Professor Sparks’ volume begins with the year 1877 that marks the break between old issues and the intermediate, vital question of the adaptation of American government to the industrial and social needs of the country. The first five chapters are devoted to a summary of the social and economic conditions of the time; six to eight, to the party struggles due to President Hayes’ withdrawal of the federal troops from the south; nine to twelve discuss silver coinage and the national civil service; thirteen and fourteen discuss the Isthmian canal and the exclusion of the Chinese; fifteen and sixteen follow the effect on the nation of the rapid settling up of the west; seventeen to nineteen deal with conditions which Cleveland found in 1884.
v. 24. Dewey, Davis R. National problems.
7–33614.
Beginning with the new economic conditions that the Cleveland administration of 1884 found, Professor Dewey traces the course of the national problems to 1897. He deals with organized labor, civil service, the tariff, silver, railroads, foreign relations, the reorganization of the Republican party, foreign policy, commercial organization, currency, and the free coinage campaign of 1896.
“The merit of this volume is the thoughtful and judicial treatment of a period of complicated political conditions and of problems new to the national life. If any fault is to be found with the book, it is in its lack of proportion. This, however, appears to be due rather to the plan of the work than to the author’s execution of it.” Jesse S. Reeves.
| + + − | Am. Hist. R. 12: 673. Ap. ’07. 980w. (Review of v. 17.) |
“Our author is eminently fair in his treatment of the South, though the parts of the book dealing with that section exhibit less complete information than do other portions.”
| + + − | Am. Hist. R. 12: 675. Ap. ’07. 790w. (Review of v. 18.) |
“The military and naval situation is presented with unusual clearness, and this whole portion of the book has the ring of a definitive account. Errors are few.” Carl Russell Fish.