BOOK REVIEW : Epic Novel Succeeds Despite a Few Loose Ends : THE LAND WAS OURS: A Novel of the Great Plains <i> by Charles W. Bailey</i> ; HarperCollins; $21.95, 387 pages

When veteran newspaperman and former National Public Radio Editor Charles W. Bailey began writing his first work of fiction, he must have known he was attempting something more than a good yarn.

“The Land Was Ours: A Novel of the Great Plains,” is about a family making the transition, over the course of several generations, from sodbusting in Nebraska in 1873 to newspapering in South Dakota in the early decades of this century. But it must have been clear to Bailey, as it becomes to the reader of his fine book, that politics was his true subject.

Bailey understands, in a way few contemporary fiction writers do, the drama is to be found in the tumultuous surge of American Populist politics born in the hearts and minds of farmers and workers in our wheat-and-corn belt country at the turn of the century.

These ideas were put forward perhaps most fervently by the incendiary speaker William Jennings Bryan, who supported the farmer’s call for free silver and nationalized railroads, and by Robert LaFollette and his Midwestern Insurgent Allies. The farmers never got a Populist candidate elected to the presidency, but they did eventually see some of their ideas supported on both the left and the right.

Whether Bailey is writing about the plight of the farmer at the turn of the century, America’s entry into World War I, or the increasing sense of class war in this country in the ‘20s and the failure of the banks in the ‘30s, the reader is struck by the echo of these problems in our own time--when what may eventually be termed World War III looms large and menacing over us, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. looks puny, perhaps not quite up to the task ahead of it.

One of the best reasons for reading an epic historical novel like this is that it helps us to see the cyclic nature of events in a democracy. The illusion in America is that we as a people have really progressed. In fact, we seem to run in ever-narrowing concentric circles, passing by--and confronting--the same wearying problems over and over again.

The story concerns two Midwesterners, Dan Woods and George Norton, and their families. The Woods are failed farmers, sodbusters who have been busted by drought, insects and debt, a family--including a young boy named Dan--who relocated as merchants to the small town of Falls City, S.D., in 1873.

George Norton, an ambitious young man, is already working his way up in the Falls City bank, a rise augmented by his marriage to Mary, the bank president’s daughter. The fates of Dan Woods and George Norton merge when the newspaper where young Woods works is bought by the now-wealthy Norton.

Norton takes over as publisher and Woods is named editor: The son of the failed farmer, the rich and ambitious town boy, will provide point and counterpoint in the political dialogue over the course of the novel, which spans their lifetimes and ends on the eve of World War II. “The whole story of the Great Plains is right there,” as someone in the novel observes, contained in the figures of the farmer and businessman.

Much of the story is about class and politics, but it’s fair to say it’s equally concerned with the role of a newspaper in a democracy. Persuasive arguments are made for the importance, the necessity , of a fair press, one that makes its news pages impartial and objective, open to diverse views, while allowing more personal positions to be taken and stated on the editorial pages. There seems to be a purity about this division, largely absent in the age of electronic media.

Woods, intrepid gatherer of news, views with uneasiness the growing rift between city and country, the fight between lenders and borrowers, the railroads and farmers. He realizes that Bryan is right: It’s class against class in this country. Nobody is more important than the farmer, he thinks, and nobody is more neglected.

He watches as Congress forces a declaration of war on a reluctant McKinley (in contrast to our own recent event) after the attack on the Maine in Havana’s harbor. He sees the great Depression coming in the 1890s when 600 banks fail, and he witnesses the even greater catastrophe of the 1930s.

He is at the Temple of Music at the Pan American Exhibit in Buffalo in 1901 when a gunman, his hand wrapped in a white cloth, strides up to President McKinley and shoots him twice. And he watches as Teddy Roosevelt steps forward to guide the country, and approves of him, much as he will his cousin Franklin later on.

Bailey has written a novel that is authentic in detail, full of fine research and straight-from-the-record quotes, at once engrossing and intelligent. His ear for dialogue of past times is perfect.

In the sweep of events, however, certain stories feel half told. What happened to McKinley’s assassin, for instance, and what prompted his attack? Why is the otherwise sensitive Dan Woods so incapable of showing feeling for his only child, Abigail? These questions, and others, hang down like bothersome loose threads from an otherwise successful novel of sweepingly broad design.

Next: Carolyn See reviews “Sliver: A Novel” by Ira Levin (Bantam).