De Silver was wartime associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. The part of the book dealing with his work for the Union is the most interesting, and it is timely in that it contains a warning to us today. That liberty could have stood at such a low in this country during the war and the years following, is frightening, for we -- in 1940 -- think of such things as infinitely remote from us. The developments of De Silver's attitudes of mind are revealed chiefly by quotations from his letters written from college days to his death. Not a distinguished book, nor a dramatic biography, but readable and of special value today.