THE ADAMS FAMILY—James Truslow Adams—Little, Brown ($4).
Says Author James Truslow Adams of the Adams family, "with which I am in no way connected.": It is the most distinguished in the U. S. It has a unique record of public service. The Adams Family, June choice of the Literary Guild, is an attempt to describe this phenomenon, but not explain it. Something happened to the Adams blood or brain 150 years ago, lifted them from obscure respectability to international fame. Ever since, they have "maintained a pre-eminent position, due neither to great wealth nor to a hereditary title, but to character and sheer intellectual ability."
The Adamses came to Massachusetts from England about 1636, for more than 100 years were good but unremarkable citizens. Then John Adams was born. Educated for the ministry, he became a lawyer, was soon outstanding among public men in Massachusetts. A patriot, like his distant cousin Sam Adams, he was one of Massachusetts' delegates to the first Continental Congress. He nominated Washington as Commander-in-Chief. He was sent to France as Commissioner, later to England as Minister. U. S. Vice President eight years, he succeeded Washington as President, was first occupant of the White House. When Thomas Jefferson was elected to succeed him, Adams was so enraged that he refused to be present at Jefferson's inauguration. (Only other such case: son John Quincy Adams, fifth U. S. President, would not stay to greet incoming President Andrew Jackson.) Quick-tempered, ambitious, vain, John Adams was never personally popular. Short and fat, he was nicknamed "His Rotundity" by Washington wits.
Says Author Adams: "No Adams has ever been a party man." When statesmen came out and politicians came in, the Adamses were gradually forced further and further out of .public life. John Quincy, Minister to The Hague at 27, was second and last of the Adamses to reach the White House. After his single Presidential term he was elected to the House of Representatives, served there long and well, died in harness. Charles Francis, in the third generation, was Minister to England during the anxious times of the Civil War.
All the Adamses wrote voluminously, but not till the fourth generation found writing the only public career left open to them. Henry Adams wanted to influence politics by his pen. He found it an endless, hopeless task. His most famed book, The Education of Henry Adams, was published posthumously (1918). Long out of_political power, the Adamses are still in the public eye. "Today a third Charles Francis, the son of John Quincy's grandson John Quincy, is head of the family. A Harvard graduate, like all of his family since John; for 30 years treasurer of the University; a lawyer like all of his family; a famous yachtsman who defended the American Cup against the British; a man true to the family tradition and honored in his community,, he sits in the Cabinet at Washington as Secretary of that Navy which was founded by John"