"Keep the Bowels open, at all hazards" and more advice on fighting the Spanish-American War in 1898

Unlike most Americans in 1898, forty-three year old zoologist, author, taxidermist, conservationist, and hunter, William T. Hornaday had spent considerable time in the tropics "collecting" wildlife specimens for Henry A. Ward's Natural History Establishment in Rochester, New York. Ward sold the skins, bones, and sundry other materials collected by Hornaday and dozens of other young men to the nation's growing number of natural history museums. Honraday traveled and hunted extensively in Florida, Cuba, several smaller Caribbean islands, Venezuela, India, Malaysia, and Borneo between 1874 and 1879. Two Years in  the Jungle, a memoir of his experiences in Asia, was published in 1886. 

Like a patriotic American who believed his country was doing the correct thing in declaring war on Spain, Hornaday offered advice for better living in tropical conditions based on his own experiences. In one regard, though, he was either sugarcoating his own memory or being downright disingenuous in stating that his most debilitating experience had been "slight attacks of jungle fever" in India. In fact, as his letters from the times show, he suffered several crippling attacks. In one such instance, he survived thanks to the ministrations of a good samaritan. He offered his advice for the Cuba campaign in the pages of the New York Sun newspaper on May 22, 1898 (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1898-05-22/ed-1/seq-4/).

Here are his suggestions: 

1. Sleep in a hammock. "This is for the  very simple reason that the malarious exhalations from the earth,  from the stagnant water and decaying vegetation, are densest and most dangerous at the surface of the ground." Hammocks had the added advantage of being handy for other purposes (i.e. carrying wounded), light, and easy to carry. 

2. Use a mosquito shirt. By this he meant more of what we might think of as a screen that would create a tent over the hammock to keep mosquitos out during sleep.  

3. Don't drink any water without boiling it first. 

4. Wear a ventilated hat that has little or no direct contact with the head, such as a pith or cork helmet. He particularly warned against the wearing of felt or straw hats because they were too warm and invited heatstroke. One can see in images of the famous Rough Riders and other units that this advice was ignored. 

5. Never rest or sleep in wet clothes. Therefore, always have a dry outfit wrapped in the rubber blanket in your pack to protect against dampness.  He doesn't mention much else about clothing, i.e. no comments about wearing heavy wool uniforms during summer in a tropical environment. Nor does he state outright that a rubber blanket is a necessity.

6. Be temperate in habits. Don't eat too much meat. Don't eat any unripe fruits. Drinking alcohol sparingly.  This is pretty standard thinking among the American middle class of the day. Bananas are the one food he recommended as being nutritious and tasty. I'm sure he didn't foresee the gross cans of meat that made soldiers violently ill.  

7. You got it, keep the bowels open. And he recommended some sort of flannel bandage around the midsection for diarrhea. Sounds kinda like a diaper.

8. Lastly, don't overdo the quinine. His experience is that it was an effectiveness wore off with use. So, save it for when you really need it.

Michelle Nijhuis, Beloved Beasts

Instead of a more traditional review of Beloved Beasts, I am going to provide my three biggest takeaways from this book. I come to Beloved Beasts as an environmental historian. Although familiar with the full range of the subject, most of my research and expertise (such as it is) is in the first part of the book, the years prior to World War II, especially the conservation movement of the Progressive Era. Before proceeding, I do want to clarify that Beloved Beasts is not a book written for specialists in the field. It is indeed an excellent introduction for anyone who is deeply concerned about the status of wildlife in the world today and wants to know how we got here and what has been done to protect animals over the prior century. In addition to historical research, Michelle Nijhuis includes some of her own original reporting and experiences. This gives the book a very personal feel. 

First takeaway is that between 2002 and 2019 1800 people “were murdered in the course of defending land, water, plants, and animals from poaching and other human insults (p. 7).” That is a staggering number, of course. As a specialist in the conservation movement of the Progressive Era, Guy Bradley’s name and story is very familiar to me. Bradley was an agent hired by the National Association of Audubon Societies to protect herons and egrets in the Everglades because Florida did not enforce laws against hunting. He was murdered in 1905 by poachers and became a martyr to the cause of wildlife protection. His death clearly demonstrated the inherent violence of market hunters who slaughtered wildlife for the plumage trade. Every conservationist of the day knew his name and story. It saddens me that there is no such recognition for the 1800 people who were killed since 2002. 

 

Second takeaway is that over 18,000 new species are classified every year. For whatever reason, it amazes me that we are discovering so many new species every year. Yet, with deforestation, especially rainforests, and destruction to other ecosystems, we are killing even more off without even identifying them. Again, like Bradley, it’s a matter of recognition. Everyone in the early twentieth century could name the recently extinct species: auk, Carolina parakeets, dodo, passenger pigeon, etc. They became a rallying cry, like “Remember the Maine” that activists used to remind the public of what extinction meant. It helped that they were somewhat charismatic wildlife, compared to smaller snails, frogs, insects, and other less charming species that make up the bulk of more recent extinct species. Even so, we cannot memorialize them if we did not know they ever existed. I know that this is a very human-centric perspective, but it not knowing shrouds the impact of our actions and limits our capacity to convince others who do not see this these invisible extinctions as an ecological or even moral problem.  

 

Third takeaway is that mistakes were made. This is not a story of a logical unfolding of a single, unified movement. Bad things were done for what seemed like good reasons, good outcomes emerged from poor reasons, there were numerous policy reversals, experts and scientists fought amongst themselves, and other inconsistences. What seemed right in 1910 was not true in 1930, let alone in 2010. When Rosalie Edge, for example, confronted the Audubon Society in the 1930s, she was literally taking on the established consensus view of wildlife protection. Her effort to expand protection to hawks, eagles, and other predatory birds was less a simple policy change than a total paradigm shift. I was familiar with Edge, but Nijhuis intrigued me with the story of how Elinor Ostrom took on conventional wisdom, especially Garrett Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” thesis in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Not all “new” approaches are so new. Much as Guy Bradley was a former poacher hired to catch market hunters, a century later the same logic is being deployed to protect elephants and other targeted species in Africa. In Namibia former poachers are hired to protect rhinoceroses and other endangered species. While this is producing some tangible results, the necessary relationship and trust building is very time consuming when there is so little to spare.

The Revolutions of 1848

 I have long wanted to read about the revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848. As an undergrad at St. John’s University, I took a nineteenth century European history course with the great Frank Coppa. Coppa was an expert on Italian unification and the papacy. He certainly knew his stuff. But as this topic hovered on the periphery of my reading intentions, it kept getting knocked farther away by more pressing topics and projects. Finally, in 2021 I got my hands on Mike Rapport’s 1848: Year of the Revolution. Rapport examines each of the affected countries, capturing their similarities and variations, and tying them together for the continental perspective. Not all of Europe was affected. The revolutions bypassed Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula. The only thing that has come as close to such a continental-wide revolution was the collapse of communism in 1989. 

Three big takeaways stand out for me as an historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. First, the revolutions were not solely political affairs of democrats and liberals challenging the ancient regimes. Of course, there was plenty of that, but the liberal elements were too deeply fractured in their approaches to constitutions, voting, nationalism, the role of the monarchy, the structure of society, etc. Radical urban workers, middle class liberals, reactionary aristocrats, and conservative peasants battled one another in this tumultuous year. Their divisive outlooks, suspicions, understandings, and proposed solutions sprung from the enormous social and economic changes upheavals that shook Europe. Enter the social question. Industrialization, urbanization, migration, factories replacing crafts, the deskilling of labor, class conflicts, radicalism -- all the things associated with Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the United States – played a significant role in both making 1848 happen, while, at the same time, undermining its chance of success. 

 

Second, as Rapport argues, 1848 shaped Europe and this did not change until the end of World War I. The Europe of 1914 with its long-simmering problems can trace its roots to 1848. Just to take one very important example, the question of nationalities and self-determination grows out of the conflicts of 1848. The year of revolution was the seedbed of German, Italian, and Romanian unification drives that achieved their goals in the following decades. Although less successful in other areas, 1848 nonetheless opened the nationality question among Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slavs, and some others, challenging the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. I think I better understand the Europe of 1914 thanks to this book.  

 

Finally, in addition to the internal divisions, a concerted and powerful conservative counterattack doomed the political revolutions. While 1848 produced some constitutional changes, reactionary monarchs squashed others, crushed insurrections, and reneged on promises of greater reform that they had made at the height of the revolution. Ultra conservative Franz Josef replaced the more wishy-washy and fearful Ferdinand II on the Hapsburg throne and asked Tsar Nicholas I to help defeat the Hungarian independence movement. After making some concessions to revolutionary movements, Prussian King William IV adopted a hardline approach. In France, where the revolutions started, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor’s nephew, rose to power. He mixed a conservative authoritarianism with a populist social and economic message.  Although this book was published in 2008 the rise of the man who would later become Napoleon III seems a frightening precursor to more recent years (as well as the 1930s).  

Herbert Hoover

 This is a sympathetic biography of the thirty-first president of the United States. Although forever associated with the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover was a wildly successful businessman, humanitarian, and secretary of commerce in the decades prior to becoming president. His handling of relief operations in Belgium during World War I, Germany and Europe after the war, and in the United States during the great Mississippi River flood of 1927 all earned him the moniker “Master of Emergencies.”  In Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017) Kenneth Whyte wants to remind readers of this part of Hoover’s career, the one often eclipsed by his unsuccessful presidency. 

 

Whyte points out several ethical lapses in his subject that I found shocking. Hoover graduated at Stanford University because a professor wrote an essay on his behalf so he could pass the grammar competency. Hoover later lied about his age and degree to get a job. Hoover routinely played fast and loose with contracts, and often post-dated them. One of these transactions led to a lawsuit that dragged on for years, generating a controversy that reared its ugly head whenever his name came in public. Whyte does not fully engage in this aspect of his subject’s behavior but did not hide it either. In a similar vein, he does not shy away from Hoover’s quirky emotional character. He could be cold and distant. A serious workaholic, he spent very little time with his children or his wife. Like the other Quaker president from California, he could be paranoid, especially when stressed, spun conspiracy theories about his supposed enemies, and always thought the press was out to destroy him whenever it did not praise him. Yet, he did not like to be alone and needed to have dinner guests, even if he did not always engage them. He could be petty, prone to feel insulted, downright rude and dismissive, even though it does not seem that he intended to be so. To his credit Whyte does not attempt any armchair psychologizing. 

 

After making a fortune in mining and business management, Hoover wanted to serve the public. His career change coincided with the start of the First World War in 1914.  With such successes at Belgian relief, as Food Administrator in the United States, and later as European food Czar, Hoover emerged from the war with a reputation for competency that no other human could match in 1919. Driven by a need for acceptance, if not praise, unimpressed with the politicians he met, he was bitten by the political bug. After all, as someone who always thought he was the most competent person in the room – as he frequently was – why wouldn’t he have thought he could do a better job? But Hoover proved a poor politician. His half-assed non-campaign for the 1920 Republican nomination was a total flop. Senator Warren Harding of Ohio who got thenomination and won the election with 60 percent of the popular vote wooed Hoover into accepting a cabinet post as secretary of commerce. Hoover wanted to be secretary of state and drove a hard bargain for the lesser position. 

 

With a very expansive view of his role and the full support of the president, the ambitious Hoover turned the Commerce Department into a buzzing hub of activity and the branch of the federal government synonymous with progress. He trod on the toes of the State Department in negotiating agreements with foreign governments to expand American business. More importantly and less dramatically, Secretary Hoover led a massive and consequential campaign of standardization across the economy. There really needs to be more on this. Everything from screw threads to the size of a brick was prescribed. Hoover worked well with Harding and had a close relationship with the president. In 1923 he was with Harding when he died on his western tour.   

 

Harding is routinely ranked among the worst American presidents for the corruption of his administration, with Tea Pot Dome being the worst example prior to Watergate. It was interesting to read that Hoover was absolutely convinced that he would be dragged into the scandal, even though he had nothing to do with it. Hoover survived the tempest unscathed. The new president, Calvin Coolidge, and Hoover did not get along.  Whyte paints an unfavorable view of “Silent Cal,” depicting him as an unpleasant, mean-spirited man who flew into bitter rages. Over the next two election cycles, Hoover and Coolidge engaged in a tense dance over the Republican nomination. Hoover did not want to openly challenge a standing president as Coolidge masked his own intentions, to former’s great discomfort. When Coolidge announced he would not run in 1928, Hoover immediately sought the nomination and secured it with little challenge. Defeating the Democratic candidate Al Smith with 58% of the popular vote, Hoover entered the White House with a popular mandate and booming economy.

 

Per Whyte, Hoover was one of those people long concerned about speculation fueling the Wall Street bubble. With the farm sector particularly hurting, the new president called a special session of the congress to pass farm relief and revise the tariff. Although the special session passed a farm relief bill, it failed at the more complicated business of tariff reform. Hoover didn’t demonstrate the leadership required to revise the tariff and the special session adjourned without passing a measure. The following year, Congress produced the (infamous) Smoot-Hawley Tariff, lifting rates to their highest point in the history of the United States. It was not the particular outcome that Hoover sought, but he obtained the ability for the president to adjust rates.  

 

The tariff could be the third rail in presidential politics, and Hoover was not the first to be burned. It made me think of Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft, two other presidents who failed at tariff reform; Theodore Roosevelt who was smart enough to never engage the issue but threatened to do so to keep the various Republican factions in line; and the spectacular success Woodrow Wilson had in the most thoroughgoing tariff reform of 1913. 

 

Much of the section on the presidency, of course, focuses on the thirty-first president’s handling of the social-economic crisis known as the Great Depression. The idea that Hoover did nothing during the depression has long been discarded. As Whyte shows, workaholic Hoover put in very long days, met with numerous people, read many books and other items, and was very engaged in creating policy. What was lacking, however, was some sort of common touch. Although Whyte does not mention this point, the perception of what the president was changed in the minds of Americans in the early twentieth century. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson understood this, but William Howard Taft who occupied the White House between them did (see Peri Arnold, Remaking the Presidency). Similarly, Hoover did not realize that Americans wanted sympathy and empathy from their president, not just competency. This is something Franklin D. Roosevelt (and later Ronald Reagan) fully grasped. 

 

As we all know the stock market crash in October precipitated the depression. Hoover responded by meeting business leaders and convincing them to not lay off workers. Within a couple of months, the situation stabilized and appeared to many, including the man in the White House, that the worst had passed. This was a cycle that would replay itself several times. Every time Hoover thought he had a handle on it something outside of his control triggered another downturn. Thus, Whyte’s account sounds as if Hoover was quite successful until the French screwed up the international payments by insisting on not cancelling reparations, Great Britain went off the gold standard, and the congressional Democrats messed up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation by requiring public disclosure of who received the money, each setting off another downward spiral. The Democrats receive harsh criticism in this account. They are portrayed as being more interested in prolonging the depression for political purposes than in solving it. Most of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) famous “hundred days” is categorized as being essentially stolen from Hoover. Since Hoover, according to Whyte, was very concerned about the Nazis and wanted to save Europe from the twin threats of fascism and communism, it is implied that by abandoning his predecessor’s international economic policies, FDR directly contributed to the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II. In The Challenge to Liberty (1934), Hoover basically lumps the New Deal in with both communism and fascism. It’s not explained how the New Deal could have largely been pirated from Hoover when he equated these measures to the very worst authoritarian regimes.

 

Whyte covers the rest of Hoover’s long life, but I wish there would have been a full chapter on Hoover’s memoirs and their creation.  Whyte consults the papers at the Hoover presidential library at West Branch, Iowa. The letters from his wife Lou Henry Hoover to their children Allan and Herbert Junior provide an intimate view into their family life. 

 

 

Emmanuel Krieke, Scorched Earth

 I was impressed by this book. It is an important contribution to the growing scholarship at the intersection of military and environmental history. With such global warming induced security risks as flooding, ecologically forced migration, conflicts over fresh water, heat, deterioration of the arctic, etc., this is a most relevant field of inquiry. 

As historian Emmanuel Krieke demonstrates through a series of case studies ranging across several continents during the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries total war and its environmental consequences existed long before the twentieth century. As an alternative to total war, Scorched Earth offers the new concept of environcide, or deliberate warfare waged against both nature and humans primarily by targeted the environmental infrastructure of the enemy. An attack on one multiplied the damaging effects on both. For example, intentionally opening dikes in the Netherlands to flood fields damaged the farmland and displaced the human population dependent on that land. Seeking food and shelter, these hungry, sick, and weak refugees further strained the resources of the towns and cities they travelled through and to, leading to more environcide. Environcide created both immediate, devastating shocks to both nature and human society, as well as long-term consequences that lasted for generations or longer.  

 

One finding that some might find shocking is that this form of warfare was common from the 1600s to the twentieth century on all continents and societies and was not the exclusive domain of European settler societies.  Indigenous groups used against one another and the European invaders. Moreover, Europeans utilized environcide against each other, even during civil wars, as much as they did against peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.  

 

Another point he makes is that there is an element of human agency in the spread of disease. Smallpox, for example, did not kill so many millions of indigenous Americans solely because it entered a virgin environment. Instead, he contends, germs found susceptible hosts made more vulnerable to death from the hunger, violence, forced migration, and physical and emotional trauma caused by environcidal warfare and the destruction of environmental infrastructure.  

Recent read: Armed Progressive by Jack C. Lane

I have three takeaways from this very solid account of General Leonard Wood, a man who was fairly well known in his own time but who is largely forgotten a century later. 

First, his forceful personality, arrogance, charisma, and ruthless ambition led to not only his greatest triumphs, but also his most significant disappointments. Wood was blatantly partisan, shamelessly self-promoting, and leaned heavily on his political network. He owed much, for example, to his friend Theodore Roosevelt (Wood commanded the famous Rough Rider regiment). He climbed to the top of the hierarchy as chief of staff of the Army without having attended West Point. His relentless criticism of Woodrow Wilson and his administration's military policies cost Wood not only a combat command in World War I but led him to being banished to training assignments far from the spotlight. 

Second, Wood was an able administrator. He demonstrated competency in his various military governorships, as well as army assignments. As chief of staff he initiated many long overdue, modernizing reforms, but his autocratic and divisive personality polarized the army. In the parlance of the twenty-first century, he had "sharp elbows" - in other words, he was skilled at internecine bureaucratic in-fighting. He was not a consensus-builder.

Third, I was a little surprised how strongly he desired the presidency. It was on his mind for at least a dozen years before he jumped into the Republican race for the nomination in 1920. I always assumed that he was really a stand-in for Theodore Roosevelt, who died in 1919. But it is possible that Roosevelt would have supported Wood, without entering the race himself. His campaign echoed Roosevelt's strenuous life, focused  on law and order during the Red Scare, and pointed out the Wilson administration ignored his Wood's  proposals and made numerous mistakes in doing so. Yet, public opinion changed in early 1920 and those themes lost their resonance as the convention approached.