Fabulous Ben Franklin
NETBOY, ANTHONY
Fabulous Ben Franklin Benjamin Franklin and a Rising American People. By Verner W Crane. Little, Brown. 219 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by Anthony Netboy Benjamin Franklin was a multisided...
...He had the kind of Gallic wit and gallantry of manner that the aristocrats fancied...
...He was affable, learned, shrewd, loquacious and, above all, the inventor of the lightning rod and other practical gadgets...
...Professor Crane stresses Franklin's role in shaping the peace treaty with the help of John Jay and John Adams...
...Gradually, as Professor Crane shows, Franklin the staunch loyalist was forced to accept the inevitability of separation from the mother country...
...The French idolized him...
...Like Jefferson, he was a product of the cosmopolitan and rationalist eighteenth century, when specialization was frowned upon and the ideal of society was a broad personality who prided himself on not knowing any one subject loo well...
...His reputation as scientist and inventor had preceded him by many years...
...But the greatest challenge lay ahead...
...Shrewdly playing off Britain against France, the aged plenipotentiary won many territorial concessions...
...Franklin was chosen to win the French King to an alliance with the colonies in the fight against Britain...
...Returning home, he worked indefatigably for intercolonial union, and, when war came, procured money, men and munitions...
...Sent to London in 1757 as the Assembly's special agent, he took the British intelligentsia by storm...
...In Paris, Franklin was an even greater social success than in England...
...Thus began a public career that was to continue for almost forty years...
...Since Franklin was a genius, he could make lasting contributions in many fields merely by dipping into them...
...All his suggestions for compromise were turned down by King George's headstrong ministry, which misjudged the temper of the colonists as badly as Hitler misjudged that of the British people in 1939...
...While it adds little to what is already known, it presents an admirably rounded picture of his accomplishments in the realm of politics and diplomacy...
...The climax came when Franklin, the colonial agent, was called before the Privy Council in January 1774 and publicly disgraced...
...They wore Franklin medals, hung his picture in their homes...
...All this helped to sell the American cause, and when Burgoyne was captured King Louis's minister, Vergennes, was ready to conclude the alliance...
...A few years later, nearing the end of his life and practically an invalid, he sat through all the sessions of the Constitutional Convention and "threw the great weight of his reputation into the cause of reaching agreed decisions.'' This book is a worthy volume in the Library of American Biography, edited by Oscar Handlin, which seeks to present American history through the lives of our great men...
...Professor Crane's slender book attempts to show Franklin's broadgauged activities in a crowded life of 84 years, with emphasis on his role in the Revolution, the making of the peace, and the consolidation of the Union...
...Reviewed by Anthony Netboy Benjamin Franklin was a multisided personality: businessman and promoter, printer and journalist, scientist and inventor, wit, politician and diplomat par excellence...
...He was also adept at fishing in muddy political waters, but his mission in England...
...which aimed at effecting a rapprochement between the British Government and its intransigent American colonies, was a failure...
...In 1751, when Franklin was 45 years old and retired from business, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly...
Vol. 37 • August 1954 • No. 35
