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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THuRSDAY, DEcEmbER 13, 2018
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
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Editor
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circulation manager
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WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
Neuberger was ‘amazingly ahead of his times’
DIcK NEubERGER
AuTHORED THE
1956 ENAbLING
LEGISLATION THAT
cREATED THE FORT
cLATSOP NATIONAL
mEmORIAL
I
n every era the new generation of
historians and readers reconsiders
the prominent figures of the past.
America’s oldest universities have been
going through this process.
One of the most prominent revi-
sions occurred at Yale University, where
the name of John C. Calhoun — who
left the U.S. Senate for the Confeder-
acy — was removed from one of its col-
leges and renamed for a
woman who was a pio-
neering admiral in the
U.S. Navy.
Portland State Uni-
versity does not have
that challenge, because
STEVE
it is such a young insti-
FORRESTER
tution. Nevertheless,
last week it corrected
a lesser injustice and
redeemed itself by naming its adminis-
tration building, which houses the pres-
ident’s office, for U.S. Sen. Richard
(Dick) Neuberger and his wife, Maurine.
Another building at the university
had been named in 1972 for Dick Neu-
berger, but later renamed for a major
donor.
I was invited to speak at last week’s
dedication. Retirement from daily jour-
nalism has allowed me to resume the
research on Dick Neuberger that I began
in 1978. “Eminent Oregonians” will be
the title of a book I am assembling with
four other writers. One of the five chap-
ters will be dedicated to him.
Dick Neuberger was one of the most
exciting Oregon personalities of the first
half of the 20th Century. When he died
in 1960 at the age of 47, he was one of
America’s most prolific freelance writers
and the author or co-author of six books.
In 1954, he became the first Demo-
crat Oregon had elected to the U.S. Sen-
ate in 40 years. In 1940, when he was
elected to the Oregon House of Repre-
sentatives, the state’s Democratic party
was a stagnant and inarticulate backwa-
ter. He became the voice of a new party
that was articulate about an array of con-
cerns ranging from the environment to
The Oregonian
Maurine and Richard Neuberger.
human welfare and government struc-
ture. In essence, he created the intellec-
tual foundation for Oregon’s postwar,
modern Democratic party. The likes of
Ron Wyden, Earl Blumenauer and Vera
Katz are his political descendants.
Neuberger’s sister, Jane Goodsell,
captured the significance of her broth-
er’s iconoclastic public career. “He was
amazingly ahead of his times,” she told
me in a 1978 interview.
Dick’s legislative partnership with
Maurine in the Oregon Legislature —
he as a state senator, she as a representa-
tive — is without peer in Oregon history
or, to my knowledge, in any other state
legislature.
The word environmentalist was not
in our lexicon during his lifetime, but
he was one, referred to as a conserva-
tionist. Two of his legislative achieve-
ments were the Highway Beautification
Act and his sponsorship of what would
become the National Wilderness Act of
1964.
A history buff, one of Neuberger’s
books was the Landmark book for chil-
dren titled “The Lewis and Clark Expe-
dition.” He channeled his enthusiasm for
the Lewis and Clark story into the 1956
federal enabling legislation that created
the Fort Clatsop National Memorial.
My fascination with Neuberger began
when I was about 8 years old. My father
had known Dick since the 1930s when
they met as writers at The Oregonian.
Following his Senate election, the Neu-
bergers came to our home in Pendleton.
Over lunch Neuberger spoke as he ate,
about the falcon he had seen at an Air
Force Academy football game with one
of the Oregon universities. Following
that game, Dick had read everything he
could find about falcons and proceeded
to share his newfound knowledge with
us. I had never seen someone with such
an enthusiastic, voracious intellect.
My research has been an adventure
— taking me primarily to the Univer-
sity of Oregon Special Collections in the
Knight Library. My wife joined me for
a research trip to the Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt Library at Hyde Park. I drove
across Kansas to the Eisenhower Library
and also mined the Harry Truman Pres-
idential Library in Independence, Mis-
souri. In March I will be combing a col-
lection of publications in the New York
Public Library.
Research on a long-deceased pub-
lic person becomes a bit like an Easter
Egg hunt. I recently shared one of my
discoveries with a historian friend. He
shared my elation, describing the thrill
one feels at opening a box of papers that
no one has seen in decades.
Steve Forrester, the former editor and
publisher of The Daily Astorian, is the
president and cEO of EO media Group.
OTHER VIEWS
Editorials from
Oregon newspapers
Mail Tribune, on
audit finding weakness
in opioid tracking
or all the talk about opioid addiction
and the need to address it, an audit
by the Oregon Secretary of State’s
Office shows the state lags far behind oth-
ers in preventing abuse.
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson
on Tuesday released the audit report, say-
ing he was “heartbroken” by some of the
findings.
The biggest problem appears to be
weaknesses in Oregon’s prescription drug
monitoring program, operated by the Ore-
gon Health Authority. Created in 2009,
the program, known by its initials, PDMP,
should allow the state to share information
about potential abuse with health licensing
boards and law enforcement, but state laws
prevent the OHA from doing that. Audi-
tors found 148 people who received con-
trolled substance prescriptions from 30
or more different prescribers. One person
had 290 opioid prescriptions filled by 75
pharmacies.
Oregon also is one of only nine states
that does not require prescribing physi-
cians and pharmacies to check the PDMP
database before writing or filling prescrip-
tions. And Oregon law does not require
the state’s PDMP to collect some data that
could help prevent abuse, including pre-
scriptions filled by other than retail phar-
macies, and prescriptions written by vet-
erinarians that may be diverted to human
use.
In one case, an individual obtained pre-
scriptions for 242 tablets of oxycodone
and 87 tablets of clonazepam by two dif-
ferent doctors, and filled them at a long-
term care pharmacy that is exempt from
reporting to the PDMP, so those prescrip-
tions were not included in that patient’s
prescription history. The same patient saw
a third physician in the same month and
obtained a prescription for 112 oxycodone
tablets and 84 clonazepam, and filled it at
a retail pharmacy. The third doctor and the
retail pharmacist would have had no way
of knowing about the other prescriptions
by checking the PDMP database.
Deaths from opioid overdoses have
declined in Oregon, unlike other states,
but the number of deaths remains above
the rate in 2000. An Oregonian dies from
prescription opioids every three days on
F
average. Auditors noted that the decline
in overdose deaths may be the result of
more widespread availability and use of
naloxone, which reverses the effects of
overdose.
In a letter responding to the audit,
OHA Deputy Director Kris Kautz said
her agency agrees with the findings, but
state law limits OHA’s ability to comply
with the recommended changes. Lawmak-
ers should make it a priority to change the
laws to allow the monitoring program to
operate the way it should.
This is more than just a bureaucratic
problem. Lives are at stake.
The Oregonian, on testing the waters
for a new bridge
The mere mention of the phrase
“Columbia River Crossing” can conjure up
frightening flashbacks of the failed effort
to build a new bridge to Washington. From
massive consulting costs to flawed tolling
estimates to scrapped bridge designs, the
CRC provided one exasperating headline
after another until Oregon leaders killed it
in 2014, soon after Washington lawmak-
ers refused to authorize that state’s share
of the costs.
But even more exasperating is this:
None of those scandals change the fact
that Washington and Oregon still need a
new bridge to replace the aging I-5 cross-
ing, provide better public transit options
and help relieve the congestion that serves
as both a commuter and economic choke-
point in the region. Legislators met Tues-
day to once again broach the topic of
replacing the bridge.
Certainly, meeting to talk about the
possibility of resurrecting a replacement
bridge project is a tiny step in a process
that can go awry in any number of ways.
The comments of legislators reflect their
wariness. And assuming they continue
to meet, there remain the thorny political
questions of tolling and public transit that
will require far more than cautious collab-
oration to resolve.
But time, necessity and the deadline
to show progress — or repay some $140
million in federal funds — have at least
helped cement a replacement bridge in
leaders’ minds as a priority.
This is progress, albeit modest. But as
anyone stuck in I-5 traffic can attest, for-
ward progress at low speed beats sitting at
a standstill any day of the year.
The Bend Bulletin,
on needing a senator
who puts Oregon first
en. Jeff Merkley, D-Portland, really,
really wants to be president. He’s
enough of a realist, however, to rec-
ognize that his chances of winning are
slim, and he’d like to hold on to his Senate
seat as well, in case things don’t work out.
Winning a third term in the Senate
might be nice for Merkley, but in those
circumstances it’s far from nice for Ore-
S
gon voters. We deserve a senator who
wants the Senate seat as much as Merkley
wants to be president.
There have been hints about Merkley’s
ambition for over a year now, and he’s
done nothing to squelch them. Rather,
he’s ramped them up in a variety of ways,
from visiting New Hampshire to creating
political action committees.
Among the most important, he’s talked
with Oregon lawmakers to see if they’re
willing to change a state law barring a
candidate from running for more than
one “lucrative” office at a time. Both the
Senate and the presidency are consid-
ered lucrative. Unfortunately for Merkley,
change is unlikely. That doesn’t prevent
him from running in presidential prima-
ries in other states, however, and running
for the Senate in Oregon. It’s an idea he
has yet to dismiss.
Oregonians should expect more from
a U.S. senator. We may be a relatively
small state, but surely we deserve a can-
didate whose interest in Oregon and Ore-
gonians goes beyond our value as a step-
ping stone to higher office or as a safety
net if presidential ambitions don’t pan
out.
If Merkley wants to be president, fine.
He should do everything in his power
to get the job. First on his list, however,
must be a public announcement that he
won’t seek re-election to the Senate. That
way Democrats, Republicans and others
can look for candidates who really want
the job.