4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL November 30, 2016
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History
Prohibition liquor raid went horribly wrong
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
O
n a broad fl at stretch of the
Willamette Valley fl oor, just
across the freeway from the town of
Shedd, lies a little cluster of buildings
and a Mennonite church — all that
remains of the little town of Plain-
view, Oregon.
This tiny, bucolic hamlet was, 95
years ago, the scene of a pair of mur-
ders that are still talked about in west
Linn County today, the result of a
Prohibition liquor raid gone horribly
wrong. They’ve become known as the
Plainview Killings.
The full story of the Plainview
Killings can be found in Cory Frye’s
book, “Murder in Linn County, Or-
egon” (History Press, 2016). But here
are the basic bones of the story:
It all started out as a minor liquor
raid on a rural farm, very similar to
a thousand other Prohibition-enforce-
ment operations in rural Oregon in the
1920s. What made this one different,
other than the fi nal outcome, was the
fact that the preacher from the local
Christian Church came along.
No one really knows any more why
Sheriff Charles Kendall brought a
preacher with him that day. But it’s
possible, maybe even likely, that do-
ing so cost him his life, as well as the
minister’s.
The farmer’s name was Dave West,
and he was one of those prickly, in-
dividualistic mountain-man types,
originally from rural Indiana. West
had lived on a 40-acre farm near the
tiny hamlet of Plainview for 11 years.
He was in his late 60s but still just as
prickly as ever — and just as good a
shot, too: his skills as a sharpshooter
were locally famous.
Until that day in 1922, West’s near-
est brush with the local criminal-jus-
tice system had been a prosecution
for poaching. In general, he minded
his own business and expected others
to mind theirs, occasionally enforcing
this preference with a pair of callused,
farm-hardened fi sts.
But part of the business Dave West
minded had always been a small still,
located in the woodshed. There he
produced small quantities of high-
test grain alcohol, which he used for
drinking and for making a home-
remedy liniment for rheumatism. Of
course, after “bone-dry” Prohibition
passed in Oregon in 1915, he’d only
admit to using his moonshine for
the liniment; but nobody was really
fooled.
Still, even after it was patently il-
legal, Dave West continued to run his
still, more or less openly. His position
was that since he was just making
enough for his own personal use, and
it never left his property, it was none
of anybody’s business what he did in
his own barn.
And Sheriff Kendall seemed to
have agreed with that sentiment at
fi rst. Certainly he must have known
about the little still for months, may-
be even years, before he ever did any-
thing about it.
But on the afternoon of June 21,
1922, Kendall was on his way to
the West farm to, fi nally, enforce the
law. And he’d brought the pastor of
the First Christian Church, Rev. Roy
Healy.
Why he did that is still a little con-
troversial today. The Albany Demo-
crat-Herald later said Healy was
doing research for a book he was
writing on liquor-law enforcement.
Another theory was that the sheriff
had only launched the raid, with some
reluctance, in response to a complaint
lodged by the Reverend, and that the
Reverend had then insisted on ac-
companying him to make sure it got
done and that Sheriff Kendall wasn’t
tempted to look the other way, or pre-
tend West wasn’t home, or let him off
with a stern warning rather than mak-
ing an example of him for the righ-
teous.
Either way, it seems pretty clear that
Dave West took it badly. He seems to
have assumed that Healy was there
to gloat over his downfall. And for a
man of West’s temperament, that sort
of thing was simply not to be borne.
According to the recollections of
West’s wife, Ellen, Kendall and Healy
arrived at about 3 p.m. West was out-
side working, and his nephew’s fam-
ily was also there to help with haying
season.
Sheriff Kendall asked Ellen West
if there might be any alcohol on the
premises, and she went and fetched
a bottle of the family-recipe rheuma-
tism liniment. No no, he replied; he
was looking for drinking liquor.
At that point, Dave West entered
the house, and the conversation start-
ed to become heated. West, thinking
Kendall and Healy were interrogating
his wife, started out upset and only
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
From the Mayor-Elect:
I want to thank the Cottage Grove residents for giving me
the opportunity to serve as your Mayor. I feel so blessed
and humbled that you have the confi dence to vote me in to
this position. We will face many challenges ahead; how-
CONTACT
YOUR
ELECTED
OFFICIALS
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942-5501. www.cottage-
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Garland Burback, Ward 3:
942-4800
Amy Slay, Ward 4: 942-
5501
Lane County
Commissioners:
Cottage Grove City Coun-
cilors:
Faye Stewart, East Lane
Commissioner
Lane County Public Service
Building
125 East 8th Street
Eugene, OR 97401
Phone: (541) 682-4203
Fax: (541) 682-4616
Mike Fleck, At Large: 942-
5501
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Representatives:
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At Large: 942-5501
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District: 007
900 Court Street NE
Suite H-288
Salem, OR 97301
Phone: (503) 986-1407
Fax: (503) 986-1130
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
Cottage Grove Mayor Tom
Munroe: 942-5501.
Jake Boone, Ward 1: 653-
7413
Jeff Gowing, Ward 2: 942-
1900
ever, working together we can overcome those challenges.
I look forward to working with the Council and others in
the community to fi nd solutions to challenges, to continue
to grow sensibly and to maintain our small-town charm.
Jeff Gowing
Cottage Grove
Oregon State Senate:
Sen. Floyd Prozanski
(DEM)
District: 004
900 Court Street NE
Suite S-319
Salem, OR 97301-0001
Phone: (503) 986-1704
Fax: (503) 986-1080
Email: sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
Governor:
Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, Oregon 97301-4047
Phone: (503) 378-4582
Fax: (503) 378-6827
United States House of
Representatives:
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio
(DEM)
District: 004
United States House of
Representatives
2134 Rayburn House Offi ce
Building
Washington, DC 20515-
0001
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Fax: (202) 225-0032
Email: http://www.house.
gov/formdefazio/contact.
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District: 0S1
United States Senate
230 Dirksen Senate Offi ce
Building
Washington, DC 20510-
0001
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United States Senate
404 Russell Senate Offi ce
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0001
Phone: (202) 224-3753
Cruciferous vegetable intake improves survival
in women with breast cancer
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
A
t the recent American
Association
for Cancer
Research
a n n u a l
meeting,
new
evi-
dence high-
lighted the
importance
of cruciferous vegetables for
breast cancer protection.
The cruciferous vegetable
family includes broccoli, Brus-
sels sprouts, collard greens, cau-
lifl ower, and kale, among other
vegetables that are all related to
cabbage. The cruciferous fam-
ily is unique among vegetables
because of their glucosinolate
content – glucosinolates give
cruciferous vegetables their
characteristic spicy or bitter
tastes; upon blending, chop-
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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ping, or chewing, glucosinolates
are converted to isothiocyanates
(ITCs) – compounds with potent
anti-cancer effects, including:
Anti-infl ammatory
effects
– ITCs have been found to de-
crease the secretion of infl am-
matory molecules.
Anti-angiogenic effects – iso-
thiocyanates can inhibit the de-
velopment of new blood vessels
to limit tumor growth.
Detoxifi cation of carcino-
gens.
Preventing damage to DNA
that may lead to cancer.
Stopping cell division in cells
whose DNA has been damaged.
Promoting cell death in can-
cerous cells.
Anti-estrogenic activity – Ex-
posure to estrogen is known
to increase breast cancer risk;
ITCs have been shown to inhibit
the expression of estrogen-re-
sponsive genes.
Shifting hormone metabolism
– Eating cruciferous vegetables
regularly helps the body to shift
hormone metabolism, reducing
the cancer-promoting potency of
estrogen and other hormones.
After eating cruciferous veg-
etables, women have measur-
able isothiocyanates in their
breast tissue, and women who
eat more cruciferous vegetables
are less likely to be diagnosed
with breast cancer: In a recent
Chinese study, women who reg-
ularly ate one serving per day of
cruciferous vegetables had a 50
percent reduced risk of breast
cancer. A 17 percent decrease in
breast cancer risk was found in
a European study for consuming
cruciferous vegetables at least
once a week.
What about women who al-
ready have cancer? Is it too late
for cruciferous vegetables to
improve their prognosis? Child-
hood and adolescence are the
most crucial times for environ-
mental stimuli to affect breast
cancer risk, but changes made
during adulthood and even after
diagnosis still have the potential
to create positive changes in the
body.
A recent study kept track of
cruciferous vegetable intake
in Chinese women with breast
cancer for the fi rst three years
after diagnosis and followed the
women for a total of fi ve years.
They found that the more crucif-
erous vegetables women ate, the
less likely they were to experi-
ence breast cancer recurrence
or die from breast cancer. When
the women were grouped into
four groups (quartiles) based on
cruciferous vegetable consump-
tion, women in the highest quar-
tile had a 62 percent decrease
in risk of death and 35 percent
reduced risk of recurrence com-
pared to the lowest quartile.
This is not the fi rst study to
fi nd a link between cruciferous
vegetables and reduced risk of
breast cancer recurrence. In the
Women’s Healthy Eating and
Living (WHEL) study, breast
cancer survivors who reported
higher cruciferous and total
vegetable intake had a 52 per-
cent reduced risk of recurrence.
Don’t forget: cruciferous
vegetables must be chopped,
crushed, or chewed well for
maximum benefi t! The more
you chop before cooking (or
chew if you are eating the veg-
etables raw), the better. Some
ITC benefi t may be lost with
boiling or steaming, so we get
the maximum benefi t from eat-
ing cruciferous vegetables raw
– however, gut bacteria can also
produce some ITC from cooked
cruciferous vegetables after we
eat them. Also, we can increase
ITC production from cooked
cruciferous vegetables by hav-
ing some shredded raw crucifer-
ous vegetables such as cabbage,
kale, collards or arugula in a
salad during the same meal.
Combine anti-cancer foods
to maximize protection against
all cancers. A number of plant
foods are associated with lower
risk of cancers, and substances
contained in these foods display
anti-cancer or immune-boosting
properties. As a cancer-fi ghting
strategy, I recommend eating
these super foods (G-BOMBS:
greens, beans, onions, mush-
rooms, berries and seeds) si-
multaneously and in signifi cant
quantities. The combination
of cruciferous vegetables with
the rest of these powerful anti-
cancer foods creates delicious,
healthful, and powerfully pro-
tective meals.
Dr. Fuhrman is the #1 New
York Times bestselling author of
Eat to Live and Super Immuni-
ty, and a board certifi ed family
physician specializing in life-
style and nutritional medicine.
Visit his informative website at
DrFuhrman.com.
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