The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 422

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

edited and beautifully printed; and it is interesting reading. The
author and the people of Young County may well find satisfac-
tion in the thought that they have a history of enduring value.
RUPERT N. RICHARDSON
Hardin-Simmons University
The Texas News: A Miscellany of Texas History in Newspaper
Style. Edited by Ralph W. Steen. Austin (The Steck Com-
pany), 1955. Pp. 187. Photographs and index. $5.00.
The experience of reading an old newspaper, published ten,
twenty, or thirty years ago, sometimes gives the rather eerie feeling
that the news is contemporaneous with the reading and that the
past has suddenly come alive again. A kind of hypnotic spell is
laid on the reader, who seems to be in the midst of current hap-
penings rather than among events of the past.
Dr. Ralph W. Steen must have been conscious of this experi-
ence when he conceived the method he employed in writing
The Texas News. It is Texas history, and much other history
directly or indirectly affecting Texas, written in the form of
concise news "stories" contemporaneous with the events described.
For example, the first article, headed "Spain Claims New
World," is date-lined Barcelona, 1493, and describes Columbus'
daring voyage and awe-inspiring discovery. It concludes with this
sentence: "Many Europeans will accept the success of Columbus
in finding land on the western side of the ocean as proof that the
world is round."
The main events of Texas history are probably well-known to
historians, students, and others having a special interest in the
subject, but many of the minor events and facts are known to but
few. Yet, it is often these minor events and facts that provide rich
human interest. It is the "human interest story" that has the
widest appeal to newspaper readers, a truth which Dr. Steen ap-
preciates. Here are some brief samples:
Villa de Bejar (San Antonio) was founded in 1718, the same
year in which New Orleans was founded.
In the article entitled, "Spanish Establish Missions," one is
informed that, "Tejas is the name the Spaniards insist on giving
the Hasinai Indians."

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