Sprague, Charles A., Head, 43, married at 25, born KS,parents born IL and IA, Publisher & Editor – Newspaper
Sprague, Blanche C., Wife, 44, married at 26, born OR,parents born NY and MO
Sprague, Martha, Daughter, 14, born WA, parents born KS andOR
Sprague, Wallace A., Son, 12, born WA, parents born KS andOR
Schmuck, Martha(?) J., Mother-in-law, 71, widowed, marriedat 22, born MO, parents born KY and VA
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| Notes |
- Biographical Directory of the Governors of the UnitedStates: 1789-1978, Volume 3, pages 1281-1282.
Charles Arthur Sprague 1939-1943
Born in Lawrence, Kansas, on November 12, 1887 to CharlesAllen and Alice Caroline (Glasgow) Sprague; a Presbyterian.Married to Blanche Oregon, on August 8, 1912; father ofMartha and Wallace Arthur. Young Charles grew up with hisbrother, Robert Wyatt, in southeast Iowa, where he attendedpublic schools and worked in his father's grain elevator.After attending Monmouth College in Illinois where hereceived his A.B. degree in 1910, he taught in Iowa;Sprague migrated to Washington State in 1910. At Waitsburghe served as Superintendent of Schools from 1910-1913; hewas Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction forWashington from 1913 to 1915. In 1915 Sprague became editorand publisher of the weekly Journal-Times in Ritzville,Washington; a connection he maintained until 1925. Desiringto operate a daily, Sprague became the business manager ofthe Corvallis Oregon Gazette Times from 1925 to 1937. In1929 he bought controlling interest in the Salem OregonStatesman and served as Editor and Manager until 1939, whenhe became sole owner and publisher. He held control of thepaper until his death. Sprague established himself as oneof the leading editorialists and public commentators of theNorthwest. A declared Republican, he nonetheless took anindependent position on the issues of the time, reflectinga progressive view which was often at odds with leaders ofhis party. In 1938. when the Democrats were badly splitbetween the conservative incumbent, Charles Martin, andthose sympathetic to the New Deal, Sprague easily won theRepublican nomination for governor in a field of eightcandidates. Ms 62,275 votes nearly equaled those of all ofhis opponents. Despite warm support by New Dealers for hisopponent, Henry L. Hess, Sprague carried 32 of the 36counties in the general election, winning 214,062 votes toHess 158,744. Republicans won control of the State Senate,21 to 9. and the House. 50 to 10. Republicans expectedsmooth sailing legislatively and politically. However,Sprague proved himself more progressive than hispredecessor and equally independent. He vetoed so manyspecial interest bills passed by his fellow Republicansthat opponents initiated a recall move. It failed, but hisown effectiveness had been reduced. Sprague began toeliminate state taxes on real property; reduced the statedebt by more than $12 million: organized state employmentservices; and helped bring peace to the labor scene.Perhaps his most enduring achievement was the introductionof state regulations of logging operations to protect andrehabilitate state forest lands. After Pearl Harbor,Sprague devoted his energies to organizing civilian defenseunits, and cooperating with national officials in expandingOregon's war efforts. Despite his forward-looking views andgeneral acclaim as a moderate who had led quietly but well,Sprague was challenged for the Republican nomination in May1942 by Secretary of State, Earl Snell, an astuteprofessional politician. With but 3,0 percent of the votersparticipating, Snell beat Sprague 79,696 votes to 56,285.Sprague returned to his job as editor and publisher inJanuary 1943. He served his community, state and nation ina variety of capacities--including a period as alternatedelegate to the United Nations in 1952-before he died oflung cancer in Salem on March 13, 1969. He was interred inMt. Crest Abbey Mausoleum.
"Dictionary of American Biography", edited by Dumas Malone,Volume XVII, Charles Scribner & Sons, New York, Volume XXI,Supplement Eight 1966-1970, page 616.
SPRAGUE, CHARLES ARTHUR (Nov. 12, 1887 - Mar. 13,1969), newspaper editor and governor of Oregon, was born inLawrence, Kans., the son of Charles Allen Sprague, agrain-elevator operator, and Caroline Glasgow. The familyvery soon moved to Columbus Junction, Iowa, where heattended public school and worked for his father. atMonmouth College, a liberal arts school in Illinois, hepaid his expenses by reporting part-time for regionalnewspapers. When his income proved inadequate, Spraguetook a leave at the end of his sophomore year and spent twoyears as a high school principal and teacher in Ainsworth,Iowa. On his return to Monmouth, Sprague served as editorof the student newspaper. From then on, he had aspirationsto go into journalism. Following his graduation withhonors in 1910, Sprague became superintendent of schools inWaitsburg, Wash. Two years later, he married BlancheChamberlain, the principal of a local grade school; theyhad two children. Sprague was soon named assistantsuperintendent of public instruction for the state ofWashington.
By 1915, Sprague had saved enough to resign his stateposition and purchase the weekly Journal-Times inRitzville, a small town in eastern Washington. WhileSprague made the newspaper profitable and enjoyed his work,he was anxious to move into daily journalism. In 1925 hebought a one-third interest in the Corvallis (Oreg.)Gazette-Times and became business manager. Spragueincreased circulation and advertising revenues and presidedover the construction of a new plant. Yet, he found the jobconfining and less stimulating than writing editorials andreporting the news.
Sprague's ambitions were fulfilled in 1929 when heacquired a two-thirds interest in the Oregon Statesman,long the most influential newspaper in the capital city ofSalem. For the next forty years, he was editor andpublisher of the Statesman, and his lucid, terse, directeditorials were frequently reprinted in some of America'slargest newspapers. Sprague gained a national reputationas an articulate spokesman for small-town values, fiscalconservatism, and internationalism.
In 1938, Sprague ran for the Oregon governorship andgot the Republican nomination by default when party leaderswere hesitant to challenge Charles H. Martin, theconservative Democratic incumbent, who commanded strongRepublican business support. As it turned out, Martin, aNew Deal critic, was upset in the primary by the Rooseveltadministration's choice, State Senator Henry Hess. Takingadvantage of the split among the Democrats, Sprague madethe administrations' intervention a major campaign theme,urging voters to "repudiate outside interference in localaffairs." Martin and his allies campaigned for Sprague,who defeated Hess by winning all but four of the state'sthirty-six counties.
As governor, Sprague was an innovative progressive.Enlisting the support of labor and industry, he movedquickly to improve the state's employment services andlaunched vocational-training programs to aid the jobless inefforts to lift Oregon out of the Great Depression. Hemodernized the state school system by pushing throughlegislation that provided for the consolidation of ruralschool districts. He reduced the state debt by $12 millionand balanced the budget while increasing social welfareservices. Sprague helped maintain peace in labor disputesby his forthright opposition to an antipicketing law thatwas later held to be unconstitutional by the Oregon SupremeCourt. He lost the political backing of organized labor,though, as a result of his policy of awarding statecontracts to the lowest bidder, whether or not they wereunion firms.
Sprague was an early conservationist. Under hisdirection, Oregon became the first state to set upregulation over logging operations, to ensuresustained-yield management of its forests. He alsoestablished a forestry research program and obtainedauthority for the state to acquire abandoned cut over landfor replanting. "Wise handling of natural forest lands,"he declared, "calls for their consolidation under publicownership except for those lands in the hands of strongprivate interests capable of carrying them through longgrowing periods."
In 1940, Sprague chaired the favorite-son presidentialbid of Senator Charles L. McNary, but when the RepublicanNationalConvention deadlocked in Philadelphia, Sprague helpednominate Wendell L. Wilkie by delivering Oregon's votes onthe sixth ballot. he encouraged McNary's selection asWilkie's running mate, and that fall he campaigned in ninewestern states for the Republican ticket.
In the months before World War II, Sprague cautionedagainst isolationism and was among the few Republicangovernors who consistently supported Roosevelt's foreignpolicy. He endorsed lend-lease aid to Britain early in1941 and later that year, called for the repeal of theNeutrality Act. While the nation's attention was focusedon the hostilities in Europe, Sprague alerted Americans tothe threat of imperial Japan. Speaking in Boston at theNational Governors Conference in July 1941, he noted thatthe United States was vulnerable to Japanese aggression.When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor five months later,Oregon's aircraft-warning system was already in place.Sprague mobilized the state's war effort, organizingcivilian defense units and increasing the size of theNational Guard to accommodate local defense battalions. Hewas defeated for renomination in the 1942 Republicanprimary by Secretary of State Earl Snell. "GovernorSprague worked so hard on state problems and had so littletime for the small amenities -- or perhaps was distrustfulof the," the Oregonian observed, "that the result waspolitical defeat."
As a private citizen, Sprague remained active in statean civics affairs, serving as president of the Oregon WarChest, which raised more than $1 million for war agenciesin 1943. He narrowly lost a special election in 1944 forthe United States Senate and never sought another publicoffice. On leaving the governorship, Sprague returned tothe Statesman and began writing a daily front-page columncalled "It Seems to Me", as well as most of thenewspapers's editorials on state and national issues.
Described by Richard L. Newberger as "the conscienceof Oregon," Sprague was an outspoken defender of civilliberties. using his column as a forum to denounce thewartime internment of Japanese-Americans and thered-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In 1951 heled the opposition that killed a state loyalty oath forteachers. While he maintained a Republican editorialpolicy, Sprague often crossed party lines to supportDemocrats. He gave strong editorial support to PresidentHarry Truman in his unpopular firing of Douglas MacArthurfor insubordination in the Korean War. In 1952, Trumanappointed Sprague as an alternate delegate to the UnitedNations General Assembly. President Dwight D. Eisenhowernamed him in 1954 to a three-member national emergencyrailroad board and in 1955 to a committee on Laborrelations in nuclear power plants.
Sprague's natural aloofness and reserve weredisadvantages in his political career, but he mellowed inlater years and was gracious and often witty. a lifelongPresbyterian with what friends referred to as a stern senseof Calvinism, he neither smoked not drank, and hisnewspaper would not accept advertising for hard liquor. Anavid outdoorsman, he climbed the highest mountains of thePacific Northwest and, in his seventies shot the rapids ofthe Colorado River. He died in Salem.
[Sprague's gubernatorial papers are in the OregonState Archives in Salem. His personal correspondence is inthe Oregon Historical Society's library in Salem. Articlesby and about Sprague are in the Oregon State Library. Seealso George Turnbull, "Governors of Oregon" (1962); andprofiles by Richard I. Neuberger in the "Sunday Oregonian",Mar. 18, 1951, and the "Nation", Jan. 26, 1952; and byMalcolm Bauer in the New York Herald-Tribune, Dec. 1, 1960. An obituary is in the New York Times, Mar. 14, 1969.]
"Index to Politicians: Sprague"
Sprague, Charles Arthur (1887-19690 -- Also known asCharles A. Sprague -- of Salem, Marion County, Ore. Bornin Lawrence, Douglas County, Kan., November 12, 1887.Republican. Newspaper editor and publisher; Governor ofOregon, 1939-43. Presbyterian. Member, Rotary; SigmaDelta Chi; Died March 13, 1969. Cremated; ahses interredat City View Cemetery, Salem, Ore. [7]
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1887 - 1969 (81 years)
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