He Loved The Land New Book On Tom Mccall Tells Of The Highs And Lows Of A Governor Who Held Oregon In His Heart

“Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story” by Brad Waith (Oregon Historical Society Press, $29.95)

Authors in the Pacific Northwest are beginning to deliver histories of its heroes. In a region that in the past has endured hagiography, several fine new biographies have been published or are taking shape.

The best of the genre is newly published “Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story” by Brent Walth. It follows close on the heels of a fine biography of Idaho’s Sen. Frank Church. Upcoming is Shelby Scates’ major study of Washington state’s Sen. Warren Magnuson.

Walth’s subject is the impetuous, boisterous, boozy, gutsy governor who saved Oregon’s beaches, cleaned up its rivers, and set a national example for land-use planning.

The book recounts a life filled with triumphs and bitter disappointments. Its 563 pages will fascinate and exhaust students of history. It will appeal to all who appreciate the Northwest’s natural beauty and have tried to curb the ever-present greedheads who want to despoil it.

We don’t seem to make politicians like Tom McCall anymore. He was a product of New England, raised alternately at his grandfather’s Massachusetts estate and the rural Oregon ranch where his father tried to scratch out a living. The ranch taught him a love of the land. He was able to act on that love as governor from 1966 to 1974, a time the Northwest was discovering the pollution of its rivers and the price tag of runaway development.

McCall was a politician who moved first and worried about electoral consequences later. He was, proudly, a liberal Republican who refused to believe the term was becoming a political oxymoron. As a former TV commentator, McCall had a wellhoned sense of the occasion and instinct for confrontation.

It was McCall who, after listening to the angry divisive rhetoric of Vice President Spiro Agnew at a governor’s conference, came out and told reporters: “There was the most unbelievable, incredible misunderstanding of the mood of America in that rotten bigoted little speech.”

When conservative legislators tied up his beach protection bill, McCall came down by helicopter at Cannon Beach. He landed next to a motel that had fenced off what it called a “private beach.” The governor proceeded to drive in stakes high on the beach, literally drawing a line of public ownership in the sand. The lawmakers caved in days later.

Of course, McCall was most famous for a 1971 CBS News interview in which he invited people to visit Oregon, while adding: “But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.”

The governor was more than a showman. McCall was early to recognize the region’s environment as an economic asset. Growth is not predicated on smokestacks and sprawl. Oregon’s preserved farmland with its land use laws. But its wellordered growth also proved an attraction for the new generation of high-tech research and development firms.

The admiration of Walth for his subject is evident throughout the book. He has, however, written an honest biography. The author does not downplay McCall’s child-like desire to be liked, his drinking, or the drug addiction of his son.

The book’s single fault is that it is so Oregon-centric. Oregon is a selfsatisfied place, and never more than in this book.

McCall’s state is depicted as the environmental pacesetter for the nation. Walth ignores the courageous conservation efforts of Govs. Dan Evans in Washington and Cecil Andrus in Idaho, who served with McCall. The bipartisan “Three Amigos” worked together to save such places as Hells Canyon on the Snake River.

McCall went out a hero. In 1982, dying of cancer, he played a crucial role repulsing a timber industryfinanced initiative to roll back Oregon’s land planning laws.

A development-minded successor set McCall up as a prop in a media event at the California border. Summoning his remaining energies, however, McCall spoke for those who see the Northwest as more than a place to make a buck.

“I am saying,” he growled, “that Oregon is demure and lovely, and it ought to play a little hard to get. And I think you’ll all be just as sick as I am if you find it is nothing but a hungry hussy, throwing herself at every stinking smokestack that’s offered.”