Wednesday, November 7, 2007

"Good Citizens Are The Riches of the City"





The title of this post can be found on the Skidmore Fountain in Portland, Oregon. It is attributed to one of the most diverse and biggest historical figures in Oregon history: CES Wood. His life spanned the last of the 19th and first part of the 20th century. With contributions military, literary, artistic, political, and legal. He is associated with Chief Joseph's famous "I will fight no more forever." He was a friend of Mark Twain's, and wrote humor that was compared with his, had an ethical conflict with Clarence Darrow and did impressionistic paintings with Childe Hassam in Oregon's high desert.

John Mitchell Hipple came west in the late 1850s after deserting his wife and another woman he was living with. He changed his name to John Hipple Mitchell, married again. became a senator and died while appealing a conviction in a federal timber fraud case.

These are the two lives discussed at tonight's Mark O Hatfield Distinguished Historian's Forum lecture. by journalist and author Fred Lesson. I've very much enjoyed these lectures in the First Congregational Church in the Park Blocks of downtown Portland. The 85 year old Senator Hatfield is in attendance, introducing the speakers and asking the first question at these events. Just like CES Wood, Hatfield could not be pigeon-holed politically, part of the progressive Republican tradition associated with the crazy and independent Pacific Northwest. A Northwest that CES Wood and Mitchell Hipple (or is it Hipple Mitchell?) fell right at home in half a century earlier.

Hatfield is still eloquent. During his traditional first question of the Forum after Lesson's presentation. He praised him for bringing the "untold story that needs to be broadcast for the people's enrichment." The audience in the classic stone church almost audibly respond in a kind of awe. Then our Senator god became mortal: "I forgot my question." As we walked back to the car under the drooping Fall trees on Park, I realized that Wood was only partly right. This city, this state and this region are truly rich and we are so very fortunate to be a part of it.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:03 PM
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