Background
James Douglas McKay was born on June 24, 1893 in Portland, Oregon. He was the son of E. D. McKay, a carpenter, and Minnie A. Musgrove. Reared in modest circumstances, he worked while still a schoolboy to help support the family.
Businessman educator politician
James Douglas McKay was born on June 24, 1893 in Portland, Oregon. He was the son of E. D. McKay, a carpenter, and Minnie A. Musgrove. Reared in modest circumstances, he worked while still a schoolboy to help support the family.
A job that paid $35 a month led him to leave high school in 1911 without receiving his diploma, but later, in 1913, he was admitted to Oregon State College at Corvallis as a "sub freshman" agriculture student. Despite the need to earn his way and his heavy involvement in campus politics, which included winning the presidency of the student body, McKay graduated with a B. S. degree in 1917.
After enlisting as an officer, McKay was wounded in the right arm and shoulder during the battle for Sedan in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, a disability that required him to abandon arduous work in agriculture for a career in business. McKay began his Horatio Alger-like rise to commercial success as an insurance salesman. Next he worked for a Portland automobile dealer. After promotion to sales manager, he was placed in charge of the company's agency in Salem, where in 1927, he opened his own Chevrolet dealership. He subsequently expanded his enterprise and added Cadillacs to his franchise. Entering local politics as a Republican, McKay had no difficulty winning a succession of elections. He was chosen mayor of Salem in 1932 and guided that city through fiscal troubles, an experience that, according to a contemporary journalist, made McKay "a firm advocate of government as well as business preserving and guarding its financial foundation. " Elected to the state senate in 1934 and ultimately serving four terms before and after the outbreak of World War II, he interrupted his political career briefly to enlist in the army, where he was a public relations officer with the rank of major. In 1948, he was elected governor of Oregon. A fiscal conservative prone to condemn the unpalatable as "socialistic, " McKay as governor emphasized the virtues of private enterprise and abhorred federal power, advocating the importance of state and local responsibility. Yet, although he valued the role of business and favored the development of natural resources by private investors, his position was sufficiently flexible to permit support for city-owned water projects and treatment of stream pollution. In 1950, McKay was reelected governor. Although generally identified with the conservative wing of the Republican party, he had little confidence that Senator Robert A. Taft could win the presidency in 1952. He resigned on March 9, 1956, to contest the Senate seat held by Wayne Morse. He lost after a bitter campaign that saw him on the defensive on the conservation issue. He died in Salem, Oregon.
A Republican, McKay served as a city councilor and mayor of Salem before election to the Oregon State Senate. Ideologically and temperamentally McKay was an ideal choice. He was a native of the West, a political asset because of the concern for natural resources in that region. His nomination was particularly comforting to business interests eager to reverse the trend toward nationalization of hydroelectric power. Nevertheless, McKay maintained that he did not favor dismantling the Tennessee Valley Authority. He was committed to the middle-of-the-road approach in the debate between the conservationists and the developers over the role of the federal government versus the interests of private enterprise. Like President Eisenhower he advocated the "partnership" approach, in which the states, local public groups, and private enterprise would join with the federal government in building facilities. As secretary of the interior, McKay helped to block such Democratic concepts as the Columbia Valley Authority and public development of the Hell's Canyon project. Despite the heated opposition of preservationists concerned with maintaining the beauty of natural sites, he favored building a dam at Echo Park, a project that would have created a vast reservoir at Dinosaur National Monument. He was especially embarrassed by the Al Serena scandal, in which an Alabama mining company won access to choice Oregon timberlands. The target of the preservationists, he was denounced by his political opponents as "Give-away" McKay.
Highly impressed with General Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal qualities and outlook, McKay became one of his earliest boosters. In many ways typical of the businessmen in the Eisenhower administration, McKay was plainspoken, often with a tendency to "shoot from the hip. " Somewhat ill-prepared for his responsibilities and forced to rely on the expertise of subordinates, he was often blamed for decisions made by others. With the difficult mission of altering the accretion of federal responsibility for the development of public power and the preservation of resources, he nevertheless resisted many attempts to reduce national park lands, a role for which he received little credit. If he was not a true friend of conservationism, neither was he quite the villain portrayed by his enemies.
On March 31, 1917, McKay married Mabel C. Hill; they had three children.
