Tom McCall's Grandads Not Hughes Fans

From Tom Huston Collection

APIC Member Tom Huston recently posted a picture of this book by a Thomas W. Lawson. Oregonians may recognize that name, as Dorothy Lawson McCall's father. He was a rather wealthy man in the era of the Rockefellers and Astors at the start of the 20th Century. He used his wealth to buy a home for his daughter and her husband to raise their kids in Eastern Oregon. One of those kids was future Oregon Governor Tom McCall. Young Tom would travel often between Oregon and Massachusetts to spend time at Thomas Lawson's home and the family ranch in Eastern Oregon. His other grandfather, Samuel W. McCall, happened to be Governor of the Bay State in 1916.



During the 1916 election, McCall was touted as a possible alternative to Charles Evans Hughes, but he failed to gain any momentum. McCall was a member of congress at for twenty years and was elected to the governorship of Massachusetts in 1916. He ended up with only one delegate on the second and third ballots of the convention. Lawson had written this book in order to convince party regulars and delegates to support Teddy Roosevelt over Hughes, but if Roosevelt would not run then he suggested McCall as a compromise candidate.

Tom McCall would have only been 3 years old when this book was published. It makes you wonder just how organized a McCall for President in 1916 would have been if Lawson had put more money and effort into Sam McCall's campaign. You can read the full text of The Path Pointer by clicking the link.

From Carl Fisher Collection

Here's a little snippet of what Lawson says about McCall,

Samuel Walker McCall, Governor of Massachusetts, twenty continuous years congressman from the most typically American district in the United States, the Harvard University district, author, lecturer, orator, and all-round greatest statesman in America. One could write on and on, filling volumes and volumes with glowing pictures of his great ability, his profound learning, his splendid oratory, his superb pen, his rugged honesty, his simple, spontaneous courage, his subconscious fearlessness, his retiring modesty at medal-giving time, and his may- I-to-the-weak-I-will-to-the-strong all-round, manly good- ness...

President McCall would not enter the White House to the bass-drumming of "The Conquering Hero Comes," rather to the sweet bag-piping of "Auld Lang Syne." He would not set the White House afire or turn it into an ice factory, neither would he bathe on the roof or bag his trousers kowtowing to the embassies of foreign or Amer- ican royalties, but shades of the nation's earlier days! what lawn minuetings and quilting bees the American people would have with as true a type of American as ever occupied the historical home of presidents. And then, too, it would be decades and decades before the Presidents who would follow would lose the habit of atmosphering in the Yankee sweetness which Sam McCall and his wife, sons, daughters, and grand-children, would have left behind to distinguish the days when the Execu- tive Mansion held the sort it was built to hold. 

Lawson was not a fan of Hughes, and Path Pointer is filled with attacks ranging from outright to thinly veiled in nature. Supposedly Lawson published 5,000 some odd copies to be handed out to delegates at the 1916 Convention and to other important persons. He certainly had the funds to publish these and may more if he needed too.  The covers are leather and the photos are inserted under a celluloid sheet. This is truly an amazing McCall related item. 

From Carl Fisher Collection

This really makes the 1916 McCall-Hughes tirgate a neat pin that two such different men would be able to share the same pin. Yet, Lawson claims not to have discussed this with either McCall or Roosevelt before it was published (seems rather difficult seeing as McCall and Lawson are in the same family at this point, but who knows exactly how often they saw each other). Politics is always full of these little surprises.

Of course, we know what happened to Hughes in 1916. He lost California and the presidency by 3,800 votes. Hughes and McCall did manage to win the Bay State. Wilson won the White House by just 3.1%, the smallest margin of a victorious sitting President until George W. Bush won with just 2.4% in 2004. 

If you have one here in Oregon, let us know! Just a fun item that spans a variety of interests.