Summary
A tyrannical patriarch of cracked Kansas loam, Caleb Webster, exiles his bookish heir Joel into the raw dusk of 1910 prairie politics; the boy lands in Gatesville, a whistle-stop stitched together by barbed wire, ink, and lynch rumors. There he collides with Beulah Rogers, the ink-smudged daughter of editor Pliny Rogers, whose presses spit thunder against graft. When the Republican machine’s anointed savior, Hilary Rose, collapses under revelations of bribes and brothel chits, Joel—equal parts hayseed Hamlet and prairie Laocoön—agrees to wear the tarnished crown of district attorney. Rose’s pistol retort echoes through the jail like a cracked bell, and Joseph Hargan, a sacked compositor with acid under his fingernails, frames Pliny for the suicide. Joel must indict the future father-in-law he reveres, a paradox that gnaws his marrow. At the eleventh hour he unearths Hargan’s vendetta, unsparingly frees his beloved’s sire, and is rewarded with tar, feathers, and a rail reserved for traitors. Beulah, wild-eyed Minerva with a Colt, drags the perjurer into the torchlight, extracts a confession that detonates the mob’s fury, and trades vengeance for absolution. Caleb, chastened by the sight of his son atop the pyre of small-town absolutism, opens the farmhouse door; the prodigal reclaims his name, his bride, and the promise that democracy might yet sprout from blood-soaked sod.
Synopsis
Caleb Webster, a stern farmer who will not sanction the presence of a "fool lawyer" in his household, turns his son Joel from his house, after which Joel settles in Gatesville. There he meets Beulah Rogers, the daughter of newspaper editor Pliny Rogers. When Rogers forces Hilary Rose, the Republican nominee for district attorney, to withdraw from the race because of his shady past, Joel is induced to run and wins the election. Rose, brooding over his disgrace, shoots himself in a drunken rage. Joseph Hargan, a discharged printer, witnesses the incident and, in an attempt to get even for his firing, accuses Rogers of the shooting. Joel is called upon to prosecute the father of the girl he loves, but just before the trial, he learns Hargan's motive, thus obtaining Rogers' release. This infuriates the political bosses, who decide to tar and feather Joel. Before they can carry out their plan, Beulah forces Hargan at gunpoint to confess his act of perjury. The mob then releases Joel, who is forgiven by his stern father and wins Rogers' consent to marry Beulah.
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