Uncle Sam at the Cross Roads.

Item Details

North Montpelier, Vt., The Driftwood Press, 1938, 8vo, red stiff wrappers, title in black on front wrapper; stapled through centerfold

First and Only

DANIELS, R. Balfour. Uncle Sam at the Cross Roads. Not illustrated; 20 pp. 8vo, red stiff wrappers, title in black on front wrapper; stapled through centerfold. No. Montpelier,  Vt:: The Driftwood Press, 1938

OCLC shows two holdings (Yale and Princeton)

Robertson Balfour Daniels (1900-1987) was born in Princeton where his father was a Professor of Economics. He got his B.A. at Princeton and then went to Yale  for a law degree. Moving to New York he practiced law for a short time but returned to Yale Graduate School for his M.A. and PhD in English, after which he taught at the University of Tennessee, Edinburg Junior College and Kansas State Teachers College. Before joining the English faculty of the University of Houston in 1939.

After service in the Army Air Corps Daniels return to the University of Houston to a stellar career.

His great interest  was  onomastics—the study of the origins of Proper Names (i.e. Surnames and. Place Names) and he traveled widely to places with intriguing names or to visit others who shared his interest.

The present work attempts to identify the American character  as a single unit, giving Aspiration Impatience, and Adventurous Spirit as key commonly held attributes while doing this he questioned the pros and cons of private capital control as opposed to Federally imposed mandates, questioning in particular the use of Federal money to support education and any Federal aid to the impoverished or disabled. On the other hand he violently criticized the American timber industry in its deforestation and lack of planning for the future comparing it most unfavorably to the German method of planned cutting and replanting. He seems to mourn the lack of the “gentleman athletes” calling to mind the Master of Fox Hounds of Britain  and the British gentleman cricketer.  He does not mention the Olympic Games which at that point were only open to amateur sportsmen.

An essay that has a certain resonance in today’s world of conflicting approaches to Federal control, but written when the majority of the U.S. population had British/Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins . The Native American is dismissed from inclusion because he did nothing to benefit from the abundance of natural resources available to him! African Americans are simply ignored throughout.  He seems locked into the early nineteenth century and ignores the massive immigrations of the middle and late part of the century.