there are should not hide their lights under bushels or refrain from giving the public history that is at once colorful and sound. The Church Founders of the Northwest: Loras and Cr'étin and OtherCaptains of Christ. By M. M. Hoffmann. (Milwaukee : Bruce Publishing Co., 1937. xv + 387 pp. Illustrations. $3.00.) The Northwest, as instanced in this book, means the region between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, north of the state of Missouri. "The Church" refers to the Roman Catholic beginnings. These explanations locate the narrative as the first years of Catholicism in Iowa and Minnesota, where Loras and Cretin were respectively first bishops of Dubuque and of St. Paul. Some times the material involves the regions adjacent, particularly Galena, Illinois, Prairie du Chien and other southwest locations in Wisconsin; and some notice of the Catholic beginnings in the Dakotas.The facts that strike the reader of this carefully wrought narrative are that the founders were French in birth and training; both Loras and Cretin came from Lyons or its vicinity, one from a wealthy merchant family, the other from the bourgeois. Secondly, the support of their missions came almost wholly from Europe, from missionary societies in France, Austria, and Germany. In the third place, their parishioners were either the French-Canadian half-breeds, natives of the region ; or recently arrived immigrants from Europe. For these latter the bishops attempted, somewhat inadequately, to supply priests of their own nationality German or Irish. The beginnings were difficult; when Bishop Loras arrived in 1839 at Dubuque, there was but a single church in the whole diocese and but three or four priests. One of these was Father Galtier, who was to name the city of St. Paul, and to shepherd the flock of St. Gabriel's, Prairie du Chien, until his death in 1864.Indian mission work was also included in the diocesan activitiesthe missions of Mazzuchelli for the Winnebago in Wisconsin and Iowa, of Vivaldi for the same tribe in Minnesota, of Ravoux among the Sioux. The accomplishment of these pioneer priests is remarkable.Well-known names appear in the story -Joseph (not Jean) Nicollet, the explorer ; Augustus C. Dodge and George Wallace Jones, United States senators from Iowa; Emilie Rolette Hooe, the Faribaults, Euphrasie Antaya Powers, Baraga, and Bonduel of the Wisconsin missions ; and last but not least, John Ireland, later the great prelate of the Northwest.The book is written for the most part from original sources in this
BOOK REVIEWS 259 velt. This was hardly, as some newspapers have rashly concluded, a scheme to kidnap the President. There seems no reason to doubt that Konoye, who desired peace with the United States, hoped that such a meeting might achieve a settlement which would enable him to withstand the extreme militarists in Tokyo. The meeting did not materialize, and Konoye gave place to Tojo.The net impression left by a reading of this volume is that Messrs. Roosevelt and Hull were interminably preaching high ideals to men in whose minds no such values existed. Hints of force, when dropped, were no more productive of good results. Mussolini, when about to stab France in the back, replied to such a hint that "it was 'of no concern to him' that the entry of Italy into the war would mean the redoubling of American efforts to help the allies." But if Messrs. Roosevelt and Hull could do little more than preach and utter occasional threats which were not taken seriously, the fault was not theirs. Their hands were tied by Congress and by public opinion. One can hardly accuse them of omitting any diplomatic measure which they were empowered to take.Volume IV of Documents on American Foreign Relations contains a comprehensive and well chosen selection of documents on practically all aspects of the foreign relations of the United States in the last half-year of peace (or non-belligerency) and the first half-year of war. The coming of war has necessitated certain changes in organization from earlier volumes, as well as the inclusion of a larger quantity of material.
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