Smoke Signals 3
DECEMBER 1, 2001
Continued from front page
experience coming from a kid that lived in the
city so to speak Salem. It was just roaming
around those hills and they would point out how
to find tracks of deer mostly and once in a while
we would even find a bobcat paw in the dirt so it
was adventuresome Tom Sawyer-like for me.
So I had kind of an early introduction to the
Grand Ronde territory. Then they used to have
a railroad that came out there and stopped at
the station at what we called in those days
New Grand Ronde. There was New Grand
Ronde and Old Grand Ronde. Old Grand Ronde
was the Indian Agency on the other side there
going north. So, consequently we learned to dis
tinguish the places and events and things like
that so I just felt a very close relationship to the
Native people as part of the friends of my family
who where at the mill so it started in that period
of my life. Very exciting days for a kid.
Tell me what it was like going to school at
Willamette University and studying politi
cal science in the 40s. That must have been
a real interesting time in the world to have
been studying that subject.
It really started at Salem High School where
we had a social studies teacher who gave us a
great, exciting experience of (attending) the U.S.
Senate every year and studying a certain Sena
tor and then engaging in debate and discussions.
Teachers were very, very neutral with anything
politics, but she violated all of it and had a very
exciting class. Growing up there, I would go over
to the legislature when it was in session and sit
in the gallery after school let out at 3:30 p.m. I
would stay there for an hour or two until I had to
go home and eat. So, growing up in Salem, we
would go in the Capital cafeteria and there would
be the Governor sitting, or a State Legislator, so
we were kids growing up in a real laboratory so
to speak of politics. On Sundays, (while attend
ing Willamette University) I had a job I had to
work my way through school in part so I got a
job through the Secretary of State to be a guide
in the Capital on Sunday afternoons. And one
Sunday afternoon in December of 1941 we got
word that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and
war was eminent. It was so eminent and so real.
Then we got this blue cellophane paper with a
slit in it and put it over our headlights of our cars
for dark for blackouts which they immediately
ordered blackouts because they didn't know what
was going to happen then. So that was a very,
very exciting time. I went down and joined up
with the Navy, along with many of my other
friends, and so that was an introduction into in
ternational politics very quickly.
I bet it was. And I'll bet it was one of those
things where it was so in the news.
Yes.
And it was on everybody's lips.
Yes.
And people were talking about it.
Yes. We felt in danger. We really felt threat
ened. It is hard to explain that to people today
because distances are much better grasped, but
people in those days you have to remember
this was '41 we weren't out of the depression
and we didn't have the money to travel. I re
member the thrill of going to Canada for the first
time I was in a foreign country. And now
kids take off school years and go and travel in
Europe and all of that but this was a different
era, a different time.
One of the things that you said in your visit
that really stuck with me was that we
would like to forget 1954 (the year the
Grand Ronde Tribe was terminated by the
Federal government), but we can't. We
must remember. Why do you think we
don't want to forget that time of termina-
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tion for the Tribes and what the Tribes were
going through?
Well, I have a sort of a feeling even broader
than 1954 and that is that if we don't know our
history if we don't appreciate our history the
good, the bad, the happiness and the sorrows
we really don't know who we are today. I think
we are a sum total of our history. We are the
beneficiaries and we're the inheritors of decisions
that people made in the past and it's not that we
just dwell on the past, but it's to better under
stand the present. And in effect, be able to plan '
for the future. And the more we know of the
past, the better as I say we can understand who
we are today and help create and help guide the
future for improvements. We learn mostly by
contrast or experience, well we can't experience
the past, but we can see the contrasts and we
can study them and we become aware of them
and so that is what I meant by that.
You and Antoinette have four children.
Four. We had four children in six years. All
while I was Governor. I tell John Kitzhaber that
he has only produced one (child). He is way
behind. And I have the title of most productive
Governor in Oregon's history.
What was it like to be Governor? And
again, we are talking about a very signifi
cant point in history to be Governor and
then to be the only Governor to oppose the
Vietnam War, how did that play out?
Every period of time of course has it's own char
acteristics and in 1957 we were in a severe re
cession and 1958 was when I was elected. So,
we had to get a focus on what I called a diversi
fying of our economy and a campaign to create
new jobs in Oregon because when joblessness
comes it is usually the unskilled, it is usually the
poorer people who are barely hanging on to a
job that suffer first and so consequently the mills
were closing and there was a lot of unemploy
ment and so we were trying. In eight years we
created, through the leadership of my economic
development commission, about 187,000 new
jobs in that time period and went from being the
lowest per-capita income and the highest unem
ployment on the Pacific coast Oregon, Wash
ington and California to being the highest
per-capita income and the lowest unemployment.
So, it was a turnaround period. At the same
time, I suppose if I were just to list a couple of
things that became very, very important we
launched the community college system to fill
that gap that we didn't have for kids going out
of high school and not going to a four-year de
gree institutions to create focus on vocational
education and job development skills. So, we
launched 12 of them while I was still Governor
and I think there are 14 now. Then, we also found
that in Portland there was no post-graduate pro
grams post-doctoral programs, and so forth.
We created with no state money, because we
didn't have money enough to spend, we created
the Oregon Graduate Institute which is a research
center related to the industries the jobs related
to high tech, so we kind of launched the high
tech industry here through the OGI which is
now in the process of merging with Oregon Health
Sciences University. These were some of the
things. The Vietnam War to me was an unnec
essary war because I was in the Pacific in World
War II when Ho Chi Minh the communist
leader of Vietnam was our ally against the Japa
nese. So I saw the poverty of the people and I
wrote a letter home to my parents that I thought
the age of imperialism was over. Fortunately,
they saved the letter so that in 1945 I had made
these observations and it gave some background
at least to have understanding of why I could not
support the war now in our period of time. About
76 percent of the people of Oregon supported the
war at the time then that I ran for the senate in
1966. So the people thought I was dingy on the
war, but at least I might have been at least okay
at some other things.
Your personal diversification pulled you
through.
Yes. That's right.
It must have been a similar kind of thing
to support the Tribes back then too?
Absolutely, because, but you have to remem
ber too this was in the 1954 period. When I
grew up in Salem, after we moved from Dallas
to Salem, I used to get involved with Chemawa
Indian School which was just north of Salem
there and we would go out to their pageants and
to their celebrations. But, most of them that were
going there they were brought in from Alaska,
they were brought in from other parts of the
Northwest. And it was pretty much an inter
nalized association except for those of us who
came to visit. But, I had at home a very thought
ful mother and father as well who sat me down
and talked to me about when the first black kid
came into our classrooms. My mother came from
east Tennessee which was the Union part of Ten
nessee and the Republican part of Tennessee and
the abolitionist part of Tennessee so consequently
I have had background in my home life and
bringing up to help me understand my fellow
citizens, my fellow human beings in the minor
ity classes especially. It was a time of integra
tion, assimilation. It was to lose the distinctives
of our ethnic backgrounds in the great melting
pot theory. It was going to make them indepen
dent; it was going to bring them into a self-supporting
integrated, assimilated role. I think we
have to realize that there are cultural differences
and as a consequence we respect those distinc
tions as we are united under a common nation.
And another thing we had to learn in those days
is that the Indians are a nation. Each Tribe
was a negotiated treaty. America does not make
treaties with states, does not make treaties with
individuals. That was something that even a
political science student didn't understand in my
generation. It was something that really came
out of a closer association with Indians when I
was an adult. We did not have a great deal of
specifics as far as Indians; the feds dominated
the policies, the politics. We were more related
culturally and through celebrations. I think we
came to appreciate the Indian customs and the
Indian traditions that at least came as a counter
measure to the idea that we going to lose them
all through assimilation and termination.
I think those insights you had at that time
were not only unique, but you had fore
thought and you were like the Elders
always tell us we need to look into the fu
ture generations that's what you were
doing.
Trying. Trying. Better to try and fail than
not to try. D