174 Reviews of Books the book as a whole is a sufficiently accurate and impartial statement of how the United States has acquired its vast territorial possessions. The much discussed question of the constitutional right to acquire territory, whether remote or contiguous, is accepted as settled, and consequently the only question with regard to our recent expansion is one of pro- priety or wisdom, a question upon which the author expresses no opinion, but leaves each reader to decide for himself. In the appendix will be found interesting tabular statements of the size and population of all of our territorial acquisitions, and a comparison of the area of the United States and of these acquisitions, and of the population of the United States with certain European countries. Our Presidents and Hcno U'c Make Them. By A. K. McClure, LL.D. (Harper, pp. xi, 418.) Colonel McClure's reputation as a journalist intimately acquainted with the leaders and events of many recent presidential campaigns would naturally cause large numbers of readers to turn eagerly to a volume of his reminiscences, and he is abund- antly justified in publishing them. But instead of contenting himself with meeting this desire, which he could do exceedingly well, he has chosen to mingle his recollections with a general history of presidential canvasses, which he is quite incompetent to write. This was a serious error of judgment, but nothing more. What is truly shocking, however, is the fact that, in the first 153 pages, (the wholly unnecessary portion de- voted to the period preceding the campaign of i860), nearly every signifi- cant statement is derived — "convey, the wise it call" — from Mr. Edward Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections. It is needless to resort to the " deadly parallel column " ; suffice it to say that page after page of Colonel McClure's book gives evidence of bodily transfer of matter. It is true that he says at the end of his preface : " I am indebted to Edward Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections and to Greeley's Political Text-Book of i860 for valuable data of the earlier conflicts for the Pres- idency. " But it is also true that he frequently claims to have made in- dependent investigations and exhaustive researches for material. The phrase of the preface is all too mild for the obvious facts ; and it is not till p. 395 that, in a sort of appendix, he admits that the scores of elec- toral tables which appear on the preceding pages have been ' ' adopted ' ' from Stan wood. Nor has he, apparently, usually done the latter the justice of using the revised edition of his book, that which bears the title History of the Presidency. The personal reminiscences, which practically begin with 1S60, are often very interesting, and sometimes valuable, if one allows for an ex- aggerated estimate of the importance of Pennsylvania in crises of national politics. Col. McClure was very near the inner circle in several cam- paigns. For an experienced and famous journalist, he writes badly. There are not a few sentences as bad as this (p. 54) : "The hero-worship of Jackson was earnest and always aggressive when summoned to battle, but Clay was beloved and idolized beyond that accorded to any leader of any party in the history of the Republic."
