The 1920s was the decade of the Republicans in the Pacific Northwest as they held almost every major office and most of the minor ones as well. In fact in Idaho, Republicans held every elected office. With no competition politicians held office for long periods of time. In Oregon Charles McNary served from 1917 to 1944; and in Idaho William Edgar Borah served from 1907 to 1940.
Senator William E. Borah, Independent and Moral
Borah was popular and influential. “In some countries he became the best-known living American.” Senator Borah, although a lifelong Republican was independent and advocated for the positions he felt to be morally correct. As an example, in a New York Times, April 20, 1908, article it was reported Senator Borah was to give his first Senate speech on the following day in defense of the Administration’s crackdown of the Brownville, Texas controversy in which several Black residents were shot by the police. It was intimated that Senator Borah was chosen to make this speech because he had few Black voters to answer to in his home sate. The article reported however that Senator Borah “has been a friend to the negroes at no small personal risk to himself.” The article then went on to describe an incident from 1905 in which Borah saved the life of Black men who was about to be lynched by a mob by bluffing the mob into believing that he had several armed men at his disposal. According to the article Borah declared: “…we are not going to permit you to bring disgrace upon our state in this manner. We are here to take these negroes to a place of safety, and prevent lynch law. We are going to do it peacefully if we can but by force if we have to. We have men enough in that train to see that we get them. Now fall back and clear the way.” There were in fact no men in the train. It was a bluff which worked and Borah was able to take the men to a safe place.
Senator Borah as Populist Leader
Senator Borah was a Populist silver proponent and progressive Republican in his early career. He allowed “the dictates of his conscience” to take “precedence over party platforms or labels.” This allowed him to forge alliances with all political groups. He became an effective Senator and possibly “the most famed Senator of this century” and “the great moral force of the Senate, the one member who could arise and deal with right and wrong in an electric way.” Borah defended civil liberties but opposed the League of Nations and U. S. entanglement in world affairs. He opposed the reelection of his own party’s president, Hoover, in 1932, and selectively supported elements of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In 1936 Borah ran for President but failed to obtain the Republican nomination. He died four years later.
Sources:
Carlos Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest; an Interpretive History, 1996 revised edition;
New York Times, April 20, 1908, page 6
Time Magazine, March 30, 1936, "Long Ago and Far Away"
Leroy Ashby, Spearless Leader: Senator Borah and the Progressive Movement in the 1920s, (Chicago, 1972)
