Book Reviews
89
style, which was instinctive but also balanced by kindness, good
humor, and diplomatic grace (p. 9). Together, these books present a
sympathetic portrait of the man Winston Churchill called “the
American bulldog” (Montague, p. 9).
DAVIDL. ANDERSON
is professor of history a t the University of Indianapolis. His
book, Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953-1961
(19911, received the Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize from the Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations. His most recent book is Shadow on the White House:
Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945-1975 (1993).
Gilbert N . Haugen: Norwegian-American Farm Politician. By
Peter T. Harstad and Bonnie Lindemann. (Iowa City: State
Historical Society of Iowa, 1992. Pp. xi, 217. Notes, maps, illustrations, appendixes, tables, index. $14.95.)
The collaborative efforts of Peter T. Harstad and Bonnie Lindemann have produced a superb (and long overdue) biography of a
significant figure in agricultural history. Gilbert N. Haugen’s role
in the McNary-Haugen movement is clearly portrayed in this wellresearched and well-written biography of a dedicated farm politician from Iowa.
Haugen was proud of his Norwegian heritage, loved the land,
and exemplified by his actions the work ethic t o which he subscribed. Before he became a seventeen-term member of the United
States House of Representatives (1899-19331, Haugen had been,
variously, a farm laborer, horse trader, merchant, land agent,
banker, and owner of many farms. His political apprenticeship
included experience as GOP county chairman, justice of the peace,
and Iowa state legislator. It was after his election t o Congress that
he dedicated himself t o becoming a spokesman for the American
farmer.
Congressman Haugen was an admirer of President Theodore
Roosevelt and gave his support t o much of the Square Deal. While
not committed ideologically to progressivism, Haugen did favor federal intervention to foster the well-being of the rural sector. Whereas he was conservative relative t o agrarian, small-town values,
Haugen was realistic about adapting to change and foresaw the
need for more positive government. His real crusade was McNaryHaugenism. As chairman of the House Agriculture Committee he
joined with his counterpart in the Senate, Charles McNary of Oregon, t o sponsor a bill that would involve federal intervention on
behalf of commercial farmers. The proposal, twice vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge, would have established a federal export corporation t o implement a two-price system by dumping surplus
agricultural commodities abroad. Farmers were t o receive a n
equalization fee that would sustain farm income in the same manner that the tariff aided industry. In retrospect the plan was eco-
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Indiana Magazine
of
History
nomically unworkable and overlooked the harsh realities of international trade.
Haugen’s involvement in farm legislation throughout the 1920s
made him nationally known among rural leaders. His cooperation
with the bipartisan Farm Bloc helped him forge a Southern Democratmestern-Midwestern Republican coalition that continued to
grow in political strength in the 1930s. The authors see Haugen as
a link between the older progressives and the rising generation of
rural leaders (such as Iowa’s Henry A. Wallace) who would become
zealous advocates of federal management of agriculture. As a lame
duck member of Congress in 1933 Haugen did support the domestic
allotment plan (the heart of the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act), but its production control features were beyond his political vision. Haugen’s legacy was that of McNary-Haugenism which,
as the authors point out, “was an important part of the story of
agricultural organization in the United States” (p. 203).
EDWARDL. SCHAPSMEIER
has coauthored a two-volume biography of Henry A. Wallace (1968, 19701, a one-volume study of Ezra Taft Benson (19751, and the Encyclopedia of American Agricultural History (1975).
Jessamyn West, Revised Edition. By Alfred S . Shivers. (New York:
Twayne Publishers, 1992. Pp. xvi, 171. Notes, selected bibliography, index. $21.95.)
Jessamyn West was born near North Vernon, Indiana, in 1902
of Quaker parents who removed to Los Angeles County, California,
when she was seven. She graduated from Whittier College, married, and attended the University of California until tuberculosis
ended her advanced work in English literature but gave leisure in
convalescence to write. Her fiction examined both regions in which
she had lived, but she first achieved widespread attention with the
artful tales of a Hoosier Quaker family recounted in The Friendly
Persuasion (1945). Indiana figured in much of her subsequent writing, notably in her best seller, The Massacre at Fall Creek (1975),
praised by Alfred S. Shivers for its flavor of “rugged frontier life” (p.
78). West revisited Indiana to research, lecture, and receive numerous awards, including Indiana University’s doctorate of Humane
Letters (1959).
Shivers states in the preface of this handbook that he “wanted
to make it better organized and more readable” (p. viii) than his
first study of West, which was published in 1972. To this end he has
drawn on further research (including recent interviews with West’s
husband, Dr. Harry Maxwell McPherson) to reconsider her earlier
work and to summarize and evaluate the additional books she produced before her death in 1984. A chronology and extensive critical
notes and documentation, often based on the author’s correspondence with West, enhance the value of this work.