But none of this prestige and power, none of these connections, was a match for ignorance, nonsense, and the nineteenth century’s fulsome, quixotic optimism. When he testified before Congress about his report and his irrigation plan, the reception from the West—the region with which he was passionately involved, the region he wanted to help—was icily hostile. In his biography of Powell, Wallace Stegner nicely characterized the frame of mind of the typical western booster-politician when he surveyed Powell’s austere, uncompromising monument of facts: What, they asked, did he know about the
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