John Fabian Witt’s new book asks if the American Experiment can be saved

Beginning Oct. 16, I will be reading John Fabian Witt’s book “The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America.” I ordered the book after reading his guest essay in Monday’s New York Times, “How to Save the American Experiment.” The graphics caught my eye, a drawing of a big red hand pushing down on a platform and a group of people pushing from below. The Big Red Hand looked like it belonged to a marble statue or a giant, ponderous and huge. During other times, the resisters might be labeled “the people” or “the masses,” The Masses being one of the leftist mags of the 19-teens (later New Masses).

In any case, Witt’s essay grabbed my attention. How do we save the American experiment? I’ve been asking that very question since Trump took office for the second time. I have good days and bad. This essay gave me some hope.

Witt captured me when he talked about how a messy war and a pandemic bred a decade of strife that ended in a failed economy and then to a surprising resurgence.

Yes, the 1920s. A time of race riots and red-baiting and the Insurrection Act. Unions pushed workers to organize and the workers protested and were clubbed by guys that acted a lot like 2025 ICE Storm Troopers.

Hard times followed by harder times followed by a global war that birthed the U.S. as a global power. Until it lost its way.

I am obsessed with the 1920s. I just finished writing a historical novel set in 1919 Colorado. It will soon be published by Michigan’s Ridgeway Press. Its characters come to Colorado to start anew after war and sickness and failed dreams. They come to reinvent themselves. Colorado, Denver in particular, has always been a place for people to find themselves. Find gold, too, whether it be the actual metal or penny stocks or pot farms or the fresh powder of mountain ski slopes. As a native Denverite, I admire the magic but know the shortcomings. Historians such as the late David Halaas and Tom Noel have helped me delve into the past. I was a childhood fan of the Denver Public Library and spent many adult years in the Denver History Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. A wonderful place. I don’t live there any more. Why? I’m, an American. I move on. It’s what we do. I’m now back to Florida. As you know from late-night comedians, Florida has its own problems.

Witt’s message is not so much “move on” but dig in, into those entities that make a difference. He writes about Charles Garland, a millionaire who used his fortune to fund the American Fund for Public Service or the Garland Fund. It was overseen by muckraking writer Upton Sinclair and ACLU founder Roger Baldwin. They funded entities that pushed for civil rights, a living wage, and, in the 1930s, Social Security. Woodrow Wilson’s presidency petered out and led to the totalitarian tendencies of Harding and then to rich-boy Democrat Roosevelt who surprised us all, both hard-right Wyoming ranchers and big-city liberal labor agitators.

America, the Arsenal of Democracy, helped win the war and reaped the fruits of its labor and good fortune to bring prosperity in the 1950s and its most annoying demographic cohort, the Boomers. Say what you will about us but we helped the good times roll and now, well, we face the same political shitstorm as our offspring.

So, I write scathing letters that seem to fall on deaf ears. I support organizations such as the ACLU and the Florida Democrats and Wikipedia which is now under attack by the MAGA crowd. I support the independent WyoFile in Wyoming and the Independent Florida Alligator at UF, my alma mater. They are all under attack and need us. Protests are great but pointless if you don’t act and then vote in 2026 and 2028.

As the actor astronauts in “Galaxy Quest say: “Never give up…and never surrender.”

Bill Bryson’s “One Summer, America 1927,” when “America First” came to call

As I read Bill Bryson’s “One Summer: America 1927,” I realized that our history is comprised of an amazing number of knuckleheads and heroes. And sometimes, they are one and the same.

Charles Lindbergh, for instance. He became a hero overnight when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis over the Atlantic Ocean, the first solo flight by airplane. Many had attempted it. This scrawny bland fellow from Detroit accomplished it. Thousands of Parisians swarmed him when he landed at Le Bourget Airport. Ticker-tape parades in the U.S. followed. Crowds greeted him everywhere. He often took to his airplane to escape into the wild blue yonder.

By the time the U.S. entered World War II, he was disgraced by his embrace of eugenics and Nazism. He participated in the first “America First” campaign and proudly wore an air medal awarded him in Berlin by Herman Goering, one of the architects of the Nazi scourge. He survived to be one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials. “Lucky Lindy” tried to redeem himself by training American pilots in the Pacific during the war. But damage had been done. His name was stripped from all those streets and schools and airfields named in his honor.

You can still see The Spirit of St. Louis displayed at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum along the National Mall in D.C. I’ve taken my family there many times. The plane, so flimsy and tiny when compared to modern aircraft. It’s quite possible those other aircraft wouldn’t exist without it.

Bryson has been one of my favorite writers since his 1989 book, “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America.” Writing humor is no mean feat and he does it with aplomb in so many books. Humor helps you understand contradictions such as Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone. But that’s why I read, to be entertained and educated in the ways of the world. This book did that. I almost quit several times.

My sister Eileen gave me the trade paperback a month ago. She enjoyed it and knew I was working on novels set in the 1920s. I am of an age where reading big books with small type is difficult. I read to page 80 in bright light but put it down. Then I remembered I have a Kindle Reader for such challenges and I borrowed the book from Libby. Ah, a lit screen and large type. Heavenly. I still put it aside for other things until Libby warned me that I had only five days left on my loan. I hunkered down and read the rest, including a bit of the back matter. So much research!

Sitting in front of another lit-up large screen, I wonder about a century from now, 2125, when a book comes out about 2025. The year of Trump and A.I. Who will be the heroes and villains? As someone who’s been resisting Trumpism since 2016, you can probably guess my answer. “One Summer: America 2025.” A nonfiction tale, told with panache by someone. First we have to survive this period of U.S.-bred fascism and racism. First that. Will books survive?

Big Bill Thompson was mayor of Chicago in 1927. Chicago is in the Trump crosshairs as are all cities in blue states. Big Bill knew that to rule the people must be kept clueless so, writes Bryson, “he started a campaign to remove unAmerican books from Chicago libraries.” He even scheduled a bonfire to burn “treasonous books.” One city employee upped the ante:

“The head of the Municipal Reference Library announced that he had independently destroyed all books and pamphlets in his care that struck him as dubious. ‘I now have an America First library,’ he said proudly.”

America First? Will that be the fate of Chicago’s libraries now that Trump’s goon squads are on their way?

Why did Bernice bob her hair?

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair," F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story published in the May 1, 1920, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It was his first story to receive national attention. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for the image. I  wear your [Edit] T-shirt when I'm editing.)

I lived in 1919 for five years. It was the mid-to-late twenty-teens and, physically, I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but my mind was in 1919 Denver. This is the year my grandparents migrated to Colorado. War puts people in motion and the Great War  did that. But other factors were at work. Young people were restless, as we were to see in 1920s literature. We have always been part of a moveable feast in this country. We value the ability to get up and move. No state border guards to show our papers to. No permission needed if we decide to quit our job and move cross-country to take another one. Relationships break and partners seek new pastures, new people to connect with. 

Some move for their health. That was never more true than in the 19-teens when the flu pandemic and tuberculosis caused many to get up and go. In John Green's book "Tuberculosis is Everything," we see the rise of TB sanitoria throughout the western U.S., land of clean air, dry climates, and expansive vistas. Some cities got their starts with TB, places like Pasadena, Calif., and Colorado Springs, Colo. Denver's air, when it wasn't choked by those winter air inversions and coal smoke, was pristine, just the thing for lungers, as TB patients were called and not in a nice way.

So I spent much of my 20-teens in the 19-teens. I suppose part of me will always be there. The novel that arose from the project, "Zeppelins over Denver," is nearing publication. I've written a follow-up since, this one set in 1922. And I am always at work writing stories and blogs. I've surpassed my 10,000 hours of creative practice. I'm a bit tired of practicing and want to get on my way to doing and finishing and enjoying. 

I'm still hooked on the era. My Millennial daughter Annie phoned yesterday. She was deciding on a haircut for a job interview. She talked about getting a bob. 

"Bernice bobbed her hair," I said. 

Annie didn't recognize the literary reference but suspected it. "OK, Dad, who's Bernice?" 

"From the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, " 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair.' " 

"What happens, Dad. A sad ending, right?"

I had to think. "I don't remember. It's been awhile."

"It's not Gatsby-like, is it? Grim and filled with messages about a corrupt society?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

So I pulled up "Bernice Bobs Her Hair and Other Stories." I was about to send it to my Kindle when I came across an  audiobook version. I began listening to that, took a break for lunch, and when I returned, I found a "Bernice" graphic novel just released in 2024. The cover illustration intrigued me and I downloaded that. I stayed up late to read. Glad I did. My neighborhood is dark and quiet at midnight, as is my house. Peaceful. My laughs echoed down the hallway and might have reached my slumbering wife but she didn't mention it the next morning.

I did not remember the track of this story. I must have read it in grade school, junior high, high school. Now I do remember another notable story of that era, "Why I Live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty. Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" was an eye-opener. They all were in the same Catholic Church-approved collection as "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" by Nelson Algren and something by Hemingway probably one of the Nick Adams stories. I linger over those stories now. They are deep, wild, and funny, what I missed out on as a teen.

I loved "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." I had so much fun with the graphic novel adapted and illustrated by John Paizs and published by Graphic Publications. The story was first published in May 1920 in the Saturday Evening Post. Its popularity cased the Post to publish another Bernice Story in November that included a color illustration of Bernice. Fitzgerald was paid real money by the Post and it helped launch his career. In 1920, writers earned a living by writing stories for popular magazines. This has not been true during my time as a writer. 

Go read "Bernice." A pleasant journey during troubled times.

Sallie Kincaid finds her inner moonshiner in Jeanette Wells' "Hang the Moon"

I participate in the Historical Fiction Book Lovers site on Facebook. I have discovered some real gems set in the 1920s suggested by members of the group. A few clunkers, too. But one I did see was "Hang the Moon" by Jeanette Wells. You may recognize her name from her memoir, "The Glass Castle," in which she recounts her wild family life and her success at transcending it. I recently watched the movie on one of the streaming services. Woody Harrelson is very good as the father with a million dreams that never pan out. It leaves a mark on Wells and her siblings.

The setting of "Hang the Moon" is one reason I chose the book. I'm writing a series of novels set in post-war Colorado, the first in 1919 and the second in 1922. I read books from that era to absorb the atmosphere but also the process of driving a Ford Model T. The moonshine world of the South is fascinating and violent. Prohibition brought new opportunities for those who lived in the hills. But making whiskey was going on before 1920 due to the South's blue laws and other restrictions on getting schnockered. That tradition continued after prohibition was repealed due to the same Bible-Thumpers who proposed it in the first place. Many of the first racers on the NASCAR circuit learned how to drive avoiding revenooers on the twisty roads of the Appalachians. One of my early memories was "Thunder Road" and Robert Mitchum hotrodding down winding roads to get the hooch to market.

Wells has seen rural poverty first-hand and puts that background to good use when she writes about growing up in Prohibition America. It's a gritty historical novel. I ran into a couple of slow stretches in the narrative and thought of quitting but it was a good story so I kept on and glad I did.

In it, a young woman named Sallie Kincaid bucks the odds and becomes the only woman rumrunner in Virginia during Prohibition. Haven't read many books with this story line. It takes the author a long time to get to the rumrunning. Sallie Kincaid likes fast cars. She has a derring-do spirit. I would have liked to see more action during what must have been a harrowing profession. She takes us along the first time the drivers risk capture to take five cars filled with shine to Roanoke. An excellent chase scene. There's also a showdown at a rural hospital between the rumrunners and the thug sheriff brought in to stop it.

It took awhile to get a fully-formed picture of Sallie. Her Aunt Mattie is rough on her but we don't get a good look inside her to see her motivation. Why does Sallie stick around her large small-town family when she has other options including marriage or just moving to a new place to make a fresh start? I'm being grumpy, I know, but the book left me wanting more. Cover art shows a young woman in a dress working under a 1920s-era automobile. But the author doesn't get her under (and into) that car for a couple hundred pages. 

The novel really picks up its tempo when Sallie takes over the family businesses and finds her inner moonshiner. She's almost as ruthless as her daddy but we do see her conscience at work throughout. There are some key revelations as the novel approaches the end. It was a worthy read. I checked it out at the Libby site. I was pleasantly surprised to find it there.

Making, transporting and drinking whiskey were boys' clubs -- no girls allowed. That's what makes Sallie Kincaid so special and so exciting. Her Hatfield/McCoy-style battles with the gritty Bond brothers has a bigger impact when a mere slip of a girl threatens the status quo. She finds new and interesting ways to wage war on the Bonds. A few of them borrow tactics pioneered in the Great War. Tom, her friend who’s been to war, melts down with shell-shock when the gunplay starts.

The Great War changed everything.