“If it weren't for the door prize they wouldn't come at all,” confided the president of the local. The doorkeeper stood with his bowl of dimes, religiously unlocking and relocking the door as each member presented himself for admittance, reaching at the sane time into his trousers' pocket for his ten cents contribution to the evening's sweepstake. Outside, the temperature was ten degrees below freezing; inside, the gas heater on the ceiling buzzed noisily. One by one, the members flopped into the vacant chairs, unzipped their padded jackets, and smoked and chewed and chatted happily. The room was pleasantly warm, the chairs uncomfortably hard, and the walls had the timeless dinginess of dark green paint. On a dais at one end, between the narrow trestle table covered with files, dues books, and loose papers sat the four officers of the local. To one side, leaning precariously in a wobbly standard-holder, was the Flag. From the wall behind the dais, past presidents of the International and the State Federation of Labor looked down on the meeting. Between them was the charter of the local; around the other walls, in varying degrees of ornateness, were the framed charters of different locals in the town which also used the Labor Temple. A painted piano in one corner, a refrigerator and a row of coat hangers completed the furnishings. Smiling broadly, the president rose and banged his gavel on the table gently. The hubbub subsided rapidly as he began reading the historic formula for opening, the meeting.

When, in 1842, Henry Caswall wrote The City of the Mormons, he stated in his preface that his book was “presented to the Christian public with a deep sense, on the author's part, of the iniquity of an imposture which, under the name of religion, is spreading extensively in America and Great Britain”. A few years later, probably in 1850, John Bowes wrote a pamphlet to show that Mormonism was simply a swindle to put money into the pockets of the Church's leaders. His title was Mormonism Exposed, in its swindling and licentious abominations, refuted in its principles and in the claims of its head, the modern Mohammed, Joseph Smith, who is proved to have been a deceiver end no prophet of God; and his chapter, based on the reports of two apostates, on the simple Temple ceremonies of washing, anointing, passwords, grips, oaths, and enacting of the Creation story, was uncompromisingly headed “Orgies”. As late as 1902, in a preface which contrasted his own factual approach with earlier polemic, William A. Linn's Story of the Mormons included the words, “If the fraudulent character of the alleged revelation to Smith of the golden plates can be established, the foundation of the whole Church crumbles”; and Linn went on to devote a quarter of a very long book to the attempt. In 1957, however, in a lecture in the University of Utah, published as ‘The Mormons in American History’ (Bulletin of the University of Utah, Vol. 48, Ho, 11), William Mulder expressed what is nowadays a far more common view than any of those quoted above. “In its New England origins”, he said, “its Utopian experiments and reforms, its westward drive, and its early expansion to Europe resulting in a great programme of immigration and settlement, nineteenth-century Mormonism expressed prominent traits and tendencies that were already shaping American society. It was not simply a colourful reflection of the times; it was a dynamic reworking of the diverse elements of American culture.”

The writings of F. S. Oliver arouse as little interest today as the causes he espoused: tariff reform, the rights of Ulster, military preparedness, Imperial unity are issues abandoned by Politics but unclaimed by History. Booksellers indifferently expose his works to the elements. It is true that a brief account of his career is to be found in the Dictionary of National Biography; but the third volume of the Cambridge History of the British Empire does not mention his name. Yet to his contemporaries Oliver was a figure of great significance and the decline of his reputation has been swift and startling. Reasons can be put forward to account for the change: his political tracts are no longer relevant, his historical works were the efforts of an amateur in a discipline which has become increasingly professional, and his influence was always based primarily upon the force of his personality and the charm of his correspondence. Oliver's singular position in public affairs both helped and hindered his influence. Business preoccupations and indifferent health excluded him from an active part in politics, or so it is said. Doubt on this point is perhaps permissible, since the decade before 1914 saw him active in discussion and prolific as an author. It seems more likely that these were excuses offered to conceal his inability to accept the conventions of democracy. Walpole and Hamilton, Oliver's two heroes, marked the bounds of his political beliefs: the wider world of manhood suffrage was not for him.

At present there is very little American literature taught in the universities of Great Britain. In the London colleges and at Manchester and Nottingham, it is allowed as an elective in the honours course in English Language and Literature and these universities and Leeds accept candidates for higher degrees with some specialization in American literature; but there is no regular offering in the subject or qualified members of the faculty to teach it elsewhere, and even in London it must be taught almost wholly by visiting Americans.