Mark Hatfield

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Mark Hatfield
United States Senator from Oregon
In office January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1997
Preceded by	Maurine Brown Neuberger
Succeeded by	Gordon Smith
29th Governor of Oregon
In office January 12, 1959 – January 9, 1967
Preceded by	Robert D. Holmes
Succeeded by	Tom McCall
Oregon Secretary of State
In office January 7, 1957 – January 12, 1959
Preceded by	Earl T. Newbry
Succeeded by	Howell Appling, Jr.
Born	July 12, 1922 (1922-07-12) (age 85) Dallas, Oregon
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Antoinette Hatfield
Children	4
Alma mater	Willamette University Stanford University
Profession	Politician
Religion	Christian

Mark Odom Hatfield (born July 12, 1922) is an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States Senator from Oregon, and served as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. A native Oregonian, he served in the United States Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II after graduating from Willamette University. After the war he earned a graduate degree from Stanford University before returning to Oregon and Willamette as a professor.

While still teaching, Hatfield would then serve in both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. He won election to the Oregon Secretary of State's office at the age of 34 and two years later was elected as Governor of Oregon. He was the youngest person to ever serve in either of those offices, serving two terms as governor before election to the United States Senate. In the Senate he would serve Oregon for 30 years, and now holds the record for longest serving Senator from Oregon. In 1968, he was considered a candidate to be Richard Nixon's running mate for the Republican Party presidential ticket.

Hatfield served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on two different occasions. With this role he was able to direct funding to Oregon and research related projects. Several Oregon institutions, buildings and facilities are named in his honor, including the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, the Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette University (his alma mater), the Hatfield Government Center light rail station, and the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. Outside of Oregon, a research center at the National Institutes of Health is also named in his honor for his support of medical research while in the Senate.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political career 2.1 Oregon 2.2 National 3 Later years and legacy 4 Works authored 4.1 Contributed to 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life

Hatfield was born in Dallas, Oregon, on July 12, 1922,^[1] the only son of Dovie Odom Hatfield, a schoolteacher, and Charles Dolen Hatfield, a blacksmith for the Southern Pacific Railroad.^[2] Mark's father was from Oregon, and his mother from Tennessee.^[2] When Mark was five years old, his grandmother took over the household while Dovie attended Oregon State College (now Oregon State University) and graduated with a teaching degree after four years.^[2] She then began teaching in Dallas for two years before the family moved to Salem where she taught junior high.^[2]

Encouraged by his mother, Hatfield's first experience with politics came at the age of ten when he campaigned for President Herbert Hoover’s 1932 re-election campaign in his neighborhood.^[3] In the late 1930s Hatfield worked as a tour guide at the new Oregon State Capitol in Salem.^[3] On the weekends during his senior year in high school he would use his key to enter the governor’s office at the capitol and sit in the governor’s chair.^[3] On June 10, 1940, when he was 17 years old, Hatfield was involved in a traffic accident that turned deadly.^[4] While driving his mother’s car, Hatfield struck and killed Alice Marie Lane south of Salem.^[5] He was not held criminally liable for the crash, but was found civilly liable to the family.^[4] The case would make its way to the Oregon Supreme Court in 1943, with the court affirming the trial courts decision.^[5]

Hatfield graduated from Salem High School (now North Salem High School) in 1940 and then enrolled at Willamette University, also in Salem.^[6] While attending Willamette, Hatfield became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega, Kappa Gamma Rho, and a brother and local founder of Beta Theta Pi. In college he also worked part-time for then Oregon Secretary of State Earl Snell, where he learned how to build a political base by sending out messages to potential voters after reading about life changes posted in newspapers, such as deaths and graduations.^[3] He also sketched out a political career path beginning with the state legislature and culminating in spot in the United States Senate, with a blank for any position beyond the Senate.^[3] In 1943, Hatfield graduated from Willamette with a Bachelor of Arts degree after three years at the school.^[1] While at the school he lost his only election, for student body president.^[7]

After graduation, he joined the U.S. Navy,^[1] taking part in the World War II battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a landing craft officer where he witnessed the carnage of the war.^[3] A lieutenant, he also witnessed the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as one of the first Americans to see the ruins of the city and later, as a Senator, opposed arms proliferation and the Vietnam War.^[3][8] After Japan, he served in French Indochina where he witnessed firsthand the wealth divide between the peasant Vietnamese and the colonial French bourgeoisie.^[3] After his discharge, he spent one year at Willamette’s law school, but decided politics or teaching better suited him.^[9][10]

Hatfield then enrolled at Stanford University where he obtained a master's degree in political science 1948.^[1] Hatfield returned to Salem and Willamette after Stanford and began working as an assistant professor in political science.^[3] During his tenure as professor, he built a political base by sending out messages and speaking at any public forum where he could get an invitation.^[3]

[edit] Political career

Mark Hatfield's career in public office spanned five decades. He held office in both the legislative and executive branches of Oregon's state government, including two terms as governor.^[3] On the national stage he became the longest serving U.S. Senator from Oregon and a candidate for the Republican Vice Presidential nomination for Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. In the U.S. Senate he would twice serve as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and twice be investigated for possible ethics violations.^[3]

[edit] Oregon

In 1950, while teaching political science and serving as dean of students at Willamette, Hatfield began his political career by winning election to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican.^[11] He defeated six others for the seat at a time when state assembly elections were still determined by county-wide votes.^[3] He served for two terms representing Marion County and Salem in the lower chamber of the Oregon Legislative Assembly.^[12] At the time he was the youngest legislator and still lived at home.^[13] Hatfield would teach early-morning classes and then walk across the street to the Capitol to legislate.^[13]

In 1952, he won re-election to his seat in the Oregon House. He also received national attention for his early support for coaxing Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for President of the United States as a Republican.^[14] This earned him a spot as a delegate at the Republican National Convention that year.^[14]

While in college he saw first hand the discrimination against African Americans in Salem when he was tasked with driving Black artists back to Portland, as they were prohibited from staying in hotels in Salem.^[3] In 1953, he introduced and was able to pass legislation in the House that prohibited discrimination based on race in public accommodations prior to federal legislation and court decisions did so on a national level.^[3] In 1954, Hatfield ran and won a seat in the Oregon State Senate representing Marion County.^[15] Hatfield continued to apply his grassroots strategy he learned from Earl Snell while in the legislature, but expanded it to cover the entire state to increase his political base.^[3]

After two years in the Oregon State Senate,^[1] he became the youngest secretary of state in Oregon history after winning election in November 1956 at age 34. Hatfield defeated fellow state senator Monroe Sweetland for the office, receiving 51.3% of the vote in the November general election.^[16] He took office on January 7, 1957, and remained until he resigned on January 12, 1959.^[17]

For his first run for Governor of Oregon in 1958, the Republican Party opposed his candidacy.^[3] His large political base he had cultivated allowed him to win the party’s primary despite the party's opposition,^[3] defeating Oregon State Treasurer Sig Unander for the Republican nomination.^[4] In July 1958, after the primary election, Hatfield married Antoinette Kuzmanich, a counselor at Portland State College (now Portland State University).^[4] The couple would have four children; Elizabeth, Mark Jr., Theresa and Visko as well as eight grandchildren. He continued his campaign for the governor’s office after the wedding, but avoided most public appearances with fellow Republican candidates for office while also not mentioning them during his campaign, despite requests by other Republicans for joint appearances.^[4]

In the November general election Hatfield defeated incumbent Robert D. Holmes, a Democrat, with 55.3% of the vote.^[4] That same election saw the Democratic Party gain a majority in both chambers of the state legislature for the first time since 1878.^[4] In the final days of the campaign Senator Wayne Morse, a Democrat, implied that Hatfield had lied in his trial regarding the deadly car accident when he was 17.^[18] This tactic backfired as the press denounced the personal attack, as did Holmes and other Democrats.^[4] After the election, Holmes attempted to appoint David O'Hara to the Secretary of State position while still in office to replace Hatfield who would need to resign to become governor, but the appointment was challenged and Hatfield appointed Howell Appling, Jr. to the office.^[4][17]

He became the state's first two-term governor in the 20th century when he was re-elected in 1962,^[19] and only the second governor up to that point in the state's history to serve two full-terms.^[4] In 1962, Hatfield had been considered a possible candidate to run against Morse for his Senate seat, but Hatfield instead ran for re-election.^[20] He faced Oregon Attorney General Robert Y. Thornton in the November election, winning with 345,497 votes to Thorton's 265,359.^[20]

He was also the youngest governor in the history of Oregon at that point in time at the age of 36.^[4] He gave the keynote speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco that nominated Barry Goldwater, and served as temporary chairman of the party during the convention.^[21] Hatfield advocated a moderate approach for the party and opposed the extreme conservatism associated with Goldwater and his supporters.^[3] He also was the only governor to vote against a resolution by the National Governors' Conference supporting the Johnson Administration's policy on the Vietnam War, as Hatfield opposed the war, but supported the troops.^[22]

Hatfield was a popular and progressive Governor, who supported Oregon's traditional industries of timber and agriculture, but realized that in the postwar era, expansion of industry and funding for transportation and education needed to be priorities.^[23] While governor he worked to begin the diversification of the state's economy, such as recruiting industrial development and holding trade missions.^[3] As part of the initiative, he helped to found the Oregon Graduate Center (now part of Oregon Health & Science University) in what is now the Silicon Forest in Washington County in 1963.^[24] A graduate level school in the Portland area (Portland State was still a college with no graduate programs at this time) was seen by business leaders as essential to attracting new industries and by Tektronix as needed to retain highly skilled workers.^[24] In lieu of the standard portrait for former governors, Hatfield is represented by a marble bust at the Oregon State Capitol.^[3]

[edit] National

In 1966, Hatfield won a seat in the U.S. Senate, a position he retained for five terms.^[1] During the Vietnam War, and during a the election year, he was the only person to vote against a resolution by a governor's conference that expressed support for the U.S. involvement in the war in 1966.^[25] At that time the war was supported by 75% of the public, and was also supported by Hatfield's opponent in the November election.^[3] He won the primary election with 178,782 votes compared to a combined 56,760 votes for three opponents.^[25] Hatfield then defeated Democratic Congressman Robert Duncan in the election.^[25]

Hatfield's victory in a Democratic year made him something of a national figure. In 1968, Hatfield was on Richard Nixon's short list for vice president,^[3] and received the strong backing of his friend, the Rev. Billy Graham.^[26] Hatfield was considered too liberal by many southern conservatives, and the more centrist Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew was chosen by Nixon.^[3] Hatfield would later find himself at odds with Nixon over Vietnam and other issues, including a threat by Hatfield to reduce funding for the Whitehouse's legal department in 1973 during the Watergate Scandal after Nixon had failed to use funds appropriated for renovating dams on the Columbia River.^[3]

As a senator, Hatfield took positions that made him hard to classify politically. In the Summer of 1969, he had told Murray Rothbard that he had "committed himself to the cause of libertarianism," but as Rothbard had said, "obviously his voting record is not particularly libertarian—it's very good on foreign policy and the draft, but it's not too great on other things," adding that "in the abstract, at least, he is very favorable to libertarianism."^[27] Hatfield was pro-life on the issues of abortion and the death penalty, though as governor he chose not to commute the sentence of a convicted murderer and allowed that execution to go forward.^[28] Although a prominent evangelical Christian, he opposed government-sponsored school prayer and supported civil rights for minorities and gays.^[29]

In 1970, with Senator George McGovern (D-South Dakota), he cosponsored the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, which called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.^[30] In the 1980s, Hatfield cosponsored nuclear freeze legislation with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, as well as coauthoring a book on the topic.^[31] He also advocated for the closure of the N-Reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the 1980s.^[32] The N-Reactor was used for producing weapons grade plutonium along with electricity.^[32] Though Hatfield was a supporter of nuclear fusion programs.^[33]

Hatfield frequently broke with his party on issues of national defense and foreign policy, such as military spending and the ban on travel to Cuba, while frequently siding with them on environmental and conservation issues.^[29][34] Senator Hatfield supported increased logging on federal lands.^[35][36] He was the lone Republican to vote against the 1981 fiscal year's appropriations bill for the Department of Defense.^[37] He was rated as the sixth most respected senator in a 1987 survey by fellow senators.^[38] In 1990, Hatfield voted against authorizing military action against Iraq in the Gulf War, one of only two members of his party to do so in the Senate.^[30][39]

Hatfield enjoyed warm relations with members of both parties and was sometimes referred to as "Saint Mark".^[30] In 1984, columnist Jack Anderson revealed that Mrs. Hatfield, a realtor, had been paid $50,000 in fees by Greek arms dealer Basil Tsakos.^[40] Tsakos had been lobbying Senator Hatfield, then Appropriations Chairman, for funding for a $6 billion trans-African pipeline.^[41] The Hatfields apologized and donated the money to a Portland hospital.^[42][43] In 1991, it was revealed that Hatfield had failed to report a number of expensive gifts from the president of the University of South Carolina.^[44] Again, he apologized. The Senate's Ethics Committee rebuked Hatfield for the latter, but cleared him of any wrongdoing for the 1984 incident.^[8][43]

His final re-election campaign came in 1990 against businessman Harry Lonsdale.^[42] In the campaign Hatfield raised $1 million in a single month after trailing Lonsdale in the polls before the November election.^[3] He defeated the Democrat with 590,095 (53.7%) votes to 507,743 (46.2%) votes.^[45] In 1993, he became the longest serving Senator from Oregon, surpassing the record of 9,726 days in office previously held by Charles McNary.^[8] In 1995, Hatfield was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the proposed balanced budget amendment, which was the deciding vote that prevented the passage of the bill.^[46] Also in 1996 the National Historical Publications and Records Commission granted him their Distinguished Service Award, a group he served on previously.^[47]

Senator Hatfield retired in 1996 after more than 46 years of political service, having won all eleven political campaigns he entered.^[48] During his tenure he appropriated billions in federal funds for projects in Oregon.^[8] This included funding for transportation projects,^[49] environmental protection of wilderness areas and scenic rivers,^[29] research facilities, and health care facilities among others.^[30]

[edit] Later years and legacy

In July 1999, Hatfield and his wife were passengers on a tour bus when a car collided with the bus.^[50] He and his wife received minor injuries, but began advocating for buses to be required to have seatbelts.^[50] After retiring, he joined the faculty of George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.^[9] As of 2006, he is the Herbert Hoover Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Politics at the school. Additionally, he teaches at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, which is named in his honor, as well as at lecturing at Willamette University and Lewis & Clark College while living in Portland.^[9]

The Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette is also dedicated to him along with Oregon State University's marine biology research center, the Hatfield Marine Science Center. Other namesakes include the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland; Hatfield Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University; Mark O. Hatfield Institute for International Understanding at Southwestern Oregon Community College; Hatfield Government Center station at the western terminus of the MAX Blue Line light rail; Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland; the Mark Hatfield trailhead at the western end of the Columbia River Highway State Trail in the Columbia River Gorge; and the Mark Hatfield Award for clinical research in Alzheimer's disease.^[51]

As of 2007, Hatfield serves on the board of directors for Oregon Health & Science University.^[52] His papers and book collection are stored at Willamette University's library in a room bearing his name.^[53] Senator Hatfield merited his own chapter in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation.^[54]

[edit] Works authored

• Not Quite So Simple (1967)
• Conflict and Conscience (1971), ISBN 0-87680-811-9
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place (1976), ISBN 0-87680-427-X
• Against the Grain: Reflections of a Rebel Republican (2000), ISBN 1-883991-36-6

[edit] Contributed to

• Amnesty: The Unsettled Question of Vietnam (1976)
• The Causes of World Hunger (1982)
• (with Edward Kennedy) Freeze! How You Can Help Prevent Nuclear War (1982), ISBN 0-553-14077-9
• What About the Russians: A Christian Approach to US-Soviet Conflict (1984), ISBN 0-87178-751-2
• Lessons and Legacies: Farewell Addresses from the Senate (1996)
• (editor) Vice Presidents of the United States: 1789–1993 (1997), ISBN 0614312019
• Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor (2003), ISBN 0-8047-4708-3
• (Intro) Social Power and Political Freedom (1980), ISBN 0-87558-093-9
• (Intro) Real Christianity (1982), ISBN 1-55661-832-8

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Oregon State Archives
• Washington Post voting record

Political offices
Preceded by Earl T. Newbry	Secretary of State of Oregon 1956–1958	Succeeded by Howell Appling, Jr.
Preceded by Robert D. Holmes	Governor of Oregon 1959–1967	Succeeded by Tom McCall
Preceded by Warren G. Magnuson Washington	Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee 1981–1987	Succeeded by John C. Stennis Mississippi
Preceded by Robert Byrd West Virginia	Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee 1995–1997	Succeeded by Ted Stevens Alaska
United States Senate
Preceded by Maurine Brown Neuberger	United States Senator (Class 2) from Oregon 1967–1997 Served alongside: Wayne Morse, Bob Packwood, Ron Wyden	Succeeded by Gordon Smith

v • d • e Governors of Oregon Whiteaker • Gibbs • Woods • Grover • Chadwick • Thayer • Moody • Pennoyer • Lord • Geer • Chamberlain • Benson • Bowerman • West • Withycombe • Olcott • Pierce • I. Patterson • Norblad • Meier • Martin • Sprague • Snell • Hall • McKay • P. Patterson • Smith • Holmes • Hatfield • McCall • Straub • Atiyeh • Goldschmidt • Roberts • Kitzhaber • Kulongoski

v • d • e United States Senators from Oregon Class 2: D. Smith • Baker • Stark • Harding • Williams • Kelly • Grover • Dolph • McBride • Mitchell • Gearin • Mulkey • Bourne • H. Lane • McNary • Mulkey • McNary • Cordon • R. Neuberger • Lusk • M. Neuberger • Hatfield • G. Smith Class 3: J. Lane • Nesmith • Corbett • Mitchell • Slater • Mitchell • Simon • Fulton • Chamberlain • Stanfield • Steiwer • Reames • Barry • Holman • Morse • Packwood • Wyden