cially dosed, life in the Roekv Mountainrnstates persisted as essentiallv a frontierrnculture without the rest of the eountrvrnbeing aware of this until a couple ofrndecades ago, when the emergent environmentalistrnmovement took notice ofrnthe fact and decided the time had arrivedrnto close out what remained of thernfrontier for good and all. Since the earlyrn70’s, environmentalists looking to returnrnthe West to unworked wildernessrnhave joined forces with transplanted urbanitesrnseeking to gentrify it, while cnvironmentalismrnand urbanization, as impersonalrnforces, have created conditionsrnin which the old Western ruralism basedrnon ranching, agriculture, mining, andrntimbering may be destroyed. Contributingrnmightily to the process ofrnchange is the current exodus, beginningrnalmost overnight, from the nation’srngreatest non-Western—in particular FarrnW-tstern—cities, caused by what canrnfairly be described as the collapse of arnonce great civilization (our own). Whilernthe refugees tend to flee, as if bv instinct.rnto the hintedand, their destination is usuallyrnthe urban, not the rural, W’fest,rnwhich at first thought seems like a blessing.rnSo long as the majority of thesernConcstoga Californians, lexans, Washingtonians,rnand Connecticut Yankeesrnpen themselves in glittering ghettoes,rnwhy worry about them? One answer isrnwater, the West’s scarcest resource. Anotherrnis that the newcomers, urbanitesrnall, regard the hundreds of thousands ofrnsquare miles surrounding these cities asrntheir rightful playground and preserve.rnThis is the real story behind currentrnheadlines having to do with grazingrnand mining reforms, with the demandrnfor more wilderness closures, with thernhoopla emanating from the Bureaurnof Reclamation that promises an end tornthe era of dam-building and similarrngrandiose projects and the start of a newrnage of “quality water management,” byrnwhich is meant cutting off the supply ofrnwater to ranchers and irrigation farmersrnand diverting it instead to the misplacedrnlawn-growers of Phoenix, Albuquerque,rnLIBERAL ARTSrnXKROCM’.MRICSIlYSrKRSrnl’r(i|)()iieiit>-1)( Vasliiiii;ton, D.(,”.’s cxpirinii’iit in .tn KID trie ccliicitidii in Ihe puhlicrnseliDfils hjL- leriiu’d media criticisin “‘a ratist jtlack” lay “”white suprciiUKisls.” liirnan h()iii-l(iii« presentation sponsored hv tlic 1).(^ seluxii .systcMJi .it Ruth K. Wchhrnf!lt;moiil.uv School last September, 10 of 11 spfaki-f; :is>iaiiec1 tlic Wushiiii^lon Risf forrnitseovcid^fof llie nt’w program. “It”sbc-fTi an a:ihiiu:he(ji blatant distortion and oiitriyhtrnlits,” •>aiii K’waku Walker, the hu’.bniicl of proijrain direetor Abeiia VValkci. “Viliavi-rnto ceiiTcet (hi; niisetlucatinn of our yontli and ^iiard against white .iiiprcniaev anilrnwliik- ili.iiiNini.’.Mi . . . so that tlic i.aii occ llic while- iliauvini,->lie oritaitation of IIK-rn\iiiliin<:l’)ii I’ctl”rnI In- nc;«’ Atrotciitrio iiroijrani ijuolvi’-; 130 cliiklicii Irom the I’rinidad nei<;lil)oilioodrnof Noitlicjst W.isliiiiijtoii, reports the i”nt. Supporters ol tin: proijrani art;iie thatrnit will gicallv benefit these eliililreii by inlusini; .-fritaii ciilf urc aiul histor into tlic-irrnlessons. I liev are not bollieiecl hy the fact lliat .Aliena Wiilker’.s ciedeiiliais ineinde ,irnmaster’s device I iiat she gave herself from I’aii African l.’nivcrsity, which she loniidedrn,111(1 which is ncillier .iccredited nor lieen.sed. Walker inaiiitaius that Rm Atrie.iii I ‘iiiver.rnsitv i.s a “eoinmunity-based organi/alion, not seekiiii; aeereditalion from a liiiopeaii-rnha.sed iiiiiersity. It’s accredited to the laee.”rnVhc.!).(.;. school s>-stcm has contracted to pay \alkei S44,26S toi liiis fiscal year andrnhas buds^i’ted SI 20.000 for consulting fees. Iwjoks, ami sii])plies like sewiiit; mat.liines,rneaiiieras. and leK:ision sets. Thouf^li \iilker had nei:;li:( ted to select or order textbooksrntor tins school vear b the end of September, a ])areiit of two children in the Wi’hh piotjramrnlaiul a slucicnt at Wiilker’siMiiveisit% i Mciiied Lineoiiccnied. “Wv loc this iiiiaeereditcd,rnunlicensed SCIKKJI,” Uelinda She|)pard said. “”I was ecstatic to learn that thisrnproi^raui would be opeiiiiii:;… lor my clulilien to sec the wodd through Alricaii eus.’rnand Denver. From all around the country,rnthe bab-boomers are arriving onrnthe Western scene (if only for a fewrnweeks’ aeation each year), lookingrnaround, and declaring: “We like it here!”rnAnd the chief of all baby boomers in hisrnBig W-‘hite Teepee in Washington, DeernCee is set to deliver it to them. After all,rnthey have the votes. And the money.rnOwing to its vastncss and still relativelyrnsmall population, the RockyrnMountain West is preeminently the solernportion of the United States (Alaska perhapsrnexcluded) that remains American,rnas opposed to Modern. It was in part tornretain this quality of being Americanrnthat the South fought the Civil War—rnand lost. In defeat, it suffered the acceleratedrnimposition of 100 Percent Modernism,rnso that by the 1950’s it hadrnbecome more even than its own unrecognizablerndescendant: a travesty rather, arncaricature of the rationalist utilitarianrncolossus that had conquered it. A similarrnfate ma’ well overtake the West unlessrnpresent trends are substantially alleviatedrnor reversed. A decade and a halfrnago, the rebel yells of the Sagebrushrnprotesters had the slightly cracked tonernof secessionism, but fhc Sagebrush Rebellionrnhas come to nothing, for the timernbeing at least when the native sons of thernW’est will be hard pressed to hang ontornthe tenuous ground they now occupy.rnMeanwhile, W’esterners continue to survivernin the onU’ portion of the LowerrnForty-Eight where wilderness, official orrnnot, is the absolute condition of humanrnlife rather than a scenic backdrop to arnpale facsimile of it; where the weather,rnda in and day out (not just in hurricanernseason), is a matter of life andrndeath; where man’s relationship to animaternnature is the true and primeval onernof kill or be killed; where men—andrnwomen—go routinely armed; andrnwhere, consequently, the old Americanrndream of freedom survives. For thesernreasons, issues affecting the future of thernWest are and ought to be of vital interestrnto all Americans, vho may one day standrnto benefit from Western intransigence inrnwhat seems more and more to be endrntimes for the country as a whole.rnIt is ironic that the apostle of the NewrnNationalism, Teddy Roosevelt, shouldrnhave described the West, admiringly, asrna place where “you can still plug a manrnin the belly and get away with it.” Butrnwhy not? Better a society where badrnmen go free than one in which decentrnmen and patriots go to jail. crn50/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn