The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

82 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
ery.” 5 Gorton agreed. “I have always been for law and order,” he told an
Associated Press forum that fall, “but too many people today use the
phrase when they really mean ‘keep the niggers in their place.’ ” 6
In an essay published by the Junior League of Seattle, Gorton cited
New York Mayor John Lindsay, President Johnson and Governor Evans as
three leaders who refused to tolerate racism or stoop to demagoguery.
Quoting from Evans’ keynote address to the GOP National Convention
that August, Gorton wrote that the principle of “equal justice within the
framework of law” was paramount. “There is no excuse for weakness and
no justification for lawlessness. But we must recognize that strength is no
substitute for sound policy and that the rule of law cannot prevail when
its foundation is corrupted by injustice and inequality.”
The way to win the war on crime was to deploy better-qualified, bettertrained,
better-equipped and more ethnically diverse foot soldiers, Gorton
said. He advocated a new emphasis on community policing to “deter
crime before it happens.” He concluded, however, that “the only real solution
lies in this message: Crime and violence can be most significantly
reduced when progress is made in eliminating the conditions that cause
a large portion of our society to be alienated from the police, from their
government and from their fellow Americans.”
Gorton noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had taken enormous flak
for its landmark 1966 Miranda ruling (“You have a right to remain silent
. . .”) and other decisions granting more rights to the criminally
accused, but “there can be no denying the fact that parts of our system
of criminal prosecution have been unfair, and innocent people have suffered
as a result. A man could be arrested and not permitted to talk to
anyone until he confessed; his privacy could be invaded without cause,
and he could be tried and sentenced without counsel. These abuses had
to be corrected.” 7
with poLLs in wAshington stAte indicating a Democratic trend, despite
reports that Nixon was leading hapless Hubert Humphrey nationwide,
progressive Republicans put together the first, and to date only, effective
party ticket in state history—“The Action Team.” Each flier,
full-page ad and TV spot featured Evans, Gorton, Kramer and Art
Fletcher, the first credible African-American candidate for statewide office
in Washington State history. They were seen striding forward side by
side with clean-cut confidence. The verbiage was a blend of superhero
and Sitting Bull. “The Leader,” of course, was Evans: “Arrow-straight, disciplined,
combining the vigor of youth with the wisdom of experience. . . .