Book Reviews : The Salmon King of Oregon: R. D. Hume and the Pacific Fisheries. By GORDON B. DODDS. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963. Pp. ix, 257. $6.00.)
| Author | Robert Dykstra |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296401700118 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
139
The
Salmon
King
of
Oregon:
R.
D.
Hume
and
the
Pacific
Fisheries.
By
GORDON
B.
DODDS.
(Chapel
Hill:
University
of
North
Carolina
Press,
1963.
Pp.
ix,
257.
$6.00.)
The
historical
biography
will
always
be
with
us.
If
chronologically
constructed,
as
most
are,
it
is
relatively
easy
to
produce.
With
relatively
less
effort
it
can
be
made
into
good
reading.
And
it
often
gives
rise
to
not
wholly
deserved
reputations
of
prom-
inence
within
the
historical
profession
-
a
measure
of
the
biographee’s
importance
somehow
displacing
to
the
biographer.
Nonetheless,
in
the
interminable
biographical
flow
there
remains
a
significant
potential
contribution
too
often
ignored:
the
study
of
the
historical
figure
whose
influence
was
not
national,
but
regional.
Although
Professor
Dodds
notes
that
surviving
materials
permit
only
an
&dquo;eco-
nomic&dquo;
rather
than
a
&dquo;full&dquo;
biography,
this
is
one
such
needed
regional
study.
Robert
Deniston
Hume,
the
&dquo;Salmon
King&dquo;
of
the
title,
from
1876
to
his
death
in
1908
operated
a
flourishing
cannery
at
the
mouth
of
Oregon’s
Rogue
River.
In
ten
laud-
ably
topical
chapters
Mr.
Dodds
embraces
Hume’s
childhood
and
early
West
Coast
career,
the
economics
and
technology
of
his
Rogue
River
plant,
his
other
local
enter-
prises,
his
contests
with
competitors,
his
political
activities,
his
hatchery
experimenta-
tion,
the
defense
against
unfavorable
publicity,
Hume’s
commercial
ventures
beyond
his
central
domain,
some
personal
aspects
of
his
later
years,
and,
finally,
his
sig-
nificance
in
the
mainstream
of
American
entrepreneurship.
Belong
to
the
mainstream
Hume
does,
as
the
author
makes
abundantly
clear.
Guiding
motivation:
acquisitiveness.
Personal
character:
contentious,
judgmental,
self-righteous,
but
also
intelligent
and
inventive.
Economic
philosophy:
laissez
faire,
except
where
he
himself
might
benefit
by
government
aid.
National
political
out-
look :
staunchly
Republican,
with
strong
resistance
to
reform.
And
so
forth.
The
American
Association
for
State
and
Local
History
sponsored
this
work
&dquo;under
its
continuing
program
to
promote
a
better
understanding
of
our
national
heritage
at
a
local
level.&dquo;
It
is
with
regard
to
this
local
dimension
that
the
book
deserves
criticism,
however
praiseworthy
in
other
respects.
In
one
sense,
the
Association
chose
well.
There
is
nothing
in
the
author’s
taut,
no-nonsense
prose
style
(the
reader
quickly
notes)
to
suggest
that
this
local
study
will
anywhere
give
way
to
local
color.
And
so
it
proves.
But
this
good
thing
only
high-
lights
a
major
shortcoming:
the
lack
of
any
systematic
intimacy
between
the
pro-
tagonist
and
his
human
environment.
The
book,
in
short,
lacks
a
form
of
perspec-
tive.
Everything
touching
Hume
is,
in
effect,
seen
through
Hume’s
own
eyes -
which
lends
a
corollary
impression
that
those
things
for
which
there
are
no
Humian
annotations
automatically
go
unmentioned.
One
never,
for
example,
obtains
a
precise
notion
of
Hume’s
long-run
power
relationships
with
the
local
citizenry.
Much
is
made
of
his
stance
vis-A-vis
a
hostile
populace,
but
his
specific
opponents
in
these
pages
are
hardly
more
than
names
culled
briefly
from
that
vague
&dquo;public
opinion&dquo;
with
which
Hume
unceasingly
spars.
To
lavish
much
attention
on
individual
faces
in
the
crowd
might
be
to
descend
to
antiquarianism;
still,
the
author
could
at
least
have
given
us,
beyond
the
episodic
glimpses
he
provides,
a
measure
of
the
crowd
itself
-
its
socioeconomic,
ethnic,
and
political
makeup,
its
origins,
perhaps
something
of
its
preoccupations.
The
more
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