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OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Petticoats
and politics
A century ago this week, a group
of marginalized voters took to the
ballot box in Umatilla to make a
change in their local government.
Informally known as the Petticoat
Revolution, a group of women came
together on Dec. 5, 1916 to upend
the good ol’ boy leadership in town.
They were dissatisfied watching the
town fall further into disrepair, with
laws loosely enforced, and set a plan
in motion to toss
them out.
According to
an East Oregonian
report from the time,
the women conspired
under the guise of a
card game to write
their names onto the
ballot. The men who
ran the city were
so “cock-sure” of
their re-election that
they didn’t bother to
campaign for their
seats. Oregon had
given women the
right to vote in 1912,
but the idea was still new and none of
the men on the council saw what was
coming until it was too late.
One element that made the coup
possible was dismally low voter
turnout. In a town of 198 people,
Laura J. Starcher defeated her
husband and mayor E.E. Starcher,
with 26 votes to eight. Gladys
Spinning, Florence Brownell, Anna
Means and Stella Paulu all won
council seats, Lola Merrick was
elected treasurer and Bertha Cherry
became recorder by the same means.
Once in office, the women got
to work. Laura Starcher set the
agenda of replacing street lights
that were removed by the previous
administration, cleaning and fixing
the streets and sidewalks, and
enforcing the laws of the town,
among other things. E.E. Starcher,
after the initial shock of losing the
election to his wife, found some
words of praise for her to The
Oregonian, saying she was “the best
housekeeper in the United States.”
In the 1920 election, the year
women’s suffrage was added to
the U.S. Constitution in the 19th
Amendment, no women ran for the
council and it was again filled with
men.
———
History has a strange way of not
just repeating, but inverting. We saw
it just last month as Hillary Clinton,
the first female major party candidate
in U.S. history, lost a narrow
presidential election that she was
widely and confidently expected to
win handily.
Many pundits, experts and editorial
boards considered her opponent,
Donald Trump, to
be the leader of an
unsustainable and
impractical following.
His campaign was
not carried out
in secret, like the
Petticoat Revolution,
but his message hit
some of the same
notes of anger toward
leadership perceived
as disinterested,
complacent and
compromised.
Trump’s win
also relied on
a disengaged
electorate, with the lowest turnout
since the 1996 election and down
about nine percentage points from
2008. While Clinton won the most
votes, Trump won the important ones
in the important states and will take
office in January.
Both the Petticoat Revolution of
1916 and the Make America Great
Again campaign of 2016 gave
political power to people with no
prior experience wielding it.
But the similarities end there,
especially considering the magnitude
of the U.S. president’s responsibilities
compared to that of an early 20th
century Umatilla City Council.
———
Donald Trump’s campaign and
victory will be dissected for decades,
and it is a new template for a political
upset. There were factors both in his
control and outside of it that led to his
election.
What the women of Umatilla
pulled off a century ago is now a
curious footnote in our area’s history,
a parable of the ability to overthrow
stereotypes and give voice to the
previously powerless. They saw
the opportunity to take power and
grabbed hold, changing the mindset
and culture of their town.
Donald Trump’s
campaign and
victory will be
dissected for
decades, and it
is a new
template for a
political upset.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
YOUR VIEWS
City getting in the way of
voter-approved pot shops
After no small amount of Pendleton
pot-smokers urging their fellow
Pendletonians to vote yes on the
three magic questions, in addition to
non-pot-smoking Pendletonians seeing
no harm in adults over the age of 21
smoking recreational pot, or people with
a genuine need using pot medically, the
three questions passed! We could take
this time to muse on the hilarity of 55
percent voting for recreational marijuana,
60 percent for medical, and 83 percent
for taxing it, since all three needed to
pass in the first place, but I’m writing on
a character limit here, so we’ll have to
have a laugh some other time.
My last published letter hinted at a
corrupt government apparatus operating
at 500 S.W. Dorion Ave. This caused
some to wonder what it was that I was
referring to. I don’t have a ready-made
answer for anything under the sun, but
I believe that the headline that greeted
East Oregonian readers on the front page
of the December 3-4 Weekend Edition
sums my statements up quite nicely. If
the people vote to do something that is
contrary to the agenda set in motion by
City Hall, the city administration still has
some tricks up its sleeve to pervert the
democratic process.
Why should a marijuana business
license cost any more than any other
business license? With the already high
cost of opening a marijuana business that
meets the requirements set by the state
of Oregon, it would stand to reason that
a city which hemorrhages money like
Pendleton would want to make it as easy
as possible for potential businesses to
set up shop and start generating revenue
that the city can collect taxes on! But this
doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyway,
let’s have another round of statues
on Main Street, complete with tacky
voice-overs; that’ll get people coming
here again.
If the measures would not have
passed, then we would not be having
this discussion. But from the discussions
that I’ve had with various administrators,
they didn’t think that the ordinances
would pass in the first place. However,
they are so out of touch with Pendleton
voters it’s really a wonder that any of
them were elected. I am of the opinion
that it’s because of a lack of choices.
James Tibbets
Pendleton
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies
for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters
that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of
private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a
daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published.
Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email
editor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
Finding America’s
Mother Teresa
P
INE BLUFF, Ark. — If this
pregnant at 16 and dropping out of
political season has you feeling
school, she earned her GED and a
down, meet Annette Dove. She’s
college degree, became a star special
a salve for our aches and wounds, for
education teacher, and, after her
she represents the American grass roots’
beloved husband died, she quit her job
best.
and started TOPPS, for Targeting Our
Dove, 60, is a black woman who
People’s Priorities with Service.
dropped out of high school when she
It evolved into an after-school
became pregnant and who has endured
Nicholas program that also feeds 600 children
racism and domestic abuse. Drawing
Kristof a day in the summer and offers
mentoring, tutoring and help staying out
on her own experience overcoming
Comment
of jail, off drugs and in school. The first
difficulties, she now runs a widely
children to go through TOPPS are now
admired program for troubled children.
in college — 33 of them.
Funding the program in part with her own
“We have a lot of drug-infested families,”
savings — even going into personal bankruptcy
Dove said, and she and her mentors come
to keep it going — she transforms lives.
across as surrogate parents, telling kids how to
Dove works seven days a week and
dress and use birth control, and steering them
struggles month to month to pay the bills with
donations, foundation support and a state grant; to college admission tests and applications for
scholarships.
when the money runs out, she prays.
The boys learn skills that middle-class
The poverty and disadvantage that Dove is
children absorb routinely, such as how to tie
fighting here in Pine Bluff, a poor, majority-
a necktie or look a job interviewer in the eye.
black town of 50,000, are found all across
This training doesn’t erase the damage from
America. But so, too, are people like Dove,
battling for progress through churches, schools, troubled schools or dangerous neighborhoods,
but it helps. In meetings, they discuss politics,
Big Brother programs, advocacy efforts.
sex, AIDS, budgeting and financial literacy, and
These heroes get no headlines, no reward,
how to treat girls with respect.
no glory, and they regularly have their hearts
“We teach about holding hands with a lady
broken, only to soldier on to help the next child.
instead of grabbing hold of her and touching
This is the spirit that Tocqueville admired in
them all over,” explained Mike Dove, Annette’s
19th-century America, and it’s why in a brutal
son, who oversees the boys’ mentoring and
political year, Dove and those like her help
precollege programs in his spare time.
restore my faith in America.
I asked several boys in the program what
Consider Jesse Spencer, a young man who
would happen if one made “locker room”
says he was kicked out of his house at age 13
comments about girls. They looked aghast.
by his mom’s boyfriend. Homeless, he turned
“That’d be push-ups,” said Devonta Brown,
to street gangs to survive and missed learning
who came into the program as a troubled
to read.
fourth-grader and is now senior class president,
Spencer had a few run-ins with the police,
aiming for all A’s this year, and headed for
and then at age 16 he joined with friends in
college.
robbing a pizza delivery woman with a pellet
Despite all the good work TOPPS does,
gun. He was arrested, charged as an adult and
Dove still struggles constantly to meet its
sentenced to 12 years in prison; he ended up
expenses (more information about it and
serving more than nine years and was released
options to donate are at toppsinc.org). She has
in August.
no regrets.
Dove is helping him get a job and an ID,
A month ago, I wrote about a struggling
and here’s one gauge of how marginalized he
is: Even the spelling of his name is an issue. He Pine Bluff 13-year-old named Emanuel Laster,
a black boy who does well at school but has
says it’s Jesse, but some police record shows
no books in the home and is in danger of being
him as Jessie, and because he was arrested at
sucked into the world of gangs and drugs.
16, he’s never had a normal adult identification
Dove has now recruited Emanuel to attend her
card.
after-school programs and is talking to him
Spencer had brief interactions with Dove’s
program as a boy, and he told me ruefully that if about college. She is also giving him books
and offering him $5 for each one he reads and
he had had more, “it would have made a great
writes her a report about.
difference.” I keep thinking this: Taxpayers
One afternoon, we stood outside Emanuel’s
spent more than $200,000 imprisoning Spencer,
home and spoke of his tremendous promise
yet we’re unwilling to invest sufficiently in
— and the enormous risk that he’ll be waylaid
programs like Dove’s that help break the cycle
without achieving it.
of poverty and keep kids out of trouble.
“The way we’re going to break the cycle
It’s in places like Pine Bluff that one sees
is to give these kids an opportunity and show
how much federal, state and local policies
them how to take it,” Dove told me. By force
matter in shaping ordinary lives, and the most
of will, she creates opportunities for kids who
heroic charitable efforts can’t make up for
have none — and reminds us that whatever
failed policies. We wouldn’t build an interstate
highway system through charities, and we can’t happens in Washington, there are miracle
workers at the grass roots.
build a comprehensive program for at-risk kids
■
that way, either. But in difficult times, people
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
like Dove keep their fingers in the dike and
cherry farm in Yamhill. A columnist for The
avert catastrophe.
New York Times since 2001, he won the Pulitzer
Dove is so driven to help these children
Prize in 1990 and 2006.
because this is her world. After becoming