Exposure to Kantorowicz seemed to eliminate whatever reservations Bolton had about him. In the spring of 1940 Bolton attended the visiting professor's illustrated public lecture on Charles the Bold. Kantorowicz made a very good impression on Bolton and the rest of the history faculty who were present. He thought that Kantorowicz would “be a real scholarly asset to the university” and an effective graduate teacher. Therefore, he unequivocally added, “I recommend that he be made Professor of History on permanent appointment.”39 The permanent appointment did not come until after World War II had ended, but that was not Bolton's doing. If anti-Semitism was the reason for keeping Kantorowicz as a temporary instructor in the history department, the fault must be found elsewhere.
But Bolton did have reasons for being reluctant to hire Kantorowicz in 1939. He was keen on hiring his own students for the history department, which already had three of them in Priestley, Chapman, and Lawrence Kinnaird, an assistant professor. Kinnaird was very much a borderlands historian in the Bolton mold, having written a dissertation on Spanish Louisiana.40 He had begun his teaching career at Davis, which was then the university's agricultural college. For administrative purposes the small history program there was considered to be part of the Berkeley department. In 1937 Kinnaird transferred to the Berkeley faculty. He taught the Americas course, and thus Bolton regarded him as a key asset.
In August 1939 Bolton recommended Engel Sluiter, another of his doctoral students, for an instructorship to begin in September. Bolton raved about Sluiter, who had “a superior mind” and was “glowing with zeal for research and writing.” His special interest in Dutch colonial American history would expand the department's Americas offerings and allow an additional section of History 8.41 Yet Sluiter's fate was embedded in the shifting sands of other departmental hiring decisions. Foremost was the Ehrman professorship, which was still up in the air. The university search committee had decided to recommend an outsider, William E. Lunt, a historian of medieval England. Bolton did not concur, because Lunt's field was very similar to that of other Berkeley professors.42 Consequently Bolton continued to recommend Kerner for the position, which went unfilled for the time being.
Bolton recommended Priestley for the Sather professorship because his scholarly interests were so close to Bolton's. He also recommended Priestley to succeed him as the director of the Bancroft Library. Looking to the field of U.S. history, Bolton thought that someone senior should be added to supplement the work of Paxson in the post—Civil War period. Bolton thought that Avery Craven of the university of Chicago or Professor Hicks from Wisconsin would be suitable.43
In the spring Bolton revised his recommendations for new hires. Having changed his mind about who should get the Sather professorship, he now recommended longtime Berkeley professor William A. Morris instead of Priestley. Morris was a “sound scholar,” in English constitutional history—hardly a ringing endorsement for a named professorship. Bolton still recommended Priestley as director of the Bancroft Library. If Bolton seemed to vacillate in his guidance on appointments, it was due to his desire to redistribute the salary savings from his and Thompson's retirement so that new faculty could be hired and at least some old hands would be rewarded. Bolton wanted to parcel out “whatever honors and emoluments may be attached to my titles,” as he put it.44
Bolton's notions about heirship and entitlements extended to the possibility that the university might decide to bring in a distinguished scholar to carry on his own work. Predictably, he believed that the best men in the country were his students Arthur Aiton at the university of Michigan and J. Fred Rippy at the university of Chicago. The relations of the American people had “become matters of major concern…to our Government” and would become more important in the future. Now that Berkeley was established as the leading center for the study of the Americas, “it is a matter of wisdom to maintain that leadership,” he argued. “I cannot be too emphatic in presenting this aspect of the matter.”45
Bolton's logic was clear enough, but if a senior appointment would vouchsafe the reputation of the Americas program, why had he waited until the eleventh hour to tell Sproul? Why had he recommended the preferment of lesser-known, less accomplished, junior people (who in time did not prove to be major figures) instead of one nationally recognized historian? Bolton must have believed that there was strength in numbers. Four of his “boys” on the faculty would carry the Americas program forward. Consequently Bolton, like King Lear, divided his kingdom—his “honors and emoluments”—and with results that he did not foresee. It was a great mistake.
When the establishment of the new Morrison professorship was announced, Bolton continued to advocate for Hicks or Craven in U.S. history.46 Bolton's unwavering support for these two historians no doubt reflected Paxson's constant encouragement as well. By bringing in Hicks (who turned out to be the choice for the Morrison professorship), Paxson added an ally who was not only his student but a senior professor with national stature. The strength of Paxson and Hicks would balance the weight of Chapman, Priestley, and any number of junior professors. Perhaps Bolton hoped that the power of local patriotism would prove to be a decisive factor in the affairs of the Berkeley history department. Sidney Ehrman, other California patriots, the Native Sons, the California Historical Society, and perhaps even the Clampers would provide political and financial support for Bolton's vision of history while the young professors established their reputations. If this was his plan, he hoped in vain.
Sproul followed some of Bolton's recommendations but not others. Priestley became the director of the bancroft Library. Sluiter got his permanent appointment. Kinnaird was promoted. But the big prizes, the two professorships, did not go to Bolton's nominees. Kerner, rather than Morris, became the new Sather professor. The Ehrman professorship went to Raymond Sontag, an outsider specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European diplomacy. The university began to court Hicks, but he turned down the first offer and did not come until 1942. Perhaps that is why in 1941 the university hired a new instructor in U.S. history, Walton Bean, who had studied under Paxson. Thus Paxson began to establish his own stable of students alongside Bolton's. From the standpoint of financial rewards and university laurels, little of Bolton's estate went to his students. Almost all of the salary savings and titles went to men in other fields.47
Nevertheless, as Bolton approached retirement, his influence seemed to be well established in the university. In retirement Bolton would remain a fixture on the Berkeley campus. As a revered emeritus professor he would occupy a box seat from which to view the dismantling and dissolution of his empire.
F O U R T E E N · Defending the Empire
Like King Lear, Bolton imagined a retirement that would be as full of honor and accomplishment as his life had been when he undisputedly ruled his empire. He also expected his successors to administer his realm much as he would have done. His old friend and fellow Penn alumnus, Paxson, would head the department. Priestley would guide the Bancroft Library, while Chapman, Kinnaird, and Sluiter would carry on the Boltonian tradition of the Americas and borderlands history. Bolton believed that these men would defend the empire that he had built.
It all began well. In February 1940 Bolton learned that the University of Pennsylvania would confer an honorary doctorate on him at the spring commencement.1 This was the seventh such degree for Bolton.2 Additional honors came from near and far. The Native Sons of the Golden West feted him in April.3 The California Historical Society followed suit in May. Paxson explained his admiration for Bolton to the society: Some mountains seemed to shrink as the traveler approached them, “but Bolton grows into nobler proportion as one draws nearer to him.” Then, perhaps with unintended candor, Paxson added that Bolton's retirement would change the University of California because he would “have no successor.”4 This was meant as a graceful compliment to Bolton's life of unparalleled scholarly accomplishment, but Paxson's words suggested something else as well. Bolton's students on the Berkeley facul
ty, singly or as a group, could not replace the old man. They could only teach his courses.
In May the president of the Dominican Republic bestowed on Bolton the Heraldic Order of Cristobal Colon. “It is a signal honor to be associated in this way with the name and deeds of the great discoverer,” Bolton wrote when he acknowledged the award.5 Who would doubt that Bolton, who thought of himself as an explorer and discoverer, admired and identified with Columbus as much as he did with Anza, Kino, Coronado, and the rest of his Spanish frontiersmen?
The honors were satisfying memorials to a long and distinguished career, but they would not pay the bills. Bolton's university retirement paycheck would not match his university salary. Consequently he looked into public lecturing to fill the gap. He offered to lecture in Southern California for $100 per engagement. After paying his own expenses and giving the lecture bureau 20 percent of the fee, he would clear $50 or so. But Bolton had larger ideas in mind. He was thinking about lecturing to the general public “anywhere in the country,” for a “considerably larger fee.”6 Bolton had been lecturing for forty years. Why not capitalize on all of his experience on the platform? Despite its initial appeal, the itinerant lecturer's life proved less permanent and profitable than he had hoped.
Bolton did not plan on spending all of his time on the lecture circuit. Retirement finally gave him the opportunity to get back into the desert in search of his heroic explorers. He had two large projects on the drawing board, a study of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's exploits, and a book about the explorations of Fray Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante. In January and February he managed to trace Coronado's route through Mexico from Compostela to the U.S. border.7 The year 1940 marked the quadricentennial of Coronado's exploring expedition, and many observances and activities were being planned on both sides of the border, including the erection of an international monument dedicated to Coronado and friendship between Mexico and the United States. This project was right up Bolton's alley, combining exploration, scholarship, and the Good Neighbor Policy. The U.S. Coronado Exposition, New Mexico and Arizona Coronado commissions, National Park Service, and the universities of California, Arizona, and New Mexico organized an expedition to locate Coronado's trail. The trail followers included three of Bolton's former doctoral students, Aubrey Neasham (southwestern regional historian for the National Park Service), George P. Hammond (university of New Mexico), and Russell Ewing (assistant professor of history at the university of Arizona), as well as several other men. The trip took twenty days of automobile travel, a journey made difficult by rain, flooded streams, and mud-clogged roads. Despite the difficulties Bolton and his companions established where Coronado had crossed into the United States, “at least to our satisfaction,” as Neasham put it.8
Once Bolton concluded his final semester's work and received his Pennsylvania degree, he returned to Coronado's trail north of the border. Mid-August (not the best season to make a pilgrimage to the desert Southwest) found him at the La Fonda Inn in Santa Fe, where he met Neasham. Every three or four days Bolton would write a long letter to Gertrude, or “Mama,” as he called her. He used the letters, which described his travels in some detail, as research notes when he returned to Berkeley. Equipped with a government car, Bolton and Neasham drove over Glorieta Pass and then down the Pecos River to Anton Chico.9 Bolton described the farmers as “old-time Spaniards (not Mexicans) descendants of the sixteenth century pioneers.
Bolton and Neasham motored back to Albuquerque, picked up Hammond, and headed west to Gallup, which was then hosting the annual Indian fair. Representatives of thirty-nine tribes were there, dressed “in their brightest finery,” he told Gertrude. Then they “set forth south for Zuni, which was Coronado's objective—the Seven Cities of Cibola.” From Zuni Bolton's route swung southwest through the eastern Arizona towns of St. Johns, Concho, Show Low, Lakeside, and McNary. “From McNary south we were again on the Coronado Trail,” Bolton wrote, “and nobody has had it right before.” Bolton thought the determining factor was a barranca (gorge) then called Post Office Canyon, “which forced Coronado to…cross at a shallower point.” He judged the ford to be an important discovery, because it could be used to test Coronado's route for many miles in both directions.10
From the deep defiles of eastern Arizona Bolton and company traveled southward to the Gila River, into the Aravaipa Valley and thence down to Bisbee on the Mexican border. Bolton shot off another letter to Gertrude. “The Park Service is paying all my expenses,” he assured Gertrude, who worried about money. In addition, Bolton expected to get “$10.00 per day as collaborator.” For Bolton this arrangement was the best of all possible worlds. “I'm having a vacation with pay and all expenses.”11
After consulting with Arizona archaeologists, the trio returned to Santa Fe by way of Tucson, Phoenix, and Globe. “We have been strenuously on the move,” he told Gertrude. He was not exaggerating, and he was not finished yet. Bolton and Hammond left Neasham and went on to west Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The trip convinced him that the “two canyons visited by Coronado were Tule Canyon and Palo Duro Canyon, both being parts of the same great network of barrancas.”12
Bolton would have been satisfied to stay on the road for the rest of his life. Whether he traveled by plane, train, automobile, horse, jackass, or foot, it seemed not to matter to him. A soft bed in a luxury hotel or blankets on rough ground were all the same. For nearly one year Bolton was intermittently on the trail. When he finished the Coronado trail, off he went looking for Escalante. Again he found trail companions in Neasham and Hammond. Other comrades came and went along the way.
The lecture circuit was less appealing than the trail, but it paid well. In January his friend Ben Cherrington, formerly of the State Department but then on the university of Denver faculty, arranged for Bolton to speak about the Good Neighbor Policy in Colorado, Wyoming, and utah.13 For about two weeks Bolton hopped from state to state, often speaking at several venues per day. The schedule was exhausting, and Bolton was not certain that the lecturer's life was for him. “This talkie-talkie business is pretty silly,” he complained to Gertrude, “and I don't know how long I would be able to stand myself—or the people stand me!” But the money was good. Cherrington arranged for a $500 honorarium while one of the other universities paid his expenses.14 In March Bolton made another well-paying lecture tour “barn-storming on Inter-American Relations in what we used to call the Middle West,” he told Wisconsin historian Curtis Nettels.15 He combined his speaking with a trip to St. Augustine for a National Park Service Advisory Board meeting.16 One way or another, Bolton was making retirement pay. As he explained to park service administrators, “I still have to earn my living.”17
In May 1941 a substantial new source of income appeared on the horizon. The centennials of the gold rush and California statehood were looming on the horizon. Edward A. Dickson, Los Angeles newspaper publisher, university regent, and UCLA booster, proposed a ten-volume centennial history to be published in 1950. Two decades previously, Dickson and Bolton had worked together on the California Historical Survey Commission. Bolton had resisted Dickson's attempt to redirect the commission toward chronicling the California contribution to World War I, but now the Southern Californian was making an offer that Bolton could not refuse.18 He wanted Bolton to be general editor with a salary of $6,000 per year. Dickson proposed an elaborate scheme with an editorial board, state advisory board, and county advisory boards that would have involved hundreds of people. Dickson's ideas about history had not changed: he thought that any competent clerk could compile historical facts. In each county fifteen to twenty people would “assemble historical data” for the editorial board, which presumably would direct the writing of the decade-by-decade chronicle that Dickson had in mind.19 The project would be expensive—about a quarter of a million dollars, which the legislature would have to provide. In the meantime he advocated the use of university endowment funds already in hand.
Bolton was willing to head up the project and
to enhance his annual retirement income for a few years. But he must have been horrified at Dickson's unworkable scheme. Instead, Bolton proposed that well-known scholars be paid to write individual volumes on specific topics. He pared down the editorial committee structure and limited its authority to supervising and facilitating the authors’ work. As for Dickson's vast committee network, “it should be enlisted only in a manner consistent with the dignity of the university,” Bolton advised President Sproul.20 Once again, Bolton and Dickson were in conflict over the nature of history and how a big historical project should be administered. Their differences would sharpen in coming months as historical events overtook both of them.
But for the time being, Bolton continued his round of lecturing and Spanish trail research. In May he delivered the university of California's fourth annual Bernard Moses Memorial Lecture, which he titled “El Dorado: The Coronado Expedition in Perspective.”21 In June he went looking for the spot where Escalante crossed the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The only practical way to reach the crossing, Bolton hypothesized, was by boat down the San Juan River and into the canyon. Bolton engaged a river guide at Mexican Hat, Utah, which Bolton judged to be “the most isolated place in the United States, being two hundred miles from telegraph and railroad and fifty miles from telephone.”22
Herbert Eugene Bolton_Historian of the American Borderlands Page 32
