Opal creek oregon3/5/2023 ![]() ![]() The meat of Etulain’s book ends in 1967 as Hatfield moves from the job of governor of Oregon to that of US senator from Oregon, as its coverage of Hatfield’s Senate career is superficial. Etulain came out last year I was interested to read one about Hatfield. Hatfield: Oregon Statesman by noted western author Richard W. (The Elk Creek Dam no longer damns Elk Creek, which is now a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.)Īs a matter of professional interest (know one’s opponent), I have read all the books written by Hatfield, and when Mark O. However, several dammed streams in Oregon-the Upper Rogue, dammed by Lost Creek Dam the Applegate River, dammed by the Applegate Dam the Elk Creek tributary to the Upper Rogue, dammed at one time by the Elk Creek Dam the Willow Creek tributary to the Columbia River and more-were damned by Hatfield. (You can read my very opinionated but nonetheless factual history of Oregon’s wilderness wars, in which Hatfield played an outsized role for so long, in a chapter of my book Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness.) However, millions of acres of Oregon’s wild forests could have been protected as wilderness but were not, thanks to Hatfield. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area would not be, if not for Hatfield. For most of the streams protected today in Oregon as wild and scenic rivers, Hatfield was instrumental. It’s true that for most of the area protected today in Oregon as wilderness, Hatfield was instrumental. The OHS exhibit features Hatfield’s efforts to establish wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. I recall getting a mass mailing from Hatfield way before Gulf War I where he warned of “our sons fighting and dying in the sands of Arabia” for oil. For the relative and absolute dearth of presence of the military-industrial complex in Oregon today, we can thank Hatfield. He proposed a cabinet-level Department of Peace to offset the Department of Defense (which combined the Department of War and the Department of the Navy). He deeply opposed the Vietnam War at a time when most Oregonians supported it. He talked about and did more about peace. I’m pretty sure Hatfield cared more about world peace than wilderness protection. No, wilderness protection was clearly meant to be first and most important. ![]() However, this list would be in reverse alphabetical order if wilderness protection and world peace were reversed. Or perhaps it’s merely a listing of six causes, with no ranking of importance-but if that were the case, alphabetical order would be the usual way to signal such, or even random ordering. Looking at that list on the wall told me that a historian, perhaps more than one, believes that the thing Mark Hatfield cared most about was wilderness protection. (Although a Republican, he was downright liberal on issues such as world peace, health care, equal rights, and education, which resulted in a lot of Democrats repeatedly voting for him.) More than once I had characterized Mark Hatfield as a pacifist timber beast when explaining his ability to survive and prosper politically in Oregon. ![]()
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