Tom McCall | |
|---|---|
.jpg) McCall in 1970 | |
| 30thGovernor of Oregon | |
| In office January 9, 1967 – January 13, 1975 | |
| Preceded by | Mark Hatfield |
| Succeeded by | Robert W. Straub |
| 18thSecretary of State of Oregon | |
| In office January 4, 1965 – January 9, 1967 | |
| Governor | Mark Hatfield |
| Preceded by | Howell Appling |
| Succeeded by | Clay Myers |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Thomas Lawson McCall (1913-03-22)March 22, 1913 Scituate, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | January 8, 1983(1983-01-08) (aged 69) Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
| Party | Republican |
| Spouse | Audrey Owen (1939–1983) |
| Children | 2 sons |
| Education | University of Oregon (BA) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Navy |
| Unit | USS St. Louis |
| Battles/wars | World War II • Pacific Theater |
Thomas Lawson McCall (March 22, 1913 – January 8, 1983) was an American,politician and journalist in the state ofOregon, serving as the state's thirtiethgovernor from 1967 to 1975. Aprogressive Republican, he was known as a staunch environmentalist and an advocate ofsustainable development.
Raised inMassachusetts and incentral Oregon, McCall attended theUniversity of Oregon and went on to work as a journalist inMoscow, Idaho and inPortland.[1][2] He started out as a newspaper reporter and moved on to radio and television broadcasting. While atKGW-TV, he produced a documentary,Pollution in Paradise?, which brought public attention to air and water pollution in Oregon.
McCall first entered politics as an administrative assistant to GovernorDouglas McKay. He made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1954, losing in the general election toEdith Green. In 1964, he was elected asOregon Secretary of State, and in1966 he defeated DemocratBob Straub to become governor. In office, McCall promoted environmentally friendly reforms and criticizedoverpopulation and excessive industrial development. During his tenure, the state enacted majorshoreline conservation,container deposit, andland-use planning legislation. McCall also became known for his colorful rhetoric and for creative problem-solving, notably sponsoring theVortex I music festival and implementing the country's firstodd–even gasoline rationing program during the1973 oil crisis.
After his response to the oil crisis gained him national recognition, he toured the country promoting the "Oregon Story" as an example for other states to follow, and publicly mulled athird party run for president.[3] In 1974, McCall was awarded an honorary degree fromReed College. In his later career, he focused on preventing the repeal of the land-use laws he'd sponsored and mounted an unsuccessful comeback campaign for governorin 1978.
During Oregon's economic downturn in the early 1980s, McCall was criticized by those who considered his environmental legacy detrimental to the state's economy. His reputation has subsequently recovered, and he is considered one of the most transformative figures in recent Oregon history.[4]Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland is one of several places and institutions named in his honor.
Born inScituate, Massachusetts,[5] McCall was the son of Hal McCall andDorothy Lawson McCall, and grandson of copper-kingThomas Lawson and Massachusetts governor and congressmanSamuel W. McCall. As a child, he divided his time between Thomas Lawson's Massachusetts estate named Dreamwold and his father's ranch nearPrineville, Oregon named Westernwold. This bicoastal upbringing caused him to develop an unusual accent that he characterized as being "a cross betweenCalvin Coolidge and aTexas Ranger"; his voice would become an asset, setting him apart during his later careers as a public speaker.[6][3]
Upon graduation fromRedmond High School, McCall enrolled at theUniversity of Oregon in Eugene. Due to his family's growing financial problems he was forced to sit out long periods and took five years to earn his degree in journalism.[3] While at Oregon, McCall was a member of thePhi Delta Theta fraternity.[7]
After graduating fromU of O in 1936, McCall worked as a summer replacement at theBend Bulletin, earning $15 a week. He then moved northeast to thePalouse ofnorth central Idaho in February 1937, to theuniversity town of Moscow. He wrote for theNews-Review, and following a merger, theDaily Idahonian.[8]
After five years in Moscow, he was encouraged to leave in March 1942; upheaval in the UIathletic department the previous year (firing offootball head coachTed Bank (alsoathletic director) andbasketball head coachForrest Twogood) brought continuing negative criticism by McCall and his boss thought that he should advance his career elsewhere.[8] He traveled back to Oregon to look for work inPortland, where the economy was booming due toWorld War II. McCall was told by the military that he was not eligible for enlistment (due to bad knees and a recurring hernia) and journalists, still primarily men, were in short supply. He was quickly offered a job atThe Oregonian at nearly triple his wagesin Idaho.[3]
McCall later put his career on hold for military service in theU.S. Navy. At age 31, he was the oldest inboot camp. He served as a war correspondent for 16 months aboard the cruiserUSS St. Louis in thePacific Theater.[9]
In 1946, McCall was hired by Portland radio stationKEX, Where he remained until 1949 when he became executive secretary to Oregon governorDouglas McKay.[10] In 1952, McCall joined KGW radio in Portland, where he served as a newscaster and political commentator until 1955, when he transitioned from KGW radio to television atKPTV.
In 1955, McCall was hired as a newscaster and commentator atKPTV, Oregon's first television station, where he remained for about a year and a half. In November 1956, he and colleague Ivan Smith left KPTV due to a dispute with station management over placement of a sponsor's product on the news set. One month later,KGW-TV went on the air, with McCall and Smith as part of a durable news team that remained together until McCall's departure to run for Secretary of State in 1964.
In November 1962, McCall produced and hosted an ambitious KGW-TV documentary which graphically displayed the shocking amount of pollution in theWillamette River and steadily declining air quality throughout Oregon. The award-winning documentaryPollution in Paradise helped focus public attention on the problems. KGW repeated the program in January 1963 on the eve of the opening of the legislative session, and the 1963 Legislature was spurred to some of Oregon's early attempts at combating pollution.[11] McCall also hosted a show on KGW calledViewpoint, which dealt with political issues of the day. McCall is briefly seen on a television screen in the 1975 filmOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in acameo role as a TV newscaster.
.jpg)
McCall made his first run for office in 1954, winning the Republican nomination for Oregon'sthird district seat over eight-term incumbentHomer D. Angell. Despite his later reputation as a progressive, McCall ran to Angell's right in the primary, portraying himself as a loyal supporter ofDwight D. Eisenhower's pro-business policies.[3] He lost the general election toEdith Green, who went on to hold the seat for the next ten terms.[12]
In 1958, whenMark Hatfield was elected governor of Oregon, he vacated the position of Secretary of State. McCall later said he thought Hatfield had promised to appoint him to the unexpired portion of the term, but the job went to Hatfield associateHowell Appling instead. When Appling chose not to run for re-election in 1964, McCall sought and won the office. In this position, he began to focus on fighting pollution and reining in unchecked economic growth, claiming that "Oregon is at a crossroads [...] There is still a chance to choose between the polluted chaos ofSouthern California and cleanliness."[3]
McCall was elected governor in 1966, defeating the Democratic nominee, State TreasurerRobert W. Straub. During his first term, McCall lead a cleanup of pulp mill pollution in the Willamette, championedlegislation that strengthened public ownership of Oregon's beaches, dealt with a major riot at theOregon State Penitentiary in Salem, and served as an international monitor for the1967 South Vietnamese presidential election.[3]
During the late summer of 1970, McCall was faced with a potential riot in Portland. In May of that year a week-long student protest atPortland State University over theKent State shootings had been violently dispersed by police, and tensions were high. The conservativeAmerican Legion had scheduled a convention in Portland later that summer; local antiwar groups were organizing a series of demonstrations at the same time under the name of the "People's Army Jamboree" and expected to draw up to 50,000 protesters.[13]
After attempts to convince the People's Army Jamboree to either not carry out their plans or to move the date, McCall was convinced by a group of hippies to hold the country's first state-sponsoredrock festival atMilo McIver State Park nearEstacada, Oregon. "Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life," as it was called, was inspired by theWoodstock Festival held the previous year, and was intended to draw radical youth out of Portland and reduce the potential for confrontation with the Legionnaires.[14] "I think I just committed political suicide," McCall is reported to have remarked immediately after approving the event.[14][15]
However, the festival, nicknamed "The Governor's Pot Party", was a success, attracting between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The feared violent clash between the antiwar groups and the Legion was avoided, and McCall was re-elected in November with 56% of the vote, again defeating Bob Straub.
McCall became nationally known in January 1971 for a comment he made in an interview with CBS News'sTerry Drinkwater:
Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live.[16]
He was responding to the rapid population growth andsuburban sprawl that the state was then experiencing, which was bringing with it strains on utilities and the rapid loss of arable land in theWillamette Valley.[3] McCall's second-term agenda was focused on ameliorating these issues and protecting Oregonians' quality of life from overdevelopment. Elements of this agenda included theOregon Bottle Bill, a pioneering container-deposit law intended to reduce litter; and theOregon Land Conservation and Development Act of 1973, which required comprehensive zoning and land-use planning for the entire state and createdurban growth boundaries around each Oregon city.[17]
In July 1971, McCall went on a fishing trip on a portion of theSnake River that acts as border between Idaho and Oregon. At the time, under the Oregon Constitution, the Senate President became acting governor when the governor was out of state. Whenever McCall's group camped for the night on the Idaho side, Oregon Senate President John Burns, a Democrat, became acting governor. Partisan executive control of the state changed eight times during the trip. The incident led to voters approving a 1972 ballot measure restoring the line of succession that existed prior to 1920, with the Secretary of State assuming the office when the governor left the state, died, or resigned.[18]
During the summer of 1973, Oregon began to suffer from energy shortages, several months before the rest of the United States was affected by theOPEC oil embargo. The state's power grid was heavily reliant onhydroelectricity and an unusually dry winter had left reservoir levels critically low. McCall's administration took action to encourage energy conservation by lowering speed limits, reducing government energy consumption, and ordering the cessation of all business display lighting. The governor and his aides were not certain whether the latter was legal, but Oregonians generally complied, and McCall later reflected that he had tapped into his constituents' mood: "People wouldn’t believe there was a crisis with theGolden Arches blazing away [...] People are fed up with garishness. They feel assaulted by blinking, flashing, rotating, ostentatious waste."[3] In early 1974, Oregon became the first state in America to implement anodd–even gasoline rationing program to control demand amidst shortages.
As the oil shock began to affect the rest of the country, Oregon's conservation methods seemed prescient, and the state's leaders were applauded by national media. Taking advantage of the attention, McCall launched a national tour to promote the reforms he'd overseen as an inspiration for other states to follow, referring to the package as the "Oregon Story." He characterized himself as representing a "Third Force" of political independents opposed to the establishment - a popular position during the unfoldingWatergate scandal. McCall was talked up in the media as a potential candidate for president, and later recalled that leading political figures such asClare Boothe Luce andEugene McCarthy had encouraged him to mount a third-party bid for the office.[19] Biographer Brent Walth doubts that McCall was ever serious about making the Third Force a third party or running for president, and believes that he was simply enjoying the spotlight and using it to promote his political ideas.[3]
Although his popularity was at its peak, Oregon's constitution prevented McCall from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 1974. State SenatorVic Atiyeh won the Republican nomination, but lost the general election to Straub, who McCall had endorsed in the election. McCall returned to journalism, writing a newspaper column and serving as commentator for Portland television stationKATU. He sought to return to the governorship in 1978, but Atiyeh defeated McCall in the primary and went on to beat Straub in a rematch of their 1974 race.
McCall's prostate cancer eventually returned. He devoted his last years to defending the land-use laws he'd sponsored, which had been under attack from critics since their enaction. In 1982, opponents of land-use planning successfully placed Measure 6, which would have repealed the 1973 law, on the ballot. During his campaign against Measure 6 McCall said, "You all know I have terminal cancer—and I have a lot of it. But what you may not know is that stress induces its spread and induces its activity. Stress may even bring it on. Yet stress is the fuel of the activist. This activist loves Oregon more than he loves life. I know I can't have both very long. The trade-offs are all right with me. But if the legacy we helped give Oregon and which made it twinkle from afar—if it goes, then I guess I wouldn't want to live in Oregon anyhow." Measure 6 ultimately failed to pass.
McCall was admitted toGood Samaritan Hospital inPortland just over a month after the election. He died there at 69 onJanuary 8, 1983.[20][21][22][23]
_(marDA0013d).jpg)
In 1968, Governor McCall created theHarbor Drive Task Force to come up with proposals to replace the riverfront highway with a public space. The 37-acre (150,000 m2) Waterfront Park was built in 1974, running along the Willamette River for the length of downtown Portland. McCall was honored after his death when the park was renamedTom McCall Waterfront Park in 1984.[24]
McCall was a leading figure in passing the Oregon Beach Bill to declare Oregon shores public land in 1967.[25]
In 1969, McCall played a major role in the founding ofSOLV, anenvironmentalnon-profit organization whose goal is to "build community through volunteer action to preserve this treasure called Oregon."[26]
The Tom McCall Forum, which pairs prominent speakers with opposing political viewpoints, is presented annually byPacific University.
TheNature Conservancy named anature preserve inWasco County, Oregon after McCall.
Oregon schools that have been named for him include:Tom McCall East Upper Elementary School in Forest Grove andTom McCall Elementary School in Redmond.
In 1998 McCall was inducted into the Hall of Achievement atUniversity of Oregon's School of Journalism.[27]
On October 10, 2006, the SalemStatesman Journal announced plans by a "committee of citizens" to fund and place the life-size bronze statue of the late governor pictured above in Salem's Riverfront Park.[28][needs update]
On March 30, 2015, Oregon GovernorKate Brown, a Democrat, signed SB333, which "designates March 22 of each year as Tom McCall Day to commemorate Governor McCall and encourage school districts to educate children about Governor McCall's legacy." The measure took effect January 1, 2016.[29][30]
While both were working in Moscow in February 1939, McCall metAudrey Owen ofSpokane,[8] and they married three months later on May 20, 1939.[3] They had two sons, Samuel Walker McCall III and Thomas "Tad" McCall, an environmental consultant.[31]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), from the1000 Friends of Oregon website| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Secretary of State of Oregon 1965–1967 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Governor of Oregon 1967–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Republican nominee forGovernor of Oregon 1966,1970 | Succeeded by |
Modernhistory of Oregon (1890–present) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Topics |  | |
| Events | ||
| Places | ||
| Politicians | ||
| Other Oregonians | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
