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gross transportation revenue increased from $32,632,000 to $78,750,000 and the net surplus before dividends from $9,213,000 to $41,598,000. Through the prosperity of the Union Pacific Mr. Harriman was enriched.

Equally informing and interesting are the chapters telling of the contest with J. P. Morgan over the reorganization of the Erie, the acquirement and reconstruction of the Southern Pacific, the struggle with Hill for control of the Burlington, the profit of $58,000,000 realized from the sale of Northern Pacific and Great Northern shares after the dissolution of the Northern Securities Company, and the fights in defense of Union Pacific interests with Senator Clark, with the Keene Pool, and with the Santa Fe. Then too there is the account of the dramatic saving of the Erie when Harriman personally advanced $5,500,000, after the Erie's bankers had refused further credit.

There are charming accounts of founding a boys' club, of an expedition to Alaska in the summer of 1899 in company with a group of eminent scientists, of the transformation of the Colorado desert into the Imperial Valley Oasis, and of the development of the country estate at Arden which was finally given to New York for a public park.

There are stirring accounts of Harriman's activity in relieving suffering after the San Francisco earthquake and fire, when his railroads carried out 224,000 refugees and brought 1600 carloads of food and supplies without charge; and of how the engineers of the Union Pacific harnessed the Colorado River and saved the Imperial Valley.

The first volume is given largely to Harriman's constructive work. In the second volume is an account of his saving the Erie from bankruptcy. But most of the second volume is taken up in seeking to refute accusations growing out of the Chicago and Alton episode, the break with President Roosevelt, and investigation of the Harriman lines by the Interstate Commerce Commission. While this is ably done, it leaves the impression that the author attempts the role of an advocate. To the reviewer, the chief fault of this admirable work is that the author presents Harriman as

too perfect. Being human he obviously erred at times. But the author passes lightly over Mr. Harriman's mistakes and zealously seeks to show him right and his opponents at fault in the great controversies in which he participated. University of Texas.

BRADLEY, GLENN DANFORD.

W. M. W. SPLAWN.

The Story of The Santa Fe.

(Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1920. Pp. 288. $3.00, net.)

The sub-title of this book is happily "A Romance of American Enterprise." Professor Bradley unfolds the story of the Santa Fe with the charm of a romance.

The author is a historian. If one is to judge by his account of the development of a great railroad system and of its influence in the making of the West, he more nearly deserves to be called a historian than any one of a number of others who might be mentioned and who have written more voluminously, but have confined their attention to political activities.

Chapter I, pp. 17-50, is a readable and informing narrative of the development of traffic along the old Santa Fe Trail. This trail crossed the Missouri River near the present site of Kansas City and took a southwesterly course to the Arkansas River near the present town of Great Bend. From there the trail followed the Big Bend of the river west and southwest for one hundred and thirty-five miles to a point near what is now Dodge City. Here the road forked. One branch passed south and west to Las Vegas and on to Santa Fe. The other ran west and south across southeastern Colorado, also reaching Santa Fe by way of Las Vegas. "A history of the Santa Fe trail really divides itself into three parts: (1) the pack-mule period, 1812-1825; (2) the ox-wagon period, 1824-1848; and (3) the stagecoach period, 1848-1872." "The price charged for hauling freight from Santa Fe was from ten to twelve dollars per hundred pounds. After the business was well organized each wagon averaged about $500 per trip, which lasted from

eighty to ninety days." "The big annual caravan for 1846 comprised 414 wagons with merchandise valued at $1,752,250." By 1854 a stage made the 850 mile trip in about one month, and the Government was paying the contractors $10,990 annually for the monthly service.

Chapter II is devoted to a frontier promoter Cyrus K. Holliday, who dreamed of a railroad reaching from the Missouri River to Santa Fe and even to the Pacific, when such dreams were regarded as wholly visionary. The supreme optimism, and the clever management of this man started the construction of a railroad. "Of course he had a hard time convincing some people that his tiny railroad really would become a great system. People laughed at him, called him an old fool, and otherwise misused him.” "Living to a good old age Mr. Holliday saw his little 'Atchison and Topeka Railroad' spread across Kansas to Santa Fe, to the Pacific Ocean, to the Gulf of Mexico and to Lake Michigan. A railroad which grew from nothing to a transcontinental system over 11,000 miles in extent."

Chapter III tells of the beginnings of this system. Chapter IV is an interesting account of frontier life along the new railroad during the first years that it supplanted the overland traffic along the "Trail." Chapter V is an illuminating account of the activities of the railroad company in disposing of the 3,000,000 acres of land it received from the Government, and in encouraging immigrants to settle along its route. One incident was the encouragement of Mennonites, a German sect holding views similar to those of Quakers and Baptists, to emigrate from Southern Russia to Kansas. About 15,000 of these people settled along the Santa Fe between 1874 and 1883. By 1905 about 60,000 of these people had settled in Kansas.

Chapters VI, VII and VIII tell of the extension of the road into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, into Santa Fe and on to a junction with the Southern Pacific at Deming. These chapters contain absorbing accounts of struggles between rival railroads for mountain passes and of industrial disputes of such bitterness as to divide the citizenship of states into opposing camps.

The next three chapters, X, XI, and XII have to do with the vigorous expansion of the road to the Pacific, to the Gulf, and into Kansas City and Chicago. Chapter XII is a careful listing and estimate of the source material.

University of Texas.

W. M. W. SPLAWN.

BELL, SPURGEON. Accounting Principles. Their Use in Business Management. (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1921. Pp. xii, 482.)

It is perhaps harder to write an introductory text on Accounting than on any other subject. The difficulties are inherent in the material to be presented. From a pedagogical standpoint one naturally attempts a proper gradation of the subject matter, putting the supposedly easy things first, with the intention of leaving the more complex questions for later discussion. And this is well-nigh impossible in Accounting.

In following this plan, one naturally begins with the balance sheet, which is the groundwork of Accounting. But taking up any individual item of the balance sheet gives rise to innumerable related questions, which will not down and can be put off for later treatment only at the expense of clearness in teaching. And yet gradation of the material must be attempted. This difficult task, it seems to me, Professor Bell has accomplished in an admirable manner by a judicious admixture of theory and practice in his presentation of principles.

The book is adapted to both High School and College instruction. The combination of much practice work with the theory of accounts, makes it possible for the student of less maturity than college grade to use it with advantage and it is thorough enough in its analysis of principles to make a successful college text.

The chapter on the form and use of commercial papers is very much to the point. Too often we assume in the case of college students that they are familiar with their usage only to find that practice material on this subject must be

supplied from other sources if it is not available in the text itself.

The book is excellently written and well printed. It makes a suitable addition to the series of commercial texts which are the result of a resolve of the instructors in these subjects to bring their texts in pedagogical arrangement and finish to a par with the texts used in the older collegiate subjects. Up to date Accounting has probably made more progress in this direction than any other commercial subject.

Southern Methodist University. WILLIAM F. HAUHART.

ALLEY, JOHN AND BLACHLY, FREDERICK F. Elements of Government With History and Government of Oklahoma. (New York: Charles E. Merrill Company, 1920. Pp. viii, 360.)

BLACHLY, FREDERICK F. AND OATMAN, MIRIAM E. Everyday Citizenship. (New York: Charles E. Merrill Company, 1920. Pp. viii, 252.)

One of the outstanding features of contemporary textbook writing for secondary and grammar schools is the endeavor to proceed along normal lines of association and development of ideas, rather than to superimpose abstractions upon unprepared minds. Another tendency, quite as pronounced, is the use of the suggestive method, whereby the approaches from the known to the unknown are facilitated by the careful orientation of the inquiring mind. A happy combination of these two methods is found in the books under review, the latter of which is a slightly revised edition of Part I of the former. It is too often the case that an expert in a given field fails to simplify sufficiently the material he has elaborated to enable the child mind, making its first acquaintance with the subject, to assimilate it easily. Here the authors have combined accuracy in principle and detail with simplicity in presentation, which gives to their texts a sound approach and an attractive appearance. The obvious machinery of local government, its purpose and

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