Casting the Buffalo Commons: a Rhetorical Analysis of Print Media Coverage of the Buffalo Commons Proposal for the Great Plains

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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

May 2002

CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PRINT MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE BUFFALO COMMONS PROPOSAL FOR THE GREAT PLAINS

Mary L. Umberger Metropolitan Community College in Omaha

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Umberger, Mary L., "CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PRINT MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE BUFFALO COMMONS PROPOSAL FOR THE GREAT PLAINS" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 50. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/50

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in Great Plains Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring 2002). Published by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Copyright © 2000 Center for Great Plains Studies. Used by permission. CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PRINT MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE BUFFALO COMMONS PROPOSAL FOR THE GREAT PLAINS

MARY L. UMBERGER

They filed into the auditorium and found "I live on this land," one audience member seats, waiting politely for what they expected snorted. "My granddad lived on this land. You to be a preposterous talk. The featured speaker want me to reserve it for a herd of buffalo and rose and began his prepared speech. The audi- some tourists?" ence took note of his attire, his educated vo- But the challenges muted as the overhead cabulary, his "eastern" ways. Their scrutiny slides projected the counties in the area which, became vocal as he proposed his dream for the according to the science of the speaker, were Great Plains. dangerously close to ecological and economic ruin. Although this audience may not have wanted to listen to the speaker's vision of land use for the Great Plains, they knew the vocabulary of science applied to the land. They KEY WORDS: Buffalo Commons, Murray Edelman, knew the talk of erosion and overgrazing. They Great Plains, media studies, myth, Frank Popper, knew the talk of pesticides and chemicals rhetorial criticism which improved yields for a few years while sinking into the groundwater that quenched their thirst. Against their will, some began to Mary L. Umberger is a faculty member in the listen. Humanities Department at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, where she teaches communication In 1987 Frank and Deborah Popper, a plan- and philosophy courses. She wishes to thank the editor nerlgeographer team from Rutgers University, and anonymous Great Plains Quarterly readers for ~ro~osedthe Buffalo Commons. If imple- their useful suggestions in the development of this article. mented, the Buffalo Commons would have The article is based on her dissertation, completed in preserved a large area of the Great Plains, 1999 at the University of Maryland under the direction of James F . Klumpp. including land in ten states, in a national ark to be used by existing Native American reservations, and for the reintroduction of GPQ 22 (Spring 2002):99-1 141 buffalo. Farmers and ranchers who lived on 100 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002

this land and were able to earn their living the region. Beginning with the Homestead Act from it would be allowed to stay. Those who of 1862, the first cycle stretched into the 1880s. could not earn their living from the land, ar- The second boom-and-bust cycle on the Great gued the Poppers, would vacate it on their Plains occurred during the 1890s-1930s, and own, leaving the land to be managed by the the Poppers described the Dust Bowl, its cre- federal government. ation, and the United States government's This proposal caused conflict in the Great response, inadequate in their view, to the trag- Plains because it meant change within a com- edy in the 1930s. The third cycle began, ac- munity possessing a rich history of the land cording to the Poppers, in the 1970s and and its use. In addition to conflict, the Buffalo continued through the date of publication of Commons controversy produced a layered and the article in 1987. Finally, they projected complex case study of communication. What future gloom with discouraging climate fore- began as an academic proposal for change, casts for the region, anticipated water short- offered by two professors to a community of ages, and continued ineffectiveness of which they were not members, quickly mush- conservation methods: "At that point, the only roomed into a rich exchange that reached back way to keep the Plains from turning into an into the history of the region as well as into its utter wasteland, an American Empty Quarter, future. Caught up in this exchange were not will be for the federal government to step in only the Poppers but also the Great Plains and buy the land-in short, to deprivatize it.ll3 people, mythic voices from the region's past, The Poppers'solution for the problems of and local and national media. the Great Plains was to "recreate the Plains of the nineteenth century" through the means THEPOPPERS AND THE BUFFALO of the federal government, with buffalo, na- COMMONS tive grasses, and Native Americans. The Pop- pers briefly discussed their proposed solution In 1987 Frank Popper, an urban planner at in relationship to both the people and the land,

Rutgers University, and Deborah Popper,- - a devoting two paragraphs to the people of the doctoral candidate in geography at the time, Great Plains, and four paragraphs to the land. first published their Buffalo Commons idea in As their article reached an audience out- the specialized academic journal Planning.' The side the academy, the Poppers began to travel Poppers began the article with a description extensively in the Great Plains in 1989. As of the Great Plains, detailing products, cli- they traveled and spoke, the Poppers' argu- mate, characteristics, and providing a defini- ments changed from their original conception tion of the region in terms of space, population, of the Buffalo Commons as literal to one with land area, and weather. They argued that while more emphasis on the Buffalo Commons as the Great Plains played an important role in metaphor. While their arguments for the the history of the United States, the region boom-and-bust cycles in the Great Plains re- was currently being ignored and would have mained much the same from 1987 to 1994, great importance in the future. Describing during the height of the media coverage, the the current land use in the Great Plains as the Poppers now argue that the Buffalo Commons "largest, longest-running agricultural and en- is becoming real, created through the efforts vironmental miscalculation" in United States of the Great Plains people. history, they argued that to preserve the Great The Poppers proposed their idea of a Buf- Plains, the land should be "returned to its falo Commons to a narrow academic audience. original pre-white state, that it be, in effect, Yet because of the media coverage and the deprivatized.ll2 controversial nature of the changes them- They supported their argument by citing selves, their proposal reached a much broader the "boom-and-bust" cycles in the history of audience in the Great Plains. The Great Plains CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 101

FIG. 1. Bisononrangelandin Nebraska. Photograph by Harvey Gunderson, c. 1969. Courtesy of Department of Zoology, University of Nebraska State Museum. of Cather and Sandoz are still very much the text of a proposal like the Buffalo Commons, Great Plains of today.4The land and its people I will illustrate through textual evidence that are steeped in the sometimes conflicting tra- it rarely did. Instead, the media sought out ditions of Jefferson's yeoman farmer, the fron- familiar oppositions between East and West, tier myth, and agricultural capitalism. These between academic knowledge and lived expe- traditions speak variously of people caring for rience, between the dueling historical myths the land so it will care for them, of a land that of the Great Plains as desert and the Great allows only the toughest to stay, of people Plains as garden. Any information about the owning land to do with as they plea~e.~Within Poppers' proposal or about its reception in the this context, the Poppers proposed change the Plains that readers could glean from the media magnitude of which was rarely heard on the coverage was cast into this dramatic rhetori- Plains. cal struggle. In this way, the media empha- It would be simple to argue that the media's sized the conflict between the Poppers and role in this complex exchange was to dissemi- the Great Plains people over the Buffalo Com- nate the Buffalo Commons story to the people mons but ignored the conflict at the root of of the Great Plains. But the media were more the Poppers' proposal, the struggle between than disseminators of information; they cast the Great Plains people and the land. the story as a struggle between stock charac- To frame this analysis of the media, we can ters: the academic easteners and the sturdy turn to the work of Murray Edelman. In Con- Westerners. While the media is often expected structing the Political Spectacle, Edelman con- to provide coverage of the content and con- trasts our conventional notions of the role of 102 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002 media with his view of politics as "spectacle" and the language that reflects and interprets constituted by "news" rep~rting.~In our con- those situation^."'^ ventional view, Edelman argues, we believe The media's role in the Buffalo Commons "citizens who are informed about political de- controversy, then, was much more than dis- velopments can more effectively protect and seminator of facts to a concerned public. In- promote their own interests and the public deed, as the media cast the Buffalo Commons intere~t."~The conventional role of the media story, they ignored the call to question the is to disseminate information to citizens for Poppers' proposal with the material facts of that purpose. Edelman argues that the con- the Great Plains, a call dictated by the conventional view of the media "takes for granted ventional view of the media. Instead, they cast a world of facts that have a determinable mean- a rhetorical conflict between stock characters: ing and a world of people who react rationally the academic Poppers and the alternatively to the facts." Thus, "citizens, journalists, and reactionary or stoic Great Plains people. If the scholars are observers of 'fact' whose mean- media veered from this casting, it was only to ings can be accurately ascertained by those lift the struggle to a mythic level by employ- who are properly trained and motivated."' ing the region's conflicting myths of the Plains Within this conventional view of the as desert and the Plains as garden." media's role, we would expect the media to If, as Edelman argues, we see the media's send reporters to the Plains to investigate the role as "construct[ing] and reconstruct[ing] statistics the Poppers used to support their social problems, crises, enemies, and leaders," Buffalo Commons proposal, such as age of resi- then we can explore how they construct those dents, depopulation numbers, and economic situations through the "language that reflects development, and to search for proof in the and interprets" them. In the current explora- material facts of life in the Great Plains. We tion, we will see that the media cast a nar- would expect the media to compare the Pop- rative of struggle between the Poppers, pers' statistics with those of Great Plains states characterized as academics, and the Great and to ask tough questions of both the Pop- Plains residents, characterized as pioneers, pers and the Great Plains people-in short, to or experts. The media's strategic further enlighten their readers about both the choice to cast characters in these roles severely Buffalo Commons and the region that it pro- limited the characters' actions. Thus, the plot poses to change. This reporting would then within the media's narrative was quite thin: enable the Great Plains residents and others action was cast only to further establish the in the nation to "react rationallyv to the Buf- stock characters and tighten the familiar op- falo Commons proposal, weighing it against positions. Before we turn to textual evidence current land-use policies in the region. of this argument, however, an overview of the Such expectations of the media were not print media coverage is needed. met. In contrast to the conventional view of the media, Edelman argues that events are PRINTMEDIA COVERAGE OF THE not simply reported on by the media, they are BUFFALOCOMMONS: 1988-1994 "constituted by news reporting." This reporting is "continuously construct[ing] and recon- Media coverage of the Buffalo Commons structling] social problems, crises, enemies, and proposal began in 1988, following the appear- leader^."^ "[Rlather than seeing political news ance of the Poppers' original article on the as an account of events to which people re- Buffalo Commons in December 1987.12 I ana- act," Edelman treats "political developments lyzed a total of seventy-four articles, nineteen as creations of the publics concerned with from national sources and fifty-five from them. Whether events are noticed and what sources within the state of Nebraska, published they mean depends upon observers' situations in 1988-1994. I searched these articles for CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 103 patterns or themes, initially separating them computer searches of databases. The types of into six themes.13 These six themes were next articles in both local and national sources collapsed into three themes with one sub- ranged from opinion pieces to rebuttals to theme each. It was at this point that a rough simple announcements of upcoming speaking chronology emerged. The media were casting engagements. the story by introducing the characters, then maturing the story as the relationship between CASTINGTHE BUFFALOCOMMONS the Poppers and the Great Plains people STORY changed. Discovered in the thematic analysis and supported textually in the articles, a story The media cast the story of the Buffalo line emerged in which the Poppers and the Commons as a rhetorical conflict in which Great Plains people became stock characters stock characters struggled with each other in in a rhetorical struggle to define the Great the Great Plains. The Poppers were charac- Plains. terized as academics who used ideas, talking For Nebraska coverage, I reviewed the and writing for a living. The Great Plains Omaha World-Herald, with the largest circula- people were characterized variously as yokels, tion across Nebraska; the Lincoln Journal Star, pioneers, or experts, defending the Great Plains with a circulation mostly within Lincoln, the as garden.15 The narrative cast by the media state capital; the McCook Daily Gazette, with was one of character, not of plot. When the a much smaller circulation in the south-cen- media varied from their character-driven nar- tral region of Nebraska; and the Kearney Hub, rative, they did so using the historical guiding with a small circulation in the central region myths of the desert and the garden. Both local of the state.14 and national media used these myths as re- These newspapers were chosen for a vari- sources. The national media used them to ety of reasons. The Omaha World-Herald and contextualize the story for their broader audi- the Lincoln Journal Star have the largest circu- ence, while the local media chose quotes that lations in the state. Both these cities, how- enacted these myths. ever, lie in the eastern quarter of the state, The media cast their narrative of the Buf- which was not included in the Poppers' origi- falo Commons during 1988-1994, the height nal predictions for the Great Plains area. To of their coverage of the story. Text from eleven supplement the two eastern newspapers, I re- articles-four national periodicals, one of viewed two dailies from the middle of the state. which was reprinted in a local newspaper, and The McCook Daily Gazette and the Kearney seven local articles-illustrated this casting.16 Hub covered the Poppers' early visits to these As the media cast the Buffalo Commons story areas. Surprisingly, many of the weekly local as a rhetorical struggle, they introduced the newspapers across the state did not cover the characters of the Poppers and the Great Plains Buffalo Commons. In fact, in a 1997 informal people. telephone survey of newspapers in the areas that the Poppers visited, several editors either had not heard of the Buffalo Commons at all or had heard about it previously but had for- The differences between the local and na- gotten it. tional casting of the Poppers were of degree, I searched the Omaha World-Herald and the not kind. Both media castthe Poppers as east- Lincoln Journal Star by edition for the years ern academics who used ideas to act upon the 1987-1994. For the other two newspapers, only Great Plains and its people. Thus cast, the the years in which the Poppers spoke in the Poppers were surprised at the reaction caused towns of McCook and Kearney were searched. by their Buffalo Commons idea, but in their National coverage was determined through role as academics, their actions were limited 104 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002 to correcting the misconceptions of the Great it strongly in this Lincolnlournal Star article in Plains people. 1989:

When Deborah Epstein Popper and her hus- Man has spent a century and more prod- band, Frank, co-authored a 1987 magazine ding and poking the Great Plains land. Ek- article on the future of the Great Plains, ing out an existence. Alternating between they had no idea it would be perceived as feast and famine. Now many of its residents an obituary for parts of 10 states, including get by on federal farm subsidy payments. Its Nebraska. . . . In effect, the Poppers are small-town windows are boarded up as suggesting that the clock be turned back to people leave the rural areas. Dr. Frank Pop- the 18th century, when the Great Plains per tells a depressing story, but the Rutgers was a vast ocean of grass, inhabited only by University professor's looking glass on the thundering herds of buffalo and Indians. future is worse. And his vision is an end-of- The Poppers predict. . . the federal govern- the-world one for rural Nebraska. The New ment could restore . . . the Plains to the Jersey professor sees western Nebraska, as state they were in before the coming of the well as rural areas of 10 Great Plains states white man and create an "ultimate national as a no-man's land. He'd rather just leave it park". . . . Frank Popper said the furor has to the buffalo and native grasses and wild- not subsided since the seven-page article life that reigned over it before white man's appeared in the December 1987 issue of modern agriculture. Popper and his wife, Planning. ' Deborah, proposed in a 1987 article that the government allow the Great Plains from This characterization of the Poppers relied on the 98th meridian (west of Aurora) to the a stereotype of academics: they naively work Rocky Mountains to revert naturally into a in isolation, without concern for the implica- "Buffalo Commons." The "commons" would tions of that work. The actions of these aca- serve best as a great national park, the Pop- demics were limited to their stereotypical pers contend. And instead of the federal functions: to "suggest" and "predict." Once government continuing to subsidize feed, the characters of the Poppers were introduced, fertilizer and irrigation on a true grassland, the reporter detailed the Buffalo Commons Dust Bowl and Sandhills region, the gov- proposal for those in the Great Plains who ernment should just give up and buy it all may not yet have heard of the idea. These back.'' details worked to bind an idea from two academic easterners to the daily lives of the people The Poppers, as "end-of-the-world" visionar- on the Great Plains. The reporter used the ies, described the Great Plains as a place where proposed return to historical times on the residents had been "prodding and poking" the Great Plains, and the role of the federal gov- land for "a century and more," "eking out an ernment in accomplishing that return, to em- existence." This was the Great Plains as desert, phasize the radicalness of the Poppers' idea with Frank Popper as its voice. This academic and to further cast them in their academic was willing to "just leave it to the buffalo" and character. The local media chose to cast the urged the federal government to "just give up Poppers as the voices of the desert myth as and buy it all back." Even as the media cast well: the Buffalo Commons would return "huge the Poppers as the voice of the desert, the tracts of land" to the Great Plains, a "vast conflict is not between nature vs. settlement, ocean of grass," empty except for "thundering but one of rhetorical struggle between the herds of buffalo and Indians." Poppers and the Great Plains people. Within While we can see a hint of the desert myth the media's casting of the Poppers' role in this in the media's casting above, the media voices struggle, a thin plot emerged: the Poppers told CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 105

"a depressing story" in which they "contended" well satisfied when the national media placed the Great Plains should be allowed to "revert" the academic Poppers in the midst of the Wild to the "reign" of the desert. Although the Great West: Plains people's voices in the rhetorical conflict were not yet heard in this casting, their They don't look like the scourges of the role was clearly foretold: to resist the Poppers. prairie. Frank and Deborah Popper look Remaining within their academic charac- more like mild-mannered academics, be- ter, the appropriate action for the Poppers was cause that's what they are. . . . They're not to explain the Great Plains residents' resis- outlaws. They're readers, writers, and talk- tance, even search for causality. As the media ers. They are the kind of people who like cast it, the Poppers' explanation was that Great nothing better than to start a conversation. Plains residents simply did not understand the But walk into a bar between the Missouri Buffalo Commons proposal: "'Some of the criti- and the Pecos, lift your glass and propose a cisms are based on a serious misreading of the toast to the Poppers, and you could be in a original article,' Popper said. 'The notion that heap o' trouble.*' we proposed a depopulation of the plains is nonsense. In fact, I believe most of the mid- The national media cast the return of the Wild size towns of the Plains, like Kearney, will West, complete with the "mild-mannered aca- weather the storm fine. They have the tools.'"19 demics" who read, write, and talk for a living, The "serious misreading of the original article," and the angry bar mob in the Great Plains. By not errors in their analysis, explained the "criti- placing the Poppers in the Wild West, the cisms" voiced by the Great Plains residents. media cast them as harmless academics and True to the academic character cast upon set up a well-known formula for interaction Frank Popper, he refuted the total depopula- between East and West. The Great Plains tion of the Plains as "nonsense," clarified that people then fell into the formula as those who towns like Kearney, Nebraska, would "weather resisted the Poppers' ideas. the storm fine," and corrected the mistaken By accentuating the drama of the Buffalo Great Plains residents. This rhetorical struggle Commons story for their audience, the na- between characters equally constrained action tional media became obligated to explain to for each: Frank could only clarify and correct their readers the reason for the Poppers' in- the Great Plains people, who were left to "mis- famy. As they did so, they echoed the local read" and criticize. media's reliance upon the corrective function The national media also cast the Poppers of the academic: as academics in a rhetorical struggle with the Great Plains people, but with a heavier reli- As is so often the case, the Poppers' fame ance upon the guiding myths of the Great stemmed more from misinterpretations of Plains. This increased use of the mythic struc- what they said than from what they said. ture, and thus the increased dramatization of Among the things they did not say but that the struggle, can be explained by the different many people on the Great Plains believe audiences for which the reporters were writ- they said: ing. For an audience reading the Boston Globe * Let the federal government buy all the or the Chicago Tribune, the Great Plains was land in the Great Plains and kick out not a geographically familiar area, let alone an the farmers and ranchers. . . . area in which the audience would have readily What they did say is more complicated.*' understood the political and economic issues. Thus, more drama was needed to cast the story According to this casting, had the Great Plains to national readers than to those within the people only understood the Poppers correctly, Great Plains. The need for more drama was the controversy surrounding the Buffalo Com- 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002 mons could have been avoided. "As is so often statistics" were mentioned, they were not in- the case," the misinterpretations were the true vestigated or challenged. source of the problem, not the proposal itself. To further contextualize the rhetorical Again, the actions of either "side" in the rhe- struggle between the naive academics and the torical struggle were severely limited by the resistant people in the Great Plains, the me- media's characterizations: the Poppers pro- dia compared the struggle to similar, perhaps posed a complicated plan for the Great Plains; more familiar struggles: the region's residents believed only "misinterpretations." "I think we probably weren't expecting any While the local media drew upon the myth reaction at all," Mrs. Popper said. Her hus- of the desert to characterize the Poppers and band explains why. . . . "The idea that there their proposal, the national media drew upon were thousands of people out there that manifest destiny to contextualize their narra- really care. . . . We clearly struck a nerve," tive of rhetorical struggle for their readers: he said. As anyone who knows anything about practical politics and public opinion Buffalo Commons . . . has inadvertently could have told them, one sure way to get aroused something that all their [the Pop- angry reactions is to tell people that the pers'] maps and statistics now can neither way they have been living is about to be- answer nor control. The Poppers have con- come obsolete. If the people hearing this fronted America's potent, mythological are rural folks from remote regions and the sense of its mission to conquer and inhabit people saying it are city folks from the East a continent-every bit of it. Although or West Coast, the reaction is likely to be linked to history, the Buffalo Commons even stronger. Steelworkers in Pennsylva- thesis is set in the present and points to the nia mill towns, foresters in Oregon and future. . . . the Buffalo Commons has left lobstermen from Maine all react the same the realm of metaphor and academic dis- way to predictions that there will be fewer course and entered a more rough-and- of them in the future. They deny it, even if tumble world, where ideas are taken as deep down they know it's true. He acknowl- serious proposals and where emotions are edged that he and his wife were naive not as important as fact or reason in deciding to expect this reaction.23 matters.22 Here the media's rhetorical struggle of the The media not only forecast the reactions of Buffalo Commons was cast within a national Great Plains characters, they contextualized context. Just like other communities in the their narrative of rhetorical struggle for their nation who had been told that "the way they national readers. According to the media, have been living is about to become obso- when the Poppers unleashed the idea of the lete," the Great Plains people denied the pre- Buffalo Commons, they radically juxtaposed dictions that there would "be fewer of them in "America's potent, mythological sense of its the future," even if "deep down" they knew it mission to conquer and inhabit a continent," to be "true." By using this comparative strat- manifest destiny, with a call to return to a egy, the media set the rhetorical struggle within "presettlement" time on the Great Plains. This a frame familiar to their national readers. historical challenge, as the media framed it, The local and national media cast the Buf- caused the inevitable conflict between the falo Commons as a rhetorical struggle between Poppers and the Great Plains ~eople.Once the Poppers and the Great Plains people, char- the national media referenced manifest des- acterizing the Poppers as "naive" academics, tiny, their rhetorical struggle was lifted to a "startled" observers of the reaction their ideas mythic level. While the Poppers' "maps and had created. This narrative dictated that the CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 107

Poppers' actions would be appropriately aca- folksy language and barbed wit. As we heard demic, to clarify and correct Great Plains resi- in the media's casting of the Poppers, the rhe- dents. Set in opposition, the Great Plains torical struggle was not between nature and residents were thinly characterized as people settlement, as it was historically, nor even who "misread" and criticized. But the media between the people and the land, as it was in cast a richer characterization of the Great the Poppers' Buffalo Commons proposal, but Plains residents as well. between the narrowly defined characters of the academic Poppers and the wise rurals in the Great Plains.-By placing these stock characters within the thin narrative plot of a rhe- Just as the media's character-driven nar- torical struggle over the Buffalo Commons rative of the rhetorical struggle over the Buf- proposal, the media limited the Great Plains falo Commons restrained the actions open to peoples' actions to one: resistance of the Pop- the academic Poppers, their characterization pers. The media then fueled those actions by of the Great Plains people dictated a limited characterizing the Poppers in a certain way: as range of actions. Regardless of the variety with those "New Jersey city dudes" who used which the local media cast the Great Plains "Easternspeak and held "this idea" about the characters-as wise rural, pioneer, or expert- Great Plains that was clearly ludicrous. the actions they were allowed remained sin- The local media further fueled the rhetori- gularly limited: to resist the Poppers' Buffalo cal struggle by encouraging the voice of the Commons. Similar to their casting of the Pop- wise rural and his folksy insults. "An illustri- pers, the national media cast the Great Plains ous panel has been assembled to take on the characters as yokel or pioneer, employing the Poppers. . . . 'Popper bashing' should make for myths of the desert and garden to lift the rhe- an entertaining and interesting evening. But torical struggle to a mythic level. let's remember, these are experts-they are The local media cast the Great Plains resi- more than 50 miles from home and carry brief- dents as wise rurals who used the Buffalo Com- case~."~~The media did not urge investigation mons as an opportunity to exchange a few of the Poppers' statistics, or even a compari- insults with the easterners. From the Omaha son between the Poppers' proposal and the World-Herald in 1991 we hear this Great Plains material facts of the Great Plains, but rather voice: "Popper bashing." In doing so, they reinforced their character-driven narrative of the rhe- Not Again! torical struggle. Just when we think we've heard the last of Within this rhetorical struggle, the folksy Frank and Deborah Popper, back they yet flippant voice of the wise rural evolved come, popping off again. The Poppers are into the voices of pioneers, in a panel of local those New Jersey city dudes who are trying residents who disputed the Buffalo Commons to tell Plains state folks what we must do to proposal after the Poppers' public speech in be saved. They have this idea that big parts McCook, Nebraska. of the Plains, including a number of Ne- braska counties, are no longer fit for hu- Friehe, a member of Nebraska Wheat Grow- man habitation and in fact never were. They ers Association, called the proposal ridicu- want to turn the land into a "Buffalo Com- lous, but one that shouldn't be taken lightly. mons." "Commons" is Easternspeak for a He said agriculture on the Great Plains has publicly held grassy area.24 been one of this country's greatest success stories, especially when it comes to foreign This local editorial cast the voice of the Great trade. . . . Maddux, a cattle feeder from Plains resident as the dubious rural, armed with Wauneta and Republican candidate for lieu- 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002

tenant governor, said he couldn't argue with a 'tizzy' so they will focus on what is fea- the bleak statistics offered by the Poppers, sible," she said. The idea of buffalo roaming but added statistics don't recognize the spirit across the Great Plains has problems, Kaye of the people to make the most from what said, since bison are carriers of feared dis- little is offered. Renken, president of the eases such as brucellosis, which causes spon- Chase County Area Arts Council, said the taneous abortions, and tuberculosis, which people of the Great Plains have the strength may be transmitted to people. . . . The Pop- to face change and it's part of their heri- pers' idea of a Buffalo Commons park dis- tage. "Working together is what commu- tracts from the real agriculture problems of nity is all about," she said. "People expect the Great Plains, she said. Some of those to make sacrifices and know the need to real problems, Kaye said, are the aging popu- preserve the land. People are this land's lation of the Great Plains, the market of most important res~urce."~~ farm commodities and health care. . . . "Those are the real problems in Great Plains The local media displayed the Great Plains agriculture," Kaye said. "A Buffalo Com- residents, gave them credentials, and aimed mons looks cute by c~mparison."~~ them at the Poppers. Friehe, Maddux, and Renken were cast as the voices of the Great Although Dr. Fran Kaye attempted to address Plains pioneer, but also as the voices of the the material facts of life on the Great Plains, garden. They spoke of the agricultural "suc- as well as the facts of the Poppers' proposal, cess story," the pastoral garden of the world. the media cast this as a conflict between pro- Once the rhetorical struggle between the Pop- fessors. Through these dueling academic ex- pers and the Great Plains people was elevated perts, the media questioned the basis of to the mythic level, the Great Plains people expertise. Relying upon familiar divisions be- could deny the "bleak statistics offered by the tween the East Coast and the Great Plains, Poppers" with the voices of the Garden. The the local media required that place of origin "spirit" of the Great Plains people, the garden's determine expertise. Only the experiences of yeoman farmer, had the "strength to face living on the Great Plains could bring the change," to "make sacrifices." These voices experience required to be an "expert." Thus, enacted the garden myth, with the splendor of the Poppers were cast as the eastern academ- the Great Plains' productive capabilities and ics who used "cute" ideas to evoke reactions the resiliency of its people. Indeed, people from the Great Plains people, but Fran Kaye, became the "land's most important resource."27 Great Plains expert, was not fooled by the The media's strategy of casting a local Poppers' "satire," for she knew the "real" prob- lineup of Great Plains residents to resist the lems of the Great Plains. Poppers became a familiar one throughout The local media went so far in their casting the local coverage, varying only to supple- of the rhetorical struggle as to give voice to ment the voices of the wise rural and sturdy one dueling academic expert in his own fea- pioneer with a Great Plains expert. Matching ture editorial. John Wunder, at that time Di- Great Plains academic for eastern academic, rector of the Center for Great Plains Studies the local media reported on the reaction of at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, began one professor from the University of Nebraska- by grappling with the Poppers' ideas: "[Tlhere Lincoln: is more to the Buffalo Commons theory than simply writing it off with anti-Trenton talk. The Poppers have drawn attention to the At first, I tried to understand the nature of Great Plains. "They used the idea of a Buf- these ideas coming from some unlikely sources falo Commons park like some professors use of expertise. Ideas, after all, are very impor- satires in the classroom-to get students in tant to what I do, and these ideas are certainly CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 109 provocative. Surely there must be some sub- the expert and the wise rural were silenced. In stance to them."29 As in the media's use of their place the national media cast the yokel, Professor Kaye, Wunder is heard to want to an angry reactionary, and the pioneer, armed address the Buffalo Commons as an "idea," a with the powerful garden myth. We heard the proposal for land use. Yet as he continued, the yokel voice in the Boston Globe: rhetorical struggle between the Poppers and the Great Plains people became obvious: Virtually every Plains-state governor, not to mention a horde of congressmen and So what's new?Not much. Life in the Great other elected officials, has denounced the Plains is dynamic, not static. Many diverse thesis, engaging in what one observer calls people have lived in the harsh environ- Popper-bashing. The Poppers have been ment of the Plains for thousands of years. called "deranged," and the Buffalo Com- They come and go; lands change. . . . Thus, mons has been termed a "bunch of crap," it is not surprising that people are moving "flapdoodle," and "Popperscock" by editors in and out of the Plains. It has always been, of small-town weeklies. . . . More than 1,000 and it will always be, as long as humans letters have poured in to the Poppers at inhabit this continent. But the Poppers' Rutgers, about a quarter of them praise- theory is pedicated on a static dimension. worthy and the rest ranging from politely It is ahistorical. It fails to take into consid- critical to downright vicious; a few, un- eration that these traits about the Plains so signed, referred ominously to a "Zionist shocking to those who first confront them conspiracy" against rural Ameri~a.~' have existed for tens and hundreds of years." While the national media cast the Poppers as stereotypical academics, naive and isolated, Wunder, featured as a Great Plains expert by they cast in counterpoint the Great Plains resi- the local media, denied the novelty of the dent as the stereotypical one-dimensioned Poppers' findings by relying upon his knowl- yokel, with the only action open to them one edge of place. This time, the Poppers, as op- of angry reaction: "vicious," "ominous," even posed to the Great Plains experts, simply didn't anti-Semitic. Little attempt was made by the do their research.)' In an interesting reversal, national media to ascertain the material facts the Poppers became the participants in the of the Buffalo Commons; rather, they simply local media's rhetorical struggle who "failed set up the opposing sides in their rhetorical to take into consideration" the changing Great struggle. Plains, just as the Great Plains residents had Once the opposing sides in this rhetorical been cast as the characters who "misread" the struggle had been cast, the media lifted the Buffalo Commons in the national media's cov- conflict into the realm of myth. Just as the erage. Whether characterizing the Great Plains national media used the garden myth to people or the Poppers, the media severely lim- contextualize the Poppers and the Buffalo ited the actions of both: the Poppers and the Commons for their readers, they provided Great Plains people could only resist each those readers with a similar context in which other. to understand the Great Plains people: The local media presented a cast of Great Plains characters to resist the Poppers, rang- In a region where the white settlement is ing from the wise rural, armed with folksy in- often only several generations old and in sults, to the sturdy pioneer, voicing the garden some instances younger than some current myth, to academic experts, using the language residents, the assertion that settling the land of their professions. As the national media was a profound miscalculation is taken as cast the Great Plains characters, the voices of more than a scholarly analysis. It is a per- 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002

sonal rebuke. Mark Carson, editor-publisher there forever, and another is blowing this of the Pierce County Tribune in Rugby, summer. Mathers will survive as he always North Dakota, best sums up the raw emo- has, with hard work, shrewd calculation. tion the Poppers and their evocative phrase He and those like him may be the future of have elicited: "They don't take into account this vast and troubled land, which seems to the struggle and hard work of three genera- be stumbling back in time toward a recast tions of pioneers who have taken what was frontier where grass will be king, some buf- a treeless prairie and made it into one of falo may actually roam again, and man will the most productive food-producing areas be in the minority. . . . In a way, Mathers is in the world. That's what really troubles part of a recreation, edging back toward an me. Their theory says we should have left open and exhilarating country that was this to the buffalo."33 swept away by bad government policy and greed. Homesteading was a tragedy in most Again, the national media used the garden of the plains, pitting small farmers against myth to provide context for their readers. the relentless weather. It was no contest. Within this context, the "Popper-bashing" But then the government compounded the yokel evolved into a struggling "pioneer." The problem-and still does-by offering crop national media carefully chose quotes that subsidies, and those who broke the soil be- characterized the Great Plains pioneer. came manacled to a marginal existence. Through the "hard work of three generations," Some still hang on, but time runs against that "treeless prairie," the desert of the early them. There, in simple narrative, is the core IBOOs, was transformed into "one of the most of the anguish and the argument and the productive food-producing areas in the world," hope of the Great Plains with its menacing William Gilpin's "garden of the world." The beauty.34 academic Poppers' "theory," that the garden of the Great Plains should have been "left . . . Bill Mathers is presented as the archetypal to the buffalo," denied these pioneers' history pioneer. Like those pop culture cowboys, in the Great Plains, therefore transforming a Mathers provides the media with a protago- "scholarly analysisv into a "personal rebuke." nist in their "simple narrative." By lifting the rhetorical struggle between the Once the media had captured the atten- Poppers and the Great Plains residents into tion and emotions of their readers with the myth, the media transformed an academic idea stock pioneer and his saga, they introduced for an important region of the country into an the familiar struggle between the Poppers and insult to the way people lived their lives. Great Plains people like Bill Mathers: The garden myth's failure in the Great Plains provided the opening scene for their In such a huge land, the conditions vary compelling narrative: enormously, and so do the opinions on what to do. . . . But of all studies and proposals, Onthe surface there is not much about Bill the one by a couple of New Jersey intellec- Mathers to bring to mind Augustus McCrae tuals has raised the greatest storm out on or Woodrow Call, the gritty cattle drivers the plains. . . . They swept up the entire of the epic novel and television mini-series region, from Texas to Montana, in their Lonesome Dove. . . . But more than a cen- analysis. Their language was apocalyptic tury after the time of that story, Mathers ("largest, longest-running agricultural and rode their trail, sank his roots into their environmental miscalculation in the grasslands and adapted to the big weather nation's history"), their images devastating and financial buffetings of the Great Plains. ("dreams, drought and dust") and their pre- Storms natural and political have raged dictions frightening ("a wasteland, an CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 11 1

American empty quarter"). . . . But putting mythic level, complete with archetypal pio- visions on seminar blackboards and bring- neers and pop culture cowboys, the struggle ing them into reality in this nation. . . are remained between the Poppers and the Great dramatically different things. . . . If nothing Plains people. else, the debate has rallied the plainsmen to search for new ways to deal with the THERHETORICAL STRUGGLE OF THE realities of decline-less water and oil; BUFFALOCOMMONS fewer minerals, people, towns. It has also revealed that a remarkable number of plains Guided by Edelman's theory of news re- residents, like Mathers, have for years been porting as spectacle, we can see that the me- adjusting to the inexorable rhythms of the dia acted as more than simply disseminators of land. . . . In the end, Mathers believes, land the Buffalo Commons story. They cast the story governs almost everything else. "You work of the Buffalo Commons using familiar oppo- with the land," he says. "You can't work sitions between eastern academics and west- against it."j5 ern pioneers, voicing the myths of garden and desert. Our notions of the media as a vehicle Regardless of the mythic underpinnings of the through which we can further investigate a struggle over the Great Plains, it remained a situation, obtain information, and use it to conflict between a "couple of New Jersey in- make an informed decision were not sup- tellectuals" and "plainsmen" like Mathers. ported by the actions of the media as they While the casting alternated between the ac- cast the Buffalo Commons story. They seem- tions of academics, "putting visions on semi- ingly did not take the Buffalo Commons seri- nar blackboards," to the actions of the ously as a land-use ~roposal,for they did not government, which "manacled homesteaders send reporters to question the statistics of the to a marginal existence," to the actions of pio- proposal with the material facts of life in the neers, who lived with "the realities of de- Great Plains. Instead, both local and national cline," it ended with the land, which governed media cast the Buffalo Commons story as a "almost everything else." The national media rhetorical struggle between the Poppers and concluded the rhetorical struggle between the the Great Plains people. In this rhetorical Poppers and the Great Plains people in the realm struggle, stock characters were cast in a thin of the desert, with the triumph of the land. Pio- narrative plot, where the only action was to neers like Mathers might remain in the re- resist each other. gion, but if they did, they had to "work with This rhetorical struggle was at times lifted the land," not "against it." By casting the con- to the mythic level of the region's guiding flict in mythic terms, the national media were myths of the desert and the garden. While this able to conclude their narrative without provided more drama for national readers, the overtly supporting either side in the rhetori- strategy did little to inform readers. Both the cal struggle they cast between the Poppers and casting of the rhetorical struggle and the lift- the Great Plains residents. ing of that struggle to a mythic level ignored The local and national media cast the Great the conflict between the Great Plains ~eople Plains people differently, yet both relied upon and the land itself, the conflict that had been the mythic guides of the Great Plains as desert at the heart of the Poppers' proposal. and the Great Plains as garden. The local media The Poppers had proposed that the Great cast the Great Plains residents as wise rural, Plains people should approach their battle with pioneer, or expert, but regardless of the char- the land in a different way. The Poppers pro- acterization, their actions were limited to re- vided evidence of this battle by detailing the sistance of the academic Poppers. Even when boom-and-bust cycles of settlement. Instead the media lifted the rhetorical struggle to a of the charging advances and forced retreats 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002 that had dominated past conflict between the casting stock characters in a mythic battle on Great Plains and its inhabitants, the Poppers the Great Plains. argued for less intensive land uses through Perhaps the more important question is not the Buffalo Commons. Yet this conflict, so about the role of media, but about readers' well supported by the Poppers with the his- expectations of it. Why does it matter whether tory of the region, was generally ignored by the media fulfilled our expectations? One rea- the media. son is that many of the Great Plains people, as Thus, we can see three levels of conflict well as others outside the region, got their within the media's casting of the Buffalo Com- only information about the Buffalo Commons mons story. The first, and dominant, conflict from the media. Many did not hear the Pop- cast by the media is the rhetorical struggle pers speak, nor read the original or subsequent between the Poppers and the people of the articles. Instead, they relied on the media to Great Plains. By relying upon their stereotypi- report the proposal. If readers expected cal characterizations of the Poppers as aca- Edelman's "conventional" reporting of facts demics and the Great Plains people as variously that can be trusted and used to make sound yokel, wise rural, pioneer, or expert, the me- decisions, then the media's casting of the story dia were able to cast a conflict over the land- into familiar, even trite oppositions between use proposal while ignoring the second conflict East and West, and their further dramatiza- entirely. This second conflict, conspicuous tion of the controvery using the region's myths, mostly for its absence, had been proposed by obscures the science and logic of the proposal

the Poppers- - themselves. It was a conflict found itself, let alone the complexities of interac- in the material facts of the historical, current, tion between the "opposing" sides. Of course, and even future lives of Great Plains residents some of the Great Plains people recognized as they struggled for their livelihood with the the Poppers' facts in their own lives: the chil- land they inhabited. This was the conflict of dren who left to attend college and returned boom-and-bust cycles, of government policies only on holidays, the dwindling resources designed to help the region but harming it available in a small town, the loss of a grocery instead, of economically forced depopulation store, a bus route, a doctor, a post office. Yet as more and more land fell into the hands of reading the media's casting of the story, one fewer and fewer poeple, sometimes even to can doubt whether understanding was en- corporations. But rather than address this sec- hanced concerning these difficult and painful ond conflict, which dealt with the material issues. In their search to make the Buffalo facts and statistics of life on the Great Plains, Commons an engaging drama that would play rather than asking the difficult questions and well with their readers, the media performed a furthering the dialogue that resulted, the me- disservice to all parties by oversimplifying and dia transformed the first conflict into yet an- overdramatizing the issues. other conflict, one of mythic proportions, where nature battled settlement, and the desert battled the garden. If, as Edelman suggested, our "conven- 1. Deborah Epstein Popper and Frank J. Pop- per, "The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust," Plan- tional" view of the media entrusts them with a ning (December 1987): 12-18. responsibility to investigate situations in or- 2. Ibid., p. 12. der to enlighten readers, then the media failed 3. Ibid., p. 17. in their coverage of the Buffalo Commons. If, 4. Willa Cather, author of My ~ntonia(New in contrast, the media's role is to constitute York: Houghton Mifflin, 1918) and 0 Pioneers! (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), wrote fiction events, "continuously construct[ing] and set in the region. Her novels are filled with strong reconstruct[ing] social problems, crises, en- pioneer characters, many of Nordic origins, who emies, and leaders," then they performed well, struggle to survive on the harsh Plains. While CASTING THE BUFFALO COMMONS 113

Cather wrote fiction, Sandoz wrote nonfiction based Nebraska coverage is generalizable across the en- on the region. In her book Love Song to the Plains tire Great Plains, but I also do not think it was (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961) unique, for the similarities between the national Sandoz documents the history of the region through and Nebraska coverage are striking. Although tele- true tales and tall tales. In Old Jules (New York: vised media also picked up the story of the Buffalo Hastings House Publishers, 1935) Sandoz docu- Commons, I have chosen to focus only on print mented the life of her father, one of the Swiss media coverage because it allowed me access to homesteaders in the Sandhills region of Nebraska. more local markets: many small towns in western 5. The yeoman farmer, believed by Thomas Nebraska have a daily or weekly newspaper but Jefferson and others to be the backbone of the na- receive their televised news from a nearby, larger tion, was a sturdy plowman who made the best market like Omaha, Lincoln, or even Cheyenne, soldier in wartime, the best citizen in peacetime, Wyoming. If my choice to study only the print and retained the purity of the country while resist- media broadened mv access to local markets, it also ing the degradation of the city. Henry Nash Smith, provided a logical limit to the text for analysis. in his book Virgin Land: The American West as Sym- 13. These themes can be briefly described: "Ini- bol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- tial Response" includes articles that illustrated the sity Press, 1950), documents the power of this ideal Great Plains people grappling with the new idea of on the development of the West. The frontier myth, the Buffalo Commons. "Buffalo Commons as Real- whose hero was often alienated from "civilized" ity" describes coverage of how the Popper's mes- culture and whose education came only from na- sage evolved as they traveled in the Great Plains. ture, became the dominant ideological guide in the "Contra Buffalo Commons" include articles in development of the American West, argues Rich- which the Great Plains people acknowledged the ard Slotkin in his book The Fatal Environment: The problems of their region but denied the Buffalo Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, Commons as a solution. "Reluctant Acknowledg- 1800-1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985). Slotkin ment" includes responses of Great Plains residents also discusses the role the frontier myth played in who thought the Poppers may have been correct western expansion. Finally, agricultural capitalism about some aspects of the Great Plains. "Lack of leaves behind the purity and sanctity of the yeo- Noveltv" include coverage" that denied that the man and places farming and ranching operations Poppers' observations about the Great Plains were on the same plane as any business: dictated by the novel. "Emotion and Outrage" include folksy in- economy. sults to the Poppers, the Buffalo Commons, and 6. Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political New ,lersev. , Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 14. In order to ensure coverage from the entire 1988), pp. 1-2. state, I reviewed articles about the Poppers and the 7. Ibid., p. 1. Buffalo Commons in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, the 8. Ibid., p. 1 newspaper from the largest city in the Panhandle. 9. Ibid., p. 1 This coverage reviewed the Poppers' appearance in 10. Ibid., p. 2. Laramie, Wyoming, but did not significantly differ 11. These myths deserve a brief explanation here. from the coverage of the Poppers' appearances in The myth of the desert is signaled by a vocabulary Nebraska. of emptiness, vast expanses of land, and few people. 15. I have chosen the term "yokel" to describe Any actors within the myth are either savages, liv- the characterization of Great Plains people as un- ing outside the bounds of civilization, or doomed sophisticated and boorish in their responses to the people engaged in a hopeless struggle against the Poppers' Buffalo Commons. land. Land is dominant in the desert myth, for it 16. A1 1. Laukaitis, "Authors Propose Plains controls the actions of people. In contrast, the gar- Grassland Preserve, Magazine Article Discusses den myth is full of people: the sturdy farmers who Future of Great Plains, Predicts Deserted Region," plow the land, create a garden from the wilderness, Lincoln Journal Star, 26 January 1989, 1, 6; Kelly and in so doing, become the foundation of civiliza- Gold, "Prof Says Let Buffalo Have Great Plains," tion. By taming the land, the protagonist of the Lincoln Journal Star, 28 January 1989; Betty Van garden myth not only provides for his family, but Deventer, "Returning Great Plains to Buffalo Great for society as well. Within the garden myth, people Satire, Professor Says," LincolnJournal Star, 25 Sep- control the land and use it to better their lives. For tember 1989; Jack Rogers, "Evening with Poppers a more detailed discussion of these myths and their Promises to Be Fun," McCook Daily Gazette, 23 power, see Smith's Virgin Land (note 5 above). April 1990, l,6; Dayton Duncan, "Westward NO," 12. I have analyzed national coverage, but local Boston Globe, 10 June 1990, 21, 36, 43, 53; Anne coverage from Nebraska only. I do not argue that Matthews, "The Poppers and the Plains," New York 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2002

Times Magazine, 24 June 1990, 41; John Wunder, 30. Ibid. "'People of Region Would Have No Voice': Buf- 31. Several articles, both national and local, ar- falo Commons Idea Is Theoretical Totalitarian- gue that the Poppers' idea is not novel. As Kaye, ism," Omaha World-Herald, 5 August 1990, 19B; the University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor, said Hugh Sidey, "Where the Buffalo Roamed," Time, in the Lincoln Journal Star, "[Tlhey're (the Pop- 24 September 1990, 53-54, 56; Tony Messenger, pers) right about some things, but none of it is "Plains to Prairie: Prof Backs Theory," Kearney Hub, new" (Van Deventer, "Returning Great Plains to 13 October 1990, lA, 6A; "Not Again! Who In- Buffalo" [note 16 above]). In an article in the Omaha vited Them?" Omaha World-Herald, 26 August 1991, World-Herald, 19 June 1991, we hear that the Buf- 9; Jon Margolis, "Them's Fightin' Words!" Chicago falo Commons "proposal suggested not so much a Tribune, 7 January 1993, 1C-2C. bold land reclamation project as it recognized some- 17. Laukaitis, ibid., p. 6. thing that towns, non-profit foundations and uni- 18. Gold, "Prof Says Let Buffalo Have Great versities throughout the region had know for more Plains" (note 16 above). than a decade. The structure of the Plains was ex- 19. Messenger, "Plains to Prairie" (note 16 periencing dramatic change." In Time, 24 Septem- above), pp. 1A, 6A. ber 1990, we hear "The irony is that the 'new truths' 20. Margolis, "Them's Fightin' Words!" (note of the plains are as old as the crumbling diaries of 16 above), p. 1C. the first explorers. Those early wanderers lumped 21. Ibid. the plains onto something labeled the 'great Ameri- 22. Duncan, "Westward NO(note 16 above), can desert'. . . . The Poppers simply confirm Webb." p. 53. Even international articles argue the lack of nov- 23. Margolis, "Them's Fightin' Words!" (note elty in the Poppers proposal, as we hear in 16 above), p. 2C. Harrowsmith Country Life July/August 1993: "Many 24. "Not Again!" (note 16 above), p. 9. people, including the Sioux, predicted the sorry 25. Rogers, "Evening with Poppers" (note 16 state of affairs long before the Poppers recognized above), p. 6. the obvious. . . . American geologist John Wesley 26. Ibid. Powell similarly doubted the wisdom of settling 27. Land that draws upon the "resource" of the arid American grasslands with 160-acre home- "people" decenters the traditional idea of landown- steads." ership, as well as contradicts the relationship be- 32. Duncan, "Westward NO" (note 16 above), tween land and people normally found in the garden p. 36. myth. 33. Ibid., p. 37. 28. Van Deventer, "Returning Great Plains to 34. Sidey, "Where the Buffalo Roamed" (note Buffalo" (note 16 above). 16 above), pp. 53-54. 29. Wunder, "'People of Region Would Have 35. Ibid., pp. 54, 56. No Voice"' (note 16 above), p. 19B.