Myths and Legends of the Great Plains. Selected and edited by Katharine Berry Judson. (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co. 1913. Pp. 205. $1.50 net.)
This is the fourth volume in the series of Myths and Legends edited by Miss Judson. Earlier volumes covering Alaska, The Pacific Northwest, and California and the Old Southwest have been noted in previous issues of this magazine.
One Hundred Years of Peace. By Henry Cabot Lodge. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Pp. 136. $1.25 net.)
This timely book should find a welcome in the State of Washington, where committees are already at work to celebrate the centennial of peace by the erection of an arch or some other form of imposing monument where the Pacific Highway passes from the United States into Canada.
James Harlan. By Johnson Brigham. (Iowa City, The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1913. Pp. 398.)
This latest volume in the very creditable Iowa Biographical Series (edited by Benj. F. Shambaugh) is the well told story of one of Iowa's best known sons. James Harlan was a typical Westerner, a man of rugged sincerity, an orator and debater of no mean ability, an independent and self-reliant leader of a pioneer people. The years of his political career were entangled with the anti-slavery agitation, the Civil War, and the confused and trying periods of Reconstruction. He was not perhaps a statesman of first rank, but Iowa does well in setting forth the work of her sons in the very excellent series of which this volume forms a creditable addition. On the whole, the volume does not measure up to the standard for fairness set by some of the earlier volumes. On too many controverted points the opinion of the "Burlington Hawk-Eye" and "the Iowa State Register" are quoted as if their judgment was final. A good many states would reflect credit on themselves by encouraging a similar excellent biographical series.