Zndiana Magazine of History Indiana University, Bloomington The

380 Zndiana Magazine of History ness. Publisher is neither a shrewd psychological biography nor an insightful scholarly history. For example, we are not fully drawn into the mind of Eugene Pulliam. The author describes Pulliam’s views over the years, but his efforts to explain them are not always satisfying. Too often he simply offers very general conjectures about the influence of Pulliam’s early religious training or his experience in the political turmoil of 1912. Pul- liam’s private life is almost completely neglected. In a chapter on Pulliam’s radio business, Russell Pulliam suddenly says: “In the meantime, his family life had fallen apart” (p. 97). This is the first we have heard of it. The book also has weaknesses as political and journalism history. Pulliam began his career as a Bull Moose Progressive, and the author makes some effort to explain the substance and style of the Bull Moose movement. But in general there is little historical context of the Progressive era and no thorough grounding in the historical literature. The book is more a narrative account of political wars than an analytical political history. Similarly, the book is thin as a history of modern American journalism. Russell Pulliam tells fascinating stories about buying and selling newspapers, but he does not tell us enough about the changing nature of the newspaper business and its relationship to a changing urban environment. In short, the book lacks the kind of theoretical or analytical frame- work that marks the difference between good journalism and good history. But the book is a valuable case study nonetheless. For journalism historians, it offers insights into the relationship between a newspaper and the local urban power structure. In his attitudes about local public responsibility, for example, Eugene Pulliam, the hater of big government, was a promoter of government activism. This suggests something important about the nature of the modern newspaper business. For Indiana historians, the book offers interesting accounts of famous and not-so-famous political battlers and backbiters. In the final analysis, Eugene Pulliam will probably not be remembered as either a brilliant publisher or as an important political thinker. But he was a fascinating character who de- serves a biography. And he certainly would be pleased to know that his own grandson has written a good one. Indiana University, Bloomington David Paul Nord The Best of Kin Hubbard: Abe Martin’s Sayings and Wisecracks, Abe’s Neighbors, His Almanack, Comic Drawings. Edited and introducted by David S. Hawes. (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1984. Pp. x, 144. Illustrations, notes, note on sources. $12.95.) David S. Hawes recaptures the simpler humor of a simpler age in his delightful volume The Best of Kin Hubbard: Abe Mar- Book Reviews 381 tin’s Sayings and Wisecracks. Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard, an Indianapolis News artist, created Abe as a mythical Brown County resident when that area was still the epitome of rustic- ity. For twenty-six years, beginning in 1904, Abe appeared daily to amuse his readers in contemporary Hoosier backwoods dialect with a mixture of horse sense and nonsense that stuck pins in such sacred cows as politics, criminal justice, feminism, pomp, status, and wealth or evoked a pragmatic philosophy regarding the work ethic, family, entertainment, and other subjects. To articulate his philosophy, Hubbard created an unlikely cast of characters and set them down alongside Abe in his mythical town of Bloom Center. There were Miss Germ Williams, Hon. ex-editor Cale Fluhart, Miss Fawn Lippincut, Tilford Moots, Squire Marsh Swallow, and a host of others. Hawes deftly divides his work into two parts: Hubbards biography; and quotations from his daily column, his essays “Short Furrows,” and his an- nual almanack. Hawes describes Abe as “one of the most popular and pro- found cracker barrel philosophers this country has ever known” (p. 3) and points out that he attracted millions of readers through more than 300 newspapers. To keep the chuckle level high, Hawes intersperses the biographical chapter with Martin quotes, such as: “We’d all like to vote fer th’ best man but he’s never a candidate” (p. 14); and “Married life hain’t SO bad after YOU git Reproduced from Frank McKinney so you kin eat the things your wife li- ~;~~;~;+~~~,~;~ kes” (p. 19). Epigrams sometimes drove home Abe’s often barbed philosophy: “A woman’s work is never done-anymore”; and “Miss Fawn Lippincut sings with feelin’ but not fer others” (p. 27). In selecting the best of Kin Hubbard, Hawes has chosen witticisms that remain applicable more than a half-century after they were uttered: “Some girls seem t’ buy a skirt on th’ theory that they’ll never set down” (p. 37); “Some fellers have a way 0’ loafin’ that makes ’em look busy’’ (p. 135); “Figures don’t lie, but you kin group ’em so they’ll answer the same purpose” (p. 140). By carefully sorting through Hubbard’s writings and drawings, Hawes has come up with a slim, easy to read, enjoyable 382 Indiana Magazine of History volume that promises many a chuckle to anyone looking for light literary relaxation. Marion. Ind. Richard S. Simons The Pokagans, 1683-1983: Catholic Potawatomi Indians of the St. Joseph River Valley. By James A. Clifton. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984. Pp. xiv, 166. Maps, illus- tration, notes, bibliography. Clothbound, $22.75; paper- bound, $11.50.) In this brief volume, James A. Clifton presents the struggle of the southwestern Michigan Potawatomi to maintain their tribal identity and cultural cohesion. It particularly expands the ethnohistory of those Potawatomi known as the Pokagan band, who in the 1833 Treaty of Chicago councils negotiated the right to remain in southwestern Michigan after the other Potawatomi bands were removed to a reservation west of Missouri. Driven by Iroquois raids from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan by 1641, the Potawatomis took refuge on the Dorr Peninsula. After the Iroquois war subsided, the Potawatomis ex- panded their range and population, which rose fourfold to about eleven or twelve thousand people. One group of Potawatomis settled in southwestern Michigan along the St. Joseph River while others continued on to Detroit, to the Wabash, or to the Illinois River; still others remained along the western shore of Lake Michigan. No paramount or principal chief ever controlled all of the Potawatomi villages. Each village was economically, politically, and religiously self-sufficient. Tribal or village issues were publicly debated and decisions were implemented by a leader (zukama)supported by other political, social, and religious functionaries. Until 1760 the Potawatomis served the French as military allies and as collectors of furs and skins. French fur traders married into prominent Potawatomi families producing offspring with skills useful to the tribesmen, who were increasingly dependent upon European manufactured goods and weapons. After the con- clusion of the French and Indian War hegemony passed to Great Britain, which maintained preponderant influence among the Potawatomis until the end of the War of 1812. Then and espe- cially after the completion of the Erie Canal the Potawatomis faced farmers and settlers clamoring for Indian land. This threat culminated in the Indiana Removal Act of 1830 and the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which permitted the Catholic Potawatomi to remain in Michigan. .

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