Mr. Grimes was unquestionably the ablest man of his day in the State. He outlined the policy of the Constitutional Convention of 1857 and moulded State legislation while he was Governor and for some sessions before. To his cool judgment and unbounded influence our State, cities, and counties owe the freedom from large corporate indebtedness which almost overwhelmed Illinois, Missouri, and other States during the period of early railroad construction. The constitutional provisions limiting corporate and State debt are today a tribute to the wisdom and foresight exercised by him at a time when public sentiment ran wild in the other direction.

As a member of the United States Senate from 1858 to 1868, Mr. Grimes had few equals and no superiors in devising means to meet the exigencies of those trying times. I have thought that his position on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson was the greatest act of his life.

The party

William F. Coolbaugh, a radical Democrat who had no sympathy with his anti-slavery views, was, nevertheless, a warm personal friend of Mr. Grimes. When I first knew them they roomed together at the Clinton House in Iowa City. In general matters of State policy they were in accord. Mr. Coolbaugh afterwards told me that when it became apparent that Senator Grimes would vote in favor of acquitting President Johnson he went to Washington for the special purpose of advising him against such a course. He said to Mr. Grimes:-You are the idol of your party in Iowa. is radical in the extreme and wrought almost to frenzy by the murder of Lincoln and the apostacy of Johnson. You are the most sensitive man I ever knew. By the course you propose you will bring upon yourself the vengeance of your party, and your State will disown you. You will not outlive this action a year. The reply of Senator Grimes was: I have considered all this. But my position is right, and if I die tomorrow I shall vote as my convictions dictate. I have no respect for President Johnson personally and less for his policies. But I believe each department of the government is independent; and so long as his official acts are not in violation of the Constitution

and the laws, the President cannot be removed by the joint action of the House and Senate merely for a difference of views or for official acts that are entirely within his own jurisdiction.

Mr. Coolbaugh's prediction was fulfilled. A cry went over the State that Grimes had turned traitor to the party. Shortly after this he was stricken with paralysis, resigned his place in the Senate, and did not long survive. It is universally admitted now that he was right. It would be difficult to point out any official act in his public career of which the same might not be said.

Next to Grimes in the discussion, the preference of the Association was divided between Harlan and Kirkwood. Harlan filled a place in the Senate during the war and the reconstruction period. His course met the approval of his people. His encounter with Sumner was brought up, and the consensus of opinion was that he came out of the contest by no means second.

As Governor during the war Kirkwood developed a high order of executive ability. The State met all demands for men and money made upon it, and no citizen of Iowa can look upon his administration without a feeling of pride. Upon the stump he expressed his views so clearly that the unlearned man carried home with him something which he had heard and which he never forgot; while in the legislative halls his logic carried conviction to the most scholarly. In this he far surpassed Mr. Harlan. To use the language of one of the pioneers: "While we thought Harlan's arguments were all right we sometimes thought him tedious." Kirkwood was the popular favorite, and as long as the men who heard him speak, live, he will remain so. We believe that in all the qualities which make the statesman he was fully equal to Harlan.

If this Pioneer Law Makers Association of Iowa does nothing more than keep the present generation in touch with that past which was so thoroughly stamped with the attributes of manly self reliance in the hours of trial its mission is not in vain.

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA

IOWA CITY

PETER A. DEY

Studies in United States History. By SARA M. RIGGS. Ginn & Co. 1902. Pp. 173.

The object of this little volume is clearly set forth in the first sentence of the preface. "It is an attempt (1) to place before the pupil such topics, questions, and material as will lead him in his study to a thorough comprehension of the facts of American history in their relation to each other, and (2) to present the subject as a connected whole, in accordance with the principles of its development." It is essentially a worker's hand book and is so planned as to assist greatly the teacher in guiding the pupil to think his way through American history and the methods of solving our nation's civic problems.

Some of the most prominent features of the work are: a well selected general list of references to sources, texts, and more extensive works on American history; excellent suggestions to both teacher and pupil regarding methods of study and class work; questions that direct the pupil in attacking the work in hand; splendid lists, accompanying each topic, of references to sources, texts, and bits of literature bearing upon that specific topic; lists of topics for general research; the plan of correlation with geography, civics, and literature; and the systematic way in which the matter in hand is developed.

The work is intended to be used in grades, high schools, normals, and preparatory schools, and is certainly a book that will do much to put the study of our history on the proper plane in the field for which it is designed.

DRAKE UNIVERSITY

J. F. MITCHELL

DES MOINES

Iowa Official Register. Compiled by W. B. MARTIN, Secretary of State. Published by the State of Iowa, by order of the General Assembly. Bernard Murphy, State Printer. 1903. Pp. 594. The Iowa Official Register for 1903, which has recently made its appearance, is the eighteenth volume in a series that was begun in

1886 and since continued as an annual publication. There were socalled Official Registers before 1886. Lists of county and State officers on large cards were issued as early as 1864 for election purposes. For ten years, from 1866 to 1876, with the exception of the year 1872, these lists were printed in the set of legislative documents as a part of the census returns. The list for 1873 was also published in separate form, as a small leaflet of nineteen pages, containing simply a list of the executive and judicial officers of the State with trustees of the State institutions. After 1876 they do not appear in the legislative set and it is probable that after that date similar lists of officers were compiled as separate pamphlets annually or biennially until 1886. The State Historical Society has in its library copies for 1873, 1881, and 1883; but unfortunately these copies bear no internal evidence as to the frequency of issue. The present series was begun in 1886, and has been continued along the lines marked out in that number, the differences between the later and the earlier numbers being the results of expansion and amplification rather than of radical change in the character of the contents. In 1886 the Official Register did not constitute a volume by itself. The cover reads: Rules and Standing Committees of the Twenty-first General Assembly with Iowa Official Register, 1886. Nor is there a definite line of demarcation between the rules of the Assembly and the official register proper. The book-a paper covered pamphlet

of 104 pages-contains first a list of the executive, federal, and judicial officers, with the rules of the General Assembly; then come the lists and general information concerning State boards and institutions, and election statistics which form the basis of the present Official Register; and last in the pamphlet is placed the Constitution of Iowa. In the number for 1887, which forms a volume distinct from the rules of the General Assembly, lists of county officers and county statistics are added, and the list of State institutions is more complete. There is then little change until 1889, when the Register is made more durable by board covers, and bears as a frontispiece a portrait of one of the early Governors of Iowa-the first of a series

of illustrations and portraits of State officials which is continued in subsequent numbers. With the next number (1890) there are a few added items of general interest relating to education, the census, political platforms, and the like, which become more numerous in 1891 when we find a list of the principal officials of the United States and of the Territories.

Still the volume does not increase materially in size. It is not until 1892 that it becomes a twelvemo, which has been its size uniformly since that date. By an act of the Twenty-fourth General Assembly it was made a State document, its future publication assured, and its distribution definitely provided for. A new feature of the volume for 1893 was the statistics of the libraries in the State, a list which has appeared with additions and corrections in each subsequent issue, except in 1897 and 1898 when these lists were omitted. In 1900 appeared a bit of historical data in the form of a list of officers of the State government since its organization in 1846. This list, which was omitted in 1901 and 1902, appears again in the volume for 1903. The Official Register has constantly increased in value because of the greater wealth of information which is being brought to it each year and because of the better arrangement of its material. The volume for 1903 is uniform in size and general make up with the issue for 1902. While containing statistics of the same general character for those in the last volume, the arrangement has been somewhat changed. It contains one important historical feature which was omitted in the volume for 1902, viz., a compilation of Iowa's senators and representatives in the national legislature since the organization of the State government, with a list of the Iowa men who have held cabinet positions. A table of contents in addition to the carefully prepared index renders this issue of greater usefulness than were the previous volumes.

In some of the mechanical details, however, the 1903 volume is disappointing, particularly in regard to the type, which is not clear and is often broken. The value of the library statistics is marred by inaccuracies. The State Historical Society, for example, whose