Cottage Grove sentinel., July 24, 2019, WEDNESDAY EDITION, Page 11, Image 11

COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 2019 | 11A
Offbeat Oregon: How a humble banana peel changed Oregon history
By Finn J.D. John
for The Sentinel
O
n your next vis-
it to the beach,
you might want
to bring along a banana.
One of these humble fruits
played a small but import-
ant part in the historical
chain of events that led to
the state’s beaches becom-
ing a birthright for all Ore-
gonians.
More specifically, it was
the banana peel — an item
that has played an import-
ant role in hundreds of slap-
stick routines over the years.
But rather than setting up a
pratfall for a cheap laugh,
this particular peel set up
one of the most important
governorships in state his-
tory — and set one of the
most important of Oregon’s
U.S. Senators on the path to
power.
I
t was the year 1910, and
a young lawyer named
Oswald West was checking
into a hotel in Portland. He
was there on a mission: to
convince Dr. Harry Lane to
sign on as the Democratic
Party’s candidate for gover-
nor.
West was an up-and-
comer in the party, but he
was not yet a particularly
big deal. He’d gotten his
start in 1903 when his boss,
Asahel Bush, recommended
him for the job of state land
agent in the wake of the dis-
covery of the school-lands
swindle.
Gov. George Chamber-
lain gave him the job, and
over the next several years
he clawed back what land
parcels he could and helped
prosecute such of the
thieves and grafters as had
left themselves legally ex-
posed in their feeding fren-
zy — “to save for our school
children at least a small
portion of their birthright,”
as he put it.
West dove into the proj-
ect, and his 1904 report set
up the land-fraud trials the
following year.
Then, in 1907, Chamber-
lain named him to the new-
ly formed railroad com-
mission. The railroads had
been taking full advantage
of their effective monopo-
ly, and popular resentment
had reached the boiling
point.
This job had given West
a statewide reputation. But
he was still a junior po-
litico — not yet out of his
30s. The idea of running
for governor himself had
not occurred to him — or,
if it had, he was enough of
a team player to have dis-
missed it as something to
work toward in the next go.
For now, he was concen-
trating on filling the top of
the party’s ticket with the
most viable candidate, and
that — hands down — was
Harry Lane.
asylum after publicly ex-
posing a number of corrupt
(but politically well-con-
nected) contractors, who
had been happily deliver-
ing barely-usable supplies
and charging for first-rate
goods; since then, he’d
served on the state board
of health and been elected
Mayor of Portland.
He was the state’s most
well-known and respected
progressive reformer.
In 1910, Lane had just
finished up his second term
as Mayor, during which
he’d cleaned up the town’s
notorious waterfront and
red-light districts, put on a
swell spread for visitors in
the Lewis and Clark Expo-
sition, and generally made
himself a thorn in the side
of the beneficiaries of graft
and corruption.
Os West knew he could
and would win. The Re-
publicans had nobody with
his levels of visibility and
reputation for honesty. So,
he had traveled to P-town
from his home in Salem, to
remonstrate with Lane per-
arry Lane was some- sonally.
thing like an older
version of Os West. He was
est arrived in Port-
the grandson of Joseph
land at the end of
Lane, the U.S. Senator who an inspection he’d been re-
destroyed his career by quired to do for his job on
running for Vice-President the state railroad commis-
with John Breckenridge on sion. The train didn’t reach
the pro-slavery Southern Portland until very late, and
Democrats’
Presidential he found the hotel full; the
ticket in 1860.
state Republican Party was
But that apple had fallen holding its nominating con-
a long way from its tree. vention nearby.
The younger Lane became
With the help of the desk
a medical doctor, and soon clerk, West managed to
developed a reputation for find a room in a small ho-
treating poor Oregonians tel nearby; but by the time
and then rebuffing their at- he did, and settled into it, it
tempts to pay him. By 1910, was 10 p.m.
he had a reputation for seri-
Nonetheless, he had to
ousness and for scrupulous have a candidate by the fol-
incorruptibility.
lowing morning. So West
He’d been run out of his picked up the telephone and
job as director of the insane rousted Harry Lane out of
H
W
bed — “informing him that,
regardless of the lateness of
the hour, I was coming out
to his home for the purpose
of discussing an important
political matter,” as West
put it.
Lane lived in Sellwood,
which, in 1910, was more
or less an adjacent town.
The city streetcars would
take West to the outskirts of
Portland, but he was on his
own for the last mile or so
through the woods. It was
11 p.m. before he got there.
Lane, who received West
in his night-shirt, was du-
bious.
“He feared,” West re-
called, “that he couldn’t
make it; that he couldn’t
stand the expense of such a
campaign; and would have
to have time to carefully
consider the matter.”
Reading between the
lines, it’s clear Lane was feel-
ing discouraged. The forces
of graft and vice were al-
ready celebrating his depar-
ture as mayor, and rolling
back some of his reforms;
and his scrupulous honesty
had lost him a lot of friends
among the powerful.
Surrounded all the time
by the state’s V.I.P.s, with
whom he was unpopular,
he hadn’t quite realized how
popular he was among the
voters at large.
West gave his best shot at
convincing Lane to go for
it. He told Lane to take an
hour to think about it and
call him at his hotel room;
the party would have to
have a candidate the next
day.
So West traipsed through
the woods and fields back
to the outskirts of Portland,
along the way picking up
three bananas (probably
from a saloon; although
West didn’t drink, that was
likely the only kind of busi-
ness that would be open
at 11:30 p.m.) to serve as a
midnight snack.
“As I walked up Washing-
ton Street to my hotel, I met
the adjourned Republican
convention,” West wrote.
“My old friend Jay Bower-
man had been nominated
for governor. I leaned up
against a telephone pole to
watch the happy, singing
delegates march by.”
Finally, around midnight,
West arrived at his hotel.
He wolfed down one of his
bananas, crawled into bed,
and lay awake there, staring
at the ceiling and waiting
and hoping for the phone
to ring, with Dr. Harry Lane
on the other end of the line.
But the telephone sat
there like a sphinx on the
table, all night long.
A
round 1:45 a.m., West
decided to take the
hint. He lay there in bed
and pondered deeply. There
was, he knew, another can-
didate who might have a
shot as a gubernatorial can-
didate.
He was awfully young for
the job — just 38 years old.
But he had a strong repu-
tation as an up-and-com-
ing progressive, able to get
things done, fearless and
with a track record of suc-
cessfully locking horns with
some of the wealthiest and
most powerful crooks and
swindlers in the country,
not once but several times.
The public knew his
name, and plenty of vot-
ers, both Democrats and
Republicans, admired and
would vote for him.
Best of all, he wouldn’t
have to be pleaded with. All
West had to do was make
up his mind — and throw
in his hat.
At around 2 a.m., West
came to a decision. He
jumped out of bed and
looked around for writing
supplies with which to draft
a platform — he’d need a
platform to present him-
self to the party with. But
there was nothing in the
room, and for some reason
he hadn’t packed anything
with him.
“So, I arose, dumped the
remaining bananas out of
the bag,” West recalled;
“split it down the sides;
flattened it out and wrote
a gubernatorial platform;
crawled back into bed; cried
and fell asleep.”
T
he platform scratched
on that banana peel
would carry West to a nar-
row victory over Bowerman
a few months later. Like
Harry Lane, Oswald West
was widely hated by the
wealthy swells of the state,
and for the same reasons an
honest cop is hated by the
owners of illegal casinos;
but his reputation as a fear-
less square shooter made
him very popular with the
voters.
Lane, belatedly realizing
his own popularity, was so
inspired by West’s success
that he stood for U.S. Sena-
tor two years later and won
the seat handily.
So, in 1912, when the mo-
ment was ripe to save the
beaches of the state from
private development, a man
was in the governor’s office
who would take the nec-
essary action — famously
declaring the beaches to be
state highways and putting
them under the jurisdiction
of the highway department.
And in 1917, when Pres-
ident Woodrow Wilson
went before Congress to de-
mand that it agree to make
what would arguably be the
worst and most destructive
mistake in the history of
American government —
entry into the First World
War — a man was in the
Senate who would, on Or-
egon’s behalf, vote “no.”
And it all had its roots
in a flattened banana peel
plastered on the table of a
small Portland hotel.
(Sources: “Reminis-
cences and Anecdotes:
McNarys and Lanes,” an
article by Oswald West
published in the Septem-
ber 1951 issue of Ore-
gon Historical Quarterly;
“Oswald D. West (1873-
1960),” an article by Ste-
phen R. Mark, and “Harry
Lane (1855-1917),” an ar-
ticle by Kimberly Jensen,
both published in The
Oregon Encyclopedia, or-
egonencyclopedia.org)
Finn J.D. John teaches
at Oregon State University
and writes about odd tid-
bits of Oregon history. His
book, “Heroes and Rascals
of Old Oregon,” was recent-
ly published by Ouragan
House Publishers. To con-
tact him or suggest a topic:
finn@offbeatoregon.com.
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