Wednesday, October 28, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Of a certain
AGE
Sue Stafford
Columnist
Don’t erase
history
As the Oregon Live ban-
ner headline ran across my
phone9s screen, I instantly
felt like I9d been kicked in
the gut. As I clicked on it and
went to the story and photos
online, tears began to collect
in the corners of my eyes.
What could elicit such
an immediate emotional
response? Who had died?
To anyone else, it was just
another story of an historic
statue being toppled. But to
me it was the statue of my
great-grandfather, Portland
pioneer, historian, and edi-
tor of The Oregonian news-
paper for 40 years, Harvey
Whitefield Scott.
His statue had stood atop
Mount Tabor in southeast
Portland since 1933, larger
than life, which matched
his purported personality.
Harvey died in 1910 at Johns
Hopkins Medical Center
where he had gone for sur-
gery. His widow, Margaret
McChesney Scott, had the
bronze statue erected in 1933
to honor her husband, a man
held in high regard regionally
and nationally for his editor-
ship of the largest paper in
Oregon and his many other
civic contributions. The
statue was created by Gutzon
Borglum who, at the same
time, was working on Mount
Rushmore.
That statue has been a
point of pride for the large
clan of Harvey9s descen-
dants. Harvey9s many grand-
children and great-grand-
children have been taken
to see the statue and hear
about Harvey9s many con-
tributions to Portland and
Oregon. We were all steeped
in the Scott family history,
from the 1852 wagon train
that brought Harvey, his sib-
lings, and parents (his mother
died of cholera on the trail)
to the Willamette Valley, to
Harvey9s role in Portland his-
tory and his sister9s (Abigail
Scott Duniway) legacy
regarding the women9s suf-
frage movement.
I am well-versed in the
other side of that history
coin. Colonialism, degrada-
tion of the indigenous peo-
ples, <manifest destiny,= and
more. Jim Cornelius and I
had just had a conversation
the day before the statue was
torn down about the impor-
tance of learning from his-
tory and not trying to erase
it. Then Jim asked the ques-
tion, <What about the statues
of Lenin, Saddam Hussein?=
Who decides which statues
deserve to come down or be
removed?
I know that as a young
man Harvey fought in the bit-
ter Yakima Indian War at age
18. At first, he vehemently
opposed his sister editori-
ally regarding the women9s
movement for voting rights,
although he did later soften
that position. I am quite cer-
tain Harvey was the epitome
of the white privileged con-
servative males of his day.
He was living according to
the accepted norms of the
day. The fact that some of
those norms are no longer
acceptable doesn9t diminish
him as a valuable contributor
to the early days of Oregon.
The vandalism and tear-
ing down of history9s statues
is a repudiation of all that
has come before 4 honor-
able, dishonorable, ugly and
laudatory. I don9t know who
vandalized Harvey9s statue in
the past with red paint, and a
variety of graffiti, or who is
responsible for the toppling
and damage to it now. What I
do know is that it feels like a
personal assault on the pride
I have always felt about my
roots. My Scott ancestors
were a tenacious lot, from
the time they left the shores
of Scotland to make their
way to North Carolina, on
into the mountains of west-
ern Kentucky, then follow-
ing the western expansion
into Illinois, and finally to
Oregon in 1852 when Harvey
was 14.
He helped clear and cul-
tivate three farm sites in
Oregon and Washington.
He worked as a logger and
surveyor and in his father9s
sawmill. With his photo-
graphic memory, he taught
himself Latin and Greek and
at 25 earned the region9s
first classical A.B. degree as
the first graduate of Pacific
University in Forest Grove.
After a time in the Idaho
mines in 1863, Harvey
moved to Portland, where
he studied law, became the
Portland library9s first librar-
ian, and freelanced editorials
for The Oregonian.
In 1865, he became edi-
tor of the paper, and later part
owner. Harvey9s classical
education added a creative
dimension to his career. His
writings shared the fruits of
his education and
his serious life-
long studies of the
great literature of
the Western world,
local and world
history, and higher
criticism and com-
parative religion,
making his editori-
als an extension of
his persona. The
Oregon Pioneer
Association
summed up his
career at his death:
<Mainly he was
an instructor&
tens of thousands
were his daily
students.=
The Scotts9
road was long and
challenging, but
their persever-
PHOTO BY SUE STAFFORD
ance made it pos-
sible for me to be The Harvey Whitefield Scott statue on Mount
a fifth generation Tabor was toppled. That was a personal blow for
Oregonian and columnist Sue Stafford.
proud of it. I am
sorry for the treatment of the damage it.
I am not sorry that the
natives in the white man9s
quest for land. I am sorry Scott9s had the drive and
Harvey didn9t initially sup- fortitude to cross lands origi-
port Abigail and the suffrage nally inhabited solely by
movement. I am sorry that the first Americans, to make
people who probably don9t homes and raise families
know about all the good done using only their own hard
by Harvey saw fit to drag work, determination, and
his statue to the ground and intelligence.
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