BUSINESS
Saturday, September 21, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Ku Klux Klan threatens Astoria paper and comes to Eastern Oregon
Editor’s Note: In 2018, EO
Media Group published an
historical book by author
William F. Willingham, “Grit
and Ink: An Oregon Family’s
Adventures in Newspapering,
1908-2018” (http://books.
eomediagroup.com/grit-ink/)
Since its publication, the
family-owned media compa-
ny that owns and operates the
East Oregonian has dou-
bled in size, having recently
acquired newspapers in La
Grande, Baker City, Bend
and Redmond. The following
story is excerpted from this
book and is part four of a
seven-part weekly series.
EO Media Group
B
y the 1920s, the East Ore-
gonian‘s owners looked
for opportunities beyond
Pendleton. They had the financial
resources to buy two other daily
newspapers — in Astoria, Oregon
and Twin Falls, Idaho. Under the
strong leadership of E.B. Aldrich
at the EO and Merle Chessman at
the Astoria Budget, those papers
thrived financially; the venture
with the Twin Falls Times did not
turn out as well.
The next big cause promoted by
the EO under Aldrich’s editorship
was the Pendleton Round-Up. The
show the organizers had in mind
would showcase horsemanship,
cowboy skills, and Native Ameri-
can pageantry and life ways. Par-
ticipants would be actual working
cowboys and Native Americans
from reservations throughout the
Pacific Northwest. It would have
an authenticity that the typical
Wild West shows of the era could
not muster.
Ironically, the Round-Up orga-
nizers were portraying a way of
EOMG file photo
This Ku Klux Klan meeting took place in front of the stadium at Columbia Field, below J.J. Astor School. The sta-
dium was constructed in 1922.
life no longer typical of Umatilla
County in 1910. Bronco-busting
tournaments and Native Ameri-
can war dances described a time
in the 1870s and 1880s when cattle
and cowboys dominated the range-
land of Umatilla County and the
Bannock War of 1878 caused tur-
moil on the Umatilla Indian Res-
ervation. Such scenes and events
gradually were replaced by wheat
farming and sheep raising in north-
eastern Oregon. On the eve of the
1911 Round-Up, Aldrich admitted
as much in an editorial when he
wrote, “The show is not intended
to depict the life in this country at
this time, for the Round-Up is not
typical of Pendleton and of eastern
Oregon these days.”
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan
bedeviled Oregon’s political and
social life. The largely homog-
enous population of Oregon fell
prey to the racist and nativist pro-
paganda of the KKK — which
purported to be defending tradi-
tional Protestant, white patriotic
values from what they considered
were the un-American beliefs of
immigrants, Blacks, Jews, and
Catholics. As the KKK developed
a sizable following throughout the
state, the editors of the Daily Asto-
rian and the East Oregonian felt
compelled to challenge the KKK’s
discriminatory beliefs and actions
in their communities.
Both La Grande and Baker
City also became hotbeds of Klan
activity, with La Grande’s Klavern
boasting over 300 members. On
several occasions in 1923 and
1924, hundreds of white-robed
and masked Klansmen paraded
through downtown La Grande and
Baker City and lit fiery crosses on
the edge of town.
The meeting records of the
La Grande Klavern, published in
“Inside the Klavern” (1999), reveal
the depth of the Klan’s antipathy
towards Catholics, Jews, Blacks,
and Asians and recount the push-
back the Klan received when it
attempted to enforce its beliefs
on the larger community. The La
Grande Klan, for example, met
resistance when trying to get the
school board to hire only Protes-
tant teachers and employees and
when they sought the firing of a
local banker who was Catholic.
Walter Pierce of La Grande was
elected governor of Oregon in
1922 with Klan help.
Amidst this highly charged
environment, Chessman made
his position clear. While he could
accept some of the candidates that
had Klan support and the general
patriotic values of the organiza-
tion, he editorially denounced the
Klan’s political agenda and its bla-
tant falsehoods.
In response to Chessman’s edi-
torials, the Klan sought to under-
mine Chessman by calling for boy-
cotts and bans on the Budget and
by demanding that Aldrich remove
Chessman or sell the paper.
In response, Aldrich made it
clear that he supported the edito-
rial independence of Chessman.
He wrote: “No true newspaper
wants to make any promise of edi-
torial action in advance of an event
because it is impossible to foresee
what may develop and to make a
pledge of that sort would mean to
sacrifice a paper’s independence.
That would not be good journal-
ism and it should not be expected
of us. ... We wish to remain free
to praise or criticize as conditions
may demand and we would not
give up that right even for the pres-
ident of the United States.”
The Klan was also active in
Pendleton, as the East Orego-
nian reported. “Under the light
shed by a fiery cross in the arena
at Round-Up park a class of more
than 100 candidates were initi-
ated in to the Pendleton branch of
the Ku Klux Klan last night in the
first public ceremonial ever held
here. The grand stand was packed
with people who attended to see
the ceremony. Preceding the cer-
emony, klansmen to the number
of approximately 275 in costume,
paraded from the hall on Main
street to the Round-Up grounds. ...
Fiery crosses on both the north and
south hills burned during the eve-
ning for several hours.”
Oregon employers to receive Outdoors RV celebrates
$160 million from SAIF
production of 20,000th unit
SAIF declares two
dividends, one
based on premium
and one tied to
safety performance
East Oregonian
SALEM — Policyhold-
ers with the State Accident
Insurance Fund Corp. in
Oregon will receive $160
million in dividends this
year, the nonprofit work-
ers compensation insurer
announced Wednesday.
The SAIF Board of
Directors declared a $120
million primary dividend
to be paid to policyholders
based on their premium,
and a $40 million safety
performance dividend to be
paid based on each policy-
holder’s safety results.
This is the 10th year in
a row SAIF has been able
to offer dividends, and the
22nd dividend in the past
30 years.
“As a not-for-profit with
a public mission to make
workers’ comp available
and affordable, paying div-
idends is an important part
of the value we offer Ore-
gon employers,” said Kerry
Barnett, president and CEO
of SAIF. “SAIF is the only
insurance carrier in Oregon
that regularly returns div-
idends to policyholders at
this level.”
Policyholders in Uma-
tilla County will receive
more than $2.9 million and
Union County policyhold-
ers will receive more than
$1.1 million. Those figures
do not include state agen-
cies or public universities.
“Our vision is to make
Oregon the safest and
healthiest place to work,”
Barnett said. “We appre-
ciate our policyholders’
efforts to ensure their work-
ers go home safely at the
end of each day.”
SAIF
determines
whether a policyholder div-
idend is appropriate based
on capital levels, claim
trends, and the overall eco-
nomic environment. This
year SAIF has seen strong
investment returns and
favorable trends in injury
prevention and claim cost
containment.
The safety performance
dividend rewards policy-
holders for their claims
experience for policies
whose annual term ended
in 2018, based on a scale
ranging from zero to 10.6%
of their standard premium.
More than 48,500 pol-
icyholders are eligible for
SAIF’s primary dividend.
Of those, about 93.9% are
also eligible to receive all
or a portion of the addi-
tional safety performance
dividend.
“In addition to divi-
dends, we are proud to offer
our customers some of the
lowest rates, best-in-class
service, and the largest net-
work of workplace safety
professionals of any insur-
ance carrier in Oregon,”
said Barnett. “Our goal is to
deliver workers’ comp that
really works.”
Checks will be mailed
in October to eligible
employers.
BRIEFLY
Business
workshops offer
new tools
PENDLETON — The
Small Business Develop-
ment Center at Blue Moun-
tain Community College is
kicking off its fall work-
shop series with a pair of
classes in Pendleton.
Both workshops are
led by Michael Mettler of
MCM Strategic + Com-
munications. The first is
Wednesday, Oct. 9 and
will focus on integrat-
ing Google Business into
your communications arse-
nal and why the platform
is becoming increasingly
more important. The other,
which is Wednesday, Oct.
23, focuses on promoting
and growing your business
digitally, including how to
create two-way communi-
cation channels and calen-
daring your content.
The workshop sessions
run from from 9 a.m. to
noon at BMCC, 2411 N.W.
Carden Ave., Pendleton. It
includes light refreshments
and a follow-up session
to evaluate progress sev-
eral weeks following. Each
workshop costs $39.
For more information or
to register, contact Andrea
Fowler at 541-278-5833.
Pamplin Media
cuts pay, hours
PORTLAND — Pam-
plin Media, publisher
of the Portland Tribune
and several community
papers, notified employ-
ees this week that the com-
pany is cutting their hours
and pay. It’s the latest in a
series of cutbacks in Ore-
gon media organizations
amid an economic crisis
in the news industry, but
Pamplin said it expects the
cuts will be temporary.
The company is reduc-
ing full-time staff to 38
hours per week, according
to Publisher Mark Garber.
That’s a 5% cut in hours,
and Pamplin is making a
corresponding cut in pay.
In an email to The Ore-
gonian, Garber said rev-
enues have been consis-
tently stable since the
Great Recession. But he
said this year the company
has experienced revenue
“softness,” an issue com-
pounded by rising news-
print prices associated with
federal tariffs imposed last
year.
“We have committed to
reviewing the temporary
reduction in hours every
three months and commu-
nicating with employees
about our progress toward
restoring the week from 38
hours to 40,” Garber wrote.
— EO Media Group
and East Oregonian staff
Courtesy photo
Outdoors RV, based in La Grande, celebrates the production of its 20,000th unit with its
local Outdoors RV dealer, Thompson RV of Pendleton. Thompson RV was one of the first
RV dealers to sign up to be a part of the Outdoors RV family. The focus of Outdoors RV is to
design and build recreational vehicles for the customers who enjoy “Mountain Tough Four
Seasons Camping.”
U.S. hop supply, demand balanced
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
YAKIMA, Wash. —
A 2% increase in inven-
tory of U.S. hops since
last September shows con-
tinued reasonable bal-
ance between supply and
demand despite a continu-
ing but slowing acreage
increase in recent years, a
leading producer says.
Crop production in 2018
increased just 1% over
2017, “so a 2% increase in
hop stocks 12 months later
is relatively in line with
the production increase,”
says Pete Mahony, vice
president of supply chain
and purchasing for John I.
Haas Inc. in Yakima. Haas
is a leader in production,
processing and research
and development of hops.
USDA’s National Agri-
cultural Statistics Ser-
vice released its Sept. 1
hop stock report on Sept.
18 showing hop inven-
tory by growers, dealers
and brewers at 115 million
pounds, up 2% from the
113 million-pound inven-
tory a year earlier.
Stocks held at dealer
and grower locations
totaled 78 million pounds
and brewers held 37 mil-
lion pounds.
The
previous
two
Sept. 1 hop stock reports
showed annual increases
of about 15%, which was
expected as production
in those years increased
at nearly the same rate,
Mahony said.
In June, USDA NASS
estimated 57,339 acres of
hops for 2019, up 4% from
the record high of 55,035
in 2018. Of that, 72% is in
Washington, 15% in Idaho
and 13% in Oregon.
For many years, hop
growth has been fueled by
the rapid increase of craft
breweries, but their rate of
growth is now slowing.
“While we’ve certainly
seen some slowdown
in the U.S. craft indus-
try from the double-digit
growth rates of only a
few years ago, the indus-
try still continues to grow
although at a more moder-
ate and hopefully sustain-
able rate,” Mahony said.
A positive sign is
strong growth in the long
tail of craft, which are the
smaller, more local craft
brewers, he said. Long
tail growth has pushed the
total U.S. brewery count
beyond 7,000, he said.
Another positive sign is
continued craft growth in
overseas markets, which
need U.S. hops to replicate
popular beer styles of the
U.S., Mahony said.
“So as the market con-
ditions have been evolv-
ing and changing recently,
it is reassuring to see how
well the hop industry has
been able to keep supply
reasonably in balance with
demand over the past year,
as is evident in a hop stock
increase of only 2%,”
he said.
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