By Don Lynch
From the April 30, 1956 edition of The Argus-Observer
This is the mid-point of spring, the end of capricious April, the beginning of May gardening, the advent of fishing season, a time when we start to enjoy a full schedule of outdoor activities.
Our spring is a hussy whose pulchritude is full of realism. As you watch you see her pretty places one by one obscure the scars of previous times. The new leaf, the new sprout, the new bud among the old thorns break forth with their promise of a whole new cycle of living and tantalize the senses with the poignancy of beauty in forgotten places as they retell the eternal message of the annual rebirth of life in spring.
Just now half through her time spring has a delicate charm quite different from the rich, deep, beauty of colorful autumn. Now tulips brighten the flower beds, purple lilacs spread perfume, apple blossoms fill the orchards and flowering trees dot well-kept yards.
The roadsides border the fields and the unfarmed hills crown the horizon with alovely carpet of green that shines for a few days each spring, then turns to the dry brown of dead grass. Just now this passing green is in full splendor as the tender grass reaches up to cover last year’s old, dry growth. This gives our landscape an all-over greenness that it has at no other time of year.
The fields themselves have a smooth uniformity that will disappear with growth. Now their landscape forms a patchwork carpet of a thousand hues of green overlaid with a pattern of trees that carry the delicacy of first leaves, giving a soft, sometimes chartreuse hue of green, soon to become richer and darker as the leaves reach full size and color.
Where is nature is there a softer landscape than a little valley of alfalfa grown just enough for full cover and resting under an overcast of scattered clouds that lets the shafts of sunlight to the ground in a mottled pattern? There you see more shades of green than are seen in a modern household paint chart.
So far this has been a good spring in this land of ourse with more April warmth than we generally get and with the promise of abundant water melting from deep snow packs in the mountains.
In this once desolate desert region, made habitable by the hands of men, often spring is a desolate season. It lacks the soft moisture of springtime in the lovely coastal areas.
Winter sometimes carries on and on ‘til summer breaks forth overnight and we wonder, “Where was spring?”
Not so this year. We’ve had a lovely early spring. We may have heat in our homes for Memorial Day and again on the Fourth of July as we sometimes do in this eccentric climate. But in between there’ll be warm and lovely days, days for fishing or farming or gardening or golfing or whatever one likes to do.
(Editor’s note: The weather in the Ontario area was sunny, expected to go to a high in the mid-seventies and to a low of about fifty degrees on April 28, 2008, the day this was posted.)
Monday, April 28, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Kanga Wada first Japanese-born resident to pass citizenship test
The April 27, 1953 edition of The Argus-Observer reported that 66-year-old Kanga Wada was the area’s first resident who was born in Japan – and Issei – to pass the U.S. Citizenship test.
The McCarran Act, passed in 1952, first made it possible for Japanese-born residents of the United States to become citizens.
Wada, whose daughter Dorothy was named historian of the Ontario High School’s 1953 graduating class (for achieving the third highest academic rating in the class), came to Malheur County 23 years earlier, settling near Vale and clearing sagebrush land for planting. In 1953 he raised row crops on a farm near Ontario.
Wada was one of 100 Issei to join the citizenship classes set up by Malheur County educators. Rev. Norio Yasaki acted as translator for Wada during classes and the citizenship exam. Those who took the exam were not required to speak English but did have to demonstrate a knowledge of U.S. constitutional government. Wada’s exam was administered in Vale by Herbert Boss of Boise, area director for naturalization and immigration.
The McCarran Act, passed in 1952, first made it possible for Japanese-born residents of the United States to become citizens.
Wada, whose daughter Dorothy was named historian of the Ontario High School’s 1953 graduating class (for achieving the third highest academic rating in the class), came to Malheur County 23 years earlier, settling near Vale and clearing sagebrush land for planting. In 1953 he raised row crops on a farm near Ontario.
Wada was one of 100 Issei to join the citizenship classes set up by Malheur County educators. Rev. Norio Yasaki acted as translator for Wada during classes and the citizenship exam. Those who took the exam were not required to speak English but did have to demonstrate a knowledge of U.S. constitutional government. Wada’s exam was administered in Vale by Herbert Boss of Boise, area director for naturalization and immigration.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Argus Observes: Ontario’s ‘boy’ Elmo Smith is going places
By Don Lynch
From The Argus-Observer for April 23, 1953
(Editor’s note: At the time this column was published, there was no way for the author to know that Smith would, within a few short years, become governor of Oregon.)
It begins to look like Ontario’s boy is really going places in politics.
Senator Elmo Smith has announced his candidacy for the presidency of the Oregon State Senate, a job that is second only to the governor’s office in prestige in government in Oregon.
Although Smith now resides in John Day, Ontario will always regard him as a product of this city.
It was here that he established himself as a successful newspaper publisher and a leader in local government.
He came to Ontario in the depression years of the mid-thirties as a youngster not long out of college. He worked for the Ontario Argus for a time, and in 1937 began publishing his own newspaper, the Eastern Oregon Observer. Those must have been tough years, but he has told me they were good years that provided a lot of fun.
Whenever they had more money than it took for beans and shoes and ink and paper, they made some little improvement --- added some new type or a better press or spent some money to promote a new idea.
Smith was a great idea man. He tried most any idea he could think of. Many of them paid off. The paper grew and prospered with the net result that in about a decade Smith ran an initial investment of a few hundred dollars into an asset that the sold for about $40,000.
Subsequent investment in the newspapers in John Day and Madras had increased his net worth substantially, and at the same time provided him with an income that has permitted him to take an active part in state politics.
Smith was elected mayor of Ontario in 1940, resigned in 1943 to enter the navy and served again as mayor for two years after he returned to Ontario.
He puts out an unusually good newspaper for his readers in Grant County, but his really outstanding quality as a newspaper publisher is his business ability. I know of no other weekly publisher who has his financial ability, and at the same time gives the readers as good a product as he does.
He has one other unusual ability that he doesn’t get to practice very often. He is the best advertising salesman I have known in the weekly newspaper business and he is as good as the high-powered Hearst men I used to work with on the Examiner in San Francisco.
Although we were once vigorous competitors, Elmo and I are the best of friends personally. But that does not prevent us from disagreeing publicly if necessary, and we both understand that.
We agree on the broad general issues in government, often disagree on specific things. I must confess that time often brings me nearer Smith’s view than I was at the time of disagreement.
Smith is opposed in his race for the Oregon Senate presidency by Senator Phil Hitchcock of Klamath Falls. From this distance, it looks to me like a contest of working ability against personal charm.
Hitchcock is an able man. Smith has told me so himself. And he certainly has as much personal charm as any man in the senate. For these reasons, he might be tougher competition in front of the electorate in a general election than within the senate itself where Smith’s great capacity for productive work is known and understood. And Smith has plenty of personality too.
I think we may expect that Elmo Smith will fare well in the contest, either win or gain substantially in prestige. If he didn’t think so his hat wouldn’t be in the ring and I know of no shrewder judge of his political prospects than the senator himself.
He has appraised his other political fights realistically. I hope he wins this one.
From The Argus-Observer for April 23, 1953
(Editor’s note: At the time this column was published, there was no way for the author to know that Smith would, within a few short years, become governor of Oregon.)
It begins to look like Ontario’s boy is really going places in politics.
Senator Elmo Smith has announced his candidacy for the presidency of the Oregon State Senate, a job that is second only to the governor’s office in prestige in government in Oregon.
Although Smith now resides in John Day, Ontario will always regard him as a product of this city.
It was here that he established himself as a successful newspaper publisher and a leader in local government.
He came to Ontario in the depression years of the mid-thirties as a youngster not long out of college. He worked for the Ontario Argus for a time, and in 1937 began publishing his own newspaper, the Eastern Oregon Observer. Those must have been tough years, but he has told me they were good years that provided a lot of fun.
Whenever they had more money than it took for beans and shoes and ink and paper, they made some little improvement --- added some new type or a better press or spent some money to promote a new idea.
Smith was a great idea man. He tried most any idea he could think of. Many of them paid off. The paper grew and prospered with the net result that in about a decade Smith ran an initial investment of a few hundred dollars into an asset that the sold for about $40,000.
Subsequent investment in the newspapers in John Day and Madras had increased his net worth substantially, and at the same time provided him with an income that has permitted him to take an active part in state politics.
Smith was elected mayor of Ontario in 1940, resigned in 1943 to enter the navy and served again as mayor for two years after he returned to Ontario.
He puts out an unusually good newspaper for his readers in Grant County, but his really outstanding quality as a newspaper publisher is his business ability. I know of no other weekly publisher who has his financial ability, and at the same time gives the readers as good a product as he does.
He has one other unusual ability that he doesn’t get to practice very often. He is the best advertising salesman I have known in the weekly newspaper business and he is as good as the high-powered Hearst men I used to work with on the Examiner in San Francisco.
Although we were once vigorous competitors, Elmo and I are the best of friends personally. But that does not prevent us from disagreeing publicly if necessary, and we both understand that.
We agree on the broad general issues in government, often disagree on specific things. I must confess that time often brings me nearer Smith’s view than I was at the time of disagreement.
Smith is opposed in his race for the Oregon Senate presidency by Senator Phil Hitchcock of Klamath Falls. From this distance, it looks to me like a contest of working ability against personal charm.
Hitchcock is an able man. Smith has told me so himself. And he certainly has as much personal charm as any man in the senate. For these reasons, he might be tougher competition in front of the electorate in a general election than within the senate itself where Smith’s great capacity for productive work is known and understood. And Smith has plenty of personality too.
I think we may expect that Elmo Smith will fare well in the contest, either win or gain substantially in prestige. If he didn’t think so his hat wouldn’t be in the ring and I know of no shrewder judge of his political prospects than the senator himself.
He has appraised his other political fights realistically. I hope he wins this one.
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