National Affairs: The INLAND EMPIRE

ACROSS the wind-blown plains of eastern Washington, up through the cool, forested hills of northern-Idaho and the mountains and finger valleys of western Montana, men talk in frontier terms of manifest destiny, and call their northwest U.S. land an Inland Empire. It is a towering land, with long, lonely reaches and stupendous, high-country scenery, proud, self-assured and close to its pioneer beginnings. A geographic unit, hemmed by natural barriers, it once almost became a state (as big as all New England, New York, Delaware and Maryland) called Lincoln. Congress approved in 1886, but...

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