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  The Democratic State

  Roger Benjamin and Stephen L. Elkin

  One outcome of the declining economic growth and rising political conflict of the 1980s has been a renewed interest in political theory and increased questioning about the durability of the capitalist state. More and more political scientists are critically assessing the prevailing pluralist vision of the relationships between the state and the economy. Is the capitalist state able to adjust to crises and contradictions? What is the role of the state in changing—deteriorating—economic circumstances? How should we understand competing interpretations on the relative autonomy of the state, the nature of property rights, the legitimation crisis? This collection of five original essays by seven of the best-known political-economy theorists addresses the interconnections between the economy and the polity and embodies the leading theoretical approaches to the political economy of the state. Description Roger Benjamin was president of the Council for Aid to Education (CAE) from 2005 to 2019 and was formerly provost of the University of Minnesota and the University of Pittsburgh. He has authored, coauthored, or co-edited nine books, including The Democratic Purposes of Education and The New Limits of Education Policy: Avoiding a Tragedy of the Commons. Stephen L. Elkin is professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland and founding editor of the journal The Good Society. He is the author or editor of seven books, including Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Edited by Roger Benjamin and Stephen L. Elkin. Contributors include Peter H. Aranson, Roger Benjamin, David Braybrooke, Stephen L. Elkin, Norman Furniss, and Peter C. Ordeshook.

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  The Development of Rural America

  George Brinkman

  In the last decade, rural development emerged as one of the prominent challenges facing the United States. Strong support for rural development is now found in both major political parties and at federal, state, and local levels. There is little doubt that the development of rural America will become even more important in the future. Despite unprecedented growth, both urban and rural areas in the United States are greatly deficient in many aspects of quality living conditions. The nation’s cities are slowly strangling themselves, jamming together people and industry while spawning pollution, transportation paralysis, housing blight, lack of privacy, and a crime-infested society. Rural areas simultaneously suffer from the other extreme: lack of sufficient employment opportunities, outmigration and depopulation, and too few people to support services and institutions. The migration from rural areas contributes to the problems of both the city and countryside depopulating rural places at the expense of overcrowded cities. This book focuses on rural development processes, problems, and solutions. Seven prominent specialists in the field, including agricultural and regional economists, demographers, and administrators, discuss the development of the open country, small towns, and smaller cities (up to fifty thousand population). They present an integrated approach to rural development problems, not a mere collection of readings. Valuable guidelines for policies to benefit both rural and urban areas are provided. Since rural development involves interdisciplinary scholarship, this book will be of interest to a wide range of social scientists working in rural areas both here and abroad. Economists, sociologists, and political scientists, as well as community leaders and planners, legislators, government officials and interested laymen, will find this volume useful in understanding the rural development effort. Description George L. Brinkman is professor emeritus in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Guelph. A leading expert on farm viability in Canada, he is the author of three books. Edited by George Brinkman. Contributors include Calvin Beale, J. Carroll Bottum, George Brinkman, Emery N. Castle, Niles M. Hansen, Richard Hausler, and Luther Tweeten. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Enduring Indians of Kansas: A Century and a Half of Acculturation

  Joseph B. Herring

  The Cherokees’ “Trail of Tears” and the forced migration of other Southern tribes during the 1830s and 1840s were the most notorious consequences of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy. Less well known is the fact that many tribes of the Old Northwest territory were also forced to surrender their lands and move west of the Mississippi River. By 1850, upwards of 10,000 displaced Indians had been settled “permanently” along the wooded streams and rivers of eastern Kansas. Twenty years later only a few hundred—mostly Kickapoos, Potawatomis, Chippewas, Munsees, Iowas, Foxes, and Sacs—remained. Joseph Herring’s The Enduring Indians of Kansas recounts the struggle of these determined survivors. For them, the “end of Indian Kansas” was unacceptable, and they stayed on the lands that they had been promised were theirs forever. Offering a good counterpoint to Craig Miner’s and William Unrau’s The End of Indian Kansas, Herring shows the reader a shifting set of native perspectives and strategies. He argues that it was by acculturation on their own terms—by walking the fine line between their traditional ways and those of the whites—that these Indians managed to survive, to retain their land, and to resist the hostile intrusions of the white world. The story of their epic struggle to survive will place a new set of names in the pantheon of American Indian heroes. Description Joseph B. Herring previously worked as an archivist at the National Archives, a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and taught history at Kansas Newman College (now Newman University). He is the author of two books and his articles on Native American history have appeared in the American Indian Quarterly, Western Historical Quarterly, Kansas History, and Great Plains Quarterly. With a New Foreword by Sarah Deer. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Frontier Challenge: Responses to the Trans-Mississippi West

  John G. Clark

  The story of the westward expansion of this country does not stop with the hardships encountered by travelers on the Mormon Trail, the discomforts endured by early settlers in sod houses, the bravery of the Pony Express riders, the romantic solitude of the cowboys, or the sufferings of the Indians forced to abandon their homes bleak and alien country. Much has been written about these colorful episodes and, through the courtesy of Hollywood and TV, has been brought into millions of homes in living color. But what happened to the people, including the Indians, who survived the great raid on Fort X, the bitter winters and scorching summers spent in primitive housing, the terrible loneliness and lack of communication with eastern kin? What did migrants do when they reached the end of the Mormon Trail? And did the Cherokees Trail of tears become a never-ending journey from one relocation to another? How did people develop and accommodate themselves to an environment which was itself constantly altered by an ever-changing society? In these essays we find that tragedy and joy, victory and defeat, human fulfillment and human degradation are visible in roughly equal proportions in the story of the Americanization of the West: that the goals, both realistic and unrealistic, of one group, society, or culture are frequently pursued only at the expense of other groups; and that the skeletons in the closet of American history abound to a greater extent than a nation convinced of its own virtue is willing to admit. Racism has plagued the nation since its inception, and exploitation of one group by another was sadly a part of the Western frontier. However, there was a freshness and vigor in the history of the West. Young railroads continued to grow, linking productive farms with brawling cities. New businesses and new political parties emerged, all contributing to the growth of the region that Stephen A. Douglas called the adhesive of the Union. This is a fascinating collection that serves to illuminate both the tragedies and accomplishments of the westward movement. Description John G. Clark (1932-2000) was professor of environmental studies and history at the University of Kansas for 34 years until his retirement in 1997. His publications include The Political Economy of World Energy: A Twentieth Century Perspective. April Petillo is assistant professor of American ethnic studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at Kansas State University. She specializes in Native American and Indigenous studies, settler and slavery logics, and comparative ethnic studies. With a New Foreword by April Petillo. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era

  Ralph Ketcham

  Although the last half of the twentieth century has been called the Age of Democracy, the twenty-first has already demonstrated the fragility of its apparent triumph as the dominant form of government throughout the world. Reassessing the fate of democracy for our time, distinguished political theorist Ralph Ketcham traces the evolution of this idea over the course of four hundred years. He traces democracy's bumpy ride in a book that is both an exercise in the history of ideas and an explication of democratic theory. Ketcham examines the rationales for democratic government, identifies the fault lines that separate democracy from good government, and suggests ways to strengthen it in order to meet future challenges. Drawing on an encyclopedic command of history and politics, he examines the rationales that have been offered for democratic government over the course of four manifestations of modernity that he identifies in the Western and East Asian world since 1600. Ketcham first considers the fundamental axioms established by theorists of the Enlightenment—Bacon, Locke, Jefferson—and reflected in America's founding, then moves on to the mostly post-Darwinian critiques by Bentham, Veblen, Dewey, and others that produced theories of the liberal corporate state. He explains late-nineteenth-century Asian responses to democracy as the third manifestation, grounded in Confucian respect for communal and hierarchical norms, followed by late-twentieth-century postmodernist thought that views democratic states as oppressive and seeks to empower marginalized groups.Ketcham critiques the first, second, and fourth modernity rationales for democracy and suggests that the Asian approach may represent a reconciliation of ancient wisdom and modern science better suited to today's world. He advocates a reorientation of democracy that de-emphasizes group or identity politics and restores the wholeness of the civic community, proposing a return to the Jeffersonian universalism—that which informed the founding of the United States-if democracy is to flourish in a fifth manifestation. The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era is an erudite, interdisciplinary work of great breadth and complexity that looks to the past in order to reframe the future. With its global overview and comparative insights, it will stimulate discussion of how democracy can survive—and thrive—in the coming era. Description Ralph Ketcham (1927–2017) was professor emeritus of history, political science, and public affairs at Syracuse University, where he taught for sixty-six years. He is the author of several books, including Presidents Above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789–1829 and James Madison: A Biography and Individualism and Public Life. With a New Foreword by Greg Weiner. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Johnson Years, Volume Two: Vietnam, the Environment, and Science

  Robert A. Divine

  Stretching from November 1963 to January 1969, the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson was marked both by division and tumult and by significant accomplishments. In this volume, Robert Divine has brought together seven senior scholars who, in new essays, explore aspects of domestic and foreign policy during the Johnson years. This collection is a sequel to Divines earlier volume (originally published as Exploring the Johnson Years). The seven essays that compose Volume Two, together with Divine’s incisive and perceptive historiographical overview, offer new insights into Johnson’s complex character and leadership style. The LBJ that emerges from these pages is a very human figure who understands the corrosive, pervasive impact of the Vietnam War on his administration and who struggles to try to preserve the domestic programs he fought so long and hard to achieve. In exploring the antiwar movement, tax and foreign economic policies, environmental and health care questions, and the space program, these essays demonstrate how domestic issues were critically affected by the Vietnam War and provide a fuller understanding of Johnsons vital but flawed legacy to the nation. Description Robert A. Divine is the George W. Littlefield Professor Emeritus in American History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a past president of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, and his publications include Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954–1960 and Eisenhower and the Cold War. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Kansas Beef Industry

  Charles L. Wood

  This book relates the modern development of the Kansas beef cattle industry, combining both the history of production—including specific business problems and the significant work in upbreeding—and an examination of the marketing aspects of the industry that became so important during the twentieth century. Sharpest focus is on the period 1890 to 1940, after the Western beef industry had passed through the transition from using the expansive, open-range method of beef production to the more rational and organized methods of today. Wood presents a detailed discussion of the history of upbreeding. He points out the little-known fact that the fine-blooded animals—especially Herefords—that moved out from the Midwest were probably more important in stocking the ranges of the Plains and the Southwest than the many thousands of Longhorns driven from Texas. He emphasizes the interregional aspect of beef production and the unique role played by Kansas. On the threshold of the Great Plains, Kansas received cattle from both the Midwest and the Southwest for many years—upbred cattle moving South, and stocker cattle moving from the South or Southwest into Kansas for additional maturing before being shipped to the Midwest for fattening or for slaughter. Wood also looks closely at the relationship of cattlemen to government and to big business—railroads, stockyards, and packers. He sees the cattlemen as agricultural producers and business managers, rather than as romantic, self-reliant giants of the earth. Taking issue with the popular myth that cattlemen were and are ruggedly individualistic and disdainful of outside help, Wood discusses the cattlemens repeated demands for aid, especially during the 1930s. Included in the book is the history of the Kansas Livestock Association, which the author credits as being one of the most significant stock associations in the West during this century. Wood sets the KLA’s growth within the context of the larger organizational revolution in the nation’s business world. A concluding chapter surveys major developments after World War II, including the development of feedlots and irrigation, the new cross-breeding, decentralization of packers, and the advent of trucking to replace railroads. There has been scant information on these topics in the general literature of the Great Plains. Description Charles L. Wood (1937–1981) was assistant professor of history at Texas Tech University, where he taught courses in agricultural and Great Plains history, including the history of American ranching. His articles on American agricultural history have appeared in a numberof scholarly journals. Joshua Specht is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America. With a New Foreword by Joshua Specht This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders

  Lorraine Smith Pangle and Thomas L. Pangle

  American schools are in a state of crisis. At the root of our current perplexity, beneath the difficulties with funding, social problems, and low test scores, festers a serious uncertainty as to what the focus and goals of education should be. We are increasingly haunted by the suspicion that our educational theories and institutions have lost sight of the need to perpetuate a core of moral and civic knowledge that is essential for any citizen's education, and indeed for any individual's happiness. Mining the Founders' rich reflections on education, the Pangles suggest, can help us recover a clearer sense of perspective and purpose. With a commanding knowledge of the history of political philosophy, the authors illustrate how the Founders both drew upon and transformed the ideas of earlier philosophers of education such as Plato, Xenophon, Milton, Bacon, and Locke. They trace the emergence of a new American ideal of public education that puts civic instruction at its core to sustain a high quality of leadership and public discourse while producing resourceful, self-reliant members of a uniquely fluid society. The Pangles also explore the wisdom and the weaknesses inherent in Jefferson's attempt to create a comprehensive system of schooling that would educate parents and children and offer unprecedented freedom of choice to university students. An original closing section examines the Founders' ideas for bringing all aspects of society to bear on education. It also shows how Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin presented their own lives as models for the education of others and analyzes the subtle, provocative moral philosophy implicit in the self-depiction of each. The Learning of Liberty is historical and scholarly yet relentlessly practical, seeking from the Founders useful insights into the human soul and the character of good education. Even if the Founders do not provide us with ready-made solutions to many of our problems, the Pangles suggest, a study of their writings can give us a more realistic perspective, by teaching that our bewilderment is in some measure an outgrowth of unresolved tensions embedded in the Founders' own conceptions of republicanism, religion, education, and human nature. Description Lorraine Smith Pangle is professor of government and Co-Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author or coauthor of four books, including Virtue Is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy. Thomas L. Pangle holds the Joe R. Long Endowed Chair in Democratic Studies in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen books, including Justice Among Nations: On the Moral Basis of Power and Peace. With a New Preface by the Authors. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Lost Promise of Progressivism

  Eldon J. Eisenach

  Long before the current calls for national service, civic responsibility, and the restoration of community values, the Progressives initiated a remarkably similar challenge. Eldon Eisenach traces the evolution of this powerful national movement from its theoretical origins through its dramatic rise and sudden demise, and shows why their philosophy still speaks to us with such eloquence. Eisenach analyzes how and why, between 1885 and World War I, progressive political ideas conquered almost every cultural and intellectual bastion except constitutional law and dominated every major national institution except the courts and party system. Progressives, he demonstrates, were especially influential as a force in American politics, higher education, and the media. They created wideranging professional networks that functioned like a "hidden national government" to counter a federal government they deeply distrusted. They viewed the university as their national "Church"—the main repository and disseminator of values they espoused. They established truly national journals for a national audience. And they drew much support from women's rights advocates and other highly vocal movements of their time. Permeated with an evangelical Protestant vision of the future, progressive thought was an integral part of the national discourse for nearly three decades. But, as Eisenach reveals, at the very moment of its triumph it disintegrated as both a coherent theory and a viable public doctrine. With the election in 1912 of Woodrow Wilson, the movement reached its peak, but thereafter lost its momentum and force. Its precipitous decline was accelerated by world war and by the rise of New Deal liberalism. By the end of the Depression it had disappeared as an influential player in American public life. In the decades that followed, the Progressive mantle went unclaimed. Conservatives blamed the Progressives for the rise of the welfare state and many liberals cringed at their theological and imperialist rhetoric. Eisenach, however, argues that we still have much to learn about and from the Progressives. By enlarging our understanding of their thought, we greatly increase our understanding of an America whose national institutions—political, cultural, educational, religious, professional, economic, and journalistic—are all largely the product of this thinking. In other words, their ideas are still very much with us. Description Eldon J. Eisenach is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Tulsa and the author of several books, including Sacred Discourse and Nationality in American Political Thought and The Next Religious Establishment: National Identity and Political Theology in Post-Protestant America. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Political Theory of Conservative Economists

  Conrad P. Waligorski

  It’s difficult to overstate the impact of conservative economics on American life. The conservative thought of economists like Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Friedrick Hayek has provided the conceptual framework that undergirds nearly every aspect of current U.S. social-economic policy. Although a great deal has been written about the economic theories of these Nobel Prize-winning economists, this study is the first to examine the political theory that underlies conservative economics and its implications for public policy. Long associated with the “Chicago” and “public choice” schools of thought, Friedman, Buchanan, Hayek, and others have consistently repudiated Keynesian principles. They have steadfastly opposed social welfare policies and regulation of private enterprise, championing instead the free market as a mechanism for ordering society. In this book Conrad Waligorski analyzes the political content of the conservative economists’ arguments. In so doing, he illuminates the political, economic, and philosophical ideas behind and justification for the laissez-faire policy—the reduced regulation, intervention, and welfare favored by conservative governments in the United States, Canada, and Britain. Description Conrad Waligorski is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Arkansas. His publications include John Kenneth Galbraith: The Economist as Political Theorist and Anglo-American Liberalism: Readings in Normative Political Economy. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution

  Daniel D. Stid

  A political scientist who went on to become president, Woodrow Wilson envisioned a "responsible government" in which a strong leader and principled party would integrate the separate executive and legislative powers. His ideal, however, was constantly challenged by political reality. Daniel Stid explores the evolution of Wilson's views on this form of government and his endeavors as a statesman to establish it in the United States. The author looks over Professor and then President Wilson's shoulder as he grappled with the constitutional separation of powers, demonstrating the importance of this effort for American political thought and history. Although Wilson is generally viewed as an unstinting and effective opponent of the separation of powers, the author reveals an ambivalent statesman who accommodated the Founders' logic. This book challenges both the traditional and revisionist views of Woodrow Wilson by documenting the moderation of his statesmanship and the resilience of the separation of powers. In doing so, it sheds new light on American political development from Wilson's day to our own. Throughout the twentieth century, political scientists and public officials have called for constitutional changes and political reforms that were originally proposed by Wilson. By reexamining the dilemmas presented by Wilson's program, Stid invites a reconsideration of both the expectations we place on the presidency and the possibilities of leadership in the Founders' system. The President as Statesman contributes significantly to ongoing debates over Wilson's legacy and raises important questions about the nature of presidential leadership at a time when this issue is at the forefront of public consciousness. Description Daniel D. Stid is the Program Director of U.S. Democracy at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He began his career as a political scientist teaching at Wabash College and subsequently served as a Congressional Fellow on the staff of the House Majority Leader and a consultant for various non-profit and private-public sector groups. With a New Foreword by Trygve Throntveit. Trygve Throntveit is Director of Strategic Partnership, Minnesota Humanities Center, and Global Fellow for History and Public Policy, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the author of Power without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment and William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Roosevelt Foreign-Policy Establishment and the "Good Neighbor": The United States and Argentina, 1941-1945

  Randall Bennett Woods

  This book focuses on the career of a single individual—an ambitious, resourceful Black American—and his efforts to realize personal fulfillment in a racist world. No Black American was more determined to realize the promise of American life following the Civil War, nor more frustrated by his inability to do so than John Lewis Waller. Waller, whose first twelve years were spent in slavery, overcame his humble beginnings to become a politician, lawyer, journalist, and diplomat. Nevertheless, his life provides a case study of a middle class black caught between a desire to work within the existing political and economic framework and a need to reject a milieu that was becoming increasingly racist. Waller spent his childhood as a slave in Missouri, and his adolescence on a farm in Iowa. Circumstances and personal ambition combined to allow Waller to acquire a trade—barbering—and a profession—lawyering—in the 1870s. In 1878 he migrated to frontier Kansas, where he practiced law, edited a newspaper, rose to a position of leadership in the black community, and became an important figure in the state Republican party. His political career ended abruptly in 1890, however, when the Republicans rejected his bid to be nominated as the party’s candidate for state auditor. Convinced that his defeat was due to the rising tide of racism throughout the nation, he turned his attentions abroad. Waller was particularly susceptible to the lure of overseas empire because he had spent much of his adult life in the midst of a community of people who had succumbed to the myth of a “promised land,” who were convinced that the Black person would be best able to realize his potential in economically under-developed regions not yet exploited and controlled by the white man. In 1891 President Benjamin Harrison appointed Waller United States consul to the east African island of Madagascar. By 1894 Waller had obtained a huge land grant there for the founding of a black utopia. He hoped to establish a plantation-colony that would simultaneously advance his personal fortunes, serve as an investment opportunity for aspiring black capitalists, and constitute a refuge for oppressed Afro-Americans who wished to immigrate. He was thwarted once again by racism, however—this time in the guise of French imperialism. Viewing Waller and his plans as a threat to their hegemony in Madagascar, French authorities quashed the concession, arrested Waller on a charge of being a spy, and sentenced him to twenty years in prison. There followed a full-scale diplomatic confrontation between the United States and France. Waller was released after serving ten months in a French prison, but only after the Cleveland administration agreed to discredit him to the point where he would seem guilty as charged. In his early manhood John Lewis Waller had realized that because he was a Negro personal achievement could not be separated from racial advancement. Responding to that perception, he spent a lifetime searching for a frontier where blacks could enjoy the blessings of democracy and capitalism, and yet be free of the blight of racism. Unlike the vast majority of American Blacks of his time, Waller was able to articulate his dreams, have an impact on the larger, white dominated environment, and realize his individual potential to a remarkable degree. Nevertheless, his dreams were ultimately dashed by racism. His sad but fascinating story deserves the careful attention of all students of politics and race relations during the complex post-Civil War year. Description Randall Bennett Woods is distinguished professor of history at the University of Arkansas, where he has also served as Associate Dean, Interim Dean, and Dean of Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of seven books, including Fulbright: A Biography, which was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and which won the Ferrell and Ledbetter Prizes. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America

  Hal D. Sears

  This volume provides the first account of the pioneering efforts at sex reform in America from the Gilded Age to the Progressive era. Despite the atmosphere of extreme prudery and the existence of the Comstock laws after the Civil War, a group of radicals emerged to attack conventional beliefs about sex, from traditional marriage to women's chattel status in society. These men and women had in common a direct, unrespectable, iconoclastic style. They put forth outrageous journalism and had a penchant for martyrdom and for using the courts to publicize their ideologies. From rare and generally unknown sources, Hal D. Sears pieced together the story of the sex radicals and their surprising ideas. Moses Harman, a minister turned abolitionist and freethinker, is a central figure in the narrative. His Lucifer, the Light Bearer, the only journal of sexual liberty published from the early 1880s to 1907, was dedicated to free love, sex education, women's rights, and related causes. To a great degree Harman's publication defines the limits of social dissent in the late nineteenth century. Other members of the sex radical circle included E. B. Foote, a medical doctor who made a fortune with a home medical book crammed with sex information; Edwin Walker and Lillian Harman, who became a cause among radicals when their jailhouse honeymoon in Kansas challenged the right of the state to regulate marriage; Elmina Slenker, who promoted a theory of sexual energy sublimation and the idea that women were the superior sex; and Lois Waisbrooker, Dora Forster, Lillie White, and other feminists who, almost a century ago, taught and preached the very ideas we hear today in the women's movement. Of course, all these people got into trouble with the law, mostly through the machinations of their archvillain, Anthony Comstock. Sears examines Comstock's powers of postal censorship and describes Comstock's personal vendettas against sexual dissenters, particularly the free love philosopher Ezra Heywood. He gives a legal history of obscenity and explains the sex radicals' significance in the emergence of obscenity law. Although the sex radicals attest the important reform vitality of provincial culture in late nineteenth-century America, until now they have been almost ignored by historians. Those who have studied sex radicalism at all, apart from its communitarian and sectarian aspects, have viewed it merely as a subsidiary of the more respectable feminist movement. In this book Sears gives careful consideration to the links between sex radicalism and spiritualism, feminism, anticlericalism, anarchism, and the free-thought movement. He presents sex radicalism as a separate and unique movement which illuminates new reaches of the Victorian landscape and establishes a tradition for present-day liberation trends. Description Hal D. Sears (1942-2010) was a freelance writer whose various careers included a newspaper columnist, a feature editor for weekly magazine, an American civilization instructor, and the dean of an experimental university. Articles and reviews by Sears have been published in the Journal of Popular Culture, the Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Truman White House: The Administration of the Presidency 1945-1953

  Francis H. Heller

  This retrospective study brings together twenty-two key associates of President Truman’s to consider the administrative operation of the presidency from 1945 to 1953. A record of the discussions that took place at the conference held in May 1977 sponsored by the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National and international Affairs, it presents an assortment of views on Truman’s administrative philosophies and practices. The contributors are persons who were close to Truman throughout his presidency: members of the cabinet, the White House staff, and senior officials in Executive Office agencies. Sharing personal reflections are, among others, Charles Brannan, W. Averell Harriman, Leon H. Keyserling, Charles S. Murphy, Richard E. Neustadt, John W. Snyder, Elmer B. Staats, and the late Tom C. Clark. Coordinating the interaction with incisive questions and comments on general administrative history are Edward H. Hobbs of Auburn University, Dorothy Buckton James of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Louis W. Koenig of New York University, and Chester A. Newland of the University of Southern California. A number of important administrative aspects of Truman’s presidency are touched upon as the participants review the years of their White House experience. They talk about policy making in the areas of national security and foreign affairs, about budget and economic matters, relations with Congress, domestic problems such as civil rights, presidential appointments, and even press relations. They exchange anecdotes about the presidents style and their working relationships with him in staff meetings, cabinet meetings, and private briefing sessions. They consider whether Truman had a chief of staff or the equivalent and debate the “liberal” versus the “conservative” stance of the Truman presidency. The creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and the establishment of the National Security Council, the Council of Economic Advisers, and the National Security Resources Board during Truman’s administration clearly improved and strengthened the organization of and the institutional aids to the presidency. In answer to the question of what can be learned from the way Truman operated the presidency, however the overriding theme of the exchanges recorded here is that the style of the White House is—inescapably—the president’s style. The picture that emerges in the pages of life and work in Truman’s administration is one of informality, enthusiasm, and camaraderie. A family-like atmosphere pervaded the staff, and the president played the crucial role in setting the tone. Thus, the White House between 1945 and 1853 was orderly because Harry Truman was an orderly person; it was profoundly human because that was Truman’s way. Truman is remembered by his key associates as a prodigious worker and a thorough professional. To those who wrote and spoke for this volume there is no question that the nation was well served by the way Harry Truman managed his affairs in the White House. Incorporating a broad spectrum of firsthand information on the administrative concepts and practices of the Truman era, this book will be of prime interest to all students of government and executive organization. Description Francis H. Heller (1917–2013) was Roy A. Roberts Professor Emeritus of Law and Political Science at the University of Kansas and was vice president of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute. During his career, he published nineteen books, sixty-six articles, and more than 200 book reviews and notices. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The United States and the Development of the Puerto Rican Status Question, 1936–1968

  Surendra Bhana

  This study traces the evolution of political status in Puerto Rico from 1936 to 1968, with special emphasis on the events that led to the creation of the Commonwealth in 1952. No other work published in English has dealt with the Puerto Rican status question in such detail. The central problem in the status debate has been: how to strike a happy balance between Puerto Rico’s economic needs, which could be filled through uninterrupted association with the United States, and the cultural divergence between the mainland and the island. Bringing together new and significant information drawn from government records and personal papers of U.S. officials, this book will be of interest to all serious students of Puerto Rican affairs, as well as to U.S. and Puerto Rican government and political leaders. Description Surendra Bhana (1939–2016) was professor of history at the University of Durban-Westville and professor of history at the University of Kansas. His numerous publications include Setting Down Roots: Indian Migrants in South Africa, 1860–1911 (coauthored with J.B. Brain) and Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal 1860–1902. With a New Foreword by Carlos Figueroa. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Urban West at the End of the Frontier

  Lawrence H. Larsen

  Historians have largely ignored the western city; although a number of specialized studies have appeared in recent years, this volume is the first to assess the importance of the urban frontier in broad fashion. Lawrence H. Larsen studies the process of urbanization as it occurred in twenty-four major frontier towns. Cities examined are Kansas City, St. Joseph, Lincoln, Omaha, Atchison, Lawrence, Leavenworth, Topeka, Austin, Dallas, Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Leadville, Salt Lake city, Virginia City, Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Stockton. Larsen bases his analysis of western cities and their problems on social statistics obtained from the 1880 United States Census. This census is particularly important because it represents the first time that the federal government regarded the United States as an urban nation. The author is the first scholar to do a comprehensive investigation of this important source. This volume gives an accurate portrayal of western urban life. Here are promoters and urban planners crowding as many lots as possible into tracts in the middle of vast, uninhabited valleys. Here are streets clogged with filth because of inadequate sanitation systems; people crowded together in packed quarters with only fledgling police and fire services. Here, too, is the advance of nineteenth-century technology: gaslights, telephones, interurbans. Most important, this study dispels the misconceptions concerning the process of exploration, settlement, and growth of the urban west. City building in the American West, despite popular mythology, was not a response to geographic or climatic conditions. It was the extension of a process perfected earlier, the promotion and building of sites—no matter how undesirable—into successful localities. Uncontrolled capitalism led to disorderly development that reflected the abilities of individual entrepreneurs rather than most other factors. The result was the establishment of a society that mirrored and made the same mistakes as those made earlier in the rest of the country. Description Lawrence H. Larsen was professor of American history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he taught for 36 years. He is the author or coauthor of seventeen books, including A History of Missouri: 1953 to 2003 and The Urban South: A History. With a New Foreword by Sandra I. Enrquez. Sandra I. Enríquez is associate professor of history and director of public history emphasis at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a social historian of modern United States history with particular research and teaching interests in Chicanx and Latinx history, urban history, borderlands, social movements, and public history. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  The Vanishing Farmland Crisis: Critical Views of the Movement to Preserve Agricultural Land

  John Baden

  The 1979 publication Where Have All the Farmlands Gone? by the National Agricultural Lands Study painted a bleak future for American farmlands. Threatened by encroaching construction and soil erosion, these lands were seen as endangered—and as the direct prelude to a nation-wide shortage of both food and fiber. The NALS report, to which eleven federal agencies contributed, argued that land-use planning and control must be employed to protect valuable farmland from “urban sprawl.” First published in 1984, this collection of essays by a distinguished group of economists, including Theodore W. Schultz, Julian L. Simon, and Pierre Crosson, takes issue with the belief that croplands need governmental protection. Rather, the collection as a whole supports two theses: 1) shrinking farm acreage is not a serious problem, and 2) individual choices by landowners in a free market setting result in better-organized land use than would governmental land-use planning and regulation. Description John Baden is founder and chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), and Gallatin Writers, Inc. His authored and edited books include Managing the Commons and The Next West: Public Lands, Community, and Economy in the American West. Edited by John Baden. Contributors include John Baden, Pierre Crosson, William Fischell, B. Delworth Gardner, Clifton B. Luttrell, Robert H. Nelson, E. C. Pasour, Jr., Theodore W. Schultz, and Julian L. Simon. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory

  Mary G. Dietz

  This volume explores, from a variety of perspectives, the political theory of the man who is arguably the greatest English political thinker. It is the first substantial collection of new, critical essays on Thomas Hobbes by leading scholars in over a decade. Hobbes’s writings stirred debate in his own lifetime, for two centuries thereafter, and continue to do so in ours. They emerged in a period of intense political turmoil—a time of civil war and regicide, of puritanical rule and royal restoration. “They were motivated,” Dietz argues, “by concrete political problems and a practical concern, namely, to secure political order, absolute sovereignty, and civil peace.” The contributors emphasize and answer a series of expressly political questions that, to date, have not been fully addressed in the Hobbes literature. They contend that Hobbes’s writings are not mere static artifacts of a particular historical milieu, but rather rich sources of a variety of interpretations and criticisms that spur discussion and debate in their turn. Description Mary G. Dietz is John Evans Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. She is the author of Turning Operations: Feminism, Arendt, and Politics and Between the Human and the Divine: The Political Thought of Simone Weil. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  Timber and the Forest Service

  David A. Clary and John G. Clark

  Nearly one-quarter of America is covered with forests almost 800 million acres. There are 151 national forests, comprising close to 200 million acres in thirty-nine states and Puerto Rico. These protected lands are administered by the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture. David Clary here examines the history of and controversies surrounding the Forest Services policies for timber management in our national forests. In this first in-depth study of the political, bureaucratic, social, and ideological relationships between the Forest Service and the production of timber, Clary traces the continuity in the agency's outlook from its creation in 1905 through fears of a timber famine to the clear-cutting controversies of the mid 1970s. He shows convincingly that, despite legislative remedies and agency reports, timber production has remained the agency's first priority and that other (multiple uses recreation, watershed protection, wilderness, livestock grazing, and wildlife management were regulated so that they would not interfere with potential timber harvests. Throughout its history, the agency is shown to have been enchanted with the objective of producing timber. Clary's theme, in what he describes as an administrative, political, scientific, and anecdotal history, is that the Forest Service exhibited consistent actions and attitudes over the years and failed to confront realistically changes in the national culture that altered what the American people wanted from the forests and the Forest Service. Description David A. Clary, former chief historian of the US Forest Service, is the author or coauthor of several books on American history, including The Place Where Hell Bubbled Up: A History of the First National Park and Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

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  Walt Whitman's Western Jaunt

  Walter H. Eitner

  In 1879, when Walt Whitman was sixty, he made a trip to the West—first to Kansas to attend the quarter-centennial celebration of Kansas settlement, then on to Denver and the Rockies. Biographers have only briefly reported this trip, if they have dealt with it at all; here for the first time is a thorough reconstruction of Whitman’s western experience. From his own extensive research in newspapers of the period, as well as from Whitman’s published daybooks and notebooks and his collected correspondence. Walter H. Eitner is able to piece together a well detailed itinerary, and to compare the record of the actual journey with Whitman’s imaginative account in Specimen Days. This study in part constitutes a criticism of the sections of Specimen Days dealing with the West by examining the ways in which Whitman reordered his experiences to have them support a bardic pose he wished to maintain. For the first time Whitman’s three journalist traveling companions—whom Whitman did not even mention in Specimen Days—are fully on record. This account also shows Whitman very much his own press agent, engaging in a wide range of self-promoting activities such as writing his own interviews and sending back to the press in the East accounts of his whereabouts, his health, and his plans. Description Walter H. Eitner was a professor of English at Kansas State University, where he taught early American literature and nineteenth-century American poetry, and directed seminars on Whitman. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.