According to the weekly Blue Mountain Eagle, the only newspaper in Grant County, Oregon, the Aryan Nations wants to establish a new "national compound" in the city of John Day, in a scenic area midway between Bend and Boise. A spokesman for the group, a guy named Paul R. Mullet, was recently in John Day looking for property for the group. According to the article:
Mullet, wearing a uniform shirt with a swastika patch on it, said the group's goal is to create a homeland for white people.
"That area is the Pacific Northwest," he said. "The blacks have Africa, the Jews have Israel ..."
Mullet claims the group is looking for property where they can provide barracks and other facilities for recruit training. Grant County is attractive, he claims, due to its proximity to the mountains for "survival training". Claiming that the people living in the area share common values with the Aryan Nations, he vowed to have members patrolling the streets of John Day "making it safer for the residents who live here".
The article goes on to say:
While staying at a local motel, they opened the door to their room to clearly display Nazi-style banners as two employees - a black and a Hispanic - went about their work.
Motel officials said people in two other rooms vacated before their stay was up because of concerns about the white supremacist group.
What makes this article particularly noteworthy is the strong objections raised by city leaders. Friends tell me that the Economic Development Conference where this idea was made public was closed early, primarily out of dismay over the proposal. More importantly, reader comments on the published article are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea.
Grant County, like much of rural America, is very conservative. It is also in dire economic straits. Historically dependent on cattle ranching and logging, the County desparately needs to expand its economic base. The neo-Nazis of the Aryan Nations figured they'd found a perfect match. Seems they figured wrong.