people. If, therefore, Abraham Lincoln's policy, of gradually recruiting voters from such blacks as gave evidence of wealth and education and from such whites as manifested a disposition to do the right thing by the country and by the freedmen had been followed, the mistakes of the Reconstruction would have been avoided.
The Negro Trail Blazers of California. By Delilah L. Beasley, Los Angeles, California, 1919. Pp. 317.
This is, according to the author, a compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California and from the diaries, papers and conversations of pioneers in the State of California. It includes also a record of present-day Negroes in that State. The book is illustrated with portraits exhibiting the life of the people past and present. The work is divided into three parts, the first being historical, the second biographical, and the third an account of the present-day Negro.
Taking up the historical task, the author accounts for the discovery of California and mentions the important roles played by Estevanecito and the Negro priest accompanying the explorers. She then discusses the rule of Spain in California, the Bear Flag Party, the landing of Commodore John D. Sloate, the admission of California to the Union, the Pony Express, the right of testimony, the homestead law, the elective franchise, slavery in California, and freedom papers. Although intended as a continuous sketch, however, this portion of the work, like most of it, is a mixture of narratives and documents.
In the second part of the book giving biographical sketches there is a chapter on the first Negro settlers on the Pacific coast, a pioneer list and the Forty-Niners of color engaged in mining. Into this are worked all sorts of personal narratives without any organizing or unifying scheme as to place or achievement. Not much attention is paid to proportion. The author seemingly wrote all she had heard or collected in each case regardless of the worth of these personal achievements.
The same style holds in the treatment of the present-day Negro of California. There is something about almost everything. The Negro churches and the Negro in education, law and music have considerable space. The author next takes up distinguished women of color, doctors, dentists, literary persons, Negroes at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, and Negroes in the army. Then follow the notes on the text which, instead of being given throughout the work as footnotes are placed at the end of the work.
Judged from the point of view of the scientific investigator, the work is neither a popular nor a documented account. When one considers the numerous valuable facts in the book, however, he must regret that the author did not write the work under the direction of some one well grounded in English composition. As it is, it is so much of a hodge-podge that one is inclined to weep like the minister who felt that his congregation consisted of too many to be lost but not enough to be saved.
A History of South Africa. By Dorothea Fairbridge, Oxford University Press, London, 1918. Pp. 319.
One hears much nowadays about the history of South Africa and the development of that recently enlarged domain under the direction of Great Britain adds further interest to the story. The present volume differs, however, from the type of most recent accounts of South Africa in that it is a small illustrated work within the reach of those too busy or not sufficiently well grounded in the social sciences to read an intensively scientific treatise. As such, it has a place in the current historical volumes growing out of the reconstruction of the countries revolutionized by the world war.
The work begins with a picture of the country as nature made it. There is an account of early plant life, prehistoric animals, paleoliths, and prehistoric man. The early inhabitants are then given more detailed treatment. Attention is directed to the Bushman, the Hottentot, and the Bantu as each figured in South Africa. An effort to contrast the country as the natives kept it with the country as the white man developed it, is a large part of this chapter.
Beginning then with Prince Henry of Portugal the author presents an array of "Great Adventurers." Following this sketch comes the account of the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz and next Vasco da Gama's voyage around the Cape to India. The climbing of the Table Mountain by Antonio de Saldanha, the landing of Don Francisco of Almeida, the voyage of Sir Francis Drake, and the adventures of other travellers appear in chronological order.
The rise of settlements in South Africa or on the neighboring islands as half-way stations, show the early importance of the country which, after being conquered, soon experienced considerable expansion. Then followed in the seventeenth century an era of prosperity which paved the way for better beginnings the next century under Governors Hendrik, Swellengrebel and Tulbagh. The troubles of the eighteenth century when the settlements had to reckon with natives and foreigners constitute a critical period of the colony ending with the capture of the Cape by the English in 1795. Then follow the first British occupation, the restoration of the Cape to the Dutch by the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, the second rule of the Dutch and the second coming of the British.
With the nineteenth century the British were to be free to start upon an all but uninterrupted rule of prosperity. The establishment of courts, the rise of missions, the improvement in agriculture, and the extension of the frontier characterized the first efforts of the pioneering British. Their relations with the natives and difficulties with the Boers are treated in the chapters on the Story of Natal, the Vootrekkers, the founding of the Boer Republic and the retrocession of the Transvaal. The chapters covering the subsequent period consist of a discussion of new influences, the Uitlanders, the Jameson Raid, the War of 1899-1902, and the problems of peace and reconstruction.
Reconstruction in Louisiana. By Ella Lonn, Assistant Professor in Grinnell College. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1919. Pp. 538. Price $3.00 net.
Miss Lonn's book is an exhibition of the true scholarly spirit. Her analysis of the situation in Louisiana politics during the period of Reconstruction is most ably executed. She has neglected no source which would throw light upon this very anachronistic epoch. Public documents of all kinds, and especially those which embody the debates in the Senate and assembly of Louisiana have been made to yield interesting testimonies of the passing shows of the years 1867-1876. Not content, however, with these testimonies, she has called to her aid many other sources including the newspapers of the day wherein is displayed popular reaction towards the orgies being indulged in the State House. And thus the reader's mind, by means of most carefully chosen quotations from these records, as if by a lightning flash, is frequently illumined; so that the whole comedy unfolds before the eyes in a most interesting fashion.
The book is not only filled with a wealth of detailed information concerning the period, it not only tells the story of political debauchery, ignorance and fraud; but notes also the few shreds of constructive work done by the legislators under the coercion of public opinion. All of these facts are put together in a logical manner and show that the author is not only gifted with keen analytic powers, but is also endowed with a peculiar faculty for organizing and marshalling facts in such a manner as to weave a beautiful mosaic of otherwise widely divergent elements.
Miss Lonn has succeeded in writing a very interesting narrative and her book will hold the attention of a widely differing clientele. The student of American politics will find an illuminative study of this very remarkable period, and therefore much food for thought. But this book offers to the lover of fiction a new field. There is the hero, Warmoth, the villain, whose protraiture has been limned by a masterly hand. Little by little, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes by the words of his own mouth, oftener by the mouths of those whom he attacked, and almost constantly by the unfriendly newspapers, she deftly portrays the elements of his character. Warmoth had almost unlimited power and he used it like Cataline to corrupt the corruptible elements of the State. He was essentially a Nero, callous to the last degree and indifferent to the progressive anemia which was destroying the State's finances. Like Julius Caesar he attained his gubernatorial power by making multiple false promises and kept it by a species of corrupt practices which were incredibly vile. There is the tragic setting, the broken, maimed, devastated
