The proposed jail and small-town power

This site didn't exist at the time of the earthquake-like controversy over whether a new jail ought to be built here. But I certainly noticed all the doings.

We can see the Morris National Guard Armory from where we live. A climactic meeting was held there, focusing on the controversy. Cars were parked in every which direction.

County commissioners were basically told to "shut up and listen."

The citizenry, or at least a major element of it, took the initiative to put issues and questions before the public without going through any filter erected by the elected people.

This was a town hall meeting on steroids.

This website didn't exist then because the Morris newspaper still seemed somewhat viable. Not that this site is going to fill any void by itself; the point is that a variety of sites will evolve, and that hopefully yours truly is setting an example for how we can proceed.

These things take time. People have their old habits.

The jail flashpoint may have been fascinating but it was unfortunate.

Small towns are organisms that try to discourage conflict. It's hard for us to escape each other. We try to smooth over our differences of opinion.

Small towns don't have quite the same kind of power structure as in years past. Boomers will remember that in their youth, there was a shadowy type of power structure - I hesitate to say "mafia" - that seemed to push decisions a certain way.

It wasn't our imagination. A book about a celebrated murder in Foley in the 1950s went in depth about this. The book's author had an intellectual's eye.

Oh, the power structure had nothing to do with the murder, of course. But it guided how the community would deal with the aftermath.

I checked out this book from our local public library. My best college friend was from Foley, which drew some of my interest.

I was somewhat surprised to find the book at the library because it was controversial. The Star Tribune had more than one article about it.

The author used pseudonyms for a lot of the principals but this wasn't enough to tamp down a certain level of bad feeling.

No community would want to be reminded of this anyway. It would be like someone connected to Morris writing a book about the goalpost incident at UMM.
Of course we could learn a lot from a study of that.

From an intellectual's perspective, we might learn why college students, especially in groups, have a tendency toward unruly behavior in certain situations.

We might be better off discussing this stuff in the open. But I suspect the community consensus might well be: The less said the better. In the future, background on this might be shared in whispered tones.

Might it seem like urban legend?

Speaking of urban legend, we can dust off the old story about 3M coming here. Or rather, not coming here. Boomers with roots in Morris know all about this.

The Morris industrial base stood to be enhanced tremendously. It didn't happen, and the resulting question of "why?" became intriguing.

Was it the specter of unions coming here? That's a popular angle. Did the power structure of Morris at the time just see unions as anathema to their interests?
Never mind that public employee unions were on their way in a big way (here and everywhere else).

A cynic might buy what I just laid out. Most likely there is more than one explanation. The union angle can hardly be dismissed.

Oh, but no one would want to just "shoo away" unions, would they?
It's not really cynical to believe certain interests would, because look what's happening right before our eyes in Wisconsin. Republican politicians can run amok when they get too much power.

We can assume that most small town leaders of that bygone time were Republican. I remember hearing after the 3M matter: "They couldn't get together on who owned the land (where the company would locate)."

I love these explanations that start with "they." Who are "they?"

The English language permits these passive constructions, like "it's going to rain." What is "it?"

I remember a Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoon that poked fun at our tendency to use "they" in order to be non-specific. A man in a closet surrounded by telephones is discovered by his wife, who says "so you're the 'they' in 'that's what they say.' "

People my age could easily trot out four or five names that we'd associate with the Morris power structure. Absolute facts are hard to come by. But we just seemed to know.

We can be assured we were typical. You can just read that book about the Foley incident. You'll find yourself nodding your head.

We can easily forget those were quite different times. The line between rich and middle class was much more distinct.

The book author noted that the poor people were out of the loop and didn't pay much attention to how power was distributed. And the middle class? Many of them resented the power elite, according to the book.

Us boomers tended to throw around the names of prominent people in a deprecating way. Looking back, it seems kind of unfair.

Of course boomers engage in lots of revisionist history. There was a time we walked away from organized religion, especially of the mainstream kind. Today we have mostly drifted back.

Today we are inclined to feel affection, certainly no animosity, toward people who might have been connected to the power network of years ago.

Maybe it's because of economic prosperity. Boomers' parents had all they could do to tuck some money in the bank, and certainly weren't squirreling large sums away in "mutual funds."

The stock market seemed synonymous with hazard. In my mind it still is. Those old community leaders might "play around" in stocks but certainly not the rank-and-file (or "worker bees").

I have to laugh because rich people never really "play around" with their money. They know what they're doing. How do you think they got where they are? It's mythology to think the wealthy approach the stock market like it's a mere casino.

What I worry about is common citizens being drawn into the market, people without that savvy.

Talk to any survivor of the Great Depression about the wisdom of putting your money in any sort of non-FDIC insured place.

What would Morris be like if 3M had come here? It's one of the great "what if" questions of the community.

Now we can also ponder: "What if that big jail had been constructed here?" My, we came close to that reality.

The citizenry had to practically start screaming to stop it. A friend tells me that it wasn't the sheer number of naysaying voices that stopped it. What stopped it was that "people with money" spoke out.

"I could have said something, but no one would listen to me," this friend (initials G.H.) said.

They say money is the mother's milk of politics. (And who is "they?")

I like the old line: "Money's honey, my dear sonny, and a rich man's joke is always funny."

I learned that from Mad Magazine: a caption under a photo that included Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson and some colleagues were having a hoot about something.

Nelson was the famed "moderate Republican" of his time, the alternative to Barry Goldwater and his sharp edge.

Today we have Mitt Romney. The hard righties are warning us about "Obamneycare." This is an oldie but goodie: it's no different from the righties' attack on Medicare in the mid 1960s.

What would it be like having a big jail smack dab in the middle of Morris, a stone's throw from two churches and St. Mary's School? Would we even be able to fill it adequately?

Is it any fun, really, to fill a jail? Isn't it a necessary evil?

Well it's an evil that the community, in the end, decided it could do without.

That's what they say.

- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com