I think there is a great deal of truth in the assertion that one cannot know American history without having read this book. Much that has heretofore been withheld from general knowledge is told for the first time. And there are picturesque matters which are far from being affairs of general knowledge—for example, the fact that the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad was due to the army and army training, or the fact that General Winfield Scott, single-handed, saved the country three times from war.
Who is William A. Ganoe? A West Pointer commissioned in the regular army in 1907 who has served in Cuba, Hawaii, and various parts of the United States. He was instructor, and afterward assistant professor of English, and finally adjutant for four years at West Point. He was in command of a company in the first series of training camps when we entered the war, and head of a board of officers formed to edit the Infantry Drill Regulations after the war. He is now head of the military history section at the U. S. Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly (“Ruggs—R.O.T.C.”), Scribner’s, and the Yale Review. He has, of course, had access to various records and historical confirmations not available to the non-army writer.
A History of the United States Navy had already been written by Edgar Stanton Maclay, and readers will welcome Mr. Maclay’s A History of American Privateers, which truly supplements the earlier work. For during the Revolution the number of privateers was about four times that of regular naval vessels; and the part played by the privateer in the War of 1812 has never been minimized by any historian. From before the Revolution to after the War of 1812 hundreds of respected men made their livings—and their fortunes—by sailing as licensed pirates with full powers to capture any ships of unfriendly countries. Men who were unable to go bought shares in the privateers and often, when a rich prize was captured, reaped an incredible dividend. So slight was the difference in practice between privateering and plain piracy, so enormous was the profit in both, that it is not surprising to learn that every once in a while a privateersman, having waited in vain for a “lawful” prey, attacked a ship of his own nation, or any first comer. The classic instance is that of Captain Kidd, sent out as a privateersman, hung as a pirate.
It goes without saying that Mr. Maclay’s book is romantic; it couldn’t be anything else. Its interest is equally the interest of authentic history and daring adventure; its value always that of fact. There are plenty of books giving the history of our merchant marine; Mr. Maclay had done a history of the navy; here he has filled the gap between by telling what is perhaps the most exciting story of the three.
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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?