| + + | Pub. Opin. 39: 26. Jl. 1, ‘05. 230w. |
“The author has avoided, rather than sought after, popular effects; his own opinions are held in abeyance, and he sometimes assumes too large a knowledge on the part of his reader.”
| + + — | Reader. 6: 593. O. ‘05. 470w. |
Rogers, Joseph Morgan. The true Henry Clay. [**]$2. Lippincott.
The author’s life-long acquaintance with Clay’s “career and environment,” and his access to the private papers of the great statesman, have put him in touch with the real facts for a biography, which tells “the truth about Clay and his failures and successes.” He is set forth in the light of the true builder for his country,—the “economic development that has compelled the admiration of the world had its beginnings in the policies of internal improvements and tariff protection to which he stood, if not as father, at least as sponsor.... The key to his career, to his failures and successes alike, Mr. Rogers finds in his profoundly emotional nature. ‘While physically and mentally Clay was a strong man, temperamentally he was constituted like a woman.’” (Outlook).
“The loose rambling, repetitious style, running at times even into errors of grammar, informs us at once that we are not to look here for the minor accuracies of scholarship. Nor are all the errors minor. Read as a whole the book produces an admirable impression. This biography detracts no whit, from the value of Schurz’s account of the national activities of Henry Clay, but it will give the general reader a much better idea of the man.” Carl Russell Fish.
| + + — | Am. Hist. R. 10: 900. Jl. ‘05. 880w. |
“The emphasis is on the personal side. The author is an admirer of Clay, yet he tells the truth about him, not glossing over his defects and frailties or attempting to cover his blunders.”
| + + | Dial. 38: 204. Mr. 16, ‘05. 160w. |
“There is an occasional slip of misstatement ... but on the whole a painstaking care is evident.”