History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896. By James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., D.Litt. Volume VIII, 1877-1896. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. Pp. 484.
This is supposed to be a continuation of Mr. Rhodes History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877. As one, however, considers the treatment of the former work in comparison with this recent treatise, he must conclude that the author has not maintained the standard set in his earlier volumes which show deeper insight and a more scientific point of view. Persons who have looked forward to the continuation of Mr. Rhodes's comprehensive history from the transition period of Hayes' administration will certainly be disappointed in observing how he has failed in tracing the threads of history, which in our time, have become momentous. After reading the volume one is still at a loss as to what forces in our national life the author considers as being actually in the making during the period which the volume covers.
The work begins with a treatment of Hayes' administration setting forth facts which have appeared elsewhere in the author's studies in this particular period. As in other works, the author defends almost everything Hayes did and arraigns the Reconstruction Republicans who were opposed to him. He then presents in an unscientific way the brief discussion of economic questions bearing on railroad rates, wages, strikes, mobs and riots. Financial depression, the silver question and the valuable service of John Sherman are given considerable attention. Valuable facts are set forth in his discussion of civil service reform, the tariff commission and the Chinese question. Too much of the book, however, is devoted to merely political matter involving a detailed discussion of campaigns and elections at the expense of the economic, constitutional and diplomatic movements decidedly influencing the history of this country.
In this work the author pays very little attention to the Negro except as he leaves the impression that the race was justly deprived of the suffrage and of holding office. He makes reference to the complaint of the Republicans to show that in disfranchising the Negro in the South to make that section solidly Democratic that every white voter in the South thereafter possessed the political power of two white voters in the North. He mentions also the federal election laws and the Force Bill but finally concludes that the experiment of making the Negro a citizen was a failure. Here again Mr. Rhodes shows his lack of knowledge of human affairs in that he studies history only in the present tense. No man at present is wise enough to say whether we shall finally obtain more good than bad results from the Reconstruction, for we are too close to that part of our history to make a proper estimate of these events.
The Negro Year Book. Edited by Monroe N. Work, Director of Department of Records and Research, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. The Negro Year Book Publishing Company, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, 1919. Pp. 523.
There has appeared for 1918-1919 a new edition of the Negro Year Book to which students of Negro Life and History have learned to look for information concerning the Negro. This volume appears with a table of contents and a useful index to the numerous facts compiled. The volume not only covers the field of former editions but includes also much up to date material throwing light on Negro current history. The very first portion of the work is entitled Fifty-three Years of Progress, 1866-1919. This is a statistical study of Negro schools, Negro ownership of property, and Negro enterprise. The reader will be interested in such information as illiteracy, music, painters, actors, occupations, agriculture, business, and the study of crime.
The Negro Year Book is a desirable step in the right direction. Mr. Work and his coworkers deserve unusual praise for this undertaking in a field where for a number of years yet to come the returns must necessarily be meagre. The work meets a long felt want of statistical information as to exactly what the Negro people are doing. These facts will serve not only as an inspiration to the race itself but to refute so much misinformation often circulated to do Negroes injury. It is earnestly hoped that the managers of this work will find it possible in the near future to publish an annual volume and to this end the public should give the movement unstinted support to make such an undertaking financially profitable.