Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current, January 23, 2019, Image 7

Historic Oregon Newspapers

Cottage Grove sentinel., January 23, 2019, Page 7A, Image 7

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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2019)

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Newspaper Page TextCOTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JANUARY 23, 2019 • NEW: Digital X-Rays (use less radiation) Implants •Teeth Whitening • Extractions Lumineers (no prep veneers as seen on TV) Off beat Oregon: When the governor’s secretary imposed martial law on three saloons. By Finn J.D. John for The Sentinel Cottage Grove Dental Dr. Brent Bitner, DDS 350 Washington, Cottage Grove (behind Better Bodies) 541.942.7934 Michili Monroi, LCSW Counseling Services 541-255-8822 1450 Birch Ave Cottage Grove, OR 97424 • Individual and Family Counseling • Insurance and Sliding Scale • Accepting New Clients • Weekend and Weekday Appointments Available ARE YOU READY FOR WINTER? Outdoor faucet covers & heat tape available! Family owned and operated for over 47 years. LANDSCAPE AND BUILDING MATERIALS Open 7 days a week! 79149 N. River Road 541-942-4664 Phone and Internet Discounts Available to CenturyLink Customers The Oregon Public Utility Commission designated CenturyLink as an Eligible Telecommunications Carrier within its service area for universal service purposes. CenturyLink’s basic local service rates for residential voice lines are $15.80-$17.55 per month and business services are $23.00-$28.00 per month. Speciﬁc rates will be provided upon request. CenturyLink participates in a government beneﬁt program (Lifeline) to make residential telephone or broadband service more affordable to eligible low- income individuals and families. Eligible customers are those that meet eligibility standards as deﬁned by the FCC and state commissions. Residents who live on federally recognized Tribal Lands may qualify for additional Tribal beneﬁts if they participate in certain additional federal eligibility programs. The Lifeline discount is available for only one telephone or qualifying broadband service per household, which can be either a wireline or wireless service. Broadband speeds must be 18 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload or faster to qualify. A household is deﬁned for the purposes of the Lifeline program as any individual or group of individuals who live together at the same address and share income and expenses. Lifeline service is not transferable, and only eligible consumers may enroll in the program. Consumers who willfully make false statements in order to obtain Lifeline telephone or broadband service can be punished by ﬁne or imprisonment and can be barred from the program. A ll Oregonians owe former Gov. Oswald West a debt of grati- tude for saving Oregon’s beach- es from being locked away in private ownership. But the progressive “father- knows-best” impulses that inspired West to take that ac- tion didn’t always lead in such positive directions. Th ere were other events during West’s gov- ernorship when he came out looking positively fascistic — perfectly willing to disregard the rule of law when it con- fl icted with his own opinion of what was morally right. And that is how progressive hero Os West came to be the only governor in state history (so far as I have been able to learn) to actually issue an An- drew Jackson-style command to the Oregon National Guard ignore a legally issued court order. Here’s how this happened... I n the fi rst few years of the 20th century, the Baker County town of Copperfi eld was platted, near Baker City. It was originally a small cop- per-mining town; but by 1907 or so, Copperfi eld was more or less a construction camp: a pair of very long tunnels were un- der construction nearby, one by the predecessor of the Idaho Power Company and the other by a local railroad. Th e town quickly developed a reputation for lawlessness. At its peak, it boasted 11 saloons, 11 brothels, two hotels, three stores, and a four-cell jail- house/drunk tank with a dance hall on the second fl oor. But then, starting early in 1910, the construction workers started leaving. Th e railroad tunnel was fi nished; the pow- er plant soon was too. By late 1913 the town had dwindled from 1,000 or so residents to just 100 or so. But this left the town’s saloons and bordellos all gasping for business. Th e majority of them quiet- ly closed their doors. But the owners of the others — three saloons, and possibly some of the brothels as well — quickly realized that they could turn Copperfi eld’s reputation to their advantage, drawing visi- tors from nearby Baker City for a good time, the way Los Vegas does with Los Angeles. And this is where things started to go badly for them. It turned out that, out of the 100-odd residents of the town, at least half did not approve of the saloon and bordello own- ers’ new “sin tourism” busi- ness model. Th eir complaints to Baker County Sheriff Ed Rand having gone unheeded, they sent a petition to Gover- nor West with 50 signatures on it. Th ey complained that the saloons were selling booze on Sundays and hosting illegal gambling. (Th ey didn’t men- tion the prostitution in the pe- tition.) West, a committed Prohi- bitionist who was at that very moment working to get booze outlawed in Oregon, was very sympathetic. He promptly is- sued an order to Rand to close the saloons by Dec. 26. Rand, as an elected offi cial, did not answer to the gover- nor, so the order had no le- gal weight; but he tried to be diplomatic about it. What law should he invoke, he asked the governor? None of the resi- dents were willing to be wit- nesses against the saloons in court, so he couldn’t get a court order to close anyone. Without a court order, he couldn’t legal- ly close any business. “Th at,” writes historian Gary Diehlman dryly, “was not the answer that West wanted to hear.” So West announced his in- tention to send his secretary, Fern Hobbs, to impose martial law on the town. Now, Fern Hobbs was 30 years old in 1913, but she looked about 22. She was a slender, petite woman, bespec- tacled, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with DENTAL Insurance Physicians Mutual Insurance Company A less expensive way to help get the dental care you deserve If you’re over 50, you can get coverage for about No wait for preventive care and no deductibles – $1 a day* you could get a checkup tomorrow Keep your own dentist! You can go to any dentist Coverage for over 350 procedures including you want cleanings, exams, fi llings, crowns…even dentures a classically beautiful, girlish face. She would have looked rather like a cute young school- teacher or librarian — if it weren’t for those steady, steely eyes. Th e fact was, she was no ordinary secretary. As most historians have over the years neglected to mention, she was a licensed and practicing at- torney (Willamette Universi- ty, Class of ’13). She was also, incidentally, the highest-paid woman in public service in the United States. Overall, Fern Hobbs, J.D., was the ultimate stealth pack- age. When she stepped off the train car in Copperfi eld, the local businessmen had no idea what was about to hit them. gality could be probed. Th at’s when Oswald West issued his infamous order to Lawson to ignore the court and carry on. Lawson, worried about get- ting arrested by Sheriff Rand for contempt of court, request- ed and got reinforcements. Th ey stayed in Copperfi eld, en- forcing martial law, for several weeks. In Baker City, there was a distinct note of fear in the cov- erage of this unfolding aff air. “MARTIAL LAW FOR BAK- ER NEXT,” screamed a two- inch-tall headline on the front page of the Baker City Morn- ing Democrat shortly aft er the raid. “If the power and authority of our civil courts is to be thus treated,” wrote the editor of the Morning Democrat, “then we certainly have a czar in the gubernatorial chair in Salem whose word and command is law, and we had just as well abolish our courts and turn over all aff airs of state to the executive.” Th e whole aff air fi nally made its way to court in Baker, where the judge ruled that courts could not forbid a governor from declaring martial law, but that the saloon owners could fi le a civil lawsuit and collect damages aft erward if a gov- ernor did so inappropriately. Whether they pursued this or not, I have been unable to learn. Th e saloons never reopened; in 1914, the voters of Oregon approved Prohibition, so there wouldn’t have been much point. And the next year, a fi re of suspicious origin swept through the business district, dealing the fi nal coup de grace to the town of Copperfi eld. To- day the old town site is a park operated by Idaho Power. I n what must have been intended as an attempt to charm the “secretary,” the locals had decorated the town with copious amounts of bunting and pink and blue ribbons, and a small welcoming committee of city councilmen stood by to greet her, each holding a bou- quet of fl owers, as she stepped onto the platform. Th eir fi rst nasty shock must have been the fi ve armed and grim-faced Oregon National Guard offi cers who stepped off the train aft er her. Hobbs declined the prof- fered bouquets, but handed each City Council member a letter of resignation to sign. (Remember, these were elect- ed offi cials, not gubernatorial appointees.) Th ey all, of course refused to step down. At that, Hobbs declared the town under martial law, or- dered National Guard Col. B.K. Lawson to impose it, and took the 4 o’clock train to Baker City — where she checked into the Geiser Grand hotel and re- buff ed all attempts to contact her. Lawson and his troops then proceeded to padlock all the saloons and confi scate all the liquor, weapons and gambling supplies in Copperfi eld. Saloon owners Henry Stew- art and William Wiegand (the town’s mayor and one of its city councilors, respectively) promptly fi led a suit to stop the confi scations. A circuit court judge fi led an injunction to stop the process while its le- (Sources: Dielman, Gary. “Copperfi eld” and “Copper- fi eld Aff air, 1913-1914,” Th e Oregon Encyclopedia, ore- gonencyclopedia.org; Baker City Morning Democrat, Dec. 1913-Jan. 1914; Albany Demo- crat, Jan. 1914) NO annual or lifetime cap o n the cash benefi ts you can receive Imagine The Difference You Can Make FREE Information Kit DONATE YOUR CAR 1-877-599-0125 Or www.dental50plus.com/25 *Individual plan. Product not available in MN, MT, NH, NM, RI, VT, WA. Acceptance guaranteed for one insurance policy/certificate of this type. Contact us for complete details about this insurance solicitation. This specific offer is not available in CO, NY; call 1-800-969-4781 or respond for similar offer. 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