RtOW: Chapter 6 - An Evolving Way - Oregon in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s
RtOW: Chapter 6 - An Evolving Way - Oregon in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s
The debates did not steer the outcome of the election, but the ten nights were perceived by the media, politicians, and people as an earnest attempt at a more inclusive debate.
*Editor’s Note* For the next several Saturdays, I will be posting an excerpt from my book, “Rediscovering the Oregon Way.” This effort started two years ago in the middle of my current role as a graduate school student. I spent weekend mornings doing research, late nights conducting interviews, and spare moments looking for typos.
Read the intro, Read Chapter 1, Read Chapter 2, Read Chapter 3, Read Chapter 4, Read Chapter 5.
"However fully justified the people were in making this venture [to wrest more control over legislative affairs from the legislators via the Oregon System], the almost complete renunciation of parliamentary procedure and representative government by them imposes certain conditions that must be fulfilled if hopes are to be realized," according to historian F.G. Young. These conditions, when viewed through the perspective of the Oregon Way, include the maintenance of the four tenets. Young’s point underscores what has previously only been hinted at—a participatory government only works with a participation-oriented people. Oregon’s path toward more representative and robust participation included some major landmarks in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
Expanding “Us” Through Legal, Economic, and Political Shifts
The opening of Oregon demographically, economically, and somewhat culturally in part reflected pressure from beyond the state’s borders but also resulted from internal sources of agitation. As national economic needs shifted after the Depression and into World War II, new labor demands forced politicians and American society in general to reconsider immigration policies, minority integration, and economic freedoms and incentives.
In the 1920s, due to the enforcement of the 1922 Cable Act, newly-settled immigrants could not even look forward to finding a romantic partner; the Act included a provision that punished citizens for marrying “aliens.” This meant that immigrants had to court women in their home country and hope they would make a journey to the United States if they did not accompany them on their own journey to America. The first generation of Japanese settlers in Oregon, known as the Issei, did this by sending a picture for their family to pass around to prospective wives.
Ironically, then, policies like the Act encouraged more immigration. The Issei woman population in Oregon increased six-fold within the span of a decade. Nonetheless, even as more and more immigrants arrived, few paths to prosperity existed for them to follow. The Alien Land Law, passed in 1923 by the Oregon legislature, forbade Issei from owning or leasing land. Soon after, in 1924, Congress agreed on the Immigration Act; passage of the act meant that “aliens” could no longer qualify for citizenship.
The exigencies of World War II ushered in a new slew of immigration policies. In some cases, such as for Mexican agricultural workers, these policies introduced unparalleled opportunities to participate in American life. The Bracero program exemplified these opportunities. Oregon State College, now Oregon State University, oversaw the implementation of the program in Oregon. From 1942 through 1964, the program welcomed 4.5 million Mexicans to the United States for six- to twelve-month contracts. In the span of just five years, 1942 to 1947, more than 15,000 of these braceros made their way to Oregon. In the case of some communities, like Hood River, their arrival permitted the continuation of an agricultural way of life that had been threatened by the loss of so many men to the war. A Columbia County farmer told historian Erasmo Gamboa, these "Mexican boys were God-sent." For this farmer, you can imagine “us” was enlarged with the introduction of immigrant labor. But programs like the Bracero program only extended so far.
Immigrants associated with nations opposing the Allied war effort, including the Japanese, watched the war-created animalistic spirits among white Americans turn into egregious policies like internment. With one executive order, President Franklin D. Roosevelt upended entire Japanese communities; he destroyed their growing stocks of financial capital and hindered their human capital development. Eventually, though, shifts in economic and geopolitical policies forced the reversal of internment and other racist policies. This reversal impacted other minorities as well. United States dominance in global affairs brought it additional scrutiny that shined a light on the horrendous treatment of black communities around the nation. External pressure paired with internal protests amounted to a sea change in legal treatment of minorities, especially African Americans.
Oregon was no exception to these broad trends but some important differences appear in the details of the state’s history. Portlanders, for example, struggled to navigate the nationalization and globalization of politics and economics. The extremes of economic lows and militaristic fervor pushed the city toward any policy that made its people feel a little bit more in control of their town. The conservative mentality of Oregonians—in this case, Portlanders—meant that when pushed onto their heels they’d grasp for anything in their reach. In the wake of the Depression, the Portland City Council OK’d an ordinance taxing chain stores. It was a simple action that harkened back to the reason so many resettlers headed to the state in the first place: freedom from the volatility of competing in a global world.
These sorts of tactics could not withstand macro-level changes on the scale of World War II; during the War, voters reversed course and repealed the chain ordinance. It follows that the Portland area’s economic profile came to look more like other urban centers and surrounding agricultural areas: fewer farms and scaled-up factories operating at full capacity. Despite a feeling of unease and instability, Portland and Oregon residents at large found ways to assist the evolution of the Oregon Way and diminish some of the exclusionary values and norms of the past.
How a Water Project Strengthened the Oregon Way
The Willamette Valley Project, which commenced in the early 1930s, indicates how the Oregon Way started to change in these decades. Oregon was undergoing a lot of change in this period. Flooding seemed to become more prevalent in the 20th Century and water was not the only thing pouring into Oregon—natural floods were paired with a flood of economic migrants from the Dust Bowl and Depression. In response to feeling unsettled, Oregonians relied on a norm of participation and proximity to elected officials to limit the severity of the deluges and to respond to changes in their communities. In the case of the Willamette River flooding, a collaborative approach to addressing these problems took root. Private and public interests combined to launch the Project.
Federal partners kicked the process off. In particular, Oregon's federal delegation assisted in jumpstarting plans for the Willamette River's irrigation use, power development, and flood control, among other objectives. As with most government proposals, a study had to precede action on the plans. The ensuing study identified several possible (and expensive) initiatives. Upon receipt and analysis of the study, a federal board denied further movement on the Project by refusing to allocate the funds required to take action. This is the moment that the Oregon Way became a factor. Where federal Oregon delegates ran into a wall, local groups created their own window of opportunity. Local groups contributed to reviving the Project by doubling down on their planning efforts and inviting the federal board members to visit the river. The tour effort was supplemented by prominent Oregon-based organizations uniting in stating the case for federal funds.
Environmental, labor, and business groups all rallied for the development plan. The range of the involved organizations, from the Willamette Valley Flood Control Association to local chapters of the Farmers Union, evidences how social institutions acted as glue to connect Oregon needs with federal resources. These organizations had the deepest knowledge of their members’ values and, jointly, the clout necessary to grab the attention of federal stakeholders. Absent their involvement, the development plan would have just been another stack of papers weighing on the board’s docket. Instead, social institutions brought the community impact of these plans off the page and onto the agenda; they turned a conversation about abstract plans into one on tangible differences in the lives of many Oregonians.
The involved social institutions formed the broadest, bottom layer of the pyramid of forces that moved the Project forward. Importantly, the diversity of the groups included geographic variation. From Portland to Eugene, social institutions were engaged and shared interests were identified. Leaders from that sturdy social institution layer represented the next layer; they formed the legislature-approved Willamette River Basin Commission. This layer also included formal government work that took place within the State Planning Board and its auxiliary—the Willamette Valley Project Committee. Governor Charles Martin, among the legislative officials at the top of the pyramid, directed the Willamette Valley Project Committee (WVPC) to ensure quality relationships throughout the pyramid.
The WVPC embodied the integration of the Oregon Way into this endeavor. A hierarchical, expert-driven style of governance would have placed the power in the hands of those at the top of the pyramid, people like Governor Martin. The WVPC, though, opted to bring together every layer of the pyramid as well as the greater public. It smoothed the borders between layers by blurring the lines between elected officials and representatives of organizations; every stakeholder had a voice. This sentiment was echoed in the WVPC’s charge to "awaken interest in the Valley's development and to obtain public support for the project."
One interpretation of the bevy of individuals involved in somewhat overlapping layers of the Project would be that Governor Martin was essentially asking for a very bureaucratic process. This interpretation is not entirely wrong. A speech by the Governor to the Oregon legislature conveyed a desire to move forward pragmatically and methodically: “If this development [of the Willamette River] is to take place, it should be done in units rather than as a whole. It should and must be done in an orderly and cautious manner. We cannot go ahead blindly.”
But there is an alternate interpretation—one informed by the Oregon Way—that is more accurate. This interpretation identifies the Governor’s insistence on sensible progress via the creation of many different coalitions and committees as a strategy to develop the consensus sufficient to carry out any agreed upon action items. The latter view appears to be supported by historical analysis, though farmers appear to have come out as neutral on the project, a net positive public sentiment carried the plan out of ideation and into implementation.
The same historical analysis, however, does identify a shortcoming of the Project when judged against the maximum efficacy of the Oregon Way. The application of the Way’s tenets to the Project’s plans conveys a limit to the reach of the pyramid of participation constructed by Governor Martin: involvement with the project reached only to the most engaged members of certain social institutions. Governor Martin opted to use social institutions and their leaders as a medium to understand the will of Oregonians. A more participatory approach would have been to more directly reach out to residents themselves. By the 1950s, several of Oregon’s officials came to see the value of extending the participatory ladder further down, passed social institutions, all the way to typical Oregonians.
A Debate Series Moves the Way Forward—Ten Dam Nights in Oregon
“Ten Dam Nights in Oregon,” the name that Time magazine coined for a series of debates between Congressman Sam Coon (R-OR) and State Senator Richard Neuberger, represents an evolution in the Oregon Way toward even more participation and an even broader conception of “us.”
In the lead up to a contentious election for a U.S. Senate seat between the aforementioned duo, a skirmish over another water-related issue broke out among several stakeholders. The issue centered on the right mix of private/public management of hydroelectric development projects. Championed by the Eisenhower administration, Republicans generally favored the partnership model to power development over the government-heavy setup introduced by FDR in the New Deal. Democrats, though, opposed a partnership of private and public partners because of concerns over the impact such a structure would have on pricing decisions and equity concerns. The specific issue at hand was the merits of a partnership approach to a dam on the John Day River.
State Senator Neuberger identified the partisan differences over the dam as a wedge he could use to separate himself from his well-known opponent for the 1956 election. He challenged the Congressman to a series of ten debates on the topic around Eastern Oregon. Congressman Coon, who previously directed a soil conservation district and worked on a sheep ranch, knew water politics had major implications for the people of his district. But what the Congressman had in experience, he lacked in deep policy knowledge on this sort of wonky question. Comparatively, State Senator Neuberger had distinguished himself in political science circles and beyond as a respected voice on complex policy issues.
Turning the debate invitations down simply was not an option for Coon. He knew such a move would raise hell among a constituency that had grown to expect a chance to engage with their officials on substantive proposals. Not only did the Congressman accept the ten invitations, he proposed nine more. Perhaps he felt confident it would be a winning issue for him because he had worked on similar legislation on the Hill, identified the support of former-Governor and now Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, and recognized the statewide interest in the issue given its precedent-setting nature. What is clear from the offer and counter offer is that both men saw the value of demonstrating fidelity to the will of the people as well as an expertise in the topic. Nevertheless, the pair settled on ten. The political lead up to the debates combined with the content of the deliberations sum to an illustrative picture of how the Oregon Way was developing at the time.
Similar norms and values drove the behavior of the officials. They spurred State Senator Neuberger to issue the invitations and motivated the Congressman’s counterproposal of nineteen and eventual affirmative response to Neuberger’s ten. A copy of the letter from the former to the latter demonstrates the prevalence of the Oregon Way in this discussion: “It seems to me the public is entitled to facts and not to epithets and such name-calling as ‘reactionaries.’ Therefore in the interest of gaining widespread distribution of the facts of this case, I suggest that you and I debate…” In these short sentences, Neuberger expresses moderation, a bent toward participation, and a willingness to take on a time-intensive, deliberative process.
Neuberger’s letter also exemplifies the Way’s tendency to push people to the center. He channeled the Way when he compelled Coon to distinguish their conversation from those of more reactionary individuals. Neither man sought to be overly provocative. They seemed to compete over the centrist label more so than the label of their respective parties. Yet, as the debates neared, party politics inevitably found a crack through which to disrupt the proceedings. Partisan actors tried their damndest to pull Coon and Neuberger off of the Way.
Democrats complained that so many of the selected moderators identified as Republicans. State Senator Neuberger surely would have preferred it otherwise, but nonetheless proceeded. Republicans questioned the partisan mix of some of the organizing groups such as the Hood River Booster Club. Still, Coon agreed to participate in the end. These partisan flares could have grown into conflagrations that burned down the debate stage, yet neither Neuberger nor Coon resorted to the extreme measure of playing the party card to disrupt the important debate series. (As an aside, contrast this debate series with debates in modern times; focus specifically on the role of average voters and parties. How has the balance between party interests and the peoples’ interests shifted?)
When the debates actually got underway, another tenet of the Way became obvious: Oregonians value participatory opportunities. The debaters provided the space for this participation. The geographic scope and scale of the debates carved out a particular role for Eastern Oregonians in the process. The proposed dam project would predominantly affect Eastern Oregonian communities, so the outsized focus on soliciting regional feedback aligned with the debate topic. A similar, statewide version of these debates may not have been so highly attended because the impact of attending would have been diluted. It appears Eastern Oregon communities appreciated and responded to the appropriate regional focus. The debates reported capacity attendance and drew robust participation as evidenced by attendee engagement and active use of Q&A sessions.
Though the debates did not steer the outcome of the election nor the outcome of partner-based electricity projects, the ten nights were perceived by the media, politicians, and people as an earnest attempt to have an open forum that celebrated and prioritized the voices of voters. And, when it comes to perpetuating a Way, perception matters more than reality. Voters perceived that they had a key role in determining the state’s path forward. That role, thanks to the debates, extended further than merely showing up at the ballot box. By proactively broadening the role of voters in civic affairs, the debates mark an important development in the Way. State Senator Neuberger, by starting the series, proactively brought the issue to the people; he did not wait for Election Day to get a pulse check on the political preferences of Oregonians.
The debates additionally moved the Way forward by expressing values associated with the state’s political culture. For one, they were community-driven affairs, signalling a high regard for giving local institutions a hand in making good governance possible. Each debate location featured a different moderator, leaned on the involvement of community organizations and clubs, and took place at a center of community activity. This may seem like a no-brainer approach to civic affairs but, especially when compared to today, several developments have made this sort of community immersion harder to realize through similar modern events. For example, a similar debate series today would surely have seen more influence by party leaders over the timing, location, and content of each night’s event. A TV sponsor would similarly exert more sway over the details of the debate, perhaps insisting on a common moderator for each event and limiting the participation and size of the crowd. The elected officials would also be unwilling to commit a whole ten nights to the same question—they’d have too much fundraising to do.
The community-driven debates also reinforced the deep sense of place felt among Oregonians. The policy question at hand could have been discussed at a high-level by couching the question predominantly in how it would impact similar projects elsewhere in the nation and steer policy for the long term. Instead each of Eastern Oregon’s ten largest communities received their own debate that surely varied based on the characteristics of each town. Attendees and general observers, then, were not forced to see the issue as an American first or even an Oregonian first, but rather as a member of their specific community first.
Such an orientation may seem antithetical to a state-based Way. However, the reverence an Oregonian holds for their community is likely deeper than that for the state as a whole. A more ubiquitous shared value then is appreciation for one’s community in Oregon. The debate series took place at a time when community identity was particularly high in Oregon. Towns weren’t just towns. They were logging towns, fishing towns, or shipping towns. For many Oregonians, your town was your livelihood, your family, and your world. The affinity someone held for Oregon as a state was similar to the love held for a sister-in-law, step-anything, or distant “cousin”—by proxy.
This freedom for the public to lead with their most immediate, intimate community reinforced the uniqueness and independence of Oregon’s communities, something the original resettlers wanted prioritized from the earliest days of formal governance; it also heightened the tie between individual and community. Bill Hansell, a former Umatilla County Commissioner and state legislator from Athena, Oregon, argues that the centrality of community shaped Oregon politics and counterintuitively helped the development of the state’s Way.
According to Hansell, place-based governance meant that party priorities had to come after the area’s needs. So a leader’s sense of place and a voter’s understanding of the community’s idiosyncrasies both reinforced one another: leaders understood the connection people felt to their town and respected local communities as the core of Oregon’s economic, social, and political life; and, people jumped on any opportunity to tell leaders exactly what their community needed and appreciated the state’s assistance in meeting those needs. Hansell’s summary confirms that the statewide Way is a composite of Oregonians with a high degree of passion for their community.
As will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters, this type of local focus was possible in conjunction with a statewide Way because the underlying norms and values of most communities landed in the fat part of the normal distribution. In other words, Oregon’s communities were undoubtedly different but still shared much in common. The tails of the normal distribution have become thicker over time as some communities turned excessively inward (to their immediate surroundings) or outward (to the national level); if norms and values previously connected Oregon communities like a spiderweb, then the localization and nationalization of politics have acted like flies tearing holes in those fragile strands.
In the early 1950s, a statewide web of communities still existed—most communities aligned themselves in the middle of the distribution and these debates helped keep them there. Congressman Coon and State Senator Neuberger deferred to communities as the appropriate arbiters of a regional policy matter. An alternative approach, such as hosting a single debate in Portland or Salem, would have thrown a stone through the web. In that alternative, Eastern Oregonians could easily point to the location of the debate as a slight that showed the state’s bias toward the Willamette Valley and may have used that slight as justification for feeling less like an Oregonian and more like a [community name here] resident or simply an American. The debate set up that took place, though, afforded Eastern Oregonians a chance to tap into their regard for the distinct challenges and opportunities facing their community and state.
The perpetuation of values such as appreciation for the community and a deep sense of place necessitates norms that reflect those values and allow for people to put those values into action. The saying “you support what you help build” illustrates this relationship between values and norms. In the case of the debate series, residents’ high regard for community (a shared value) paired with a desire to shape its future (an enforced norm) and, therefore, attend the debates. Capacity crowds greeted the debaters at each of the ten stages. Clearly, these Oregonians felt a pressure or perhaps simply a subtle tug to seize opportunities to join the public sphere (and, a democratic process).
Whether a carrot or stick compelled high rates of attendance does not matter, what is clear is that the collective viewed the debates as worth their time and as important to their community. This same norm applied to social institutions in addition to the general public. Newspapers, social clubs, nonprofits, and philanthropic groups, as outlined in greater detail below, also felt the need to engage with the debates. It follows that Eastern Oregonians of almost every affiliation and level of interest in politics could identify with someone that either had a specific role in a debate or at least attended one.
The content of the debate transcripts demonstrates that the events accentuated a norm of participation by adhering to another norm—moderation. A rancorous debate would have splintered groups into subsects with varied desires to participate again based on whether their “side” came out victorious or, at least, less injured. The debates that ensued, though, appear to have made participants on either side of the issue feel like the candidates actually wanted to methodically wade through policy and not just exchange political jabs. Attendees expecting a bloody political fight would have been disappointed. Comparatively, attendees deeply concerned about the future of their community and state would have felt encouraged. Two candidates from different ideologies were united in seeking the policy with the best chance of maintaining the distinctive quality of life of the town(s), region, and state.
Of course, partisanship and ideology-based remarks still managed to creep in and both men lobbed ad hominem attacks. Coon accused Neuberger of being vain. Neuberger pondered his opponent’s political acumen and offered veiled ideology-based attacks: “I am a Democrat, I have heard that a majority of the moderators of the ten debates are Republicans. Yet I have not indulged in the slurs, complaints and protests which have come from Mr. Coon and his cohorts. Why are they being such poor sports already?” Nevertheless, the debates largely centered on the issues and no one resorted to using extremely cruel personal attacks nor to advancing out-of-scope policy ideas. The narrow focus of the debates is perhaps best evidenced by the audience sticking to germane and, for the most part, non-ideological questions: “[C]apacity audiences responded directly and meaningfully in the question-and-answer periods at the conclusion of each debate.” They likely followed the tone of the speakers on stage.
Incrementalism also came through the debate transcript. “The people,” pleaded the State Senator, “should look ahead to the future and consider any moves today in light of how they will affect others fifty years from now.” This call for far-sightedness exemplified a push to not think about short-term wins but rather long-term effects. In a similar way, Congressman Coon walked through the history of his viewpoint, grounding the use of partnerships in Democratic and Republican administrations alike for decades. So, albeit in opposing directions, the speakers leaned on the idea of precedence to reframe their stances not as an all-or-nothing way forward but instead merely a step along a pre-existing policy path.
The dearth of polarizing tones or ideas helped social institutions become a foundational part of the debates. The values and norms underlying the series applied to a wide range of community organizations. Because the debates grounded themselves in each community and the needs of the region more so than politics, social institutions could easily justify their involvement. They need not worry that getting more involved would paint their organization in a partisan light, as most organizations do in contemporary elections.
If debates can be thought of as movies, then the typical political debate slots social institutions as producers that lend their resources to the production, i.e. a school offering their auditorium or local paper writing a couple articles. Social institutions in this scenario are behind the scenes. In the case of Ten Dam Nights, though, social institutions were still the producers while almost filling every other role (with the exception of playing the leading parts, which were left for Coons and Neuberger).
The executive producers were obvious: local sponsors of the debate ranged from Chambers of Commerce and the Toastmasters to Young Democrat and Young Republican clubs. Moderators, supporting actors in the film, were representatives of local groups such as religious organizations, real estate companies, schools, and chambers of commerce. Journalists, serving as the film’s promoters, covered the debates extensively and for nearly every relevant audience. The Oregon Journal, Oregonian, Time, the Eugene-based Register Guard, Ontario Argus Observer, La Grande Observer, and Roseburg News-Review reported on various aspects of the debates from the first night on through the impact the debates had on the eventual election and dam project. Editors of these papers, such as Charles V. Stanton of the News Review, did not shy from sharing their partisan perspectives. Still, the general reporting meant Oregonians could stay updated and informed on the twists and turns of the debates through the localized lens of a regional or community paper. A scroll through the cast would prove that the involvement of so many social institutions made the production more about the communities than the politicians.
The involvement of social institutions reflected community values and norms but also the backgrounds of the officials. The Congressman and State Senator were party men, however their ties to their respective parties were in addition to rather than in the place of their ties to social institutions. Congressman Coon could list the County Farm Bureau, Livestock Association, Fair Board, School Board, the Soil Conservation District, and the Grange among the many groups in which he held leadership roles; he also attended meetings of the Masons and the Elks. Senator Neuberger was similarly a man of social institutions. His memberships included the Oregon State Grange, the American Legion, the Izaak Walton League, and Temple Beth Israel. Contemporary officials could tick off similar lists of institutions but, for the most part, their participation with these groups would pale in comparison to the relationships Coon and Neuberger developed within their organizations.
Professionalization was supposed to improve politics, including debates. But as politics have become more professional, the role of the social institutions and the community leaders within them has diminished. In the case of debates, the script has been outsourced to party hacks; the directors are subjective campaign organizers; and, the promotion has been twisted by political spin. The involvement of social institutions during the Ten Dam Nights helped the debates avoid a pitfall of “minipublics” (deliberative, small communities involved in democratic processes)--namely, groupthink attributable to a narrow set of participants. For every social institution involved with the debate planning or tied to a debate participant, there was another connection to the community.
The local nature of the debates heightened their contribution to the democratic process component of the Oregon Way. The number of the debates (ten) conveyed the officials’ commitment to two foundational principles of the Way: giving everyone a relatively easy chance to participate and signalling a high regard for civic input. Just as a single debate would have changed the tenor of the conversation, it would have also radically changed the audience. Ten debates throughout Eastern Oregon enabled residents far removed from Salem (let alone Washington, D.C.,) to meet the candidates face to face. A single event would have likely recruited only the most partisan; ten local events became accessible to even the politically disengaged. These factors built on the non-partisanship imbued by the participation of so many social institutions. Non-affiliated and moderate voters could feel comfortable during these ten dam nights; the same can likely not be said for centrists in 21st Century politics. Coon and Neuberger wanted to hear from the people, not the partisan.
A few contemporary Oregon officials, such as Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and (recently retired) Congressman Greg Walden, send similar messages to voters as the one delivered by Congressman Coon and Senator Neuberger: your opinion matters. For the modern officials though, the process of opinion gathering is more formulaic and controllable. They host town halls that result more in screaming matches than in conversations on relevant policy questions. The occurrence of a conversation depends on two parties being willing to engage in a civil, oftentimes vulnerable style. For the most part, politicians avoid the latter part of this style; it is politically risky and, for some, personally difficult. That is what makes the Congressman and Senator holding ten debates so significant to advancing the democratic process component of the Way. They demonstrated a willingness to receive feedback, to test their stances against the arguments of their fellow debater and the preferences of the community, and to do it on numerous occasions. The high rates of community participation suggest that Oregonians understood these debates to be more than a show; they were an active consultation between policymakers and the people.
Senator Neuberger went on to win the election. The outcome of the debate series was less clear. The question at the heart of the matter—private or public power—went unanswered for several decades. But “Ten Dam Nights in Oregon” proved progress toward a more robust Oregon Way.
A Period of Development: Three Decades of Way Development
The early 1920s contained some of the darkest times in Oregon’s history. Then, economic, political, and cultural factors conspired to help move the state out of a rut of racism (though not entirely), anti-Catholicism, and general intolerance. By the 1950s—a period marked by the partial elimination of de jure discrimination and a decrease in de facto discrimination—greater tolerance permitted a more diverse sample of Oregonians to participate in building out the state’s political culture. However, the participation of these Oregonians was mainly reactive—government officials, such as Senator Neuberger and Congressman Coon, taking action and then reaching out to the general public for their input. The next and most complete iteration of the Oregon Way included the government flipping this orientation. The 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s included more proactive approaches to bringing regular Oregonians into the governing process—a sign of the Oregon Way further evolving.
************************************************
Send feedback to Kevin:
@kevintfrazier
Keep the conversation going:
Facebook (facebook.com/oregonway), Twitter (@the_oregon_way)
Check out our podcast: