Several months passed before Fink and his coauthor, E. P. Polushkin, completed the tests and filed the final report, but it was all that Bolton, Chickering, and Sproul could have hoped for. The report, published in the California Historical Society Quarterly, found that the brass was undoubtedly from Drake's time. The examination of the patina now showed that it accounted “for the good condition of the plate even after more than three centuries’ exposure (whole or partial) on the shore of the Pacific.”71 Fink and Polushkin also suggested that the many irregular indentations on the plate were made by Indians “who were afraid of a mysterious or hostile power…and tried to destroy the plate by striking its surface with their tomahawks; they were not familiar with the toughness of metals.” By this time the scientists had found microscopic evidence of corrosion products, though they did not say that these resulted from a reaction between silver and brass. Fink and Polushkin went far beyond confirming the antiquity of the brass material, writing “that the brass examined by us is the genuine Drake Plate referred to in the book, The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, published in 1628.” So the Columbia scientists—like Bolton—found that the plate vindicated Parson Fletcher. And like Bolton, they were willing to use negative evidence to support the plate's authenticity. For example, the patina that the printer's union staff had so easily wiped away with a kerosene-soaked cloth became an invincible armor against the salt air. While maintaining the language and stance of objective scientific inquiry, the Fink report gave unqualified support not only to the plate's antiquity but also to its documentary validity and authorship. Thus the historical conclusions of Fink and Polushkin extended far beyond the scientific evidence.
Captain Haselden, who had put his faith in scientific examination, was flabbergasted. He wrote to President Sproul. “I think it was in very bad taste for the gentlemen who examined the plate” to state that it was the “genuine Drake Plate,” Haselden wrote. To him the scientists seemed “very naive.” Haselden was not “going to let the matter rest,” he told Sproul, until he was satisfied that the plate was “genuine or a fraud.”. Sproul's response was not encouraging. “I wonder if your own attitude toward the matter is strictly scientific?” Sproul asked the captain. “It seems to me that you show signs of becoming a ‘crusader.’”72 Haselden had insisted on a scientific examination, and there had been one. The case was closed as far as Sproul was concerned.
Haselden was all the more disappointed that the editor of the Quarterly had decided not to publish his own essay containing “very vital evidence against the plate,” as he put it. “I refrain from speculating…on the reason for this,” he added.73 His Princeton friend Caley disagreed with the Fink and Polushkin findings, but he was philosophical. “I am very much afraid that the sponsors of the plate now have the weight of authority on their side and that it will be difficult if not impossible to cast any slurs of suspicion on the plate,” he informed Haselden.74
Caley proved to be correct. While some skeptics remained suspicious, the plate was proudly displayed in the Bancroft Library and generally accepted by the public. In 1977 renewed controversy about all things Drake in California reached fever pitch as the quadricentennial of the mariner's California landing approached. In 1977 the university conducted new tests, which revealed the plate had been made from modern brass. By then Bolton had been dead for nearly a quarter of a century, so he did not have to deal with the humiliating revelation that he had been duped.
One wonders why Bolton could have been taken in by what seems in hindsight such an obvious fake. In some ways the Clamper forgery was more convincing than its makers could have imagined. It looked ancient to the untrained eye. Once Bolton lent his authority to the forgery, others easily believed in it. There was another reason why Bolton, Chickering, Fink, and a host of others believed that the plate was a true artifact of Drake's voyage: they wanted to believe in it. For them, the plate was not just a metal document or a valuable antique. It was the holy grail—a venerable Anglo-American, Protestant religious relic.
As such, the Drake plate figured in a struggle for California's cultural high ground, and afforded Bolton a unique opportunity to ingratiate himself with a California elite that identified with the state's non-Hispanic pioneers. For decades, Bolton had publicized the Spanish and Catholic founders of the Golden State—Serra, Crespi, Garcés, Anza, and all the rest. He had emphasized the religious motives and humanitarian goals of the Franciscan missions. His books gave scholarly recognition and respectability to California's Spanish colonial roots and academic weight to the romantic myth of Spanish California that evolved in the early twentieth century. Drake's plate offered a powerful counterweight in this cultural and historical balance because it testified to an ancient English claim to California and spoke to Protestant religious primacy as well. Bolton made this point explicit when he revealed the plate to the California Historical Society and explained the Indians’ fascination with Parson Fletcher's religious services and Drake's fervent prayers. “As an evangelist,” Bolton said, “Father Serra himself could hardly have been more zealous than was Drake.”75 He also told his audience that Drake had looted and desecrated a Catholic Church in Guatulco on the Pacific coast of New Spain. Bolton was well aware of the spiritual significance of Drake's plate and the religious conflict that it symbolized.
Had Bolton forgotten about these sectarian matters, his correspondents would have reminded him. When Caldeira's story became public, one local fellow wrote to Bolton that the story was “rather fishy.” He thought that “certain ones” desired that “the Jesuits…supplant Sir Francis Drake in the great honor” of discovering San Francisco Bay. “Make your name famous,” the correspondent went on, “by words and writings that will not perish with time. The higher patriotic thots [sic] bring one to the hearts of mankind.”76 Evidently, patriotic thoughts were highest when they praised England's heroes over Spain's. A more subdued letter came from a member of the Mill Valley Episcopal Church. He wanted Bolton to confirm that Drake's divine services were the first Protestant services held in the New World, or at least on the Pacific Coast. What historical significance did Bolton attach to these divine services, he asked?77 Bolton's vindication of Parson Fletcher gave additional heft to the conviction that Protestant England had just as good a spiritual claim to California as Catholic Spain—and perhaps better.
Bolton's announcement of the discovery of the plate inspired a San Francisco paper to publish a poem the next day. Bolton kept a typescript of this poem, which praised Drake:
Here for the Queen her courtier courted death Gambled warm life for England's deathless fame Signed, “Francis Drake,” and from the golden page We take his message, and our heritage!78
Bolton understood this verse quite literally, as one of his letters to a Canadian woman revealed. She wanted him to give the plate to George VI, whom she regarded as the plate's rightful owner. Though Bolton was not willing to relinquish the plate, he assured her that he had only the most friendly feelings toward Canada and “Mother England,” as he put it. “You will be able to understand my sentiments regarding this matter when I tell you that my ancestors were nearly all English, that my father grew to early manhood in Leeds, and that I am of the first American-born generation in my family.”79 The golden page was his heritage.
After three decades of fighting on the Spanish Catholic side in California's culture wars, Bolton could strike a blow for his people, his hero, and his religious roots. At last Bolton could extol English heroes whose blood and beliefs he shared and whose exploits he saw reflected in the golden sheen of the plate of brass. In the case of the fake Drake plate, Bolton's promotion of a California hero clouded his critical sense. “Higher patriotic thots” may bring historians “to the hearts of mankind,” as Bolton's correspondent put it, but they led Bolton into error.
Critics of Bolton's part in the Drake plate affair should not lose sight of the fact that he was a victim of fraud, not a perpetrator. Bolton's mistakes were errors of enthusiasm and care
lessness, not willful falsification. Fink's unqualified declaration no doubt quashed any lingering doubts that Bolton may have had. His correspondence does not hint that he realized the plate was a fraud, so he cannot be held to account on the charge that he wittingly allowed a fake artifact to bamboozle the public. But the makers of the phony plate knew, and they kept quiet. Perhaps they were unwilling to expose the university, Bolton, and their state to ridicule. Maybe they feared criminal prosecution or a civil lawsuit. Surely Bolton should be criticized for his reckless endorsement of the plate; but the full blame for the Drake plate fraud rests squarely on the men who authored it. For decades the forgery illustrated schoolbooks, graced the rooms of the Bancroft Library, misled historians, and caused needless controversy about where Drake landed. All the while, guilty men kept their secrets. The perpetrators are all dead, but even now their perfidy prevents a full understanding of the many mysteries surrounding the Drake plate fraud.
T H I R T E E N · Western Revolt and Retirement
While Bolton fought to vindicate the Drake plate, the professional world of history stirred with new developments. J. Franklin Jameson, who should justly be regarded as one of Bolton's chief professional benefactors, died in 1937. Charles Haskins, Bolton's favorite teacher at Wisconsin, also passed away that year. But the deaths of the last of the Old Guard were not the most salient changes shaking the professional foundations of history in the 1930s. The new generation of historians who replaced Jameson, Turner, and Haskins were making their presence felt, while professors from western institutions were bringing regional matters to the forefront of AHA politics. These demographic shifts influenced a general revolt against the administration of the AHA.
The generational and regional bases for the rebellion were linked. During the 1930s Bolton's fraternity brothers from Wisconsin in the 1890s became AHA presidents: Carl Becker (1931), Bolton (1932), and Guy Stanton Ford (1937). Bolton and Ford, who was dean of the Graduate School in the university of Minnesota, both served at western and midwestern institutions. AHA presidents Lawrence M. Larson of the university of Illinois, Frederic Logan Paxson at Berkeley, Max Farrand of the Huntington Library, and James Westfall Thompson, who taught at Berkeley, assumed the office in 1938, 1940, and 1941, respectively. (Larson died in 1938, so First Vice President Paxson served out his term that year.) From 1932 to 1941 there were six AHA presidents from midwestern and western institutions; seven if one counts Ephraim Adams who died as Second Vice President. From 1884 to 1931 there had been five presidents from these regions. The shift reflected the growing importance of western universities as well as the reputations of the men elected. Recognition of westerners seemed to indicate that the AHA was not a closed corporation that rewarded only professors from a few elite eastern institutions. However, westerners, including some who became AHA presidents, did not see things in this pleasing meritocratic light.
Even though Bolton was a colleague and friend of many of the 1930s rebels and presidents, he was not a key figure in the revolt. This was to be expected. Bolton always avoided overt political controversy. He was looking toward retirement and had already held the presidency, so why go looking for trouble? But Bolton's old friend Ford would spark the revolt, and two of Bolton's colleagues, Paxson and Thompson, would become involved. The Pacific Coast Branch would likewise become embroiled, and the fallout from the controversy would have lasting consequences for the AHA and the PCB.
There was a need for change in the AHA. In 1929 the association had undergone an awkward reorganization that had provided for a secretary and an executive secretary. Most of the important duties devolved on the executive secretary. To make matters worse, neither of these officials lived in Washington, D.C., the AHA headquarters. In effect, there were three AHA offices. Patty W. Washington, the longtime office secretary in Washington, handled many routine matters. The secretary, Dexter Perkins, was on the Cornell faculty, and the executive secretary, Conyers Read, taught at Rochester. Conyers and Read were Harvard men, a fact that made the AHA leadership seem a bit clubby. The fact that the AHA leadership occasionally met at the Harvard Club in New York City reinforced this notion. Members were often perplexed about whom to contact, so Perkins, Read, and Washington often redirected correspondence to one another. They worked well together, but the organization was quite opaque to outsiders who thought they were getting the run around.
In addition to the council, there was an Executive Committee of four plus the two secretaries. Only two councilmen were members of the regular council, but the executive group often made important decisions that shaped the debate of the council. The Executive Committee was meant to streamline operations of the AHA because the council was too large, dispersed, and unwieldy to act quickly. It was not intended to be a semisecret closet government, but it is easy to understand why some AHA members thought it was. Westerners, of course, were effectively closed out of the Executive Committee because they lived so far away. Thus geographical circumstances helped to reinforce the conviction of some westerners that the eastern establishment meant to close them out of influential AHA offices.1 Even historians who had strong eastern connections understood the situation in regional terms once they took positions in western universities.
In 1937 Guy Ford, having lived with the three-headed AHA beast as vice president and president, proposed a committee to consider reorganizing the AHA. Ford and President Paxson appointed a Committee of Ten, which was chaired by John D. Hicks, professor at the university of Wisconsin and Paxson's former graduate student. The Committee of Ten labored for about two years. During that time the PCB tried to use the committee to advance its own agenda. While early relations between the PCB and its parent organization were cordial, festering resentment had been building for several years. As far as westerners were concerned, Read and Perkins treated the PCB and its council representatives with cavalier indifference. A PCB representative was supposed to report to the AHA council; however, from 1931 to 1937 PCB delegates were not invited to attend the council meeting.2
During this period the AHA withdrew financial support for the PCB. until 1926 the AHA appropriated fifty to seventy-five dollars per year to defray costs of the PCB's annual meetings. From 1927 to 1933 the AHA provided four to five hundred dollars per year, an increase intended to help establish the new Pacific Historical Review, which began publishing in 1931. After 1933 the AHA council reduced the appropriation until the PCB received nothing in 1938.3 The removal of AHA support was a matter of deep concern to the PCB, which received no direct dues from AHA members. It did not help matters that the PCB leadership learned indirectly that the AHA planned to permanently end its annual subsidy. Some PCB members predicted that westerners would leave the AHA and form their own organization.4
PCB representative James Westfall Thompson attended the 1937 meeting in Philadelphia to present to the council the PCB's case for the restoration of funding. unfortunately, he was not informed that the meeting was to take place on the day before he arrived. Then Read accused the PCB of failing to send the required branch report. Thompson, who was about to be elected as second vice president of the AHA, was livid at what he regarded as high-handed treatment. When Read asked for the PCB report (which had been sent to Washington rather than to Read in Rochester), Thompson criticized the “imperfect articulation” of the various AHA offices.5 “Where is the [AHA headquarters] situated?—in Washington, Philadelphia or Rochester?” Thompson asked. “It seems as if Guy Ford was right,” he continued, “in contending that the administration of the AHA is a tangled skein of conflicting and concurrent jurisdictions, with unnecessary duplications and financial statements that will bear elucidation.” When Read complained that the PCB report was “not exactly a friendly gesture of filial affection,” Thompson retorted that the AHA treated the PCB “more like a step-child than as a legitimate offspring.”6 We should suspect that Thompson had a great deal to say about this to his colleagues Bolton and Paxson, who was the sitting AHA president.
The procession
of western AHA presidents from Cal in the 1930s were also PCB members. With a Berkeley historian presiding over the AHA, and the Committee of Ten hard at work, some westerners thought the moment had arrived for the PCB to assume a larger role in the national organization. Therefore, the PCB submitted a report to the Committee of Ten suggesting that the AHA stood to lose much of its western membership if the PCB separated from the AHA. The report pointed out (“threatened” might be a better word) that an independent PCB would become “a far western rival” of the AHA. But this sorry turn of events need not come to pass, the report said. Most PCB members preferred to remain with the AHA if a mutually satisfactory arrangement could be made. If the PCB was to be a part of the AHA, the branch should receive a share of its members’ AHA dues. The report also proposed reorganizing the AHA along regional lines with several new branches like the PCB.7 The stepchild now presented itself to the Committee of Ten as the very model for AHA reorganization. All that was required was for the AHA to hand over money, power, and respect. It did not happen.
Instead of accepting the PCB's proposals, the Committee of Ten initially recommended permanently discontinuing a PCB subvention, but ultimately agreed to a small sum to help pay for the branch meeting. Hicks and his committee relented because they recognized that many PCB members thought that the 1903 AHA resolutions establishing the PCB constituted a contract with the parent organization. Committee chairman Hicks argued that the PCB existed only because of the “unsolvable geographic problem of the distance to the Pacific Coast.” “We are opposed,” Hicks wrote for the committee, “to the formation of additional branches or the further subdivision of the Association into semi-autonomous groups of any sort or kind.”8 The PCB would remain a stepchild of the AHA.
Herbert Eugene Bolton_Historian of the American Borderlands Page 30
