Sunset (magazine)/Volume 33/The Political Muddle in Oregon
The Political Muddle in Oregon
IN California the three leading parties carefully and unostentatiously described a wide detour around the wet-and-dry issue. They suspected a bear trap with sharp, large-sized, cruel jaws. But in Oregon, the proving ground of political innovations, prohibition became the dominant issue. With personal. progressive preferences, prohibition is the pole around which the political whirligig gyrates in the state that, with the exception of 1912, voted for Republican presidents and varied the monotony by electing three Democratic governors in succession.
In the present contest for the governorship the fight openly is between the Republicans and the Democrats—but it may be that the Prohibitionists, as the third leg in the party race, will have a word to say in the finals. The third-party standard bearer is W. S. U'Ren, father of the Oregon initiative and referendum and of other now popular and widely copied measures. U'Ren started as an independent candidate, advocating the fifteen-hundred-dollar taxation exemption law, the abolition of the state senate and other innovations, annexed the Prohibition party nomination and had to surrender it again. If U'Ren could deliver his own independent strength, and the state-wide prohibition votes he would easily win, but—
The present Democratic governor, Oswald West, who is to be taken care of by the Administration with a good Federal job, lately has heated the atmosphere with his martial-law forays against liquor interests. And West's groomed successor is Dr. C. J. Smith, Democrat, who placarded his primary campaign with the slogan: "I stand for Law Enforcement." The third man is Dr. James Withycombe, Republican, former director of the Oregon Agricultural College Experiment Station, whom the allied politicians of the state once were able to defeat at a state "assembly," but who was popular enough with the farmers to win this year at the Republican primaries from a crowded field of eight. Normally, Withycombe should easily win. But the issues are complex, and circumstances could arise which would swing the election to the Democratic law-enforcement candidate, Dr. C. J. Smith.
In the contest for the United States Senatorship, the three big names are Wm. Hanley, Progressive; Robert A. Booth, Republican; and Senator George E. Chamberlain, Democrat, twice governor and the present incumbent. "Bill" Hanley is the cattle king of railroadless Harney County and looks like Wm. J. Bryan. He has a stock of hard sense and sagebrush wit, is known everywhere and will make a personal campaign, reminding everybody that Oregon went for Roosevelt in the last presidential primaries. Robert A. Booth, Republican, is a timber capitalist, has strong political and press support, though unfortunately for him in the present campaign his timber wealth has been made an issue. Senator Chamberlain is very popular in the state, is a shrewd politician, has achieved some good committee appointments in the Senate and, unless sentiment should change, he seems the probable choice.