Grant M. Overton

i

Each of these five is a book which, either from its subject, its authorship, or its handling, is sui generis. I call such books “uniquities”; it sounds a little less trite than saying they are unique. I think I will let someone else speak of these books. I will look to see, and will let you see, what others have said about my uniquities.

ii

First we have Our Navy at War by Josephus Daniels. W. B. M’Cormick, formerly of the editorial staff of the Army and Navy Journal, reviewing this book for the New York Herald (28 May 1922) said:

“Josephus Daniels always was an optimist about navy affairs while he was Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1921, and now that he has told what the navy did during the world war he demonstrates in his narrative that he is a good sport. For in spite of the many and bitter attacks that were made on him in that troubled time he does not make a single reference to any of them, nor does he wreak any such revenge as he might have done through this medium. In this respect it may be said that truly does he live up to the description of his character set down in the pages of Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske’s autobiography, namely, that ‘Secretary Daniels impressed me as being a Christian gentleman.’

“In its general outlines and in many of its details there is little in Mr. Daniels’s story that has not been told before in volumes devoted to single phases of the United States Navy’s war operations. For example, his chapter on the extraordinary task of laying the great mine fields, known as the North Sea barrage, from Norway to the Orkneys, is much more fully described in the account written by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; the story of ‘Sending Sims to Europe’ is also more extensively presented in that officer’s book, The Victory at Sea, and the same qualification can be applied to the chapter on the fighting of the marines in Belleau Wood and elsewhere, and the work of our destroyers and submarines in European waters.

“But Mr. Daniels’s history has one great merit that these other books lack. This is that it tells in its 374 pages the complete story of the work of the navy in the world war, giving so many details and so much precise information about officers and their commands, ships of all classes and just what they did, the valuable contributions made to the winning of the war by civilians, that it makes a special place for itself, a very special place, in any library or shelf devoted to war books.”

iii

Leslie Haden Guest, a surgeon of wide experience and secretary of the British Labour Delegation to Soviet Russia, is the author of The Struggle for Power in Europe (1917-21), “an outline economic and political survey of the Central States and Russia,” of which E. J. C. said in the Boston Evening Transcript (4 March 1922):

“The author writes from personal observation in Russia and discloses much of the life of the day in that country which heretofore has remained undisclosed to the world. He has met and interviewed Lenine and Trotsky themselves, shows us the individuality of these great Bolshevist leaders and tells us much of the life of the people and of the social conditions and tendencies in that distressful country.

“Next he crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the other more backward, but both working together to form a modern democratic nation.

“The distressful condition of Austria and the Austrians now suffering for the sins of the Hapsburgs, is next shown forth. Vienna, once the capital of a vast empire and the seat of a great imperial court, was suddenly reduced to the level of the capital of a small agricultural, inland state, a condition productive of great suffering. The conditions here are shown to differ much from those in other countries, for the dismemberment of Austria was not brought about by the act of the Allies, but of their own people. The causes of the suffering are fully explained, as are also the causes of similar conditions in Hungary, in Roumania, in Bulgaria and in other countries affected by the economic and political upheavals following the war. That democracy in Europe will finally triumph Dr. Guest feels certain and he gives lucid reasons for the faith that is in him. He gives a broadly intelligent analysis of the entire situation and finds that the essential conditions of success of a democracy are peace, education and adequate nutrition. But he shows that a great problem exists which must be worked out; and he shows how it must be worked out. Dr. Guest is not alone a thinker, but an observer; not a theorist, but a man of practical understanding, who has studied a problem at first hand and shows it forth simply but comprehensively and with an eye single to the needs of humanity.”

Of Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic, by Raymond M. Weaver, Carl Van Vechten, writing in the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post (31 December 1921), said:

“No biography of Melville, no important personal memorandum of the man, was published during his lifetime. It is only now, thirty years after his death and one hundred and two years after his birth, that Raymond M. Weaver’s Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic has appeared.

“Under the circumstances, Mr. Weaver may be said to have done his work well. The weakness of the book is due to the conditions controlling its creation. Personal records in any great number do not exist. There are, to be sure, Melville’s letters to Hawthorne, published by Julian Hawthorne, in his Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife. There are a few references to Melville in the diary of Mrs. Hawthorne and in her letters to her mother. There remain the short account given by J. E. A. Smith, a man with no kind of mental approach to his hero, a few casual memories of Richard Henry Stoddard, whose further testimony would have been invaluable had he been inclined to be more loquacious, and a few more by Dr. Titus Munson Coan and Arthur Stedman; but both these men, perhaps the nearest to Melville in his later years, were agreed that he ceased to be an artist when he deserted the prescribed field of Typee and Omoo, and they harassed his last days in their efforts to make him perceive this, much as if an admirer of Verdi’s early manner had attempted to persuade the composer that work on ‘Aida’ and ‘Otello’ was a waste of time that might much better be occupied in creating another ‘Trovatore.’ In desperation, Melville refused to be lured into conversation about the South Seas, and whenever the subject was broached he took refuge in quoting Plato. No very competent witnesses, therefore, these. Aside from these sources, long open to an investigator, Mr. Weaver has had the assistance of Mr. Melville’s granddaughter, who was not quite ten years old when Melville died, but who has in her possession Mrs. Melville’s commonplace book, Melville’s diary of two European excursions, and a few letters.

“Generally, however, especially for the most important periods and the most thrilling events in Melville’s life, Mr. Weaver has been compelled to depend upon the books the man wrote.

“The book, on the whole, is worthy of its subject. It is written with warmth, subtlety, and considerable humour. Smiles and thoughts lie hidden within many of its pregnant lines. One of the biographer’s very strangest suggestions is never made concrete at all, so far as I can discern. The figure of the literary discoverer of the South Seas emerges perhaps a bit vaguely, his head in the clouds, but there is no reason to believe that Melville’s head was anywhere else when he was alive. Hawthorne is at last described pretty accurately and not too flatteringly. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850; Moby Dick in 1851. It is one of the eternal ironies that the one should be world-famous while the other is still struggling for even national recognition. There are long passages, well-studied and well-written, dealing with the whaling industry and the early missionaries, which will be extremely helpful to any one who wants a bibliographical background for the ocean and South Sea books. Melville’s London notebook is published for the first time and there is a nearly complete reprint of his first known published paper ‘Fragments From a Writing Desk,’ which appeared in two numbers of The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser in 1839 (not 1849, as the bibliography erroneously gives it). Mr. Weaver is probably right in ascribing Melville’s retirement from literature to poverty (it was a fortunate year that brought him as much as $100 in royalties and his account at Harper’s was usually overdrawn), to complete disillusionment, which made it impossible for him to say more than he had already said, even on the subject of disillusionment, and to ill-health.

“It is a pleasure, moreover, to find that Mr. Weaver has a warm appreciation of Mardi and Pierre, books which have either been neglected or fiercely condemned since they first appeared, books which are no longer available save in early editions. They are not equal to Moby Dick, but they are infinitely more important and more interesting than Typee and Omoo, on which the chief fame of the man rests. It is to his credit that Mr. Weaver has perceived this, but a great deal more remains to be said on the subject. Mardi, Moby Dick, and Pierre, as a matter of fact, form a kind of tragic trinity: Mardi is a tragedy of the intellect; Moby Dick a tragedy of the spirit, and Pierre a tragedy of the flesh. Mardi is a tragedy of heaven, Moby Dick a tragedy of hell, and Pierre a tragedy of the world we live in.

“Considering the difficulties in his path, it may be said that Mr. Weaver has solved his problem successfully. The faults of the book, to a large extent, as I have already pointed out, are not the faults of the author, but the faults of conditions circumscribing his work. At any rate, it can no longer be said that no biography exists of the most brilliant figure in the history of our letters, the author of a book which far surpasses every other work created by an American from The Scarlet Letter to The Golden Bowl. For Moby Dick stands with the great classics of all times, with the tragedies of the Greeks, with Don Quixote, with Dante’s Inferno and with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”

A man who is certainly an authority on naval subjects tells me that The Grand Fleet by Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa is the masterpiece of the great war. He does not mean, of course, in a literary sense; but he does most emphatically mean in every other sense. I quote from the review by P. L. J., of Admiral Jellicoe’s second book, The Crisis of the Naval War. The review appeared in that valuable Annapolis publication, the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute for April, 1921:

“This interesting book is the complement of his first volume, The Grand Fleet,1914-16. Admiral Jellicoe, the one man who was best situated to know, now draws aside the curtains and reveals to us the efforts made by the Admiralty to overcome the threat made by the German submarine campaign. The account not only deals with the origin ashore of the defence and offence against submarines, but follows to sea the measures adopted where their application and results are shown.

“The first chapter deals at length with the changes made in the admiralty that the organisation might be logical and smooth working to avoid conflict of authority, to have no necessary service neglected, to provide the necessary corps of investigators of new devices, and above all to free the first Sea Lord and his assistants of a mass of detail that their efforts might be concentrated on the larger questions.

“The appendices are of value and interesting because they show the organisation at different periods and emphasise the fact that the Naval Staff at the end of the war was the result of trial and error, natural growth, and at least one radical change adopted during the war.

“Chapters II and III deal with the Submarine Campaign in 1917 and the measures adopted to win success. The gradual naval control of all merchant shipping with its attendant difficulties is clearly shown. The tremendous labour involved in putting into operation new measures; the unremitting search for and development of new antisubmarine devices is revealed, and above all the length of time necessary to put into operation any new device, and this when time is the most precious element, is pointed out.

“That a campaign against the enemy must be waged with every means at hand; that new weapons must be continually sought; that no ‘cure-all’ by which the enemy may be defeated without fighting can be expected; that during war is the poorest time to provide the material which should be provided during peace, the Admiral shows in a manner not to be gainsaid.

“Chapters IV and V deal with the testing, introduction, and gradual growth of the convoy system. It is shown how the introduction of this system was delayed by lack of vessels to perform escort duty and why when finally adopted it was so successful because it was not only defensive but offensive in that it meant a fight for a submarine to attack a vessel under convoy.

“Chapter VI is devoted to the entry of the United States. The accurate estimate of our naval strength by both the enemy and the allies, and our inability upon the declaration of war to lend any great assistance are shown—and this at the most critical period for the Allies—a period when the German submarine campaign was at its height, when the tonnage lost monthly by the Allies was far in excess of what can be replaced—when the destruction of merchant shipping if continued at the then present rate would in a few months mean the defeat of the Allies.”

I will give you what Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich said in the Weekly Review (30 April 1921; The Weekly Review has since been combined with The Independent) regarding A History of Sea Power, by William O. Stevens and Allan Westcott:

“Two professors at the Naval Academy, the one a historian, the other a close student of Mahan, have written a noteworthy volume in their History of Sea Power, published in excellent form, generously supplied with maps, illustrations, and index. The title suggests Mahan’s classic which is largely followed in plan and treatment. It will be remembered that his writings covered in detail only the years from 1660 to 1815. While not neglecting this period, this book is particularly valuable for events not within its self-assigned limits. Practically it is a history of naval warfare from ancient times to the present day. Each chapter deals briefly, but ably, with one epoch and closes with an appropriate bibliography for those who care to go more fully into the question; a commendable feature. The last chapter, ‘Conclusions,’ deserves especial attention. Naturally, considerable space is devoted to the story and analysis of Jellicoe’s fight. Few will disagree with the verdict of the authors:

“‘It is no reflection on the personal courage of the Commander-in-Chief that he should be moved by the consideration of saving his ships. The existence of the Grand Fleet was, of course, essential to the Allied cause, and there was a heavy weight of responsibility hanging on its use. But again it is a matter of naval doctrine. Did the British fleet exist merely to maintain a numerical preponderance over its enemy or to crush that enemy—whatever the cost? If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to ”play safe.“ But he will never tread the path of Blake, Hawke, or Nelson, the men who made the traditions of the Service and forged the anchors of the British Empire.’

“One factor in the success of the antisubmarine campaign is not mentioned, important as it proved to be. This was the policy adopted by the Allies of not giving out the news that any U-boat was captured or otherwise accounted for. Confronted with this appalling veil of mystery the morale of the German submarine crews became seriously affected; volunteering for this service gradually ceased; arbitrary detail grew necessary; greatly lessened efficiency resulted.

“The authors are to be congratulated on producing a volume which should be in the hands of all naval officers of the coming generation; on the shelves of all who take interest in the development of history; and of statesmen upon whom may eventually rest the responsibility of heeding or not heeding the teachings of Mahan as here sympathetically and cleverly brought up to date.”