The Death of a Neighborhood - A Personal Account!

Death of a Neighborhood

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
(c) July 2005



“The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people’s energy, intellect, and virtues. The savage makes his boast of freedom. But what is its worth? He is, indeed, from what he calls the yoke of civil institutions. But other and worse chains bind him. The very privation of civil government is in effect a chain; for, by withholding protect from property it virtually shackles the arm of industry, and forbids exertion for the melioration of his lot. Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.”

William Ellery Channing (1780 – 1842)
American Unitarian clergyman

EMINENT DOMANIN (1783): a right of a government to take private property for public use by virtue of the superior dominion of the sovereign power over all lands within its jurisdiction.

Negative & Positive Freedom: “If negative freedom as (Isaiah) Berlin understands it presupposes the capacity for choice among alternatives, it shares a common root with positive freedom. Unlike negative freedom, which is the freedom from interference by others, positive freedom is the freedom of self-mastery, of rational control of one’s life. It is plain that, as with negative freedom, positive freedom is impaired or diminished as the capacity or power of choice is impaired or diminished, but in different ways.”

Isaiah Berlin (1995) by John Gray

Note of author: When our right to own private property is somehow censured, it brings out all sorts of demons as to what is liberty, what is freedom, and what is the pursuit of happiness in a democratic republic. This prompted this little tale of woe in my hometown and birthplace, Clinton, Iowa.

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"You look like you're lost, sir," said a stout female security officer, as she left her vehicle with the large letters “ADM” on the vehicle's door.

"No, I'm not lost. I'm seeing how you have destroyed the neighborhood of my birth."

In an officious manner, obviously feeling duty bound to fulfill her appointed role, she replied, "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but you are now on private property."

"That is sad," I said as I put my car in reverse, hesitating to touch the button to automatically roll up my window. Turning her back to me as she returned to her vehicle, I could hear her say, almost to herself: Yes, it is, isn't it?

My old neighborhood is South Clinton in Clinton, Iowa. It once was a vibrant, down-to-earth working class neighborhood of people of German, Irish, Native American, Norwegian, Swedish, and Italian heritage, hard working folks, many of whom were not far removed from the old country of their parents' or grandparents' birthplace. Yet, South Clinton often suffered the social distinction of being seen as the folks "below the tracks," or the less gentrified citizens of the community.

Indeed, the railroad tracks on two sides, the mighty Mississippi River on a third, and this imposing ADM plant on its most southern side bound South Clinton.

Bread winners in South Clinton worked at Curtis Wood, the Chicago & North Western shops, Swift Poultry, Dupont, Collis, Central Steel & Tube, Clinton Garment Factory, among many other manufacturing facilities once thriving in the area, and of course, ADM, which has had more names and owners associated with it than a house of orphans.

In my time, it was known as the Sugar House, Sugar Refinery, Clinton Foods, Clinton Corn, Standard Brands, and now Archer Daniel Midland, or ADM.

To these many different owners’ credit, it managed to survive without closing during the worse days of the Great Depression of 1929, and has operated uninterruptedly over the course of nearly a century. With each iteration of owners, it has ridden the back of science to develop ever more imaginative products from the processing of Iowa corn into syrup, sugar, lactic acid, hops, starch, gluten, feed for stock, ethanol as a supplement to petroleum, to name only a handful of its ever growing product line.

At the same time, where a century ago this community turned logs floated down the Mississippi River from Minnesota and Wisconsin into lumber or metaphorical gold, it now turns Iowa's rich loam soil into corn or alchemist’s gold. I say this, as ADM remains the only continually prospering company of those many mentioned above in this new century, and thus the dilemma.

South Clinton people worked hard to become homeowners, to be people of property, and to experience a glimmer of the American Dream. They paid their taxes, kept their clapboard houses up as well as could be expected with the constant rain of soot, ash, wood dust, burnt corn debris, and spent gases from these industrial outlets. Sometimes it seemed as if the sun could not break through the industrial fog or that the aroma of cut grass could be scented through the heavy odors of burnt corn, wood shavings, or blast furnace emissions of burning coal and oil.

People didn't complain. They were too busy working and living to notice. It was outsiders who would always remind them of the fact. They sent their children to school at Irving Elementary in the neighborhood, or to Chancy on the hill, or if Catholic, to St. Mary's also on the hill. The one desire they had was for their children to do better than they had done. So, they perpetuated the American Dream.

The mighty Mississippi River flowed by the neighborhood, and its banks belonged to them. It provided a vista of nature with its assorted green islands and fish enriched sloughs. Beaver Island, the largest in the area, provided homes for many residents. The Mississippi river bed was rich in carp, bass, and catfish, and provided excellent blinds for duck hunting in the fall, as well as ice-skating and ice fishing in the winter. Nearly every family had some kind of boat from canoe on up. The river was a virtual paradise and they owned it, that is, until now! It has been sheared away from them as surely as courage can be sheared away from hope. It is now private property and belongs to ADM.

My family left South Clinton when I was two, but the heart of the family, especially that of my mother, remained there forever. She kept in touch with family and friends who remained there for several generations, many in the same homes, feeling a sense of identity and security with the unalienable rights to know as property owners their rights of ownership were inviolable.

What they failed to recognize is that progress is America's most important product, and nothing must stand in the way of progress. Nothing! Progress is an insatiable animal with an appetite always for more. Progress devours dreams and neutralizes passions with the implacable swiftness of an impersonal robotic knife.

Friends had told me to take a look at my old neighborhood for myself during this brief trip back to Clinton for a book signing and a visit with friends, and my sister, Pat Waddell, and her extended family. I was sure they had exaggerated the impact of ADM's expansion into the neighborhood. Instead, I was shocked beyond my senses. ADM had literally killed the neighborhood, and carried off its identity with its carcass, leaving only the detritus of memory of its passing.

I drove slowly down a makeshift dirt road as I witnessed giant earth movers crushing the final bones of concrete streets and sidewalks into manageable chunks awaiting the hungry mouths of scooping machines to lift them into huge trucks and haul them off to unconsecrated dumps. Fortunately, all the houses had already been erased from the neighborhood. I didn't have to observe the carnage of seeing them being crushed, or to hear their walls wailing in anguish as they were plundered into debris. Not a blade of grass could be seen anywhere as bulldozers rushed about to turn the earth into level naked plains.

Where the McDermott’s and Hyde’s, Ekland's and King's had lived were gone as were the homes of many other families I once remembered living there. Instead, the acronym “ADM” is on the security van, fences, trucks, smoke stakes, everywhere. It reinforces its authoritative presence with palpable defiance: "Face it! This is ours, no longer yours!" And it is, bought with honest money and agreed upon terms. It is reality. It is too late for tears.

Talking to a friend, who is still a holdout, and a third generation resident of the same house, I sensed the defeat in her words. "They paid people good money for their places," she confessed, then adding, "They haven't come as far as my property, but I'd sell in a minute to them if they did. My fear is that the city will impose Eminent Domain on me, and give me nothing for this place."

She then mentioned what has happened to homeowners in other places across America in the recent past. I listened, feeling her anguish and helpless words. I had read the same stories, remembering when I came to Tampa from South Africa in the late 1960s. Much of the Cuban community of Ybor City outside Tampa was erased by government fealty. It was called "urban renewal," but the land laid vacant for years, only today to become a sprawling commercial and entertainment center, but a surprisingly poor imitation of the French Quarters of New Orleans.

"Do you think there is any hope?" she asked me.

"No, I don't think so," I answered, reminding her of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling confirming Eminent Domain, which allows local governments to erase neighborhoods in order to improve the tax base. ADM and other corporations are acting complicit with local governments, leaving homeowners little recourse but to accept their lot. It makes one wonder if ownership of private property truly exists anymore.

Two sets of ironies come to mind in the "Death of a Neighborhood." One is that a disproportionate number of my friends who grew up in South Clinton have either died early in life, or have suffered from incurable diseases. It causes me to wonder if the climate of the community was a factor. If so, they would be better off living elsewhere. My friend still living in South Clinton suffers from cancer. She has fought valiantly to deal with it without complaint and would never think of blaming her condition on the location of her home.

Another irony is that were it not for the Clinton Corn Processing, then the name of the company, I would not have had a chance for a college education. I worked for five summers at Clinton Corn while acquiring two degrees. Indeed, Clinton Corn, then changed to Standard Brands, Inc., was my first employer as a chemist in research and development under Dr. Newton. Nor would I have been able to enjoy the professional life I have experienced were it not for this summer place of employment.

In my day, more than one hundred college students were hired each summer by Clinton Corn, and paid at the same scale as other entry level employees. As a result, we have in this country many doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, teachers, politicians, ministers and priests, authors and scholars, administrators, managers and executives, as well as business creators and entrepreneurs, who owe the sole opportunity of a college education to this company-of-many-names.

Now, ADM is a major employer of the community. Were it to leave, its void would be hard to fill. That said something is wrong with this picture. When a community becomes hostage to an employer or a set of employers, it has lost its identity as an independent entity if not its will to survive.

Clinton, Iowa has had many iterations in its 150 years (1855 – 2005) of adaptation, assimilation, growth and development, and reinvention. Survival as an industrial-driven community is but one.

I am writing this as I've just returned from visiting many places, among them Springfield, Illinois and the new Lincoln Library and Museum, and Hannibal, Missouri, where the legend and wonder of Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain is preserved as a tourist attraction.
Clinton, Iowa has a rich history of great personages such as Lillian Russell, Marquis Childs, Duke Slater, Everett Streit, Hank Dihlmann, Bob Dalrymple, Bobby Witt, Gussie Witt, Jack Dunmore, Dick Tharp, Dick Crider, Ray Gilbert, Phil Leahy, Lefty Ward, Warren Mason, Ward Markley, Kenny Ploen, Chuck Vogt, Jack Schuster, Jim Lesher, Leroy Watts, Dean Burridge, Dick Price, Therol Petersen, Dean Pieper, Howard Boegel, and the "Fire Wagon Five," Max Lynn, Ed Rashke, Felix Adler, Dick Farwell, St. Mary's 1954 State Basketball Champions, and on and on.
Clinton has had the Iten's, Young’s, Lamb's, Joyce's, Van Allen's, and many others who were the shapers of the Clinton community of the past. During the Clinton boom days in the early twentieth century, it was hailed as the “sawdust capital of the world,” having more per capita millionaires than any other place on the globe.

The Clinton Historical Society has preserved this history, and Kathy Flippo has written rich and poignant books about the area and the river, while historian and columnist Gary Herrity keeps a rich personal chronicle of Clintonian lives. My references here are from my personal memory as an athlete, and reflect that lens.

Meaning no disrespect to Clinton today, I think mid-century Clinton was electric and imaginative. The Clinton Herald created the metaphor of the "Fire Wagon Five" for the 1945 Clinton High basketball team. The team rose to great heights to measure up to the publicity. The Clinton Herald also presented "Golden Glove Boxing" of the period in romantic even glamorous terms so that every youth wanted to become a champion Golden Glover. It was a vibrant, imaginative, energetic period, which this newspaper captured with words and pictures giving a sense of place. That seems to be missing today, no doubt in part due to competition and multiple distractions vying for people's attention.

I see Clinton as a potential Mecca for tourism, not the place I recently visited where it celebrated its 150th birthday without salubrious banter or colorful banners on every pole, or across every intersection. The community seems tired. The net incomes of families are down. Still, many endure the 45-minute drive to Davenport to do their serious shopping. Meanwhile, the Catholic population continues to dwindle as fewer baptized Catholics attend mass on Sunday, and even less contribute to the collection box. It is the dilemma not only of Clinton, Iowa, but also of small town America everywhere.
On the other hand, Clinton streets are the best shape I've ever seen them. New businesses are punching through the gloom to boldly establish new optimism on Fifth Avenue and elsewhere. The waterfront parks are decorated in their best, and the best baseball park in the low minor leagues remains in splendid condition. The theme of the film "Field of Dreams," which was made in Iowa, is "build it and they will come." My sense is the key to Clinton’s resilience is "believe it and it will happen."

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
Website: www.peripateticphilosopher.com
blog: peripateticphilosopher.blogspot.com
Dr. Fisher's books and articles are available on his website, or from many other web providers.