It is not usual, however, to find one publishing such a large and expensive volume as this for the purpose of giving merely the author's opinion about the problems of that day and the shortcomings of the men who were trying to solve them. Not unlike most writers on the Reconstruction, this author endeavored to commend those who achieved as he would have them and to condemn those who addressed themselves to these tasks in a different way. In most places, however, he found many to censure and few to praise. If the book has any purpose at all, it is intended not as a history of the period but a survey of the corruption and vice of the age. Very little of the malfeasance in positions of public trust escaped the attention of this writer.
Beginning with President Grant himself, the author has tried to show that there was little of virtue and efficiency among public functionaries of that time. He refers to Grant as being ignorant, stupid, and simple, holds up to scorn James G. Blaine, and questions Garfield's connection with Credit Mobilier in the style characteristic of the book. Other crimes to the credit of the leading statesmen of that day are given detailed treatment. The book abounds in so many recriminations and epithets belaboring the most distinguished men of the time that the uninformed reader would expect something like the fall of Rome to follow.
If the white people with all their advantages had degenerated to such a low level, the reader might wonder why the author should make any comment at all on the corruption of the Negroes in the South. Inasmuch as they had not been generally educated and had been denied participation in civic affairs, he might have excused them for abandoning work to enjoy their freedom, stealing from their former masters, and obtruding themselves socially upon haughty persons of the old regime. In the same style, however, the Negroes are given their share of vilification. "He refers to them as 'Sambo' and 'Cuffee' entering the halls of government, and a 'Coal Black' member made temporary chairman," "'The Black Crook Convention,' 'Ring-tailed Coons,' 'Outlaws and Rag-a-muffins,' and a 'Gang of Jailbirds.'"
All of these expressions are not original with the author. They are taken from southern newspapers and books of the same sort of authorship. Instead of using such evidence only when known to be unconscious, the author has accepted this information as the truth. According to the requirements of modern historiography, newspapers are generally valuable only in determining the sentiment of the people except when the evidence obtained is unconscious. Furthermore, the author has too often accepted second-hand information, found in books of writers who have produced treatises on the Reconstruction for the express purpose of vilifying the Negroes who participated in that drama, and to justify the high-handed action of the whites who through such invisible powers as the Ku Klux Klan overthrew the liberal governments, and re-established the power of the aristocracy of the South. It is unreasonable to suppose that orators and editors interested in disfranchising and re-enslaving the Negroes would tell the truth about the freedmen.
It is most unfortunate that writers have accepted the point of view of these biased authors instead of making a research for the facts in the case. In too many instances, this author quotes Fleming for facts of Reconstruction in Alabama, Hamilton for North Carolina, Ficklen for Louisiana, Garne for Mississippi, Ramsdell for Texas, Reynolds for South Carolina, Davis for Florida, Eckenrode for Virginia, Thompson for Georgia, and the like. These "authorities" do not strengthen the claims of a work because of the very bias with which these books were written, for these writers accepted rumors, violent newspaper comments, and inflammatory speeches as reasons for their conclusions. Any history built upon such authority cannot be considered trustworthy.
From the point of view of the Negro himself, this book is not a history of the United States for the period which it purports to cover. It has very little to say about the Negroes except to refer to them as an ignorant, illiterate mass of thieves and rascals. In a work covering merely four years, a seeker of the truth would expect some information therefrom as to how the freedmen began their social and economic stride upward, what forces were set to work among them, and how susceptible they proved to be of the training offered in the schools and churches established for their special needs. Inasmuch as he found so much space for the Carpet-Baggers who went South to control the State governments through the Negro vote, it would have hardly been out of place for the author to mention that throng of apostles who came South as teachers to give their lives as a sacrifice in the uplift of these belated people. What these Negroes did, during these very years, to help themselves should have received some consideration. Every Negro of consequence in the South was not a politician or an office-seeker. What the race is accomplishing today is due in a large measure to the foundation laid at that time by Negroes of foresight, who acquired education and property and joined the missionary teachers from the North in the noble effort for the education and economic amelioration of the freedmen.
The Partition of Africa. By Sir Charles Lucas, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1922. Pp. 228.)
This book consists of the lectures given by the author at the Royal Colonial Institute to a circle of teachers of the London County Council in 1921. The author disclaims any pretension to exhaust the subject. He acknowledges that these lectures are somewhat discursive with the intention of suggesting diverse points of view and a variety of subjects for further study. With this purpose in mind he freely quotes a number of books and papers, evidently desiring to stimulate the reader to further study. It is admitted, moreover, that while these lectures have been awaiting publication there has taken place in Africa so many developments that this volume will not suffice to inform the reader.
The work begins with a survey of Africa in ancient times as it connected with the Mediterranean World. Unfortunately, in this chapter the author follows the well-beaten path of misrepresenting that land by referring to it as the "Dark Continent," which, from his point of view, was dependent and backward because it had no facilities of communication with Europe. In this chapter, therefore, he proves not that Africa had not made much advancement but that the European was merely ignorant of that part of the world.