FOCUS/midwest SPRING 2010

8/4/2019 FOCUS/midwest SPRING 2010

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FFOOCCUUSS//mmiiddwweessttFounded in 1962 by Charles L. Klotzer

Track south of Curran, Illinois

SAMPLE ISSUE / SPRING 2010


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FFOOCCUUSS//mmiiddwweessttFounded in 196 2 by Charles L. Klotzer

TABLE OF CONTENTS SPRING 20103 All nature was in a state of dissolution /Jeanne G. Hawkins

5 Reflections of a radio demagogue /Bernard Eismann

7 Fighting for the integrity of expression /Irving Dilliard

8 Death in Venice: Following the trail of unanswered questions /C.D. Stelzer

10 Climate bill: Largest corporate welfare program in history? /Peter Downs

12 The changing world of communications /James L.C. Ford

13 Labor must get on the march /Walter P. Reuther

13 John Knoepfle: Poems do have a way of creeping around /Harry Cargas

14 Midwest grape growers note rising temperatures /Roland Klose

15 A green economy without U.S. manufacturing /Peter Downs

18 A Round Barn tale: Jerry and his thingie get zapped /Jacqueline Jackson

19 God bless Wallace Berry, and other soldiers stories /Doug Bybee

21 The quiet children go shopping /Gloria Pritchard

23 Remembering Frank OHare /Irving Dilliard

Find FOCUS/midwest online at focusmidwest.com

E-mail FOCUS/midwest at [email protected]

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All nature was in a state of dissolution

IT HIT NEW MADRID, MO., onDec. 16, 1811, at 2 in the morning.Settlers ran terror-stricken from totteringand falling buildings to find the earthbelching forth great volumes of sand andwater. Stores and houses fell into greatfissures. The river rose five or six feet in afew minutes. Its color changed to areddish hue and became thick with mudroiled from its bottom. The surface of theMississippi was covered with foam andthe jets on the shore went higher than thetreetops. Within five minutes, the clearserene night became overcast andpurplish. The air was filled with a dense,sulfurous vapor that left the inhabitantsgasping for breath. The overcast stayeduntil daybreak; aftershocks (twenty-sevenof them) occurring every six to tenminutes accompanied by sudden flashesof fire brought a night full of horror. Thefissures ran from southeast to northwest.

People felled trees across the direction ofcleavage and hung to the trunks to keepfrom being buried alive. The churchyardwith its dead was gone. The great fissuresbared the bones of gigantic mastodonsand ichthyosauri.

Between New Madrid and VicksPlantation, now Vicksburg, there wasntthe sign of a town remaining along the300-mile stretch of river. Chimneys werethrown down in Cincinnati. Doors and

windows were rattled in Washington, D.C.A church bell rang in Boston and plastercracked in Virginia and the Carolinas. Thethree major shocks on Dec. 16, 1811, Jan.23, 1812, and Feb. 7, 1812 were felt overan area of 1 million square miles. It wasfelt at the headwaters of the Missouri andArkansas rivers and on the Gulf of

Mexico and in Canada. Jared Brooks atLouisville recorded 1,874 shocks betweenDec. 16 and March 15. Aftershocks werefelt for more than a year and it almost twoyears before complete cessation.

It had not been a favorable year inthe West. Hunters were alarmed when thesquirrels started migrating in herds fromnorth to south. There had been heavyspring floods with the accompanyingdiseases. A comet of intense brilliancy hadappeared in September only to disappearthe night of the quake. Superstitiousbackwoods men recalled a total eclipse ofthe moon in September.


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There had been no warning.Fortunately, there was little loss of lifebecause of the thinly populated area.Between the Mississippi and the GreatPlains, Indians reported forests were

overthrown and rocks split in two.An English traveler and botanist,Bradbury, had moored for the night about150 miles below New Madrid. He waswakened by a tremendous noise. TheMississippi was in such a state of agitationthat he feared the boat might upset. Thenoise he described as being inconceivablyloud. I could hear trees falling andscreaming wild fowl, but the boat was stillsafe at mooring. By the time we got to ourfire in the stern, the shock had ceased, but

the perpendicular banks both above andbelow us began to fall into the river insuch masses as to nearly sink our boat.They sent men ashore who found a chasm

about four feet wide and eighty feet long.

The banks had sunk two feet and at the

ends of the chasm, they had fallen into theriver. Bradburys party had been saved bymooring to a sloping bank. Theyembarked when this bank appeared to bemoving into the river. Aftershocks made

the trees on both sides shake violently andthe banks in several places fell, carryingtrees with them. The terrible sound ofthe shock and the screaming of wild fowlproduced the idea that all nature was in astate of dissolution.

Between Cairo and the mouths of theWhite and Arkansas rivers, the groundrose and fell in great waves, making newlakes, leaving swamps and river beds dry.One of the largest of these earthquake-formed lakes is Reelfoot in Tennessee,

which is sixty to seventy miles long andthree to twenty miles wide. Here foresttrees had fish swimming through theirbranches and tortoises crawling through

cane brakes. The water is clearas a mountain stream in contrastto the yellow Mississippi water. .. .

While there is reason toanticipate a recurrence, whichcould cause serious damage to

such places as Cairo andMemphis and minor damage toSt. Louis, it is well to rememberthat no place on earth isearthquake proof. Jeanne G.Hawkins

Excerpted from The day theMississippi ran backwards,published in the November 1963

edition ofFOCUS/Midwest.F/m


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Reflections of a radio demagogue

During the Great Depression, an estimated 50million people tuned into Father Charles Coughlinsradio programs, which were known for their ultra-conservative denunciations of the Rooseveltadministration and poorly concealed anti-Semitism.Coughlin left the airwaves in the early 1940s. Nearlya quarter-century later, FOCUS/Midwestcontributing editor Bernard Eismann interviewedCoughlin, and found a substantially different man.

THE WHITE-HAIRED PRIEST,cassock skirts flapping, moved with short,quick steps along the snow-spotted pavementthat runs parallel to broad Woodward Avenue

in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. As heturned to enter the church his ruddy face,hardly showing seventy-one years, wasbrought into sharp relief against the graystone background of the Shrine of the LittleFlower that dominates the corner with a 150-foot tower supporting a stone image of Christon the Cross. The priest is the Rev. CharlesCoughlin, a living ghost of the angry Thirties,described in a chronicle of the decade as themaster in the arts of vituperation and

demagoguery.In his study the radio priest of theThirties, whose vein-straining oratoryenraptured hundreds of thousands more thantwo decades ago, recently talked after keepingsilent since 1940. The fire is not gone after theyears of public exile, but Coughlin hasmellowed, suffering no longer from what hecalls the arrogance of youth. Apparently, hehas changed with age and he sound quitedifferent from what he was in the late Thirtieswhen Coughlin, his theories of SocialJustice and his companions on the fringes ofAmerican political sanity fed the fires of anti-Semitism and hatred already smolderingthrough large segments of the frustrated andfrightened middle classes. Coughlin startedinvoking his invective against the modernpagans who have crucified us upon a cross ofgold in 1926 and by 1935 the Jew-baiting in

his radiotalks and inprint wasbarelydisguised.Hisfollowinggrew alongwith the flowof nickels,dimes, anddollars thatbuilt him and

the Shrine ofthe LittleFlower into forces to be reckoned with. In1940, however, the curtain drew tight. ThePost Office banned his magazine from themails for printing Nazi propaganda and theChurch finally imposed a censorship that hewas unable to break. . . .

We talked in the richly comfortable lowerfloor dining room at his Royal Oak rectory,and Coughlin carefully measured his words

and his tone.F/M: Your career has been characterized as one

of vituperation and demagoguery. How do you meetthis criticism?

Coughlin: I committed an egregious error,which I am the first to admit, when Ipermitted myself to attack persons. I couldnever bring myself to philosophize themorality of that now. It was a young mansmistake.

F/M: What general observations of that periodand of what you were trying to accomplish do you havenow?

Coughlin: No clergyman has businessinjecting himself into the practical side ofpolitics. I could have done much better had Ibeen more mature in my thinking at the time,


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and I could have accomplished much more ifI had retained the advocacy of my principles.

F/M: This is a remarkable admission.

Coughlin: I dont think so. Every man hasto mature a little bit, and make an act ofcontrition sometime during his life, becausethere is no human being perfect. . . .

F/M: There is a considerable degree of noise in thecountry these days about a movement generally calledthe Far Right. . . . Am I correct in saying that thosewho have described themselves as extreme conservativesare incorrect in striving to return to a more traditionaleconomic system?

Coughlin: Principles are principles. Two

and two the four will always obtain, andthievery will always be considered animmorality. Those principles will remain; but,nevertheless, the application of thoseprinciples has to be reviewed once in a while.[The Far Right] is always so fearful that weregoing to become bankrupt, always fearful thatthe federal debt is going to becomeunmanageable. Well, in my concept of things,I think the federal debt should be put intoorbit and let it stay there. We admit that itsthere, were not going to try to annihilate it.

Well be content to pay taxes on the interest,and let it be. But why should human beings allover the world, especially our Americanworld, suffer for the lack of federal spendingor federal credit for new houses, newfactories, new schools, new hospitals? To me,it doesnt make sense, because, after all,money is simply a man-made instrumentality.

F/M: You sound like a liberal Democrat.

Coughlin: Maybe I am. Maybe Im a

liberal. A human care comes ahead offinancial care, in my estimation.

F/M: This area of spending and economic andfiscal responsibility, which was so involved in thethings that you preached, caused you, in the Thirties,to be highly critical of the administration of thePresident. In these years, its causing others to behighly critical of the current President. Do you feel that

the degree of criticism of the chief executive shouldremain high, or should it abate?

Coughlin: Well, in my opinion, thePresident is living in a glass house, and thebinoculars of all the nation constantly train

upon his every action, his every thought. Heknows that. All of us know it. And in oursystem of doing things, we have a right toinspect him. Thats Americanism. But wehavent a right to oppose his actions to theextent that we attribute maliciousness to himor evil selling out to Castro, selling out toKhrushchev I think thats horrible toaccuse Mr. Kennedy of those things. After all,he has a wife, he has children, he has assets inthis country, he has a good moral background

with good training. . . . He is just as anxiousfor the maintenance of the United States asyou or I. . . .

F/M: For the last 21 years, you have beenseldom heard outside your parish in Royal Oak.What is it, if anything, that at this time makes youfeel more free to express yourself?

Coughlin: Im not necessarily free. Im justan ordinary citizen now, having attained thisthree score and ten with the powers ofobservation that a younger man lacks. You

see, when you gain not your majority, butyour senile maturity, if I may put it that way,you really can reappraise things.

F/M: Has it been for you personally, then, analmost agonizing reappraisal?

Coughlin: No, no, no, no. Its notagonizing at all. I think its the humilities thatan old man acquires. A young man knowsnothing or very little about it.

F/M: About humility?

Coughlin: Yes.

Excerpted from Bernard Eismanns Reflectionsof a radio priest, published in the February 1963edition ofFOCUS/Midwest.At the time,Eismann also was the Chicago-based Midwest

correspondent for CBS News.F/m


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Fighting for the integrity of expression

THE ABOLITIONIST ELIJAH

LOVEJOY was the first American editorto die in defense of freedom of the press.Very few have been called to follow himsince the transplanted Yankees blood ranout on the cobblestones of Alton, Illinois.

Today freedom of the press calls oneditors to live for integrity of expressionrather than to die for it. An editor whoexemplifies the daily living free press isWilliam Theodore Evjue, editor andpublisher of the Madison, Wis., CapitalTimes.

White-haired Bill Evjue reached theage of 80 on Oct. 10 [1962]. Thus he haslived more than twice the lifespan ofElijah Lovejoy. But there is much incommon in their careers and in theirintense devotion of their own concepts ofhonor and truth and the welfare of theirfellow men.

Evjue told the story of his mother andfather, Nils and Mary Erickson Evjue,immigrants from Norway, in his page 1

column Hello Wisconsin, on hiseightieth birthday. He told how they madetheir new home in the lumber country,surrounding Merrill, Wis. There Bill Evjuewas born.

He did the hard work of a small townMidwestern boy, and then worked his wayat the University of Wisconsin where hebecame a devoted admirer of the firstSenator Robert Marion La Follette OldFighting Bob who led the liberal and

progressive forces in the first quarter ofthis century.Evjue started his newspaper career as a

cub reporter on the Milwaukee Sentinelback in 1905. He was business manager ofthe Wisconsin State Journalat Madison in1917 when its editor launched anintemperate, unjustified attack on Sen. La

Follette. The

Wisconsinstatesmanwas opposedto involve-ment in thewar inEurope andthis broughtthe bittercriticism.

As soonas this attackon LaFolletteappeared in print, business manager Evjuewent to the editor, protested the attackand then immediately resigned. Almost atonce he started The Capital Times. For ayear the Madison merchants boycotted thenew paper, but its readers and friendssustained it until it could obtain neededlegitimate revenue.

Last April [1962], Sigma Delta Chi, the

professional journalistic society, honoredEvjue by naming him one of its annualfellows. The citation commended him forfighting for honest government, betterpoliticians, clean journalism and for whathe believes would contribute to a betterAmerica. He has not been daunted bycriticism, by the threat of the Ku KluxKlan, or by rabble-rousing politicians, buthas continued since 1917 to public andedit a fearless and independent

newspaper. Irving DilliardExcerpted from Lovejoy and Evjue,published in the November 1962 edition ofFOCUS/Midwest. Evjue died in 1969,crusaded against gambling and Joe McCarthy.His paper,The Capital Times, ended its 90-

year run as a daily newspaper in 2008. F/m


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Death in VeniceFollowing the trail of unanswered questions

DIANE RATLIFF, a native ofVenice, Ill., remembers whenthe dump trucks first startedlumbering up and downMeredosia Avenue in the early1990s. She then surmised thedrivers must have made a wrongturn. Where the hell were theygoing? she asked herself.

Nobody informed her or anyof the residents of theneighborhood that a radioactiveclean-up was taking place downthe block.

That was 20 years ago, andRatliff, a special education teacher for theEast St. Louis School District, is stillsearching for answers as to whetherexposure to radioactive waste may haveaffected the health of her family and

neighbors. She is among a group of citizenswho are now pressing the federalgovernment for an epidemiological study ofthe area to determine the impact that theradioactive site may have had on publichealth.

In 1989, the Consolidated AluminumCorp. (Conalco) and Dow Chemical Co.began to quietly clean up a 40-acre siteadjacent to a foundry in Madison, Ill., thatthe two companies formerly owned. The

plant and dump site are both located on theboundary between the Metro East cities ofMadison and Venice.

The clean-up entailed dividing the areainto a massive grid made up of hundreds ofsquares and then using a complicatedformula to measure the contamination levelsin each of them. To carry out the job,

contractors constructed a laboratory, railspur and loading station.

By the time the project ended inDecember 1992 more than 105,000 tons ofthorium-contaminated slag had been loaded

into 978 rail cars and shipped to a low-levelradioactive waste facility in Utah, accordingto a final report prepared for the IllinoisDepartment of Nuclear Safety (IDNS), thestate agency responsible for overseeing theclean-up.

The 1992 report states: Because of theproximity of the contaminated area to aresidential neighborhood, and theinconvenience that the construction activityimposed upon the neighborhood, theconstruction was done in a manner suchthat all contaminated material above naturalbackground was removed and the area wasbackfilled immediately.

Larry Burgan, a community activist andformer foundry employee, has doubts aboutthat conclusion. It makes it sound like theywere doing the residents a favor, saysBurgan. But they also could have been


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doing it quick to get it out of sight [and] outof mind.

Earlier this summer, Burgan and Ratliffsbrother, Calvin Ratliff, canvassed theneighborhood, asking among other thingswhether residents had ever been informedof the safety risks posed by the radioactivewaste or its removal. None of the residentswith whom they spoke indicated that they

had ever been contacted.Instead, contractors appeared to have

launched the first phase of the clean-upwithout warning.

At 8 a.m., March 5, 1990, heavyequipment operators began excavating morethan 15,000 cubic feet of radioactivelycontaminated soil along Rogan Avenue, aneighborhood street that borders the 40-acre site. The work continued for the nexttwo days. Contamination in this area was

found from six inches to five feet below thesurface, according to the final report.

To ensure compliance with state safetyregulations, Conalco and Dow installedeight air-monitoring stations to measureairborne concentrations of contaminantsduring the clean-up, but a portablegenerator that powered one monitor was

stolen early in the clean-up and neverreplaced. Despite the loss, the workcontinued and the final report dismissed thesignificance of the incomplete data.

The assessment, prepared by Roy F.

Weston Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., doesstipulate, however, that one of remaining airmonitors registered high concentrations ofradioactivity on numerous occasions andexceeded permissible levels at least threetimes. But the risk to residents was deemedsafe because all the radioactivecontaminants were assumed to beThorium 228 and not its more potent sister,Thorium 232. Moreover, concentrations ofradioactive airborne contaminants wereaveraged out over several months to lower

the estimated dosage to within establishedlimits set by IDNS.

The history of radioactive contaminationat the foundry dates back to 1957, whenDow began processing uranium for fuelrods under a subcontract with St. Louis-based Mallinckdrodt Chemical Co., whichwas working for the U.S. Atomic EnergyCommission. The plant was one ofhundreds of low-priority radioactive sitesnationwide identified by the federal

governments Formerly Utilized SitesRemedial Action Program in the 1990s. Thesubsequent government-mandated clean-up,which was overseen by the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers in 2000, focused mainlyon uranium contamination inside facilityand did not include additional monitoring orremediation at the adjacent 40-acre site.

The thorium waste was the byproduct ofanother facet of the foundrys operations production of lightweight alloys used for

military and aerospace applications.Between 1960 and 1973 Dow dumpedmillions of pounds of sludge containing 4 to8 percent thorium behind the plant on theadjacent property. After Conalco took overthe operation, the dumping continued foryears, including monthly shipments ofthorium waste produced at Dow facilities inBay City and Midland, Mich.


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Company guidelines also permitted up to50 pounds of thorium sludge per month tobe poured directly down the sewer. Theradioactive contamination could also havebeen released into the environment by the

plants several 20-foot diameter exhaustfans.The Ratliff family has lived in the brick

bungalow at Meredosia Avenue and CollegeStreet next to the foundry since 1950. LouisD. Ratliff, Diane Ratliffs late father, builtthe house. He died in 1974 from braincancer. An informal survey of a two-blockstretch of Meredosia Avenue conductedearlier this year yielded anecdotal evidenceof 44 cases of cancer or lung disease amonglongtime residents, many of whom are also

now deceased.Before sunset there was always a cloud

emanating from the plant, says Ratliff, whoattended elementary school across the streetfrom her family home. The specialeducation teacher now worries about spots

that she says have developed on her lungs.Ratliff also worries about her siblings,whom she says have been diagnosed withsarcoidosis; a debilitating, chronic diseasethat commonly causes inflammation of the

lungs and other organs, and in some casescan be deadly.The clean-up of the site that was initiated

20 years ago did nothing to allay her fears. Itonly left unanswered questions.

They were supposed to have examinedthe yards for contaminants, says Ratliff.

But that didnt happen. C.D. StelzerF/m

Climate bill:Largest corporate welfare program in history?

SOME environmentalgroups and progressiveDemocrats are denouncingthe American Clean Energyand Security Act as amassive subsidy for pollutersand a meaningless responseto climate change.

A day before the U.S.House of Representativesnarrowly passed theAmerican Clean Energy andSecurity Act by a vote of219-212, seven liberal andenvironmental organizationsmounted a campaign to

defeat the bill. Thelegislation now moves to theU.S. Senate.The numerous provisions

of the bill do not add up tothe steps needed to avertcatastrophic climatedisruption. Moreover, the

bills emissions tradingprovisions create vestedinterests that would blockfuture reforms, TomStokes, coordinator of theClimate Crisis Coalition,wrote to the coalitionmembers the day before in

urging them to lobby theircongressionalrepresentatives to voteagainst the bill.

Stokes, who was joined onthe letter by Ezra Small,campaign organizer for theClimate Crisis Coalition,

argued that cap ongreenhouse gas emissions inthe bill was far too weak toaffect climate, and wasrendered meaningless byoffsets and allowances in thebill that could allow U.S.emissions to keep increasing


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until 2040. By overridingthe authority of the U.S.Environmental ProtectionAgency to regulategreenhouse gases, andoverriding stronger state andregional compacts, theAmerican Clean Energy andSecurity Act ensures that its

failure as climate policy willbe catastrophic, he added.While criticizing the bill for

doing nothing about climatechange, Stokes also slammedthe legislation for funneling$174 billion in subsidies tocoal and oil companies andcreating a playground forspeculators by allowing theselling and trading of carbon

credits.The Citizens Climate

Lobby, the CLEANCoalition, the FriendsCommittee on NationalLegislation, the ProgressiveDemocrats of America, theCarbon Tax Coalition, and

the Environmental JusticeLeadership Forum onClimate Change, all adoptedsimilar positions. All of thegroups support a simple,revenue-neutral carbon taxover the complicated cap-and-trade system at thecenter of the Houses

climate change bill.Industry groups generally

supported the bill. TheAmerican Coalition forClean Coal Electricity, agroup representing theoperators of coal-burningpower plants, lobbied forthe bill, as did New Jerseygas and electric companyPSEG and Entergy Corp., a

$13 billion electric powercompany operating inArkansas, Louisiana,Mississippi, and Texas. Theywere joined by 20 ofAmericas largestcorporations, includingNike, Starbucks, Duke

Energy, and Hewlett-Packard, who formed theWe Can Lead Coalition tolobby for the House bill.Although most news

coverage characterized thebills opponents asconservatives, who opposedaction on climate change,U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said that wasntalways the case.

This energy bills fineprint betrays its laudablepurpose. The real cap is onthe public interest and thetrade is the billions from the

public to polluters, Doggettsaid.

Doggett characterized thebill as a step backward onaddressing climate change.An Administration analysisshows that doing nothingactually results in more newrenewable electricitygeneration capacity thanapproving this bill, he said.

Vital authority for the EPAis stripped, but 2 billionadditional tons of pollutionare authorized every year,forever. . . . Exempting ahundred new coal plants andpaying billions to Old KingCoal leaves him, indeed, avery merry old soul, hesaid, adding that the bill isthe largest corporate

welfare program in thehistory of the UnitedStates. Peter Downs([email protected])

Peter Downs is a St. Louis-based journalist who writesfrequently on environmental

issues. F/m


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The changing world of communications

This worried report on media consolidation

was published in July 1962. The author isJames L.C. Ford, professor of journalism at

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

Nowhere is the changing world of

communications more in evidence than in

major metropolitan centers. In Chicago,

St. Louis, and Kansas City, therefore, as in

other major cities, one finds the epitome of

diminishing newspaper competition andthe rise of electronic media. The number

of one-daily cities increased from 42.2

percent in 1910 to 82 percent in 1954.

Chicago has witnessed the greatest

newspaper decline. Sixty years ago, it had

five morning papers the Times-Herald,

theRecord, the Tribune, theInter-Ocean,

theExaminer. Of these only the Tribune

remains. In the Windy City, there were

four afternoon dailies: the Post, the

Journal, theAmerican, and theDailyNews. Of these, only two theAmerican

andDaily News are left. It is true that the

Sun-Times has appeared, representing the

consolidation of two papers under the

Marshall Field banner. However, theNews

also belongs to Field and theAmerican

now is owned by the Tribune. So in

Chicago, we have only two newspaper

ownerships, competing along Lake

Michigan and through the hinterland.Sixty years ago in St. Louis, the

morning field was shared between the

Globe-Democratand theRepublic. Today

there is only the Globe-Democrat,

belonging to the Newhouse national chain,

the most rapidly growing group in the

metropolitan field today. In 1901, the

afternoon field was dominated then as now

by Pulitzers Post-Dispatch but there were

three rivals the Chronicle of Scripps-

McRae, theEvening Star, and the Times.Today all rivalry is over and the P-D

stands alone. St. Louis has been reduced

from six to two dailies.

In Kansas City, sixty years ago there

were the morningJournal and the Times

while the Star, the World, and the Post

competed in the evening five dailies in

all. Today there are only two left, the Star

and the Times, under the same ownership

and without any newspaper competition.

[]

These are the fact of life in thecommunications word. Is the marketplace

of ideas dwindling? It is certain that units

of communications are being concentrated

ever more steadily within a limited

control. Newspapers and radio, magazines

and movies and TV, they are being

bundled together to fit in a single

portfolio. No one man has them all in his

pocket by any means but fewer and fewer

men have packaged more and more papers

and stations together conveniently forprofit.

Is there a danger point for the

American who seeks information to carry

out his duties as a citizen? Should there be

limits to the control of communications? If

so, how should the government function to

protect legitimate private interests as well

as the overruling public concern? F/m


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Labor must get on the march

We are in deep trouble

in America, but not

because our system of

freedom is unequal to the

challenge. We are in

trouble because we are

not trying. We are

playing out on the outer

fringes of our basic

problems, for we have

failed to fully

comprehend the

dimension and the

character of the challenge we face.

Those whom society neglects will not be

influenced by pious platitudes about the virtues ofAmerican democracy. The unemployed in

America cant pay their rent, feed their kids or

assure them of a decent education with some

theoretical economic potential. Their problems will

be solved only as American society develops the

social mechanisms, policies, and programs which

translate technological progress into opportunities

for human fulfillment.

This is the central task of the American labor

movement. The labor movement is the only group

with economic and political leverage and social

motivation. Unless we make this fight, the fight

will not be made and American democracy will be

unequal to the challenge it faces at home and in the

world. That is why American labor must get on the

march. Walter P. Reuther,The Trouble with

Labor, published in the April 1964 edition of

FOCUS/Midwest. F/m

________________________________________________________________________

John Knoepfle: Poems do have a way of creeping around

John Knoepfle, the celebrated

Midwestern poet and author of

more than a dozen books, is

unusual in that hes been the

beneficiary of at least two

notable features inFOCUS/Midwest.

In What is poetry? (1973)

Knoepfle discussed his work

with St. Louis author Harry

Cargas; Midwestern master

(1980) marked Knoepfles

quarter-century as a poet by

examining his major works,

Rivers into Islands and The

Intricate Land.

Knoepfle, professor emeritus of

literature at the University of

Illinois at Springfield, remains an

active and important voice. His

latest collection, Walking in

Snow, was released in 2008 by

Indian Paintbrush Poets. His

autobiography,I Look Around

for My Life, also was released in

2008 by Burning Daylight.

Heres an except from 1973:

Harry Cargas: What has it

meant to you personally to be a

poet?

John Knoepfle: Well, in terms

of a kind of social satisfaction,

poems do have a way of creepingaround, and every once in a

while you hear about some

person one of your poems got to.

I have a theory about art, that its

always giving what it doesnt

need to. Its the one thing you do

that when its done is totally

shared. So it makes me feel good

if I hear from somebody, say, in

Cedar Rapids who tells me he

was in a bar there and suddenly

heard a girl quote the last five

lines from Heman Avenue

Holiday, or to know that

someone else took the trouble to

paint that poem on the kitchen

wall, or to get a letter from a

student in India telling me that he

came across a work of mine that

meant something special to him.

I have to say I like that.

As for a personal response or

satisfaction, things get

complicated. It is very hard to

keep a steady view of your own

work. One minute you feel pretty

good about this poem you wroteand the next you want to toss it

out the window.

I find, too, as I get older that

the old arrogance is gone. After

all, the world is not waiting

spellbound for my latest effort. I

find it a little harder to send

poems out, a little harder to judge

when this or that poem is shaped

as well as I can get it.

But I do like to write the

poems. I like to see them begin to

fill out and attached themselves

to larger, nuclear units, and I like

to try to change them and rework

them, get out the bad rhetoric

that is often in them they do

get heavily reworked, so much so

that I think that often a reader

reads right through them without

seeing them. F/m


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Midwest grape growers note rising temperatures

TED WICHMANN still remembers thebrutal Super Bowl of 1984, but not for thepounding the Raiders gave the hapless

Redskins.Instead, what Wichmann recalls is the

wicked deep freeze that destroyed dozens ofgrapevines that he and his business partnershad planted high on a hill near the tiny townof Alto Pass, Ill.

All it took was one bitter cold snap, inJanuary 1984, to kill every Chardonnay andRiesling vine, roots and all.

In one day, they were all gone,Wichmann says.

So for the next couple decades, AltoVineyards and every other southern Illinoisgrower avoided the better-known but cold-sensitive Vitis viniferagrapes, and stuck withmore durable, cold-hardy French-Americanhybrids and native varieties.

Now all thats changing.Grape varietals that once fared poorly in

the region are being planted in increasingnumbers because of warmer weather.

Rising temperatures mean milder wintersthat no longer pose as big a threat to vinifera,which generally cant withstandtemperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the last seven years, weve nevergone below zero and last year we went tozero like one day, Wichmann says. Exceptfor that day I dont think weve been below10 above.

Actually, government weather statisticsshow a couple of near- and below-zero daysin the region, especially in the past twowinters, but theres no disputing the trend.

Dr. Jim Angel, state climatologist at theIllinois State Water Survey, wont blame thetemperature shift on global warming.

Winters in Illinois warmed from 1895to the 1930s, cooled off a little into the early1970s, plunged downward in the late 1970s,and started warming up since then, Angelsays. However, they are just now reaching

the levels wesaw in theperiod from

the 1920s tothe 1950s. Soits hard toknow if this isa globalwarming trend or just a recovery from thecold 1970s.

(There is no dispute, however, that risinglevels of greenhouse gasses will heat up theearth in time. In Illinois, averagetemperatures will be up from 2 to 12

degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100,according to a study by Angels office.)They may not know the cause, but

growers dont need a climatologist to tellwhich way the temperature gauge is moving.

We can grow some viniferathat wedidnt think, 20 years ago, would survive,says Paul Renzaglia, who owns AltoVineyards, the biggest winery on theShawnee Hills Wine Trail.

Wichmann, now a consultant to Blue SkyVineyard near Makanda, says area growershave enjoyed success with Cabernet Franc,Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignongrapes. Other varietals, such as Viornier, awhite grape from Frances Rhne region,are also being tried, he says.

Karen Hand, winemaker at Blue Sky,says the Cab Franc is one of the trickiergrapes to grow, but its obviously proven asuccess, having picked up gold at a numberof prestigious wine competitions.

Warmer weather also seems to have

helped long-established hybrids such as theChambourcin and Norton, Wichmann says.

Longer growing seasons mean riper fruitwith more sugar and that translates intomore alcohol, making for a full-bodiedwine.

Id say, if anything, its a plus,

Wichmann says. Roland KloseF/m


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A green economy without U.S. manufacturing?

WHEN WASHINGTONUNIVERSITY in St. Louis set out to buildthe greenest building in North America,

the people involved never expected that thetoughest obstacle would be thedisappearance of manufacturing from theUnited States.

On one level, weve all heard about theloss of manufacturing, but when you try toreduce your carbon footprint by eliminatingunnecessary shipping, it really brings up thatwe arent making anything anymore, saysDaniel Hellmuth, principal in Hellmuth +Bicknese and architect of the Living

Learning Center at Washington UniversitysTyson Research Center.When staff of the Tyson Research

Center the centerpiece for environmentalresearch and education at WashingtonUniversity began planning for their newbuilding, called the LivingLearning Center, theydecided they had to tryand meet the mostdemanding sustainablebuilding code out there.They accepted the LivingBuilding Challenge fromthe Cascadia RegionGreen Building Council,the toughest greenbuilding standard in NorthAmerica. No building hasmet the challenge yet, butthe Living Learning Center is in the runningto be the first.

The Living Building Challenge sets up 16

requirements that must be met in theconstruction and operation of a building forthe building to qualify as a living building.Those requirements cover everything fromsite selection and construction waste tomaterials used and energy and water use.The building cant be built in a flood plainor other fragile environment, for example. It

must generate enough of its own electricityso that when in use for one full year it useszero net energy from the electric grid or gas

lines. It must collect and purify enoughwater on its own that it uses zero net water,and it must produce zero wastewater(sewage).

Tyson Research Center attempts to meetthe energy and water requirements of theLiving Building Challenge by generatingelectricity with a rooftop photovoltaic array,replacing traditional flush toilets withcomposting toilets to eliminate wastewater,and collecting and purifying rainwater to

make water for drinking.The technology is all there, there justhas to be a commitment to use it,Hellmuth says.

What isnt all there is a domesticmanufacturing base.

The offshoring of manufacturing in thelast decade is probably as big an event as theindustrial revolution, says Craig Meyer,

president of the Society of Industrial andOffice Realtors and part of the Los Angelesoffice of the Jones Lang Lasalle commercialreal estate company. It has certainlyreshaped the industrial real estate marketand redefined industrial real estate asprimarily warehouses and distributioncenters for products shipped into theUnited States from overseas.


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Offshoring, however, runs counter to thedemands of a green economy. In order toreduce greenhouse gases from unnecessaryshipping and transportation, the LivingBuilding Challenge sets up mileage limits for

the transportation of materials from theirplace of manufacture. The heavier an itemis, the closer it has to be made to thebuilding site to minimize carbon pollution.Metal items, for example, have to be madewithin 250 miles of the building site.Medium weight items, such as wood forframing, siding, or trim, have to come fromwithin 500 miles of the building site.

Smith said that the project team for theLiving Learning Center found thatcomplying with the material requirements of

the Living Building Challenge for locallymade and non-toxic building componentswas the hardest part of the Living BuildingChallenge. In fact, they couldnt do it. Theyhad to get exemptions for many buildingcomponents. Ceiling fans arent made inthis country anymore, Hellmuth says.Neither are light fixtures, Smith added.Every light fixture we looked at had somepart made in China, he says. Indeed, wefound that there are a lot of components in

building systems that are not made in thiscountry anymore, Hellmuth says.

And when products arent made locally,local distributors often did not know whatwas in them. The Living Building Challengehas a red list of materials it does not allowin products used in buildings designed to

meet the challenge. Those materials,including lead, mercury, and PVCs, arebanned because of their toxic effects onhumans or the environment. When weasked a lot of distributors if there were anyof these materials in their products, theywouldnt know, Smith says. Ultimately, theproject team had to employ someone to vetproducts for point of origin and freedomfrom red-listed toxins.

The so-called toxic Chinese drywallscandal illustrates problems that can arise

from ignorance of product contents. Thescandal, affecting anywhere from 100,000 to3 million home built or renovated between2004 and 2007, involves drywall, importedfrom China, that was contaminated withstrontium sulfide and other toxiccompounds. The strontium sulfide wouldreact with hydrogen in the air to corrodemetal and eat through wiring while givingoff a rotten egg smell. Homeowners havelaid the blame for numerous health

problems on the drywall. A class actionlawsuit is seeking billions of dollars indamages from home builders, drywallcontractors and distributors, and the drywallmanufacturers. Some home builders, such asMiami-based Lennar Homes, are in turnsuing the Chinese drywall makers.

The heaviest use of contaminatedChinese drywall was along the Gulf Coast,but according to the Chinese DrywallComplaint Center, toxic Chinese drywall

also has been identified in California,Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Nevada,Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, NorthCarolina, South Carolina, Virginia,Maryland, and Connecticut.

The problem with materials is biggerthan just a few parts. Panos Kouvelis,professor of operations and manufacturingmanagement at Washington University, says


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that when regional manufacturers losebusiness, it affects a whole chain ofcompanies. When sweaters were made inthe United States, manufacturers boughttheir fiber and supplies from North

American companies. The manufacturerswere here and so was their supply chain, hesays. After the Asian financial crisis of the1990s, retailers stopped ordering sweatersfrom North American manufacturers andplaced all their orders with Asianmanufacturers. Quite naturally, Asianmanufacturers didnt buy their fiber fromAmerican companies; they bought it fromcompanies close to them. So, whenretailers stopped buying sweaters fromNorth American manufacturers, it not only

knocked sweater-making plants out ofbusiness, but also knocked out the factoriesthat made acrylic fibers and other suppliesfor sweater factories.

That cascading effect shows up in thenumbers. According to the U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, one-third of themanufacturing jobs that existed in theUnited States 10 years ago havedisappeared. During the same time, thecountrys trade deficit in manufactured

goods more than doubled.The loss of capabilities to make products

is just the start. Also lost, in addition to theknowledge of what is in products, are the

capabilities to manage production, to knowwhat technology can do, and even thecapability to develop better, moreenvironmentally-sustainable technologies.When, for example, SSM Health Care

decided to build a model hospital in Fenton,Mo. as an exemplar of how to deliverhospital care efficiently and effectively they found they had to go to Asia for someof the most energy efficient buildingsystems. The highly energy efficient boilersthey selected for heating the hospital arepretty new in the United States, but theyvebeen used in the Far East for some time,says Mark Bengard, senior vice president forMurphy Co., the mechanical contractor thathelped SSM select and install the system.

Environmentalists realizing that U.S.cannot have a green economy, much lessbecome a leader in green technology, ifcountry does not have an adequatemanufacturing base. They hope that carbonpolicies that include the cost of carbonpollution into the cost of transportation willbegin to change that. Part of a healthygreen economy is to start making things ona local level again, Hellmuth says. If so, thepush for a new green economy could help

revive the old manufacturing economy.Peter DownsF/m


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A Round Barn tale:Jerry and his thingie get zapped

ED PFAFF is a long-timeworker on the farm. One ofhis sons, Jerry, is eight. Jerrylikes to ride his bike out tothe farm and fool around.Hes particularly fascinated

with the electric screens onthe windows of the roundbarn. He likes to watch fliesget zapped. If there arent any flies committing hari-kiri, hell take agrass stem and hold it to the screen, and watch it sizzle with a brightblue flame.

One day a screen has fallen. Its lying under the window, partlyon the sidewalk that circles the round barn, partly on the grass. Itsstill getting power, though; Jerry drops a beetle on it and the beetle

takes a long brilliant time incinerating.Jerry looks around. Nobody is in sight. He fumbles with his

trousers, pulls out his thingie, and pees on the screen. The jolt throwshim to the ground. Hehas nearly committedhari-kiri, himself.

Jacqueline Jackson([email protected])

This short story is amongdozens included inThe

Round Barn, a forthcoming book about life on a dairy farm near Beloit, Wis.Jacqueline Dougan Jackson is the author of more than a dozen books, includingStories from the Round Barn (1997) andMore Stories from theRound Barn (2002). F/m


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God bless Wallace Berry, and other soldiers stories

I WAS BORN on July 29, 1941 in Amboy, Ill., a small Midwestern town of 2,000 mostlystraightforward and happy souls comfortably isolated in the center of the country, obliviousto the rest of the world. War would soon change all that, but I was too young then to realize

how.

In fact, my first memory of World War II came near its end. People were gatheringin the streets and intersections of Amboy because theyd heard of Japans offer to surrender,and my mother took me outside to see. It was the night of Aug. 10, 1945. I vaguely recallthat people seemed subdued adults talked through smiles, children were half asleep.

The big celebrations the drums and bugles and speeches came a few days later,when Japans surrender was formally announced, marking the official end of World War II.Then, after the jubilation and joy, people returned to work, because work is what they did.

Years later, I would gather up stories of the war years from my family.

Both of my uncles joined theMarines immediately after PearlHarbor. Ed was 19; John, 18. Theywould end up with very differentexperiences.

On their first day in bootcamp they were one behind the otherin a long line of new soldiers gettingshots inoculations to prevent

yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, andseveral other diseases. The methodthen was to walk between medicson both sides of the line who wouldjab large needles into each arm.

The single line soon buckled,as recruits succumbed to the pain ofthe jabs or the heat. A second line wasformed to speed things up, but moremedics were needed. John wasgiven a syringe and an orange, andtold to practice. After about twominutes of jabbing the fruit he was

declared a medic in good standing, and was ordered to start jabbing his fellow recruits. Forthe rest of the war, John remained in California, administering shots though he never gotany of his own. Later, he was a steel mill worker and a good one.

Ed was in the invasion of the first Pacific island to be liberated, and fought in mostevery other island campaign during the war. He was on a troop ship, preparing to invade


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Japan, when President Truman decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.After the war Ed was a bricklayer and a good one and to him, Harry Truman was a god.

But Ed said little about the war and nothing about combat. That was true of manyother veterans of the fighting: Only after they reached their late 70s and early 80s could theybring themselves to tell what theyd endured. Ed died at 72, too young to give his account.

My cousin Wallace Berry was 16 years old when I was born. Wallace lied about hisage, joined the Navy and was killed in the Philippines. He is buried over there. He was theonly child of my Aunt Freda. I have a picture of Wallace in his sailors uniform; hes posed infront of a crude nautical background that looks as if it were painted by a not-so-talented 10year old. No one knew much about Wallace including Wallace himself, I suppose because he lived only 17 years.

After Wallace was killed, Aunt Freda (in a time before divorce) divorced herhusband and moved (in a time when single women stayed close to family) to Californiawhere she worked in a defense plant. After the war ended she stayed in California and

became a waitress. She lived to be 93 and never much (if ever) again talked about the war orWallace. She was a striking woman, with beautiful long-and-thick red-auburn hair.

My father, Ray Razz Matazz Bybee, was married with two children when the warbroke out. He was too old to be drafted, so he volunteered! Only a week into boot camp hefell ill and spent the next six weeks in a military hospital where they wouldnt (or couldnt)figure out what was wrong. So they sent him home and wiped his slate clean no militaryrecord notes that he had ever been there.

Once home, civilian doctors immediately found stomach ulcers, cut him nearly inhalf, and removed the ulcers at no small cost. It would take Ray seven years to pay off themedical bills at $2 a week. Forever after, he would claim that Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasthe Antichrist.

God bless em all especially Wallace Berry. Doug Bybee

Bybee is a retired state-government employee in Springfield, Ill., and columnist. He is currentlywriting a book about his memories for his grandchildren. Its not really difficult, he says, for I have savedup words all my life where once I put em in a jar, I now put em inside a machine. Contact him at

[email protected]. F/m


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The quiet children go shopping

SOME BAD THINGS are good to know. Long ago, I had a little grocery store in a verydeprived neighborhood in St. Louis. A salesman and I enjoyed many emotionallycomfortable talks together when he made his rounds. I must say that race never entered anyof our conversations, not even by inference.

One day a boy, around 12 years old, came into thestore, followed by two pre-school children, a brother and asister. The boy wore faded and patched blue jeans, canvasshoes and a raveling old sweater. His blue shirt was unironedbut unlike the rest of his inadequate clothing it was clean. Thetwo younger children who accompanied the older boy werenot only thin and ragged but also very dirty. They werestrangely quiet. The 12-year-old bought one gallon ofkerosene, one pound of baloney, a small can of molasses, and

one loaf of bread exactly what he bought the day beforeand every single school day for the two years I had owned thestore.

Both parents worked: the father was a six-day janitorand the mother a five-day-a-week domestic. As a domestic,she was required to be away from home and her nine children15 hours per day. The 12-year-old got food for the family.They ate cold leftovers for breakfast, and baloney andmolasses for lunch. The two preschoolers were left alone allday until the school-age children got home. They ran up and

down the street, their noses invariably running, and their thindirty, smelly clothes giving them a most pathetic look. Andalways they were so quiet. No laughter ever, but no sounds ofany other kind either.

______________________________

The family lived in three small dark,dirty rooms with a toilet stool set in anunlit, former clothes closet. There was atiny, beat-up sink in the kitchen. Theuncovered wood floors were always dirty

with giant splinters threatening every step.The gas and electric had been cut off longbefore I moved into the neighborhood.The only heat was from the coal spaceheater in the front room and coal-fedcook stove in the kitchen. With gapingcracks and rat holes everywhere,crumbling plaster and rattling doors and

windows all over, no amount of heatcould ever have warmed the place. (Twoof the children had been bitten by rats.)The kerosene bought by the boy was usedin old-fashioned oil lamps, the only

illumination in the house and by whichthe children studied at night, as much asany half-hungry, half-warm, half-sick, half-clothed, confused, hopeless child canstudy. Because the mother worked at adifferent place every day, payday for herwas every day, which explains why thepurchases were made daily.


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Because the father always got homefirst, he made supper for the children usually white potatoes fried with onions,thick strips of salt pork, fried first toprovide the fat for frying the potatoes.

Bread consisted of fried corn cakes madeof corn meal, salt, and hot water. Once aweek they had neck bones and black-eyedpeas, according to the groceries theybought from me. The mother usuallyarrived home shortly after nine, when thefour youngest children were in bed. Theywere almost always asleep when she left at6:30 a.m. in order to make the two-hourtrip each way, including the long wait forthe county bus to make the turn every 40minutes. I cant imagine any lullabies, any

story telling, any bedtime baths orgoodnight kisses from this tired mother.The father, a lonely failure, would findonly a bitter reminder in the faces of hisstrangely quiet brood. To escape theirunasked questions, he would crawl intobed as soon as possible, his face to thecold crumbling wall.

I explained to my friend, thesalesman, the family situation and justwhat the boy would do with the things he

bought, and that he was father andmother to his sisters and brothers. Thatthe truant officer (St. Louis had themthen) never bothered them about being

out of school. Nor did anyone botherabout them playing in the street at nightuntil midnight. My friend was speechless.He just stood and stared, while his faceturned gray. Finally, he put the half empty

bottle of pop on the counter, wiped hisforehead, and quietly walked out. It wastwo weeks before he returned to the store.He seemed older and deeply troubled. Heasked if there were many other families inthe neighborhood living like that of the12-year-old boy, and seemed genuinelypained to learn that many of them werejust as bad off. Then he asked me how Icould stand living around them. When Itold him how difficult it was to find aneighborhood anywhere in a ghetto where

some unpleasant human misery does notexist, his color seemed to turn gray againand tight lines formed around his mouth.It was then that he announced withlowered eyes, that he would ask to betransferred to another area. He leftwithout even waiting for my offer.

I never saw him again. I wonder if heever forgot his old route. And I wonder ifI can ever forgive this white salesman.Gloria Pritchard

Ms. Pritchards letter, titled Reflection,appeared in the July-August 1968 edition of

FOCUS/Midwest. F/m


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Remembering Frank OHare

TWO YEARS HAVE PASSEDsince cancer took the physicalpresence of Frank P. OHare awayfrom his friends the exact date was

July 16, 1960.

Yet the most fortunate ofOHareians still find him poppinginto their offices unannounced; spot

him bustling along a crowded citystreet with two or three newspaperstucked under an arm; hear his nowdulcet now explosive voice on thetelephone; receive in the morningmail those cards and notes and lettersand manuscripts and embellishedbooklets on almost every idea underthe sun that could have come fromhim alone.

For Frank OHare was a fellowwho goes right on doing what healways did and somehow sees to itthat nothing, not even death, verymuch interferes.

Since there may be a few readersofFOCUS/Midwestwho do not knowas much as they should of the OHarestory, the thing to do here is to touch

some of the high spots, and hope thatit soon will have the attention of theunderstanding biographer that FrankOHare deserves.

He was born April 23, 1877 italways pleased him to celebrate his

birthday and Shakespeares together in North Hampton, Iowa. Hisrestless energy came as a paternalinheritance. Peter Paul OHare, hisfather, an Irish emigrant, forsookimporting lines from his homeland toseek adventure in the Colorado silvermines. When life in the RockyMountains became too quiet hepacked a satchel and went off to fighton the side of the Boers in South

Africa.But Franks mother, the former

Elizabeth Weyers, a native of theNetherlands, made up for the lack ofa steady father as best she could andthat was mighty well.


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Setting a lot of store byeducation, she kept her children inschool as long as possible andmanaged to have books in the home.Franks older brother, George, rantheNew Hampton Courierand it was inits jumbled print shop that Frank, as afour-year-old, learned his ABCs byplaying with the large wooden typesused in handbills and posters.

When Frank was six, MotherOHare moved her brood to St. Louisand there Frank carried papers in theIrish neighborhood known as Kerry

Patch. In his teens he began his careeras a writer and editor by chasing newsfor the old St. Louis Chronicle, thendirected by the great E.W. Scripps,founder of the first nationalnewspaper chain. By the time he hadreached his early twenties, Frank wasimmersed in the politico-economicproblems of the Bryan-McKinley eraand his hero was Gene Debs, formerlocomotive fireman and apostle ofsocialism.

Frank himself became a Socialistorganizer and he and his first wife,Kate Richards, traveled through

Arkansas and Oklahoma setting upannual encampments for farmers andlaborers under Socialist auspices. Theidea was to provide recreation for

entertainment-starved families andalong with it serious study classes inSocialist doctrine and practice. By1908, these encampments weredrawing thousands of southwestfarmer folk.

But the movement needed anunhampered editor and that was just

what Frank OHare became as chiefof theNational Rip-Sawin 1912.

Through the next decade he issued itsstridently socialistic copies from St.Louis. He took up all the new causes,

woman suffrage, world peace, thepolitical prisoners behind bars and, in1922, on the heels of A. MitchellPalmers deportations delirium, setout to free all those who were lockedup in the war years because of theirpolitical views. His Childrens

Crusade for Amnesty includedchartered transportation toWashington and picketing at theWhite House.

After World War I he used hismathematical skill as an industrialengineer for a St. Louis hat company.More or less until he was 70, he was aconsultant to the president onefficiency and procedures for which


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he worked out early time studies. Aheart attack retired him but not to thesidelines. He still had more things todo.

Long a leading member of St.Louis famed Public Questions Club,angular, hawk-beaked Frank OHarenow formed a Monday luncheongroup which he called The Dunkers.

To record its exploits he started ayellow sheet, Dunkerdoingswhich

went to honorary members overseasand to members on leave around the

world in World War II. Justice Wiley

B. Rutledge and U.S. Sen. Thomas C.Hennings Jr. were among its readers.

Frank often sent letters to thenewspapers and a collection of these

would be a delight in anyones hands.At the peak of a controversy in the St.Louis Post-Dispatchin 1951 over thequality of Missouri hams, the formerbattler ofThe Rip-Sawwrote, under

the title When Pigs Died Happy:My contention is that the old-

time hog impregnated his flesh withthejoie de vivrein which he flourished.His mass-bred successors, tended byhirelings, considered only as so muchcash in the bank, distill theirfrustration and so punish us. Andnow the whole world is in agony. Itlooks almost as though we had triedto bend God to our own will and that

we are being punished. The old-timeMissouri hog died with a smiletwisting his pink-tipped snout. Wehave lost our Missouri ham!

They knew Frank his baptizedname was Francis Peter inChicago, in Kansas City, in Cleveland,out on the Pacific Coast, in New

York, and on the Main Streets of theMidwestern mining towns. He namedhis sons for Debs and EdwinMarkham for that was one of hisideas about immortality. Few peopleread more in religious philosophy andhe always wrote Jesus as Jeshua whichhe stoutly maintained was correct.

For 30 years his second wife, theformer Irene Reynolds, tolerated his

idiosyncracies, and when he wasmortally ill, helped him in his finalproject. That was the organization ofa cultural exchange between St. Louisand Stuttgart, Germany, now aneminently successful internationalenterprise. . . . Just at this point thedoor has opened without a knock,Frank has poked his head inside andthere is nothing to do but stop andhave a good, long visit with him.

There is so much going on that wemust swap ideas about! IrvingDilliard

Excerpted from Dilliards DebunkerPar Excellence,FOCUS/Midwest,

August 1962. Dilliard, a resident ofCollinsville, Ill., was the former editorial

page editor of theSt. Louis Post-

Dispatch.At the time this story waspublished he wrote a column for theChicago American. F/m

FOCUS/midwest SPRING 2010

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