Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (May 3, 2017)
4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL MAY 3, 2017 O PINION Offbeat Oregon History: CG's revenge Anyone who’s spent any time in For The Sentinel the town of Cot- tage Grove, at the southernmost tip of the Willamette Val- ley, knows the town has a somewhat checkered relationship with the city of Eugene. Everything is friendly and amiable between the two towns, to be sure. But it’s rather like the relationship be- tween a wealthy older sibling who’s a bank president, and a younger one who works on the green chain in a sawmill. There is a core of tension between Lane County’s biggest city and its third-big- gest (Springfi eld is, of course, number 2). And that tension has not always been as mild and understated as it is today. The few years just after 1910 were when it was arguably at its worst, be- cause that’s the year it fl ared into a sort of open warfare between the two towns — a war fought at the ballot box, using a then-brand-new weapon: The Initia- tive and Referendum System. Here’s the story: As the new century dawned, the little riverside town formerly known as Eu- gene City was growing fast. The town had gotten its start as the southernmost terminus of the riverboats that brought grain down the Willamette River to the market in Portland before the railroads were built; but by the turn of the centu- ry the riverboats were history, and the new engine of Eugene’s growth was the University of Oregon. Then as now, the U of O was some- thing the town took great pride in. And as a driver of commercial success, it was hard to beat. Eugene soon out- paced all its rivals in size and economic power. It was also, of course, the coun- ty seat. The problem was, from the stand- point of Lane County’s third-largest town down at the southernmost tip of the county, Eugene’s municipal boost- erism was taking over county govern- ment. County offi cials were not nearly as diligent in allocating resources to fi x roads and infrastructure outside the Eugene-Springfi eld area as they were in collecting taxes there. “Grovers,” as they sometimes call themselves, were feeling the pinch of the old “taxation without representation” complaint — or, at least, they had convinced them- selves that they were. And their complaints fell upon deaf By Finn JD John ears … until some- one fl oated a new idea: Carve off South Lane County, join it to North Douglas County, and form a new coun- ty: Nesmith County, named after pioneer lawyer-politician James Nesmith. Lane County’s re- sponse to this proposal of secession was as pre- dictable as it was fero- cious. They immediate- ly moved to organize opposition, and cam- paigned fi ercely against it. Douglas County swells were only slight- ly less fi erce. “They have deliber- ately included a maxi- mum of taxable proper- ty with but a minimum of expense,” raged state Rep. John Buchanan, whose district covered Douglas and Jackson County. This, of course, was exactly Cottage Grove’s major beef — that the South County was being treated as a revenue machine, from which taxes could be extracted far in excess of the services Lane County chose to provide there. Advocates argued that the new coun- ty would be just a small one, less than 2,000 square miles, with an assessed property value of just $5 million; this would leave Lane County with an as- sessed-property value of $18 million and Douglas with $27 million. But most of that $5 million would come from Lane County, not Douglas — 22 percent of Lane County’s entire assessed valuation was at stake, as op- posed to just 4.7 percent of Douglas’s. And, as Rep. Buchanan inadvertently pointed out, it would alter Lane Coun- ty’s cash fl ow substantially, as South Lane County was something of a cash- cow for them. Well, when it came time to vote on this statewide ballot measure, most res- idents of the state of Oregon were not convinced that Cottage Grove ought to have its own county. The measure went down to a crushing defeat, with about 68,000 “no” votes to just 23,000 “yes.” Then as now, it seemed unlikely that Eugene’s savage opposition was re- sponsible for such a lopsided outcome. It’s far more likely that the rest of Or- egon, seeing no particular reason to change things, voted to leave them as they were. But Cottage Grove took the loss very hard — and blamed Eugene for it. They bided their time and waited for a chance to be revenged. And, the very next year, it came. The University of Oregon, Eugene’s pride and joy and the main driver of its economy, was running out of money. It needed new buildings to accommodate its burgeoning population of students, and to hire more faculty members. At stake was the university’s reputation, which city boosters feared would soon fall behind the competing state fl agship universities in Berkeley and Seattle. So in 1911 the state Legislature hap- pily voted through a half-million dollar appropriation to redress all the deferred maintenance, and an ongoing appropri- ation to adjust the university’s income from the state, and things looked like they were on track for a golden fu- ture there in Duck country … until the still-embittered proponents of Nesmith County realized what a golden oppor- tunity for revenge this represented. Galvanized into action, the Grovers passed a kitty, raised a war chest and hired a Portland lawyer to gather sig- natures, paying 3.5 cents for each one — one of the fi rst uses of paid signature gatherers in an Oregon ballot-measure campaign. Their plan was to refer the university’s appropriations bill to the statewide ballot, for all the voters of the state to vote on — and those voters had already demonstrated their over- whelming propensity to say “no” to expenditures that they didn’t directly benefi t from. The Grovers apparently gave the at- torney a blank check, for he came back with 13,175 signatures — more than double the amount they needed. And it was a good thing, too, because once Eugene fi gured out what was afoot, the town’s movers and shakers started working all the angles. A Marion County attorney sued to have the measure removed from the ballot, arguing that the signatures were all fake. A lower court ruled he was right; the Grovers appealed. The Appeals court, after hearing the case and getting input from all sides as well as from Initiative and Petition System founder William U’Ren, had the signatures gone through one by one, and each one that couldn’t be au- thenticated was discarded. It was well for the Grovers that they had gone in for overkill; nearly half the signatures went by the board, but the stack that re- mained was tall enough to qualify the referral. Onto the ballot it went. And, as ev- eryone had fi gured they would, the voters of the state voted nearly three to one against giving the University of Oregon its money. Now indeed was the fury of Eu- gene focused on little Cottage Grove. The editor of the Eugene City Guard, Charles Fisher, was especially fero- cious, and vented his fury both on Cot- tage Grove and on one of the Portland attorneys hired by the Grovers, a man named Edward S.J. McAllister, who became vulnerable to attack after being caught up in the 1912 “same-sex vice scandal” centered around Portland’s community of gay men. After that, there was some talk in the Cottage Grove Sentinel about getting Nesmith County on the ballot again. But it was never done. As for the Uni- versity of Oregon, it had to hobble along for another couple of years on a small emergency appropriation. The episode likely did lasting damage to the university — it occurred during a fairly critical phase of the college’s growth and put it at a substantial disadvantage vis-à-vis the other West Coast states’ fl agship colleges. But Cottage Grove and South Lane County had made their point. They would not be underestimated again. C ottage G rove S entinel Administration John Bartlett, Regional Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager ................................................. Ext. 207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Aaron Ames, Marketing Specialist ........................................... Ext. 216 aames@cgsentinel.com Tammy Sayre, Marketing Specialist ......................................... Ext. 213 tsayre@cgsentinel.com Editorial Caitlyn May, Editor. ................................................................. Ext. 212 cmay@cgsentinel.com Sport Editor ................................................................................ Ext. 204 sports@cgsentinel.com Customer Service Carla Williams, Offi ce Manager .............................................. Ext. 200 Legals, Classifi eds .......................................... Ext. 200 cwilliams@cgsentinel.com Production Ron Annis, Production Supervisor ............................................. Ext.215 graphics@cgsentinel.com (USP 133880) Subscription Mail Rates in Lane and Portions of Douglas Counties: Ten Weeks..............................................................................................$9.50 One year ............................................................................................. $37.65 e-Edition year ...................................................................................... $35.00 Rates in all other areas of United States: Ten Weeks $12.25; one year, $49.20, e-Edition $35.00. In foreign countries, postage extra. No subscription for less than Ten Weeks. Subscription rates are subject to change upon 30 days’ notice. All subscritptions must be paid prior to beginning the subscription and are non-refundable. Periodicals postage paid at Cottage Grove, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. Local Mail Service: If you don’t receive your Cottage Grove Sentinel on the Wednesday of publication, please let us know. Call 541-942-3325 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Advertising Ownership: All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by the Cottage Grove Sentinel become the property of the Cottage Grove Sentinel and may not be reproduced for any other use without explicit written prior approval. Copyright Notice: Entire contents ©2017 Cottage Grove Sentinel. Letters to the Editor policy The Cottage Grove Sentinel receives many letters to the editor. In order to ensure that your letter will be printed, letters must be under 300 words and submitted by Friday at 5 p.m. Letters must be signed and must include an address, city and phone number or e-mail address for verifi cation purposes. No anonymous letters will be printed. Letters must be of interest to local readers. Personal attacks and name calling in response to letters are uncalled for and unnecessary. If you would like to submit an opinion piece, Another View must be no longer than 600 words. To avoid transcription errors, the Sentinel would prefer editorial and news content be sent electronically via email or electronic media. Hand written submissions will be accepted, but we may need to call to verify spelling, which could delay the publishing of the submission.
