Herbert Eugene Bolton_Historian of the American Borderlands

by Albert L. Hurtado

  Bolton's party spent “seven and a half days,” he recalled, “floating down the river, running rapids, getting soaked, drying out, [hiking] to Rainbow Bridge, racing with mountain sheep which were running parallel to us on the cliffs, and generally having a good time.”23 He thought it all “real sport.” “All you have to do is sit, occasionally riding a twelve-foot breaker.” Amidst the excitement Bolton found what he was looking for. “I reached the Escalante Crossing and it all opened out as plain as day.”24 The place is now known as the Crossing of the Fathers. It was a good week for the retired professor with the bum ticker.

  Retirement seemed to be all that Bolton had hoped it would be. The heavy teaching and administrative responsibilities were gone. He was free to pursue his field research, usually at government expense. Accolades came from everywhere. Speaking engagements were frequent and paid well. In November he was confident enough to request $200 plus expenses for a two-day appearance at Drake University. And there was the prospect of the editorship of the centennial history of California. The history business was paying off.

  There were some clouds on the horizon. Even though the United States was not yet a belligerent, war blazed in Europe and Asia. The economy was improving as the country's industrial plant produced goods for other countries. Congress had instituted a military draft, which took some of his students, while others found positions in a State Department attentive to fascist inroads in Latin America. He promised to send a list of people who were eligible for State Department positions to Philip Powell, a State Department official who had finished his doctorate at Cal under Priestley.25

  Of course, Bolton continued to plump his students for academic jobs. They were in demand. James King had an offer from Tulane but turned it down for a position at Northwestern. Bolton recommended Woodrow Borah for the Tulane position. “He is one of the most brilliant graduates we have ever had,” Bolton offered, “quite the equal of King.” Bolton expected “a notable output of scholarly work by him in years to come.” The glowing recommendation included details about Borah's work in colonial Mexico. He added that Borah “was born in Mississippi of Jewish parents,” a statement perhaps intended to aid Borah's candidacy by highlighting his southern roots while alerting Tulane authorities to his ethnic and religious heritage. Borah did not go to Tulane; instead he took a one-year position at Princeton University.26

  In late 1941 everything changed. November began routinely when Bolton participated in a Latin American conference at the State College of Washington in Pullman.27 Then he headed for the University of San Francisco, where he spoke about “Bases of Western Hemisphere understanding.” Suddenly cascading disasters struck. On November 18 Charles Chapman, star athlete, baseball scout, and professor, died from a heart attack.28 Almost simultaneously Priestley suffered a stroke.29 Bolton thought it unlikely that the sixty-seven-year-old Priestley would return to teach in the spring semester. On December 7 the Japanese imperial navy struck Pearl Harbor, and the nation was at war. Professor Kinnaird was called to Washington and was dispatched to South America on a government mission. Only Sluiter was left to replace these losses. For a time Bolton thought that he might also go to Latin America.30

  These unexpected developments must have dealt a stunning blow to Bolton, especially the death and disability of Chapman and Priestley, which surely reminded him that his remaining days were limited. His mortality was brought home again in February when his older brother Alvin died at age seventy-four.31

  Even though Bolton was still vigorous, his carefree days of exploring the desert whenever he wanted were over for the time being. The university called him back to run the Bancroft Library and teach his old courses. As Bolton feared, Priestley did not return to his post. He died in 1944.32 In ordinary times Bolton would have served only for a semester until new people could be hired, but the war emergency changed everything. Young men (some professors as well as students) were leaving the university for military service. Kinnaird would be gone for the foreseeable future, so Sproul invited Bolton to teach his courses in the 1942—43 academic year. “I am glad of the opportunity to continue in the work in which I am happiest,” he told the president.33 He was happy also to have the income that teaching afforded, now that wartime travel restrictions and renewed university duties curtailed Bolton's fieldwork and lecturing. So everything fell on Bolton's shoulders, except for the chairmanship, which Paxson still held.

  Where most men saw calamity, Edward Dickson saw opportunity. Not long after the torpedoes slammed into the hulls on Battleship Row, Dickson moved to modify his plans for the centennial history. Dickson wished to assemble “historical matter connected with the War,” he wrote Bolton one week after Pearl Harbor. Sproul approved of the temporary use of endowment funds for a six-month trial of Dickson's plan. The regent asked Bolton to reconsider his plan for a statewide committee network.34

  Dickson meant his proposal to be understood as a command.35 He believed that the county committees would “collect historical material” that would be deposited with the university, but Dickson's proposed budget provided nothing for training or oversight of the volunteers. Nor did he give any indication of what classes of materials would be collected or how they would be authenticated and evaluated. Somehow the new sources would be converted into the “profusely illustrated” tenvolume centennial history, but Dickson provided no details about how that would be done aside from hiring Bolton, a second historian to assist him in Southern California, and two secretaries.

  Dickson's plan could not bear critical scrutiny, as Bolton at once understood. Getting it approved by the regents had been a feat of political legerdemain that Dickson had accomplished by making Sproul the sponsor of the plan that went before the board. Once the proposal was approved, Dickson kept referring to it as “your plan” when he corresponded with Sproul. Furthermore, he directed Sproul to order Bolton to carry out the plan that Dickson had in fact authored. In 1919 Bolton and Judge Davis had resisted Dickson's attempt to shanghai the California Historical Records Commission for his war records program. That would not happen again, not if Dickson could help it. Now Dickson thought he had a way to control Bolton through Sproul. Bolton had ideas of his own.

  Dickson was going to cause trouble, but early in 1942 Bolton was most concerned about addressing the enormous gap that the departure of Kinnaird, Chapman, and Priestley had created. It was now clear that his recommendation to hire young men and allow them to develop would not meet the circumstances. Now Bolton advised Sproul that a “mature man” would be best. He thought the most suitable candidate was J. Fred Rippy.36 In March Bolton (with the approval of Sproul and Paxson) urged Rippy to “consider a call to California.”37 Bolton directed Rippy to reply by airmail if he was interested.

  Bolton's letter gave the impression that the job was Rippy's if he wanted it, but the matter was not so simple. After Rippy expressed interest in the position, the Cal search committee raised questions about him. Bolton asked Rippy for reviews of his books, a list of his doctoral students, and his plans for future research.38 Rippy gave a snappish, perfunctory response to Bolton's queries. “Does someone question my capacity and the soundness of my product?” Rippy claimed to have more graduate students than most of his Chicago colleagues. “I have never lost the inspiration that I received from you and the California group,” he confided. “I shall carry on until the Great Reaper stills my hand.” Bolton did not make clear who had raised an objection to Rippy, but enthusiasm for moving Rippy to Berkeley had cooled and the feeling appeared to be mutual.39 The Great Reaper would not find Rippy in Berkeley when his time came.

  While Bolton fought to pry Rippy out of Chicago, he was also dealing with Dickson's demands for the centennial history. “Under the circumstances, I think that it is up to you to proceed with our plans as expeditiously as possible,” Dickson informed him. Dickson still insisted on the county committees, which he thought the university comptroller should organize.40 He also directed Bolton to appoint Dickson's friend Grace
Somerby as secretarial assistant for Southern California. She wanted to write a volume of biographies and to compile one of California statistics. “I think that both of these activities should be authorized at once,” he advised Bolton.41

  Dickson's behavior was a reprise of his peremptory, insulting, and outrageous actions in 1919. He treated Bolton like a hired hand and expected his orders to be carried out in the name of Sproul and the regents. As in 1919, he appointed a clerical employee to whom he gave important editorial responsibilities, a decision as unfair to her as it was to Bolton. By April Bolton considered resigning as editor.42 But he soldiered on. Perhaps Sproul convinced him that it was necessary to humor Dickson for the good of the university. Sproul had recently announced that Bolton would receive an honorary degree at spring commencement. Withdrawing from a project that a regent and the president supported would be embarrassing to all concerned.43

  Instead of retreating, Bolton proposed a new plan for the centennial history, one very different from Dickson's. Bolton projected a number of interpretive volumes that would be written by established scholars who would receive $2,500 each plus a royalty. As editor, Bolton would select the authors subject to approval by Sproul.44 Bolton's reasons for staying on are not difficult to fathom. He could use the money as editor of the series. Sproul, who must have realized that he had been manipulated by Regent Dickson, probably gave Bolton some assurances of support for his position. In the spring of 1942 Sproul needed Bolton, a fundamental fact that may have finally occurred to Bolton as well as Sproul. The lines were drawn.

  Even though Bolton and Dickson had not yet agreed on the overall design of the centennial history, Bolton moved ahead. Dickson might issue orders, but Bolton controlled the budget. He appointed his longtime secretary and friend Maxine Chappell as his assistant who would be in charge of “requisitions and bills,” including those of Somerby.45 In July Bolton outlined his plan for Dickson and sent Chappell to Los Angeles to confer with Somerby.46 He hoped to present his proposal to the Centennial History Advisory Committee, consisting of Sidney Ehrman, Sproul, Dickson, and a third regent—an assemblage that seemed to be stacked in favor of Bolton. “I was very greatly impressed with your suggestion of a series of topical histories,” Dickson admitted, “but upon reflection I am convinced that the original plan [Dickson's] should be carried out.”47 Flexibility was not one of Dickson's strong points. The two would wrangle over the series for months to come.

  Not all of Bolton's collaborations were as disagreeable as the centennial history. Father Maynard Geiger, successor to the Franciscan historian Zephyrin Engelhardt at the Mission Santa Barbara, asked Bolton to participate in the Serra Cause, the effort to canonize Junípero Serra, California's first Franciscan missionary. Bolton accepted and was duly appointed to the Diocesan Historical Commission. His role on the commission was to gather and authenticate all of the written sources concerning Serra. The Historical Commission consisted of Bolton (styled “DOMINUM HERIBERTUM EUGENIUM BOLTON” in the appointment letter) and two priests, Geiger and James H. Culleton, chancellor of the Monterey- Fresno Diocese, which would oversee the cause.48 The Serra Cause vice postulator, Father Eric O'Brien, would make the case for Serra before an ecclesiastical hearing. Bolton's contribution to the cause was limited to the evaluation of historical documents, but there should be no doubt of Bolton's enthusiasm for Serra.49 The deliberate pace of the Vatican and wartime exigencies delayed the canonization proceedings for years.

  Bolton's work on the Serra Cause must have been especially pleasing compared with the sometimes onerous nature of his service on the California centennial history project. Dickson rejected Bolton's plan for a series. Bolton talked it over with Paxson and John Walton Caughey, one of Bolton's doctoral students who was a professor at UCLA, and submitted a new plan to Dickson, who at first seemed pleased. Then, the day before a meeting of the Advisory Committee where Bolton was scheduled to present the new plan, Dickson told him to propose Dickson's original scheme instead. Bolton informed Sproul that he would not attend the meeting in order to avoid an open conflict.50 Dickson smoothed over the dispute, claiming that Bolton was modifying his plans before reporting to the committee.51

  But Bolton had had enough. He bluntly informed Dickson and Sproul that he would not serve as editor of the series as Dickson had conceived it. If the centennial history went ahead as Dickson proposed, “you have my best wishes,” but “I shall be far from optimistic about the outcome.”52

  Dickson's response was characteristically unbending. He gave Bolton a lesson in California historiography, listing about three dozen books that in the regent's opinion already covered the topics that Bolton had proposed. “Why not merely check off twenty from the above lists and call it a day?” he asked. “So to repeat,” Dickson insisted, “what is wanted is a Ten-Volume, Chronologically arranged, History of California, to which we can turn readily for information of an historical character.” He concluded by asking Bolton to make “one more final effort to adjust your views so that we can go ahead along these lines.”53

  Dickson seems to have won the day, for in November Bolton was still in the editorial saddle cooperating with him.54 Was he giving the “final effort” that Dickson had asked for? Perhaps Sproul had convinced Bolton that Dickson's goodwill was indispensable to the university. So Bolton gave in—or did he? In November 1942 he held two private meetings with historians in Southern and Northern California to discuss the series. We do not know what was discussed at these secretive meetings, but subsequent developments are suggestive. Sproul had provided funding for a half year, but the money was running out. It is possible that Sproul and Bolton decided to defeat Dickson's plans by supporting them to the maximum extent possible—by asking the state legislature for a sum of money that seemed extravagant during the war. Without consulting Dickson, the president requested $250,000 to fund the entire centennial project instead of asking for smaller amounts over a period of years. The appropriation did not even get through the legislative committee process. Then Sproul dropped support from university moneys that he controlled. “I wish that he had consulted me,” Dickson complained.55 He thought that it would have been wiser to request only $40,000 from the legislature. Dickson was down, but not defeated, not yet. He urged Sproul and Bolton to support new public and private funding initiatives. The university men dutifully supported Dickson's proposals, but they did not succeed.56

  As soon as the quarter-million-dollar centennial history appropriation failed, Bolton fired off a letter to Sproul. “Perhaps not all is lost,” he dryly observed. He then proposed a substitute plan that “would cost relatively little and in some ways would be better than the plan on which we were proceeding.”57 Bolton's plan was substantially the same as his former proposals. The series would be called the Chronicles of California. It would require “no fanfare [or] propaganda,” and would not cost much. The books would be published by the University of California Press in the usual way, so no new appropriations would be needed.58 Authors would not get a big fee but would receive a generous 15 percent royalty. Bolton relinquished the fat editor's salary and asked only for funds for his secretary, Maxine Chappell. Sproul approved the plan.

  Dickson must have realized that Sproul and Bolton had outmaneuvered him. Dickson's centennial history faded away, but Regent Dickson would not. In a few years he would be a key figure in one of the university's most traumatic episodes, the loyalty oath controversy. His regard for Sproul at that time may well have been conditioned by his experience with his ill-fated history project.

  In the meantime Bolton's economies helped the new series move forward, but only a few of the volumes were published as originally planned. Some authors published their books with other presses, and some titles never appeared. Bolton suggested that Dickson (or his friend and fellow regent Chester Rowell) write the volume on California Progressives. Fortunately, historian George Mowry wrote that volume, which remained the standard work on the subject for many years. A volume called “The Boom of t
he Eighties” that was projected under the name of Lindley Bynum did not appear in the series, but came out with the Huntington Library Press under the authorship of Glenn S. Dumke. Caughey had planned to contribute “California Victorians” to the series, but published Gold Is the Cornerstone instead. The list of these changes and evolutions could be extended, but the important point is this: most of the books that were published under the guidance of Bolton and coeditor Caughey were important and lasting contributions to historical scholarship. Similar results under Dickson's scheme would not have been likely.

  Whether by clever intrigue or the unanticipated actions of the state legislature, Bolton had prevailed in the clash with Dickson. Now he could return to the problem of hiring a Latin Americanist. After failing to get Rippy, Bolton recommended a young man, James Ferguson King, who had taken the degree under Bolton in 1939. After donning the doctoral hood, King went to the State Department before taking an assistant professorship at Northwestern University. In the fall of 1943 Bolton recommended King to Sproul. While King's “removals to the State Department and…to Northwestern” had “somewhat retarded his writing,” he was now “well on the way.” “I should have preferred to see Rippy brought here,” Bolton admitted, but “of all the young men…I put King in the first place.”59 King duly returned to his alma mater.

  Bolton hoped that King would be a lynchpin in Cal's Americas program, and in one sense he was. He ably taught the Americas course and mentored many graduate students. However, King was not the big publisher that Bolton had hoped for. His main influence in the university was through his service in various administrative posts.60 While it is unfair to judge King solely on the basis of the number of his publications, it is clear that he did not measure up to the task that Bolton had set for him. The same could be said about Kinnaird and Sluiter.