We hold on to hopes for next year every year in western Dakota: hoping that droughts will end; hoping that our crops won't be hail...ed out in the few rainstorms that come; hoping that it won't be too windy on the day we harvest, blowing away five bushels an acre; hoping ... that if we get a fair crop, we'll be able to get a fair price for it. Sometimes survival is the only blessing that the terrifying angel of the Plains bestows.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sense of place is unavoidable in western Dakota, and maybe that's our gift to the world. ...In these places you wait, and the ...places mold you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The recent attempt to secure a charter from the State of North Dakota for a lottery company, the pending effort to obtain from the... State of Louisiana a renewal of the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery, and the establishment of one or more lottery companies at Mexican towns near our border, have served the good purpose of calling public attention to an evil of vast proportions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I cannot exaggerate the waste of the President's time and the consumption of his nervous vitality involved in listening to congres...smen's intercession as to local appointments. Why should the President have to have his time taken up in a discussion over ... who shall be the postmistress of Devil's Lake, in North Dakota? How should he be able to know ... who is best fitted to fill such a place?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of fa...milies traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow s...ky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year's seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A good story is one that isn't demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn't remind us of the bad times, the cardboa...rd patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The high plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them. Like Jacob's angel, the reg...ion requires that you wrestle with it before it bestows a blessing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »