This is the second of two Public Lands Blog posts on the most consequential Oregonian yet to serve in the United States Senate. In Part 1, we looked at his role in enabling the destruction of Oregon forests. In Part 2, we look at his complicated legacy.
Figure 5. In 1953, State Representative Mark Hatfield pushed a bill through the Oregon House of Representatives forbidding discrimination based on race in public accommodations. Source: Oregon Historical Society.
I consider Mark Hatfield to have been a great US senator and one of the better governors of Oregon. (My all-time favorite was Barbara Roberts, who, having more gonads than any other Oregon elected official I have ever known, took on Big Timber big time at a time when no elected official ever had.) However, like everyone, Hatfield had his faults and blind spots.
It seems now more than ever, we don’t seem to be able to honor great people unless they were perfect. Everybody has a dark side. I want neither to cancel nor to nullify Mark Hatfield. I would like him to be remembered in history for the great good he did but also for the bad and the ugly he did.
My Favorite Sound Bite and Senator Hatfield’s Reaction
During the Pacific Northwest forest wars I received far more than my allocated fifteen minutes of fame. At the peak of the wars, I had a dozen publicists working for me—not in my employ but in the employ of Big Timber. Every public relations campaign needs a demon, and I was the go-to choice of the poohbahs of Big Timber, having grown up in timber country with children of logging and mill workers and logging and mill owners.
I was pretty good at the sound bite, but my absolute all-time favorite of those I came up with was quoted in Time magazine:
Asking the Oregon congressional delegation in 1990 to deal rationally with the end of ancient-forest cutting is like asking the Mississippi delegation in 1960 to deal rationally with the end of segregation.
Back in the day, magazines were printed on paper and Time was widely read. I remember Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4th) grudgingly allowing me to peruse his copy of the June 25, 1990, edition, which featured the northern spotted owl on the cover and profiled me in a half-page box inside. Every time I ran into Representative Ron Wyden (D-OR-3rd) for years afterward, he would always open with a qualified joke about the quote. Qualified like “great quote, right on, but I still didn’t like it.”
However, the member of the Oregon congressional delegation the quote landed on with the most force was Senator Hatfield. He never mentioned it to me, but he took extreme exception to it and called up the editors of Time to complain. The editors told the author of the story about it, and he told me. Apparently, the editors were so taken by the quote—or more likely, were so struck by such a powerful and generally respected US senator going so nuts about it—that they used the quote again in a follow-up story a few issues later—and it was a pull quote…. ;-)
Part, perhaps a huge part, of the sting of my quote was that Hatfield was truly progressive on civil rights from his earliest days in elected office. Perhaps the quote made Hatfield realize the parallels that could be drawn between the South’s peculiar institution of segregation and the Pacific Northwest’s peculiar institution of clear-cutting old-growth forests. Perhaps Hatfield’s deep love and appreciation of history (Lincoln was his favorite president) made him think about how he would be remembered.
My Time quote was meant to sting, and it did. However, one could also interpret the quotation with the mindset of the political animal, which I partly (some would say mostly) am. In perfect hindsight, I wish I had opened with “Expecting the Oregon congressional delegation to . . . ” rather than “Asking the Oregon congressional delegation to . . .” I don’t expect senators from Iowa to oppose corn ethanol subsidies or senators from Alaska to oppose fossil fuels or senators from New York to oppose Wall Street. I never expected Hatfield to be on the right side of history in re the last of the old-growth forests of Oregon.
Nationalizing the Issue of Logging Federal Ancient Forests in Oregon
Once upon a time, newspaper endorsements were politically significant. In the mid-1980s Hatfield was meeting with the editorial board of the Oregonian, when it was their practice to have a news reporter cover the meeting in case any news was made. Unprovoked, Hatfield went off on conservationists in general and on James Monteith and Andy Kerr in particular. He warned the board to be aware of just how truly radical James and I were, that we were trying to destroy Oregon’s timber industry and to nationalize the issue of ancient forest logging on Oregon’s federal public lands, and on and on.
Though it was not news worth reporting in the paper, the reporter thought it was nonetheless worth reporting to us (as we were useful sources). Apparently, the editorial board members thought Hatfield was quite over-the-top in his concerns. Actually, Hatfield wasn’t off base at all. He saw right through us. We were seeking to nationalize the issue (as the godfather had killed our hope for local resolution)—not only seeking but actually succeeding.
Hatfield made one last attempt to reach out to us so that we might come back into his fold and work out matters locally. The Oregon Natural Resources Council was holding its annual conference at the Menucha Conference Center in the Columbia River Gorge. Hatfield was invited to speak, and he came despite a very painful kidney infection. I introduced him, and in being polite (if not also fair) and wanting to say something good about him, I praised his recent instrumental role in statutorily removing the threat of a geothermal power plant just outside of Crater Lake National Park (where there are several hot springs on the lake bottom). Nonetheless, the welcoming applause was desultory.
Hatfield made an impassioned and eloquent plea to the assembled forest activists to, essentially (but in code), come back into his godfather fold. The crowd would have none of it. The dogs of war could not be recalled. The closing applause was even more desultory. Even if we had decided to let the godfather try to work it out to our benefit, this godfather couldn’t deliver Big Timber at the same time.
More About the Mold Than the Man
Some of what made Hatfield the senator he was, was he himself. The rest of what made the senator was the times during which he grew up in and served Oregon.
Probably my favorite former US senator from Oregon was Richard Neuberger, followed by Bob Packwood (I only rank those no longer in office). Neuberger was a liberal Democrat who sponsored the original wilderness bill in 1956. Unfortunately, he died in office in 1960 at age 47. Would Dick Neuberger have handled Oregon’s peculiar institution of old-growth liquidation any differently? I’d very much like to think so, but I just can’t see any possible US senator from Oregon at the time behaving any differently. If Neuberger had, he would never have been elected, or lasted, as a US senator from Oregon. In politics, and eventually in history, it’s often more about the mold than the man.
Figure 6. Governor Hatfield visiting the Georgia-Pacific Paper Mill in Toledo in 1958. Source: Oregon Encyclopedia.
Unlike Hatfield, Congressman Jim Weaver (D-OR-4th) loved wilderness. They fought over the Endangered American Wilderness Act of 1978 and the Oregon Wilderness Act of 1984. They fought over making the North Umpqua a wild and scenic river in 1984. They fought over timber policy. They did not like each other at all.
In 1986, Weaver made a run to defeat the longest-serving junior senator from Oregon, Bob Packwood. Unfortunately, Weaver ended up dropping out of the race in late August. (By the way, this cost us 300,000 acres of wilderness in Hells Canyon that Packwood wanted and was slated to get, as Hatfield no longer had reason to let Packwood pass his wilderness bill to help in his re-election.) It turned out that Weaver, between his service in the US Navy in World War II and in Congress, came up just a few months short of qualifying for a federal pension. Hatfield graciously put Weaver on his Senate payroll (at a rate of $1/year) for a few months until Weaver qualified for his pension.
This kindness to a congressman he vehemently disagreed with spoke of Hatfield the man. A later meanness to another Democratic congressman spoke of Hatfield the politician molded by how he wanted to be remembered in history.
Starting in 1979, Hatfield wanted to save Opal Creek—a highly contested roadless low-elevation old-growth-forest watershed east of Salem—as wilderness. One thing or another always kept it from happening. Usually it was the member of Congress whose district included Opal Creek who was in opposition when an Oregon wilderness bill was moving through Congress. Eventually, the issue had reached a decade-and-a-half-long stalemate in which the timber industry (and the Forest Service) couldn’t clear-cut it and conservationists (and Hatfield) couldn’t save it.
Fast forward to 1994. The local Member of Congress was all for it. In fact, Representative Mike Kopetski (D-OR-5th) delivered the Opal Creek Protection Act out of the House and off to the Senate on August 8, 1994. Hatfield refused to take up the bill, protesting that there wasn’t time remaining in the 103rd Congress. Actually, there was plenty of time left (as Hatfield proved two years later).
Conservationists made an all-out push. We even rented the most visible billboard in Oregon at the OR 217 exit on northbound Interstate 5. It said, “Save Opal Creek. Call Senator Hatfield 221.3386.” Just text, no art. People were starting to possess mobile phones and had nothing better to do while sitting in rush-hour traffic than make phone calls. The phones in Hatfield’s office were flooded with more calls than could be answered for a solid week.
Hatfield remained unmoved. Kopetski’s Opal Creek legislation died in 1994. In October of 1993, for personal reasons, Kopetski chose not to seek re-election.
Hatfield’s Final Senate Hours
Fast forward to 1996, very late in the 104th Congress (way past August 8, by the way). As he was leaving office, Hatfield saw to it that the Opal Creek legislation was finally enacted into law—not once, but twice. He took no chances and hung the Opal Creek provision onto both what would become the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1977 and also the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Act of 1996. Ironically, the local member of Congress in 1996 was Representative Jim Bunn (R-OR-5th), who was opposed to saving Opal Creek, but it no longer mattered.
Let’s turn to the Salem Statesman Journal for an account by noted outdoor reporter Zach Urness (@ZachsORoutdoors) of Hatfield’s final Senate hours and the saving of Opal Creek.
On a late night in Washington, D.C., in a chamber filled with the United States’ most powerful politicians, Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield made his last stand for an unlikely cause.
It was September 1996, and leadership from the White House and Senate had gathered to trim bills from an omnibus spending package aimed at averting a second government shutdown in as many years.
Hatfield was 74 years old. He’d announced his retirement. But as chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Hatfield still swung a big stick, even in a room filled with Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House; Trent Lott, majority Leader of the Senate; and Leon Panetta, President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.
At 1:30 a.m., after hours of deliberation, first Panetta and then Gingrich moved to delete a package of parks bills that included creation of Opal Creek Wilderness and Scenic Recreation Area.
Opal Creek remained a divisive symbol—the raging flames of the Forest Wars still flickered—and the leaders worried that including the bill would jeopardize the entire package.
“I move that we delete the appropriations bill on parks,” Trent Lott said.
Hatfield, although he had authored major wilderness bills, wasn’t viewed as an environmental champion.
Mark Hatfield had sawdust coursing through his veins," said Andy Kerr, a longtime environmentalist who locked horns with Hatfield on numerous occasions. "He didn't have problems creating wilderness areas in the high mountains, which were mostly rock and ice. But once we started looking at protecting low-elevation old-growth forests, filled with very profitable trees, that's when it got difficult for him.
"Opal Creek was symbolic, it was well-known. It was tough for a guy like Hatfield.”
Hatfield withdrew support for protecting Opal Creek in the 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act. In 1994, he didn’t support an Opal Creek protection bill sponsored by former Rep. Mike Kopetski, D-Ore, according to the High County News.
Instead, he waited until the end of a political career spanning four-and-a-half decades to make his move on Opal Creek.
And he did it in the early hours of the morning.
“I had waited,” said Hatfield, recalling the moment during a speech in 2004. “I had been there for about three hours going through the rest of the bill. And I felt this was a propitious moment.”
“May I speak to that motion (removing Opal Creek)?” Hatfield said.
A pause.
“If that motion passes I can assure you that I’ll bring the entire bill down,” Hatfield told a stunned group.
“They knew I had announced my retirement,” Hatfield said. “They knew I had nothing to lose. And so there was silence. Not often had I been in that kind of a company and had silence.”
Finally, after some back and forth, Newt Gingrich stood down.
“I think that we have your message, and it stays,” the House speaker said, keeping Opal Creek.
The Last Time I Saw Hatfield
It was 2006, ten years after Hatfield had left the Senate. He was keynoting in a downtown Portland banquet room for a decadal celebration of the establishment of Opal Creek Wilderness thrown by the Friends of Opal Creek. The place was packed. It was a joyous celebration of a hard-fought three-decade-long fight-to-the-death that the good side had eventually won. As I tucked into the luncheon of rubber chicken, I listened to Hatfield tell stories. He owned the room. He told stories about saving Opal Creek, about getting the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, about his various wilderness and wild and scenic river bills.
In his talk, Hatfield noted that there were only a very few remaining roadless low-elevation old-growth watersheds in the western Cascades such as Opal Creek. The rest had been logged, he said. I choked on my chicken and about fell off my chair. Hatfield was articulating an argument that had often been made by conservationists in the French Pete fight, which lasted from the time Hatfield entered the Senate in 1967 until its congressional protection in 1978. I knew that Hatfield had heard the only-a-very-few argument many times, but he never—while it office—acknowledged, let alone invoked, the reasoning to protect such watersheds. And now, ten years after leaving office, this very old recovering politician was recalling that very (I dare say compelling) argument as he attempted to ensure that history would remember him for the wild lands and waters that he was instrumental in saving rather than those (multiple times greater in area) he was instrumental in destroying.
After the event broke up, Hatfield was mobbed by the adoring crowd. I intended to pay my respects and planned to intercept him as he left the hall. Both he and I were slowly moving toward an intersection point when George Atiyeh, who came from a prestigious Republican family and was one of the great champions who finally saw to it that Opal Creek was saved, appeared. “Kerr,” Atiyeh barked, “Mark wants to talk to you; come on!” So with Atiyeh running interference, the crowd parted so Hatfield and I could shake hands. It was very noisy, and Hatfield would not let go of my hand. While he charismatically looked me in the eyes, he said, “Andy. You were my teacher. I didn’t want to listen, but I learned much from you.” My mind was reeling. Damn, I wish I had been wearing a wire so as to record those words Hatfield said only to me.
When I got home that night, I was still under the reality-distortion spell of Hatfield. I came out of it when my wife, a great defender of Oregon’s wilderness herself, quickly reminded me of just how much wilderness and how many free-flowing streams, wetlands, and old-growth forests had been lost to Oregon by Hatfield’s actions.
Man, Hatfield was good. He saw Opal Creek as a way to color his legacy. So far, it’s working.
As one of his last legislative acts, Hatfield preserved nearly 20,000 acres of old-growth forest. Hatfield called the preservation of Opal Creek Wilderness “a great legacy for Oregon.”
—Oregon Historical Society (2022)
That 20,000 acres of old-growth preserved in 1996 equates to a little over ten weeks’ worth of Oregon old-growth forest liquidation in 1989.
Figure 7. Another kiosk in the Oregon Historical Society’s traveling exhibit. Source: Oregon Historical Society.
Bottom Line: While we should appreciate the greatness of great leaders, we must not ignore the things they did that were the opposite of great.
In Memoriam, Gerry Frank
The recent death at ninety-five of Oregon retail scion, restaurateur, bon vivant, and author Gerry Frank reminded me of a story I heard about him and Hatfield. Frank long served as Hatfield’s chief of staff. Hatfield prided himself on representing all of Oregon, and that included doing luncheon speeches in the far-flung and lightly-populated parts of Oregon. A friend was in his preferred grocery store in Lakeview when he noticed Gerry buying one beer. My friend knew Hatfield was giving a talk at the Indian Village Restaurant and that he had engagements in Klamath Falls later in the day (it’s a small town). He assumed Gerry was going to have a beer in the city park while waiting for Hatfield. My friend then needed to go across the street to Safeway to get something the smaller store didn’t have, and he again noticed Gerry buying one beer. Appearances were everything. Two beers for two friends to share on the long drive to K Falls.