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If there is one thing more important than the American Constitution, it is the United States Supreme Court. Charles Warren, formerly assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and author of A History of the American Bar, is a person with a remarkable capacity for hard work in research. He has that other priceless gift, the ability to digest what he has learned and to present it clearly but without the sacrifice of opulence. For this double reason his The Supreme Court in United States History, occupying to some extent the same field as Beveridge’s Life of John Marshall, is the only work worthy to be put beside Senator Beveridge’s masterpiece. The award of the $2,000 Pulitzer Prize for the year’s best book on the history of the United States, made annually or less often by Columbia University, quite naturally fell to Mr. Warren after publication of his three-volume history. “This book,” Mr. Warren says in his preface, “is not a law book. It is a narrative of that section of our national history connected with the Supreme Court, and is written for laymen and lawyers alike. As words are but ‘the skin of a living thought,’ so law cases as they appear in the law reports are but the dry bones of very vital social, political and economic contests. This book is an attempt to restore, in some degree, their contemporary surroundings to the important cases decided by the Supreme Court.”
In other words, this is the first history of the one most tremendous factor in American government, and it is written from a non-legal standpoint. After its publication Chief Justice William H. Taft and Justices Day, Van Devanter, McReynolds and Clarke joined by personal letters of praise the great voice of critical commendation which was heard from all over the country. Chief Justice Taft spoke particularly of the enormous labor involved in the reading of early American newspapers, necessary if Mr. Warren were to get the contemporary view and feeling on Supreme Court decisions. “I consider that you have put the profession, and indeed the whole country, under a heavy debt,” the Chief Justice concluded. But I submit that Mr. Warren’s perfect readability is the chief item of our indebtedness.
I spoke of the Constitution: books upon it are much in demand these days. One which has had a wide sale and praise from high sources is Thomas James Norton’s The Constitution of the United States: Its Sources and Its Application. Mr. Norton writes for the layman and his book has had a somewhat extensive use in Americanization work. One of those heartiest in praise of it has been the Hon. James M. Beck, Solicitor General of the United States, who says: “I know of no book which so completely and coherently explains our form of government, and I hope, indeed, for the welfare of our country that it may have the wide circulation which it so richly merits.” The generosity of this is the more appreciable when we consider that Mr. Beck’s own book, The Constitution of the United States, appearing about the same time, and founded on his Gray’s Inn lectures in London, was in more or less degree a rival for readers’ attention. But it is apparent that people read, if they read at all, not one but several books on the Constitution; for Mr. Beck’s volume, rewritten and considerably expanded, is just being republished as The Constitution of the United States: Yesterday, Today—Tomorrow?
James Myers’s Representative Government in Industry and Sterling Denhard Spero’s The Labor Movement in a Government Industry are volumes that, because of their specialized character, are more related to Mr. Blanshard’s An Outline of the British Labor Movement. But they are both on American subjects. Mr. Myers is executive secretary of the board of operatives of the Dutchess Bleachery, Inc., at Wappingers Falls, New York. This bleachery is an “industrial democracy,” or partnership enterprise, operated by the employees. Mr. Myers’s book has therefore a great advantage over most books of its sort: it records an actual experiment in successful operation, not somebody’s theories as to what ought to work. Mr. Spero’s book is adequately described by its subtitle, “a study of employee organization in the Postal Service.” After a short survey of unionism in the civil service, Mr. Spero gives the full record of its history among the United States postal employees. The book is not propaganda for any organization or group, but the work of an impartial historian with no axe to grind.
Are new books on Lincoln justified? Yes. We are only beginning to get those of enduring value, aside from certain contemporary records. “The Lincoln papers, rich in letters to Lincoln, many of them quite as important to the biographer as those written by him, have not yet been released, nor will they be available for a number of years,” points out Daniel Kilham Dodge, in the preface to his Abraham Lincoln—Master of Words, “and the Hay Diary, a source of the utmost importance, is still in manuscript form, to be consulted only by special permission of the Harvard Library authorities.” These are only two of the known important items. Mr. Dodge’s own new book is entirely confined to one phase of Lincoln’s life, though a phase of the greatest interest. Was he an orator? Was the Gettysburg address composed briefly on the train, in effect an impromptu? Just what was Lincoln’s genius for effective utterance?
Mr. Dodge has uncovered some interesting facts, and brought others into valuable juxtaposition. Lincoln was no natural born orator. All his life he was unable to make an extempore speech. On the day Richmond fell, Lincoln dispersed an enthusiastic crowd before the White House, telling them to come the next day when he would have a speech ready. He kept his promise. It was his last speech before his assassination.
The young Lincoln modeled himself on Henry Clay. His earliest speeches often contained the purple patches not entirely dissociable from Southern oratory. The Lincoln humor, notorious in conversation, was extremely rare in his speeches; another evidence that when he spoke his words were studied. He simply could not express himself gracefully—or effectively—on short notice. The evidence is that the Gettysburg address was as carefully prepared as anything else. Mr. Dodge has made an onerous examination of contemporary newspapers and sources to find out if anyone really did perceive the speech’s classic line and immense stature. Only about three voices were raised in acclaim.
Abraham Lincoln—Master of Words is worth adding to the Lincoln shelf. But its lesson is distinctly that such eloquence as Lincoln had came from toil and care and thought—perhaps was achieved only because, so often, the need for utmost sincerity in expression, the grave consequence of an issue impending, came to his aid.