3 Reminiscences;1 Institutional Beginnings in a Western State, by Prof. Jesse Macy of Grinnell; Progressive Men of Iowa, published by Conaway & Shaw; Chandler's History and Civil Government of Iowa, and Iowa and the Nation; Ainsworth's Recollections of a Civil Engineer; Seerley and Parish's History and Civil Government of Iowa; The Making of Iowa, a series of historical sketches, by ex-State Superintendent Henry Sabin and Edwin L. Sabin, one of the coming litterateurs of Iowa; Holbrook's Recollections of an Nonagenarian; Adams' The Iowa Band; and Elizabeth H. Avery's Some Fragments of Iowa History, Gathered from the Records of Congress. THE CONTEMPORANEOUS PERIOD Space will not permit the protraction of this review beyond the war and reconstruction period. It must suffice simply to say that within the memory of men yet in middle life there has been much history-making in Iowa and by Iowans in the councils of the Nation. In the volumes of the Congressional Record there stand out prominently the parts taken by Iowa statesmen on all the great questions of our time, such as the tariff and its complement, reciprocity, the currency, appropriations, interstate commerce, civil service 1 1 Published at Des Moines in 1895. Published in the Johns Hopkins University Publications in Historical and Political Science. Published at Des Moines in 1900. 4 A text book for schools. "A text book for schools. 6 A text book for schools. regulation, labor issues, corporate powers and legislation, the war with Spain, and the Philippine insurrection. The Iowa men who stand before the country as representatives of policies on these and other public questions are everywhere finding generous recognition as among the foremost contributors to the solution of these questions. At home there has also been much history-making. The files of our newspapers are rich in stories of the State's unhalting progress from good to better. Iowa has apparently settled for all time the status of the saloon. In handling the railroad question, having well survived the excesses of grangerism and the reaction from those excesses, it begins the new century with promise of a full and fair solution of that question also. Its citizens, having individually and collectively mastered the problem of financial independence, are now turning their thoughts toward the higher problems of individual and community life, thereby giving abundant promise for the future of the Commonwealth. THE STATE LIBRARY DES MOINES JOHNSON BRIGHAM SOME PUBLICATIONS The Iowa Band. New and Revised Edition. By REVEREND EPHRAIM Boston and Chicago: The Pilgrim Press. Pp. ADAMS, D. D. This little book, as the author states in his preface, is the story of Congregational home missions in Iowa. The story is told in a very simple and effective way. Mr. Adams (who by the way is the father of Henry C. Adams of Michigan) was one of eleven ministers who came to Iowa in 1843 from Andover Theological Seminary to begin missionary work in the newly organized Territory. The book is somewhat significant as a contribution to early Iowa history. It suggests rather than elucidates the close relation of the mission churches to the social and political development of the Territory and State. One feels somewhat disappointed that this influence is not more fully dealt with, especially with respect to the question of slavery, as the Congregational churches were early known as the "abolition churches." The influence of "The Band" and their associates was of course most strongly felt through their teachings, hence rather difficult to fully estimate, though their attitude was unquestioned. Two other matters are treated which have a general interest. One of these is the close relation of "The Band” to the cause of education. "If we can each organize a church and together organize a College," the expressed hope of one of the number, gives the keynote of their plans. Perhaps the most gratifying fact about these efforts, which finally founded Iowa College at Grinnell, was the thoroughly non-sectarian spirit with which the work was undertaken. The New Presbyterians joined hands with "The Band" to start the educational movement, and remained for some time connected with the College. It would indeed be interesting to trace the influence of this movement upon the development of our common school system. Another interesting part of the book is that treating of the effect of intermingling, upon the denominations in the Territory and the influence of western Congregationalism upon its eastern parent. There is no doubt but that this influence has been beneficial in broadening and deepening the spiritual element as opposed to the formal, thus making it more a religion of the heart while not less of the head. The book would have been improved had it been thoroughly revised instead of having here and there a supplementary chapter inserted. One forgets now and then whether he is standing at the year 1870 or 1901. But on the whole we should be thankful that Mr. Adams was induced to reprint his interesting little volume. It is to be hoped that he may be repaid by seeing similar contributions inspired from other denominations in the State. THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA IOWA CITY HARRY GRANT PLUM Stephen Arnold Douglas. By WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (The Riverside Press, Cambridge). 1902. Pp. 141. Stephen A. Douglas has an especial interest for Iowa since she was one of the seven States admitted to the Union by his good offices while he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories. Mr. W. G. Brown, whose spirited, eulogistic, and readable life of Andrew Jackson was contributed to the Riverside Biographical Series two years ago, has just published in the same series a brief life of Senator Douglas, equally spirited, eulogistic, and readable. The story is vividly told of the poor Vermont boy who leaves the bench of a cabinet-maker to go West, reaches Illinois sick, eager and ambitious, with thirty-seven cents in his pocket. There he wins a debate against a popular leader before he is twenty and becomes for life "The Little Giant," is public prosecutor at twenty-two, member of the legislature at twenty-three, meeting in that body and beginning his life long duel with that far higher spirit, Abraham Lincoln. At twenty-eight he becomes Secretary of State, and in the same year Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, at thirty is in Congress, at thirty-three U. S. Senator, and from that time until his death, at forty-eight, a prominent and influential leader of that august body, a constant candidate for the presidency, and a large factor in national affairs. With all this success it seems, as we look back, a life of wretched failure; and Mr. Brown's book would be stronger and truer if it showed this somewhat more fully. It was a life apparently with one aim-self advancement in public office. The goal was the White House, and it was never attained. Von Holst's estimates of our public men are not flattering or sympathetic. Some of them are mistaken; but they have the impress of sincerity if not of symyathy. He says of Douglas: "His exterior and manners revealed to a marked and sometimes almost disgusting extent the coarseness and half culture of the growing west." He attributes to him "an adroit tongue, a sharp natural understanding, great presence of mind, a large measure of the shrewdness that borders on cunning." He says he "always presented himself with the entire coarse aplomb of the bold, influential, half educated contestant, who is filled with immeasurable confidence in himself;" that he was "by profession, by nature and inclination a demagogue who desired to satisfy the South without breaking altogether with the North, because this seemed to him the only way for the attainment of the highest goal of his ambition." On the great controlling issue of the hour, slavery, he, a northern man, refused to stand for human liberty, but sought on that radical question a safe middle course. There was none such, and the South deserted him for Breckenridge, and the North for Lincoln. It was his "moral hollowness," as Von Holst styles it, that left him but twelve votes in the electoral college. Something of this appears in Mr. Brown's book; but it is too much glossed over. The rugged |