The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941 Page: 154

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

sor Fred A. Shannon of the University of Illinois who lacked, re-
grettably, the temperament, training, and historical and social
background necessary to the assigned task. Instead of analyzing
the reasons for the revolutionary changes in the study of the
social sciences suggested by the success of Dr. Webb's book, his
112 pages of "Re-appraisal" are devoted to captious arguments
that the book itself is unworthy of its fame. Much of this argu-
ment descends from the high plane of scholarly analysis to the
low one of stressing petty faults and to what, in less rarefied
and learned circles, would be considered plain jealousy and spite.
The seventy-four pages of panel discussion are reduced, conse-
quently, to coldly courteous comments on the inadequacy of
Professor Shannon's point of view. The situation thus created is
only redeemed by Professor Bain's understanding review.
Professor Shannon's fault-finding approach to his subject re-
calls to this reviewer some boyhood experiences as a cub printer
in the environment of "The Great Plains"-the front page com-
ment of the Editor of the Breckinridge Texian, who discovered
a typographical error on an inside page of his paper, upon which
he knew his hated contemporary would seize: "The Texian al-
ways presents a few typographical errors for the benefit of
those who can appreciate nothing else in its contents ;" and the
reply of the tramp printer who had drunkenly "pied" a galley
of type and was threatened with "a write-up which will keep
you from getting a job in this country." "That is all right. I
can walk out of your circulation in twenty minutes."
Brownsville, Texas. HARBERT DAVENPORT.
The Changing West. An Economic Theory About Our Golden
Age. By William Allen White.
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1939. Pp. ix, 144.
William Allen White, editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette,
and nationally known liberal, has every right to speak authori-
tatively of the West. In this brief but penetrating book, which
grew out of a series of lectures delivered before the Extra-
curricular Committee in the History Department of Harvard
University, Mr. White considers the factors which he feels
greatly influenced the history of that vast area (24 states)
lying between Buffalo and Pittsburgh in the East and Seattle
and Los Angeles on the Pacific coast. Most of the people live
in villages and county seat towns, agriculture predominates,

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