Butler Hansen a Trailblazing Washington Politician John C
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Julia Butler Hansen A trailblazing Washington politician John C. Hughes Julia Butler Hansen A trailblazing Washington politician John C. Hughes First Edition Second Printing Copyright © 2020 Legacy Washington Office of the Secretary of State All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-889320-45-8 Ebook ISBN 978-1-889320-44-1 Front cover photo: John C. Hughes Back cover photo: Hansen Family Collection Book Design by Amber Raney Cover Design by Amber Raney and Laura Mott Printed in the United States of America by Gorham Printing, Centralia, Washington Also by John C. Hughes: On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana, with Ryan Teague Beckwith Booth Who? A Biography of Booth Gardner Nancy Evans, First-Rate First Lady Lillian Walker, Washington State Civil Rights Pioneer The Inimitable Adele Ferguson Slade Gorton, a Half Century in Politics John Spellman: Politics Never Broke His Heart Pressing On: Two Family-Owned Newspapers in the 21st Century Washington Remembers World War II, with Trova Heffernan Korea 65, the Forgotten War Remembered, with Trova Heffernan and Lori Larson 1968: The Year that Rocked Washington, with Bob Young and Lori Larson Ahead of the Curve: Washington Women Lead the Way, 1910-2020, with Bob Young Legacy Washington is dedicated to preserving the history of Washington and its continuing story. www.sos.wa.gov/legacy For Bob Bailey, Alan Thompson and Peter Jackson Julia poses at the historic site sign outside the Wahkiakum County Courthouse in 1960. Alan Thompson photo Contents Preface: “Like money in the bank” 6 Introduction: “Julia Who?” 10 Chapter 1: “Just Plain Me” 17 Chapter 2: “Quite a bit of gumption” 25 Chapter 3: Grief compounded 31 Chapter 4: “Oh! Dear Diary” 35 Chapter 5: Paddling into politics 44 Chapter 6: Smart enough, too 49 Chapter 7: Hopelessly disgusted 58 Chapter 8: To the last ditch 65 Chapter 9: The fighter remains 73 Chapter 10: Lean times 78 Chapter 11: “Mrs. Highways” 84 Chapter 12: The scalper 95 Chapter 13: A bitter defeat 104 Chapter 14: A statewide audience 113 Chapter 15: Road Warriors 119 Chapter 16: Persuasion 126 Chapter 17: Bridging troubled waters 131 Chapter 18: “He’s finished” 141 Chapter 19: New Frontiers 148 Chapter 20: Appropriations 163 Chapter 21: Dreams and nightmares 168 Chapter 22: The Great Society 177 Chapter 23: The Fabulous 89th 186 Chapter 24: Cardinal Hansen 193 Chapter 25: “Inscrutable things” 201 Chapter 26: Wally’s World 210 Chapter 27: “Our Julia” 218 Chapter 28: The Last Campaign 227 Chapter 29: The Hansen Committee 236 Chapter 30: Mission Accomplished 249 Bibliography 261 Source Notes 265 Index 282 Acknowledgements 295 About the author 297 Preface “Like Money in the Bank” ashington’s new congresswoman arrived early and unaccompanied for a forum with student leaders at Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen, the self- proclaimed “Gateway to the Olympics” and ex-officio capital of the 2-by-4 Wworld. She plopped down in the chair next to me, eyeing the package of cigarettes at my elbow. It was the fall of 1961. I was a 17-year-old reporter for the student newspaper. Hoping to seem more sophisticated, I had just started smoking. I offered her one of my Pall Malls. She tapped the unfiltered cigarette on her watch crystal, leaned in for a light from my Zippo and inhaled deeply. Then, with a luminous smile, she reached over to shake my hand. “I’m Julia Butler Hansen,” she said. “What’s your name, young man?” “John Hughes, congresswoman. You’ve met my mother. She decided to vote for you after you spoke at a Zonta Club meeting.” “Wonderful!” she said. “Thank her for me.” Between puffs, she said her original goal was to become a reporter. She loved writing, especially figuring out how to tell the story: the lead paragraph, the adjectives, which quotes to use. Grays Harbor always felt like home, she said, because she grew up surrounded by loggers, sawmill workers and fishermen in tiny Wahkiakum County along the Columbia River. She remembered how exciting it was to come to Aberdeen— then the state’s seventh-largest city—in 1936 as a Young Democrat to attend the party’s raucous state convention. It featured a platform battle between left-wingers from Seattle and “country mice” centrists like her. Just as she was launching into a story about the day she met President Roosevelt, we were interrupted. The student body president arrived with a corsage and the leader of the Political Science Club, a Barry Goldwater disciple who surveyed her with unconcealed suspicion. I remember thinking how much fun it would have been to just let her reminisce rather than proceed to the student center for a speech about “youth involvement.” I’d never met a politician like Julia Butler Hansen, although she was by no means my first. My mother, aunts and union-leader uncles were all politically active. Five years later, when I became a reporter for The Aberdeen Daily World, State Senator Bob Bailey, Julia’s congressional district representative, worked at the Preface 7 newspaper as a Linotype operator when the Legislature wasn’t in session. He told amazing Julia stories—about how she humbled arrogant men, loathed unctuous lobbyists and became fast friends with Lyndon B. Johnson, even though she admired the Kennedys. I talked with her often in the years to come. There was the memorable day in 1971 when she and U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson dedicated an experimental fish protein concentrate plant at the mouth of the Wishkah River in Aberdeen. If large-scale production of protein-rich hake meal proved economical, millions of people around the world wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry, Julia said. She told of her recent visit to South America where she saw starving children cadging coins from Julia greets a constituent at the dedication of a fish tourists. If they had one meager meal protein concentrate plant in Aberdeen in 1971. John Hughes photo a day, they counted themselves lucky. “When there is food for all, will there be as many wars?” she asked. When it came time to sample cookies and cakes featuring fish protein concentrate, Julia warily eyed the platters. She nudged me and another reporter to go first. Dutifully, we took tentative bites. She read the look on our faces. “It can’t be that bad,” she said. “You’re teasing.” With that, she broke a cookie in two and popped one half into her mouth. She all but gagged, spit what she could into a napkin and whispered, “Tastes like crap!” Just then, one of the organizers strolled over. “What do you think, congresswoman?” “Delicious!” Julia declared, parodying a gulp. We all laughed. JULIA BUTLER HANSEN crashed head-first through a whole series of glass ceilings during her half century in politics. Famously, she could cuss like a logger. She was also a skilled practitioner of personal persuasion. Above all, like Lyndon Johnson, she understood political power. Woe betide anyone who tried to derail one of her bills. She was headstrong, shrewd, a holder of grudges, yet also a forgiver—a self-described “woman with a temper, sensitive to hurt and pain, a tumultuous soul.” She was a poet, an accomplished historian, a master gardener, and a wonderful cook. Her pies were 8 a trailblazing Washington politician sublime, with crusts as flaky as a croissant. She didn’t like being telephoned at home, especially on weekends with a pie in the oven. In 1973, after Nixon’s infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” accelerated the Watergate investigation, Seattle Post- Intelligencer reporter Joel Connelly called Julia for her reaction to the chain-reaction resignations. “Young man, do you want my pie to burn?” she demanded. “Well, do you now?” Finally, testily, she said, “We should not string this man up without a trial,” adding that the House of Representatives should launch its own investigation— immediately. Connelly, though chastened, got more than I did. My call must have come on the heels of his because I could tell she was steamed. The minute I heard “pie in the oven” I begged forgiveness and said I’d call Julia with a supporter at a campaign event in the next day. Julia would later say that “all Longview in 1972. Longview Daily News those intrusive” nighttime calls were one of the reasons she decided to retire from Congress. WHILE HER DEGREE from the University of Washington was in Home Economics, crews at the State Department of Highways were confident she could run a road grader. Columnists and editorial writers dubbed her “The Duchess of Cathlamet,” “The Sage of Wahkiakum County,” “The Little Old Lady in Logging Boots” and “Mrs. Highways.” To her friends “and those who knew her well enough to get away with it,” as one fellow legislator put it, she was affectionately known as “Madame Queen.” After a while, her campaign buttons said “Julia”—nothing more. Headline writers around her sprawling district often used just her first name. She didn’t mind. Far from it. Being a household name in her district was “like money in the bank,” she said. Joe Carter, who worked for her on Capitol Hill, remembers her saying she didn’t care about “any newspaper farther east than the White Salmon Enterprise,” a weekly in the Columbia River Gorge. She was always “Mrs. Hansen” to young staffers. But she encouraged her Preface 9 constituents to call her “Julia.” This intimate biography will largely honor that wish.* “Hansen” is too bland for a larger-than-life woman who ascended to the “College of Cardinals” overseeing appropriations in the United States House of Representatives.