an instance of a slave in the miner's pits, but I came away unharmed. South Carolina who was flogged to death Mr. Madan in a revival at Mineral Point pro for his religion. Colonel Dougherty at once fessed to be converted; but as he did not pronounced it the biggest lie he had ever restore the woman and her child to the li heard.^^ Colonel NichoUs demanded my au berty to which God and the laws of Wiscon thority for the statement. I drew from my sin gave them a right, I had no faith in his pocket American Slavery as It Is, published conversion. by the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Wishing to preach on the slavery question read [the incident aloud] .... at Mineral Point, I made another visit, hoping A printer connected with the Miner's Free to have the use of the court house. The Pres Press (!) ascended the roof of the court byterians were without a pastor, and by in house after I had read this, and was con vitation I preached for them in the morning.^^ tinuing my discourse and poured down water After dinner Mr. [John] Messersmith, the upon myself and Mr. Martin. Some scoffed, sheriff, and Thomas J. Parish^^—who report others mocked, but a number patiently lis ed himself in the census as owning one male tened to the close of the sermon, then with and two female slaves—called at my lodgings, out interruption I returned to the residence but I had gone for a walk. The sheriff closed of Mr. Martin; there were, however, some the court house, so I resolved to hold an who threatened to burn his house, but at open-air meeting. Mr. Martin, an English that period no further violence was offered. miner, who felt a deep interest in the slavery The subject of my preaching so much upon question, borrowed a chair for me to stand slavery was once discussed at a party at upon. The people assembled, and while I was selecting a chapter to read, the sheriff came up and urged me not to speak on so agitating '^^ The First Presbyterian Church was organized in 1839. History of Iowa County, Wisconsin (Chi a subject. I replied I should [do] my duty. cago, 1881), 720. He then inquired of Mr. Martin, who stood " The 1840 census lists Thomas I. Parrish as by my side, if he was willing to sacrifice his the owner of two young Negroes, a male and a fe male, and of a middle-aged Negro woman who was standing in society for the sake of the ne probably their mother. In 1837 John Messersmith groes. Mr. Martin replied, "I own no prop operated the Cold Spring Tavern at Messer Grove, twelve miles from Mineral Point. Miners Free erty here, but if I did it would make no dif Press, August 11, 1837. ference." After singing a hymn, reading the " Abner Nichols, proprietor of the Mansion House, scriptures, and prayer, I commenced my ser a hostelry composed of three or four log cabins put together, with passageways connecting them. mon by drawing a comparison between the Its bar, faro-bank, and roulette wheel were heavily man who, journeying from Jerusalem to Jer patronized by its predominately male clientele. icho fell among thieves—and the slaves. History of Iowa County, Wisconsin (Chicago, 1881), 661-662. Colonel Nicholls,^* who kept the principal " Robert Dougherty was clerk of the Circuit hotel in the town, was standing near me, and Court at Mineral Point during the 1830's. State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Collections (Mad a man named Crawford called out to him ison, 1903), 11: 295. 127 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Aztalan, where I was not present. The Rev. His wife, Mrs. L., was ill. I called on Mr. T., a Baptist minister, censured me strong her and found that she was rapidly failing. ly for doing so. A lady, a member of my I asked her whether—in view of soon enter congregation, replied that as the ministers ing the world of spirits—she considered that generally never mentioned the subject in their too much of her time had been devoted to preaching, if Mr. Mathews preached on it emancipation? "No," she replied, "I have not the whole of the time it would not make up done too much, would that I could have done for the deficiency of the other ministers. more; though it appears to me I should have liked to live and see the slaves all set free, T FORMED an anti-slavery society at Boice but the will of the Lord be done." She died ^ Prairie,'^ near the Mississippi River. Mr. peacefully, having the blessings of those ready Laughlin and his family were the life of this to perish. society. He was a native of South Carolina, I made an appointment at Plattville [sic], and grieved that his sister was a slavehold and learning that there were some threats er. Returning one day from an anti-slavery to handle me roughly, placed my horse at a meeting, we started a deer. It made for the safe distance from the town. There was an river, but was caught, killed, carried to his overflowing congregation. On the question home, and duly served up. He had the Life whether an anti-slavery society should be of Granville Sharp, which he prized highly, formed, there was a discussion, which lasted and was never weary of talking of the labours till midnight, when the following resolution of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Knibb, Thomp was moved by one of the pro-slavery party: son, Garrison, and other anti-slavery advo "Resolved, that the best mode for abolishing cates. He related to me the case of a tailor slavery is for abolitionists to lay by half their in the South who had been the means of earnings to compensate the masters for the making five hundred people abolitionists; he loss of their slaves." This was offered by Mr. went round to work at the houses of those [Neely] Grey, a member of the Legislature, wishing to employ him, was well informed, and was withdrawn in favour of the follow- and advocated emancipation wherever he went. The following incident shows how desir "Resolved, that it is dishonest and dis ous Mr. Laughlin was that persons should organizing to form societies in the north hear sermons on the subject. He had a new having for their object the abolition of neighbour just come from the slave state of slavery without compensation to the mas Missouri, and calling on him, stated that on ters. the approaching Sunday there would be an "Resolved, that we will not hereafter ti-slavery preaching, and invited him to at countenance, by our presence, any itinerant tend. The Missourian objected that his clothes lecturer whose object is to form such so were with his goods, and that they had not cieties." arrived. "Never mind," said Mr. Laughlin, "go in your working dress, and that you may These were passed by a large majority. I not appear singular, I will go with you wear requested the friends of the slave to remain ing my working dress." On Sunday Mr. after the audience separated, that we might Laughlin called for him, but he was not ready. make arrangements to form an anti-slavery At the close of the service I heard Mr. L. society; steps for this purpose were accord relate to his friends how it was he had come ingly taken. to the meeting in his working dress. Returning to Mineral Point, I announced that I should preach against slavery on the Sabbath. This the Miner's Free Press strong " A post office was established at Boyces Prairie, ly opposed in a most abusive article. The Grant County, December 3, 1838, with James Boyce court house was opened on the Sabbath. as postmaster. It was discontinued the following year. See post office file, Archives-Manuscripts Di The people assembled, and I commenced the vision, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. meeting. Planks were used for a ceiling a- 128 MATHEWS JOURNAL hove; in the midst of my discourse some of or a discussion, if any of the audience wish these were removed, and an abundance of ed to defend slavery. This plan was pur eggs was showered down upon me. We ad sued, and at the close of the evening service journed to the outside, and I continued my I announced a lecture, or, if any wished to discourse, being confronted by a large mob. defend slavery I invited them to discuss the The opponents were armed with clubs, and question at the meeting. Mr. [Charles] Lat were led by a stout Irishman. Mr. Martin imer, a lawyer, an Englishman—from Ox was severely threatened. In a short time I ford, my native city—arose and remarked was interrupted, seized by some of the mob, that as one state could not make laws for whose grasp was painful, and dragged into another he did not see how those who were a tavern. At length yielding to my remon endeavouring to procure emancipation could strances, they let me go, and I returned to reconcile their movements with the doctrine the court house. Many of the mob were of state rights. I observed that the aboli standing around Mr. Martin, who requested tionists held to the principle that each state them to bring forward their members of must make its own laws; but they regarded the bar, or their best informed men, and laws as the embodiment of public sentiment; let them present arguments to show that slav and that in various ways one state could in ery was right. We, on our part, would prove fluence the public sentiment of another state. that it was a sin against God and man. We Missionaries who went from America fre invited them to try by argument to defend quently found in the field of their labours slavery and not rely upon violence. that idolatry was established by law, and They were about to seize me again, when they created a public sentiment which led a tall, stout New Englander took off his coat, to a change of the law; that slavery, like and declared I should be protected. A pro- idolatry, was a sin, and was established by slavery man then took off his coat, and all law. One mode of reaching it was through began to form into two parties for a con the various religious bodies of the South, test. Seeing this, rather than that there should who by conferences, general assemblies, mis be any fighting, I withdrew from the town, sionary, and other organizations were con uninjured; my clothes, however, bore the im nected with Northern religionists. The slaves press of the eggs, which it was difficult to were a nation of heathen according to South remove. ern ministers, and it was the duty of the American churches to see that they were supplied with the light of life. It was then S WESTERN WISCONSIN approaches announced that a discussion would be held. A the Mississippi River, its chief features Arrangements were made, and in favour of are deep ravines and sharp ridges. Two of slavery there were four advocates—Mr. Lat the towns built in these ravines are Potosi imer, Mr. Lord, and another person, all three and Fair Play.^^ I will relate what took place lawyers, and Rev. [Frank Thomas] Mitchell, during my visit to each of them. In the for from Virginia, brother of the slaveholding mer town I called on the Rev. W. E. Board- chaplain.^* The advocates of emancipation man (the work, The Higher Christian Life, were Rev. Messrs. Boardman and [A. M.] is from his pen) and asked permission to lecture in the Presbyterian Church, of which he was pastor. His reply was, "I have been praying in reference to the subject of slavery. We will go and see the members." " A post office was established at Fair Play, They favoured holding a meeting. It was Grant County, on December 13, 1841, with Frank arranged that Mr. Boardman should take lin Z. Hicks as postmaster. In 1895 the name was my place at a Sunday morning service in changed to Fairplay, and in 1907 the post office was discontinued. See post office file. the country, and that I should preach for " The reference is to Reverend James Mitchell him; and that my subject in the evening whose wife held two slaves. Mathews refers to should be the slavery question; that at the Mitchell as the chaplain of the Territorial legis lature, although no evidence has been discovered close I should announce a lecture in the week. to substantiate this claim. 129 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Dixon, Mr. Mills, a lawyer from Kentucky," ture, but he must contend against the ex and myself. The evening came, a large and position that had been given. When Paul excited audience assembled; at least one half stated that he did what was expedient; it had formerly been residents in the slave was in reference to things where there was states. no violation of moral law. For instance, it I dwelt on the sinfulness of slavery, and may be right for a minister of religion to the duty of repentance, giving a sketch of hold a civil office, yet it may not be expedi the history of slavery and abolition. Mr. ent. In such a case Paul would make expedi Latimer opposed emancipation on the plea ency his rule. But he would never contend of state rights. Mr. Boardman made an earn that he had a right to get drunk, or have est appeal for emancipation on account of two wives or hold slaves, for where moral the suffering condition of the slaves. Mr. law was concerned that was his guide, not Lord unconsciously aided us by describing expediency. the agitation on the subject in the eastern The discussion lasted two evenings. The states, an agitation with which he, a North people were obtaining light. This the pro- ern man, disclaimed all sympathy. slavery party feared, and offered a resolu He stated that he had recently visited Bos tion at the close of the second evening's ton, Massachusetts. A slave, named Latimer, discussion, which a majority adopted, against had, by secreting himself in a vessel, escaped any further agitation of the subject. I re from the South and reached that city. The mained in the place, and the pro-slavery party master was in Boston, determined to regain probably feared I should give another sermon his property; the judges were in favour of on slavery on the approaching Sabbath. I may giving up Latimer to the master, but a large add that Mrs. [James 0.] Woolfolk, living portion of the Boston people were determined in Potosi, who held slaves in the South, and he should never be a slave again. A song attended the chapel I preached at on the had been written, each verse ending with subject of slavery, sent me word that I might the words "Boston boys! Boston boys! res have her slaves at half-price. Notices were cue the slave!" In fact, so far had they gone posted up stating that a resolution having that there were pictures circulated, which been adopted that the agitation of the slavery represented the judges as harnessed like question should cease, and Mr. Mathews still horses to a stagecoach, whilst the slavehold continuing in the town, a meeting would be er was mounted on the box of the coach and held to consider what steps ought to be taken. flourishing his whip over them. He felt the I inquired of the person posting up the no greatest disgust at such proceedings tices if any one who chose might attend. He The Rev. F. Mitchell followed; he said replied, "Certainly." I decided to be present. that the chief point in the argument of the The reason of my delay was simply this. first speaker was that slavery should be given The horse of the Rev. Mr. Dixon, who lived up because it was sinful. He claimed, however, at Fair Play, had strayed away. I lent him the propriety of following the Apostle Paul, my horse to find it, and he had not yet re whose rule of life was expediency. He then turned it. argued that it was expedient to hold slaves, The meeting was held, but was not numer and therefore justifiable. ously attended. These friends of "law and In following him Mr. Mills observed that order" elected a chairman, and appointed he was not accustomed to expound scrip- a committee to prepare resolutions expres sive of the sense of the meeting. The com mittee reported a preamble and resolution " Joseph Trotter Mills came to Wisconsin in as follows: "That, whereas it had been re 1834 as tutor to the children of Colonel Zachary solved that agitation on slavery should cease Taylor who was stationed at Fort Crawford at the time. In 1840 Mills settled in Lancaster and began in Potosi; and whereas Mr. Mathews still to practice law. He was later elected assemblyman continues in town,—Resolved, that this meet from Grant County and from 1865 to 1877 served ing will not be responsible twenty-four hours as circuit judge of the fifth judicial district. Dic tionary of Wisconsin Biography (Madison, 1960). for the safety of his life." A friend of mine 130 MATHEWS JOURNAL proposed that they should simply resolve and finally dispersed, after going to a tav that so far as they were concerned—no harm ern. My horse was sent the next morning, and should come to Mr. Mathews—and he thought I rode out of town, sharply-eyed, but un there would be no danger. Of this, however, touched. they entirely disapproved. Mr. Mitchell was connected with the Metho I now arose to speak, but they denied my dist Episcopal Church. Mr. Lyon, one of his right to do so. I stated that the person who class-leaders, an Englishman, had been be posted the notices had informed me that all fore his conversion, a leading infidel. He was were invited. Hence I had come. That if slav now highly esteemed for his piety. When, ery had simply to do with this life I should however, he heard his pastor defend slavery make less opposition to it, but when I look from the Bible it recalled in all their bitter ed at the slave as journeying with us to eter ness those feelings he once cherished against nity, and yet deprived of the light that should the Bible as a pillar of tyranny. The night guide him to everlasting bliss, I was resolved following he had no sleep, but tossed upon to do what I could to remove slavery because his bed. The conflict in his mind between it closed every avenue by which light could his hatred of tyranny and his love of the reach his mind; and that I believed if any Bible was terrible, but he settled down in one of the audience were on a dying bed the conviction that the Bible was against he would rather send for a minister to pray slavery. He called on Mr. Mitchell, handed with him who was faithful to his trust, him his class-book, and said, "Sir, you have though unpopular for being so, than for one defended slavery by the Bible. I renounce who moved with the stream of popular feeling for ever my connection with your church." and supported slavery. This surprised Mr. Mitchell, and he said, The attempt to pass the resolutions failed, "Brother Lyon, you had better pray over but my friends feared that I should be mob this subject!" His reply was "Prayer has led bed. They desired me to remain in the town me to see that the Bible is against slavery, over the night if it were at all possible, not which you are defending, and I am convinced only for my sake, but for the sake of the I am right." cause. If I were compelled by the mob to I regret to add that Mr. Latimer died by leave a precedent would be established, and the hand of an assassin in Potosi.^" the next anti-slavery lecturer who visited the town would be waited on by a committee, announcing that the previous lecturer only saved his life by leaving the town; and un less he followed the example, his life would ^ In February, 1845, Charles Latimer, a brilliant be sacrificed. but "dissipated" Englishman, became embroiled in As the sun was setting I walked out of an argument over the proposed repeal of the law allowing foreigners the right to vote after three town; my friends tried to ascertain the state months' residence in the territory. He evidently dis of feeling in a quiet way. Soon after the paraged the American character and was knocked down by Thomas Gloster and a man named White, moon rose I heard a whistle—this was the both Kentuckians. Gloster apologized. White re sign agreed on. I came out of the thicket fused. Before a duel could be fought, with Celestin where I was concealed; a friend met me who Kaltenbach as Latimer's second and Gloster as White's second, the law officials intervened. Three said, "We think you will be safe, but it has days later Latimer, armed with three pistols and a been deemed prudent to change your lod bowie knife, shot at and missed Gloster, who immed iately picked up a double-barrel shotgun. When gings. Stay at my house." To this he led me Latimer's pistol misfried and he charged with the by a circuitous route. I retired to rest, and knife, Gloster shot him twice. Gloster was tried and he went out to watch. A company of men, acquitted on the grounds of self defense. History of Grant County, Wisconsin (Chicago, 1881), 763; Ca- near midnight, came near the house at which tello N. Holford, History of Grant County (Lancaster, I had lodged. They loitered about some time Wisconsin, 1900), 521-522. (This is the second of a four-part series.) 131 THE WISCONSIN REFORM COALITION, 1892 TO 1900: La Follette's Rise To Power By KENNETH ACREA O OBERT MARION LA FOLLETTE'S vic- Informality characterized the coalition in -^*- tory in the Wisconsin gubernatorial e- its early years, and the lines of authority lection of 1900 owed much to the joint ef and exact relationships were often not clear forts of a small number of dedicated, reform- or stable. The acquisition of some power, new minded men who, for the purpose of estab responsibilities, and the inclusion of more lishing a collective identity, will herein be people forced the coalition to regularize its referred to as the "reform coalition." How operations. Each man had at first no distin ever, until rather recently. La Follette's sub guishing role, but performed many duties sequent rise to national prominence has ob scured the intricate personal relationships and the arduous endeavors of these men who S. Maxwell, La Follette and the Rise of tlie Pro did so much to arouse a spirit of political gressives in Wisconsin (Madison, 1956), 13, 58- revolt within the state and to assure the gov 62, passim., suggests the existence of a well-run ernorship for the one who became the stand La Follette machine (as had, of course. La Fol lette's contemporary opponents) based on a wide ard bearer for their version of reform.' coalition of interests, but Maxwell barely recognizes the pre-1900 importance of Old Bob's colleagues. Robert Twombly's impressive account, "The Re former As Politician: Robert M. La Follette in the ^ La Follette himself noted the participation in Election of 1900" (unpublished M.A. thesis, Uni the "coalition" of Albert R. Hall, Nils P. Haugen, versity of Wisconsin, 1964) deals little, however, George E. Bryant, Samuel A. Harper, and Herbert with the roles of various members of the coalition C. Chynoweth at various stages but always cast before 1898 and does not really consider the per himself as the outstanding figure. La Follette's sonnel shifts which occured at various times. Stu Autobiography (Madison, 1960 ed.), 77-79, 92. Al art D. Brandes, "Nils P. Haugen and the Wiscon bert 0. Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin sin Progressive Movement" (unpublished M.A. the (Des Moines, 1922), 77, cites Jerre C. Murphy as sis. University of Wisconsin, 1965), stresses the im a guiding spirit behind La Follette; Nils P. Hau portance of someone other than La Follette, though gen, Pioneer and Political Reminiscences (Madison, his claims for Haugen are often overstated. In [1930]), 110-119, remembered that William D. this present study the emphasis is at all times on Hoard and Horace Rublee were influential figures the private workings of the coalition group and but that La Follette was the chief figure at all not on the public manifestations of their efforts. times. The total dominance of La Follette is es For this reason, personal correspondence has been pecially emphasized by his wife and daughter. Belle used heavily, instead of the day-by-day chronicling Case and Fola La Follette in Robert M. La Fol of developments offered by the several newspapers lette, (2 vols., New York, 1953) I: 106-126. Robert usually used in studies of La Follette. 132 ACREA: REFORM COALITION which changed over the period. Nevertheless, a minor irritant.^ After his defeat by the each man had his own unique and distin Democrats for election to a fourth term in guishing characteristics, and each contributed Congress in 1890, La Follette returned to to the coalition in his own way from the be Madison to take up more seriously the prac ginning. By 1896, the coalition had taken tice of law in a new partnership with Sam on something of the formal hierarchy of the uel A. Harper, Gilbert E. Roe, and Alfred established political forces. The altered roles G. Zimmerman, all friends of long standing.* of each member and the shifts in group op His first public controversy with leading state erating procedures were responses to real or party elders in 1891 soon disrupted the pros imagined changes in the political arena and pects for a peaceful life in Madison. The in to the broader forces of social change at work cident involved an alleged bribery attempt in the state. Over the years grew the mechan by Senator Philetus Sawyer in order to se ism which eventually made La Follette gov cure La Follette's influence in a matter ap ernor and built an engine of reform and re pearing before the latter's brother-in-law, venge—the mighty machine of Wisconsin Judge Robert Siebecker.^ The details of the progressivism. incident need not concern us here; La Fol There are a number of still potent but lette's charge of bribery against the Senator badly frayed myths which form part of the had serious repercussions among party lead vast folklore surrounding that remarkably ers who affectionately referred to the Sena energetic man whose name became synony tor as "Uncle Philet." It sorely embarrassed mous in Wisconsin and throughout the nation the party, gave ample fuel to the Democrats, with progressivism. La Follette, it has been excluded La Follette from most of the con- said, was tutored by his older newspaper man friend Jerre C. Murphy in the great pro test movements of history, and instilled with the "high spirit of earnest endeavor" by John " Carroll P. Lahman, "Robert Marion La Follette as Public Speaker and Political Leader, 1855-1905" Bascom, that stern puritan who was presi (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wis dent of the state university. From state su consin, 1939), 157, 174; Thelen, The Early Life, 42-43, 58, 86-87, and passim. Compare Thelen, The preme court Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan, Early Life, 61-62, 66-70 with Wallace S. Sayre, La Follette heard of the dangers implicit in "Robert M. La Follette: A Study in Political Meth concentrated wealth which used democratic ods" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1930), 45. institutions for its own selfish purposes, a * Democratic resurgence in Wisconsin in 1890 view which conformed to that found in Henry was most generally attributed to the Bennett Law George's Progress and Poverty, which La issue which severely divided foreign-language peo ples from the English-speaking Wisconsinites. Gov Follette claimed to have read as a youth. If ernor Hoard and most Republicans seeking re-elec such were the influences upon the thought tion had refused to renounce their 1889 law re quiring primary level instruction in English in all of the young La Follette, there is little to schools, which Germans viewed as an attempt to suggest that they influenced his early actions.^ exterminate non-English-based culture. See William F. Whyte, "The Bennett Law Campaign in Wiscon The subject of La Follette's party loyal sin," Wisconsin Magazine of History, X: 363-390 ties and ties during the 1880's and early (June, 1927), which takes a strong anti-Hoard 1890's has long been one of some dispute. stance. Further comment is given by Magazine ed itor Joseph Schafer in "Editorial Comments," ibid., Despite La Follette's early claims to the con 455-461. Also see Robert J. Ulrich, "The Bennett trary, it now seems clear that party leaders Law of 1889: Education and Politics in Wisconsin," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wis in the 1880's did not publicly oppose him, consin, 1965), and Roger E. Wyman, "Wisconsin and even in private only looked upon him Ethnic Groups and the Election of 1890," Wisconsin indifferently or at worst as little more than Magazine of History, 51: 269-293 (Summer, 1968.) ° Lahman, "La Follette as Public Speaker," 310, note 2; Sayre, "La Follette: A Study in Political Methods," 69-70. La Follette gives a chronology of events in Autobiography, 67-69. For a sample of ^ Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, hostile Republican press reactions to La Follette 76-77; La Follette's Autobiography, 9-13; David because of the Sawyer affair, see Russell Baird, P. Thelen, The Early Life of Robert M. La Follette, "La Follette and the Press, 1880-1905" (unpuMished 1855-1884, (Loyola tfniversity Press, Chicago, 1966), M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1947), 87- 4^20, 21-50. 102. 133 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Society's Iconographic Collection The quadrumvirate who constituted the law firm of La Follette, Harper, Roe & Zimmerman: La Follette (top left); Samuel Albert Harper (top right); Gilbert E. Roe (lower left); Alfred G. Zimmerman (lower right). The firm — established after Robert G. Siebecker, La Follette's brother-in-law and partner in La Follette & Siebecker (1881-1885) and in La Follette, Siebecker & Harper (1885-1890) became judge of the ninth judicial circuit of Wiscon sin and La Follette had lost the election of 1890 — dissolved in 1894, although the men continued to work closely on political and legal matters. 134 ACREA: REFORM COALITION siderations and preferments due a former Congressman, and forced him to re-evaluate his position in the Republican party and whatever hopes he may once have had for future political office. Indeed this squabble distressed the conservative young lawyer who had no "psychic predisposition" to radical ism. Though some of the political hostilities mellowed after the sensation subsided, and although La Follette maintained a considera ble rapport with audiences and some party leaders, the Sawyer element which included Sawyer's protege, former Senator John Coit Spooner, and other men high in the party, looked upon La Follette as being quite un reliable.^ T^HE GROUP of friends and associates with ^"^iLt> s Icouogiaphic CoUection -*- whom La Follette felt most comfortable Senator John Coit Spooner. after 1891 was rather small. It included his law partners, who held each other in mutu al confidence and affection, and John M. Bryant or his friends to "Boss" Keyes or Nelson, who as a junior in the University his machine.^ La Follette had been taken of Wisconsin in 1891 sought summer work under Bryant's political wing, as the former in the law firm in order to study under La county judge and state senator began to Follette, whom he much admired. Nelson groom the then district attorney for a seat was secretary of the Student Republican Club in Congress. Thus began an unbroken friend at the University.'' ship and political association between La Fol Other friends had special ties which de lette and the older Bryant. serve further consideration. In the early Congressman Nils P. Haugen, one of the 1880's, a close friendship had begun between few important Republicans who associated La Follette and George E. Bryant. Bryant, with La Follette on more than a purely per a wealthy landowner and cattle raiser in functory basis after the Sawyer affair, had Dane County, had helped Matthew Carpen become a close friend of La Follette's during ter defeat ex-state party chairman Elisha the four years they had served together in Keyes in the latter's first bid for the Senate Congress. As the one successful Republican in 1879, and replaced Keyes as Madison post Congressman who survived the 1890 party master in 1882, moves which did not endear debacle, Haugen enjoyed great popularity among his fellow Scandinavians. Generally unexcitable and inactive, he tended to accept at face value the party structure which had ' La Follette credited the incident with showing enabled him to become a Congressman. He, him the bright, upward path to reform and ad La Follette, and fellow attorney Sam Harper mitted that he would have been "much slower" in rejecting the stalwart element leadership without had once worked to co-ordinate appointments, it. Autobiography, 65-71. Belle Case and Fola La though the Sawyer-Spooner element often Follette, La Follette, 1:102-107, is a quite balanced sought to undo the effectiveness of both Con- analysis of the incident's effects at the immediate time. William B. Hesseltine, "Robert M. La Follette sfressmen. When La Follette was both out of and the Principles of Americanism," Wisconsin Magazine of History, XXXI:261 (March, 1948). 'La Follette, Autobiography, 21, 71; John M. Nel son to Samuel A. Harper, June 9, 1891, in the La Follette Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. All collec "Thelen, The Early Life, 61-62, 66-70; Sayre, tions herein cited are located in the Society's library. "La Follette: A Study in Political Methods," 51-55. 135 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Congress and in disrepute among the strong ly pro-Sawyer element, he looked to Haugen not only as a friend but as a protector of his old appointees, while Haugen drew upon La Follette's still well-regarded talents as a campaign speaker. Haugen remained on fair terms with Sawyer, but was disgusted with Spooner, seeing no particular connection be tween the two men until Sawyer in 1892 directly rebuffed the Congressman on an ap pointment. Though Sawyer had largely con vinced the placid Haugen that it had been Spooner's work. La Follette sensed the con nection between the two men and vented his anger at the consistently shabby treatment he and Haugen received from them.^ In 1890, Haugen had made the acquaint ance of Albert R. Hall, the Dunn County assemblyman. Hall worked tirelessly in Hau- gen's behalf and the two men soon became intimate friends. During a fall speaking en gagement in the Dunn County seat of Me nomonie in 1892, La Follette met Hall, which encouraged Haugen to suggest that the two men should get to know each other. Hall favorably impressed with the meeting, re SoL!et\'s Iconographic Collection ported his desire "to become better acquaint Albert R. Hall, about 1895. ed" with La Follette, and almost immediate ly they accepted each other.'" Hall was one of the most remarkable men to join what became the reform coalition. Frail and angular in appearance, quiet, deep ly serious, and modest in manner, he had " Louis A. Pradt to Nils P. Haugen, September set about reforming what he considered a- 22, 1892, in the Haugen Papers. Pradt, a county central committee chairman, noted Haugen's effec buses among politicians, corporations, and tiveness among the Scandinavians. Robert M. La taxation policies with a never ending zeal. Follette to N. P. Haugen, March 14, April 2, 1891, and February 25, 1892, suggest their friendship To those who were his friends, the ex-Ver- and political ties. See also S. A. Harper to R. J. monter seemed fearless, unselfish, and ded Flint, February 5, 1890; Flint to Haugen, February icated only to the highest ideals of public 8, 1890; Haugen to Flint, May 28, 1890, Letter- book 2; Flint to Haugen, May 31, 1890; Haugen service, but to his enemies he was a crank, to Flint, December 28, 1890, Letterbook 3; La Fol an eccentric, a radical railroad and corpora lette to Haugen, March 14, 1891; Haugen to La tion baiter of the worst stripe.^' The owner Follette, January 10, 1892, Letterbook 4; La Follette to Haugen, February 25, 1892; La Follette to Hau of two large and successful model stock farms, gen, October 12, 1892, all in the Nils P. Haugen and a hardwood lumber manufacturing plant Papers. Brandes, "Nils P. Haugen," claims that Haugen split with the Republican machine over these appointment matters. While Haugen was ir ritated, he still believed that Sawyer could be trust ed, as he later demonstrated. Neither his close as sociate Flint nor La Follette had any success in " Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, 93, convincing him of the contrary. 98; Gwyneth King Roe [wife of Gilbert E. Roe], ^"Haugen to Albert R. Hall, August 20, 1890, "Two Views of the La Follettes: I. Madison, the Letterbook 2; Hall to Haugen, October 18, 1890; '90's," in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, 42:109 Haugen to Hall, July 23, 1892, Letterbook 5; Hall (Winter, 1958-1959) ; La Follette, Autobiography, to Haugen, July 26, August 17 and 28, 1892, in the 92. On Hall's assembly work see Kenneth Acrea, Haugen Papers. "Wisconsin Progressivism: Legislative Response to 136 ACREA: REFORM COALITION in Dunn County, he had moved from Vermont to Minnesota with his family in 1854 and from there to Wisconsin in 1880 at the age of thirty-nine, having already served seven terms in the Minnesota assembly, three of them as speaker. He had been fully in the thick of Minnesota politics, and opposed un savory practices there also.'^ Closely con nected with Grangerism in Minnesota—his uncle was Oliver H. Kelly, founder of that movement—and sometimes identified as a Granger himself in his early years. Hall had no formal connections with the organization despite the close family ties, and was in stead quite busy with various business proj ects which took much of his time.'^ He had prospered in Minnesota, and devoted so much time to business and Republican politics that he often appeared as a social recluse to his mother, who no doubt wished that her bache lor son would devote less time to these things and more time to finding a wife, which he never did. Still, after elections, he enjoyed Social Change" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin, 1968), 173-178, 311-316. See also Horace Samuel Merrill, Bourbon Demo cracy of the Middle West, 1865 to 1896 (Baton Rouge, 1953), 197-198; Milo M. Quaife, Wisconsin: Its History and Its People, 1634-1924 (2 vols., Chi cago, 1924), 11:7. "Menomonie Dunn County News, January 1, 1881, January 14, 1882, and April 29, 1892 on lum ber mill, and November 15, 1906 on farms; also ibid. June 9, 1905, for biographical sketch in obitu ary. See also Anton Grethen to A.R. Hall, March 30, 1871; A.D. Cashburn to Hall, May 16 and 26, 1873, in the Albert R. Hall Papers. The Hall family resided in Dayton and Minneapolis, Minnesota. ^"On Grangers see "Mother" [Mrs. H.S. Hall] to A.R. Hall, June 7, 1873; Evan Morgan to Hall, July 28, 1876: on his business in Minnesota see Hall to Carrie Hall [sister], July 3, 1873; E.D. Sewall to Hall, April 4, 1875; William H. Dun- woody to Hall, September 16 and October 1, 1875, in the Hall Papers. Stanley Caine, "Railroad Reg ulation in Wisconsin, 1903-1910: An Assessment Society's Iconographic Collection of a Progressive Reform" (unpublished Ph.D. dis sertation. University of Wisconsin, 1967), 7, and (Above) Governor W. D. Hoard, and (below) Mil Maxwell, La Follette and the Rise of the Progres waukee transportation magnate Henry Clay Payne, sives, 35, assert that Hall was known as a Granger who became bitter enemies over the oleomargarine and a Populist, though no evidence supports it. ban against which Payne lobbied successfully during Hall was most certainly not a Populist and, in Hoard's administration. fact, he feared the growth of that element in his home county. See Hall to Haugen, August 22 1894, in the Haugen Papers; Hall to S.A. Harper, September 22, 1894, in the La Follette Papers; Byron J. Castle to Hall, November 10, 1894, in the Hall Papers. 137 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 entertaining his neighbors with card games out 1892 their correspondence provided a and choice cuts of his own prize beef.'* vehicle for the exchange of grievances and Another future coalition figure, former criticisms of the existing party structure and Governor William D. Hoard of Ft. Atkinson, operation. Assemblyman Hall had worked was also an unusual sort of person, but in for the prohibition of free railroad passes a much different way. A national leader in to state officials and legislators but the 1891 Grand Army of the Republic and agricultu legislature had shown little interest other ral circles, he had a considerable following than in deriding him for the notion; his plan of his own. His publications, the Jefferson for a sweeping investigation of state rail County Union and Hoard's Dairyman, had road taxation policies and practices generated wide state circulation, with the latter recog mostly disdain among leading Republicans. nized as a nationally influential organ among La Follette chafed at the manner in which dairymen. Hoard himself enjoyed great pres political matters were shuffled about to the tige in North America and Europe as a pio advantage of what he thought were sinister neer in scientific animal husbandry and fac forces in the party, namely the Sawyer- Spoon tory dairying. A prominent Republican, he er element. The rebuffs to both him and Hau grouchily nursed his wounds from his own gen prompted a bitter prophecy from La 1890 defeat, though he remained apprecia Follette, the accuracy of which no one fore tive of La Follette's congressional efforts in saw: "I may be powerless at present to re behalf of dairymen and remembered that sent even an insult but there will come anoth Bryant had renominated him for governor er time and when this snow melts there will in that unhappy year. Though known to Hau be a flood. I am patient and can wait."'^ gen and the law partners. Hoard devoted Haugen also resented being overridden on himself entirely and exclusively to the inter matters of patronage important to his own ests of the dairymen, and especially the Wis interests, and found current campaign prac consin Dairymen's Association, which he held tices financially draining and a threat to foremost above all else. While Hoard asso candidates of modest means. He suggested ciated openly with these frequent confede to Hall and La Follette the necessity for a rates, he long maintained friendly, discreet British-type corrupt practices act so a candi contacts with Sawyer and others which were date might "avoid being bled to death during useful. He greatly disliked Republican nation a campaign both before and after conven al committeeman Henry Clay Payne, a Mil tion .... [I]t is getting to a pass where waukee transportation magnate, because there is danger that nominations will go ab- Payne had at one time lobbied for the oleo margarine interests of the Philip Armour Packing Company which had successfully fought the oleo ban proposed during Hoard's "J.A. Christian to Carrie Hall, August 4, 1880; administration. This stamped Payne as "an "Mother" to Hall, July 24, 1884, in the Hall Papers; ti-dairy," more than enough to earn Hoard's Dunn County News, February 10, 1888 and De undying distaste.^' cember 7, 1894. " Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography (Madison, 1960), 172-173; Henry C. Campbell, Wisconsin in Three Centuries, 1634-1905 (4 vols.. New York, 1906), IV: 115-122. Hoard's influence in G.A.R. and dairy circles, and his desire for more political TN 1892, few members of what would short- power for dairymen, are reflected in these exchanges: -•- ly become the reform coalition were more Hoard to Henry C. Adams, January 19, 1895; to than casually acquainted, and their contacts Governor William H. Upham, April 5, 1895, Let terbook 50, in the William D. Hoard Papers; Hoard usually arose from common political or pro to S.A. Harper, November 30, 1895, in the La Fol fessional experiences. At most, in this early lette Papers. Payne had opposed Hoard's nomina tion in 1888 and took a dim view of Governor period, they were but loosely associated with Hoard's adamant defense of the Bennett Law in only the vaguest common goals, best sum 1890. See Wyman, "Wisconsin Ethnic Groups and med up as the "triumph of Republicanism." the Election of 1890," 274^-275. Still, to Hoard the dairy matter transcended all other considerations. But within these men lay the seeds for a ^"La Follette to Haugen, February 13, 1892, in new definition of Republicanism, and through the Haugen Papers. 138 ACREA: REFORM COALITION solutely to the highest bidder."^^ Hall prompt ly sent to Haugen two bills which had been introduced in the Minnesota assembly, and they exchanged thoughts on this and the com plex matter of railway taxation which Hall intended to press in Wisconsin. Hoard, of course, remained suspicious of any high par ty official who had become tainted by asso ciation with "anti-dairy" interests or who f might become too closely identified with such men. Throughout 1892 these men drew closer together in their activities, exchanging ideas and airing personal complaints. Hall's vig orous work for Haugen for Congress early in 1892 won important support for Haugen and a local reputation for Hall as the shrewd est politician in the county, while the Mad ison contingent toyed with the idea of get ting up a movement to run Haugen for gov Society's IconogLiphic Collection ernor that year. Though La Follette made Congressman Nils P. Haugen. the suggestion. Harper and Bryant were e- qual partners in the scheme, formulated with force each other's view that something was the secrecy and mystery which came to char very wrong in Wisconsin Republican politics. acterize all their dealings.^* But nothing came The lack of support for railroad regulation of it, as Haugen showed no interest in risk measures among the party press and offi ing his comfortable and familiar seat in the cialdom distressed Hall. Finally, in the fall House, and things settled back to the usual of 1893, the quiet Haugen, who was not easi biannual routine of a congressional campaign. ly disturbed, confided to La Follette his own La Follette jumped in eagerly, and waited deep distrust of Spooner and Sawyer, who, for his expected speaking assignments from he said, were "largely to blame for the de the state Republican speaker's bureau. When moralized condition of the party" through no assignment came, he arranged his own, their use of great amounts of money in cam setting up ten appearances in Haugen's dis paigns. He waited for an evaluation of things trict. Finding it difficult to support certain from La Follette and Harper, as he knew elements within his party. La Follette spoke these two men conferred constantly on all in general terms, mentioning mainly Haugen matters.^" By the end of 1893, two strains but not Spooner, the party's gubernatorial of thought became evident within the group. candidate.^** Their discontent included both matters of The appearance of party solidarity was party policy as reflected in the conduct of misleading, and throughout 1893, Hall, Hau state government, and party politics as shown gen, and the Madison people came to rein- in the system of internal party rewards and punishments, though only Hall and to a very much lesser extent Haugen showed much in- " Haugen to Hall and La Follette, December 30, 1892, Letterbook 5, in the Haugen Papers. ^^ Haugen to Hall, July 23, 1892, Letterbook 5; Hall to Haugen, July 26, 1892; Flint to Haugen, ^Haugen to Hall, January 27, April 21, and 29, July 26, 1892; La Follette to Haugen, March 4, 1893, Letterbook 6; Hall to Haugen, April 30, 1893; 1892; Haugen to Hall, May 10, 1894, Letterbook Haugen to La Follette October 18, 1893, Letter- 7, in the Haugen Papers. book 6, in the Haugen Papers. Haugen had been " Haugen to La Follette, March 8, 1892, Letter- Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner from 1882 to book 4; La Follette to Haugen, September 22 and 1887, and Hall drew on the reports Haugen had October 12, 1892, in the Haugen Papers. issued. 139 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 terest in the broader matter of party policy La Follette replied, "Do nothing . . . say at this time. The 1894 election provided an nothing"; his Madison partisans were taking irresistible opportunity for some sort of con care of everything. As favorable reports pour certed effort towards change, and in this ef ed in to Haugen both directly and through fort the coalition as such actually became a the Madison people, Haugen ceased to make functioning body. any effective protest. Hoard promised sup Some found this opportunity more irresist port through his dairy publications, and Hor ible than others, however. Use of Haugen's ace Rublee, editor of the influential Milwau name in connection with the governorship fcee Sentinel, showed interest. By April 20, as early as October, 1893, brought a protest 1894, the matter was quite out of Haugen's from the Congressman, flattered though he hands. He turned over the question of his was. There was some talk, of no great im running again for Congress to Hall, and the portance, that La Follette might be in the matter of the governorship to the Madison race. Haugen's local associates reported to people. He only feared that he would get him La Follette's assurance that Haugen could neither.^^ be depended upon "to secure the nomination Though Haugen later took an active part of an anti-boss and anti-boodle ticket." Press in the effort to gain the governorship, any of ed by inquiring friends and back-stairs gos the others involved easily surpassed his own sip, Haugen protested to La Follette that his contribution. The offices of La Follette, Harp primary desire was to return to Congress.^' er, Roe, and Zimmerman were devoted al most entirely to this project with an unbound ed enthusiasm.^^ While Hall faced the sticky "" Haugen to A.M. Anderson, December 23, 1893; Harold E. Ticknor to S.A. Harper, February 1, 1894, in the La Follette Papers; James C. Bart- holf to Haugen, February 3, 1894; Flint to Haugen, February 3, 1894; Haugen to La Follette, February 7, 1894, in the Haugen Papers. •^^La Follette to Haugen, February 21, 1894; John M. Nelson to Haugen, February 24, 1894; Byron Andrews to Haugen, February 24, 1894, La Follette to Haugen, March 4, 1894. The problems were complex. A precise ethnic and geographic bal ance had to be maintained on the whole state tic ket, it was felt, and thus Haugen's decision would have great importance for other Scandinavians who might wish to seek state or congressional positions. If Haugen got the nomination for governor, it would possibly preclude another Scandinavian from the state ticket, while opening his congressional seat to one. See Sewell A. Peterson to Haugen, February 16, 1894. Peterson was very concerned about his own political career as a Scandinavian. Haugen justifiably believed that some of those who supported him for the gubernatorial nomination sought merely to oust him from the congressional race and then later abandon him altogether. Hau gen to La Follette, February 23, 1894, in Letter- book 7. A good discussion of these matters was given by Rockwell J. Flint to Haugen in a letter dated March 10, 1894. Haugen's resignation of the whole problem is found in his letters to La Follette, April 18, 1894; to S.A. Harper, April 19, 1894; to George E. Bryant, April 19, 1894; and to A.R. Hall, April 20, 1894, Letterbook 7. All citations are to the Haugen Papers. Society's Iconographic Collection "^La Follette to Haugen, May 3, 1894; Haugen to Hall, May 10, 1894; La Follette to Haugen, May Mr. and Mrs. Alfred G. Zimmerman photographed 15, 1894; Haugen to Hall, May 27, 1894, Letter- in 1901 in their Locomobile steamer, the first auto book 7, in the Haugen Papers. La Follette to Hall, mobile permanently owned in Madison. May 25, 1894, in the Hall Papers. 140 ACREA: REFORM COALITION problems of keeping Haugen's congressional supporters in line and of resolving competing congressional district convention calls, the Madison people composed and mailed thou sands of letters and circulars emphasizing an "anti-boss" stand. All would go smoothly if Haugen, then in Washington attending Con gress, would just follow orders and leave the important decisions to his friends, with the central office forces directed by Harper and La Follette, and Hall acting as general in the field. Bryant, the old pro, was a respected analyst, but La Follette and Harper made the decisions in Madison. Haugen's own repu tation among his fellow Scandinavians would be enough to secure them if the others could apply the right pressures to control hesitant Republicans. Hoard had the dairy people stirred up against the old guard Payne-Saw- yer-Spooner element, combining the antidairy threat and the machine into one common enemy very effectively. Other than the im Society's Iconographic Collection precise references to anti-bossism in the ma John Mandt Nelson, the University student who stu terials from Madison, and to "meat-packer died law under La Follette. oleo interests" in Hoard's 62,500 circulars, the coalition had no policy issues behind of trouble sprouted everywhere, soon growing them. Hall's ideas on railroad regulation did into signs of almost sure defeat. In the July not enter into the campaign. The attempt 26 state convention, out of eleven candidates, could only in the slightest sense be repre Haugen always stood a poor third to the two sented as a "reform" effort in 1894, one born chief rivals, William Upham and Edward instead of disgruntled men who had yet to Scofield. Though Haugen's vote progressive find a real rallying point.^* ly increased on each of the six ballots, the Despite all their labors, the effort came to Scofield forces yielded, giving victory to naught. Having renounced his interest in the Upham. The Bennett Law issue, double-deal congressional race, Haugen put his hope on ing, Haugen's loss of his home county dele the governorship, and got nothing. Warnings gates, and the opposition of Sawyer and Spooner each contributed to the defeat.^^ TT HAD BEEN a most instructive campaign, •'- however, and the coalition had learned some things which would be valuable later ^ Belle Case La Follette to Haugen, June 1-2, 1894; George E. Bryant to Haugen, June 6, 1894. whatever course they pursued. One lesson Bryant was a bit peevish at times because he was usually overruled by the others in Madison. Mrs. La Follette's letters are fine descriptions of the frenzy of activity. La Follette gave Haugen five pages of instructions on how to appeal to the dairy ^La Follette to Haugen, June 10, 1894; John vote and demanded that he do it; Hoard's blessing M. Nelson to Haugen, June 21, 1894, in the Hau was vital for this end. La Follette to Haugen, June gen Papers; Hall to S.A. Harper, June 21, 1894, 10, 1894; Hoard to Haugen, June 13, 1894. James in the La Follette Papers; George Koeppen to A. Freer to Haugen, June 20, 1894, is a good ex Haugen, June 23, 1894; Belle Case La Follette to ample of the intrigue implicit in the old caucus Haugen, July [June] 30, 1894; La Follette to Hau system. Hall's sagacity in these matters was highly gen, July 14, 1894 (two letters) ; Haugen to A.T. respected by the Madison group, and by June he Torgerson, August 6, 1894, Letterbook 9, in the operated as an equal to them in every respect. All Haugen Papers; Madison Wisconsin State Jour citations are to the Haugen Papers. nal, July 26, 1894. 141 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 was that the mere presence of La Follette inant cry of antimachine or antiring found would automatically frighten many party favor with many to whom they had appealed, members with the spectres of disharmony and but was so ill-defined as to leave clarifica factionalism, due to the old Sawyer episode. tion up to the individual. The correspondence Secondly, Sawyer could not be trusted in any of these men shows that a great many people way. Having at first encouraged Haugen per believed Wisconsin politics to be dominated sonally, he later turned on him at the most by "machine interests," but all it came to critical point, thus insuring Haugen's retire was a fulmination by friendly people against ment from public office. The need to bury the "town ring," the "court house gang," or the Bennett Law issue and establish whole the "state house crowd." This was a matter some relations with the German community of party politics too easily construed as an provided the third lesson. Despite various attack upon the party itself. Only Hall had failings, these men achieved a most important a connection with what can be called party accomplishment in the formation of a solid, policy orientation, and the party politics mat hard-working nucleus around which future ter overshadowed, even devoured, it. Only activities would revolve. Hall stood well liked when the state-wide effort in Haugen's behalf and greatly respected by all others. Hoard had ended did the group's interest in this could be relied upon for his support. The matter of policy become evident through a Madison people were combat tested, with defense of Hall in his troubled race for the Harper and La Follette co-directors of the assembly. central office. Haugen stood chastened, at During his two terms in the assembly, Al least momentarily, for his attempt to deal bert Hall had labored virtually alone to se squarely with "the bosses," and if anything, cure a new state policy towards railroad val his fame among Scandinavians had in uation, taxation, and the use of passes and creased.^^ other gratuities by state officials. The in One of the major failings of the group flexibility of existing tax laws permitted tele had been to develop and pursue a clear plan graph, express, and railroad car companies of attack. Their frenetic efforts did not center to escape with little or no realistic taxation, around any coherent and easily recognizable a situation later fully confirmed by the pas theme, but rather were dispersed. The dom- sage of new tax laws based upon the recom mendations of the first State Tax Commis sion. Uncompromising in his pursuit of these matters. Hall was attacked by parties whose *• Elisha W. Keyes to Haugen, August 9, 1894; favored interests he threatened; thus the Haugen to Keyes, August 24, 1894; Horace Rublee to Haugen, June 24, 1894. On Sawyer see Haugen group's efforts to defend Hall and save his to Hall, May 27, 1894, Letterbook 7; Haugen to seat in the assembly had to focus upon the A.T. Torgerson, August 6, 1894, Letterbook 9. issues he had raised during his legislative La Follette continued to direct Haugen even after the general election for fear that he would accept career. This became the project of the coali a compromising political appointment. See La Fol tion from August until the November elec- lette to Haugen, December 15 and 22, 1894. Hau gen's denouncement of the bosses is in Haugen tion.^'^ Despite this vigorous initial effort to La Follette, December 18, 1894, Letterbook 9. Haugen's esteem by the party due to his prominence among Scandinavians is shown in a series of re ^ On the opposition to Hall and the group's de quests for his help throughout Wisconsin and near fense of him, see Haugen to A.H. Johnson; to S.S. by states from state chairmen in North Dakota, Severson; and to Torger Baland, all dated August Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The importance of 20, 1894, in Letterbook 9; Hall to Haugen, August Haugen's ethnic contacts could hardly have been 22, 1894; O.P. Stenerson to Haugen, August 24, missed by the other members. One is struck by 1894; Hall to Haugen, September 17, 1894, in the the sheer love of battle well fought, an intangible Haugen Papers; Hall to S.A. Harper, September factor which drew these men onto the field again 22, 1894, in the La Follette Papers. For comment and again. See La Follette to Haugen, June 10, on Hall's policy position, see Hall to Haugen, Au 1894; Belle Case La Follette to Belle Haugen, July gust 14, 1894, November 9, 1894, in the Haugen 30, 1894. All of the above citations are in the Papers, in which Hall urged a Madison meeting Haugen Papers. See also Hall to Harper, August in order to formulate a clear position on matters 3, 1894, in the La Follette Papers. Hall was evi of policy. On taxation see Report of the State Tax dently more intimate with Harper at this point Commission, 1898; also Acrea, "Wisconsin Pro than with La Follette. gressivism," 173-178, 311-316. 142 ACREA: REFORM COALITION combining both policy and politics, the coali group and especially an understanding of in tion's activities diminished after the fall e- dividual contributions.^" During the year, the lection.^* coalition made fairly constant efforts in va "Diminished" is of course a relative mea rious directions, but no real progress. Hall surement. By no means could anyone accuse did not meet with success in the legislature, the coalition of inactivity after the 1894 and newspaper support continued to be ca elections. Though the Madison law firm broke pricious. Some unreliable people took a pe up, it maintained virtually the same suite ripheral interest in the activities of the group, of rooms and worked as closely on political but the coalition kept its guard up against and many legal matters as before. For Hall, interlopers. The early prediction that the who was returned to the assembly, the policy group would gain "for the friends of Hau work continued. He, Haugen, and La Fol gen just what the Upham-Taylor-Sawyer- lette conferred on bills Hall desired, and with Spooner-Payne combination could not pre Roe and Harper kept up part of the mass vent" proved quite correct. The group's few correspondence begun before, this time in capitol insiders, led by the young and am support of Hall's policy proposals. While this bitious George Borchsenius, and State Trea did not signal the formation of a platform surer Sewell A. Peterson, who was easily led as Hall had suggested, it did bring the astray, reported that the "state house crowd" group much nearer to being a reform-ori buzzed with rumors of conflict, cabals, and ented coalition. But at this moment, it pro secret dealings. The year 1896, fast approach vided mostly a means of keeping the politi ing, did not look auspicious.^^ cal coals stirred.^^ A campaign waged to in A clumsy move by the Upham administra sert articles in friendly newspapers opened tion to split Haugen away from the others channels which might be useful later, and barely failed, but did succeed in embarrass the coalition entertained the thought of op ing Haugen. When in January, 1896, the erating a newspaper themselves. The ideas of Governor offered him a seat on the Normal specific individuals often became community School Board of Regents, to represent the property, so much so that La Follette had the tendency to represent them as his own. This trait, which later found unwholesome development, complicates any analysis of the •'" On newspaper insertions see Haugen to Nicho las Grevstad, January 22, 1895, Letterbook 9, in the Haugen Papers; La Follette to Nels Holman, March 20 and 26, 1895; Holman to Gilbert E. Roe, March 28, 1895, in the La Follette Papers. Roe work ed especially closely with La Follette on this. ^ This is in part explained by the fact that the La Follette particularly favored securing their own others, unlike Hall, were not well-to-do and depend newspaper: Haugen to Hall, March 25, 1895, in the ed on much-neglected law practices for their liveli Hall Papers; Haugen to Nicholas Grevstad, March hood. Haugen and the Madison attorneys turned 26, 1895; Haugen to Hall, June 19, 1895; Hall to to these law practices which had suffered consid Haugen, June 21, 1895, in the Haugen Papers. erably during the five to six months of political Plans for a secret Chicago meeting to discuss activity. And of course Haugen had not practiced buying a Janesville paper fell through: James C. law steadily for several years while in Congress. Bartholf to La Follette, July 20, 1895; La Follette It was oftentimes noted later that a good campaign to Hall, August 6, 1895; and to Haugen and Hall, either undid much hard professional work or re August 8, 1895, in the La Follette Papers. Hall had sulted in an almost unbearable backlog of such suggested that a vote be taken at the annual town work. An effort by Harper to construct an official meetings on his antipass resolution, an idea which party organization controlled by the coalition was La Follette presented to lower-level followers as sat upon by party stalwarts. For his efforts to make having occurred to him. See Hall to Haugen, March the newly formed Wisconsin Republican League a 22, 1895, in the Haugen Papers; La Follette to group organization, and warnings against party ir Nicholas Grevstad, March 25, 1895, in the La Fol regularity, see Charles Murray to Harper, October lette Papers. 5, 1894; Andrew B. Humphrey to Harper, October ^John M. Nelson to Haugen, December 17, 1895; 3, 1894; R.S. Woods to Harper, October 3, 1894; La Follette to Haugen, January 12, 1895; George B.B. Beekman to Harper, October 4, 1894; C.W. Borchsenius to Haugen, October 2, 1895, in the Varnum to Harper, October 23, 1894, all in the Haugen Papers. Borchsenius and John Nelson were La Follette Papers. political equerries to the coalition, loyal, clever, ^ Hall to Haugen, January 26 and 28, February and eager. Nelson also received a minor position 9, and March 16, 1895; La Follette to Haugen, in the capitol and joined Borchsenius in espionage March 17, 1895, in the Haugen Papers. work for the others. 143 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 River Falls State Normal School, Haugen with matters of state policy in the sense Hall accepted, thus putting himself under obli saw them, Hoard had but one driving im gation to the administration whose backers pulse: to protect dairymen from antidairy men the coalition had attacked in 1894. After such as Payne, who was to Hoard what Saw much newspaper speculation and the most yer was to La Follette. Hoard's public ut urgent pleas that he either not accept, or at terances to the contrary notwithstanding, he least casually resign later if he had accepted, had no interest but party political matters, Haugen compounded the awkward situation the removal of Payne and his element from by hastily returning his accepted commission power.^^ He willingly supported temporarily with a most disingenuous explanation. Hau whatever matter of public policy might be gen further upset his friends by at first op suggested by whomever would join in his posing Sam Harper for state party chairman, crusade against antidairy "bosses." then capped the whole misadventure by losing his home county when it selected delegates TTPON HIS RETURN in May from four to the party officers' nominating convention. *-^ months of recuperation in the Florida La Follette, very ill with "la grippe" or "Rus sun and Indiana's mineral baths. La Follette sian influenza," was mercifully spared some surveyed the situation. Hoard appeared new of this by his prolonged absence in Florida. ly enthusiastic, Haugen had shown himself Harper looked upon Haugen with bewilder to be a somewhat unpredictable weak link, ment, but consoled him as best he could, and Hall worked on a campaign of his own for Haugen felt quite penitent when he re to educate the electorate, especially farmers, flected in late February upon the whole turn on his proposals regarding state policy to of events. After briefly entertaining thoughts wards railroad, express, car, and telegraph of running again for governor, he had by companies. The other Madison people had then decided against it.^^ done fine work in building support for both The selection of delegates in February to Hoard and La Follette as convention dele the Republican National Convention to be gates, work which not incidentally brought held in St. Louis presented a new challenge increased prominence to La Follette, the co which rekindled all of the old hatreds. The alition's most public figure. And any strength convention brought considerable prestige to the coalition. Both Hoard and La Follette were chosen as delegates, and William Mc Kinley selected his old friend La Follette, '^ Always frank, Hoard's correspondence conceals who was then still in Florida, to make a sec nothing. He was quite willing to bargain with any one until they proved themselves inimical to his onding speech for the presidential nominee. interests by directly aiding Payne. These two men Hoard came more solidly into the inner ranks later competed strenuously for portfolios in McKin- ley's Cabinet, Payne for Postmaster General and of the coalition largely through his bitter Hoard for Secretary of Agriculture, which neither opposition to Henry C. Payne as a national received from McKinley. Payne had served as Mil delegate. Unaware of and quite unconcerned waukee postmaster from 1876 to 1885 and was a national committeeman from 1880 to 1894. In 1896 he managed the western headquarters of the Mc Kinley campaign. His own wealth and political in fluence in the Midwest made him a formidable opponent for anyone. See W.D. Hoard to Henry C. Adams, January 19, 1895; to Governor William ^^ William H. Anderson [secretary to the gover H. Upham, April 5, 1895; to Congressman Samuel nor] to Haugen, January 23, 1896; H.G. Kress to A. Cook, January 27, 1896 (both in Letterbook Haugen, January 25, 1896; Haugen to George E. 50) ; to Edward Scofield and Charles H. Everett, Bryant, January 26, 1896, Letterbook 10; John M. March 11, 1896; to Elisha W. Keyes, May 6, 1896; Nelson to Haugen, January 26, 1896; Haugen to and to Philetus Sawyer, June 1, 1896, Letterbook Governor William A. Upham, January 27, 1896; 51, in the William D. Hoard Papers. Also see Hoard George Borchsenius to Haugen, January 27, 1896; to Harper, November 30, 1895, in the La Follette La Follette to Haugen, n.d.; George E. Bryant to Papers; Mark A. Hanna to Henry C. Adams, Feb Haugen, January 28, 1896; La Follette to Haugen, ruary 25, 1896, in the Henry C. Adams Papers. February 10, 1896; Haugen to Harper, February Hoard's contacts with the stalwart element were 24, 1896; to John M. Nelson, February 25, 1896; often useful. He was quite friendly with Sawyer and to George E. Bryant, February 25, 1896, Let until Sawyer's support of Payne drove Hoard away terbook 10, in the Haugen Papers. in June, 1896. 144 ACREA: REFORM COALITION added to one member added strength to the group. The coalition now functioned more smoothly than ever before. Each member of the team was capable of fulfilling a func tion for the whole, and had done so with good results, except for Haugen's brief mis adventure, and Harper had seen to his proper reorientation. With Haugen no longer a pos sible choice, the big problem remaining was what to do about the governorship. Within six weeks, the group had evolved an elaborate plan to settle this matter also.^* The old stratagem of the multiple candi dacy would be used to down the opposition. Men friendly to or perhaps in some way al lied with the coalition would come out, with final support being thrown to the strongest one. Initially, La Follette was not known to be a willing possibility, but after encourage ment from many friends, he announced as an active candidate on July 4, an act which caught Hall off guard. La Follette then rather upset the original plan, for soon after enter ing his name, he let it be known that he was I I out not as a stalking horse, but to win. Thus almost from the beginning the group was hampered by some momentary internal con fusion, the startled and hurt feelings of the friendly men already in the race, and the embarrassment of unkind gossip about the Courtesy Gwyneth Roe Murphy whole matter. La Follette had altered his role Gilbert E. Roe studies a document in the firm's law from that of a political strategist and a lead offices, located successively in the Vilas Block, and the Pioneer Block on East Main Street. ing general to that of the group candidate. His determination to be a winning candidate ing personalities thus overshadowed any for the Republican gubernatorial nomination progress on party policy made since 1894.^^ moved him from being merely one man among Indirect but rather positive support once friends in the coalition to first among equals. extended to announced candidates Charles It also meant that Hall's pleas for a party Estabrook and Emil Baensch shifted to La policy campaign would be sidetracked by a battle over intraparty politics, largely una voidable anyway. The fight among contend- ^ The multiple candidacy idea was developed through these exchanges: Olaf S. Rowe to Haugen, June 4, 1896; Charles E. Estabrook to Haugen, June 22 and 24, 1896; La Follette to Haugen, June 28, 1896; M[ary B. Copp] to Haugen, June 29, 1896, in the Haugen Papers. A.F. Fontaine to La Follette, June 20, 1896; Byron J. Castle to La Fol " Hall to Haugen, March 14, April 13 and 15, lette, June 20, 1896, in the La Follette Papers. 1896. Hall hoped Haugen would secure help from For La Follette's decision to seek final victory, Madison for the distribution of his articles through see La Follette to Haugen, July 1, 1896; Hall to farm newspapers. The governorship and other mat La Follette, July 2, 1896, in the La Follette Papers; ters were discussed at a private meeting in St. Paul, Harper to Haugen, July 3 and 4, 1896; Haugen Minnesota, one of the many secret, out-of-state to William Hanover, July 6, 1896, several score let conclaves held. See Harper to Haugen, April 23, ters booming La Follette, in Letterbook 11; G.E. 1896; La Follette to Haugen, June 28, 1896. All Bryant to Haugen, telegram, July 6, 1896, in the citations are to the Haugen Papers. Haugen Papers. 145 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 failed to carry his home county for nom inating convention delegates. Edward Sco field gained favor among party stalwarts as a replacement for the inept and unpopu lar Upham. After a whirlwind campaign of hardly more than one month. La Follette ap proached the August 6 state convention con fident but a bit apprehensive. His slim first ballot lead did not withstand the pressures of six ballots, however, and Scofield received the nomination.^^ The whole exercise had a surrealistic air about it, one never quite penetrated by some of La Follette's friends both in and out of the coalition. First of all, the reform coali tion regarded La Follette as their best vote- getter and most obvious candidate, though no one thought he would become one until shortly before his announcement. Of the oth er members, only Haugen might once have been both interested and a possibility. Sec ondly, despite the fact that La Follette's pres ence would resurrect the old cries of fact Society's Iconographic Collection ionalism from the Sawyer-Spooner element, George E. Bryant, one of La Follette's earliest the group and many outside admirers strong political mentors. ly urged the volatile former Congressman to run. He himself was not sure what to do for some time. His candidacy did not in it Follette, and almost simultaneously with La self vitiate the multiple candidacy plan, but Follette's announcement, Bryant let it be his exuberant and immediate determination known that the multiple candidacy device to win caused some confusion, though the would be used by the enemy. Competition coalition rallied to the cause eagerly and with La Follette became equated with oppo expectantly. sition, and quickly the individual opponents The lessons of 1896 were not lost upon were characterized as machine candidates of the party politics-oriented members of the one degree or another, or at least as less group as had been some of the similar les than completely untainted by bossism. Hall, sons of 1894. In his letters of thanks for the at first a bit confused by such antics, gave support given him. La Follette stressed the his full support to La Follette, as did Haugen, need for a broader campaign, for reforms and La Follette attempted to draw into the which encompassed more than just ousting circle other friendly and interested men.^^ the reigning politicos. He stood for more Despite the appearance of great confidence than that, he said, but his declarations were which pervaded the central Madison head a month too late. With new enthusiasm and quarters, worrisome reports from out-state kept filtering in. Influential people in Hall's area supported Baensch, and again Haugen "'' Forebodings of disaster came from Borchsenius to Hall, July 18, 1896; La Follette to Hall, July 24, 1896 (two letters) ; La Follette to Hall, July '^Bryant to Haugen, telegram, July 4, 1896; Hall 31, 1896 (two letters), in the A.R. Hall Papers; to Haugen, July 7 and 9, 1896; Hall to Haugen, James H. Stout to Haugen, July 20, 1896; Haugen July 14, 1896, in the Haugen Papers. La Follette to La Follette, July 28, 1896, Letterbook 11, in the to James 0. Davidson, July 16, 1896, in the James Haugen Papers; Madison Wisconsin State Journal, 0. Davidson Papers. August 6, 1896. 146 ACREA: REFORM COALITION determination, the coalition laid plans for Vital to securing a reform of the political the future. A newspaper to present their point system was the election of legislators who of view was a must, as was a clear legisla could be depended upon to support election tive program. Hall and La Follette, merging reform: their views, agreed on the necessity for a more positive approach backed by an electo "It is exceedingly important that we have rate informed through a broad educational some steadfast friends in the legislature campaign on the need for reform on many this winter and in the following legislature levels.^* as well. You know that the members who The deep-seated belief among the members are elected at this time will naturally be of the reform coalition that La Follette had candidates for re-election two years hence. been unjustly deprived of the gubernatorial One of the reasons why it is necessary nomination in 1896 did much to crystallize to have clean, strong men in the next leg their thinking upon the broader aspects of islature who think upon the lines we are political system. To ex-candidate La Follette, working along, is that we must have some defeat in the August convention represent legislation relative to caucuses and conven ed both a blow to his own aspirations and tions which will forever end the boodling to the as yet fuzzy goals of the coalition. methods of those dominant in politics in The string of rebuffs handed various coali this state now."'*" tion members on both political and policy matters resulted from, they believed, not only To Hall's urging that an election reform the cynical domination of the party by the bill be drawn up for early introduction in corporation-financed bosses, but from the very the legislature, La Follette replied that work system which kept them in power. During the had already begun toward this end. The co fall of 1896, La Follette stated explicitly alition prepared to take one of the most im the need for a fundamental change: portant steps in its career.*^ "Only by resort to such [machine] meth "PEARLY IN 1897, La Follette's prominence ods was it possible for the opposition to -*—^ as a public speaker gave the coalition accomplish our defeat. Under any system a splendid opportunity to elaborate its views which would have ensured the expression before a distinguished audience which would of the views of the republicans of Wiscon bring wide attention to both the speaker and sin I would have been nominated three the speech. Invited to deliver the Washing to one. The result of this contest but makes ton's Day address before the faculty and it more certain that some radical change students of the University of Chicago in 1897, should be made in the laws relative to nom La Follette responded with obvious delight. inations in order that machine methods He was "more grateful . . . than I can ex and money domination no longer control. press in words for the opportunity this in To this end I think we should bend our vitation offers," and spent the few weeks re endeavors . . . ."^^ maining before his February 22 speech help ing frame a direct primary election bill and preparing an address in which it would be explained.'*^ ^* La Follette's promise of a new order is found in the many letters, each slightly different, dated August 22, 1896, in the La Follette Papers. Renewed '" La Follette to George F. Cooper, September 7, enthusiasm for a newspaper is shown in Haugen 1896, in the La Follette Papers. to Hall, September 12, 1896; La Follette to Hall, "La Follette to Dr. R. D. Rood, September 7, September 16, 1896, in the Hall Papers; Hall to 1896, in the La Follette Papers. Haugen, September 14, 1896, in the Haugen Papers; "Hall to Haugen, November 23, 1896, in the Harper to Hall, October 1, 1896, in the La Follette Haugen Papers; Hall to La Follette, November 23, Papers. Hall's call for a policy meeting is in Hall 1896, La Follette to Hall, December 18, 1896, in the to Haugen, November 5, 1896, in the Haugen Pap La Follette Papers. ers. For Hall's advocacy of a direct primary bill, see "^ Thomas C. Chamberlin to La Follette, January Hall to La Follette, December 18, 1896, in the La 5, 1897; La Follette to Chamberlain [sic'], January 11, Follette Papers. 1897, in the La Follette Papers. 147 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 er and Hoard worked to drum up support among Hoard's various newspaper contacts in Wisconsin and Chicago, especially Her man H. Kohlsaat of the Chicago Evening Post. With the stage well set. La Follette de livered his hard-hitting speech, entitled "The Menace of the Machine," to a cheering au dience of scholars and students in Chicago, castigating the use of wealth in the perver sion of democratic principles and calling for a broad revision of the electoral system which would remove selfish impediments to the free expression of the popular will. It was, re ported Gilbert Roe, "splendid."^* The speech, later repeated scores of times over in Wis consin and printed up into tens of thousands of pamphlets and newspaper supplements throughout 1897, brought order and purpose to the group as a whole, and unquestioned pre-eminence to La Follette. The continuing campaign of 1897 drew, and itself generated, enormous publicity. En couraged by increasing public response, and the eagerness of out-state people to act as Society's Iconographic Collection local contacts and organizers, the group early Alfred G. Zimmerman dictating to his secretary, Jennie Nelson. began to look forward to 1898. Important contacts in every county seat and most towns of any size became an enthusiastic network The coalition at no time underestimated of fieldworkers, all looking to the coalition the great value of such an appearance. The members for guidance. Speaking tours by Madison offices were given over to prepara Hall, Haugen, and La Follette, and especial tions for the big event, as La Follette con ly La Follette's exhausting county fair circuit, tinued to search the election statutes of sev gave ample cause for optimism. The group eral states for ideas, and he and Harper ham took deep pride in Hall's modest success in the mered out the basic frame of what became 1897 legislative session and in his state-wide the Lewis primary bill. Harper added the prestige as an able legislator and highly skill details and put it in final form, while La ed parliamentarian. At last he had secured Follette worked on his speech which, as Harp passage of a resolution calling for a more er said, promised to be "hot stuff."'*^ Quite thorough investigation of railroad income re aware of the utility of good publicity, Harp- ports made to the state, and assembly ap proval of his antipass constitutional amend ment proposal. Though La Follette would not himself ad " Harper to Haugen, February 16, 1897; Haugen mit it, many of the lower-level converts felt to Harper, February 17, 1897, Letterbook 11, in that a new Republican party was being born. the Haugen Papers. Contrary to Brandes, "Nils P. Haugen," p. 84, Haugen had a few notions about The coalition, no longer just a group of fact- actual primary elections and declined Harper's re quest for help; he "did not want to be involved in this or any other matter." See also Allen F. Lovejoy, La Follette and the Establishment of the Direct Primary in Wisconsin, 1890 to 1904 (New Haven, 1941), 30-40, in which he asserts that As " Harper to Hoard, February 18, 1897; La Follette semblyman William Lewis of Racine requested such to Herman H. Kohlsaat, February 19, 1897, in the a bill and La Follette was primarily responsible for La Follette Papers; Harper to Haugen, February 23, it being drawn up. 1897, in the Haugen Papers. 148 ACREA: REFORM COALITION ious gadflies, was creating a new machine lette would challenge the governor's expecta and forcing the reorientation of state poli tion of the traditional second-term endorse tics. Hall brought the idea of policy reform ment. Hall waged a vigorous anti-Scofield to the coalition, and La Follette brought a campaign with the complete support of the concern over politics. When La Follette came coalition, and shaped the position which it to accept policy as a vital plank, and when took on policy matters. Only by broad im Hall recognized the value of La Follette's plication could it be termed a pro-La Fol style and flamboyance, a working reform lette campaign, though mention of the direct coalition had been born. Hall's persistence primary idea made this inevitable. The move on policy was vital for the reform orienta ment for reform as such was pushed by men tion, though La Follette himself contributed around La Follette who had greater freedom the major issue in this area. And La Follette's of action than the prospective candidate, style and generalship were vital to victory whose every move the opposition so closely at the polls. From this unlikely combination watched. Sam Harper's sudden death on of Hall and La Follette came much of the March 19, 1898, made La Follette's deliberate strength of the early days of Wisconsin pro vagueness more difficult. A severe personal gressivism. By late fall of 1897, the coalition loss to La Follette, Harper's death deprived anticipated with some relish the inevitable the group of one of its most valued head battles of 1898; only Haugen, who despite quarters members, forcing more of the re earlier difficulties remained genuinely im sponsibility upon La Follette. Though Alfred portant, occasionally longed for an easier Zimmerman and especially Gilbert Roe, here path.^5 tofore somewhat anonymous in their efforts, The coalition automatically thought of La assumed greater work loads, it was virtually Follette as the logical candidate in 1898 impossible for La Follette to avoid appearing against incumbent Edward Scofield, but no as the personal director of a campaign being one else in the group knew whether La Fol- waged in his behalf. Hall's merciless war a- gainst Scofield and what Hall believed to be the kind of government Scofield repre sented aroused much comment all over the state. Many people rightly assumed Hall's "" Harper to Haugen, March 13, 1897, (two letters), in the Haugen Papers. Harper believed Hall to be leadership of the campaign to be a front the leading member of the assembly, a position which for La Follette until the opportune moment did the cause much good. For the continuing cam paign, based on a combination of party policy and for La Follette's own announcement arrived. party politics, see Hall to Harper, July 5, 1897; Hall willingly bore the enormous pressure Harper to Hall, September 16, 1897; Edward G. put upon him by this tactic, and suffered Mills to La Follette, September 25, 1897, in the La Follette Papers; Harper to Haugen, September 6, through an equally unmerciful war against 1897; Hall to Haugen, September 24, 1897, in the him waged by Scofield's defenders.^^ Haugen Papers. The increasing complexity of organ ization is discussed in James A. Stone to La Follette, The nature of the group's activities changed September 12, 1897; La Follette to Marry Myrick, as shifts in the roles of individual members September 13, 1897; Haugen to La Follette, November 12, 1897, in the La Follette Papers. The Milwaukee Municipal League also began to look to the reform coalition for advice and support, adding a new di mension to the group. John A. Butler to La Follette, March 3, 1897, in the La Follette Papers. La Follette insisted upon the absolute necessity for a newspaper " The uncertainty about La Follette's plans is re if the present gains were to be maintained during flected in Haugen to Henry P. Peterson, February 1898. As yet they had been unsuccessful in such 23, 1898; and to Bryant, March 17, 1898, Letterbook a venture. La Follette to Haugen, November 8, 1897, 11, in the Haugen Papers; James A. Stone to La in the Haugen Papers; La Follette to Hall, November Follette, May 9, 1898, in the La Follette Papers. For 10, 1897, in the La Follette Papers. Haugen, whose Hall's campaign, see Hall to J.A. Stone, March 21, law practice was hardly worth more than $1,000 a 1898; Haugen to La Follette, March 23, 1898, in the year, still longed for the comforts of a remunerative La Follette Papers; Hall to Stone, March 12, and federal position. Mrs. Belle Haugen complained to April 9, 1898, Stone to La Follette, May 13, 1898; Harper that Nils was unhappy in River Falls but Stone to Hall, May 26, 1898, in the Stone Papers; not energetic enough in forcing a change. Harper Hall to Roe, May 29, 1898; La Follette to H.E. Tich- to Haugen, November 6, 1897; Haugen to La Follette, nor, June 4, 1898; La Follette to Hall, July 8, 1898; January 3, 1898, in the La Follette Papers. Hall to Roe, July 10, 1898, in the La Follette papers. 149 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 sincerity and deception against Scofield and the railroads. This put the group on the de fensive again and forced them to attempt to meet every challenge found in obscure coun ty newspapers across the state. The acquisi tion of their own newspaper plant in late 1897 made this task somewhat easier. The Old Dane, published in Madison, became The State, in April, 1898, under the temporary editorship of John Nelson, and the coalition made strenuous efforts to build its circula tion and to distribute the supplements, pam phlets, and other literature printed by the thousands.'** La Follette's July 15 announce ment of his candidacy removed some of the burden from Hall and focused the brunt of the campaign in both its offensive and de fensive aspects upon La Follette. This allow ed Hall to devote more time to his own cam paign for re-election to the assembly, a chore made more difficult by his recent promin- ence. This was the coalition's first gubernator Society's Iconographic Collection ial campaign in which party policy received James A. Stone, Reedsburg attorney, a latecomer greater emphasis than party politics. La Fol to the coalition. lette's first public statement included a dis cussion of those items found on the mast head of The State—demands for antipass occurred, as membership broadened, and as legislation, direct primaries, and equalized the stalwarts or Sawyer element reacted a- gainst Hall's activities. James A. Stone, Reeds burg attorney, strove to gain admittance to the inner circle through his friendship with " Stone's eagerness to join the group is found in Harper and his professional associations with Stone to La Follette, February 9 and 10, 1898; Stone La Follette. Stone was well on his way to to Harper, February 11, 1898; and to Hall, February acceptance by Hall, La Follette, and others, 12, 1898, in the Stone Papers. A member of the state central committee. Stone's ire had been aroused when Harper's death left a void which Stone by Congressman Joseph W. Babcock's refusal to elected to fill himself. He became both coun honor Stone's requests on post office appointments and the opposition of party elements to Stone's can selor and fieldworker, while Roe assumed didacy for Sauk County judge in 1897 and his nom many of Harper's duties in Madison, which ination for assemblyman in 1898. Stone and La included keeping the Madison headquarters Follette had worked together on a number of law cases and Harper and Stone were good friends. in touch with the field, necessitated by La Stone continually offered advice to the Madison peo Follette's well-known inability to keep up the ple and tried to gain greater influence with them than they were immediately willing to allow. Roe correspondence.^^ In his relations with La had become more active prior to Harper's death and Follette, Stone never achieved the intimacy achieved full stature after that. Stone to Roe, March of Haugen or the ideological purity of Hall, 5, 8, 10; April 11, 12; May 5, 1898, Letterbook 6, in the Stone Papers. yet he clearly ranked above such younger men ** Harper to Jerre C. Murphy, February 18, 1898, as John Nelson, George Borchsenius, and La in the La Follette Papers; Stone to Hall, April 2, Follette's new secretary, Alfred T. Rogers, 1898, in the Stone Papers. Management of the news paper proved a troublesome problem resulting in a none of whom became decision makers in quick succession of editors. The problem of making their own right before 1900. Much of the the paper a self-supporting political organ was never publicity accorded to Hall resulted from stal solved. "Hall to Roe, July 16, 22, and 25, 1898, in the wart attempts to discredit his charges of in La Follette Papers. 150 ACREA: REFORM COALITION taxation of railroads among other things— policy issues with La Follette and himself and concluded: "I am a candidate because I issued a printed reply to Spooner's endorse earnestly desire to see legislation of para ment of the governor.^^ mount importance to the interests of the peo ple enacted and enforced in this state." The npHE whole, long campaign was a brilliant opposition press fumed acridly; the Wiscon -*- effort, perhaps a classic of its type, and sin State Journal prefaced his formal state for the coalition, both the first and last of ment with the remark that La Follette was its kind. The six-room campaign headquarters "unable to restrain his consuming lust for at Main and Pinckney streets in Madison, office."^" These two extremes set the tone staffed with a dozen or more young men and for the frenzied efforts which followed until women working as a literary bureau, spewed the August 17 state convention. The actual out tens of thousands of copies of various campaign for convention delegates proved circulars, pamphlets, letters, and so forth.^^ almost anticlimatic after the months of work The pamphlet and newspaper war heightened just completed. By mid-1898, few voters were as the coalition hailed their man as the em unaware of the formation of a new element bodiment of civic virtue while the Scofield within the Wisconsin Republican Party; no element accused La Follette and Hall of slan one supposed that its desire for political pow der against the governor, treasonous faction er was any less than that of any other party alism against the party, and general hypoc group. For both political and policy reasons, risy. Showered by printed matter, the state success at the convention in Milwaukee was was criss-crossed by speaking tours and ex vital to either side. hausted by political rallies. As "honest Re A new source of support for La Follette publicans" cheered their hero La Follette on came from the recently formed Milwaukee against "fraud and fallacy" and "perfidy and County Republican Club, which had taken national decay," old boss Keyes, again the shape in April and May of 1898 after anti- Madison postmaster, clumsily raised his hand machine Republicans had failed to secure against the mailing privileges of The State.^^ the nomination of their candidate for mayor. For the coalition, there was no hedging, Francis and John McGovern, Theodore no harmony with the forces standing against Kronshage, and Charles F. P. Pullen were them, no cracks in the solidarity of the group, among the thirty or so men who gathered no immovable domination by one man. Co to form a new organization based upon a alition leaders darted in and out of head- set of principles obtained from La Follette at their request. Though loyal to La Follette, the club at first hesitated to appear too close ly allied with the established coalition, but °^ Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, on July 18, it endorsed a scathingly anti- 116-132, is a good, brief account. Barton's dates for 1898 are sometimes confused—La Follette did not Scofield tract and a week later formally en announce on May 15, 1898. The twenty-four page dorsed La Follette's candidacy. While of per pamphlet referred to was entitled "Governor Sco field's Record as Shown by His Official Acts," and haps doubtful value—the club was more of shows the bitterness of the whole campaign. The a good-government society than a working, Milwaukee group always maintained a certain dis experienced political organization—it gave tance from the Madison-centered element; Lahman, "La Follette as Public Speaker," 432-433. the coalition a base in Milwaukee. When on '^^ Lahman, "La Follette as Public Speaker," 432- July 25, Senator Spooner endorsed Scofield 433; Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, and defended his election to a second term 111-112. "'Baird, "La Follette and the Press," 238; A.C. as a matter of respect and precedent (though Wallin to La Follette, July 23, 1898; George E. Upham had been denied this privilege). Smith to La Follette, July 23, 1898; La Follette to [Assistant Postmaster General] Perry H. Heath, Charles Pullen dared Spooner to debate state July 24, 1898, in the La Follette Papers. The stal warts charged that the paper was merely a shabby venture designed to enrich La Follette while boom ing him for governor and was therefore not en titled to regular newspaper postal rates. La Fol lette's defense in his letter to Heath was not com "" Madison Wisconsin State Journal, July 16, 1898. pletely candid. 151 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 quarters, offering charges and countercharges mentary on the pervasiveness of the "spoils against the politics and policies of the old system" as an institution necessary to any regime, working long hours as the battle man or group aspiring for political power. reached its rabid climax. This effort in 1898 With almost indecent haste the "outs" ap was in many respects the culmination of the proached the "ins" regarding offices, and crusade, when, as they liked to think, the a Milwaukee conference of "friends" met to forces of light and darkness met and did decide how their obligations could best be battle at Armageddon. Yet victory was more satisfied by the offices at hand. Naturally, elusive than in 1896. La Follette lost the Mad nobody was satisfied completely, and trea ison delegation by five members a week be surer-elect Davidson, with the most positions fore the convention. When they all met in to fill, felt that he had been virtually sacri Milwaukee on August 17, Scofield won easily ficed to the interests of the coalition.^^ Roe on the first ballot with 6201/2 votes to La himself received an assistant attorney-gen Follette's 4361/2 votes.^* eralship, and devoted himself to meeting the La Follette's defeat did not by any means obligations of his associates; Davidson rather signal a total loss, and as Stone dared to hoped to solidify his own interests and pro point out, some of the concessions won might voked a good bit of ill-feeling by refusing have been more important overall than the to be entirely co-operative on appointments.^^ victory of any one man for governor. The The year 1899 found the reform coali party platform contained a clear expression tion thankful for its successes and pensive of the reform coalition's policy goals and in about the future. La Follette had again be fact met their complete approval except for come desperately ill in late October 1898 fol an unavoidable, but very short, endorsement lowing an exhausting campaign and an equal of Scofield. Hall had succeeded in getting ly demanding schedule before the district the party formally pledged to an antipass courts in pursuit of his flourishing law prac law. Most of the candidates for state offices tice. After being bedridden for seven weeks, were friendly to, if not directly a part of, and confined to a diet of puree of peas, steam the reform coalition, including James 0. ed figs, lime water, and milk, he, his wife Davidson, nominee for state treasurer. Em Belle, and Dr. Philip Fox journeyed leisure mett R. Hicks, candidate for attorney gen ly to California from which he did not re eral, was regarded as congenial, and with turn until mid-April, 1899. During this pe Davidson would give them a majority on riod, J. Crawford Harper, who was Sam's the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. brother, Gilbert Roe, and Alfred Rogers Jesse Stone, father of James A. Stone, was took care of legal, political, and personal mat- running for lieutenant governor. Both Hall and Bryant were in the race for assembly, and the possibility existed that the whole legislature would be at least less hostile than ^ Stone to J.O. Davidson, November 7, 1898, in before.'^ the James O. Davidson Papers; Haugen to David The modest influence achieved within the son, November 12, 1898, Letterbook 12, in the Hau gen Papers; Hoard to Davidson, November 22, state house enabled the group to meet some 1898, Letterbook 54, in the Hoard Papers. Hoard's of its patronage obligations. The coalition previous enthusiasm had greatly diminished in 1898. His friendly suggestions to Davidson were by that might be sustained by hope alone, but the date quite transparent; the dairy leader wanted lesser faithful wanted offices and bombarded some offices for his own followers. Bryant to Stone, Haugen, Stone, La Follette, and others with November 30, 1898, in the Stone Papers; Hall to Roe, November 30, 1898, in the La Follette Papers. requests. The scramble to divide up the mea "E.L Kidd to Davidson, December 10, 1898, in ger patronage available provided apt com- the Davidson Papers. James Stone was determined to control Davidson's appointments, but met with little success, as shown in Stone to Davidson, De cember 10, 1898, in the Stone Papers. Stone to Roe, December 10, 1898, in the La Follette Papers; '* Madison Wisconsin State Journal, August 18, Stone to Davidson, December 19, 1898, in the David 1896. son Papers. A close friend warned against David "'Stone to Hall, August 22, 1898, in the Stone son's "disloyalty." D.O. Mahoney to Stone, Decem Papers. ber 19, 1898, in the Stone Papers. 152 ACREA: REFORM COALITION ters for La Follette. The incoming political alition. Gilbert Roe had moved to New York correspondence decreased to almost nothing. City, in part to escape from the unceasing It was no longer necessary to wage on demands of reform politics. Haugen told their own a continuing campaign such as had friends of his retirement from politics and been done in 1897. A solid organization had feared that his then promising law practice been built, covering all the state and infil would suffer from the local antagonisms and trating town halls, court houses, the capitol the inevitable neglect should he again parti itself. Publicity was easily obtainable; news cipate in a campaign. Hall, in periodic poor papers on both sides poured forth column health and approaching his sixtieth birth after column as Hall led others in an attempt day, was tired, but if La Follette ran again to enact the Republican platform into law. he could not desert him. Hoard, of late not Once the subject of ridicule. Hall received much in evidence in reform politics, an wide recognition when his antipass measure nounced that he had retired from it all as became law in April, 1899. Throughout the of 1898. Hired envelope stuffers directed by session his efforts to promote a meaningful Zimmerman overran La Follette's office. investigation of railroad property valuation Somehow it was not so much fun as it once methods and state taxation policies were wide had been, and the memory of the good fight ly commented upon, with increasing favor. was not enough to rally the forces. Though As always, various plots and counterplots the remnants of the old group once more brewed just beneath the surface of public answered the call, this time it required the events. The stalwarts were far from dead, promise of success. No one worked harder and the reform coalition members were far to secure that promise than did La Follette from satisfied. This was the quiet before the himself. ^^ storm, it seemed, but the storm never really When victory became the overriding goal, came.^^ the rough edges had to be made smooth. La There was a quality about that grand bat Follette was reluctant to face again the bit tle of '98 which was never regained. Nine terness of 1898, or to entertain thoughts of teen hundred became the year of harmony. a third defeat which would work grave con The once lonely band of 1892 and 1894 had sequences upon his political future. "Consen become a great army, with scores of junior sus politics" demands quietude and a meet officers in the field and tens of thousands ing of once discordant minds. To this end of followers. The informal camaraderie which a series of harmony conferences was care formerly pervaded the Madison headquar fully arranged between La Follette and repre ters existed no longer, and the daring, fren sentatives of unfriendly interests seated in zied assaults upon the "gang" were remem Milwaukee and Chicago. On April 25, 1900, bered as the quixotic jests of an immature La Follette, friend Jerre Murphy, Wisconsin past. The reform coalition was becoming La Follette's machine, and by November, 1900, the state would become his, too. ^'Mlary B. Copp] to Haugen, March 27, 1900; TN EARLY 1900, the anonymity of the Haugen to Henry Peterson, February 13, 1900; •*• larger organization gradually swamped Haugen to La Follette, May 2, 1900, Letterbook 12; Hall to Haugen, May 7, 1900; Hoard to Bryant, the vital personalities of the old reform co- April 21, 1900, Letterbook 55, in the Haugen Pap ers; Haugen to La Follette, May 13, 1900, in the La Follette Papers; Hall to Stone, April 22, 1900, in the Stone Papers. On La Follette's cautious moves towards a careful sounding out of what was needed '^^ Ole Erickson to Davidson, January 10, 1899, in to win, see Stone to La Follette, January 10, 1900; the Davidson Papers; Roe to Louis A. Pradt, March La Follette to Stone, March 5, 1900, in the Stone 3, 1899; Theodore Kronshage to La Follette, Octo Papers; Haugen to La Follette, May 3, 1900, in ber 13, 1899, in the La Follette Papers. The quiet the La Follette Papers; Haugen to La Follette, of late 1898 was misleading. Many letters in the May 6, 1900, Letterbook 12, in the Haugen Papers; La Follette Papers make oblique references to po La Follette to W.H. Flett, May 7, 1900, in the litical arrangements, the use of code names, in La Follette Papers. Hall was ready to begin, with direct addresses, etc. The reform coalition was some reluctance, whenever La Follette called him, definitely moving again by late 1899. regardless of the chances. 153 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 waukee friends Theodore Kronshage, Jr., and Charles A. A. McGee, loyal in their own dis tant way, arranged many of the early pre parations made with secrecy. Charles F. Ils ley, prominent Milwaukee banker and a long time associate, became a definite asset. Though rural areas were not slighted, the new and important arrangements came from Milwaukee. The thousands of letters sent to rural constituents stressed principles and de- emphasized the man. Coalition letter writers coddled back-country influentials chummily, but reserved candor for the inner circle which now included two Milwaukee branches, one stalwart and one reformist."^ The La Follette organization recognized that money, in large and easily available a- mounts, was a need which could not—and would not—go unmet. A recent alliance with Isaac Stephenson, discontented multimillion aire lumberman formerly in the stalwart camp, Society's Iconographic CoUection guaranteed a bountiful supply. "Uncle Ike" Isaac Stephenson, the millionaire lumberman who in most respects differed little from "Uncle backed La Follette financially. Philet." He was richer, but less gruff, and more generous but less politically astute than his fellow lumber baron. After years of con Central Railroad counsel and one-time con tributing large sums to the stalwart cause, fident Thomas Gill, and Emanuel Philipp, he had not been properly rewarded in 1899 ally of the Schlitz interests and of railroad with the Senate seat given instead to Joseph car companies, met quietly in Milwaukee. Af V. Quarles. It was then that he saw the evil terwards all were satisfied that simple justice of corporate domination in politics, some was what everyone had wanted from the first. thing he was personally qualified to comment In June, stalwart congressman Joseph Bab upon, and he turned to La Follette as a fel cock, temporarily an ex-enemy, arranged two low reformer, a pose which fooled very few. conferences with Marvin Hughitt, president of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. More friendly assurances were provided all around.^" Certain members of the Milwaukee County "Charles A.A. McGee to La Follette, April 17, Republican Club had helpful business con 1900; Theodore Kronshage, Jr., to La Follette, May nections also. Heretofore often-neglected Mil- 4, 1900; La Follette to Jerre C. Murphy, June 15, 1900, in the La Follette Papers; Haugen to La Follette, May 6, 1900, Letterbook 12, in the Hau gen Papers. Both Milwaukee connections were ten uous at times. The Milwaukee reformers preferred greater independence than association with La Fol ""See Stone to Hall, April 17, 1900, in the Stone lette permitted. The political arrangements made Papers; Philipp's brief notes on the Milwaukee in that city were more important than any active conference are dated April 15, 1900, in the Emanu support available from the reformers. The reform el L. Philipp Papers. La Follette still moved with ers, however, were important in getting the party great care; see La Follette to Haugen, May 1, central committee chairmanship for Bryant when 1900, in the Haugen Papers; La Follette to Hall, Emanuel Philipp, who was not entirely trusted, May 2, 1900; Haugen to La Follette, May 3, 1900; tried to get it on behalf of the stalwarts. See Sayre, La Follette to Jerre C. Murphy, May 3, 1900; Jo "La Follette," 111; Herbert F. Margulies, "The seph W. Babcock to La Follette, May 4, June 19, Background of the La Follette-McGovern Schism," 1900, in the La Follette Papers. For a thorough in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, 40:22 (Au examination of the 1900 campaign see Twombly, tumn, 1956) ; Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wis "The Reformer as Politician," 84-94, 96-101. consin, 131. 154 ACREA: REFORM COALITION His main interest was always in becoming the best you can to harmonize things as much Senator, and he paid dearly for that honor.^^ as possible between our old friends so as The harmony approach of 1900 required to work with our new friends with as little new people with different contacts. Men with friction as possible . . . .^^ an intimate knowledge of the Milwaukee fi Staunch veterans of past battles such as nancial and industrial community, men who Hall and Haugen worked for months prior had access to the seats of established power; to La Follette's May 15 candidacy announce these were the new needs, and the old co ment, but with some reluctance. Hall joined alition would not fulfill them adequately. Of in eagerly enough, out of loyalty to La Fol course the links to the various elements of lette, but Haugen willingly gave of himself support which had played so large a part only after late May, and even then not with in the past were still vital, but by 1900 they out some misgivings. Only part of the old could to a large extent be taken for granted, enthusiasm for battle returned, and slowly at despite the disaffection of some individuals. that. Hall was left to handle Tenth District The antipathy of certain segments of the matters almost exclusively. La Follette sent political and economic "power elite" had to Haugen out to stir up the Scandinavians, and be overcome. Such a coexistence had not Zimmerman tried to supervise the largest been among the methods of the past. La Fol office staff ever. The chaotic shuffle of the lette surveyed the scene in early May with Madison headquarters almost overwhelmed content as he sent a pre-announcement ac George Bryant. Hoard respectfully declined count of events to Gilbert Roe: "Some other to become involved, and Stone chafed uneasi important business interests in the state, ly under the burden of Babcock's alliance. which have always been in opposition are The tens of thousands of pieces of campaign softening up. It looks pretty certain for the literature issued from Madison carefully em nomination even at this time. I have been phasized "true Republican issues" over the engaging in the mollifying business to a large man, but clearly there was no other man in extent.""^ the whole organization who rivaled La Fol Members of the old organization reported lette for unquestioned control. The vital cen rumors of discontent filtering in from coun ter had shifted.^^ ty agents. All over there were new faces in Even the "mollifying business" required the crowd, some once classed as "the ma much hard work. The summer was strenuous, chine" and against whom no quarter had if comparatively colorless. The general cam been given. Now the word was that they were paign literature praised Scofield's second "with us," if not friends. The Milwaukee and term for its "faithful observance" of the Chicago meetings with railroad officials be 1898 platform, and La Follette himself turn came common knowledge and the subject of ed to national instead of state issues. No one public gossip. Many La Follette men did not directly attacked railroads or other corpo approve of any of it, and looked suspiciously rations; the direct primary was the only at the new men, the new money, the unlimit state issue specifically mentioned. The cam ed publicity, and the new methods. La Fol paign was not all harmony, of course; the lette worried some about the rumors and truce between the reform coalition and the complaints and urged James Stone to "do Payne element held together uneasily, and "^See Twombly, "Reformer as Politician," 71- "Charles H. Hubbell to Stone, May 29, 1900, 84, for Stephenson alliance details; also Isaac Ste copy in the La Follette Papers; Hubbell to Stone, phenson, Recollections of a Long Life, 1829-1915 June 3, 1900; Stone to La Follette, June 3, 1900, (Chicago, 1915), 198-216, for his version. In Sayre, in the Stone Papers. "La Follette," 106, note 1, John Nelson is reported "'Hoard to Bryant, June 11, 1900, Letterbook as having confirmed the essential points of the 57, in the Hoard Papers. Hoard had accompanied Stephenson-La Follette alliance as told by Stephen La Follette to a June meeting in Chicago with son. Hughitt largely as a personal favor. Hall being •^La Follette to Roe, May 8, 1900, in the La unable to go. See also La Follette to Roe, July Follette Papers. 27, 1904, Letterbook 21, in the La Follette Papers. 155 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 "PACH ELECTION had worked its own -*--' changes until the original group was scarcely recognizable. All began as equals, men with special talents to contribute to each other. Always a core figure. La Follette had regarded his fellows as his peers, respecting their roles as policy makers, advisors, strate gists, field marshals, and communications men, despite his urge to direct them in the common battle against "the machine." In 1896 he differed from the others only in that he was the candidate and as such had to occupy the spotlight. When party policies became the issue, instead of just party poli tics, and the coalition became a reform co alition, both sides made La Follette a symbol for sets of ideas and methods which had come from the co-operative efforts of all co Society's Iconographic Collection alition members. He was not just a contend La Follette s{ „ __ m open-air audience at er for nomination, but was the embodiment Cumberland, Barron County, in 1897. of something greater—something more pure, or something dangerous—depending upon the camp to which his contemporaries adhered. La Follette's closest supporters were contin When in 1899 La Follette assumed full con ually reporting and tracking down rumors trol of the organization he had helped build, of a convention double cross. But generally, the one time figurehead prince became the quiet prevailed. As the friendly vice-presi ruling sovereign. After 1898 it was unrealis dent of Milwaukee's great Marine National tic to expect the simpler past to return. By Bank noted, "There has not been even fric 1900 it was impossible. tion enough to make it interesting, which of Victory exacted its tribute in many ways. course pleases us.""^ When at last the dele Being governor was far different from being gates met in convention at Milwaukee on an aspirant. There were new demands and August 8, La Follette's nomination by ac responsibilities which had to be met, and a clamation seemed anticlimactic. The platform crush of work which only the formalized belonged to La Follette, the state ticket be channels of an administrative system could longed to La Follette. Inevitably, so would handle. The detailed personal letters gave the governorship. During August, the organi way to crisp, formal notes issued from the zation turned towards securing a friendly anonymity of the Executive Chambers. Ap legislature, too. La Follette's smashing tri pointment schedules rarely permitted a plea umphs in August and then in November were sant afternoon of impromptu conversation. more like Donnybrook Fair than Armaged The unintentional but unavoidable official don won. formality of the Governor's Mansion some how discouraged dropping by casually for a congenial glass of port in the late evening. And perhaps no one regretted these new re •" Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, 160-161; Old Guard leadership suffered from Saw alities more than La Follette himself.^'' yer's death in March, 1900, Payne's illness, and La Follette was not ungrateful for the suc a general lack of able leaders. See Herbert F. Mar gulies, The Decline of the Progressive Movement cess, now focused upon him, which years of in Wisconsin, 1890-1920 (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1968), 46^8; Hall to La Follette, July 2, 1900, in the La Follette Papers; Stone to La Follette, July 29 and 31, 1900, in the Stone Papers; John Johnston to Davidson, August " Barton, La Follette's Winning of Wisconsin, 2, 1900, in the Davidson Papers. 263-264. 156 ACREA: REFORM COALITION joint work had won. He opened official ap George Borchsenius had gone to Alaska with pointments to those who would accept, and a youthful enthusiasm for striking it rich, the governor continued to regard Hall, Hau and Alfred Rogers ventured into a Hazel gen, and Bryant as valued advisors and his Green zinc mine company for the same rea closest personal friends. There were differ son. Hoard looked for other men more nar ences, of course. Hall was always reserved rowly concerned with protecting the dairy and had held La Follette somewhat in awe, industry. Stone, appointed Assistant Secre a trait which became more marked after La tary of State, cultivated even further his over Follette's election as governor. Hall fulfilled active interest in patronage, much to the dis his longing to retire and return to Brook- comfort of La Follette. State Treasurer Dav side, his great model farm near Knapp, after idson, thought by some to have been never the 1901 legislative session. Bryant, who be entirely reliable, drifted a bit farther away. came State Superintendent of Public Prop Roe was kept informed in New York. All the erty and chairman of the State Central Com old-timers held the memory of Sam Harper mittee, was knowledgeable on party affairs, but the intricacies of governmental admin fondly. The great new machine did not now istration itself remained hazy to him. Hau really need the highly individualistic men of gen, made Tax Commissioner in 1901, set special talents who had gathered together about making his own future secure by as eight years before. As the campaign had siduously cultivating the possibilities which shown, success had its own price which had official life in Madison presented to him. to be paid in many ways. ioLjety s Iconographic Collection La Follette's campaign train makes a stop in Milwaukee in 1900. Belle Case La Follette is third from the right, standing beside her husband. 157 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: REALIST By E. B. SMITH T INCOLN was an emancipator by com- pling with the problems of Lincoln's atti •'-^ pulsion. . . . Lincoln was made a saint tudes toward slavery and toward the Negro. and liberator in spite of himself. He was Each generation of historians has sought cuffed into the calendar; he was kicked into answers within the context of the attitudes glory; he did not voluntarily rise up, he of its own time, but none has achieved a was floated upon the restless will of the consensus. Even though a vast storehouse people to the height he now occupies."' Thus of Lincoln's words has been researched and complained the veteran abolitionist James published, speculation on his actual views Redpath, and his sentiments were shared by still provides the historian with a stimu many of his contemporaries. lating and useful challenge. Whatever their views of Lincoln the eman Like most men Lincoln was shaped in large cipator. Southern racists from the great white part by his early environment and personal chief James Vardaman, with his white clothes, experiences. He was born poor in a young white wagon, and white oxen, to the modern nation which rewarded the able and ambi Klan and White Citizens' Councils have fre tious regardless of their origins. He married quently quoted Lincoln to support their views into an aristocratic family which looked with on racial discrimination. No one, however, some disdain upon both him and his rela has seriously shaken Lincoln's position of tives. He had a burning desire to succeed sainthood in the hearts of American Negroes as a lawyer and as a political leader. Having or in the eyes of most present-day advocates overcome his own humble origins, he ac of racial equality. cepted the basic faith that others could do This popular confusion, as might be ex likewise. He retained his compassion for the pected, has been fully reflected in the work poor and unfortunate, but he could never of professional historians who are still grap- identify emotionally with radicalism. He was a deeply humane but essentially conservative man. He passionately loved the America which had enabled him to rise from such lowly beginnings, and he saw its preserva Note: In slightly different form this article was delivered as an address before the Lincoln Fel tion as the greatest and most important of lowship of Wisconsin, February 12, 1968, at Madi all human tasks. son. Abraham Lincoln was reared in a prac ^ Cited by Wilfred E. Binkley, American Politi cal Parties (New York, 1947), 242. tical world of action and among people for 158 SMITH: LINCOLN whom deeds rather than ideas were impor He was, however, an intensely ambitious tant. His roots were among people who work and partisan Whig politician. In 1844 he ed with their hands and had little time for considered the Liberty party candidacy of abstract thought. His faith in democracy was abolitionist James G. Birney to be utterly magnified into a religion by his own suc foolish because it served only to take enough cesses and the exhilaration of watching oth votes away from Henry Clay to elect Demo ers equally humble rise to high station. Demo crat James K. Polk. Since Clay opposed the cracy, however, meant rule by the majority immediate annexation of the slave state of and obedience to constitutional principles, Texas, Lincoln felt strongly that the aboli and Lincoln, therefore, developed an intense tionists should have overlooked the fact that concern for and understanding of the think Clay was a slaveholder. He also confided ing processes of ordinary Americans. For to a friend that he could not understand Lincoln ideas had meaning primarily in the intensity of the agitation against Texas. terms of the conduct they might inspire, and Slavery already existed there, he wrote, and he understood as few men have the problem annexation would not change the situation; of leading people along new and untried furthermore, even if more slaves went there paths. He knew that to be worthwhile an fewer would be left in the areas from which innovation must result in genuine human bet they came.^ terment, but that to become effective in a When Lincoln delivered his later-to-be cel democracy it must be kept within the bounds ebrated attacks on President Polk because of what the public would accept. of the Mexican War he was not risking his Fortunately, Lincoln had an infinite capa career in Congress. He and a friend had al city for growth and an inner self-confidence ready agreed to take turns as the congression and personal security which made him im al candidate, and he was already pledged mune to emotional prejudice or bigotry of not to run for re-election. On the other hand, any sort. He grew up in a region where people opposition to Polk and the war was the of of his economic station feared and hated ficial Whig line, and Lincoln was hoping both slavery and Negroes. Both Illinois and to become Commissioner of the General Land Indiana barred free Negroes from their bor Office. Sharply criticizing the war itself, Lin ders, and various cruel restrictions and dis coln voted consistently for the appropria criminations characterized the entire North tions necessary to carry it on.* west of that period. In terms of sheer power The great Whig statesmen Clay and Web alone, the economic, social, and political ster both wanted to run for President in inferiority of the American Negro was im 1848, but Lincoln, hoping for a winner, pressed upon Lincoln every day of his adult worked tirelessly for the nomination of the life. It was simply an existing reality that infinitely less qualified General Zachary Tay every aspiring politician had to consider. lor. The General had never even voted at any It is clear from his private correspondence, time in his life, and, incidentally, owned however, that Lincoln at an early period more than 100 slaves. Lincoln argued quite came to hate slavery as a moral evil, and that expediently that the Whigs should glorify he never at any time developed the instinc General Taylor's part in fighting the war tive personal feelings of dislike, hatred, and while attacking President Polk for starting prejudice defined in modern terms as ra- it. The young Congressman's campaign speeches for Taylor were filled with colorful language, ridicule, sarcasm, and clever so- ' This has been the virtually unanimous judg ment of his biographers. See particularly the works of Richard N. Current, John H. Franklin, and Ben ' Lincoln to Williamson Durley, October 3, 1845, jamin Quarles. The clearest expression of Lincoln's Roy P. Basler (ed.), The Collected Works of Abra attitudes toward other races, religions, and ethnic ham Lincoln (New Brunswick, 1953), I: 347-348. groups is stated in his letter to Joshua Speed, '' Richard N. Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows August 24, 1855, cited below, note 7. (New York, 1958), 189. 159 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 phistry, but very little solid argument. Thanks voted down—and the Democratic party had to the Free-soilers and Martin Van Buren, passed a bill which removed the moral stig whose third party challenge elected Taylor, ma from slavery and legally opened the great the Whigs won in 1848, but thanks appar West to its expansion. This, said Lincoln, ently to Webster and Clay, Lincoln did not could mark the beginning of a process which get his coveted appointment.^ might very well weaken the Northern re After six years of relative obscurity Lin pugnance against slavery as a moral evil and coln got his new chance in 1854, with the thereby give the institution a dangerous new passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. This lease on life. measure repealed the ancient Missouri Com In later speeches Lincoln continued to promise which forbade slavery in the Loui stress the view that popular sovereignty as the siana Territory region north of 36° 30', and symbol of a newly tolerant attitude toward substituted popular sovereignty, allowing the slavery was as important as the question of people of each territory to decide the ques whether or not slavery could actually go tion of slavery for themselves. The bill's to any of the territories in question. For the sponsor, Stephen A. Douglas, argued with rest of his life Lincoln remained totally con considerable logic that this principle would sistent on one major point—adamant oppo in fact produce nothing but new free states, sition to any policy which gave any legal but violent opposition developed quickly sanction to the expansion of slavery, however throughout the Northwest, and the end re unsuited for slavery the area might actually sult was the creation of the new Republican be. The absolute legal containment of slavery party. was apparently necessary for Lincoln's peace In October, 1854, at Peoria, Lincoln made of mind in the face of the other compromises his first major speech^ on the issue and no and concessions on slavery required by his subsequent effort was any more revealing political ambitions. or, in all likelihood, more indicative of his true feelings. He was not yet a candidate T INCOLN THE REALIST understood his for office, and the attitudes of a majority •*-^ America, and his humanitarianism in of the citizens of Illinois were not yet clear. volved a total view of the tragedy of slavery This speech revealed a Lincoln who, by for Negro and white alike. He hated slavery, his own testimony at least, had always hated he avowed at Peoria in 1854 "Because of slavery, but who had kept his conscience the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I quiet with a belief that the institution was hate it because it deprives our republican certain to collapse eventually from its own example of its just influence in the world; weaknesses. The Founding Fathers, said Lin enables the enemies of free institutions with coln, had thought this and had expressed plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes their disapproval by ending the African slave the real friends of freedom to doubt our trade. The Northwest Ordinance and the sincerity; and especially because it forces Missouri Compromise had continued this so many good men among ourselves into an process of containment. Throughout the open war with the very fundamental prin North as well as in much of the South it had ciples of civil liberty, criticizing the Decla been taken for granted that slavery was an ration of Independence, and insisting that evil, even though an evil which defied any there is no right principle of action but self- kind of immediate solution. Now, however, interest." the popular and powerful Senator Stephen A. Douglas—on record with the view that he However, he continued, the Southerners did not care whether slavery was voted up or should not be blamed, because they were just what Northerners would be in the same situation. If slavery did not exist the South erners would not introduce it. If Northerners had it they would be unwilling to abandon ^Ibid., 191-192. it. With "all earthly power" he would not 'Basler (ed.), Collected Works, II: 247-283; quotes, 255-256. know "what to do as to the existing situa- 160 SMITH: LINCOLN tion." His first impulse would be to send convention in Philadelphia he received 110 the slaves to Liberia, but this would be phys votes for Vice President. ically impossible. Freeing them and keeping In 1858 President Buchanan ordered the them as underlings would be no real improve Democrats in Congress to support the pro- ment for them. As for making them politi slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas. cal and social equals: "My own feelings will Douglas and other Northern Democrats, how not admit of this, and if mine would, we ever, argued correctly that this constitution well know that those of the great mass of did not represent the will of the people of whites will not. Whether this feeling accords Kansas. In large part because of Douglas with justice and sound judgment is not the the Lecompton Constitution was returned to sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. Kansas for another vote, and in August, 1858, A universal feeling, whether well or ill- the people of Kansas rejected it by a six to founded, cannot be safely disregarded." one margin. Lincoln's arguments that popu By 1856 a majority of the Whigs had join lar sovereignty opened the territories to slav ed with free-soil Democrats and the aboli ery had been proven incorrect with regard tionists to form the new Republican party. to Kansas. Meanwhile, since Buchanan had At first Lincoln held back because of the read Douglas out of the Democratic party radicalism of some of the Republican lead and since the Republican party had lost its ers, but the Whig collapse left him no other major issue, various Republicans had sug alternative to the anti-Catholic Know-Noth- gested that Douglas should be enlisted into ings and the Democrats. "I think I am a their ranks. Illinois Republicans, however, Whig," he wrote in a highly significant let could not bear such a thought, and instead ter to a slaveholding friend, "but others say nominated Lincoln to oppose Douglas for there are no Whigs, and that I am an aboli the Senate in 1858. tionist. ... I now do no more than oppose the While actual events in Kansas and Nebras extension of slavery. I am not a Know-Noth- ka had momentarily vindicated the argu ing; that is certain. . . . How can anyone ment of Douglas that popular sovereignty who abhors the oppression of Negroes be meant freedom, the Dred Scott case had given in favor of degrading classes of white people? the Senator another massive problem. In Our progress in degeneracy appears to me 1857 the Supreme Court had ruled that neith to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began er the federal government nor any terri by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' torial government could pass laws barring We now practically read it 'all men are slavery from a territory. By this verdict the created equal, except Negroes.' When the already tattered, torn, and repealed Missou Know-Nothings get control it will read 'all ri Compromise had been unconstitutional all men are created equal, except Negroes and along. For Northerners, most of whom wanted foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to neither slaves nor free Negroes in the new this, I shall prefer emigrating to some coun territories, the Dred Scott decision was new try where they make no pretense of loving and overwhelming evidence that the exten liberty—to Russia, for instance, where des sion of slavery remained a threat. It also potism can be taken pure, and without the enabled Lincoln to renew his argument that base alloy of hypocrisy."^ Republicans everywhere should support not As a delegate to the first Illinois Repub Douglas, but a candidate who considered lican convention, Lincoln found new prom slavery morally wrong and would work for inence as a well-known Whig of moderate its legal containment. views and character. At Bloomington he de Lincoln's "House Divided" speech,^ de livered a speech which made a great impres livered in answer to his nomination for Sen sion, and at the 1856 Republican national ator by the Republican state convention, was a political masterpiece. "A house divided a- ' Lincoln to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855, in ibid., II: 320-323. 'June 16, 1858, in ibid., II: 461-469. 161 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 gainst itself," said Lincoln, could not stand. the public mind would, as for eighty years "Either the opponents of slavery will arrest past, believe that it was in the course of the further spread of it, and place it where ultimate extinction. The crisis would be the public mind shall rest in the belief that past and the institution might be left alone it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or for a hundred years, if it should live so its advocates will push it forward till it long, in the States where it exists, yet it shall become alike lawful in all the States, would be going out of existence in the way old as well as new. North as well as South." best for both the black and white races.^ Lincoln's argument that slavery if unchecked by federal law would take over the free states fyHERE REMAINED the problem, how- was nonsense but excellent politics. The house- -*- ever, of thousands of Illinois voters who divided argument was politically risky, and objected to slavery, when they objected at later cost him votes. The phrase "ultimate all, primarily because they feared the pres extinction," however, was sheer political ge ence of Negroes. Before such voters Doug nius. It could mean tomorrow or a thou las appealed shamelessly to racial prejudice sand years hence, depending upon the hear and accused Lincoln of seeking full social er or reader. Ultimate extinction to begin and political racial equality. In reply, Lin with containment was a doctrine which in coln, the ambitious candidate, denied the spired moral contentment without requiring charges with statements that have been quoted any sacrifice or effort by those who believed by racists ever since. In a widely reported in it. For many Americans, however, even speech, echoed in various others, Lincoln this idea was their first step in the right avowed: direction. In the remainder of this speech and in I have no purpose directly or indirectly numerous others during the famous debates to interfere with the institution of slavery with Douglas, Lincoln continued to expound in the States where it exists. I believe I views which eased his own conscience and have no lawful right to do so. I have no brought comfort without alienation to thou purpose to introduce political and social sands of voters. Slavery extension must be equality between the white and black races. forbidden by law, he insisted, so that Amer There is a physical difference between the icans would not be allowed to forget its evil two, which in my judgment will probably character. Douglas, he charged over and over, forever forbid their living together upon refused to admit that slavery was wrong, the footing of perfect equality, and inas and Douglas, therefore, should not be trust much as it becomes a necessity that there ed with a seat in the United States Senate. must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Furthermore, Lincoln avowed, his own po Douglas, am in favor of the race to which sition was the true road to sectional peace I belong, having the superior position. . . because the North would stop agitating only but I hold that notwithstanding all this, when assured that slavery could not expand. there is no reason in the world why the And, in turn, the South would stop threat negro is not entitled to all the natural ening the Union only when the North should rights enumerated in the Declaration of stop its public denunciations of slavery. Thus, Independence, the right to life, liberty, and insisted Lincoln, a clear-cut prohibition a- the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he gainst territorial slavery which would con is as much entitled to these as the white vince both sections that slavery was indeed man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is contained would be the true road to sectional not my equal in many respects—certainly peace. In the candidate's own words: not in color, perhaps not in moral or in tellectual endowment. But in the right to I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington, and Jef ferson, and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and 'August 21, 1858, in ibid.. Ill: 18. 162 SMITH: LINCOLN eat the bread, without leave of anyone world. . . . All the arguments in favor else, which his own hand earns, he is my of kingcraft were of this class; they al equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and ways bestrode the necks of the people— the equal of every living man.'" not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being rid When examined in its proper context a- den. That is their argument, and this ar gainst the background of its time, occasion, gument ... is the same old serpent that and purpose, the above quotation becomes a says, 'You work and I eat, you toil and I rather advanced plea against racial discrimi will enjoy the fruits of it' . . . whether nation. Lincoln was obviously playing to his it come from the mouth of a king, as an audience, but he was also hedging for the excuse for enslaving the people of his coun benefit of his conscience. Examine the words try, or from the mouth of men of one race again. The denial that he would introduce as a reason for enslaving the men of anoth political and social equality cost him nothing. er race, and I hold if that course of argu As he had pointed out in 1854, this was clearly mentation . . . should be granted, it does impossible in a nation that tolerated slavery not stop with the Negro. I should like to and even in a free state which practiced the know—taking this old Declaration of In discriminations indulged in by Illinois. The dependence, which declares that all men physical difference, he said, "will" (not are equal upon principle, and making ex "should") "probably" (not "certainly") for ceptions to it—where will it stop? bid living together in "perfect" equality. "In Let us discard all this quibbling about asmuch as it becomes a necessity," which this man and the other man—this race means "if it becomes necessary," that there and that race and the other race being must be a difference, he favors superiority inferior, and therefore they must be placed for the white race. Still, however, the Negro in an inferior position—discarding our should have "all the natural rights enumer standard that we have left us. Let us dis ated in the Declaration of Independence, the card all these things, and unite as one right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi people throughout this land, until we shall ness." "Perfiaps" the Negro is not his moral or once more stand up declaring that all men intellectual equal, but in the right to keep and are created equal.'' enjoy whatever he can earn, the Negro is the "equal of every living man." A politician seeking votes from a white racist audience, Douglas supporters won a majority in the and willing to bend a few principles—this Illinois legislature, even though Lincoln can Lincoln was. A true witness for modern ra didates won a bare majority of the total pop cism he certainly was not. ular vote. Lincoln, however, had established And there were always his shining mo himself as a national figure with a high ments before more tolerant audiences. In moral position which threatened no one. Chicago on July 10 he was at his best, and Throughout 1859 Lincoln denied stead he repeated these sentiments in slightly dif fastly that he was a candidate for President, ferent form also at Alton in southern Illi- but he traveled 4,000 miles and addressed twenty-three audiences in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas. In early 1860, at Those arguments are made, that the in Cooper Union hall in New York City, he ferior race are to be treated with as much delivered an appeal to moral principle so allowance as they are capable of enjoy thrilling in its eloquence that his insistence ing. . . . What are these arguments? They in the same speech that slavery where it al are the arguments that kings have made ready existed must not be disturbed was al- for enslaving the people in all ages of the "July 10 and October 15, 1858, in ibid., II: 500- '"Ibid., HI: 16. 501; III: 315. 163 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 most overlooked except by those who wanted only 39.9 per cent of the popular vote, and this reassurance.'^ could not argue even to himself that his At Cooper Union Lincoln also repudi stand against the compromise represented ated the recent exploit of John Brown. Actu a public majority. Also, the rather conser ally, any realistic opponent of slavery might vative Republican party platform had given well have shuddered at what Brown had at him a way out by declaring only that Con tempted. If any significant number of slaves gress should maintain freedom in the ter had responded to Brown's call and begun a ritories "whenever such legislation is neces war against Southern whites, the United sary." Uncompromising opposition to any States army would have quelled the uprising. legalizing of territorial rights for slavery, Northern whites everywhere would have been however, had been the only real difference appalled, and the cause of emancipation might on slavery between himself and Douglas and well have been set back another hundred Bell. If his other concessions to slavery and years. racism could not be justified by a superior At their 1860 convention the Republicans position on this point, his entire approach rejected Seward, a very conservative politi to slavery would be reduced to sheer hypoc cian who had made radical speeches, and risy dictated only by personal ambition. Al nominated Lincoln, a much stronger free- so, even though slavery probably had reached soiler who, however, had promised peace its limits in the United States, the territorial through containment and a clear conscience legislature of New Mexico had only recently without action. enacted a slave code. In retrospect this action During the campaign and after his elec was apparently the culmination of long stand tion Lincoln repeated his earlier statements. ing efforts to gain patronage from the pro- Slavery was morally wrong, but he had neith Southern cabinets of pro-Southern Presidents er the constitutional right nor the inclination Pierce and Buchanan.'* but Lincoln could to disturb it in the South. He would enforce not have been certain of this. the fugitive slave laws. He would not, how The next six states might very well have ever, allow the institution to extend another seceded in any event, and once the seven were foot. During the weeks between his election gone, nothing short of a national monument and his inaugural and particularly between to the glories of slavery could have persuaded the secession of South Carolina and the seces them to return. The Southern leaders and sion of the next six Southern states to go, people had been born and bred on the same men of every party begged him to support Declaration of Independence, the same Bill the Crittenden Compromise, which would of Rights, and the same Bible as their North have drawn the Missouri Compromise line ern fellows, and they accepted the same set to the Pacific and allowed people south of of moral values except where they clashed the line to have slavery if they wished it. with slavery.'^ For people whose subconscious Contemporaries then and historians later have doubts had been prodded and whose feelings argued that slavery was impossible in the re had been lacerated for more than two decades maining territories and that the Civil War by harsh criticisms of slavery, the great might have been avoided if Lincoln had re crime of Abraham Lincoln was his eloquent lented, but the President-elect was adamant proclamation that slavery, however long it in his refusal.'^ might have to be tolerated, was a moral evil One must suspect that Lincoln had simply in the sight of God and man. Being ruled stretched his conscience already to the limit by such a President would be dishonor it- on his course to the Presidency. He had won " Cf. Loomis M. Ganaway, New Mexico and the Sec tional Controversy, 1846-1861 (Aubuquerque, 1944). " February 27, 1860, in ibid., HI: 522-550. ^° Cf. Charles G. Sellers, Jr., in George H. Knoles " Perhaps the strongest support for this view is Ced.), Crisis of the Union (Baton Rouge, 1865), David Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Seces 89, and in Sellers (ed.), The Southerner as Ameri sion Crisis (New Haven, 1942), 156-218. can (Chapel Hill, 1960). 164 SMITH: LINCOLN self, but through secession they could free masters. The President quickly recalled, can themselves from the incessant plague of North celled, and reworded the report. ern reproach. Separation and the founding In the same period and beyond, Lincoln of a new slave nation had become in fact continued to believe that colonization was a a desperate emotional need. Only by creating practical solution. He was painfully aware a prosperous, powerful, happy, and humane of the deep-seated racism throughout the new country based upon slavery could South North as well as the South, and dreaded the erners prove to themselves and to the world period of readjustment which emancipation the wrongness of their tormentors. Through would bring. Various projects were consi secession they would guide their future into dered hopefully, but the difficulties were in paths that would justify their past and vindi superable. Chief among these was the strong cate their present. Whether or not Lincoln opposition of the Negroes themselves. Various saw the Southern problem in these terms, he Negro leaders and organizations objected was convinced that further concessions would vehemently. "An Appeal from the Colored be useless. In the words of a young reporter Men of Philadelphia to the President of the with Lincoln, the President-elect considered United States" stated an inability to find any any concessions futile, "as the South . . . 'has thing "in the religion of our Lord and Mas eyes but does not see, and ears but does not ter, teaching us that color is the standard by which He judges his creatures." The Appeal also emphasized the Negroes' contributions T INCOLN'S DECISION to fight a war in creating the wealth of the United States -•-^ for the preservation of the Union was and flatly rejected colonization, although the not dictated by his attitudes toward slavery, authors reaffirmed their belief that "In the and after the war began he tried for more President of the United States we . . . have than a year to avoid the issue. Congressional a champion." Congress appropriated $600,000 radicals feared with reason that the war for the President to use for establishing for might end without any action on slavery, mer slaves in other lands, but Lincoln never and kept up a constant pressure. Lincoln's got a chance to spend it.'^ first concern, however, was winning the war, Meanwhile, however, even Northern ra and this meant handling the border slave cists could not defend slavery against the states with tact and delicacy. The loss of charges that it had caused the war, that Missouri, Kentucky, or Maryland might have there could be no real peace as long as it been fatal, and Lincoln carefully refrained existed, and that the slaves were a power from risking their displeasure until each was ful source of Southern military strength.'* reasonably secured to the Union. When Fre As the casualty lists grew, fewer and fewer mont declared free the slaves of all rebels could argue for the continuation of slavery. in Missouri, Lincoln promptly revoked the Thus Lincoln found himself able to move decree and removed Fremont. When General slowly step by step toward emancipation. Un David Hunter followed suit in South Caro like modern leaders he lacked the benefits lina, Lincoln again intervened, but kept Hunt of popular polls, but he could test the pub er in command. Secretary of War Cameron lic's reaction to each preliminary step taken. was transferred to Russia as an ambassador In 1861 Lincoln commenced a stern enforce ostensibly because of charges that he had ment of the laws against the foreign slave been profiteering. The decision was made, trade, and refused to commute the death however, shortly after Cameron had issued sentence of a young slave-ship captain. A copies of his annual report which also rec new enforcement treaty with Britain meant ommended that the government arm the that the trade was virtually ended. slaves and incite them to make war on their " Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro (New York, 1962), 117-123; quote, 117. " Henry V. Villard, Lincoln on the Eve of 1861 " John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proc (New York, 1946), 34. lamation (Garden City, New York, 1965), 12-28. 165 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 In early 1862 another ancient taboo was ley, Lincoln sorely disappointed both the brushed aside with a full diplomatic recogni Negroes and the abolitionists but in fact did tion and exchange of envoys with Haiti and much to put the coming proclamation on an Liberia. Both nations sent impressive repre acceptable basis for the general public. "If," sentatives whose social polish, multilingual he wrote, "I could save the Union without talents, and intellectual capacities rather freeing any slave I would do it; and if I stunned official Washington."' could save it by freeing all the slaves I would Hoping that a compensated emancipation do it; and if I could save it by freeing some in the border states would weaken their ties and leaving others alone I would do that. with the South, Lincoln offered them vari What I do about slavery, and the colored ous generous proposals, but none would ac race, I do because I believe it helps to save cept. On April 11, 1862, however. Congress the Union. . . ."2' abolished slavery in the District of Columbia This letter has often been interpreted as and appropriated a million dollars to pay the a lack of real concern for the slave except loyal masters. Nine of the District's 979 as an instrument for victory. When read a- slaveholders, incidentally, were themselves gainst Lincoln's already privately announced Negroes.^" intentions, however, it becomes an eloquent The public's acceptance of emancipation argument designed to gain the support of in the District led to the next step—aboli Northerners still anti-Negro by custom and tion without compensation in all territories often desperately afraid of the economic and of the United States. This affected only a few social competition a horde of newly freed people, but it showed the direction in which emigrants might become. In the long run e- Lincoln was rapidly moving. He was weary mancipation would become a reality only if of begging the border states to accept com a majority of the American people would pensation, and two other acts of Congress support it. In the face of much evidence that had showed the public ready to accept eman many people would resist, Lincoln tied eman cipation in the South if it could be linked cipation squarely to the process of winning to the war effort. The confiscation act of the war and saving the Union. August, 1861, had provided for the eman On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced cipation of slaves employed in arms or labor his preliminary proclamation. On January 1, against the United States. In July, 1862, a 1863, all slaves within any state or designated second confiscation act declared free all slaves part of any state whose people were in re of all persons who committed treason or sup bellion should be forever free. There was no ported the rebellion. Public reaction to both ideological fervor in the proclamation, and acts was mild. in theory the Southerners could keep their Also, in both England and France, mass slaves by surrendering before January 1, public opinion had supported the North and 1863. Just as Fort Sumter put the responsi had helped keep the ruling aristocracies from bility for the war on the South, the prelimi recognizing the Confederacy. This foreign nary emancipation announcement in a sense constituency by mid-1862 desperately needed put the responsibility for abolition in the proof that the war actually did have a liber same place. Obviously, the South would not tarian ideological basis. accept the offer. On January 1, 1863, amid On July 13 Lincoln told Seward and Welles, wild celebrations, the actual Proclamation and on July 22 he gave his cabinet the secret was issued. Its provisions were limited almost news that he was planning an emancipation entirely to areas still under Confederate con proclamation. This intent, however, remain trol, although the sea island area of South ed a secret for sixty-two more days. On Au- Carolina where several thousand ex-slaves 2;ust 22, in his famous letter to Horace Gree were under Northern tutelage was not on the list of excepted areas. " Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro, 99-101. "'Ibid., 106. -"'Basler (ed.), Collected Works, V: .388-389. 166 SMITH: LINCOLN The congressional elections between the by 1864 the emotions of war itself had be initial and the final Proclamation went heavi come the dynamo. Northern anger at the ly Democratic, and enemies of emancipation South, a determination to defeat the South insisted that the announcement was the cause. and exact at least a token of repentance, and Perhaps because of this, Lincoln's message the Republican party's growing awareness of to Congress in December, 1862, again in its need for new voters were rapidly gen cluded a plea for colonization and suggested erating new hopes and new possibilities for that emancipation should be carried out grad both the slaves and the free Negroes. And ually until completion in 1900. still in the forefront were those few who had The Proclamation inspired much noisy always pleaded for racial justice on moral opposition, including a fierce condemnation grounds. of Lincoln by the Illinois legislature, but Lincoln's tragic death added to this great most Northerners apparently either greeted emotional force. To insure that their sons it with a sigh of relief or found it at least and that their martyred leader had not died tolerable. Winning the increasingly bloody in vain, the Northern people insisted upon war was the great concern, and almost any constitutional amendments, legislation, and policy that could hurt the enemy was ac executive policies that would on paper at ceptable. least guarantee genuine freedom and legal One ameliorating factor resulted from an equality and protection to American Negroes. almost casual addition at the end of the E- Unfortunately, by the 1880's, the wartime mancipation Proclamation where the Presi emotions had been forgotten, and other prob dent may have hoped it would be overlooked lems were occupying the physical and moral in the excitement over his main purpose. energies of the great American majority. In This short section authorized the enlisting practice the great constitutional amendments of freed slaves in the Union army and navy. were ignored, and the former slaves began Ultimately some 190,000 former slaves served another long cycle of exploitation, injustice, in the Union armies. Many worked as labor and oppression. Slavery had been destroyed, ers, but others fought with great courage and however, and the amendments were still in ability in some of the fiercest battles of the the Constitution where the ideological con war. The sight of Negroes fighting effectively flicts and commitments of a later century for their own freedom apparently had a pow could finally bring them back into fashion. erful effect upon the Northern mind, and Were the complaints of the abolitionists contributed much to the coming of the later that Lincoln was kicked into glory against Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amend his will justified? Could any of them have ments.^^ accomplished the abolition of slavery? Do the words and actions which grate so harshly rpHE BATTLES of Gettysburg and Vicks- on ears and eyes tuned to the modern civil -*- burg marked the beginning of the end rights struggle weaken his claim to the love for the Confederacy. Dedicating the burial of the descendants of slaves? If the preser ground at Gettysburg, Lincoln restated in a vation of the American Union, the winning few simple but inspiring phrases the goals of the Civil War, the destruction of slavery, that justified the suffering. The men at Get and the constitutional provisions which un tysburg, he said, had died so that govern derlie the present civil rights struggle were ment of, by, and for the people should not worth what they cost, Lincoln deserves his perish from the earth. With such sentiments popular reputation. In life he was the archi he had kept a war-weary people fighting for tect of victory and emancipation and in death many long, discouraging months for only the he contributed indirectly to the amendments, abstract ideals of union and nationalism, but without which modern advocates of Negro equality would be relatively helpless. To accomplish these goals Lincoln had to be an opportunist and a realist. He recog "Dudley T. Cornish, The Sable Arm (New York, 1956), is the best account of the Negro soldiers. nized that any society must be governed eith- 167 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 er by the will of the majority or by a dicta slavery was immoral, and the legal contain torial elite, and he was certain that majority ment of slavery could be made attractive to rule under an accepted constitution offered idealists and racists alike. Thus, he anchored any people their best hope for life, liberty, himself to these principles and fought to and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, Ameri bring the public up to this mark. Elected can attitudes on race, slavery, abolition, free- President, he still refused to push beyond soil, popular sovereignty, and the other great these points until the South seceded. Fearing issues were realities to be faced and dealt a permanently divided Union he utilized with rather than sins to be decried. Some of Southern pride and bad judgment to unite these attitudes could be changed or influ the North in a military effort to restore the enced by eloquence and appeals to self-inter broken nation. With slavery linked to the est. Racial prejudice, however, was so deep- enemy's war effort, emancipation suddenly seated as to require nothing short of a war became possible, and step by step Lincoln to shake its foundations. Lincoln the realist led the public up to it while always stressing kept his own views and policies always just its value to the war effort and the salvation a bare step ahead of the voting public. He of the Union. Living in an age when nation rarely blurred his vision by trying to see alism was the western world's most power beyond what was possible. His goal of the ful emotional force, he led his people to vic moment was never higher than his concep tory by holding aloft the ideal of a united tion of what could actually be achieved. But America fulfilling its sacred mission as the while his goals were short in range, he was light of liberty for mankind everywhere. constantly readjusting his sights and changing "I claim not to have controlled events but them when others became visible. In the confess plainly that events have controlled 1850's abolition and racial equality were me," said Lincoln shortly before his assassi impossible, but he could keep insisting that nation. He was entirely too modest. 168 REVIEWS The Artist and American Society: A Review Essay By Frederick Rudolph An aggressive and destructive attitude to One such voice, quoted by Miss Miller, was ward nature is not peculiarly American, but Oliver Wendell Holmes, who observed in in Western experience perhaps no other peo 1840 that "the mountains and cataracts which ple has equalled the Americans in the scale were to have made poets and painters have with which they have polluted their environ been mined for anthracite and damned for ment. The fact of pollution and the heritage water power." And he added, in Miss Mil of indifference and hostility to nature are ler's words, that "anthracite rather than art, no longer news: the warning flags are up, in the long run, would exert the greatest and even Congress pays occasional heed to effect on the American character." an environmentalist or ecologist bearing evil As these two model studies of art and art tidings. What does surprise is the discovery ists in nineteenth-century America make clear. of voices in the American past giving ex Holmes, besides being as witty and quotable pression to concern, dismay, even bitterness as usual, was also a trifle quick in his con at the national appetite for unspoiled nature. clusions. A century and several decades later anthracite evokes the kind of curiosity re served for vanished races and interesting old rocks. And Holmes even in his own time could be taken seriously and literally only by ignoring the poetry of William CuUen Ttie Artist in American Society: The Forma Bryant, the novels of James Fenimore Coop tive Years, 1790-1860. By NEIL HARRIS. er, the essays of Emerson and Thoreau, and (George Braziller, New York, 1966. Pp. xvi, the paintings of Asher B. Durand, Thomas 432. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cole, and others of the Hudson River school. $7.50.) To some extent these poets and painters made the mountains and the cataracts or at Patrons and Patriotism: The Encouragement least preserved them in print and pigment of the Fine Arts in the United States, 1790- while man pursued his relentless war against 1860. By LILLIAN B. MILLER. (University of nature, but it is also true that the mountains Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966. Pp. xvi, 336. and cataracts indeed did make poets and Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. painters. The decades before the Civil War $8.50.) in the United States were peculiarly theirs, 169 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 decades when the American landscape served professional possibilities, and the absence the purposes of national pride and identity, of artist communities placed aspiring artists morality and ethics, as well as art. Could in discouraging isolation. as much be said of anthracite? Somehow these burdens and problems were One problem with the whole question of overcome, and by the time of the Civil War art and American character, of course, is the American artist belonged to a commu that on art the literature is so sparse and nity of artists (centered largely, even then, on American character it is so unsystema in New York), possessing a degree of self- tic. The problem is being remedied, how confidence and community respect that made ever, and no better evidence exists than the a career in art both legitimate and lucrative. two studies at hand, both of them published An artist who worked hard and achieved a in 1966. Both books cover the years 1790- solid reputation was a happy symbol of the 1860. Both are developed from doctoral dis American success ethic while his artistic sertations directed by two of the more ima creations functioned as vital supports for ginative and industrious practitioners of cul both religious and national values. In sub tural history in the United States—Mr. Har ject matter and treatment their work was ris's with Oscar Handlin at Harvard and wholesome, honest, and virtuous, celebrating Miss Miller's with Richard Hofstadter at man or nature or God in landscape, homely Columbia. And both make extensive use of scenes of America at work and play, and many of the same manuscript and published straight-forward honest portraiture. An "A- sources. Yet their purposes are sufficiently merican style" became discernible—direct, different and their excellent bibliographical simple, clear—a style perhaps more reveal and notes sections so ample and suggestive ing of American character than anthracite that these volumes not only complement one ever was. another but point the way toward other subjects and scholarly possibilities that are Artists were not alone in developing and inherent in the history of artistic experience perfecting an American style during these in the United States. years; it is simply that how they went about it and under what conditions has not been Mr. Harris and Miss Miller are interested generally accessible or hitherto reliably stu in discovering how the aspiring democratic died and analyzed. Scholars have long since nation went about justifying and encouraging impressed upon the historical consciousness and in the end achieving artistic creativity. what Horace Mann and the common school Art in the United States had much to over movement did to establish the American style come, and not only Puritan asceticism. There in education. Samuel Flagg Bemis has made was the indifference to artistic achievement of the career of John Quincy Adams a great encouraged by the psychology and conditions study in the formulation of classic Ameri of colonial life, as well as the materialism can foreign policy. The career of Henry Clay generated by an environment generously open and his set of domestic policies and politi to economic and social ambition. Thought cal attitudes known as the American System ful leaders of the early republic aspired to established an American style in domestic heights of virtue no society had yet known, politics. Long ago we learned to recognize and many of them were quite sure that the Emerson's 1837 Phi Beta Kappa address at historical record proved that vice and lux Harvard, The American Scholar, as an Amer ury and art were synonymous. Moreover, if ican "intellectual Declaration of Independ there was to be art in America it must be ence." From Alexis de Tocqueville's descrip American, whatever that might be, burden tion of what an American poet would be, ing the would-be artist with the necessity to the appearance of Leaves of Grass, was of somehow, in addition to carrying all these a scant two decades. The years after the War other burdens, self-consciously developing a of 1812 and before the Civil War gave shape style that was peculiarly American. to a way of thinking and acting, a way of The artists themselves had other problems. looking at things and doing things, that was For most consumers pictures meant portraits. recognizably American. (Was not the South, Their own lower and lower-middle-class back after all, seceding from a style as much as grounds and their lack of college education from a government? From a style which was and of wealth (of course there were excep defined by democracy, bluntness, directness, tions) placed them outside the establishment. simplicity, and realism—qualities that one A tradition of craftmanship prevailed over does not associate with the Old South.) 170 BOOK REVIEWS What Mr. Harris and Miss Miller have done is to bring the American artist into our understanding of the shaping of Amer ican culture. In exploring the social role of STATE AND REGIONAL art and the expectations and attitudes of so ciety toward artists, each chooses his own themes and his own examples, but both have written illuminating studies on art and Amer ican character. With its emphasis on patron Fire at Peshtigo. By ROBERT W. WELLS. age and its many ramifications. Miss Miller's (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Inglewood Cliffs, New is the more limited study, but for that reason Jersey, 1968. Pp. x, 243. Map, index. $5.95.) it is also more thorough. From her we suc ceed in getting a fuller sense of what it was In a day and age in which military gen to be an artist or art collector during these iuses and social scientists speak nonchalant years, a clearer picture of what was going ly of "overkill" and "megadeaths," it is doubt on beyond the Eastern seaboard in such ur ful whether yet another frightful account of ban centers as Cincinnati and St. Louis. The Hiroshima or Nagasaki would find either history of federal patronage as revealed in a publisher or an audience. How is it, then, the artistic adornment of the Capitol, the that man is eternally fascinated by natural development of important private art collec disasters—fires, floods, earthquakes, torna tions and the antecedents of today's great does, and the like—even though their death public museums, the fascinating life of the tolls are often comparatively modest? Per American Art Union (1842-18.52) which in haps it is out of shame, in the knowledge 1850 distributed 3,300 works of American that mortals ought not to surpass the gods in art to members—these are matters that Miss visiting destruction upon the earth. Miller handles with skill and authority. Mr. At any rate, the Peshtigo Fire of 1871 Harris ranges more broadly and makes more ("America's greatest natural disaster") con imaginative soundings into the meaning of tinues to make good copy for Wisconsin artistic life and style as they were revealed writers almost a century after the fact. Rob in European travel and experience, in the ert Wells, the Milwaukee Journal columnist development of parks and in the rural ceme and author, has skillfully woven the best eye tery movement, and in the treatment of art witness and secondary accounts of the catas and artists in contemporary fiction. If much trophe into a gripping and altogether read of what he discovers is necessarily intuitive, able narrative. To be sure, much of this is he leaves us hauntingly indebted to an in familiar: the air "thick with smoke and formed imagination for a profounder under foreboding" during the fateful autumn; the standing of how Americans achieved an ar fire-laden "balloons" which reportedly de tistic consciousness. scended on the doomed towns; the heroism Does the subject of these books dictate or cowardice of this or that person; and the a constantly changing focus, a series of al twelve to thirteen hundred dead. But Wells most but not quite independent chapters? manages to bring his well-worn material to Perhaps so, but in the absence of a person, life on the one hand while stopping well event, institution, or single theme (even "pat short of sensationalism on the other. It is rons and patriotism" is not as simple as it a nice balance, and it helps to make this a may sound), something is lacking that might very good book. have given these studies the dramatic quality The essential drama of Peshtigo was (and that their importance suggests. My guess is is) the sudden, terrible onslaught of fire, that my question is inappropriate. These and the ways in which thousands of people are impressive pioneer undertakings, crucial survived or perished in the space of a few to the great volume on American art and American culture that lies ahead. hours. Not the least interesting part of Fire at Peshtigo, however, is a kind of extended footnote (pp. 199-214) in which Wells syn thesizes a great deal of modern scientific {The reviewer is professor of history knowledge of forest fires and explains, at at Williams College.) least in part, some of the stranger phenomena observed in 1871. In this regard, he con cludes that the whirling chimney of super- 171 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 heated air generated by the fire (a "con Two interesting chapters, entitled"The Peo vection column") suddenly broke through ple's University," face up to library perfor an overlying blanket of heavier air, causing mance rather than to promise or expectation. a tremendous updraft and a true firestorm. It was clear that all too often the library In other words, the Peshtigo survivors who failed to make much of an educational im told afterwards of "whirlwinds" or "torna pact, not because of limitations in its size does of fire" were not far wrong. or support, but simply because the public was not interested. At least this is the im PAUL H. HASS pression one gets from figures of library use; The State Historical Society of Wisconsin on the other hand, there was a great deal of interest in fiction, in school-related books, and in children's literature. Though the book is centered on the Car negie libraries in Wisconsin, its findings and Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin. By DAVID conclusions are applicable to public libraries I. MACLEOD. (Published for the History De generally in the state, and indeed to public partment of the University of Wisconsin by libraries throughout the nation. The library the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, has always drawn a minority of the popula 1968. Pp. 166. $3.25.) tion, and its influence cannot be properly assessed by statistical measures. In any event, When Andrew Carnegie began his library Macleod has contributed an excellent analy philanthropies, there were 971 public libra sis of the institution; and if the library has ries in the United States. By the time he died failed to measure up to all that its benefac he was directly responsible for 1,679 in this tors and even practitioners hoped for, the country alone, and for 125 more in Canada. cause must be sought as much in society at It is fruitless to speculate how many libra large as in the institution itself. ries would have come into existence without Carnegie; many, perhaps most, undoubtedly LEON CARNOVSKY would, but even so no one can deny that Graduate Library School Carnegie gave a vigorous thrust to a move University of Chicago ment already well on the march. This interesting volume focuses on Car negie's influence in Wisconsin. The state ranked seventh in the number of its Carne gie libraries, even though many cities re fused the donor's offer or felt unable to "A Fighting Editor." By WILLIAM T. EVJUE. meet his only two conditions: that the city (Wells Printing Company, Madison, 1968. Pp. contribute the site, and agree to an annual 873. $5.95.) appropriation equal to 10 per cent of the cost of the building. Between 1901 and 1915 A Norwegian scholar once told the author Carnegie gave money for sixty-three public of this book that the name Evjue meant libraries in Wisconsin. However, as Macleod "troubled waters" or "angry river" or some points out, all but four of the receiving towns similar definition. Readers of the biography already had libraries, and accepted the funds will appreciate the appropriatness of the fam to enable them to put up more satisfactory ily name. quarters. Aside from a town's unwillingness to as Before starting to pick nits and offer criti sume the responsibility for a library on Car cism, let this reviewer state that it's an im negie's terms, too many people were indif portant book and mostly well done. It's the ferent, if not actually hostile, to the idea history of an interesting man, and an inter of providing reading matter at public expense. esting newspaper; an important man and an The business and professional classes, gen important newspaper. Political and social erally the better educated, favored the idea; historians will find it a useful reference work the working classes did not—perhaps ironi on the Wisconsin scene for years to come. cal in view of Carnegie's expressed interest All of it has previously been printed in in libraries as providing some relief after the Madison Capital Times, but reading it a day in the factory or steel mill. between boards is a lot easier than digging 172 BOOK REVIEWS A few of the sixty-three Carnegie libraries built in Wisconsin between 1901 and 1910. (Top left) Be loit; (lower left) Elroy; (top right) Madison; (center) Waupun; (lower right) Janesville, showing the library's collection of stuffed water fowl. (All pictures jrom the Society's Iconographic Collection.) 4 I i. 173 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 through musty newspaper files in the library. The foreword by Harold Groves is a thought ful and scholarly appraisal of Evjue and his newspaper, probably a better review of the book itself than this effort. The early chapters of Evjue's ancestors and their environment, of his own life as a boy and young man are in good narrative style and help explain what made the man tick in his mature years. Later on one be gins to lose the thread of the story in a too- i^htmi great mass of detail. It's a little like reading a political almanac. William T. Evjue was a resourceful, in mim genious, and courageous newspaperman. He had good schooling in his craft in Milwau kee, Chicago, and Madison. The editors of his day often were good technicians, and will ing young men with the right aptitudes learned to report the news and write it clear Wiiliaifi ly and simply, best of all, understandably. Amos P. Wilder, owner of the Wisconsin I State Journal, was not a great editor, but he was a great writer. Richard Lloyd Jones was a probing, crusading editor. Under men like these Bill Evjue learned his lessons Reproduction of the cover design of A Fighting well. Editor. Few people ever started a successful news paper with such scanty financial resources. The Capital Times began life with only "The Just" Heil. Author Evjue could have $40,000 capital. That would not meet a improved upon that by eliminating some of week's payroll today. Moreover, it took a the names and dates, and telling the uproar- lot of spunk to buck the establishment, but ously funny story of the man and his ad buck it Evjue did with vigor and imagina ministration. The anecdote of Julius spank tion. It has paid him handsomely, and any ing Princess Martha of Norway on her bot good capitalist will say, "More power to him." tom before a cheering crowd would have Throughout most of his productive life Evjue added zest. Or of Julius sending Editor was basically a good reporter. He knew the Evjue a half dozen bow ties from Sulka as value of names, and this book is sprinkled a peace offering after a stormy luncheon at with hundreds of them. He had the knack the Madison Club.) of picking up an unpopular or an unlikely The chapter on Governor Walter S. Good- issue, of bringing it to life and making it land is excellent, but it leaves out an im important. He not only was a fighting editor, portant facet of that good governor's ad but also a rough competitor. As a member ministration. The old man with the leonine of the opposition for forty-three of the Capi head, the curved pipe, and the basic integ tal Times' fifty-one years, this critic feels he rity also became old and senile in the latter can speak with authority. One had to rise years of his last term. Mornings his mind early and work late to beat Evjue on a news was in good shape, but after lunch anything story or a campaign. In doing so we all could happen. This book relates the story became better newspapermen, and for that of Goodland's bitter battle with the late Thom I am personally grateful. as E. Coleman over a proposed change in Some sharp editing would have improved Wisconsin's primary law. What it does not the readability. Actually, it's three or four tell is that Coleman took the bill to the legis books, and the wealth of detail crammed lature with Goodland's blessing; that a se into one large volume is a bit overwhelming. nile governor forgot his promises and vetoed (Example: One of the best chapters deals the bill he had promised Coleman he would with Wisconsin's eccentric governor, Julius support. 174 BOOK REVIEWS The good fights won would seem more told in a variety of ways. Some contempo plausible if also there was the story of the raries spoke of him with respect, others held poor ones. Fighting Editor mentions the him up to ridicule, and a few called him a paper's campaign against the Rockefeller "in savage. terests." What it does not tell is the effective As a young man, Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia- campaign to keep the Rockefeller Foundation kiak, Black Sparrow Hawk, traded with Brit from giving three million dollars to the Uni ish agents. Later, as Sauk war chief, he aid versity of Wisconsin Medical School on the ed the British during the War of 1812. grounds of tainted money and holding out Black Hawk's meetings with Americans fol "a tin cup." The Foundation tactfully with lowing the war resulted in mutual distrust. drew the offer and gave the money to the The Americans passed over this influential State University of Iowa, whose medical Sauk warrior and cultivated Keokuk, a young school flourished mightily thereafter. The er, more accommodating Sauk leader. Keo book neglects the vicious attack on the Wis kuk did not hesitate to sell tribal lands to consin Alumni Research Foundation whose the American government. Black Hawk be millions have helped make Wisconsin one lieved that Keokuk's policy of peaceful com of the great research schools of the country. pliance with all American demands could The University's two Nobel scholars worked lead only to disaster. Listening to sympa in facilities provided by WARE. thetic British traders, Black Hawk decided In 873 fat pages one should expect some to remain at Saukenut, ancestral tribal home minor errors. One caught my eye, and I of the Sauks, when Keokuk moved to the mention it just to prove I read the entire Iowa side of the Mississippi. Finally forced volume. On page 375 the book mentions Ed to cross the river, Black Hawk returned the ward N. Doan's The La Follettes and the following spring. He had been led to believe Wisconsin Idea, and then identifies Doan as that a confederation of Indians would join University librarian and later an Episcopal him in driving American settlers from Sauk priest. Edward's the author, but Gilbert's lands. The promises of aid, however, proved the priest. false and few braves joined Black Hawk's But it's a worthwhile book, and one that band. Soon after a victorious skirmish. should have been written years ago. Madison Black Hawk began the retreat that ended in has been a livelier and cleaner city because wholesale slaughter of his band at Bad Axe. Bill Evjue lived here and published a fight In August, 1833, following a trip East, ing newspaper. There are times when we Black Hawk called upon Antoine LeClaire, wished he wasn't so mean about things, but United States Interpreter for the Sauks at the net result of his contributions has been Rock Island. The warrior asked that his all to the good. life history be written down "so that the people of the United States might know the DON ANDERSON causes that had impelled him to act . . . and Madison the principles by which he was governed." In the autobiography. Black Hawk tells how (The reviewer is the emeritus publisher settlers confiscated Indian crops and fields, of the Madison Wisconsin State Jour sold whiskey to the Sauks, and beat Indians nal, in which this review originally ap without cause. "Bad, and cruel, as our peo peared.) ple were treated by the whites, not one of them was hurt or molested by any of my band. I hope this will prove that we are a peaceable people—having permitted ten men to take possession of our cornfields; prevent us from planting corn; burn and destroy our Proud Warrior: The Story of Black Hawk. lodges; ill-treat our women; and beat to death By MARION LAWSON. (Hawthorn Books, Inc., our men, without offering resistance to their New York, 1968, Pp. 175. Illustrations, in barbarous cruelties." dex. $3.95.) Marion Lawson has based Proud Warrior on Black Hawk's dictated autobiography and When asked to name an important Wis other contemporary documents. The story consin Indian, most youngsters reply, "Black and events leading up to and including the Hawk!" This Sauk warrior's story has been war are told not from the American, but 175 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 from the Indian viewpoint. Black Hawk little of it goes a long way with a reader, emerges as neither "savage," nor "noble red- so the diaries do not make cheery reading. man," but as a man. Young readers from Besides making notes about himself and the age of ten and up will appreciate being his family. Garland writes here about some able to read the Sauk warrior's story "the eighty other people, most of them fellow au way it was." thors. The best of these entries are frank, shrewd, thumb-nail portraits set down in HOWARD W. KANETZKE short sentences within a few hours of the The State Historical Society of Wisconsin meeting, while the impression was still fresh. Some of these impressions are captured here before the person has quite yet arrived pro fessionally (most interestingly in the case of Robert Frost), or when past his prime (Mark Twain), or at a pinnacle (Will Rog ers). Others are revealed in an off-guard Hamlin Garland's Diaries. Edited by DONALD moment at variance with our standard view PiZER. (The Huntington Library, San Mari of them (Edwin Markham, Booth Tarking- no, California, 1968. Pp. xvi, 281. Frontis piece, introduction, editorial note, and index. ton, Herbert Hoover). Garland returns often $7.50.) and fondly to certain of his favorite persons —Irving Bacheller, John Burroughs, Henry Blake Fuller, William Dean Howells, and Readers of this journal will recall that the Augustus Thomas. Though he lived many Summer 1963 number carried an article by John Higgins about the diaries of Wis summers at West Salem, which he mentions consin-born author Hamlin Garland. The here and there. Garland says little about manuscript diaries, now at the Huntington Wisconsin, unless we count his comments on Library, consist of forty-three reddish note Zona Gale, Frank Lloyd Wright, and allu books which Garland kept, one for each sions to the La Follettes. He says much more year, from 1898 to 1940; that is, from the about the Chicago scene during his years time he was thirty-seven until his death at there, 1893-1916. eighty. The Huntington commissioned Don It is not editor Pizer's fault that the Di ald Pizer, a professor of English at Tulane aries, being apparently a faithful reflection University and an authority on Garland, to of Garland, are rather dull, nor that interest select and annotate excerpted passages from in Garland seems to be fading nowadays. the forty-three diaries, and it has now pub Just the same, it is clear that in his person lished these excerpts handsomely in large and in his career Garland represents some print and wide margins. thing historically important, for he stands The diaries as sampled here do not much as a pure example of one major native Amer change our understanding of Garland, part ican strain. In the subject matter of his ly because he was not a man to surprise any books, in his personality, in his creed and one in the first place, and also because he values, in the things he was radical about himself published so many autobiographical books. If there is something unexpected about when he was young and conservative about them it is what editor Pizer calls the "in when he was old—in all of these Garland tegrity and depth" of Garland's character is an authentic classic American type for and "the depth of his response" to his life his era and region, and his career is nothing and times. This "response" may be more less than symbolic. It is this representative pessimistic than Garland's readers would ex ness of his mind and character which gives pect, for into his diaries he steadily poured Hamlin Garland's Diaries solid historical val his dismay about the decline of American ue. They are a quarry to be dug into when taste and morality, as it seemed to him, as studying an earlier age, when tracing layers well as his unhappiness about the changing of native bedrock. texture and tone of popular culture and man ners, together with his depression over his gradually failing creativity. Indeed, a key JAMES B. STRONKS word in the diaries, often repeated, is "de University of Illinois cay." It is not exactly a catchy theme, and a at Chicago Circle 176 BOOK REVIEWS sensus on fundamental values, on personal morals and life styles, and on business and governmental modes. The progressives' resort NEW DEAL HISTORY to collective action at the turn of the century, and in particular their proposals for federal regulations, in their efforts to save the con ventional values, morals, and modes, produced An Encore for Reform: The Old Progressives superficial analogues to the New Deal. Per and the New Deal. By OTIS L. GRAHAM, JR. haps misled by the undownable flap about (Oxford University Press, New York, 1967. "laissez faire" that has corrupted American Pp. viii, 256. $6.00.) political debate, too many historians have mis taken the apparent for the real. But the parti This is a first-rate book. The title and sub cipants knew precisely what they were about ject matter may conceal its importance from and were never so bemused. By the thirties some, but the book must not be allowed to (actually, for most, by the 1920's), "big mingle with the increasing crowd of undis government," "interest-group politics," "class tinguished works on the progressive era. Otis warfare," and even the frailest hints of na Graham has presented here a remarkable ar tional economic planning which many feared ray of data on what motivated the progres might empower the state to rigidify the dis sive reformers. He has shown beyond any tribution of life chances, caused most old pro reasonable quibble the crucial differences— gressives to withdraw from their earlier en in style, philosophy, and social objectives— thusiasm for state-directed reforms. "Despite between the progressive movement and the the fact," writes Graham, "that it is now gen New Deal. Richard Hofstadter and Henry erally recognized that the historic mission of May, among others, have long made such dif progressivism was to advance collective solu ferences evident, but perhaps not clearly tions to social problems, many of the old pro enough to some if one is to judge from the gressives of the 1930's fell back on individual persistence of reform historiography that salvation—generally through spiritual regen treats twentieth-century reform as a single, eration or thrift and hard work." In any continuous movement. By carefully scrutiniz event, the progressives had never intended ing the careers of 168 progressives who lived collective action to benefit particular groups; into and beyond the New Deal, Graham dem what they had sought above all was to reverse onstrates the discontinuity, and shows its sig the manifest fragmentation of American so nificance to be vital. He employs a form of ciety. "When the New Deal recognized and quantitative analysis that lends weighty au dealt with particular classes and social groups, thority to his judgments without indulging in it undid the work of years of progressive ef the historical irrelevance of much cliometrics. fort, for it divided rather than united the American people." To get the list of 168, Graham began with 400 names associated with progressive reform What about the minority who supported the by the standard works on progressivism. A New Deal? Graham's statistics suggest one little more than 200 did not live into the rough rule: "The earlier in the course of the 1930's. Of those who did, a striking majority progressive movement that a person decided were hostile to the New Deal. "The pattern," to become a reformer, the more likely he or says Graham, "is fairly clear. The chief con she would still be pulling for reform of the tributions of surviving progressives to the rich and relief for the poor in the 1930's." political life of the 1930's took the form of Undoubtedly this is related to the fact that objections to reform. . . ." To the obvious the progressive movement began in the cities next question—Did their opposition arise among social workers and civic leaders con more from a change of heart or from the im cerned with the problems of urban poverty pact of new events on consistently-held views? and administration. For Graham also points —the answer is equally clear: "Taken as a out that "a prominent feature of those favor whole, the progressive generation displayed, as able to the New Deal was extended experience they aged, the most remarkable tenacity of in cities." The most consistent reformers, he belief." What then is the key to their aliena notes elsewhere, were the social workers; and tion? From among a multitude of possible significantly they changed probably the most. answers the one that emerges most clearly is In the progressive era, settlement houses, or the old progressives' continuing commitment ganized charity work, and tenement house reg to an America that maintained a broad con ulations comprised most of the sum of their 177 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 interest; by the thirties, they had moved on first, almost all Congressmen were willing to public housing and community planning. to follow the lead of the President. A small The book is rich with quotations which band of Democrats opposed him, but inef alone are worth the price of admission and fectively. The number grew larger in the which sometimes provide a certain pathos to battles over taxes and the regulation of public the story as we follow each reformer's career utilities in 1935, but he remained successful. from one end to the other. We have a peek at In 1937, however, conservative power became James Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt's Secre effective, in part because of Roosevelt's attack tary of the Interior, wistfully wondering, on upon the Supreme Court, and by 1939, con the fifty-second anniversary of his father's servative Congressmen were defeating Roose assassination, what Dad would have thought velt frequently. of New Deal prodigality; there is S. S. In explaining this development, Patterson McClure at eighty, pitifully piecing together emphasizes urban-rural conflict. Sectional the past from yellowing, dog-eared pages of conflict was also involved, and southern the great old muckraking magazine of his Democrats figured prominently in the shifting, name and bemoaning the end of the Republic; informal conservative coalition that was taking and Oswald Garrison Villard, expressing his shape. But not all southerners were conserva view that the greatest President of all was tive, and not all conservatives were southern. Grover Cleveland, especially at the moment Most conservatives represented rural areas of his "principled defeat" in 1888. And what and resented the sharp increase in the power of the picture of H. L. Hunt of Dallas and the and influence of urban groups, such as organ John Birch Society standing with Teddy at ized labor and northern Negroes, within the Armageddon! Democratic party and the national adminis tration. To support this interpretation, the One may fault Graham on a number of author supplements his qualitative analysis points, but why bother. This is a sound, sens with a study of a small number of roll calls. ible book. Read it! Buy it! The book makes a major contribution to New Deal historiography. It is the most RICHARD M. ABRAMS important study of Congress in the period, University of California at Berkeley a subject that has not received nearly as much attention as the presidency and the administration. Furthermore, Patterson fo cuses upon resistance to change while most historians of the period have emphasized the Congressional Conservatism and the New changes that took place. And, in contrast Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coa with historians of groups like the Liberty lition in Congress, 1933-1939. By JAMES T. League and individuals such as Al Smith, PATTERSON. (University of Kentucky Press, Patterson deals with quite effective opponents Lexington, 1967. Pp. xiv, 369. Illustrations, of change. appendix, bibliographical note, index. $8.50.) This is not to say that the author's answer to the fundamental question of New Deal This book deserves the prize (the Frederick historiography is that no significant changes Jackson Turner Award) that it received from took place during the 1930's. Instead, he the Organization of American Historians in shows that the conservative coalition took 1966. It rests upon a rich base of published shape because the New Deal was altering and unpublished materials and interviews American life. New Dealers were imposing with participants, and it is written in an new controls and taxes on the business system, effective style. (Consider, for example, the increasing government spending, enlarging many perceptive sketches of the maj or figures the welfare activities of the federal govern in the study.) Even more important, the vol- ment, and promoting the growth of industrial tune reflects a powerful historical mind at unions, and, because Negroes were deserting work upon the materials. Patterson, a member the Republican party and joining the Roose of the history department of Indiana Uni velt coalition. New Dealers seemed likely to versity, focuses his attention upon a significant try to alter race relations. In response, con political development and defines the stages servatives battled to conserve an earlier way in it and the forces that produced it. of life. The development is the change in the be What Patterson demonstrates is that op havior of Congress from 1933 to 1939. At ponents of change as well as advocates of 178 BOOK REVIEWS it were important parts of the depression dec Quite properly, the author focuses her ade. The economic crisis did not shatter all attention upon Mrs. Roosevelt's White House ties with the past. Many men remained heavily tenure and then upon her years as a widow influenced by traditional attitudes, and after after 1945, as a "private citizen in defense of 1936 some of these men had enough power the reform tradition." In her dedication to in Congress to check the champions of in the Works Progress Administration, the novation. And the effectiveness of the con American Youth Congress, and the cause of servatives themselves was limited by the hold the Negro, Mrs. Roosevelt is seen as a per that traditional attitudes had upon them. They sistent liberal stimulus toward and spokesman were partisans as well as conservatives, and for her husband and his New Deal. In her their attachments to their parties hampered postwar sponsorship of internationalism, do efforts to develop a formal conservative coa mestic liberalism, and the career of Adlai lition in Congress and to realign the political Stevenson, she maintained an influential role parties. in American life right to the end. This is an unusually significant book that In coming to terms with this highly contro must be studied by any serious student of versial woman, the author concludes that, the political history of the 1930's. despite her "occasional lapses into Utopia," Eleanor Roosevelt matured to become a "prag- RICHARD S. KIRKENDALL matist and practical idealist." She is perhaps University of Missouri best understood as a "transitional figure" who bridged the gap between the Victorian world of her youth and the "modern ways" of the young people she so loved. Although certainly not uncritical, the author does maximize the Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Conscience. positive and minimize the negative aspects of By TAMARA K. HAREVEN. (Quadrangle Books, her subject. This may be seen in her treat Chicago, 1968. Pp. xx, 326. Illustrations, ment of the First Lady's Utopian experiment notes, bibliography, index. $7.50.) in community building at Arthurdale, West Virginia. The chapter on Arthurdale, rein forced by new material from the Bernard Historians, and the general public as well, Baruch papers, is the best and most revealing have long recognized Eleanor Roosevelt as in the book. one of the foremost liberal spirits of the mod ern American scene. It is thus not surpris In her research Professor Hareven has natu ing that now, six years after her death, his rally relied heavily upon Mrs. Roosevelt's own torical analysis of her career has begun. voluminous writings and has also consulted What is ironic is the almost simultaneous ap the key archival and secondary sources. Cer pearance of two such studies: this one by tain errors of fact and, seemingly, of judg Tamara K. Hareven, which is a full-scale ment do appear: FDR contracting polio in biography, and James R. Kearney's Anna 1920, the assertion that the First Lady an Eleanor Roosevelt: The Evolution of a Re swered "all letters meticulously" only aided former, which focuses upon Mrs. Roosevelt's by one secretary, and that she was "unmoved" espousal of the major social and political by praise. One striking and regrettable omis causes of the 1930's. sion here, it would seem, is the absence of Professor Hareven finds the "recurring any reference to Professor Kearney's research pattern in Mrs. Roosevelt's development" to on this same subject, which includes two be "one of constructive activism in response theses and a book which was in press simul to challenges which threatened to overwhelm taneously with this one. Such reference could her." This approach seems logical enough. doubtlessly have strengthened Hareven's chap Eleanor Roosevelt overcame such imposing ters on the 1930's. Nevertheless, this book is obstacles as a lack of physical attractiveness, an adequate first step in the true historical childhood insecurity, and a domineering moth appraisal of Eleanor Roosevelt and should er-in-law to become America's most active of prove of interest to professional and general First Ladies and possibly most influential readers alike. of women. In retrospect the range of her in terests seems even more amazing than it did during her lifetime—writing, lecturing, coun MICHAEL P. MALONE seling, politicking, and diplomacy. Montana State University 179 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 This book is primarily a study of the efforts of the military to implement the programs formulated by President Johnson and the Congress. Sefton frequently shifts his focus from the Army to the work of the legislators GENERAL HISTORY in order to illustrate fully the relation between the development and enforcement of recon struction policies. Although Sefton's inves tigation of the struggle between Johnson and the Congress reveals little that is new, his The United States Army and Reconstruction, extensive research into military records pro 1865-1877. By JAMES E. SEFTON. (Louisiana vides the reader with a well-documented ex State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1967. amination of the Army's operations in the Pp. XX, 284. Illustrations, appendix, notes, South. index. $8.00.) While his work is distinguished by abun In this volume James E. Sefton presents dant historical spadework, Sefton often paints a detailed analysis of the Army's role during his portrait of the Army with too broad a the Reconstruction era. Although Sefton does brush. With the exception of a few brief not subscribe to the concept that a wall of references to their political views, Sefton's bayonets buttressed the framework of recon study lacks character analyses of the men struction legislation, he asserts that "the Army who held commands in the Southern states. was by far the most important instrument Because he devotes considerable attention to of federal authority in the South." Between these commanders, Sefton's failure to examine 1865 and 1877, military garrisons throughout fully their opinions and reactions leaves the the South decreased in size and number, but reader with the impression that "the most despite the comparatively small number of important instrument of federal authority in troops Sefton argues that the presence of even the South" was controlled by a group of a small detachment to "show the flag" was unopinionated, close-mouthed men. often enough to insure order in Southern Repetition is perhaps inevitable in any de communities. tailed study of a historical period. By de Sefton has organized his study into three scribing the operations of the Army in all sections. He concentrates first on the few of the Southern states, the author often fails months of "Presidential Reconstruction" be to distinguish the unique problems which the fore the Congress usurped Andrew Johnson's military encountered in a particular area. power. Noting the lack of precedent which Sefton also neglects to point out that the confronted the military in regard to the oc Army, and its continued use as a police cupation of conquered territory, Sefton con force, became the target of extensive political cludes that "the Army was obliged to ad sniping, especially after the readmission of minister Southern affairs without benefit the Southern states. Throughout the early of a clear policy to follow." In 1867, when 1870's, Democrats consistently tried to ham Congress succeeded in wresting leadership string the military by opposing any increase away from Johnson, the Army policed the in strength, and their refusal to support an South, guided by a series of "Reconstruction Acts." The legislators' domination of the appropriation bill in 1877 left the Army government, however, did not herald the without pay for nearly a year. advent of a consistent plan of reconstruc Too often historians have left the subject tion and it was to the Army's credit that of the military to the "buffs." Despite some it made quick adjustments to policy changes. weaknesses, Sefton has made a valuable con Sefton presents an extremely favorable image tribution to the growing body of Reconstruc of the military and suggests part of the Army's success lay in the ability of com tion literature by viewing the Army as an manders to confine their efforts to admin "institution enforcing civil policy" in much istering and executing policy rather "than the same manner as other writers have exam originating it or even greatly influencing it." ined the Congress and the Freedmen's Bureau. In the final section the author discusses the Army's activities after the South had been TOM PHILLIPS readmitted to the Union. University of Wisconsin 180 BOOK REVIEWS Crusade for Freedom: Women in the Anti- Civil War patriots to the cause of emanci slavery Movement. By ALMA LUTZ. (Beacon pation. Finally, the author neglects altogether Press, Boston, 1968. Pp. 338. $7.50.) the antislavery Negro women—Harriet Tub man and Charlotte Forten, to name only two— While there have been recent studies of an omission that borders on the unforgivable Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Beecher Stowe, in this age. If it were not for this failure and the Grimke sisters, no scholar has yet to recognize that antislavery was not just the undertaken a thorough analysis of the influ white man's or white woman's business. Cru ence of women antislavery reformers upon sade for Freedom could be recommended for the crusade as a whole. Alma Lutz's book is every high-school and undergraduate library the first attempt to fill this glaring deficiency. shelf. As it is, we can hope that Miss Lutz It is basically a collection of biographical will use her story-telling talents in behalf of essays about such women as Elizabeth Chan those women who are not so familiar, but dler, a rather obscure Quaker versifier of every bit as human and humane, as the author the 1820's, Mrs. Child, the Grimkes, Maria of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Weston Chapman, Abby Kelley, and Lucy Stone. Skillfully constructed so that repetition BERTRAM WYATT-BROWN is avoided, Crusade for Freedom is clearly Case Western Reserve University the work of an experienced writer. Exciting scenes (while familiar to the student of Amer ican reform) are described with accuracy and verve—from the vicissitudes of Prudence Crandall's ill-fated school for colored "little misses" in conservative Connecticut to the Beloved Lady: A History of Jane Addams' fracas in 1835 over the meeting of the Boston Ideas on Reform and Peace. By JOHN C. Female Anti-Slavery Society that nearly re FARRELL. (The Johns Hopkins University sulted in William Lloyd Garrison's martyr Studies in Historical and Political Science, dom. Series LXXXV, Number 2, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1967. Pp. 272. Notes, bib For all its easy grace and pietistic sentiment. liography, index. $6.95.) Crusade for Freedom has not exhausted the subject of women in antislavery reform by any means. No attempt has been made to Power-oriented democratic elitism in Amer probe the reason for women's interest in the ican thought, generated by a brutal depression. slave beyond their obvious distress with World War II, and a sometimes-hot Cold War, American violation of Christian principle. has been shaken recently by an intellectual Nor is there much attention given to the and emotional revulsion to another self- psychological implications of Northern wom righteous escapade into war by the United en seeking a means of self-expression through States. The attitudes of cultural, intellectual, antislavery action. Instead, the ladies are and social superiority accompanied by a dis almost uniformly gentle, beautiful, coura dain for the masses, so much a part of the geous, egalitarian, and happily married, with out an introspective moment to give them worn, intellectual baggage of democratic pause. Yet, the characters she has selected elitists, have little solace or historical origin to discuss were all highly complex, highly in Jane Addams' thought. On the contrary, intellectual, and very intense individuals, she believed that without justice for all, there some of them at war with themselves and could be no peace, that war destroyed civil (at least in the case of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. ization, degraded culture, and enfeebled de Child) with their hypochondriacal, perhaps mocracy, and her legacy to our generation semi-impotent husbands. For all their brave speaks far more clearly to the new idealism and talk, these ladies found it hard to meet the activism of youth, even with their foibles, exigencies of accepted domesticity and their than to the consensus liberals found in his own intellectual ambitions. Miss Lutz also fails to carry her story very far beyond the tory departments as often as in branches of Civil War itself; nothing is said of such government. Not the least of John Farrell's remarkable Yankee schoolmarms as Laura contributions is that he was attuned to the Towne of South Carolina, nor is mention made greater humanitarian ideals and spirit of of Anna Dickinson, whose sex appeal and "Saint Jane," and he transmitted them to a charm on the public stage won thousands of new generation of scholars. 181 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Focusing upon the relationship between (pp. 55, 67, 83, 218, 249, 254, 244, and 66 Jane Addams' ideas on reform and peace, respectively). Even with these errors, the two the central thesis presented here is that her professors who anonymously edited the manu ideas evolved away from a heritage of pater script for publication after the tragic death of nalistic elitism to a humane, spirited defense the author in 1965 deserve the gratitude of of social democracy firmly based upon a the historical profession for their labor which, radical, equalitarian faith derived from her in itself, carries on the humane spirit of the experiences with people, especially immi "beloved lady," Jane Addams, whom John C. grants. Her ideas of culture, civilization, and Farrell seems to have admired so much and democracy are thoroughly investigated in this studied so well. context, and a similar evolution is discovered in her thought on education, play, industry, LOUIS L. ATHEY the child, and the role of the school. Franklin and Marshall College Had Dr. Farrell lived, perhaps he would have erected a superstructure upon his firm foundation which would have cast a shadow over much of Progressive historiography. He does analyze the sources of Miss Addams' thought from Rockford Female Seminary through Dewey, Ruskin, and Tolstoy to Gandhi; he does illuminate her faith in her Sectional Stress and Party Strength: A Study convictions and her belief that man could of Roll-Call Voting Patterns in the United achieve positive ends without violence; and States House of Representatives, 1836-1860. he does reveal that Jane Addams broke with By THOMAS B. ALEXANDER. (Vanderbilt Uni the progressive dogma that facts move people versity Press, Nashville, 1967. Pp. xviii, 284. to action. Instead of reverting to elitism or Map, tables, figures, appendices, index. seeking sanctity in a neo-determinism, how 3.00.) ever, Jane Addams worked to imbue pacifism with a dynamic and creative element by trying The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting to construct social institutions, methods, and Behavior, 1841-1852. By JOEL H. SILBEY. ideals to embody in the everyday life of man (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, experiences equivalent to war in order to re 1967. Pp. xii, 292. Tables, appendices, notes, place that too-oft recurring mode of social bibliographic note, index. $6.00.) behavior. The published writings of Jane Addams The basic question Professors Alexander constitute the major source of the work. A and Silbey ask is the same: did nationalizing magnificently complete bibliography of 514 forces (party alignment) or geographically items is presented in chronological order with divisive forces (sectionalism) exert a domi annotation where the text is essentially the nant influence on roll-call voting in Congress same as a previous publication. In addition, prior to the Civil War? In seeking an ans valuable bibliographical essays on the Addams wer, these two impressive studies demonstrate manuscripts, related collections, general writ both the enormous potential of quantitative ings about Jane Addams, and on each of the analysis and at least one of the substantial nine chapters indicate the remarkably thor pitfalls involved in this approach to political ough research of the author. Insightful com history. Methodologically, these books mark ments are offered on sixty-eight separate a significant advance in the application of so manuscript collections located in nineteen phisticated quantitative research techniques libraries in seven states and the District of to the historical investigation of roll-call vot Colombia. ing data. In terms of content, they present Unfortunately, the work is marred by faulty more detailed, factual information about an proofreading. An unsystematic search yielded tebellum congressional voting than we have fifteen errors, which would not be significant ever been given before. But when the two were it not that most occur in names, titles, authors attempt to explain what their formid and dates such as Roseberry for Rosenberry, able array of charts, tables, and graphs tell us Wischwetzky for Wischnewetsky, Nobel for about the relative importance of party versus Noble, Robbins for Robins, Strad for Stead, sectional loyalty, they stumble up against a Renel for Reuel, Lloyd for Floyd, "My Moni very old historical problem. What does the tor" for "My Novitiate," and 1884 for 1844 evidence prove? Interpretation, it seems, even 182 BOOK REVIEWS for the Cliometricians, remains in the realm agree that there is no simple answer to this of the subjective and the unquantifiahle. The question, and they find evidence of both sec figures do not speak for themselves. tionalism and nationalism present in every Although both are interested in the same session of Congress they examine. Neverthe general problem and lean heavily on the same less, each man arrives at a different conclu analytical tools, there are obvious differences sion. "Most American historians have accept in the two works. Professor Alexander's stu ed with varying degrees of intensity . . . that dy covers a much longer time span, 1836- sectional differences, whether superficial and 1860, and employs several different quantita transient, or deep-rooted and tenacious, were tive techniques. His basic tool (relied on ex the predominant factors in shaping and in clusively by Professor Silbey) is the Gutt- fluencing political decisions and actions in this man scalogram, a method of analysis that country, particularly between 1846 and 1861," yields two primary types of information, as writes Professor Silbey. "When we closely Professor Alexander explains: "One is identi examine a part of the political process, how fication of groups of specific decisions which ever, we quickly discover that this generaliza the members almost unanimously considered tion does not stand up well and, in fact, seems to be closely related and subject to consistent to distort historical reality." The "shrine of ordering from easiest-to-support to hardest-to- party," he believes, remained the center of support. The second is a position on the re worship for most congressional politicians. sulting scale of related roll calls for almost Professor Alexander, however, concludes every member of the body. This position, in from his scalograms and agreement scores that turn, establishes how far a particular member the traditional emphasis on sectional forces will go in supporting the policy defined by has not been misplaced. Although partisan the scabable set of roll calls." For almost every voting was clearly evident, particularly on session, both men find clusters of roll calls economic questions, "forces greater than party that "scale" and reveal either sectional, parti discipline or party loyalty . . . were evidently san, or mixed voting alignments on, generally, at work continuously, relentlessly forcing economic matters (finances, the tariff, land party to yield to section on a definable array questions, for example) and slavery-related of issues." The more moderate forces, north issues (the "gag rule," expansion, territorial ern Democrats and southern Whigs, who tried government, and so on). In addition to the "to hold middle ground and draw at least scalogram. Professor Alexander employed moderately close to party colleagues across the computer programs that generated a series of slavery line" during the 1850's, "were quietly "agreement scores," a measure intended to retired to obscurity." "If this does not point show whether the voting records of the re to the presence of powerful forces at work presentatives from different geographic re moulding the national legislature in the image gions concurred or not. These scores, he be of a nation in imminent danger of dividing, lieves, assess the degree of either "party cohe the thrust of this analysis of congressional sion" or "sectional cohesion" for each session roll-call voting is hard to explain," he con of the House under investigation. It should be cludes. noted that Professor Alexander deals only with As far as this reviewer can tell, there are the House of Representatives and draws all no significant methodological differences to of his roll calls from the first sessions of the account for this clash of views. The two Congresses or from special sessions preceding scholars simply draw different conclusions the first regular sessions. Professor Silbey, from similar, although not identical, statistical on the other hand, deals with the special, reg patterns, each man choosing to emphasize one ular, and "lame duck" sessions of both the of the two trends obviously present in both House and Senate but for a shorter period of their analyses. time, 1841-1852. For the years he covers, his study is considerably more detailed and Professor Alexander has the advantage of intensive. Professor Alexander's work is, as he historical hindsight, but he also appears to puts it, more of "an overview of party and have the better argument. In discussing the sectional role" in the House during the three aftermath of the Wilmot Proviso, Professor decades before Sumter. Silbey writes that "national party leaders forcefully resisted the sectionalizing of Amer Did "sectional stress" or "party strength," ican politics and managed to keep parties as in Professor Alexander's words, exercise the the most effective influence operating on is most powerful influence over congressional sues not connected with slavery." This last voting during the prewar years? Both scholars qualification would seem to be a crucial one. 183 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Professor Alexander observes in his conclud Martin Dies, the Committee launched a free- ing chapter that from 1836 on, his analysis of swinging attack on the New Deal and New House voting indicates "that sectional atti Dealers which was quieted only by American tudes regarding slavery were almost as im entry into World War II. In 1945 HUAC mutable as the geography of the continent." won permanent status as a standing commit Given these critical circumstances, all that tee by a narrow roll-call vote—forty Con was needed to produce conflict "was a se gressmen, including Representative Lyndon quence of events thrusting the slavery sub Baines Johnson, voted a neutral "present"^— ject to the forefront." Territorial expansion and from that point on the Committee assumed did just that, and the war came. a fixed place in our political firmament. Dur Political historians who reject quantitative ing the late 1940's the diplomacy of the Cold techniques should draw little comfort from the War and the politics of the Republican re fact that these two works offer conflicting in surgence enhanced the Committee's stature. terpretations. Professors Silbey and Alexan It became a forum for harsh partisan attacks der have more than demonstrated the useful by conservative Republicans and Democrats ness of their techniques and have provided in the Congress, and an avenue of upward explicit illustration of how, with a reasonable mobility for ambitious politicians like Karl expenditure of time and human effort, massive Mundt and Richard Nixon. Its membership quantities of hard political data can be mined pioneered all the political practices and tech with great profit. In the future, when histo niques which would, in the 1950's, come to be rians who are frightened by computers are called "McCarthyism." challenged by others who are not, the form The Committee reached the peak of its in er will undoubtedly be able to trace some fluence in 1948 when the testimony of ex- of their discomfort back to the pioneering Communist Wittaker Chambers touched off work of these two imaginative and talented the chain of events which finally ended in the scholars. perjury conviction of Alger Hiss. This "tri- umph"^—and there are still many who hotly University of Missouri dispute the guilt of Alger Hiss—conferred CHARLES B. DEW upon HUAC a legitimacy which it had here tofore lacked. In a sense the Committee has been living off the political capital of this case ever since. There has been nothing in the last two decades quite to compare with it, though this has not appreciably slowed The Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the Committee's pace. It has continued to the House Committee on Un-American Activi badger and harass a wide variety of liberals ties. By WALTER GOODMAN. Foreword by and leftists, and it has tried to discredit every RICHARD H. ROVERE. (Farrar, Straus and liberal cause from civil rights to peace in Giroux, New York, 1968. Pp. xx, 564. Illus Vietnam. (Chairman Edwin E. Willis recent trations, notes, bibliography, index. $10.00.) ly assured critics that he was not opposed to "dissent" as long as it contributed to the The Committee, of course, is the House public's "appreciation of the basic correct Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC ness of the policy our Government is pursu to its friends and foes), and this book by Wal ing.") Nevertheless, there has been in recent ter Goodman is its chronicle. It is not a hap years a rather healthy tendency among most py story, but one nevertheless peculiarly Amer Americans simply not to take the Committee ican—written not about the American liberal seriously. ism of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, but Walter Goodman's The Committee is a live about the American illiberalism of Martin ly and well-written account of the three-decade Dies, John Rankin, and Joe McCarthy. This history of this colorful and controversial con has been a season for the rediscovery of the gressional institution. Its limitations are three dark side of America's past, and it is toward fold: first, it is not a work of original or that rediscovery that Goodman has made his innovative scholarship. It relies heavily on contribution. the earlier studies by August Raymond Og The Special House Committee on Un- den, Robert K. Carr, Telford Taylor, and American Activities (What does "Un-Ameri others, as well as upon the writings of skilled can" mean? they asked, even then) was first journalists like Richard Rovere, Murray organized in 1938. Led by Texas Democrat Kempton, and Alan Barth. Goodman's chief 184 BOOK REVIEWS contribution—and it is no small one—has 124 black-and-white reproductions of paint been to draw all this material together between ings, is Dorothy Dunn's way of sharing more two covers. Second, Goodman's preoccupa than thirty years' study and involvement in tion with the colorful minutia of committee the subject matter of her book. proceedings leads him to neglect the intellec American Indian Painting of the Southwest tual, diplomatic, and political circumstances and Plains Areas confines its "Southwest" to which gave relevancy to the Committee's pur Pueblo Indians, Navajos, and Apaches. The suits. He describes, but falls far short of scope is from prehistoric and historic aborig explaining, the strange obsessions of the yahoo inal painting on pottery, textiles, hides, and Right. Third, Goodman is neither fair nor flat surfaces of tipis and ceremonial chambers accurate in picturing the Committee's liberal to modern Indian painting on canvas, paper, opposition as naive, sentimental, and muddled. and the walls of banks, cafeterias, and depart I rather suspect this derives more from the ment stores. In doing so it covers the period author's desire to present himself as a tough- of transition from one of truly native art, minded "realist" (Humphrey Bogart as lib ". . . an art 'possessed in common ... in eral?), than from any sustained analysis of which everyone shares'," to a period in which the libertarian critique. The book simply does individual artists sign their names to their not, despite the claim made for it by Richard works and whose painting relies almost wholly Rovere in the foreword, contribute greatly to on non-Indian patronage for its continuation. our understanding of the American left. Except in rare instances, modern Indian paint For all this The Committee is—and will be ing no longer functions in Indian society. It for quite some time—the best and most use functions instead in the society at large. ful guide to the life and times of the House In spite of occasional lapses into jargon Committee on Un-American Activities. like prose, as when she writes, "This art . . . produces an ingenious diversity of capricious ROBERT W. GRIFFITH and sedate improvisations upon its funda University of Georgia mental designs, and multifarious inventions within the genre," and in spite of sloppy edi torial work by the University of New Mexico Press (erroneous running heads and no figures cited in the text, for example), this is a hand some, readable, and important book. It force American Indian Painting of the Southwest fully calls our attention to the much-neglected and Plains Areas. By DOROTHY DUNN. (The subject of contemporary American Indian University of New Mexico Press, Albuquer painting; it contains many lucid ideas; and que, 1968. Pp. xxvii, 429. Illustrations, notes, it enables us better to understand the creative bibliography, index. $25.00.) products of twentieth-century Indian painters, especially those resulting from the Santa Fe In September, 1932, a young woman fresh movement of the 1920's and '30's. from her studies at the Art Institute of Chi Author Dunn's scholarship is attested to cago opened a studio of painting in the federal in a 604-entry bibliography, although Clara ly sponsored Santa Fe Indian School in New Lee Tanner's 1957 book. Southwest Indian Mexico. The studio blossomed during the Painting, is inexplicably absent. And while next few years and such Indian artists as most forms of native painting are discussed Pablita Velarde, Popovi Da (Tony Martinez). in detail, one of the oldest, body painting, Ruth Watchman, Harrison Begay, Gerald is mentioned only in passing on a single page. Nailor, Allan Houser, Quincy Tahoma, Joe The author also misses an opportunity to H. Herrera, and Andrew Tsihnahjinnie were emphasize the impact of painting and pencil- launched on careers which were to bring them wielding Germans, Frenchmen, and Anglo- renown in their native Southwest if not Americans on Plains Indian art of the nine throughout the entire United States. teenth-century, even as she neglects to point This same young woman, whose interest in out that Spaniards in the Southwest, as else painting by American Indians began at least where in North America, seem to have con as early as 1928, went on to encourage Indian fined their painting to church interiors. There artists in every way she could and to expand were no Spanish painters in the Southwest and deepen her own knowledge of this little- from whom Indians could draw inspiration. known branch of American art. The present Since the text of this book was written, volume, with its thirty-two color plates and which apparently was in the early 1940's with 185 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 revisions to about 1963, the Institute of Amer millennial expectations in American national ican Indian Art has opened its doors in Santa life. Fe, and American Indian painting has a new Interesting, if not as convincing, is an at and vigorous lease on life. I cannot agree tempt to lay heavy responsibility upon the with Dunn that "ultimate assimilation . . . writings of Timothy Dwight as effectuating seems inevitable for the American Indian the earliest important confluence of American people," but only that they and their cultures political and religious apocalypticism. De — along with their painting and the rest of spite some careful distinctions, other interpre their arts — shall continue to change in direc tations and conclusions seem to strain beyond tions no one can predict with certainty. In the evidence. The method, that of textual the meantime, we stand indebted to her for exegesis, is handled with skill, but it is pos having committed to print that part of a con sible to feel that a valuable tool is being used tinuing story which she knows better than here without sufficient attention to its limi anyone else. tations as a technique of historical explanation. At its best, Tuveson's procedure is capable of BERNARD L. FONTANA affording exciting insights into the apocalyp Arizona State Museum tic categories of works apparently so disparate as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee. Other times, however, different materials prove less happy subjects for aggressive efforts to open up the text, and things turn out to be pretty much what they seem. Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Mil lennial Role. By ERNEST LEE TUVESON. (Uni Thus, for the Mormon leader Joseph Smith, versity of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, who grew up amidst the revivals of New 1968. Pp. 238. Notes, bibhographical note, York's Burned-Over District, the claim that index. $6.75.) individuals had "free agency" is asserted to be a sign of the American nature of the new Under the best title to appear in years faith, and "the choice of a word from busi Professor Tuveson examines the "idea of ness, rather than the usual theological term, American destiny, how it arose and some is immensely indicative [italics added]." More thing of how it operated. . . ." It is his con unfortunate is an attempt to press Lincoln's tention that the notion of an "American re Second Inaugural into the service of the demptive mission" was not merely tinged New Testament apocalypse. After the mistaken with apocalyptic imagery but was literally observation that Lincoln's "Woe unto the taken to be the historical fulfillment of New world because of offenses . . ." is "slightly Testament prophecies. Drawing a distinction changed" from Matthew 18:7, it appears pos between the apocalypses of Daniel and the sible to question the relevance to the Old Tes Book of Revelation, Tuveson sees the Old tament of "as was said three thousand years Testament vision as millenarian, outside time ago . . . ," for while it seems to "point to . . . and history, and static, with its world-saving Psalm 119:137 . . . the actual wording is aims essentially nonexpansionist. While this closer to the recollection of this verse in appeared adequate, we are told, to satisfy old Revelation 16:7. . . ." Such a transfer of Slavic aspirations for the Messianic age, it was the progressive and developmental New testaments brings the address into the desired Testament apocalypse, with its movements and ambience of judgments and vials, although repulsions, its successive judgments and pour because of the conciliatory "With charity ing out of vials of divine wrath, that provided toward all . . ." additional interpretation is the chart for America's millennial course to still required before it fits comfortably. ward the salvation of the world. Utilizing a But Lincoln knew his Bible, and so did his wide range of sermons, speeches, poems, and audience. He was quoting accurately the last theological treatises. Redeemer Nation brings half of Psalms 19:9, which carries us back to bear considerable evidence showing that into the Old Testament all over again. notions of Manifest Destiny and Anglo-Saxon mission, the providential logic of the Civil War, and the rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson FRED SOMKIN all illustrated the staying-power of traditional Charles Warren Center 186 BOOK REVIEWS Everyman's Constitution: Historical Essays on the Fourteenth Amendment, the "Conspira cy Theory", and American Constitutionalism. By HOWARD JAY GRAHAM. Foreword by LEONARD W. LEVY. (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1968. Pp. xiv, 631. Notes, bibliography, index. $12.95.) Students of American public law will agree that the heart of the contemporary United States Constitution is the Fourteenth Amend ment, which was ratified in 1868. It declares, in sweeping and indeed majestic terms, that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immu nities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jur isdiction the equal protection of the laws." It also provides that "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis lation, the provisions of this article." Since the Constitution is itself a body of law, en Harper's Weekly, Sept. 5, 1868 forceable judicially ex proprio vigore, the Thomas Nast's famous cartoon, "This Is a White Fourteenth Amendment enlarged the powers Man's Country." of the federal courts, particularly the Su preme Court, as well as those of Congress. The nature of this enlargement of power has been the subject of endless debate, in and ican constitutional law a fresh and penetrat out of governmental bodies, ever since the ing analysis of the history of its most signi Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, and it ficant concepts. has been a vitally important debate about In addition to supplying a newly written very basic human rights and liberties, and introduction and conclusion, the author also about the nature of the American federal sys added introductory and concluding remarks tem. to each of the reprinted essays, thus provid The most learned and penetrating student ing retrospective comments about his earlier of the history of the Fourteenth Amendment work. In addition, Graham included a two- in our times has been Howard Jay Graham. part essay on Blackwell's Tax Titles which For many years librarian for the Los Ange has not been published previously. All of the les County Law Library (now retired), Gra other essays in this book first appeared in ham began a life-long study of the Fourteenth various law reviews. Amendment in the 1930's, and contributed a Perhaps his most famous essays were the number of substantial articles to various law very first two, published in the Yale Law reviews. At long last they have been gather Journal in 1938, on the "conspiracy theory" ed together between the covers of a single of the Fourteenth Amendment. Popularized book, and now they are readily available by the Beards and others, the "conspiracy for all to read and ponder. While I read theory" held that the word "persons" was these articles one at a time as they first ap slipped into the Fourteenth Amendment by peared, I never quite grasped the full im clever and designing men for the purpose pact of Graham's scholarship and vigorous of providing corporations with federal judi literary style until I had the opportunity to cial protection against state regulation. Gra read them at one time. The State Historical ham demonstrates most convincingly that Society of Wisconsin has performed a signal such a conspiracy never happened. His con service in publishing this handsome volume clusion was that Section One of the Four of essays. This book will bring to Graham teenth Amendment was not designed to aid the renewed attention he merits, and to Amer- corporations, and that the distinction between 187 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 "citizens" and "persons" was not conceived beginning. Combining a remarkable mastery for their benefit. of American economic and political history His basic theme is that the Fourteenth with a deep understanding of the nature of Amendment was designed to free the newly the life of the law, Graham has portrayed emancipated slaves from the burdens, the the character of everyman's Constitution with badges and incidents, of racial discrimination. impressive learning, insight, and compassion. In a two-part essay published in 1950 in the Wisconsin Law Review on the early anti- DAVID FELLMAN slavery background of the Fourteenth Amend University of Wisconsin ment, Graham spelled out the historical mat rix from which its central ideas emerged. He concludes that "broadened and discre tionary due process, far from being an ex- cresence or tool of ambition, is in reality so deeply enrooted in our national conscious Roger Williams: The Church and the State. ness that its judicial achievement was quite By EDMUND S. MORGAN. (Harcourt. Brace & as much a result as a cause of widespread World, 1967. Pp. 170. Notes, index. $4.50.) popular usage." Other essays in this collection include an This brief book is marked by the incisive examination of the development from pro clarity we have come to expect of Professor cedural to substantive due process, the school Morgan. He is one of the few scholars writing segregation problem, and the place of the on American Puritanism who has an almost railroads and insurance companies in the perfect sense of how much theological discus growth of the due process and equal pro sion is necessary as a preliminary to the tection concepts. Also included are lengthy question at hand, and of the point at which reviews of a judicial biography of Chief that discussion would blend into antiquarian Justice Waite by Magrath, and William Cross- ism if continued. The vitality of Puritan ideas key's book. Politics and the Constitution, interests him; he does not indulge himself which appeared in 1953, and which was wide and try his reader with lingering visits to ly discussed in the learned journals. Cross- seventeenth-century notions that, however they key advanced the remarkable thesis that the were held then, are now extinct. authors of the United States Constitution It is therefore good news indeed that Mor intended to create a unitary and not a fed gan has turned his particular skill to a study eral system of government. This piece of of Roger Williams, still the most attractive of "sterile hyper-legalism and partisanship" Gra the first generation of American Puritans. ham demolishes by means of very deft his Within the limits of its method that study is torical analysis. excellent. It provides the best explanation The Fourteenth Amendment got off to a available of how Roger Williams felt about bad start. During the Reconstruction period church and state, and therefore about such the Supreme Court managed, in a series of matters as toleration, the coming of the key decisions, to limit the thrust of Section millennium, and the visibility of the saints. One to very narrow proportions. After the And since Roger Williams was a radical dis Court decided that the corporations were senter from much that was in the mainstream "persons," in the 1880's, it turned out that of the Puritanism of its day, in order to illu the corporations became the principal ben minate his ideas Morgan has had to give short eficiaries of a provision intended to protect but trenchant explanations of orthodox prac all people in the enjoyment of their basic tices in church and state. Roger Williams is, therefore, a very good handbook for the stu liberties. Then, when the Court veered away dent who is interested in Puritan political from substantive due process in cases in ideas, even if he has no special interest in volving economic questions, it was left with Roger Williams. a feeble instrument with which to confront the great issues of racial discrimination. Of Morgan says his book "is neither a biogra course, the due process and equal protection phy of Williams nor a study of his colony, but clauses of Section One have come a long an attempt to trace the way he thought." A distance in the past twenty years, but Gra bit farther on he adds a qualification: "The ham's major point is that this is precisely history of his ideas attempted . . . will deal where we should have been from the very only with the way he thought about the 188 BOOK REVIEWS Church, the state, and the relationship be he describes ideas, but in the course of mov tween them." This qualification slightly mis ing from the antebellum years of "The Child leads in two ways. First, strictly speaking, as Redeemable" to the second part of the book, Morgan soon admits, one cannot give much "The Child Redeemer," he makes abundantly of a history of Williams's ideas because we clear how great the change was in American have little information about these ideas dur thinking about children. By 1900 Americans ing the earlier half of his career; they must, were no longer convinced that obedience was rather, be analyzed as a relatively stable sys an absolute virtue, that conversion was the tem. Second, the analysis of Williams's goal of nurture, that the child was "a plot thoughts on church and state carries the author of ground in which weeds will spring up." into a number of vital related areas, such as The titles of the two parts suggest another typology, so that the qualification tends some change—toward regarding well-reared chil what to understate the scope of the book. dren as the salvation of a corrupt society. Finally, however, this reviewer's quibble Mr. Wishy lays special stress on the tension is not addressed to Roger Williams itself, but inherent in American culture between rigid adherence to absolute virtue and ambitious to that field of which it is such a fine repre pursuit of nature's wealth. It was not easy sentative—intellectual history. Grant that a to require children to save the nation by both study of Williams's ideas may be made co being good and doing well. He makes the herently without excursions into the history matter far more complex than this, to be sure, of his colony or the events of his life. But but in doing so he sometimes permits the in can his ideas be separated from a personality trusion of vagueness, generality, and ambigui that responded so passionately (as his letters ty in describing the tendencies working toward to John Endicott indicate) not only to the the seemingly "so radically different a world" treatment of Anabaptists but to the plight of 1900. It is suggestive and perhaps accurate of the whipped of this world? Do ideas come to say that "by 1900 Americans were creating into focus when they are freed of the spirit a powerful fantasy that they might reject that formulated them or do they then come [through their children] the corrupt complex to us with a clarity that is deceptive because ity of their new polyglot civilization because of what the corrective lenses do not see? its moral cost to 'character' and 'faith' were [sic^ too high," but the exact nature of this LARZER ZIFF "corrupt complexity" is not described, nor University of California, Berkeley is it made clear why this fantasy is called part of a "revolt against pluralism." Yet Mr. Wishy's book remains a useful and intelligent foray into a field of study about which very little is known. It joins The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of the very small, select company of historical books about childhood worth reading. Sub Modern American Child Nurture. By BERNARD stantively, it leaves one major question un WiSHY. (University of Pennsylvania Press, answered: why did children become the ob Philadelphia, 1968. Pp. x, 205. $6.95.) jects of widespread commentary, exhortation, and (later) inquiry in the early years of the Childhood is becoming a fashionable topic nineteenth century? The book makes no among historians. The new interest stems effort to rationalize the selection of 1830 as partly from increasing sophistication concern the beginning of the "dawn," and in fact ing social and cultural history, partly from refers to some materials prior to that date. modernization and popularization of psycho When we are able to discover more precisely analysis, and partly from growing fascination when childhood was invented in America, with the "generation-gap"—whether it exists, we will be on the road toward explaining why how it grew, and (not least important for that invention took place, in terms of funda young scholars) which side am I on. mental social, economic, and ideological de Perhaps this is to overemphasize the pres velopments. sures of our current situation, particularly Despite these reservations, this book is an in the case of this calm, intelligent, rather interesting, informative study. It demonstrates conventional study of nineteenth-century ideas dramatically how much has changed in the about child nurture. The author has no pro last century and a half. When we learn that vocative thesis to present. For the most part in the 1890's a group of mothers were dis- 189 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 cussing the question: "Can music, per se, type of housing and village arrangement em be demoralizing, especially when it is sen ployed by a people was dependent upon their suous?", we are made aware that changes general level of development. Thus subsist set in motion in the nineteenth century have ence, being the commanding preoccupation gained great momentum. Not only has the of the group, largely determined the group's music children listen to become more "sen social and political forms, which in turn were suous," but the factual meaning of the term expressed in house architecture and village "demoralizing" has been utterly transformed. layout. Using the Iroquois, the Amerinds A final caveat, less deserved by Mr. Wishy's with whom he was most familiar, as a base book than by many others. There exists an Morgan surveys the various native cultures abundance of historical sources bearing on the of North and Central America, using the best rearing of slave children, none of them re ethnographic, historical, and archeological ferred to in this book. The child, in the re data available in his day. public of this book, is entirely white. The present day reader will be struck im mediately by Morgan's mid-Victorian smug WINTHROP D. JORDAN ness concerning the superiority of the white "race" (i.e., "The Iroquois were a vigorous University of California, Berkeley and intelligent people, with a brain approach ing in volume the Aryan average" [p. 41, italics our own]. Archeologists will be a- mused by his reconstruction of a "High Bank Pueblo" (Mississippian temple mound cen ter) in which Morgan guesses that such Houses and House-Life of the American Ab mounds served as the foundations for abo origines. By LEWIS H. MORGAN. With an riginal apartment house complexes. Neverthe introduction by PAUL BOHANNAN. (The Uni less, considering the era in which he worked versity of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966. and the data at his command, his achieve Pp. xxxi, 319. Illustrations, index. Cloth, ment is outstanding. In fact, after almost a $6.95; paper, $2.95.) half-century of neglect, Morgan's work is now being re-examined with more interest than This volume represents a reprinting of the before. It now seems likely that history will anthropological classic which first appeared accord him a position among the greatest in 1881 as Volume IV of the Contributions social theorists of the nineteenth century. As to North American Ethnology series, the pred Paul Bohannan notes in his introduction to ecessor of the Annual Reports of the Bureau the present edition, "Morgan's influence ex of American Ethnology. Originally it had tended beyond his problem and his contri been intended as an integral part of Morgan's bution to social science; he became one of monumental Ancient Society (1877) but was the creators of a new world view, which came slightly recast and published separately on to be called 'cultural evolution' or 'social Dar account of its length. Today, although eighty- winism'" (p. vii). seven years have passed since its original pub lication, it is still generally regarded as the That Morgan sometimes misused his own best study of its kind. theory no one can deny. The most glaring example of this is seen in the manner in In its most basic aspect. Houses and House- which he set the boundaries of his evolution Life describes the various types of dwellings ary stages (Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization) and village organizations used by American in terms of particular technological inventions. Indians of North and Central America. It Now, while one may equate cultural level with goes far beyond this, however, in demonstrat technology in very general terms (i.e., amount ing how these house types and settlement pat of energy harnessed per capita per year), to terns were intimately related to the social scale culture on the basis of one or another organizations of the groups concerned. Thus, discrete complex, such as the presence or ab Morgan's work is probably the pioneer mon sence of the bow and arrow, ceramics, or ograph in the field of proxemics, the study a phonetic alphabet, verges on the ridiculous. of the relationship between social structures The fact that Morgan may have misused his and space. own theory in particular instances, however, Morgan presents his data in the framework in no way negates the value of that theory of his general theory of cultural evolution. in general terms. This is a fact which many He demonstrates that in every instance the American anthropologists have been slow to 190 BOOK REVIEWS learn. Neither, however, must one accept all culture in European centers." Probably, she of Morgan's work verbatim, as Soviet an concludes, such an event in cultural history thropologists, following Marx and Engels, will not happen again. have been prone to do. Despite her diligence, the author's work At a time when Morgan is again being is uneven. At its most interesting, it includes read by anthropologists of all of the various descriptions of the flight from Europe and theoretical "schools", this edition of Houses the experience of a new and frequently and House-Life makes it possible for the mod generous homeland. The bulk of the book, ern student to read this classic work with however, is devoted to an examination judicious appreciation and to draw his own of art, architecture, psychoanalysis, music, conclusions therefrom. Paul Bohannan and art history, mathematics, atomic science, and the others responsible for this volume in the other fields of learning in America and the Classics in Anthropology series deserve our impact of the new European arrivals on them. gratitude for making this book readily avail Mrs. Fermi has traced the careers of a great able once more. many of these men and women, the positions they held, the books they wrote; in itself, a JAMES H. HOWARD major and important contribution. But aside Oklahoma State University from atomic science, there is no convincing measure of the immigrant's impact. Instead there are lengthy but superficial attempts to examine the impact of immigrant contributions in painting, music, architec ture, art history, etc., if indeed such things can be measured. The point is that the author Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Mi has made the attempt, and the result is un gration from Europe, 1930^1. By LAURA even. Mrs. Fermi's list of immigrant intellec FERMI. (University of Chicago Press, Chi tuals is illustrious, but ultimately one is dis cago, 1968. Pp. xi, 440. Illustrations, notes, tracted from its brilliance by the author's bibliography, index. $7.95.) inability to organize her material into any sort of intellectual pattern, or to examine some It is Laura Fermi's purpose in her book, of the suggestions about the meaning of immi Illustrious Immigrants, to examine the wave gration she makes at the beginning of the of European intellectuals which flooded Amer book. ican culture and science during the 1930's, and which amounted to "a new phenomenon in the history of immigration." The immensely JAMES GILBERT complicated task she sets for herself includes University of Maryland studying the nationality of the immigrants, their reason for migration, and their con tributions to American civilization. Her sources include a wide range of published materials, the memories and reminiscences of many of the immigrants, and her own per Writers and Partisans: A History of Literary sonal knowledge of the subject. Radicalism in America. By JAMES BURKHART Her conclusions support the thesis that this GILBERT. (John Wiley and Sons, New York, was a new sort of immigration, for the thou 1968. Pp. xiii, 303. Bibliographic essay, sands of Europeans who came to America to index. $6.95.) escape the sweep of fascism, or to better their financial or social position in a few cases Although the revival of interest in the 1930's have influenced perhaps every field of Ameri continues unabated, many of the recent sym can learning and culture. And as Mrs. Fermi posiums, memoirs, and histories seem con asserts, the immigrants experienced an "un tent to cover the decade's more well-known precedented speed of acclamation." The wave "events" with little effort at analysis or un was so unusual in its size and impact that derstanding. The reader is given the obliga "nothing similar has taken place in the history tory tour through breadlines, Hoovervilles, of humanity since the fifteenth century, when the New Deal, Spain, and the Nazi-Soviet the learned men of the dying Byzantine em Pact—with occasional side excursions into pire, . . . sowed seeds of the old Hellenistic the Writers' Congresses and the Popular Front. 191 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 Consequently we tend to visualize the 1930's and Dwight Macdonald. Thus, one wishes in terms of its public crises, and we solemnly that the "other side" (in this case the Com lament the failure of political or cultural munist critics in the Neiv Masses, and their "leaders" to solve the depression or prevent liberal counterparts in the Nation and New the world from collapsing into war. At the Republic) had received a fuller hearing, if same time we remain curiously indifferent to only to place the arguments of Partisan Re other levels of experience in the decade: the view in clearer perspective. effect of radio and the film on social values, the re-examination of urban life and the Secondly, Dr. Gilbert sometimes becomes search for new forms of community, develop imprisoned by the critical terms embedded in ments in the novel and poetry, efforts to his material. Words like bohemia, avant- create a new kind of theater, and the gen garde, and cultural revolution were cherished eral desire to discover an alternative social by the editors of Partisan Review, but they did philosophy that might transcend those ideals not always define them or explore their con traditionally associated with liberalism. sequences and neither does Dr. Gilbert. Thus he relies too heavily on these ideas as analyti There are some notable exceptions to this cal tools to the exclusion of other categories bleak pattern, among them James Gilbert's which might have been more effective. To Writers and Partisans. By concentrating on observe that American writers have always a number of major intellectuals, many of wanted to fuse political radicalism with per whom were either editors of or contributors sonal nonconformity and experimental art to Partisan Review, Dr. Gilbert has man may be true, but to assume that these con aged to move beyond the decade's headlines cepts are self-explanatory and therefore re and to explore an issue that many writers re quire no further examination seriously weak garded as crucial: the proper relationship ens the book. Indeed, it is Dr. Gilbert's re between culture and society. Moreover, the fusal to engage in any extended interpretation book does not consider this problem as an of his subject that mars an otherwise impres isolated phenomenon; rather. Dr. Gilbert care sive understanding of the issues. fully traces the emergence of the intelligentsia as a self-conscious group during the Progres Because of these flaws, the author is finally sive era, discusses its failure to combine art unable to explain how writers who presumably and social action under the pressure of World valued their intellectual independence and War I and the disenchantment of the 1920's, their role as moral critics of every political follows the wanderings of these two streams and social program could have eagerly placed through the depression, and records the ul themselves on the side of American power in timate collapse of all efforts to synthesize the Cold War. If Phillips and Rahv came to the ideals of renaissance and revolution in believe in the late 1930's that the intellectual the postwar era. Throughout his study. Dr. could become socially relevant only by re Gilbert remains remarkably lucid and infor maining apart from all political movements, mative. Miraculously, he is able to maintain that the needs of literary and social radicalism a posture of critical detachment in treating should be served by a rejection of national writers who themselves often became hysteri power (whether American or Soviet) and a cal in their perpetual denunciations of one commitment to ultimate values, then the "fail another. The result is a highly intelligent ure of nerve" by which Dr. Gilbert describes and important contribution to our knowledge the postwar period demands considerably more of the American intellectual community. analysis than he offers. In this instance, as in many others throughout the book, he skill Nevertheless the work suffers at several fully portrays the change in mood and outlines points from Dr. Gilbert's unwillingness to the rearrangement of ideas, but the reader is move outside the inherent limitations of his left with the suspicion that something im material. In the first place the book purports portant is missing. to treat the "history of literary radicalism in America," but most of the attention is di In the end intellectuals are neither as ra rected to Partisan Review in the late 1930's tional nor as logical as Dr. Gilbert implies, and early 1940's. Neither the magazine nor and they do not necessarily mean what their this time period is particularly representative published words seem to say. Moreover they of literature or radicalism when considered interact with their society in ways of which alone, and Dr. Gilbert too often deals super they are not entirely conscious. It is the ficially with those writers and ideas which business of the historian to uncover not only were alien to William Phillips, Philip Rahv, their stated ideas, but the origins and conse- 192 BOOK REVIEWS quences of those ideas as well. Dr. Gilbert came a clear agreement upon the nature of has admirably performed the first part of this that colony's constitution and the relation task; the second half remains to be fulfilled. ship between the colony and the mother coun try," a conclusion that ignores a great deal of RICHARD H. PELLS what happened in Massachusetts after 1763; he says that the colonials had a sophisticated Harvard University approach to the problem of political ideology, and two pages later he says that they were simplistic. Such contradictions and untenable conclu sions result from Leder's failure to digest and ponder his material, a failure that is also Liberty and Authority: Early American Po illustrated by the overwhelming proportion litical Ideology, 1689-1763. By LAWRENCE H. of quotations in the book. Chapters three, six, LEDER. (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1968. and seven are probably representative, and Pp. 167. Notes, bibliographical note, index. quotations make up about forty-one, forty-two, $5.50.) and thirty-five percent of those chapters. Since Leder also fails adequately to guide the read Lawrence H. Leder's Liberty and Authority: er, one must pioneer his way through these Early American Political Ideology, 1689- quotations without any sufficient notion of 1763, is an examination of how Americans what the author is getting at until he comes "sought to justify in theory what they demand to the final, concluding chapter. Perhaps the ed in practice during the years from the Glori conclusion should have been the introduction. ous Revolution of 1688-1689 to the end of the Although the quotations are excessive and French and Indian War in 1763." Professor often unappraised and unconnected, they are Leder has drawn from "all materials in print" probably the most valuable part of this vol that were printed in America and written by ume. It is from them that one discovers the Americans between 1689 and 1763. shallowness, the inconsistency, the arrogance, One has no difficulty in agreeing with and the essential frivolity of those who would Leder's main conclusion—that American have had their fellows consider them political ideology in 1763 was "ill-formed, full of gaps, philosophers. None of them really tried to and inadequate as a tool." This is exactly come to grips with the problem of the limits the sort of conclusion that is long overdue in of government or of the relation between a consideration of American political theory England and the colonies. They never thought before 1763: surely it stands in refreshing beyond their own interests and prejudices. contrast to Clinton Rossiter's complacent state Yet Leder seems often to accept these writers' ment in his Six Characters in Search of a Re own estimates of themselves. public that colonial political philosophy was Since none of the American political theory "marked by charming disorder." It was more of the period before 1763 was original, the than disorderly: it was both superficial and sources of colonial ideas are important. Le unoriginal. Americans in the eighteenth cen der is only slightly interested in those sources, tury substituted rhetoric for thought, plagiar and when he does mention them he risks mis ism for originality. interpretation, as he misinterprets Locke. On Yet, agree as one might with Leder's main page 39 he says that Archibald Cummings conclusion, it is impossible to accept some of was denying Locke's "basic point that the law his intermediate ones. Even he on occasion of nature antedated government's establish has difficulty accepting some of them. He ment" when he warned Pennsylvanians that overestimates the freedom of the press in the "without government men would turn 'into colonies, but only after he redefines freedom beasts of prey' because they would be freed of the press in a way that would make it a of all legal restraints." But Cummings' warn characteristic of even the most tyrannical of ing did not deny Locke's concept of the law societies; he says that "Complete separation of nature at all. In Locke there is a law of of church and state, complete religious liberty, nature, but there is also a state of war. "To had so far advanced by 1760 that it was fully avoid this state of war," Locke says in his accepted in the home of Puritan orthodoxy," Second Treatise of Government, ". . . is one and then he goes on to prove the opposite; he great reason of men's putting themselves into says that "Out of furor in Massachusetts be society and quitting the state of nature. . . ." tween various governors and their assemblies Thus all that Cummings was saying is that 193 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 without government men would return to the than adhering so closely to a political theme, state of war. Nothing could be more consis perhaps future researchers might consider tent with Locke. how the beginnings of widespread, free pub Uninterested in the sources of colonial lic education and standardization and con American political thought, Leder is also un solidation of rail lines affected life in South interested in either its immediate or its perma Carolina during the late nineteenth century. nent influence. Thus presenting his material These innovations—a more literate populace without putting it into any context, he makes and an improved transportation system fa it less vital to his readers than it might other cilitating the flow of people, ideas, and pro wise have been. For specific views of specific duce—must have created unusual stress in a people, however, this book is one place to basically status quo society and thus instant look. problems for a political leadership which, as Dr. Cooper notes, was not burdened by C. ASHLEY ELLEFSON foresight, economic thought, or social un State University of New York, derstanding. College at Cortland The chief merit of The Conservative Re gime is a meticulously detailed account of a period in South Carolina life so long over looked by historians. But, this study fails to answer satisfactorily one of the chief questions it poses: Why Ben Tillman, the The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, Edgefield egotist, overthrew the established 1877-1890. By WILLIAM J. COOPER, JR. (The regime so easily in 1890? The answer, I Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1968. Pp. believe, lies, to a great extent, beyond the 239. Maps, notes, bibliographical essay, ap realm of politics. Since Dr. Cooper set out pendices, index. $9.95.) to write political history, perhaps I err in this critique; nevertheless it seems to me that to explain fully the demise of the Con This detailed and extensive study of a servatives one must look beyond campaign thirteen-year era in South Carolina history oratory, the ballot box, and election totals. sheds considerable new light upon an impor tant period of political transition. In six, well- organized chapters Dr. Cooper examines the JOHN H. MOORE return of home rule following Wade Hampton's Macquarie University controversial victory (187(>-1877), the strug North Ridge, New South Wales gle for party unity which ensued, the role played by the race issue, the economics of the Conservative-Bourbon regime, and the challenge of Ben Tillman and a new genera tion which he represented. This tale has been buttressed by careful examination of news papers and manuscript collections found in The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Pe both Carolinas. riods of Its Growth. By SAM BASS WARNER, The result, as the title indicates, is pri JR. (University of Pennsylvania Press, Phil marily a political story and is most certain adelphia, 1968. Pp. xii, 236. Illustrations, ly a welcome addition to South Caroliniana. notes, maps, tables, appendixes, index. $5.95.) Yet, one arrives at the "Epilogue" not quite sure of how much unity the Conservatives First-rate histories of cities illuminate the enjoyed (1877-1890), or just why Tillman- important aspects of urban life and com ism triumphed in 1890. As Dr. Cooper makes municate the particular experience of the clear, the agricultural depression of the 1880's city investigated. Occasionally an exception and the advancing age of Conservative lead al study will appear which originates themes ers help to explain what happened. Whether that can be applied as analytical categories the Confederate myth was losing its appeal for subsequent studies in the field. Sam circa 1890 might be questioned since it was Bass Warner Jr.'s The Private City fulfills in those years that scores of monuments the first two criteria of excellence and, at arose (North and South) and professional least, makes a stab at rising above the study veterans' groups came into being. Rather of a city to offer more general insights. 194 BOOK REVIEWS As indicated by the subtitle, Philadelphia dy makes this reviewer hesitate to dwell on in Three Periods of its Growth, Warner traces specific quibbles. One reservation, however, the city's development from its origin as is important: Warner's superficial treatment a mercantile colonial town, through its tran of the old upper class and his premature sition into a bourgeoning antebellum indus dismissal of this group in the 1850's under trial city, and finally as a mature metropolis rates the persistent (until well into the twen in the era beginning with the Gilded Age tieth century) importance of Philadelphia's and ending in the Great Depression. The gentlemen in the life of the city. A broader organizing prinicple of Warner's analysis is cavil must be raised regarding Warner's "the American tradition of privatism." Turn handling of privatism. He properly shows how ing inward toward private functions, espec the primacy of private (mainly wealth gath ially money making, prevented Philadelphia ering) over public concerns has impeded from establishing an urban community that community formation, humane and just civic could solve the problems of industrializa activity, and the good life. But unless con tion, ethnic heterogeneity, and physical and ceptualized more thoroughly and originally population growth that beset the nineteenth- than has been done in The Private City, the century city. As a consequence of this fail long and frequent use of this explanation for ure the harmonious town life of the eighteen social evils makes privatism a banal tool of th century had been transformed by the analysis. 1840's into scenes of ethnic and class con flict. By the late nineteenth century bureau FREDERIC COPLE JAHER cratic organization, factory discipline, poli University of Illinois tical machines, economic and ethnic segre Champaign- Urbana gation, and the profit motive ended the vio lent confrontations of the pre-Civil War era. But these processes and institutions also pre vented the creation of a beneficent city-wide society because they encouraged bureaucra List of Officers of the Army of the United tic impassivity, fragmentation into separate States from 1779 to 1900. By WILLIAM H. ethnic and income residential zones and po POWELL. (Reprinted by the Gale Research litical fiefs, and widespread belief in the in Company, Detroit, 1967. Pp. 863. $37.00.) dividualistic values of competitive capital ism. At crucial times in Philadelphia's his tory privatism prevented or inhibited neces Another useful reference book. Colonel sary social action. During the Revolution the William H. Powell's List of Officers of the pursuit of personal gain forestalled price Army of the United States from 1779 to control and an equitable distribution of food. 1900 (L. R. Hamersly and Company, New Later, similar self-serving attitudes account York, 1900), has been reprinted by the Gale ed for anti-Irish and anti-Negro mob vio Research Company. The first 150 pages cov lence in the 1830's and 1840's and for es er the years 1779 to 1814 with numerous tablishing priorities which made public edu lists and an almost year-by-year service rec cation and other city services and civic re ord for the officers. An alphabetical name sponsibilities ancillary to the accumulation index guides the historian and genealogist of business profits. to the officers listed. The major portion of the book—545 pages—is an alphabetical list This excellent monograph contains many ing of all officers who served between 1815 valuable insights. Warner avoids romanti and 1900 and includes career details such cizing the political machine. He concedes as date of entry into the army, ranks held, the usefulness of the boss as an intermedi dates of promotions, and graduation from ary between the ethnic subculture and the West Point. The final 138 pages is devoted dominant native culture, but indicates the to lists of volunteer officers in the Civil and long-run failure of bossism to improve urban Spanish-American wars, generals in the Re society. Among other nuggets in The Private volution, line and staff generals of the regu City are the analyses of urban riots, of work lar army, and major and minor wars, Indian as a social phenomenon, and of the inter conflicts, border troubles, and labor disturb action among ethnic, occupational, income, ances. Although the price, $37.00, probably and class residential determinants. puts the book out of reach for most indivi The sustained superiority of Warner's stu duals, this facsimile reprint will be a neces- 195 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 sary purchase for all libraries which seek tional conditions of politics in each state as to provide the basic reference tools for well as analyses of extant voting statistics historians and genealogists. for elections at all levels. Of this data he has The reprint of the Powell book calls to sought to ask the same questions as to the mind the two-volume facsimile reprint by how, what, and when of party organization the University of Illinois Press in 1965 of in each state, in order to make possible com Francis B. Heitman's Historical Register and parative analysis region by region, and for Dictionary of the United States Army from the nation as a whole. its Organization, September 29, 1798, to The result is a rich collection of the chron March 2, 1903. Although Powell and Heit icled data of party history in all the states man each include information that the other which existed in the period except South does not have, it seems to this reviewer that Carolina; a long overdue attempt to relate Heitman surpasses Powell in the career and this data to what is known of the widely biographical information provided in the al varying ways in which politics was actually phabetical list which is the heart of each practiced in the period, with results which work. In this section Heitman provides ca are highly informative; and impressive evi reer records for officers who can only be dence both of the value and the potential found in Powell by consulting the supple pitfalls of the method of comparative analy mentary and unindexed lists. Heitman also sis in the study of political history. For its appears to have more complete information collection of information alone, as well as on the officers, including their class stand for its useful bibliographies, particularly as ing at West Point, their military record if to available sources of state election data, they served in the Confederate army, and, the book is likely to sit at the right hand in more instances than Powell, their date of students of middle-period politics for some of death. The more useful and comprehen time to come. sive listing of career records, the more valu The book's conclusions will be less use able supplementary lists and information, and ful. They grow not so much out of McCor the lower price ($20.00) seems to make the mick's data as out of the questions he chooses Heitman volumes the better choice for re to ask of the data, together with the assump printing, but research libraries will, of course, tions and definitions which inform the ques want both reprints. tions. Thus McCormick's central conclusion, that "parties" came into being as the result WILLIAM C. MARTEN of successive contests for the presidency af The State Historical Society of Wisconsin ter 1824, follows ineluctably from his defini tion of parties as agencies chiefly involved in the nominating and electing of candidates, and from his explicit avoidance of such "tra ditional questions" as what parties stood for and what classes or interests they represent The Second American Party System: Party ed. Were parties defined as interest groups, Formation in the Jacksonian Era. By RICH one suspects the conclusion would be reversed: ARD P. MCCORMICK. (The University of North the successive contests for the presidency af Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1966. Pp. viii, ter 1824 came as a result of the re-emergence 389. Bibliography, index. $7.50.) of parties. Similarly the author's conclusion that the second-party system was not genu This book is at once splendidly useful for inely a two-party system until the 1830's has what it does, and misleading for its purport less to do with the realities of Jacksonian ed conclusions. In brief, what Professor Mc politics than it does with McCormick's de Cormick has done is to analyze what he calls cision to rule out as not constituting "party the "second American party system" which activity" the junto management of politics spans the period from the 1820's to the 1850's. so characteristic of the 1820's. Equally un In meticulous fashion, proceeding state by settling to the historian—as apart, perhaps, state, McCormick has pulled together the from the political scientist—would be Mc traditional monographic histories of politics Cormick's startling decision, explained in a in the individual states, enriched them by footnote, to drop South Carolina from the newspaper research, and juxtaposed them a- roster of states because its data does not fit gainst descriptions of the legal and constitu his questions and because of the "extraor- 196 BOOK REVIEWS dinary influence" in that state of John C. torians who find themselves inclined to cite Calhoun. the author's conclusions will do well to note In short, the strengths which the author's also his characteristically graceful acknow rigorous social science method bring to the ledgement on page 13 of the restricted scope book are also its weakness. It is a study of of his inquiry, and his candid assertion on the how, what, and when of party organiza page 19 that "this study derives in part from tion, rather than of the why. Eschewing ques my conception of what happened." tions of human motivation and group inter est, it deals more with abstract forms which RICHARD H. BROWN are conceptually the creation of the author Committee on the Study of History than it does with human beings acting. His (The Amherst Project) BOOK REVIEWS: Alexander, Sectional Stress and Party Strength: A Lutz, Crusade for Freedom: Women in the Antisla Study of Roll-Call Voting Patterns in the United very Movement, reviewed by Bertram Wyatt- States House of Representatives, 1836-1860, re Brown 181 viewed by Charles B. Dew 182 McCormick, The Second American Party System: Cooper, The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era, reviewed 1877-1890, reviewed by John H. Moore 194 by Richard H. Brown 196 Dunn, American Indian Painting of the Southwest Macleod, Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin, reviewed and Plains Areas, reviewed by Bernard L. Fon by Leon Carnovsky 172 tana 185 Miller, Patrons and Patriotism: The Encouragement Evjue, "A Fighting Editor," reviewed by Don An of the Fine Arts in the United States, reviewed by derson 172 Frederick Rudolph 169 Farrell, Beloved Lady: A History of Jane Addams' Morgan, Houses and House-Life of the American Ideas on Reform and Peace, reviewed by Louis Aborigines, reviewed by James H. Howard .... 190 L. Athey 181 Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and the State, Fermi, Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Mi reviewed by Larzer Ziff 188 gration from Europe, 1930^1, reviewed by James Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Gilbert 191 Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Gilbert, Writers and Partisans: A History of Literary Congress, 1933-1939, reviewed by Richard S. Kir Radicalism in America, reviewed by Richard H. kendall 178 Pells 191 Pizer (ed.), Hamlin Garland's Diaries, reviewed by Goodman, The Committee: The Extraordinary Career James B. Stronks 176 of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Powell, List of Officers of the Army of the United reviewed by Robert W. Griffith 184 States from 1779 to 1900, reviewed by William C. Graham, An Encore for Reform: The Old Progres Marten 195 sives and the New Deal, reviewed by Richard B. Sefton, The United States Army and Reconstruction, Abrams 177 1865-1877, reviewed by Tom Phillips 180 Graham, Everyman's Constitution: Historical Essays Silbey, The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting on the Fourteenth Amendment, the "Conspiracy Behavior, 1841-1852, reviewed by Charles B. Theory," and American Constitutionalism, reviewed Dew 182 by David Fellman 187 Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Ideal of America's Hareven, Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Con Millennial Role, reviewed by Fred Sorakin 186 science, reviewed by Michael P. Malone 179 Harris, The Artist in American Society: The Forma Warner, The Private City: Philadelphia in Three tive Years, 1790-1860, reviewed by Frederick Ru Periods of Its Growth, reviewed by Frederic Cople Jaher 194 dolph 169 Lawson, Proud Warrior: The Story of Black Hawk, Wells, Fire at Peshtigo, reviewed by Paul H. reviewed by Howard W. Kanetzke 175 Hass 171 Leder, Liberty and Authority: Early American Po Wishy, The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of litical Ideology, 1689-1763, reviewed by C. Ashley Modern American Child Nature, reviewed by Win Ellefson 193 throp D. Jordan 189 197 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 an article entitled, "A Pioneer Honeymoon", presented by Mrs. John Meyer, Madison; and papers, 1948, of the World War II Memorial Fund Committee, La Crosse Teachers College Foundation, Inc., including statement of regu ACCESSIONS lations, minutes, and letters, presented by Wisconsin State University at La Crosse. Services for microfilming, photostating, and xeroxing all but certain restricted items in its At Milwaukee. Recitations and two volumes manuscripts collections are provided by the of class notes by Sally Birkenwald when she Society. For details write Dr. Josephine L. was a student at Milwaukee Normal School, Harper, Manuscripts Curator. 1880, including a photograph of teachers at the school in 1885, presented by Mrs. 0. K. Sherwin, New York, N.Y.; a speech, 1910, by Manuscripts Accessioned for the Tliomas M. Blackstock, politician and presi dent of the Phoenix Chair Company from Area Research Centers 1876 to 1913, giving a history of the Sheboy gan Mutual Savings, Loan and Building Asso ciation, presented by Mary Denn, Sheboygan; articles and speeches, 1940—1966, chiefly by At La Crosse. Papers, 1873-1941, of Hans Harry C. Brockel, director of the Milwaukee Alfred Anderson, Trempealeau County judge, Board of Harbor Commissioners, concerning including correspondence and memoranda, lakes shipping, the harbor of Milwaukee, and 1911—1941, relating to a proposed history the St. Lawrence Seaway, presented by the of Trempealeau County, and family corre Board of Harbor Commissioners, Milwaukee; spondence, 1873-1879, of the David W. Wade papers, 1948-1961, of Cardijn Center, head family of that county, transferred from the quarters for Catholic lay work in Milwaukee Archives; papers, 1860-1928, of George F. until 1961, including correspondence, news Cooper, Black River Falls editor, including letters, reports, articles and by-laws, minutes, political and personal correspondence, 1886- and committee and program records of the 1928, a subscription book for the Black River center and its associated organization, the Falls Banner, 1868, and a business ledger, Young Christian Workers, presented by Flor 1860-1868, source unknown; a few miscel ence Weinburger, Cardijn Bookstore, Mil laneous papers, 1898-1911, relating to Paul waukee; records, 1909-1960, of the City Club W. Mahoney, attorney at La Crosse, includ of Milwaukee, a study, research, and pressure ing the voting record of Congressman John J. group devoted to community improvement and Esch, 1908 and 1910, and a letter, Sept. 12, city reform, including its civic committee files, 1898, written by a soldier in the Spanish administrative and business files, photo American War, presented by Wisconsin State graphs, membership lists, scrapbooks, and University at La Crosse; papers, 1853-1895, clippings, presented by the Club, Milwaukee; of William H. Polleys, including correspon manuscripts, notes, and brochure concerning dence, a few business records, and twenty- the history of Columbia Hospital, Milwaukee, one volumes of various logging camp account founded in 1901 as Knowlton School and books, presented by Mrs. Dorothy Polleys Hospital and established as Columbia Hospi Barlow, Monticello; papers, 1861-1862, of tal in 1909, presented by the Hospital, Mil W. C. Rogers relating entirely to the period waukee; papers of the Wisconsin state chap when he was postmaster at La Crosse, includ ter, No. 10, Milwaukee, of the Daughters of ing correspondence, receipts, and a general Founders and Patriots of America, including expense account concerning the operation of a history, 1910-1960, reports from chapter the post office, presented by Wisconsin State historians, 1937-1960, presidents' newsletters, University at La Crosse; journal of receipts ancestral sketches of members, war service and expenditures, 1868-1872, kept for a records, and miscellaneous reports, 1929-1960, jewelry store in La Crosse by the family of presented by Mrs. Erwin A. Hentzen, and Mrs. Walter Rose, presented by Mr. Rose, La Earl A. Weeks, Milwaukee, for the Wisconsin Crosse: a book of childhood essays, 1864^ state chapter; papers, 1901-1948, of Albert 1866, of Ida Elwell Tilson, including essays J. Earling, president of the Chicago, Milwau concerning La Crosse and West Salem, and kee and St. Paul Railroad Company, of his 198 ACCESSIONS daughter, Mrs. Harriet Earling Dake, and waukee; papers, 1905-1961, of the Kissel of Mrs. Dake's first husband, Milwaukee busi Kar Company, Hartford, including correspon nessman, Lawrence Fitch, including corre dence and business papers, 1905-1935, and spondence, genealogical materials, and corre a history written in 1961, presented by the spondence, minutes, and clippings relating to West Bend Aluminum Co., Hartford; papers, the Fatherless Children of France, 1917-1920, 1954-1966, consisting of speeches, articles, the Milwaukee Service Club, 1926-1948, and and reports by Ray D. Leary, chief engineer the Woman's Club of Wisconsin, 1943-1945, and general manager of the Milwaukee Metro presented by John E. Fitch, Oconomowoc; "An politan Sewerage Commission, concerning Historical Sketch of Thompsonville, Wiscon the sewerage system and pollution control, sin" by G. J. Ellis, concerning a community presented by Mr. Leary, Milwaukee; a speech located about fifteen miles south of Milwau and an article by Michael Levin, Milwaukee kee in Racine County, presented by Mrs. attorney, both written in 1948 at the time Judith L. Chisholm, Seattle, Wash.; papers, of his return from Japan where he partici 1914-1960, of Edward A. Fitzpatrick, educa pated in the trial of Japanese war criminals, tor and author, including chiefly manuscripts with an article on Japan by Mrs. Bertha Levin, of his speeches, articles, book reviews, books, presented by Mrs. Michael Levin, Milwaukee; and reports, presented by Mrs. Fitzpatrick, papers, 1941-1966, of the Milwaukee County Washington, D.C; papers, 1882-1953, of Mental Health Association, including office Susan Goodrich Frackelton, Milwaukee ceram subject files, 1941-1966, and the personal ist, designer and lecturer, chiefly concerning papers of Mrs. Lulu Wendel, former associa her ceramic work at shows and fairs through tion secretary, 1944-1966, presented by the out the world, presented by Mrs. Hermon G. Association and by Mrs. Wendel, Milwaukee; Seeley, Kenilworth, 111.; the story of how papers, 1852-1944, of the Milwaukee Turners, Lyman Goodnow helped the first slave escape including correspondence, 1928-1936, finan to Canada from Wisconsin Territory in 1843, cial reports, 1928-1932, scrapbooks and print presented by Clinton S. Breese, Waukesha; ed histories, and minutes of the recording sec papers, 1845-1856, of H. Niedecken & Co., retary, 1855-1944, the financial secretary, Milwaukee stationers, book binders, and blank 1855-1934, and the corresponding secretary, book manufacturers, including journals, ledg 1854-1859, presented by the Milwaukee Tur ers, a business letterbook, a cash book, and an ners, Milwaukee; papers, 1810—1918, of Jona invoice book, presented by the H. Niedecken than L. Peirce of Milwaukee, including corre Company, Milwaukee; an autobiography of spondence and business papers, and the school Erwin A. Hentzen, founder of the Wisconsin papers of Angelina Moulton Peirce, 1823- Paint Mfg. Company of Milwaukee in 1923, 1827, Nancy Peirce Haynes, 1827-1833, and with notes he made in a diary, 1939-1943, Jonathan F. Peirce, 1862-1866, presented by presented by Mrs. Hentzen, Milwaukee; church Charlotte R. Partridge, Milwaukee; papers, records studied with reference to migration 1930-1955, of the Racine Milk Producers Co of population, including card index of per operative Association, including bank depos sons received and dismissed at Immanuel it records, check deductions, individual pro Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee, 1837—1880, ducers' records, purchase records, haulers and source unknown; papers, 1833-1855, of Solo routes, and distribution records, presented mon Juneau, founder of Milwaukee, includ by the Association, Racine: papers, [ca. 1910] ing eleven letters concerning merchandise, ap —1933, concerning St. Mary's Hospital, Ra pointments, and lands, forty-six financial ac cine, relating chiefly to the training of nurs counts, fifty receipts or notes to him, many es, including reminiscences concerning St. bearing well-known signatures, and ten post Mary's Hospital Training School, 1910-1926, office receipts, presented by Mr. and Mrs. nursing regulations, 1913-1926, and the St. Luther B. Wasbotten, Scottsdale, Ariz.; papers, Mary's Nurses Alumnae Association, present 1892-1965, of Anthony J. King, Milwaukee ed by Mrs. S. Stepnowski of the Hospital labor leader and Socialist, including War nursing staff, and by Clara Z. Keefe and Alice Labor Board cases for Wisconsin, 1943-1945, S. Mortenson, Racine; account book, 1895- papers of the Plumbers and Gasfitters Union, 1896, kept by [Henry A. Schutte, /r.], a har Local No. 75, 1892-1912, material concern ness maker in Sheboygan, presented by Mr. ing the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, and Mrs. William Upham, Milwaukee; pa 1950-1957, and general subject files concern pers, 1884-1915, of Otto J. Schoenleber, Mil ing the Milwaukee Public Museum and the waukee manufacturer who was active in the Socialist party, presented by Mrs. King, Mil Democratic party in Wisconsin, including 199 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 letters relating to Gen. Francis Elias Spinner pany, Portage, including minutes of the board who was credited with being the first to admit of directors, 1851—1869, business papers, and women to service with the United States gov an 1874 map of the road, presented by Mr. ernment, source unknown; papers, 1843-1867, and Mrs. Lawrence E. Norem, Eagle River; of Charles C. Sholes, Wisconsin newspaper record, 1882-1887, kept by the lock tender man, politician, businessman, and brother of at Kaukauna, for the U. S. Fox River Improve Christopher Latham Sholes, including chiefly ment Project, showing destination, cargo, ton letters to his fiancee and wife, Sarah McKin nage, and tolls for boats passing along the ney Sholes, relating his experiences and im Fox River waterway, presented by Mr. and pressions while in the state assembly and on Mrs. George Nevitt, Oshkosh; minutes books, trips to the East in connection with railroads 1911-1920, 1924-1934, of the GAR Woman's and Wisconsin telegraph lines, presented by Relief Corps—Department of Wisconsin—H. Maxwell Sholes, Arcadia, Calif.; papers, M. Brown Corps No. 134, Columbus, presented 1940-1952, of Harold Willis Story, vice presi by Marjorie Holmes, Madison; minutes of dent of Allis Chalmers Manufacturing Com meetings, 1946-1959, of the GAR—Woman's pany, consisting of a few manuscripts con Relief Corps—Department of Wisconsin— cerning the closed shop issue and including Harrison Corps No. 105, De Pere, presented a letter, June 25, 1940, from Sumner H. by Mrs. Violet Thiel, Milwaukee; minutes Slichter of Harvard giving views on the closed books, 1908-1915, of the Green Bay Commer shop, presented by Mr. Story, Milwaukee; cial Club at Green Bay, presented by Taylor "The Story of Waterville", by Mrs. John Hall, De Pere; reminiscences of Hugh Jamie- Thomas, being especially a history of the son who immigrated to America in 1847, earliest settlers in Summit Township, Wauke settled in Dekorra Township in Columbia sha County, presented by Thomas E. Fairchild, County and helped to build Poynette, includ Madison; papers, 1903-1966, of the United ing genealogical information on the Jamieson Community Services of Greater Milwaukee, and Thomas families, lent for copying by including the inactive subject files of corre J. Rodney Jamieson, Poynette; papers, 1856- spondence, memoranda, reports, and printed 1914, of George C. Jones, Appleton lawyer and material relating to numerous Milwaukee wel businessman, including correspondence, dia fare organizations, and 111 volumes contain ries, bank accounts, and stock certificate books ing minutes and reports for committees, for various Wisconsin companies, presented boards, and surveys, presented by the United by Mrs. Jacob Shilerat, Appleton: papers, Community Services, Milwaukee; papers, 1926-1954, of Lawrence F. Jones, a city 1960-1966, of Wetlands for Wildlife, Inc., commissioner of Fond du Lac, including busi Milwaukee, a national conservation organiza ness correspondence, 1930-1954, and subject tion, including correspondence and business files relating to the city government, presented papers, presented by the organization through by Mr. Jones, Fond du Lac; speeches and the courtesy of George Toepfer, Milwaukee; essays presented at the Menasha Historical an Industrial Survey of Sheboygan produced Society prior to 1960, presented by the Me by the industrial development department of nasha Historical Society through the cour the Wisconsin Power and Light Company, tesy of Mrs. John H. Wilterding; papers, n.d., including several photographs, trans 1942-1963, of the Oshkosh League of Wom ferred from the Archives; and papers, 1914— en Voters, including correspondence, minutes, 1961, of the Young Women's Christian Asso annual reports, financial records, member ciation of Milwaukee, including correspon ship lists, and local bulletins, presented by dence and business papers, miscellaneous min the League, Oshkosh; papers, 1831-1835 and utes, agenda, and membership lists, clippings 1845-1890, of Oliver L. Skinner, Weelaunee and publications, with microfilm of minutes [Pickett], Winnebago County, consisting of agenda, and membership lists, clippings and family letters from Illinois and Vermont in publications, with microfilm of minutes of the 1850's and from Tennessee in the 1870's the board of managers, 1892-1898, annual and 1880's, and receipts and legal documents, meetings, 1895-1903, board of trustees, 1899- presented by Edward Noyes, Oshkosh; "The 1950, and board of directors, 1898-1950, life of A. J. Smith, Sr." as written by him presented by the YWCA, Milwaukee. at Peshtigo in 1926 and making reference to his work as a timber cruiser in northeastern Wisconsin, presented by Mrs. John St. Ger main, Madison; and papers, 1840-1876, 1896— At Oshkosh. Papers, 1851-1874, of the Fort 1966, of /. Russell Wheeler, Columbus banker. Winnebago and Duck Creek Plank Road Com 200 ACCESSIONS consisting of correspondence, financial rec Catholic Total Abstinence Society of White ords, abstracts, indentures, and related ma water, presented by Father John T. Cullen, terials from his own files and those of rela Whitewater; "The Bennett Law of 1889: Edu tives, especially his father, the Rockwell fam cation and Politics in Wisconsin", by Robert ily of Elkhorn, and the Edwards family in J. Ulrich, a Ph.D. dissertation at the Univer Walworth County, presented by Fred Stare, sity of Wisconsin, presented by Mr. Ulrich, Columbus, and by Mrs. Helen Wheeler Fuller, Whitewater; and additions to the Papers of Milwaukee. Charles Minton Baker, Geneva lawyer and legislator. At Whitewater. The "Battle of Prairie Grove", At Platteville. Secretary's book for the Dar Dec. 7, 1862, a poem composed by George lington Rifles, Darlington, from the date of Burnett as a tribute to Co. E., 20th Regiment its organization, June 30, 1884, to its meet Wisconsin Volunteers, known as the Water- ing of January 7, 1898, including membership town German Volunteers, presented by the lists and financial reports, received with the estate of Hilda C. Volkmann, Madison; ci Lafayette County Historical Society Papers; tations, clippings, and booklets relating to papers, 1827-1872, of Charles L. Dering, Port Edward G. Broenniman, Watertown native age attorney, including business papers con who became a New York flour and grain cerning lead mining near New Diggings, a merchant and served as aid to Herbert Hoover journal, 1836-1841, of John C. Smith, a Gale on the commission for food relief during na, 111., merchant, and diaries, 1856-1857, and after World War I, including a letter 1865, of Charles L. Dering, presented by Mrs. from Hoover, July 10, 1948, presented by Irma Whitney and Charles M. Dering, n.p.; Gladys Mollart, Watertown; record book, papers, 1882-1911, of the GAR P. W. Plum- 1850-1872, kept by a cabinetmaker, probably mer Post No. 37, Prairie du Chien, including one named Alexander Clark, who lived near minutes book and register of the Crawford Delavan, presented by Mrs. H. Gevaart, Janes County Veterans Association, 1891-1899, and ville; minutes, 1895-1902, of the Delavan miscellaneous medical and financial records, Light & Fuel Co., including the constitution presented by Mrs. William Graves, Prairie du and stock register, presented by Mrs. H. Chien; an unfinished autobiography of Fred Gevaart, Janesville; record book, 1883-1898, erick Hollman, who lived in southwestern Wis of the Evansville Manufacturing Company consin after 1827 where he was a miner, far organized to manufacture tacks, nails, and mer, and businessman, chiefly at New Dig friction matches, presented by Mrs. A. S. gings, Iowa County, presented by Mrs. George Holmes, Madison; minutes book, 1873-1944, Kindschi, Platteville; miscellaneous papers of and miscellaneous records of the Evansville the former Lafayette County Historical So Mercantile Company, dealers in dry goods, ciety, including reports of acquisitions, 1911— general merchandise, groceries, hardware, and 1912, congratulatory letters, 1912-1913, and furniture—a stock company possibly spon membership and financial reports, 1951-1952, sored by the Grange, presented by Mrs. A. S. presented for the Society by John Davisson, Holmes, Madison; papers, 1938-1890, 1963- Mineral Point, and Allan Oakey, Madison; 1965, of Ann Eliza Bacon Porter, whose copies of long letters and reports from John family settled near Cooksville in Rock County, Murrish (1820-1886), Mazomanie, to Gov. including nine letters, 1838-1890, diaries, and C. C. Washburn, Gov. Lucius Fairchild, and farm and household expense books, 1845- John Bracken concerning surveys Prof. Mur 1875, and manuscript for Mrs. Lillian Russell rish made of the mining region of south Porter's book on Ann Bacon Porter called western Wisconsin, presented by George Lin Choice Seed in the Wilderness (1964), pre coln, Watertown; and papers, 1927-1933, of sented by Mrs. Lillian Porter, Evansville; a John H. Peacock, Prairie du Chien business research paper, n.d., by Eda Roou, "Water man, including correspondence, business pa Over the Dam, Palmyra Then 'Til Now", be pers, minutes, architectural plans, clippings, ing a history of Palmyra with geographical and broadsides, all relating to the construc implications, presented by Mrs. Roou, Pal tion of the bridge over the Mississippi at myra; record book containing minutes and Prairie du Chien, presented by Mrs. Peacock, membership lists, 1873-1894, of St Patrick's Prairie du Chien. 201 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WINTER, 1968-1969 American Heritage, Japan Quarterly, Missou ri Historical Review, The Register, Midwest Quarterly, and Collier's Encyclopedia and Contributors the Encyclopedia Britannica. He is also the author of The Making of American Foreign Policy, a pamphlet published in Japanese by KENNETH ACREA, a native of the U.S. Information Service in 1956. At Iowa, received his bachelor's present Mr. Smith is writing a biography degree in 1961 from Drake of Francis Preston Blair, an editor and poli University in Des Moines. tician. After teaching high school for two years he completed his master's work at Drake Over the next several years the Society will and entered the University of Wisconsin to publish a six-volume History of Wisconsin. begin his Ph.D. studies which he completed Written for the general adult reading public, in 1968. His doctoral dissertation, from the work is planned to be the standard and which his article in this issue is derived, was definitive state history for decades to come. done under Professor E. David Cronon and The project began in 1964 with a grant from involved a study of reform politics to 1900 the Western Publishing Company of Racine and a broad survey of state legislation and and the appointment of William Fletcher Thompson as General Editor. Six authors legislators from 1891 to 1909. Mr. Acrea have been selected and are at work, assisted is an assistant professor of history at St. by a general research staff. Through the ef Cloud State College, St. Cloud, Minnesota. forts of a distinguished Advisory Committee led by Donald C. Slichter of the Board of E. B. SMITH was born in Curators, liberal financing has been secured Kentucky and reared in Ten from the Society, the University of Wisconsin, nessee where he received his and some two dozen Wisconsin business firms. A.B. (cum laude) from Mary- The two volumes which will be published ville College in 1940. Both first are being written by Alice E. Smith, A .#^ his M.A. and Ph.D. were re- Emeritus Director of Research (Vol. I, 1580- ~ ceived at the University of 1848), and A. Theodore Brown, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin—Mil Chicago in 1947 and 1949. He served four waukee (Vol. HI, 1873-1893.) Two others years in the U.S. Navy, and his academic are in advanced stages of research: Vol. II, positions include professorships at Youngs- 1848-1873, to be written by Richard N. Cur town University, 1949-1957, and Iowa State rent of the University of North Carolina— University, 1957-1967. In 1954-1955 he was Greensboro; and Vol. V, 1915-1940, whose visiting Fulbright professor in Tokyo, and author will be Paul W. Glad, professor of his in 1967-1968 was a visiting professor in tory on the Madison campus. Each author history at the University of Wisconsin. In receives a twelve-month appointment as Re both 1962 and 1966 he was Democratic can search Professor in Wisconsin History in didate for United States Senator from Iowa which to complete his assignment. The remain and in 1966 was Iowa campaign manager ing two volumes, on which preliminary re search has begun (Vol. IV, 1893-1915, and for Lyndon B. Johnson. His publications in Vol. VI, a concluding and summarizing vol clude two books. Magnificent Missourian, ume since 1940) will be written respectively The Life and Times of Thomas Hart Benton by E. David Cronon, also of the University of (1958) and The Death of Slavery, the United Wisconsin history department, and by William States, 1837-1865, as well as articles in such Fletcher Thompson, the Society's Director of journals as the American Historical Review, Research. 202 OF INTEREST TO WISCONSIN READERS Factories in the Valley: Neenah-Menasha, 1870-1915. By Charles N. Glaab and Lawrence H. Larsen. Companion volume to Alice Smith's Millstone and Saw, tracing the rise of papermoking and the urbaniza tion of the Fox Valley communities. Illustrated. About 320 pages. $6.00. (Available in May.) The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890-1920. By Herbert F. Margulies. Detailed examination of Wisconsin Progres sivism, demonstrating that internal contradictions as well as wartime stress molded and altered the reform movement. 320 pages. $5.95. Sections and Politics: Selected Essays by William B. Hesseltine. Edited with an Introduction by Richard N. Current. Eight of the late Civil War scholar's most significant shorter pieces, together with on appre ciative biographical sketch by one of his former students. Portrait. 180 pages. $5.00. Carnegie Libraries in Wisconsin. By David I. Macleod. A scholarly appraisal of the philanthropist's public library program, considering what it hoped to accomplish and what its impact was on the progress of Wisconsin's libraries. 172 pages. Logmark Edition. $3.25. Members are entitled to a discount of 10% on these or any other books on the State Historical Society of Wisconsin list. Order from the Business Office, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. To promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage The Purpose with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement, of this and dissemination of knowledge of the history of Wisconsin Society shall he and of the Middle West. State Historical Society of Wisconsin 816 State Street Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Madison, Wisconsin, and at Return Requested additional mailing offices.