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BOOK REVIEWS91 But Maryland, according to the author, is most important as a field for study, not so much for what it reveals about white men's parties. Democratic racism and Republican apathy differed little for Negroes. Poor schools, segregation, disfranchisement movements, and other forms of discrimination were always with them, seeming to increase during the times of the greatest black political participation. Rather, the absence of terrorism and ballotbox chicanery in the state allowed "a unique opportunity for the observation of Negro political activity." Indeed , the author claims "the most important finding of this inquiry is the high level of political involvement the society's lowest socioeconomic group exhibited." One wonders, however, whether disfranchisement in Maryland might not have been successful if Negro "involvement" had been in a strong Populist movement such as those that terrified white southerners in North Carolina, Alabama, and elsewhere. Unfortunately a number of circumstances have prevented a close examination of this "socioeconomic group." Even though the author's alert plowing of election returns has allowed generalizations about gross political behavior, such a method does not reveal community action and leadership within the black world. At the same time a paucity of sources prevents all but the most impressionistic view of the Maryland Negro community. Nevertheless, the Booker T. Washington Papers in the Library of Congress might have been better used along with a few collections of ephemera in the hands of Baltimore Negroes. They shed light on the local Niagara Movement, the Colored Law and Order League, politics in the churches, and individual politicians such as City Councilman Harry Cummings and Ernest Lyon, a Minister to Liberia. One hesitates to call attention to such materials because the book is an obvious attempt to employ quantitative data to answer political questions . The few locally held papers would have illumined little of party politics but would have been helpful only in shifting the focus slightly to include the social life and structure of the black community whose politics were under consideration. At the same time a glance at the easily available presidential papers would reveal more of the tenuous connections between the local Negroes and the federal patronage system . There are useful tables and maps in the text and in two appendices. Thomas R. Crtpps Morgan State College The One-Gallused Rebellion: Agrarianism in Akbama, 1865-1896. By William Warren Rogers. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970. Pp. xiii, 354. $10.00.) Over forty years have intervened between the publication of John B. Clark's Populism in Akbama and this book. Although both cover essentially the same period, Rogers' work is far more thorough and per- 92CIVIL WAR HISTORY ceptive. He has made full use of extensive materials (where Clark relied almost exclusively on Birmingham and Montgomery newspapers) and has benefited from the numerous studies and interpretations of agrarianism and Populism that have appeared during the past generation. The author has previously published a number of articles dealing with such aspects of Alabama agrarianism as the Grange, the Alliance, Reuben F. KoIb, and Populist newspapers. It is well to bring the material together in this published version of his dissertation, somewhat reorganized and brought up to date with pertinent findings and interpretations published during the 1960's. After surveying the sad state of post-Civil War agriculture and the basic patterns of Reconstruction and Bourbon politics in Alabama, Rogers devotes a number of chapters to agricultural organizations prior to the 1890's. His method of presentation is primarily descriptive and narrative, but a number of interpretive points are made. Contrary to other findings for the South as a whole, Rogers describes the leaders of the Alabama Grange as men of wealth and property. He also notes that the Agricultural Wheel, although confined to northern Alabama counties, was more militant in its program and objectives than the Alliance, which served as "a temporarily conservative force" (p. 146) until direct political action became necessary. Approximately the last half of the book deals with Alabama's turbulent politics of the 1890's. Again minimizing analysis and interpretation, Rogers relates the complex struggles and maneuvers involving such political groups as Regular Democrats, Jeffersonian Democrats, Populists , Lily-white Republicans, and...

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