“... The ancestors of the gentlemen who sat last night resented nothing more than censorship of all kinds. They wanted to settle for themselves what they should read, eat, drink, wear and do. The era of Jefferson and Franklin and Samuel Adams was not the era of excision and paternalism.”[801]
The Courier-Journal also, in an editorial on “Writing History,” stressed the new values which have developed in the scientific presentation of history, causing “a fresh and clarified perspective.” To the Courier-Journal Muzzey’s textbook represented “the newer tendencies in historical writing,” and aimed wisely “to give the emphasis to those factors in our national development, which appeal to us as the most vital from the standpoint of today.” The editorial commended it for omission of facts which could easily be found elsewhere, and because of its non-sectionalism.[802]
Action similar to that taken by the Kentucky chapter occurred in California, where not only the Sons of the American Revolution but the Sons of the Revolution instituted a search for “anti-American” histories. Here the latter organization, under the leadership of Frank H. Pettingell, in an effort to gain converts to their point of view, distributed to all school districts Charles Grant Miller’s pamphlet Treason to American Tradition.[803] By the former organization two detailed reports regarding Muzzey’s An American History were issued, the one expressing the opinion of a majority of a committee to investigate this book, and the other setting forth the views of a dissenting member.
The majority report revealed no criticisms which had not been presented in the National Report.[804] On the other hand, the minority statement included four points: first, that “fairness requires that if we are to pass upon the histories used in the schools, there should be an examination of those in general use, not merely one; second, if there is to be a critical examination of histories in use in the schools of this country, it should be by a committee composed of members sufficiently acquainted with the writing and teaching of history, that their report may be comprehensive and scientific, as well as patriotic; third, the majority report fails to consider thoroughly the purpose for which this history was written; and fourth, the history should be judged by its whole tone and spirit and purpose, and not by words and sentences isolated from their context.”[805]
In analyzing the textbook and comparing statements with those cited in the majority report as reprehensible, the minority report accepted the principle adopted by some textbook writers, namely, that biographical history should be left to the elementary grades and the study of institutional development to the secondary school.
As a result of this agitation, the Commissioner of Secondary Schools of California appointed a committee to investigate history textbooks. They reported that none of the books examined were found tainted by disloyal or unpatriotic sentiments, and that the attacks against history textbooks were due to a “revival of pro-German sentiment,” to “an ineradicable Irish anti-British sentiment,” to a “journalistic opposition to Great Britain,” and “to an element of political reaction against the domestic legislation of recent years.”[806]
In Ohio, also, the Sons of the American Revolution at their state convention in Cleveland in May, 1923, condemned Muzzey’s An American History and adopted a resolution that no textbook should be used in the schools “which belittles the founders of our government or minimizes their achievements.”[807]
During Education Week in 1922, the Idaho Society Sons of the American Revolution, under the leadership of Captain A. H. Conner, started an agitation against the History of the American People by Willis Mason West, resulting in the exclusion of this book from the Boise schools. Criticized in much the same manner as Muzzey’s An American History, this textbook was held unfit to “be found in a single school in the United States of America.”[808] To Captain Conner, the treatment of historical incidents, not only in the Revolutionary period and in the War of 1812, but in the Civil War and recent period, deserved severe condemnation.
Objection was raised to the treatment accorded battles in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812, as well as that of controversial questions which have “no place in a history.”[809] From the latter, Captain Conner adduced that “the author of this book is quite evidently a free trader.” The discussion of the labor question, socialism, the direct primary, the initiative, the referendum, the League of Nations and other “controversial subjects,” such as were found in this book “are out of place in a school history.” Furthermore, it was charged that the book “excuses the South for its disgraceful treatment of Union soldiers in military prisons, (p. 566), states that Robert E. Lee ranks among the noblest figures in American history and practically accuses Grant of being in collusion with the ‘Whiskey Ring.’”[810]
Captain Conner’s criticism of West’s discussion of the Civil War period gained ready converts to his point of view, and the Phil Sheridan Post Number 4 of the Grand Army of the Republic issued a denunciation of the textbook as “worse than a travesty on justice, and a slam in the face of true Americans.”[811]