THOSE HISTORIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20127, 21 April 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

THOSE HISTORIES

FIASCO IN CHICAGO BLATANT “BIG BILL’S” DIET OF GRUDGES. LONDON, 11.;. The at lack on pro-British historv texts in America the subject of a lecture packed with interest delivered at King’s College to-day by Profess - r Dixon Ryan Fox, of Columbia University, who is also director of the Ameri-

can University Union. H e gave a must amusing account of Air Thompson, of Chicago, “who has become Big Bill by feeding upon other people‘s grudges. ’ ami, explaining how many racial grudges that diet includes, he said that, owing to its enormous foreign peculation Chicago is in point of numbers the fifth largest German city in the world, the fourth Polish city, the second Czech city, and the third Pcandinaviin city, while its Italian population near’v equals that of Florence.

Durng th© 18th century the majoritv of the people who went to America wer© not English, and the nationalities whose* countrymen took part in rhe American Revolution arc insistent that their heroes’ deeds should be recognised in the text-books. Professor Fox made it. clear that the man who writes American history for Americans treads a perilous path. Alayo r Thompson’s attack was only the latest anr J most spectacular in a long series of attacks on history text-books in America. Half a dozen States had taken measures against text-books which in their opinion “belittled the fathers.’» Little action had been taken under such laws, but individual municipal boards had thrown out certain text-books. Private associations had often arraigned history text-books for what they thought was misrepresentation, and veterans of the North and South influeneod the adoption of books according to their views of the Civil War. “What this country needs,” said one veteran, “is a fair, impartial history of the Civil War, written from the southern point of view.” Religious sects wanted their views represented. Roman Catholics had special demands for history text-books. Even now in some cases the same publisher issues an American history for Northern schools, another for Southern schools, and a third for Roman Catholic schools. The “family tree” societies, of which there are scores in America, hav© banned books in some places because they gave inadequate space or praise to revolutionary heroes. But the most virulent attacks have come from the race groups. The great point is the treatment of the American Revolution, but this period must tend to receive less attention later history hag to be considered and less attention is paid to wars. Professor Fox said that attempts

were made during the war by some people ardent in the new alliance with England to forget that there had ever been any lack of friendship or a revolution- this was the extreme of the rapprochement. They went too far in representing the English point of view at the time of the Revolution, and perhaps it was just as well that some of the text-books should now be revise I. But the work should be done by th? mature judgment of scholars anG not at the behest of revolutionary societies.