the octagon into livable rooms.rnYankees with bright ideas had been prominent in the earlyrnsettlement of Superior, but Scandinavia had overwhelmedrnNew England. Glenway Wescott lamented the changernwrought by immigrants in Southern Wisconsin, but Superiorrnwas defined by the foreigners—the French, after all, had beenrnthere first, and the border that ran through the Great Lakes wasrnhighly porous to the Scots who pushed their way in from Canada.rnThe- stopped at a bookstore on the outskirts of town to lookrnfor books by local writers. “It’s strange to find a bookstore in Superior,”rnhe told the Englishwoman who ran the place. “WhenrnI was growing up, people were satisfied with comic books andrnpulp fiction from Globe News.” (He might have added thatrnbest-sellers and diet books were no improvement.) She toldrnhim that the store was named after the senior editor of the LiteraryrnGuild. Beekman had grown up in Superior and attributedrnhis success in picking books to his knowledge of Midwesternrnwomen.rnNow he knew what had happened to American literature.rnSuperior took it over and replaced Sinclair Lewis and ScottrnFitzgerald with James Michener and Tom Clancy.rnOver lunch in the Elbo Room with a local writer, the conversationrnturned to regional differences. This part of therncountry was as different from, say, Illinois as it was from Mississippi.rnFew local people are aware that a Southerner had beenrninvolved in the founding of Superior: in fact, John C. Breckenridge,rnLincoln’s fire-eahng rival in the election of I860. ThernDemocradc candidate, the pro-Southern Stephen Douglas, alsornthrew his considerable influence behind the project, untilrnhis money-grubbing caused a scandal. Illinois is different now:rnPoliticians today are expected to steal.rnThe writer, who had taught in Louisiana, envied him his lifernin the Carolinas. Admiration turned to amusement whenrnRockford entered the conersation. “Jeeze, that’s worse thanrnS’perior.” Going back to Superior, he had made the best of thernsituation and turned the Polish neighborhood of the East Endrnand Allouez into a literary landscape. It was his Wesscx, hisrnYoknapatawpha, his Middle Earth.rnThe alien left the two storytellers drinking their lunch andrnwalked fi’e blocks up Tower Avenue to the offices of the T-rnomies Socieh’. He had written a dozen newspapers in NorthernrnWisconsin and received only two responses: one from JoAnrnMelchild, who writes for the paper in Shell Lake, and one fromrnthe Finnish American Reporter, published by the socialist/communistrnTyomies Society.rnThe histor)’ of Tyomies is an American saga. The newspaper,rnwhich was founded in Massachusetts in 1905 and moved first tornHancock and then in 1913 to Superior, was generally known asrnthe second-largest communist paper in the United States. Hisrnseventh-grade art teacher, a rabid anticommunist, spent hoursrnin class denouncing the godless reds of Tyomies, particularly itsrneditor “Mike” Wastila. One day, when the attack on Wastila’srncharacter reached a peak, the boy stood up to testif)- that Wastilarnwas not a proponent of bank robben,’ and free love, but was inrnfact a fine man, his father’s friend, with a wife and daughter w horncame frequently to dinner.rnAlthough he had warned the editors that he was, for wairt ofrna better term, “conservative,” they gave him a warm welcomernand a cup of hot coffee to warm him up. Weikko Jarvi, the currentrneditor of the Finnish American Reporter, came to SuperiorrnThe Russian Orthodox Church in Cornucopia.rnfrom the Iron Range in 1958. He was hired by Wastila, whorntold him he had a job for five years, but by then the paper wouldrnbe dead. Finns die hard, apparently.rnIn the 20’s and 30’s, the Socieh’ had been instrumental in settingrnup the first cooperatives, but the movement began to breakrnup over the issue of alignment with the Communist Part)’. Tyomiesrnwas loyal to the part)’, and they still speak with some contemptrnfor the other side, whom they lump together as Wobblies.rn(The alien’s mother used to sav that IWW stood for “I Won’trnWork.”)rnWobblies, socialists, and communists were nothing strangernup on the lakes; they were as American as lutefisk and kielbasa.rnTom Selinski (irot a Finn, but Polish-Slovenian) is making arnfilm on the history of the society. He is bewildered by the Orwellianrnrewrite of histor)’ that demonizes, retroacti’ely, the cooperatives,rnunions, and leftists as agents of subversion and terror.rnHe blames the “creeping conservatism” of the “trailer court Republicans”rnwho have forgotten their roots. It used to be thatrnwhen a congressman came to Superior, he spoke at the LaborrnTemple. Those days are gone.rnThey are gloomy about the prospects for progressive politics.rnThomas Dresel, FAR’s sales director, recalls the visitor from thernWest Coast who bragged about how much better the co-ops inrnWashington were—not knowing that the whole co-op nrovementrnstarted in Superior. She probably couldn’t get tofu or organicrnpeanut butter in a co-op run by farmers and dock workers.rnSelinski bristles when the 60’s left is brought up to explainrnwhy ordinary’ people turned to the right. “Jerr’ Rubin wasn’t arnleftist,” he says. “He was just Jerr)’ Rubin.” He insists that progressivesrnstand for real famil)- values and defend genuine communities,rnbut when he is challenged on the left’s attraction tornhomosexual rights, he shifts the ground, asking Weikko Jarvi ifrnthe Finns weren’t always in fa’or of gay rights. Weikko smilesrnironically: “No, I can’t say the)’ were.”rnGetting down to brass tacks, the conser’ati’e asks them wh’rnthey think the)’ can use gosernment to defeat the entrenchedrninterests of wealth and power. After all, those are the peoplernwho own the government today, and Weikko concedes, “Thatrnis the problem of socialist countries: The masses are too trustingrnof the leadership.”rnSuperior has changed, they .sa)’, and not for the better. Hard-rn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn