PROFILES IN ACTION

Dr. Schauinger's purpose is to show, by means of a series of thirty-three biographical sketches, that Catholics have held public office in America at every level of government, from state legislatures to the presidency. The subjects of the sketches represent every period of American history, from colonial days through the revolutionary and Civil-War eras to the present, and include such figures as Daniel Carroll, (Union) General Philip Sheridan, Senator James Shields of Minnesota, Chief Justice Edward Douglas White, and, of course, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The author's style is pleasant enough, but the adult reader is easily wearied by an uncritical -- not to say wholly idealistic --approach to the subjects of the sketches, and by the superficiality of treatment accorded each one. Still, the book is of sufficient interest to be of some value to the young-adult reader and it should become a fast-moving item in the libraries of Catholic schools.