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was supported by the whole state of Oregon just because he was opposing us, and the stupid fellow could not understand that once we were gone his support would also be gone. Now he has been defeated.
The governor of Oregon, Atiyeh, was also getting support from people because he was against us. As far as I am concerned, I will say they were amateur politicians. They did not understand a small thing: they should have continued harassing us, but not destroyed the commune. The whole of Oregon's population would have been behind them.
Now Atiyeh is gone. These two men destroyed the commune, and the day the commune was destroyed and closed, I told people: "These politicians will repent because they are in power because of us. Once we are gone, their power will be gone too."
Frohnmeyer, the attorney general, was hoping to become governor; there was so much support. Now he is not even the attorney general. Somebody else has defeated him. And when we were there a very competent man -- far more educated in law, has many degrees, Ph.D.'s and D.Litt.'s in law -- was defeated by Frohnmeyer only on one point: because that man was not against us. He made a political mistake by making a statement that "I don't see why these people should be harassed. They are not doing any harm to anybody." And that became the cause of his defeat. Against that man, Frohnmeyer was nowhere close -- the man was an authority on law. But Frohnmeyer was victorious in the election. And now they are all gone. It is a very strange world.
In Oregon there is a law that if somebody lives there for twenty days, he becomes able to participate in the voting. They were afraid of us, so they were changing the law, which for more than a hundred years they had never thought of changing. For that, seventy-five percent of the peoples' signatures were needed.
When we were there, they had collected almost fifty thousand signatures. But as the commune disappeared, nobody was interested in giving them signatures. The campaign had been going very well. But it was going well because of us -- that, they could not understand. Once we were not there, people said, "What is the need? The law
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