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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 4, December 1944

Page 51

FANTASY COMMENTATOR
51

A Congressman Rediscovers Atlantis

by
Stewart Holbrook

(Editor's note: This article, in an expanded form, will constitute a chapter in the author's forthcoming book, tentatively entitled An Unconventional History of the United States, which is scheduled to be published by Macmillan late in 1945 or early in 1946. Permission to reprint this portion here has been kindly granted by the author and The New York Times Book Review, in whose July 30 1944 issue it originally appeared.)

Throughout his eight successive years in Congress (from 1863 to 1869) the Honorable Ignatius Donnelly, member from Minnesota, must have been one of the most active men in the District of Columbia. He was attentive and faithful to the nation's business. When he was not on the floor, urging vigorous prosecution of the war, supporting the purchase of Alaska, and always hurling devastating wit at his opponents, he was in the quiet cloisters of the Congressional Library, engaged in becoming perhaps the most erudite man ever to sit in the House. And when Minnestotans failed to return him to his seat in 1870 he presently appeared in a new form---that of a downright scholarly author who was at the same time a whale of a best seller, something publishers pray for and seldom find. Several of his books have been continuously in print for more than sixty years, or until February of 1944, when paper restrictions prevented further editions.

The brilliant and erratic Donnelly was born in Philadelphia in 1831, the son of well-to-do parents. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1853. Three years later he married and took his bride to Minnesota, where he and several partners had purchased a section of land southeast of St. Paul. This was to become Nininger City, the great metropolis of the Middle West; and to advertise this fact Donnelly started The Emigrant Aid Journal, unquestionably the most intellectual periodical ever issued in the interest of real estate promotion.

Below its magnificent masthead, which depicted steamboats, railroad trains, covered wagons, men plowing, wheat growing, and fruits and vegetables of startling girth, appeared a question and answer:

Dost though know how to play the fiddle? No, replied Themistocles, but I understand the art of raising a little village into a great city.

Nininger City, however, was never to become great. Despite a vast energy which is to be found in every column of the paper's yellowing files, it was St. Paul that continued to grow, while Nininger went bust in the panic of 1857. But before it did, Donnelly had indicated the sort of city he had in mind. By July of 1857 a literary society was going. So was the Nininger Musical Club. The hospitable Handyside House was open and dispensing from a wonderful menu that included a long list of game and meats, charlotte russe, ice cream, meringues and nine kind of imported wines. 

Donnelly, the editor, was treating his readers to wonderful fare. His Journal ran poems by Whittier, essays by Mrs. Stowe, and pieces by the editor himself on such varied subjects as "The Late James G. Birney," "The Progress of Farm Machinery," the effects of climate on mind and body, and a rousing description of the recent Battle of Balaclava. For space-fillers, Donnelly turned out concise paragraphs on the making of butter, the preparation of passenger pigeons for the table, and such homely items.

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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 51 A Congressman Rediscovers Atlantis by Stewart Holbrook (Editor's note: This article, in an expanded form, will constitute a chapter in the author's forthcoming book, tentatively entitled An Unconventional History of the United States, which is scheduled to be published by Macmillan late in 1945 or early in 1946. Permission to reprint this portion here has been kindly granted by the author and The New York Times Book Review, in whose July 30 1944 issue it originally appeared.) Throughout his eight successive years in Congress (from 1863 to 1869) the Honorable Ignatius Donnelly, member from Minnesota, must have been one of the most active men in the District of Columbia. He was attentive and faithful to the nation's business. When he was not on the floor, urging vigorous prosecution of the war, supporting the purchase of Alaska, and always hurling devastating wit at his opponents, he was in the quiet cloisters of the Congressional Library, engaged in becoming perhaps the most erudite man ever to sit in the House. And when Minnestotans failed to return him to his seat in 1870 he presently appeared in a new form---that of a downright scholarly author who was at the same time a whale of a best seller, something publishers pray for and seldom find. Several of his books have been continuously in print for more than sixty years, or until February of 1944, when paper restrictions prevented further editions. The brilliant and erratic Donnelly was born in Philadelphia in 1831, the son of well-to-do parents. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1853. Three years later he married and took his bride to Minnesota, where he and several partners had purchased a section of land southeast of St. Paul. This was to become Nininger City, the great metropolis of the Middle West; and to advertise this fact Donnelly started The Emigrant Aid Journal, unquestionably the most intellectual periodical ever issued in the interest of real estate promotion. Below its magnificent masthead, which depicted steamboats, railroad trains, covered wagons, men plowing, wheat growing, and fruits and vegetables of startling girth, appeared a question and answer: Dost though know how to play the fiddle? No, replied Themistocles, but I understand the art of raising a little village into a great city. Nininger City, however, was never to become great. Despite a vast energy which is to be found in every column of the paper's yellowing files, it was St. Paul that continued to grow, while Nininger went bust in the panic of 1857. But before it did, Donnelly had indicated the sort of city he had in mind. By July of 1857 a literary society was going. So was the Nininger Musical Club. The hospitable Handyside House was open and dispensing from a wonderful menu that included a long list of game and meats, charlotte russe, ice cream, meringues and nine kind of imported wines. Donnelly, the editor, was treating his readers to wonderful fare. His Journal ran poems by Whittier, essays by Mrs. Stowe, and pieces by the editor himself on such varied subjects as "The Late James G. Birney," "The Progress of Farm Machinery," the effects of climate on mind and body, and a rousing description of the recent Battle of Balaclava. For space-fillers, Donnelly turned out concise paragraphs on the making of butter, the preparation of passenger pigeons for the table, and such homely items.