A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Their memory
must always
remain alive
L
ast week the nation
and Europe marked
the 75th anniversary
of the D-Day landings.
There were ceremonies
and laudatory comments and
editorials. Then the day con-
cluded. The ceremonial bun-
ting, the speeches, the repli-
cas of World War II vehicles
were put away and reserved
for the closet of history.
Less than a week later, the
ceremonies of that fateful day
can seem like a year ago.
That should not be so.
Traditionally, Ameri-
cans reach for the future. We
spend vast amounts of time
projecting and fashioning a
future of prosperity. Collec-
tively, we tend to spend only
the necessary amount of time
reviewing the past.
We are a nation continu-
ally focused on the future.
Wars, after all, are diffi cult
and horrible and best left to
the fading tentacles of mem-
ory. Yet we cannot, and
should not, forget the sacri-
fi ce made on June 6, 1944.
Thousands of Allied sol-
diers stormed the beaches of
Normandy into an unknown
future. As a group, they were
hopelessly young but impos-
sibly optimistic about what
the United States could do.
We as a nation rightly
marked D-Day and the sacri-
fi ce of our service members
last week.
As time goes on, though,
and fewer and fewer D-Day
veterans remain with us,
there is a real risk their mem-
ory will fade.
We can’t let that happen.
We also cannot allow the
sacrifi ce made by our service
members in any confl ict fade
into oblivion. A good case in
point is the Spanish-Amer-
ican War. A confl ict fought
more than a 100 years ago,
the war impacted small com-
munities across the nation.
Oregon soldiers fought in
more than 40 battles and fi re-
fi ghts, and 16 were killed
in action. Another 48 were
wounded.
Oregon sent its youth to
fi ght in that war, but their
memory, what they did for
our nation, remains largely
forgotten.
When the drums of war
begin to beat, the nation
should support our service
members. When they deploy
to foreign shores, we should
be behind them. And when
they return, we owe those
brave men and women sup-
port as well.
Yet we also owe them our
memory. We owe them more
than one day of recognition.
Their faces and names and
sacrifi ces should not evapo-
rate with time.
In the end, it is up to us,
including those who did not
or could not serve, to ensure
the memory of those who
forfeited safety and security
to protect our values.
Their memory must
remain alive. Always.
WHERE TO WRITE
GRANT COUNTY
• Grant County Courthouse — 201
S. Humbolt St., Suite 280, Canyon City
97820. Phone: 541-575-0059. Fax:
541-575-2248.
• Canyon City — P.O. Box 276, Canyon
City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0509.
Fax: 541-575-0515. Email: tocc1862@
centurylink.net.
• Dayville — P.O. Box 321, Dayville
97825. Phone: 541-987-2188. Fax: 541-
987-2187. Email:dville@ortelco.net
• John Day — 450 E. Main St, John
Day, 97845. Phone: 541-575-0028.
Fax: 541-575-1721. Email: cityjd@
centurytel.net.
• Long Creek — P.O. Box 489, Long
Creek 97856. Phone: 541-421-3601.
Fax: 541-421-3075. Email: info@
cityofl ongcreek.com.
• Monument — P.O. Box 426,
Monument 97864. Phone
and fax: 541-934-2025. Email:
cityofmonument@centurytel.net.
• Mt. Vernon — P.O. Box 647, Mt.
Vernon 97865. Phone: 541-932-4688.
Fax: 541-932-4222. Email: cmtv@
ortelco.net.
• Prairie City — P.O. Box 370, Prairie
City 97869. Phone: 541-820-3605. Fax:
820-3566. Email: pchall@ortelco.net.
• Seneca — P.O. Box 208, Seneca
97873. Phone and fax: 541-542-2161.
Email: senecaoregon@gmail.com.
SALEM
• Gov. Kate Brown, D — 254 State
Capitol, Salem 97310. Phone: 503-378-
3111. Fax: 503-378-6827. Website:
governor.state.or.us/governor.html.
• Oregon Legislature — State
Capitol, Salem, 97310. Phone: (503)
986-1180. Website: leg.state.or.us
(includes Oregon Constitution and
Oregon Revised Statutes).
• Oregon Legislative Information —
(For updates on bills, services, capitol
or messages for legislators) — 800-
332-2313.
• Sen. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario – 900
Court St. NE, S-301, Salem 97301.
Phone: 503-986-1730. Website:
oregonlegislature.gov/Bentz. Email:
Sen.Cliff Bentz@oregonlegislature.gov.
• Rep. Lynn Findley, R-Vale – 900 Court
St. NE, H-475, Salem 97301. Phone: 503-
986-1460. Website: oregonlegislature.
gov/fi ndley. Email: Rep.LynnFindley@
oregonlegislature.gov.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
• The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20500; Phone-comments: 202-
456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-
1414.
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Published every
Wednesday by
GUEST COMMENT
‘Unlimited’ not part of
campaign fi nance reform
T
he word “unlimited”
has no place in a Cam-
paign Finance Reform
bill. Recently the Oregon House
passed House Bill 2714, which
would set campaign contribution
limits in Oregon. The good news
is that it keeps the promise Gov.
Kate Brown and I made to block
billionaires from buying Ore-
gon elections by setting the limit
on individuals at $2,800, which
matches the federal limits.
Unfortunately, the House bill
leaves some loopholes, which
I hope the Oregon Senate will
close.
Folks tell me the voters have
a short attention span, so I will
catch you up from the 2018 elec-
tion to the present end of the 2019
legislative session.
A year ago in May, I won the
nomination for Oregon gover-
nor as the Independent Party
of Oregon nominee over two
well-funded write-in campaigns
attempting to steal the IPO pri-
mary. Their efforts backfi red. Our
simple message of getting big
money out of politics prevailed.
Maybe their efforts were too well
funded.
From the primary in May, we
continued to take our message of
“getting big money out of pol-
itics” to all 36 counties in Ore-
gon and to the fi rst televised
governors’ debate. We heard over-
whelming bipartisan support for
campaign fi nance reform across
Oregon both rural and urban.
After being blocked from the
fi nal two televised debates and
other important media events,
we knew our third-party candi-
2020 ballot passed and went to the
Senate Rules Committee. You can
imagine my excitement to have an
early success in the fi rst hundred
days of the session!
Well, when it got to the Sen-
ate Rules Committee, the majority
leader wanted to see a campaign
limits bill pass through the house
before she would forward our
constitutional amendment referral
bill SJR 18 to the Senate fl oor.
The campaign limits bill (HB
2714) has passed from the House
fl oor and now will return to the
Senate Rules Committee where it
can be amended and improved.
The version that passed the
House set limits on individuals at
$2,800 per person but failed to set
any limits on PAC money, unlike
what the governor and I agreed
upon.
We cannot have true cam-
paign fi nance reform if PACs are
“unlimited.”
The Oregon Senate can remove
the word “unlimited” from this
campaign contribution limits bill.
Otherwise the voters will need to
use the referendum process and
withdraw the bill and rewrite it
with the limits they want in 2020.
Hopefully we will not need to
gather signatures for this process
immediately after the legislative
session ends.
Let us completely match the
federal limits and get big money
out of politics in Oregon!
Patrick Starnes, the Indepen-
dent Party of Oregon’s nomi-
nee for governor in 2018, lives
in Brownsville with his wife,
where they restore old homes for
a living.
reform to die.
On Oct. 30 (one week before
the election), Gov. Brown and I
found common ground on cam-
paign fi nance reform. We agreed
that Oregon needs a constitutional
amendment (SJR 18), which at
least would allow us to match the
federal limits: $2,800 per per-
son and $50,000 per PAC (polit-
ical action committee). In turn, I
dropped out of the election and
endorsed Gov. Brown, who has
made campaign fi nance reform
one of her top priorities this year.
Soon after the election in
December, I started driving once
a week to the Capitol in Salem
(an hour north of Brownsville) in
order to meet all 90 members of
the legislative branch of Oregon
(or at least their staff).
The fi rst on the list was the
the Senate President’s Offi ce,
and soon after that meeting he
assigned a brand new commit-
tee — the fi rst in Oregon his-
tory — called the Campaign
Finance Committee, which was
headed by the new senator from
Ashland who also ran on cam-
paign fi nance and won: Sen. Jeff
Golden.
At the end of March, Repub-
lican Sen. Tim Knopp’s bill
(SJR 18) to refer a constitutional
amendment to the voters on the
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
we multiply and fi ll a geo-
keep deer and elk numbers well
In response to ‘No when
graphic area.”
within the carrying capacity of
We have not done that in Can-
wisdom from a
the land.
ada or the state of Alaska where
Next she suggests that hunting
position of hate’
there are approximately 70,000
tends to remove the biggest and
To the Editor:
In a letter in the May 29
Eagle, Kay Steele fi rst reacted
to my use of the word “hate.” It
was the purposeful use of hyper-
bole — exaggeration to amplify
a point.
Second, I would argue that
I did not “anthropomorphize”
wolves (ascribe to them human
qualities); rather, I compared and
contrasted their predatory behav-
ior to mankind’s hunting
behavior.
She asserts that, based on my
arguments, one could list a whole
host of predators “that likewise
deserve condemnation.”
I actually said, “It is legiti-
mate for man the hunter to largely
supplant the role of the predators
wolves; we have not done that in
Africa where over 100 species of
prey animals are doing just fi ne
in the face of the fi ve major Afri-
can predators that are being well
managed.
But we have done that in the
United States.
Even our extensive wilderness
areas are fully used by hunting
sportsmen in the fall.
Then she asserts that “Without
predators, deer and elk, for exam-
ple, would over-populate the car-
rying capacity of the land.”
The Western states in general
and Oregon in particular had very
limited predators all through most
of the 20th century.
Our professional wildlife
biologists did a very good job
using hunters to effectively
best bucks and bulls and thereby
weakens the gene pool of the
herds.
Mature bucks and bulls have
already passed along their strong
genes for all of their reproductive
life before being harvested by a
hunter.
In conclusion, she asks, “Is
it wise to think man knows bet-
ter than God, himself?” We are
given a glimpse of God’s atti-
tude through the prophet Ezekiel
(34:25): “I will make with them
a covenant of peace and ban-
ish wild beasts from the land, so
that they may dwell securely in
the wilderness and sleep in the
woods.”
Reg LeQuieu
Mt. Vernon
L
ETTERS POLICY: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national
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MEMBER OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Patrick Starnes
dacy was doomed
(even though 38%
of voters are nei-
ther Democrat
nor Republican).
Nonetheless, I did
not want Orego-
nians’ demand for
campaign fi nance
Grant County .........................................$45
Everywhere else in U.S. .......................$57
Outside Continental U.S. ....................$60
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