Dying ex-governor makes emotional plea to save 'Oregon mystique.'
PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) -- Former Gov. Tom McCall, who acknowledged he is dying of cancer, made an emotional pitch to preserve the land-use planning system which he helped to form.
'This activist loves Oregon more than he loves life,' he said. 'I know I can't have both very long. But the trade-off's all right with me.'
McCall spoke Thursday at a meeting sponsored by 1,000 Friends of Oregon and the Conservation Foundation.
His target was Ballot Measure 6, which would repeal the statewide planning program.
'If you really want to signal to one and all that Oregon is down - that we can't ever agree on what we are doing -- that we are ready to quit, just pass Measure 6 on Nov. 2 and totally repudiate the Oregon mystique,' the former two-term governor said.'
McCall, a nationally-known conservasionist, said Oregon's land-use planning law is a model being followed throughout the United States. Retaining the state Land Conservation and Development Commission, he said, is necessary to the orderly development of the state.
'I see people wringing their hands over what an awful image we have. Well, I want to know what the hell happened to the image I left. I'm upset that the power structure around here has become the 'cower' structure. We are whipped by the economy judging by the extent we are groveling in apology for our business image.'
He said, 'I do resent the decline in Oregon's self-esteem and the scapegoating of the McCall years as somehow to blame eight years later.
'It would be a poor nation and world if people no longer have Oregon to rely on for the pioneering of imaginative ideas.'
McCall was stricken with prostrate cancer in 1973. He underwent surgery, but the cancer reappeared in 1981.
