In 1914 the poet Carl Sandburg called Chicago "hog butcher for the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat," when the city's stockyards and factories were the economic engine – and human cesspool – of the entire midwest.
Sorry.In this section The world in their hands Primary colour A cross of green From stockyards to animal health The new Indian wars Just add cash Obama's moment Correction: Mike Huckabee Reprints Related items The candidates: Mike Huckabee: Faith, Hope and populismNov 22nd 2007.
He smelled fear in the dark, rotting jungle mud where he had fought as a soldier in the Philippines, in the blood, shit and slobber of the Chicago stockyards, but also at Washington parties, among his own stupid bouts of tongue-tiedness and circumlocution, as "the hard gemlike flame of bourbon" burned through him.
The stench of the stockyards no longer wafts across the southern reaches of the city, but Chicago remains the place through which much of the Midwest's produce passes, and where farm commodities are bought and sold.
Cattle ranches range from large, almost industrial concerns with 15,000 head of cattle and a squad of cowboys, which sell directly to the packing plants, to small hobby farmers eager to keep their roots in this intensely rural state by raising a few cows.The stockyards in Oklahoma City proclaim the importance of cattle to the state.
The population of its metropolitan area will soar past the 2m mark by 2010.In this section No part-time job explosion Madeleine s'en va-t-en guerre Line-item laughs A thin black line A bug with social aspirations Bow down to Cowtown Senator Pothole ReprintsAviation has been here since 1911, when Roland Garros wafted over the stockyards in his Bleriot monoplane.
And his campaign has been reinvigorated by a recent poll that put him four points ahead of Hillary Clinton.In this section The world in their hands Primary colour A cross of green From stockyards to animal health The new Indian wars Just add cash Obama's moment Correction: Mike Huckabee ReprintsFour points is small potatoes.
America, he says, is "the land of opportunity".The meatpacking industry has changed dramatically since Sinclair's day, when pigs and cattle were transported live to city stockyards so that the meat would still be edible when city-dwellers bought it.
I think it's a significant asset to [Barack Obama] and he's not married to her".In this section The world in their hands Primary colour A cross of green From stockyards to animal health The new Indian wars Just add cash Obama's moment Correction: Mike Huckabee ReprintsNewt Gingrich, impressed that Ms Winfrey will campaign for Mr Obama.
Now, as he bounds around the tiny towns of the hill country and slaps shoulders in the stockyards of Fort Worth, it is hard not to feel that his sweetest victory is already behind him.
But his research, much of it culled from the archives of Texan publications, is exhaustive, and his command of data impressive, from the changing number of clergy in Texas to the growth of livestock handling in the Fort Worth stockyards more than a century ago.
