Reprinted from the Siskiyou Daily News
Nov. 19, 1941

It Was A Tough Battle, Men, But We Won

The 49^th state has now been admitted to the union, Governor Gilbert Gable was inaugurated at Yreka, the state capital, while virtually all of the 50,000 people living in the former counties of Modoc, Siskiyou, Del Norte, and Curry, cheered, long and loud.

"Our state," declared Governor Gable, former mayor of Port Orford, Ore., in his inaugural address, "is dedicated to the proposition of a square deal for all, regardless of how many votes they happen to control."

The new state was formed of slices of territory from Oregon and California after those state governments had refused to help develop the mineral resources of their naturally rich frontier regions – lavishing fat and unneeded expenditures instead on the cities where votes were concentrated.

The new state, comprising 12,665 square miles of territory, is larger than the combined areas of Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and boasts a greater size than Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts or Maryland.

State officials who have already assumed their duties include E. R. Griffin, secretary of state, from Crescent City, and State Supreme Court Justice John Childs, also of Del Norte.

United States Senator Randolph Collier left by plane for Washington immediately after the inaugural. Attorney General Al Tebbe, in his first ruling, said the 2 a.m. closing law on saloons would be abolished but that possession of slot machines would be classed with murder and rustling in the state statute book.

State sales tax, state income tax and 384 other kinds of taxes collected by California and Oregon are abolished in the new state constitution. Most of the cost of state government will be paid by a small royalty on minerals and timber produced. The abolition of liquor taxes brought the cost of drinks down to 15 cents in most places, with beer selling for five cents a glass.

There were agonizing delays in cutting loose from the narrow selfish governments of California and Oregon, which had held back the development of their resources for so long.

First the separate counties of Modoc, Siskiyou, Del Norte and Curry voted by overwhelming majorities to secede from the inept political control of the old state governments. A high pressure campaign, mysteriously financed, defeated the move toward freedom in Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties, all of Oregon.

After the four frontier counties voted to secede, statewide elections were necessary so that Oregon and California could consent to the separation. The platform of "all we ask is a fair deal" swayed the state electorates, and the permission was forthcoming at the polls.

The state legislatures of the two states were finally persuaded to give their approval, after the delegation of 185 miners carrying rifles and bullwhips visited Sacramento and Salem and called on each individual legislator.

The signature of the Governor of Oregon was secured without incident, but it was necessary to take stern measures with the newly elected California governor, the exact nature of which may not, by agreement, be revealed until 1972.

The balance of the freedom campaign had smooth sailing. Under the skillful guidance of Gable and O.G. Steele in Washington, the House of Representatives whooped through the state measure. Republican and Democratic forces in the Senate were by chance deadlocked at the time, and both voted to admit the new state in the belief they could swing the first election and regain national control. It is now a matter of history that both a Republican and a Democrat were named the U. S. Senators from the new state – Collier and Soldane – on their joint platform of outlawing strikes during a national emergency.

President Roosevelt signed the bill creating the new state, declaring the American spirit was not dead when oppressed citizens dared fight for their rights.

He announced a 50 million dollar defense grant for starting immediate chrome, manganese and copper operations, and the Navy Department revealed secret submarine and seaplane bases would be constructed at once on the seacoast of the new state at an estimated cost of 23 million dollars.

Fishing and hunting licenses in the new state were held at $2 for residents, but California and Oregon sportsmen were assessed $5 a day and the licenses of all who issued statements to the newspapers demanding that miners be kept out of the Klamath were revoked.

Final plume in the cap of the new state came when Aimee Semple McPherson announced from Las Angeles that she would open a branch of her Temple at Alturas and possibly another at Weed.