Opinion
June 08, 2006
Wayne Hage wasn’t a name that resonated with most Americans.
But among so-called sagebrush rebels — Westerners who continue to buck under
Washington’s big saddle — Hage, who died earlier this week at 69, was a
hero. The Nevada rancher and author of “Storm over the Rangelands,” a
defense of grazing rights and property rights in the West, waged a
long-running series of legal and rhetorical battles with the federal
government, making him an inspiration to those who see Uncle Sam as an
obnoxious interloper and believe Westerners should have more control over the
federal lands that impact them so profoundly. His second marriage, to former
Washington state Rep. Helen Chenoweth, an equally staunch defender of property
rights and critic of federal land policies, created a pairing of firebrands
that was hard to top.
Hage is most famous for suing the federal government for a “taking,”
claiming that forest service and BLM bureaucrats violated his Fifth Amendment
rights when they seized his livestock and attempted to dry up his Nevada
ranch. What really came of the fight is open to debate. He prevailed on some
points, lost on others. But sometimes the fight itself is what’s important,
when important principles are on the line. These were the stakes, as Hage
described them in one interview:
His fight, he said, “goes right to the basic premise of what constitutes a
free society. There are no such things as civil liberties if you do not have
private property and a force of law and justice to protect that private
property. The founders of this nation knew that. . . . If you’re going to
stand back and let people violate with impunity, the basic premise of private
property, then we may as well throw in the towel on the rest of our civil
liberties because it’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when are
we going to lose the rest of them. If a person’s cattle on his own range
allotment isn’t safe, if his own ditches and water rights aren’t safe, if
his patented private property is not safe, and if they can take those things
at gunpoint, well then certainly they can take anything else they want at
gunpoint.”
Though dismissed by some as yahoos and throwbacks, Hage and other sagebrush
rebels are to us a comforting reminder that some parts of the West remain
untamed and unbowed — and that vestiges of the rugged individualism forged
in the opening of the frontier lives on. Some argue that such sentiments are
based on legends and myths, which need to be shelved or stamped out in order
to pave the way for a “post cowboy” West. But we find something
exhilarating and reassuring about the occasional flaring of sagebrush
rebellions — in knowing that there are some Americans in the Wayne Hage
mold, who aren’t going to back down from what they see as Uncle Sam’s
bullying ways. Theirs is a spirit that’s too stubborn to crush.
The West is changing, of course, and is in some ways becoming tame,
regimented, malleable, Easternized. But sagebrush rebellions continue to
flare, thankfully. In Elko, Nev., for instance — where Hage was born —
local officials continue to wage a decade-long battle with the U.S. Forest
Service over the use of a rural county road — a struggle which is really
about who will have continued access to the public lands. That Nevada would be
ground zero for such rebellions isn’t surprising, given that more than 80
percent of the state is federally owned. But the potential is there wherever
in the West people are suffering under Washington’s reign of error.
Is it right that distant and indifferent politicians and bureaucrats exercise
so much control over the West’s fate? Shouldn’t Westerners have a greater
say in federal public lands policies, given their disproportional impact here?
What can be done, if anything, to create a more equitable sharing of powers
and responsibilities? Can the traditional livelihoods and lifestyles of the
old West survive in the new West?
Wayne Hage may be gone. But these and other questions posed by him and other
sagebrush rebels remain relevant.
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