6A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JULY 3, 2018
Off beat Oregon: When Oregon was Kennedy's make-or-break state
By Finn J.D. John
For The Sentinel
A
s the 1960 Democratic
presidential primary
neared, Sen. John F.
Kennedy was looking at Or-
egon with increasing appre-
hension. At that time, Oregon
was the fi rst Western state to
hold a mandatory primary —
in which every candidate ap-
peared on the ballot whether he
wanted to be or not.
Th at position, combined
with the state’s well-deserved
reputation as an electoral mav-
erick, made it a rather daunting
prospect.
Oregon had, over the pre-
vious decade or two, smashed
other well-positioned would-
be presidents’ hopes. In 1948,
popular Minnesota governor
Harold Stassen looked like he
had a great shot at the Repub-
lican nomination until the polls
closed in Oregon and he found
that Th omas Dewey of New
York had thumped him.
His campaign never recov-
ered.
Kennedy was very much hop-
ing to avoid having the same
thing happen to him. And,
frankly, his chances weren’t
looking particularly good. First
off , Oregon was quite possibly
the least Catholic-friendly state
in the West at the time.
Th e Ku Klux Klan’s rise in
Oregon in the 1920s had been
largely driven by anti-Catholic
prejudice, and before the Klan’s
support had collapsed under
the weight of its own hypocri-
sy and corruption, it had put
forward a ballot measure that
actually outlawed Catholic
schools.
Th e measure passed easily,
and had it not been ruled un-
constitutional by the Supreme
Court, it would have forced the
closure of all Catholic grade
schools statewide.
It’s easy to forget this to-
day, but in 1960 there were
still plenty of Protestants who
called Catholics “Papists” and
worried about their loyalty. A
Catholic president, these voters
thought, would take march-
ing orders from the Vatican. It
would be like electing an agent
of a foreign government to the
most important job in the land.
So, there was that. But prob-
ably more on Kennedy’s mind
was the personal animosity his
brother Robert Kennedy had
stirred up in the Beaver State by
the enthusiasm with which he’d
prosecuted the then-mobbed-
up Teamsters Union, in the
process actually indicting and
prosecuting Portland’s popu-
lar Democratic mayor, Terry
Schrunk.
Th e Teamsters were still pow-
erful in Oregon and elsewhere,
and Schrunk — although ac-
quitted of all charges — had be-
come a lifelong personal enemy
of the entire Kennedy family.
So, too, apparently, had Ore-
gon’s most prominent national
politician, Sen. Wayne Morse.
Morse considered Kennedy too
young and callow for the job
(in fairness, history would give
some pretty strong evidence
that he was right about this, at
least at fi rst) and felt that, given
the unprecedented power vest-
ed in the American President in
the nuclear age, extreme mea-
sures were called for to prevent
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Sen. John F. Kennedy greets Mrs. Mary M. Barr at the Salem airport on Sept. 7, 1960. (Image:
Marion County Historical Society)
his nomination.
So, Sweetland writes, Oregon of Morse’s personal friends,
So, he had launched a was almost literally Kennedy’s stuck with Kennedy even af-
last-minute bid for the nom- make-or-break moment.
ter Morse announced his bid.
ination, in competition with
Kennedy’s prospects in Ore- Time Magazine reported that
Kennedy — and, of course, he’d gon started out bad and quickly Morse was furious about this
enjoy favorite-son status.
got worse. As the big day ap- — but Morse was enough of a
So yes, Oregon was going to proached, though, some things political realist that he probably
be a real challenge for Kenne- started breaking Kennedy’s didn’t expect committed Ken-
dy. But could a loss in Oregon way. Some of them were very nedy people to drop everything
actually derail Kennedy’s entire big things.
and rally to his last-minute fl ag.
campaign?
Probably the most important
Kennedy couldn’t bank too
Kennedy sure thought so, of these was, it soon became much on that, of course, be-
and in a retrospective essay clear that Morse had overplayed cause Morse was still the most
written four years later, leg- his hand. He’d waited until the popular politician in Ore-gon.
endary Oregon politician and last minute to launch his bid for So, he kept a suitably humble
newspaper publisher Monroe the presidency, and it was pret- spirit about himself as he cam-
Sweetland makes a strong case ty obvious to all involved that paigned in Oregon, and tried
that he was right. Th e problem he wasn’t serious about being to do a little pre-election dam-
was, although he had had some elected president — that he was age control: “I’m hoping to be
good momentum going into the running primarily to deny Ken- a good second to Sen. Morse,”
primary, he didn’t have enough nedy the nomination.
he said.
to be able to aff ord a loss.
Other Oregon Democrats
But, as he well knew, second
He’d hoped the Wiscon- might have supported his posi- place wouldn’t work. Actual-
sin primary, held a few weeks tion that Kennedy wasn’t ready, ly, winning the election might
earlier, would inoculate his but they sure weren’t going to not even work if he didn’t nail
campaign bandwagon against risk taking the blame for their down an actual majority of
anti-Catholicism; but the op- party losing a presidential elec- votes (there were six candidates
posite happened: he won there, tion.
on the ballot); already there
but by a narrow margin, and
So nearly all Oregon Demo- were rumors of a last-minute
the key Protestant-heavy dis- cratic leaders, including many coalition forming around Adlai
tricts strongly went for his op-
ponents.
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if it did, Republican Rich-ard
Nixon would fi nd in the an-
ti-Catholic issue a hot cam-
paign topic that played straight
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Sweetland writes.
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And he is probably right.
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Catholicism issue that Kennedy
had hoped to get from Wiscon-
sin, plus demonstrating that
JFK could win friends and in-
fl uence people out west as well
as back east. A decisive win in
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123 S. 7th St., Cottage Grove
Oregon would make Kennedy’s
nomination all but inevitable.
Stevenson.
In the end, Kennedy got ex-
actly what he needed from Or-
egon, and hardly a single vote
more. Th e fi nal vote tally put
him at 50.9 percent of the vote
— a commanding lead over
the number-two vote-getter,
Morse, with 32 percent.
Nationwide, the results were
immediate. Kennedy’s nomina-
tion was never really in doubt
aft er that, although a last-min-
ute push was made to get all the
other candidates’ supporters to
unite behind Adlai Stevenson.
“Th e Oregon Trail for Sen.
John F. Kennedy was real-
ly the end of a long, grueling
cross-country tour de force,”
Time Magazine wrote. “Pitted
for the fi rst time against a fi eld
of four, Kennedy registered a
knockout.”
So, was it true? Did Oregon
eff ectively play kingmaker for
the country in 1960?
Sweetland, writing from the
political trenches, thinks it ab-
BEST
solutely did. And although in
his 2000 article Jack Ohman
— the Portland Morning Or-
egonian’s editorial cartoonist,
who was at the time a graduate
student at Portland State Uni-
versity — expresses appropriate
academic reluctance to make
wild speculations, he qualifi ed-
ly agrees that it probably did.
(Sources: Ohman, Jack. “Did
the Oregon Primary Make
Kennedy President?”, Oregon
Historical Quarterly, Fall 2000;
Sweetland, Monroe. “Th e Fri-
day in Oregon that Made Ken-
nedy President,” Oregon His-
torical Quarterly, Fall 2000)
Finn J.D. John teaches at
Oregon State University and
writes about odd tidbits of
Oregon history. For details, see
www.fi nnjohn.com. To contact
him or suggest a topic: fi nn2@
offb eatoregon.com or 541-357-
2222.
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