Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jon Lauck From Warm Center To Ragged

Jagged edge takes its title from f. Scott fitzgerald who is the author probably most famously of the great gatsby and if you remember your gatsby from back in high school or college you will remember nick carowinds is from minnesota. He went off to war and this would have been world war i and when he came back he decided that he thought it would be sort of dull to move back to minnesota which he saw as the ragged edge of the universe and he decided to move to new york and he got nixed up and arrained 20s on long island with gatsby and all that cast of characters from his book. In the end when he sees what happens to many of these characters he begins to see the ultimate west where he came from as the warm center of the world and so that contrast is what i tried to draw out in my new book book, warm center to jagged edge. In the decades after the civil war the midwest was seen by many commentators as the pacesetter region, the place that is the most active the place where there were some most dynamic economy, the place where political power was growing and will continue to grow. Most of the president s after the civil war, seven of eight, came from the midwest. They came from places like ohio and indiana and iowa. The midwest also in addition to its political and economic clout had a great cultural clout because of its writers and because of the strong regional movement. Some of the prominent writers will be forgotten by most listeners but at the time they were household names. Im thinking about people like James Whitcomb riley of indiana who is laid in state in indianapolis for a week ago as there were thousands of wellwishers who came through because he was so wellknown at this period of time. This is part of the indiana golden age of literature which featured people like riley and tarkington and lou wallace who was the author of benhur and there were prominent authors like Sherwood Anderson of ohio and Sinclair Lewis of minnesota and f. Scott fitzgerald of st. Paul who we talked about a little bit of go. All these people were making major remarks for the midwest in American Literary culture. About midway through the 20th century you could see the effects of the growing clout and the growing power of American Culture especially with the movie industry. The late 1940s with that was the most predominant form of entertainment in the country and Many Americans went to three, four or five movies a week. Most of those movies were shot in hollywood and in los angeles. That showed the power of california and the west coast at that time and then soon after that television, much of which was produced in hollywood and pretty soon most americans in the span of a decade had a television set. When the 50s began 2 of americans had televisions. By the end of the decade 90 plus of them did. So these local centers the regional production of culture in the midwest lost the onetime influence. In addition to that there was a growing cosmopolitan movement in the country that looked down on what they saw as the retrograde agrarian isolationists parts of the country and this was particularly acute in the world after world war ii when there was a growing dedication to the United Nations and establishing a more prominent role in the United States. The midwest for many years had the part of the country that was the most skeptical of getting involved in entangling affairs overseas. All those factors kind of came together to reduce the prominence of midwestern culture through the 20th century. I think you can see the influence of the diminishment of midwestern regionalism in our politics and the frustration of some people in the middle of the country with other people dominating or controlling the culture. I think theres a real longing in the interior parts of the country for more of an assertive role culture. They want to be more a part of the production, cultural forms that are prominent in our culture and i think you see this longing for a real genuine democratic pluralism in the country. People know and can feel when they are being dominated and when they dont have much of a voice. I think you see those kinds of frustrations bubbling up in our politics today. The good news is that there have been some major developments in the past few years that will allow people to rediscover there on regional and cultural history history. I think the first was the formation of the Midwestern History Association which is a National Organization and it meets every year in michigan, but actually was founded in sioux falls. The Midwestern History Association in particular was founded on the principle that the Academic Field of midwestern history had completely collapsed by the mid1990s or so and that it was far past time to redevelop the infrastructure and the Critical Infrastructure is having an association dedicated to the study of a particular region and an association that meets every year, brings scholars together and get some on panels and get them talking about this region and also creates a space for them to publish their work. Midwesterners began to dig into their own history. They are going to see very similar stories and we hear those stories. You want to know what your ancestors went through and what they lived through and what shaped them and what made them who they are and thats what you want to rediscover, the history of our particular region. One of the complications of reviving the study of the midwest is that there are many midwesterners who are very humble and some of them think that well we dont have much of a story to tell and even if we did we are not going to post about it but i am trying to shape these midwesterners out of their complacency and get them to think a little bit more about their region and a little bit more about their heritage and where they come from. I think the world could certainly stand a few more stronger midwestern voices out there. Im my family came to south dakota in 1973. Im originally from new york. When no i first came here we lived and worked on a sioux indian reservation for 10 years and for three ways three years i worked for the statewide Legal Services program. I did a year of fellowship and then i joined a law school here. They wanted me to teach indian law that has been my primary. Also along the way i have become a tribal appellate judge for several tribes in south dakota. They would probably make up eight, nine, 10 of the states population. These populations are oftentimes a very significant part of the population. They live on the reservation and they live off the reservation. Its important to understand that many people are citizens of three sovereigns. The United States citizens and also south dakota state citizens and there are tribal citizens of the tribe for which they are a member. The tribe has the authority from their preconstitutional existence and thats the position of tribe states. They have sovereignty within their territory. That has collided with the dominant society and the federal governments point of view and so they try to maximize their sovereignty, to maximize their zones of authority in Indian Country and to do that sometimes both sides seem to be going in the same direction and there has been a recognition of tribal sovereignty in the context of historical times and the relationship seemed to be going in opposite directions. The federal government is not hostile to tribal sovereignty. The issues that have caused most of the problems was the notion of expansion and American History is premised on the environment of western expansion and its tough to engage in western expansion when there are already people here. That was one of the initial dilemmas was how were they going to deal with these people who are already here in with a first came here these people were numerically and oftentimes militarily stronger than european immigrants and over time immigrants began to have more power numerically and firepower and they began to have the upper hand and the notion was that there had to be this continual western expansion for native land and thats been the primary historical tension of the federal government in a movement with stewart to obtain as much indian land as possible. The native respect of what they have tried to do is to resist as much as possible, to retain as much land as possible. One of the problems and that is trying to know what hinders that relationship. One way of thinking is they may have looked to the United States constitution demarcate exactly what is the relationship between these two sovereigns. Although i think the constitution as originally written tries to do that i think through and act of congress and United States Supreme Court the native people is starkly have had struggles to be recognized as United States citizens. They have had to struggle to be recognized as citizens and that was not he would have thought at some point these people would have been welcomed into the constitutional structure by federal and state citizens. Acrosstheboard people have been citizens since 1924. The 14th amendment provided federal and state citizenship to everyone including africanamericans in the aftermath of the civil war. There is a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1881 that says because of language and the 14th amendment the 14th amendment did not make native people United States citizens. It didnt make them state citizens so the postcivil war amendments that we always thought positively about, they didnt really do anything for native people to move toward their citizenship as federal citizens and state citizens. In that case he was a native person living in omaha, nebraska and living off the reservation and he was allowed to vote in the local election. He attempted to register to vote today of the cast his ballot and he was told that he was neither a citizen of the United States or a citizen of the state of nebraska despite the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment which appears in article i of the constitution has language phrased excluding indians not if you go to article i of the constitution, but that phrase actually means and i think you can ask this of all people and they really dont know but what that meant even at the time of the constitution being adopted there were small numbers of indian people that lived off the reservation and technically were subject to taxation. The argument of the constitution was excluding those native people who were still living on the reservation in Indian Country they wouldnt be counted. Those people at that time it moved off the reservation and were living in small towns. They would be counted for purposes and for reasons that are not perfect we clear its not in the 14th amendment. The continuation of that language in the 14th amendment to say the 14th amendment did not change the citizenship status of native people. And so we are getting into the latter part of the 19th century and native people with rare exceptions were not considered citizens of the United States or citizens of the state in which they actually lived in. I think the major challenge that native people had to deal with Going Forward is one of the problems of Economic Development in Indian Country. The nine reservations in south dakota are among the and its true that four of the four counties in the United States are located in Indian Country in south dakota so poverty remains expensive. While that is true thats not all of Indian Country. People seem to know the bat about Indian Country but they dont know the good and i think thats a significant problem for nonnative people to be more aware of the things that occurred in Indian Country. There are colleges on reservations in south dakota. Sometimes they are the fastestgrowing colleges in the state. I would venture if you raise the question to significant portions of the nonnative population in south dakota they wouldnt have a clue that theres a college on the reservation created by native people, governed by native people that are doing a tremendous amount of good work. I think there is some good in something that there continues to be a struggle. I think for example it is important for both sides to agree with Common Ground to solve problems. Is there opportunity for common Economic Development that would benefit both the state and the tribe to have those in Indian Country . I think there could be. I dont think its been explored in the context of tourism for example to have stayed tribal partnerships in the context of tourism. I think the notion of having opportunities for example memories of the state legislature to travel to Indian Country and to meet tribal councilmembers just to have more of them come together. The absence of coming together when you have empty space between two people and you have the history oftentimes that empty space is going to be filled by stereotypes, by negative stereotypes. Its when people come together officially and unofficially and have more contact with each other that they can have a better sense of who people are and developed a respect. If you go around the law school here you will see evidence and not always true of other places that there is a native presence here. In the native Law Association if you go into the courtroom you will see all sorts of native artwork. If you travel most of the places you will see that. The basic thing. When people come here they see it. Its like well yale there is some kind of cultural respect and native presence here. You dont want to underestimate that because when you are nonnative person you take her granted that everything reflects on the background that you come from but for native people its not like that at all. As long as people remain separated and cautious i think its problematic for both sides to go forward. Peter shannon was the chief justice of the dakota territory Supreme Court 1873 to 1882. He was admitted to the pittsburgh bar in 1846 and had a very successful law practice there. He served a term as a judge in pennsylvania. He was antislavery but he was also slightly antisecessionists. He believed if you were in the union you were a traitor. He served a short. Of time in the civil war and the pennsylvania calvary unit. When grant was president he offered him a position to come to dakota territory to serve as the chief justice and because it was something, because he would be working in the law and that the law he took the position. Yet tediously refused job offers from lincoln but because he wanted to be a judge he took the position offered by grant. Before shannon got here justice was off the wall. The judges were corrupt. The lawyers were not knowledgeable and a lot. It was difficult. U. S. Attorney nd territory was forced to write a letter of apology to the u. S. Attorney of washington d. C. Saying i cant get a jerk to convict anybody of anything in this territory and until and unless peoples attitudes change its not going to happen. If you get somebody committing a crime particularly the a force thief, horse thieves were a special kind of criminal on the frontier. If you stole a horse you left him vulnerable to the elements he could lose his life so that was considered a capital crime. If you were caught stealing a horse for example of if you were particularly away from any settlement of ranch country they would hang you to a cottonwood tree like one of these big ones over here. That happened quite frequently and that was what you call frontier justice are rough justice. Of course you could also argue that mobs commit murders. They are not in any way part of the Justice System but it was sort of a rule and an unwritten and unspoken code of the if you stole a horse you were guilty and you could be hung. He was educated in the law. That gave him a lot more credence than other judges and will lawyers who werent educated. For example on the frontier she wanted to be a lawyer what you did, you read law in his office for a while and then that lawyer would take you to a meeting probably at a bar with one of the judges and had a few drinks and a couple of laps and you remembered the bar. The it was so easy but thats why there was so much incompetence and thats where shannon made a difference. He went to law school and these other people didnt. His impact was considerable and it was immediate. He thought keep brought integrity come he brought confidence and he brought good sense to the legal system. He got juries to take the job seriously and take the oath seriously. When he spoke in a courtroom people listen. People would come to listen to him speak. Trials in those days particularly murder trials were like entertainment for the community picked. There was limited activity in those days. They would come to hear this lawyer and come to hear this trial. They were always focused and very attentive. Once in a while something happened that would get their attention they would burst on applause and the judge would have to gaveled in back to science. Shannon was the first judge who really understood the law and how to apply it. There was a real judge in town and the newspapers covered trials quite closely so they really focused in on him. The reporting on shannon was positive. It was good and throughout the whole territory. It was a matter of months in which the people could see the difference. They were still shootings and there was still gambling and fights and all of that stuff that happened but they were, these people were being arrested more fre