Freethought on the American Frontieredited by Fred Whitehead and Verle Muhrer Book review by Wm. B. Lindley
This is not a book to read straight through. It is a book to sample, to browse, to put down and pick up again. It is a potpourri of freethought gems. I had thought it might be a history, with wax and wane, development, and all that. It isn't. A 22-page introduction does the history, and then the editors dip into the literature, much of it long forgotten, that was created right there, on the American frontier. Samples: Red Jacket, Seneca chief and orator, replying to a Christian missionary ca. 1820; Robert Owen's 1826 Declaration of Mental Independence, 50 years after the original D of E and 50 years before Ingersoll's Centennial Oration; frontier humor (you can forget about reverence); late 19th-century poetry. (Let's face it: most of it is doggerel, but the sentiments are fine - not noble, but very dear to the heart. An exception is the item by Walt Whitman on p. 5; it is magnificent by any standard.) There is a chapter on William Cowper Brann (1855-1898), a Texan with no tolerance for hypocrisy. He knew how to use words that wound, and took on the Baptists in, of all places, Waco. He was murdered for his pains, as one might expect. The story of the St. Louis Movement of German freethinkers is told. Freethought in mid-America helped Missouri remain in the Union during the Civil War. It survives today in the Rationalist Society and their publication Secular Subjects. Truth Seeker figures twice in this book. First, several of the cartoons of Watson Heston that first appeared in Truth Seeker in the 1880's and '90's are republished. (A brief biography of Heston appears, and leads me to wonder if history doesn't repeat itself - again and again.) Secondly, some 1890's letters to our magazine appear. One of them puts cleanliness aheadof godliness. All in all, it is a browser's delight. Some of the big names : Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Sinclair Lewis, Haldeman-Julius, Clarence Darrow. There are many more, well-known and obscure. Get your copy now. Prometheus Books, ©1991, hardback, 314 pages, $25.00 postpaid. (Order directly from author: Dr. Fred Whitehead, Box 5224, Kansas City, Kansas 66119.)
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