ROUNDING OUT JEFFERSON'S LIFE THE YOUTH OF OUR 'GREATEST AMERICAN'
Hesseltine, William B.
Rounding Out Jefferson's Life The Youth Of Our 'Greofest American THE YOUNG JEFFERSON, 1743-1789, by Claude Bowers. Houghton, Mifflin. $3.75. • Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine THE tradition...
...In Jefferson in Power, published in 1936, the author presented—with an eye on Alf Landon— the story of Jefferson's "8 remarkably brilliant years" in the White House—years of "unprecedented prosperity," of rapid industrial development, of "brilliantly successful" finances, of "complete absence of scandal...
...His style was vigorous, his footnotes impressive, and his polemics hidden...
...In the others, there were villains for the author to impale, and controversies which could arouse his zeal...
...The story includes Jefferson's far-ranging intellectual interests, his concern with governmental institutions, his broad acquaintance, and his vision of American greatness...
...In Hamilton and Jefferson, he had a theme which fitted his talent for dramatic writing, and he presented the conflicting programs and contrasting ideas in terms of the clashing personalities of the two men...
...An accomplished journalist, Mr...
...Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine THE tradition of the historian-propagandist is old in American political annals...
...There is, perhaps, too little on Jefferson's earliest years in Virginia, and, perhaps, too much on Jefferson in Paris...
...It is, on the whole," a well-rounded account of the intellectual development and the public services of ] the greatest American...
...His Beveridge and the Progressive Era coincided with the New Deal's dalliance with the progressive tradition...
...There is certainly no presentation of the mechanics of politics in Virginia, and no picture of the many-sided Jefferson in the role of master-politician...
...Bowers brought a facile talent to these stories, and succeeded in reviving the colorful and dramatic personalities of past campaigns...
...The old Whigs had Richard Hildreth, and Jacksonian Democracy produced George Bancroft...
...Bowers had turned to completing his Jefferson trilogy...
...After 2 such Jefferson books, Mr...
...IN many respects, this is the best of Bowers' 3 books on Jefferson...
...It recounts Jefferson in college, as a young lawyer and politician, as a bridegroom building Monticello, as a revolutionary pamphleteer, a member of the Continental Congress, as social reformer in Virginia, as governor, and as minister to France on the eve of the French Revolution...
...For the past 20 years, Claude Bowers has been the historian-laureate of the Democratic Party...
...And it is the least fun...
...Yet the portrayal of Jefferson the philosopher, the publicist, the artist, the architect, the scientist, the democrat, and the man is satisfying...
...The Young Jefferson takes Jefferson from birth to his entrance in Washington's cabinet—where Jefferson and Hamilton begins...
...As a result, The Young Jefferson lacks the fine partisan fire, the drama, and the polemic qualities of the other books...
...In Jefferson's early years there were conflicts a-plenty, but few of them arouse present-day emotions...
...This time, the Democratic historian has written democratic history, and the book should be read by all cynics who despair of democracy...
...The author told with gusto of the "demoralization and degeneration" of the Federalist Party, and he offered the story "as a warning to all succeeding political parties and politicians that public opinion cannot be defied with impunity...
...The beginnings of imperialism brought forth Mahan and McMaster, and the 2 World Wars enlisted the hysterical services of nearly all professional historians...
...The Declaration of Independence has been properly enshrined, and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom is a historical monument which symbolizes no modern burning issue...
...His Party Battles of the Jackson Period was an effort to rehabilitate the Democratic Party as the party of the common man...
...But, for that very reason, it is better history...
...Two of Bowers' earlier books have dealt with Thomas Jefferson...
...It has been more implicit than blatant, and it has manifested itself primarily in the selection and sympathetic treatment of Democratic subjects...
...His Tragic Era told again the Democratic story of the Reconstruction period...
...Bowers' partisanship has seldom been offensive...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 25
