Which Democratic presidential candidate will be the first on the scene: John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton?
Today Wausau Paper announced it was closing its paper mill in Groveton, New Hampshire, and laying off about 300 workers in the process. According to Wausau, while net sales increased company-wide to a record $319 million, its “printing and writing” division lost money. Last year the division made $1.1 million; this year it lost $1.3 million. Ergo, they are closing the mill on December 31, 2007.
Happy New Year, workers of Wausau!
Wausau is not by any means the first paper mill to close in New Hampshire. In 2001, while most Americans were still shell-shocked over the terrorist attack of 9/11, people in New Hampshire were dealing with a second blow: the Pulp and Paper Mill of America in Berlin, NH, closed down, laying off 800 employees. In typical New Hampshire fashion, a volunteer effort of individual and corporate contributions helped to soften the impact, providing financial and emotional support to displaced employees.
(For information about the state’s response to the Wausau closing, click here.)
The news from Wausau comes in the middle of a Democratic presidential primary trail that has quickly gone cold and boring. Most of us in New Hampshire are already planning our Hillary Clinton victory parties. Her main adversaries — Edwards and Obama — can barely muster a round of buckshot in her direction, much less throw the Molotov cocktail they need to stir things up around here.
But thanks to Wausau, an opportunity is emerging. Picture the scene in Groveton, New Hampshire:
We stand in front of a dark, brooding building, an empty paper mill, a remnant of a dying manufacturing economy. The front doors are boarded up. The frosted windows are dark. It is mid-January, the arctic winds are howling and the snow is piling up higher than John Edwards’ hair. Small groups of men and women, penniless and fearful, huddle around blackened oil cans from which cold fires burn, looking for warmth. . .and hope.
Emerging out of the wintry stillness comes someone who offers kind words, a warm hand, a nod of understanding and compassion, a conviction that the future will be better. The cameras roll. The microphones capture every breathless word. The inconsolable are consoled.
Who is it? Edwards? Obama? Clinton?
To paraphrase Peter Klappert:
–Outbursts of
Orchids emblossom and cascade
From the neck of America’s finest champagne,
We are all caught up in a masquerade,
It’s in moments like these that presidents get made.
5 responses so far ↓
Katie Paine // October 25, 2007 at 4:55 am
The one we want is the the one that offers a new vision of the future, not one clouded by smoke and pollution, but a sustainable economy, with minimal impact on the environment that emphasizes the beauty of the area.
Rake Morgan // October 25, 2007 at 11:31 am
Hey, I am with you on this, Katie. I know that the mills have made progress over the years, but I still reek of the odors and smoke coming from those mills years ago, not to mention the widespread destruction of huge forest lands, the pollution of the local rivers. People had jobs but they — and we — paid a high price for them.
So which candidate offers the vision that you want?
And thanks for your comment!
Elizabeth Montgomery // October 25, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I don’t know why it should surprise me that a politician would use a tragedy such as this to further his or her campaign, but for some reason this idea you’ve voiced, that someone should pounce upon this obvious deadening of a town that thrived years ago, makes me sick to my stomach. Maybe its because that town you speak so irreverently about fostered me and my brother and my father and his family and the idea that the closing of the town’s livelihood, of the Wausau mill, can be reduced to a mockery of Hollywood apocrypha hits me in the gut like a sucker punch from a stranger.
Perhaps a politician will arise victorious from the ashes of my hometown, but god help us if he or she arrives with media cameras in tow. The people of Groveton want reassurance that there will be pensions and life after December 31st and if you can explain to me what a politician who sits in a cushy office in Washington and never has trouble putting food on their table knows about a blue collar town in the wildes of New Hampshire, then by all means, give me a ballot and I’ll check their name off.
Otherwise, tote your snake oil politics elsewhere.
Rake Morgan // October 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Most politicians know absolutely nothing about having problems putting food on their tables. The scenario I’ve written about is guaranteed to happen. It does every day. Watch the news: politicians suck up human tragedy for their own shameless purposes. We’re all just a means to an end. That’s my point. If you think I am promoting that behavior, rather than ridiculing it, you need to sit down and have a drink. I am sorry this has happened to Groveton and has affected members of your family. When it comes to helping out, count on your neighbors, not the pols. (Just so you know I did not recently crawl out from under a stone, I was personally involved in helping to raise money from corporations for those who were affected by the 2001 closing in Berlin.)
Wausau Paper tells New Hampshire workers: get lost! « A Rake’s Progress // November 9, 2007 at 10:24 pm
[...] week, in reporting the closing of the mill, I looked at the political ramifications to New Hampshire’s presidential [...]
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