The Walls of Jericho Author:Paul J. Wellman All the color and violence and drama of the High Plains country, emerging from raw frontier days into the present century, are caught in this story of Jericho, Kansas, and of a struggle for power between two of its leading citizens. — Among them were Tucker Wedge, owner and editor of the only newspaper in the town, and Dave Constable,a fledgling&... more »nbsp; lawyer with a vision of the common man's destiny in the scheme of things.
Tucker and Dave were the warmest of friends until Tucker brought home as his bride a young widow, Algeria, who burned with a consuming ambition for high political station and saw in Dave a threat to achievement of that secret goal she set for her husband. She contrived to bring about a breach between the two friends springing from the disastrous marriage of Constable to ignorant, lazy Belle, a wholly unsuitable spouse.
The conflict thus started had immense consequences not merely for the principal antagonists, but even for Jericho and the nation because the battle never ceases until Dave Constable is on the threshold of the U.S. senate and the ruthless behind the scenes machinations are brought into the light of day and made public.
Wellman has recaptured the distinct esence of an Amercian era which has almost vanished in the swift rush of mechanical and technical eras that followed. Jericho, the town, comes alive with all its abundant vitality, its crassness and provincialism, its ideals and hopes. The political, economic and social problems of its people, as so richly revealed here have been our common heritage and still reverberate today.« less