TALES FROM RIVER VIEW CEMETERY
There are times when all it takes is for one person to stand up, raise their voice and make a stand to change the way it was. The way it was supposed to be. One of the persons was Wallace McCamant. His big moment was a hundred years ago at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. It was a moment putting him into history’s limelight for a brief flash. A flash with consequences, rendered years ahead not as well recorded. Here is another story lying quietly in one of the secluded corners of River View Cemetery in the hills of southwest Portland.
KEYSTONE ROOTS
Wallace McCamant was born in Holidaysburg, a small town near Altoona in the center of Pennsylvania, 22 September 1867. He grew up in Harrisburg graduating from high school there. Then McCamant attended Lafayette College, graduating as valedictorian in 1888.
Next, he studied law in Lancaster at the law practice of Brown and Hensel. William Hensel served as attorney general for Pennsylvania just after McCamant left the state. Jacob Hay Brown would go on to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court first as an Associate Justice and later as the Chief Justice. McCamant’s father, Thomas, served as Auditor General of Pennsylvania from 1888 until 1892.
OREGONIAN
Wallace came to Portland in the latter part of 1890 as a law clerk in the firm Gilbert and Snow. William Ball Gilbert was the first Oregon judge to serve on the newly created Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appointed in 1892 by President Benjamin Harrison. He would serve for almost 35 years on a court that would later play a significant role in Wallace McCamant’s life.
Zerubbabel “Zera” Levi Snow came from one of the original Mormon families. His father, Zerubbabel, baptized into the Church of Christ – original name of the Latter-Day Saint church – in 1832, and ordained by Joseph Smith, leader of the LDS movement into the church priesthood. An important member of the early Mormon church, Snow came west to Utah serving both as an Associate Justice on the Utah Territorial Supreme Court and later elected as Attorney General for the Territory of Utah. It was his son, who came to Oregon and eventually elevated Wallace McCamant into partnership.
A POLITCAL SIDE
Wallace was not only active as a lawyer, but in the Masonic world of Scottish Rites. He attained the 33rd degree level atop the Masonic pyramid. At the same time, McCamant involved himself politically with the Republican party being a delegate to the Republican State Convention in 1892, 1894, 1896, 1898 and 1900. He became a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1896, 1900 and, significantly, in 1920. Wallace McCamant also served for eighteen months as a judge on the Oregon Supreme Court between 1917 and 1918.
McCamant sided with William Taft in the 1912 Republican split when Theodore Roosevelt tried to come back after a four-year vacation. TR chose a like-minded progressive, Hiram Johnson of California, as his running mate. Johnson went ahead in 1916 not following in line to support the Republican choice of Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. By not coming on board fully, Johnson probably cost Hughes California’s electoral votes where Hughes lost by only 4,000 votes. California gave Woodrow Wilson just enough to eke out victory in his re-election bid.
1920 CONVENTION
Running as a convention delegate in the May 1920 primary, Wallace McCamant noted he would support any candidate who won the Oregon presidential primary except for Hiram Johnson. In the primary, McCamant gained election as a delegate to the national convention. But Johnson also narrowly defeated Leonard Wood to be the Republican presidential candidate.
McCamant circumvented the requirement of having to vote for the primary winner by getting on the ballot by having 500+ voters sign their names for his candidature. Arriving in Chicago for the national convention, the Republican central committee sided with him leaving McCamant free to vote for whomever he chose.
The first three ballots at the convention split between Wood, Frank Lowden – governor of Illinois, and Johnson with McCamant voting for Wood. After the day’s adjournment, the smoke-filled room occurred at the Blackstone Hotel Room 404 where the powers of the Republican Party decided upon Senator Warren Gamaliel Harding of Ohio as a compromise choice. “We have a lot of second raters and Harding is the best of them.”
Harding finally won the nomination on the tenth ballot. The leaders next decided in the interests of party unity to pick someone for the vice-presidential slot from the progressive side. A progressive could better complement Harding who was from the Taft wing. They chose senator Irvine Lenroot of Wisconsin, a Johnson supporter.
VICE PRESIDENTIAL REBELLION
Nominations for vice president went forward. but before the powers could get out the word that Lenroot was indeed the choice of Harding, McCamant had his turn.
Delegates by this time were tired and ready to return to their homes. The Wisconsin delegation was not one of the more popular ones in Chicago. They voted in every ballot for their own favorite son senator Robert LaFollette, who received no other votes. The convention delegates were not entirely pleased about the machinations involved in getting Harding his nomination. And McCamant was not pleased about supporting someone closely associated with senator Johnson.
After the nominating speeches went forth for Lenroot, the chairman noticed McCamant from the floor. He thought another seconding speech oncoming. Instead, McCamant stood up asking the convention to support “a man who is sterling in his Americanism and stands for all that the Republican Party holds dear. On behalf of the Oregon delegation, I name for the exalted office of vice president, Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts.”
KEEPING COOL WITH CALVIN
Coolidge had made a name for himself as governor when he broke up a Boston police strike. He had been a native-son candidate for president but had garnered little interest outside of his home state. The convention delegates were excited about the chance to rebel against the powers that be. Coolidge crushed Lenroot 874.5 to 146.5.
Hiram Johnson was not happy. He was defeated both on the presidential and vice presidential levels. Harding would campaign against Wilson’s League of Nations idea, a major plank of Johnson’s. Beyond that, Johnson could only bide his time.
The election of Coolidge was not a big thing in the country outside of Massachusetts and Oregon. With November, the Harding-Coolidge ticket cruised to victory with the help of an electorate tired of Woodrow Wilson. Three years later, Coolidge was president following the death of Harding due to heart failure in San Franciso. Harding was on a trip which took him through Oregon before he died.
REWARDS FORTHCOMING
In response to his debt to McCamant, he invited Wallace to the White House in 1924 on the anniversary of his first term in office as president. He then, a year later, appointed Wallace McCamant to serve on the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeal during a Congressional recess. The recess appointment gave McCamant the chance to serve on the court for one year. After the year, his appointment needed US Senate confirmation before he could gain a lifetime appointment. Normally, nominees were confirmed without much ado, but Hiram Johnson was still a senator. He was a powerful senator who could remember as well as McCamant.
A PRICE TO BE PAID
Johnson blocked the confirmation vote until he could personally question Wallace McCamant. The opportunity cam at the end of January 1926 when Johnson asked McCamant to explain why, in speeches, McCamant had said Johnson was “not a good American.” McCamant responded that by supporting Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose 1912 platform allowing judicial decisions to be overruled by public vote was his reason.
The Californian senator noted that TR himself had supported that platform. Did that mean TR was not a “good American”? McCamant admitted he believed that as well. Wallace McCamant’s hopes of continuing as a justice of the Circuit Court of Appeals went up in smoke with that. In recognition, Coolidge withdrew the nomination. McCamant became one of the few in American history to suffer Senate rejection following a recess appointment.
McCamant continued serving as a lawyer in Oregon until his death in 1944 at 77. Ironically, in 1922, it was Wallace McCamant who gave the dedication speech for the unveiling of an equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt in the South Park Blocks of Portland.
Wallace McCamant and his wife, Katherine, are both buried together at River View.