--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "m06079" <barbaria_longa@h...>
wrote:

> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Lowell G. McManus"
> <mcmanus71496@m...> wrote:
> > Mike wrote:
> >
> > > again i am not arguing with you but just trying to complete your
> > > flake off list & also to get into the mind of the interior
> department
> > > lawyers who really for some reason believed that the right to
> > > recommend or request the division rested constitutionally with
> > > congress
> >
> > I wonder how many lawyers the Geological Survey really has? I
> somehow doubt
> > that this was vetted by lawyers. I think lawyers usually consult
> forensic
> > geographers and historians on such matters, not the other way
> around. For
> > whatever it's worth, Van Zandt doesn't credit any lawyers or
> legally-oriented
> > agencies in his preface on page V of the 1976 edition.
>
> i dont know how many lawyers
> but vetting by legal expertise on retainer or on staff is common

due

> diligence in serious commercial publishing
>
> & vetting by lawyers is common due diligence in all responsible
> government too
> wouldnt you say
>
> indeed it sometimes seems government is
> of the lawyers by the lawyers & for the lawyers
> even without their having to send out for any others
>
> but combine publishing with government
> to get government publishing
> & i think your doubts must be not only completely unsupportable
> but in fact multi unsubstantiated
>
> so congrats to us both on achieving this bp first
>
> & i will continue with my detailed response as soon as possible
> but must post this much now
>
> >
> > > i am still trying to guess why they believed this
> >
> > Editions of the BUS&SS were issued in 1885, 1900, 1923, 1930,

1964,

> and
> > 1976--the last two by Van Zandt. I have 1964, and several of us
> have 1976.
> > Both have the same statement about congressional instigation, but
> the 1964
> > edition has a footnote citing a 1930 speech in the House of
> Representatives by
> > John Nance Garner. The odd thing about the footnote is its
> number: 62a. There
> > are only six sublettered footnotes in the entire book, which
> suggests the
> > impromptu inclusion of the cited matter at some point.

good sleuthing

& these could well have been the only 1966 edition insertions into
the footnote sequence of the 1930 edition

& i have found other statistical evidence of similarly minuscule
enlargements from the 1904 edition to the 1930 edition

as well as from the 1966 to the 1976

so by all these estimates the van zandt opus was only 5 or 10 percent
heavier than the douglas
& the douglas 5 or 10 percent heavier than gannett

therefore
at least by these statistics
it wasnt van zandt but gannett who was the real american boundary
research giant of the 20th century
by 1904
never to be really surpassed in the size of his contribution

but the greatest american boundary scholar of the 20th century
in the strict sense
may rather have been boggs or shalowitz

what does anyone else think

or doesnt it matter

but anyway to continue with your chase here lowell
i think you probably can expect that that lost footnote was
supportive of van zandts thesis rather than contradictory of it
& also that it may well include the reasoning you are condemning in
advance as defective

also the excision of this footnote from the 1976 edition may mean he
weathered quite a firestorm from texas between 1966 & 1976 for these
words & for this citation & didnt want to continue waving a red flag
in the faces of these texans perhaps no less committed than yourself

while however remaining unpersuaded by their objections

just a guess

& again i must run
with more to come

> >
> > Being based on a 1930 speech, the statement about Texas must have
> entered the
> > BUS&SS in either the 1930 or 1964 issue. We know that Garner was

> great
> > proponent of the division of Texas, but he was also a powerful
> leader in the
> > Congress. Perhaps he ascribed the power of instigation to the
> Congress in order
> > to enlarge his own power. I'd dearly love to have access to the
> Garner speech,
> > which is in the Congressional Record of June 17, 1930, page

11459.

> It might
> > settle something. Garner's papers would be of no help. His wife
> burned them
> > all!
> >
> > Lowell G. McManus
> > Leesville, Louisiana, USA