The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 87, July 1983 - April, 1984 Page: 229

Book Reviews

House" (p. 97). Even after Creager's death the Republicans were co-
opted by conservative Democratic state officials, who had themselves
cross-filed as Republican nominees, and who backed Ike, because they
didn't like Adlai E. Stevenson's advocacy of federal takeover of the oil-
rich Texas tidelands.
Olien's book becomes more interesting as it moves into the 1950s
and 196os, mostly because the political possibilities for Republicans
become larger. He describes the election of Dallas GOP congressman
Bruce R. Alger in 1954, John G. Tower's rise to the Senate in 1961,
the setback as Democrat John B. Connally took the governorship in
1962, and the terrible blow dealt Republicans in the wake of John F.
Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent
Texas-style presidency.
Although turgidly written and suffering occasional historical errors
(Price Daniel, Sr., is credited with quitting the Senate to run for gov-
ernor in 1956, when actually he resigned on the eve of his inauguration
as governor in 1957), Olien's book is worthwhile to any student of
Texas politics who is interested in the forces that made the Republi-
cans a viable Texas party.
Austin American-Statesman DAVE MCNEELY
Papers Concerning Robertson's Colony in Texas. Volume IX. Com-
piled and edited by Malcolm D. McLean. (Arlington, Tex.: The
University of Texas at Arlington Press, 1982. Pp. 610o. Preface,
introduction, illustrations, bibliography, index, colophon. $25.)
Volume IX of Malcolm D. McLean's collection of documents related
to the Robertson Colony covers the period of October, 1834, through
March 2o, 1835. Even though war and revolution were only a few
months away, these were relatively quiet times in Texas, and the gen-
eral tranquility of the period is reflected in the affairs of the Robertson
Colony and in the contents of this volume.
Most of the documents relate to land grants and the founding of
Sarahville de Viesca, a settlement at the falls of the Brazos intended to
be the center of Robertson's project. Only a small portion of the ma-
terials refer to the Robertson-Austin controversy, but a few deal with
the dispute between Saltillo and Monclova over state affairs and land
policies which grew out of that conflict.
In keeping with the practice long established in this series, McLean
has researched the records thoroughly, and he has reproduced them

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