The investigation is based chiefly on the government documents, especially the Congressional Globe, contemporary writings, and a vast number of newspapers, representing all sections of the country. With the exception of some short chapters which might well have been incorporated in others, as for example chapter VIII. and chapter X., the material has been well organized and clearly and aptly expressed. Eight maps showing the vote on the various measures are valuable additions. The book is provided with a good index.

RAYNOR G. Wellington.

Lincoln in Illinois. By Octavia Roberts. (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918, pp. 119, $5.00.) This handsome volume submits to the public a high class of folk-lore centring about Lincoln and his Illinois friends and associates. It draws upon that romantic storehouse of historical by-products that so often remains even after a portrait of a great historical personality has been repeatedly “done” in history and biography. The memories treasured by Lincoln's townsmen, together with an historical imagination stimulated by long association with the haunts of Lincoln, have encouraged the author to undertake to re-create the human background in which Lincoln moved during the greater part of his life. There is real charm in the pictures of the great commoner in the every-day surroundings of the Illinois prairies. Yet there is little of the Calvinism which so frequently flavors the fond memories of the octogenarian reminiscencer. The Lincoln here pictured is not the predestined savior of the nation, impatiently working toward the tragedy of his martyrdom; it is rather the man Lincoln portrayed with the well-known frailties of the flesh and not a few of those of the spirit. The "long-legged fellow" who pilots the Talisman from Beardstown to Springfield, the store-keeper at New Salem, the lawyer at Springfield, and the human and wily Whig and Republican politician show a character different from his fellows not so much in quality as in the degree in which he was able to surpass them.

ARTHUR C. COLE

The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale. By Edward E. Hale, jr. In two volumes. (Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1917, pp. vi, 390; 442, $5.00.) In two handsome volumes Professor Edward E. Hale of Union College gives an ample and leisurely account of his distinguished father. If a stranger to the subject finds the scale of the work disproportionate to the amount of material significant for historical record, he will in the end justify the reverent love that uses whatever detail of letter and diary to express and preserve the personality of Dr. Hale, for, as this biography shows, Dr. Hale had greatness as a personality and left the impress of his moral will upon the social movement. He was not a publicist or statesman, though always active in

public interests and an associate of men in public life. Eminent in the pulpit and in church councils, he was not a theologian; he was not a great writer though he has ten volumes to his credit (in a final, collected edition). With a mind stored with interesting lore, prompt for utterance, he was not distinguished as a scholar. His son's just estimate is that an immense facility and the desultory aims of his brilliant cleverness prevented great accomplishments. Nevertheless, he was one of the most eminent men of his time, by virtue of a noble character and delightful temperament, by his religious feeling, and his untiring devotion. to all philanthropies. Uncomely, yet beautiful by interior grace, of a presence that reconciled the figure of a prophet of God with the social charm and cleverness of a man of the world, of inexhaustible capacity for the joy of home affections and of the beauty of nature, born for friendships and democratic kindness, he lived with fullness of life, doing good and inspiring good endeavor in fields near and far.

The biographer justly emphasizes the coincidence of Hale's spirit with the Maurice and Kingsley group in England and his conscious sympathy with them, though—while he viewed his ministerial task as that of building a new civilization-he had not their precise economic programme. He was not a man of programmes, and it was almost without design that he-not as founder but as inspirer-created the important development of Lend-a-Hand Societies, the Kings' Daughters, the Epworth League, and the Society for Christian Endeavor.

The historical student will find entertaining glimpses of Harvard classrooms and student life, letters that preserve the emotion and the atmosphere of life during the conflict with slavery, the Civil War, and the reconstruction period, and, in later days, the optimistic hopes of the American circles working for arbitration and a permanent Hague Tribunal; but Dr. Hale's relation to public affairs was not the close relation of an expert responsible for the creative process. His forte was that of the public advocate and the creator of the social disposition on which progress depends.

F. A. CHRISTIE.

In two volumes.

Constitution Making in Indiana: a Source Book. By Charles Kettleborough, of the Indiana Bureau of Legislative Information. (Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Commission, 1916, pp. ccxli, 530; xv, 693.) These two volumes edited and annotated by Dr. Kettleborough were published by the Indiana Historical Commission as a part of the observance of the one-hundredth anniversary of the admission of Indiana into the Union. According to the preface, "the documents comprised in these two volumes are designed to illustrate and interpret the constitutional growth and development of the state of Indiana from the beginnings of its institutional history to the present. For the hundred years from 1816 to 1916, an attempt has been made to include every document of a constitutional character."

Not only are the documents included, but they are accompanied by illuminating notes and explanations throughout, and the summaries are impressively fortified by foot-notes and references. Dr. Kettleborough also has his own ideas in regard to what may be properly included in a state constitution. In speaking of the difficulties confronting the delegates to one of the constitutional conventions he remarks: "Aside from these alleged Machiavellian tactics of unscrupulous and calculating politicians, there were the zealous and misguided fanatics who hoped to incorporate their chauvinistic and half-baked political theories into the fundamental instrument of government."

The Indiana State Library is rich in newspaper files and these have been used by Dr. Kettleborough in an illuminating and discriminating way. Many of the newspapers, by the way, will not now feel flattered by the quotations from their columns. Some of them opposed almost every forward movement in the history of the state.

One of the most valuable parts of the work is an elaborate introduction by Dr. Kettleborough of 227 pages. This is a scholarly and accurate summary of the constitutional history of the state and presents a striking contrast to the many county histories which have been published in recent years for commercial purposes. This introduction should be reprinted in a separate volume for wider distribution.

The proposed "Marshall Constitution", the "Stotsenburg Amendments" and the efforts for a new constitution in 1916 are all adequately treated. The present constitution of Indiana was drafted in 1851 and is now out of date in many vital particulars. A new or revised document will without doubt be drafted in the near future. In this work the volumes of Dr. Kettleborough will be invaluable.

There is a useful appendix, and an elaborate index is included in each volume. On the whole these two volumes constitute an outstanding contribution to the constitutional history of Indiana. They will be received with gratitude by historical investigators.

THOMAS F. MORAN.

History of Economic Legislation in Iowa. By Ivan L. Pollock. [Iowa Economic History Series, edited by Benjamin F. Shambaugh.] (Iowa City, State Historical Society, 1918, pp. x, 386, $2.00.) Of the body of state statutes which are clearly economic in character, a large proportion is included under the term commerce. In this category fall, first, the means of communication, as roads, railways, rivers and harbors, telegraphs and telephones; all these are important subjects of state legislation. Then are considered the agencies for the facilitation of trade, as money, banks, loan and trust companies, and various other business corporations and organizations. Besides, the insurance business is clearly economic in character and legislation.

is one important subject for

Other lines of activity are on the border-land between matters classified as economic and those considered as social, ethical, or political. For instance, the care of the poor has important industrial relations, yet Mr. Pollock excludes this body of legislation. Education is also excluded, but in dealing with the activities of the state for the promotion of agriculture and other industries, the author makes it consist very largely in education. Labor legislation emanates from a variety of motives, but it is classified as predominantly economic, and a chapter is devoted to the subject. A chapter is also given to the subject of general taxation.

The titles of the thirteen chapters may serve to give a general idea of the book: I, Transportation; 2, Railroad Transportation; 3, Agriculture and Stock-Raising; 4, Mines and Mining; 5, Conservation and Internal Improvement; 6, General Corporations; 7, Insurance; 8, Banking; 9, Building and Loan Associations; 10, Trade and Commerce; II, Labor Legislation; 12, The Power of Municipal Corporations in enacting Economic Legislation; 13, Tax Legislation.

The author sticks quite closely to his text, which is a history of lawmaking, not law administration. Many of the statutes are, however, a mere dead letter, no attempt ever having been made to enforce them. There is here no systematic attempt to differentiate these from those which become operative in actual government. Iowa is put forward as a typical western state; there are, however, few references to the laws of other states. The chapters are occupied with brief chronological summaries of the laws on the various topics. Much of the text reads like an analytic table of contents to a fuller treatment of the subject. In fact, that is what it is. The pages are marred by no foot-notes, but following the text are forty-four pages devoted to references to the sources of information on the topics treated.

The chief merit of the book consists in the fact that in a very brief space the student is enabled to get a view of the general trend of a great body of legislation on a variety of topics, and at the same time is enabled to find the full text of the statute bearing upon topics of special interest.

In a book abounding in dates, it is inevitable that there should be errors, yet the only one noted is at the bottom of page 156, where 1866 should read 1886.

COMMUNICATION

TO THE EDITOR OF THE American Historical Review:

Sir:

WHEN Professor John Bassett Moore's review of my President's Control of Foreign Relations appeared in the July issue of the Review I had not time to give it attention. It is not, however, I trust, too late to correct through your pages some of the misleading impressions it seems likely to leave with the reader of it.

(1) Professor Moore thinks that the Senate report dealing with President Cleveland's appointment of Commissioner Blount was somewhat evasive and inconclusive as a vindication.

This is a matter of construction. It seems entirely reasonable to hold that the significance of this report consists precisely in its assimilating the case of Blount, notwithstanding the large powers conferred upon him, with that of previous "personal agents", and especially since a minority of the committee dissented on the point which Professor Moore says was evaded.

(2) On page 83 of my volume I write: "The downfall of Huerta was due directly to President Wilson's failure to recognize him as the de facto government of Mexico." Professor Moore comments: Huerta did not claim recognition as 'the de facto government of Mexico', but as constitutional president."

Either this criticism is irrelevant or it implies that the administration did recognize Huerta as the de facto government of Mexico. In the latter connection President Wilson's words, in his address of December 2, 1913, to Congress are not open to misconstruction:

"There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until General Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority in Mexico . . . Mexico has no government", etc. Nor did the administration later alter its attitude on this question.

66

(3) Professor Moore takes exception to my remark that "the power of Congress to declare war appears "in actual exercise" to have been the power to recognize an existing state of war", a power belonging also to the President "at least in the case of invasion or insurrection". He says: "A diminution of the power of Congress or an enlargement of that of the President, is not to be inferred from verbal jockeying for diplomatic advantage in the international game."

The observation is true enough, but not pertinent to a discussion whis has for its subject the form which congressional "declarations of war" have taken from the outset (p. 140).