THE BEARDS' BASIC CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA
Hesseltine, William B.
The Beards' Basic Contribution To America 4 BASIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard. New Home Library. 69 cents. Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine CHARLES and...
...If the answers shall turn out affirmative, no small credit will be due to Charles and Mary Beard who have brought within the reach of all A Basic History of the United States...
...For example, in 1895, when Cleveland was twisting the British lion's tail over Venezuela, Theodore Roosevelt, "full, of egotism and bluster," was writing Lodge: "Personally, I rather hope the fight will come soon...
...The Beards trace the evolution of the nation: its political problems, Its social development, its new economic phenomena, and its territorial expansion...
...Moreover, by the end of the colonial period "they had built up on this continent a great society and provided for it an economic underwriting of unquestionable strength...
...The Americans were different from the Europeans from whom they had sprung...
...THEY write about the...
...These are the problems...
...Certainly," say the Beards after a long review of foreign affairs under Roosevelt, Taft, and WHson, "it could be said with truth that the adventure of the United States in world-power politics had not brightened the outlook for world peace...
...They discuss the agitation for world-power politics fostered by Admiral Mahan, the Reverend Josiah Strong, and politicians T. Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge...
...They broke away from England to fashion their own political system, to make their own economic order, to advance their own science and education—"all with a view to making the nation strong and wise in the use of its resources, solicitous for social improvements, and competent in the arts of republican government...
...They find there no achievements of social good, but they do find social progress in a list of accomplishments which "kept the spirit of civilization," and enabled the nation to survive the World War and the ensuing reaction...
...The clamors of the peace faction have convinced me that the country needs a war...
...Can constitutional government survive...
...The Beards, incidentally, are dairy farmers: Here they are selling double thick "whipping" cream at half the price of skim milk...
...They have explored, singly and together, the operation of the Federal Government, the economic forces which entered into the pattern of American society, the roles of labor and of women, the growth of ideas, and the increasing complexities of American foreign relations...
...It is a fresh story, unwithered by age and unstated by custom...
...Can Americans "maintain full production, furnish adequate employment, raise the standards of life throughout the nation, and sustain the American spirit...
...Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine CHARLES and Mary Beard have been studying American history for many years...
...And it is not a text-book, dulling the comprehension ¦with infinite detail...
...They analyze the lust for power that came over the Government in the last years of the 19th Century...
...This is not a condensation, a debased "digest" of their earlier works, slapped together to catch the drug store trade...
...A de luxe edition, selling for $3.50, will be published in November...
...With equal skill the authors examine the home front...
...Their latest volume is good news for the reading public...
...And, at the same time, a Texas Democrat was writing to Cleveland's Secretary of State that a war with England would knock the pus out of the "anarchistic, socialistic, and populistic boil," diverting the popular attention from domestic ills...
...A Basic History of the United States is published at 69 cents and may be purchased in the "dime" stores...
...With the rubbish cleared away, the Beards go after the main theme—"whatever may be added to the record here presented," they say, "a consideration of these activities, ideas, and interests is basic...
...Any book by the Beards is a newsworthy event in publishing history...
...colonies, setting forth the nature of the people and their reasons for migrating, discussing the rise of agriculture, commerce, and industry, and analyzing the intellectual development of the colonies...
...They tell again the story of the Civil War and its aftermath of economic exploitation and political centralization...
...It's no shoddy reprint in a gaudy jacket competing with the sex-art magazines on the newsstands...
...IN their incisive exposition of American imperialism, the Beards' cold presentation of historical facts sounds like cussing at a Sunday School picnic...
...It is, instead, in the authors' own words, "newly designed and newly written to express the historical judgment ¦which we have reached after more than 40 years...
...The colonists formulated their different ideas, and they learned, by practical experience, the arts of self-government...
...They subject the doctrine of individualism—"free enterprise"—to careful scrutiny...
...What was more: they saw extraordinary chances for the expansion of their enterprise and were determined to take advantage of them...
...to any understanding of American history...
...In fact, one of the most distinguished features of the book is the number of insignificant items that are left out...
...Then, after surveying the New Deal and the global war, the Beards return to the problem which, after all, is basic in United States history: can Americans really make a wise and efficient ordering of their national life...
...Their four volume Rise of American Civilization is the most penetrating exposition of American development that has yet been written, and Charles A. Beard's The Republic, •which has been on the "best seller" lists for months, is the ripe mellow fruit of the tree of wisdom...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 32
