Tom McCall

Thomas Lawson McCall (March 22, 1913 – January 8, 1983) was an American, politician and journalist in the state of Oregon, serving as the state's 30th governor from 1967 to 1975. A progressive Republican, he was known as a staunch environmentalist and an advocate of sustainable development. Raised in Massachusetts and in central Oregon, McCall attended the University of Oregon and went on to work...

Thomas Lawson McCall (March 22, 1913 – January 8, 1983) was an American, politician and journalist in the state of Oregon, serving as the state's 30th governor from 1967 to 1975. A progressive Republican, he was known as a staunch environmentalist and an advocate of sustainable development. Raised in Massachusetts and in central Oregon, McCall attended the University of Oregon and went on to work as a journalist in Moscow, Idaho and in Portland. He started out as a newspaper reporter and moved on to radio and television broadcasting. While at KGW-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 Governor Douglas McKay. He made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1954, losing in the general election to Edith Green. In 1964, he was elected as Oregon Secretary of State, and in 1966 he defeated Democrat Bob Straub to become governor. In office, McCall promoted environmentally friendly reforms and criticized overpopulation and excessive industrial development. During his tenure, the state enacted major shoreline conservation, container deposit, and land-use planning legislation. McCall also became known for his colorful rhetoric and for creative problem-solving, notably sponsoring the Vortex I music festival and implementing the country's first odd–even gasoline rationing program during the 1973 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 a third party run for president. In 1974, McCall was awarded an honorary degree from Reed 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 governor in 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. Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland is one of several places and institutions named in his honor. Early life Born in Scituate, Massachusetts, McCall was the son of Hal McCall and Dorothy Lawson McCall, and grandson of copper-king Thomas Lawson and Massachusetts governor and congressman Samuel W. McCall. As a child, he divided his time between Thomas Lawson's Massachusetts estate named Dreamwold and his father's ranch near Prineville, Oregon named Westernwold. This bicoastal upbringing caused him to develop an unusual accent that he characterized as being "a cross between Calvin Coolidge and a Texas Ranger"; his voice would become an asset, setting him apart during his later careers as a public speaker. Upon graduation from Redmond High School, McCall enrolled at the University 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. While at Oregon, McCall was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Journalism career After graduating from U of O in 1936, McCall worked as a summer replacement at the Bend Bulletin, earning $15 a week. He then moved northeast to the Palouse of north central Idaho in February 1937, to the university town of Moscow. He wrote for the News-Review, and following a merger, the Daily Idahonian. After five years in Moscow, he was encouraged to leave in March 1942; upheaval in the UI athletic department the previous year (firing of football head coach Ted Bank (also athletic director) and basketball head coach Forrest Twogood) brought continuing negative criticism by McCall and his boss thought that he should advance his career elsewhere. He traveled back to Oregon to look for work in Portland, where the economy was booming due to World 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 at The Oregonian at nearly triple his wages in Idaho. McCall later put his career on hold for military service in the U.S. Navy. At age 31, he was the oldest in boot camp. He served as a war correspondent for 16 months aboard the cruiser USS St. Louis in the Pacific Theater. In 1946, McCall was hired by Portland radio station KEX, Where he remained until 1949 when he became executive secretary to Oregon governor Douglas McKay. 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 at KPTV. In 1955, McCall was hired as a newscaster and commentator at KPTV, 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 the Willamette River and steadily declining air quality throughout Oregon. The award-winning documentary Pollution 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. McCall also hosted a show on KGW called Viewpoint, which dealt with political issues of the day. McCall is briefly seen on a television screen in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a cameo role as a TV newscaster. Political career McCall made his first run for office in 1954, winning the Republican nomination for Oregon's third district seat over eight-term incumbent Homer D. Angell. Despite his later reputation as a progressive, McCall ran to Angell's right in the primary, portraying himself as a loyal supporter of Dwight D. Eisenhower's pro-business policies. He lost the general election to Edith Green, who went on to hold the seat for the next ten terms. In 1958, when Mark 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 associate Howell 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 of Southern California and cleanliness." First term McCall was elected governor in 1966, defeating the Democratic nominee, State Treasurer Robert W. Straub. During his first term, McCall lead a cleanup of pulp mill pollution in the Willamette, championed legislation that strengthened public ownership of Oregon's beaches, dealt with a major riot at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, and served as an international monitor for the 1967 South Vietnamese presidential election. Vortex I 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 at Portland State University over the Kent State shootings had been violently dispersed by police, and tensions were high. The conservative American 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. 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-sponsored rock festival at Milo McIver State Park near Estacada, Oregon. "Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life," as it was called, was inspired by the Woodstock Festival held the previous year, and was intended to draw radical youth out of Portland and reduce the potential for confrontation with the Legionnaires. "I think I just committed political suicide," McCall is reported to have remarked immediately after approving the event. 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. Second term McCall became nationally known in January 1971 for a comment he made in an interview with CBS News's Terry Drinkwater: Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live. He was responding to the rapid population growth and suburban sprawl that the state was then experiencing, which was bringing with it strains on utilities and the rapid loss of arable land in the Willamette Valley. McCall's second-term agenda was focused on ameliorating these issues and protecting Oregonians' quality of life from overdevelopment. Elements of this agenda included the Oregon Bottle Bill, a pioneering container-deposit law intended to reduce litter; and the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Act of 1973, which required comprehensive zoning and land-use planning for the entire state and created urban growth boundaries around each Oregon city. In July 1971, McCall went on a fishing trip on a portion of the Snake 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. The Oregon Story and the Third Force During the summer of 1973, Oregon began to suffer from energy shortages, several months before the rest of the United States was affected by the OPEC oil embargo. The state's power grid was heavily reliant on hydroelectricity 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 the Golden Arches blazing away [...] People are fed up with garishness. They feel assaulted by blinking, flashing, rotating, ostentatious waste." In early 1974, Oregon became the first state in America to implement an odd–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