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book reviews367 These criticisms should not obscure the fact that this is by far the best account of the impeachment we have ever had. Completely revising and updating David Miller DeWitt's pioneer study of seventy years ago, it is a real addition to the scholarship of Reconstruction. Whether its conclusions are tenable will have to be judged by future discussions. Hans L. Trefousse Brooklyn College, CUNY The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. By Kenneth E. Davison. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Pp. xvii, 266. $12.00.) Historians who have been paper trained in the incredible archives at Hyde Park, Independence, Abilene, or Austin must be reminded occasionally that presidential libraries and museums began in 1916 with the opening in Fremont, Ohio of the building that houses the personal papers, scrapbooks, library, and memorabilia of the nineteenth President , some of his family and other contemporaries. Over the years the director, Mr. Watt P. Marchman, has wisely added other valuable collections plus microfilmed and xeroxed copies of supporting material. Professor Kenneth E. Davison, chairman of the Department of American Studies at Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio, has drawn on the Fremont holdings to write this book which was marketed in time to commemorate Hayes* 150th birthday on October 4, 1972. The title provides the reader with the clue he needs to pinpoint the period covered by the books, but it also leaves one with the feeling that the author has moved too quickly into the final act of the drama. Hayes was only a few months from his fifty-fifth birthday at his inauguration. Sixteen pages carry the reader from pregnancy to presidency. Professor Davison goes along with the viewpoint of a number of younger scholars seeking to upgrade the status of the Ohio Presidents of the Gilded Age. Davison argues that Hayes was a courageous Chief Executive who rescued his position from the insignificance into which it had declined during the Johnson-Grant era, but he misses a chance to show how this man acquired the elements that make a courageous leader. This could have been done by a more thorough coverage of the early years that shaped Hayes' later career. However, an even more serious deficiency appears in the fact that the author does not draw a compelling portrait of Hayes as a strong executive. The author centers his narrative around the topics that made headlines during the era. There are chapters on the election of 1876, the selection of a cabinet, Hayes' treatment of the South, the money question , the great railroad strike of 1877, the administration's Indian policy, and William M. Evarts' foreign policy. All these topics have been the subject of books by recognized authorities on the period. Aside from supporting details, Professor Davison adds little to the conclusions that other scholars have reached. The topical approach is commendable only 368CIVIL WAR HISTORY if there is a central, unifying theme that the author can prove. The thesis that Hayes was a courageous executive requires more than mere assertion to establish its validity. The author might have established his case by turning from the items that made the headlines to a more painstaking appraisal of the hundreds of little, behind-the-scenes dealings in which a President must engage to hammer through Congress a constructive and consistent policy. It is unfortunate that all this research has failed to provide new insights into Haves' career. However, the author is to be commended for providing his reader with an interesting summary of existing scholarship . In addition to familiarizing himself with the best that has been written on the era, the author has taken time to read nearly four dozen theses and dissertations, not generally available except to the most persistent scholar. It is good to have the neglected efforts of graduate students brought together to add depth to the study. William F. Zornow Kent State University \\¿/ ...

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