Iowa: Fields of Opportunities

The roads leading out of Illinois and in to rural Iowa are as uniform as the land they dissect: straight, uncompromising plains interspersed with farm land, rugged terrain and crops.  Yet the rural United States, for all its apparent monotony, has stood the test and ravages of time.  The story of America is very much a narrative of battle: for the Republic and for the land.  Without this rolling countryside of livestock and agriculture, the westward pioneers would have struggled in their relentless advance across the vast expanses of the union.  In this way, Iowa represents far more than corn and wheat, far more than roads that stretch away beyond comprehension.  Appearances, as Dean and I would learn during our two days here, can be deceiving.  We thought they were just fields but, as Iowa’s state-line signpost rightly proclaims, these are ‘fields of opportunities’.

Big River Keep On Rolling

It is easy to be prosaic about this country; to attach bluster and verbosity and meaning to the bedrock of America.  Occasionally situations develop where no such recourse to cadence is appropriate.  Stopping a Chevrolet Tahoe in the middle of small town Davenport, Iowa, in order to catch a live television transmission of Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur is one such moment where blog-based bombast and hyperbole are unnecessary.  Needs must, even on a road trip.  Therefore, soon after crossing the state line from Illinois in to Iowa, Dean and I navigated our way to the Jersey Bar and Grille in the sleepy town of Davenport. 

This sports bar joint was the perfect setting in which to enjoy a burger, a drink and widescreen high-definition coverage of America’s commitment to English soccer.  The ensuing 0-0 draw is best left for the sports pages of national newspapers and the rest of the blogosphere, but there is something comforting, something utterly soothing about the fact that it is possible to find a bar in the middle of nowhere that will have a subscription to ESPN and will happily let you watch a football match taking place live six hours in the future and three thousand miles away. 

Emerging from the bar, then, Dean and I sought an immediate reconnection with America.  Davenport, Iowa, is not the easiest place to attribute significance but, with the aid of a guide book and satellite navigation system, it was at least possible to divert our route to the banks of the all-American river: the majestic, ethereal, timeless Mississippi.  In its Iowa form, the Mississippi is at some of its most northern points, formed out of streams and tributaries that drain from the glaciers of Canada and the shelves and ridges of Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Illinois.  Yet even in Davenport, Iowa, this surging torrent of water and mystery is already wide, deep and strong, snaking its way through the towns, cities, plains, valleys and levies of the Midwest.  The Mississippi is more than just a river, more than just a natural landmark.  Its southward flow carries both sediment and sentiment: the Mississippi has been through America’s trials and tribulations, a constant certainty in times of doubt, a recourse for transport, for survival, for wonder across centuries and generations of natives, frontiersmen and contemporary citizens.

The river’s name also lends itself to one of America’s states and, while an intended visit to Jackson, Mississippi, would hopefully present itself in the days to come, Dean and I were reminded of that state’s turbulent racial history while in Davenport, Iowa.  A barren stretch of land on the banks of the river, just two blocks from downtown Davenport, used to be home to the Davenport Natatorium, a local swimming pool and bathing complex popular in the early twentieth century after its opening in 1922. 

However, this local amenity became the focal point for a bitter conflict between the town’s wealthy white landowners and the black community during the 1950s and 1960s.  Incensed by not having access to the pool, the African-American citizens of Davenport cried out against the hardship that had been institutionalised against them.  It was a cry taken up across the United States as civil rights went from being a byword for localised troublemaking to a nationwide liberation movement.  Segregation was not limited simply to the South.  Endemic across all states of the union, it held back the progress, prosperity and prospects for happiness of many Americans of any and all colour and creed.  Friendly, liberal Iowa was no different in this respect to Alabama, Georgia and the like.

An attempted solution to the Natatorium problem in Davenport was to allow black people access to the facilities once a week, after which the pool was to be drained and refilled before being used by the white population.  This was, in the eyes of the district’s civil rights leaders, less of a compromise and more a further and deliberate separation of the people, a brazen attempt to not only define in contractual terms a disproportionate splitting of the pool’s time between the different groups, but saying in all but words to the region at large that the black community was not worthy, not clean, not entitled enough to any more than one day’s sole use of what was meant to be a recreational provision.

A number of wealthy private citizens, both black and white, raged with indignation at the injustice, and set up their own swimming pool for free use by all Davenport citizens.  This was the death knell to the now infamous Natatorium, which was eventually closed in 1977.  Today there is no sign of the pool, save for a rectangular slab of poorly fed grass on the banks of the knowing Mississippi, its course spelling progress from more sinister times.

Hawkeyes

We resolved to spend one night in Iowa and, after consulting guide books and friendly passers by, settled on the college town of Iowa City rather than the state capital of Des Moines.  Keen to have a few drinks we were told the town, with its bohemian nature and pedestrianised enclaves, would be perfect. 

A college town, home to the University of Iowa, the city is famed for its old state capital building, once the central political seat for all of Iowa, as well as its liberal arts scene, with well regarded departments for literature, music, law and philosophy.  Known as the Iowa Hawkeyes, the University competes against other Big Ten schools across the region, and takes pride in its name and badge, as was manifest to Dean and I when we were able to get a better look at the town the following day.

Our first task, however, was to check in to our hotel and warm up.  The temperature had dropped considerably with warnings of oncoming snow from more easterly regions.  This was the Midwest we had been promised, with a bitter wind, frost in the air and ice on the ground.  A perfect excuse, then, to increase our body temperatures with a helpful dose of alcoholic refreshments.  Unfortunately, the acclaimed nightlife of Iowa City was missing that Monday evening.  The bars and pubs were deserted, save for one or two hardened souls braving the freezing conditions for a nightcap or two.  Once Dean and I had completed a nutritious meal of buffalo chicken wings and associated condiments, it became clear that there was nothing to do but go to sleep.  In our separate beds.

Political Penguins

Iowa’s state capital is in Des Moines, a large and busy town around one hundred miles from Iowa City.  Before Des Moines became state capital of Iowa, Iowa City had the responsibility of being the state’s central seat of government.  Today the old State House is still in use as a museum and part of the University of Iowa.  It is an impressive structure, visible across the town and standing proudly in the middle of a number of road junctions.  American university students like to pedaconference their way around campus and so find themselves orientating their position to important landmarks.  The old State House is one such building, constructed in a deliberate Greco-Roman style to mimic both the pomp and ceremony of ancient kingdoms, and the enforced colonnade vision of the structures that were created in Chicago, Illinois, to facilitate and commemorate the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibition. 

Inside the old State House is an excellent museum, setting our helpful information and exhibits on life in Iowa City and the wider state.  The area in which the building now stands is dominated by the University of Iowa’s School of Law and the old State House museum includes a section dedicated to legal developments in the region.  Particularly illuminating was the description of the 1964 to 1969 fight by three University of Iowa students against their District School Board to overturn their expulsion for wearing black armbands on campus in support of peace in Vietnam.  In the 1960s, on college campuses across America, the modern nation was truly born, arising out of academic and pro-social intellectual development, as young Americans began to question the previous order.  Civil rights, gender equality and pacifism found new voices and causes in a melting pot of emotion and resentment against the very strongest powers of ownership and control. 

In Iowa, the three students expelled for daring to suggest that President Johnson should not have agreed to America’s involvement in Vietnam were supported by fellow students and families and appealed their case to the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body and arbiter in the land.  By 1969, some five years after their original expulsion, the Supreme Court found in favour of the students and against the School Board, enshrining via legal precedent a student’s right to freedom of expression, itself the first recorded legal decision that linked the First Amendment to the US Constitution to the specific liberties that a student could expect within an academic institution.  This was a time of developing legalese, an incremental process of reform and review, appeal and counter, which glacially began to form the foundation of a more tolerant society.

The beauty of the museum in Iowa City’s old State House was that it was able to illustrate such moments of local and national significance in an arena that also contained a bizarre exhibit of stuffed penguins.  Unfolding before our eyes in just a few square feet was the utter absurdity of America.

POTUS

Five blocks down Iowa City’s low-rise roads and sidewalks, themselves home to independent book stores and clothes shops, Hawkeye memorabilia outlets and family-run groceries, you will find the Hamburg Inn.  To the naked eye this is a standard college town diner, with plastic leather booths and an obligatory juke box, enclosed by walls lined with photographs of old patrons and punters.  However, and as set out at the start of this article, Iowa can be deceiving.  The reality is that the Hamburg Inn, whilst serving up an ample and excellent breakfast, also doubles as a critical staging post in the election of the President of the United States.

Look again at the creased, lined, black and white photos adorning the walls.  Watch carefully for the signs, the autographs, the arrows.  The seat in the far left corner was used by President Clinton.  The counter in the centre was waited on by President Reagan.  The stall at the back pictures a reclining, and sadly fictional, President Bartlet.  The Hamburg Inn is no ordinary diner; it is a destination that helps shape a national identity and the course of American history. 

American democracy is real and tangible.  You can taste it, smell it.  It works its way in to homes and schoolyards, restaurants and churches.  No candidate can win the approval of his or her own party until he or she has shaken the hands of ordinary citizens in regular towns.  To win the right to be the President you have to first become your party’s nominee, and to do that – as we are seeing right now with the Republican Party in 2012 – you have to win delegate votes from members of your own party.  Yet this is no standard ballot-based affair.  Winning the right to represent the party in a Presidential election involves influencing, cajoling, convincing ordinary men and women the length and breadth of the country.  They do not cast their votes by an ‘x’ in a box, but by a straw in a hat, a hand in the air, or a coffee bean in a jar. 

In towns and cities these hopeful souls plead with their own body politic for support, by attending town hall meetings, coffee catch-ups, question and answer sessions in high school gyms and fire stations.  It means hand shakes and milk shakes.  What is at stake for the candidates is often decided by their rapport with customers while eating steak.  To win the White House is to win the hearts and minds of Middle America, shaking every hand, kissing every baby, throwing every dart and sinking every ball. 

In the Hamburg Inn, Iowa City, candidates return year after year to vie for votes in the Iowa caucus, itself the first such event on the road to the Presidential election.  In this way, while Iowa may seem unassuming and irrelevant, it actually marks the first crucial staging post in electing the most powerful and important man or woman on the planet.  Iowans take this responsibility very seriously, and scrutinise their respective parties’ candidates with rigour. 

The Hamburg Inn hosts just one of many events that combine together to indicate what candidate will take that state’s delegates through to the next stage in the contest.  Voters arrive at the Hamburg and listen to the candidates talking and debating, answering and asking questions of themselves and their audience, all the while sipping coffee.  At the end of the session the voters throw coffee beans in to glass jars that bear the names of each of the attending candidates.  The candidate with the most coffee beans wins, and carries with them the number of delegates that turned up to the Hamburg Inn on that particular day. 

Dean and I arrived just a few weeks after both parties had rolled in to town to hold their coffee bean event.  For the Democrats it was something of a fait-acompli, given that President Obama will obviously be the nominee for his party.  For the Republicans it is far less simple, and the full suit of candidates arrived to battle it out over lattes and cappuccinos.  As it happens, Michelle Bachmann won the most votes in the Hamburg Inn but has since pulled out of the running.  Mitt Romney, who (at the time of typing this) currently enjoys a narrow lead for the Republican nomination, came in second place.

In November 2012 Americans will vote to reinstate Obama or return the Republicans to office for the first time since President George W Bush.  While we will no doubt evaluate the candidates’ respective positions when the time comes, Dean and I were happy to – for now at least – enjoy sitting in a room that has become so important in deciding its nation’s future.  Men may bring out the worst in politics, but politics can sometimes bring out the best in men.  Whether the right decision is made in November or not, whether the polarisation stalking America’s streets and communities ever takes a step closer to constructive bipartisanship, it cannot be denied that this country of such stringent ideals, of both emotional and practical idealism, takes immensely seriously its democratic principles.  It is a story as old as the American revolution itself; that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this land.

In God We Trust

Comprehending America’s democratic process is crucial in understanding why it behaves the way it does.  Equally important is a familiarisation with this country’s burning religiosity.  From the Puritan Founding Fathers, seeking a better life in the New World, to today’s Tea Party Evangelicals, America and what it tries to stand for itself has become a religion.  For a constitution that deliberately bans the entrenchment of the church within the organs of the state, this nation’s past, present and future has been, is and always will be perennially embedded to religious belief.  “In God We Trust” roars American currency, and politicians, despite the separation of church and state, live and die by their theological outlook.

The Armana Colony, located just outside of Iowa City, is a helpful example of this very American of inconsistencies.  Similar to the more famous Amish community, the Armana settled in the United States from Germany.  This is a community of deep-rooted faith, of a strong moral conviction based on God and country; not necessarily Republican in a political sense, but ostensibly pro family: conservative with a small ‘c’. 

Political and religious beliefs aside (which is perhaps sensible for two Jewish boys from London), the Armana are polite and welcoming, offering up their community to outsiders keen to learn more about their history and culture.  Their Puritan work ethic remains even amidst the bustle of the modern world.  Dean and I were able to witness hand-made furniture carpentry, wine and chocolate making, and a genuine affection and warmth from the Armana protagonists to each other and to their visitors.  This was classic American service with a smile: polite, good natured, softly spoken.

Indeed, as Dean and I prepared to leave the community and continue our drive towards Des Moines and, later, Nebraska, an Armana member who had previously welcomed us to his furniture store drove past in his van, slowing slightly as he went by.  He rolled down his window and, with a beaming smile and courteous nod, bellowed to his two British guests the following words: “Welcome to the United States”.  It is hard to imagine that happening in many other countries.

By the People.  Of the People.  For the People.

By the time we reached the state capital of Iowa, Des Moines, the temperature had dropped considerably and it was getting dark.  Snow flakes began to fall on to roads and fields that had already recently received a heavy shower of powder.  Driving through it, across the cosmic hinterlands of farms and pastures, brooks and copses, helped reinforce just how large this nation is and reinvigorate a genuine sense of admiration for how it manages to cling so steadfastly to its original ideals despite its gargantuan mass.

Ending our stay in Iowa by visiting Des Moines, then, made perfect sense.  The United States sustains its political and ideological culture by holding resolute and unfaltering to the notion that out of many, comes one.  Iowa is but a single state out of fifty, and yet forms a decisive part of the American historical subplot.  The State Capital, with golden dome and carved eagles, bronzed doors and polished floors, rises up to the side of the city’s glass downtown, and serves as a reminder of these self-evident truths: that even in the rural, rustic Midwest it is possible to be reminded of larger macrocosmic themes amidst the minutiae of local life. 

American politics, like its justice system, is designed to be open.  It may not always work, it may suffer from prejudice or intolerance, but at the least it can be seen to be believed.  The machinations of the state are not hidden: they are deliberately accessible.  In Des Moines, as in Baton Rouge in 2009, Dean and I were able to walk right in to the State Capital Building, mixing with politicians and their advisors, photographing the State Senate and House of Representatives, rubbishing shoulders with individuals who may one day move from the State capital to the nation’s capital, from the grey engraved stone of Des Moines, to the White House in Washington DC.

We were emboldened by this clear sense of civic pride and purpose, responsibility and respect, motifs that warmed the heart if not the external temperature.  With heavier snow, but lighter hearts, the car headlights focussed on westerly ways: Omaha, Nebraska, beckoned.

~~~

"Fields"

Fog and ice and fields,
Of a harvest and the yield,
From a snow plough and a shield,
Protecting Liberty and the Land.

Or, to put it another way,
This vista will never change,
From generations to another day,
Protecting time from the sands.

Fields of opportunity stretching out ahead,
Straight lined, toll-fined,
Uncompromising. Dead.
Iowa said. 

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson 

Iowa City, Iowa - 7 February 2012.