Leadership Quote by Tom McCall

Tourism pitch as border control: Tom McCall’s line sells Oregon by warning people off it. The joke lands because it’s delivered like friendly hospitality, then pivots into a protective snarl. “State of Excitement” is boosterish branding, the kind of phrase a governor is supposed to say with a grin. McCall keeps the grin, but he uses it to smuggle in a policy instinct: preserve what makes the place desirable by rationing access to it.

The specific intent is double-edged. He’s courting visitors (and their money) while signaling to residents that he’s on their side against the era’s in-migration. The “for heaven’s sake” gives the admonition a mock-prayer urgency, as if relocation is a kind of sin. Then he twists the knife with “don’t tell any of your neighbors,” turning private moving plans into contraband information. That’s not just humor; it’s a cultural boundary drawn with a wink.

Context matters: McCall governed in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when Oregon’s natural beauty was becoming a national lifestyle commodity and the state was wrestling with growth, sprawl, and environmental protection. His administration helped pioneer land-use planning meant to keep Oregon from becoming the very kind of overbuilt landscape people were fleeing elsewhere. The quote works because it captures a foundational Western paradox: a place markets its scenery to outsiders, then resents outsiders for showing up.

Under the wit is a real anxiety about scarcity - not of land, but of identity. McCall is defending a version of Oregon that can’t survive unlimited applause.