Land of the Underground Rain: Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1910-1970 by Donald E.GreenReview by: Lawrence B. LeeThe American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 1280-1281Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869742 .

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1280 Reviews of Books

aginative in the entire bossism literature. It serves particularly well that old-fashioned but still valuable function of history to educate decision makers. It explicates constructive prin- ciples that novices can understand and may test both vicariously and in practice. (In contrast, the ethnocultural literature tells them little more than to watch out for "trivial" issues that are highly charged.) The major limitation of these principles is that they are drawn wholly from Hague's policy agenda. In at least one perspective, drawn from a larger concern with urban dynamics, the transition from the Hague to the Kenney machine was trivial. The interest- ing phenomena in Jersey City was its inability to influence the regional redistribution of population, income, and amenities despite enormous stability in its political leadership. Hague had a generalized and overt commit- ment to active, "progressive" government, and he was capable of sustaining coordinated poli- cies over long periods of time in a manner rare in the United States. Yet he could not prevent- indeed he could hardly seriously address-the shabbiness that became Jersey City. I would be happier to pass on Connor's principles to my students if he had more fully explicated the constraints Hague accepted, the battles he did not fight and the powers he respected.

SEYMOUR J. MANDELBAUM

University of Pennsylvania

CLARKE A. CHAMBERS. Paul U. Kellogg and the Survey: Voices for Social Welfare and Social Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1971. Pp. xii, 283. $10.00.

Clarke Chambers, author of Seedtime of Reform and director of the Social Welfare History Cen- ter at the University of Minneso;ta, has put his expertise to good use in this intellectual profile of the Survey and its editor Paul U. Kellogg. Although Kellogg began his career when he joined Charities Review in 1go1, it was as editor in chief from 1912 to 1952 of the successor journal, the Survey, that he made his major contribution to social reform. Between his work for the two magazines, Kellogg coordinated the famous Pittsburgh Survey of 1908, the first im- portant effort to analyze in depth the entire life of a single community by team research. From the Pittsburgh experience, Kellogg's

magazine took its name in 1gog at a time when the social-welfare movement was turning from charity to social action. After 1923 Survey was published in two autonomous, though allied, magazines-Survey Graphic, to educate the general public, and Survey Midmonthly, to keep the new profession of social workers abreast of their field.

Although Kellogg was disillusioned in his hopes of a thoroughgoing reconstruction of American society after World War I, the Sur- vey magazines achieved their greatest influence and sustained circulation-30,ooo for the Graphic-from the 9g2os through the early New Deal years. Still, it was never easy going. Con- tributions from friends and foundations plus the practical skills of Paul's brother Arthur, who served as managing editor until his death in 1934, were necessary to keep the magazines alive. In general, Survey maintained a nonpartisan political stance, and Kellogg's initial support of the New Deal was modified by his disappoint- ment over its failure to adopt a more com- prehensive Social Security program. From 1935 to the end of the decade the magazines became more lively and independent, but divisions among the staff in regard to the approaching war and Kellogg's own increasingly heavy work load took their toll. After World War II finan- cial problems proved insurmountable. In May 1952, six years before Kellogg's death, and over his stubborn protests, Survey published its last issue.

As Chambers points out, Survey's dual role, combining professionalism and popular reform, was being assumed by the technical journals and magazines of opinion. Survey thus became old-fashioned and out of touch with the post- war generation. By making full use of the ex- tensive papers deposited at the University of Minnesota, Chambers succeeds in bringing to life both the Survey and its long-time editor.

ARTHUR A. EKIRCH, JR.

State University of New York, A lbany

DONALD E. GREEN. Land of the Underground Rain: Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, I9I0-I970. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1973. Pp. xvii, 295. $9-50.

Although specialized studies of particular land

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United States i28i

company projects in the Texas panhandle re- gion have appeared before, this volume is the first generalized treatment of the ground-water irrigation epoch in Texas high plains agricul- ture. It is an excellent study in every respect and brings to national attention the environ- mental preconditions and technological and en- trepreneurial advances that started an agricul- tural boom in this most unpromising of geo- graphical regions. At the turn of the century notice was taken of the deep-lying aquiferous stratum of Ogallala sand and gravel, varying from two to three hundred feet in -thickness, underlying this region. Technological break- throughs wedded the centrifugal pump and the internal combustion engine, using cheap oil, with sophisticated well-drilling techniques to bring up the precious'fluid.

The first boom lasting from 1910 to 1917 was a land promoters' venture that demonstrated the efficacy of the pump in creating the new ground-water irrigation frontier. New condi- tions prevailed during the depression years when the combination of drought and low prices forced these high plains farmers to ac- cept the- new improved pumping technology in order to survive. Ingenious arrangements to pool' credit, the introduction of more efficient and clheaper pumps, more powerful gasoline engines, along with experimentation with cot- ton, grain sorghums, winter wheat, and alfalfa, brought ground-water irrigation agriculture to a take-off point before World War II.

This scholarly depiction of the boom docu- ments every aspect of unparalleled growth that kept farm youth on the land, augmented land values by gigantic strides, and introduced capital-intensive agriculture. The author is at his objective best in his somber portrayal of the decline of this form of agriculture occa- sioned by a rapidly falling water table. Ap- parently high-plains Texans are not unlike most Texans who, according to Justice William 0. Douglas, adopt conservation measures that are too little and too late. Donald Green con- cludes that experience under the so-called water conservation statute of 1949 demonstrates that these farmers would rather continue to deplete their nonrenewable underground reservoir at today's scale of pumping than impair their vested rights in capital plant and water rights. All this absorbing monograph requires to make

the story complete is comparative data describ- ing other examples of ground-water irrigation in the nation.

LAWRENCE B. LEE

California State University, San Jose

E. CLIFFORD NELSON. Lutheranism in North America, 1914-1970. Foreword by KENT S. KNUT-

SON. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. 1972. Pp. xvi, 315. $7.50.

Reading this book is like eating lunch at a Howard Johnson's. Certain kinds of historians' appetites are satisfied while others are left want- ing. If one is looking for surveys, outlines, and charts to assist him in understanding the denom- inational differences, structures, and programs within Lutheranism, then this book will help. More particularly, if one wants to understand the broad outlines of the success and failure of the efforts of Lutheran denominations to unify themselves, then this work, written by a Luth- eran professor of religion at St. Olaf's College, a committed ecumenicist, will be gratifying. In clear and lucid writing, Professor Nelson has described the "painful" and "agonizing" ef- forts of Lutheran denominations to iron out their differences in fellowship rather than demanding concensus prior to such union (p. i67ff).

From a methodological and conceptual stand- point, however, this work is more of the same standard fare that has dominated American denominational histories. With one notable ex- ception this work is an extension of the Wil- liam W. Sweet "school" of American religious history: Lutheranism is described in terms of its leadership; awkward theological controversies are mentioned but not examined or explained; and the interplay of social, economic, political, and cultural forces that affected American Lutheranism are broached but left undeveloped. For example, one continuing theme of Ameri- can Lutheranism, according to the author, is the assimilation and "Americanization" of Lutheran immigrant denominations. The au- thor claims, however, that Lutherans were gen- erally opposed to the "culture-religion" of mid- dle America (p. 167f). Employing H. Richard Niebuhr's phrase, it would appear that many Lutherans endorsed a "Christ against culture"

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