Reviews and Notices
61
supplemental to other published accounts. The chapter entitled “Public Education” is more general but not exhaustive.
The final chapter with its biblical title, “The Acts of the
Apostles” is a combination of institutional history and biography. It may be suggested that the Minnesota History Bulletin would have been a more suitable medium of publication
for these essays than a separate volume of the history.
What may be said about the importance of this work? It
is chiefly significant to the people of Minnesota for whom it
was written. It stands out as superior to most of the histories
of its type. Since national history is in part a mosaic of that
of the states it has a place of wide importance, though its
author has failed to take full advantage of this opportunity.
It should be useful in assembling special histories of mining
and of the Indians. Should one need to be disillusioned about
the benevolence of mankind or the enlightened Indian policy
of recent years, a reading of the chapter “Chippewa Indian
Problems” will be found useful. It has numerous other values.
Unquestionably it is a contribution to knowledge.
JOHN
DONALD
BARNHART
Lucius B. Swift, a Biography. By WILLIAMDUDLEYFOULKE.
Indiana Historical Society (Publications, IX) , Indianapolis, 1930. Pp. vif153.
This biography of Lucius B. Swift is a modest and loyal
attempt to portray the life of a close friend of nearly half a
century. Owing to the intimate friendship between Mr.
Foulke and Mr. Swift and between these men and Theodore
Roosevelt, the study is uncritical. The book deals prominently
with Mr. Swift, Mr. Roosevelt and Civil Service Reform. It is
primarily a memorial to Mr. Swift, but secondarily a tribute
to Mr. Roosevelt. Although Mr. Foulke was a more influential civil service reformer than Mr. Swift and a more consistent one than Mr. Roosevelt, yet he leaves himself almost entirely out of the story. The book must be read as the tribute
of one friend to another.
Mr. Swift was born on a farm in New York in 1844. He
entered the Civil War as a private in 1861 and was mustered
out as a sergeant in June, 1863. Later he entered Michigan
University from which institution he was graduated in 1870.
To pay his college debt, he entered the teaching profession at
62
Indiana Magazine of History
La Porte, Indiana, and soon was elected Superintendent of the
city schools. He moved to Indianapolis in 1879 where he set
up in the practice of law and where he lived until his death in
July, 1929. It is the story of a man who rose from meagre
circumstances and made his own career. It was not a spectacular career but it was honest and substantial and devoted t o
the political betterment of his fellow-men.
The book is divided into four parts and each part deals
with a number of sub-topics. There are four appendices which
add to the value of the book. A picture of Mr. Swift as a boy
is presented opposite page tvvo, and another as an old man opposite page ninety-eight. Owing to the method of binding, the
book is difficult to handle and much of the print is so small
that it is tedious reading, but the printing is neatly and accurately done. The table of contents is detailed and the index
is adequate. There is no bibliography but the few footnotes
and the references cited in the text perhaps sufficiently offset
this omission. Approximately half of the book is composed of
quotations from various documentary sources, thereby making
it of greater value to the student.
So many sub-headings, however, scattered throughout the
book mar the symmetry of the page, and combined with
numerous and frequently long quotations, interrupt the continuity of the story. Mr. Foulke is a man of marked literary
ability. His style is clear and simple and his remarks between
quotations are always t o the point, but they are so broken up
that the charm is largely destroyed. The narrative would be
more readable had the quotations from the documents been
better correlated with the narrative, but Mr. Foulke states in
.
his preface that it was his aim “to let Mr. Swift
tell his own story in his own words.”
Mr. Swift’s chief life interest was civil service reform.
Eighty-five of the one hundred and forty-one pages of the
biography are devoted to that phase of his life. But he had
other interests. Mr. Foulke catalogues some of these (p. 66)
but gives little or nothing about them in detail. What of his
law practice, his vocation in life? One of his interesting cases
was the prosecution of an Indianapolis newspaper on behalf
of Julia Marlowe, but Mr. Foulke mentions it only incidentally
in a part of a sentence toward the end of the h o k (p. 1Z4).
Further, since Mr. Roosevelt is given half a s much space in
Reviews and Notices
63
the biography as f a r as the index is concerned as is Mr. Swift
himself, it might have been well to have devoted more space to
Mr. Swift’s part in the Progressive campaign of 1912. It is
only in a couple of pages and then under the title “Taft and
the Civil Service,” that the Progressive Party is noticed.
Several of Mr. Roosevelt‘s letters are quoted at considerable length in reply to letters from Mr. Swift that are only
mentioned (pp. 70-71). From page sixty-five on, for several
pages, it is difficult to tell whether the story is a biography
of Mr. Swift or of Mr. Roosevelt. A letter is quoted (p. 66
note) asking Mr. Swift to help organize the division which
Colonel Roosevelt offered to raise for the World War. It
would be interesting to know Mr. Swift’s reaction to that request.
Although Mr. Foulke does not mention it, apparently the
worst charge ever made against Mr. Swift was that he meddled in affairs that did not concern him. This refers to his
persistent and consistent attempts to eradicate the spoils system from state and national governments. But Mr. Swift
acted upon the correct conviction “that the public business is
every citizen’s concern.” As a tribute to a friend who is allowed to tell his own story little is wanting, but the student
of history would like to know further what Indiana thought
of its great citizen. What were the favorable and adverse
newspaper comments throughout the years ?
Mr. Foulke states (p. 16) that
Andrew
Jackson supplanted the custom of earlier Presidents to appoint only meritorious persons and not to discharge employees
for political reasons.” This does not conform with the findings of other students of the spoils system.”
“Mr. Taft”, says Mr. Foulke (p. 86), “was personally a sincere friend of civil service reform and during his administration he made further extensions of the classified service. Indeed it then reached a higher percentage of all office holders
and employees of the Government than at any other time before or since, but his administration of the law was f a r less
vigorous and effective than Roosevelt’s.” The last clause of
this statement is perhaps too broad and dogmatic. In fact
Mr. Foulke is less positive on the same point in his “Fighting
itmay
the Spoilsmen.” Here he says (p. 218),
be doubted whether the service (during Taft’s administration)
“.
.
“.
.
64
Indiana Magazine of History
was as efficient or as free from political influence as during
the administration of President Roosevelt.” After an investigation of candidates (Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft) and of platforms during the campaign of 1912, the friends of civil service reform were able to say, “As to candidates the election of
1912 presents no issue for the friends of civil service reform”
(Good Government, vol. XXIX, pp. 26, 144).
Mr. Foulke states as a characteristic of Mr. Swift that “he
took great care to be sure of his facts” in speech and correspondence. But he was not infallible. He is quoted as saying:
“Taft had abandoned Roosevelt’s policies and had gone completely over to the ways of Aldrich and Cannon (p. 88), and in
regard to the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy that “Taft blundered from the beginning to the end.” (p. 82). When Mr,
Foulke says (p. 82) that “Gifford Pinchot who had been at
the head of the Forestry Bureau but had been dismissed by
Taft”, he might have added on behalf of the latter, “for insubordination.” At least, he should have recognized that the
controvery had two sides.
Mr. Swift fought for his country in the Civil War; he
fought for it in the eighteen eighties and nineties in the line of
civil service reform; he fought for it during the World War
by speaking and writing against the German threat and by
serving as chairman of the District Conscription Board at Indianapolis: and after the war he struggled to educate his fellow citizens in the fundamentals of their constitutional background. It is a splendid record df service and sacrifice. All
this the reader gets from Mr. Foulke’s biography. Compared
with the glories and victories of these struggles any criticisms
of the warrior and his good biographer, who was his comrade
in most of them, are petty indeed. The bioFraph y is a valus.’ole
addition to the Indiana Historical Society’s Publications.
FRED
E. BRENGLE
T h e Archaeology of the Whitewater Valley. By FRANK
M.
SETZLER.
Indiana Historical Bureau (Indiana History Bulletin, Vol. VII, No. 12), Indianapolis, 1930.
Pp. 196 (353-549).
This bulletin is a report of an archaeological surrey of t,he
Whitewater Valley, Indiana, made by Frank M. Setzler in the
summers of 1928 and 1929. The counties covered by this sur-