Magazine ^/History

WISCONSIN MAGAZINE ^/HISTORY

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Published Quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN September 1949 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY CLIFFORD L. LORD, Editor LILLIAN KRUEGER, Managing Editor

CONTENTS

Chats with the Editor Clifford L. Lord 1 The Okauchee House The Rev. Lincoln F. Whelan 7 The Origins of Public Education in Wisconsin Lloyd P. Jorgenson 15 The Milwaukee Cement Company Howard Greene William T. Berthelet 28 The Manitowoc County Historical Society Ralph G. Plumb 40 Enactment of the Potter Law Robert T. Daland 45 Unique Elements in State History Richard P. McCormick 55 St. Louis Church of Fond du Lac W. A. Titus 62 LETTERS: Charles McCarthy to J. Frank- Elizabeth Donnan lin Jameson L. F. Stock 64 William Paddock Letters—-1848. Editors 87 COMMUNICATION The Rev. Joseph Carlton Short 92 BOOK NOTES 96 WISCONSIANA—HERE AND THERE • 120 ACCESSIONS 123 OF WIDER INTEREST 127

The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published quarterly by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN, 816 State Street, Madison, 6. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $3.00; Life, $50). Yearly subscription, $3.00; single number, 75 cents. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison, Wis- consin, under the act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1949 by the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN. Paid for by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund.

THE COVER OCCASIONALLY the cover illustration carries one back to an early day tavern, or inn, set in spacious shaded surroundings. As the reader may have surmised, this is the OKAUCHEE HOUSE that has stood sturdily through storm and fair weather for one hundred years. Again Father Whelan, of Okauchee, has contributed a well-told tale of one of Wis- consin's charming landmarks—the first story in this issue. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE of HISTORY *P2>» Volume 33 September 1949 Number 1

Chats with the Editor

HE SOCIETY, focusing with two months* perspective on the work of the 1949 Legislature, can regard the record with Treal satisfaction. The Executive Budget recommended by the Governor transferred the purchase of all supplies from our private funds to the State appropriation. This is Progress on , , T . , . ° , 7T the second maior step in clearing our revolving Capitol Hill , , r j- • j i budget or ordinary operating expenses, and leaves only the salaries of our student assistants, occasional emergency help, and travel expenses to be paid from this source. The result is a major increase in the funds available for the research and publication program. The Executive budget fell far short of our needs in four categories. The first of these, funds for the completion of the renovation of our ventilating system, was added to the budget by the Joint Finance Committee and passed as part of the regular appropriation act. Two others were later approved by the same committee and passed as separate appropriations. The first of these gives us a $15,000 annual fund to finance our microfilming program. As nearly half of our book fund in recent years has been spent for this purpose, the effect is to double the funds available for book purchase and to more than double the funds available for microfilm accessions. Our book fund has long been inadequate. In fact for some years we actually have been spending less on books than we did in 1910, despite the fact that the price of books has approximately trebled in the interim. Our microfilm funds, on the other hand, were adequate only to keep abreast of incoming Wisconsin newspapers. There were no funds to purchase the im- 1 2 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [September portant manuscript collections such as the Abraham Lincoln papers, Theodore Roosevelt letter press books, Andrew Jackson papers, or Thomas Jefferson papers which other manuscript depositories are making available in increasing quantities for research centers such as ours. Nor were there funds to microfilm some of the important collections of Wisconsin materials located elsewhere in the country, or to microfilm our deteriorating files of old newspapers. On both scores, this appropriation halts the decline in the status of our library which has been in progress ever since the Great Depression. The second supplemental appropriation restored the fund for Museum operations which was also a casualty of the depression. Until its passage, we faced another biennium with a Museum staff which had in effect no funds with which to work. This fund will enable us to hire additional temporary help to complete the renovation of our galleries in the present fiscal year and to overhaul and make more usable our photographic collections in the next fiscal year. It will furnish funds for the materials which go into the creation of any and every exhibit and leaves a small but increasing balance for the purchase of those few important pieces which cannot be secured by gift. It will enable us to carry on the type of program including circulating exhibits for the schools so successfully launched last year with centennial funds and to offer the State a modest but continuing program of educational exhibits. Our fourth need alone was not granted. This was an increase in the funds allocated for salaries. Failure to secure this forced us to drop one staff position and leave one vacancy unfilled. At the same time it left almost nothing for merit increases for a thoroughly deserving staff. Another act confirmed the arrangement approved by the Gov- ernor last June whereby the Society became the State's public documents depository and exchange agent, taking over a function relinquished some time earlier by the State Library. This involves little change in either our collecting policies or the size of our already very extensive collection of public documents, but it does add further to our obvious usefulness to the State government. 1949] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 3

Still another act made possible the establishment of local or regional depositories for the preservation of important county and local public records. It gave the Society certain responsibilities for determining the types of records which were of sufficient importance to warrant preservation and for aiding and advising in the establishment of the depositories. In another act, the Legis- lature established a procedure for the microfilming of State records which would put their legal status as substitutes for the originals beyond dispute in any legal or administrative court. This will make possible the destruction of the originals of some series of microfilmed records without danger of subsequent embarrassment and so will augment the space-saving features of the public records act of 1947. Our right to participate with other museums in the State in a state-wide extension service of circulating exhibits was spelled out, as was our right to participate with other university and reference libraries in the establishment of a central regional depository library in this area. Our auxiliary county and local societies were aided in two ways. The first permitted them to become the local or regional records depositories referred to above. The second removed the existing $500 limitation on appropriations for their support by county boards. While our own building addition was defeated in the final hour of the session, we were given some space relief by the approval of the appropriation for the long-sought new library building for the University. Removal of the University's collections from our building will release an additional 40 percent of the building for our use. While it is mathematically provable that we can more than fill that space today, and that we will be as badly off as we are today by the time the University moves out if no additional space relief is granted, there is no denying the fact that we are getting some relief—even if it comes twenty-five years late—and that it is a definite step in the right direction. On all counts, therefore, the 1949 Legislature showed an effective appreciation of our work. The unanimous votes by which the 4 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR [September senate passed all our bills with the sole and important exception of our building addition, and the all but unanimous support of the assembly for our whole program including the building addition were in and of themselves encouraging. The state-wide support of our members, the press, women's groups, patriotic societies, and organized labor indicates a firm and growing support for our program, evidenced too in another sector by the rapidly lengthen- ing list of sustaining members Curator Everest is enlisting. The new biennium offers prospects of work of growing effectiveness. The 1949 Legislature has improved our position and given us the tools with which to go to work.

THE RECENT SESSION developed widespread misconceptions about the relation between the University Library and the proposed addition to our building. For the record, a brief historical review of the evolution of these two projects over the past few years is in order. In the autumn of 1946, the officers of the Society decided that the solution to our space problem was to seek a new building to house the Society's museum. Two alternatives presented them- ^j . . selves: a drive for private donations, or a legis- The T7University . . ^ , r , T., , lative appropriation. On the request or the Library and .1 r , • • T» 1 -n ~ , ,,. . president of th e TUniversitT y Board orf Regents, Our Addition , f , . . , . J the former alternative was rejected to avoid any conflict with the University's own drive for funds, and we launched a crusade for a public appropriation. This resulted a few months later in the 1947 Legislature creating a special joint committee to investigate our needs for report to the 1949 session. This committee first met June 26, 1947, and proceeded to meet at irregular intervals until it prepared its final report which was submitted to the Legislative Council, October 8, 1948. At the time this joint committee was established, throughout the period of its discussions, indeed until three days before the submission of its final report, the University was planning to build its new library out of its postwar construction fund. It was not 1949] CHATS WITH THE EDITOR 5 until October 5, 1948, with the committee's report already drafted, that the University faculty voted to proceed with the new Engi- neering building instead of the proposed library, throwing the question of a new appropriation for the library into the 1949 session. Some people have commented that it was unfortunate for the University that the Society went into the same session for its addition. It was more unfortunate for the Society. The special joint committee was under legislative mandate to present its report to the 1949 session. The report had to be filed. Not to have pushed the recommendations of that report would have been to jettison our whole campaign to date, and to have sacrificed our strongest argument—the very strongly worded recommendation for an addition prepared by an official investigating body composed of representatives of the Society, the University, and both houses of the Legislature. It is true that a determined drive was launched by the State Chamber of Commerce to block the new University library in favor of the addition to our building. The argument, completely fala- cious, was that this addition would take care of the most pressing needs of both the University and the Society. Had we given this idea the slightest aid and comfort, we could have added im- measurably to the University's difficulties. Needless to say we did not do so. To every inquiring legislator—and there were many— we replied that the addition would not solve the University's problem, that the new library must be built but that it alone would not solve our problem: we needed the addition to our building also. That position was meticulously maintained in public and in private, despite some provocation. We lost our fight. We lost it chiefly because, the report of the special joint legislative committee to the contrary notwithstanding, the feeling was general—and in some cases inculcated—that removal of the University Library from our building would meet our needs. We fought a hard fight, but as far as the Society and its representatives were concerned it was a scrupulously clean fight. 6 CHATS WITH THE EDITOR

IT IS NOT often that a book is reviewed in this part of our Maga- zine, but once in a while one comes along which lies outside our regular field which seems of sufficient importance to call to the „ , _ , attention of our readers. Such a book is Paul There s Freedom ,r ^ . , ,_<,,„, , . , r _ McGuires recent There s Freedom for the for the Brave D /wnr ,, , n XT Brave (William Morrow and Company, New York, 1949, $4.00). Seeking the basis for the demoralization of the Western world and the growing trend toward what is coming to be known as "statism," McGuire finds it in the loss of a sense of the moral law. Citing Voltaire's famous comment that if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him, McGuire believes that the lessening of the force which held Western Civili- zation together in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries has had a twofold effect. First, by seriously weakening the yard- stick against which men and the creatures of men checked their own activities, it has made necessary the intervention of the state as a regulatory agent. Second, by creating a relative vacuum in man's highest allegiance, it has made it increasingly possible for the state to substitute itself for God and has paved the way for what he properly calls the "monstrous state." Readers may quarrel with some of the historical evidence cited by the author. They may feel the picture to some degree and in some particulars overdrawn. They may find, as did this reviewer, Part One of the book more cogent than Part Two. As is inevitable in a philosophical treatise of this type, they may not agree with some of the conclusions. But if they fail to read it, they will miss one of the more penetrating, significant, and hopeful of the recent analyses of—to quote the author's Australian vernacular—"What's up and what's to do." The Okauchee House

By THE REV. LINCOLN F. WHELAN

UCH PRAISE has been put into songs and stories about the advantages of living in a house by the side of the M road and from that peaceful point of vantage to watch the remnants of the world rushing madly past your door. Maybe the high time has come for some structure to speak for itself, such as the century-old Okauchee House in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Any flair this substitute chronicler might have for romancing about the good old days is put to silence by the somber colonial interior of the Okauchee Stagecoach House with its sturdy plank walls that have stood in the background for 100 years watching the roadway evolve from an Indian trail into a plank road and finally stretch out into a federal highway. The word "sturdy" defines the house, and a description of it is strictly a job for plain prose that should have been done long before so much pleasant local history faded from the memory of our older Okauchee villagers. The thirty-one room structure is owned by the demure and polite Mrs. Fred Faulkner. She lives alone in the house that history passed by and keeps the place neater than the proverbial pin. However, it is made very plain that her house is a private residence and not a curio shop for sight-seers. The interior is much the same as it was a hundred very odd years ago. There is one faded photo of the exterior, taken in 1911, shortly after the Faulkners pur-

FATHER LINCOLN F. WHELAN occasionally contributes to the Magazine. His last historical sketch dealt with "The Red Mill at Monches." Okauchee House, of thirty-one rooms, with its oldtime architecture and antique furnishings, is recommended reading. Father Whelan is the pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish, Okauchee, Wisconsin. For much of the information about the Okauchee House the author wishes to thank the owner, the Hartwells, Mrs. Lena Schraudenbach, Albert Hildahl, John and Ida Gietzen, and many of his neighbors in the happy and historic Okauchee community. A word of thanks is likewise due to Miss Lamer and her helpful staff in the Waukesha County register of deeds office. 8 THE REV. LINCOLN F. WHELAN [September chased the property. This snapshot shows the once classic cornices dangling at a very menacing angle. For the protection of posterity passing by, these ornaments had to be removed. For three quarters of a century the five square windows on the top floor looked out on a fancy high veranda. This was also shorn off, and in the 1930's the old house was sheathed with modern siding. The late Dr. Peters, from near-by Oconomowoc Lake, loved the old land- mark and lamented these alterations. Somehow, these minor modernizations on the old house do remind one of a fortyish female struggling vainly to retain her youth. The sturdy old house occupies a 200 by 300 foot lot that is fronted by the remains of an ornamental iron fence, once standard equipment for elegance in the past century. A half-dozen tall trees whisper in the wind as they stand sentry duty around the house by the bend iri the road. The usual barns and the three- sided shelter for the horse and carriage trade have been demolished. There are readers who may recall those once familiar open-side shelters, buggy whips, and the sweaty horse blankets with the big steel safety pins. The deep holes beneath the manger were pawed there by spirited horses tethered for long hours by thoughtless owners who were lingering inside and getting outside spirits of another brand. To do a sly bit of cribbing is one way of passing a stiff examination, but the cribber of other days meant the equine sin of gnawing on the manger. In the course of some very guarded conversation a clerical visitor may guess that the two small out- buildings have been rendered irrelevant by the march of science and sanitation. For a time John Gietzen owned the house, and in 1913 his men moved the last carriage barn over to the corner of Road Q where it became the first garage in Okauchee and is now rebuilt into an up-to-date food mart. This first garage was a death warrant for the Okauchee House as a wayside hostelry. The horseless carriage had come to stay. Nowadays the house stands alone, longing for the return of those grand old days when stagecoaches lumbered down the plank road to unload a cargo of gay guests at Israel McConnell's open door. 1949] THE OKAUCHEE HOUSE 9

Ingelbert Nelson took up the land from the government in the early 1840's, but the fabulous Israel McConnell took charge and stayed on as owner and operator until 1874. These were golden years when the house reached its peak of popularity for Taverner McConnell had many characteristics of Bailey the keeper of Tabard Inn, plus a few traits of the lesser lights in Chaucer's pilgrimage to Canterbury. ''In Israel's time, when business wuz rushin' it really was russian," according to octogenarian Al Hildahl. Some months ago I enjoyed a unilateral chat with the deaf but very definite Mr. Hildahl. Vividly did he describe a bygone day when a large crowd of immigrants " put up for the night at Stage- coach House." He told that the "gang was heading for the lead mines around Belmont where the first State Capitol used to be once." I made the error of asking where these travelers came from, but it; seemed apparent that my deaf friend did not hear. So I erred into asking an old man the same question a second time. Said he, " They came from all over Hell, I guess." His decanonizing guess was final if not historically and geo- graphically accurate. Al Hildahl's highly descriptive conversation somehow seemed to do more with the lesser adjectives than all the current magazine editors who lately have learned how to modify a noun and adorn a tale. The Okauchee House property has shuttled back and forth among half a dozen owners during these last 100 years and also has made the inevitable appearances in the county court. In August, 1884, Vesta, the widow of Israel McConnell, went to law against her son Albert about a foreclosure note amounting to more than $1,000. This unimportant suit was settled quite peacefully, and the house again settled back into its quaint and quiet ways. Samuel and Harriet Hooker owned the house of dying fame but soon sold to Esther Peters. The 1906 records show that the senior John Gietzen purchased the property at a foreclosure sale. The late Fred Faulkner bought the house in 1911, and his widow occupies the old place at the present time. A "For Sale" sign dangles around the neck of a great tree out in the front yard. Much of the original survey work was done by William Purvie 10 THE REV. LINCOLN F. WHELAN [September or Purveau. All of his plats and recordings are letter perfect except the signature. A hallmark of ability. A narrow Lannon stone walk is an invitation to the friendly front door that is cased-in by a framework of rippled windowpanes of handblown glass the like of which can be found in many other sashes in the house... and in very few other dwellings in our broad land. This rare glass is lovely to look at but not so satisfactory to look through. The erstwhile parlor pastime of peep- ing out from behind the curtains at the passers-by is of little comfort when the curious must contend with the wavy handblown windowpanes. A tiny vestibule offers you the alternative of turning to the right through an arch that once wore the label "Tap Room for Men Only." This slogan dated back to those trying times before female suffrage had attained to the heady altitude of a chromed perch in a pub. A more ladylike left turn from the vestibule leads into the long dining room and the more secluded " sitting parlors." There are eleven rooms on the first floor, the most interesting being the huge kitchen where many a tasty meal was prepared for the gourmets and gourmettes who heeded Israel McConnell's booming invitation to "pitch in and make out your supper." Either of the adjacent pantries could comfortably contain a brace of modern kitchenettes. The king-size kitchen is reminiscent of the good old days when the "maid" was just a hired girl who never heard of Thursday afternoon and Sunday off, but was seldom paid accordingly. However, it did behoove any hired girl to keep a sharp eye on the trapdoor in the kitchen floor that was often left open after a careless someone drew rain water from the cistern in the cellar. There never was a furnace in the old house, and I am reminded of listening to a local philosopher discuss and cuss our modern central heating systems. To him the furnace was a menace to the family circle. His picturesque language dealt with the days when " the hull family gathered of an evening around the kitchen stove to keep warm and to keep posted on the latest neighborhood gossip." Then these newfangled furnaces came along to break 1949} THE OKAUCHEE HOUSE 11 loose the family circle into every " blasted room in the house, even into the parlor on a weekday." Such was the torrid thesis of his fireside chat, and there may be some truth in what the man said. Next door to the kitchen is a brightly windowed compartment that seems out of joint with the darkling surroundings. To listen is to learn that the small room rose in the ranks from the humble status of a woodshed, later a mending room, and now a sunroom. Thus does the sun and science shine on. The many meandering old houses in Wisconsin are interesting to look at but were not always so pleasant to live in. Most of the pioneer dwellings followed a set construction plan with a sheath of clapboards on a stout wall of log or brick plus a few coats of heavy plaster to finish off the interior. But the builder of the Okauchee House was of a unique mould and he built accordingly. Between the outer and inner shell of the inn he laid a solid 2 by 6 inch wall of plank. These were laid flat and snugged against the vertical beams, each tier of six planks being secured together by wooden dowel pins. This sturdy arrangement seems to have bafHed Father Time. Most of the material for his unique construction was taken from the near-by forest and fashioned in the sawmill of Harrison Reed that was situated beside the Okauchee Lake dam only a stone's throw away. Reed also hammered out the square iron nails that help to hold the massive structure in- tact for a hundred years and more. The heavy timber framework of " sleepers " were adze-shaped by craftsmen with the skill and eye- accuracy of a Paul Bunyan. The Madison-Watertown and Mil- waukee Plank Road Company dropped off much used lumber to hurry along the construction job, even as their stagecoaches would drop off many a weary traveler in the busy days that were to come. Other than the addition of a partition or two and a haphazard wall-papering job, the house remains original, and any of Israel McConneirs regular guests might come back tomorrow night and feel quite at home and a wee bit homesick. I was advised in advance " Not to pass up the downstairs." So, obediently if not enthusiastically, I followed the dozen tread-worn steps down into a cellar that is partly paved with bricks of various 12 THE REV. LINCOLN F. WHELAN [September size. The ceiling is low and so was I because this side excursion seemed a cobwebbed waste of time. I was in error again. Here was interesting evidence of random digging having been done under the brick floor. The rubble made me recall the usual rumors of buried monies that are invariably associated with all such old and odd places. But here it was plain that someone had taken the foolish story about Israel McConnell's buried gold seriously enough to swing a pick in search for a cache. Failing to find either the end of the rainbow or the pot of gold, the useless task was given up for the bad job that it was. Historically, this vain search must have antedated the current crop of telephone pros- pectors who wait on the radio giveaway programs. However, there is some dusty and gusty gossip about a gold digger of another stripe whose prospecting in the old house did pay off far more profitably than the pick and shovel approach to Easy Street. If the walls of the old place could talk, they would in all probability say nothing about this episode, being of the solid and sturdy type that is not given to such stories. Even a short search through the old cellar will uncover some history of a better sort. Gaping holes in the plastered ceiling expose Harrison's handwrought nails driven into the old style split laths of basswood. The foundation wall is solid masonry three foot thick. Immediately under the kitchen floor is the large circular cistern (if you will pardon the expression) of niggerheads. Here some long-forgotten master mason left a lasting specimen of a declining trade. The remark has been made about these cistern trapdoors being more of a threat to life and limb than a kitchen convenience. A small story from the Monches locale tells about a family that numbered four fine daughters and one unrefined son. This thoroughly spoiled brat was the pride of the family and a definite neighborhood nuisance. One. quiet Sunday afternoon the fond parents were entertaining friends in the front parlor while all the children played in the kitchen which contained a cellar trapdoor that usually was open. A sudden shriek interrupted the youngsters' shouting and laughing. Invariably this was a signal that someone had tumbled through the trapdoor. A distraught father dashed into the kitchen, glanced down at a crumpled little figure at the 19493 THE OKAUCHEE HOUSE 13 foot of the cellar steps, sighed with relief, and then casually an- nounced, "It is only Martha." Meanwhile the favored son stood off a safe distance from the disaster blithely wearing the triumphant look of a pint-size Macbeth advising the world to have men- children only. In the "fur co'ner" of the cellar is a bricked Dutch oven about ten-foot square. One look at this oven can make a fellow taste the homemade bread our mother used to make with raisins and without benefit of vitamins. The old oven might be a stage property for a Hansel and Gretel stage production. Surely the size of this oven gives credence to the local tradition about the wondrous dinners served to the house guests who paused in their travels up and down the old plank road. Returning to first floor, one is anxious to explore the upper regions and ascends the fancy staircase with the black walnut handrail and the finely carved scroll along the baseboard. A minor labyrinth of narrow corridors leads to the eleven bedrooms on the second floor. The rooms vary in dimensions to suit the size of the party and the pocketbook. It is interesting to note that none of the rooms had clothespresses; a row of nails in the wall seemed sufficient to hold any excess wardrobe. There are a few window- less storage compartments along the corridor that were very exactly called the " dark rooms." While wandering from room to room the proprietress made mention of two beds that had been pensioned off and placed in a side storeroom. Investigation disclosed an old style cherry bed and a very fancy black walnut bed with the usual carvings and slots on the side for a canopy. Either of these beds would warm the heart and possibly open the tight purse of any antique dealer. But a short visit into each bedroom leaves one with the chilly thought that there is no provision for heat other than a small vent near the ceiling that had the dubious duty of catching any vagrant warmth that might creep up from the first floor stoves. Small wonder that a popular ballad of those old days sang the merits of "The Down Feather Bed." Another walnut railed stairway with hand-turned spindles leads to the third floor and "not a squeak in any step even after all 14 THE REV. LINCOLN F. WHELAN the upping and downing of a hundred years." There are a dozen rooms on the top floor, including the large ballroom with its neatly coved ceiling and the wide chimney at the end suitable for a fire- place if any added heat were required to make the dancers merry. Half a wisp of imagination is all that is needed to conjure up a gay ghost scene out of the past with pioneer folk tripping what the poet called the light fantastic. The ballroom, with only one exit, could not meet the safety requirements of our modern Indus- trial Commission; but you can " bet your bottom dollar" that such worries never entered the heart or the head of the young fellow with this invitation1 in his pocket: Open Party At the Okauchee House New Years Eve., December 31st, 1851, at 6 o'clock Your company is respectfully solicited Homer Hurd D. H. Rockwell... Room Managers ... D. Inglesby Tickets $2.00... Music by Carr & Parsons Cotillion Band (Starr's Print, Milw'k) It was the duty of these room or floor managers to quiet any guest who might be inclined to get a bit agog or agrog. The midnight supper was a happier highlight of these dusk-to-dawn balls. The final business at hand meant taking a last look at the smaller rooms on the top floor that were reserved " for the help." Their long hours of labor made a stagecoach stop at the Okauchee comfortable and memorable for every guest. Appropriately enough, a big brass megaphone still hangs on the wall of one side room. The megaphone was used " to call a square dance " or to summon the fishermen from lovely Okauchee Lake. The tarnished megaphone seemed for all the world like the muted harp that hung on Tara's walls with its soul of music fled and leaving only the echo of our footfall as we walked away. Coming out of the Okauchee House and into our age of such modern inconveniences as pre- fabricated houses does somehow make one muse and wonder whether men have not been building in the wrong direction during these last few decades of the years. 1This ticket is copied from an interesting collection gathered by Charles and Ella Hartwell of Okauchee. The Origins of Public Education in Wisconsin

By LLOYD P. JORGENSON

HE ORIGINS of free public education in Wisconsin are to be found in the territorial period. Yet, of all periods, this T has received the least attention. Existing histories of education in Wisconsin contain little more than brief comments on the territorial statutes.1 No attempt has been made to discover the extent and nature of educational activity during the period. The assumption is that little if any progress was made during these years. According to this traditional interpretation, the origins of free public education in Wisconsin are to be found, in large part, in the work of Michael Frank. " Colonel Frank," says one of these writers, " may v/ell be called the Father of the Public School System of Wisconsin/'2 Frank's success in establishing a free public school in Kenosha (then Southport), it is said, served as an example to other communities, and to the members of the constitutional conventions. But this view completely fails to reflect the essential characteristics of the territorial experiment in public education. A somewhat better approach was suggested in 1925 by Joseph Schafer, superintendent of the WISCONSIN STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.3 Schafer's investigations revealed that the public school established in Kenosha in 1845 was short-lived, that there was no

LLOYD P. JORGENSON received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Wisconsin the past June. This paper was read at the 1948 Annual Meeting of the Society held at Milwaukee, August 19-21. *W. C. Whitford, ed., Historical Sketch of Education in Wisconsin (Madison, 1876); J. W. Stearns, ed., The Columbian History of Education in Wisconsin (Milwaukee, 1893); Charles McKenny, ed., Educational History of Wisconsin (Chicago, 1912); Conrad E. Patzer, Public Education in Wisconsin (Madison, 1924). 2 McKenny, Educational History, 27. 3 Joseph Schafer, " Origin of Wisconsin's Free School System," Wisconsin Magazine of History, 9:27-46 (September, 1925). 15 16 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September public school in the village in 1846 and 1847, and that none was permanently established until 1849, after statehood had been achieved.4 While he acknowledged the importance of Michael Frank's work, Schafer suggested that the presence of a large New England element in the territorial population was probably a more significant fact. Many of these people had witnessed the free school movement in the East, and had come to Wisconsin already convinced of the soundness of the idea. But Schafer, somewhat inconsistently it seems, also accepted the traditional view that tax-supported schools were virtually unknown in territorial Wisconsin. In fact, he said, a free school could not have been maintained during this period without special legislative permission. He therefore fell into the error of assuming that the free school idea was adopted rather suddenly in Wisconsin, during the constitutional period, and without any serious struggle. Schafer made many valuable contributions to the history of public education in Wisconsin. But the most significant factor in the origins of our public schools escaped him. That factor is the existence of a strong free school movement during the territorial period. The composition of the territorial population is well known to readers of Wisconsin history. Aside from the early trading posts, the occupation of the territory began in two widely separated areas. Earlier in point of time was the settlement of the Southwest where the attraction, at first, was lead deposits. Soon after, and eventually far greater in numbers, came the settlements along the shore of Lake Michigan. To the lead region came many people from the eastern states and from England, but the southern element remained dominant throughout the territorial period, and society in the mining counties was deeply tinged with southern ideals and habits.5 In the southeast, on the other hand, the settlers were largely from New Eng- land and New York. The influx of these Yankees was of large proportions and very rapid. In 1850 Yankees constituted one-third

4Joseph Schafer, Four Wisconsin Counties, Prairie and Forest (Madison, 1927), 201-2, note 11. 5 Joseph Schafer, The Wisconsin Lead Region (Madison, 1932), 45-46. 1949] ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 17 or more of the total population in fourteen of the state's thirty- one counties.6 In discussing territorial education, we shall first consider legislative activity. The act creating Wisconsin Territory in 1836 provided that the existing laws of the Territory of Michigan should become operative in the new territory.7 As far as school legislation is concerned, this meant very little. An 1827 act requiring that schools be supported by taxation had been made discretionary the following year.8 During the first three years of its existence, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature did almost nothing to promote public education. Its sole gesture in this direction was an act prohibiting trespass on school lands.9 But the 1839-40 session enacted a sweeping measure which, had it remained in effect, would have gone far toward providing for free public tax-supported schools.10 This act of 1840 set up regulations concerning the organization and administration of public schools. But the most striking features of the act were its tax provisions. County commissioners were required to levy a general property tax of two and one-half mills, the proceeds to be used for the erection of schoolhouses and the payment of teachers. The commissioners were to apportion the monies raised by this tax among the school districts within their respective counties. School districts were also given authority to tax, at a rate not exceeding 5 percent. District taxation, however, was discretionary. For its day, this was clearly an advanced measure, and it aroused prompt and formidable opposition. Part of the hostility to the law may have been tied up with opposition to the whole idea of county government, which was strong in the eastern part of the territory.11 H. N. Wells of Milwaukee, a member of the territorial Legislature, favored abolition of the county commissioner system, and the 6Milo M. Quaife, Wisconsin: Its History and Its People (Chicago, 1924), 1:441-55; William F. Raney, Wisconsin: A Story of Progress (New York, 1940), 89-95. 7 United States Statutes at Large, 5:15. 8 Acts of the Territory of Michigan, 1828, p. 60. 0 Wisconsin Territorial Laws, 1836, p. 63. Whitford, in his Education in Wisconsin, 24, describes a lengthy school act which, he says, was passed in 1837, and this account has been followed by many later writers. But no such law appears in the statutes for that year, or for any other year. 10 Territorial Laws, 1839-40, p. 80-84. "Wisconsin Enquirer, March 25, 1840; Southport Telegraph, Nov. 10, 1840. 18 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September

establishment of stronger township government, similar to that of New York.12 But the principal reason for opposition to the school law of 1840 was economic. The act was "unequal and unjust," said a group of Milwaukee county inhabitants, " compelling a man to pay an exorbitant tax on his property/'13 The common school system was undoubtedly defective in many respects, said H. N. Wells, the champion of local government, but perhaps the most serious evil was the " large amount of taxes which districts are permitted to raise for the purpose of erecting school houses." 14 That he was proposing to restrict the very unit which he professed to consider most capable of self-government did not disturb Mr. Wells at all. During the next session of the Legislature, Morgan L. Martin, one of the most influential men in the territory, made a determined effort to reduce the maximum rate of the county tax. Failing to have a maximum of one mill adopted, he proposed a two mill limit. There were many things, explained Martin, for which county taxes had to be levied: payment of county officers, court expenses, and other necessary functions. If VA of 1 percent was to be allowed for schools, and proportional amounts for other things, the tax rate might well rise to 5 percent. But if the school tax was limited to one mill, and other taxes held in proportion, the total would not exceed 1 percent, which, he felt, was as high as it should be.15 Martin may have been the most influential opponent of adequate school taxation, but a majority of the members of both houses shared his views, and the liberal tax provisions of the 1840 act were wiped out. The amended act, approved in 1841, left the rate of the county tax unchanged, but the tax was made discretionary. Considerable as this change was, it was minor when compared to the restrictions placed on the taxing power of school districts. District taxation for the purpose of building schoolhouses was limited to $200 per year. And no district taxation for the payment of teachers' wages was permitted, unless approved by three-fourths of the district voters. Moreover, the qualifications

12 Wisconsin Enquirer, Dec. 12, 1840. 13 Manuscript petition, 1840-41 legislative session. Wisconsin Historical Society Library. 14 Wisconsin Enquirer, Dec. 12, 1840. 13 Ibid., Jan. 16, 1841. 1949} ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 19

for voting were tightened; only freeholders or householders who had paid a county tax within the preceding year could now vote at district meetings.16 An 1842 act restricted district taxation even further.17 If the act of 1840 was too liberal for its day, those of 1841 and 1842 certainly went too far in the other direction, and indications of public discontent were not long in appearing. Several petitions were received by the House and the Council during the 1842-43 session.18 The legislative response to these appeals was of a tem- porizing nature. The limitation of $200 in any one year for building was reaffirmed, but the restriction on district taxation for instructional costs was slightly relaxed. The majority required to levy such a tax was reduced from three-fourths to two-thirds of the district voters.19 In the next session the Legislature relented even further; districts were now authorized to levy a general property tax, to pay for teachers' wages, by a simple majority vote, although such a tax was not to exceed lA of 1 percent.20 But the concession was inadequate; the legislators were now be- sieged with a new kind of request. Many districts were finding it difficult to erect buildings for $200 a year, and they petitioned for permission to levy general property taxes which would raise larger amounts. Three such requests were granted by the 1843-44 session.21 Many of the lawmakers apparently saw trouble on the horizon. A resolution was adopted by both houses directing the committees on schools to inquire into the expediency of amending the law so as to increase the amounts which school districts might raise for building purposes.22 But no action was taken. A bill to provide for the support of common schools, introduced by Michael Frank, was defeated. The opposition to the measure was apparently led by Edward V. Whiton, joined by Morgan L. Martin, Moses M. Strong, and other territorial leaders.23 ^Territorial Laws, 1840-41, p. 2-14. "Ibid., 1841-42, p. 45. 18 Wisconsin Territorial House Journal, 4:1, 86, 93, 144; Wisconsin Territorial Council Journal, 4:1, 90. 19 Territorial Laws, 1842-43, p. 43-45. 20 Ibid., 1843-44, p. 40. 21 Ibid., 5, 50, 58. 22Territorial House Journal, 4:2, 106; Territorial Council Journal, 4:2, 91. 23 Ibid., 159, 206. 20 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September

Meanwhile petitions arrived in ever increasing volume, most of them requesting permission to tax, for the purpose of building, in larger amounts than the $200 allowed by the general law. Five such requests were granted in 1845.24 In addition the town of Southport was granted permission to levy a tax not exceeding $2,000 in any one year for the purpose of financing an entire educational program.25 This was the act introduced by Michael Frank, and upon which his reputation as a pioneer champion of free public school is in part based. In the 1846 session the number of acts granting permission to tax in excess of the amount allowed under the general law rose to nine, and in 1847 fifteen such measures were enacted.26 The last session of the territorial Legislature was held early in 1848. About 160 measures were enacted during the session. Among these were local acts concerning twenty-eight school districts, almost all of them granting permission to levy additional taxes for the purpose of building. The last general school act passed by the territorial Legislature consisted of only one sentence. But, if brief, it was eloquent. It repealed the section of the general school law limiting district taxation for the purpose of building.27 The general trend of territorial legislation on educational matters is therefore clearly discernible. The liberal act of 1840 was followed by the restrictive measures of 1841 and 1842. From that time on, as a result of increasing pressure from local districts, the Legislature gradually relaxed its restrictions until, at the end of the period, local units were free to support schools by taxation, if they wished to do so. But the real story of the origins of free public education in Wisconsin is not to be found in the territorial laws. No fact stands out more clearly than that the free school movement in Wisconsin was a local development. Tax-supported public schools were not created by territorial legislation; it would be much nearer the truth to say that they developed in spite of such legislation.

^Territorial Laws, 1845, p. 22, 77, 92-93, 96. 25 Ibid., 33-34. 28 Ibid., 1846-47, see index. 27 Ibid., 1848, p. 133. 1949] ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 21

There were in the territory, when it was organized in 1836, some twelve or fifteen schools, with an enrollment of possibly 500 students. In 1849, the first full year under the constitution, there were 32,000 pupils in the public schools.28 But there is nowhere to be found, in any historical account, any information as to the number of schools established during the intervening years, or as to the manner of their support. The act of 1841 required the secretary of the territory to submit annually to the Legislature an abstract of the school returns received by him from the county clerks. But the secretary consistently neglected to perform this duty. Finally, in 1846, Michael Frank presented a resolution calling upon the secretary to submit a report, as required, by law.29 This brought the desired results. The secretary submitted abstracts to the 1847 and 1848 sessions, each based on the returns for the preceding year.80 The data contained in these two documents, which have hitherto escaped the attention of historians, completely disprove the traditional view that public education was generally neglected during the territorial period. They establish, instead, the existence of a strong and widespread free school movement. We notice first in these reports the large number of students attending public schools. There were 14,000 in 1846. This com- pares reasonably well with 32,000 during the first year of statehood, when we consider that the population had almost doubled during that period. But of greater interest is the extent to which schools were supported by taxation, or, to be more exact, by public monies, since at least part of the funds classified as tax revenues were derived from leases of school lands. In each report, taxation was listed as the source of about three-fourths of the total amount raised. More important yet, a majority of the towns reporting on this item listed taxation as the sole source of their school funds. It may be objected that some of the funds reported as deriving from taxation might have been produced by rate-bill levies. The rate bill was a tax levied upon parents only, in proportion to the 28 Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 1849, p. 640. 29 Territorial Council Journal, 4:4, 35. 30Ibid., 5:1, 337; 5:2, 352. 22 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September number of children they had in school. But it must be remembered that use of the rate bill was authorized initially only for payment, in part, of the costs of instruction.31 Building costs, a major item during this period of rapid expansion, could be met only by general property taxation. Even limited in this manner, the rate bill had proved, so unpopular, as we have already noted, that the Legis- lature was forced to authorize general property taxation, levied by simple majority vote, to pay for instructional costs. We must therefore conclude that the funds reported as deriving from taxation were, for the most part, the proceeds of general property taxation. The importance which earlier writers have attached to the rate bill as a means of school support in territorial Wisconsin is clearly unwarranted. It should be noted that the information presented in the secretary's reports is incomplete and, in some respects, inaccurate. It is clearly impossible to draw exact conclusions from his reports. But it is equally impossible to avoid the conclusions that a very substantial part of the funds used for the support of common schools was raised by taxation, and that a large number of the schools in the territory were supported by taxation alone. This was at a time when there was no tax support for public education in the village of Southport. The secretary's abstracts give a general idea of the extent of taxation for school support during the territorial period. More exact information could be derived from an examination of local records. This would have to include a representative sampling of all records—county, town, and district—since the law permitted taxation by all units. Adequate county records for such a study are available, but town and district records are exceedingly scarce. It is worthy of mention, however, that the information contained in the small number of district records now available con- firms the picture presented in the secretary's abstract. All of these districts employed general property taxation. One Rock County district voted "to raise a tax in the District as high as the Law will allow." 32 Other school districts in Rock County also levied ^Territorial Laws, 1840-41, p. 12. 32 School District No. 12, Proceedings, Milton, Rock County, 1840-62. This volume is in the possession of Floyd Vincent, Milton Junction, Wisconsin. 1949] ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 23 general property taxes.33 Records are available for three school districts in Jefferson County; all employed general property taxation.34 It is interesting to note that these districts generally required that patrons contribute a certain amount of wood for each child sent to school, and that this practice was sometimes continued after statehood was achieved. But in none of these records is there any indication that the rate bill was used as a method of school support. While we know very little about district taxation, the situation with respect to county taxation is much better. As a result of the work of the Historical Records Survey, the Proceedings of the boards of supervisors for several counties have been made available. The Proceedings for ten counties have been examined for the present study. These may be divided into three groups. The first group consists of four counties as yet sparsely populated, The second group consists of five more populous Yankee counties. The tenth county is that of Grant, in the lead region, where the population was largely of Southern origin. In a few cases the county Proceedings not only record the rate of the school tax levied but also give an account of the distribution of the proceeds of the tax. In considering such data it is helpful to keep in mind that the average annual per pupil cost of maintaining public schools during the early years of statehood ran between two and three dollars.35 The first group of counties consists of St. Croix, Manitowoc, Marquette, and Crawford. With one exception, these counties did very little in the way of school support. In St. Croix County, school taxation was apparently limited to a one mill levy in 1842 for the purpose of building a schoolhouse.36 Manitowoc County did even less. A tax of one-half mill for school buildings was levied in 1843, and in 1847 the county board ordered that all school and road monies in the treasury be used to pay for a bridge.87 Mar- quette County apparently made no provision whatever for the

33 Board of County Supervisors, Proceedings, Rock County, 1846, 1:66-68. 34 School Clerk's Records, Jefferson County, Aztalan, 1844-46; Koshkonong and elsewhere, 1843-89. Wisconsin Historical Society Library. 35 Superintendent of Public Instruction, Report, 1854, p. 94-96. 36 St. Croix. County, Proceedings, July 4, 1842, p. 14. 3T Manitowoc County, Proceedings, July 11, 1843, p. 21; Feb. 20, 1847, p. 45. 24 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September support of schools.38 Crawford County did considerably better, levying a tax regularly from 1843 on. For the last three of these years the rate was one and one-half mills. In 1846 there was $405.74 in the county treasury credited to the account of schools. If we assume, as was true of the territory as a whole, that one out of seven of the Crawford County inhabitants was in school, there would have been about 200 scholars, and an annual per pupil county expenditure of approximately $2.00.39 In the Yankee counties we find a fairly consistent pattern. They generally levied a county tax, as required by law, in 1840. When the law was made discretionary the following year, four of them soon discontinued the levy. Only Dane County continued the tax for any length of time. Racine (then including Kenosha) County levied a two mill school tax in 1840, but county taxes levied thereafter included no provision for school support.40 Fond du Lac County apparently did not levy any school tax in 1840. In 1841 a levy of two and one- half mills for schoolhouses and an additional levy of two and one-half mills for the support of schools were made. Subsequent county taxation contained no provision for school support.41 Rock County levied a two and one-half mill school tax in 1840 and again in 1841, but no county school tax was levied thereafter.42 Walworth County made a two and one-half mill levy in 1840. The following year this was reduced to one mill, and no school tax was levied thereafter.43 Dane County levied a school tax of one mill in 1839 and again in 1840. In 1841 a tax of two and one-half mills was levied for roads and schoolhouses and two mills for the support of

38Marquette County, Proceedings, April 28, 1845, p. 2; July 6, 1846, p. 19; July 5, 1847, p. 38. 39 Crawford County, Proceedings, July 7, 1843, p. 76; July 5, 1844, p. 150; July 8, 1845, p. 204; April 7, 1846, p. 242; July 8, 1846, p. 257; July 7, 1847, p. 513. 40 Racine County, Proceedings, July 29, 1840, p. 74; July 5, 1841, p. 104; Sept. 8, 1843, p. 137; Oct. 5, 1844, p. 150; Oct. 4, 1845, p. 166; Oct. 9, 1846, p. 183; Sept. 13, 1847, p. 195. 41Fond du Lac County, Proceedings, July 5, 1841, p. 15; Sept. 6, 1842, p. 26; Sept. 30, 1844, p. 35; Sept. 29, 1845, p. 41; Sept. 14, 1846, p. 50; Sept. 13, 1847, p. 59. 42 Rock County, Proceedings, July 9, 1840, p. 20; July 6, 1841, p. 35; Sept. 6, 1842, p. 44; Sept. 8, 1843, p. 50; Oct. 2, 1844. p. 56; Oct. 2, 1845, p. 63; Oct. 10, 1846, p. 73; Oct. 12, 1847. p. 83. 43 Walworth County, Proceedings, July 9, 1840, 1:46; July 8, 1841, 1:79; Jan. 6, 1844, 1:179; Jan. 10, 1845, 1:215; Jan. 9, 1846, 2:41; Jan. 8, 1847, 2:115. 1949] ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 25 schools. The same levies were made in 1842. In 1843 a levy of two mills was made for the support of schools and the erection of schoolhouses. In 1844 this levy was increased to two and one- half mills, and in 1845 it went back to two mills. Apparently no county school tax was levied after 1845 although the board of supervisors did make an appropriation for the Madison Academy.44 The per pupil revenue from the 1842 Dane County tax, distributed in the spring of 1843, was $5.35. Although the proceeds of the county tax were larger in succeeding years, the amount per pupil declined because of the very rapid increase in school population. The 1843 tax netted $1.36 per pupil; in 1844 it was $1.51; and in 1845, slightly less than $1.00.45 According to the standards of the day, these county appropriations alone were sufficient to de- fray a large portion of the cost of maintaining public schools. The last county for which Proceedings are available is that of Grant, where the southern influence was very strong. It has generally been assumed that this part of the State lagged far behind in the early development of public education. Indeed, an earlier writer says, these people "had never been accustomed to the northern idea of a free public school system maintained by public taxation. They had consistently opposed any measures looking towards the establishment of such a system until the excitement connected with the adoption of the State constitution seems to have driven from their minds all thought of their former opposition/' 4e What we find in Grant County is therefore surprising, to say the least. As far as county taxation is concerned, Grant County conducted the most consistent and liberal program to be found in the territory. A county tax of two and one-half mills, the maximum permissible under the law, was levied every year throughout the period beginning at least as early as 1839.47 That the proceeds 44 Dane County, Proceedings, July 6, 1839, p. 4; July 11, 1840, p. 18; July 6, 1841, p. 30; July 7, 1842, p. 44; July 5, 1843, p. 70; July 3, 1844, p. 98; July 10, 1845, p. 138; Jan. 7, 1848, p. 195. *>lbid., May 3, 1843, p. 63; April 2, 1844, p. 92; April 8, 1845, p. 128; April 6, 1846, p. 155. 46McKenny, Educational History, 28. 47 Grant County, Proceedings, April 9, 1840, 1:71; July 6, 1841, 1:129; July 7, 1842, 1:207; July 4, 1843, 1:263; July 3, 1844, 1:325; July 9, 1845, 1:368; July 8, 1846, 2:43; July 8, 1847, 2:102. 26 LLOYD P. JORGENSON [September from this county tax alone went far toward providing the basis for an adequate school program may be judged from the fact that the per pupil distribution in 1840 was $3.25.48 The distribution is not recorded for any other year. But county taxation was not the only source of revenue for Grant County schools. The number of districts in this county which requested and received legislative permission to tax, for the purpose of building, in excess of the $200 authorized under the general law, was all out of proportion to the population of the county. Roughly one-twelfth of the territorial population in 1846 lived in Grant County. But almost one-third of the fifty-three legislative enactments authorizing additional taxation during the years 1843-48 were made for Grant County districts.49 Moreover, according to the 1847 school report of the secretary of the territory, the amount expended here for schools was larger than that reported by any other county. It was not only the Yankees, therefore, who were interested in public education. There is a distinct possibility that the free school movement was further advanced in Grant County than anywhere else in the territory. If this was the case, probably one reason was that the mining counties had been settled earlier. The occupants had built their homes and their roads and were ready to give more attention to schools, while the southeast was still in the process of settlement. Because of the lack, at present, of adequate town and district records, it is impossible to determine accurately which type of taxation—county, town, or district—was the principal source of school support. No doubt this differed in various parts of the territory. We know that there were many public tax-supported schools in the Yankee counties. And since most of these counties did not levy any county school tax after 1841 or 1842, we must conclude that schools here were supported, in large part, by town and district taxation. In Grant County, on the other hand, we know that there was county school taxation, and it appears that district taxation was also common.

**Ibid., April 9, 1840, 1:71. 49 Territorial Laws, 1843-48, see index. 1949] ORIGINS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 27

No doubt there are enough town and district records in existence to complete our understanding of school support in the territory—if only they could be found. The location and study of such records would be a valuable addition to the history of education in Wisconsin. Such studies could probably best be made on a local basis. Grant County and one or two of the Yankee counties would be the logical choices. While the data available at present are rather fragmentary, they are nevertheless sufficient to warrant certain general conclusions. First, and certainly most important, is the fact that there was a strong free school movement in territorial Wisconsin. The here- tofore accepted idea that public education was "strenuously opposed up to the time of the adoption of the constitution " and then suddenly instituted " almost without opposition"50 is totally erroneous. The free school movement was not the work of any one man or group of men, nor was it limited to any one part of Wisconsin. The hundreds of public schools, scattered throughout the territory, appeared in response to these local demands. All the territorial Legislature did, aside from the short-lived act of 1840, was to hamper local units in their efforts to provide educational opportunities. The constitution did not, therefore, at one mighty stroke, establish a system of free public schools. What it did, rather, was to extend and consolidate a movement which had been under way for several years. 60 McKenny, Educational History, 28. The Milwaukee Cement Company

By HOWARD GREENE and WILLIAM T. BERTHELET

NE DAY in the year 1873 Joseph R. Berthelet, Sr. of Mil- waukee noticed some samples of rock on display in the O city engineer's office. The rock had been excavated in constructing caissons for piers at the bridge the city was building across the Milwaukee River at North Avenue. To most men there was nothing unusual about the rock specimens but Berthelet, a manufacturer of cement sewer pipe, immediately recognized their similarity to a peculiar limestone he had often seen at cement mills at Louisville, Kentucky. Quietly he went out to North Avenue and gathered up some pieces of the rock. Without divulging his suspicions to anyone, he took these samples of rock home and burned or calcined them in his kitchen stove. After burning to the degree he had seen the rock subjected to at Louisville, he ground the softened stone to a powder in a druggist's mortar. To the powder he added water to form a plastic mass. This he formed into small balls the size of marbles, and small pats or cakes, leaving some exposed to the air, and dropping others in water. Then he went to bed. The next morning with keen anxiety and hope he inspected the result of his experiment and found that what the night before were soft balls and cakes were now all as hard as stone, even those immersed in water. He realized he had found a valuable raw material for the manufacture of natural hydraulic cement. Most cement used at that time was what is called "natural" cement, a product of a certain type of limestone with a high clay

ON LEAVING school in 1886 Mr. W. T. Berthelet worked for the Milwaukee Cement Company and as officer and manager continued his association with it until its liquidation in 1946. COLONEL HOWARD GREENE, who served the company as director and president, collaborated with Mr. Berthelet in preparing the sketch of the company's history. Miss Alice E. Smith of the Society's staff gave valuable assistance in writing the article. 28 MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 29 content. When this rock was burned to a semi-soft texture, ground, and mixed with water, it would result in a product more permanent than the original limestone. Deposits of the special variety of limestone needed to produce this "natural" cement were not numerous. In New York State were the famous Rosendale quarries on the banks of the Hudson. None were nearer to Milwaukee than the deposits at Utica, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky. From the mills at the latter place Berthelet purchased most of the cement needed for making cement pipe in the Milwaukee factory, and on his frequent visits to the Louisville plant he learned to know the limestone in its unworked state as well as the steps in the manufacture of cement. This knowledge was to be the making of his fortune. The next question was where to find a deposit of the rock being excavated at the North Avenue bridge. There was no use looking for it in the city that extended miles to the south of North Avenue, nor beyond the west side of the city where there were quarries of the hard Niagara limestone. Mr. Berthelet began taking trips with his horse and buggy. At one point on the lake- shore where the present East Capitol Drive intersected Lake Shore Road there was an outcrop of the same rock, but it was under water and the development of a quarry would necessitate an extensive breakwater construction and tunneling under the high, steep lake shore bank. Under such conditions the development of a plant would be prohibitive, even though the material was found in quantity. At last on the bank of the Milwaukee River where it bends southward above the Humboldt bridge, Mr. Berthelet found an extended outcrop of the rock he was seeking. The banks of the river at that point were low, and the possibility of the development of a quarry was promising. More burning of rock specimens, more tests under water, and the result was that Mr. Berthelet was convinced he had hit upon a rock which would produce a natural cement. Mr. Berthelet had made the discovery and done the crude laboratory work of demonstrating a true hydraulic lime rock, but 30 H. GREENE AND W. T. BERTHELET [September the development of a plant required a large capital for what might be considered a somewhat speculative venture. He confided the story of his discovery to his brother Henry who was also his business partner. Four years earlier the two Berthelets had opened a factory for the manufacture of cement sewer pipe with an office at 152 West Water Street where Gimbel's Department Store now stands. He also revealed the news of his discovery to two neighbors, George H. Paul, a man of position and influence, and C. H. Orton, a druggist much given to experimental work, and to John Johnston, at that time the cashier of the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company Bank (the "Mitchell Bank"). In this informal way the Milwaukee Cement Company was born.1 Before organizing the company a sizable test kiln was built, and the cement subjected to all the tests known. Analyses of the rock and the resultant cement were made by leading chemists of Mil- waukee and other cities. The rock proved to be an argillaceous limestone of the Hamiltonian Group, differing in chemical composition from the limestone found in other parts of Wisconsin. Tests made in the several laboratories confirmed the crude tests made by Mr. Berthelet in the family cookstove. This cement was of high quality and compared favorably with the Louisville, Rosen- dale, and Utica cements of long-established reputations. The next problem was to secure title to the land along the river where the outcrop of the rock appeared. This was to assure ample raw material as well as to protect against possible competition. The low-lying meadow on the east side of the river where the outcrop occurred had little farming value. The associates individually commenced negotiations for its purchase and in due time secured most of the land on that side between the Humboldt and Port Washington Road bridges, giving them a riparian right in the bed of the river. As an added safeguard, they also bought a one-inch strip for a distance of several hundred feet above the Port Washington bridge on the same side. The next step was the organization of a company to carry on the work of constructing the mills and kilns for the manufacture of 1A collection of records, maps, and pictures of the company is in the State Historical Society Library. 1949} MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 31 the cement on a commercial basis. On November 25, 1875, the State of Wisconsin granted a charter to the Milwaukee Cement Company. Its capital stock was $350,000 divided into 3,500 shares of $100 each. The land previously purchased by the several individuals was turned into the company for stock at a value agreed upon, and a working capital secured through the sale of 600 shares of stock to others. The original directors and officers2 were as follows: J. R. Berthelet, Sr., President 700 Shares George H. Paul, Vice-President 450 John Johnston, Treasurer 700 D. J. Paul, Secretary H. Berthelet 700 " C. H. Orton 350

2900 " Construction started in the spring of 1876. Joseph R. Ber- thelet, Jr. left his government position with the Fox-Wisconsin River Improvement project to take charge, and later was made superintendent of manufacture. In the fall the first carload of cement was ready for shipment. The Chicago and North Western Railway built a spur track into the mills on a right-of-way granted by the cement company. The initial capacity of the plant was about 100 barrels per day, but the demand increased rapidly and additional kilns were built each succeeding year until the capacity of the mill reached 2,000 barrels per day. For the first cement placed on the market the selling price was fixed by the Board of Directors at $1.50 per barrel when sold in barrels, and $1.20 per barrel in bags. These prices were reduced from time to time to meet the competition in the Milwaukee and other markets. The company prospered financially from the beginning, as is evidenced by the payment to the stockholders of a dividend of 8 percent on its capital stock from the earnings of 1877. For years annual dividends of from 7 to 10 percent were paid.

2 The stockholders as of January 9, 1879 were: A. C. Allen George H. Paul J. M. K. Davis D. J. Whittemore W. P. McLaren H. Berthelet F. F. Riedell J. R. Berthelet, Sr. Guido Pfister 32 H. GREENE AND W. T. BERTHELET [September

Milwaukee was of course the best market for the cement. To dealers in building materials in every part of the city it had the advantage of being readily available, costing them only the switching charge from the mills in contrast with high freight rates added to the price of other cements. But the market was by no means limited to the city of Milwaukee. Exclusive selling agencies were established in Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Saginaw, Omaha, Kansas City, and St. Joseph, Mis- souri. The territory served by the company ultimately extended from Detroit and Cleveland in the East to Kansas City and Denver in the West. As the years advanced, the fast-growing business adopted improvements and made changes. Up to 1879 the only communication between the city office and the mill, a distance of five miles, was by horse and buggy. The telephone was then in its infancy and only a few were in use in Milwaukee. To speed up communication, the company installed a private line from its office to its plant. Another novelty, electric lighting, was introduced in 1886 in the tunnels that extended back under the bluffs. Workers in the quarries and the mills had originally been found on near-by farms, but as this source of supply dwindled, transient laborers were employed and a boardinghouse was established for them on the grounds. Mounting receipts and the widening territory served by the company's sales force suggested the advisability of expanded production. A tract of land across the river owned by the J. J. Orton Estate was deemed the most desirable location for a new mill. Negotiations were started with Ephraim Mariner, legal representative of the Orton Estate. It was then found that the estate through Mr. Mariner had already received a proposition from the Hadfield Company of Waukesha for that purpose, but fortunately had not accepted. The Milwaukee Cement Company was determined to secure the property and therefore decided to offer 50 percent more than the highest bid the estate had received from any other source. F. A. Hinman F. N. Merrill M. P. Jewett John Johnston J.P.Ryan D.J.Paul C. H. Orton Sarah J. Hearding W. H. Hearding 1949] MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 33

This was too much for the Hadfield Company and finally resulted in a lease to the Milwaukee Cement Company of the ground and a grant of quarry rights on a royalty basis. Later the company bought the entire Orton property previously under lease, thus extending its holdings from bridge to bridge, a distance of about a mile and a half. The new mill was begun in 1887 with the expenditure of approximately $125,000. Like the first mill, it had a 2,000 barrel daily capacity and was constructed so as to utilize the latest improvements in the art of rock milling. The success of the Milwaukee Cement Company was bound to inspire rivalries. Up to 1889 it was the only producer of cement in Wisconsin and one of the largest in the country. Its nearest competitor was at Utica, Illinois, where several mills were located. About this time competition developed adjoining the company's property on the north side of the river. George Brumder organized the Cream City Cement Company and built a small mill. The company operated for only a few years. It was not a financial success but its presence was a disturbing factor in the market. In 1894 it sold out to the Milwaukee Company. The plant was wrecked and the tunnels abandoned. A few years later another company known as the Consolidated Cement Company put up a mill in what is now known as Fox Point on the Lake Michigan shore. As the outcrop of limestone was below lake level, they had to tunnel under the bluff for their rock. This method proved very expensive and their operations were short lived. They abandoned the manufacture of cement and converted the plant to the making of brick. This also proved a failure, and the plant was finally dismantled. After Mill No. 2 was built, the Board of Directors started to hold their midsummer meetings under the trees on company property. The directors' customary fees were spent on elaborate champagne lunches. After lunch the mills and quarries were inspected, and the formal meeting took place. The Milwaukee Cement Company started out as a purely Milwaukee-managed concern, and despite changes in its directorate from time to time, it continued so to the end. The first break 34 H. GREENE AND W. T. BERTHELET [September occurred in 1876, only one year after incorporation. According to the company record, in that year Dr. C. H. Orton "left for parts unknown." His departure left a vacancy on the Board of Directors which was filled by the election of Don J. Whittemore, chief engineer of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad. Another change came about as a result of a long chain of circumstances. One day a gentleman from the East by the name of Huxley arrived in Milwaukee and tried to interest the company in a new milling device known as the Sturtevant Mill. French burrstones, similar to the type used for generations in flour mills, were successfully used to pulverize the burned rock to cement fineness. No change in the process seemed necessary, but the stranger's affable and persuasive manner induced the company to investigate the merits of the Sturtevant process. An agreement was finally reached whereby he would install the machine in Mill No. 1 under a guarantee that if it did not grind the calcined rock to the necessary fineness, he would remove the machine without cost to the company. After several months of experiments, the mill failed to reduce the product to a uniform fineness, and the new process machine was removed. During Mr. Huxley's stay in Milwaukee and at the mills, he had become familiar with the process of manufacture and sale of Milwaukee cement and the company's substantial profits. He conceived the idea of getting control of the company by securing options on the stock. To do this, help from within was needed. Mr. Huxley found his helper in the person of George H. Paul, one of the trusted founders of the company and superintendent of sales. For many years after the organization of the company Mr. Paul had been its chief business-getting factor at the city office on West Water Street. In earlier life he had been editor of a Demo- cratic paper in Milwaukee and before that, postmaster in Kenosha during the Buchanan administration. The election of Mr. Cleve- land as president in 1884 brought to Mr. Paul the postmastership at Milwaukee, a position of power and influence.3

3 For a more extended biographical sketch of Paul and an account of his public services as Wisconsin railroad commissioner, and in other connections, see Jerome A. Watrous, ed.t Memoirs of Milwaukee County (2 vols., Madison, 1909), 1:138-40. 1949} MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 35

Mr. Paul was a short man with a squat, barrel-shaped figure, and bright pink cheeks. When enswathed in a Prince Albert coat, topped off by a silk hat, and carrying as a staff his gold-headed cane, he was a person of gracious dignity and someone to behold as he majestically descended the steps of the Federal building. With his assumption of public service Mr. Paul had been obliged to drop his position with the Cement Company, and it was filled by a young man, George S. Bartlett. But party supremacy was short-lived, and with the coming of the Harrison administration a Republican postmaster was appointed, leaving Mr. Paul un- employed. It was hardly fortuitous that he and Mr. Huxley should get together and, flattering themselves and each other, evolve a plan of acquiring not one, but several cement plants, and thereby exert a powerful influence in the market. The keystone of the arch to this paper structure was the plant on the Milwaukee River, and they estimated that they could pay a very substantial price for a majority of the stock. As for minority holders, let them take their chances. There was no active market for the stock. Occasionally when shares were offered, they sold at about $135. A majority of stock was closely held by directors and their friends who were loath to sell, but the price offered by Mr. Paul, $168.50 a share, less 5 percent commission, was so greatly in excess of fair value that it looked attractive. Going from one to another, presenting the sale favorably, he won over most or all of the directors, but with their verbal condition that the option should remain in Mr. Paul's hands until ALL of the shareholders had been given an opportunity to sell their holdings at the same price. To the astonishment of those who had signed the option agreement, that instrument was assigned and delivered to one F. A. Bishop of Chicago who appeared in Milwaukee and called for delivery under the contract. There were hurried meetings and counsel with attorneys. To refuse to deliver would probably bring on an expensive litigation for damages, and the case was none too strong for the signers of the option had to establish that there was a verbal condition con- stituting an escrow deposit of the option with Paul. The final decision was to serve on Bishop a revocation of option. A suit was 36 H. GREENE AND W. T. BERTHELET [September instituted against Thomas A. Greene, and the case, in view of the amount involved and the prominence of the parties concerned, aroused considerable public curiosity and interest. The company agreed to assume the expense of litigation as the outcome affected all shareholders. The defense was ably presented by General F. C. Winkler, who maintained that the option was given Paul in escrow and fraudulently delivered to Bishop. The defense called for a special verdict by which the jury was required to answer seventeen specific questions. The purpose of the special verdict was that should the jury give contrary findings to some of the questions, an appeal could be made to the higher court. All the defendants' witnesses were clear in their testimony as to the verbal condition, and the jury returned consistent answers to the several questions. The verdict was against Bishop and there the litigation ended, but with Paul in disgrace as to his part in the scheme. Thereafter, to forestall any possible attempts to manipulate the stock, a majority of it was transferred to voting trustees, all of whom were members of the board. The trustees issued trustees* certificates which were bought and sold as freely as the old ones. This trusteeship was still in force at the time of the company's final liquidation. Mr) Paul sold his own stock, bought into a cement manufacturing company in Kansas and moved to Kansas City. He was very definitely out of Milwaukee. Thomas A. Greene's association with the company had begun a number of years before the Huxley-Paul-Bishop episode. He was an old Milwaukeean, well and favorably known as a merchant and businessman and much given to scientific study in his leisure hours. In boyhood he had studied rock formations in his native Rhode Island. He had more than an ordinary knowledge of botany, but his chief interest for years had been in mineralogy and in the last fifteen years or so of his life, while enjoying some leisure for scientific studies, he had made large collections of fossil remains from quarries in the suburbs of Milwaukee. With his friend Increase A. Lapham he had investigated a small saline formation which contained no fossil remains, and they had known of the out- 1949] MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 37 crop of this Devonian rock on the river and along the lake shore. He wanted to see what fossils he could find in the Cement Company's quarries which were exposing deeper strata. Visitors are not wel- come guests at quarries for not only are they in the way of quarry men but there is a possible danger from loose or falling rock. But Mr. Paul graciously consented to Mr. Greene's explorations, giving him letters to Mr. Berthelet, Jr., the operating head at the works. Mr. Berthelet passed word to the men to save what specimens they found, and for many years thereafter he had almost a collector's monopoly at that plant.4 It was because of Mr. Greene's interest in the quarry and his friendship with the Berthelets that he bought a small amount of stock in the company. It was later increased, and he became a member of the board and vice-president. Upon his death in 1894 he was succeeded in the directorship by his son Howard Greene. J. R. Berthelet, Jr. was elected director to succeed Mr. Paul, and continued in office until 1909 when he resigned as president, director, and superintendent of manufacture. At the same meeting his son, W. T. Berthelet who had entered the company's services in 1886, was elected a director and secretary-treasurer and manager, and held these offices until the company was liquidated. After the failure of the Sturtevant Mill, Joseph Berthelet continued experiments to solve the problem of screening cement other than by bolting through fifty mesh wire screens. Finally he found a very cheap and efficient method which increased the capacity of the mills by 20 percent and at a nominal cost of installation and maintenance. His invention proved so successful that he applied for a patent which was granted him on July 26, 1892, under Letters Patent No. 479,617, a "separator for crushed cement." He granted a license to the Milwaukee Cement Company to use the device without cost, and installed it in cement mills throughout

4 The paleontology of that quarry consists of seashore shells on the upper strata, but below were primordial fish remains. Mr. Greene's collection was unique as there are now no open quarries where such remains might be found. After Mr. Greene's death his extensive collection in mineralogy and paleontology was given to the Greene Memorial Museum, of Milwaukee-Downer College. 38 H. GREENE AND W. T. BERTHELET [September the country, as well as in plants manufacturing other finely ground materials. Another member of the company, Henry Campbell, its chief engineer, developed and improved a kiln which increased capacity by incorporating a series of grates in the bottom or eye of the kiln. This too was very successful, and all the kilns were re- modeled. Mr. Campbell was granted a patent on his device on December 30, 1897, Patent No. 591,897. Just when the company was at the height of its activity something occurred that sounded the death knell of the natural cement industry. The rotary kiln was invented. Through its use, what is known as Portland cement could be produced at low cost from various types of material. Portland cement develops its early strength much sooner than natural cement, and also withstands climatic conditions much better. Its volume is denser, a barrel of Portland cement weighing 380 pounds, whereas natural cement weighs only 265 pounds. These factors made Portland cement available for many new uses, and as the development of its manufacture in this country increased, it gradually superseded the use of natural cement. The Milwaukee Company, like other competitive brands in this country, curtailed its output and at last discontinued manufacture. During this period of curtailment the company took up the distribution of Portland cement and in 1907 secured the agency of the Newaygo brand. This added volume of business made it possible to continue the manufacture of Milwaukee cement on a small scale for a few years more, but in 1911 production was entirely suspended. The history of the company after it ceased to manufacture cement can be briefly told. For a while it served as a distributor of Portland cement, handling a general line of other building materials as well. The two mills, leased to a company for the manufacture of silica products, burned in the years 1910 and 1914. After the fires, the kilns were wrecked and the salvaged scrap iron and brick were sold. From that time on the company concentrated on 1949] MILWAUKEE CEMENT COMPANY 39 disposing of its real estate holdings. The property consisted of about 350 acres lying on both sides of the Milwaukee River between the present Capitol Drive and Port Washington bridges. It was well situated for parks or industrial plants. Two main railroad lines, with private rights-of-way, ran through the property, guaranteeing freight service to prospective purchasers. In June, 1916, Milwaukee County bought a large block of land on the east side of the river between the two bridges and established Estabrook Park, the first unit in the county's elaborate system of parks. In the prohibition era a large area was purchased by the Uihleins for candy factories, a short-lived enterprise. The remaining tracts went in smaller lots to private manufacturing plants and, in World War II, to the Federal government. The final sale took place in January, 1946. The Manitowoc County Historical Society

By RALPH G. PLUMB

APPRECIATION of their past was always present in the minds of Manitowoc County citizens. The newspapers A often published reminiscences of pioneers, and on Janu- ary 16, 1879, at the behest of the founders of Two Rivers, H. H. Smith, J. D. Markham, P. P. Smith, and others, a call was issued for the creation of an Old Settlers Society whose purpose was to keep alive the spirit of the early days. P. P. Smith, one of the old- est surviving settlers of Manitowoc, was chosen president; W. W. Bach, representing the German pioneers, was made secretary. A banquet was arranged for the succeeding February, and two or three vice-presidents from each township in the county were appointed. The banquet was held and speeches made but, despite this real effort at organization, no further meetings of the group were held. One of Manitowoc's leading citizens, Judge Emil Baensch who had served as Wisconsin's lieutenant governor had always taken an active interest in historical matters and was soon to be elected as curator of the State Society. He had done much work in tracing the ancestry of German Americans, and in 1906 urged the formation of a county historical group. As an attorney he saw to it that upon organization the Manitowoc County Historical Society was incorporated, and thus its career of usefulness was started. Among the organizers were the following: Judge Baensch, who became president, and Ralph G. Plumb, secretary; John Schuette, the leading banker in town; J. S. Anderson, an attorney; Fred Christiansen, county superintendent; Dr. W. G. Kemper, mayor at about this time; W. F. Nash, a Two Rivers editor; and Dr.

RALPH G. PLUMB, a curator of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, has been associated with the Manitowoc County Historical Society since its beginnings. The maritime collection in its museum is the pride of the local society. The variety of activity participated in by the members should be of assistance in planning the programs of similar organizations. 40 RAHR CIVIC CENTER Contains Society's Museum Exhibits

MANITOWOC COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 41

Louis Falge, an indefatigable collector of Indian relics, who later became the author of a history of Manitowoc County. Meetings were held at the call of the president, and many interesting programs were given. Memorable was the presentation to the society of the flag of Company A Fifth Wisconsin Infantry by Judge J. S. Anderson that had been borne through the early days of the Civil War until captured by a South Carolina regi- ment. A local judge visited the Philadelphia Centennial Ex- position in 1876, came in contact with the southerners who had the flag, and recovered and brought it to Manitowoc. The symbol, the handiwork of Manitowoc women in the spring of 1861, had been given to Captain Temple Clark at a gathering in Union Park in April of that year. The surviving members of the G.A.R. were guests and listened to Judge Anderson's address. The flag now holds an honored place in the society's museum war room. Lake history was discussed by such veteran skippers as Captains Edward Cams and Timothy Kelley. Early politics was the subject of an evening study led by the secretary. The first public gathering sponsored by the society was the dedication of the monument to Chief Mexico (Waumegesako) held at the first county seat, Man- itowoc Rapids, on Sunday, August 8, 1909. The little village was crowded with visitors when the memorial was dedicated, the gift of a local marble dealer, Nic. Kettenhoffen. The meeting was pre- sided over by Judge Baensch; the statue was presented on behalf of the donor by the secretary and received on behalf of the township by the chairman, Emil Vetting, and on behalf of the school district by E. S. Bedell. President Otto Habhegger of the Wis- consin Archeological Society delivered a short address, and then Secretary Reuben G. Thwaites of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY gave one of his usual happy talks. The statue, 18 by 18 feet, with a copper plate attached, had inscribed upon it the old chief's name and the words, "Peace and Friendship." This memorial is a tribute to a friend of the white man, to the chief who had signed the treaties of Butte des Morts, 1827, Green Bay, 1828, Prairie du Chien, 1829, and Chicago, 1833. He died in 1844, aged about fifty-five years. His son, Benjamin Y. Mexico, was unable to be 42 RALPH G. PLUMB [September present, but arrived some days later and was entertained by the members of the society. However, in the gathering that Sunday was one person who had known the old chief, Harvey F. Hubbard. Serving as vice-president of the county society was Henry P. Hamilton of Two Rivers, whose magnificent collection of Indian coppers and implements was destined finally to repose at the Historical Museum at Madison. When the State Archeological Society met in conjunction with the local members of the county historical society in 1912, a pilgrimage to Two Rivers was made to inspect this collection. At this time the principal address was delivered by Dr. Kinsman of Benton Harbor, then recognized as a national authority on prehistoric remains. During these earlier years addresses of interest were delivered at regular meetings of the local group by John Schuette, who dealt with early civic movements; Dr. Falge, who talked on early medical experiences and also on Indian relics; by Henry Mulholland, who spoke of the early days in the Irish settlement in the town of Meeme; and by J. S. Anderson of the G.A.R., who told of his visit at Gettysburg and of the experiences of the Man- itowoc boys in that battle. After some years Judge Baensch relinquished the presidency, and the group chose Secretary R. G. Plumb to preside with Harry F. Kelley as secretary. It was about this time that the marker was erected, and a dedication ceremony observed one Sunday afternoon at Jambeau Creek, in the township of Gibson, the site of the earliest French trading post of Jacques Vieau, supposedly erected in 1795. The society also participated in the erection of a monument in the courthouse grounds commemorating the deeds of General Frederick Salomon and his two officer brothers. Then, too, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first meeting of the county board was held in 1923 at the old courthouse grounds at the Rapids, with addresses by Judge Baensch and A. J. Schmitz, onetime candidate for governor on the Democratic ticket and a former resident of Manitowoc. There was a period of inactivity for a year or two, after which Earl Tower was chosen president and served till his removal from the city. In the meantime John G. Johnson had taken an interest 1949} MANITOWOC COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 43 under the auspices of the Knights of Pythias in erecting historical markers in the city commemorating the deeds of prominent early settlers, such as Colonel K. K. Jones, on the site of the free library he had founded; John Schuette, the pioneer banker, at Schuette Park; Henry Stolze, the mayor who had accomplished the purchase of public utilities; William Rahr, also onetime mayor and leading industrialist, and others. This work naturally led to Mr. Johnson's election in 1935 to the president's chair in the society, an office to which he has devoted endless effort and which he has occupied ever since. There had been gathered a few museum items in a small room in the second story of the city library; under his guidance this was increased until the entire second floor was occupied. More material was offered and collected throughout the county by his constant labors and it was a happy circumstance that prompted Mrs. Rein- hardt Rahr to offer her commodious residence on North Eighth Street. This was opened up in the early forties, and during the war was shared with the Red Cross. With the assistance of Captain Ed Cams, Edwin Schuette, and other marine-minded individuals the exhibit of historical maritime items occupied five rooms. It is pronounced by those qualified to judge as one of the best west of Cleveland. A war room was set aside, and the remaining rooms in the three-story building utilized for other exhibits which were properly catalogued and classified. The activity of the society, however, was not confined to the museum in these later years. President Johnson continued his effort to have markers placed at various points in the county, particularly at the site of the early courthouse at Rapids. He was associated also in the erection of the monument to the editor and educator, John Nagle, at the dedication of which the orator was none other than Senator Walsh of Montana, a former student of the man honored. On May 5, 1936, citizens gathered as guests of the society and of the Daughters of the American Revolution at the foot of North Seventh Street to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the landing of the first settlers who built their little shack at that exact point. Four years later the society held another 44 RALPH G. PLUMB meeting at the same place to unveil a large stone boulder to permanently mark the spot. The year 1936 also marked the larger undertakings of centenary observance. President Johnson had charge of the civic committee which planned the pageant held at the county fairgrounds and the parade, the water carnival, and other events which were witnessed by many thousands. At the Rapids the residents again congregated to have their own celebra- tion, and were addressed by Judge E. S. Schmitz, and others. Not long afterwards the society placed plaques in both Union and Washington Parks commemorating the original gifts of the land by Benjamin Jones, the founder of Manitowoc, the ceremony taking place on the morning of the Fourth of July. At the annual meeting at the museum in 1944 and 1945 the matter of inviting the State Society to hold its annual gathering at Manitowoc was broached. Because of war conditions this was postponed until 1947 when the invitation was accepted and the August meeting, with its varied and memorable features, was the result. It so happened that it coincided with a hundred years of progress in the shipbuilding and malting industries in the community, and President Johnson had proposed that this be made a civic observance. This was carried out with Albert E. Cole as chairman. During the years of the presidency of Mr. Johnson the secretary- ship was held by Percy Brandt and then by Miss Elsa L. Dramm. An advisory committee consisting of Judge Albert Schmidt, Harry F. Kelly, and R. G. Plumb has also been active with the honorary vice-presidents from various villages throughout the county serving on the board. Henry C. Wilke, a Two Rivers banker, has held the office of vice-president through most of the recent years. Thus during the course of a half century the Manitowoc County Historical Society has been a leader in bringing about most of the civic movements commemorating the past and has been an active participant in all of them. All through the years the society has been building up its museum and receiving in this and in its other activities the active cooperation of the State Society. Enactment of the Potter Law

By ROBERT T. DALAND

HE LEGISLATURE of Wisconsin enacted the Potter Law during the session of 1874. The law sought to regulate various Trailroad practices, including the rates charged. By some historians, this law has been characterized as "Granger Legisla- tion." Others allege that it was written or supported by the railroads for the purpose of preventing the enactment of any railroad legislation at all, on the theory that the act was so extreme that it would not only fail, but would carry similar measures down with it. Let us examine the circumstances surrounding passage of the Potter bill in an attempt to determine exactly what forces contributed to its enactment. By 1874 the railroad network blanketed Wisconsin. The voices which, twenty years before, had been calling for government to encourage railroads, were now equally persistent in their demands for state regulation. They1 claimed fraud in the financing of the railroad companies together with discrimination against shippers and exorbitant rates. The railroads, on the other hand, suggested that the high rates were due to unusually high operating costs here in the far West, and that fraud and corruption were charges ap- plicable only to previous owners. The business panic of 1873 increased the need for a solution to the railroad problem. But there were political, as well as economic factors which affected the enactment of the Potter Law. Governor Washburn, a Republican, had just been defeated by William R. Taylor, a Democrat, who had been elected on a platform of reform. Though the Democrats controlled the assembly by a substantial majority, the presence of holdover senators left the

ROBERT T. DALAND, Milton, a graduate student in political science at the University of Wisconsin, 1948-49, prepared this paper for the Society's 1948 Annual Meeting held at Milwaukee, August 19-21. 45 46 ROBERT T. DALAND [September

senate in control of the Republican Party. The population of Wis- consin was composed largely of farmers, who had been particularly hard hit with the coming of the depression. They had at their disposal, however, a strong pressure group in the form of the recently organized Grange which had grown tremendously in the past two years. Despite a provision in the constitution of the Grange banning political activity, the Grange unofficially formed an alliance with the Democratic Party which elected a large number of Democratic-Reform candidates who took their seats in the Wisconsin Legislature. The two groups had a joint platform as well as a joint ticket. The political activity of the Grangers was but one of the in- fluences which helped elect a reform governor and a reform assembly. Others were the anti-Republican attitude of the liquor interests who sought repeal of the Graham Law, and the support of Taylor's candidacy by the railroads in order to defeat Governor Washburn who was not considered their friend.1 After the election, the Grange continued its political pressure campaign. The Grange railroad program was urged on the Legislature through resolutions of the State Grange which were adopted at its annual meeting.2 Governor Taylor was expected to cooperate with the Grangers. He was himself a farmer. He had been president of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, and was himself an active member of the Grange.3 In his first annual message to the Legislature Governor Taylor took a firm stand that railroads should be controlled. In addition he enumerated a ten-point program of railroad legislation.4 This included the prevention of discrimination among shippers, the classification of freight, and rates and fares which would be subject to revision and modification by state authority. The message reflected every major point of the Granger program and carried it a step farther by going into detail.

1 Henry C. Campbell, Wisconsin in Three Centuries, 1634-1905 (4 vols., New York [1906], 4:105. 2 Wisconsin State Grange, Proceedings, 1874, p. 7. s Milwaukee News, July 23, 1873. 4 Western Farmer, Jan. 17, 1874. 1949] POTTER LAW ENACTMENT 47

The Democratic-Reform group was not alone in advocating railroad regulation. The Republicans were even more specific in their platform which urged: ... the creation of a Board of Railroad Control, whose duty it shall be to examine the whole subject of transportation and freights, and report the facts in relation thereto, and prescribe and adjust such regulations as will be fair and equitable both to the people and the railway companies. ... We claim, nevertheless, the right under our constitution to regulate their conduct, or, if necessary, to repeal the charters under which they exist.5 To these seemingly overwhelming pro-regulation forces, the railroads were opposed. The Legislature of 1874 first met on January 14. The two protagonists of railroad regulation lost no time in getting their programs before the Legislature in the form of bills. A joint select committee on railroad tariff and taxation was appointed in Janu- ary.6 This committee recommended a bill which did not specifically set rates, but which provided for maximum rates which would be those of June, 1872. On February 6 Assemblyman Francis H. West, Liberal Republican, introduced into that body a bill which defined maximum railway rates in specific terms. The select committee report had been submitted on February 17. Ten days before, another bill had been introduced into the senate by R. L. D. Potter, Republican senator from Waushara County. This was the bill which became notorious after its enactment as the " Potter Law." 7 Authorship of the Potter bill is in doubt. One view holds that the railroads wrote the bill, making it so bad that it couldn't possibly pass, but would at the same time deadlock the Legislature so that no legislation at all would be enacted. On the other hand, it is possible that Potter sincerely favored his bill. During the spirited attack on the bill by senate Democrats, no charge that the railroads authored the Potter bill was made. In fact, Senator Burchard charged that Potter himself wrote it, and that, furthermore, Potter was a man of little experience in the

5 American Annual Cyclopedia, 1873, p. 774. 6 Wisconsin Senate Journal, Jan. 22, 1874. 7 Discussion of the select committee, West, and Potter bills, is based on manuscript copies in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. 48 ROBERT T. DALAND [September affairs of railroads, which was why the bill was so bad.8 In reply to Senator Burchard, Potter exclaimed that in seeking information to assist in writing the bill, he had been completely rebuffed by railroad men who, said Potter, wanted no legislation on the subject at all. In light of this exchange, it appears that either Burchard was trying to get Potter to admit the influence of the railroads and Potter countered with an imaginative lie, or else Potter wrote the bill. A comparison of the various bills on rate regulation indicates surprisingly few differences—particularly between the two major contenders, the Potter bill and the select committee bill. In both the Potter bill and in the committee bill the constitution of the railroad commission itself is identical. The West bill, provided for no commission at all. Again, in regard to the requirement of reports as well as the investigatory powers of the board of railroad commissioners, the two bills are virtually the same. There is a minor difference in the reports of the board itself—the select committee bill provides for reports to the governor, while the Potter bill provides for reports to the State treasurer. A further similarity is found in the fact that the classifications of freight under the three bills is virtually the same. In the select committee and West bills, classification will remain the same as the current classification, except that in the case of the latter, the classification of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad is to apply to all railroads. In the Potter bill, as well, the same classification of freight is used. The select committee and West bills both provided against discrimination, while the Potter bill omitted such provisions. This is the first real difference, and, from the point of view of the farmers, a real defect in the Potter version. A second significant difference concerns the method of changing the classification of freight. Here the West bill provides no method of change. The Potter bill gives the railroad commission some independent power of classification, but bars board action on some classes of freight,

8 Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 24, 1874. 1949] POTTER LAW ENACTMENT 49 notably that including grain and flour. The select committee bill goes farther and allows the commission to reelassify all freight. Thus the West bill at least protected the railroads from arbitrary action of the commissioners while it also left them no chance of applying for relief. The select committee bill allowed the commission greater powers of freight classification than did the Potter bill, presumably to the advantage of the farmer, since the railroad commission was not to include a representative of the railroads. The third and remaining major difference between the bills concerns the rates set, and more important, the provision for modification of such rates. The select committee bill adopted as the maximum rates those of June 1872, while providing for revision by the commission subject to approval of the governor. The Potter bill specified some maximum rates, and the remainder were to be the higher rates of 1873. Here, however, the commission could reduce, but not raise the rates. Thus it can be seen that the select committee bill provided for commission action which might favor either the railroads or the farmers. On the other hand, the Potter bill commission could favor the farmer, but could not favor the railroads. Since the commission was protected from all railroad influence, however, even this difference appears rather small. The only rate change allowed under the West bill was a 10 percent increase for a limited time to be pro- claimed by the governor. This rigidity can only be considered wholly unworkable in the face of the fact that the maximum rates here established were the lowest of any of the three bills in several classes. In trying to determine which of the bills most favored the railroads and which most favored the farmer we must recognize the fact that the answer would in large part depend upon the use which the railroad commissioners made of their authority. This might vary with the drift of the political wind. Probably the West bill would have gone farthest to maintain a status quo, but a status quo based on lowered rate schedules, and the prevention of discrimination. It is hard to see whether the Potter or select com- 50 ROBERT T. DALAND [September mittee bill would be the worst from the railroad point of view. The lack of anti-discrimination provisions would recommend the Potter bill to the railroads. But the maximum rates established in the Potter bill, as first introduced, were lower than those of the select committee bill, and what is more important, the Potter bill did not allow the commission to revise rates except by further reduction. It is certain that the attitude of the railroads after passage of the legislation would have been exactly the same whichever of the rate bills had been passed. It is also clear that the select committee bill, as originally proposed, would have allowed the most impartial and effective administration of railroad legislation, assuming that the necessity for such regulation were mutually admitted. The senate-assembly struggle as between the Potter bill and the select committee bill, then, was by no means a struggle between the forces of reform agrarianism and the vested interests of the railroads. The railroads had lost the first skirmishes of that fight before the Legislature had convened, if not even before it had been elected. The real battle was now a political one between the Republicans and what even the Wisconsin Legislative Manual of 1874 officially termed "the opposition," a term which referred with apparent seriousness to non-Republicans.9 In the senate all the railroad bills were referred to the standing committee on railroads. On the morning of February 24 the various proposals were ready for consideration in both the assembly and the senate, and in both chambers they were taken up on that day. The assembly railroad committee reported both the West bill and the select committee bill to the full assembly with minor amendments. Like the assembly itself, the railroad committee contained a majority of Democrats. The senate railroad committee, on the other hand, dominated by Republicans, rejected both the select committee bill and the Potter bill while recommending a substitute. The senate com-

9 Wisconsin Legislative Manual, 1874, p. 454. 1949] POTTER LAW ENACTMENT 51 mittee of the whole considered all three bills and reported them to the whole house. But the Potter bill had been amended in two respects, which left it more favorable to the railroads than before. Rates were slightly raised, and the commissioners were given a limited power to increase rates. When the railroad bills came before the senate for final action on February 25, the Potter bill was adopted. The debate indicated that part of the Republican vote consisted of persons who felt that the select committee bill was preferable to the others, but since it could not pass the senate for political reasons, the Potter bill should receive support. Others were voting in opposition to the railroad lobby which, it was felt, was basically opposed to the Potter law.10 In any case, the vote divided along party lines. On the following day the assembly passed the select committee bill by a resounding 69 to 14 majority.11 In this case, both the majority and the minority groups were bipartisan in nature. In the senate-assembly contest a vital factor in the outcome was the fact that the session was rapidly drawing to a close. As it turned out, the date of adjournment was March 12, only nine days away. The railroads had cause for optimism. In neither the assembly nor in the senate had the contest been really close. A deadlock till the end of the session could be hoped for. The senate could wait longer than the assembly, since the danger of no railroad legislation at all could hardly reflect upon the opposition. But the governor, with a majority in the assembly would be discredited if no law were passed. There were pledges to live up to. The technicalities of the bill did not impress the farmer. The senate awaited the action of the assembly. Before the Potter bill was considered in the assembly, a caucus of the reform-Democrat group was held which was intended to insure a strong opposition to the Potter bill.12 The caucus achieved its aim. Despite strong differences of opinion in all parties as to the merits of the select committee bill, the vote on the acceptance of

10 Madison Daily Democrat, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 25 and 26, 1874. 11 Wisconsin Assembly Journal, Feb. 27, 1874. "Madison Daily Democrat, March 4, 1874. 52 ROBERT T. DALAND [September the Potter Law was without a single exception a party vote—57 Democrats and minor party members against 35 Republicans. Deadlock seemed even more possible than ever. The senate next took up the assembly version of the select committee bill. Having already established on its legislative record the fulfillment of the Republican party's platform plank on railroad regulation, it was in a position to refuse assent to any railroad bill other than its Potter bill, without compromise. The senate, however, proved not to be dominated by an obstructionist group as the following events indicated. It was willing to accept any compromise short of relinquishing political credit for the railroad law to the reform-Democrat group. The real attitude of the majority of senators was expressed by the respected Liberal Republican senator, R. E. Davis, a farmer from Middleton. As reported in the Wisconsin State ]ournal: He had wished that the part of the assembly. bill relating to a railroad commission had been retained, in the bill to be finally passed. He should, however, vote for this bill; he would have voted for the West bill, so called He was indifferent as to which bill was finally adopted. He thought the discriminations on railroads in general had been vastly to the disadvantage of Wisconsin.13 On March 5 the senate voted to substitute the Potter bill for the assembly bill. But now, half of the senate Democrats broke from their party to accept the Republican sponsored bill. In the assembly, sentiment was slowly growing that the railroads were a greater menace than the Republicans. Primary necessity called for the certain enactment of some legislation to control railroads. There appeared in the assembly, in no less person than Speaker Bouck, the attitude that the Potter bill was the best bill that could be gotten. The assembly concurred in the Potter Law. Ardent reformers fought on, however. Another caucus was held invoking party discipline, and the next day concurrence was with- drawn. The senate again refused to stall. It immediately took up the Potter bill, amended it in one minor point, and returned it to the assembly. The session had only five days more to run. Clearly, 13 Wisconsin State Journal, March 6, 1874. 1949} POTTER LAW ENACTMENT 53

now, it was the Potter Law or no law at all. The assembly concurred in the bill, and on March 12 the act became law with the signature of Governor Taylor. What is the significance that we can attach to the events just described? (1) It is clear that the majority in both houses of the Legislature, as well as the majority in both major political parties, sought the passing of railroad regulation legislation. (2) The Potter Law was not a piece of "Granger" legislation, having been enacted as a result of the Republican battle against reform-Democratic forces. Yet to say the law would have been enacted even if there had been no Granger agitation during the 1873 electoral campaign, would be unjustified. (3) There is no proof of authorship of the Potter Law. While some evidence suggests a partisan Republican origin, a letter to the Republican "Boss" Keyes14 suggests at least the possibility of a railroad origin. (4) The attitude of the railroads, once the Potter bill was introduced, can be clarified. The director of the railroad lobby was H. L. Palmer of Milwaukee. His leading lobbyist at Madison was George B. Smith, an attorney for the Chicago and North Western Railroad Company.15 When the debate on the railroad bills was in its earlier stages, Palmer wrote Smith a revealing letter. Palmer implied that although the original hope had been that the assembly would reject the Potter Law, and thereby all legislation, this now appeared unlikely. Perhaps it would be better to attempt improvement of the law itself, through senate amendments, in case it might be passed. As has been indicated, the Potter Law was amended in favor of the railroads, and was repeatedly passed by a senate which had by no means exhausted its potential position as an obstructionist. So it appears that the railroads had given up hope of preventing all railroad legislation. The original senate vote on the Potter Law had been carried by only a margin of 7. The final senate acceptance was so unopposed that no vote of record was called for. 14 Keyes Papers, in the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. 15 George Smith Papers, in the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. 54 ROBERT T. DALAND

This new strategy of the railroads can be reconstructed with the benefit of hindsight. In 1873 the railroads had no alliance with either of the two dominant political parties. During the legislative session of 1874 the necessity to form an alliance with one party against the other became apparent. This alliance was made with the Republicans, but not because the Republican sponsored Potter bill was radically worse than the reform-Democrat bill. The reason should rather be sought in the fact that the Republicans had little to lose should no bill be passed, while the Reform Party, as long as it should remain in power, was firmly committed to railroad regulation. This was in no small measure due to the events of the fall of 1873 when the Grangers "threw their hat in the ring" by joining with the Democratic Party. Both party platforms of 1873 presented the same policy of railroad regulation—but the Democrats were allied with the militant Grangers. The new alliance between the railroads and the Republicans worked well. Having cooperated with them in calling off the fight against the Potter Law, the railroads were repaid two years later when, in 1876, the newly elected Legislature, again dominated by Republicans in both houses, repealed the Potter Law. Unique Elements in State History

By RICHARD P. MCCORMICK

OT TOO MANY years ago a professional scholar who selected the field of state and local history as his "spe- N cialty " was considered to be beyond the pale of complete historical respectability. He was apt to be regarded by his more cosmic-minded colleagues as a mere antiquarian or—worse yet—as a close intellectual relative of the tombstone-copying genealogist. His professional contacts were limited. Perhaps he even felt a sense of inferiority when he reflected on his lowly condition. The last two decades have witnessed significant changes in the attitudes of professional historians toward state and local history. The time has passed when those who use the microscope must adopt an apologetic or defensive manner in the presence of those who employ the telescope. The surge of interest in state and local history is amply attested to by the strong support given to state historical associations—many of them of comparatively recent origin, by the growing number of courses in state history, by the publication of a series of excellent one-volume state histories, and above all, perhaps, by the astonishing number of dis- sertations and monographs in the field. There is, indeed, much activity. Within the past ten years there have appeared in the American Historical Review notices of some 300 books that may be classified generally under the head of state and local history. A survey of this vast quantity of literature would reveal a bewildering variety of subjects treated, a wide

RICHARD P. MCCORMICK is assistant professor of history and University historian at Rutgers. In presenting the article to our readers, we break a long standing tradition against using the pages of our Magazine for the publication of materials already available in print elsewhere. We do so in this instance because so fresh and stimulating a statement of the case for state and local history is a rarity which should be of real interest to our readers. It is reprinted by permission from the February, 1949, issue of American Heritage. 55 56 RICHARD P. MCCORMICK [September divergence of frames of reference. Probably an appraisal of no other field would so readily call to mind the word " anarchy." The point is that state history has "arrived," but it would seem to lack definition, direction, or integration. It has become apparent that there is need of a central principle to guide research and teaching on the state level. This principle may be found by concentrating attention on those numerous spheres of interest and activity that fall uniquely within the juris- diction pr geographical limits of the state. These would be the " unique elements " that give state history its distinctive character. We must seek out and examine those matters that have been the primary concern of the state, matters that lie beneath or beyond the scope of federal action. Only through such an approach can we display fully the personality of the state in all its breadth and depth. Only in this way can we give adequate recognition to the large and unique contributions that the states as entities have made toward our national development.

UNIQUE ELEMENTS HITHERTO NEGLECTED Too little of our state history has been written or taught with these unique elements as a central theme. There has, on the contrary, been an unfortunate tendency to regard state history as merely national history in miniature. So conscious have we been of the national model that we have customarily sought to apply what Professor Cochran recently termed the "presidential synthesis " to state history.1 We have overestimated the relative importance of the federal government as a positive force in domestic affairs prior to the twentieth century and have at the same time undervalued the role played by the states. This last generalization is of major importance. Throughout most of our history, we have as a people distrusted and opposed centralized authority. Prior to the Civil War the doctrine of limited powers kept the activities of the federal government at a minimum;

1 Thomas C. Cochran, "The 'Presidential Synthesis' in American History," American Historical Review, 50:748-59 (July, 1948). 1949] UNIQUE ELEMENTS IN STATE HISTORY 57 after the Civil War laissez-faire theories prevailed. In the meantime, our states, counties, and towns were entrusted with nearly all of those positive functions that citizens required from the government. Despite this fairly obvious fact, we have in writing our history been too much preoccupied with the operations of the central government. This tendency can be illustrated in a simple form. Down to 1776 we give extensive recognition to the differences that existed among the thirteen colonies. When treating the period of the Confederation we are usually equally scrupulous. But once the Constitution has been adopted and the new government has been organized, we invent the convenient assumption that the once- potent states immediately lost their powers, that their pronounced differences were miraculously submerged in a wave of uniformity. We create a myth of pervasive nationalism. This myth must be dissipated by a broad reappraisal of the relative impact of state and federal government upon the lives of the American people and—more specifically—by a minute analysis of unique elements on the state level. What, in general, are the topics to be investigated? What are these " unique elements" that merit attention? The answers to these questions can barely be sketched in the brief compass of this paper, but some attempt at illustration, at least, can be made. For purposes of categorical simplification, the major problems can be indicated under the traditional political, economic, social, and cultural headings.

UNIQUE ELEMENTS IN POLITICAL HISTORY State history offers a singularly fruitful field for the political historian because the state is the center of gravity for so much that relates to political behavior. It is the state, for example, that has virtually complete control over electoral machinery. When we realize that upon the adequacy and efficiency of such machinery the success of democratic government in large measure depends, we can appreciate the importance of understanding how such ma- 58 RICHARD P. MCCORMICK [September chinery has developed. We have the studies of Bishop and Me Kinley2 for the colonial period, but we know little of the evolution of electoral machinery after 1776 aside from the matter of suffrage requirements. How were candidates placed in nomination? How were electoral officials chosen? How adequate were polling facili- ties? What types of voting procedures were employed and how safe were they from corruption? How were votes counted and who determined the results? In general, how effective was the electoral machinery in giving accurate expression to the popular will? These questions will have to be answered for many states before we can begin to understand the technical operations of democracy. As yet, no such studies have been made. Another problem that can best be investigated at the state level is the organization of political parties. Much has been written of personalities and of issues, but we have so far neglected to inquire into the inner workings of party machinery. We have come to appreciate the fact that our so-called national parties are in reality alliances of state parties, with a minimum of central organization, but we have not probed the complexities of the framework of parties on the state level. Luetscher's3 study of early party machinery is after many years still alone in its field. Where did control really lie within a party? What was the re- lationship among town, county, and state committees? What were the rules governing the distribution of patronage? Did parties use issues as instruments to obtain partisan advantage or did they but reflect divisions of opinion within the electorate? What was the relative weight of state and of national issues in party controversy? What practical needs gave rise to party growth? These are significant questions, again, that can be answered only after we have examined the experiences of a number of states. Only then can

2 C. F. Bishop, History of Elections in the American Colonies (Columbia University, Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, vol. 3, no. 1, New York, 1893); A. E. McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies in America (University of Pennsylvania, Series in History, no. 2, Philadelphia, 1905). 8 George D. Luetscher, Early Political Machinery in the United States (Philadelphia, 1903). 1949] UNIQUE ELEMENTS IN STATE HISTORY 59 we make valid generalizations about the role of political parties in the United States.

IN ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY In this present day when Washington is crowded with its hosts of alphabetical agencies, it would be relevant to study the development of administrative techniques on the state level, for the federal government is a relative newcomer in the regulative field. In a somewhat similar vein, we could with profit explore the development of legislative methods, particularly the committee system and the matter of general and special legislation. There is a vast unexplored field, too, in legal history. Our state judicial systems have exhibited striking differences in structure, in personnel, in procedure, and, of course, in effectiveness. When we recall that for every case that has been decided in a federal court there have been hundreds in state courts, we can understand the pertinence of studying state judicial processes. This brief listing of political problems is suggestive rather than exhaustive. It could be multi- plied many times.

IN ECONOMIC HISTORY The discovery of " unique elements " in the economic history of the states requires little searching, yet here again the historian has been neglectful of his opportunities. One of the most important functions of the states is the chartering of corporations. We have had some general studies of this matter, notably that of Davis and, more recently, the two fine works by Hartz and the Handlins on Pennsylvania and Massachusetts,4 but the subject has scarcely been touched. It is surprising to find that in three excellent one-

4 Joseph S. Davis, Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations (2 vols., Cam- bridge, 1917); Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-1860 (Cambridge, 1948); Oscar Handlin and Mary Flug Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774—1861 (New York, 1947). 60 RICHARD P. MCCORMICK [September volume state histories published within the past two years, the word "corporation" does not even occur in the index. Certainly there is need for a series of monographs on state corporation policy. Hartz and the Handlins have effectively challenged the notion that the states prior to the Civil War were guided by laissez-faire concepts and have indicated the worthwhileness of studying the state as a participant in and regulator of economic activity. For the western states, particularly, careful analyses of methods of land distribution and resulting patterns of land ownership are still lack- ing. The early history of the labor movement is well adapted to study on the state level as is the topic of legislation affecting labor. Systematic historical treatment of state tax policy has been largely ignored, even though the total of our states' tax loads have greatly exceeded that of the federal government down to the past few years and have had significant economic repercussions. State banking and the closely allied money question provide another theme. Why do we hear so much of the money question before 1789 and again after 1865 and so little of it in the intervening years? Is it not mainly because the money question was being fought over on the state level, where it has remained buried in obscurity?

IN SOCIAL HISTORY There is plenty of grist for the mill of the social historian who will seek out " unique elements" in state history. Welfare legislation, within the past two decades a growing concern of the federal government, long lay within the exclusive province of the town, the county, and the state. We can learn little of poor relief or of care for the aged and the unwell from an examination of federal statutes. The problems associated with crime and the criminal, the various manifestations of humanitarianism, the as- similation of the immigrant, the emergence of the city—these are but a few of the topics that are within the scope of the state historian and, it might be added, they are for the most part within his scope alone. 1949] UNIQUE ELEMENTS IN STATE HISTORY 61

IN CULTURAL HISTORY Turning finally to areas of cultural history, we find no dearth of subject matter. Education has been and largely remains a function associated with the state. Considerable research has been done in this field, but the topic has not been exhausted. As Dean Blegen has so clearly demonstrated,5 the state historian has " acres of diamonds" at his feet if he chooses to interpret the minutiae of cultural life at the grass roots of his community. The folk story of America, we are slowly realizing, is an absorbing one that cries to be told. Also susceptible to the techniques of the state historian is the religious life of the people. Examples of what can be accomplished here are to be found in the series of studies under way at the Catholic University treating the Roman Catholic Church on a state by state basis. Above all, perhaps, the state historian can come to grips with culture with a small "c"; too long have we written of American culture exclusively in terms of the Franklins, the Emersons, the Jameses. My argument is in danger of degenerating into a catalogue. It is time to sum up and attempt to present once again the burden of my plea. In brief, it is that we should as state historians utilize our awareness of the unique elements in state history as a con- sciously recognized principle to guide our research and teaching. A series of case studies of such elements would aid directly in the preparation of well-oriented general state histories. Such studies, when properly synthesized, would also greatly enrich our understanding of the large role that the states have played in the history of our nation. It might be said that the great contribution made by the present generation of historians has been a much broadened concept of the scope of our discipline. The next generation can make an equally important contribution by probing the depths of our experience as a people, by giving full recognition to the unique elements in state history.

5 Theodore C. Blegen, Grass Roots History (Minneapolis, 1947). St. Louis Church of Fond du Lac A Monument to the French Pioneer Families

By W. A. TITUS

F ALL THE EARLY settlements in Wisconsin, Green Bay and Fond du Lac had the largest percentage of persons O of French descent. As for Green Bay, which had and still has the largest French population, the explanation is simple. From the time of the French fur traders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Green Bay had been the portal into the future Wisconsin. When fur gathering ceased to be a profitable occupation, a considerable number of the former traders settled in Green Bay and these in turn attracted others from Canada. Why Fond du Lac received so large an influx of settlers of French extraction is difficult to explain. One wonders why they did not stop at Appleton, Neenah, or Oshkosh. In the period following the Civil War, Fond du Lac city and the country immediately adjacent had several hundred families with distinctive French names. In a large degree these family names have persisted in the vicinity. In 1847 St. Louis Church issued an anniversary publication in which is found this statement: " St. Louis parish, a canonically erected national parish, at present consists of 265 families, mostly of French descent, living in all parts of the city and the surrounding countryside. Of course, for the past twenty-five years all sermons have been preached in English." It apparently is a fact that since its separation from the parent Catholic parish in Fond du Lac in 1870, all priests assigned to St. Louis Parish have been of French origin. The first Catholic Church in Fond du Lac was located on the corner of East Second and Marr streets. The beautiful church now known as St. Joseph's occupies this original site. When in 1870 the present St. Louis congregation separated from the pioneer MR. W. A. TlTUS, Fond du Lac, has long been a well-known Wisconsin historian. He was the president of the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY from 1940 to 1946. 62 ST. LOUIS CHURCH, FOND DU LAC

ST. LOUIS CHURCH 63 parish and became a new parish, there probably were three reasons: the old church had become overcrowded; there was a racial in- centive; and the greater number of the French families lived in the northwest section of the city, the location of the present St. Louis Church. The Rev. J. C. Perrodin was the first pastor of the "French Catholic Church," as it was commonly called. The site selected was on the corner of North Macy and Follett streets. It was due largely to the energy and ability of Father Perrodin that the church and parish house were built. His death occurred in 1873. During the seven years that followed the Rev. E. Mazeau, the Rev. Louis Dale, and the Rev. C. Comptois ministered successively to the needs of the congregation. The Rev. Charles Boucher took over the work in 1880. He was in charge until 1905, thus holding the record for the longest term of service. It was under the super- vision of Father Boucher that the twin steeples were erected in 1891. For the past fifty years it has been commonly said that a person entering the city on any one of the main highways always seems to be facing and moving toward these conspicuous spires. Since 1905 the congregation has been ministered to in turn by the Rev. Joseph Hudon, the Rev. J. B. Piette, the Rev. J. H. Racette, the Rev. Julian Racette, the Rev. Andrew Payette, and the Rev. Esdras Gariepy who came to the parish in 1940 and is still its pastor. One of the early activities of Father Gariepy was to in- sist that the debt of $6000 on the church property must be paid. The story of St. Louis Church would be no more interesting than that of a number of other churches but for two facts: the racial solidarity in the congregation that has preserved for a century the family names of the French pioneers, and the dignified architecture that makes this church edifice both outstanding and beautiful. From the popular viewpoint there are a number of churches in Fond du Lac that have more of artistic detail that too often passes for beauty. St. Louis Church has severe and simple lines that attract the stranger. The twin spires add an Old World touch to the entire structure. Letters Charles McCarthy to J. Franklin Jameson

Edited by ELIZABETH DONNAN and L. F. STOCK

HARLES MCCARTHY (1873-1921), worked as newsboy, theater usher, and dock hand in his native town of Brockton, C Massachusetts, until he was nineteen when he entered Brown University. After graduation, he spent a year or so at the Uni- versity of Georgia then went to the University of Wisconsin where, in 1901, he obtained his doctorate in political science. At Madison he organized the first Legislative Reference Bureau in the United States. His vitality, writings, and wide contacts contributed to the passage of progressive legislation in Wisconsin and elsewhere. He was a member of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations; was assistant to Mr. Hoover in the United States Food Administration; and was sent to Europe on several missions. In 1918 he campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for United States senator. His writings include The Anti-Masonic Party (1903) which won the Justin Winsor prize of the American Historical Association, and The Wisconsin Idea (1912).

ELIZABETH DONNAN, a former member of the staff of the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and editor of Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (4 vols., 1930—35), has been on leave of absence from Wellesley College for two years, working with Dr. Stock on the Jameson Papers. LEO FRANCIS STOCK, now teaching at Trinity College, Washington, D.C., is a former member of Dr. Jameson's Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and executor and trustee of his estate. For the Institution he has edited five volumes of Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America^ and has published for the American Catholic Historical Association two volumes of instructions and despatches illustrating the diplomatic relations between the United States and the Papal States. 64 MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 65

JOHN FRANKLIN JAMESON (1859-1937), a graduate of Amherst (1879), the first doctor of philosophy in American History at the Johns Hopkins University, and holding honorary degrees from at least five institutions, taught at Brown and the University of Chicago until 1925 when he came to Washington to succeed Professor A. C. McLaughlin as director of the Department (later Division) of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Until his retirement in 1928, he here exercised the widest influence in promoting and assisting historical work both at home and abroad. As he expressed it, he was "a sort of proxenos of the historical fraternity." From his office he edited the American His- torical Review for many years, and supervised much of the work of the American Historical Association. In 1928 he became chief of the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress. He was the author of William Usselinx, Founder of the Dutch and Swedish West India Companies (1887); History of Historical Writing in America (1891); Dictionary of United States History (1894); and the American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (1926). He edited the Correspondence of John C. Calhoun (1900); Original Narratives of Early American History (1906-17); and Privateering and Piracy (1923). His fugitive writings are numerous. In addition to the personal and willing assistance he gave to all students and scholars who sought it, Dr. Jameson's friends have felt that he will be remembered particularly for having done more than any other individual to make possible the erection of the National Archives Building, and for his efforts in behalf of the Dictionary of American Biography of whose committee of management he was chairman. Of McCarthy, Jameson, in 1907, wrote to Lord Bryce: He is the most interesting pupil I ever had in my life and has had an extraordinary career, of which he may well be proud. He came to Brown University as a wild Irish lad of the roughest appearance, the son of a mechanic in Brockton, and at first appeared to be chiefly a football player. He was indeed the best such player that they ever had at Brown University, but he presently made it plain that he came there 66 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September to study. He earned his own subsistence through college, did remarkable work in history and such things, grew year by year, all the time seeing only one year ahead, but was full of Irish enthusiasm and devotion to high ideals. After he got his doctor's degree at the University of Wisconsin he was put into this newly created position [Legislative Reference Librarian]. It was thought of as a small matter but he has made it an important instrument in the management of Wisconsin affairs, potent for good (for he is trusted by all parties and perfectly disinterested) and a model which other states are beginning to follow.1 In 1921, after McCarthy's death, Jameson wrote in similar terms of " his most interesting pupil." Professor Fitzpatrick in his McCarthy of Wisconsin pays warm and well-deserved tribute to Dr. Jameson's influence on the young McCarthy, not misled by Jameson's modest protest, written in response to one of McCarthy's frequent expressions of gratitude: "I never did anything else than to express a confidence in your future which I should think any discerning person was bound to feel."2 With all Jameson's discernment he could hardly have foreseen in 1897 that he would only sixteen years later have the joy of seeing Brown University bestow upon his pupil the degree of Doctor of Letters; this, one year before that institution gave the same degree to the master. President Faunce's simple citation in 1913 concerning Dr. McCarthy was: " Whose career shows that the athlete may be a scholar and the scholar may shape law and life." The letters which follow illustrate the relations between the two, as well as many aspects of McCarthy's character, his intellectual activity, his eager interest in his work, his deep humility and his pride in tasks well done and in the recognition they received, and, most of all, his unconquerable ambition to fight the good fight. The four letters from Georgia in the Jameson collection (only one of which is here printed) do not make clear what he was doing in addition to coaching the football team of the University of Georgia and scouting for historical material for himself and for 1J. Franklin Jameson to Lord Bryce, Dec. 4, 1907, L. F. Stock, ed., "Some Bryce-Jameson Correspondence," American Historical Review, 50:264 (January, 1945). 2 Edward A. Fitzpatrick, McCarthy of Wisconsin (New York, 1944), 14-15, 19, 21-23, 26-27; J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, Oct. 30, 1908, Fitzpatrick, p. 21. CHARLES MCCARTHY (1873-1921)

1949] MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 67

Dr. Jameson. Professor Fitzpatrick's statement that he was studying law but was not formally registered in the university finds no confirmation here. In a letter dated January 26, 1897 118981, he wrote: " I have found out that I can teach history, and that gives me confidence." In May, 1898, he reported: I have made no plans for next year as yet. These people here owe me $250, and want me to come back next year again and take charge of their athletics. I am sick of the whole business. If I was sure of making this money with my salary of $600, I would do it and go to Wisconsin or Hopkins afterwards. I sincerely want to get out of athletics, and I have always looked upon football as a means to an end. If I can find something else I will take it, if not I will come back here, and try to get my money, and go on for my doctor's degree.3 Of his search for material he reports failure more frequently than success. He found no Calhoun letters; no material on the debates in the Georgia convention, no new material upon General Clarke, no missing Georgia Gazettes, no journals of assembly before 1781. "But I have been working on the executive proceedings, and have begun carefully to find out what I can from them. It is very trying work, as you often find a very small bit sanwiched [sic] in, after you have gone through 100 pages of land grants." The fall of 1898 found him again coaching the football team, but as soon as the season was over he turned to the University of Wisconsin. From that point the letters tell their own story.

ATHENS, GA., Oct. 9, 1897. Dear Doctor, I think I owe you an explanation because of the fact that I have not written to you before. In passing through Augusta, I got a lunch at restaurant and drank some water which I think made me sick. When I arrived in Athens I had about 3° of fever, and I have [been] fighting that, and other disorders which I have acquired by coming to a new climate. 3 Charles McCarthy to J. F. Jameson, Jan. 26, 1897 [1898], [March, 1898], May 28, 1898. In the brief sketch written by Jameson after McCarthy's death, he said of this period: " The next year he spent at the University of Georgia, and I remember vividly how much I was impressed when he came back, with the way in which, when traveling about the 68 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September

Athletic matters have been very complicated here, and with these troubles, and my sickness, I have scarcely opened a book or read a newspaper. The faculty received me warmly, and I never can thank you too much for the way you helped in that matter. I found Dr. McPherson a most thorough student and gentleman.4 Last year after the football season was over, five of the best players left college, and this year the towns people and students want the faculty to take these " birds of passage " back and more of the same disreputable sort with them. The faculty have taken a firm stand in this matter, and are striving for more consistent athletics. I have added my influence to theirs, and consequently I have become somewhat unpopular. However I have succeeded in making a team, and won a victory to-day 24-0. If a man comes out on the field who is not up in his studies, I go up to him and tell him I do not want [to] coach him because I am afraid that when I have made a good player of him, he will be dropped by the faculty. This has had the good affect [sic} of making men work who would not do so before. Perhaps I may not succeed in making as good [a] team as we had last year, but I will certainly make a team which will please the faculty, and myself, and it will certainly be a team of real students of the University and not shams. I am much better Doctor, and as soon as possible I will try to do something valuable for myself. Doctor I am not without gratitude, and I will never forget what you have done for me. Yours Respectfully CHAS. MCCARTHY

MADISON, WIS. March 27, '99. Dear Doctor, I thought I would write to you as I know you are interested in the work here. I remember your repeated utterances at Brown advocating a high standard of work, and when I see the work going on around

South with the Georgia football team, he had used his wonderful powers of observation." Jameson Papers. These papers, from which all the letters cited have come unless otherwise indicated, are in the hands of L. F. Stock, as trustee of the Jameson estate. That part of the correspondence not here published is in the files of the Division of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 4 Dr. John H. T. McPherson was professor of history in the University of Georgia. 1949] MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 69 me, I fear for the future existence of Brown if a high standard is not maintained. The men of the West work with a fierceness and ernest- ness [sic*] I have never seen before. The men are composed of a great many nationalities, and are as a general thing, large and strong and full of energy, and together with the liberal amounts awarded by the legislature, it seems to me that the center of education will drift this way if the East does not use all of its energies. I am greatly pleased at the courses I am in. Prof. Turner is the idol of his classes. He is bright, sharp and witty. His mind is synthetical. His courses are very suggestive, and a man gets some general sweep out of them. Haskins is in a way somewhat different.5 He goes slowly, and goes greatly into details. We use Stubbs in his course, and the way he uses Stubbs makes me think of your expression that " all who cry Stubbs! Stubbs!, etc." I have actually picked up a little Latin from trying to work with it in this course. When I think of the immense amount of work you have to do in order to give the students a general idea, I am struck with the amount of time and teaching force this college has. Drs. Libby and Coffin6 are assistants to Drs. Turner and Haskins. There are also two fellows and two scholars who have classes. The work is begun with the Freshman year in English history and the industrial history of England. The work in general history is a great deal from Emerton's text books, and I think truly they are of more practical use at that period than Andrew's Institutes.7 Andrew's Institutes it seems to me could be made a text book for advanced study, but I think I could get more out of Emerton than I could out of it, if I was a sophomore or junior. There are some things I do not like about the school. It is scattered around a good deal, has no dormitories except a woman's dormitory, and has no chapel service. I don't think I ever appreciated chapel service before. I do think that there should be some effort to get the men together once in awhile so that they will know one another, and have some college feeling or spirit.

5 Frederick J. Turner (1861-1932), professor of American history in the University of Wisconsin since 1892; Charles H. Haskins (1870-1937) had come to the University as instructor in history from the Johns Hopkins University in 1890. At the time of this letter he was professor of European history. It was doubtless because of the presence of these two men that Jameson suggested to McCarthy that he go to Wisconsin. 6 O. G. Libby and Victor Coffin. 7Ephraim Emerton (1851-1935), professor of ecclesiastical history, Harvard University, was the author of an Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages (Boston, 1888), and Mediaeval Europe, 814-1300 (Boston, 1894). E. Benjamin Andrews (1844-1917), president of Brown University while McCarthy was a student there, had published Brief Institutes of Our Constitutional History, English and American (Providence, 1886) and Brief Insti- tutes of General History (Boston, 1887). 70 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September

The position of women here is something astonishing. They rush around at a great rate, and certainly seem to be strongminded and hard workers. There are several women teaching mixed classes in the college. I may give you an idea of the mixture of races here by saying that in my boarding place there are about twenty men and women. There are two of Norwegian descent, two German, three Irish, one Japanese, one Polish woman law student, and one man part Indian, part French and part Indian [sic\. There is a Congress of nations for you! Milwaukee has forty thousand Poles. They keep the Continental Sunday there, and the theatres, beer gardens etc. are open on Sunday. Such a mixture it seems to me will surely modify American customs and institutions, and from what I have seen of it, it will not be injurious. These people are certainly liberal in educational matters, and do not spare money and pains when the welfare of the university is in question. John Johnson a Nor- wegian is one of the best helpers the college has. Many of the professors bear German, Norse or Swedish names. Prof. Turner has had me working upon the effect on the west of the canal systems about 1825 and on. If you think of any good subject for a thesis I wish you would tell me. I intend to stay here next summer and study and investigate. I have talked to Drs. Turner and Haskins about Dr. Burnett but I am afraid I have done little for him.8 I confess that I myself am a little discouraged at present. When I compare my slow self with the bright active men around me, I confess it makes me a little blue. I do not get acquainted very well either some how or another with professors or fellow students. If Dr. B leaves you, or you see an opening where I can advance toward my degree at Brown I wish you would consider me. I do not see much of an opening for a fellowship here next year, though I have not asked Dr. Turner yet. I hope I have not bothered you with this letter, but I thought it might interest you. I hope this letter will find you and your family in the best of health. Yours respectfully CHAS. MCCARTHY 8 Edmund C. Burnett (1864-1949), who had received his A.B. (1890), his A.M. (1895) and his Ph.D. (1897) degrees from Brown University and had been an instructor in history there from 1895 to 1899, was now looking for another post. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 71

March 10, 1900 Dr. J. F. Jameson, I thought you might be interested a little if I should write to you and tell you what I am doing and a little about the University. I was assistant coach of the foot ball team last fall and since then Dr. Turner has given me the scholarship in American history which ranks me as a minor instructor, so you see with my usual good luck I [am] still able to go a little way farther with my work. The first semestre I had a course under Dr. Haskins in French institutions, and also one in Mediaeval institutions of Europe between 1300 and 1500. They were both very thorough graduate courses. We went to the sources and documentary material as far as possible, and used no text books but looked up all references. Under Dr. Turner I had a course in the constitutional history of the United States between 1789 and 1816. It is now the second semestre but we have worked up only to 1795. I worked up a topic upon southern elections between 1789-1795. I had very little material even in the way of newspapers. I did my best work upon Federalism in North Carolina. I worked it up from the journals and annals of Congress, and the letters of men like Iredell.9 It is merely an outline however and of little value. I had also a course under Dr. Turner in the economic and social history of the United States beginning 1789. We have now reached to about 1824. This is not strictly a graduate course but admits many undergraduates. The work is of very high order however. This semestre I am taking five hours a week under Dr. Reinsch 10 in the history of political thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr. Reinsch is a very brilliant young man, and the course is one of the best I have taken. There seems to be very little differentiation between the courses in political science and those in history here. I have also a course in the theories of consumption and production under Dr. Scott who is also a very brilliant teacher and lecturer. I have not taken much of Dr. Ely's work as I think a man can get more out of reading his books than hearing his lectures.11 In lectur-

9 James Iredell (1751-99), North Carolina Federalist, who codified the statutes of his state. He was associate justice on the Supreme Court from 1790 till his death. 10 Paul S. Reinsch (1870-1923), assistant professor of political science, had received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin but two years before this. "William A. Scott (1862-1944), received his Ph.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1892 and came immediately to the University of Wisconsin as professor of political economy, a position which he held until 1931. Richard T. Ely (1854-1943) left the Hopkins for Wisconsin the same year. It is to be noted that Scott, Ely, Turner, and Haskins had all come to Wisconsin from the Johns Hopkins University. 72 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September ing he wanders along in a disconnected sort of a way for days at a time, and I found I could not get very much out of it. We hope to move into our grand new library in the spring. It is a colossal affair, and one of the most beautiful and imposing pieces of architecture I have ever seen. I think it will bring a great many graduates in history to Wisconsin. Our work is very searching and thorough and we have good students from many eastern colleges here in our history work. Miss Watts, the young lady who held the fellowship broke down and went home a month ago. She was from Harvard and was to receive her degree in June. I spent a very profitable summer and took in some of Prof. Macy's classes, and got well acquainted with the professor. We will have a fine summer session here this year. Turner will be here as well as Taylor of Cornell.12 I have been rather unfortunate in thesis work, and I am getting a little anxious. I worked over the papers for the " Gerrymander " last summer but found it a vast subject. The material for the subject as a whole I cannot get here, nor can I work it up for one state because of the same fact. I am working along doing my best and hope some day by persistent effort to be of some use to the world. As Lord Roberts says, " It's dogged that does it." I have been greatly bothered by a bad throat, but I am tough and strong and I guess it will wear off. I sincerely hope that you and your family are well. Poor Dr. Turner has had some of the hardest luck a man can have. His little girl died last year, and this year his little boy, and now his wife is in a sanitarium. I feel so bad for him sometimes in class that I would like to go up and shake him by the hand. I guess we all feel the same. He is a very lovable, warm hearted fellow and shows pure grit all through his trouble. He often speaks to me about you or asks me about you. I wish Madison was a little bigger city. I have always lived in a city and I get a little lonely and homesick here some Saturday nights, especially as I know nobody and have as usual no close friends. I try to study the fellows from the different sections of the country, I meet here, and try to catch each individual's spirit. I have found a fellow gets a good deal out of even the commonest man he meets that will help him in historical understanding, if he goes about it right.

12 Jesse Macy (1842-1919), was a member of the faculty of Grinnell College, Iowa. Taylor may have been Moses Coit Tyler (1835-1900), professor of American history of Cornell University. There was no Taylor in history or political science on the faculty of Cornell at this time. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 73

I went to Milwaukee Christmas and knocked around there all the vacation meeting all sorts of people and races, going to churches, Socialist meetings, beer halls, breweries, the Ethical Society, a Polish pro-Boer meeting, etc. I met Dr. Andrews in Chicago and had a chat with him. Dr. Jewett is at present delivering some lectures here.13 I hope this finds you in the best health. Yours respectfully, With gratitude CHAS. MCCARTHY

Sept. 24, 1900. Dear Dr. Jameson, I am back here at Madison after a good summer's work, and I thought I would drop you a line and tell you about it. As you know, I started to work up the Anti-Masonic party, and I early found that I would have to get the material out of the newspapers of the time. After writing around to the principal libraries, I decided to go to Albany. I went to Albany on June 14th, and spent five weeks there working from 8 o'clock in the morning till 10 at night. I got very little outside of the newspapers. I then went to Montpelier Vt. and spent sometime there, but the Vermont material was very meagre and presented nothing very new. I next went to Philadelphia and after going through the libraries there, as well as I could, I went to Harrisburg where I spent about four weeks. The State library there had many local papers, including many Anti-Masonic papers although they were poorly preserved and had many missing numbers, I then went to Columbus Ohio, and went through the material in the State house, but Ohio was not as interesting as New York and Pennsylvania. I followed the party in Pennsylvania under Stevens14 till 1840. I have been writing it up in the last few days. I think it will be quite satisfactory. I intend to write it up by years, taking one State at a time, and then conclude by writing up the general basis of the movement. I mean by that an effort to show the economic, religious, social

13 Andrews had resigned from Brown University in 1898 to become superintendent of the Chicago public schools; in 1900 he accepted the chancellorship of the University of Nebras- ka. James R. Jewett (1862-1943), Orientalist, had taught at Brown from 1890 to 1895 and had then gone to the University of Minnesota, where he remained until 1902, when he went to the University of Chicago. 14Thaddeus Stevens (1782-1868) was elected to the Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1833 on the anti-Masonic ticket. 74 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September and racial basis of the movement, and the influence of men such as Weed15 and Stevens as a cause, the break up of the National Re- publican Party as a cause, the attitude of the Masons as a cause, etc., etc. I met Mr. Fish16 a few days ago and had a few minutes talk with him. I am pretty tired after the summer's work, as I worked steadily and hard. I expect to get my degree this year as you know, and I will have to look out soon for a position for next year. I hardly know how to go about it, and Prof. Turner is not here to help me either. I know you will help me anyway you can, and if it is not too much trouble to you I wish you would make a few suggestions to me.17 I hope this finds you and your family in good health. Whether I get a position next year or not I will still keep on working and doing the best I can with my little ability. Prof. Turner told me before he went away that I had the ability to throw new light upon things, and to look at things from a new angle, but that I needed to organize my work, and work out details more carefully. His talk discouraged me a little bit for a moment, because I have been trying so long to smooth off the rough edges and fill in the spaces; but I will never cease working.18 Yours respectfully CHAS. MCCARTHY

Oct. 20, 1900. Dear Dr. Jameson, I received your kind letter to day and thank you for your kind advise [sic'] and interest. Prof. Turner's address is 54 Lombard Street, Barclay and Co. You asked me to send it to you on a post-card, but as I have none con-

15Thurlow Weed (1792-1882) was at one time publisher of the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. 10 Carl Russell Fish (1876-1932) received his A.B. from Brown the same year that McCarthy was awarded the Ph.B. (1897). He was at the time of this letter fresh from three years of graduate work (Ph.D., 1900), also done at Brown. 17 Among the Jameson Papers are letters which indicate that Jameson made inquiries about possible openings for McCarthy, but from June, 1901, henceforward he needed no outside aid in finding occupation. 18 Fitzpatrick notes a difference of opinion between Turner and Jameson as to McCarthy's future field of usefulness. Jameson, himself a perfectionist in all matters of detail, nevertheless believed that McCarthy's rare gifts should be used to enrich a college classroom; Turner feared that the " rough edges " might interfere with his success in an academic career. McCarthy of Wisconsin, 26-27. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 75 venient and the post man will be here in a few minutes I thought this would be the quickest way to get it to you. I am very glad to hear that you are coming to Chicago.19 I think the change will open up to a broader field and better opportunities. I appreciate your kind offer of help to me, but at present I cannot recall anything that I want in those libraries. I tried to get access to a file of the Boston Free Press while East but could [not] find a file anywhere. It was the most important anti-Masonic paper in Massa- chusetts. The movement in Mass, was however, not of great importance except for the men connected with it. The counties of Hampshire and Franklin were strongly Anti-Masonic. I am writing my thesis slowly. It is a very interesting subject to me, and I only wish I will make other people as interested in it as I am. I must admit that my health is not very good, and that I have worked too hard; but I am better than I was last year, and hope to get through in June. Carl Fish is here as an instructor and is certainly impressing everybody with his scholarly ability. The undergraduates were inclined to make fun of his youthful appearance at first but he has thoroughly won their respect. He handles his classes with fine judgment and has great confidence in himself. He is a man with a fine future I believe. I envy his culture and smoothness, and often have contempt for my own uncouth hammering. I wish you from my heart, the best of health and success. Yours gratefully CHAS. MCCARTHY

MADISON, June 1, 1901. Dear Dr. Jameson, I have just completed my last written examination to-day. I thought I would hastily drop you a line and inform you that I have a position for next year. I am too tired to explain the full details, but the fact is that the legislature last winter voted a sum of money to hire a man to take care of the state documents and to perform other duties the nature of which I will briefly explain. Whenever the legislature is to meet, I will have to write to all the members and find what bills they

19 Dr. Jameson, after long consideration, had accepted President Harper's invitation to become head of the department of history of the University of Chicago. 76 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September are to present and then I will hunt up everything upon those matters and make such a comprehensive bibliography that they will know exactly where to find what they want—incidentally, I am to make myself familiar with the questions. I have also certain duties to perform in connection with Dr. Turner's department the nature of which I do not yet understand. This idea was started at Albany a short while ago and has worked very well. They have a young Ph.D. there at the head of it. The man who has charge of this place has been looking for the right man for sometime but was not pleased at the men at Albany. Dr. 'Turner was enthusiastic over the opportunity presented for my special abilities and advised me to take it. The salary is $1000 for the first year. I will have to take some library training this summer but it is distinctly not a library position. The first year I suppose will require a good deal of drudgery, as the material must be collected and classified. The position is yet indefinite but Dr. Turner says I will have to make it myself. I don't suppose I have done very well on my examinations as I am so tired and worn that I could not.. My oral comes Wednesday and I must pull myself together somehow for a last effort. Excuse the writing etc.20 With best wishes Yours respectfully CHAS. MCCARTHY

Oct. 1, 1903. Dear Professor, Now that the rush of business is pretty well over for a while I thought I would drop you a line and make my report as to what I have done and what I am doing. I can say truthfully that my work this year was a great success and it marks (I believe) a step forward in legislation for Wisconsin and for the country. I found the personal work with the members helped everybody. My salary has been advanced to $1500 and I have been given an assistant. I have received flattering offers to go into the practical politics. I know you are discreet and I therefore feel

20 In reply to this letter Jameson wrote: " The position is one for which you are admir- ably adapted, not only by what you have acquired in the way of scholarship but also by what you have acquired by going about among men and keeping your eyes open so that you will appreciate the scope and bearing of ' An Act for the Amendment of an Act Concerning Shad and Alewife Fishing', or ' An Act Concerning Butterine ', or ' An Act Concerning Paper Cop Tubes ' in a way impossible to the ordinary scholastic." J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, Fitzpatrick, p. 27. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 77 at liberty to tell you that a group of the big politicians in the state offered me $3000 a year to be at the head of a bureau of information to fight the present administration. In that capacity I would fill the country papers with editorials, communications etc. against the Governor's policy.21 Of course I refused it. I can say truthfully that my position here has been of great aid to the University. Members of committees came to me and asked me about the affairs of the University and its needs. In this way I was instrumental in adding $40,000 a year to the University income. I find that the University has no teeth and cannot carry a club. I feel therefore justified to a certain extent in helping them or in plain words doing some mild " lobbying." As you know perhaps the library of Congress is about to establish a department of comparative legislation. I conferred with some men closely connected with this movement at Niagara Falls this summer. I believe if I wanted a position at Washington I could get it easily. You may be sure that I know enough not to get into any position where I have to do detailed work under somebody else. I am afraid the collar would hurt me if I could not think for myself. However, I may land there some day. Prof. Ely urges me strongly to remain where I am because of the way things are coming. He looks upon it as a great experiment and constantly praises my work.22 I may go into practical politics someday. I don't believe I will because I have no money. I am sure that I will never regret the lessons of this last session. I worked hard from 8 o'clock in the morning till long after midnight every day from last November up to June. I nearly ruined what health I have left and could have never stood it but for the patient care of my little wife.23 For that reason I accepted an offer to help coach the football team here this fall from 4 to 6 every afternoon for a few weeks. I get about $1200 for it and I have already gained 8 pounds in weight and am feeling stronger. I was East this year for a short time with my wife. We had a fine visit for a week with Murdock in Providence.24 The comparative legislation people want me to meet with the American economic association

21 The governor was Robert M. La Follette. 22 Probably the most vivid description in print of McCarthy's work is that in the Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 27, 1906, pp. 8-9, "Who's Who — And Why." 23 On Sept. 26, 1901, McCarthy married Lucile Howard Schreiber. 24 John Murdoch was manager of the Brown football team at the time that McCarthy was Brown's star player. He later became judge of the supreme court of Rhode Island. It will be remembered that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was assistant manager of the team at the same time and that here began the friendship which was to bring criticism upon McCarthy when he served the Industrial Relations Commission. 78 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September at New Orleans this winter but I don't see how I can because there is so much work to do here. I have just written an article on legislation for the " World To-day " of Chicago. It may come out [in] the November number.25 It was written hurriedly but expresses my views on some things. Every odd minute I am trying to put on my study of the economic conditions of the South before the war. Dr. Phillips26 and I talk it over constantly and I think we are mutually helpful. I often think if [of] you and of all the inspiration you have been to me. I again tell you I appreciate it with all my soul. I don't know where I am going or what is to become of me. I have no prospects particularly bright. I have dim visions in the future and goals which I have always fought for with more or less dogged persistence. I only know that I am fighting blindly to the best of my ability the battle of life. I am striving to do the best that is in me and to supply by blind force what comes easy to others. I will be only satisfied if I feel within me that I have made the most of everything and left some good behind me. Don't be too severe on my little monograph. I had no time to change a word in it after I got the prize as I was working to[o] hard 27 With sincere respects and good wishes to you and family, CHAS. MCCARTHY Excuse the writing, etc. Lack of natural ability in that line.

Feb. 24, 1904 Dear Professor, I am very grateful for your appreciation I am working on an economic and social history of slavery. I have been working on it for a long while but of course get only a couple of hours in the evening to do anything. I have read several papers from my studies to the various seminars here. Be assured that I am working steadily despite whatever obstacles come up and that this will appear some day. Did you notice an article by me in the " World To-Day " for February on Legislation?

25 Charles McCarthy, "Assisting a Legislature to Legislate," The World Today, 6:227-31 (February, 1904). 20Ulrich B. Phillips (1877-1934), who received his A.B. degree from the University of Georgia, was fellow and tutor in history there from 1897 to 1900 and there McCarthy probably first knew him. He came to Wisconsin as instructor in history in 1902. 27 In 1902 the committee of the American Historical Association on the Justin Winsor prize awarded it to Dr. McCarthy for his monograph on The Anti-Masonic Party: a Study of Political Anti-Masonry in the United States, 1827-1840. The essay was published in the Annual Report of the Association, 1902, 1:367-574. In his preface the author expressed his gratitude to Professor Jameson, Professor Turner, and Dr. Phillips. The year before, this prize had been awarded to Phillips for his study of Georgia and State Rights. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 79

It has attracted considerable attention here (although very crude). The new Political Science association appointed me on the committee on Comp. Legislation with Dr. Whitten of New York and Putnam of Wash.28 I have started a scheme here in the University which I think will interest you. Prof. Reinsch is to give a class in Comp. Legislation next semestre. I am to provide indexes of laws and an expert indexer and the class is to take up one subject and follow it through. In this manner the University will be the centre of the study of that subject for the whole country. We would take, for instance, the subject of Contributory Negligence and get all the laws, cases, information of all kinds upon this subject from all states and for all countries. When that is done we will then study the conditions in Wisconsin and adopt this work to our state. We will make out a bill and have some one present [^it] in the legislature and we will defend it before the committees and fight for it for all we are worth. In this manner the class will get a good dose of the practical side of legislation. I will engineer the matter so that no one will be hurt or offended in the legislature. I wish the University of Chicago would take up one subject such as municipal franchises and do the same with it. If many colleges took up this work we would know just where to write for information of a non-partizan character relating to a law, and this business of adopting laws indiscriminately from one state to another would be modified. If they gave me a chance here, I would like to give some lectures here in the Summer School on Southern economic and social history. It would help me to put my work into shape. I am sure I have worked out some new views on the subject. However, I suppose I shall not be invited to do any such thing.29 I hope you and your family are in the best of health. Your letters are always cheering and encouraging. I am whacking away the best I can. In friendship CHAS. MCCARTHY

28 Robert H. Whitten (1873-1936), legislative reference librarian of the New York State Library from 1893 to 1907; Herbert Putnam, librarian of Congress. 29 One evidence that McCarthy persevered in his study of the South is to be found in a letter to Waldo G. Leland, July 10, 1906, asking whether Leland had come upon manuscripts bearing on slave insurrections. Leland replied on November 3, that there were papers in the State Department relating to a New Orleans plot of 1805 and McCarthy asked to have them copied. In the letter which made this request there is the puzzling statement that he thought Professor Jameson had his manuscript, yet there is nothing elsewhere in the correspondence to indicate that Jameson ever saw the manuscript or that McCarthy ever asked him to read it. McCarthy to W. G. Leland, July 10, 1906; Leland to McCarthy, Nov. 3, 1906; McCarthy to Leland, Nov. 5, 1906. 80 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September

March 7, 1904. Dear Professor, I lost everything in the fire.30 I thank you for your kind letter. I will begin again at once. My most serious loss is 30,000 cards on legislation. I would have made a great success of my place if I had two years more. Thank you for your kindness. Yours in friendship CHAS. MCCARTHY

March 30, 1904. Dear Prof. I am working away building up my department again. I have abso- lutely nothing to begin with but some of senators have assured me that if I do as well next session as I did last they will do great things for me. I came near throwing it all up and going to Washington but I guess I will stay here for the present. My work will be handicapped by lack of room in the Capitol and of course a new Capitol will not be ready for at least three years. I thank you sincerely for your sym- pathy. I put my heart into my work and of course feel a little discouraged. However, I will go ahead just as hard. You remember Gregory Walcott? He is to take a Ph.D. in Philoso- phy and Sociology at Columbia in the Spring. He tried to enter the ministry but was too honest and they turned him down on his theology everywhere. It nearly broke his heart. I think he would make a good teacher. I thought that perhaps you might know of some place for him. I hope this finds you and family in best of health. Yours ever gratefully CHAS. MCCARTHY

December 16, 1909. Dear Professor Jameson:—31 I shall probably be in New York Christmas time at the meeting of the American Historical Association and American Political Science Association and I hope to see you then.

30 About half of the State Capitol was destroyed by fire on February 27, 1904. William F. Raney, Wisconsin, a Story of Progress (New York, 1940), 295. 31 In 1905 Dr. Jameson left the University of Chicago to become head of the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 1949} MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 81

I took four months off this summer and went to Japan with a crowd of boys. I just got back a short while ago. I have been working hard here and it has been hard for me to keep my health but I have been in greatly improved health for the past year or so. I shall probably go to Europe for a Committee on Industrial Edu- cation to examine into some of the high schools, continuation schools, night schools and industrial schools of England, Scotland and Germany. As you know, Professor Turner has left us here and we are very anxious to get some man here to succeed him.32 Of course, we cannot get anybody big enough to succeed Turner but on the other hand we may get some bright man who will have a future. We need men with personality who will take an interest in our state and also who have a future in Historical work. I know that you have a man working in Mexico by the name of Bolton. Could you tell me, when you get a chance, what you think of him as a possible teacher in a college like ours? Do you know Robertson of the Western Reserve University?33 He was formerly a Wisconsin man. What do you think of him as an assistant professor here? I believe that the plan is to put Fish at the head of things here and get some young men with him, some men with a future. I do not want to burden you with these matters but if you can be of assistance to us in these matters we will greatly appreciate your kindness. Of course, I am saying this to you in confidence. I am more powerful in Wisconsin than I have ever been. When I got home from Japan I was greatly pleased with the splendid reception which I received from everybody here and although I have reecived a great many offers from schools and from business houses, I am still staying with Wisconsin as I feel that I can be of some use here. Of course, any turn of the wheel may turn me out but I am doing the best I can and patiently plodding along to better conditions in the state. I haven't any very great ambition except to work along the lines here and do the best I can. It would be a great pleasure indeed for me to see you although I know you will be very busy while in New York. I hope this finds you in good health and your family in good health. Yours truly, C. MCCARTHY 32 Professor Turner went to Harvard University in 1910. He was followed at Wisconsin by Frederic L. Paxson, who remained professor of American history there until 1932. 33 Herbert E. Bolton had already accepted a position at Stanford University and William Spence Robertson had left Western Reserve for the University of Illinois. 82 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September

July 7, 1910. Dear Prof. Franklin:—34 I have been many years here now working with statute laws, and I have come to the conclusion that our conditions of representative government are getting in an awful " muddle/' It is getting impossible to draft a law which will meet the sanction of the courts. We are tied up with a great mass of judge-made laws. I am trying to go back and find out a little about the concepts of the fathers upon the matter, the power given to the supreme court. I have already found that such authorities as Professor Thayer of Harvard35 are inclined to believe that the supreme court was never given the power to declare a law unconstitutional. I would like to find out, if possible, just what power those who made the constitution thought they were giving to the supreme court. I have looked over some of the writings of Madison, and have gone through the thing as good as I could, but I thought that you might know more about it. I wrote also to Max Farrand36 about the matter. Any help that you can give me in this matter or references will be greatly appreciated by me. I am now in better health than I have been for the last two or three years, and I am working hard on some matters which I think will be of the greatest importance to the State here. I hope this letter finds you well and your family also. Thanking you and always grateful to you, I am Your friend, C. MCCARTHY P.S. Don't let this take up any of your time. Just send me data if convenient. ^ , , ^ C. MCCARTHY

MADISON, WIS. 9-15-10. Dear Dr. Jameson,— I have not yet acknowledged the references which you sent to me,37

34 The sudden increase in familiarity which this address seems to indicate was probably a typist's error. This was not the day of first-name relationships. 35 James B. Thayer (1831-1902), professor of law, Harvard University, was the author of The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law (1893) and Cases on Constitutional Law (1895). 36 Max Farrand (1869-1945) was at this time professor of American history in Yale University. 37 Jameson replied to this request from North Edgecomb, Maine, on July 26, 1910. After assuring McCarthy that Farrand knew much more of the subject than he did he continued: " I will, however, venture to call your attention, among modern authorities, to 1949] MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 83 but I have been busy looking up that whole matter. You may be curious to know what I am working on. I have been convinced for some time that we ought to rake over the early cases of the supreme court. I think that some sort of readjust- ment is needed in some way, but I have not been able to work it. 1 have been convinced that the people of this country want a federal income tax. I am not discussing whether it is a good thing or not, but I know they want it. You remember Hamilton's argument in which he holds that under the constitution the legislature is the servant and the people is the master, and that the legislature cannot go beyond the will of the master, as expressed in the constitution. He, therefore, builds on this basis the right of the courts to declare laws unconstitutional. The court in this case, acts as a servant of the master. Now, it strikes me that the master must have something to say about this. If a thing is referred to the people, as our primary election law was referred in Wisconsin, under the Hamiltonian doctrine and the whole structure built upon it, what right has the court to declare a law of that kind until the master has expressed his opinion and his will decidedly—what right has the courts to declare that law unconstitutional? It struck me that a constitutional case could be made out on this question. I tried to get one of our representatives to introduce a resolution into congress, referring to the people the income tax declared unconstitutional, and I briefed the thing up. My position is, that altho the courts have declared the law unconstitutional, still there must be in the people an inherent right to interpret the instrument which they made if they are not satisfied with the interpretation placed upon it by the court. I know that every other country in the world does not gvve this unlimited right to the courts, that is, we have put limitations upon our legislature and upon our executive, we have put

Brinton Coxe's l Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislation ' (though I am sure you know the book), and to an interesting letter of William Dobbs Spaight's, written in 1787, and printed in Griffith J. McRee's ' Life of James Iredell', in which Spaight, one of the members of the Federal Convention of 1787, discusses the point at greater length than perhaps any other member of that convention has done except Madison. Also you may not have had your attention called to Professor Austin Scott's article on Holmes vs. Walton, in volume IV of the ' American Historical Review.' This is supposed to have been the earliest of the cases in which this point came up in any of the state courts. The others, as I remember them or where they are to be found, are: Commonwealth vs. Caton, Virginia, 1780, 4 Call's Reports; Rutgers vs. Waddington, New York, 1784, on which there is a small book by Henry B. Dawson, published about 1865; Bayard et ux. vs. Singleton, North Carolina, 1785; and Trevett vs. Weeden, Rhode Island, 1787, which is reported in a rare pamphlet published at Providence, in that year, a pamphlet which, if you cannot lay hands on it, I think you will find summarized in the first volume of McMaster. But I feel sure that all these cases are taken up by Thayer, and I am afraid that this letter will be of very little help." J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, July 26, 1910. 84 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK [September practically no limitations upon our courts. In fact, you have to prove criminal intent before you can impeach a judge. You see, the proposition I am putting up will not change the constitution, but it will only keep for the people the power to interpret the instrument. It does not take away from the courts the power to interpret it, but it maintains an inherent right for the people to interpret it. This may never be used, but it will be a great check, it seems to me, upon the courts. Now, instead of going forward with this proposition, I thought I would write it out and send it to you. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and the whole question is largely one of history. I don't want to bother you with it, but I knew you would be interested. It may be that you can give me some suggestions along this line, or it may be that you disapprove of it all.38 I have started another plan here, and thought you may be interested in it, but I don't know whether I ought to go on with it or not. I propose to divide the newspapers of America into private newspapers and public newspapers, and to define the public newspaper as one which will submit to a public accounting of its business. Such a newspaper to have a less rate in the mails. I have talked with several friends on this proposition, and they have taken it up with a good deal of enthusiasm, but we are investigating it to make sure that it is all right. I know your kind analysis will be helpful in these matters, so I am sending it to you. I hope this finds you and your family in the best of health. Always your friend, C. MCCARTHY

March 31, 1911. Dear Professor Jameson:— I have not written to you for a long while but I have not forgotten you however. This session of the legislature is moving along in good

38 " I am a good deal abashed by your letter of September 15. If you think that I ought to have a valuable opinion on the question which you raise, I feel that I ought. And yet I am perfectly convinced that I do not know enough of Constitutional law and have too little wisdom in such matters, too little experience of public affairs as well as too little local knowledge, to make it a desirable thing for me to state any opinion even if I could formu- late one to my own satisfaction." J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, Sept. 20, 1910. 1949] MCCARTHY-JAMESON LETTERS 85 shape. I am engaged in a great many enterprises as usual. I am trying to reorganize now the entire educational system of the state. You probably have received the advanced sheets of my little report on industrial education. Since I saw you last time I have been in many quarters of the world, in Japan, Africa, Italy, Germany and in Europe in general. I saw last night some wonderful moving pictures and thought I would write you to-day and call your attention to the necessity of preserving in some way for historical purposes some of the moving pictures. For instance there have been taken recently moving pictures of Indian dances. I saw recently a moving picture of the death of Count Ito actually taken upon the spot. In economic and social history these pictures are invaluable. They show the state of industry to-day and the customs and manners in a way that no other thing can do. Now these pictures are controlled by the trusts and whenever the pictures get worn out they are thrown away or destroyed and no others are taken. There is no means taken to preserve these pictures. I think that I would like to see somebody investigate this from your institution and make a report of some kind on the necessity of preserving historical moving pictures. At nearly every great event to-day somebody has a moving picture machine. This suggestion may seem a curious one to you, but I believe that if you think about it a little, that you will realize that I am right about the matter.39 I have been in Washington several times but have been unable to call upon you. President Taft had me at the White House several times this winter and tried to keep me there, but I would rather stay in Wisconsin for a while yet. I often think of you and always with gratitude and affection in my heart. I can never repay you for the great kindness you have done me in the past, and I am glad to acknowledge it and to reiterate it. Your friend, C. MCCARTHY

39 " In your last letter you spoke about the importance of preserving the films of historical moving-pictures. You were perfectly right about it. I have been too busy since then to do anything about it, but I shall try to keep the notion in mind and see if there is not some means of preservation available. I will write today about it to the Secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution, as head of the National Museum." J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, Nov. 2, 1911. The function which McCarthy suggested is now being performed at the National Archives Building. 86 E. DONNAN AND L. F. STOCK

Sept. 8, 1915. Dear Prof. Jameson:— When I had charge of the Federal Industrial Relations Commission40 last year I was struck with the great amount of history there was in the coming of the different Slavic races into America. I had some men follow the immigration. Among the men I had with me was an Esthonian named Peter Speek, an educated man who had been a newspaper editor in Russia, and who was driven out. He was an able and thorough scholar. He is making a life study of the effects of the coming of the different races at the present time in America. It seems to me that this man's experience and the quality of his mind should be utilized in some way. I do not know whether the Smithsonian Institute is doing a work along this line. While with me, Speek worked all over the country following the immigation of the Slavs and making a thorough study of the relation of that immigration to the conditions in the country. He is a rough looking man and could go among the Slavs and get their point of view. He is a keen observer and a constructive thinker.41 I hope sincerely this finds you and your family in good health. I have had a severe winter here but have come thru it with colors flying, and I believe with considerable constructive legislation. As ever, sincerely and gratefully yours,42 C. MCCARTHY

40 In June, 1914, McCarthy was appointed director of investigation for the Federal Commission of Industrial Relations. The story of his service and its ending is told by Fitz- patrkk, 190-206. 41" While I do not think the Smithsonian Institution is doing anything with respect to Slavic Immigration, I know a man there who, in connection with another organization of which he is secretary is strongly interested in such subjects. I have written to him." J. F. Jameson to Charles McCarthy, Sept. 15, 1915. 42 For the period from 1915 until McCarthy's death in 1921 there are no letters in the Jameson Papers. The final words of Dr. Jameson's memorial are: " Of later remembrances of his conversation the most impresive Isic] is what he told me of his tramp about the McCarthy country in Ireland—talk full of Celtic imagination and natural poetry. A most interesting and lovable man." William Paddock Letters-1848

HE SOCIETY has received copies of the Paddock letters from M. D. Wheeler of Washington, DC. William Paddock, a Tlad of only seventeen, arrived in Wisconsin on June 3, 1848, with his father from Pomfret, Vermont. He was brought up on a small farm and had a somewhat meager education. His forebears were found in Massachusetts as early as 1634. The letters make one suspect that William lived and worked with adults, since there is little that reflects, either in the variety of his news or in his comments, a young boy's point of view. He was careful in his observations and remembered what he saw and heard. Like many another frontiersman, he exhibited homesick- ness and longed for Vermont though he says, " We all like it here very much." The letters are written from Winnebago Rapids, the first to his uncle, Solomon Paddock, Taftsville, Windsor County, Vermont; Elizabeth, the daughter of Solomon, received the second letter.— EDITORS.

Winnebago Rapids, July 10, 1848. Dear Uncle As we have now got somewhat settled I will now undertake to write you a few lines. We arrived here the third day of June being eighteen days on the route We had a very pleasant time on our passage excepting a little wind on the lake which made the women folks sick. We landed at Sheboygan and then proceeded to a place called Tacheda1 three miles from Fondulac which lays at south end of Winnebago lake and there we took the little steamboat which plies on the lake and pro-

1Carl deHaas wrote of Taycheedah in 1847-48 in his Nordamerica, Wisconsin, Calumet, that Fond du Lac was situated on the south end of a large prairie; " at the northern corner of it, directly on the shore of Lake Winnebago, is another small town, Taycheedah, in which, however, there are only twenty houses. A steam mill is being built, and two small steamships go out from here to the settlements and towns all around the shore of the lake. . . ." Wisconsin Magazine of History, 7:452-53 (June, 1924). 87 88 EDITORS [September ceeded to Winnebago Rapids which lays at the mouth of the lake The river here divides itself into two streams for a mile and a quarter form- ing an island which is called Dotys Island The village lays on the south stream The river here has a fall of about eight feet acrost which a dam has been built eighty rods long The dam is built of brush and earth trees being drawn into the water butt down stream The water power here is as great as at Rochester N Y The village is destined to be a large one as water powers are very scarce in Wisconsin The village now contains about twenty four dwelling houses log and frame one store two small groceries one grist mill and one saw mill and one tavern There is also another store nearly completed, two lawyers two doctors two shoemakers and it now contains a harness maker The government spent seventy thousand dollars here near twenty years ago in attempting to build a trading station for the Indians2 The grist mill the saw mill and twenty four log houses were built by the government but the Indians burnt down twelve of the houses The government also built a wing dam but it has pretty much disappeared now There is a plenty of Indians to be seen here now who come here to sell their venison The roads are very bad excepting prairie roads The road from Sheboygan to Fondulac is as hilly and worse than any Pomfret road that I ever saw it being most all woods The roads through the woods are very bad because the trees are cut down within a foot of the ground and the stumps left standing There is any quantity of fish to be caught here all of good size but there is no little Vermont trout The country is filling in very fast At the census taken last spring this county contained thirty seven hundred inhabitants which a year and a half ago only contained seven hundred and it is expected that it will double this year and most of them are eastern people There is some that regret it that have had good farm east and have sold them to come here For it costs about double what a person thinks to come here and it takes a great while to get to living comfortable again I should advise a man 2 At Winnebago Rapids, now Neenah-Menasha, the government had provided a reservation, a "civilization center," for the Menominee. In 1834 white workmen began building a pretentious colony, erecting houses in which Indians might live, and be taught farming and the household arts, as well as homes for a miller, two blacksmiths, teachers, and others. This resulted from the treaty of 1831, but when the treaty of 1836 deprived the Menominee of all their lands along " Lake Winnebago and Fox River, the village and farms at Winnebago Rapids were abandoned by the government, fell into decay, and were ultimately sold." Harrison Reed, who had arrived at the Rapids in 1843, bought the more valuable portions of the reservation in 1846—after several years of litigation—for $4,760. James D. Doty made it possible for Reed to buy the lands and accepted an offer of several hundred dollars in the first instance, which later brought on controversy with the government. Shortly after Reed's purchase, several capitalists arrived and water power and mill development began. See Joseph Schafer, The Winnebago-Horicon Basin (Madison, 1937), 138-40, 298-300. 1949] PADDOCK LETTERS 89 who wants a farm and has no money to get it with to come to the west where he can get a farm for ten shillings an acre and have a year to pay for it in But if a man has a farm at the east that he can get a good living of from I should advise him to stay there I think that a man cannot make any more money here on a farm than he can than he can [sic} east for he will have to raise a great deal of produce here to get the same amount of money that he will get for a little east Oats here are worth six shillings but they have to be brought away from the southern part of the state Corn cannot be found within thirty miles of this place Flour is two dollars and a quarter a hundred Eggs twelve and a half cents Butter twelve and a half cents but groceries and dry goods are very high and will be for some time but this fall farmers produce will be cheap Potatoes I think will not be worth eighteen cents but in the course of a few years everything will be cheap The land is very rich and needs no manure and yields great crops but English grass cannot be grown here without manuring the soil and bringing it to the same nature as eastern soil The country is very destitute of water and most of the farmers will have to water their own cattle there is no such little streams here as there is in Vermont I and Edgar went out into the country last week thirteen miles to buy a cow and we never came acrost but one little running stream We paid seventeen dollars for a three year old heifer I should advise a man who has got money and wants to invest it in land to come here because it would double on his hands in a few years Fruit is very scarce here excepting wild fruit there is a good many plums gooseberries and crabapple and grapes We brought along with us about thirty grafted trees and a mess of shrubbery which is most all alive I think that I shall not live here but a few years for if I ever get money enough I think I shall come back to Vermont and buy me a farm3 We all like very well and enjoy good health The folks all send their love to you all You must give my best respects to Mr. Orcutt's folks You must answer this letter as soon as possible for we are very anxious to hear from Vermont Please send on some newspapers Tell Elizabeth that she must answer this if you cannot I still remain your affectionate nephew MASTER WILLIM [sic] PADDOCK

Please direct your letters to Winnebago Rapids, Winnebago Co Wise

3The donor of the letters writes: "William did not return to live in Vermont after making his fortune, as he intended, but lived and died in Wisconsin where his descendant* could be found some twenty years ago." 90 EDITORS [September

Winnebago Rapids Oct 2nd 1848 Dear Cousin: I received yours of the sixth of August and was much pleased to hear from you and that you enjoy good health. You must excuse me for not answering sooner for I have been waiting patiently to see if we could not hear from Grandmothers folks for we have not received anything from them since we have been here. Emeline wrote to them by the first mail after we arrived Ma has also written once so have I We all enjoy good health We are sorry to hear of the death of Hamner Orcutt but have been expecting it since Emeline came from Vermont, for it will be a great loss to their family Please to tell Mary that the pink which she gave our folks when they were there last has reached Wissc and is doing well It has been covered [with] blossoms all summer We are glad to hear that Grandmother is more comfortable and that she has moved so near Sylvester for it will be better for her and easier for him We would like to hear from her very much We are not on a farm I suppose you understand we live in the village Pa has not bought any land yet We have planted a couple of acres on shares as we had nothing else to do when we first come here Our corn we planted the middle of June we cut up last week It was not hardly ripe but it will answer very well We had to cut it as frost was killing the fodder I do not like the country as well as I should if there was a plenty of water and stone Most of the farmers will have to water their cattle out of their wells and there is not stone enough on a whole farm to stone a well Flour is worth four dollars a barrel Last year there was frost every month but one which killed all the corn We have not had any meal since we have been here untill last week There is plenty of fish and game of all kinds We have had an abundance of rain for two months which has destroyed a great deal of wheat Tell uncle that I am bound to be a farmer and if I had money enough to buy a farm I should buy it east in preference to Wise You find no little Vermont streams here I was glad to hear that uncle had dis- covered water on his farm for that he did not have when I was there I should like to see Taftsville now with its new stone factories We all like [it] here very much but I never calculate to make Wise my home If I always think as I think now I shall make Vermont my home Cows are very scarce here we got one by going out in the country thirteen miles We paid seventeen dollars for a three year old heifer We have 1949] PADDOCK LETTERS 91 to pay nothing for pasturing You must excuse all bad writing and spelling for I do not get much time to write for we are all engaged in putting up a house The folks all send their love Give my best respects to all the folks around that I know Tell Mr. Orcutts folks that we should like to hear from them Love to Grandmother Sylvester and all the folks I still remain your effectionate cousin

WILLIAM PADDOCK Please answer this as soon as convenient Do not delay as long as I have Much obliged to you for the paper Communication To the Editor of the Wisconsin Magazine of History: Two historical writers, the Rev. Jerome V. Jacobsen, S.J., Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, and the Rev. Raphael N. Hamilton, S.J., Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have entered vigorous denial of my documented claim that Jacques Marquette, S.J., was not an ordained priest of the Catholic church. The common plaint of both gentlemen is that Marquette has been represented by me as being simultaneously a spiritual coadjutor and a lay brother, an impossible situation, according to them, because a spiritual coadjutor is a priest and a lay brother is a temporal coadjutor. The Jesuit Relations tell us: " The six classes of the order of Jesuits were: 1. novices. 2. lay brothers. 3. scholars. 4. coadjutors. 5. Jesuits of the third Order. 6. Jesuits of the fourth Order."1 Now, it is a fact that Marquette did not have five minutes of theological training, thus being ineligible for the priesthood. Never resuming the repeater course of college studies (in which he had evidently failed), broken off abrupt- ly when he left France for Canada in June, 1666, he ceased to be a scholar or scholastic. According to the enumeration of Jesuit ranks or classes quoted above, there remained open to him only the rank of lay brother, with the possibility of becoming a formed lay brother or formed temporal coadjutor after final vows. Again the Jesuit Relations tell us: "A 'spiritual coadjutor'... according to Littre, [is] one who publicly takes the three religious vows, but not the fourth." 2 Marquette took three vows and was " one who,"

EDITOR'S NOTE: An opportunity was offered to the REV. JOSEPH C. SHORT to reply to the communication from the Rev. R. N. Hamilton published in the last issue of this Magazine. We now publish Father Short's reply. Our readers may be interested in Father Jacobsen's article, "Attempted Mayhem on Pere Marquette," in Mid-America, April, 1949, pp. 109-15, to which Father Short refers. This interesting discussion cannot be settled here. The problem is highly technical, hedged with circumstantial evidence, and complicated by the fact that exceptions to the rules have not been unknown in the mission field, a point on which none of the participants has yet touched. We close the exchange with this issue and with the suggestion that the Executive Committee of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association ap- point a committee of competent specialists to attempt to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to the validity of Father Short's thesis. 1 Jesuit Relations, 1:312, n.30. 2 Ibid., 2:307, n.78. 92 COMMUNICATION 93

then, could be either a priest or lay brother. Since the three vows taken by both are essentially the same, though the formulae may differ in non-essentials, Marquette, in the light of this definition, could " take the vows of spiritual coadjutor " and still become a formed lay brother. If Father Arthur E. Jones, S.J., St. Mary's College, Montreal, who collaborated with Reuben G. Thwaites in publishing the Jesuit Relations, was remiss in his editorial duties as far as the provisions of the Jesuit constitutions applied to this definition, the blame must fall on his head, where k belongs. Furthermore, if Father Jones, and other Jesuit writers of his kind, by the crafty use of cryptic phraseology, deliberately scram- bled historical data to confuse investigators, the resulting omelette is distinctly a product of their own cookbook. Both critics put forward the contention that the title " Pere" or " Father," given Marquette by contemporaries and historians proves that he was a Catholic priest. They overlook the fact that clergymen in the Episcopal church are called " Father," that chaplains in the armed services of Great Britain and the United States, regardless of denomi- nation, are called " Padre," that catechists in India and elsewhere in foreign missions are known as " Pere," and that Franz Liszt, who played in a papal choir and sometimes wore a Roman collar, was known as " Abbe " Liszt. Finally, in New York City, there is a colored revivalist, with " angels " and " heavens," known to hundreds of thousands as " Father Divine." Father Jacobsen goes so far as to maintain that Jacques Marquette " was officially known in Rome as a priest."3 He cites as proof the Latin endorsement of " P. Jacobus Marquete " on Marquette's farewell letter to the Father General, written May 31, 1666, and quoted by Father Garraghan in Archivum Historicum* Though Father Garra- ghan printed a photostat of the Marquette letter itself, he did not print a photostat of the endorsement in question. Herewith, published for the first time, are three photostats recently received from the Jesuit Archives in Rome. Plate I is an enlargement of a portion of the photostat of the endorsement upon which Father Jacobsen bases his claim for Marquette's official recognition at Rome as a priest; Plate II is an enlargement of a portion of the endorsement, by the same secretary, on the verso of Marquette's letter, March 19, 1665; Plate III is an enlargement of the first line from the photostat of Father General Oliva's reply to this March 19 letter.

3 Mid-America, n.s.20:112-13 (April, 1949). * Ibid. 94 J. C. SHORT [September

PLATE I (Fondo Gesuitico, Rome Indipctae 26, No. 156 v.)

PLATE II (Fondo Gesuitico, Rome Indipetae 26, No. 126 v.)

PHOTOSTATIC COPIES OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS 1949] COMMUNICATION 95

The last word of the single line of Plate III begins with capital P (Pergratae). The second word of line one, Plate II, begins with capital P (Provincialis). Comparison shows that the letter before Jacobus, line 3, Plate I, is not a capital P, the abbreviation for Pater (Father). Mr. John Tyrrell, Milwaukee handwriting expert, refused to identify it as a capital P. If Marquette was officially known in Rome as a priest, why did he himself tell the Indians at Chequamegon that he was not a priest? He writes: " When I informed them that no other Father was coming to the place... because Father Allouez had been unwilling to return to them... they acknowledged that they were well deserving of this punishment."5 Nonetheless, Father Jacobsen writes "that the official record of Marquette's ordination, overlooked by Father Garraghan, is being sent in photostat."6 Should this "official record" prove to be genuinely official and authentic and not just an entry in one of the annual membership directories published periodically by Jesuit prov- inces, it would still be necessary to explain Marquette's failure to celebrate Mass for eight years and seven months after his alleged ordination (March 7, 1666), while contemporary missionary priests performed this essentially priestly function as a matter of daily routine. No document can weaken this fact. The "heroic " side of Marquette's fabulous career is brought to the fore by Father Hamilton, who tells us that Marquette " laid down his life in an effort to bring Christ's salvation to the savages of the Ameri- can wilderness "7 A publication of the Jesuit College of St. Mary, Montreal, Liste des Missionnaires-Jesmtes,8 containing biographical data on Jesuit priests and lay brothers who served the Canadian mission from 1611 to 1800, devotes a special section to those "who suffered violent death or who died as victims of their devotion." The name of Jacques Marquette is missing. Maplewood JOSEPH CARLTON SHORT 5 Jesuit Relations, 54:169-71. 6 Mid-America, 20:115. 7 Wisconsin Magazine of History, 32:473 (June, 1949). 8 Published in 1929, p. 83. Book Notes Liberal's Progress: Edward A. Filene, Shopkeeper to Social Statesman. By GERALD W. JOHNSON. (Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, 1948. Pp. xii, 268. $3.50). Gerald Johnson, well-known newspaperman, book critic, and historian, has written a useful biography of the famous millionaire Boston merchant, philanthropist, social thinker, and student of economic organization. In seven successive chapters he portrays Filene as: the man, the merchant, the citizen, the patriot, the internationalist, the technician, and the prophet. Filene was born at Salem, Massa- chusetts, in I860. After a high-school education, he entered the Boston department store of William Filene's Sons Company. He had an un- faltering faith in political and economic democracy and for nearly fifty years he labored for the extension of democracy in industry, in commerce, in the control of credit, and in international relations. In his retail merchandising business he was a pioneer in experi- mentation with employee participation and management. He was a staunch defender of mass production and of reduction of the cost of distribution. Long before the New Deal, he advocated measures for reorganizing the capitalistic system in order to increase mass buying power. As a result he urged such advanced plans for economic re- adjustment as distribution of wealth through increased wages, unem- ployment and old-age insurance, regulation of hours and wages, and cooperative buying. In 1919 he established the Twentieth Century Fund to provide donations for research in social and economic problems. The fund gave support to the credit union movement. He also set up the Good Will Fund to conduct research in consumer cooperatives. The credit union movement, however, is his greatest memorial. He founded his first unit in Boston in 1921. The idea of a credit union was that of a bank owned and operated by wage earners, from which loans at low interest rates were to be granted to applicants on no other security than a reputation for honesty. In a credit union operated by its members, everyone would be compelled to learn something about the rudiments of banking. Filene never claimed that he had invented the credit union. He frankly admitted that he had adapted the co- 96 BOOK NOTES 97 operative credit system which had operated for years in Germany. He was founder and president of the Credit Union Extension Bureau, directing the organization of cooperative credit associations throughout the United States and parts of Canada. He was a planner and co-organizer of the Boston, United States, and International Chambers of Commerce. Although active in Washington during World War I, Filene nevertheless abhorred war in principle and once the war was over he turned his attention to efforts to preserve world peace. He worked for the League of Nations and was one of the authors of the Dawes Plan for the economic restoration of Europe. Because of the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations and the fruitless armament negotiations, Filene eventually lost much of his optimism regarding international harmony. Filene was a member of innumerable social and scientific organizations. He was the author of four books and many articles on economics and sociology. For his efforts in behalf of international peace, he received many honors and citations. He traveled extensively both in this country and abroad. Filene's life was a worthwhile life, and Gerald Johnson has given us an interesting account of it. Marquette University HERBERT W. RlCE American Sea Songs and Chanteys from the Days of Iron Men and Wooden Ships. By FRANK SHAY. Illustrated by EDWARD A. WILSON, Musical Arrangements by CHRISTOPHER THOMAS. (W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 1948. Pp. 217. $5.00). Chanteys, Frank Shay reminds us, were not sung just for the sake of singing. When ships had only sails to move them, and only man- power to hoist and heave and haul, the chantey was an important device for getting the ship's work done smartly. A good chanteyman was said to be worth four men in a watch. He would sound off with a picturesque ditty devised to the rhythm of the task at hand; the men would pick up the refrains and presumably do the work with a will. Dana testified that a song was as necessary to men before the mast as the drum and fife to soldiers—and more effective than an oath or a rope's end. There were capstan and windless chanteys, halliard or long-drag chanteys (for topsails and topgallant sails), short-drag chanteys (for sheet, tack and bowline hauls), walkaways, hand-over- 98 BOOK NOTES [September hand and pumping chanteys. They reached their highest development in the glorious twilight of sail—on the clipper ships of the mid- nineteenth century. So Mr. Shay's anthology can be classed as documentary. More than just a book for songfest and fun, it lights up a corner of folk literature and footnotes the history of a great American era. But let's not be stuffy about it. Even if you have never tasted salt spray and are strictly a one-finger man on the piano, you need only a couple of other fellows who like to sing and this book will richly flavor many an evening. You will remember Shay (and John Held Jr.) for My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions, the barroom and barber shop songbook published in 1927 (although either Shay or the editor has chosen to forget it in Who's Who). Shay is a Cape Cod bookseller and a prodigious anthologist of plays as well. The new book is an enlargement and revision of his Iron Men and Wooden Ships (1924). Shay's current illustrator is a happy choice. You have seen Wil- son's color wood blocks before, mostly in adventure books—notably his lusty sailors, both legitimate and piratical. Christopher Thomas has spelled out the melodies. The binding is handsomely nautical, and the flyleaf displays the house flags of the clipper lines and the private signals of famous and infamous sea captains. Besides the chanteys, Shay fills out with forecastle songs and ward- room ballads, but thoroughly fumigated—it is a family book. There is even an item from Lake Michigan's days of sail. If " High Bar- baree," " Rollicking Bill," " Christofo Columbo," and " Bell-bottom Trousers " are already in your repertoire, there are thirty others to add. Lovers of ships and the water—active and wishful, salt, fresh or landlocked, baritone or monotone—will greet the chanteyman gladly. Madison PERRY C. HILL Detroit's First American Decade, 1796 to 1805. By F. CLEVER BALD. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1948. Pp. xi, 276. $4.50). This volume is a comprehensive, well-documented, and brilliantly written history of Detroit from the beginning of American rule in 1796 to the establishment of Michigan Territory almost a decade later. Although the author indicates that his treatment is chronological, the seventeen chapters are blended into a pattern that also suggests a semi-topical approach. 1949} BOOK NOTES 99

The years discussed were critical for the future life of a long neglected frontier town with its dominant French population and aggressive English minority. They were likewise eventful years which included the disastrous fire in 1805. It was a decade in which the French background, American governmental policy, favorable geo- graphic factors, the fur trading economy, and determined Yankee personalities combined to lay the foundation for later growth. The numerous individuals mentioned, the frequent use of statistics, and other details in the hands of a less qualified historian might have resulted in an antiquarian guide. Instead, Professor Bald's treatment gives the reader both an intimate and significant picture of each year. An attempt is made, always, to relate Detroit happenings to the larger scene. The first three chapters sketch the Detroit scene of 1796 and, in addition, present the necessary background of Detroit history without relating the " obvious." The rest of the volume traces the slow introduction of American administration and " ways." The subjects discussed range from courts to education and social practices. Personalities are never neglected. General Wayne, Colonel Ham- tramck, Father Richard, and Judge Bates are among the interesting individuals whose contributions are recognized. There is even time to deal with Solomon Sibley's indecision in abandoning bachelorhood. The bibliographical essay is a literary treat. A seventeen-page index identifies numerous individuals in detail, and both the well-selected illustrations and map of Fort Lernoult and Detroit in 1796 by Major John Jacob Ulrich Rivardi add a touch of completeness. This is a good volume for the professional historian, the student of the Northwest, and the reader who " wants a good book." Wayne University SIDNEY GLAZER The Pabst Brewing Company, the History of an American Business, By THOMAS C. COCHRAN. (New York University Press, New York, 1948. Pp.451. $5.00). In the first volume of the Business History Series sponsored by New York University, Dr. Cochran has produced one of the most interesting histories of a small industrial development which, during more than a century, has grown into one of the largest producing factors in its field. It is truly the history of a typical American business. The founders of the Pabst Brewing Company, not content with conditions within their homeland, had migrated to America where 100 BOOK NOTES [September they might have better opportunity to utilize the " know how " they had attained in their own country to better advantage. Dr. Cochran has not only traced the development of the business from its inception and small capital outlay by the Best brothers, and its later acquisition and control by Captain Frederick Pabst and successive generations of the Pabst family, but has also touched upon all the economic conditions existent within the country during the company's lifetime. His treatment of the growth and development of the labor movement; the wages, hours, and working conditions; the cost of living and the accommodations provided constitute a valuable contribution to students of these subjects. Marketing and advertising as discussed in his book also give one a better idea of how business was conducted during the last half of the nineteenth century. Particularly interesting is the author's reporting on the introduction of new machinery and processes, during what we now call " the machine age." The transition from steam to electricity, from natural ice to mechanical refrigeration, from kegs and barrels to bottles, and all it entailed, clearly demonstrates the progress of American industry. The wide variety of statistical tables bearing on the brewing industry, and likewise on all industry, indicates the tremendous amount of research necessary to produce this volume. Historically he deals with all the movements for and against the manufacture and distribution; of alcoholic beverages, particularly the rivalry between manufacturers of beverages of high and low alcoholic content. He has carefully analyzed the policies and the effects of such policies of each of the successive Pabst generations and, finally, the logical merger of the largest producer of malt products and the Pabst organization. Dr. Cochran and his assistants have waded through a terrific mass of records, historical collections, correspondence, newspaper and magazine files and publications in the preparation of this book. It is extremely well documented. To one who is interested in knowing how and why small industries grow to such an important position in the national economy, this book will give him a factual outline of one of the great successful concerns which has been in business for more than one hundred years. He will also find many interesting sidelights covering all phases of 1949} BOOK NOTES 101

economic conditions woven into the story; such a student can ill- afford to miss reading this book. It is a good recital of the up-to-the- minute thinking of people engaged in business at the time the various incidents happened during the past 105 years. Rothschild, Wisconsin D. C. EVEREST

Remembrance Rock. By CARL SANDBURG. (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1948. Pp. 1067. $5.00). Since the beginning of World War II, several major American writers have turned to America's past to find a basis for confidence in her future. Carl Sandburg, with his Lincoln biography, was already a part of this movement, but with his new novel, Remembrance Rock, he continues the same tradition with a certain softening of fiber. The pattern of the novel is prefigured in a radio speech given by Justice Windom of the United States Supreme Court shortly before his death at the end of the late war. The Judge emphasizes the theory that although many Americans since the country's birth have given their lives for their political beliefs, their ideals live on and are still cherished by the survivors. The long story left by Windom at his death takes up the sacrifices of several Americans in three, novel- length episodes centering about the Pilgrims, the American Revolu- tion, and the Civil War. Each plot involves the romance of a six-foot girl of divided loyalties with a young man who upholds the right side. In each episode, the hero's initials are R. W. (doubtless from Roger Williams), and each includes also an older man who is the author's mouthpiece. Since Sandburg is an honest man, he shows the bad in America's past as well as the good. In early Massachusetts we see both the poor and depraved settlers and the religious bigots who drove men like Roger Williams out. So also in the Revolution, he shows the light and frivolous Loyalists, and in the Civil War the brutal guards who take a pleasure in abusing the wretched and half-starved prisoners. In an epilogue Sandburg outlines some of the problems of readjust- ment which face the battle-shattered veterans of World War II, but which they can successfully overcome. The book is thus, in total, optimistic. Why, we might ask, is the book less inspiring than it is meant to be? For one thing it is developed in a style which, though warm, is awkward, wordy, and over-written. For another, the structural problem is not satisfactorily solved at the end. Here Sandburg falls 102 BOOK NOTES [September into the Hollywood solution of making a sentimental cross section of America. Naturally enough the characters of each episode are more prosperous than those of the one before. But the people in the last episode are so excessively well off that the few ordinary people are patronized and looked down upon in a way which is not to be anti- cipated from a previous work like The People, Yes. Finally the patriotic emotion is left in too generalized a state; thus, although Sandburg means well, his sentiments could be shared by Nazis or Communists as well as Americans. And this is a real defect. But many readers will be less disturbed by the excesses of the book, will be more often moved by it, and will enjoy the fruits of Sand- burg's documentary research and the frequently introduced songs for the collection of which he is already famous. University of Iowa ALEXANDER C. KERN Mr. Justice Black: The Man and His Opinions. By JOHN P. FRANK. (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1949. Pp. xix, 357. $4.00). Several years ago I participated in a round-table discussion of the Supreme Court, in the course of which I made several favorable remarks about Justice Black. During the question-period a member of the audience asked me, in a tone of considerable asperity, what right Hugo Black had to write Supreme Court opinions. I think I gave the right answer, " Read his opinions, and see for yourself," for it would be difficult even for the uninitiated not to notice the high quality of Black's work. If the question were put to me today, I think that, at least for the layman, I would have a better answer: " Read John Frank's book about Black; the book tells only a small part of the story, but it tells enough to give you a very good idea what manner of man Black is, and what the caliber of his mind is." John P. Frank (holder of several Wisconsin degrees, B.A., '38, M.A., '40, LL.B., '40) was for a year law clerk to Justice Black. He has been teaching law at the University of Indiana, but leaves in the fall to join the staff of the Yale Law School. Obviously Professor Frank knows Justice Black quite well, and has great affection and respect for him. So far, at least, as this book goes, this appreciation for Justice Black is a bit uncritical and it is possible that the hero's virtues are overstated, or that his weaknesses are glossed over or ignored altogether. In any event, Black's reputation is in the hands of an extremely friendly Boswell, and the book should be read with this in mind. 1949} BOOK NOTES 103

This book is not a biography of Justice Black, nor does k presume to be one. It is in the nature of a preliminary sketch, or to use the author's words, " a short account of salient events in a full life." The first 139 pages of the book spell out in very broad terms the main facts in the life of Hugo Black and summarize his principal constitutional doctrines as well. In addition, the late Charles Beard contributed a ten-page introduction, in which he recounts the now well-known story of his first meeting with Black. Beard had a very good opinion of Black; he not only brackets him with Holmes and Brandeis in the judicial struggle for the liberties of speech and press, but even rates Black above them. There are some who may regard this judgment as extravagant, and certainly arguable. In any event, Frank has not attempted a biography; that he hopes to do later on a " comprehensive " scale. Following his short sketch, Frank then reprints in whole or in part, thirty-four of Justice Black's opinions which illustrate his principal constitutional doctrines, his patterns of thinking, his judicial work- manship, and his literary style. Professor Frank pulls together some of the main facts about Justice Black's life. Black was born in Clay County, in east-central Alabama, in 1886, the last of eight children of a moderately well-to-do store- keeper. He studied at the University of Alabama, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty. The following year he moved to Birmingham, where he practiced his profession, off and on, for a number of years. During 1911 and 1912 he served as a police judge, and in 1914 he was elected to the important office of county prosecuting attorney. He volunteered for service in the Army in World War I, and rose to the rank of artillery captain. During the next six years he developed a large law practice and earned a reputation as a " fabu- lously successful" jury lawyer. Frank does not ignore the much-disputed Klan membership of Hugo Black. Black joined the Birmingham chapter of the Ku Klux Klan on September 11, 1923. After arguing that Black had consistently upheld fair treatment for Negroes, and had never expressed any belief in Nordic superiority, Frank offers the following short explanation: " The reasons for joining were also simple: he was a poor man's lawyer, and thousands of Birmingham workmen were in the Klan; and he was ambitious for political advancement. The rationalizations were three- fold: first, that very few Klan members either practiced or approved 104 BOOK NOTES [September of racial violence; second, that perhaps there was a chance to bore for decency from within; and third, that the Southern liberal in politics must do a certain amount of pretending if he is to stay in politics at all." At the beginning of his first senatorial campaign, in 1925, Black resigned from the Klan, and whatever his motives may have been for joining the Klan in the first place, his career since then has certainly not been that of the racial and religious bigot. Black was re-elected to the Senate in 1932, and quickly took his place as a leading and very effective champion of the New Deal. He distinguished himself in the great investigations dealing with air-mail frauds, public utility lobbying, and the leading anti-New Deal political pressure groups of 1936. President Roosevelt appointed him to the Supreme Court, to succeed Justice Van Devanter, in August, 1937. At this point in the narrative, Frank summarizes Black's leading views: his fundamental belief that the Constitution does not prohibit the effective regulation of the economy of the nation by the states and the national government; his conviction that the capitalist system can survive only with competition, and hence his vigorous support of the anti-monopoly laws; his eagerness to effectuate the pro-labor policies embodied in the Wagner, Wage-Hour and other similar statutes; and above all, his passionate devotion to civil liberties. He concludes his story with a brief account of the Black-Jackson feud, in which he categorically denies that Black ever told the President that he would resign if Jackson were appointed to the chief-justiceship. The opinions were selected with a discriminating eye, and include a great deal of Black's best writing. Some of them, it is now perfectly clear, will hold a commanding place in American constitutional history. Frank prefaces each opinion with a short summary of the case, its main facts, and the lineup of the justices. The opinions are tidied up considerably, for the lay reader, by the omission of citations and footnotes. One thing is conspicuously absent from this section of the book, the play of opposing argument. In many of the cases in which Black speaks his mind, there is not the slightest suggestion as to what the opposing considerations were. For example, the reader will find here Black's opinion in the Bridges Case, dealing with the contempt powers of a state court, as they impinge upon freedom of speech, but Justice Frankfurter's powerful dissenting opin- 1949} BOOK NOTES 105

ion is not reprinted to give the reader the other side of the argument. Mr. Frank merely states that a dissenting opinion was filed. The net result of presenting only Black's side of each case is to leave the impression that he was always right, and that his conclusions followed inexorably from the facts, as to which also his version is the only one offered. Even so, this book is remarkably good reading, and introduces the reader to Mr. Justice Black, which is, apparently, all that Professor Frank intended to do. We will hear more about Black from Frank in the future. University of Wisconsin DAVID FELLMAN

The Journals and Indian Paintings of George Winter 1837-1839. Introduction, by HOWARD H. PECKHAM; Winter, the Artist, by WILBUR D. PEAT; Biographical Sketch, by GAYLE THORN- BROUGH. (Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, 1948. Pp. 208: Frontispiece in color and 30 plates, 6 in black-and-white, the remainder in color. $12.50). This publication of the Indiana Historical Society is a valuable addition to the pictorial documents of the American frontier. George Winter was an English-born artist who came to America in 1830 at the age of twenty-one. Inspired, like Catlin, by a romantic urge to paint the American Indian, he arrived in Logansport, Indiana, in 1837. He was just in time to make a record of the Potawatomi and Miami Indians in their native territory along the Wabash and Mississinewa Rivers, before they were removed across the Mississippi and lost their old way of life. Then, unlike other portrayers of the Indian, he settled and spent the remainder of his life in the frontier communities of Logansport and Lafayette, so that he was cut off from the organized world of American art. He never published his Indian studies in book form, as did Catlin, J. L. Lewis, Seth Eastman, and McKenney and Hall. All his original studies from life—more than seventy water colors and many pen-and-ink drawings—remained in the possession of the family and were finally deposited by the artist's greatgrandson with the Tippecanoe County Historical Society in Lafayette. Winter was rediscovered as an artist by Wilbur D. Peat, the director of the John Herron Art Gallerv, Indianapolis, who arranged an ex- 106 BOOK NOTES [September hibition of Winter's work in 1939. This brought together sixty-eight paintings, including some of all five phases of Winter's work: (1) his small water color studies and pen-and-ink drawings from life, made on his two journeys among the Indians in 1837 and 1839; (2) the oil paintings of these Indian subjects done afterward in the studio; (3) the portraits of Indiana pioneers, which were the staple of Winter's work after he married and settled in Logansport in 1840; (4) landscapes; (5) his miniatures. That exhibition proved that a significant pictorial reporter of the frontier had been rediscovered. This publication makes the most valuable part of his work—his life studies of the Indiana tribes in their homes, and his written accounts of his journeys among the Indians—available to historians of the frontier and of American art. Winter was not an artist of major ability. His gift was for miniature painting. Working on that scale, he was exact in drawing, pleasing in color, and often acute in revealing character. His like- nesses of the elegant half-breed " Captain Brouillette," the able and intelligent " Chief Francis Godfroy" of the Miamis, the dour and superstitious " Frances Slocum (the White Captive) and her daughters," for example, are revealing human documents, far superior as character studies to the Indian portraits made by Catlin, McKenny and Hall, or J. O. Lewis. In his Indian camp scenes and other subjects, when he attempted to show the Indians in their environment, he showed a weakness in figure drawing that turns the people into little dolls; while his landscapes are conventional rather than keenly observed. Yet if these weaknesses take away from the artistic value of these works, they remain careful and exact observations of costume, manners, and ceremonies. The whole group constitutes a unique historical document. Winter's letters describing his visit to a Potawatomi Council in 1837, and a journal of his visit to the Miami settlement of Deaf Man's Village in 1839 to paint a portrait of Frances Slocum, the White Captive of Wyoming, have been arranged to form a running narrative and commentary on the illustrations. They have the interest of firsthand accounts by a sensible, good-humored, and interested observer. Winter had, unfortunately, a weakness for all the boring and pretentious phraseology common to the literary style of his time. Part of his description of an old French voyageur, observed on a Wabash canal boat, is a sample of Winter at his best: 1949] BOOK NOTES 107

Incessant smoking was a peculiar enjoyment of his. He loved the "common plug"—cut and rubbed it in his hands with a peculiar gout a-la-Indian. His old night cap covering his brow to the projecting point of his large aquiline nose, with his short clay pipe between his lips, occasionally puffing out clouds of blue smoke of the genial weed, helped to make a face, deep-seated in lines, a picturesque object. "Ah, Monsieur UHiver," he said to me. (t Jfai miserable quelquefois, mats j'ai beaucoup de joi frequentement. J'aime le tabac." This sumptuous and dignified publication is a great credit to the Indiana Historical Society, to the various collaborators, and to the Lilly Foundation which made the publication possible. The pictorial documents of the frontier are somewhat neglected. Except for the illustrations in a few well-known books, they are hard to find, little known, and often badly cared for. This book, a valuable contribution to our knowledge and pleasure, may perhaps also help toward greater appreciation of other such rare and significant material. Detroit, Michigan E. P. RICHARDSON

Forty-jive in the Family: the Story of a Home for Children. By EVA BURMEISTER. (Columbia University Press, Morningside Heights, New York 27, New York, 1949. Pp. xiii, 247. $3.25). The author writes in her Preface: "I did not start out with an overwhelming desire to mother numberless children, but the job crept up on me, step by step." Miss Burmeister successfully directs Lake- side Children's Center in Milwaukee, where institutional life resembles life in a large family. For seventeen years she has been associated with the Center, first as a case worker and then as its head. The narrative is devoted to the practices which she has found sound and applied in dealing with troubled children. The ages of the boys and girls range from five to fourteen, and, says the author, they do a " lot of plain day-by-day " living at Lakeside rather than being " tutored and treated, * case worked * and programmed." Do not put this book at the bottom of your pile for eventual reading; it is written in a direct and entertaining way, convincing without being preachy. Here is a resume of the subjects which one finds: what the house means to the children; the housemother and her qualifications; the men who help round-out the youngsters' program; the life that goes on in the big kitchen—where the children are allowed to enter; the typical experiences of a child from the time of contact by the case worker until acceptance at the home; bed- time routine; playtime, reading, pets; duties and responsibilities of 108 BOOK NOTES [September the children; Holiday Cottage, a place of recreation near Lake Michi- gan; children and gardening; the director's actual contact with the boys and girls; the case worker; and discipline. Perhaps there is some child problem which could be resolved after reading Miss Burmeister's book. Parents, social workers, teachers— those who are concerned with child guidance in any capacity—might find its contents completely worth-while. State Historical Society of Wisconsin LILLIAN KRUEGER

The Epic of American Industry. By JAMES BLAINE WALKER. (Harper and Brothers, New York, 1949. Pp. xii, 513. $5.00). The author of this book guards himself against scholarly criticism by saying at the start that " It is in no sense an excursion into formal history. Rather it is a story told by an active participant in the business system of how that system has worked down through the centuries from Plymouth to Detroit." Granted his reliance on a limited number of secondary sources, he has skillfully condensed the story of numerous inventions, industries, and political programs. The accounts are more objective than one might expect from an author starting with the admitted bias of showing the value of freedom of business action. Fur- thermore, the book partially fills vacancies in the general synthesis of American history. Economic histories have failed to give a picture of entrepreneurial activity, of the human element in industrial development, or of the commercial adaptation of inventions. For two thirds of the book these are Mr. Walker's central themes. But in spite of his denial that he is writing formal history, one who has succeeded as well as Mr. Walker cannot avoid being taken seriously and subjected to professional criticism. Perhaps his mistake was in starting from the beginning of America. His accounts of all the periods before the later nineteenth century are conventional and uneven. If the books he happened to read were good ones, the picture is adequate; if, as in the case of early shipping and railroads, he missed the principal authors (such as Albion, Hutchins, Kirkland, and Lane) his narrative is sadly inadequate. A story-telling episodic approach makes for colorful writing and easy reading, but allows many key elements to go unnoticed. There is no discussion of the old style, eighteenth century merchant (N. S. B. Gras is not in the six page bibliography!); the pre- Civil War age of community and state participation in enterprise is neglected; and throughout the book there is inadequate correlation of 1949} BOOK NOTES 109 developments in the United States with those of Europe. One has to read carefully to find even a hint of the fact that technology of the European steel, automobile or moving picture industries developed more rapidly in the beginning, and the chemical industry in which we lagged behind until World War I is omitted. From about 1910 on, where the author is presumably dealing with situations of which he has some firsthand knowledge, the book is much stronger, but no less eclectic. Government policy, particularly in regard to finance receives heavy emphasis, and the general development of new business forms and practices is slighted or omitted. This leads to a change in the character of the book, from a study of the business adaptation of new technology and new techniques, to a critical discussion of public policy. Mr. Walker is quite able at the latter task, but his historical contribution would have been more novel and consistent had he included an analysis of recent changes in business and industry. New York University THOMAS C. COCHRAN

Pursuit of the Horizon, a Life of George Catlin, Painter & Recorder of the American Indian. By LOYD HABERLY. (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1948. Pp. xiii, 239. $5.00). Books about American artists of the early frontier days always contain a good deal more about their background than about their art. Of supreme interest is: the crude world in which, and despite which, a person decides to become an artist; the incredible difficulties which he has to overcome in pursuit of his goal. In the particular case of George Catlin the goal was ethnological more than artistic: " Destiny had picked him out to portray the magnificent red heroes... before they and their tented towns became only a memory... And he would have a museum—a traveling museum of everything Indian and everything animal, vegetable, or mineral that had shaped and colored Indian culture" (p. 26). Naturally the analysis of his art as art and the discussion of the more strictly art-historical matters come off second best. Again in this particular case the author is faced with the singular problem that examples of Catlin's are are rarely found in public museums and are therefore practically unknown to the reading public. In this book most of the art-historical material is packed into the last eight pages under the caption "Matters of History." There the author gives an account of the whereabouts of 110 BOOK NOTES [September the remains of Catlin's art "in attics, basements and barred library rooms." We must take Mr. Haberly's word for it: "I probably know it better than anyone but Catlin himself ever has known it. Exami- nation of pretty nearly two thousand of his paintings, drawings, litho- graphs and book illustrations has convinced me that he was one of our great native painters " (p. 235). For evidence, however, we must remain satisfied with seventeen plates reproducing six landscapes and eleven portraits—^-well chosen, but certainly not enough to bear out the author's contention. I, for one, am not so sure of Catlin's artistic greatness as measured by the caliber of our truly great ones. As a portraitist Catlin does not stand up well beside John Copley, Charles W. Peale, John Trumbull, and Gilbert Stuart. As a landscapist he is outstripped by Asher B. Durand and George Inness. What made Catlin the man great was the explorer's ideal impelling him, his determination to find and save what still could be found and saved of the vanishing Indian. On the other hand, " to paint an Indian a day," inscribe his personal name and tribe on a printed certificate affixed to the back of the painting complete with the signature of the United States Indian agent, is no more an artistic achievement than is the drawing of fetal eyes by our art students in hospital laboratories. With the difference, however, that a student so engaged would lose his job if he were to distort or generalize his object as Catlin regularly did: Struck by the narrowness of Indian shoulders... Catlin had from the first instinctively narrowed them further on his canvases. Rationalizing on that instinct now, he sloped them to effeminacy. Deliberately too he neglected warrior hands or drew them with almost childish strokes. He sharpened faces, lengthened the long bear-claws of necklaces, brightened colors in beadwork and feathering (p. 41). Moreover, as Mr. Haberly admits, His paintings were certainly uneven. Many of his exhibited pictures were never finished; others were mere hasty brush-sketches which he could not bring himself either to repaint or discard. Often he painted from pencil notes so inadequate that he had to fill in important details from his imagination (p. 209). There is an unmistakable resemblance between some of Catlin's paintings and some of Catlin's writings—" formless, repetitious, incredibly careless and everything puffed up with plain padding. Now it is sermonish and now downright vulgar and cheap" (p. 176). In Lon- don and Paris Catlin obviously developed into a showman who would shv away from nothing so long as the box-office returns to his ex- 1949} BOOK NOTES 111 hibition were good. At times he appears to have been an early version of P. T. Barnum. " And the London society that had opened its drawing rooms to Catlin the Artist and Explorer, was beginning to close them on Catlin the Showman, f that Yankee fellow who is cashing in on his precious Indians'" (p. 161). It would have been a tragic irony indeed if the coincidence of Mr. P. T. Barnum's presence in New York had actually caused the failure of the last show which Catlin staged in that city in 1870. Mr. Haberly says as much, but I cannot believe it. That last exhibition of the Indian gallery was doomed before it got started. The people's taste had changed considerably since the early decades of the nineteenth century. The ad- miration with which the pictures and lectures of " the famous Mr. Catlin " were received in the thirties and forties was partly due to the naivete of people who had no artistic standards of comparison. Americans then were in a position similar to that of the Ioway Medicine man in Paris (mentioned on p. 165), who was taken to see the galleries of the Louvre and " was distressed that there were so many pictures outside the Indian Gallery, which.he had supposed unrivaled." In the seventies, however, even our American public was no longer interested in shows combining ethnology, zoology, art and propaganda talk, as instigated at the beginning of the century by Charles W. Peale of Philadelphia, Catlin's great inspiration. * # * Pursuit of the Horizon is a beautiful piece of writing, fascinating and exciting—a book you will not put down before you have finished reading its last word. It is no straight, documented history, however. For an illustration let me point out the dramatic description of George Catlin's first visit to the Indian Office of General Clark at St. Louis (P- 39): " Yes," said the General, slowly, " the red sands are running out." His eyes saddened like the last stars of a mountain morning as he gazed long and thoughtfully at a great map he had drawn of Indian wilds that he and Meriwether Lewis laid open to the white tide. Then, shrewdly narrowed, they appraised the young visitor's determined face and trim, small body. Laying his huge age-specked paw on the fine sensitive hands clasped over Catlin's knees, he asked, "Are these your means?" In the face of so much naturalistic detail in a book called A Life of George Catlin the student of history asks: are these authenticated facts or visions of fancy? Where is the documentation for all this? 112 BOOK NOTES [September

There are no footnotes anywhere in the book; only a summary Sources and Acknowledgment chapter is appended at the end. Certainly Catlin himself kept no journals at that time. The book impresses the reader so much as a biographical novel that he almost feels thrown off the track by some sudden, unexpected critical reservation that does not really belong in a book of this kind and blocks the smooth flow of the narrative, as on p. 47: Historians have denied his [Catlin's} simple statement that he rode on from the Pawnee country up the Platte and through the Rocky Moun- tain passes to Great Salt Lake. I see no reason to doubt his word. What Mr. Haberly says (p. 14) in regard to Catlin's telling of stories, tall or otherwise, seems to fit Mr. Haberly's telling of the Catlin story quite as well: " A story is true only when the teller creates in his hearers, by emphasis and embroidery, an excitement approximating the incident itself." The Pursuit of the Horizon is a biographical novel "richly robed in wit and circumstance." What a wonderful introduction is that opening chapter, The Kettle of Gold! What a wealth of picturesque detail in that depiction of life in 1810 in the settlement of Oc-qua-go, near Wilkes Barrel What a realistic genre painting of the trip Up the Missouri (pp. 49 ff.); the breaking-up of an Indian camp (p. 53); the buffalo hunt (p. 60); the sensitive and yet frank reference to Indian love-life (p. 66); and, last but not least, what devastating criticism of so-called culture as uttered by Ioway Indians in the Victorian England of the forties (pp. 138 if.). There is no dearth of amusing anecdotes: the story of the Irish- man whom Catlin, then a young defense lawyer, cleared of the (admitted) guilt of stealing an axe, and who, when cleared, "was enraged because he was willing to have the jury declare him a thief, but not a liar" (p. 23). The account of the Ojibway Indians1 visit to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, " where the short-sighted chief seized the hand of Sykes, the resplendent porter, in the belief that a man with so much scarlet and gold lace must be the little Queen's husband " (p. 140). The chief of the same tribe replying to a mission of ministers of the Gospel: "When a few white men come into our country to make money, we don't ask them to take up our religion " (p. 142). And the story of the Ioway Medicine Man, "the Doctor," who was invited to dinner with the rest of his tribal members by Mr. Disraeli- (p. 149): 1949] BOOK NOTES 113

When the party was settled, at no great ease, on Mr. Disraeli's crimson velvet chairs, admiring their host's collection of damascened daggers and other antique weapons, the Doctor was missing again. A search dis- covered him sitting on the floor of a luxurious bathroom, smoking his pipe and musing on the gilt plumbing of vapour and shower baths, which, he thought would be useful in his professional practice at home. These are but a few choice morsels from the rich bill of fare. While plainly (despite missing reference to sources) much of the author's material is taken directly from Catlin's writings, it is quite as plain that this raw material has been fashioned, molded, and polished by the subtle hand of Mr. Haberly. His book is full of striking sentences: "Destiny makes very good bricks with very short straw" (p. 13). There are some excellent sidelights on artist, art, and the public: " Old Peale had learned that success in art demands showman- ship " (p. 25). "An imagination fertile and lively enough to fit a Governor of New York into such a scene is a dangerous asset" (p. 29, referring to Catlin's picture of The Opening of the Erie Canal, showing Governor Clinton, wearing Roman robes, seated between Neptune, Hercules, and the Najads). "Having wiped out and driven out the native tribes, they [the eastern Americans] were now [1826] pictur- ing the Indian as a romantic hybrid mixture of Hector and Hiawatha " (p. 30). I confess that Mr. Haberly's book has left a deep impression on me. And the strength of that impression has often been increased by occasional parallelisms between " then" and " now," suggested merely by the use of some word of the most recent linguistic vintage, such as this (italics mine) : " The utterly different language that had grown up behind the perpetual iron curtain of war" (referring to Indian orators addressing General Clark in St. Louis; p. 40); or the caustic reference to the effect of Catlin's pro-Indian talks on his reactionary audiences during his Exhibition in New York, in 1837 ... if this fellow went on talking about good Indians being tricked out of their lands, and debauched by traders, there would be the Devil to pay, and no dividends. Such notions were un-American and downright dangerous. If the fellow was so fond of Indians why didn't he join a tribe and take a squaw and stop disturbing the conscience of his fellow citizens (p. 103). There are no typographical errors worth mentioning, except the inevitable Prince Maximilian of Neuwied who is misspelled, as nowadays almost traditionally, Neuwe/d. University of Wisconsin OSKAR HAGEN 114 BOOK NOTES [September

Bright With Silver. By KATHRENE PINKERTON. (William Sloane Associates, New York, 1947. Pp.347. $3.75). At the beginning of this century the gigantic farm enterprise now widely known simply as " The Fromm Brothers " was only the childhood dream of four farm boys growing up on a frontier farm in Marathon County. The head of the family was a determined farmer who looked forward to cleared land and a sound farm. Four of his boys saw things differently; they had enjoyed the trapper's life in the woods around them, and had won their meager spending money by selling furs. An astonishing new phenomenon caught their eyes when they ranged from six to thirteen years of age: the silver fox, which brought amazing prices in the market. Then and there they resolved to raise silver foxes. The unfolding of their story is one of the more thrilling developments in recent Wisconsin history. They had no means of purchasing breeding stock, their father looked with contempt on their darling project, and they never had the good fortune to find and take alive one of the new freaks. The key to success was a plant which had at the same time attracted attention in their neighborhood because of the fabulous prices its roots commanded in China, a plant whose cultivation had broken many a farmer: ginseng. These incredible boys learned how to raise it, chiefly by observation of its growth in its natural state, and by the time they had acquired their fox breeding stock by the timely support of their mother, ginseng was pouring capital in tens of thousands of dollars into their hands so that they could hope to realize their dreams. But this was only the beginning of their trials. Their foxes were too bright with silver for the market; diseases threat- ened their herds and their roots; war in China suspended their sales of ginseng for thirteen years, and at present their fox sales have nearly disappeared with a shift in fashion. The magnificent pluck and ingenu- ity with which they have met every challenge must arouse the admira- tion and pride of Wisconsin people, who ought to know this history. The author and publishers have treated their material as a novel, and it must be admitted that it has more drama and suspense than most books in that class. Inevitably Bright With Silver has its limitations for scholarly use because it lacks scholarly trappings, not only notes on sources and index, but even a table of contents. But this reviewer feels more disposed to look at what we have gained by its publication than what it lacks in completeness. Mrs. Pinkerton is an experienced writer with a knowledge of her field, and she has possessed the patience 1949] BOOK NOTES 115 to do the tedious work of interviewing the people in her history at the greatest length. The result is a source document which is very likely unique; it is highly unlikely that the Fromms ever collected an archive of their operations, although even this would not be surprising in so remarkable a group. But Mrs. Pinkerton has the essential facts and many charming details imperishably collected, and another phase of the history of Marathon County, which has seen so many original and creative activities, is recorded. Scholars are apt to underestimate the time and skill involved in such primary work, which is a prerequisite of their own operations. Finally, Mrs. Pinkerton writes very well. She describes one of the many contrivances designed and built on this farm as appearing like " the achievement of a pair of demented magpies " and always suc- ceeds in driving her story along with the spirit which it requires. It is a book which will richly reward the reader. State Historical Society of Wisconsin W. H. GLOVER

Springdale Township, Dane County, celebrated its 1848 beginnings during the State centennial year. Its century history (168 pp.) was compiled and edited by the Rev. Amelia I. J. Pope, 438 West Mifflin Street, Madison. Vivid reminiscences of the descendants of the pioneers of this township, filled with humor and pathos, are found on many pages. There is great variety in its numerous pictures. The quaintly attired pioneers with their many children, early Mt. Vernon, the town hall, a log cabin, the tug-of-war team, and so on, combine to make this an interesting booklet. Recommended reading, especially for those who call the hill-and-valley region " home." Addresses: Mrs. Pope (above address) or Herman Erfurth, Mt. Vernon. Price $2.00.

The prosperous Schuette Brothers Company is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of its store. It has served as the shopping center of five generations in Manitowoc and the adjacent area, and is known as the " friendly family store." John Schuette, Sr. the founder, died in 1862, and the business was continued by his two sons, with other changes occurring through the years. Walter Schuette, the grandson of the founder, is now president of the Schuette firm. A brief history of the growth of the company is found in an at- tractively printed centennial brochure (12 pp.)- 116 BOOK NOTES [September

As regular as Christmas or the Fourth of July is the appearance of the Milwaukee Press Club's Once a Year, edited this issue by Harry L. Sonneborn, with Charles House as co-editor. H. Russell Austin, Milwaukee author and staff member of the Milwaukee Journal, is the president of the Club. He writes with mixed feelings of the organization's Wunderjahr when in a single year it was located in three different buildings. Now at peace with the world, the members congregate in their newly furnished streamlined quarters with moving worries dismissed, for a ten-year period they hope. Laurence C. Eklund and Perry C. Hill have contributed sketches on " It's Capital Work "—" leg work " they claim—the former covering Washington news and the latter Madison. We must mention the only story written by a woman journalist in this issue: Dorothy Parnell's narrative of the Club's annual Christmas party for children. She was longtime society editor of the Sentinel.' Plenty of action pictures fill a doublespread. You'll like the Press Club's 1949 issue— its chock-full of " good stuff "!

The Committee on the Study of American Civilization, a joint University-STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY research group, has published a mimeographed bibliography entitled, The Wisconsin Region: A Bibliography of Theses in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54 pp.)« The list includes graduate theses written on Wisconsin topics at the University of Wisconsin and other institutions of higher learning and bachelors' honors theses in history written at Wisconsin only. A few copies of the bibliography are still available and can be secured by writing to Miss Alice E. Smith, Chief of Research, Room 300, State Historical Society Building.

History of Horicon (126 pp.) was compiled by Walter R. Busse- witz, retired superintendent of the Horicon schools. It is based on a collection of historical materials gathered by Miss Allie Freeman, for many years the kindergarten director in Horicon, and at present city librarian. The story which covers the city's progress over a hundred- year period deals with the Indians, war records, railroads, churches and schools, the politics of village and city, industries, business, the Horicon Marsh—its litigation known in and out of conservation circles —sports, and closes with " odds and ends." The numerous illustrations add much to the interest of the volume. The major omission, an index. Address: Allie Freeman, Horicon. Price $2.12 postpaid. 1949] BOOK NOTES 117

The life of Mother Frances Streitel (263 pp.) by the Rev. Aquilin Reichert has come to the Society from the Convent of the Sorrowful Mother, Milwaukee. This volume, translated from the Italian, is an account of the sacrifice, service, and influence of Mother Frances. Her early religious training and change to a novitiate of a convent with a more severe discipline, her arrival in Rome to found a new Community, and her elevation as the Superior of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother in 1886 are narrated. Two Sisters came to America in 1888 to collect funds for the Community in Rome, and while here learned that Bishop John Hennessy of Wichita, Kansas, was in need of Sisters for his hospital. They informed Mother Frances and, though the hospital was a small rented house and the diocese was poor, she decided that conditions were promising and several Sisters were dispatched to Kansas. Then followed the establishment of hospitals and schools by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother in America, of which there are a considerable number in Wisconsin. Address: Convent of the Sorrowful Mother, 6718 Cedarburg Road, Milwaukee 9. Copies gratis. From the Missouri State Historical Society has come recently the Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, volume xiv (358 pp.). Secretary Floyd C. Shoemaker and Librarian Sarah Guitar of the Missouri Society are co-editors. The present volume relates to the administration of Governor Lloyd C. Stark, 1937-41. In addition to the messages and proclamations there is a biographical sketch and a portrait of the chief executive. Address: Missouri State Historical Society, Columbia, Missouri. Price $5.00.

For those who love the straightaway or the winding, ribbon-like highways of Wisconsin, we recommend Southern Wisconsin through the Windshield which appeared as a part of an illustrated series in the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, the past year. The text was written by H. E. McClelland, and the sketches were prepared by Frank Moulton. If you are charting a tour of the University of Wisconsin and other choice spots in the southern part of the State, this is a guidebook worth consulting. We have tried using this guide while bobbing around in the back seat of an automobile and craning our neck so as not to miss a thing. The booklet has no index, and to find a particular page was hectic! To Messrs. Moulton and McClelland we say, " Please supply us an index next time! " Address: Wisconsin State Journal, Madison. Price 50 cents. 118 BOOK NOTES [September

The Society's genealogical materials have been enriched by the addition of the Family Tree of Hans and Karen Olson, compiled recently by Henry T. Henryson, St. Paul. Among others, the family records of the late Rasmus B. Anderson, widely known Scandinavian scholar, and Julius Olson, formerly a faculty member of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, are contained in this volume. It was presented to the Society by Alvin R. Amundson, Cambridge, Wisconsin.

John A. Stanley has written a brief autobiography entitled, From Then until Now (64 pp.). He was the son of West Salem's first doctor, William H. Stanley, who had arrived in 1859. After a decade, the elder Stanley settled at Clear Lake, Iowa, but returned to West Salem with his family five years later. Homesteading in Dakota Territory appealed to Dr. Stanley, and in 1878 he again started west with his family, halting near Gary. The author describes the family farm and home in the Dakotas, the planting of groves on the prairies, storms and blizzards, and similar experiences. The major portion of the book narrates his life as newspaperman at Hot Springs and Lead, both in South Dakota. A copy of this small volume is on the shelves of the State Historical Library.

The Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company, Kaukauna, has issued a nicely planned booklet (40 pp.) in which the founding and development of the industry during sixty-five years is told. Thilmany is one of the leaders in the specialty paper field, manufacturing such items as tissue paper, waxed carton liners, asphalt laminated papers, decorated Thilco papers, specialty bags of a variety of colors, materials, sizes, and designed for individual customers, distinctive printed wrapping papers with bags to match, box covering papers, and the like. Oscar Thilmany built the first mill accumulating the then large sum of $150,000 to finance the undertaking. It has grown from 18 employees in 1883 to 1,300 at the close of 1948; 19 employees have been with the firm from 40-49 years, and 2 for 50 or more years. Since 1936 Karl E. Stansbury has been president of the company.

An attractive brochure, the City Bank of Portage (16 pp.), contains a record of the bank's service to its community over a period of seventy-five years. The founders of the institution and present per- 1949] BOOK NOTES 119 sonnel are pictured; there are short sketches of the officials. William LI. Breese is the president.

The Racine Centennial, 1848-1948 (48 pp.) has an excellent air- view of the city for its cover. Equally attractive are the illustrations of persons, school, church, industrial, and city buildings. Among the historical sketches are industry and labor, Racine today, and government. Mayor Francis H. Wendt has written a brief foreword. The booklet is well planned and a credit to the Centennial Book Committee.

The Burnett County Homemakers' Clubs have compiled the Pioneer Tales of Burnett County (15 pp.)- It contains the hardship experiences of traveling when roads were pathways, when homesteads were cut out of the forests, and when mills were all but out of reach. It is almost startling to read of the first arrivals in the county in 1869, 1882, and 1900. But, then we remember that Wisconsin's northwest was still a "far country" when the region largely south of the Wisconsin River was dotted with thriving cities and expanding villages. Burnett County is a part of the State's popular resort area in the northwest, boasting an abundance of fine lakes. Address: Burnett County Leader, Siren. Price 50 cents.

The Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin has issued recently Lincoln Visits Beloit and Janesville, Wisconsin (20 pp.) which completes the series of bulletins relating to Lincoln's visits to Wisconsin. There does not seem to be extant a manuscript or other verbatim copy of these Rock County addresses. Address: Lincoln Fellowship of Wis- consin, Office of the Secretary, 1910 Kendall Avenue, Madison, 5. Price 50 cents. Wisconsiana-Here and There THE MAY, 1949, Bulletin of the American Association for State and Local History is devoted to Marvin W. Schlegel's instructive article on " Writing Local History Articles." To begin with, he believes that such writing will make " an exciting hobby." His instructions are given under the following headings: training, subjects, sources, manuscripts, old-timers, archives, newspapers, notes, organizing, writing, judgment, and mechanics. It is such a straightforward clearly written account that writing sounds more like " fun" than work. He ends by saying: "Tomorrow you will go to the library and begin looking for material on the subject that is already stirring in your mind. Before long your desk will be heaped high with notes, and you will be struggling in the throes of composition. Then one day your article will appear in print, and you will have proven your right to be admitted to the fellowship of local historians." Before you decide to adopt this hobby read Schlegel's article thoroughly. The Bulletin is on the shelves of the State Historical Library; those who wish to own a copy may write to Earle W. Newton, State House, Montpelier, Vermont. Price 35 cents.

Robert R. Hubach is the author of " Nineteenth Century Literary Visitors to the Hoosier State: a Chapter in American Cultural History," which was published in the Indiana Magazine of History, March, 1949. He states that " at least twenty-nine significant writers not natives of the state touched the borders of, passed through, toured, or lectured in Indiana during the last century." The wilderness and the inhabitants interested them; aspects of nature in general were of more interest to the Americans while the English travelers were more concerned with the study of manners and morals. Several of the literary visitors to Indiana are noted in the early newspapers and other records of Wisconsin, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bayard Taylor, Amos Bronson Alcott, James Russell Lowell, Matthew Arnold, and Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain).

" The Story of Michigan is closely interwoven with the story of the Great Lakes" is the opening remark of " Down to Our State in Ships," written by the Rev. Edward J. Dowling, S.J., which appears 120 WISCONSIANA 121

in the March, 1949, number of Michigan History. In like manner Wisconsin history is closely interwoven with Great Lakes history, and lakes navigation as narrated by the Rev. Dowling has a Wisconsin flavor. The " Griffin," the first lakes ship, opens the narrative, followed by a discussion of the sailing vessel era—with its specially developed Great Lakes schooner type. The first steamship, the "Frontenac," plowed the waters of Lake Ontario only; in 1818 the " Walk-in-the-Water" was launched at Buffalo, and now and again appears in the records of early Wisconsin. Space is devoted to the vast number of vessels which carried the emigrants from Lake Erie ports and distributed them at landings farther west. Service was begun from Michigan to Milwaukee in 1849, and the sidewheelers " Detroit " and " Milwaukee "—which resembled ocean liners of that era—became familiar sights. Discussion follows on the opening of Lake Superior ports and the increased operation of freight-passenger vessels, or packets, and their sudden decline. The popularity of re- sorts brought about extensive travel on through-cruise ships.

" Documentary Panorama," contributed by Bertha L. Heilbron, appears in Minnesota History, March, 1949, and describes a Minnesota panorama—depicting the Indian war of 1862—created by John Stevens of Rochester. She writes: "The caste consisted of authentic Minnesota frontiersmen—men, women, and children who knew at first hand the horrors of the massacre." The sketch of Stevens describes his painting and its exhibition in sparsely settled regions as well as in cities. He found spectators for his panorama in Wisconsin and in several other states adjacent to Minnesota. After having been in storage for a quarter of a century, in the Historical Building, it is being displayed as a part of Minnesota's Centennial.

John T. Flanagan has written critically on the subject " Literary Protest in the Midwest," which appears in Southwest Review, Spring 1949. He states that the serious literature of the Midwest for the last seventy-five years has been a literature of protest. The farm, the small town, and the city have been discussed by him as the objects of violent attack, but he points out that elsewhere in the country besides this area protest has raged. Though there has been a strong feeling of discontent for five decades in the Middle West, this scorn for the recognized values has resulted, in literary terms, in outstanding 122 WISCONSIANA fiction. He believes that " in their headlong assault on the Midwest American scene writers like Dreiser, Lewis, Anderson, Masters, and Farrell have produced memorable achievements."

the Wisconsin Archeologist, March, 1949, contains a sketch on " Cultural Changes among the Wisconsin Indian Tribes during the French Contact Period," by John M. Douglass. The general conclusions reached by the author are these: fur trade rapidly changed the material culture of the tribes, which in turn created some frustra- tions within the group. Changes in tools, materials, and techniques tended to destroy certain occupational duties, and in some instances created new leisure time. Relocations of the natives effected by the military authorities brought new strife and new alliances between the several tribes. There was an increase in the prestige of the Indian leaders because of association with the French military as well as by the gifts presented to them by the French authorities. In general the tribes retained their original religious beliefs and were little influenced by the Jesuits. With the arrival of the French from Europe a number of extremely serious epidemics swept through the tribes. The rapid change in economy brought employment to the Indians as hunters and trappers, which meant the loss of a great deal of their former self-sufficiency and independence. Culture was increasingly diffused by the fur trade between the several tribes and between the Indians and French.

In the same number of the Archeologist there is also published a report by Professor A. H. Whiteford, Logan Museum, Beloit College, of the preliminary excavations of Indian burials which were done in August, 1948, at a site near Lake Monona on the outskirts of Madison. Professor Whiteford's report indicates " that the complex most strongly suggests affiliations with the Hopewell culture." The Whiteford report contains three plates which illustrate the pit burials. Dr. David A. Baerreis excavated and investigated these pits further with students enrolled in the University of Wisconsin Summer Field School in Archeology, of which he is the director. The purpose of this research was to determine more conclusively who these people were, their culture, and how they fit into the developing pattern of prehistoric Wisconsin. Accessions MANUSCRIPTS The papers of the Milwaukee Cement Company, which have been a primary source for the article in the present issue of the Magazine, have been presented to the Society by William T. Berthelet of Mil- waukee. Among the records are three volumes of minutes of the meetings of stockholders and board of directors of the company from its inception in November, 1875, until May, 1948, one volume of minutes kept from 1908 to 1914 by the directors of a subsidiary corporation, the Milwaukee Cement Railway Company, a small amount of correspondence, and several maps of company property. Accom- panying the manuscripts is an excellent group of pictures showing mill sites, equipment, directors, and employees in the period from 1875 to 1900. This gift constitutes a fine addition to the Society's records of Wisconsin industries.

Approximately sixty volumes of records to be added to the papers of the Holt Lumber Company have been received from W. A. Holt of Oconto, president of the organization. The collection previously presented to the Society covered mainly the period from 1865 to 1900; many of the new accessions delineate the activities of the company from 1900 until 1943 when its operations had virtually ceased. These later volumes include ledgers, journals, purchase records, sales records, and payrolls. Of special importance are a complete set of cash books from 1915 to 1943, five volumes showing distribution of company expenses from 1912 to 1943, and a detailed appraisal of buildings and equipment in 1913. Several volumes bearing earlier dates fill in gaps in the material prior to 1900. In all, the Holt Lumber Com- pany Papers illustrate in remarkable detail the development and operation of a large Wisconsin lumber business.

A valuable addition to the Henry Demarest Lloyd Papers is a portion of a revised manuscript of Lloyd's Wealth Against Common- wealth. This section, dealing with the famous Buffalo Conspiracy case, is probably a part of Lloyd's second or third draft of the book. These manuscript pages were a gift to the Society from four grand- children of the author: William Bross Lloyd, Miss Mary Maverick Lloyd, and Mrs. Paul Berndt, all of Winnetka, Illinois, and Mrs. Harvey O'Connor of Little Compton, Rhode Island.

The life of Wisconsin's Indian inhabitants during the twentieth century is a field in which the Society has had few pertinent manuscripts. Thus, it is with particular interest that a group of papers, 123 124 ACCESSIONS [September

1911-18, of James McLaughlin, an inspector in the Office of Indian Affairs, has been acquired. Among them are typewritten copies of reports and correspondence pertaining to conditions in the La Pointe and the Oneida Indian schools in 1911, investigation in 1915 of claims for land allotments to the Bad River band of Chippewa, and transcriptions of the hearings held at Oneida in 1917 shortly before the trust period on the Oneida land allotments was to expire and the land to be transferred to the holders by patents in fee.

Manuscripts relating to two of the many one-room schools which once served several generations of Wisconsin citizens have recently been gifts to the Society. Mrs. C. H. Bonsack of Madison, through T. L. Graham, presented an unusual book of records kept by the school board of District Seven in the town of Marion, Waushara County. Used from 1869 to 1904, the volume includes minutes of meetings, lists of the board officers, teachers' contracts, financial reports, and a few lists of students and of textbooks used. Mrs. Harvey B. Krebs of Waukesha is author and donor of a typewritten paper entitled " Saga of a Country School," which narrates the history of Shady Grove School in Ottawa township, also in Waukesha County. This school had more than ninety years of service from April, 1852, until the disbandment of the district in May, 1945. Other manuscript accessions include: a microfilm recording the activities and program of the Wisconsin Centennial Automotive Com- mittee, which includes reports, legal documents, and newspaper pub- licity, presented by W. C. Greb of Clintonville, secretary of the committee; a set of mimeographed news releases about the Centennial Exposition in Milwaukee, presented by Douglas Mclntosh, Milwaukee representative of the Chicago Tribune; a paper entitled " Airport De- velopment in Wisconsin," which was read at the Society's meeting in August, 1948, presented by the author, Colonel Lester J. Maitland; a letter, dated July, 1847, written by Phebe A. Willis and Melatiah [?] Willis, Jr. of Prairie du Sac to their parents in Corinth, Vermont, which contains a description of Wisconsin farming and business conditions; a letter dated April 26, 1884, from I. C. Caldwell to Herman L. Humphrey, a Wisconsin representative in Congress from 1877 to 1883, presented by Willis H. Miller of Hudson; a list of Wisconsin newspapermen to whom tickets to the Democratic National Con- vention in Chicago in 1892 were given, and a page which may have been part of a draft of the platform drawn up by the convention, presented by William J. Campbell of Oshkosh; a letter written by Booker T. Washington to Mrs. Clara H. Marshall, dated June 5, 1912, presented by Gilbert H. Doane of Madison; a small group of manuscripts to be added to the John Fox Potter Papers, presented by Margaret, Frieda, and Harriet Reynolds of Milwaukee; typewritten biographical 1949} ACCESSIONS 125 sketches of Judge George Gale, founder of Galesville, and of Marinuka, granddaughter of Decorah, written and presented by Bert A. Gipple of Galesville; a graph listing the post offices of Sheboygan County and showing the dates when each was in existence, presented by Ray Van Handel of Sheboygan; a typed English translation of a letter dated December 6, 1863, written by Christian Boehmer, Jr. to his parents to describe his trip from Madison to The Dalles, Oregon, presented by Mrs. Lillian Boehmer Elger; photostats of nine documents relating to Wisconsin in the period from 1816 to 1836, made from the originals in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; microfilm copies of letters written by Solon J. Buck to his parents from 1901 to 1906, describing his life as a student at the University of Wisconsin, the originals of which were loaned to the Society by Dr. Buck; photostats of seven letters dated from 1847 to 1870, written by Bishop Jackson Kemper to the Rev. Samuel Bowman and to Mrs. Ellen Bowman Vail, and obtained from the originals in the Ellen Sitgreaves Vail Motter Collection of Bishops' Letters in the Church Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, through the courtesy of T. H. Vail Motter of Washington, D.C., and of Gilbert Doane of Madison; a folder of correspondence and business papers relating to Augustus C. Kinne of Walworth County, dated from 1841 to 1864, and presented by Mrs. Constance Kinne Bush of Fort Knox, Kentucky, a manuscript history of La Crosse County, presented by Mrs. D. W. Bade of Waukesha; a photostat of a letter written by Lewis Taylor in October, 1846, describing his visit to the thriving town of Beloit, obtained from the original in the Calvin Taylor and Family Papers in the Department of Archives, Louisiana State Uni- versity; a contemporary copy of a letter dated March 8, 1854, from Morgan L. Martin to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, presented by Ernest N. Stanton of Grosse He, Michigan; a slender volume in the handwriting of Daniel Wells, Jr., which contains the names of persons on his mailing list during his Congressional service from 1854 to 1857, presented by the Misses Conway of Milwaukee.

MUSEUM A recent gift of considerable size, interest, and value is literally stopping the crowds at the STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. It is a scale model of a Great Lakes ore, grain, or coal freighter resting within a dry dock, and was given to the Society by the Manitowoc Ship- building Company. The case in which the models are enclosed is 16 feet long and was displayed by the company at the State Centennial Exposition in 1948. The ship model is 11 feet, 3 inches long, and the dry dock is 12 feet, 6 inches long. The scale of the models is one-fourth inch to the foot so that a freighter built to full scale would be 540 feet long, having a 54 foot beam and a 30 foot draught. 126 ACCESSIONS

It would weigh 4,600 tons, carry a crew of forty-five, and have a speed of eleven-and-one-half miles per hour. The dock is patterned after a dry dock at Manitowoc which is 600 feet long. The actual dock is constructed in ten sixty-foot sections so that it can be divided to accommodate different sizes of ships, and the model is similarly constructed. The various departments of the shipbuilding company collaborated on the design of the " Centennial" which is a model of lake freighters in general rather than of a specific ship. A. J. Zuehlke built the ship model, and Ted Neumann built the dry dock model. A feature of this model is a push-button which any visitor may, if he accepts the invitation on the label, press and so start a motor which operates the model. This is the first animated scale model to be received by the Society, and it is proving highly popular with adults as well as children because they can see it operate rather than merely observe a static object in a glass case. The freighter rests on the dry dock which when placed in operation, lowers the ship into the water where it floats within the dock. After thirty seconds, the dry dock again raises the ship out of the water in readiness for repairs. In addition to this interesting model the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company donated twenty-three enlarged photographs of various types of marine construction, ranging from landing craft and submarines built for the U.S. Navy in the last war, emergency fleet vessels built during World War I, dredges, car ferries, and tugs of recent years, the steamer " Christopher Columbus," a " whaleback," built for excursion trips in connection with the World Columbian Exposition in 1893, and schooners of the 1870's. These photographs are excellent additions to the Society's collection of lakes and river craft, but their primary value at this time is their suitability for exhibition. Plans are in progress for the installation of the photographs in conjunction with the model.

Another popular and worth-while exhibit which has been installed recently is a diorama portraying the use of hand tools for the harvesting of grain on a pioneer farm. The sickle scythe and cradle are all included as well as the crude log cabin, covered wagon, and other appurtenances to be found around a frontier homestead. The women and children helping with the harvest, a huntsman returning with a deer, and the rail fence are all visual reminders of the daily occurrences in the harvest season of a century ago. This diorama has been loaned to the Society's Museum by The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois. FREIGHTER WITHIN DRY DOCK

Of Wider Interest A major collection of the papers of the late General " Billy" Mitchell have recently been given to the Library of Congress by members of his family. General Mitchell was commander of United States aviation in France in World War I and subsequently director of military aviation in the United States Army. The papers include his personal files as assistant chief of the Air Service, his diaries during World War I and later, correspondence, and manuscripts of his books and articles on various aspects of aviation. The collection constitutes an invaluable source of information about the early days of military aviation in the United States.

The Library of Congress has also acquired the stenographic reports of the convention of the Conference for Progressive Political Action, July 4-5, 1924, which nominated Senator Robert M. La Follette for President, and of the post-campaign convention held in Chicago on February 21-22, 1925.

The late Frederick Jackson Turner and Francis Parkman, eminent American historians, were designated by the American Historical Association, at the request of the Mexican government, to be memo- rialized by having their portraits hung in the Hall of History in Mexico City among those of the leading historians of all the countries of the Western hemisphere. The Turner painting was executed by Charles Thwaites, a leading Wisconsin artist; the Parkman by an Eastern artist. The portrait collection was formally presented at the first Pan American Historical Congress which opened in Monterey, Mexico, on September 4.

Aspen, Colorado, the little mountain town famous for winter sports, was host to thousands of visitors between June 27 and July 20 who came to honor Johann Wolfgang Goethe, German poet and philosopher, by attending an International Goethe Convocation and Music Festival. Herbert Hoover was honorary chairman of the Bicentennial Foundation, and Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago the active chairman. The Foundation has arranged for a modern English translation of the most important Goethe1 works to be published in a ten-volume edition. Perhaps the outstanding speaker at the Convocation was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, theologian, and Goethe scholar from French Equatorial Africa. Germany sent Ernst Robert Curtius of the University of Bonn, who spoke on " The Medieval Basis of Western Thought"; England's representative was Stephen Spender, 127 128 OF WIDER INTEREST poet and Goethe translator, whose subject was "Goethe and the English Mind." Also appearing as lecturers were Halvdan Koht, former minister of Norway; Thornton Wilder, novelist and play- wright; Jean Canu, of the Sorbonne in Paris; and other European scholars. The program of the. Music Festival glittered with the names of many famous artists: Nathan Milstein, violinist; Gregor Piatigorsky, cellist; Dorothy Maynor, soprano; Greta Glaz, contralto; and others. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra appeared in ten performances. There was a great array of talent from the far corners of the earth, and Aspen's midsummer guestbook carried names, as universally known, no doubt, as is Aspen itself. In connection with the Goethe Bicentennial might be mentioned the present restoration of the poet's home after its destruction by air attack on March 22, 1944. The information is contained in an article, " The Goethe Home," by Peter L. Muschamp, in The American- German Review, April, 1949- He states that with few exceptions the contents of the home were safely stored in anticipation of such an event. From the rubble " historic and architectural treasures in stone or iron " were retrieved, and the pieces are being used in the re- construction. It is pointed out that Goethe's birthplace will become a very faithful reproduction of the earlier house. Pictures of the exterior and interior, of the ruins, and the partially completed building accompany the sketch. The 195 0= WISCONSIN CALENDAR now available . '

A desk calendar filled with vividly printed scenes of Wis- consin life . . . with ample space for daily memoranda and interesting dates in Wisconsin history. All Wisconsin is represented in pictures, from ore boats to trout streams, and from city streets to summer pastures!

Pictorial, practical, the 1950 Wisconsin Calendar is an ideal gift.

$1.00 Boxed for mailing 108 pages—55 pictures

At bookstores, or order direct from: THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin