The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington. By B. F. Riley, D.D., LL.D. Introduction by Edgar Y. Mullins, D.D., LL.D., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 301.

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. By Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916. Pp. 331.

Since the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, the press has been loud in singing his praises and writers have hurriedly published sketches of his career. These first biographies unfortunately have been inadequate to furnish the public a proper review of the record of the distinguished man. In these two volumes before us, however, this requirement has certainly been met.

The first is a valuable work which must find its way into every up-to-date library in this country. It is an excellent estimate of the services of a distinguished Negro, written by a white man who is unselfishly laboring for the uplift of the black race. "Though of another race," says Dr. Riley, "the present biographer is not affected by the consciousness that he is writing of a Negro." Throughout this work the writer is true to this principle. He has endeavored to be absolutely frank in noting here and there the difficulties and handicaps by which white men of the South have endeavored to keep the Negro down. The aim of the author is so to direct attention to the needs of the Negro and so to show how this Negro demonstrated the capacity of the blacks that a larger number of white men may lend these struggling people a helping hand.

Primarily interested in the bearing of the educator's career on the conditions now obtaining in this country, the author has little to say about his private life, choosing rather to present him as a man of the world. Tracing his career, the author mentions his antecedent, his poverty, his training at Hampton, his first ventures and the establishment of Tuskegee. He then treats with more detail Dr. Washington's national prominence, widening influence, ability to organize, and increasing power. He carefully notes, too, the great educator's chief characteristics, his sane and balanced views, his belief in the cooperation of the two races, and his power to interpret one race to the other. It is mainly this portion of the book that makes this biography a work of incalculable value in the study of the Negro during the last quarter of the century.

The other biography of Booker T. Washington is a somewhat more intensive study of his life than that of Dr. Riley. The authors are Mr. Washington's confidential associate and a trained and experienced writer, sympathetically interested in the Negro because of the career of his grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It contains a fitting foreword by Major R. R. Moton, Dr. Washington's successor, and a forceful preface by Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. The book is well written and well illustrated.

These authors were chosen by Mr. Washington himself with the hope that they would produce "a record of his struggles and achievements at once accurate and reliable." Coming from persons so closely associated with the distinguished educator, the reader naturally expects some such treatment as the "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington." A work of such scope, however, the authors themselves maintain is yet to be written. Passing over his childhood, early training and education, which they consider adequately narrated in "Up From Slavery," the authors have directed their attention toward making an estimate of the services of the educator during the last fifteen years of his life. Written with this purpose in view the work serves as a complement of Dr. Riley's book which is more concerned with the earlier period.

Each chapter is complete in itself, setting forth a distinct achievement or the manifestation of some special ability. Here we get an excellent account of the making of Tuskegee, the leadership of its founder, his attitude on the rights of the Negro, how he met race prejudice, the way in which he taught Negroes to cooperate, how he encouraged the Negro in business, what he did for the Negro farmer, his method of raising large sums of money, his skill in managing a large institution, and finally an appropriate estimate of the man.

In Spite of Handicap. An Autobiography. By James D. Corrothers. With an Introduction by Ray Stannard Baker. George H. Doran Co., New York, 1916. Pp. 238.

This book is a study of Negro race prejudice, chiefly in the North. One can not read the life of this member of the Negro race without becoming much more vividly informed of the terrible power race prejudice plays in retarding the progress of undeniably capable persons when they are known to have some Negro blood. It is a sadly true picture not only of the handicaps to Mr. Corrothers, but of practically all Negroes of talent who essay to come out of the caste to which barbaric prejudice assigns his group. For this reason we could substitute for this individual as subject of this story most of his race in the North.

The student of history will be more interested in his description of his boyhood home, a Negro settlement in Cass County, Michigan. This place was first an Under-Ground Railroad Station established in 1838 by some Southern Quakers whose conscience no longer allowed them to hold their black brethren in slavery. They brought their slaves into this far Northern region and soon protected other fugitive slaves from the South. It became such a place of security for these runaway slaves that in a few years they became sufficiently numerous to constitute a large settlement. In 1847 a number of slave owners raided the place in an effort to capture some of their Negroes. They had little success, however. Manumitted slaves, free persons of color, and fugitives continued to come and at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War the community had been well established. Since the Civil War many of the descendants of these pioneers have risen in various walks of life and have left an impress on the world. The author of this volume is a representative of this class.

The writer describes how that early in his career in this Cass County atmosphere he met with the awful handicap of race prejudice which forced upon him the conviction as to the difficulty of a colored man to rise. In running from the conditions in the South his people did not find a paradise in the North. Just as the author began by fighting his way among the white boys who objected to him because of his manifestation of superior talent for one of his color so he has had to struggle throughout life. He has, however, become a writer of some note, contributing verse and stories to such leading publications as the Century Magazine, Harper's, The Dial, The Crisis, The Southern Workman, The Boston Transcript, and The Chicago Tribune.

The author makes no pretence of writing a scientific historical or sociological treatise. He relates such anecdotes of his own life as will throw light on the influence of race prejudice in impeding the progress of capable Negroes. His style is easy and clear, at times beautiful. The book is well worth the reading of any person seriously interested in our race problems.

E. L. McLean.

The Administration of President Hayes. By John W. Burgess. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1916. Pp. 154.

These lectures, the author says, give in bare outline a description of the administration of President Hayes. For various reasons his administration has not received extended treatment by the students of American History. Professor Burgess seeks to show that Hayes was one of the greatest executives in the history of our nation, and that wrongfully "the manner of his election has been used to depreciate his service." He says: "As time goes on, however, and as the partisan hatreds which are clustered around the election are lost from view, his work looms larger and ever larger."

At the present time when there is such uncertainty in the election of President and reference is made to that one of 1876, many are repeating the contention that a partisan vote of the Electoral Commission unconstitutionally made Hayes President. The author very clearly points out that no president was more entitled to his office on constitutional grounds than Rutherford B. Hayes. Contrary to the assertion that eight Republican members of the Electoral Commission voted on partisan grounds, Professor Burgess says that it was they who stood squarely on the constitution and the seven Democratic members of that commission voted purely on party lines. The Democrats had neither "a leg nor a peg to stand upon in any one of the cases" of Oregon, Louisiana, Florida or South Carolina. The Electoral Commission in each case went back of the returns and accepted those certified by the officials of the State, who had been in conformity with the Constitution of the United States duly qualified to make them.

These lectures review the important problems of Hayes's administration. Among these problems growing out of the Civil War was the increasing aggression of the legislative branch of the federal government. Beginning with the Reconstruction Period the government was more and more becoming a parliamentary one. Hayes was determined to reestablish it on its constitutional foundations. When he came into power the lower house was in control of the Democrats and it was they who were determined to usurp executive power. Riders were placed on appropriation bills and efforts were made to force the President to assent to laws which would eliminate the Federal Government from all interference with the affairs of the Southern States. Notwithstanding the fact that they forced an extra session of Congress when both branches were Democratic, Hayes stood firm and in a long fight curbed the aggression of the legislative branch. Among other great achievements of his administration the author points out the reform of the currency, improvements in civil service, and the adoption of a wise policy in the treatment of the Indians.

The withdrawal of the troops from the defence of the Republican governments in the South, President Hayes thought was necessary that strife might cease and that those best fitted to rule should take charge of their home affairs. The author considers this to be one of the greatest acts of statesmanship that any president ever performed. The old charge that this was a result of a deal between Southern Democrats who were peacefully to permit Hayes to become President in return for relieving them of military rule, he terms an invention of the politicians and radical friends of the Negro. He maintains that before Hayes ever became a candidate for the presidency it was well known that he held such views favorable to the South.

The reader should bear in mind here that this theory of Mr. Burgess is in keeping with his radical position that the Negro being inferior and unfit for citizenship he should have been left at the mercy of the white man who wanted to enslave him. Here as in all of Mr. Burgess's Reconstruction discussions he sees only one side of the question. The white man should be supreme and the Negro should merely have freedom of body with no guarantee that even this would not be of doubtful tenure. Reconstruction studies will always be valueless as long as they are prosecuted by men of biased minds.

Orville Holliday.

American Patriots and Statesmen from Washington to Lincoln. By Albert Bushnell Hart. P. F. Collier & Son, New York, 1916. Five Volumes.

The editor deserves great credit for bringing together so much original material reflecting the thought of the men who made the nation. Every phase of American life and politics has been considered, giving both the scholar and the layman a ready reference and guide for a more intensive study of public opinion in this country than can be obtained from the ordinary treatises on history and government. The manner of selecting and arranging the materials exhibits evidence of breadth of view on the part of the compiler and places his long experience as a professor in the leading university of this country at the disposal of persons who have not labored in this field so long.

Here we have the thoughts of almost every distinguished man who materially influenced the history of this country from the time of the discovery of America to the outbreak of the Civil War. The writer has drawn on the works of all classes, statesmen, sages, men of affairs, State officials, congressmen, senators, presidents, judges; ministers, doctors, lawyers, educators, novelists, essayists and travellers; poets and orators. Every section of the country, too, is represented in this collection and a few foreigners who have manifested peculiar interest in Americans have also been included. Some of these important subjects treated in these documents are such questions as "Expectations from the New World," "The First Immigrants," "Principles of Personal Liberty," "Extension of Colonial Freedom," "The American Revolution," "Independence of the United States," "Liberty in a Federal Constitution," "National Democracy," "The Frontier," "States Rights," "Slavery," "Nullification," and "The Popularization of Government." Important treatises having a special bearing on the Negro have not been omitted. Among these are Hinton Rowan Helpers' Appeal to the Non-slaveholding Whites, Benjamin Wade's Defiance of Secession, John Brown's Last Speech of a Convicted Abolitionist, William H. Seward's Irrepressible Conflict, Abraham Lincoln's A House Divided against itself cannot Stand, his Meaning of the Declaration of Independence, his Philosophy of Slavery, the Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

The collection as a whole makes a valuable reference work for the modern teacher who is trying to explain the past in terms of present achievements. These materials are so arranged as to show that what we now call new problems in American life are issues of old, that the questions now arising as to how to manage the army and navy, how to deal with our colonies, how to maintain our position as a world power, and how to promote national preparedness, have all been discussed pro and con by leading statesmen in the past. Libraries in need of source material lying in this field would make no mistake in purchasing this valuable collection.

A. H. Clemmons.