The Wartime Correspondence of Monroe Sweetland and Lillie Megrath Sweetland

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 111, no. 1 Oregon-born Monroe Sweetland spent most of his first thirty-five years living elsewhere — growing up in Constantine, Michigan, attending Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio,enrollinginlawschoolatCornell and Syracuse in New York State, and finally working as a student organizer for the socialist League for Industrial Democracy from 1932 through 1935. He met Lillie (Lil) Megrath at Syracuse in the fall of 1931 and the two married in 1933, marking the beginning of a remarkable union of affection and engagement in politics that would last until Lil’s death in 1985.1 Lil was in every respect Monroe’s equal as a progressive, working for the League for Industrial Democracy (both of them as avowed socialists), partnering with her husband in supporting the Oregon Commonwealth Federation when the couple moved to Oregon early in 1936, and then working for the National Labor Relations Board and War Labor Board in Washington ,D.C.,during the SecondWorld War. Monroe held federal and laborrelations appointments between 1940 and 1943 and then joined the American Red Cross, serving in the Pacific theater of operations for two years. That two-year period of separation resulted in an extensive and fascinating exchange of correspondence between them. The letters are also replete with references to Oregon politics: support for University of Oregon Law School dean Wayne Morse, Monroe’s interest in purchasing a small-town newspaper in the state,and the political prospects of Oregon’s liberal Democrats. When Monroe mustered out of the Red Cross in the fall of 1945, the Sweetlands moved to Oregon with their nine-year-old daughter Barbara and set up shop in the newspaper business. Beginning in 1946, they produced weekly newspapers, first in Mollala, then Newport, and finally in The Wartime Correspondence of Monroe Sweetland and Lillie Megrath Sweetland© 2010 Oregon Historical Society oregon voices by William G. Robbins  Robbins, Sweetland Wartime Correspondence Milwaukie, where they published the Milwaukie Review for more than a decade. While Monroe worked hard to energize and modernize Oregon’s moribund Democratic Party, Lil did much of the day-to-day work in getting out the weekly newspapers. Archival material in the Oregon Historical Society also reveals that those were financially difficult years for the Sweetlands. Beginning with the 1948 election, Monroe was elected to two successive four-year terms as one of Oregon’s two Democratic National Committeemen. Reflecting the successes of the Democratic Party, voters elected Sweetland to the Oregon House in 1952 and then elevated him to the Oregon Senate in 1954andagainin1958.AsaDemocratic National Committeeman, Monroe was an important figure in national liberal politics, representing Oregon’s interests with powerful Democrats, including Presidents Harry S.Truman and later John F.Kennedy.He declared his support for Kennedy’s candidacy in June 1959 and served as his campaign manager in the state. After Monroe’s second failed attempt to win the Secretary of State’s office in 1960, he and Lil traveled abroad, eventually spending a year at Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung , Indonesia, where Monroe was a visiting lecturer in journalism. After returning stateside, he took a job with the National Education Association Lil and Monroe Sweetland are standing in front of their Molalla home. After returning to Oregon, the Sweetlands published the Molalla Pioneer from February 1946 to late 1947, when they purchased a newspaper in Newport. OHS digital no. bb006715  OHQ vol. 111, no. 1 (NEA), working out of Burlingame, California,as legislative consultant for theWestern states.Lil returned to salaried work with the U.S.Department of Labor, Manpower Administration. In histenyearswithNEA,Monroegained national prominence for being the primary architect of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and for his tireless efforts in pushing for the age-eighteen vote, achieved in 1971.2 The three extensive Sweetland collections in the Oregon Historical Society’s archives provide a relatively comprehensive portrait of the donor’s long and productive life (one collection was donated posthumously).The most significant exchanges of spousal correspondence reflect Monroe’s nearly two years of service with the American Red Cross between February 1944, when he left for San Francisco , Hawaii, and then the Marshall Islands, and his return stateside in the late fall...