Oregon’s reputation as a liberal, environmentally progressive state can be traced to U.S. Sen. Richard L. Neuberger, whose election in 1954 has impacted Oregon politics for the past 72 years.
For 40 years, author and former newspaper publisher Steve Forrester researched Neuberger’s life. He will discuss his book, “Richard Neuberger: Oregon Politics and the Making of a U.S. Senator,” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21 in the Cannon Beach Library.
Forrester’ s talk is a free presentation; attend in person at the library or watch it on the library’s website, cannonbeachlibrary.org.
A consequential but nearly forgotten figure in Oregon history, Neuberger was, Forrester says, “one of the most significant Oregonians of the first half of the 20th century.”
Forrester was a journalist for 50 years, 33 of those years as editor and publisher of The Daily Astorian. He and four colleagues founded the Willamette Week newspaper in 1974, and in 1978 he operated a news bureau in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his life, Forrester was a page for Neuberger in the U.S. Senate.
The first Democrat to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Oregon in 40 years, Neuberger was an outspoken liberal who supported workers’ rights and civil rights. He shaped Oregon’s renowned conservation policies and developed the state’s modern Democratic party.
Neuberger was also a journalist from an early age, writing for The Oregonian as a teenager and for The New York Times while still in college. While a student at the University of Oregon in 1933, Neuberger, a Jew, visited Hitler’s Germany for seven weeks and interviewed relatives and others about the rising violence toward Jews in the country. Neuberger’s stories about his visit appeared in national publications throughout the United States. His editor at The Nation magazine called it “an epoch-making article.”
“All that I saw and heard in Germany substantiates the conclusion that the Jews are finished for many generations in that country,” Neuberger wrote.
A prolific freelance writer, Neuberger published six books and over 700 articles before his death of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1960, nine months before the end of his Senate term. He was 47.
His wife, and political ally, Maurine Brown Neuberger, was elected to his Senate seat in 1960. At the time, she was only the fifth woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
