"IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE" IN OREGON - Southern Oregon Digital ...

newspaper accounts of the "Jackson County Rebellion" is not
an important question when turning to the history of the
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episode itself.
Aside from its probable role as at least
one of a number of events that inspired Lewis's novel, the
tumult in the southern Oregon county is a significant case
study of the general notion of "it can't happen here."
It
is also an important example of political insurgency and
social turmoil in the Depression-era United States, and the
West Coast/Pacific Northwest region in particular.
Many historians have described the 1932-33 period--the
"winter of despair" when the Republicans' New Era lay in
tatters and the New Deal was still just a campaign promise-
-as a time of unprecedented economic crisis in America.
Southern Oregon was one locale where much of the citizenry
became galvanized into a force that advocated direct action.
Demagogic leaders encouraged and channelled popular
discontent into a grass-roots movement of political
extremism.
The Jackson County Rebellion took shape with the
formation of a movement called the Good Government Congress.
Led by Llewellyn Banks and a fellow newspaperman, Earl Fehl,
the Good Government Congress coalesced around populist
resentments; its growth was fueled by repeated charges of
corruption and conspiracy against the local political