informed the editor of the Illinois State Register of his polic any bill was introduced, and depreciating not a little the the he was a mere agent late engaged by others to present their P 113-116). By his stroke, however, Douglas lost the German them his safe majority at home, with all that meant to him to the United States. The chapter on the origin of the Re party, written from the newspapers and manuscripts, is val showing the part played by the various Democrats and WH joined, and particularly for the light thrown by the Trumbul The local history brings solution to many puzzling proble example, Douglas doubtless had in mind his home constituen he shifted to his aggressive anti-Lecompton ground (pp. 1 The campaign of 1860, with the two chief candidates from is of course presented with picturesque detail. The followers coln though they made objection to the tariff plank, carried fight with great enthusiasm. "The talent of the Democra had to a large extent been transferred to the Republican tion. . . . Realizing this, the little giant broke all traditions tered the hustings in person, much to the disgust of his Re opponents "--but all in vain. The title of this book is The Era of the Civil War but no is made to follow Illinois regiments through southern bat the bitter strifes at home supply sufficient theme. The sto cruiting when "Egypt" talked secession and the north surp quota, shows that the choice of Lincoln had converted th counties to his cause. After the first year the issue was "li Lincolnism" among the Democrats, and "firmness vs. Ling among the Republicans; the state seemed singularly rent the abolitionists and copperheads. Governor Yates rose with courage to meet the crisis of 1863 and supported the dictato the President, wishing that it might be stronger. In his pa were few enthusiastic Lincoln men, but who was more a The victories of Farragut and Sherman turned the tide in Il elsewhere. Peace brought new problems in its train. The increase lation during war-time, the rise and fall in the prosperity farmers, the industrial revolution somewhat hastened by sti of war needs and prices, the rise of sport and the develop taste all these receive intelligent and adequate attention, ta four times the number of pages given to the military politic the spoilsmen of the later sixties, whose behavior would ha The the exclusive theme of historians trained in an older school. style throughout the book is lively and engaging, but the author has allowed himself no flights of fancy; almost every statement is buttressed by close documentation, especially from newspapers. To Professor Thompson fall the early years of industrial Illinois and the recovery of idealism long buried under the aftermath of war. In the constitutional convention of 1847 the farmers had been masters by a large majority; now in its successor of 1870 the lawyers outnumbered all others almost two to one, and it must be said that their product proved more serviceable and permanent. A broadened view of public law was evidenced in the provision for control of railroad rates, and a partial remedy for the pernicious sectionalism, with which the state was cursed, was found in the cumulative vote, to give expression to minorities. The farmers of Illinois were not beguiled by Liberal Republicanism; their interest was in economic, not political, reform, and they were astonished at the curious futility of naming the high-tariff editor of the New York Tribune. Their experiments with laws and parties and cooperative agencies, their unstable partnership with industrial labor, are recounted with dramatic interest more easily attainable within the narrow compass of state history than in national. From the McCormick manuscripts, not previously used, there comes a vivid story of party methods in 1876; the Democratic party, which had fed on miscellaneous discontents, now with the return of the southern states was sobered by the prospect of success and in Illinois as elsewhere took on an air of responsibility. The author's chapters on the Republican machine reveal the fascination of the great American game of organizing popular majorities. Strong hearts were necessary in the deadlock of 1885 which so long suspended certainty as to John A. Logan's third election to the Senate. But new forces and new issues were emerging; it was realized in Illinois that the generals and the copperheads were out of date and that farmers were not the only class that had a grievance and a voice.2 1 It is at times, in the reviewer's opinion, a bit too lively, e. g., such expressions as giving a resolution the "go by" (p. 107), "to keep mum" (p. 110), "an effective comeback" (p. 169), “the fair weather brigade" (p. 178), “the Mt. Carmel Register took the Lincoln train" (p. 201, note), the legislature "cared little for the advice handed out to it" (p. 415), etc. This may be a question of personal taste. The chapter on "New Forces Astir" is attributed for the most part to Mrs. Agnes W. Dennis. H. B. Fuller and Mrs. N. O. Barrett also contribute chapters to this book. The "impractical demands of labor-demands for shorter hours, for safety devices, for employers' liability, for the limitation of child labor, for the right of organization" now the safe achievements of the past, were then regarded by the press as wild fantasies of aliens in Chicago. The principles of union labor and the principles of Mr. Cyrus Hall McCormick came into conflict; scabs, Pinkertons, parades, anarchist philosophy, a bewildered mayor, the Haymarket riot, the public cry for victims, the four men hung-such was the tragic sequence. The militant farmers and the laborers founded political associations and in the early nineties, joining with the Democrats, sent John M. Palmer to the Senate and John P. Altgeld to the governor's chair to show the courage and the fate of those who do unpopular justice. The economic historian appears with a fanfare of figures, but Professor Bogart proves that the history of plows and cheese, wheat prices and bank reserves, can be made as interesting as that of party struggles. To see the panic of 1873 from the viewpoint of Chicago is in itself illuminating. How rivers and canals and especially the Great Lakes, as potential thoroughfares of transportation, have kept down railroad rates, how Chicago lost the lumber trade but produced great quantities of farm machinery and with her system of commercial travelers competed with the eastern jobbers, how level land was drained with tile, how roads were built on stoneless prairies, how Illinois by gaining population lost its wheat, how by importing a first-grade coal and coking it with heat from the poor coal from the state, the gas as well as coke was saved to industry-this is a story of how man has made possible a larger life. That the larger life was not more largely shared resulted in the protest of the Socialists who armed and trained their soldiers for the coming class war, while many less extreme sought benefit in politics or in trade unions. It is pleasant to observe how much the university professors have accomplished no less for farming than for the intricate processes of the mills; the milk tests, the economy of feeding "baby beef ", the best scheme of road construction, the superiority of shallow cultivation, and the recipe for permanent fertility, have all been worked out in their laboratories. The intelligence and adaptability of the Illinois farmer is illustrated by his turn to hay and oats when the European war began. But farming has become a scientific business in 1 Bogart and Thompson, op. cit., pp. 236, 253; Bogart and Matthews, op. cit., pp. 67, 82, 147. The milk-test was developed by Professor Babcock of Wisconsin, but the others by the staff of the University of Illinois. Illinois and, with an average investment of more than $20,000, a capitalistic business, so much so that tenant-farming has been rapidly increasing. Professor Bogart had a task of great complexity to chronicle the widely varied and continually changing economic life of the last halfcentury in Illinois. The impression is not exactly clear and the reader wonders if less data might not have been more informing, but on reflection he withdraws his protest; a didactic narrative would have been more comfortable, but it would have been a poorer picture of that colorful mélange we know as modern American life. At any rate, he has the historian's sense of cause and effect and has constantly in mind the element of social evolution. This cannot be said of Professor Mathews, who presents an elaborate and valuable account of the public law and practice of the state today. Perhaps we are too tender of the hopes and hurts of yesterday to write or read their record with detachment-for example, a setting forth of William Lorimer's political career undoubtedly would lose some necessary friends of an enterprise supported by state money-or perhaps the evidence is not all in as yet, and the commentary on the trend of things belongs more in the field of journalism. However, that a contribution can be made to very recent history by one historically minded, is brilliantly illustrated by Professor Cole's chapter, which concludes the work, on "Illinois and the Great War". A considerable portion of the people of that state, many of them conspicuous for probity and talent, opposed a war with Germany, and these this author treats apparently with sympathy but not approval. The patrioteers and profiteers and the I. W. W. and William H. Thompson are dispassionately reviewed, but the author's concern is chiefly with how the common people went to war. Illinois was, from the point of view of international relations, the most important state in the Mississippi valley-in the opinion of many the most important state in the Union. The sturdy war governor interpreted the role to the political authorities through the state and to the state council of defense; and these forces in turn cooperated in carrying the message to the people of this typical American commonwealth. To this appeal the citizenry of Illinois responded with a growing enthusiasm and achieved a record befitting the keystone state of the middle west. To conceive ten years ago the centennial celebration of Illinois was indeed becoming in its citizens, but to develop it in war time and execute it in the critical summer of 1918 was heroically courageous. Underneath it all there was a note of earnestness and dedication. Its 1 pageantry combined unusual beauty with instruction; its great meetings were occasions of dignity and inspiration; its memorial building will afford a safe and permanent depository for the public records; and its published history, as perhaps it has been shown, is an achievement without precedent. The great American novel is still unwritten, but as the present writer turns the last page of this history he feels that he has found a tolerable substitute. Recent exponents of social theory reiterate that the state is only one expression of our human interest and will, and that most history gives a distorted picture in its emphasis upon that single institution. This criticism, valid or invalid, will not be urged against this work, for almost half its pages are devoted to activities outside of politics. It is as important in the human story to know that shortly after 1876 the piano triumphed over the melodeon, as to know that Hayes was seated in the place of Tilden. The foraging instinct of these authors is revealed, to give but one example, in examining the mail-order catalogues to learn the taste of farmers in the eighties. Mr. H. B. Fuller's special chapters on the development of modern arts and letters are no less eloquent recitals than keen critiques, and yet they seem quite congruous to the general spirit of the history. Indeed, one wonders at the evenness of style, animated and engaging, but not cheap or flippant, the achievement coming to the reader as a labor of love carefully wrought. Illinois may be proud of having servants of this attitude and competence, and the pensive scholar wonders why already she has let three of their little number leave her rolls. In their notes, maps,2 indexes and bibliographies they are generally adequate and helpful, and in method they meet the tests of modern seminars; in the effective use of newspapers, especially by Professor Cole, the volumes are, at least in the judgment of one reader, unrivaled in American historiography. It is a great work finely done, proving, as the celebration posters blazoned forth, that "Not without thy wondrous story, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. DIXON RYAN FOX. 1 The proceedings were elaborately reported. Sometimes it seemed too much so; for example, Professor Allen Johnson can compare the editions of his address as they appeared in the Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, and in the Report of the Centennial Commission. 2 There are imperfections in the statistical maps facing page 384, in Pease's Frontier State, and pages 133 and 178 in Cole's Era of the Civil War. |