The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949 Page: 372

                                
372          Southwestern Historical Quarterly
It is the editor's opinion that "blockade running was not one
of the Confederacy's blunders." He believes that blockade run-
ning "was perhaps the most successful, large-scale campaign at-
tempted by the South." To appreciate Mr. Vandiver's conclusions
one needs only to read this volume, which is indeed a valuable
addition to the list of works on the American struggle of 1861-
1865.
JEFFERSON DAVIS BRAGG
Baylor University
Sam Jones, Lawyer. By Ben Jones. Norman (University of Okla-
homa Press), 1947. Drawings by Dick Underwood. Pp.
ix+218. $2.75.
Biography can be written in various ways to make it interesting
to the reader. In this case we find a biography written in a
humorous vein which presents its subject in such a strong and
wholesome light that once one has begun the story one cannot
easily lay down the book. Those who have read and those who
will read this biography will find here the life story of a man
who exercised a profound influence for good over the people of
Lyons, Kansas, the small community in which he lived. The
author is the son of Sam Jones and writes, therefore, in that
intimate way which is the opportunity of but very few biogra-
phers. The picture that he has drawn is both real and human
and based on a complete understanding of human nature.
The dust jacket correctly describes Sam Jones as "a character,
the kind of a man who epitomizes an age and a region," and
continues by saying that here we have "the story of a country
lawyer in a small community of the 'boom-or-bust' period in
Kansas, from the late eighties into the early nineties and on
until 1922." Sam Jones lived in the days of ten cent corn and
knew such leaders as "Sockless" Jerry Simpson, Mrs. Mary Ellen
Lease, Governor Leedy, and Senator Peffer of Populist fame. He
witnessed the great crusade for free silver, the Spanish-American
War, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the
Democratic victory of 1912, and the part which the United States
played in the first global war. He saw the United States return
to normalcy with Warren G. Harding. He must have been a great
stabilizer of human emotions in those troublous times.