became chief of the editorial staff of the Omaha World 1 lerald;rntwo ears later he stirred the hearts of Demoeratie eonvcntioneersrnin Chicago with an address that, come the revolution, willrnbe read in the Senate eery July 9:rnAh, mv friends, we sa’ not one word against those whornlive on the Atlantic coast, but the hardy pioneers whornha’e braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who havernmade the desert to blossom as the rose—the pioneersrnawav out there, who rear their children near to Nature’srnheart, where thc can mingle their ‘oiccs with the soiecsrnof the birds—out there where the have erected schoolhousesrnfor the education of their young, churches wherernthev praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest thernashes of their dead—these people, we sav, are as deservingrnof the consideration of our party as any people in thisrncountry. It is for these that we speak. We do not comernas aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; wc arernfighting in the defense of our homes, our families, andrnposteritv. We ha’c petitioned, and our petitions havernbeen scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties havernbeen disregarded; we have begged, and thev havernmocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; wernentreat no more; we petition no more. We defv them.rnThus spake William Jennings Bryan.rnIn 190t) a ten-vcar-old bov in Rochester, New York, namedrnHcnr’ W. Clune heard candidate Bryan speak. The Clunesrnwere a prosperous familv, stalwart Republicans, yet Bran’s visionrnincorporated them in a wav it might not hae two decadesrncadier. Bv succumbing to the imperialist temptation—over thernobjections of his Ohio advisors, especially William Rufusrn”Good” Da of Ravenna—President McKinlev galvanized anrnanti-imperialist nrovement that was breathtaking in its breadth.rnFrom prairie populist to Main Street shopkeeper, fronr HenryrnJames to Mark Twain: defenders of the Old Republic werernlegion. Thc’ would, in time, include the young Bran auditorrnMaster Clune.rnOn February 8 mv friend flenrv W. Clune celebrated hisrn105th birthda’—with a martini and his dog-eared collection ofrnAddison. I ha e described Flenrv in these pages (“I lenry andrnLouise in the Lair de Clune,” August 1991) as probabK thernmost rooted writer in the historv of American letters. Novelist,rnhistorian, and (according to the Saturday Evening Pofst) thernmost popular local newspaper columnist in midcenturv America,rnFIenr- was also a classic Main Street Republican. (He didrnrcccnth’ confess to mc, with a conspiratorial wink, that in 1920rnhe oted for the noble Eugene V. Debs of Terre Haute, Indiana,rnbecause the Socialists knew the score on the war.)rnHenry was a fixture on the pages of the Rochester Democratrn& Chronicle for more than 50 years; in 1940 and 1966 hernpenned some of the most blistering criticisms of the War PartyrnI hae eer read. His theme, in both wars, was the wav in whichrnmilitarism corrodes our soul. I le came to agree with his L’pstaternNew brk compatriot Edmund Wilson that the go ernment ofrnthese United States had become “self-intoxicated, homicidalrnand menacing.”rnAnd in retaliation . . . nothing. Henry was untouched. Oh,rnhis America First columns drew the fire of a few t pewritcrrnhawks perched at the Universit” of Rochester (though the University’srnpresident, Alan iilentinc, was a prominent isolationist);rnstill, Henry suffered no infamv: his reputation in Rochesterrnwas unsmirehable. He knew everyone in town, from the laternGeorge Eastman to the ticket-taker in the buriesque hall, andrnas a result the Smear Bund was poweriess. The lesson I drawrnfrom this is that dissent is possible, even protected, within anrnAmerica of distinct and self-confident towns, cities, andrnregions; an America in which Rochester and Richmond andrnOmaha and San Francisco are more than administrative unitsrnof the New Worid Order.rnToday, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle is run by remoterncontrol from the Gannett Corporation’s headquarters in occupiedrnVirginia. Frank Gannett, Henry’s boss and friend, was anrninquisitive—and, alas, acquisitive—farmboy, and vain withal,rnbut nonetheless he was an American, first, as were most publishersrnand editors. Not so today, when foreigners own andrnedit so many of our magazines, interpreting our lives for us andrndisplacing American collaborationists as the brains, so to speak,rnof the Vital Center. The command barked out by these imperiousrnimperialists is, in the words of a recent Econonustrneditorial, “You can’t go home.” Oh yes we can—and wc wouldrnappreciate it if your agents would do likewise.rn(Speaking of our transatlantic tourists and their brochures,rnThomas Hart Benton, Old Bullion, the Jaeksonian senator fromrnwhat the Rainmakers called the great state of Misery, wroternMartin Van Burcn in 1S51, “Have you read Tocqueville? He isrnthe authority in Europe and with the federalists here and will bernwith our posterity if thev know nothing but what the federalistsrnwrite.” Interesting, is it not, that whenever sinister politicalrncelebrities reach back to that misty, hazy, prehistoric Americarnprior to 1941, the onl” guy they ever quote is a FrenchrnMigabond?rnBut back to Henry W. Clune, our upright avatar of thernAmerica that was, and ought to be. Flenry’s novel Monkey on arnStick was the uncrcdited—though not unremunerated—rnsource of Frank Capra’s movie Meet ]ohn Doe. Capra—likernI lenry and so mam- other hale Americans—loathed FranklinrnD. Rooseelt. Capra and FDR were really antitheses; the Sicilianrnboy dressed in rags who sold papers to put himself throughrnCaltceii and the lazy child of the patriciate, mocked by his archrncousin Alice as “Nancy”; the artist who saw his creationrn(Longfellow Deeds) as “the living symbol of the deep rebellionrnin every human heart—a growing resentment against beingrncompartmentalized,” and the King politician whose svnipathicsrnwere always with the raw stccl-toed-boot-to-the-headrnpower of the state. Capra loved and respected women, coaxingrnoutstanding performances from shy actresses Jean Arthur andrnDonna Reed; FDR married his shy cousin—and then cheatedrnon her.rnThe gap between rulers and ruled can be measured in arnthousand anecdotal was. My maternal great-grandmother, anrnimmigrant from Northern Italy, cursed FDR for blackening thernfinal years of her life. Two of her sons were conscripted into Mr.rnRoosevelt’s Army to kill or be killed by foreigners who, howe’errndepraved their rulers, had never done them any harm. (Or as arngreat Kentucky pugilist once put it, “I ain’t got no quarrel withrnno Viet Cong.”)rnMy great-grandmother’s attitude, and that of so many Americansrnin both world wars, was expressed by a character inrnThomas Wolfe’s Eook Homeward, Angel: “It’s not our fight. Irndon’t want to send my boys three thousand miles across the searnto get shot for those foreigners. If they come over here, I’llrnshoulder a gun with the best of them, but until they do theyrnJUNE 1995/19rnrnrn