STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Volcanoes. Sagebrush folks. Even the Supreme Court.
The Community Library has a full slate of programs this week to shed light on what’s outside our backyard and how an Idaho senator helped save the Supreme Court in 1937, averting what one historian has called the greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War.
- Longtime political observer Marc Johnson will lead it off at 6 p.m. tonight—Tuesday, April 23—with a presentation on “How Bipartisanship Saved the Supreme Court.”
His talk centers around 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to pack the Court. Even though Roosevelt enjoyed huge majorities in both houses of Congress, bipartisan opposition from Idaho and Montana senators foiled his efforts.
Idaho Sen. William Borah and Burton K. Wheeler of Montana thwarted Roosevelt’s plans to enlarge the Supreme Court in what was one of the most bitter fights of FDR’s presidency.
Johnson, former aide to Gov. Cecil Andrus, has written a book about the story titled “Political Hell-Raiser: The Life and Times of Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.” He’ll have copies available for purchase at the presentation.
- At 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, Park Ranger Hester Mallonee will present a program on volcanism and planetary geology in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and a visit in 2019 from the Apollo astronauts to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. The national monument east of Carey is a vast ocean of lava flows with islands of cinder cones. The program is part of The Environmental Resource Center’s fourth annual Spring Science Series.
- At 6 p.m. Thursday, April 25, the library will offer a free screening of the “Idaho Experience” show on Annie Pike Greenwood, an Idaho author known for her book “We Sagebrush Folks.” Greenwood, a farmer’s wife and teacher, lived in Hazelton, Idaho, from 1913 to 1928 on a farm with ties to Hailey resident Joan Davies. Her book shines a light on the hard reality of life in the newly irrigated “Eden” of southern Idaho in the early 1900s.
Marcia Franklin, a producer and host of Idaho Public Television’s “Idaho Experience” and “Dialogue,” will field questions following the screening.