Chapter V: Social Harmonies and Discords (2)

For it is clear that it was water and not lead that the pioneers of Muscoda sought. Surveyors and prospectors had found no hopeful signs of mineral north of townships 6-1 W and 7-1 E. A few years later (1839) Dr. David Dale Owen, the geologist, made his famous survey of the lead region and excluded from it everything north of the heads of Blue River in townships 6 and 7-1 E. When the lands in township 8-1 W were offered for sale in November, 1834, it was precisely the river front lots and subdivisions which were taken first. Parrish entered fractional lots 2 and 3 of section 1; Frederick Bronson the northeast fraction of the southeast quarter of section 1; Isaac Bronson the south half of the southeast fractional quarter; Garrit V. Denniston the southeast half of the fractional southwest quarter; and Denniston and Charles Bracken fraction No. 4 of fractional section 1. Other water front tracts in section 2 were bought by Denniston at this time; between 1836 and 1841 other tracts in the same sections were bought by others. All of these lands were obviously deemed favorable locations for a prospective town dependent on river transportation.

The way in which the village was begun, by the erection of a smelting furnace, is rather startling, in view of the absence of lead in the region adjacent. The motives which induced Colonel William S. Hamilton of Wiota to build a furnace at English Prairie can only be conjectured.

Colonel Hamilton was the son of the great Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury. As a lad of seventeen in 1814 he entered West Point but resigned in 1817 to accept a commission as deputy surveyor-general under Col. William Rector, surveyor-general for Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. From that time young Hamilton was almost continuously in the West, though he made one trip east, on horseback, to see his mother. He was in Wisconsin as early as 1825 and in 1827 began his career as a lead miner and smelter in what is now Lafayette County at Wiota or Hamilton’s Diggings. He took part in the Indian troubles of 1827, and also in the Black Hawk War.

It is not known with certainty when Hamilton established his furnace at English Prairie. Tradition says it was in the year 1835. If the furnace was operating then, it is strange that so careful an observer as Featherstonhaugh, who dropped down the Wisconsin in August, 1835 and stopped at English Prairie to draw a sketch of its landscape, should have failed to note that fact.[79] We are probably justified in asserting that the furnace was not there at that time. But we know it was there in 1837, for Captain Frederick Marryat, a famous English writer who descended the river in that year, saw “a small settlement called the English prairie” where there was a “smelting-house and a steam saw-mill.”[80] I incline to think the year 1836 was the date of its beginning. In 1835 Hamilton was a candidate for member of the Council from the western part of Michigan Territory. His canvass was conducted in the lead mining region and his advertisement appeared in the Galena papers. He was elected to and became president of the so-called “Rump” Council which met at Green Bay January 1, 1836 and sat for two weeks. During that session the town of Cassville, on the Mississippi, was designated as the territorial capital, Hamilton making the principal argument in favor of the movement. Much interest was manifested in internal improvements designed to develop a through line of transportation via the Wisconsin and Fox rivers.[81] The territory of Wisconsin was just being organized by Congressional action and great expectations were being awakened in consequence.

The miners and smelters had theretofore sold their lead through the commission merchants of Galena, by whom it was sent to St. Louis. But as new mines were opened farther and farther north, the cost of transportation to Galena--by means of the “sucker teams”[82]--steadily increased. Moreover, in the year 1836-37 the price of lead declined so alarmingly that little of it was made and the smelters had nearly all ceased to operate. Yet, it was felt that prices would rise again promptly in response to the demand for lead. In the same period, due no doubt partly to the hardships of the miners and smelters, there was widespread and loud dissatisfaction with the treatment accorded the lead owners by the Galena middlemen. Efforts were made to establish some other lead shipping port as a rival to Galena, which helps to explain the rise of both Cassville and Potosi.

The inference from these facts is that Hamilton probably thought he saw in a smelter located at the steamboat landing at English Prairie a possibility of immediate profit, even though margins were very narrow, and a chance to build up a flourishing business. He could buy the cheapest ore--that which was produced near the northern edge of the lead region, Centerville, Wingville, and Highland. The haul from those places would be short and all down grade and if the mineral were taken direct from the mines there would be no rehandling until the bars of pure lead were ready to be dumped from the furnace floor into the hold of the steamer. The teams employed to bring down the raw mineral could carry freight back the fifteen or twenty miles to the mines much more cheaply than it could be transported from Galena or Cassville three or four times as far. Finally, abundant supplies of wood were at hand to feed the furnace, and French rivermen were a source from which to recruit labor.

To an enterprising, speculative, acquisitive character like Hamilton, who had no family to tie him to a particular spot, such arguments would appeal strongly, and there is no inherent reason why the venture should not have succeeded. Hamilton operated the furnace, either personally or by proxy, at least till 1838 and possibly longer, selling it finally to Thomas Jefferson Parrish, whose principal mining and smelting business was located at the head of Blue River, afterwards Montfort.

The fact that Parrish owned the ground at the steamboat landing and that in 1837 he was postmaster at English Prairie (then called Savannah) suggests that he may have been a partner in the business from the first and perhaps local manager of the furnace. At all events, Hamilton continued his business at Wiota and very soon cut loose entirely from the English Prairie venture.[83] That place, under the name of Savannah or English Prairie, was a calling place for river steamers as early as 1838 and is scheduled as forty-one miles from the mouth of the Wisconsin.[84] It was said that the only boat which regularly plied on the river in that year was the _Science_, piloted by Captain Clark, who made his first voyage in June, 1838.[85] But there were doubtless visits from steamers running to Fort Winnebago (Portage) during that and earlier years.

In one of the Milwaukee papers for 1841 is a statement that “four sucker teams” had brought in lead from Thomas Parrish’s furnace “near Muscoday in Grant County.” This reference has been taken as proof that the Muscoda furnace was still in operation. I think it refers not to the Muscoda furnace but to one of several furnaces Parrish was conducting in the lead region near the heads of Blue River. The phrase “near Muscoday” used as far from the lead region as Milwaukee may very well mean some place fifteen or twenty miles from the Wisconsin; and the word “near” instead of “at” certainly excludes Muscoda itself. Setting this evidence aside, there is no proof that the Muscoda furnace was operated as late as 1841. Nor, on the other hand, is there proof of its earlier discontinuance. We simply do not know how long it was kept alive or how large a business it developed at the “Landing.”

SIGNS OF HARD TIMES

Two things suggest that the little village failed to develop a “boom” or even to gain a basis for healthy growth. These are the land entries in the territory adjacent and the story of the post office. Practically, there were no new entries of land between the years 1841 and 1849. This is true for all the townships in the tributary region--7, 8, and 9, range 1 W, and 7, 8, and 9, range 1 E. The post office under the name of Savannah appears in the government list for the first time in the report for 1837. At that time Thomas J. Parrish was postmaster. In 1839 S. A. Holley was postmaster, the office then being listed as English Prairie. The postmaster’s compensation was $5.68. Charles Stephenson’s compensation in 1841 was even smaller, $3.36, the net proceeds of the office amounting to only $7.55. In 1843, for the first time, the post office was called Muscoda. The postmaster was Levi J. D. Parrish, who received as compensation $9.29, the net proceeds of the office having risen to $16.51.

It is probable that most of the seeming prosperity of 1843 was due to the presence of the land office, which had been removed from Mineral Point to Muscoda in 1842. Some have charged that the change was brought about through James D. Doty’s influence in order to save the town. If so, the scheme failed, for the land office promptly went back to Mineral Point in 1843, and May 16, 1845, the post office department discontinued the office at Muscoda. Muscoda was not listed in the post office report for 1847 or in the report for 1849. In 1851 it reappears, with James Moore as postmaster. Now the compensation is $39.74 and the net proceeds $53.09. The exact date of its restoration is not given but it must have been as early as 1850, and possibly 1849 or even 1847.[86]

BEGINNINGS OF SETTLEMENT

The reopening of the Muscoda post office, about 1850, synchronizes with the first movement of pioneer farmers into the good lands tributary to that place. A number of tracts of land were purchased by actual settlers in this and adjoining townships in the years 1849 to 1851. Indeed, Conrad Kircher’s purchase dates from 1847. Charles Miller and Emanuel Dunston bought land in 1849; Isaac Dale and Moses Manlove in 1851. We know also that the Moore family owned land at Muscoda as early as 1851. Across the river, in township 9-1 W, Robert Galloway, William Pickering, William and Andrew Miller, and two or three others bought in 1849; several in 1850; and a few others before 1854, when the great rush came.

A similar story can be told for township 9-1 E (now Orion) where J. H. Schuermann and Daniel Mainwaring (settlers) bought lands in 1849; Albert C. Dooley in 1850; and Jacob Roggy in 1851. One of the purchasers of 1848, John H. Siegrist, was probably the earliest actual settler in the township. A half dozen families bought in township 8-1 E as early as 1849; and a few others were added before 1854. A very few settlers were to be found in township 7-1 W prior to 1854, and while there were a good many settlers and miners in township 7-1 E, the greater part of that township was served from Highland where a post office was established as early at least as 1847 and where there was much lead mining activity, and from Blue River which had a post office from 1839. These mining centers doubtless drew their supplies from the steamers unloading at Muscoda, for the road to the river at that point had been open for many years, but settlement was more numerous and local activity much more intense, as revealed by the post office returns. The Highland post office led the Muscoda post office in importance for just about ten years--from 1847 to 1856. With the coming of the railroad, Muscoda drew ahead.

THE RAILROAD

If one had no other evidence than the sales of land at the United States Land Office, it would still be clear that in the years 1854 to 1856 something important was astir affecting the value of lands in those townships (7, 8, and 9-1 W, and 7, 8, and 9-1 E) which pivot on Muscoda as the trading point. For, while up to 1854 only scattering tracts of land had been entered, and those largely by speculators using military land warrants in making payment to the government, by 1856 nearly every forty-acre subdivision of first-rate land and much of the second-rate land also was under private ownership. And the state lands in the townships had also been purchased to the same extent. Besides, the vast majority of the purchasers of government land during those years were actual settlers, with only an occasional speculator.[87]

These facts challenge attention and call for an explanation. Wisconsin had been in course of settlement for about two decades. The earliest settlements were in the southeastern and eastern parts of the state where the economic support was the market reached by the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal; and in the southwestern section where the basis of prosperity had been lead-mining. The lead found its market mainly down the Mississippi, though increasingly the superiority of the route open to the lake ports had impressed itself upon the people.

At the legislative session of 1841-42 a bill was introduced for the chartering of a railroad from Milwaukee, via Madison, to Potosi. Despite continuous effort, the first railroad bill to pass, in 1847, provided only for a railroad from Milwaukee to Waukesha. In 1848 this was by law extended to the Mississippi.

The agitation of plans for a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi tended to give the lake route an overshadowing importance in the popular mind. Actual construction work on the Milwaukee-Waukesha section began in 1849; that portion of the road was completed by the end of the year 1850, and in another year it was practically completed to Whitewater on Rock River. It reached Madison in the year 1854.

The intention of the company had been to build to the Wisconsin River so as to intercept steamboat transportation at or near Arena. Thence the road might run along the river to its mouth, or it might run along the ridge between the Wisconsin and the south flowing streams, reaching the Mississippi at some point, like Potosi, lower down. By the year 1853 it had been determined to follow the Wisconsin Valley route to the Mississippi, and during that summer the line was surveyed from the mouth of Black Earth Creek to Prairie du Chien.

It can easily be imagined how the clangor of railway construction echoed in the minds and hearts of intending settlers. That they should have watched, with greedy eye, the reports of progress of the location of the road and hurried away to the land office as soon as it was definitely located, to buy the good lands adjacent to the right-of-way, is a perfectly normal phenomenon. The township plats showing original purchasers of the government land tell the story. In section 1, township 7-1 W, four forty-acre tracts were bought in 1854; eleven in 1855; and one in 1856. In section 2, one in 1854; twelve in 1855; and two in 1857. A single forty had been bought as early as 1847. The other sections of that township show very similar dates and proportions in the entries; the same is true of the other townships of the group. The 1854 entrymen were those who pursued the railway surveyors with keenest determination. The slower ones came mainly in the two years following, during which trains actually were put on the roadbed. In October, 1856, the village of Muscoda, which had maintained a precarious existence for twenty years, awoke to newness of life at the sound of the puffing locomotive. And the beginning of permanent prosperity for the village meant the beginning of prosperity for the rural neighborhood tributary to it.

POPULAR CENSORSHIP OF HISTORY TEXTS

JOSEPH SCHAFER

Wisconsin has now a unique law on the subject of school history texts. That law provides, section 1:

No history or other textbook shall be adopted for use or be in any
district school, city school, vocational school or high school
which falsifies the facts regarding the War of Independence or the
War of 1812 or which defames our nation’s founders or misrepresents
the ideals and cause for which they struggled and sacrificed, or
which contains propaganda favorable to any foreign government.

The method provided in other sections of the law for banishing textbooks which have been adopted but which are repugnant to the above provision is as follows: Upon complaint of any five citizens, filed with the state superintendent of public instruction, a hearing shall be arranged, to be held before the state superintendent or his deputy, in the county from which the complaint came. Previous notice must have been given through the press to the public and by mail to the complainants and to the publishers of the textbook complained of. A decision must be rendered within ten days. If the book shall be found obnoxious to the provisions of the law, that fact shall be noted by the state superintendent in the list of books for schools which he publishes annually. Thereafter the book so listed may be used only during the remainder of the year in which the state superintendent publishes it as proscribed. The penalty for retaining it beyond the time limit, shall be the loss to the school or district concerned of the state aid normally falling to its share.

The passage of this bill in the senate with only one vote against it, created a good deal of surprise, which changed to admiration for the oratorical powers of its author and sponsor, Senator John Cashman of Manitowoc County, when it was learned that his impassioned appeal to patriotism figuratively swept senators “off their feet.”

History students can have no quarrel with the motive assigned by Senator Cashman for the passage of this law. He says: “The history of a nation is its proudest asset. It includes the record of its great men, their ideals, sacrifices, and achievements. To preserve that history in all its original purity and teach it to the rising generations is a nation’s first duty.” With every word in that stirring exordium the historically minded man or woman will cordially agree. Thoughtful persons, whether historians or not, will also sympathize with Senator Cashman when he undertakes to rebuke anything approaching levity in characterizing the fathers of the Republic or captiousness in criticizing their policies, motives, and achievements. Unfortunately, there always have been among writers some who display a certain air of “smartness” or superciliousness which hardly comports with the inherent dignity of the historian’s office, or with the aim of doing equal and exact justice to all persons and to all causes discussed. Yet it will probably be no light task to convince an impartial umpire that writers of textbooks which have been adopted for use in the schools, after careful scrutiny by boards of education and other school officers responsible to the people, have been guilty of “treason to the nation,” as Senator Cashman seems to think has often been the case.[88] The framers of the constitution, with wise prevision, limited the application of the word “treason” in such a way as to exclude that indefinite class of crimes known elsewhere under the name of _constructive treason_, which in England and other countries had provided a favorable soil for plotters of revenge against individuals and in times of high tension always yielded a sinister harvest of oppression and suffering. So they defined treason against the United States narrowly as consisting only in “levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and they also provided that conviction under a charge of treason could be secured only on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or confession in open court.

This view of the fathers as relates to treason was of course lost sight of during the Civil War, when in the North it used to be fashionable for men to pillory as “fool” or “traitor” (with an emphatic expletive) anyone who had the temerity to vote the Democratic ticket; it was lost sight of in the recent war when men were called traitors because they refused to buy liberty bonds or because they declared the draft a violation of the rights of the individual; and it is likewise lost sight of when we condemn under the term treason opinions on history which we may regard as too favorable to our nation’s one-time enemies, or too contemptuous of the characters or the acts of our own distinguished men of a past age. It would be strange if the impulses engendered by the war and the peace were not reflected more or less in editions of books prepared since 1917. It is probably true that some authors have overstressed the “hands across the sea” sentiment, while others perhaps lean unduly in an opposite direction. But that any of them have been guilty of treasonable acts or even intentions is what no one who knows the historical profession can believe without the most explicit proof.

But this question of treason aside, the problem still remains to determine what is the history of our country “in all its original purity.” What shall be the test of purity inasmuch as, happily, there is no established list of authorized books or records from which writers must derive their facts? Are they not compelled either to investigate each point for themselves or to accept as probably correct the results of other men’s investigations? To be sure, every important event creates its own legend or tradition, and such legends tend to be preserved and to be handed down from generation to generation. But legends are not history. No one worthy to rank as a careful historian would presume to write the history of the Great War on the basis of legends now crystallizing about it. No more can one write the history of the Revolution on such a legendary basis. This view, that much which once was thought to be history but was in fact mere legend, is not in any sense new. James Russell Lowell, who ranks among the very distinguished Americans of the last generation, wrote, in 1864, that the early reports of the battle of Lexington claimed for the Yankee minutemen a non-resistant attitude.

The Anglo Saxon could not fight without the law on his side. But
later, when the battle became a matter of local pride, the muskets
that had been fired at the Red coats under Pitcairn almost rivalled
in number the pieces of furniture that came over in the Mayflower.
Indeed, whoever has talked much with Revolutionary pensioners knows
that those honored veterans were no less remarkable for imagination
than for patriotism. It should seem that there is nothing on
which so little reliance can be placed as facts, especially when
related by one who saw them. It is no slight help to our charity to
recollect that, in disputable matters, every man sees according to
his prejudices, and is stone blind to whatever he did not expect or
did not mean to see. Even where no personal bias can be suspected,
contemporary and popular evidence is to be taken with great
caution, so exceedingly careless are men as to exact truth, and
such poor observers, for the most part of what goes on under their
eyes.[89]

It is hardly necessary at this late day to insist that no writer is justified in building his narrative of events on unverified tradition. He must try to penetrate to the truth that lies behind the legend (which in some cases will differ very widely from the legend itself). It is no easy task at best to perform a successful piece of historical research, and the questions on which final agreements have been reached are not numerous. Accordingly, if the law should be so construed as to enforce banishment from the schools of any book which can be proved incorrect in some of its alleged facts without regard to their importance, no textbooks will be left in the schools, for none are impeccable. True, the Cashman law would condemn only for falsifying the history of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, leaving four other foreign wars in which our country has engaged, and the great Civil War, to be treated without other restraint than that contained in the last clause of section 1, denouncing propaganda in favor of any foreign government. But under that sole provision it might still prove embarrassing for a writer to tell the truth about the Mexican War and possibly the others also, for the term propaganda--as the whole world has learned lately--is a most elastic one. Presumably, the propaganda test applies as well to other phases of history as to the military phases, wherefore an author of a textbook is apt, under a strict construction of this law, to be hauled into court on the charge of propaganda if he should consider it his duty to say a single thing in commendation of any other nation. For, will there not always be found, in any school district, five citizens whose views collide with those of the author; and if so, what is to prevent a case being called? Surely a word in favor of France would be resented by some; a word in favor of Great Britain would be resented by others; a word in favor of Germany would offend still others; and so on through the list. In the present mournful state of general unrest and want of confidence among nations, an author would tread unsafely on any ground outside the “three-mile limit.”

It does not follow from the fact that under the law it is easy to bring cases, that convictions would be equally easy. Presumably the state superintendent has had knowledge of all books now in use in the schools and, in effect if not in form, has approved them. This he would not have done had he considered any of them purveyors of treason or excessively faulty in statement. Moreover, as judge in cases that may arise under this law, the superintendent will be bound to take judicial notice of some things. For example, it is common knowledge that no history text is perfect either on its factual side, in its literary qualities, or in the author’s perspective of events; that few writers display at all times perfect taste, and none perfect judgment, in their criticisms of men and their comments on historical actions and movements; that a given textbook may be valuable, despite minor defects in all of the above points, by reason of its superior arrangement, its psychological adaptation to children’s needs, and the success with which it communicates to them the main features and the spirit of American history. He will also be obliged to rule that the truth is not malicious propaganda and he is bound to maintain an author’s right to liberty of research.

It goes without saying that if a book is palpably and grossly inaccurate; if it gives the child a wholly erroneous view of history; if it is crassly censorious of America’s great men; if it is written in a spirit tending to destroy American ideals; if it tends to make boys and girls ashamed of American character and achievements, not in exceptional instances here and there, but generally; then there would hardly be a question about the duty of getting rid of it with all convenient promptness. But would it not be strange if, with the superintendent and other educational experts on guard, such a book had got itself adopted? On general principles one would expect that only in the rarest cases would this law come into operation; for it ought not to be easy for a thoroughly unworthy book to elude the critical eyes of publishers, editors, school superintendents, teachers, and school boards, to be finally detected and exposed by some school patron or other private citizen. No doubt such cases are possible, but one could hardly conceive them to be of common occurrence. Misgivings are aroused, therefore, by the report that at the legislative hearing Senator Cashman denounced, by name, five well known and widely used textbooks.

If the Senator’s historical views, as published in the _Senate Journal_ under date of March 1, 1923, are intended to be made the platform in a campaign to purify the history teaching of our schools, the upshot may prove widely different from what is now anticipated; for among those views, the derivation of which is not indicated, are some which it would be difficult to find expressed in any existing textbook. For example, Senator Cashman holds that our country is indebted to Holland “for town and county representation in a legislature.” Americans have long been taught that, in the picturesque phrase of John Fiske, “self-government _broke out_ in Virginia” in 1619 by reason of the fact that these people were English. We are aware of no investigations which have brought forth evidence compelling the abandonment of that view, though some very extravagant claims have been made for the Dutch influence upon both colonial politics and colonial education. He also holds that “our free public school system came from Prussia.” If by this were meant merely that Prussian influence has been felt in the creation of a system of state supervision of education, and in the strengthening of a school system already in existence, we would gladly concur. But the statement is too sweeping to admit of such an interpretation. Wisconsin Germans ought to be very glad to assign to New England colonies and states the chief influence in giving us the public school system because, in the present state of research, that appears to be where the credit belongs. To all that the Senator says about the selection of immigrants for America, the development in the colonies themselves of a new and vivid love of liberty which found expression in the Declaration of Independence, the stupid tyranny of George III, and the heroic sufferings and achievements of patriots in the Revolution, we utter a hearty Amen; realizing, of course, that his statement is necessarily a crowded summary, cast in oratorical mould, and not designed as a complete exposition of his views. But, in thus concurring we do not yield up our sympathy with the aphorism of Edmund Burke, that in their reaction to tyranny the colonists “are descendants of Englishmen.”

The same reservations might be made with reference to Senator Cashman’s statement on the constitution. And yet a fair interpretation of what he says on that subject compels us to class him with those extreme worshipers of that document who, like the authors of the New York teachers’ test oath, would maintain the constitution, unchanged, at any cost. Speaking of the fathers and their work, he says: “Then they wrote and the states adopted the supreme law of the land, the American constitution, the most sublime public document that ever came forth from the mind and soul of man, establishing a system of government based upon the consent of the governed, with religious liberty protected, inherent rights guaranteed, _to be written in indestructible letters into the pages of the nation’s laws_.” [Editor’s italics.] It is a well known view of the present progressives, as it was of the framers themselves, that, great as was the original constitution, it was still far from being perfect. Also, most progressives now accept in principle the conclusions of Charles A. Beard, the historian whose recent investigations on this point are now well known, that the constitution represents a partial reaction from the democracy of the Revolution, and was designed in part to set limitations upon the popular will. While venerating the constitution, progressives in the main believe that such restrictions as the legislative election of senators, the appointment and life tenure of judges (some would include the mode of electing the president), were intentionally anti-democratic, and that these and other defects which time has revealed ought to be subject to modification whenever the people desire the changes. The mode of amendment having been designed to make changes difficult, or impossible (though in recent years several changes have been adopted), leading progressives have long held that that fundamental article ought to be amended first in order to facilitate other changes. This was Justice John B. Winslow’s opinion, put forth in 1912; it was the burden of an important plank in the La Follette national platform the same year; that doctrine was preached, at least in spirit, by the late President Roosevelt. In short, it is a progressive principle that the constitution must cease to be a fetish--a dead hand upon the present and the future--and must be adjusted, from time to time, to existing social, economic, and political conditions. The document represents, for the time, a mighty triumph of constructive statesmanship, so progressive leaders believe, and it should not be changed “for light or transient causes,” much less revolutionized, but “it was designed for a rural or semi-rural state.” The men who made it “however able could not anticipate or solve the new problems of life and government which have come upon us in the last half century.”[90]

To follow Senator Cashman’s outline of American history into the recent period to the all-engrossing event of the World War and America’s participation therein would be fruitless. Not one of us can conscientiously claim to be an impartial investigator with respect to things which have wrenched our souls. We cannot abdicate our own personalities. In treating the war, all that any historian at present could hope to do would be to state his views with becoming restraint and concede that those views may ultimately prove to be quite wrong. A censorship law of fifty years hence (if our people shall then still adhere to the censorship idea) would be sure to condemn the teaching of what some of us now piously believe with reference to this feature of history; just as a censorship law of today, if it included in its scope the Civil War, would condemn the teaching of some things which nearly one-half the voters of Wisconsin sincerely believed in 1864. “Time is the great sifter and winnower of truth,” and we must consent to leave these matters to the investigators of our grandchildren’s generation. Yet the gravest danger to be feared from the law we are now discussing lies in the psychological probability that every second man’s opinion of a given history will be based not on what the author says about the Revolution, or the Constitution, or the War of 1812, but on what he says about the recent war and the League of Nations. In other words, the reader who is prejudiced against an author on account of his last chapter, which is almost sure to be unsatisfactory to many, will find the first, the middle, and all other chapters reeking with faults, and this even while personally he may be unconscious of having imbibed a prejudice at all.

There is a possibility that, as an engine for expelling books now used, the law will become a dead letter, first, because it may prove unexpectedly difficult for a dissatisfied citizen to persuade four others to act with him in making complaint, which however is not probable; second, because of the clamor of those in the district who are not keen for or against the book, but who realize that if it is thrown out all old copies will be worthless and they will have to pay for new books at the opening of the next school year; third, because the first cases brought may go against the complainants and discourage others from multiplying complaints. But, the popular psychology being what it is, there is an equal chance that the law may foster a widespread disposition to attack history books, geography books, civics books, and even readers; that it may keep educational matters in a state of turmoil, engendering much social bitterness due to the clashing of parties and interests over questions raised in the school-book fights. In such controversies teachers would be the first to suffer, because their opinions would be called for at once, which would place them between two fires; and no surer way could be found to degrade the social influence of our schools than by keeping the teachers in a state of perpetual anxiety.

We have reason to think that Senator Cashman, an acknowledged friend and promoter of education, would deeply deplore such a result. If he had anticipated anything of the kind, doubtless he would have refrained from offering his bill. But laws, like children, when they get out of hand, have a way of surprising their progenitors. However, we have the law and must use it to the best ends.

If every one in position of leadership or authority in relation to it--and among those are members of this Society--shall feel a responsibility for guiding discussion into proper channels; if debate on school-book questions shall be kept not merely free but also parliamentary in form and spirit; if we all insist that differences of view must be treated tolerantly; if we can secure from the public toward the arguments and facts in these cases a measure of that openness of mind which characterizes the American juror sworn to try a case fairly on the evidence, it may be possible to mitigate or prevent the evils apprehended.

And if, without discouraging research, the law shall merely enforce through future adoptions the idea that good taste is as obligatory upon the textbook maker as good manners are upon the private individual, one point will have been gained. We trust this may not be won at the expense of a disposition to whittle down the truth to fit a supposed demand, or that it will result in substituting books written by dishonest or spineless persons for those written by men and women of real character and scholarship.

In the midst of the late war the school supervisors of a western state discovered what they believed to be propaganda favorable to one of America’s enemies, and demanded the expulsion of the book from the schools. The superintendent, being a wise and thoughtful man, prepared and printed a page of corrective criticism, which all teachers were asked to paste in the accused book and to teach to the children with the regular text. By that simple device he saved the people of the state many thousands of dollars which would have been paid for an inferior text, if the book had been expelled. If the law shall permit such a handling of the borderline cases, does it not seem that in a time when we are at peace with all nations, we could act with equal calmness, equal justice to authors or publishers, and equal regard for the interests of the people who have to buy school books?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As the tide of emigration from the northeastern states rose higher, it bore along a goodly number who were not of the old American stock, particularly English and Irish, with some Scotch and Germans. Yet, many of these were natives of the states named and, if foreign born, had enjoyed so long an apprenticeship to the Yankee system of life as to enable them faithfully to represent it.

[2] Of whom England, Ireland, Scotland, and Canada combined furnished 1920, Germany 460, and Norway 340.

[3] _Wisconsin Domesday Book, General Studies_, I. _History of Agriculture in Wisconsin_, chap. 2.

[4] William Dames, _Wie Sieht Es in Wiskonsin Aus_ (Meurs, 1849).

[5] For example, see William Dames, _Wie Sieht Es in Wiskonsin Aus_.

[6] See J. F. Diederichs, _Diary_. Translated by Emil Baensch. Account of a trip from Milwaukee to Manitowoc.

[7] Those who filed with von Rohr and on the same day (Nov. 5, 1839) took up most of sections 17, 18, 19, and 20. All of these lands were described by the surveyor as “second rate” and all had a heavy forest covering consisting of sugar maple, lynn, birch, alder, black and white oak, ash, elm, ironwood, etc., together with some cedar in the swamps. The land lay on both sides of the creek, along which was some meadow, but the big marsh was farther east.

[8] William F. Whyte, “Settlement of Lebanon,” in Wisconsin Historical Society, _Proceedings_, 1915, 105.

[9] MS. translation by Emil Baensch.

[10] Page 29 in printed German edition.

[11] This farm, located in the town of Greenfield, Milwaukee County, was afterwards divided among Kerler’s three sons. A portion of it, at least, is I believe still in the possession of the family. Louis F. Frank, _Pioneer Jahre_ (Milwaukee, 1911).

[12] Michel Chevalier, _Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States_ (Boston, 1839), chap. x, 112-113, 117, says: “Loading a wagon with a plough, a bed, a barrel of salt meat, the indispensable supply of tea and molasses, a Bible and a wife, and with his axe on his shoulder, the Yankee sets out for the West, without a servant, without an assistant, often without a companion, to build himself a log hut, six hundred miles from his father’s roof, and clear away a spot for a farm in the midst of the boundless forest.... He is incomparable as a pioneer, unequalled as a settler of the wilderness.”

[13] See his _Common Sense_ (Philadelphia, 1791).

[14] See Captain Basil Hall, _Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828_ (Edinburgh, 1829), i, 130.

[15] _American Agriculturist_, i, (1842), 115 ff.

[16] Captain Robert Barclay, _Agricultural Tour in the United States_ ... (London, 1842), 41.

[17] _American Agriculturist_, i, 311.

[18] _Germania_ (translated slightly differently in University of Pennsylvania _Translations and Reprints_), 11.

[19] J. H. von Thünen, _Der Isolierte Staat_ (Berlin, 1875), 103 ff., “Ueber die Lage der Höfe in Mecklenburg.”

[20] In southwestern Wisconsin, about 1870, a respectable German farmer announced to his relatives the marriage of his daughter to a man who had arrived but recently and had the status of a mere laborer. To parry all questions about the suitability of the groom, who was known to be addicted to liquor and other vices, the farmer added: “I’m very willing to give him my daughter, for he is the best ‘grubber’ I’ve ever had on my farm.”

[21] When John Kerler settled near Milwaukee in 1848, he bought a farm on which was no provision for sheltering livestock other than work animals. He built a barn at once, refusing to permit, for a single winter, the cruel American practice of leaving cattle out in the cold. His case is typical.

[22] See the author’s _History of Agriculture in Wisconsin_ (Madison, 1922), _passim_.

[23] Editor’s italics.

[24] An example is in Abram E. Brown, _Legends of Old Bedford_ (Boston, 1892).

[25] Timothy Dwight, _Travels in New England and New York_ (New Haven, Conn., 1821), ii, 459, 462.

[26] Edmund Burke, _On Conciliation_.

[27] The Ohio Company’s grant, 1787, contained a reservation for religion as well as grants for education. Joseph Schafer, _Origin of the System of Land Grants in Aid of Education_, Wisconsin University _Bulletin_, History Series, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Madison, 1902).

[28] See Edward Eggleston, _The Circuit Rider_ and _The Graysons_.

[29] Goodsell, who was one of the founders of Beloit College, removed later to Northfield, Minnesota, and became one of the founders of Carlton College. S. A. Dwinnell, Reedsburg (Wis.) _Free Press_, December 24, 1874.

[30] _Madison City Express_, March 14, March 23, and April 27, 1843. Strong and Hamilton are not reputed to have been total abstainers.

[31] The vote stood, for prohibition, 27,519; against, 24,109.

[32] The story was printed in the _Columbian Centinel_, Boston, December, 1789.

[33] See _Diary of Sarah Connell Ayer_ (Portland, Me., 1910), 227.

[34] See _Almon Danforth Hodges and His Neighbors_ (Boston, 1909), 217-218.

[35] “At sun two hours high,” says the _Farmer’s Almanack_, 1815, “the day is finished and away goes men and boys to the bowling alley. Haying, hoeing, plowing, sowing all must give way to sport and toddy. Now this is no way for a farmer. It will do for the city lads to sport and relax in this way, and so there are proper times and seasons for farmers to take pleasure of this sort, for I agree that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

[36] See _Hodges and His Neighbors_, 94.

[37] J. R. Lowell, _Biglow Papers_.

[38] The death of Goethe occurred on the twenty-second of March. The news must have taken several days in travel.

[39] Prussians were apt to console themselves for the pusillanimity of King Frederick William III by harking back to the really strong if ruthless monarchy of Frederick the Great, familiarly spoken of as _Der Alte Fritz_.

[40] Guy Stanton Ford, _Stein and the Era of Reform in Prussia, 1807-1815_ (Princeton, N. J., 1922), 185.

[41] Victor Cousin, _Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia_. Translated by Sarah Austin. London, 1834.

[42] See _Life and Works of Horace Mann_ (Boston, 1891), iii, 346 ff.

[43] Cf. Franklin’s views on the comparative thrift of English and of German laborers, and note his tentative explanation of the difference. _The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin_ (compiled and edited by John Bigelow, New York and London, 1887), ii, 291 ff. Letter to Peter Collinson, dated Philadelphia, 9 May, 1753.

[44] By writers like Samuel Laing, in his _Notes of a Traveller on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy, and Other Parts of Europe_ (London, 1854), especially 108-115.

[45] _Life and Works of Horace Mann_ (Boston, 1891), iii, 346 ff. See also _Reminiscences of Carl Schurz_ (New York, 1907), i, 40.

[46] See William Howitt, _Rural and Domestic Life of Germany_ (London, 1842), _passim_. That portion of Carl Schurz’s work (see note 8 _ante_) which describes his boyhood life at Liblar throws much light on the amusements indulged in by the people. There is a delightful account of the Schützenfest, or marksmanship contest, on pages 45-48 and pages 81-83.

[47] Albert Bernhard Faust, _The German Element in the United States_ (Boston, 1909), ii, 472.

[48] _Daily Free Democrat_, December 27, 1850.

[49] _Nordamerika, Wisconsin, Calumet. Winke für Auswanderer_ (edition of 1849), 64.

[50] Bradley and Metcalf.

[51] It was managed by G. and J. Burnham, who had an investment of $10,000.

[52] This was John Braun’s. Best and Company had the largest investment among the German brewers, $7400, but their output was only $11,250. Other German brewers were Weizt, Englehardt, Stolz and Schuder, H. Nunnemacher, and H. Beverung.

[53] If our count is correct, the 1850 census lists as “clerks” fifty-one Germans. Doubtless many of these were serving in American stores.

[54] Or thirty-six, if we omit the teachers, some of whom at least were probably not liberally educated.

[55] The Lutherans included a Fr. Lachner, C. Eisenmeyer, and Ludwig Dulitz; the Evangelical preacher was Christian Holl, and the Methodist, Christian Barth.

[56] The Western Medical Society of Wisconsin, representing the counties of Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette, reported in December, 1850, that out of sixty persons engaged in the practice of medicine in that area, only twelve were entitled to be called “doctor.” _Daily Free Democrat_, January 8, 1850.

[57] “The University and the Germans,” _Daily Wisconsin Banner_, August 23, 1850.

[58] The remaining cases of marriages between Germans and Americans were briefly as follows: A whitewasher, born in Pennsylvania, was married to a German woman; tailor, born “in U. S.,” married to a German; a weaver, born in Germany, married to a woman born in Pennsylvania; a laborer, born in Ohio, married to a German woman; a stage driver, born in Ohio, married to a German woman; a minister (M. E.), native of Hanover, married to a woman born in Illinois.

[59] _Daily Wisconsin Banner_, August 1, 1850 (translation).

[60] _Wisconsin Banner_, August 29, 1846.

[61] _Wis. Hist. Colls._, xxvii, 235.

[62] See this magazine, vi, 395-398 (June, 1923).

[63] “Events teach us,” said the _Banner und Volksfreund_, October 15, 1855 (in the thick of the bitter Barstow-Bashford campaign), “that the Shanghais (Republicans) despite their prating of antislavery, are further removed from actual human freedom than the slaveholders themselves. The occurrences of the past year, during which the Shanghais have been dominant in various state legislatures, have shown us that this party is the incubator of the temperance law.” This line was followed vigorously through the campaign.

[64] Note, for example, the Louisville, Kentucky, riots in which the Germans were driven from the city. The Wisconsin Democracy, in August, 1855, made that the excuse for a resolution refusing seats in the convention to men of Know-Nothing proclivities. See _Argus and Democrat_ (Madison), August 29, 1855.

[65] See the _Milwaukee American_, 1855-1856, which was the party organ.

[66] Those belonging to the Turner Society are generally classified as “free thinkers.” The _Turner Zeitung_, national organ of the Society in 1855, was Republican in its politics, which probably influenced the result in Wisconsin.

[67] The Mayberry lynching. The lynchers were loggers from an up-river camp belonging to the murdered man.

[68] See his letter, MS, to Lyman Draper, August 28, 1855.

[69] In the year 1855 the _Wisconsin Banner_ and the _Volksfreund_ were united and became the _Wisconsin Banner und Volksfreund_.

[70] “Fifteen participators in the lynching affair were indicted and tried for the murder of DeBar in May, 1856. They were acquitted, as the testimony did not sustain the allegation that ‘he came to his death by hanging,’ _there being a reasonable doubt as to his being alive when he was hung the last time_.” _History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties_ (1881), 358. Editor’s italics.

[71] See a brilliant editorial by Colonel David Atwood, in the _Daily State Journal_ at Madison, for August 13, 1855.

[72] See the article in _Banner und Volksfreund_, July 28, 1855, entitled “The So-Called Republicans:” “We encounter in the _Watertown Anzeiger_ the following appropriate article concerning the so-called Republican (vulgarly Shanghai) party, by which so many Germans were duped at the last election and which expects to repeat the same swindling tactics in the approaching election.” (Translation). The election of Coles Bashford as governor was due in part to German votes.

[73] “The temperance swindle,” says _Banner und Volksfreund_, October 16, 1855, “is an outflow of Puritan bigotry and comports with other of their pious pretensions, for example, such a rigorous observance of the Sabbath as will reduce all sociability to the condition of a Puritan graveyard. For this sort of thing, also, is the Republican party the fruitful soil. The Know-Nothings harmonize, in these matters, with the Republicans.”

[74] Success was to render it practically as cosmopolitan as a protracted career of triumphs had long since rendered the Democratic party.

[75] The Chicago and Northwestern. It follows in the sector south of Muscoda the old military road from Fort Winnebago to Fort Crawford. Towns taking some of Muscoda’s former trade are Montfort, Fennimore, and Cobb.

[76] _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, III, 352.

[77] _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, I, 38, 41.

[78] _Wis. Hist. Colls._ XVIII, 263-64.

[79] Featherstonhaugh was obviously in error in calling that stopping place Prairie de la Bay. The context shows it must have been English Prairie. See his _A Canoe Voyage on the Minnay Sotor_, I, 199-201.

[80] _Wis. Hist. Colls._ XIV, 147.

[81] The Portage canal was begun in 1836 by a private company. Its completion was promised in 1837. See Governor Dodge’s message to the Legislative Assembly, Belmont, Oct. 26, 1836.

[82] Ox-teams owned by Illinois farmers.

[83] Hamilton went to California during the gold rush, finding, however, not a fortune but an untimely grave.

[84] See Abel, Henry I. Geographical, Geological, and Statistical Chart of Wisconsin and Iowa, Phila. 1838. The fare for passengers from St. Louis to Helena (it was doubtless the same to Savannah) was in the cabin from $10 to $15 and on the deck from $2 to $4.

[85] Smith, William R., _Observations_, 44.