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Treason 
 
 to 
 
 American 
 Tradition 
 
 The Spirit of Benedict Arnold Reincarnated in 
 United States History Revised in Text Books^ 
 
 A Study of Eight Altered 
 Scho^} Histories 
 
 By 
 
 CHARLES GRANT MILLER 
 
 f>0Ujs of tt|^ S^imUtttou 
 
 in ll|? #tat0 xxt CHaltfontta 
 
 424 SO. BROADWAY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 TELEPHONE 19103 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1922. C. G. MILLER. 
 
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 l^^»a^illulrtfra 
 
 FRANK HERVEY PETTINGELL 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 Los Angeles, Calif. 
 January 15, 1922. 
 
 To the Person Addressed: 
 
 It is hoped that this booklet will be carefully read by 
 the recipient and passed on among patriotic citizens. 
 
 In these pages Mr. Charles Grant Miller sounds a 
 timely warning against a sinister movement designed 
 to corrupt and destroy the most valuable possession of 
 the American people. 
 
 School histories that have a tendency to belittle the 
 characters and achievements of our Revolutionary sires 
 and to misrepresent the principles and ignore the vital 
 incidents, slogans and ideals that were born out of the 
 travail of the War for American Independence — every 
 one of which was so clear and inspiring to our school 
 children of yesterday— should not be tolerated for a 
 moment in our public schools. 
 
 I conceive it to be the patriotic duty of every true 
 American, and particularly every member of our pa- 
 triotic Society, to see to it that American school 
 children be allowed to study American history written 
 from a purely American standpoint and not from the 
 standpoint of our former foes as presented by mer- 
 cenary historians who seem to be absolutely devoid of 
 red-blooded Americanism. 
 
 FRANK HERVEY PETTINGELL, 
 
 President, 
 Sons of the Revolution in the State of California. 
 
 ©ciAB5-/7:^i rcp27 72 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Nothing so solidifies, strengthens and inspirits a 
 people as an unsullied history — the grand pageant of 
 their principles, heroisms, triumphs, ideals and pur- 
 poses. Unless we preserve in pride the high aims 
 and momentous achievements of our fathers, how 
 may we hope for right inspirations in our children? 
 The nation that is not secure in its past can have 
 no faith in its future. 
 
 The War of the American Revolution stands 
 alone in all history with a distinctive meaning not 
 only for Americans, but for all mankind. It is the 
 outstanding great war of all time which was waged 
 for clean, exalted principles of abstract human 
 rights, unmixed with ambition for dynastic ag- 
 grandizement, greed of trade dominion or lust of 
 conquest. The principles and traditions descending 
 to us from that heroic period are a proud heritage 
 which we already generously have shared with the whole 
 human race. 
 
 But to our own children this heritage is now denied. 
 
 Shocking to patriotic spirit and contemptuous of 
 the long-consecrated truths of the Revolution and 
 the War of 1812 is the emasculated and distorted 
 form of revised American history that is taught to« 
 day in our public schools. Revisionists Hart, O'Hara, 
 Ward, Muzzey, Barnes, Giiitteau and McLaughlin and 
 Van Tyne, in altered text books in the schools, not 
 only diversely pervert and distort, jumble and con- 
 fuse, minimize or omit many of the vital principles, 
 heroes and incidents of the Revolution, hitherto held 
 sacred in American history, but all unite in close 
 conformity to a topical outline suited to the spirit of 
 English Speaking Union. 
 
Wholesome desire for increased friendship and co- 
 operation between the United States and Great 
 Britain creates no justification for this policy of 
 promotion of British propaganda through defama- 
 tion of America, which offers as sacrifice upon the 
 altar of international comity immortelles snatched 
 from the monuments of our nation's heroic founders. 
 
 There Is no complaint against British history — in 
 its place. Every war has two sides, and each, if 
 true to itself, maintains its own version and its own 
 spirit as stoutly as it does the contest at arms. Of 
 the Revolution, there is the American version and 
 there is the British version. Theirs is as good for 
 the British people perhaps as ours is for us. Each 
 to its people is essential source of national pride, 
 morale and purpose. But the two will not mix. 
 John Bull would bellow with horror if asked to teach 
 the American version of the Revolution to British 
 school children, even in the seductive name of 
 English-Speaking amity. Yet in scores of instances 
 our "American" historical revisionists have all but 
 bodily lifted vital material regarding the Revloution 
 and the War of 1812 out of British histories and 
 transplanted it into American school histories. 
 
 One needs to be only American to realize that 
 by such teachings as these to the youth of our nation 
 the springs of our patriotic inspirations are being 
 poisoned. 
 
 Detestable as Benedict Arnold was, his weapon 
 was sword against sword in a man-to-man warfare. 
 But the treason of to-day insidiously directs against 
 the minds of our children the poison gas of alien pro- 
 paganda to deaden patriotic spirit and stupefy the 
 national soul into unthinking submission to unknown 
 imperialistic designs. 
 
 The heroic history of a nation is the drum-and-flfe 
 
music to which it marches. It makes a mighty differ- 
 ence whether America continues to quick-step to 
 "Yankee Doodle" or takes to marking time to "God 
 Save the King." 
 
 True hero worship is healthy. It stimulates the 
 young to virile aspirations and gives to the masses 
 high models of manhood. The history of a nation 
 is the test of its ideals, the mainstay of its morale 
 and the propulsive force in its purposes. The better 
 Instincts of the human race have, through all the 
 ages, exalted and consecrated its heroes into some- 
 thing like objects and tenets of religious worship; 
 and a people's greatness may be measured by the 
 characters and traditions It cherishes in love and 
 emulation as it can be known by its gods. 
 
 In our own heroes and true history our nation 
 has been exceptionally blessed. These have proved 
 unfailing sources of pride and inspiration that liave 
 prompted us as a people to staunch character, un- 
 paralleled achievement, unprecedented progress and 
 prestige and world-wide service in liberation and 
 elevation of mankind. 
 
 We show ourselves unworthy of our priceless 
 heritage if we do not preserve it unimpaired for our 
 children. 
 
 Let us hold to our truth and exalt it in the 
 schools. 
 
 Let us have our children taught the American 
 version of our country's history and not the British 
 version. 
 
 What Is taught to our children determines our 
 nation's destiny. 
 
 CHARLES GRANT MILLEIR, 
 
 100 St. Mark's Place, 
 Staten Island. 
 
AMERICAN HISTORY 
 ANGLICIZED. 
 
 Hart Teaches That Patriots "Were Drawn Into the 
 Continental Army by Money, Bounties and Prom- 
 ises of Land"; O'Hara Denounces the Boston Tea 
 Party as "Wholly Lawless Destruction of Proper- 
 ty"; and Ward Declares "The American Revolu- 
 tion Was a Contest Between German Tyranny and 
 English Freedom." American Annals Discarded for 
 British Versions. 
 
 Startled indeed are patriotic Americans to leara 
 the extent to which school histories taught to the 
 children to-day have been revised and in some in- 
 stances wholly rewritten in a new and apologetic 
 attitude toward England. 
 
 "Why should a new school history of the United 
 States be written?" The question so naturally pre- 
 sents itself that Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, au- 
 thor of one of the most widely used textbooks, him- 
 self sets up the query in the opening sentence of the 
 preface to his latest edition, "School History of the 
 United States, Revised," American Book Co., 1920. 
 Professor Hart's own answer is: 
 
 "Chiefly to put at the disposition of the upper 
 grades a book embodying a broadly national point 
 ef view and presenting adequate treatment of 
 certain topics which hitherto have been too little 
 stressed in the study of American history." 
 One cannot proceed far in Professor Hart's new 
 version without finding that, in his opinion, "cer- 
 tain topics which hitherto have been too little 
 stressed" are such as these: 
 
 "The colonists liked to think of themselves as 
 part of the British empire. ♦ ♦ * They were 
 proud of being Britons. ♦ ♦ * They were as 
 well off as any other people in the world." — Page 
 120. 
 
 "The colonists were not desperately oppressed. 
 They enjoyed more freedom and self-government 
 than the people in England." — Page 126. 
 
 6 
 
"Thousands of good people sincerely loved Great 
 Britain and were loyal to King George. • • * 
 The loyalists were harshly put down." — Page 145. 
 Of the soldiers of the Revolution, whose patriotic 
 fervor, devotion and unshaken courage through un- 
 speakable hardships and sufferings have been the 
 pride and Inspiration of American youth of every ris- 
 ing generation since, Professor Hart teaches our 
 children this: 
 
 "Many served from the purest motives of pa- 
 triotism, but others were drawn into the army by 
 money, bounties and promises of land." — Page 134. 
 Concerning the causes of the war of 1812, Pro- 
 tessor Hart teaches that the Indian outbreak in the 
 Northwest was "mistakenly supposed" to be stirred 
 up by British agents; and of the British seizures of 
 American ships he says: 
 
 "In spite of the captures, the profits of the carry- 
 ing trade were so great that new ships were con- 
 stantly built. The owners, in spite of their losses, 
 were erecting stately houses and putting money 
 into the banks and new ships. Part of the cap- 
 tures were justified, for some Americans had a 
 way of furnishing their ships with false papers, 
 Intended to conceal the real nature of their voyage 
 from searchers." — Page 204. 
 
 And the finally impeding motive for the American 
 declaration of war in 1812 is interpreted by Profes- 
 sor Hart as follows: 
 
 "Madison still wanted peace and so did his Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury, Gallatin. * * • How- 
 ever, they could not stand out against the 'War 
 Hawks,' a group of young men * * * who pro- 
 posed to conquer Canaaa and insist on terms of 
 peace at Quebec or Halifax. Nothing seemed 
 easier, for by this time there were about 7,000,000 
 Americans, and the whole population of Canada 
 was not more than 450.000. In June, 1812, there- 
 fore, war was declared by about a two-thirds ma- 
 jority of Congress." — Page 205. 
 Professor John P. O'Hara, whose "School History 
 of the United States," published by Macmillan, 1919, 
 is used in many schools throughout the land, has a 
 new vision and a new version of Revolutionary 
 
events. Professor O'Hara frankly admits in the first 
 pa^e of his preface that: 
 
 "It will be found that a considerable amount 
 of material of traditional interest, but of small 
 intrinsic importance, has been omitted in order that 
 a fuller emphasis might be placed on events and 
 movements of greater significance." 
 
 Among his "events of greater significance," how- 
 ever, does not appear, as might have been expected, 
 either the Boston Massacre, which he minimizes 
 as British resistance to an attack of a mob, or the 
 Boston Tea Party, which he summarily dismisses in 
 a few lines, one of which reads: "This wholly law- 
 less destruction of property." 
 
 The impression might readily be gained from 
 O'Hara's Revised, even by mature minds, that the 
 American Revolution originated not in the Colonies 
 themselves, but among the devoted friends of liberty 
 in England. Pitt's truly noble part is played up 
 beyond just proportion to that of any American, 
 while th« "Sons of Liberty," we are assured, was 
 an idea originating with Col. Barre, of England. More 
 quotation is given from Pitt than from Patrick 
 Henry. 
 
 A high school text book widely distributed is 
 Prof. C. H. Ward's Interpretation of Burke's "Speech 
 on Concilatlon with America" and Collateral Read- 
 ings, Scott, Foresman & Co., 1919. This proclaims 
 itself to be a new portrayal of the forces for freedom 
 in the period of the Revolution. This author de- 
 clares of his book that "Never did a school classic 
 carry such a present-day message or furnish so 
 definite an answer to a national demand." 
 
 Innumerable theories of liberty and rights applic- 
 able to America, as discussed by Englishmen, are 
 given In this book, but no word Is said of the great 
 I^atriotic speeches, the Colonial Declarations of Rights 
 or even of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Among the advocates of American freedom more 
 than a score of Englishmen are copiously quoted; 
 but the name of Jefferson does not appear, nor that 
 of Hancock, Adams, Otis or Paine. Henrys are 
 listed among the forces for liberty — Henry III. and 
 Henry VIII. repeatedly — but never Patrick Henry. 
 
Of all the liberty-loving patriots who signed the de- 
 cisive Declaration of Independence the only one who 
 was deemed worthy to appear in this book among 
 the forces for American freedom is Franklin, and 
 mention of him is only in relation to English friend- 
 ships. Of Washington this author says that: 
 "If you had called him an 'American' he would 
 have thought you were using a kind of nickname. 
 He and his fellow colonists were proud that they 
 were Englishmen; they gladly and loyally served 
 an English king because he represented the free- 
 dom without which they thought life not worth 
 living."— Pages 9-10. 
 
 The American Revolution, Prof. Ward teaches our 
 children, marked no epoch in the advance of liberty. 
 The current of world democracy, according to his 
 book, has always flowed and is flowing still in the 
 British channel. A few characteristic paragraphs 
 will serve to show this attitude clearly: 
 
 "Englishmen at home and in the Colonies were 
 equally concerned in this struggle to make the 
 world safe for English freedom." — Page 10. 
 
 "By 1759, when Quebec was taken, the power of 
 autocracy was dead in the Western Hemisphere. 
 The result among the Colonists was to make them 
 feel more independent, for they no longer needed 
 the protection of the mother country." — Page 29. 
 "Parliament has grown steadily more responsive 
 to the will of the people, until now the Snglish 
 Government is in some ways more democratic 
 than our own." — Page 38. 
 
 "In the centuries that lie before us the primacy 
 of the world will lie with the English people." — 
 Page 39. 
 
 Professor Ward Is teaching our children that there 
 was no injustice or opipression in the "taxation with- 
 out representation" which the colonists resisted 
 with arms. England, he teaches, "was in financial 
 straits and needed revenue. A very natural way of 
 adding to her income was to tax the colonies." This 
 "purpose was quite honest." The Stamp Act "meas- 
 ures were normal methods of finance and were passed 
 with few dissenting votes. Few people in England 
 suspected that there was anything momentous about 
 
the Stamp Act." Of the tax on tea, Professor Ward 
 says, "the one duty retained was so slight that tea 
 could be bought cheaper in America than In Eng- 
 land; the colonies were officially notified that no 
 other revenue would be imposed, and troops were 
 no longer quartered on the people." 
 
 In this view of the matter, which American chil- 
 dren of to-day are being taught to accept, the pa- 
 triot fathers must appear to them indeed ridiculous 
 !n waging a war against oppression on such slight 
 provocation. In this view how can the Declaration 
 of Independence appear otherwise than an absurdity? 
 
 But Professor Ward is relentless; he would not 
 leave to us the slightest instance of English tyranny, 
 nor even " a suspicion of English tyranny," as jus- 
 tification for the Revolution. He says, in the pre- 
 face: 
 
 "As long as there lurks In the back of the Amer- 
 ican consciousness a suspicion of English tyranny 
 in 1775, so long will misunderstanding prevent the 
 English-speaking nations from working In accord 
 to develop Anglo-Saxon freedom. 
 
 "An understanding can be gained only by read- 
 ing what typical Englishmen said while the Amer- 
 ican Revolution was being fomented. 
 
 "I feel touched and grieved because editors have 
 never given so much as an inkling of the vital 
 fact. * ♦ ♦ For the first time it is presented 
 in one handy volume. * * ♦ The current of 
 history now sets our way. For every young Amer- 
 ican there Is now a meaning In Burke that did 
 not exist in 1913. * * * It needed only the 
 common peril of 1914 to show both countries how 
 deep was our mutual desire for English freedom. 
 "Not till 1917 was I driven to learn more about 
 this slavery they may have from Prussia." 
 
 In this connection Professor Ward refers to "emo- 
 tions of a new-found gratitude to England," — as if 
 new-found gratitude may change the facts of history 
 sealed for a century and a half. 
 
 Surely America never has been wanting In appre- 
 ciation of the friendly feeling of the British states- 
 men who spoke out against the oppression of the 
 colonies. But what they advocated was not the col- 
 ic 
 
oniee' independence, but their placation and peace- 
 ful retention within the British empire. That this 
 meaning In Burke did "exist in 1913" and that it ex- 
 ists still Professor Ward himself declares with a 
 warmth of admiration and an ardor for demonstra- 
 tion more acceptable perhaps to British than to 
 American sensibilities: 
 
 "And he was unfailingly wise in his ideas about 
 the colonies. * ♦ • This faith for which he 
 pleaded so vainly in 1775 was richly verified by 
 Canada and New Zealand and Australia and South 
 Africa and India in 1914, when England began the 
 struggle against that slavery which they may have 
 from Prussia." — Page 29. 
 
 If England was blessed with abundant freedom 
 which the colonies shared, if there was no oppression 
 in the Stamp Act or in the tax on tea, if there was 
 no tyranny at all, or even "suspicion of tyranny," as 
 Professsor Ward is teaching our children, why then 
 was the Revolution? Professor Ward answers: 
 
 "What has brought about this disastrous change? 
 The German king of England, George III. 
 
 "The American Revolution was not an attempt 
 of England to tyrannize over Colonies, but was a 
 quarrel fomented by a German king as part of 
 his programme of despotic ambition.* — Page 3. 
 Professor Ward concedes that this was not the 
 first German King George of England, though neg- 
 lecting to remark that neither was he the last. 
 George I. was "a monarchical figurehead," he says, 
 his blood being only three-fourths German; George 
 II., who was only "one-eighth more German than 
 his father," was also "obliged to be a figurehead;" 
 but George III., "though he was born in England 
 and had the speech and manners of an Englishman, 
 was thirty-one-thirty-seconds German," and 
 
 "So the American Revolution was a contest be- 
 tween German tyranny and English freedom, al- 
 though neither party in the struggle knew that 
 this was the issue. — Page 36. 
 
 "Now there is a villain in the story, and we learn 
 a very useful truth about English freedom.** — 
 Page 5. 
 
 It is to be observed that though the villain Is 
 
 11 
 
thus tardily produced. Professor Ward has either 
 denied or condoned all the villanies against which 
 the Colonists always were supposed to have re- 
 volted. 
 
 If the fixed facts of the principles of liberty upon 
 which our national spirit was founded and has been 
 builded are to be changed to fit "new-found emo- 
 tions," what will be secure, and where will the 
 desecration end? It is disquieting, to say the least, 
 to have to contemplate the possibility that, a century 
 or so hence, some other new-found emotion, another 
 turn in international comity, may cause the history 
 of the World War to be so rewritten as to make 
 our nation appear to have been the associate of a 
 German King George of England in a conflict "not 
 against the German people,*' as President WilsoB 
 already has put to record, but in resistance to the 
 lust for world dominance of an English kaiser on 
 the German throne. Would such revision, prepos- 
 terous as it now seems, be any further-fetched than 
 is that which Prof. Ward and some others are 
 teaching our children to-day? As cold matter of 
 fact, it would not. 
 
 "American History, Revised," by David Saville Muz- 
 zey, 1920, published by Ginn & Co., joins in the familiar 
 chorus. The preface opens thus: 
 
 "The present volume represents the newer tenden- 
 cies in historical writing. Its aim is not to tell over 
 once more the old story in the old way, but to give 
 the emphasis to those factors in our national develop- 
 ment which appeal to us as most vital from the 
 standpoint of today." 
 What Professor Muzzey takes as the "standpoint of 
 
 today" is readily seen to be the Anglo-American straddle. 
 
 In his first paragraph dealing with the Revolution he 
 
 says: 
 
 "This great event has too often been represented 
 
 ' as the unanimous uprising of a downtrodden people 
 to repel the deliberate, unprovoked attack of a 
 tyrant upon their liberties; but when thousands of 
 people in the colonies could agree with a noted lawyer 
 of Massachusetts that the Revolution was a 'causeless, 
 wanton, wicked rebellion,' and thousands of people in 
 England could applaud Pitt's donimciation of the war 
 
 11 
 
against America as 'barbarous, unjust and diabolical/ 
 it is evident that, at the time at least, there were two 
 opinions ae to colonial rights and British oppres- 
 sion."— Page 90. 
 
 Two opinions, indeed! — as if there ever could be wai', 
 otherwise. But Professor Muzzey does not distinguish 
 which of the two opinions was right and which was 
 wrong. Even in presenting! the issues upon which 
 opinion was divided he is teaching this: 
 
 "When we review, after a century and a half, 
 the chain of events which changed the loyal British- 
 Americans of 1763 into rebels in arms against their 
 king in 1775, we see that the cause of the Rerolution 
 was a difference of opinion as to the nature of the 
 British empire." — Page 106. 
 
 "Military history," this author states twice, in con- 
 nection both with the Revolution and the Civil War. 
 "is useful only for the special student of the science of 
 war." So, in a book of 600 pages, the entire militaty 
 movements of the War of the Revolution are disposed 
 of in nine and a half pages of text. Naturally, in his 
 "newer tendencies in historical \\Titing," Professor 
 Muzzey entirely omits mention of Nathan Hale, 
 Anthony Wayne, Putnam, Sumter, Pickens, Marion, 
 Stark, Sullivan, Knox, Commodore Barry, Sergeant Jas- 
 per, Light Horse Harry Lee, Molly Pitcher, Betsey 
 Ross and the birth of the flag, the battles of Bennington 
 and Stony Point, and many another heroic name and 
 event that have thrilled and inspired the school boys 
 and girls of our land in the past. Brandy wine, German- 
 town and Valley Forge are grouped in two sentences; 
 Paul Jones is put into one sentence, and the story 
 of Bunker Hill is compressed into seventeen insipid 
 words. 
 
 In this tabloided and denatured account of the War 
 of the Revolution there is not a principle, purpose or 
 achievement set forth in a way to appeal to pride in our 
 forefathers and the free nation they founded, not an 
 incident that warms the blood of youth, not an example 
 that stirs desire for emulation, nor an ideal that thrills 
 to patriotic fervor. What is not minimized or distorted 
 is omitted. 
 
 Every nation that gave aid or recognition to the 
 colonists was, according to this rcAnsionist, actuated by 
 
 13 
 
iriean, selfish motives. France assisited only aftei' she 
 
 >:aw that 
 
 "The American revolt was a weapon strong enough 
 to use in taking revenge on England. ♦ ♦ ♦ Spain 
 joined England's enemies with the hope of regain- 
 ing the island of Jamaica and the stronghoW of Gib- 
 raltar; Holland, England's old commercial rivaJ, came 
 into the league for the destruction of Britain's naval 
 power and the overthrow of her colonial empire. 
 
 "Thus the American revolution, after the victory 
 (it Saratoga, developed into a coalition of four powers 
 against Great Britain; and the American continent 
 became again, for the fifth time within a century, 
 the ground on which France and England fought out 
 their mighty duel."— Pages 118-9. 
 
 In this strange revision our children are taught that 
 in the negotiations for peace Fiance sought to betray 
 the interests of America and that America actually did 
 violate her compact and betraj'' the interests of France. 
 England alone was upright, unselfish and generous in the 
 peace terms, according to Muzzey. 
 
 "Europe was amazed at England's generosity. * * 
 It was a complete if a tard\' triumph of that feeling 
 of sympathy for men of common blood, common lan- 
 guage traditions and institutions, across the seas." i 
 —Page 130. 
 Among the causes leading to the War of 1812, as 
 cited to our children by Professor Muzzey, is this: 
 "The next move of the (American) administration 
 was an attempt to bribe England and France to bid 
 against each other for our trade." — Page 183. 
 The War of 1812, ''brought on by our ''war hawks', " 
 is characterized as 
 
 "The unfortunate war between the sister nations of 
 the English tongue." — Page 184. 
 The altered texts of Hart, O'Hara, Ward and Muzzey 
 are but four among eight or more revised editions of 
 American histoiy now in the public schools of our 
 country, all of which revisions clearly manifest an 
 organized policy of propitiation toward England in the 
 distortion, modification or omission of many of the 
 most glorious characters, principles and events of the 
 formative period of our republic. 
 
 14 
 
REVOLUTION HEROES 
 CALLED PLOTTERS. 
 
 Revisionist Everett Barnes Teaches That **The 
 First Signer of the Declaration of Independence 
 Was a Smuggler"; That the Continental Congress 
 Was Made Up of Scoundrels, That the Revolution 
 Was a Party Contest Between Neighbors, and 
 That the War of 1812 "Was a Mistake." The 
 British Side Is Persistently Presented. 
 
 Masquerading under the old and honored name 
 of Barnes, a new historian struts upon the stage, 
 and in presenting the American Revolution, the 
 most dramatic episode in the evolution of free gov- 
 ernment, plays the part of a flunky apologist to 
 England for the independence established by our 
 Fathers, and burlesques its world-affecting results. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, "the cradle of liberty," has no ex- 
 istence to this new historian. Nor does he men- 
 tion the Mutiny Act, the quartering of troops, or 
 the Boston Massacre, which the colonists deemed 
 important causes for armed resentment. The patriot 
 Nathan Hale, whose only regret on the British scaf- 
 fold was that he had but one life to give to his 
 country, is Ignored in this "American" history, as 
 are Ethan Allen, Mad Anthony Wayne and the bat- 
 tle of Stony Point; while there is a full page of 
 praise for the traitor Benedict Arnold, whom **Con- 
 gress had not treated fairly." 
 
 Pains are taken in this book to teach American 
 children that "the first signer of the Declaration of 
 Independence was a smuggler; so had been his 
 father;" that the Continental Congress "was a scene 
 of petty bickerings and schemings" among "selfish, 
 unworthy, short-sighted, narrow-minded, offloe-seek- 
 ing and office-trading plotters;" that halt of the 
 colonists were loyal to England;" that the rest 
 were united in resistance only "because they dared 
 not be otherwise;" and that if in England the wise 
 course had only prevailed against the **foollsh" 
 
 15 
 
king, "this great country would probably now have 
 been a great branch of the British empire." 
 
 The war of 1812, in the teachings of this new 
 historian* was no less deplorable, no less discredit- 
 able, than the Revolution. "It was a mistake," he 
 says bluntly. The burning of Washington by the 
 British was an act of reprisal, he teaches — "to pun- 
 ish the Americans, who had, early in the war, 
 burned some public buildings in Canada." Jack- 
 son's glorious victory at New Orleans he belittles 
 as "a wasted battle; a needless victory." 
 
 As our examination of this new Barnes' history 
 proceeds, page by page and line by line, in frequent 
 comparison with the old Barnes, we shall perceive 
 that this "new wine in old bottles" is of strange 
 vintage and suspicious, and that, served to our 
 school children, it must have upon their patriotic 
 spirit the effect not of stimulation but stupefaction. 
 
 ,For fifty years, Barnes' Brief History of tbe 
 United States — so-called because originally pub- 
 lished by A. S. Barnes & Co. — has stood as a sound 
 authority as to the facts and spirit of our na- 
 tional ideals and progress. Periodically revised, 
 with the advance of events, this old history has 
 maintained its popularity and still preserves its 
 American spirit. Another was Barnes' Primary His- 
 tory and still another is Barnes' Elementary Hstory, 
 favorites for years. So the name of Barnes has 
 long stood as a mark of truth and Americanism. 
 
 But now the new Barnes has appeared, bearing 
 no relation to the old ones, and so-called because 
 written by one Everett Barnes. This book has 
 been issued by D. C. Heath & Co., in two forms, 
 first in two volumes, entitled "Short American 
 History by Grades," and later condensed into one 
 volume, "American History for Grammar Grades," 
 1920. 
 
 The old Barnes speaks always from the American 
 viewpoint, with American interests and sympathies 
 at heart; the new Barnes speaks persistently from 
 the British viewpoint, with the interests of England 
 in zealous consideration. 
 
 For instance, their contrasting accounts of so vital 
 A matter as the first of the Navigation Acts, which 
 
 16 
 
early aroused bitter resentment in the colonies, 
 read: 
 
 (Barnes' Primary History, 1885, Page 86) "The 
 New England people, living as they chiefly did, 
 along the seashore, had early entered into the 
 business of building ships, which they sent with 
 valuable cargoes to the West Indies, to England 
 and to other parts of the world. The English 
 people, after a time, became jealous of the pros- 
 perity of the colonists, and having many ships 
 of their own, began to devise plans by which to 
 grasp for themselves a share of the wealth that 
 was thus rolling into the colonies. Accordingly, a 
 laAv was passed in England which prohibited any- 
 thing being brought into that country from the 
 colonies unless taken there in an English ship, 
 commanded by an English captain and sailed by 
 an English crew. This was called the Naviga- 
 tion Act." 
 
 (American History for Grammar Grades, 1920, 
 
 page 131) "The welfare of England seemed to 
 
 depend on her shipping business, which extended 
 
 all over the world. As the Dutch were in the 
 
 same business and were getting the ocean carrying 
 
 trade away from the iEnglish, Cromwell thought 
 
 something should be done. In 1651 laws were 
 
 passed that none but English ships should be 
 
 allowed to bring goods to England. This shut out 
 
 the Dutch vessels from English trade and kept 
 
 It for those of the English. These laws were 
 
 called the Navigation Laws." 
 
 Now, why pick on the Dutch, In an American 
 
 history, to the utter neglect of the pregnant fact 
 
 that the American colonists were most seriously 
 
 affected by this act, as it was designed they should 
 
 be? Is there discernible any possible motive for 
 
 dragging in the Dutch, other than to discredit in 
 
 the minds of our youth this fact ol deliberate 
 
 British oppression of the colonists? 
 
 The odious Navigation Act and Acts of Trade 
 which England Imposed upon the colonies to destroy 
 their shipping, finally forbldlmg them any ocean 
 trade except in English ships, or even the exchange 
 of goods from one colony to another, and which 
 
 It 
 
the colonists naturally defied, this new historian 
 nowhere in his book denounces, as insufferably un- 
 just and properly met with defiance, as all true Amer- 
 ican historians do; but the crux of his comment 
 is this: 
 
 "Bringing goods into a country without paying 
 such taxes on them as the law demands, is 
 smuggling, and smuggling is a crime. But the 
 colonists felt that the law was unjust and that 
 breaking it was neither wrong nor disgraceful. A 
 great part of the merchandise that came to the 
 colonies was smuggled. Many leading merchants 
 were smugglers. John Hancock, a rich merchant 
 of Boston, who at a later day was President of 
 the Continental Congress and the first signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence, was a smuggler. 
 So had been his father."— Short History, Vol. II., 
 Page 9. 
 
 Not only is it thus carefully made clear to the 
 children that the founders of our Government were 
 outright criminal smugglers, but it is also impressed 
 upon them that, but for the slim defense found in a 
 technicality, they were pirates: 
 
 "Such vessels, called privateers, since they were 
 owned by private persons, would have been pirate 
 craft in times of peace, if their owners had not 
 been empowered by Congress to seize the enemy's 
 ships." — Grammar Grades, page 188. 
 
 "Smugglers," "pirates," and then, in comment upon 
 British impressment of American sailors, this: 
 "English sea-faring men were good sailors, and 
 the American captains were glad to get them. 
 They encouraged such desertions. It might not 
 have been neighborly to entice England's naval 
 tars away, but it secured good men, and that was 
 the main thing in the minds of American skip- 
 pers."— Page 142. 
 
 Granted that these harsh indictments for smug- 
 gling, near-piracy and hiring of English seamen 
 may have had some basis in fact, still it Is strik- 
 ingly significant that nowhere in the new Barnes 
 book are any such shameful charges brought against 
 the English. The king, indeed, was "headstrong" 
 and "foolish;" English merchants are admitted to 
 
 18 
 
have been over-'greedy for trade; and some of the 
 English laws affecting the colonies may have been 
 "unwise;" but no acts of ignominy are even remote- 
 ly hinted against the English, excepting the "Eng- 
 lish in America," who in this connection, for a 
 change, are frankly called Americans. 
 
 The color this author gives to all the growing 
 differences between England and the colonies uni- 
 formly reveals in him the partisan spirit of a Brit- 
 ish advocate. A very few scattered paragraphs from 
 his Short History, Part II, when brought together 
 and naturally articulated, form the bare backbone 
 of his attitude: 
 
 "If we Judge her doings by those of other na- 
 tions, England had been liberal with her colonies 
 from the very first." — Page 10. 
 
 "The Englishmen In America did not object to 
 paying taxes. They were willing to do their full 
 part, for the good and the glory of England. 
 They said they were Englishmen, and loved Bnf- 
 land, and they felt that they should be treated 
 M Englishmen, even though they were not living 
 in England."— Page 13. 
 
 "The spirit shown by these Englishmen beyond 
 the sea annoyed the king and his party." — Page 14. 
 "In all the unfairness that had been shown It 
 was not England that oppressed tbe colonies. 
 Her best and wisest statesmen said that such 
 laws were wrong. It was the young, headstrong 
 and ill-advised king that abused the colonies." — 
 Page 19. 
 
 "The disputes that brought about the war were 
 not between the colonists and all the English at 
 home. They were rather between the Tories and the 
 Whigs on both sides of the sea, neighbor against 
 neighbor. Had the great Whig party in England 
 been in power with Edmund Burke as its leader, 
 It would have checked the king in his foolish 
 course. Then^ there would have been no abuse 
 of the colonists, and therefore no war. Had there 
 been no war, this great country would probably 
 now have been a great branch of the British em- 
 pire."— Page 21. 
 Ordinary sensibilities, and even the quick per- 
 
 19 
 
ceptions of the scliool child, must fail to detect in 
 all this any note of regret that the "great Whig 
 party" was not In power and that the "great branch 
 of the British empire" failed of realization. 
 
 It may justly he doubted that if the great Irishman 
 Burke were still mortal he would go as far as this 
 author goes in insinuating to-day a doubt of the 
 proved wisdom of American independence. Ardent 
 lover of liberty that Burke was, he sought in his 
 day and In his light to gain for the colonies the jus- 
 tice that could retain them within the empire; but, 
 now in the light of a hundred and forty-five years 
 history of a free people illumining the world, he 
 probably would keenly realize that, far-seeing as he 
 was, and friendly as his motives and efforts were, 
 his best real service to America lay In the failure 
 of his purpose. It seems Inconceivable that any but 
 small souls could see it otherwse; yet, otherwise 
 our children are being taught to see it. 
 
 The new Barnes obsession continues: 
 
 "It was a fight of Briton against Briton; on 
 one side Britons fighting for liberty; on the other 
 Britons fighting because ordered to by their king." 
 —Page 31. 
 
 Such affected phrases as "Englishmen in Amer- 
 ica" and "Britons fighting for liberty,*' ceaselessly 
 reiterated throughout this author's recital of the 
 causes and the war of the Revolution, serve to ob- 
 scure the fact, properly dwelt upon In honest his- 
 tories, that the Dutch of New York, the Swedes 
 of New Jersey, the Germans of Pennsylvania, the 
 French of South Carolina and the Irish of all the 
 colonies joined equally with their English brother 
 patriots of New England and Virginia in resistance 
 to the acts of oppression of the English king and 
 parliament. 
 
 The Continental Congress, that brought together 
 ftll the colonies In common cause and that formulated 
 the Declaration of Independence, is characterized 
 thus: 
 
 "All through the six years of Its course, the 
 Congress was a scene of petty bickerings and 
 flchemings, through which single colonies sought 
 to make gains for themselves. The little oolanles 
 
 to 
 
wanted to have as much power as the big ones, 
 and the big ones wanted to control the little ones. 
 There was a scramble for honors and offices. In 
 that Congress were selfish, unworthy, short-sighted, 
 narrow-minded, office-seeking and office-trading 
 plotters."— Page 34. 
 
 Concerning the united spirit which made the 
 colonists invincifcle, and in which spirit they them- 
 selves declared to the world, "We mutually pledge 
 to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred 
 honor," this revising historian to-day teaches our 
 children that 
 
 "Such union as there was among the colonists, 
 during the war, came from the outside pressure 
 of a common danger, more than from a brotherly 
 spirit within. They were united because they dared 
 not be otherwise." — Page 36. 
 
 What documentary or other support may be 
 claimed for these raw statements does not appear. 
 Even could they be substantiated, they are but the 
 bitter sediment, left stinking at the bottom of the 
 bottles from which the elixir of true history has 
 been secretly abstracted. To our children it is not 
 patriotic stimulant, but poison. 
 
 The opposing viewpoints of the old Barnes and the 
 new Barnes cause the two versions of the Battle of 
 Bunker Hill to be as sharply contrasting in form 
 and color, in emphasis and praise, as if the one his- 
 torian were speaking from the breastworks of the 
 Minute-Men and the other from the ranks of the 
 advancing British troops: 
 
 (Barnes' Primary, 1885, Page 98) "Twice the 
 British advanced to the attack, and twice they 
 were sent reeling back by the terrible fire of 
 the Americans. They rallied for the third time, 
 and again they marched up the hill. By this time 
 the Americans had only one round of ammunition 
 left, and after firing that In the faces of the Brit- 
 ish they used their guns as clufcs, and with them 
 tried to beat them back. But without ammunition 
 the patriots could not stand long before the enemy, 
 and so they were driven, step by step, from their 
 breastworks at the point of the bayonet.** 
 
 (Barnes' Grammar Grades, 1920, Page 195) "Ol 
 
 21 
 
came the British while all was silent behind the 
 breastworks. The courage shown on both sides 
 was wonderful. To march, as those British sol- 
 diers did, straight up to the works, so near that 
 each one felt that the man who was aiming at him 
 could not miss, required a nerve as steady as was 
 ever shown on a battlefield. More troops came 
 from Boston, and a third charge was made. It 
 swept the patriots from the hill, and they fell back 
 to escape capture." 
 
 Bearing in mind that, even before British re- 
 inforcements came, the trained British troops out- 
 numbered the undrilled Americans more than three 
 to one, and the 1,000 Americans killed more thaa 
 1,100 of the British, one cannot but wonder at the 
 fervent tribute to British soldiery so very gratuit- 
 ously injected into an American history. 
 
 In so simple a narration as that of the British 
 evacuation of Boston it is again unavoidably ob- 
 served how the one historian speaks from the Ameri- 
 can side and the other from the British: 
 
 (Old, page 100) "In the Spring Washington 
 posted his army so that his guns threatened the 
 British camp in Boston, and after a brief bombard- 
 ment from Dorchester Heights, forced the enemy 
 to leave the city. On the 17th of March, they 
 sailed away, and Boston was free. 
 
 (New, page 199) "Howe thought It would be 
 better to give up the city than to attack Dorchester 
 Heights. It was, therefore, arranged that If Howe 
 would withdraw from Boston, Washington would 
 withhold his fire and let him go. The British 
 troops, with a great number of Tories, went aboard 
 ship and sailed for Halifax." 
 
 Again in the two accounts of the surrender of 
 Burgoyne the same hopeless divergence of sympathy 
 Is shown^ — as always, in the one history a sympa- 
 thetic recital of American hopes, achievement and 
 patriotic jubilation, and in the other an account of 
 what the English generals knew and anticipated 
 and had to contend against: 
 
 (Old, page 106) "The British and Hessians 
 were driven back in confusion to Saratoga, where 
 they were soon completely hemmed in by the 
 
 22 
 
army under General Gates. Burgoyne, seeing 
 escape impossible, was now forced to surrender. 
 This was a great success. Nothing that had hap- 
 pened since the war began did so much to en- 
 courage the patriots and to give them confidence 
 in the final success of their cause." 
 
 (New, page 213) "Neither army gained a vic- 
 tory, and on October 7 Burgoyne tried again, with 
 no better success. He fell back to Saratoga, and 
 there, on the 17th, he surrendered. General Gates, 
 a political plotter, had been placed by Congress 
 in command of the American troops, so the sur- 
 render was made to him." 
 
 Likewise, the surrender of Comwallis Is marked 
 by the old historian with fitting enthusiasm over 
 the joyous meaning of the decisive triumph which 
 brought the armed conflict to a close, and by the 
 new one with a cold recital of the concrete facts. 
 The one radiates ecstasy and would buoyantly elab- 
 orate the event; the other hastens to change the 
 subject: 
 
 (Old, page 115) "On the 19th of October the 
 whole army marched out of their intrenchments 
 and laid down their arms. This brought to an 
 end the fight for American independence. The 
 treaty of peace between England and the United 
 States was not signed until nearly two years after- 
 ward; but the British made no further efforts to 
 carry on the war. The news of this splendid vic- 
 tory set the country wild. The watchmen In the 
 streets at night shouted the good news at the top 
 of their voices. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted, 
 streets illuminated, and the people in their ecstasy 
 even wept for joy. The old doorkeeper of Con- 
 gress died of joy on hearing that his country was 
 at last free." 
 
 (New, page 219) "On October 19, 1781, Corn- 
 wallis surrendered his army of about 7,000 men. 
 Washington could now easily take New York, 
 and the king and his advisers knew It. The Brit- 
 ish troops remained in Charleston, Savannah and 
 New York for many months; but the fighting was 
 over and arrangements for a settlement were 
 being made. On the 19th of April, exactly eight 
 
 23 
 
years from the day when the British fired oq the 
 Minute Men at Lexington, the Continental army 
 was disbanded by order of Congress." 
 
 It is thus all through the two histories. It is as 
 if at every patriot victory the one throws up his 
 cap with a glad shout, and the other brings forth 
 extenuating circumstances and coldly sneers. 
 
 John Paul Jones presents to the new historian 
 a trying test. The glorious fame of Paul Jones in 
 his capture of the Serapis, making one of the bright- 
 est pages in our nation's annals, has never been de- 
 filed until now, when the new Barnes asserts that 
 Paul Jones' victory was due not to his brilliant 
 fighting but to an accident to his enemy. See how 
 the new Barnes, with this interpolation, changes the 
 whole character of the event: 
 
 (Old, page 109) "Jones lashed the two vessels 
 together and fought the British hand-to-hand. His 
 ship was so badly disabled that it was sinking 
 under him, but nevertheless he continued to fight 
 until the Serapis surrendered. He then sailed 
 away on the captured vessel, leaving his own to 
 sink." 
 
 (New, page 219) "An accidental explosion of 
 powder on board the Serapis killed many of her 
 men and her captain surrendered. So badly was 
 the Richard damaged that Jones went aboard the 
 Serapis, and the Richard sank." 
 In this the new Barnes not only revises estab- 
 lished history, but he revises his own inventions. In 
 the earlier and more elaborated two-volume edition 
 of this same Barnes a different version of this 
 alleged accident is given: 
 
 "The Serapis had the better of the fight and 
 would have won, had not a sailor of the Richard 
 happened to throw a hand grenade down a hatch- 
 way of the Serapis, where in exploding it fired a 
 large lot of powder, which blew up the ship and 
 killed many of her men." — Short History, Vol. 
 n, page 85. 
 
 Of course, this first new Barnes version would 
 not suffice in defense of British glory. It con- 
 fesses too strictly a conventional application of a 
 proper Implement of warfare. From the hand of a 
 
 24 
 
i^ailor of the Bon Homme Richard to the powder 
 bin of the Serapis "happened" to be a too natural 
 objective. As an explanation it explained too well. 
 Moreover, it looked too much like a direct plagiar- 
 ism from real history. So it had to be improved 
 upon in the later edition. Maybe it is not mere 
 Invention, but a deft transfer of a bursting hand 
 grenade, as cause of defeat, from the arm chest of 
 the American ship Chesapeake to the powder bin of 
 the British ship Serapis. The new Barnes does 
 Hot anywhere hint of the hand grenade that caused 
 the loss of the Chesapeake, nor does he mention 
 her heroic Lawrence's cry, "Don't give up the ship!" 
 But the oldest Barnes of them all, (Dr. Steele's) a 
 school favorite for the last fifty years, and the 
 father of the whole family of Barnes' histories, has 
 this to say of the hand grenade, and it comes like a 
 sort of patriarchal admonition: 
 
 "A hand grenade bursting in the Chesapeake's 
 arm chest, the enemy took advantage of tke con- 
 fusion and boarded the vessel. A scene of carnage 
 ensued. Lawrence, mortally wounded, was carried 
 below. As he left the deck he exclaimed, "Don't 
 give up the ship!" But the feeble crew were 
 soon overpowered and the colors hauled down." 
 The new Barnes snatches from the gallant Ameri- 
 can Lawrence all credit for this accident and bestows 
 it upon the British captain of the Serapis. Incident- 
 ally, he fails to note Paul Jones' own truly chivalrous 
 tribute to the valor of his defeated foe. 
 
 What is there left us of the stuff of our fathers 
 if such generous and intrepid a spirit as that of 
 Paul Jones and so proud and secure a possession 
 of the nation as is his fame may be damned with 
 faint praise by alien-hearted writers of histories mis- 
 called American, and we utter no protest? 
 
 The Paul Jones instance is no especially selected 
 one. The author of the new Barnes permits few 
 glorious American traditions and no shining Ameri- 
 can victories to pass through his pages unsullied. 
 We shall be shocked in a moment by his emascula- 
 tion of the story of the Battle of New Orleans. 
 
 Perhaps because there were then no "English- 
 men in America" to lend justification to the Amerl- 
 
 25 
 
can cause in the War of 1812, that whole cause is 
 by this author incontinently condemned: 
 
 "It was a mistake. It was a case in which 
 righteous anger overcame judgment. Some hot- 
 blooded young statesmen from the Southern States, 
 among them Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. 
 Calhoun of South Carolina, urged that war be 
 declared, and they had their way. Much against 
 his wish, Madison yielded, and the War of 1812 
 against England began. ♦ ♦ * The young 
 
 statesmen who had so rashly brought on the war 
 were equally rash in causing it to be pushed with 
 vigor." — Page 151. 
 
 "In but one instance did the Americans win a 
 glorious victoy," this history says of this war. and 
 even this victory, the Battle of New Orleans, is 
 pronounced "a wasted battle;" it is minimized in 
 the sneering remark that all the Americans had to 
 do "was to hold their ground;" while the praise is 
 fulsome for the British soldiery, with no single word 
 for American valor. Here is the account (Page 261) : 
 "Bad management, as a rule, had been shown 
 by the leaders ot the American armies, and Ameri- 
 can soldiers had been unaA)le to contend against 
 the troops of the enemy. In but one instance did 
 the Americans win a glorious victory, and that was 
 CO late in the war that peace had been concluded 
 before the battle was fought. It was the Battle 
 of New Orleans. * ♦ ♦ The army sent to 
 
 New Orleans numbered 12,000 of England's best 
 soldiers. The 6,000 men commanded by Jackson 
 were nearly all raw militiamen, many of whom 
 had never been in battle. All that it was necessary 
 for the Americans to do to win victory was to 
 hold their ground. At daybreak, January 8, 1815, 
 the assault was made. 
 
 "The invaders came on like British soldiers, 
 and, like British soldiers, they came again and 
 again. For three hours they endured the deadly 
 fire of the Americans and then gave up the hope- 
 less task of taking the earthworks. The British 
 lost 2.500 men and many officers, among whom 
 was the gallant General Pakenham, their com- 
 mander. The American loss was small. It was 
 
 26 
 
a wasted battle; It was a needless victory, lor 
 the war was over." 
 
 In declaring this to be the only glorious American 
 victory of the war — rendered utterly inglorious by 
 his account — the new Barnes conveniently forgets 
 for the moment that of the eighteen naval engage- 
 ments of the war the Americans were victorious 
 in fifteen and that American rangers bad taken 
 2,500 British vessels. 
 
 If the battle of New Orleans were a wasted bat- 
 tle In any sense at all, it was such from the British 
 viewpoint, not the American. It was not wasted in 
 that it taught the world to know us and taught us to 
 know ourselves as grown from the child of liberty 
 into a giant power for righteousness among the 
 nations. It was not wasted in the national prid« it 
 generated, the visions it opened and the purposes 
 it vitalized for us as a people. It was not wasted 
 for Great Britain even, when, as a now remote but 
 still unfailing source of American Inspiration and 
 valor, it has served, a century after, as one of the 
 propelling forces that flung across the sea another 
 American army, as hastily assembled and as un- 
 seasoned as Jackson's, to save the world forces of 
 freedom. 
 
 France, perhaps because she was America's first 
 friend, fares no better at the hands of this author 
 than America does. Every possible opportunity 
 is embraced and some impossible ones are created 
 to impugn the motives of France in aiding the 
 patriots. In the Barnes Short History, VoL II, 
 occur such aspersions as these: 
 
 "France had always stood ready to take ad- 
 vantage of any quarrel between the colonies and 
 the mother country." — Page 11. 
 
 "There was joy in France over the trouble Eng- 
 land was having with her colonies, and a hope 
 that she would be humbled. The French had not 
 forgotten their defeat by England. They were 
 not Idle. French spies were in America; French 
 money had been sent to keep up the rebellion.'* — 
 Page 50. 
 
 "While Cornwallis was chasing Washington, and 
 the Americans seemed ready to give up the stmg- 
 
 27 
 
gle, France was not inclined to give open aid. 
 But, now the victories of Trenton and Princeton 
 showed that the Americans could do their part, 
 Franklin began to make headway in his work." — 
 Page 66. 
 
 "Fl-ance loaned great sums of money and sent 
 a naval fleet and a small army to America to fight 
 under the command of Washington. More than 
 this, France caused Spain to declare war against 
 England. Thus, England was now fighting, sin- 
 gle-handed, against three nations." — Page 77. 
 
 "France had fought England not so mudi from 
 a generous wish to help the colonies as from 
 hatred of England, and at the end France wanted 
 her share of the spoils. She wanted land In 
 America; she wanted to regain some at least of 
 what she had lost to England in the French and 
 Indian war twenty years before." — Page 96. 
 Patriotic protest against all this shameful per- 
 version of our nation's annals Involves no hostility 
 to England. We need not, to be generous to old- 
 time enemies, falsify our records either of our pa- 
 triot fathers' heroisms and honor or of our gratitude 
 to old and constant friends. 
 
 Friendship between the two greatest nations in 
 the world, to be honest and secure, can be based 
 only upon facts, past as well as present. 
 
 Let us advance together up the road of peace and 
 progress — hand-in-hand, if we will; but not allow 
 alien-hearted revisionists, skulking far in the rear, 
 to set up lying historical guide-posts to Freedom. 
 
 " I shall know but one country ! The ends I 
 aim at shall be my Country's, my God's and 
 Truth's. ! was born an American; I live an 
 American ; I shall die an American ; and I in- 
 tend to perform the duties incumbent upon me 
 in that character to the end of my career." 
 
 —DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 Speech in United States Senate 
 
 28 
 
THE DECLARATION 
 IS CENSORED. 
 
 McLaughlin and Van Tyne Teach That "There Is 
 Little Use Trying to Learn Whose Fault It Was 
 That the Revolution Began;" That the Declara- 
 tion of Independence Was Largely Plagiarized 
 from an Englishman and that the U. S. Constitution 
 Is Copied After the British Constitution; and 
 Quitteau Teaches that "The American Revolution 
 Is no Longer to Be Studied as an Isolated Event 
 Resulting from British injustice." 
 
 Our children, taught in the public schools new 
 versions of our old inspiring colonial annals, are 
 caused to laugh at the old-fashioned notion that it 
 was English tyranny our patriot fathers resisted. 
 The history of the Revolution, sacredly enshrined 
 in the hearts of a free people for a century and a 
 half, is being reshaped to serve international inter- 
 ests under whose hypnotism of propaganda Ameri- 
 can public opinion has been goose-stepping for some 
 years in the direction of a return to British sub- 
 jection. 
 
 "We make no apology for the omission of many of 
 the 'yarns' of American history" 
 
 This sentence is the prefatory keynote of the Me 
 Laughlin and Van Tyne "History of the United 
 States for Schools," (Revised 1919), D. Appleton & 
 Co., publisher. The attitude declared is not pe- 
 culiar to this one book. It is becoming sadly familiar. 
 In late revisions of many school histories spirited 
 facts are studiously omitted, in what is manifestly 
 a concerted movement to weaken the patriotic morale 
 of the American people insofar as it springs from 
 pride in the principles and performances of the 
 patriots of 1776 and 1812. 
 
 McLaughlin and Van Tyne omit, outright, any 
 mention at all of Nathan Hale, Faneuil Hall, the 
 
 29 
 
Green Mountain Boys, Betsy Ross and the l)irth ot 
 the flag, the quarterint; of troops and the British 
 attempts to bribe; while strictly minimizing the 
 patriot valor at Lexington, Bunker Hill and New 
 Orleans. 
 
 A detailed examination of this book discloses the 
 amazing extent to which modern English methods 
 of censorship are being applied even to the very 
 essence of the Declaration of Independence. 
 The preface explains further: 
 "By means of this elimination we have secured 
 space for fuller explanation and interpretation of 
 really important events." 
 Striking among the "really Important events/* for 
 which space has been secured by suppressing Im- 
 spiriting Incidents and heroic patriotic characters, 
 are such as these: 
 
 "England was, on the whole, more generous to 
 her colonies than were other nations to theirs.** — 
 Page 139. 
 
 "Though the country must have been almost 
 equally divided, the Whigs were most active, and 
 succeeded In electing a Congress bent upon de- 
 fending 'American liberties.' " — Page 156. 
 
 "As a Tory wrote, in Washington's camp the 
 soldier had thirteen kings and no bread, and it 
 seemed better to serve one king and have plenty 
 of bread."— Page 178. 
 
 "It is from a study of this struggle between 
 Whigs and Tories that we see the American Revo- 
 lution to have been a civil war In America as well 
 as a war between England and her rebellious 
 colonies."— Page 183. 
 
 (War of 1812) "To make war on England, how- 
 ever, was. In fact, to join Napoleon, her implacable 
 enemy, so that the world witnessed the strange 
 alliance of James Madison, lover of peace, and 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, the genius of war." — Page 261. 
 
 It was an ancient custom to remove the viscera 
 and brain before embalming a body, and something 
 of the same process has been rediscovered and is 
 being applied to the heroes of the Revolution; cen- 
 tury-sealed tombs are desecrated for a belated re- 
 moval of all vestige of seat of reason and emotion. 
 
 tt 
 
I^eading founders of our liberties are characterized 
 by McLaughlin and Van Tyne as follows: 
 
 "It is hard for us to realize how ignorant and 
 superstitious were most of the early colonists of 
 America." — Page 134. 
 
 "Patrick Henry, a gay, unprosperous and hith- 
 erto unknown country lawyer." — Page 141. 
 
 '^Smuggling was so common that even a lead- 
 ing Boston merchant was known as 'the Prince 
 of Smugglers.' "—Page 140. 
 
 "As the British soldiers who had left Boston 
 at midnight neared Lexington in the early morn- 
 ing of April 19, 1775, Adams and Hancock stole 
 away across the fields." — Page 153. 
 
 "Independence was not seriously* thought of 
 except by a few men like Samuel Adams, Great 
 men and good patriots like Washington and 
 Franklin were loath to think of such an outcome 
 of the quarrel." — Page 162. 
 
 "Hamilton is said to have exclaimed at a ban- 
 quet once, 'The people, sir, is a great beast*" — 
 Page 238. 
 
 "On the 4th of July, 1801, voters of a town in 
 Connecticut drank to the toast: 'Thomas Jeffer- 
 son: May he receive from his fellow citizens 
 the reward of his merit — a halter!'" — Page 249, 
 
 "We can afford now to laugh at our forefath- 
 ers!"— Page 262. 
 
 However good may be supposed the authority for 
 such statements as these, there is no question as 
 to the impropriety of crowding out inspiring patri- 
 otic incident to make space for them. However 
 "really important" such assertions may be supposed 
 to be, there is no question as to their deadening 
 effect upon the patriotic morale of school children. 
 Manifestly, there is a motive in the insertion of 
 such slanders which neither springs from nor Is 
 sustained by their importance, even were they in- 
 dubitably true. 
 
 It is the custom among the recent revisers of 
 our history to omit entirely such famous slogans as 
 "We have met the enemy and they are ours," "Don't 
 give up the ship." etc.; but McLaughlin and Van 
 Tyne go further than their fellows and seek to de- 
 
 31 
 
stroy these inspiring slogans by disputing their 
 authenticity. 
 
 Of Lawrence's brave last words, "Don't give up the 
 ship/' which still ring in the ears of American sea- 
 men, this pair of authors say: 
 
 " 'Fight the ship until she is sunk,' seem to have 
 been his real words, and the others are the words 
 of the boy who took his message on deck." — 
 Page 265. 
 Of Ethan Allen's demand upon the commander of 
 Ticonderoga to surrender "in the name of the Great 
 Jehovah and the Continental Congress," these au- 
 thors remark: 
 
 "So Allen afterwards declared. He had no 
 right to demand the fort in the name of the Con- 
 tinental Congress, for his commission was from 
 Connecticut." — Page 157. 
 
 How completely the glow of enthusiasm and thrill 
 of heroism may be dampened and deadened in ac- 
 counts of battles is stunningly exemplified by this 
 pair of authors in their passing mention of the Battles 
 of Lexington and Bunker Hill. 
 
 At Lexington — "Before the smoke of the first 
 volley cleared away the little American band fled, 
 leaving their dying companions." — Page 153. 
 
 At Bunker Hill — "The line of red-coated English- 
 men came steadily up the hill, its quiet, orderly 
 advance watched by the provincials behind the 
 earthworks. Twice the British came steadily up 
 the hill and fell back only to leave behind them 
 windrows of dead and wounded comrades, mowed 
 down by the deadly "Yankee" fire. But British 
 pluck triumphed." — Page 159. 
 The definite causes of the American Revolution 
 are in the pages of this book obscure, and the 
 serious student seeking here the principles and 
 motives of the colonists will find only omissions, 
 contradictions and hopeless confusion. The British 
 oppressions are in this book so completely suppressed 
 or plausibly condoned that no ground is left which 
 seems to justify the Declaration of Independence 
 or resistance at arms. The most direct attempt 
 these authors make at a statement of causes is that 
 "The great objection raised by the Americans 
 
 S2 
 
was that they were taxed by Parliament without 
 being represented in it." — Page 144. 
 If these authors can produce any evidence that 
 America ever asked for or ever would have accepted 
 representation in Parliament, they will be making 
 a real contribution to history. Their bald statement, 
 followed by a strong defense of the English idea 
 of general representatives, as contrasted with the 
 colonial custom of sectional representatives in town, 
 county and colonial assemblies, results in a com- 
 plete perversion of the meaning of the famous 
 patriotic slogan, "Taxation without representation 
 is tyranny," which meaning was, definitely, that tax- 
 ation in the colonies should be levied by the colonies 
 themselves. 
 
 "The king and his obedient ministers now thought 
 that they must crush what they considered to be 
 a spirit of rebellion. * * ♦ A second mistake 
 was the sending to America of an inadequate 
 force of soldiers, which only irritated and did not 
 cow the colonists." — Page 146. 
 That word "mistake" has a sinister sound in 
 American ears. If fortunate mistake is meant, then 
 a double team of authors, both college professors, 
 ought to be able to convey that simple meaning, 
 but they do not. Are school children to gather 
 from this statement the inference that had a larger 
 force been sent the colonists would not have been 
 irritated? Or that they would have been cowed? 
 Which is it that is insinuated against the colonists, 
 imbecility or cowardice? 
 
 A third attempt by this pair of authors to define 
 the causes of the Revolution carries its own con- 
 fession of disheartened failure: 
 
 "There is little use trying to learn whose fault 
 It was that the war began, for, as we have seen, 
 such a long train of events led to disagreement 
 between England and America that w^ should 
 have to go back and back to the very founding 
 of the colonies. As in most quarrels, the blame 
 for the beginning is laid by each party on the 
 other."— Page 152. 
 
 In this last profound remark is revealed the preg- 
 nant fact that the historian who is so wanting In 
 
 33 
 
pairiotism as not to know which side he Is on must 
 Decessarily be at a loss for partisan enthusiasm. 
 But history is not made by such spineless men. Why 
 should it be revised by such? 
 
 McLaughlin and Van Tyne dutifully join with all 
 the other revisionists of the Revolution — Ward, Hart, 
 the new Barnes, O'Hara and the rest — in a parrot- 
 like reiteration of the Trevelyan theory that the 
 colonists' best friends were in the English Parlia- 
 ment and among the English people. It was only 
 "the German King George III. and his obedient 
 ministers" who sought to hold the colonies, accord- 
 ing to this theory, which the revisionists have ac- 
 cepted with a uniformity that clearly indicates a 
 irommon source and influence. 
 
 The more keenly to realize how meaningless this 
 all is, suppose we bring the picture directly before 
 cur eyes of to-day by substituting "Ireland," "India" 
 or "Egypt" for "America" in the following state- 
 ment: 
 
 "But If Americans were divided, so were English- 
 men. Thousands of Englishmen stood ready to 
 be friends with America, but the king and 
 his ministers, with the governing power In their 
 own hands, were stubbornly resolved to bring 
 America to her knees, crush rebellion, and rule as 
 they chose." — Page 151. 
 
 Of course, Pitt and Burke and Fox and thousands 
 of Englishmen sought earnestly to secure such con- 
 cessions to the colonies as would retain them within 
 the empire. There was a "home rule" idea even 
 then. But were these English friends, with this 
 halter in their hands, real friends to the free America 
 of to-day? Is it not for the best that America became 
 independent? There is question about that now in 
 eome so-called "American" histories. But hardly in 
 the heart of any true American. Shall we permit our 
 children to be taught to doubt It' 
 
 The Declaration of Independence was largely a 
 plagiarism from the Englishman, John Locke, ac- 
 cording to this pair of authors, since Locke, be- 
 fore the Revolution, had written books praising 
 liberty; 
 
 "Locke expressed essentially the same Ideas. 
 
 34 
 
This Bounds very much like what we read In the 
 American Declaration of Independence/' — Page 1^. 
 
 Our children are taught by these authors that ♦Jie 
 United States Constitution is a mere copy of the 
 English constitution, differing from it only 
 
 "in that most of it is included In a single docu- 
 ment, while the English constitution is made ap 
 of many laws, court decisions and customs. The 
 American Constitution, like the English, forbade 
 the making of laws and the levying and expendi- 
 ture of taxes without the consent of the representa- 
 tives of the people. Here, as in England, men must 
 not be imprisoned or punished without a trial in 
 court." Etc., etc.— Page 197. 
 Even the glory is extracted from our great na- 
 tional holiday. 
 
 "The reason we celebrate the Fourth instead 
 of the second of July is that most men thought 
 more about the day Congress voted to acoept 
 a declaration drawn up by Thomas Jefferson ex- 
 plaining to the world the reasons for making the 
 resolution of independence. * • ♦ A list of 
 twenty-seven grievances was given, some of which 
 seem unreasonable now, but others constituted 
 real wrongs." — Pages 163-4. 
 
 The joyous enthusiasm of the people on July 4th, 
 1776, is rebuked: 
 
 "Among the Whigs, or Patriots, the news was 
 Joyfully received. Some thoughtless people went 
 too far and did foolish things, like burning an 
 effigy of the king or burning his portrait in a 
 public square. In New York City the American 
 soldiers pulled down a leaden statue of George 
 111 and melted it into bullets."— Page 164. 
 
 The American school youth of yesterday thought 
 this was just about the best use to which a king's 
 statue ever was put; but what can the school youtt 
 of to-morrow be thinking, after feeding on such 
 tainted meat? 
 
 Of France's motive in recognizing American In- 
 dependence there is this slurring remark: 
 
 "England and France had long been enemies. 
 Many bitter wars had been fought between them 
 but none more bitter than that for the ownership 
 
 86 
 
of America, which was decided in England's favor 
 when Wolfe captured Quebec. From tliat hour 
 French statesmen watched for a time when Eng- 
 land should he weakened and when France might 
 avenge her shame and regain her power." — 
 Page 176. 
 
 A half-page reproduction of a British cartoon of 
 that period is shown in this book, caricaturing 
 America as a rattlesnake. Another half-page car- 
 toon ridicules Lincoln as being ridden on a rail. 
 In a history from which (patriotic incident has been 
 ruthlessly elimiijated to make room for "really im- 
 portant events" the giving of half pages to these 
 stupid cartoons, feebly conceived and crudely drawn, 
 would be amazing but for the fact that the spirit, 
 purpose and methods of this brace of authors have 
 been clearly discerned long before this. 
 
 This snobbish spirit of apology and subserviency 
 to England, in which American history in revised 
 school text books is emasculated of heroic charac- 
 ters, inspiring incidents and vital principles, is strik- 
 ingly professed in the announcements of "Our United 
 States/' by William Backus Guitteau, 1919. The pub- 
 lishers. Silver, Burdett & Co., boldy proclaim in their 
 advertisements that 
 
 "This book has been written in the light of re- 
 cent events in which a new atmosphere has been 
 created for the study of our national life. • ♦ • 
 The Revolutionary War and subsequent Anglo- 
 American difficulties, hitherto distorted in our 
 school books as a result of national prejudice, 
 have been restated by Dr. Guitteau. • * • 
 Many events involved in the history of our for- 
 eign relations, hitherto distorted in our school 
 books, through an unthinking adherence to tra- 
 ditional prejudices, have been restated by Dr. 
 Guitteau in their true light." 
 Dr. Guitteau in his preface makes substantially 
 the same abject apologies and brazen promises to 
 purge us Americans of our "unthinking adherence" 
 to our national spirit. 
 
 "The American Revolution, for example, is no 
 longer to be studied as an isolated event result- 
 ing from British injustice. * ♦ ♦So with the 
 
 36 
 
War of 1812, which takes on a new aspect when 
 viewed as an incident in the Napoleonic wars, 
 rather than as a British-American contest. • • • 
 Throughout the book, therefore, special emphaslf 
 has been placed upon the relations of the United 
 States to other countries, In order that the young 
 citizens who study it may realize more fully the 
 importance of our world relations and our world 
 responsibilities." — Page V. 
 
 Dr. Guitteau thus falls into lock-step with six 
 other new revisers of our school histories who either 
 openly proclaim or else plainly di&close a vniform 
 purpose to sacrifice the traditional American na- 
 tional spirit upon the newly erected altar of British- 
 American hyphenation. 
 
 Guitteau, not yet recovered from the feverous hal- 
 lucinations of World War scare, is still teaching the 
 children that 
 
 "After Britain, then America, peace-loving, ideal- 
 istic, defenseless America, was to be taken in hand 
 and taught her proper and subordinate place in a 
 world ruled by German power. ' ' — Page 571. 
 
 Of course, the invincible British lion saved us; but 
 the goblins will get us yet, unless the lion and the lamb 
 lie down together — the lamb inside the lion. 
 
 "History," said Napoleon, "is the facts agreed on." 
 Is it coming to be the lies forced on us? Shall per 
 nicious foreign propaganda become crystallized into 
 American history? 
 
 We owe it to our heroic fathers, to ourselves and to 
 our children to defend and maintain our proud 
 heritage of glorious history. 
 
 And we owe more. A shattered and benighted 
 world is looking toward America for the tradition- 
 ally true light of Ldberty. Let us keep that light 
 glowing, undimmed and unmoved, and let us keep 
 virile and pure the time-tested principles and tra- 
 ditions upon which that light lives; that other gen- 
 erations and other peoples, oppressed but courageous, 
 may find the true way that our fathers found. 
 
 What is needed is a revival of the spirit of 1776, not 
 its obscuration. It is the best rock-set, far-reaching 
 range light in an endarkened world, 
 
 87 
 
WARD'S CONFESSION 
 AND VAN TYNE'S DEFENSE. 
 
 Anti-American Revisers of Schooi i-listories Strive to 
 Maintain Tiieir Anglicized Accounts of tlie Found- 
 ing of Our Nation. 
 
 The foregoing chapters, which were published in 
 the Hearst papers throughout the country, during 
 July last, have caused nation-wide indignation and 
 j>rotest against the alterations made in school his- 
 tories with the manifest purpose to denationalize 
 American spirit. 
 
 Some defense of the revised books has been ven- 
 tured. 
 
 Professors Van Tyne and Ward, two of the re- 
 visionists complained against, made reply in the 
 New York Times. 
 
 Professor Ward, for himself and in defense of 
 nis own book, makes the following vitally significant 
 Statement: 
 
 "I do not presume to teacli young Americans my 
 own interpretations of history; I present to tliem 
 only wliat Lecky and Trevelyan wrote before 
 1914, wliat a score of Englishmen said in Commons 
 before the Revolution, and Burke's stirring analysis 
 m his 'Present Discontents,' which has been un- 
 disputed for 150 years." 
 
 All these authorities are British. Here, then, is 
 complete confession of teaching to young Ameri- 
 cans the principles and purposes of the American 
 Revolution, not as presented by American historians, 
 but as Interpreted by the English historians, Tre- 
 "pelyan and Lecky. 
 
 This amazing admission settles the whole ques- 
 tion as far as Mr. Ward is concerned. It is admission 
 •jf all that I have charged and more. I had never 
 hoped for so full and overflowing a confession; 
 and, yet, if these autnors are as conscientious in 
 this same cause, there appears no reason why they 
 
 38 
 
all should not make as frank a confession as Mr. 
 Ward has made. 
 
 Professor Van Tyne, in his Times letter, re- 
 affirms the offensive assertions I had quoted from 
 his book; he admits the omissions I had mentioned; 
 and he fails to take advantage of an exceptionally 
 good opportunity to deny the motive charged. 
 
 Professor Van Tyne, from his opening paragraph, 
 Jn which he unjustly says that I am "actuated by 
 hatred of England," to his last lines, in which he 
 expresses his chronic apprehension lest "a few dis- 
 agreeable yarns about the British" might "embitter 
 the relations between England and America," exhibits 
 unremitting concern for England, but expresses no 
 concern whatever for the preservation and perpetu- 
 ation of the patriotic national spirt of America in 
 the public schools. 
 
 "Our Book," says Professor Van Tyne, "appeared 
 In 1911, years before the war led to any efforts to 
 write text books, as Mr. Miller imagines, for prop- 
 aganda purposes, and it has never been revised, 
 but merely brought down to date. fiXactly the 
 same offensive passages will be found in the 1911 
 edition as In the 1917 edition, to which Mr. Miller 
 refers." 
 His book to which I leferred was not that of 1917, 
 but, as was clearly stated, the edition of 1919, to which 
 my page references apply, and the preface of which 
 proclaims: 
 
 "This new edition of 1919 contains two altered 
 chapters and a new one on the events of the 
 World War." 
 
 In saying, as he definitely does, that his 1911 
 edition "has never been revised but merely brought 
 down to date," Professor Van Tyne conveys what 
 It readily shown to be directly false. Not only are 
 there in the 1919 edition the "two altered chapters 
 and a new one on the events of the World War" but 
 there Is inserted, Immediately following the Revo- 
 lution chapters, a complete new chapter of fifteen 
 pages, "How Europe Influenced America (1607-1816)" 
 — of course, Europe being to his mind mostly Eng- 
 land. This stealthily inserted new chapter, as well 
 as every one of the changes made in the two 
 
 39 
 
aBDounced altered chapters, is found to be directly 
 In line with the motive and methods charged against 
 him. For one example, in his chapter on the War 
 with Spain he has removed seventeen lines of tribute 
 to Dewey's victory and Hobson's heroism to make 
 space for insertion of the moot Diederichs incident 
 1%. Manila Bay, and to expatiate, "Thus British friend- 
 ship saved us," etc. Comparison of the two editions, 
 page for page, discloses many other alterations that 
 have nothing to do with bringing the book "down to 
 date,'* except to line it up with up-to-date British 
 propaganda; and the most careful scrutiny fails to 
 disclose a single alteration that is not significant 
 of the purpose and practice to which Ward has con- 
 fessed and of which Van Tyne, unless he has better 
 defense than he has offered, must stand convicted. 
 Just one occasion does Prof. Van Tyne find tor 
 accusing me of imperfectly quoting him, and the In- 
 stance would be unimportant except for the question 
 of integrity involved. He says: 
 
 "I still in my 'insolent manner' hold that at 
 Bunker Hill 'the British twice came steadily up 
 the hill and fell back only to leave behind them 
 windrows of dead and wounded comrades mowed 
 down by the deadly Yankee fire. But British 
 pluck triumphed.' The passage goes on to tell 
 of the fine courage of the provincials, but that Is 
 not to Mr. Miller's purpose, and he leaves it out 
 in his honest, scholarly way." 
 What the passage I left out goes on to tell is 
 this: 
 
 "And when the line came the third time It 
 pushed on over the earthworks, where the des- 
 perate minutemen, whose powder was gone, fought 
 with clubs and stones and the butts of their mus- 
 kets. The patriots retreated with some loss, and 
 the British had won. But all that night the chaises 
 and chariots that went to the Boston wharves 
 to bring home the British dead and wounded filed 
 slowly through the streets of Boston. A few more 
 hills bought at that price would ruin the British 
 cause." — Pages 159-60. 
 
 This is all of the passage which lie says I left out 
 because it is so fine a tribute to patriot courage. 
 
 40 
 
In it tne reader may perceive less enthusiasm for 
 patriot courage than concern for the British cause. 
 Even the most casual reader must note that through- 
 out this whole inglorious account the reporter ap- 
 pears to he observing from within the British ranks 
 and only faintly glimpsing the patriots across the 
 battle line. "To bring home the British dead" seems 
 to sound like British history. This significant char- 
 acteristic persists In Prof. Van Tyne and also fn 
 Everett Barnes. 
 
 Prof. Van Tyne says he "would like to go on to 
 defend Hart and Barnes and the rest, for there i< 
 
 Let us look into this a little, 
 nothing that any of them are quoted as saying that 
 is actually untrue." 
 
 In the series of articles with which Prof. Van 
 Tyne admits he is familiar I have given many quo- 
 tations from these authors that are so conflicting 
 that not all can be true. Let us group a few of 
 them together for comparison. Let us select as 
 subject that most vital one of all, the caase for 
 which the colonists waged the Revolution: 
 
 "The governmental oppression that caused the 
 Revolution was made in Germany." — Ward, page 8. 
 "The colonists were not desperately oppressed," 
 — Hart, page 126. "The two main causes are dis- 
 like of the Acts of Trade and the feeling that the 
 colonists were strong enough to govern them- 
 selves." — Hart, page 129. 
 
 Can both of these statements be true? Then how 
 about this: 
 
 "The disputes that brought about the war were 
 not between the colonists and all the English at 
 home; they were between the Tories and the 
 Whigs on both sides of the sea, neighbor against 
 neighbor." — Everett Barnes, Vol. II„ Page 21. 
 These diverse statements, every one conflicting 
 with the others as sharply as they all conflict wim 
 the statement of grievances in the Declaration of 
 Independence, are all true, says Prof. Van Tyn& 
 Yet, in his own text book Van Tyne says: 
 
 "There is little use trying to learn whose fault 
 It was that the war began; as in most quarrels 
 
 41 
 
the blame is laid by one party on ttie other." — 
 
 Page 152. 
 
 Now if Prof. Van Tyne, who assures us in his 
 Times letter that he lias "made a special study of 
 the Revolution for eighteen years," has "written 
 three books about it," and "specialists in that field 
 have complimented" him by thinking he "knows 
 something about it" — if he sees little use trying to 
 learn whose fault it was that the Revolution began, 
 then how can these lesser historians know anything 
 about it, and how can he himself know whether any- 
 thing that any of them say about it is true or not? 
 Since they all have cast overboard the statement 
 of grievances in the Declaration of Independence, 
 and thrown after it the annals and traditions iei'l us 
 by the fathers, by what new chart or compass may 
 it be known that these revisionists, yawing in all 
 directions, are sailing on a "true" course? 
 
 The answer is simple. To the purposes of the 
 propaganda it does not matter which of these re- 
 vised theories our children accept — that the English 
 and the colonists alike were subjects of oppression 
 by a "German" king, or that there was no oppres- 
 sion, or that it was merely a party contest between 
 neighbors, or that the whole matter is so obscure 
 that it is useless to try to find out anything about 
 it — the clear and uniform purpose is that the Amer- 
 ican people of future generations shall discredit, 
 doubt, dispute over, or never know, the inspiring 
 truth of the righteous causes for which the Ameri- 
 can Revolution was fought and the high principles 
 upon which our republic was founded. 
 
 For, notwithstanding their wide dissimilarities in 
 premises, these revisionists all jump, like automatons 
 worked by one wire, to the one fixed conclusion — that 
 the Declaration of Independence was falsehood and 
 the Revolution a farce. 
 
 Reasoning from irreconcilable facts (if they may 
 be called facts, and if it may be called reasoning), 
 these revisionists dutifully arrive at the same Tre- 
 velyan-set objective and the inevitable reaction is 
 that the Revolution was without justification in 
 sound sense. 
 
 There is nothing in any of these quotations that 
 
 42 
 
is actually untrue, says Professor Van Tyne — "not 
 even Barnes' dreadful assertion that John Hancock 
 was a smuggler and the son of a smuggler. Per- 
 haps," he qualifies, as though gently chiding Brother 
 Barnes, "there should he a little explanation of the 
 colonial attitude toward smuggling, Dut there is no 
 other word that just describes what John Hancock 
 did. Indeed, he was proud of it, and was rather 
 looked up to for it." 
 
 It would naturally be assumed from this that 
 Professor Van Tyne, in his own textbook, does real 
 Justice to John Hancock. Let us assume nothing, 
 tut see. 
 
 John Hancock is mentioned four times in the Van 
 Tyne book, as follows: 
 
 "Smuggling was so common that even a leading 
 Boston merchant is known as 'The Prince of 
 Smugglers.' " — Page 140. 
 
 "A riot followed the seizure of John Hancock's 
 sloop Liberty on a charge of smuggling." — Page 146. 
 
 "Gage sent out troops to seize the patriot leaders, 
 Samuel Adams and John Hancock." — Page 153. 
 
 "As the British troops neared Lexington Adams 
 and Hancock stole away across the fields." — 
 Page 153. 
 
 THERE iS NO OTHER MENTION OF JOHN 
 HANCOCK IN THE BOOK. Not a word that his 
 "smuggling" was open, patriotic defiance of the 
 odious English Acts of Trade, which fortoade the 
 colonies to trade with the world, or even with one 
 another, except in English ships. Not a word about 
 his devotion, sacrifices and distinguished services 
 to the patriot cause. Not a word about the for- 
 tune he contributed. Not a word that he was 
 President of the Continental Congress which framed 
 the Declaration of Independence and the first signer 
 of that immortal document. Nothing of any of this 
 for our children about John Hancock — no, no; they 
 are taught only that this "patriot leader" waa merely 
 ji smuggler and a sneak. 
 
 All the British histories, quite naturally, denounce 
 Hancock bitterly, but in no British history that I 
 Lave yet encountered Is there utter failure to accord 
 John Hancock recognition as a tremendous force for 
 
 43 
 
Revolution and Independence. This is why they 
 denounce him. It has remained tor an "American" 
 historical revisionist to surpass even the hostile ver- 
 sions in contemptuous presentation of this great 
 patriot character. 
 
 I confidantly submit to any fair-minded American 
 — yes, to any fair-minded person, whether American 
 or British in sympathies — the simple, candid pro- 
 position that this sort of representation of na- 
 tional heroes does not constitute honest history, that 
 It is not designed to be accurate presentation of the 
 truth, and that, taught in the public schools, his sort 
 of stuff must inevitably result in the deadening of 
 pride and confidence in the characters and principles 
 of our nation's founders, the poisoning of the springs 
 of patriotism and the denaturing of national spirit 
 and morale, in the next generation. 
 
 Thin shelter Professor Van Tyne sets up for nim- 
 eelf and his fellow-revisionists In pleading that there 
 is nothing that any of them have said "that Is 
 actually untrue." If it were so, which it is not, is 
 this all that is required of history — that it be not 
 "actually untrue?*' Is no more expected of history 
 than that it may barely cling at the brink of the 
 pit of falsehood? 
 
 The historian presenting Jefferson to children as 
 "deserving of a halter," and Hamilton as declaring 
 that *'the people are a great beast," cannot make 
 it truth by sponsoring it with a nebulous somebody's 
 say-so. Suppose somebody did once say that Jeffer- 
 son deserved a halter; it could have been said for 
 no purpose but to vent enmity, to belittle his char- 
 acter and to weaken his influence; and its repeti- 
 tion In school history to-day can be to no other 
 purpose. 
 
 To call this truth is to insult the sacred name. 
 The spirit that prompts such historian is false; the 
 pictures he presents are false; the impression they 
 produce is false. Who can have patience with de- 
 fense of a possible grain of "truth" in a deliberately 
 reared mountain of misrepresentation? 
 
 Even given the fact, truth is far more than mere 
 assertion of bare fact. Fact is the rough stone that 
 needs cutting, polishing and setting, to sparkle with 
 
 44 
 
the light of truth. The selecting of facts, the join- 
 ing of them and the coloring of them may shape 
 them into form of angel or of demon, white or black 
 Mere omissions may invalidate truth. Exaggeration 
 and minimization distort it. Constant coloring to suit 
 an interested purpose perverts it. Fragment of 
 fact, even if in itself indubitably true, is not alone 
 truth for history. 
 
 The history that truthfully presents our nation's 
 annals in stich sympathetic, virile, patriotic spirit 
 as to inculcate in our children pride in the birth and 
 development of our republic, honor to its heroe? 
 devotion to its principles and progress, and zest xd 
 its ideals and purposes — this is a true history. But 
 the history that creeps along the verge of falsehood, 
 alien in spirit, snarling in self-defense that it is '^not 
 actually untrue," and inoculating the children with 
 suspicion of the nation's founders, doubt as to Its 
 cardinal principles, and indifference to its democratic 
 Ideals — that history is false. 
 
 What truer test could we have of school history 
 than its effect upon the patriotic pride, enthusiasm 
 and idealism of the children in the schools? 
 
 The historic truths, principles, traditions, Ideals 
 and purposes which have been good enough to serve 
 as inspiration and guidance to the American people 
 through a century and a half of unprecedented 
 achievement and to unparalleled prestige as a na" 
 tion are good enough for us now. NONE OTHER 
 IS GOOD ENOUGH — particularly none foisted upon 
 us through alien propaganda and home-grown toady- 
 ism. 
 
 Unworthy sons of such fathers as ours are we, 
 indeed, if we have not the spirit and strength to 
 retain in ink what they wrote in their blood. 
 
 In our continued homage to our natal truths €UDid 
 principles and in our vigilant defense of them lie the 
 best proof of our worthiness and the best promise 
 of our destiny and the destiny of democracy throng- 
 out the world. 
 
 Let us do honor to our fathers, credit to ourselves 
 and justice to our children by purging the public 
 schools of the histories that are disloyal to American 
 tradition, spirit and prestige. 
 
 45 
 
SOME OF THE FORCES AT WORK. 
 
 A potent and far-reacning Influence toward our in- 
 tellectual colonization by England is the Cecil Rbodes 
 Scholarship scheme. If there is any doubt of Rhodes's 
 definite purpose in this plan the doubt is not snared 
 by his latest biographer. (Cecil Rhodes, by ^Basil 
 Williams, Henry Holt & Co.), who says that Rhodes 
 In the first sketch of his will (Pages 50-1) 
 
 ^'directed that a Secret Society should be en- 
 dowed with the following objects: 'The extension 
 of British rule throughout the world, * * » the 
 colonization by British subjects of all lands where 
 ihe means of livelihood are attainable by energy, 
 labor and enterprise, and especially the occupation 
 by British settlers of the entire continent of Africa, 
 ihe Holy Land, the valley of the Euphrates, the 
 islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South 
 America, the islands of the Pacific not heretofore 
 possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay 
 Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the 
 ultimate recovery of the United States of America 
 as an integral part of the British Empire* " 
 The spirit of servility and snobt)ery which has 
 become so strikingly characteristic of our universities 
 and colleges may be due very largely to the Rhodes 
 Scholarship influence; it may be due more airectly 
 still to the College Professors' Pension Fund, en- 
 dowed by Andrew Carnegie, whose purpose i3 pro- 
 claimed in this famous prophecy made by him: 
 ''Time may dispel many pleasing illusions and 
 destroy many noble dreams, but it shall never 
 shake my belief that the wound caused by the 
 wholly unlooked for and undesired separation of the 
 mother from her child is not to bleed forever. Let 
 men say what they will, therefore, I say that as sure 
 as the sun in the heaven once shone upon Britons 
 and Americans united, so surely is it one morning 
 to rise, shine upon and greet again the Re-United 
 States, the British-American Union. ' ' — Triumphant 
 Democracy (1893) page 5U9. 
 July 4, 1918, at a meeting of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Fellowship in London, George Haven Putnam, prom- 
 
 46 
 
Inent American publisher and secretary of the So- 
 ciety to Promote British-American Union, said In 
 a speech: 
 
 "/ had occasion when in Halifax to apologize 
 to the descendants of some of the Loyalists who 
 had, in 1776, heen forced out of Boston through 
 the illiberal policy of my great-grandfather and his 
 associates. * * * My friends in Halifax said 
 that the apology had come a little late, but that 
 they were prepared to accept it. * * * 
 
 *^Text books are now being prepared which will 
 present a juster account of the events of 1775-1783, 
 1812-1815 and 1861-1865.''— A Declaration of Interde- 
 pendence, Library of War Literature, N. Y. 
 July 4, 1919, the London Times, owned by Lord 
 Northcliffe, who directed the British propaganda In 
 the United States during the war, published an 
 "American Issue," which was sent to every »»ditor 
 in this country, carryi?ig, as a prominent feature, a 
 series of articles urging an "efficient propaganda' to 
 be "carried out by those trained in the arts of creat- 
 ing good will and of swaying public opinion toward 
 a definite purpose." Among the methods sugg:!sted 
 for our country were these: 
 
 'To mobilize the press, the church, the stage and 
 the cinema; press into active service the whole 
 educational systems, and root the spirit of good 
 will in the homes, the universities, public and high 
 schools and primary schools. It should also pro- 
 vide for subsidizing the best men to write hooks 
 and articles on special subjects, to be published 
 in cheap editions or distributed free. 
 
 **New books should be added, particularly in the 
 primary schools. Histories and text books should 
 be revised — the end in view being that the public 
 (in the United States) may subconsciously absorb 
 the fundamentals of a complete mutual under- 
 standing." 
 
 July 4, 1919, in this same "American Issue" of the 
 London Times, another notorious American &nob, 
 Owen Wister, in a signed article, said: 
 
 ''A movement to correct the school books of the 
 
 United States has been started. It will go on." 
 
 47 
 
IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 State Headquarters 
 
 424 South Broadv^ay 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Telephone, 19103 
 
 A GAINST the insidious wiles of foreign in- 
 "^ f luence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow 
 citizens, the jealousy of a free people ought 
 to be constantly awake ; since history and 
 e?q>erience prove that foreign influence is 
 one of the most baneful foes of republican 
 government. 
 
 —WASHINGTON'S Farewell Address 
 
 WIS 3 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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