Abstract

An American Augustus

The article presents information about the book "Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849," edited by Allan Nevins. Polk may be appropriately styled the American Augustus. Few national leaders have directed such an expansion of their country as was promoted by the eleventh President of the United States. Not many chief magistrates of the republic have been so much misunderstood during their lifetime and indeed for some time afterwards and this in spite of the fact that only one other President has left the country so careful a record of his manifold activities in a diary. In the present case the misunderstanding is probably not unconnected with the fact that it was not until 1908 that educator Charles W. Mann of the Lewis Institute of Technology undertook to edit and publish the diary of Polk, which had been purchased with letters and miscellaneous papers from his relatives by the Chicago Historical Society.