Evening star., 1925-11-01
IDA GILBERT MYERS.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMER
ICAN PEOPLE. BY Robert Gran
vile Caldwell, Phi. D.. professor Of
American history, the Rice lnsu-
tute. New York: G.. p. Putnam's
Sons.
~ EPTH of rootage and a CORE
spending amplitude in the
spread of historic branches
- these are the qualities that
impress one deeply in this
history of the American peo-
pie, much as the same qualities appeal
to one in Green's Short History or
the English People," Events, sourced
in well defined causes, are immediate
ly impressive, where cutters or detail
around points of times fail to stir inter
est. Causes and origins, groWths and
developments, conSummatlonS tnat, IN
turn, become causes for new historic
sequences-these satisfy the mind.
And these are the material with which
this writer of history deals. In this
case, these causes are deep in the soil
of America itself, deep in the varied
origins of the people of America, deep
in their gradual approach to one an
other and in their ultimate growth
to the collective outlook and the ma
tional purpose.
The history is that of American in
dustry and economics and politics, the
story Of these leavened with human
feelings and passions and reaSonlngs
and convictions. Not one of its great
topics is finished topic here-because
1t cannot be. Instead each is held
open, as 1t is open in fact, waiting Tor
the inevitable change that comes to
anything that is truly alive and con
sidera BILE. For instance, discovery, in
respect to America, did not begin with
Columbus, nor did it end with Lewis
and Clark. An open theme, this, wait
ing for another possible new land to
emerge at the call of Macmillan or
Amundsen or another SO with every
point of Importance in American
growth. Each Is traced, and then left
open.
The story of this volume reaches up
to the Civil War. Secure at every
point, with the honesty Of the investi-
gator and the scientist. this chronicle
of America reads, nevertheless, like a
story. SO much TO the good, that.
Not every historian can get himself
read. no matter how deep his knoWl-
edge. how sincere his intent. lie
needs. beside learning, the gift of
weaving the tale. This writer has that
gift. At once the reader Is caught
by the statement that America had
been discovered at least twice before
Columbus but that it had mot man
aged TO stay discovered Then he
tells of the Indian migration that peo-
pied the Western Hemisphere, first
along the Pacific borders, with prob
ably, an Asiatic race that upon this
hemisphere became the Mayas, the
Incas. the AZtecs. the plain Indians of
our own West and. finally, of the en-
tire continent. And the Indians of our
America, became like the forest and
the prairie and the frontier, the anvil
on which were hammered out those
qualities of hope and cheerful en-
durance which from the days of the
pioneer we like to believe typical of
America" He tells the story of the
second discovery that did not stay
discovered" that of Left the Good and
Eric the Red up to, the North, the
former a Christian on missionary
work intent. So the American epic
goes on opening out to the complexity
and the problems and the hopes and
the visions of the present. faced upon
Il great future. Readers will seize
upon this big handling of history
where the piecemeal records of wars
and territorial seizures and repriSalS of
other sorts leave them with a sense
of the incompleteness and inadequacy
and inconsequence of the growth OF
America.