Go West, Young Man
lie California Trail. By George R. Stewart.
(Four Square, 5s.) An Overland Journey. By Horace Greeley. (Mac- donald, 35s.)
THE frontier in America is the chief source of uniquely American myth, a source which is itself
largely unexplored territory. So George R. Stewart's new book is a welcome addition to libraries of western fact. He uses as background material many of the diaries of people who first explored the great 'California Trail' as well as travellers along it during the first eighteen years of its life. Perhaps more than any other route, the California Trail made possible the conti- nental unit which is today a nation.
His book coneerns itself partially with the trail and partially with the personalities asso- ciated with it, the men who blazed the first Pathway through the forests, the Great Salt Desert, and eventually across the Rockies. There are tales of Kit Carson, General John C. Fremont, Joseph Chiles—the pathfinders. And [here is mention of the Donner Party which, after murder and manslaughter along the trail, Was forced to stop by snow in the high Sierras. Out of eighty-seven in the group, less than half survived the winter; and many owed their sur- vival to feasting on the joints of companions, relatives who had died. Donner, Chiles, Carson, Fremont, Stevens, Applegate, Brigham: these names from Stewart's book still exist as names of streets, mountains, rivers, towns, and as part of the American myth.
If Stewart scarcely mentions Brigham Young, The Twenty-Seventh Wife, by Irving Wallace, More than makes up the deficiency. These 400 Pages are half biography of Ann Eliza Webb, the prophet's last concubine, and half history Of the 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.' The book attempts to put a fair case both for the Mormons and for Ann Eliza and suc- ceeds well. Horace Greeley may first have said, 'Go west, young man.' In 1859 he took his own advice and journeyed to San Francisco along the California Trail. His thirty-three dispatches to the New York Tribune which form this book are crammed with his idiosyncrasies: helpful hints nn conservation, a catalogue of crops and vege- tation along the way and predictions on the future a the west. These predictions usually hit the Mark fairly :, he prophesied the American 'Dust Row!' of the Thirties; but occasionally he mis- e,alls a shot : his forecast concerning San 1:rancisco's future development was conservative
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