Robert Ingalls Oral History Interview, June 17, 1977

Judith Carol Carlson: Friday, June 17th. Good afternoon, Bob.

Robert C. Ingalls: Good afternoon, Judith.

JCC: I'm hoping you will have lots of good memories about your father, Claude Ingalls, and maybe they're not all positive memories, that you'll share some of these memories with me.

RI: Well, the only memories I have, frankly, are good. He was a very strong individual but also very understanding and very human, exceptionally intelligent, I think. He was much more of a scholar than I am and much more of a scholar than we find usually editing editorial pages. He - but he was self-educated. He had a law degree and he got into the newspaper business because he was invited to run a weekly back in Washington, Kansas when he was 00:01:00high school, superintendent at our high school. Principal, I guess. And he liked it. He had relatives living in Vancouver and he came out and stayed with them for a while and liked the Pacific Northwest and decided that he'd look for a paper here in the Pacific Northwest, and he bought into the Gazette-Times back in 1915... and ran it until 1950 I guess.

JCC: Is that one story true, that he was on his way to Kansas to buy a newspaper and it was so hot he decided not to get off the train [both laugh]?

RI: That sounds like him. I mean, I don't know, really. He was very much imbued with the idea that things were either black or white. They - there didn't seem to be much grey around. Very strong republican.

JCC: Was that a reflection of the times then, or-?

RI: I think it was more a period of individual journalism than today is. There were strong editors all throughout Oregon at that time and the personality of the editorial page was much more strongly felt, I believe, than it is today. And the editorial tones at that time were much more vitriolic than they are today. A spade was a spade and a crook was a crook and they were so exposed.

JCC: Now, originally papers in the state were formed for political reasons.

RI: Yes.

JCC: Was that still the case when your father bought-

RI: No, it was not the case. At least if it was, it was dying out. They found they couldn't survive with such a limited audience. Only those people who 00:03:00believed in the railroad or believed in the Democratic Party or believed in whatever the cause may have been subscribed to the paper and that meant that there might be two or three papers in a community of four or 5,000 people and that - no way they could make a living. So, journalism became more objective, and that's one of the results today. And I think he missed that phase, really. He was a strong supporter and backer and decrier of various causes but the paper was not - the newsroom, at least - was not dedicated to those causes, which makes the difference because in the earlier days the news was also slanted to correspond to the policy of the paper.

JCC: So that shift had already been...?

RI: I think the shift had already occurred. He went through a lot of local 00:04:00battles, I know. He had a Ku Klux Klan cross burning in his yard and that sort of thing. I remember stores open on Sunday was a local battle at that time. Movies opening on Sunday, they - he carried the crusade for that, and the Whiteside Theatre gave him a permanent seat in the theatre that was his [laughs], that sort of thing.

JCC: But I have the feeling from some of his older editorials that he was anti-organized religion. Is that...?

RI: Strangely enough, he was quite a religious scholar. He used to get into some interesting discussions with the ministers about the Bible and I think he was anti perhaps dogma, per se, and I think he was anti... the interpretation of the Bible that is the strict conformity to Joseph ate the whale or whatever. He was 00:05:00much more inclined to interpret the Bible less literally, and this was part of his problem I think with the local ministry.

JCC: Mm-hmm. He was, in some ways, reminiscent of Harvey Scott, wasn't he?

RI: Very much.

JCC: Was that a model for him, do you think, or no?

RI: No. No, he was an individualist. But at that time, Bob Rule was writing in Medford and Bill Tugman in Eugene, Putnam in Salem, and later it was Charles Sprague, and then Addison over across the mountains. They were good, strong, forceful editors in the state in those days. I mean... I think that's one of the things maybe that has kept the state politically clean, is the forcefulness and 00:06:00the exposés and the threats of exposés by the newspapers.

JCC: Led by people such as your father.

RI: Led by people like that, mm-hmm. They were very intolerant of anything shady, and Oregon just never got off on that path, fortunately. But if it was Democratic, to him it was bat-black, and if it was Republican it was great, so [laughs].

JCC: He must have had some Democratic friends, though.

RI: Oh, sure he did. Some of his best friends were Democrats, yeah. I don't - I think he was vindictive about the generalization, not about the people themselves, or the people he knew. He was very, very much respected throughout the state, both by the press and... he at times was called the uncrowned king of Oregon, but I - his dabbling in politics was strictly behind the scenes. He 00:07:00never got out in front, except I think he was on the city council.

JCC: Well, he was - well, he was secretary of the Republican Party in the state. That's kind of out front, isn't it?

RI: Not really because it's elected probably by precinct committee people or county chairmen, that sort of thing, so.

JCC: This was at the state.

RI: Yes, mm-hmm, but I don't - it isn't an elective office that you and I would know, an elective office like running through the legislature and that sort of thing.

JCC: I think at the time the news article referred to him as a swashbuckling editor in Corvallis [both laugh].

RI: Well, that - he was somewhat of a swashbuckler. He was a pretty good dresser and he had an eye for the girls, and he got around pretty well.

JCC: [Laughs]. How much of his philosophy has been imbued in your own?

RI: Well, I see an awful lot of grey that he didn't see. I think I have a tolerance for both sides of the - whatever the argument may be, and I'm 00:08:00certainly not a black Republican the way he was. Moral standards and honesty and integrity, I hope I inherited, but the philosophy not quite so deep, and certainly not the scholar.

JCC: So, in this sense, you're restrained probably in your editorial writing from what your father might have seen. I mean-

RI: Oh, I'm sure of it.

JCC: Not quite as colorful or not quite as vitriolic or-

RI: Exactly, and I - I think you win more adherence with sugar than you do with vinegar.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: I haven't written - I write maybe two or three a week, but I haven't really taken the local editorial except for helping to determine what our policy will be on them, but I haven't them personally for a long time. I write state and national once in a while. When she's gone I write them, but she's much more 00:09:00involved and deeper into the local scene as far as going to meetings and talking to the local people than I am sometimes.

JCC: But the style is different, regardless.

RI: Yeah. Oh, much different, yeah.

JCC: Are there any editors left in the state that were of the same read, old school as your father?

RI: Eric Allen at Medford, perhaps philosophically speaking. And I don't mean philosophically insofar as a strict interpretation, but I mean Eric writes a lot of philosophical editorials like Dad did. Bob Chandler maybe, at Bend, more calling a spade a spade perhaps than some of the editors do. But no, I don't think of anybody who's writing editorials today who wrote them as they did 50 00:10:00years ago, 30 years, 40 years ago. And I don't think it's glamorizing the past, either. It's just that the styles change.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And I wouldn't say the people in those days were less responsible but there's not nearly the off the top of the head editorial writing that there used to be.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Well now, one eulogy to your father, one of the writers from another newspaper said that your father spent an undue amount of time preparing his editorials, and that was unusual I would think. So, they weren't all off the top of his head.

RI: No, his weren't [chuckles], but in those days - he was also a publisher but he spent probably 90% of his time on the editorial page because running the paper wasn't nearly as complicated, it wasn't nearly as large, and he had a business manager that did much of that for him, so he spent most of his time on 00:11:00the editorial page except for outside activities for the community or the state of Oregon.

JCC: And you say he was a scholar? Was that so-

RI: Yes, he was very much of a self-educated scholar.

JCC: And he just kept up with...

RI: Kept up, read vociferously, or voraciously, which is it?

JCC: I think it's voraciously, but the first one sounded right [laughs].

RI: [Laughs] read lots of publications, magazines, newspapers, books, the whole... whole ball of wax.

JCC: Now, for a period there, Charles Sprague was part owner?

RI: He was part owner but he was - he did not do the editorial page on the Gazette-Times.

JCC: And Myers?

RI: Myers was the third owner.

JCC: And did they have an editorial board-

RI: No.

JCC: --as such then that would-it's not like today's...papers?

RI: No. At times he might have consulted Mr. Sprague about something or another, but there was no editorial board. He just wrote them. Charles Sprague bought 00:12:00into the paper. He bought a third interest and then when he went to Salem, Dad bought his third. And...

JCC: That surprised me. I hadn't realized that Sprague had been involved in it.

RI: They were very close friends as well as business associates, so they complemented each other quite well.

JCC: Was their philosophy similar?

RI: Pretty much the same. Mm-hmm.

JCC: Now, Sprague went on to be governor.

RI: That's right. I think Dad was his campaign manager [laughs].

JCC: Is that right? I wondered if there were any, you know-

RI: Yeah, there was some connection there, anyway.

JCC: But your father didn't have aspirations of that kind?

RI: Nothing like that. He didn't...

JCC: He probably could have had.

RI: I presume he could have. He was a good speaker. He had an old line gesture I remember. He'd hold his hands like this while he talked [laughs], like a 00:13:00minister or sort of circuit rider or something, but he - I always remember that. And of course that was the day before microphones, and he had a good strong voice and... [unintelligible].

JCC: He had the ear of the governor, then, for a number of years.

RI: Oh yeah. Well, he always did have, even... of - I mean not because it was Sprague and Martin; the other Democratic governors, they knew him well. The newspaper editor and publisher has a much more advantageous position than most people do because when the politicos or important people come to town, they want publicity and they come to the newspaper office. If they're campaigning for the election, why they come to the newspaper office. So you get a chance to know them much better than the general public in that - and consequently, I guess you would be more likely to have their ear.

JCC: Mm-hmm. What would happen when a Democratic governor was in office?

RI: Oh, I think Dad's antipathy towards the Democrats was much more on a national level. He got along fine with Governor Martin and people like that, had no problem. He used to fight with Julius Meier as I recall, but you know, I fight with Republican governors and Democratic governors over particular issues.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: So... although he wasn't quite as issue-oriented as I might think I am, I think when they agreed, why, everything was fine [laughs].

JCC: Now, this Meier, who was that? Was that Bruce's father, or not?

RI: Yes, the one who was owner of the paper, yes. Bruce's fathe. And I don't know when he bought in. They needed money badly and I think he bought in, in the thirties sometime.

JCC: Was he a journalist?

RI: No, he was a bank - bank - I hate to say, clerk. A teller in a bank, I think.

JCC: This tracing the Gazette back to 1865, was that kind of a tenuous link?

RI: Well, it is because the weeklies that were involved in the picture and the amalgamation of two or three weeklies and so forth and the... it's a tenuous ancestry, to be sure.

JCC: Mm-hmm. But really - I mean, so the Gazette-Times as such was born in what, if I read correctly, 1909?

RI: I've forgotten when the two weeklies combined, the Gazette and the Times, but that was approximately it-

JCC: 1909.

RI: --and I think it went daily in about 1913 or... in there sometime. I think that's probably in here too somewhere.

JCC: Oh, did you find that?

RI: I found some other things-

JCC: Oh, good. Oh, great.

RI: --I thought you might be interested in.

JCC: Oh, great. Thank you. Well, what do you remember about Sprague then and his 00:16:00association with your father?

RI: Well, I knew Governor Sprague very well. Personally I... I know the families were quite close. I, at age five, took a 25-cent Valentine to his daughter declaring my eternal love and affection.

JCC: [Chuckles] how old was she?

RI: Well, she was somewhat younger, but not much. I'd see Wallace Sprague every once in a while, but of course, he's no longer associated with the Statesman. He's with a publishing company or a paper company back east. But the - Governor Sprague and Dad were very close and very I think genial. Very much mutual respect sort of thing.

JCC: And that must have been a heyday of when families owned papers.

RI: That's right. It was... much more either a single ownership or partnership. Group papers or chain papers were very few and far between, and then only big ones. You know, the San Francisco Examiner type and the larger newspapers.

JCC: And so, these editors also probably had expectations that the paper would stay within the family then? That family members would carry it on?

RI: And that happened for generations many times, for generations. It... if you're asking me why did I sell, is that why you're asking me?

JCC: No, you've answered that last time.

RI: Okay.

JCC: But I just wondered how much of this...

RI: Many, many of them were handed down, and there's still a lot of them today that are run by third and fourth generations.

JCC: Here in Oregon?

RI: No.

JCC: No.

RI: I can't think of any in Oregon.

JCC: But now Wallace-

RI: Yes I can, Grants Pass. I think John Voorhies is the third generation.

JCC: Wallace Sprague was never connected with this Oregon Statesman?

RI: No, never.

JCC: It wasn't-

RI: And he really wasn't much connected with the Salem Statesmen. He was never connected with the Gazette-Times. Maybe that's what you're...

JCC: No, I'm - the son of Charles Sprague.

RI: Yeah, he was never connected with the Gazette-Times, and his-

JCC: And what about the Statesman?

RI: --association with the Statesman was very tenuous because his dad was the editor and publisher and there really wasn't any job that appealed to him, and his wife was an eastern girl and she was - she wanted to live in the east, so...

JCC: But he was a journalist also.

RI: He was a journalist, mm-hmm.

JCC: Yes, but he moved east, and then the Times, or?

RI: He was editor of Parade Magazine for a while.

JCC: Parade, that was it, mm-hmm. I mean, but were your - your father's 00:19:00expectations of you then, growing up? Was it always 'Bob, I want you to prepare yourself to take over the paper.'

RI: No, I think he thought I was a first-class bum at the time [laughs]. Didn't really expect me to.

JCC: What would give him this impression?

RI: Well... inattention to college, I presume would be among the things. It wasn't until, well I came - after I got out of school in '37, I went to work for the paper. I did have some other job offers, but I did go to work for the paper as the classified department. I was the whole classified department. And then... went into display advertising working for Art Lowe who was then advertising manager. And then when Art went to World War II in '40 - he was a National Guard 00:20:00officer - then I became advertising manager. And then when I came back from the war five years later myself I became business manager, and then Dad was sick and I took over, more or less, as editorial page editor. And then when he passed away, I became editorial page editor and publisher.

JCC: Was he surprised, or did he start grooming you when you joined the-

RI: No. There was no, no grooming really. I think probably that I took more, much more direction from the office manager at the time and from Art Lowe than I did from Dad because Dad was not much interested in the business end of the paper. So at that time when I started to write editorials, he was sick and I remember once in a while he would make some acid comment about the quality of my ability, but [both laugh]...

JCC: Pungent to the end, huh?

RI: Yeah [chuckles].

JCC: Well, that was an advantage to you, though.

RI: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

JCC: To come up through the business side of it.

RI: Oh, yeah. I've been on both sides, really.

JCC: Yeah.

RI: So, that helps as a publisher to understand what's going on in both areas. My present attention is probably pretty well divided between the business end and the news end. I don't, as I said the last time we talked, I don't interfere in the news end of it, but I - I'm more likely to react, but I do make suggestions for stories once in a while [mumbles]. Tom and I talk philosophy and that sort of thing quite often.

JCC: Well, you were around then when your father was still writing editorials.

RI: Yes.

JCC: Did he make comments to people on the news side?

RI: No because Mike Myers was running the news department at the time. Bruce's father.

JCC: Oh.

RI: And they both resigned at the same time. I think there's a paper in here that...

JCC: Who resigned?

RI: Dad and Mike both stepped out of active.

JCC: Well, what was Mike Myers's philosophy? Was it very similar to your father's?

RI: No. Well, I wouldn't say it wasn't similar philosophically, but...

JCC: Oh my gosh, you have a picture of [unintelligible].

RI: They - with Mike owning a third of the paper and in later years, or part of it, Sprague owing a third, each one of them kind of kept to run his own ship.

JCC: And now, what - Bruce was still around...

RI: Bruce...

JCC: Was still alive when we moved to town.

RI: Yeah.

JCC: I know he was a news editor, was he?

RI: He was a boss of the newsmen... at that time.

JCC: Did he own an interest?

RI: He owned a third interest.

JCC: Third interest.

RI: Uh-huh.

JCC: And then when he died, what happened to that third?

RI: He died almost concurrently with our selling to Lee.

JCC: Oh.

RI: He died in about '68 or '69 when we were already starting [unintelligible] with Lee.

JCC: Oh. Did he have children that were in any way aspiring to be with the paper?

RI: Yes, he has one son now who was pretty well along with the Palo Alto Times, and his older son was - wanted to go into the Navy and became a professional Navy officer. And the third son was also an aspiring journalist who wound up elsewhere. And I would suspect that had Bruce lived and had we retained the paper, or whether or not we had, that at least one of his sons would be involved in it [mumbles].

JCC: You think it was a disappointment then, for the sons?

RI: Oh, the one who was the best in journalism went to Stanford, and I think he 00:24:00liked that Palo Alto area, and that where he is now and I suspect he would have probably gone there rather than coming back up here.

JCC: When... I don't know if your son ever had any feeling towards the paper. Was there any time that you had hoped for him to continue or to take over from you?

RI: No... I have a prejudice against children being involved in the family business while one member of the family is running it because I think it's a handicap to them and to the other employees. The kids have to do twice as much and be twice as good or else they'll be Daddy's pet, and I just don't agree with it, and so-

JCC: Is this something you experienced and that's why you were going to save-

RI: Yeah, and I know when I first took over, the community feeling was "he'll 00:25:00never make it" and that... a lot of them didn't want to give me a chance [laughs]. So I wanted to spare my kids that, but I really thought it was a handicap to them to work for their father.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: My daughter is, as you may know, on the Capital-Journal and she would very much like to-

JCC: Oh, I didn't know that.

RI: Yeah, she would very much like to be the publisher of the Gazette-Times. But Lee also has a policy: they encourage members of the family to get into the business, but they never put them in the same location. So, as a matter of fact, Lee Enterprises offered Doug a job and he would have had to have left Corvallis and he didn't want to leave Corvallis.

JCC: Mm-hmm. What about your daughter then? She's going to stay at her husband's?

RI: Her husband and she are both journalism graduates and he's PR for SAIF and she's...

JCC: And does she write-

RI: ... a women's page, assistant women's page editor for the Capital-Journal.

JCC: Does that please you, that she's...?

RI: Yes, it does. She - she's done very well with her career. She's worked in Denver and Newport and Salem as a journalist and as accepted on her own merits, and she's done very well winning press woman awards and other awards, so I'm real pleased.

JCC: Good.

RI: I mean, you're always pleased when your kids didn't wind up dope addicts.

JCC: [Laughs].

RI: Especially when they went to school in the sixties.

JCC: Yeah. I had a feeling reading some of these old editorials - so I'm in the twenties, is about as far as I got, through the twenties - that there was a really, a fraternity of editors. So, I mean-

RI: Oh, they were very close. There was an Editorial Association actually then. Instead of a Newspaper Publishers Association, there was an Editorial 00:27:00Association to - and at that time most of the publishers were also their own editorial page editor. So, they were very close.

JCC: So, that was a correct feeling. And even if they disagreed with one another, they certainly were-

RI: My father and Bill Tugman at the Register-Guard just fought all the time in print, just terrible feud, and the worst one, I presume, came when the election for the amalgamation of the two universities that Oregon University - the Zorn-Macpherson Bill was before the people, and...

JCC: What year was that?

RI: About '36 maybe, something like that. And they just fought bitterly, and it was acrimony just running out of the pages, but personally, they were very good friends. So you don't have to be with somebody to be-

JCC: No, but - but I think they really did have a camaraderie. Does that exist today?

RI: To some extent, but not - first place, there's a lot more papers and a lot of weeklies. There are 110 papers in Oregon, as I recall, something like 18 dailies, and the editorial page editors are more - most of them professional people who have come up through the ranks rather than the owners. They're long-time professional editors.

JCC: Your father didn't really come up through the ranks.

RI: No, mm-mm.

JCC: He had one job before he came here?

RI: Yeah, mm-mm. No, he kind of started at the top, if you can call the top of a weekly of probably of three or 400 circulation the top.

JCC: It was still a weekly when he went on-or no-

RI: No, I think it had changed to daily.

JCC: It was after - it was early, but it was the daily, yeah.

RI: This one. But I mean back in Kansas.

JCC: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

RI: And actually, I don't know where he got enough money to buy it. I'm sure it didn't cost very much. But he was a bound boy when he was young. He was bound out to a farmer. I don't think quite in the way that we think of bound or indentured people back in the pre-Revolutionary War days, but he worked for a farmer for his board and room and that sort of thing and...

JCC: Because his parents couldn't afford...

RI: Yeah, parents couldn't afford him. His dad was a carpenter and I think his mother had died, and he came up really the hard way.

JCC: Was he difficult to live with then, with all these virtues? And I know he had many [chuckles].

RI: I don't think you'd call him a good family man. He went his way and my mother was a teacher at the college and she kind of went her way, and unfortunately, I went mine [laughs].

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And... the - if he lacked virtue, I presume it was in not being a good family man, but there may be other reasons for that but they're not obvious. But no, he was not difficult to live with, but he was somewhat regimented. Dinner was at such and such a time and, you know, we ran a schedule. And of course, he had golf as his hobby. He used to play a clarinet when he was young, and I mean a, you know, a clarinet, and he used to fish, but when the country club was founded here in 1923, I think it was, Dad was the second president and then president for 25 years.

JCC: Is that right?

RI: And [chuckles] he dearly loved to play golf. And he was fairly good.

JCC: Well, that's a hobby you shared, wasn't it?

RI: Mm-hmm. That's-

JCC: Did you play with him ever?

RI: Yes, some. I used to be told I was going to caddy on Sundays or whenever it 00:31:00was, which I did, protesting every step of the way, and probably was a lousy caddy but it did stir my interest in golf, and that's certainly where I got started. And then we didn't play an awful lot together because... oh, he got sick with Parkinson's disease and took - and then couldn't-

[Tape break]

RI: --afraid of him. I respected him a great deal. But I - no, I didn't cross him. I had my lickings as a boy with - I think his favorite weapons were either his belt or a hairbrush.

JCC: Ow [laughs].

RI: But I didn't - it was not from fear that I didn't cross him, it was I respected him and I... liked him and... he didn't really boss me around an awful 00:32:00lot. Maybe it'd have been better if he had, but he was - he worked almost every night and-

JCC: Did he really?

RI: Mm-hmm. So...

JCC: It's where he spent all that time preparing.

RI: Yeah. And he went to a lot of movies too. He liked movies and he - in his old office at the other building he had a whole wall full of autographed picture stars, some back in the thirties and twenties. I think Esther Henderson has them now.

JCC: Oh, really?

RI: Uh-huh. I don't know what she's done with them if anything. I didn't have much use for them, so I gave them to her, she wanted them.

JCC: Huh, interesting. Now, you had a sister.

RI: Sister Alice, who is a - or was - retired last year from Oregon State University.

JCC: Right, yeah. She sort of followed in your mother's footsteps, then.

RI: More or less, yes.

JCC: Isn't that interesting?

RI: Mm-hmm.

JCC: And that was unusual for your mother to be working at that time?

RI: At that time it was, yes. But she was the restless type and she had her 00:33:00masters I guess from Columbia in English and evidently they needed people and so she was it for a number of years. She wrote a book which - a workbook syllabus type of this - which was a colossal financial failure, but [chuckles] she was an excellent teacher because she had a delightful sense of humor. And she knew her subject very well.

JCC: I don't know if we'd talked before or what I had read but I remember lots of nice things being said about your mother.

RI: I still hear once in a while from the people who were her students and had very fond memories of her, that she was a delightful person.

JCC: She was a remarkable woman.

RI: She was quite intelligent and our dinner table conversation was often... challenging [both laugh] being it was one of those families where you would stop 00:34:00in the middle of cutting your roast beef and get up and look at the dictionary, you know, just to prove your point or whatever. We never had a radio on or anything like that during dinner. It was a challenge.

JCC: They were both successful then, in their own careers.

RI: In their own fields, mm-hmm.

JCC: That kind of puts onus on one growing up, doesn't it?

RI: Yeah, it does because especially in a small town, and I was burned pretty badly when I was nine years old and...

JCC: How?

RI: Fourth of July firecrackers in my pocket.

JCC: Oh, you're kidding me? Oh.

RI: Yeah. And I was hospitalized for six months in one of those things where you'll never make it, 21 skin grafts and all that sort of thing, and so the community kind of knew about that and then Dad being so prominent and Mother being at the university... put me kind of behind a double barrel I guess, so to 00:35:00speak. And we... well, I don't - I've mentioned before I don't think the city fathers had picked me to make it, but so far [laughs].

JCC: Well, I mean the town's grown considerably, and even with Doug growing up in this community I know, you know, they're always that kind of thing - it's like being a minister's child, you know?

RI: Oh yeah, a PK, a preacher's kid.

JCC: Yeah, yeah.

RI: Yeah, they have a double handicap.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And they're usually wilder than anybody else.

JCC: [Laughs] right. They're going to live up to it.

RI: They have to prove themselves, that they're one of the people.

JCC: One way or the other, yeah.

RI: I wouldn't - it has both its grave advantages and its disadvantages. Doug doesn't suffer them quite as much because of the town's size now, but...

JCC: Mm-hmm. And times have changed a little.

RI: Times have changed a great deal. We were 8,000 people, as I recall, in the early fifties and, you know, that's a pretty small town.

JCC: Mm-hmm. And you went to school here. Why didn't you go to Eugene to get away?

RI: Oh, it was during the Depression and I like Corvallis. I wasn't a good student and...

JCC: That's hard to believe now, isn't it?

RI: Well, no...

JCC: Now you make the extra effort [chuckles]?

RI: You mean now that I'm on the State Board of Education [laughs]?

JCC: No, no, because I think you've proven yourself about 10 times over one way or the other.

RI: I think my family would die if they knew I was on the State Board of Higher Ed [both laugh].

JCC: Might have to own up to them later [laughs].

RI: Mm-hmm, yes. They'll tell me about it.

JCC: Yeah [laughs].

RI: But I - Dad was very much respected. I don't think he was feared, maybe in 00:37:00the context that we think of, of fearing people physically, or even mentally, but I don't think he was one that you would want to alienate if you were on the other side.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: He was widely quoted throughout the state press.

JCC: Yeah, that's true too and I - one of the editorials was saying that this editor always looked at your father's editorials first. You know, they all read each other's editorials and then would either respond to them or react to them.

RI: Yeah, yeah they did. Yeah, there was a lot more back and forth.

JCC: Much more so than today, yeah.

RI: Mm-hmm.

JCC: I wonder why.

RI: I don't know. Well, because they all knew each other so well, perhaps. Today's editorial writers meet once a year for two or three days but I think they thought more about problems than they do about personalities, and there are 00:38:00so many more problems today for editorial topics than there were in those days, too. Just as government has mushroomed, so too have editorial topics, everything from LCDC to community colleges and that sort of thing. In the old days, all you could do was worry about your own community and a little bit about your state.

JCC: But - but I don't think that was the case with your father because having the spectrum that he covered when writing editorials, from the League of Nations, which was one of his pet topics-

RI: Oh, yeah.

JCC: --to the World Bank, tariffs, you know-

RI: Yeah, he wrote-

JCC: --international - nothing seemed to escape him. He went back and forth [both laugh].

RI: I was surprised, really, that he was as well-read as he was when he talked about things that were so far away a lot of the times. But... but he knew the 00:39:00local scene.

JCC: He did.

RI: And he knew it very well. And he - I think he served on the council for a while. But I remember one time I happened to be around I guess when the fire chief came in and wanted to remodel the city hall and this sort of thing, Dad just wouldn't stand for it and he said, "We've got to have a new fire building," and that was it. So, that's why that one's down there on 5th street.

JCC: Is that right?

RI: Mm-hmm, yeah.

JCC: What other kinds of influence did he have in the community?

RI: Oh, I think it was much stronger than we have today probably. I would imagine the percentage for readership too was higher at the time. No television.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: Radio in its somewhat infancy.

JCC: Yeah, that's true, he would have much more of a monopoly on the material you're feeding your audience.

RI: So... and the personal journalism I think probably went into it [mumbles].

JCC: Was there sort of a back room politics atmosphere in those days?

RI: Yes, very much, mm-hmm. Probably 15 or 20 people would be determining what the community would do. And they evidently did a pretty good job because all the newcomers think it's a delightful place and they don't want to change [laughs].

JCC: Yeah, yeah. That's true [laughs].

RI: But... but yeah. I think politics is much more a backroom, smoke-filled situation than it is now.

JCC: Was it still that way when you became editor?

RI: No, not nearly as much.

JCC: There wasn't a group review that would meet from time to time?

RI: Oh, there were some of us that would decide who will be the next candidate for the school board or this sort of thing. It wasn't so much that we wanted to run things as that we wanted good people and good people didn't always 00:41:00volunteer, so we had to go out and scurry up candidates.

JCC: This was sort of an ad hoc committee?

RI: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah we-

JCC: For the community?

RI: Mm-hmm. And it wasn't always the same people. Now candidates come running out of the woodwork, so - and I don't mean that disparagingly, particularly, but we don't seem to suffer from quantity. So... well, Focus to some extent got started because candidates were not always forthcoming.

JCC: Now qualified candidates or [laughs].

RI: We used to run it very informally, really. Half a dozen or so of us.

JCC: Yeah, I heard about it when I first came to town.

RI: And it was more by default really than it was a desire for power. We just wanted to ensure that good people were in office.

JCC: Mm-hmm. And it wasn't essentially a Republican group, as I remember.

RI: Oh, it wasn't anything - didn't care, really.

JCC: No, it was across party.

RI: Across party, and included certainly the town and gown. It was not anything like that. And it - I think involved is it's very fortunate - and this may be part of the cause - that the relationship between town and gown is so much better here than it is in most places where the university dominates its affairs. So, it's a good feeling.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Some people think it could go a little further.

RI: Um, yes, in some ways. I don't know whether you were here when we ran our opinions from the [unintelligible] once a week.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: It wasn't quite a disaster but it - you can't believe how faculty members cannot limit themselves to X number of words and that they cannot get their papers in on time and that they must speak to their colleagues rather than then - to 45, 50,000 readers rather than...

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: I'm sure the early edition [unintelligible].

JCC: Yes, I can believe that. Was your father a wealthy man, would you say?

RI: No. I remember he earned 250 dollars a month, I think was his salary for many years.

JCC: Is that right?

RI: Uh-huh.

JCC: Even with complete control of - were papers not that lucrative in those days?

RI: No, mm-mm. And it divided three was, again. No, papers were not lucrative in those days, and they're not... mm, I guess you could say they're all right now.

JCC: Well, some must be doing well.

RI: Make a reasonable profit.

JCC: And I mean, the - the groups being so anxious to buy them up, there must be some reason.

RI: Yeah, but they have a long-range view of it and I mean a small entrepreneur pours all his money right back into the business. I mean, that's the problem. You've got this building, a million dollars, half a million dollars of 00:44:00equipment, so there's no way that I could be able to finance that, have the profits and still not pass the debt along to my kids, and had to sell it, and... But the corporation can do that because it's long range.

JCC: I see, so they don't think in terms of immediate profits, but-

RI: That's right, mm-hmm.

JCC: Yeah.

RI: Sooner or later they'll pay for this property and then whatever they make becomes profit for them.

JCC: Well, then what kind of an atmosphere was it when your father owned this paper?

RI: More of a family type operation. I think, you know, maybe 17, 18 employees, something like that.

JCC: Was he ever worried about losing the business?

RI: Oh yeah. They used to take in boxes of apples and cords of wood and that sort of thing for subscriptions and sort of... we'll print your ad and you pay us when you can, sort of thing. And the subscriptions were 4.50 a year.

JCC: What - now, when are we speaking of?

RI: Oh, in the late thirties.

JCC: Late thirties?

RI: Mm-hmm.

JCC: And the direction-

RI: Up until World War I, mm-hmm.

JCC: Yeah. Reading some of those editorials in the twenties and reading the front page and the panicky market, but nothing about it on the editorial page, I don't think your father saw it coming.

RI: I doubt it. I don't think very many people did.

JCC: --people did, yeah.

RI: And one thing is that I'm sure he was not involved in the stock market at the time. He didn't have the money to be so it didn't-

JCC: So that didn't affect him financially then.

RI: It - it did not affect him... except as it affected the entire economy.

JCC: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Was Corvallis somewhat isolated from that, though, and maybe in a better way than-

RI: There - Benton County has had very few wealthy people and most of them that they have had come postwar in the lumber industry. Prior to that time, it was 00:46:00middle-class town; very few poor, very few - no rich, really.

JCC: So your father at no point was rich, considered rich.

RI: No, I wouldn't - I wouldn't consider him wealthy.

JCC: Hmm. That surprises me. [Inaudible].

RI: Equipment cost so much in those days, so - it does worse today, but I mean a new line of type, 30,000 dollars. That's an awful lot of money to raise in this kind of a small newspaper. And - and that press that we had before we went offset cost 86,000 dollars. It cost really 112 before we got all of... in, and so forth. So, most of the profits went right back into the business.

JCC: And people - or publishers - were not as concerned perhaps with how much they were making because they didn't keep very good business records.

RI: Oh, they were terrible business people. And most of them it was a dedication, much more than it is today. Today, for the most part, it's a job.

JCC: It's a business.

RI: It's a business. That's a better way to put it.

JCC: So your father was satisfied with what he earned and his...

RI: Yeah, he - I don't think money meant anything to him other than a means to an end with what he wanted.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Did he travel? Was he involved in any causes that would have put him on the road?

RI: No, he didn't travel. He didn't like to travel, I don't think. The causes that he had were local and statewide and... My mother did. My mother traveled.

JCC: What were some of his pet peeves?

RI: Roosevelt.

JCC: [Laughs] Oh, the raw deal.

RI: Called it the "raw deal," the "nude deal" [laughs]... public power... the 00:48:00"leak of notions" [both laugh].

JCC: Did he rant and rave about these things at home?

RI: Yeah.

JCC: I mean did he at home?

RI: Uh, he didn't bring it home too much except we knew how he felt without reading the paper [laughs, coughs]. Really, he wasn't home much. He came to work at eight o'clock, came home at six and left at seven, that was it.

JCC: Oh wow, so you just saw him when you were caddying, huh?

RI: Saw him when I [both laugh] - when I was caddying, and he played golf every Sunday, yeah. Just like clockwork.

JCC: Good, and what about Saturdays?

RI: He worked. Six to eight paper.

JCC: Oh, wow. He was sort of a workaholic.

RI: He was, uh-huh.

JCC: He was a teetotaler? Am I...?

RI: Yeah, I think he drank a little port wine once a while if somebody offered him some.

JCC: Didn't smoke?

RI: Didn't smoke, didn't drink. He liked raisin pie.

JCC: [Laughs] laced with rum [unintelligible]?

RI: No, [laughs] no. He used to - there was a restaurant run by Bert Binns' 00:49:00mother as part of the GT there, the Dinette. You may remember it. We had to take it over eventually for space, but she kept raisin pie for him and he had lunch there. That was it.

JCC: Now, I've read that he had a very good sense of humor.

RI: He had a good sense of humor, yeah.

JCC: Did - did you see that?

RI: Yes, he had a good sense of humor. My mother's sense of humor was delightful. His sometimes had a barb in it, but he did have a sense of humor.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Which side have you inherited?

RI: Probably some of both. I say some things I later regret sometimes, and I say them probably because they're funny at the moment, or at least funny to me, but they're often at somebody else's expense, and then I wish I hadn't said it.

JCC: Oh, do you?

RI: Yeah. I appeared before a Senate committee the other day and one senator was bragging about his consistency, and instead of quoting Emerson in hobgoblins of 00:50:00little minds, I made some comment about "Well, Hitler was consistent too." That probably didn't help my bill any [laughs].

JCC: That - that does have a barb, yeah [laughs]. Did you apologize or let...?

RI: Oh, no.

JCC: No [laughs].

RI: He was a Republican and we've never gotten along too well, but... he tried to cram some things my throat when I was a freshman I didn't believe in, so.

JCC: Have you done things during your life that you say oh, Dad would have been proud of me at this point, or gee, I'm...?

RI: I'm sure that oftentimes he would have been more surprised than proud, but I'm sure he would have been proud. I - I'm sure he felt about me as I felt about my sons five or six years ago. I thought he was the greatest bum in captivity [both chuckle], and I'm sure my father thought that about me. I don't know whether he had hoped for the future or not, but...

JCC: Interesting events, yeah.

RI: Well, Doug was, he was the greatest bum I ever saw, a professional bum [laughs].

JCC: Aw, not for - for very long, I don't think.

RI: One thing he didn't have to worry about me was the drug culture or the booze. I was not big on booze either, so maybe he thought that was good.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: I never smoked in front of him.

JCC: Out of... self-protection, or [laughs]...?

RI: Oh, more-

JCC: Or reverence, or...?

RI: I don't think he'd beat me. He might - I might get a little sarcasm, but...

JCC: Did he moralize at all?

RI: No. On neither, on neither the tobacco nor liquor did he - did I ever remember him moralizing. I just think he was - thought it was a waste of his time.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Yeah because I remember some of his - he made a poignant comment about the WCTU...

RI: [Chupses]... and the DAR and...

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: He was a... He was a bit of a skeptic of... uh, he never joined a service club, he never was a Rotarian or a Kiwanian or anything. He was a Mason, but... he didn't believe in service clubs. He [unintelligible]. He was [unintelligible], but...

JCC: Did he have more enemies then?

RI: Um...

JCC: I mean, you're generally well-liked and get along with people, like many types of people.

RI: I think there were people... who were antagonistic to his views, but not to him. I don't think he was ever vindictive and that probably made a difference. But I remember people at the university who were much more universalist than he 00:53:00is, or was. I think he would scoff at them, sometimes in public and sometimes in print, and probably in private, but I think they liked each other but they probably didn't respect each other's views all that much. Enemies, I'm sure anybody who's successful has enemies, I think. But... and anybody who expresses his opinion daily always had enemies.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: Almost 50% of the time there's so many... that many people on the other side of the fence.

JCC: Now, there weren't very many Democrats in the community at that time, was that the case? When your father was writing?

RI: Well...

JCC: I mean, the county was...

RI: The county was probably three to one Republican.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Was that because of him to some extent?

RI: I'm sure - I'm sure to some extent it was because of him. And he had an ability to point the weaknesses in the other party [laughs], which he lost no 00:54:00opportunities in doing [laughs].

JCC: Yeah. Right. Did he get a lot of static then from the...

RI: Oh yeah, but they didn't encourage letters to the editor the way I do. He'd just rip them apart when they wrote a letter.

JCC: I thought that, and that surprised me too. I mean, he would take it right into the editorial column and [laughs]-

RI: Oh, you bet. He'd just tear them up, and I... that's one place where he and I differ. I believe in letting the other guy express his view, and although there - I'm often tempted to take after them, I very seldom do.

JCC: He always had the last word, is that right?

RI: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. He always had... had - he so discouraged them from writing that the - he practically didn't have letters to the editor.

JCC: Well, surely they were his - among his enemies.

RI: I'm sure they were, uh-huh. I'm sure many of them were.

JCC: Didn't come storming in here and say, "Now look here, Claude, we've had 00:55:00enough of your-"?

RI: I don't - yeah [both laugh]. He hated his name, actually.

JCC: Oh, did he [laughs]?

RI: Yeah. Both of them.

JCC: What was the middle? E?

RI: Claude Eugene.

JCC: Oh, Eugene.

RI: Mm-hmm. And I don't know whether he hated it because of the antipathy towards University of Oregon or, you know, because it's just not a very good name. But he always called himself CE.

JCC: CE?

RI: Yeah. Almost everybody called him CE.

JCC: CE? Okay. Well, his enemies wouldn't know that, though [chuckles].

RI: Yeah. Well, Bill Tugman called him Claudius in print.

JCC: Oh [laughs].

RI: He called Bill Bilius, but [both laugh]... that's more of that personal journalism again.

JCC: There's something missing, isn't there, in today's journalism?

RI: Oh yes, mm-hmm. Once in a while, you'll see a syndicated columnist going into detail, but not much. And quarreling with each other by name; you'll see a lot of divergent opinion, but sometimes they'll quarrel with each other by name.

JCC: Is - and I had a quote to this effect when I interviewed you before - that a paper without a strong political stand was a dull vehicle. And do you think then today's papers have become duller in that regard?

RI: Yes, mm-hmm. I don't think journalism's nearly as colorful as it used to be. And maybe that's one reason it's lost its appeal.

JCC: You mean print media?

RI: Yeah, mm-hmm.

JCC: Have magazines picked up that slack?

RI: No. No, I think we're asphyxiated with television. Newspaper circulation continues to climb, but not really in the way it did just a decade ago, and it's kind of a soul-wringing operation now, to get your increases. Most papers in the country are concentrating on circulation than they are in any other one weakness 00:57:00of the paper. And it's because, number one, of television, and I think there's a lot more things for people to do hobby-wise: citizens' band radio or model railroads or bowling or playing golf or whatever, but there's much more to do, and it takes a little time to really read a newspaper, you know. The success of the Readers' Digest to some extent emphasizes the desirability of short and...

JCC: Capsulizing, mm-hmm.

RI: Capsulizing. It's interesting for me to know perhaps that a half an hour of news broadcast on television is equal to about three-quarters of a page in the newspapers.

JCC: In terms of words?

RI: Yeah. And people who depend upon television actually are... are getting headlines... and not - and the headlines that are selected by somebody in New 00:58:00York or...

JCC: So, what's going to happen?

RI: I don't know. There are some things newspapers can do and probably will be doing, and that is putting newspaper in your home via your television on what's called a facsimile transmission. You pay a fee to the paper and then you press a button at home and it rolls out at you, or else the enlargement of the video news that you can get on channel 8 would be like... [TV clicks on, various channels are clicked through before Ingalls lands on a channel with instrumental music]. This sort of thing would be... like this with - with news, more like it is over here at the end of the channel, with the announcements or something.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: They...

JCC: You mean people will find that more acceptable to - to get it over that form-

RI: [TV clicks off] well yeah, except that they won't be able to - they have to take what it gives them, insofar if they're looking for the pick price in Chicago and the - and he's talking about the LCDC, well you have to wait until he gets to the pick price in Chicago. And of course, you can't split it up like you can a newspaper and like... the old man taking the sports section, you taking the editorial page, and your kids taking the funnies or something.

JCC: Mm-hmm. I think that's tragic.

RI: Well... that's going to happen, I think, eventually. I won't be in the business, I don't think, when it does. I probably won't be.

JCC: Is that what newspaper editors are looking towards or are planning for, generally?

RI: Uh, yeah. You see there's - in the big cities, there's a terrible distribution problem. You can imagine the paper coming off at - at two o'clock, 01:00:00say in New York City, and how do you get that paper out of that town to the suburbs or to the - even for home delivery? It's just almost impossible. And many of them now have their printing plants outside of the city center, and the newsrooms and all that are still in the - in the city, but the distribution problem are awful in big cities. We don't have a problem. We just drop off - you know, we have 35 carriers and we drop off bundles hither, thither, and yon, and kids come around to get them delivered. But in the cities, it's awful. And distribution costs are high, paper costs are exorbitant, so-

JCC: Do you think perhaps - and getting back to this point about personal journalism - adding that the style as much... more colorful, was it easier to read then? Or...

RI: Oh...

JCC: More fun to read, maybe?

RI: More fun to read, certainly. And you know, boy, he really stuck it to them, didn't he?

JCC: Yeah.

RI: Sort of a thing, and... you know, Wilder gets awfully rough I think with the city council, but lordy, what we could say about them.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: I don't...

JCC: What about this wave of new journalism?

RI: That's pretty well died down, the efficacy journalism. That was in the late sixties was pretty hot stuff, but professional news people won't tolerate it because it's not, in their point of view, journalism, giving both sides of the problem and presenting the news as news rather than presenting the cause.

JCC: Mm-hmm. But the writing styles were different too, wasn't it? And-

RI: Yeah, there was more personal writing in that. And we byline most of our stories, but one of our - one my rules is that I don't care if you have a cause, 01:02:00but you can't report that cause. Some - if the cause is a candle white parade, you can go march in it but you won't write about it. Somebody else will write about it because then they could be more objective.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: [Scoots closer to the mic] I forgot we weren't just chatting [chuckles].

JCC: [Chuckles] that's fine. It'll probably pick up. I had one of my interviews in Pietro's last week, and this music...

RI: Oh, terrible.

JCC: Picked up the music very well [laughs]. Well, but I just wondered what papers are going to do to save the print media from going under.

RI: More emphasis on consumer news, more emphasis on entertainment. You may have noticed John Marshall's column's now reviewing movies and -

[tape break]

RI: --in particularly an adversary situation where we break a few electrical wires on our television set and then take it down and challenge him to fix it sort of thing, or automobiles, but hopefully more on the area of what a good buy is now and what - what you can do for entertainment, how you fix your faucet and this sort of thing. News the people can use, really, I guess is what you'd call it. If there is fraud or anything that we know about then certainly we'll expose it, but we would anyway, but this is more an emphasis on news that people can use.

JCC: In a passing or in a change in newspapers from your father's day to today, I mean what do you lament seeing?

RI: The personal journalism.

JCC: Do you?

RI: We used to run front-page columns by reporters that were very well read.

JCC: Off the Beat?

RI: Off the Beat. But we had to stop them for a couple of reasons. One of our reporters was writing [unintelligible] he had no idea, and he'd gotten his name [?] - last I heard of him, he was in Arizona. We hired him ostensively as a sports writer and he didn't know the difference between girls' softball and hockey.

JCC: Ohh. Not - not that guy.

RI: But... Yeah. Prance Storm.

JCC: Oh. There it is [mumbles].

RI: And then one of our better reporters was, I presume as widely read as anything we had in the paper, but he was more on the half-truth side than he was on the full story side and I didn't think that was fair to the city and the county. So that's one reason we stopped it.

JCC: But is there still a place for that kind of thing?

RI: Yes, uh-huh.

JCC: Even if they do offer half-truths?

RI: Well, if you've noticed most of - many of our reporters are writing columns. 01:05:00Marshall's column on Friday, which is more or less a column about a particular thing, entertainment, but John Atkins on Thursday night, I guess, covers the waterfront.

JCC: Yeah.

RI: And I think he's good. There are no restrictions on Janine O'Neill. She can write about whatever she wants to write about. But she's so busy, she doesn't get an opportunity quite often.

JCC: Well, just between you and me, they're all so much younger, and that-

RI: Of course they are.

JCC: --really, you know, part of the community in the terms that I think of, though, you know, and I-

RI: I lamented for a while we had such a - we increased our staff so fast, really, that we were getting people who were in the community but not of the community, and as they kind of settle in now they've become much more Corvallisian than they-

JCC: But not in the same way.

RI: No - I know they don't have - well, most of them don't have kids in school, and that makes a difference. When they become PTA members and...

JCC: Well, I hope-

RI: ...and what used to be-

JCC: I have a feeling that this young breed aren't ever going to have children [laughs].

RI: Well yeah, most of them don't. My daughter doesn't and she's been married six years. They - it makes an awful lot of difference I think because many times their first real association with the community is with the school system. And that's when they become a part of the community...

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And they picture themselves as outside observers and unemotionally and objectively reporting what they've found.

JCC: And in that sense, they are.

RI: Yeah.

JCC: And so then their columns to me aren't as interesting either because I don't feel like they have as much thought or-

RI: Well, Bill Monroe writes about something in which I have no interest, and that's the great outdoors. John Hall - Don Hall - is one of our best, very best 01:07:00people, writes about birds, and I - that's kind of hard for me to really get [both laugh] choke up and get emotional about.

JCC: And now if it weren't CoHo salmon or something [laughs].

RI: Yeah, the CoHo salmon. But I do enjoy Atkins' column and I think he's very good sometimes. I know it's a kind of hard column to drive. But they're not quite front page Off the Beat things, but...

JCC: No, not quite the same thing. John McMillan was talking about how a newspaper makes someone become a part of the community and the trends are - and I don't know, I haven't looked at the latest statistics - but it's usually the married family that reads the newspaper; the people that are settled in the community, and they read it as sort of a link to the community.

RI: Mm-hmm. But there was a survey taken recently in Seattle of new subscribers and most of them were relatively new in the community and they took the paper to find out in what area were the crimes so that they would settle into a 01:08:00neighborhood where there was very little crime.

JCC: Is that right?

RI: That's why they took the paper.

JCC: Wow.

RI: That's... hopefully, people who take it under such circumstances get involved in it sooner or later so they don't drop it suddenly after they've settled. That's a specious reason for taking the paper, although it may be a good [unintelligible].

JCC: [Laughs] why do you think people in our community take the paper?

RI: Oh, I think it's the best source of community news and... I hope. I know it's the best source of community news, whether or not they read it in that much depth or not. I - if I sit down and read the paper, it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to really read the paper. And there's many things I don't read. But I know there are people who just scrutinize every page, but a majority of the Americans 01:09:00I think now are headline readers.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And even - and you get no local news really on television or radio, and I think that's another reason. But - well, our sports section is good and it attracts an awful lot of readers. We get some complaints about how come we give so much space to sports and not to art, which may be a justifiable query, but we know the interest in sports news.

JCC: That really sells a paper, doesn't it? And that's one of the things you have to look at.

RI: And for a small paper like ours, three pages of sports is an awful lot, but that interest is there.

JCC: Yeah. Do you think they ever took readership surveys in your father's day?

RI: No.

JCC: I mean did he care what people-

RI: Sure he cared, but...

JCC: --in the community thought about the paper?

RI: Yeah, but they didn't approach it in a scientific way as we did. It was more off the top of the head and addressing the guys on let's do this or let's not do that, and...

JCC: Did he have a good feeling for it? How did he arrive at his...?

RI: No, I don't think he had a good feeling for it because I think his feelings were too prejudiced. I'm not sure he admitted that there were other people outside there someplace who had different opinions or - that were valid. And certainly his interests were somewhat - I don't mean they weren't catholic [?] as far as better things in life, but as far as, well, like backpacking or things that we see now: organic gardening and... no way. He wouldn't probably rule the story out of the paper, but he'd think, "Why, here's a funny thing [laughs], imagine these people being interested in raising turnips in organic soil" [laughs].

JCC: He had a - yeah.

RI: "What a bunch of kooks" [laughs].

JCC: Well, so then where did he gets his ideas, I mean to how to run - his reading?

RI: Well, he didn't - oh no, no, he got - well, they'd have meetings as well as little conventions, but he ran out of his - off the top of his hand and out of his hip pocket.

JCC: Did he ever say he had wished he had stayed in law or gone into another kind of career?

RI: No. I think he thoroughly enjoyed the newspaper.

JCC: And he was happy with being in Corvallis and running this particular paper?

RI: Mm-hmm, loved Corvallis and... and liked to see it develop the way he thought it should and helping it do it and... loved the newspaper and his colleagues, and very happy. Except for Roosevelt [laughs] and a few things like that, you know. It was - it was the beginning of the end of the county. There was no question about it, if it wasn't the end [both chuckle].

JCC: That must have been a very trying period for him.

RI: It was, it was. He was postmaster at the time.

JCC: Oh, was he? That's a political post.

RI: Yeah, that's - it was - in those days it was strictly spoils system, yeah, 01:12:00sure. I don't think he despaired over losing his job as being postmaster in 1955, but the socialists had taken over and [laughs] and this is a - this is it [laughs]. But he did not - you know, some people, or at that time particularly, were anti such things as social security, and while he was very unhappy with workmen's compensation - not workmen's compensation, but the unemployment thing, the leaf rakers and all that sort of thing. He did not object to social security and things that were long-range benefits to people, but he just hated the make-work programs and such.

JCC: Mm-hmm. WPA?

RI: By WPA and the-

JCC: What about Timberline and that just going up? Did he have a few words to say about that?

RI: He - I don't recall that but I'm sure it was - if it was part of the program, and it was, he objected. And a lot of other people did too, you know.

JCC: They couldn't see anything positive about this putting people to work?

RI: Well, rather that than the dole, but I think the feeling was these bastards aren't working [laughs]. They're just leaning on shovels or leaning on rakes or - I think he was a strong supporter of the CCC. That's the Civilian Conservation Core, and that sort of thing where the good that they were doing was obvious and great, but some of the make-work jobs that... that we'd see people performing around here really disgusted him. I mean, he'd worked hard all his life and I think maybe he didn't realize that jobs were not available. I think his philosophy was that if they want it bad enough, they'd go out and get it.

JCC: Of course that's been a pervading philosophy, I mean as long as I've been around [laughs].

RI: Well, yeah, it's-

JCC: I mean, we're just kind of moving out of that now.

RI: Yeah.

JCC: This work ethic.

RI: Yeah, the work ethic is certainly - isn't as prevalent now as it was then, but my understanding is the kids who went to school in the sixties and graduated and got married and had families are bringing up their children more or less the way they themselves were brought up, with a Christian work ethic and the whole bottle of wax, not because they agree with it necessarily, but I think they think that's a better way to bring up their own kids.

JCC: Mm-hmm. But there's a period in here now where these kids have just as soon go and get their unemployment checks as work, and-

RI: And the food stamps and all that.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: Of course that bothers me, and I - I don't think it should be as profitable for people not to work as for people to work. But it would be even more bitter a note that...

JCC: Did your father ever [inaudible]?

RI: I don't think - and this is probably beside the point: in much of - in most 01:15:00of the world - our money goes to age-dependent children and mothers who can't work, and so I think it doesn't go to people who are loafing and could work if they wanted to.

JCC: You don't think of - I don't know, I stand behind a lot of these people in the store [laughs].

RI: Yeah, I know. Where were we last time? "Well, I went to Europe and..." [both laugh].

JCC: Yeah.

RI: [Coughs].

JCC: Well, I had a classmate down in Eugene who said, "Now, the next time we get to Portland we'll go to lunch at the Multnomah Club" minutes before she was telling me how she tried to get fired from her job so she could get unemployment.

RI: This is the third thing that really drives you crazy.

JCC: Yeah [laughs].

RI: Just drives you crazy.

JCC: And she gets all her clothes out of Nordstrom's, you know. I mean, it's just this kind of double a mentality, or-

RI: The 60 Seconds exposé on that, or 60 Minutes exposé of the abuse of workmen's comp, and - or not workmen's comp, but unemployment compensation - was 01:16:00very good.

JCC: I didn't see it.

RI: Well, there are people in New York who quit their jobs and go to Florida for 26 weeks or whatever and come back and go work somewhere else. That's somewhat beside the point, but...

JCC: Well yeah, I know, but it's part of this picture of your father too. He was quite a sports enthusiast, wasn't he?

RI: Oh yes, he was a spectator sport enthusiast. He played football in high school, but I believe that basketball wasn't popular then, but he was a strong Oregon State sports supporter. He liked sports, and there was no television in those days, so of course, he couldn't get involved in Sunday morning football games and that sort of thing, but... he'd been - he fought and bled and died for Oregon State. Especially for William Jasper Kerr, who I think was responsible 01:17:00for our being so much farther ahead as a university at that time around.

JCC: Really?

RI: Mm-hmm.

JCC: He was quite an OSU booster all the way around.

RI: Mm-hmm.

JCC: Did they ever confer an honorary degree on him?

RI: No, I don't think so.

JCC: Should they have?

RI: They were not doing that sort of thing in those days.

JCC: Oh. Was he ever-

RI: Yeah, they should have.

JCC: Yeah, they should have. Did he ever have any personal disappointments with them? Besides your being a bum?

RI: Besides my being a bum?

JCC: Yeah. And Roosevelt being in office so long [laughs].

RI: Oh, Roosevelt, after all, 14 or 15 years of it, that was quite a term [both laugh]. That was more than a person could be - that was bad [laughs].

JCC: I'll have to read some of those editorials that wasn't derivative and wild [?] [laughs].

RI: Howard Cherry used to - he went to school here. He's been legislature and part of the - chairman of the school board and so forth. He's still in the legislature. He went - he used to tell me about - he always bought the GT and see what Dad is saying about Roosevelt, and one of the funniest things was - he 01:18:00remembered, was that there was a short part relative to, well, "Fibber McGee and Molly will be on tonight, followed by Mr. Roosevelt with his Fireside Chat, and you can tell the difference because of Molly" or something, you know [both laugh]. A little bit like that.

[Tape break]

JCC: He's fairly warm to that subject and had time to work with it for a while. Do a lot of people approach you and say, "Oh, I remember your dad" through this and that?

RI: They used to. Not so many anymore. I mean, he's been dead since 1950. And yes, for years everybody knew him and it seemed like everybody I ran into knew my father or my mother. Who are you [laughs], that sort of thing.

JCC: What did they usually say then?

RI: Um, I seem like my mother, and have lots of respect for my father and what a good thing he was for the state and the city, sort of thing, and how much they 01:19:00got out my mother's English classes. I heard more from her, you know, on that note. But they were fine people, both of them. And my sister isn't like either one of them. I don't know how I'm the composite of both of them now. I don't mean that in a derogatory manner, but [mutters]. Not having been involved in the newspaper and being more or less in academia, I don't think she's had the battering from all sides, perhaps, that [mumbles].

JCC: Mm-hmm. Do you sort of see an ivory tower roll? I mean, do you ever see people who kind of insulate themselves in a sense?

RI: Yeah, they do. And strange as it may seem, they're the greatest informants in the world, and they think, boy, I'm an individual thinker, but when you 01:20:00scratch the surface, they all think alike [laughs]. It seems like it, anyway.

JCC: And why can't we find a lobbyist for them [laughs].

RI: I don't know, are you working on that?

JCC: They - they need one, yes.

RI: Oh, are they doing so badly?

JCC: [Laughs] I know.

RI: Oh, this latest action of Ways and Means just drives me up the wall, on the graduate students and the - there's no way that the 90-person legislature can act as the governing body for the state system of higher education, for the Highway Department, for the Meat Cutters Union, for the bar pilots or whatever. They just can't do it, and this is something they've had to go try to do, and the efforts have been, recent, not - well, there were some in the past I've been editorializing on, but they cannot - and they have good boards and commissions to do these things and they don't stay out of those - and budgets. But these 01:21:00boards and commissions that are appointed by the governor and okayed by the Senate, then run with that. Yeah... the time.

JCC: What have you taken up as your own personal battles along these lines? What do you see as an objective you'd like to see?

RI: I'd like to see Oregon State salaries the equal of University of Oregon. We got the tuition requirements lowered for athletes; I'd like to see women's athletics on a par with the non-revenue producing sports. But most of all I'm interested in curriculum, in quality, and the buildings. And I do not represent Oregon State on the floor, and I have no intention of being provincial, but there are a couple areas that I think that Oregon State has [inaudible], and one 01:22:00of them is the salary. And very subtly and without much help, I think [inaudible] work with Administration and try and do something about that.

JCC: What about all the losses that we suffered years back? You don't want to take that to battle again, or no?

RI: No, I don't think so. I'm... everybody runs to court these days, and it's... I think it can be handled other ways, outside.

JCC: Well, I was saying specifically about the loss of Liberal Arts.

RI: Oh, that's... if Liberal Arts would come up with a program it's... desirable, necessary, and non-duplicative, we'll get it, without costing more money.

JCC: Why does it have to be non-duplicative to-?

RI: Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be except that the board is... still hung up, and maybe - and I'm not saying not justifiably so - on use of the 01:23:00taxpayer's money relative to providing the same courses at Universities 40 miles apart.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: There isn't that much money to go around, frankly. I mean, there could be better if we federalized, but if Liberal Arts would come up with something - and I have not met the new dean, but...

JCC: That's surprising, isn't it?

RI: Well, I don't know, maybe he was here when I wasn't or I was here when he wasn't, or nobody said, "Why don't you go see Bob," or "Why don't you go - we're interviewing - why don't you go out and look." I have been without knowing anything about him other than he's a psychologist, which bothers me in the first place. I just hope that he will lead us out of that horrible morass, and I hope 01:24:00to have enough influence both the board and the administration to let it happen.

JCC: What kind of response do you get when you try to use your influence [inaudible]?... My tape recorder doesn't pick that up [laughs].

RI: Uh, they listen, but they don't stand up and salute.

JCC: Mm-hmm.

RI: And of course I don't have all the answers. I just make suggestions sometimes. But I don't think it's my job on the board to interfere with the administration of the university. So, I have to be very careful I think, otherwise I do become a - probably a nuisance, as well as an Oregon State advocate exclusively. And really my job is all higher school. But that doesn't 01:25:00keep me from seeing more problems at Oregon State than in any other institution because I'm just closer to it.

JCC: Does it surprise you that you're in a role that you will have such an effect or impact on what happens in that - in higher education in the state?

RI: Sure, considering my own ineptitude as a student [both laugh].

JCC: Do you think you're in a... in this role honestly?

RI: Yes. I think maybe it's good to have one of the dummies on the [laughs], on the board.

JCC: But you're interested in history, you're interested in the arts.

RI: Oh, sure.

JCC: You have a respect, I think, for academia, maybe, yeah? To some extent?

RI: Mm-hmm. I was brought up in it more than newspapers, really, my father being a teacher originally, my mother and sister being teachers.

JCC: What did your father teach?

RI: I don't know, history, I suppose.

JCC: He was quite a history buff.

RI: Mm-hmm, really.

JCC: Not - and you're not?

RI: I am, you bet I am. I love history.

JCC: So, you're both history buffs. Is that something you compare to him?

RI: No, I just have a - always had an interest in history. Not for any ulterior motive; I just, I mean-

[Tape break]

RI: -- as possible, somewhat older than I am, and she probably has a much more vivid memory of Dad and the family life and this sort of thing than I do. You might - it might be well worth your while if you've got maybe the time to... to talk to Alice.

JCC: Yeah. She wouldn't have the newspaper interest or overview that you would have.

RI: No, but she would have the - much more of it than I would prior to my becoming associated with it.

JCC: Mm-hmm. Well, I'll go - and she's here in town?

RI: Mm-hmm. Alice Wallace. She'd be great to talk to, I'm sure. And she may have a much more different approach than I...

JCC: I was going to ask you if you could remember things that your father tried to change in this state, successfully and not successfully.

RI: No. No, I don't remember much about his state politics whether because by the time I came to work here in 1937... he wasn't as active statewide in politics as he had been, I don't know.

JCC: Why wasn't he?

RI: Oh, I don't know. Maybe he ran out of steam, I don't know. Maybe he'd changed interests, I don't know really know, but he was active behind the scenes in some campaigns, but I don't think he was as active as he had been.

JCC: Did his editorials lose some of their zeal? Did he-

RI: No.

JCC: Were there any other changes?

RI: No. No, I don't think so. Maybe, but I just don't remember him when I came to work because of being gone much, not much involved.

JCC: Mm-hmm. You think he just... you and him were just [inaudible]-

RI: Well, maybe... maybe we had a good legislature at the time or maybe Charlie Sprague being governor might have something to do with it.

JCC: It wasn't as if it wasn't a personal defeat sort of thing like that?

RI: No, no. Mm-mm. No, he was a fighter. I don't think he ever would admit - that would have inspired him all the more, I think [laughs].

JCC: Uh-huh, yeah.

RI: I don't know, I just don't remember his being that active in politics.

JCC: And he wasn't on state boards as you are today.

RI: No. I don't think so.

JCC: Was there not that much of that around?

RI: No, I think we have something like 220 state boards and commissions now [laughs] and I think in his time it was very minor. Probably the state board of 01:29:00higher education was - came in 1936, if I remember. The State Highway Commission of Hunting and Fishing were the three main ones at the time, with the creation of the Department of Commerce [mutters].

JCC: And - and you say he was very fond of President Kerr?

RI: Oh yes, I remember those days with him.

JCC: What kind of relationship - I mean, did he meet, give President Kerr ideas on how he should run the university, or-?

RI: No, I don't think that kind of interference. I think more a consultation on policy and politics of Kerr's was tremendously effective before the legislature. And this is one reason I am opposed to having boards of control for each of the institutions because I think then it becomes a manner of who has the best 01:30:00spokesman before the legislature. I think that would be a bad situation. But we got so far ahead of the University of Oregon during Kerr's administration that... that was one of the reasons, I guess, was [unintelligible] always presented to amalgamate the two institutions, that and the fact that it couldn't support them during the Depression.

JCC: And your father felt that heartily?

RI: Oh, I got to hear - no, he fought in favor of it.

JCC: Oh.

RI: Yeah. He thought it would be great to have everything here in Corvallis at Oregon State University [laughs].

JCC: Oh, really? Oh, I see. I missed that.

RI: You bet. The Register-Guard was violent - was violently opposed, of course, to losing their university. And there are all sorts of things about "how would you like to be a university orphan?" referring to the people who had graduated at the University of Oregon, by which there no longer was. And there were ballots stolen and all sorts of things like that, yeah.

JCC: What would have happened? What was the outcome and what would have happened if it had passed?

RI: Well, in theory, this would have been Oregon's major university, similar to University of Nebraska, and that would have been a satellite and - out of the four community colleges. The normal schools, of course, would have been in existence, but that would have been about it. The whole Liberal Arts and the whole bottle of wax would have been here.

JCC: Would have been here. Was it a close vote?

RI: I don't remember. I don't know how close it would have been if the ballots hadn't been stolen, either [both laugh]. Quite a trip.

JCC: That kind of thing would have upset your father, though.

RI: Oh, terrible, even if it had been - his ballots had been stolen, it would have made him unhappy. And he was very - he had integrity up to the top of his forehead. He never weltzed or weaseled on anything.

JCC: But now you say he was self-educated, and yet he had passed the bar, but he did that all on his own?

RI: On his own, mm-hmm. In Kansas.

JCC: Did he do it at high school? Did he-?

RI: Yes.

JCC: --have any other education?

RI: He had the high school degree. But no, no other...

JCC: Was he then in awe when he was with educators?

RI: No [laughs].

JCC: No?

RI: He wasn't in awe at anybody [laughs].

JCC: [Laughs] that's a no. What do you owe this to? I mean, what would make for a person like this?

RI: I don't know, he just had this inner drive that he was going to be a success and he wanted to - he wanted an education and he couldn't afford it, so he got it the best way he could. You know, at that time, like Fred McHenry who had never been to college, and he got his degree, college degree, and practiced law and was a circuit judge and all that sort of stuff [mutters]. But it was much more common in those days. I don't know - you can't do it today, I don't think.

JCC: I don't know.

RI: I don't know whether if you walk up and can pass the bar exam if you get admitted or not.

JCC: Well, I'm not ready to try [both laugh]. Did he ever talk about his own family?

RI: No. He had a sister who lived in Salem, but she passed away when I was quite young. She also came from Washington, Kansas. But I don't know anything about his parents except that his father-

JCC: Was he bitter about that experience?

RI: No.

JCC: No?

RI: I don't remember his being awfully bitter about anything. He was unhappy about certain things and - which he thought were not in the best interests of the people or public of the country, but you know, no bitterness or vindictiveness... I don't think. I never did - I don't remember. He had very high ideals and... moral purpose. And he was, as you say, a workaholic.

JCC: What about the sense of community?

RI: Oh...

JCC: Compared to yourself?

RI: I don't - I think he served on the city council. I know he was Chamber president then, all those things, but - second Chamber president, anyways.

JCC: But that might have been for personal satisfaction...

RI: Oh, but-

JCC: Of his esteem?

RI: But he was - Corvallis was his town; he was going to make it the best town he possibly could, given all those facts.

JCC: I see, and so in this sense, he went out and did those things.

RI: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, he did. He wrote about them and he wrote for his [unintelligible] to vote for him, and so he'd write some of these sorts of these things, but... I mean he was very much a community man.

JCC: Would you say more so than yourself, or about the same as yourself, in a different way, or what?

RI: Well, the town was that much smaller. I don't think my interests are that much more catholic except that the opportunity is here that was not present when he was a... we had no art center, we had no Human Resources, we had no Mental Health Division, you know, all those things were Jonny-come-latelys, relatively speaking.

JCC: In that sense, you've had to be more of a renaissance man than your father.

RI: Mm-hmm, I think so.

JCC: You've had to put on more hats and...

RI: Many more hats.

JCC: It's a more complex time.

RI: And we were more agriculturally oriented then, and he knew quite a bit about agriculture, having been a farm boy... of which I know nothing. Me and him would always - he was critical of my not taking agricultural economics instead of education, and I suppose he was right [both laugh].

JCC: I don't know if that would have happened, particularly in your career, but... Because times were simpler and your father saw things in more of 01:36:00black/white terms, do you think then he was perhaps a happier person or had more extremes, happier or unhappier than...?

RI: He was not a moody person at any time that I ever remember. I don't think he was ever satisfied with things as they were, but he wasn't given to giddy happiness or emotionalism, actually. I don't remember his being much emotional about anything, except when I was sick when I was young. That's the only time I really remember much emotion from him.

I don't think he ever tore himself up inside. I think he kept his blood pressure down, but maybe that was just how the guy was. And I think he had a tendency to laugh at the world as much as cry with it. It was always more of his 01:37:00[unintelligible] of an attitude.

JCC: Mm-hmm. How much of this philosophy is yours now?

RI: Oh, I lie down and believe it, but... and I don't have the sense that I know all the answers that I think he had, and boy, there is so much on both sides that it's so difficult to find your way. And so many more people to evaluate than there were in his day. It's a complex world now.

JCC: Mm-mm. Thank you, Bob.