An Editor for Oregon: Charles A. Sprague and the Politics of Change

In "An Editor for Oregon," Floyd McKay provides a thoroughly-researched, eminently readable account of Sprague's life and times. McKay, a journalism professor at Western Washington University, brings unquestioned qualifications to this work. Before entering the academic world, he spent many years as a working journalist, both in broadcast and print. His first job was on the Oregon Statesman, working under Sprague, its owner and publisher. But though his admiration for his subject is clear, it's also a straightforward and honest account. McKay traces Sprague's birth and youth in Kansas, his migration to Washington state and the influence the Progressive movement had on shaping his political outlook, his entry into the newspaper business, and his arrival in Oregon in 1925. A few years later he acquired the Statesman, a newspaper from the state's pioneer era that had fallen on difficult times. Sprague grew quickly in stature and influence, yet his nomination and election to the governorship over incumbent Charles Martin in 1938, only 13 years after he had come to the state, was something of a surprise. His single term as governor was dominated by the state's response to the outbreak of World War II. In 1942, the same voters who had embraced Sprague only four years earlier turned their backs on him, ousting him in the Republican primary. Although a competent governor, Sprague's time in office turned out to be only a prelude to his greatest service to the state. For the next 25 years, with his front page column "It Seems To Me" and on the Statesman's editorial page, Sprague evolved into the most widely-read and respected opinion-maker in the state. Yet his active public service was not at an end; he served for a time as an alternate delegate to the United Nations. "An Editor for Oregon" provides not only a compressive look at Sprague's life and career, but a history of the state's political evolution from the Depression through the sixties. It's a first-rate work.--William C. Hall