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ROBERT R. MCCOY

The Paradox of Oregon's Progressive Politics

The Political Career of Walter Marcus Pierce

IF ASKED TO NAME INFLUENTIAL state politicians, Oregonians might mention the names of Harry Lane, Charles McNary, William U'Ren, or Tom McCall. Walter M. Pierce, however, would likely not be on the list. As an undergraduate, I spent many hours at the card catalog and in the book stacks of Eastern Oregon State College's Pierce Library, named after Cornelia Marvin Pierce and her husband Walter Marcus Pierce. Despite being a history major, I knew little about either Pierce — only that Walter was the one-time governor of Oregon and, rumor had it, an active Ku Klux Klan member during his lifetime. Later, I learned about Pierce's complex political life and the many legacies left by this consummate Oregon politician. 1
      Walter M. Pierce's political career spanned fifty-six years, from 1886 to 1942. Over those decades, he held numerous elected offices in Oregon: county recorder, state legislator, governor, and U.S. congressman. In addition to his wide-ranging experience as a politician, Pierce participated in some of the most influential political and social movements of his time, ranging from Populism and Progressivism to eugenics and prohibition. Much debate has surrounded Pierce's political career, especially concerning his connections to the Ku Klux Klan, because his life and political activities illuminate the contradictions that existed within the liberal-progressive political tradition in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 These contradictions are mainly products of late twentieth and twenty-first century interpretive stances, created as we try to understand how people could have supported efforts to democratize the political process and limit the excesses of the marketplace while at the same time working to curb the political and economic rights of African Americans and Japanese and Chinese immigrants, exerting a paternalistic moral vision of reform through the implementation of prohibition, and seeking to create a racially pure society through eugenics. Governor of Oregon, New Deal Democrat, populist and progressive, advocate of eugenics and birth control, prohibitionist, and ardent racist, Pierce exemplifies a period of political and social movements that sought to reshape the American Republic. 2


 
Figure 1
    This portrait of Walter Marcus Pierce was taken in August 1926, during his last year as Governor of Oregon. At age sixty-five, Pierce was campaigning for reelection. During his tenure as governor, Pierce had survived recall efforts, unsuccessfully pushed for tax reform, and suffered the loss of his wife to cancer in 1925.

    OHS digital no. bb005976
 


 
      Perhaps the best way to understand these contradictions is through the category of populist politics as defined by historians Robert Johnston and Nancy MacLean. Johnston describes one side of the coin, asserting that the middle class during the Progressive Era created a "radical democratic populism" that propelled much progressive political change in Oregon and the United States.2 Describing the other side of the coin, MacLean uses the term "reactionary populism" to understand the enormous middle class attraction to the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s.3 Individuals like Pierce, who was of the middle class, existed in both categories, often simultaneously supporting democratization and economic equality alongside limitations on certain groups' access to such enfranchisement. 3
      My understanding of Pierce's middle-class radical-democratic populism and reactionary populism is based on Johnston's interpretation of the middle class in early twentieth century Portland. He contends that historical scholarship has consistently constructed the middle class "as a unitary and ahistorical category or entity instead of a product of constant political and cultural struggle." For Johnston, there is "no such entity as the American middle class." Instead, contrary to the portrayal of "middling folks" as conservative and monolithic, Johnston asserts that "people in the middle have created one of America's most democratic political traditions, a populism that has often represented a radical challenge to the authority of economic, political, and cultural elites and that has called into question many of the fundamental assumptions of a capitalist society." According to Johnston, the middle class (or middling classes) is a flexible category, worked out through politics, because "politics always makes class concepts meaningful in society."4 Johnston's middling classes comprised members of the petit bourgeoisie, the working class, and farmers in varying and shifting coalitions. For Johnston, the reform impulses of the Progressive Era are essentially struggles over the definition and creation of middle classes in the United States. 4
      Pierce actively engaged in those struggles, frequently using language that Johnston and historian Lawrence Lipin connect to "producerism" — or moral capitalism — which is an opposition to unrestrained accumulation of wealth and a questioning the new structures of corporate capitalism and consumerism that arose in the early twentieth century.5 Proponents of the producerist vision desired economic independence and the ability to enjoy the products of their labor; at the same time, they opposed legal structures that allowed "monopolies" and "interests" to spoil their independence through the absolute control of resources and business. The middling classes in Oregon believed in this ideology, maintaining a political stance that supported the "Oregon System" of voter initiative and referendum, the direct election of U.S. senators, recall of public officials, revision of the tax system, and equitable funding of public education. Through such political support, they — including Pierce — sustained the radical democratic populism Johnston describes. Pierce maintained his belief in direct democracy, moral capitalism, and the defense of civil liberties throughout his career, but these ideals were not the only legacy of his middling class values.

WALTER M. PIERCE'S POLITICAL OFFICES

1886–1890: School Superintendent of Umatilla County
1890–1894: Umatilla County Clerk
1903–1907: Oregon state senator
1917–1921: Oregon state senator
1923–1927: Governor of Oregon
1933–1943: Representative, Oregon Congressional District 2, U.S. Congress

5
      While Pierce's political life placed him in the center of reform activity in Oregon and the nation, his nativist and racist beliefs and actions have often provoked the most attention from recent historians. Middle class people like Pierce sought ways to democratize politics and limit the negative impact of capitalism, but they also sought ways to limit who could participate in the political, social, and cultural life of the republic. The same middling class that Johnston describes as democratic populist during the Progressive Era also supported the institutionalizing of segregation in the 1890s and joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Pierce's political career is illustrative of these apparent contradictions. For millions of people in the United States during Pierce's time, these views were not contradictory but instead reflected their larger understanding of how to create a functioning and healthy democratic society in the United States. As Nancy MacLean notes in her work on the Ku Klux Klan in Athens, Georgia, Klan membership drew from "the broad middle of the nation's class structure." MacLean asserts that the politics, language, and actions of the KKK are "best characterized as reactionary populism."6 When Pierce argued for limiting the property rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants, or for prohibition or the Compulsory School bill, he joined thousands in Oregon and millions across the United States who perceived and reacted to threats to their ideal of the American Republic in similar ways. 6
      I use these two categories of radical democratic populism and reactionary populism to help us in the twentieth-first century to make sense of the basic contradictions of Pierce's political life and beliefs. The benefit of studying Pierce's career lies in the longevity of his political activity. Over his fifty-six-year political life, Pierce consistently embodied these contradictory strains of populism. After a brief introduction, describing Pierce's background and life up to his election as a state legislator in Oregon, I will examine Pierce's involvement in radical democratic populism, following his adherence to this type of populism from the earliest parts of his political career through his tenure as a New Deal congressman. The second section will focus on Pierce's lifelong devotion to reactionary populism, which led him to support prohibition, eugenics, anti-Catholicism, and anti-immigrant causes. The final section will return to Pierce himself, portraying the end of his political career and life.

 7


 
Figure 2
    In 1902, Pierce was elected as Oregon state senator. This 1903 portrait of him is one of the earliest surviving photos of the politician. At age forty-two, Pierce was at the beginning of his long career in state and national politics.

    OHS digital no. bb005983
 


 
WALTER MARCUS PIERCE was born on May 30, 1861, on a small farm near Morris, Illinois. By age seventeen, he had completed two years of normal school and started working as a teacher at a small school near his family home.7 In 1883, he traveled west to Portland, Oregon, hoping to find work. Unsuccessful, Pierce left Portland and, on the advice of a stranger, sought work in Milton, Oregon. There, a distant cousin, Nathan Pierce, hired him as a farm hand, and Pierce eventually landed a job teaching school. It was in Milton that he started his political career. In 1886, he was elected Umatilla County School Superintendent, in part because of his leadership during a successful campaign the previous year to make Milton legally dry (that is, to criminalise the sale of alcohol).8 A year later, Pierce married one of his former students, Clara Rudio, who died in childbirth in 1890. Pierce married Clara's sister Laura in 1893, raising five children with her until her death from cancer in 1925. 8
      The first real test of Pierce's political skills came when he ran for Umatilla County Clerk. After his unsuccessful 1942 congressional campaign, Pierce asserted that "the Umatilla campaign of 1890 was made notable by the most interesting, bitterly-contested county fight over a county office that ever took place in Oregon, perhaps the entire West."9 The intense partisan contest in the 1890 election was fueled by controversy surrounding the county clerk election of 1888, when, after a close vote, the Oregon Supreme Court reversed the election and gave incumbent Democrat George Hartman a majority over Republican challenger John N. Young.10 Despite predictions of failure in 1890, Pierce won, and during his tenure as county clerk enriched himself by legally retaining fees for transactions associated with the office. After serving two two-year terms, Pierce moved his family back to Illinois and attended Northwestern University's Law School, graduating in 1896. He then returned to Oregon to practice law, but found the profession unsatisfactory. Pierce settled in Union County, near La Grande, Oregon, and purchased a large ranch, where he raised Hereford cattle and wheat.11 9
   

PIERCE'S MIDDLE CLASS DEMOCRATIC POPULISM

 
Pierce's early successes in the local political arena led him to become politically involved on the state level. Economic conditions, especially the depression in the early 1890s, convinced Pierce of the need for reform. While not a Populist or a member of the People's Party in Oregon, Pierce supported candidates running on issues dear to that movement. He supported Sylvester Pennoyer's two races for governor, in 1886 and 1890.12 Pennoyer was a Democrat who ran on a reform and anti-Chinese platform in 1886. Pierce asserted that "Pennoyer believed, and so did many of us, that the agricultural communities and the laborer were practically being crucified on a 'cross of gold'.... Pennoyer led the fight in Oregon for a standard of measuring value that would enable the farmer to get more from his products and the laboring man to get more for his labor."13 Pierce also backed William Jennings Bryan in the presidential elections of 1896 and 1900, acting as a Democratic presidential elector in 1900. For Pierce and other rural Democrats in Oregon, Bryan's plan to introduce "cheap" money through the unlimited coinage of silver and gold appealed greatly.14 These early political experiences and sentiments guided Pierce's entire career. 10
      While many historians create a clean break between populists and progressives in the 1890s, Johnston notes this was not the case in Oregon, where "Populists and Progressives were very often the same people, and they proudly shaped an era of populist progressivism."15 Pierce was one of them. Due to his previous political experience and service to the Democratic Party, Umatilla, Union, and Morrow county delegates to the state Democratic convention nominated Pierce as their choice for state Senator in 1902.16 Pierce's campaign came at a crucial juncture for political reform in Oregon and opened up opportunities for Democrats to challenge Republican political dominance. 11
      The Legislatures of 1899 and 1901 each passed significant political reforms, including a voter registration law in 1899 and the Mays law in 1901, which "permitted voters in a general election to express their preference among party candidates for the office." In addition to these measures, both the 1899 and 1901 legislatures approved an initiative and referendum amendment to the Oregon constitution. The constitution required two successive legislative approvals and the consent of the voters for the approval of an amendment to the state constitution.17 Oregon's voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment in 1902. While other states adopted such measures earlier, Oregon was the first to use them with three ballot measures in 1904.18 They were thus known as the Oregon System. As Pierce noted, he "advocated the Oregon System, especially stressing the popular election of U.S. Senators. We then called it the Mays law."19 Reformers including William U'Ren, Pierce, People's Party members, Grangers, and Farmers Alliance members believed these measures would curb the power of corporations and vested interests in order to protect the rights of citizens, particularly farmers and workers. These advances in direct democracy were followed by others in Oregon: the direct primary (1904), the direct election of U.S. senators (1907), the recall of public officials (1908), and woman suffrage (1912). 12
      Pierce's election to the state senate in 1902 placed him in the midst of these political reforms. It was an exciting time for reformers like Pierce, who implemented measures that promised greater public participation while limiting corporate and vested interest power in the political process. In the legislative session of 1903, Pierce sponsored a measure that left a lasting legacy in the state. Due to corruption and malfeasance, the school land fund that held proceeds from the sale of land to support education had insufficient funds. To make up the shortfall, local governments levied property taxes to fund schools. The resulting inequity in school funding hit rural areas hard, and Pierce's experience as a teacher and school superintendent made him particularly sensitive to these issues. His 1903 bill required that counties assess property taxes based on the number of students in a district, rather than on property valuation, and required property tax levies sufficient to raise eight dollars per pupil for each child in a school district. While opponents to the bill lowered the requirement to six dollars per pupil in another legislator's version that was enacted at a later date, Pierce's role in the passage of the law was substantial. Pierce historian Gerald Schwartz noted that the statute "changed the whole concept of public education by guaranteeing equal financial support for children in even the poorest of school districts with those residing in rich and populous areas."20 13


 
Figure 3
    Hot Lake Sanitarium was a resort developed by Pierce and other investors in 1901. The resort boasted a clinic, restaurant, lodge, and hot baths. Pierce invested more than $100,000 and never realized a profit. At present, Hot Lake is under renovation and is known nationally as a place of numerous hauntings.

    OHS digital no. ba010883
 


 
      In 1906, Pierce stood for reelection and lost his senate seat to the Republican candidate, Dr. G.W. Cole of Pendleton. He returned to his ranch near La Grande and, for the next ten years, concentrated on his farming and ranching business. He was well known for his herds of Hereford cattle, and he produced grain and hay in large quantities. Pierce also found time to invest in the Grand Ronde Electric Company and become its president. In addition, he was a major investor in the Hot Lake Sanitarium, a health resort located near La Grande. Unfortunately for Pierce, that investment turned sour and caused him major financial problems for a number of years. During this period, Pierce was appointed a Regent of the Oregon State College in Corvallis. This was consistent with his interest in agriculture and with his desire to see the benefits of agricultural research reach local farmers. Even while in "retirement" on his ranch, Pierce was never far from politics. In 1912, he ran in the primary as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, but he lost to Harry Lane, a prominent Democratic politician from Portland. Lane later won the seat in the general election.21 In 1916, Democrats of Union and Wallowa counties selected him as their candidate for state senator from their district. As Pierce later recalled, he "won the senatorship by a little over 600 majority."22 14
      One of the first issues Pierce addressed in his second term as a state senator was the process of funding road building in Oregon. True to his populist and progressive roots, Pierce detested the influence of "interests" on government. In particular, he opposed the presence of Warren Construction Company in Oregon. The company held a patent on a road paving process and aggressively sought to control the burgeoning road paving industry in the United States. Pierce believed the company "had invaded the State with all their nefarious plans of buying those in authority, and putting over their program ruthlessly," thereby hijacking the ability of government to provide roads that would benefit all Oregonians.23 According to Schwartz, Pierce was also an ardent opponent of issuing bonds to finance road construction. He instead wanted to raise funds on a pay-as-you-go basis, proposing the Market Road Act that levied taxes on rural towns to raise $2 million annually for roads. Pierce's bill was initially defeated in the legislature, but a revised version was referred to the voters on June 3, 1919, and passed easily.24 These transportation reforms illustrate Pierce's devotion to equalizing small producer access to markets, thereby increasing those individuals' competitiveness and ability to earn a living. 15
      After an unsuccessful bid for the governorship in 1918, Pierce returned to the state senate to complete his term. Schwartz asserted that Pierce's record during this period revealed a remarkable progressive program.25 He managed, for example, to introduce his Soldier's Education Act, which would have provided money for World War I veterans to use for educational purposes at accredited institutions. In addition, Pierce supported a number of measures friendly to organized labor, including compulsory workmen's compensation, an anti-injunction bill legalizing picketing, and a full-employment bill, where the state government guarantees work for all unemployed.26 Schwartz also points out that Pierce was particularly proud of his solitary nay vote on the Criminal Syndicalism law that was passed in 1919.27 Pierce's pattern of voting and support reflects Johnston's fluid concept of the middling classes. As Johnston points out, the reform impulses of populists and progressives in Oregon were based on a radical democratic populism that often allied portions of the middle class with workers and farmers around the state.28 Pierce, as a representative of a largely agricultural constituency, demonstrates the depth of this alliance and the fluidity of class categories during this period. 16
      In 1920, Pierce came up for reelection and lost, noting that "it was the time of the Harding landslide."29 He campaigned very little, spending most of his time working on his ranch with his son, who had returned from the war. Two years later, Pierce was once again in the middle of a significant political campaign, this time for governor of the state of Oregon. The race was marked by the emergence of Ku Klux Klan political power in Oregon and the contentious debate over the Compulsory School Act. Pierce was embroiled in these developments, and a discussion of their importance is included below, in the section analyzing Pierce's reactionary populism. 17
      During the campaign for governor, Pierce also continued to advocate for the reform of Oregon's tax system. As Schwartz noted, "Pierce believed that a maldistribution of wealth was endangering American civilization." In particular, he desired a progressive income tax modeled on federal tax law, arguing that it would allow the state to reduce the levy on property and thereby help small property holders, particularly farmers.30 After his successful campaign, Pierce asserted in his inaugural address: "Coming as I do from the farm into the turmoil of state government, I believe the paramount question before this legislative body is reduction and redistribution of the burden of state taxes."31 The legislature took Pierce's admonition to heart and referred an income tax act to the voters on November 6, 1923. It was a close vote, with the measure passing by a margin of barely five hundred. Opponents immediately organized to repeal the law, and voters did so on November 4, 1924, despite the fact that the new tax generated more income for the state and allowed for the reduction of property taxes. In 1929, two years after Pierce left office, Oregon's legislature approved the landmark Property Tax Relief Act, which "imposed an income and corporate tax that offset the state's levy of property taxes, its principal source of revenue."32 18
      Pierce's fight for an income tax reaches back to his time in the state senate. His desire to reform the tax system was based in the radical democratic populism described by Johnston. Pierce believed the adoption of an income tax would relieve small property owners, especially farmers, of the burdens of high property taxes, thereby enabling them to prosper. For Pierce, it seemed logical that those with greater incomes, those most able to pay, should bear the burden of providing revenue for the government. This reflects Pierce's long-standing animosity toward the wealthy and corporate interests. Pierce the farmer understood the power that corporations and banks exerted over the lives of farmers and the lower middle class. As Johnston notes, most of the radical middling class were "anti-capitalist capitalists," meaning they were devoted to a moral capitalism that decried unrestrained accumulation of wealth. Pierce was a very successful farmer, and he invested in business ventures he hoped would bring profit. At the same time, his political rhetoric often focused on the inequity of the capitalist system and the need to address that problem through the use of government institutions and mechanisms. One of these mechanisms was the progressive income tax. Pierce's advocacy of the income tax generated significant opposition among the elite and corporations in Oregon. Pierce later blamed the Klan, the liquor interests, and the Warren Construction Company for his re-election defeat in 1926, but it is also possible that his opponents disliked his support of the income tax and the implications of its implementation. 19


 
Figure 4
    Governor Pierce displayed his prize-winning Hereford at the 1925 Oregon State Fair. Pierce was deeply interested in improving his herds through selective breeding, an interest that fed his devotion to eugenics and the development of a racially pure and fit society in the United States.

    OHS digital no. bb005975
 


 
      Pierce's devotion to the mechanisms of direct democracy was sorely tested during his administration. The defeat of the income tax law at the polls disheartened him, but an even greater challenge was issued as his opponents mounted a series of recall efforts in 1923 and 1924. While none of the attempts received sufficient signatures to refer the recall to voters, Pierce was rightly worried about the attempts to remove him from office. Schwartz mentioned that Pierce, "who had been an early proponent of the Oregon system, jokingly confessed, 'I used to like the initiative and referendum and recall, but I don't like the recall as well now, the word grates on my ears'."33 Pierce believed the recall efforts resulted from Klan dissatisfaction with his political appointments. He remembered that the Klan "demanded that I appoint their man to be Secretary of the Board of Control; that they be allowed to take a 5 percent commission off all State purchases, for running their headquarters and their paper in Portland. I could not enter into any such plan; told them I thanked them for their support in 1922, but I did not propose to serve a term in the penitentiary for them."34 Schwartz also attributes some of the recall efforts to Pierce's opposition to Warren Construction Company's monopoly of the black-top road process and to his refusal of a bribe offered by private power interests.35 As Johnston maintains, the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon was not part of the radical middle class political movements that directly challenged corporate power and the wealthy; instead, the Klan was a staunch defender of the new corporate capitalist order, hostile to labor and any effort that might affect the accumulation of wealth.36 20
      Regardless of the source of the recall efforts, by 1926, Pierce had made enough political enemies to lose his bid for reelection. He attributed his loss to a number of factors: "A great deal of opposition had been aroused in the State owing to my enforcement of the Prohibition law, opposition to the Warren Construction Company, my enmity towards the Ku Klux Klan, and other political results of 4 years as governor." While disappointed, Pierce asserted that "I retired from the office with my self-respect, believing, knowing, that I had given the State a good administration, honest and clean; no scandals."37 21
      After his defeat, Pierce once again returned home to his Island City ranch. In 1928, he ran for Congress in Oregon's Second Congressional District. He lost the race, but an important event occurred shortly after the election — his marriage to Cornelia Marvin. Marvin had grown up in Iowa and graduated from the prestigious Armour Institute library school in Chicago. After working for the Wisconsin Library Commission, she came to Oregon in 1905 to work as Oregon's first State Librarian. Her energy and expertise helped to create a state library system that served all the citizens of Oregon. According to Schwartz, Marvin shared Walter Pierce's socio-political views, even the more nativist and xenophobic of them. In addition to sharing similar political views, Schwartz argued that Marvin pushed Pierce to the left politically. This move to the left was reinforced by their experience during the Great Depression.38 22
      As the Great Depression worsened, both Walter and Cornelia felt the squeeze that many farmers experienced throughout the United States. Agricultural prices fell, and Pierce sold his wheat and cattle at a loss. He lamented that "we finished the years 1928, 1929, 1930, and 1931 all 'in the red.' It exhausted all the financial resources of myself and wife." Walter was increasingly dependent on Cornelia for financial help. In 1928, before they were married, she purchased one of his farms, and in 1936, when the other farm was repossessed, she managed to buy back eight hundred acres and lease it to tenants.39 The Pierces' financial troubles re-energized Walter's ambitions as he took the next step in his long political career. As Pierce remembered, "Everybody was broke. Nobody could pay taxes. Bank doors closed. Interests on mortgages delinquent. It was the blackest, darkest time financially that I ever saw."40 23


 
Figure 5
    Walter and Cornelia Marvin Pierce pose near their home in Eola, Oregon. This photograph, from about 1945, was taken four years after Walter retired from politics.

    OHS digital no. bb005915
 


 
      In 1932, Pierce declared his candidacy for the Second District congressional seat, asserting that "the issue in the campaign was: relief for the farmer." Like many Americans, Pierce was upset about President Herbert Hoover's administration's response to the Depression and hoped, by going to Washington, D.C., that he could do something about it. He "hung on his [Roosevelt's] coat-tails" and won the district by 5,050 votes.41 24
      Pierce's election to Congress in 1932 opened new opportunities for him to continue his advocacy of reform at the national level. At the age of seventy-two, Pierce finally remained in political office for more than one term, allowing him to influence legislative decisions to a far greater degree. In addition, his tenure as Congressman from Oregon's Second Congressional District afforded him the opportunity to continue his long struggle for reform of corporate capitalism and his defense of small property owners, particularly farmers. 25
      True to his word, Pierce immediately engaged in substantial work to help relieve the desperate situation of the nation's farmers. Appointed to the House Agriculture Committee, he helped write the revised provisions of the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). After the U.S. Supreme Court declared portions of the AAA unconstitutional, Pierce supported alternatives to help farmers receive financial support.42 In a message to the annual meeting of the Oregon State Grange, he continued to exhort Grange members and farmers to agitate on issues important to them. He called on farmers to remember that "we still have to face a battle with our old enemies — taxes, interest, and debts, public and private. We have gained somewhat on interest, but must not be diverted from the problems of property confiscation by taxation, bond issues, and interest."43 He also mentioned that Grange initiatives and public opinion swayed his colleagues in Congress and exhorted Grangers to continue pressing for relief for farmers. As a member of the Agriculture Committee, Pierce helped craft the Agriculture Act of 1938, which, according to Pierce's biographer Arthur Bone, became the bedrock of contemporary farm legislation, providing price supports and quotas that helped farmers receive more money for their produce.44 26
      Pierce also continued his long-standing support for public power. Here, he felt in good company in Congress and on numerous occasions praised the Roosevelt administration for its support of public power. For Pierce, his work on agriculture and public power issues was complimentary. He desired to see rural customers gain the benefit of federal and state projects to harness hydroelectric power. "Throughout my legislative career," Pierce asserted, "I have recognized the principle of public benefit, and have advocated the utilization of water power for the benefit of all people. I have vigorously fought every effort to turn over the people's power to private interests."45 His greatest challenge in this fight developed over the distribution of power generated by Bonneville Dam along the Columbia River. 27
      Pierce and many others in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the United States recognized the enormous potential for generating electricity along the Columbia River. Two massive New Deal projects finally brought these dreams to fruition. Construction on both the Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams started in 1933. President Roosevelt, an ardent advocate of public power, gained initial appropriations for dam construction through authority granted to him in the National Recovery Act (1933). During construction, the Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, in a report issued in 1935, recommended that "an independent federal agency be created to market the power from Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams."46 It also recommended that the power be sold for its cost of generation and that public utilities be given preference in distribution. Bonneville Dam was completed in 1938 and Grand Coulee dam in 1941.47 28


 
Figure 6
    Pierce was a lifelong advocate of public power. He is seen here testifying before the Joint Congressional Committee on Bonneville Dam on June 16, 1942. To his left is Ohio Senator Harold Burton. Pierce's devotion to public power often led his political opponents to label him a communist.

    OHS digital no. bb005933
 


 
      During Pierce's tenure in Congress, a number of bills were introduced to regulate the Columbia River projects, and one of the most influential was Pierce's. His bill, HR 6387, required that an administrator operate Bonneville Dam and that no less than fifty percent of power generated by the dam be reserved for public utilities and cooperatives. In 1937, the House Rivers and Harbors Committee, chaired by Texas Democrat Joseph J. Mansfield, conducted hearings on the Bonneville project. The Roosevelt Administration supported Pierce's bill. The opposition called on influential Oregonians, including Oregon's Governor Charles Martin, Portland's Mayor Joseph Carson, and Hamilton Corbett, President of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, to testify before the committee.48 Vigorously attacking Pierce's bill, especially provisions that reserved power for public utilities and cooperatives, the three men argued for amendments friendly to industry and private power interests. Pierce was unable to testify because of an attack of acute appendicitis, but Cornelia Marvin Pierce, in her role as secretary and close advisor, read her husband's statement to the committee. The debate among these men reflected a long-standing argument in Oregon over the issue of public ownership of utilities. For advocates of public power, like Pierce, the argument boiled down to "'we or they'; it is either power for the people or for monopoly."49 For advocates of private power systems, Pierce's arguments smacked of socialism and illegal regulation of private property by the government. Once again, Pierce used the political language of his populist and progressive roots to frame his arguments for creating a system of distribution that favored "the people" over "interests." He wanted to see publicly held natural resources benefit the public, not line the pockets of corporation shareholders. 29


 
Figure 7
    This aerial photograph of the Bonneville Dam site was taken in 1938, shortly after its completion. Despite Pierce's best efforts, struggles over the distribution of power generated by Columbia River dams continue to this day.

    OHS digital no. bb005974
 


 
      Despite the opposition of powerful interests in Oregon, the committee recommended a bill to the House that contained many of the provisions Pierce included in his draft. Congress passed the bill, and President Roosevelt signed the Bonneville Project Act on August 20, 1937. The new law was a temporary fix, and many, including Pierce, believed a regional power authority on the model of the Tennessee Valley Authority would be created in the Pacific Northwest. This never occurred, and in 1940, "the Bonneville Power Project was renamed the Bonneville Power Administration" (BPA). Since BPA was created as an agency responsible for distributing power, the debate over public power and the use of electricity generated by the Columbia River dam projects has continued into the present. After the passage of the act, Pierce continued advocating for the creation of public utility districts and for the extension of transmission lines into rural areas. In its history of the Bonneville Power Administration, the Northwest Power Council noted that "rural electrification is Bonneville's most important legacy."50 30
      Pierce was not solely interested in agricultural and public power issues during his tenure as a congressman. One of the most controversial aspects of his congressional career was his opposition to the Dies Committee, commonly known as the House Un-American Activities Committee. An initial supporter of the committee because of its charge to investigate Nazi organizations, Pierce became increasingly upset by the committee's focus on communist subversion. In 1940, despite overwhelming constituent support for the committee, Pierce voted against its continuation. In particular, Pierce did not like the tactics and publicity surrounding Congressman Martin Dies and the committee. At times, Pierce himself was a called a communist or socialist, mainly because of his support for public power. While such was hardly the case, Pierce did believe that the Communist Party was not to be feared. Instead, he feared that civil rights — such as freedom of speech or of association — might be violated if the Communist Party was outlawed or party members were forbidden to speak.51 Pierce's opposition to the committee harkens back to his single nay vote on Oregon's Criminal Syndicalism bill in 1919. He believed the way to deal with communism was not through coercive measures but by making sure that workers, farmers, and ordinary people of the United States were afforded the opportunity to prosper and participate effectively in the political process. Once again, Pierce based his political actions on a vision of moral capitalism that essentially made communism unpalatable to the American people by providing a decent living and respect to workers and farmers. 31
      Up to the end of his career, Pierce advocated and voted for measures that sought to democratize the political process and lessen the inequities of the new corporate capitalist reality of the early twentieth century. This section on his democratic populism has only touched on a few examples that demonstrate his consistent support for what Johnston calls "radical middle class democratic populism." As Pierce sought to protect and enhance the lives of his fellow citizens through support of education funding reform, progressive labor measures, an income tax, and farm and public power regulation, he also worked to enact a vision of the United States in which political rights and economic privileges were limited to certain groups. 32
   

PIERCE'S REACTIONARY POPULISM

 
The strength of Pierce's progressive record creates a paradox for historians seeking to understand this period, because it belies the fact that he also supported nativist and racist causes and legislation throughout his career. The reactionary side of Pierce's populism coexisted with the progressive side of his politics. As noted earlier, Johnston rejects Nancy MacLean's description of the Klan during the 1920s as "reactionary populists" because, in his interpretation, the Klan supported corporate capitalism. I believe the term does fit Pierce, a Klan sympathizer on many issues. Unlike the Klan leadership in Oregon, Pierce critiqued the new corporate capitalism and supported legislation to curtail the power of corporations and the wealthy. In tandem with a radical democratic populism, however, Pierce also advocated restricting Japanese and Chinese land ownership, sterilization of the "unfit," and anti-Catholic legislation. This section examines two strands of Pierce's reactionary populism — his nativist and racial ideologies, primarily his anti-Japanese activities and his support for eugenics, and his support for the Compulsory School bill and related connections to the Ku Klux Klan. 33
      Most of Pierce's reactionary populist beliefs were consistently central to his understanding of political life and democracy in the United States. Some of these convictions go back to the earliest portion of his life in Oregon, when, for example, he supported Sylvester Pennoyer's campaigns for governor in 1886 and 1890, based on Pennoyer's reform agenda and his anti-Chinese platform. Anti-Chinese political agitation was well established on the West Coast during the 1880s and 1890s, and advocates often tied it to labor and populist issues during this period.52 The most virulent opposition to these immigrant groups was based in California, but Oregonians also grew more alarmed at increasing Japanese immigration. By 1900, 2,522 Japanese resided in Oregon, up from 22 in 1890. During Pierce's second term as state senator, he supported several attempts to limit alien property rights in Oregon. Daniel Johnson, in his 1996 article on anti-Japanese legislation, attributes the loss of such efforts to the combined efforts of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. State Department, and Oregon newspapers, who all argued that the acts would damage relations with Japan, an ally during World War I.53 34


 
Figure 8
    Ku Klux Klan strength in Oregon during the 1920s is demonstrated by this August 2, 1921, photograph from the Portland Telegram. In full regalia, Klan members met with top law enforcement officials in Portland. According to the newspaper caption, the sheeted figures are the King Kleagle (center) and the Cyclops of Portland Klan No. 1, and the "civilians" are, from left: H.P. Coffin, National Safety Council; John T. Moore, senior captain of police; L.V. Jenkins, chief of police; Walter H. Evans, district attorney; Lester W. Humphreys, U.S. district attorney; T.M. Hurlburt, sherriff; Russell Bryon, U.S. department of justice; George L. Baker, mayor; and P.S. Malcolm, Scotish Rite Masonic Lodge.

    OHS digital no. bb001957
 


 
      Pierce's support of measures to limit the property rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants continued during his campaign for and tenure as governor. As Daniel Johnson notes, "in his opening message to the legislature, he called for 'enactment of a law prohibiting selling or leasing of land ... to Mongolians'." As a farmer and rancher, Pierce must have been receptive to the calls for action on the "Japanese Question," which came from farmers and farmer organizations throughout the state. According to Johnson, the hotbed of anti-Japanese agitation was in Hood River, among white residents who feared the Japanese immigrants' growing trend during the 1920s to "abandon wage labor in favor of private agricultural entrepreneurship." In 1923, these fears culminated in a successful effort by Oregon legislators to pass an alien land act prohibiting aliens from owning or acquiring land in Oregon. Pierce signed the law. Pierce also signed bills requiring county assessors "to compile lists of all Japanese and Chinese who owned or leased land," prohibiting aliens from obtaining business licenses, and requiring all foreign business owners to post a sign declaring their nationality.54 Schwartz asserted that Pierce "succumbed to the 'yellow peril' theory" and was in favor of adopting an immigration policy similar to the all-white ones of Australia and New Zealand. Part of Pierce's hostility toward the Japanese stemmed from his devotion to the birth control and eugenics movement. Schwartz noted that Pierce attributed Japanese militarism to overpopulation.55 35
      Pierce's opinions on Japanese immigration and land ownership did not change during his tenure as a New Deal congressman, and his anti-Japanese crusade took on new meaning with the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Pierce hoped this would be an opportunity to rid the United States of all Japanese inhabitants, citizens and non-citizens alike. In 1942, he was appointed to the Special House Committee investigating the issues of evacuation and internment for all Japanese. Even the measures eventually enacted — the removal from the West Coast and internment of over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II — did not go far enough for Pierce. He also advocated the disenfranchisement of all Japanese and a constitutional amendment that would withhold citizenship from those subject to dual citizenship, namely Japanese persons. After his reelection defeat in 1942, Pierce continued to agitate for the removal of all Japanese from the United States. As late as 1944, he continued to advocate on the issue, giving a speech that characterized Japan as a nation that "developed a civilization with ideals and principles directly opposite to the Anglo Saxon."56 36
      In addition to his vehement opposition to Japanese and Chinese immigration and land ownership, Pierce's nativist and racist ideology — his reactionary populism — targeted other groups as well. Two instances in particular illustrate Pierce's devotion to a vision of the republic and the benefits of citizenship limited to white Americans. Since the 1920s, progressive and liberal congressmen had attempted to pass a federal anti-lynching law. When New York Democrat Joseph A. Gavagan proposed anti-lynching legislation in 1937, Pierce voiced his opposition to the bill. Pierce was absent for the vote "but announced that he would have voted against the anti-lynching bill had he been present."57 In 1940, when the bill once again reached the House floor, Pierce joined the Southern bloc and voted against it. Schwartz maintained that this was a "stand extremely rare for Northern representatives of either party." In other areas that dealt with what Pierce called "the race problem," he remained remarkably consistent. He opposed, for example, changing the quotas to allow Jewish children fleeing Nazi Germany to enter the United States.58 37
      Pierce's nativism and racism are also clearly illuminated by his fascination with eugenics. In addition to his support for limiting immigrant rights and for legislation dear to the heart of the Ku Klux Klan, Pierce fused his nativist and racial beliefs onto his devotion to eugenics. American eugenics had its roots in nineteenth-century England. Developed by Francis Galton in the 1880s, eugenics crossed the Atlantic Ocean and found fertile ground in the United States during the early twentieth century. Eugenicists "supported policies of immigration restriction, segregation of those judged socially 'unfit,' and programs of selective human breeding."59 Michael McGeer asserted that many progressives supported the efforts of eugenicists and members of the birth control movement to discourage "the reproduction of people with undesirable traits."60 This negative eugenics, preventing "inferior" people from reproducing, coexisted with a positive eugenics that encouraged people of "superior" genetic qualities to reproduce in order to strengthen the human race.61 As Bone noted, Pierce endorsed proposals to sterilize the unfit, and one such proposal was signed into law and enacted by Governor Withycombe. Gerald Schwartz, in his article on Pierce and the birth control movement, maintained that "Pierce was a longtime student of eugenics" and remained a supporter of birth-control and eugenics legislation throughout his life.62 In addition to this earlier legislation, Pierce, during his term as governor, signed a bill "allowing the sterilization of the feebleminded and the criminally insane in state institutions."63 In his biography, Bone noted that Pierce "took pleasure" in signing what he described as "the first really effective law in the United States on sterilization."64 38
      Pierce's greatest fight on behalf of these beliefs occurred during his tenure as a New Deal Democratic Congressman.65 While the legislation introduced by Pierce was defeated, his passion for this issue reflected his lifelong devotion to birth control and the influence of Cornelia Marvin Pierce. Cornelia worked with Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair, a leading proponent of eugenics in Oregon, advocating for the 1923 sterilization law signed by Walter Pierce when he was governor.66 In 1955, Cornelia Marvin Pierce believed one of her most important achievements outside of her library work was the passage of the 1923 bill. Sharing these views and an office in Washington, D.C., Walter, relying greatly on Cornelia, led the fight in the House of Representatives to procure a bill allowing for the dissemination of contraception literature through the mail.67 He introduced the bill three times and each time was rebuffed by his colleagues. Leading supporters of the birth control movement, such as Margaret Sanger, praised Pierce's courage in attempting to modify the "Comstock Laws." 39


 
Figure 9
    Early in his tenure as congressman, Pierce introduced legislation seeking to legalize the distribution of birth control materials thought the U.S. mail. The bill was defeated three times. In this January 24, 1934, photograph, Pierce discusses his controversial bill with Mrs. Thomas N. Hepburn (right), mother of Katherine Hepburn, film star, and Margaret Sanger, a leading exponent of limited families. Hepburn had six children and was a strong advocate of the Pierce measure.

    OHS digital no. bb005917
 


 
      On the surface, contemporary observers would likely agree with the effort to liberalize the laws in regard to contraception. Pierce's motivations in this fight are more complex and less related to women's rights than we might assume today. His devotion to eugenics and the ideology of racial purity add a darker side to his efforts to pass this legislation. Both Cornelia and Walter advocated for sterilization of the unfit and the creation of a fit white race through birth control. Both sides of eugenics rest on the premise that only those deemed fit to propagate the race should be allowed to live or procreate. Unlike the radical democratic populism that Pierce backed through most of his life, his adherence to the tenets of eugenics exposed a side of politics that elevated certain groups into a position of political and economic power based on their race and physical capabilities. Perhaps the best example of Pierce's devotion to both sides of his political character is the fight over the Compulsory School bill in 1922 and beyond. 40
      The most controversial aspect of both the 1922 campaign and Pierce's term as governor was the Oregon Compulsory School bill and the litigation that emerged after it became law. The fight over this legislation helped determine the governor's race in favor of Pierce and left Oregon with a reputation as one of the most backward and reactionary states in the Union.68 The Compulsory School bill, submitted by initiative petition and placed on the state's 1922 election ballot, mandated that all children between ages eight and sixteen attend public school. There were exceptions to the rule that applied to "children who were abnormal, subnormal, or physically unable, those who had completed the eighth grade, and those, depending on age, who live too far away from a public school to walk and for whom the school did not provide transportation."69 Major supporters of the bill were the Scottish Rite Masonic Order, the Ku Klux Klan, the Federation of Patriotic Societies, and a number of other patriotic organizations intent on inculcating 100 percent Americanism. Proponents of the bill believed that private and parochial schools, in particular those run by the Catholic Church, were obstacles in the drive to Americanize immigrants. The anti-Catholicism of the Klan played a large role in their support for the bill.70 41
      Johnston asserts that, while it is easy to attribute support for and passage of the bill to racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, this masks a greater "public" support for what he calls a "liberal populism," a populism that hoped the school bill would create a more democratic society by eliminating the ability of elites to educate their children in exclusive schools. Johnston does note there was an element of wanting to Americanize immigrants, but he contends that the more dominant argument was for a school system capable of giving an equal and classless education to all children. In his analysis of voting records during the 1922 elections, Johnston found that urban areas provided the bulk of votes for the bill. He contends that the "School Bill appealed to a solid combination of people in the middle, with those living in mixed working-class and middle class residential areas providing overwhelming support for the initiative."71 42
      If one accepts Johnston's argument about middling-class support for the school bill and the power of liberal populism, then the role of the Ku Klux Klan in the history of the Compulsory School bill changes from the primary role in the campaign to political spoiler. While the Klan consistently took credit for passing the Compulsory School bill and electing Pierce as governor, its influence is better understood through the Klan's involvement in the 1922 Republican primary. The fight among Republicans centered on incumbent Ben Olcott and his challenger, Charles Hall, state Senator from Marshfield. As Robin Huffman noted, "Hall was the first choice of the Klan and related interest groups."72 As the primary approached, both campaigns resorted to stronger and stronger language. Olcott openly attacked the Klan and castigated Hall for permitting "himself to become burdened with the support of a secret political organization on an issue of religious fanaticism."73 The Klan responded by attacking Olcott's patriotism, hinting that he was a Catholic, and accusing him of introducing religious controversy into the campaign. On May 17, 1922, Republican primary voters selected Olcott by a very thin margin, the vote being so close that Hall sued for a recount. The court decided in Olcott's favor, but the rancor created during the primary damaged Olcott's ability to hold the party together during the general election. 43


 
Figure 10
    Ben Olcott served as Oregon Secretary of State from 1911 to 1919. On the death of Governor James Withycombe, Olcott was sworn in as governor. In this January 15, 1921, photo, Olcott is posing as if at work. During the 1922 gubernatorial campaign, Olcott refused support from the Ku Klux Klan and attacked their power in the state. He lost the November 1922 election to Pierce.

    OHS digital no. bb005980
 


 
      Pierce used this controversy among his Republican opponents to gain political capital. In September, he reiterated his support for the school bill, and his advocacy for the school bill cemented Klan support for his candidacy. Even though he clearly supported the school bill, Schwartz asserted that the real issue for Pierce was the unequal distribution of the tax burden in Oregon. Ever adept at populist rhetoric, Pierce often combined advocacy for tax reform with language that appealed to the Klan and other supporters of "100% Americanism." In a 1922 speech, for example, Pierce noted that "if the present line of taxation is continued and there is no material rise in the price of farm products, the present Anglo Saxon boy and girl will leave the farm, and if their places are filled at all it must be with some race with a lower standard of living then we have today on Oregon farms."74 The general election proved the power of Pierce's appeal and rhetoric. Despite the fact that he was a Democrat in a largely Republican state, Pierce won the election easily. As he noted, "in the election I won by 34,000, the largest vote ever given any candidate for Governor up to that time."75 44
      Pierce's endorsement of the bill and his acceptance of Klan political support raise serious questions for historians and biographers who question whether Pierce was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. David Horowitz and Gerald Schwartz argue that he was a member of the Klan based on letters that referred to him in a way that denoted membership and on the fact that the Klan was especially strong in portions of eastern Oregon, particularly the La Grande and Baker areas.76 Others, including Arthur Bone, Robin Huffman, and M. Paul Holsinger, believe Pierce was not a member of the Klan. They point out that there is no hard evidence that Pierce joined a local klavern or other Klan supported organization. In light of the evidence produced by Horowitz and Schwartz, I believe Pierce was most likely a member of the Klan. As Johnston notes, "the social makeup of the Klan statewide was a combination of working class and middle class."77 Pierce's political career was based on representing the interests of these groups, and he would have felt comfortable in their midst. He used the Ku Klux Klan for political gain, but he also joined with them in endorsing prohibition, the Compulsory School bill, and efforts to curb the rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants. 45


 
Figure 11
    At eighty years old, Pierce continued to serve Oregon's Second Congressional District. This 1941 photo shows Pierce in his trademark three-piece suit and bow tie.

    OHS digital no. bb005909
 


 
      While Pierce declared his intention to enforce the new Compulsory School law, many in Oregon and across the nation railed against it and painted the state of Oregon and its inhabitants with unflattering colors.78The Oregon Voter declared: "Enactment of the (bill) ... is a disgrace to this state."79 The Baltimore Sun viewed the school law as "a virtual attempt to Ku Klux education in that state.... The Oregon law is a challenge to a religious civil war."80 Opponents of the new law quickly organized legal challenges. A year after voters approved the bill, litigation began in the Federal District Court in Portland. The court issued an injunction against implementation of the law on March 31, 1924, and the State of Oregon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices heard arguments in the case a year later, and on June 1, 1925, the Court, in a unanimous decision, upheld the lower court's decision and nullified the law.81 The fight over the Compulsory School bill illuminates the complex interaction of varying strains of populism in Pierce's career and the political life of Oregonians.82 46
   

THE END OF PIERCE'S POLITICAL CAREER

 
As World War II consumed the United States and the world, the eighty-one-year-old Pierce campaigned for his sixth term in Congress. His loss in November of 1942 was one of the bitterest of his career: "The hardest of all to bear was the loss of my own home county for which I have done so much — Union. That cut deeper and left a deeper scar than any other defeat ever suffered by me in my long political career."83 As he had throughout his career, Pierce blamed the liquor, private utilities, and timber interests for his defeat. He and Cornelia retired to her home in Eola, Oregon, near Salem, and Walter remained active in issues that had motivated him throughout his life. In 1944, he was selected as a presidential elector from Oregon. He continued to give interviews, even one on his ninetieth birthday. He read widely and worked on his memoirs, despite increasing health problems. On March 27, 1954, Walter Marcus Pierce passed away at his home in Eola. Three years later, Cornelia Marvin Pierce followed him. As Bone noted, Cornelia wore herself out caring for Walter during his last ten years of life.84 47
      So ended the life and work of Walter M. Pierce. His long political career affords historians the opportunity to investigate the nature of reform during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His political rhetoric and activities remained remarkably consistent over his career. His devotion to reform, or radical democratic populism, contributed greatly to the political development of Oregon and the nation. Pierce's career also leaves us with another legacy that is far from laudatory. His reactionary populism, especially in the twentieth century, must be confronted and understood. While championing civil rights, public power, and increased funding for schools, Pierce also sought to limit the political, economic, and social rights of Catholics, Japanese immigrants, and African Americans. This legacy leaves us to ponder the limits and challenges of progressive reform in the early twentieth century. It also confronts us with how we address the problems of making our contemporary society more democratic and economically equitable. The problems of a shifting and complex middling class and its impact on politics are not relegated to some distant past — but still confront us as we attempt to deal with political and social problems that seem to have few answers. Perhaps the great hope for us in the present is that the radical democratic populism of Pierce and other reformers of the last century will emerge again, bereft of its reactionary elements, and prove instrumental in shaping the twenty-first century. 48


NOTES

1.  There are many good books and articles on the Progressive movement in the United States, including Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987); Peter G. Filene, "An Obituary for 'The Progressive Movement'," American Quarterly 22 (1970): 20–34; and Daniel T. Rodgers, "In Search of Progressivism," Reviews in American History 10 (1982): 113–132.

2.  Johnston's conception of radical democratic populism centers on the role of the middle class in populist and progressive politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Instead of monolithic and conservative, Johnston asserts that one part of the middle class, the petite bourgeoisie, allied itself with the parts of the middle class and with the working class to create a political vision that sought to democratize the political process and curb the influence of accumulated wealth in the United States. See Robert Johnston, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), xii–xvi.

3.  MacLean's category of reactionary populism is focused mainly on the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s but fits well in describing Pierce's political career. For MacLean, reactionary populism is "the anti-elitism characteristic of populism joined with the commitment to enforce the subordination of whole groups of people." MacLean also notes that reactionary populism appealed "to the legions of middle-class white men who felt trapped between capital and labor." Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), xiii–xiv.

4.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, xii, xi, 14.

5.  For in-depth discussions of producerist ideology and language and moral capitalism, see Lawrence M. Lipin, Workers and the Wild: Conservation, Consumerism, and Labor in Oregon, 1910–30, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 2–8; and Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 81–89.

6.  MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry, xii, xiii, 85.

7.  Gerald Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce and the Tradition of Progressive Reform: A Study of Eastern Oregon's Great Democrat" (Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 1969), 42.

8.  Pierce's lifelong battle for prohibition began in Milton, Oregon, in the 1880s. He consistently battled what he called the liquor interests and frequently felt that he lost elections due to his support of "dry" politics. See To My Friends Who Desire Prohibition of the Manufacture of Liquor, July 1, 1942, Walter M. Pierce Collection, 68:33:12, University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives [hereafter Pierce Collection].

9.  Elections in Which Walter M. Pierce Has Been a Candidate, undated manuscript, Walter M. Pierce Collection, 1888–1969, Collection Number 68, box 30, folder 27, University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives [hereafter Elections].

10.  Walter Marcus Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, Governor, Congressman: Memoirs and Times of Walter M. Pierce, ed. Arthur H. Bone (Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1981), 21–23.

11.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 46–47.

12.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 26. On Pennoyer, see also Carlos Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 268.

13.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 27.

14.  Robert A. Rosenbaum, The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History, Douglas Brinkley, advisory editor, (New York: Penguin Group, 2003) 133. Farmers were some of the most ardent supporters of "free silver," the unlimited coinage of silver and gold.

15.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 121.

16.  Elections, 7.

17.  Ibid., 7, 454.

18.  David Peterson Del Mar, Oregon's Promise: An Interpretive History (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003), 131.

19.  Elections, 7.

20.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 48.

21.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 76–78, 89.

22.  Elections, 10.

23.  Ibid. The Warren Brothers Company held a patent on a road-surfacing technology. On the process and company, see History of Warrenite-Bithulic Roads and Pavements and Some New Discoveries in Pavement Construction, Address by George C. Warren, President, Warren Brothers Company, in Pacific Municipalities and Counties, Official Organ of the California League of Municipalities, 34, 1, January 1920, 201–207.

24.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 51–52.

25.  The Progressive Movement or impulse declined after World War I through both the weariness of voters of reform politics and the resurgence of conservative Republican politics after the war.

26.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 135–36.

27.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 54, 55.

28.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 233.

29.  Elections, 12.

30.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 71–72.

31.  Message of Walter M. Pierce, Governor, to the 32nd Legislative Assembly Regular Session, Convened January 8, 1923, http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/governors/Pierce/message1923.html (accessed August 17, 2009).

32.  Douglas Heider and David Deitz, Legislative Perspectives: A 150-year History of the Oregon Legislatures from 1843–1993, (Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1995), 124.

33.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 66.

34.  Elections, 15.

35.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 65.

36.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 247.

37.  Elections, 15.

38.  Ibid., 348. For a detailed discussion of Marvin's life and activities see Cheryl Gunselman, "'Wheedling, Wrangling, and Walloping' for Progress: The Public Service Career of Cornelia Marvin Pierce, 1905–1943," Oregon Historical Quarterly 110:3 (Fall 2009): 362–89.

39.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 331, 399.

40.  Elections, 17.

41.  Ibid., 17, 18.

42.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 129–38.

43.  Message To My Friends In the Oregon State Grange Assembled for Annual Meeting at McMinnville, June 10–14, 1935. Pierce Collection, 68:35:5.

44.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 355–56. After the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 unconstitutional, Congress responded by first passing the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (1936), which sought to decrease agricultural production by subsidizing farmers to plant crops that did not deplete the soil in place of cotton, tobacco, and wheat. See Robert A. Rosenbaum, Penguin Encyclopedia of American History, 122–23.

45.  Walter M. Pierce Speech, The Power Fight, circa February 1938, Pierce Collection, 68:10:14.

46.  Ibid.

47. http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/BPAHistory.asp

48.  Gary Murrell, Iron Pants: Oregon's Anti-New Deal Governor, Charles Henry Martin (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2000), 148–55. Martin and Pierce were political rivals, and the fight between them often turned ugly. For both Walter and Cornelia Marvin Pierce and for Martin, the fight over Bonneville was both political and personal.

49.  Speech before the House Rivers and Harbors Committee, 1937, Pierce Collection, 68:56:13.

50. http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/BPAHistory.asp (accessed August 17, 2009).

51.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 245–73.

52.  See Roger Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States (Seattle: University of Washington Press 1988); and Linda Tamura, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993).

53.  Daniel P. Johnson, "Anti-Japanese Legislation in Oregon, 1917–1933," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 97:2 (Summer 1996): 178.

54.  Ibid., 197, 182–83, 199–200.

55.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 283–85.

56.  Walter M. Pierce Speech, 1944, Pierce Collection, 68:73:16.

57.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 281. Pierce's letters to constituents from 1934 to 1939 demonstrate his ambivalence on the subject. See Pierce to Elise W. Reynolds, March 14, 1934, and Pierce to Monroe Sweetland, Walter M. Pierce Collection, 68:26:31, University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives, Eugene, Oregon.

58.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 280–81, 279.

59.  Steven Selden, Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America, Advances in Contemporary Educational Thought Series, vol. 23, Jonas F. Soltis, ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1999), 1.

60.  McGeer, A Fierce Discontent, 214.

61.  Andre Pichot, The Pure Society From Darwin to Hitler, trans. David Fernbach (London: Verso, 2009), 110–11.

62.  Gerald Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce and the Birth Control Movement," Oregon Historical Quarterly 88:4 (Winter 1987): 371.

63.  Ibid.

64.  Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 259.

65.  See Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce, and the Birth Control Movement,"370–83. Schwartz's article details the efforts of Pierce to introduce birth-control legislation.

66.  Gunselman, "'Wheedling, Wrangling, and Walloping' for Progress."

67.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce, and the Birth Control Movement," 372–73. As Schwartz notes, Section 21 of the United State Penal Code prohibited sending or receiving through the mail information or supplies pertaining to the prevention of conception. Pierce's bill sought "to amend sections of the criminal code by declaring that they should not in any way apply to contraceptive information or supplies used by physicians, by legally chartered medical colleges, by druggists in the filling of physician's prescriptions, or by hospitals and licensed clinics."

68.  M. Paul Holsinger, "The Oregon School Bill Controversy, 1922–1925," The Pacific Historical Review 37:3 (August, 1968): 327–41.

69.  Ibid., 327n.

70.  Carlos Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 374–78.

71.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 227–31, 233.

72.  Robin Huffman, "An Analysis of the Interrelationship Between the Oregon School Law of 1922, the Press of Oregon, the Election of Walter Pierce and the Ku Klux Klan" (M.A. thesis, Portland State University, 1974), 14.

73.  Huffman, "The Oregon School Law of 1922," 15. See also Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 155.

74.  Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 62.

75.  Elections, 14.

76.  Many books cover the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. One of the best is Leonard J. Moore, Citizen Klansman: the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921–1928 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.) See also Shawn Lay, ed., The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), an excellent resource that includes essays on the Klan in a number of western cities and towns, including La Grande, Oregon. Another excellent source of information on the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon is Eckard Toy, Jr.'s, article "Ku Klux Klan" for the Oregon Encyclopedia Project, Portland State University, 2009. http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ku_klux_klan/ (accessed August 17, 2009).

77.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 239.

78.  See Thomas J. Shelley, "The Oregon School Case and the National Catholic Welfare Conference" The Catholic Historical Review 75:3 (July 1989): 439–57; Lloyd P. Jorgenson, "The Oregon School Law of 1922: Passage and Sequel," The Catholic Historical Review 54:3 (October 1968): 455–66; and David B. Tyack, "The Perils of Pluralism: The Background of the Pierce Case," The American Historical Review 74:1 (October 1968): 74–98.

79.  Holsinger, "The School Bill Controversy," 335. The Oregon Voter was a political publication that focused on the state's political news. C.C. Chapman was the general editor.

80.  Ibid., 336

81.  See "Court Invalidates Oregon School Law," New York Times, April 1, 1924; and "Oregon School Law Declared Invalid by Supreme Court," New York Times, June 2, 1925.

82.  Johnston, The Radical Middle Class, 12–15.

83.  Ibid.

84.  For discussions of Pierce's retirement and death, see Pierce, Oregon Cattleman, 386–40; and Schwartz, "Walter M. Pierce," 339–44.


 
Figure 12
    Late in life, Pierce married Cornelia Marvin, the former Oregon State Librarian. Both Walter and Cornelia developed their own bookplates for their personal libraries. This bookplate features some of the accomplishments of Pierce's life.

    Walter M. Pierce Collection, MS 68, box 76, folder 14, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.
 


 

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