WHY

The middle of noplace is where Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to put a dam in 1933 so farms in northeastern South Dakota could have electricity. And along with a lot of neighbors from my home town, my father and mother, sister and brother and I drove out there one afternoon to look at the place where the dam would be built. I guess it must have been on the Jim river, but don't hold me to that. It was within automobile range of Aberdeen, though not everybody who heeded the President's invitation had a car: horses brought families in buggies and wagons as well. Half of Brown County showed up.

Surveyor's stakes tied with scraps of red cloth were hammered into the hard soil in a vast semi circle, and one of the Interior Department men from Washington, D.C. shouted through a megaphone that we should park beside these, facing inward, so once the sun went down we could turn on the headlights and light up the weedy area that would one day form the promised reservoir. A lake of light, the fellow said. A bright promise for the future, he said. My father hooted. There were jeers and whistles, but the Government fellow wasn't discouraged. He came from around there, and knew they all had voted for Hoover. He was prepared for the contempt, and a good thing too, since no one tried to conceal it: they would have in a parlor, but not outdoors in a crowd. He and his side-kicks told us how gettng the dam built and the reservoir dug would need hundreds of workers. Jobs. Paychecks. Questions were shouted. Answers given and laughed at, and the laughter was hostile and disgusted.

But the Washington men pressed on, telling us about more projects the President planned for northeastern South Dakota, among them the seeding of the desperate land with new breeds of corn created by our amazing Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, corn resistant to drought and disease; and the planting of straight miles and miles of fast-growing trees the President called "windbreaks." The sprawling half-circle of farmers, storekeepers, bankers, shook their heads in grinning wonder. Plainly Roosevelt had never met a Dakota wind.

I felt sorry for the bureaucrats, and today in retrospect I salute their courage. They were telling us what we didn't want to hear. They were talking about change, which nobody wanted, nobody ever wants. Things were bad right now, sure they were, but electric light in the farm kitchen wasn't going to help. Newfangled corn? What was wrong with the old corn? If Roosevelt wanted to send help out here, let him send rain. Rain was all that was needed. What in hell good were twenty-mile rows of cottonwoods going to do anybody?

The farmers of 2004 are better educated and smarter altogether about crop management, soil conservation, animal breeding, all that stuff, but it seems to me from the Presidential election just held that they are no more trustful of change than they ever were. The same for the businessmen that sell them stuff and lend them money. They want the government to keep its hands off. Besides lower taxes and prayer in the schools and keeping out illegal immigrants, they want the right to shoot the cougers, bears, and wolves that kill their cattle. George Bush wants to open up the wilderness to developers, for timber and minerals and oil, and why not? Give the cougers and bears and wolves one less place to hide.

They want a President who dresses as they do, a President who can wink, swagger, and smirk like their pickup-driving buddies down at the diner on Main street. They don't want some tall geek who talks like a professor and looks like a clock. If George Bush's only coherent utterance, day in, day out, is "You can run, but you can't hide," they don't ask for more. Just an elbow nudge to make you laugh. If he starts a war, that's what he's there for, isn't it? To slap down our enemies? It isn't as if the kids in uniform were drafted: they signed up, they get paid, it's a job. As for slaughtering 100,000 Iraquis, well, the Iraquis asked for it. Crazy clothes they wear. Some civilization: haven't learned yet how to make a pair of pants. Can't tell a soldier from a civilian. Who says there even are any civilians? Religious nut cases, that's what they are, all of ‘em!

What other President can you name who actually sent you money through the mail? He came into office, found a great big surplus in the treasury, and sent you a share of it. A refund, good buddy. Your money to do with as you pleased. You can't name another President who ever did that. Sure, he sent his rich friends more than he sent you, but what the hey! That's life. And if John Kerry had been as smart as advertised, his first act as candidate would have been to divide up all the millions he and his rich wife and his supporters had raised to get him the office, and send a check to each and every voter in the land. You want a smart politician? Find one who gives money away. Plainly, there's no beating that.