Morrie Galen

Weinstein: I would really like to get a sense of your family, of when the came to Oregon, why they came to Oregon, how they came to Oregon. Give me some background.
GALEN: My father and his family landed in the United States on September 3, 1907. There were five of them including my father, his father, his mother, his brother and two sisters.

Weinstein: Can you name them for me?
GALEN: Stop the tape and I will get you the names exactly as they appeared on the manifest and as they thereafter were known.

[recording stops and restarts]

GALEN: My father’s family name was Matiches. According to the records that I obtained from Ellis Island about the name Matiches, they are the only family ever to come through Ellis Island with that name. The family consisted of my father, who according to the manifest was Izak Matiches. His father’s name was Froim Matiches, according to the manifest and he became Frank. His mother was Chancals Matiches and she pretty well retained her Yiddish name throughout my life. She died 50 years later and had very little control of English in that 50 years. The brother was Leik Matiches, who became Alex. His sister Gittel Matiches became Gussie and married Nathan Carl, Milt Carl’s parents. Another sister died, Aliek. She died before I was born and I know nothing of her. At Ellis Island the immigration officer said, “Matiches is too hard a name to spell in America. I am going to give you an American name.” The family name became Goldstein. In 1947 my brother and I decided we would give it an American name and we became Galen. My father and mother, my whole family changed their name at that time. According to the manifest, they came from Kamenicz, Russia, which was a shtetl near Kiev. It does not exist today.

Weinstein: Have you gone looking for it?
GALEN: No, but other landsmen have gone back there and said that it has been incorporated now into a city, a city of over a million people now. There is no record of Jewish existence there. My mother’s family came from what was Russia before the First World War and Poland after the First World War. It was in western Ukraine, I assume. It is back in part of the Ukraine today after the Second World War. They came in a number of groups.

Weinstein: I am going to interrupt you. Do you know the name of the shtetl that your mother came from?
GALEN: Chartrisk. All the Ellis Island records show is that they were from Poland. It does not name a city. My grandfather had three brothers and a sister. Before the First World War, the three brothers came to America and they all settled in Portland. They were Simon, whose children were Arlene Director (now Arlene Schnitzer) and two other daughters [transcriber’s note: June Director Nagel and Ruth Director (Layton) Heldfond]. Nathan, who was Zelda [Director Zeidman] and May’s [Director Georges], and Estelle Sholkoff‘s father and Shaia, who was Sol (Babe), Frank, [and Ida (Soble)] Director’s father. My grandfather, my great-grandmother and her daughter and my uncles and aunts all stayed in Russia. Their village was occupied on and off by German and Russian troops through the First World War. One uncle was born when they were refugees from their city. After the war the Portland contingent of the family brought them to America in two groups. The first group consisted of my great grandmother, my aunt Esther, who became Esther Mink and is Hal Mink’s mother, my aunt Elsie, who is now deceased, and the great-grandmother. The four of them were brought to Portland and arrived in the United States on July 27, 1920. My mother was 19. Actually the family names were pretty much left as is. Channah was my great-grandmother. My grandfather was Shmuel, that became Samuel. He and the rest of the family came in August of 1922, just before the new immigration law took effect which pretty well stopped immigration from Eastern Europe.

Weinstein: You mentioned an Aunt Elsie. Did she come to Portland?
GALEN: Elsie, my mother, Esther, and my great grandmother came together.

Weinstein: What did Elsie’s name become?
GALEN: Katz. Now the children who came with my grandparents in 1922 consisted of Elke, who became Ella, Moses, who became Morris, Simcha, who became Sylvia, Sosela, who became Ceil, Noah, who became Nathan. They ranged in age from three (Nathan, who was born just after the First World War) through nine, who was Ella. She was the oldest. 

Weinstein: Also for the record, the names of the women, what were their last names?
GALEN: Ella remained Director until her death. Sylvia was Beverly Jacob’s mother, Beverly Jacob Zell’s mother. Ceil is Weinstein, and her first husband died and she is Weinstein. She is the only survivor of that group that came. One more child, an uncle Ben, was born I think in 1925 here in Portland. He lives in California. Those two are still living.

Weinstein: This is very helpful, and annotated as it is with last names and dates, will be very helpful for people that want to do research on immigration and that kind of thing. This is a stunning record of the breadth of dispersal of the early Jews in this community when you think about the third and fourth generations. It is just stunning.
GALEN: The only think I can add about the arrival is that apparently, as my father told me, they landed in New York and came to Portland by train through Canada. So they were readmitted. Apparently in those days it was no problem. They came to Portland because they had landsmen in Portland; a cousin, Joe Levy, a bail bondsman, was my father’s cousin. Anther interesting thing is that they came to Portland probably at the end of 1907. Adam Nemer and his wife lived out in Mt. Tabor. They were remodeling their kitchen and in doing so they took the wall down. Inside of the wall was a telephone directory from Portland, Oregon. I believe it was either 1911 or 1912. We were at their house and they showed it to us. I opened it up and lo and behold my father had a telephone listing by that time. He had been in the country less than four years.

Weinstein: That opens up all kinds of questions I can ask. I will make a note and get to them. But [there is] one that I would love to have your comments [on]. Obviously the family was very close and devoted and supportive of each other. That is also a subject that could be a whole interview in itself. That doesn’t seem to be as strong in our culture now-a-days. But the fact that your father had a telephone four years after he got here. You have got to tell me how that came about.
GALEN: I don’t know.

Weinstein: That would make him a “person of means” to have a telephone.
GALEN: No, he was working for Meier & Frank. He was trained as a tailor. He was working for Meier & Frank. I can tell you things that would not reflect on the Meier & Frank of my own growing up. Meier & Frank gave its Jewish employees the Jewish Holy Days off. They were very supportive.

Weinstein: Well those kinds of things are very important to our project and I am happy to come back and talk to you about that.
GALEN: Well, you know there is a limit to how much and the reason I can maybe talk to a certain extent about my father’s is that for about two years, right after I started high school, he couldn’t work. He was home. We had a clothing store that my mother ran. During those two years I came home and had lunch with him every day.

Weinstein: What a fabulous gift you had.
GALEN: I heard stories about him growing up that I had to convince my brother were true, including that my brother and sister did not know that the family name had been Matiches. He heard me one night talking to his kids and he said, “Why did you make that story up?” I said, “I didn’t.” He said, “Well I never heard about that.” I said, “Bill, you were too busy in high school to come home and have lunch with your father. I will tell you what. I will send you a copy of his citizenship paper. Right on the back of it is typed ‘Harry I. Goldstein’ name change from Izik Matiches at Ellis Island.’”

Weinstein: I will tell you that I did interview Bill a couple of years ago and he did give me the name of Matiches. You convinced him!
GALEN: No, he talked to me the day before you interviewed him. “Tell me some things that I can tell her.” [laughs]

Weinstein: This is just priceless. Having lunch with your dad every day ties right in with this sense of family. I observe it now-a-days with you, with Bill and Bev, with other relatives about how devoted you all are to each other. It is a wonderful thing to observe.
GALEN: Well, in my father’s day they grew up faster, younger than we did. Besides being Jewish he regarded himself as a Socialist. It was bad enough in Tsarist Russia to be a Jew, to be a Jewish Socialist was worse. He was participating in some demonstration in Odessa and the police broke it up. (Incidentally, he had bright red hair – easy to identify). He was really smuggled from the Jewish community from village to village, sometimes under a load of hay, until they got back to his hometown and he told his parents, “We are going to America.” And they packed up. That is how they came to America.

Weinstein: At that time the Communist Movement had not come into being.
GALEN: Oh, no, this was 1907. The Communists came in in 1917 or ‘18, after the First World War.

Weinstein: But wasn’t the Communist Movement an outgrowth of the Socialists?
GALEN: Not really. For Marxist and Leninist Communism, its main opponents really were the Socialists. The Communists wiped out the Socialist leadership immediately.

Weinstein: So was it a political philosophy?
GALEN: It was. We use the term Socialist today. We use the term Communist today. In Russia at that time there was no real distinction. They were all basically regarded as the same villains to be arrested and sent to Siberia. The one thing I have learned from the history of the time (and this is nothing to do with being Jewish) the main weapon that the Socialists and Communists had when they were arrested by the Tsarist [can’t hear] were hunger strikes. For some crazy reason they did not let them die. The Communists reversed that, when people went on hunger strikes, “Good, Die.” That is what happened to a lot of the Socialist leaders. Their experience with the Tsars was that you got concessions by going on hunger strikes. With the Communists you died by going on hunger strikes.

Weinstein: That is so interesting.
GALEN: But that has nothing to do with Jews. That I learned from my study of Russian history.

Weinstein: It is interesting as to why the Tsarist regime would show a humane side when they were so oppressive in everything else. 
GALEN: You have many, many instances of people coming back from Siberia, of serving out their time and coming back. It was not the killing machine that it became under the Communists.

Weinstein: Fascinating. It makes me really want to get in there and study more about it. Would reading a book like Dr. Zhivalgo help me to understand how the Communists came into power?
GALEN: My recollection of Dr. Zhivalgo is that it was more about the Communist method of governing Russia. You can find books about the destruction of the middle-class farmer in Russia. What the Communists did was very simple. When they tried to over-tax the farmers and demand their crop, the farmers started hiding it. Well, the Communist answer to that was to seize 100% of the food. There were millions of Russian farmers who starved to death during this period. It was an action that I don’t think at any time of the Tsarist history had ever happened.

Weinstein: That ruthless.
GALEN: They just wiped out millions. I have heard all sorts of stories. I have heard from two to four or five million. I don’t think anybody really knows. But this has nothing to do with Jewish history.

Weinstein: Let’s get back to the task at hand. When your family did come to Portland, you said your dad was a tailor and he went to work at Meier & Frank, so he established a regular household. He didn’t have to push a pushcart to have a steady income.
GALEN: No. The first thing he did was to buy a home. I think it cost less than a thousand dollars, in my recollection. But that was a lot of money in those days.

Weinstein: Where was the home?
GALEN: I don’t know, but I’m sure it was in South Portland. That is where we lived and it was where most of the Jewish people, especially those from Eastern Europe, lived.

Weinstein: What was the atmosphere in the household? What do you remember as a child as far as religious observance, as far as hospitality?
GALEN: Growing up I remember that we always had extended family living with us. It was always a kosher house. In fact the first time I ate non-Kosher food was as a freshman in college. When I would go out on a date and we would go to Yaw’s, I would drool over the hamburgers that everyone else had while I had a lettuce and tomato sandwich. 

Weinstein: Let’s talk about that. That shows either a very, very deep faith, A, or B, devotion to honoring your parents’ wishes, or C, having a very deep conviction about keeping kosher.
GALEN: Or D, none of the above. [laughter] I don’t think it was any of the above. This is what I learned you did and I accepted it. I don’t recall any trauma over having to eat non-kosher food when I went to college because it was either eat non-kosher food or don’t eat.

Weinstein: Still it belies my impression of your current behavior. I always envision you as being very determined and, in a way, a rebel because you follow your convictions very, very strongly. However, the fact that you were submissive as a child to following this kosher religious observance shows that you were more submissive. So when did you become a rebel?
GALEN: I don’t think I was submissive and I don’t think I became a rebel. It was what I was fed at home and became accustomed to eating. You know, growing up in those days was a lot different. There were no such thing as school lunches. You either went home (I lived a block from my grade school and four blocks from my high school) or you brought a lunch.

Weinstein: That is good for our record too. That is something I didn’t realize and I didn’t know about. Shortly after those years, though, they must have implemented school lunch programs. But not during your time.
GALEN: No, I was out of high school by 1945. 

Weinstein: Where did you go to college?
GALEN: University of Oregon.

Weinstein: And did you remain there throughout? Was the law school there as well?
GALEN: Yes.

Weinstein: Now, I’m jumping the gun a little bit here because I know that you are very devoted to and involved with Reed. How did the Reed connection come about? 
GALEN: Basically, Candi [his daughter] went to Reed. My partner, Moe Tonkon had been a trustee and very active in Reed. My good friend Ernie Bonyhadi was a trustee and he asked me if I would like to go on the board and I think I was either the first or second person to become a trustee while having a child at Reed. Now it has happened much more often.

Weinstein: What year did you become involved?
GALEN: 1976. I was a trustee for 33 years. From 1976 to 2009.

Weinstein: Now I am going to go back again because you mentioned your daughter Candi. I want some more personal data about you, who you married, your children, when they were born.
GALEN: I married Evelyn Brounstein on July 15, 1951. Our son Solana was born on January 21, 1953 and our daughter on October 3, 1954. Solana was born Harry Isaac Galen II and decided on his own, without any objections from us, that he would rather be Solana. I will tell you an interesting story; Evelyn used to tell this story. He and his present wife and Evelyn and I are in the Galapagos Islands. We were on a 17- passenger boat and I am sitting on the deck. There is a skylight open that is right above our room. Evelyn’s in our room. I am talking to one of the passengers and he said, “How did you arrive at the name Solana?” I said, “I didn’t. He chose it.” He said, “He did?” I said, “Yes, we named him Harry and he changed it to Solana.” He said, “Didn’t that upset you?” I said, “Why should it? I changed my name?” [laughs]

Weinstein: Very good, and that’s the truth. So actually your family had three family names.
GALEN: No, I never was Matiches.

Weinstein: I mean the family itself was Matiches, then Goldstein, then Galen. Growing up. Did you associate with a particular group of people? Was it a mostly Jewish crowd of friends? Did you have friends in the secular community?
GALEN: I grew up in South Portland and I’m sure that you have talked to other people from South Portland. South Portland had two ethnic groups, Jewish and Italian, although the Italians had a major contingency across the river in what is now the Brooklyn area on the Southeast side. I grew up on Broadway and Jackson Street, one block from the Park Blocks. I cannot remember a time growing up, through grade school, when there were not at least 20 or 30 of us congregating in the Park Blocks every day in the summer, all of us Jewish. At the same time, in the same area there was another group, two years older, of about the same size, all of them Jewish. We had organized and non-organized activities. We organized softball teams and played in the city leagues. Invariably, almost every year the city championship would be either the Italian boys or the Jewish boys playing for the championship. I can recall one non-Jewish boy being on our softball team. We sort of drafted him. His name was Kirkpatrick. He was Irish and he was the best pitcher. My cousin Hal Mink lived further south on Hooker Street, which is close to the Neighborhood House. That neighborhood was probably more Italian than Jewish. The Italian kids constantly tried to get him to play on their team.

Weinstein: Tell me the names of some of the fellows you remember congregating.
GALEN: The Menashes, the Sterns, the …

Weinstein: Milt Carl probably.
GALEN: No, Milt was older. He would be in my brother’s group. He is two and a half years older than me. There were various Cohens, Irv Leopold. The Kochevskys, Irv Puziss. I’m going block by block. I could sit down and probably come up with everybody’s name. There was Alan Lippman.

Weinstein: Did you go to the Jewish Community Center?
GALEN: Yes.

Weinstein: What grade school was it?
GALEN: Shattuck.

Weinstein: And Lincoln High School?
GALEN: Lincoln was located in what is now the Old Main of Portland State.

Weinstein: How was your relationship with the non-Jewish community growing up?
GALEN: We knew they were there. I had classmates that were non-Jewish. I had no problems with them.

Weinstein: That’s what I was going to ask you. You were comfortable. Did you experience any overt antisemitism?
GALEN: I can’t recall any. Just like I can’t recall the Depression as being a terrible period. I mean, basically, everybody I knew had enough to eat. Sure we had hand-me-downs if we were the younger ones. We all played together. Some sold newspapers, some did not.

Weinstein: But you remember it as a happy time.
GALEN: Insofar as the children were concerned, it was a happy time. My father worked his butt off. I can remember that we would wait around on Sunday afternoon for him to close the store and come home. Then we would go to a park somewhere.

Weinstein: So he worked six days a week.
GALEN: He worked seven days a week.

Weinstein: So when did he leave Meier & Frank and establish his own store?
GALEN: Probably not long after he came to America.

Weinstein: Was it a clothing store?
GALEN: A general clothing store. A workingman’s store.

Weinstein: Do you remember the Miller family? Didn’t they have a workingman’s store? Miller’s for Men?
GALEN: Ahh…

Weinstein: So you went to Lincoln and then, when you went to the University of Oregon. Did you major in pre-law?
GALEN: I didn’t major in anything. I took almost every history course they offered.

Weinstein: How old were you when you started college?
GALEN: Just had my 17th birthday. I was 16 when I got out of high school.

Weinstein: So were you a brainiac?
GALEN: Well, in those days it was not considered bad policy to skip. 

Weinstein: So you excelled in your class work.
GALEN: Yes, that is a good way to put it.

Weinstein: Did you go four years to the University of Oregon?
GALEN: When you figure-in law school, it was five years. Let me see, from January of 1945 to June of 1950, yes five years. In those days you used to be able to do a combination, which is, after two years, if you had enough credits you could start law school. That is what I did.

Weinstein: So you studied a lot and you studied hard.
GALEN: No. Maybe it came easy to me. I sort of attribute it to an ability to read a teacher. I could generally predict almost any question that was going to be asked in a final exam.

Weinstein: Did you take a lot of notes?
GALEN: Yes, in class.

Weinstein: And you studied your notes?
GALEN: Yes. In law school I gave seminars to a few friends in school before the finals. I would generally be able to tell them what would be asked and what would not be asked. One of my friends, who subsequently became president of the Oregon Bar, said to me after a final, “You know there were two questions on that exam that were identical to what you warned us [about]. I could not remember how you answered them.”

Weinstein: So you were a very young man when you went out from law school.
GALEN: Yes, in 1950. I was 22 when I graduated.

Weinstein: Tell me about that process, about finding a job.
GALEN: I’m glad you asked that. First, of course, you start interviewing during your senior year. I talked to a few of the Jewish lawyers in town like Sol Stern and was told by them, “You are going to find that you are wasting your time. No firms in Portland hire Jews.” Well, I was a little bit cocky. I think had the highest (at least so I was told) grades ever out of the University of Oregon Law School. There were four of five major law firms: what is now Stoel Rives (then Hart Spencer McCulloch & Rockwood and Davies) was the biggest firm then. It had 14 lawyers. The firm Miller Nash had 13. What is now Schwabe Williamson and Wyatt had 12 or 13 and what is now Lane Powell had 11 or 12. Those were the four big law firms in Portland at that time. Lane Powell had had Roscoe Nelson as a partner. And what is now Schwabe Williamson and Wyatt had Eugene Oppenheimer. But both of them joined those firms in a different time. There were no other Jewish members of those firms. I was told that Roscoe Nelson Sr. had started in his father’s firm and left when it became clear that he would never become a partner there.

Weinstein: How fascinating.
GALEN: When I interviewed, generally I had a very good reception but received no offers. Other classmates of mine were hired and in only one firm was the reason given: Wilbur, Beckett, Oppenheimer, Mautz & Souther that is now Schwabe Williamson and Wyatt, after I interviewed with everybody, Gene Oppenheimer took me into his office and explained to me (this is a Jew, now) that, “You can’t expect to be hired here because being a member of a law firm is like being a member of a family. You go to the same clubs, you do all things together.” He had pulled up the gangplank.

Weinstein: “I’m here and I’m not leaving, so you can’t be here.” This was in the early 50s?
GALEN: This was 1949 and 50. I graduated in 1950. You know, it wasn’t really the worst thing in the world that ever happened to me. Times were different then. There were maybe 1100 lawyers in Portland counting the judges and state and federal employees. Maybe 1800 in the state. It was not that difficult to start a sole practice.

Weinstein: What was your personal reaction to what Oppenheimer said? Do you remember?
GALEN: No, but I didn’t forget it. [laughs] It was probably disgust. But by then I had realized what was going on. Before I had even started interviewing, I had talked to Sol Stern and Dave Fain and was told the same thing. Dave was in a Gentile law firm, a smaller one. They were not generally on the list. No firm was going to have two Jews.

Weinstein: That is stunning. For them to be so overt about it.
GALEN: Why? Antisemitism was not unknown. No clubs had Jews. 

Weinstein: Except during the depression, I understand, when the MAC club needed Jews to keep the doors open. That was when the tide turned.
GALEN: No. I am not a member there. I was a member of the MAC club for two or three years. It was not quite “the tide turning.” I don’t know when it became the rule that they began accepting Jews, but they had a special committee to decide which Jews would be accepted. That consisted of Sandy Wollin and Moe Tonkon. They would be accepted. If a person was approved by those two, they could get into the Multnomah Club.

Weinstein: Actually I think Moe Tonkon approved Sandy Weinstein’s admission to the club. At that time I don’t think there was a Jewish selection committee.
GALEN: No, it was a short period of time. But exclusions existed. I can tell you an interesting story. It is a true story. One of my clients was Field Chevrolet Group, which was a client that came to me. I was very pleased. This was after I had gotten pretty well established. It was probably the late ‘50s or early ‘60s. Phil Fields called me one day and asked if I could have lunch with him. I said, “Sure.” He said, “Meet me at the Arlington Club.” I said, “I can’t.” He said, “But you just told me you would have lunch with me.” I said, “Phil. They don’t accept Jewish people there. I don’t want to embarrass you by being your guest.” He said, “There is no such rule! We accept anybody.” I said, “Phil, check it out and call me back.” He called me back with an apology. This was true. There was a small group at every club. I believe that a lot of the members never even thought about it. They did not even know that there were specific unwritten rules not to accept Jewish people.

Weinstein: I have to commend you for the way you presented it to Phil Fields. You stated that you didn’t want to embarrass him and that was a very gracious way to bring out your point.
GALEN: He was ultimately killed taking off in his plane with his son – a malfunction of the plane. I had gone with him in that plane so many times on business trips but I wasn’t on this one.

Weinstein: So when you realized what the situation was as far as hiring Jews, what did you do?
GALEN: I became associated with a lawyer, not as an employee but renting an office from him for about a year. And I made a lot of money. My gross was $1100 my first year [laughs]. Then I went to work with a sole practitioner, Randall Jones, not Jewish, who subsequently became part of a firm, Jacob Jones and Brown, which was basically a boutique tax firm. I went with Randall there and I stayed there until January 1, 1960. That is when I became associated with Moe and we formed the firm Tonkon and Galen.

Weinstein: Then what was the genesis of Tonkon Torp?
GALEN: Well the genesis of Tonkon and Galen was that I told Evelyn, “I am going to leave Jacob Jones and Brown and set up my own practice.” She was supportive and for the first year I really just rented an office from Moe and then we became partners. That lasted from 1960 to September of 1974. In early 1974 Fred Torp, Brian Booth and a number of other lawyers were at what is now Stoel Rives. Stoel Rives represented US National Bank and also the Oregon Bank. Fred had organized Orbanco and was very close with the family that controlled it. Moe and Fred were on the Orbanco board. The powers that be at US Bank told Stoel Rives that they had to choose between representing US Bank and Orbanco. If they did not get rid of Orbanco, US Bank would take its business to another law firm. After they opted to stay with US Bank (and from what I know it was a traumatic decision) Moe mentioned that Fred was leaving Stoel Rives. I said, “Well, Moe, we have an empty office. If Fred needs a place to hang his hat, why don’t you mention it to him?” Moe did and Fred pointed out that there were a number of others that were going to leave with him. So Moe, Fred and I had lunch. We agreed to the organization of what became Tonkon Torp and Galen. Don Marmeduke, Brian Booth, Ken Stevens, Terry Baker and a number of young associates (who are now partners, of course) were part of the firm.

Weinstein: That is just history. It is history.
GALEN: Right. It was the genesis of, as I like to tell people, “The two-man law firm that Moe and I had is now 80 lawyers.”

Weinstein: So you said that you worked for this boutique law firm that specialized in tax issues. Has that been the main focus of your career? Business issues? Have you done any domestic law?
GALEN: During the ‘60s, basically in the bar I was generally regarded as a business and tax lawyer. I wouldn’t call myself a tax lawyer today. In those days, in the ‘60s, I put on a number of tax programs for the state bar. They were continuing legal education sessions where we would put on a convention as members of the Continuing Legal Education Committee. Frankly, that proved to be a very good thing. There were still not that many lawyers in the state. I knew almost every lawyer from outside of Oregon because most of them were Oregon graduates and a tremendous source for business for a long time. That was before every city had its own tax lawyers. But, no, I don’t regard myself as a tax lawyer today. I had moved pretty well out of the tax field 30 years ago into general business and corporate law.

Weinstein: And no domestic law.
GALEN: In the last ten or 12 years I have been involved in domestic law in this respect: I found that among the “leading family law practitioners” in Portland, they realized quite quickly that they did not have the qualifications to handle a major business divorce. They would refer or call me in to work with them. It is still ongoing. I have a lot of work in family law but it is generally in coming up with a way to divide the pie. How does the man (which is usually the case) retain his business and still at the same time have a fair division with the wife? It is a complicated matter and sometimes it takes some ingenuity to handle it so that both sides work out. Very few of the domestic problems that I have handled have been bitter. Occasionally they are and it is just that much harder to work them out. 

Weinstein: There is a lot of psychology involved in the practice of law.
GALEN: In the entire practice of law, whether it is the dissolution of a closely held company, a fight among partners (to use the term loosely even though we don’t have partnerships very much anymore), the same conditions exist there only it is usually more bitter now. I would say that there is often as much bitterness in a business dissolution as there is in a marriage dissolution.

Weinstein: What techniques do you use to deal with the emotions and the explosive reactions of people? Do you just listen?
GALEN: I first of all try to be fair. I try to put myself in the position of what the other side needs. Generally I can diffuse most anger situations. I will look at a client. If I can’t control… if he or she [is] so intent upon revenge with everything else secondary, I will just tell them, “I am the wrong lawyer for you. I can’t represent you.” I have not had a single case that I have worked on in the marital field go to trial. I have settled every one of them.

Weinstein: It is like with a doctor. If the patient won’t take their medicine the doctor says, “Either you comply with my directions or find another doctor.”
GALEN: Well, something like that.

Weinstein: What about ethical issues in the practice of law? Can you give me examples of cases where ethics figured into settling a case? I’m not saying it right.
GALEN: Let me just try to help you. When I left Jacob Jones and Brown I was asked by at least a half a dozen of their very good clients that I had done work for [to represent them]. When I say “their clients,” I mean clients that I had no contribution to obtaining for the firm. Clients that came to the firm because of me, I had no problem representing after I had left there. I refused to represent anybody who had come to the firm through other lawyers activities [when] I left. I felt it would be highly improper, not necessarily ethically but morally improper for me to take something that didn’t belong to me. One of the discussions I had with one of them said, “Hey, I have a right to choose my lawyer.” I said, “I agree. And I have a right to choose my client. You are not my client. You are Garth Brown’s client.” The interesting thing is that 15 years later that man’s family came to me. [laughs] You never lose by doing the right thing.

Weinstein: I agree with you. People in many fields observe that.
GALEN: Even today Portland is a small town. I tell young lawyers, “If a lawyer does something wrong, don’t get angry. Your time to get even will come.” And it is so. It goes around.

Weinstein: As you say, in a town like Portland everybody eventually knows everybody. How are we doing for time? Are you OK? I could come back.
GALEN: No, I’m fine. I’d just as soon…

Weinstein: Well, let’s see. I have kind of a little checklist. I know you received a confirmation letter from Anne. Tell me about community involvement outside of the legal field. Have you been involved in community activities?
GALEN: Outside of the legal field, most[ly] at Reed College of course. I have not been on any committee at the University of Oregon but I have been quite active in the law school and … Harold Schnitzer and I once bought a synagogue!

Weinstein: You bought a synagogue?
GALEN: We were on the board of Shaarie Torah. The Synagogue on First Avenue was being taken by PDC for urban renewal. I don’t know if you knew the old Lincoln Theater on Southwest Third and Lincoln. My first memories of the Lincoln Theater was the five cent all-afternoon cowboy movies in the ‘30s on Saturdays. But that building was for sale and Harold and I decided that is could be converted into a synagogue. So Harold and I bought it and offered it to the synagogue. Well, they moved to Park Avenue instead. That was my “synagogue ownership.” But I served on the board there. I have been on the Center Board. I was on the Federation Board. I have been on many Bar Committees. I was treasurer of the State Bar.

Weinstein: Do you remember the committees you were active on with the Bar?
GALEN: Primarily the Continuing Legal Education. That was about a ten-year stint. Oh, I was also on the Board of Bar Examiners.

Weinstein: I was on the Board of Psychologist Examiners. That was an interesting experience. Can you remember any issues that came up during those exams?
GALEN: Well, every member of the Board wrote three exams, three questions for the exam.

Weinstein: This is the written exam?
GALEN: There was no oral exam in those days. It was all written. We were responsible for grading them. Everybody was assigned a number. It was my first experience with the bar exam since passing it. That was in 1969 to 1972, in that period.

Weinstein: With all of your involvement with the bar, as a Jew, were there any instances of experiences where you were referred to as “The Jew” or “A Jew.” or “What would the Jewish community think about this issue?”
GALEN: No. The only times that there were major discussions about Jewish issues was in law school where issues were discussing Israel, which was admired for its ability (this was in the 40s) to maintain its independence. It was mostly in admiration. This was a group of (you can call them) red neck kids from all over the state. I still remember clearly one of my classmates from eastern Oregon saying, “You know when I was growing up (and I won’t use the term he used), if a Black person came to town the chief of police would visit him and say, ‘Hey you are welcome here as long as you are gone by sunset.’” 

Weinstein: That is very sad. My husband grew up in Salem and it was the same condition then. He remembers when Sammy Davis and his uncle and father came through entertaining and they couldn’t stay overnight. They had to leave town to find a place to sleep.
GALEN: Yes, this was all over, but this was the first time I had ever heard anything like that, in law school.

Weinstein: Interestingly, Sandy does not remember experiencing any kind of …. he was the only Jew in his class of 500. In fact we joke that he was given the “outstanding Jewish student” award [laughs] But he doesn’t remember any instances of any kind of antisemitism in spite of the fact that that was at a time when the Klan was still active. 
GALEN: The only antisemitism, and I don’t regard it as that and didn’t at the time (I would say anti-Jewish), was there were two law societies. Like legal fraternities. Neither of them accepted Jews except there was one other Jewish kid in the class who was accepted. He had identified himself on his stuff as a Methodist. I knew he was Jewish. I knew his family.

Weinstein: So actually you were comfortable growing up as a Jew in the general community. You ran into some roadblocks when you got through with your schooling but you obviously overcame them and built a wonderful career for yourself.
GALEN: Right. Incidentally, the Miller Nash firm, I think a couple of years later did take in their first Jew and that was Ossie Georges. I am not sure when Stoel Rives did. I think it was Ed Epstein. What is Lane Powell?

Weinstein: [interrupts] Stan Loeb?
GALEN: Stan Loeb. I think there were others. Wolfstone was managing partner of a firm.

Weinstein: Jeff Wolfstone?
GALEN: Yes, but at a much later date. Now the Schwabe Williamson Wyatt firm, which was the one Oppenheimer was with, I don’t believe accepted their first Jewish lawyer until the mid-90s, much after everyone else had.

GALEN: That was a small firm. That was never one of the big firms. And Arden is seven or eight years younger than me. And times had changed in that eight-year period.

Weinstein: He was with that firm for a long time.Can you think of things that you didn’t get to talk about that you would like to?
GALEN: No. 

Weinstein: If you have any second thoughts about anything I am very, very happy to come back. This is fascinating stuff.
GALEN: Well, if you have go any other questions sometimes that opens my mind.

Weinstein: That’s why I am trying to think. I got the nuts and bolts kind of stuff about your family and your education, your work experience. But it is always interesting to try to get a sense of how a Jewish person functions in the secular world and how they balance that. Because our Jewish culture is a pretty strong part of our identity.
GALEN: Well, maybe I will add in that respect the experience of observing Moe Tonkon. I don’t know how much you know about Moe. Moe was one of the most highly respected lawyers by Jews and Gentiles in Portland. I don’t think anybody has ever achieved the status that he had. Moe was just one of the people that everybody could relate to. He had a knack of dealing with people that was second to none. I will never forget the time one of my friends asked me about Moe. He said, “How good a lawyer is he?” I said, “If Moe and I had handled the same matter, a major acquisition, this is what would happen: the other side would hire Moe the next time they needed a lawyer because they were so impressed by how warm and how efficient he was. The other side might hire me because they were so impressed by how tough I was.”

Weinstein: Good combination!
GALEN: No, the combination was even better than that. Moe would bring in the business and I would do the work and I would love him for it.

Weinstein: I never knew him. I knew his sister Ethel. She was a friend of my husband’s family. Was he a kind-hearted person?
GALEN: Very generous, very kind. Interesting family. He had, I think, three or four brothers and Ethel. Some of the brothers, when they changed their name (I think it had been Tonkonogy) did it with an ‘i’ and some with an ‘o.’ The automobile Tonkins were cousins.

Weinstein: He obviously was very smart.
GALEN: He was and incidentally, he was the person that the Arlington Club, the University Club, The Waverly asked to join. And when he was asked to join the Arlington Club they said, “We want you to be on the membership committee from the start because we want Jews and Gentiles hereafter to be treated the same and we want you to be comfortable that they are.” This was the status that this man had. I don’t know of any Jewish person who has applied and not been accepted because he was Jewish.

Weinstein: That seems to be pretty integrated. I would love to ask more and more questions. I am a little bit overwhelmed by everything that you have shared with me. I think I am going to close the interview but please, if you have other ideas or thoughts, even if it is a 20-minute session, we can certainly add an addendum to the interview.
GALEN: I can’t think of anything more that I can add that would be relevant. I certainly enjoyed this. It really forced me to think back to incidents that I had stored away and were still there.

Weinstein: And also connecting the dots. I see this frequently when I am doing interviews, where people start making mental connections where things they had just never thought about before and it has made me personally very anxious to make my connections. And also to resolve a lot of interpersonal issues with people.
GALEN: Incidentally, there is one thing I can add. I would say a high percentage of the kids that I grew up with in the Park Blocks became clients of mine later on in life, even though there was a space of ten or 15 years when we had no contact at all.

Weinstein: That is certainly a compliment to you.
GALEN: Well, that is how close our group really was. Oh, and I’ll add one more thing (and this is a conceit that I have nothing to do with). I think I am probably the only lawyer still alive in Portland who had those experiences trying to get a job as a lawyer. There [are] few lawyers older than me still practicing full time in Portland. At my 50th law school reunion, which was 10 years ago, I was the only one still practicing full time. I don’t know too many active lawyers my age. There are a few in their 90s but they are not Jewish.

Weinstein: I’m glad I met with you. Thank you very much
GALEN: I’ve enjoyed this. I have.