By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief
Good morning! Sunday columnist Max McCoy, recalling a series of events 150 years ago, urges us to choose better heroes.
Montana Historical Society Research Center
OPINION
To understand the present, we must confront the ghosts of 1876. They still haunt the American soul.
By Max McCoy
I’ve spent much of my life in the bloody summer of 1876.
Those months are beyond the memory of any living individual, but as a writer I’ve dwelled in that long-ago season through research. I’ve written novels in which the events of 150 years ago were a backdrop for my imagination, from the killing of Wild Bill Hickok in a Deadwood saloon in Dakota Territory to the James-Younger Raid on Northfield, Minnesota. My boots have trod the bricks in Dodge City where Wyatt Earp walked, and I’ve stood overlooking the Montana hills where George Armstrong Custer was killed at the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
I’ve created characters inspired by real-life figures who are poorly remembered today, including the spiritualist and feminist Victoria Woodhull, who ran for president decades before women won the right to vote. Most of my novels have been set in Kansas or Missouri, not only because those are the states I have called my own, but also because they have proved a natural channel for the flow of American history.
If there’s a symbol for the summer of 1876, it isn’t a gallant last stand. Instead, it is the steamboat Far West, its decks loaded with wounded soldiers, in a mad dash down the Little Bighorn, Yellowstone and Upper Missouri rivers to Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakotas.
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What’s a professional graduate degree? Loan confusion reigns amid legal battle.
WASHINGTON — Students pursuing several advanced degree programs can now access higher loan caps, but the temporary relief has ushered in a wave of uncertainty amid an ongoing legal battle.
Graduate-level programs such as nursing, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology are, for now, considered “professional” degrees by the U.S. Department of Education after a court order in late June halted the agency’s new “professional” definition while a legal challenge unfolds.
That definition had limited the number of advanced degrees eligible for higher annual and lifetime loan limits to just 11 fields, while excluding several programs, such as nursing.
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Housing bill becomes law without Trump’s signature
President Donald Trump said Friday morning he would not sign federal legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing, but the bipartisan package became law at 12:01 a.m. Saturday anyway.
In a post to his social media site, Trump again said that as a protest against Congress not passing an elections bill known as the SAVE America Act he considers a top priority, he would not sign the housing bill that both chambers of Congress passed with wide margins.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Kansas Reflector staff will participate in the following free public forums.
6:30 p.m. July 14, Morrill Public Library in Hiawatha. Editor Sherman Smith will lead a discussion with opinion editor Clay Wirestone, Natalie Haag and Kevin Hill on the proposed constitutional amendment to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Host: Brown County United.
5:30 p.m. July 23, Emporia Arts Center. Editor-in-chief Sherman Smith will lead a discussion on the proposed constitutional amendment to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Host: Kansas Appleseed. Register here.
2 p.m. Sept. 27, Red Rocks Visitor Center in Emporia. Host: Red Rocks.
If you're interested in having us talk in your town, email Sherman Smith at [email protected].
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