Arthur Preuss: Journalist and Voice of German and Conservative Catholics in America, 1871-1934 by Rory T. Conley (review)

BOOK REVIEWS483 Arthur Preuss:Journalist and Voice of German and Conservative Catholics in America, 1871-1934. By Rory T. Conley. ["New German-American Studies/Neue Deutsch-Amerikanische Studien," Vol. 16.] (NewYork: Peter Lang. 1998. Pp. xii, 361. $58.95.) Although a prominent figure on the Catholic journalistic scene from 1894 until his death in 1934, Arthur Preuss has been almost completely forgotten. This is the first book-length study, and its bibliography lists not a single article devoted to Preuss's career. Two reasons for this neglect can be suggested. First, his identification as a German and a conservative tended, as we say nowadays, to marginalize Preuss; second, the daunting bulk of his journalistic output— forty volumes, most of which he wrote himself—perhaps discouraged potential students. Happily, Rory T. Conley did not allow himself to become discouraged. His book provides a comprehensive account of Preuss's career and serves as an exhaustive guide to his writings, including newspaper editorials not previously known to be his. Preuss launched his Review (later known as Catholic Fortnightly Review and Fortnightly Review) to serve as an English-language vehicle of conservative German Catholic opinion in the polemical battles of the 1890's. He is best known to historians for this phase of his career, since he played a prominent role in the much-studied controversies about "Americanism." Conley suggests that Preuss's ultramontanism, which he frankly avowed, was rooted in the German Catholics' Kulturkampf experience reinforced in the United States by these controversies in which religion and ethnicity were so deeply intertangled . That seems plausible enough, and there is no doubt that Preuss remained a fierce papal loyalist who inveighed against recurrent outcroppings of "liberalism " for the rest of his life. He was, of course, an anti-Modernist, and was among the first to affirm a direct connection between Americanism and Modernism, but Conley argues that he was not one of the extremists associated with Benigni 's "Sodalitium Planum." Although an early supporter of the American Federation of Catholic Societies , Preuss lost interest in the organization when it failed to develop into an American version of the German Center Party. In the first decade of the new century, he also published one book on socialism (which dealt primarily with Henry George and the McGlynn case), another on Freemasonry, and began a long-term project of translating German-language theological manuals and adapting them for use in American seminaries, where they became standard works for many years. Already sensitized to the defects of American society by the controversies of the 1890's, Preuss, like the social thinkers of the Central Verein, was thoroughly radicalized byWorld War I, which convinced him that democracy was a hollow sham, that capitalism really called the shots, and that only a fundamental restructuring along the lines of Heinrich Pesch's "Solidarism" could bring about real reform. In the ecclesiastical sphere, he saw the NCWC as Americanism redivivas , rejoiced in its abortive suppression, and remained highly critical of its 484BOOK REVIEWS activities, especially in relation to the press, education, and religious persecution in Mexico. Preuss did, however, respect John A. Ryan and retain his friendship . He also held progressive views on race, calling for more equitable Catholic treatment of African-Americans, and he was an early advocate of liturgical reform . He had a scholar's interest in history and exchanged letters with Peter K. Guilday, the leading American Catholic historian of the day. Indeed, there was some talk between them of Preuss's bringing his Review to Washington and publishing it under the auspices of the Catholic University! Preuss was far too independent for any such arrangement to have worked. He looked upon Catholic journalism as a true religious vocation and pursued it with heroic dedication, fighting for the most part against tendencies he regarded as pernicious and plagued throughout his life by ill-health.Whatever the relevance of his story to our own times—and Conley hints in his conclusion that it is considerable—it is, for historians, worth knowing for its own sake. Philip Gleason University ofNotre Dame DePaul University: Centennial Essays and Images. Edited byJohn L. Rury and Charles S. Suchar. (Chicago: DePaul University. 1998. Pp. Lx...