ting ovation,” and “gunfire in the parking lot.” Ed’s thesis,nbriefly stated, was that the public-lands beef industry is anpublic scandal and an ecological disaster, resulting in overgrazingnand other forms of environmental mayhem; thatn”Western cattle-men are nothing more than welfare parasites”nwho have been “getting a free ride on the public lands fornover a century”; and that these nuisances deserve to be putnout of business through the elimination of federal subsidies,nincluding especially grazing leases acquired at token cost.nEdward Abbey was, of course, a maverick. Still, on thisnparticular subject, he was something more comfortable thannyox clamantis in deserta; “Cattle-Free by Ninety-three” is ancry nearly as ubiquitous in the deserts of the West andnSouthwest today as the peculiar wind-down call of thencanyon wren, though no one I have talked with seems tonknow its origin. Steve Johnson, of Defenders of Wildlife,nhad it from Earth First!, a militant organization directlyninspired by the publication of The Monkey Wrench Gang,nEd’s comic novel of lust and ecotage on the ColoradonPlateau; while Lynn Jacobs, who lives in Tucson and isnwriting a book about tbe cattle problem, has no idea wherenthe slogan comes from. The movement generated by it, henexplained, is a decentralized one, like Earth First! itself:npeople hand out bumper stickers, have demonstrations,nwrite books and articles. Johnson, who believes that undernthe present (century-old) system of public land management,n”Two percent of the nation’s beef is being paid for bynour wildlife species,” would like — personally — to see thatnthe political influence of the public-lands rancher is reducednto something commensurate with his economic contribution.nHe believes that, though more has been written on thensubject in the past four or five years than in all the previousnones, “Cattle-Free by Ninety-three” is an issue generallynavoided by environmentalists, who have concluded that herenis a battle they cannot hope to win. Nevertheless, thenexcellent environmentalist paper High Country News, publishednbiweekly in Paonia, Colorado, regularly documentsnthe controversy between often hard-scrabble ranchersnthroughout the Rocky Mountain West and their critics, whonaccuse them of every misdeed from shooting supposedlynpredatory eagles and certainly predatory grizzly bears tonstarving and strangling migratory antelope by means of theirncounfless miles of “bob-war” fencing. If only it were not fornthose greedy and, insensitive sheep and cattle men (thenargument goes), the elk herds would have pasture to winternthem safely, allowing them to increase and multiply;ncongressional delegations could not be intimidated fromnagreeing to the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone;nthe Indian tribes (and everyone else) would have plenty ofnwater; and backpackers in transit to wilderness areas wouldnnot get their scientifically-sophisticated hiking shoes mirednin soft surprises. Throughout the American West, thenrancher today is perceived to be the single greatest threat tonthe environment since the oil companies all went bustntogether at the start of the 1980’s.nWhen I moved West a decade ago and began readingnEdward Abbey’s books, I thought his attitude towardnranchers and ranching distinctiy unromantic and not a littlenunfair; ten years later, I am not so sure. Though I spend mynlife away from the typewriter roaming the territories con­ntrolled by the National Forest Service and the Bureau ofnLand Management and am thus able to testify that thenexploitation of the range is an undeniable fact and a causenfor serious concern, I have not — yet—succumbed tonCattle-Free Fever. On the other hand, I have definitely lost,nin whatever degree I ever possessed it, the romantic attitudenI once had toward ranching as a way of life and ranchersnthemselves as human beings. Ranchers have indeed, asnAbbey claimed, been on the receiving end of the federalnpipeline for too long. They are accustomed to gettingnsomething for almost nothing, their justification for thisnlargess being that their lives are harder than anyone else’snand their economic condition more precarious, while theirntraditional existence remains worthy of perpetuation atnwhatever cost to the taxpayer and society in large. The truthnis that, taken as a class, they have become something of ancollective prig. Mention horseback riding to a rancher andnhe will explain to you how he despises being on a horse andnwould never set foot in the stirrup were it not for thendemands of his calling. Mention hunting (except for coyote)nand he will remark that he has no time for such frivolity. Innwhatever interchange with too many ranchers, you will findnyourself cast in the role of the amateur being condescendednto by the professional. As between the two of you, he and henalone has felt the hard hand of an implacable fate: he is thenman, you are the boy. … I don’t buy it, but the governmentndoes. And has, for something over a century now.nPerhaps that is merely a personal reaction on my part.nWhat is definitely not personal, however, is the feeling thatnthe relationship between the agriculturalist, whether Easternnfarmer or Western rancher, and the land upon which hendepends for his livelihood is no longer what it once was — ornwas perceived to be — and that the myth of the Americannhusbandman has hardened in consequence into a brittlensolidity, and finally crumbled away altogether. This developmentnis partly the result of the farm support structure thatnhas been welded into place since World War I, partly that ofnthe progressive mechanization and depersonalization of thenhighly scientific industry that is modern agriculture. Morenfundamental, I think, is the sea change that has occurred innWestern assumptions regarding man’s proper relationship tonthe earth and to the natural worid.nFor millennia that relationship was considered to bensymbiotic — in other words, a working one. To be innharmony with nature meant to husband nature; to developnthe potential within it towards its own greater fruition andnthe needs of man. We read this idea clearly in the literaturenof the ancients, particularly the Latin poets. In the early daysnof the American Republic, the classical ideal of mannmaintaining harmonic equipoise between himself and naturenwas reiterated by General Washington who, echoingnthe sentiments of Cincinnatus, spoke lovingly of retiring tonMt. Vernon to repose once again beneath his “vine and figntree.” The harmonic theme was elaborated upon by thenapologists for the Southern tradition for at least two decadesnbefore the outbreak of the Civil War, and received its finalnrestatement in American culture from the SouthernnAgrarians in the 1930’s, whose point was further understoodnby that unaligned literary comet, William Faulkner. Sincenthen, however, a revolution has occurred, through which thenBierstadt Mentality has prevailed over the bucolic ideal.nnnNOVEMBER 1989/13n