The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 15, 1904, Page 5

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. Half-Century Republican Power. out at that that we of that popular deci- er that party is to re- nd, if so, by what victory is to be at- stanch Republicans e up their minds ticket the book will as a Juxury because ting by an enthuslastic hat party of a history of the d achievements and glory of half-century of life, and it will be of etical use to those who wish deliberately and wisely on e of the s they will count the two great parties are again n the balance of public opin- Especially will it be of assist- ance to that multitude of young men who will cast their first vote this fall time— entennial H and the other 3 fresh and who should carefully study both parties before resolving how they will begin to make history both in their personal lives ar the life of the nation by the casting of their first bal- lots The book ter files. Jetters. is a compilation of mat- sources—newspaper ries, encyclopedias, enough of Certis’ own aght thrown in to weave the ex- to a comprehensive and y comp whole. It wvers the whole period of the life of the party from its birth in 1854 and is written so close to date as to give a good ount of the recent isthmian p. All this is condensed into es, the connecting links be- ullings from many sources rought by Mr. Curtis and his from man books, with tracts well in ehendible - teresting. There are thrown on facts, y them interesting fresh to even those wt most fa- y of the party. partisan and s therefore under far less ipartial than would b k of history of the whole rties. no u eemly vituper- no over-rude hurling of to sbme extent in the text, between the lines, there can £ a of the South cratic party. It is there should be such day of balming an- d building up harmony. reason for mentioning that of its pages is that the dili- eker after the golden mean of 1gs may know that he should i both this book and some other in get mountain-top views of s as wholes. The book should be 1§ to the comfirmed Democrat g him & broader view of the ry of his country in the very at- mpt to see that history as it is view- ed by his so long 'ucaeuful oppon- ente. It is worth reading as a history of our country aside from its value &s & party history in that it gives a special view of it as it has been so largely made by the ascendancy, prac- tically complete for half a century, of the Republicans. They have the pres- tige of long success, have had the op- portunity te make their ideals into deeds, and have Initiated certain poli- cles and fully started our country in certain lines of progress which could not be whelly diverged from now even by & great Democratic victory. An interesting item In the book is the mocount of the birth of the party. The first chapter starts out with the telling of what 48 nominally known and per- haps generally accepted as the birth, namely, when _the mass meeting at Jackson, Michigan, en the 6th of July, 1854, so resolutely reselved: “We will co-operate, and be known as the Re- publican party until the contest be ended.” A resolve that reads specially well after we know how herolcally it was made good. But further along in the book is another account of the birth of the party, and this other not only seems to have the best founda- tion for its claim, but it is & story which eppeals mor- strikingly to the natural human love of a tale of human gloricous achievement. This account gives credit for the immediate calling into powerful life of the Republican party to one Alvan E. Bovay of Ripon, Wisconsin, to whose energetic thought and strong acting out of his thought the North first responded by that unit- ed action which was needed to make scattered desire effective. It's a Huxley axiom that all things must have their humble beginnings, and Bovay began that mighty Republican party by unit- ing his fellow townsmen—Whigs, Dem- ocrats and Free Sollers—as a nucleus against the slave power. He suggest- ed the name Republican to Horace Greeley, and Greeley made it a go by giving it a good send off in the Tribune of June 24, 1854, Of course the couritry has to be in the mood to respond to this movement of Bovay, else he could not have done it; but, nevertheless, it was & lesson for all time, attesting to the power of one man to move the muiltitudes to do great deeds. The disunited parties in the North were like the water In a bowl upon a frosty morning and at the crisis point between solidifying or re- maining liquid and incohesive. At such & time the right kind of a finger touch . will make one solid mass of the loose, unstable water. When the opponents _ of slavery in the North were at such a crisis point Bovay gave the finger touch . which solidified all their sentiments and all their force. Then ofhers helped to hurl the mass which he had made. So there is & sensé in which we can say that the great deed had been done, and that Bovay did it. While we read the fimflijf/)o" s Crow o T BES s Pz . OUDCE - P o bo % is good to have imagination strong enough to reach across far time and space and hold that man's hand for a moment as we say very is very dead, bravo, Bov Would that it had been done with less of bloody haste and hate, but since we cannot swear # could have been done by peace, patience and persua we st with a union of triumph and resignation re- joice In the actuality. An interesting thing at this time is the last speech of McKiuley, given at the close of what Curtis has to say. In that speech a special item for the pres- ent election year is what he has to say of the tariff. For really the tariff is the only vital issue between the two great parties, except that in a general way the Democrats claim to be the champion of the wel of the masses as against the privileges of the wealth- intrenched classes, and the Republicans claim to be the bringers of practical prosperity as against mere theories of what is right. The issue of free silver is a dead issue, imperialism is a bug- bear, and as for the negro question, that no longer divides Republicans and Democrats. Other items of interest in the book are the telling of how Seward should rightfully have credit for that famous “higher law” doctrine; the advice that civil servants of long experience should have increased pay; the sole severe criticism of his party because of its fallure to build up the merchant ma- rine; the cleim that the party should have another fifty years of life, and the summing up of the glories of that party—what it has done and what it will do. (G. P. Pytnam’s Sons, New York; two volumes; price $6.) The Klondike of the First- Rush. clubman, traveler and litterateur, has had published in London “Three Years in the Klondike,” a rec- ord of his experiences in the frozen JZREMXAH LYNCH, San Fraficisco gold fields of Alaska. Apart from the personal Interest that must be attached to the book by the many friends of Mr. Lynch here in San Franelsco, the widespread curios- ity concerning the bleak white land of the Yukon which still obtains in every quarter will make this lively journal of life and adventure there a book of large demand. So much has been writ- ten of the Klondike that is the hasty and scrappy report of flitting journal- ists or disappointed argonauts and so many have been the tales of exagger- ated coloring and false deductions that this story of Lynch's, vivid almost to photographic completeness, is truly a book worth reading with more than a cursory glance. The author, whose earlier sketch book of Egypt proves him to be a trav- eler with a ready eye for every detail, has also the power of reproducing the whole atmosphere of his surroundings without the semblance of effort. Daw- son City has been described and photo- graphed until its superficial aspect is almost as famillar as that of Chicago or New York, but the unique current of life and action that sweeps through the mines and this central post of all the feverish endeavor up there has proved & thing more elusive of faithful reproduction. In his book, written sim- ply and with no attempt at any rhe- torical pyrotechnics, Lynch has made his chief task that of portraying line for line all the significance that lles hidden under the outer cloak of sweat and toil, the sudden ecstasy of great wealth, the cold despair of failure, It is in this that his book is really power- m:‘l:he author left San Francisco for Dawson in June, 1898—the very height of the early rush. Reaching his desti- nation by way of the long Yukon voy- age, Lynch found the outlook some- what dispiriting. “Go back, go back,” had been the cry of all the dejected ar- gonauts whom he had hailed on the voyage up the Yukon and “go back” seemed to be written large across the face of the sprawling town which held his aspirations for the future. “Drinks are 50 cents, oranges §1 each, meals $2 and a cot $2" says Lynch. “The dread severity of the coming winter was ever present to the mind and the high price of food and supplies forbade consolation to him that had a slender purse, There seem- ed to be too many men and too few mines.” But despite the fact that the poor little German and his 300-pound wife from Sacfamento never stepped off the steamer, but went immediately back to the “outside” again, Lynch, who had a goed, long stocking of ;HG'W money, remained to embark in Wwarehouse business: Dawson’s complete isolation from the world at that time was forcibly im- pressed upon the author before he had been there a week. A single newspa- per, contalning the news of the battle of Santiago, drifted into town and its enterprising owner read it aloud to an audience who paid $1 a head to gain admittance to the: hall. When the mails came in the old postoffice days of San Francisco were reproduced, Men stood in line for hours; one pald $20 for the privilege of moving nearep the window by fifteen. “It brought the big man that much nearer to home." Lynch’s comments upon the life at Dawson are frankly compléte. To the habitues of the dance halls, both male and female, to the gamblers and heavy drinkers who crowded all Dawson dur- ing the long winter months, he pays the tribute at least of respectability and restraint. Many of the women .be- came the exemplary wives of rich miners; few of the men allowed the al- lurements of cards and drink to rob them of all their hard-earned gold. For the strict preservation of order at all times Lynch pays high compliment to the Northwestern Mounted Constab- ulary. > One of the most ingeresting portione of Lynch's book is that devoted to his account of a winter trip on dog sleighs through the mines on El Dorado, Hun- ker and Sulphur creeks. His portraits of Andy Hunker, Nigger Jim, Biliy. Chappell and others of the successful * gold diggers are capital. Their native reticence, bred by the solitude in part and by’ the ever-present suspicion en- gendered by the great game with.for- tune, when once broken down, reveals a rare good nature and open-handed generosity, as Lynch shows. Cham- pagne at $20 a bottle and cigars cost- ing $1 aplece are nome too dear when these men delight to honor a friend— maybe because they keep an oil can full of nuggets beneath their bunk. Even in the midst of a gold stampede these men forget their striving when the dictates of charity foree them to render assistance to an unfortunate fel- low miner. “The Arctic pioneers,” says Lynch, “were sometimes selfish, per- haps, as are other men, but always gallant, generous and chivalrous to a comrade or stranger in danger or dis- tress.” A portion of Lynch’s narrative is de- voted to the recording of his own ex- periences as a mine operator, of his trials end successes. One chapter tells of the robbery committed by Louis, his own cook, by which the author was made $7000 poorer. Another recounts the detalls of a murder in the wilder- ness, and the pursuit of the murderers. All of it is fascinating. Sometimes, it mast be said, Mr. Lynch's diction has something of the fascinating about It as well. “The next day we stopped two hours for wood—and mosquitoes,” says the author. “The former is cut by white men during the winter months,” he adds, leaving the reader to twist the construction to suit his own views as to whether the latter ‘were cut at all, and if so, by whom. (Arnold, London, publisher; Robert- son, San Francisco, agent; illustrated; price $2 00. the P S Gty The Beauties Found in the Trees. S if with the gentle Thoreau, dean A of the woods, wandering again in the forest at Walden, J. Horace McFarland can say: “Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath.” For in his book, “Getting Acquainted With the Trees,” this latest disciple of the great nature lover approaches the high throne of nature’s sublimest manifest- ation with all the reverence and pure love in his heart that wgs Thoreau's. Disclaiming any proficlency in mere | STy Lt oF 2. > 9 o botanical knowledge, which might en- able him to attach to his tree friends lengthy Latin pseudonyms, nor at- tempting to explain at length the inner mysteries of exogenous efflorescence, the writer of this book would Have it only that his readers might see with him a little further the lines of na- ture’s open book; he would point out to the man with nature love in his heart some of the beautles that lie hidden in leaf and limb. That such he has done, artistically, sympathetic- ally, one need only read his book to be assured. The common forest trees of the Eastern and Southern States, as well as some of those that have been tamed to grace a park or a city’s boulevard, are subjects of McFarland's sketches. With the maple in all its forms and hues, the oak, the pine, the alder and willew, the author treats as if he were pointing out the beauties of some Greek temple. The tracery of leaf and silkiness of blossom, rough hardi- ness of trunk and graceful set of branch all have an appeal to him. To his text he has added the further tes- timony of the camera, so that one cannot lay the book aside without a compelling sense of the grandeur and beauty that may be seen in the woods by every man, does he ‘but care to look. (The Outlook Publishing Company, New York; price $175.) L ——— A Naval Hero Receives Tardy Dues. DGAR STANTON MACLAY, the historian who played ducks and drakes with the Navy Depart- ment in his “History of the American Navy” a few. years back, has instituted a laudable search into the archives of the long ago with a view to bringing into tardy recognition the nameless he- roes of the early American navy. As the first fruits of his labors Maclay offers for our consideration and appro- bation the record of one Moses Brown, a dougthy sea captain of old Newbury- port, Conn., who turned privateer in the War of the Revolution and fought two engagements with British ships without one mention of the deeds ap- pearing in the official records of the navy office. Maclay sets forth in this “Moses Brown, Captain, U. 8. N,,” with no uncertain phrases his opinion thag the object of his sketch has been de- spitefully treated by a capricious fate that could allow his achievements to pass thus unheralded for these hundred and more of years. He therefore pro- ceeds to make amends for the lapse of niggardly history by cracking up Moses Brown for about as much as the facis ne works on will permit. It seems that the dereliction on the part of history or the youthful navy office of the Government. {s explainable in this wise: When, as commander of the General Arnold of twenty guns, Privateer Moses Brown met and de- feated two English cruisers, any rec- ords of the engagements that he might have kept were lost by the unfortunate capture of Brown himself shortly after the second victory. If he reported to the owner of the General Arnold his battles it must have been verbally, for the only records of these two brushes with the English that are extant are of private nature. From the journal of Thomas Greele, salling master in the General Arnold, the “Narrative of Ig- natius Webber,” prize master in the same ship, and the official report of one of the British commanders defeated by Brown are drawn, then, the authentic account of these two unrecorded sea fights, corroborating In part the entries in Brown’s private dlary. ‘With all due honor to the shade of Moses Brown and meaning no disre- spect to Historian Maclay, it may be sald that the latter's record of these two fights at sea has added no great weight of fact to American history. From Brown's same diary, wherein he tells how he spent some weeks in ‘'seeing the fashions of Leondon™ dur- ing the very vrogress of the war and how he carried fish to this port and salt to that when he was not looking for prizes, it must be deduced that Cap- tain Brown was not the dyed-in-the wool patriot and sea hero that Maeclay would have him be, but—until he be- came a regular U. 8. N. Captaln— rather a good honest Yankee who liked a fight, maybe, and liked it all the better if there was a rich prize to be fought for. (The Baker & Taylor Company, New York; illustrated; price $1.25.” “The Grafters”; Lynde's Strong Novel. HE GRAFTERS,” Francis Lynde’s novel of the strenuous lite in backdoor politics, hums with actipn all through, like telegraph wires in a gale of wind. It is clang- ing, rattling action of the sort that puts one’s nerves to the tension and makes a gallop the only admissible speed of lo- comotion through the reading. The des- tinfes of railroads, the lives of boom towns, the fortunes of ofl wells, of a State government, and incidentally of ‘various interesting individuals, are hur. ried along at a rattling rate in this re- markably interesting story of Lynde's. The boom and the whirr of train, tele- graph, automobile and ticker, the strain and the nerve-racking of the characters swept into the whirl of the story and the kaleidoscopic flitting of scene on scene all make for an atmosphere of breathless suspense, which acts very much like a galvanic shock upoh the flaceid nerves of the inveterate book- worm. Were Mr. Lynde's story better written in parts it might be allowed a place well up near “The Pit.”” The author is far happier in plot con- struction than in the outlining of his characters. Relying upon the great public’s insatiable appetite for all that lies hidden “on the Inside” of politics, great business deals or the daring movements of corporations, Lynde has woven an intricate web in the loom of modern activities of which the four re- taining posts are rallroad deals, oil stocks, boom realty bubbles and cor- rupt State administration. Gathering all the threads about the machinations of a gang of “grafters” dominating the administrative and judicial functions of & hypothetical Western commonwealth and the efforts of an idealized Attorney Foulke to break that ring, the author has worked out a plot scheme which must commend itself for its very inge- nuity. This, though, with one reserva- tion—in places the author jumps from one complication to another with a sud- denness and a lack of explanation, made imperative by the untutored [ mind of his reader, which often induces- no small degree of confusion in the mind of the one who follows him. ‘'With all his preliminary succession of startling incidents, the author leads up to a climax that is mightily powerful, - that exceeds In clutching breathless- ness anything that Spearman or Cy Warman have written along railroad lines. The chapter entitled “Relentless Wheels,” which has to do with the forcible kidnaping of Governor Bucks and his co-conspirators upon a flying special, hotly kept to its pace by the imminent aanger of collision from be- hind, is a piece of vivid narrative that cwns a remarkable compelling force. As hinted already, the author’s char- acters are not remarkable for any great individuality, possibly because some of them are involved In a wholly unnéecessary love affair, and such folk are not seen at their best. If Lynde had left David Kent to his industrious “busting up” of the capital ring and not snared him in cupid’s meshes along with the very colorless, very Puritani- cal Elinor Brentwood, David would not have come perilously near making a spectacle of himself in the reader's eyes. Nor does the remarkable young Penelope, also a party to this love busl- ness, ring true to the note. When will our dear readers cease to make the poor writer folk foist a link or so of hearts into their otherwise promising stories? (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indian- apolis; illustrated). Le Gailienne Gives Advice on Books SERIES of essays upon books and book reading by Richard Le Gal- lienne, which first appeared as contributions to the monthly, Success, have now been gathered into well merited book covers under the title “How to Get the Best Out of Books,” and presented In an at- tractive little volume for the bet- ter understanding of all book lovers on things bookish. Mr. Le Gallienne’'s professed design in this book is not to overshoot the mark in his attempt- ed setting forth of a guide to good reading by dipping .too deep into the profundities of literature, but to set the paths for the guidance of the casual reader and the busy person whose reading is recreation. For the man whose tastes or whose opportu- nities have prevented an enjoyment of the classics, Le Galllenne has no dog- matic insistence of iteration upon, the value of such as a sine qua non to a complete understanding of books, nor does he attempt an elaborate analysis of literary forms which might be con- fusing and profitless to his reader. “The aim of these simple pages,” says the author, “has been to convince him (the business man) that literature is a living thing, and that the relation of books to life is close and vital—and by no means ornamental.” To this end the critic proceeds to tell simply and clearly what to look for in books, what to find in good poetry, how an unlettered man may profit by the books and how he must select his reading that he may be broader and more cultured. For the man of affairs who turns to books to find rest and pleasure, Le Gallienne would recom- mend only “the play grounds of litera- ture’’—nothing heavy, nothing that cannot be read with sympathy and un- derstanding. Oné must not hurry through books upon the excuse that “there is so much to read,” for there 18 for each one only so much as he can assimilate to his betterment, and by the same measure, the random reader must not, advises the author, be led by “literary superstitions” to attempt to enter into thorough communion with a classic just because it is denominated a classic, whether his understanding follows or not. In his general comments upon books that are readable, Le Galllenne takes occasion to veer somewhat from his course in order that he may express his unqualified condemnation of what he terms “the offal and butchers’ meat” of the present day tendencies in litera- ture. The manifestation he so roundly anathematizes is none other than what Willlam Dean Howells champions— writing life as life is. This movement of the realists sadly disconcerts Le Gallienne and he mourns the fact that the materialism of the nineteenth cen- tury has stripped the world of all sweetness and idealism. But then, Le Gallienne is a poet and his views are but natural. (Baker & Taylor Co., price $1 25.) B Marginalia--- Notes on Other Books UST as there is an Izaak Walton, the patron saint and father.ad- viser of all good fishermen, so there is need for a patriarch of the New York; huntsmen’s flock whose words shall be welghed as true gold. Though not as- piring to the classic distinction of good Izaak, Theodore S. Van Dyke, the vet- eran devotee of the hunting trail, has a right strong held on all followers of the deer through his book, “The Still- Hunter,” which Is now produced in a new edition after twenty years of faithful service as the vade-mecum of the deer slayer. Where Izaak dis- courses on shady pool and ruffled mill- race, Van Dyke recounts the lore of the thicket and the wooded glen where lurk the kings of the chase. How to evolve an ear or a shining flank out of the puszzie-picture of a leafy copse and then fire upon it—only to discover oft- times that your bullet has sped at a shadow—this and every other one of the articles of a huntsman's faith are set forth by the author in a style that is as pleasing to the layman as the vet. eran. (The York; Macmillan Company, New {llustrated; price $1 75.) Two books upon the practice of med- {cine have recently been published. In a treatise entitled “Self-Cure of Con- sumption,” Charles H. Stanley Davis, M. D., of the Connecticut State Medi- cal Soclety undertakes to demonstrate his theory of how the dread disease may be conquered without absolute dependence upon medicinal aids. The chief rellance, he states, is to be placed upon the scientific use of air, sunlight, water, food, rest, exercise, etc.—that will improve nutrition and increase the vital resistance. The object is to in- crease the resistance of the patient, so as to bring about the arrest of the tu- berculosis process, prevent dreaded secondary Infection and induce final cure. The book is largely devoted to the open air treatment, and there are chapters ~u diet, exercise, etc., as well as on the prevention of consumption and other diseases. The work is published by H. B. Treat & Co., New Yor ts price, 75 cents. “Social Disease and Marriage,” by Prince A. Morrow, surgeon to the City Hospital of New York, s an exhaust- ive and scholarly treatise upon an im- portant branch of therapeutics, which has also strong bearing upon certain aspects of soclologic questions. The technical character of the work and the nature of its subject matter does not permit of lengthy review beyond the pages of a medical journal. Lea Brothers & Co., of Philadelphia are its publishers. The House Beautiful continues to be the standard magazine of reference for all who have a love for the beautiful in the home and home surroundings. This publication seems to be just in line with the graining cult—that term being used In its higher application-— of the appreciation of the severely sim- ple in house architecture and house fur- nishing. What the Soclety of the Arts and Crafts is doing in this city and similar organizations for the applica- tion of handicrafts to the house are accomplishing elsewhere The House Beautiful does at large. Its mission is to lead iIn the revolt agalnst the sham and shoddy of generally ac- cepted ideals of home furnishings and to instruct in the truly esthetic such as is now coming more and more into favor. The May number's leading articles are: “A Remodeled Home in the Country,” by Virginia Robie; “An Informal Garden,” by H. A. Capar; “How to Bind Books,” from the pen of Emily Preston, and Oscar L. Trigss’ “The Meaning of Industrial Art.” G. W.Dillingham & Co. of New York have published two little works of at- tempted humor—"Twisted History,” by Frank C. Voorhies, and “The Theatri- cal Primer,” by H. A. Vivian. Both fall quite flat. “Twisted History” deals with our early colonial chronicles after the manner of Bill Nye’s history of the United States, but the form of the book alone is Nye's—the humor would not pass current on a vaudeville stage. The story is couched, furthermore, in very poor slang—not a factor to add to the book’s worth. “The Theatrical Primer” is & succession of dreary at- tempts at the George Ade thing in slang fables. It is dreary dull. ke iy pinie b New Books Received THE EFFENDI-Florence Brooks ‘Whitehouse; Little, Brown & Co., Bos- ton; illustrated; price 31 50. ANNA, THE ADVENTURESS—E. Phillips Oppenheim; Little, Brown & Co., Boston; {llustrated; price $1 50. THE VILLA CLAUDIA—John Ames Mitchell; Life Publishing Company, New York: illustrated. UNCLE MAC'S NEBRASKY-Wil- lam R. Leighton; Henry Holt & Co., New York;, price $1 25. THE FOLLY OF OTHERS-—Neith Boyce; Fox, Duffleld & Co., New York; Mustrated; price §1. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY; A HISTORY OF ITS FIFTY YEARS' EXISTENCE—Francis Curtls; G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; two vol- umes; price $6. THE HOLY GRAIL—Sylvester Bax- ter; Curtis & Cameron, Boston; price $1 50. KINDLY LIGHT — Florence M. Kingsley; Henry Altemus Company, Philadelphia; price 50 cents. WHAT HANDWRITING INDI- CATES—John Rexford; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York; illustrated; $1 2. HOW TO LIVE FOREVER—Harry Gaze; Stockham Publishing Company, Chicago. HIDALGO AND HOME LIFE AT WEST LAWN—R. A. McCracken; M. A. Donohue & Co., Chicago; illustrated; price $1. THE ALASKA BOUNDARY—Pro- fessor George Davidson; Alaska Pack- ers’ Association, San Francisco. DIRECTORY OF THE AMERICAN PRESS—Compiled and published by Lord & Thomas, Chicago. BLUE AND GOLD—Published by the class of '06 at the University of California. CALIFORNIA EDUCATIONAL DI- RECTORY—Compiled and published by the California Educational Direc- tory Company, Sacramento.