7.3: California Progressivism, 1910–1920

Progressivism came late to California state government, but in 1910 Californians elected a governor and a legislature that put their state in the forefront of progressive reform.

Hiram Johnson and the Victory of the Progressives, 1910–1911

The direct primary law of 1909 empowered California voters to choose their party’s candidates for state office. For the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, the primary election of 1910 tested their ability to organize a campaign. After considerable discussion, League leaders persuaded Hiram Johnson to seek the Republican nomination for governor.

Johnson had grown up in Sacramento. His father, Grove Johnson, was a staunch conservative and defender of the Southern Pacific who had been accused of shady political maneuvering. Hiram had quarreled with his father over politics and moved to San Francisco. He had developed such a distaste for politics that progressive Republicans found it difficult to persuade him to seek the nomination for governor in 1910.

Once committed, though, he threw himself into the campaign. He easily won the Republican primary, then took his campaign to as many voters as possible,driving throughout the state and wearing out his car in the process. Committed and combative, Johnson tirelessly repeated his central message: “The Southern Pacific must keep its dirty hands out of politics.” Democratic voters nominated Theodore Bell, their anti-SP candidate from four years before. With Johnson and Bell as candidates for governor, Californians were certain to elect an enemy of the SP. Johnson won narrowly, mostly on the basis of his large vote in southern California. Upon winning, Johnson traveled east to talk with Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, and other leading Republican progressives.

As governor, Johnson was a whirlwind of action, wasting no time in announcing the reforms he wanted the legislature to approve. California’s progressive tide was rapidly rising. Rarely has a single session of the legislatureproduced so many new laws as that of 1911. Early in the session, Johnson urged a constitutional amendment for the initiative, referendum, and recall. The initiative and referendum encountered some opposition, but the recall of judges provoked the greatest criticism. Johnson stood firm. When a state judge’s irresponsible behavior generated headlines all over the state, the proposal sailed through the legislature. Johnson also pushed for a measure to permit the voters to elect U.S. senators, another “direct democracy” reform. Other constitutional amendments were also approved by the legislature and submitted to the voters.

Johnson pushed a drastic overhaul of the state’s regulation of railroads by giving the previously ineffective Railroad Commission new power to determine the maximum rates railroads could charge. Another measure gave the commission authority over privately owned public utility companies (companies selling electricity, gas, water, streetcar service, and the like) in addition to railroads.

In extending direct democracy and regulating railroad and utility companies, California progressives followed a path marked out by progressives in other states. When it came to organized labor, however, many California progressives, especially Johnson, showed more sympathy for working people and their unions than was usual elsewhere. Despite some divisions among progressives, the legislature, with Johnson’s support, approved laws requiring the eight-hour day for most female workers, restricting child labor, and creating a workmen’s compensation program based on employers’ liability for injuries caused by industrial accidents.

The legislature passed still more measures. Textbooks were to be provided without charge in the public schools; previously, students had to buy their books. A Board of Control was created to investigate corruption and inefficiency in state government. Elections for judicial and school officials were made nonpartisan—now, candidates for judgeships and school boards or other school positions had to run as individuals rather than as party nominees. Prohibitionists secured a “local option” law that permitted voters in any county supervisorial district to ban the sale of alcohol within the district. Within two years, voters prohibited the sale of alcohol in half the state’s supervisorial districts. Other laws prohibited racetrack gambling and slot machines.

Johnson took no position on woman suffrage, but the legislature submitted to the voters an amendment to the state constitution to extend the suffrage to women. In lobbying the legislature and in persuading male voters, a few suffrage advocates made straightforward feminist arguments, that women should have the same rights as men. Most suffragists made more complex arguments, drawing upon some tenets of domesticity to argue that women would bring their moral and nurturing nature to politics, clean up politics, and protect women and children. Still others, especially female unionists, argued that female wage earners needed the ballot to protect themselves from economic exploitation.

Meeting for only three months, the legislature of 1911 passed more than 800 bills and sent 23 constitutional amendments to the voters. It was an amazing record. The voters approved nearly all of the constitutional changes, including the initiative, referendum, and recall, the changes in the Railroad Commission, and woman suffrage. California now marched in the forefront of progressive reform.

The new laws and constitutional amendments transformed the role of individual voters. The initiative and referendum were extensively used from the beginning: by 1920, Californians had voted on 41 proposals, including prohibition of alcoholic beverages, the eight-hour day, regulation of chiropractors, the closing of brothels, and the banning of vivisection. California voters were cautious in using their new power—of the 41 proposals, voters approved only six initiatives and three referenda. California ballots now became lengthy, crowded with initiatives, referenda, proposed constitutional amendments, and bond issues. In 1914 alone, voters confronted nearly 50 such issues.

California Progressives and the Presidential Election of 1912

In 1912, California progressives, especially Hiram Johnson, moved into the front ranks of national politics. Theodore Roosevelt, during his presidency (1901–1909), had helped to define progressivism by his bold forays against big business—using antitrust laws to break monopolies and pushing Congress to pass the first meaningful federal regulatory laws. In 1908, he personally picked William Howard Taft as his successor and helped elect him. Taft, however, inherited a Republican Party deeply divided between progressives and conservatives. Lacking Roosevelt’s leadership qualities, Taft watched Republican unity rapidly unravel.

As the 1912 presidential election approached, Johnson and other leading California Republican progressives concluded that Taft could not win in California and probably not in the nation. In January 1912, Roosevelt invited Johnson to discuss the coming election. Johnson quickly boarded an eastbound train, hoping to persuade Roosevelt to seek the Republican nomination. He was not disappointed—Roosevelt announced his candidacy soon after talking with Johnson and other progressive Republican governors.

In 1912, California was one of only 13 states that used direct primaries to select delegates to the national nominating convention. Roosevelt easily carried the California primary, winning more votes than his two opponents—Taft and Robert La Follette—combined. In other states with direct primaries, Roosevelt also won the most delegates. Elsewhere, however, Taft supporters controlled the party machinery. At the Republican nominating convention, Taft’s supportersdominated the credentials committee and gave contested seats to delegates supporting their man. Johnson led the California delegates out of the convention, claiming that Taft had stolen the nomination. Other Roosevelt delegates followed. The remaining delegates nominated Taft on the first ballot. At the same time, in a hall nearby, Johnson urged the Roosevelt delegates to create a new party and to nominate Roosevelt.

Roosevelt’s angry supporters formed the Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party” after Roosevelt’s boast that he was “as fit as a bull moose.” The delegates wrote a platform that included regulation of corporations, a national minimum wage, an end to child labor, woman suffrage, tariff reduction, and the initiative, referendum, and recall. Roosevelt was nominated for president without opposition, and Johnson was similarly nominated for vice president.

When the Democratic convention opened, joyful delegates predicted that the Republican split would give them victory. The hotly contested nomination went to Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey, who had a reputation as a progressive.

In much of the nation, the contest was between Roosevelt and Wilson. In California, that was even more the case, because Johnson and his allies kept Taft off the ballot. Johnson campaigned vigorously for Roosevelt, both in California and nationwide. Wilson’s California campaign was led by James Phelan, former mayor of San Francisco and the state’s leading progressive Democrat. Late in the campaign, Phelan issued a campaign card with an old statement by Roosevelt favoring citizenship rights for Japanese immigrants, and, on the other side, a harshly anti-Asian statement composed by Phelan and signed by Wilson. Johnson thought the card cost Roosevelt 10,000 votes in California. Roosevelt still eked out a narrow victory in California but lost to Wilson nationwide.

Radicals in a Progressive Era

For the nation, the 1912 presidential election marked the high point for the new Socialist Party of America (SPA). Before World War I, several radical organizations had flourished in California. While many progressive organizations reflected middle-class and upper-class concerns, such as businesslike government, prohibition, and greater reliance on experts, the SPA claimed to be the political voice of workers and farmers. Formed in 1901, the SPA argued that industrial capitalism had produced “an economic slavery which renders intellectual and political tyranny inevitable.” Socialists rejected progressivism as inadequate to resolve the nation’s problems and called instead for workers to own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

In California, the SPA scored some local victories. In 1911, amidst the McNamara trial (see pp. 208–209), the citizens of Los Angeles voted in a runoff contest between two candidates for mayor: George Alexander, a progressive Republican, and Job Harriman, a Socialist. The progressive narrowly won. Women had gained the vote between the first election and the run-off, and women voters may have swung the balance against Harriman. Nonetheless, Harriman’s strong vote in working-class neighborhoods indicated that many of LA’s working people were turning from progressive reformers to a more radical alternative. That same year, J. Stitt Wilson, a Socialist, won election as mayor of Berkeley, and Socialists won a majority on the city board in Daly City. In both places, the Socialists promised little more than municipal ownership of public utilities—proposals not far different from what progressives were implementing in San Francisco (city-owned water and streetcar lines) and Los Angeles (city-owned water and electricity). More radical Socialists dismissed such efforts as mere “gas and water” socialism and called for public ownershipof factories and transportation facilities. Whether of the radical variety or of the gas-and-water persuasion, SPA candidates drew few votes in most parts of California. Nonetheless, one Socialist won election to the state assembly in 1912, and three were elected to the assembly in 1914.

In 1905 in Chicago, a group of unionists and radicals organized the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Often called Wobblies, IWW organizers reached out to the workers at the bottom of the economy—sweatshop workers, migrant and seasonal laborers, and other workers usually ignored by the American Federation of Labor with its emphasis on skilled workers. The Wobblies’ objective was simple: When the majority of all workers had joined the IWW, they would call a general strike, labor would refuse to work, and capitalism would collapse.

In California, the IWW organized among timber workers, farm workers, maritime workers, and any others who would listen to their message. One tactic of IWW activists was to stand on a box on a sidewalk and speak about the exploitation of labor. When local authorities in Fresno tried to ban Wobblyspeakers from the streets, dozens of Wobblies descended on the town, made speeches, got arrested, and filled the jail. As the costs of maintaining so many prisoners rose, and as more Wobblies kept arriving, the city government gave in and permitted street speaking if the IWW promised to call back the more than 100 Wobblies on their way to Fresno to continue the fight.

In San Diego, the IWW held frequent street meetings. In 1912, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association pushed the city council to ban street speaking. Wobblies joined AFL unionists, Socialists, and some church groups to form a California Free Speech League, and Wobblies began to pour into San Diego for a “free speech fight.” The IWW hoped that the city would back down when they filled the jail and forced the city to feed hundreds of prisoners. Instead, local vigilantes joined San Diego police in beating the demonstrators and running them out of town. Those who were jailed were treated so brutally that one died. The police shot and killed one demonstrator. Governor Johnson sent a personal representative to investigate, and he confirmed the horrors reported by free-speech advocates. Finally, the state attorney general arrived and informed local authorities that the state would intervene if they did not handle protests within the law. Vigilante action ceased, but the right to make sidewalk speeches was not restored until 1914.

In 1913, near Wheatland in northern California, violence drew attention to problems afflicting migrant farm labor. The Durst brothers, owners of a ranch that raised hops (used in brewing beer), advertised widely for hoppickers. Some 2,800 men, women, and children responded—double the number needed. The Dursts could name their price for labor and still have enough pickers. There were virtually no sanitary facilities in the camp, and in the blazing hot fields the only drink was watery lemonade, sold by the Dursts for five cents a glass.

Among the pickers were perhaps 100 IWW members and a few experienced organizers. They called a protest meeting and demanded fresh water, better sanitation, higher wages, and other improvements. Ralph Durst offered some changes but refused others, then discharged the IWW organizers and called in a sheriff’s posse. The crowd refused to disperse, so one deputy fired a shotgun in the air, setting off about 40 shots, some from the strikers, some from the deputies. Four people were killed, including the district attorney, a deputy, a young striker who had fired on the deputies, and a boy on the edge of the crowd. Others were wounded. Several IWW activists were accused of second-degree murder, convicted, and sentenced to prison—though everyone agreed that they had not fired a gun. They immediately became labor martyrs, imprisoned for no crime other than presenting workers’ grievances.

The success of some Socialist candidates and sympathy for the victims of free-speech fights and for miscarriages of justice showed that some Californians were willing to endorse a radical analysis of social problems. Most Californians, however, had no interest in eliminating private property. Most progressive reformers looked aghast at the Socialists and Wobblies and tried to undercut their appeal with reforms that addressed some of their concerns but stopped short of challenging capitalism. Some of the important labor legislation of the 1911 and 1913 legislative sessions may be understood in that light.

A Second Flood of Reform, 1913

After the presidential campaign of 1912, progressives faced some difficult decisions,many of which affected the legislative session of 1913. The session began in controversy, over proposed legislation to prohibit aliens not eligible for citizenship (i.e., immigrants from Asia, especially the Japanese) from owning land in California. Similar proposals had been introduced before but were blocked by leading Republicans (including Johnson in 1911) to prevent diplomatic problems for Republican presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Now, in 1913, a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, sat in the White House, and his California supporters hadpulled votes away from Governor Johnson’s ticket by appealing to anti-Asian sentiments. Johnson signaled legislators, and a bill restricting the property rights of Asian immigrants moved toward passage. The government of Japan protested. Wilson, anxious over relations with Japan, sent his secretary of state to California to urge defeat of the bill. The legislature listened respectfully, then passed the bill.

Johnson signed the Alien Land Act into law, which placed Wilson and the Democrats in the politically embarrassing position of siding with Japan and Japanese immigrants against the California legislature and, probably, a majority of California voters. The law particularly appealed to Central Valley voters, many of whom disliked the Japanese. Some legislators, however, probably understood that the law could be evaded by putting land titles and leases in the names of the American-born children of Japanese immigrants. In retrospect, the Alien Land Act seems little more than a cynical political exercise, as Republican progressives used racial antagonism to benefit their own political standing and create political embarrassment for President Wilson.

The 1913 legislative session accomplished more of lasting significance. Though progressives elsewhere put limits on political parties, California went further than any other state. In 1913, the legislature required all county and local offices to be nonpartisan. When combined with the nonpartisan measures of 1911, this meant that only members of the federal Congress, the half-dozen statewide officers, and members of the board of equalization and the state legislature could run for office as party candidates. The 1913 legislature also modified the direct primary law through cross-filing. Under cross-filing, candidates in the primary election could seek the nomination of more than one party, thereby permitting former Republicans who had become Progressives in 1912 to file for the nominations of both parties.

In 1913, the California Federation of Women’s Clubs lobbied for a long list of reforms supported by women’s groups. With assistance from the nationally prominent reformer Florence Kelley, and over the opposition of organized labor, Katherine Philips Edson (see pp. 200–203) persuaded the legislature to adopt a minimum wage for female workers. The legislature also created the Industrial Welfare Commission, and Governor Johnson appointed Philips Edson to the new commission, responsible for implementing the minimum wage for women and developing policies regarding the health, safety, and welfare of women and children. Women’s organizations lobbied hard for a law that made property owners responsible if their buildings were used for brothels. Called the Red Light Abatement law, it was challenged in a referendum. Women then took the lead in organizing voter support in the referendum, and voters backed the new law. It led to the closing of the wide-open houses of prostitution that had, until then, flourished in San Francisco and a few other places.

The 1913 legislature approved several new labor laws. One created the Industrial Accident Commission to promote industrial safety and to administer the 1911 workmen’s compensation act and a new State Compensation Insurance Fund. Another new commission, the Commission of Immigration and Housing, was to address the needs of migrant farm laborers, whose plight had been so vividly demonstrated at Wheatland. To head the agency, Johnson appointed Simon Lubin, a social worker turned Sacramento businessman. The commission created housing and educational programs for migratory farm labor and brought some improvements in sanitation. For these new commissions and other state agencies, Johnson appointed a number of representatives from organized labor—perhaps more than were appointed by any other governor of the progressive era.

The Progressive Tide Recedes, 1914–1920

Late in 1913, Johnson convinced his closest allies to abandon the state Republican Party and form the California Progressive Party. He expected the Progressives to become one of the major parties, and he wanted California to remain in the forefront of progressivism. In 1914, Johnson sought reelection as a Progressive—and received more votes than his Republican and Democratic opponents combined, thus becoming the first governor to win a second term since the 1850s. Republican, Democratic, and Progressive candidates also ran in the state’s first direct election for the U.S. Senate, and the winner was James D. Phelan, the progressive Democrat.

The peculiarities of cross-filing became apparent among members elected to the assembly in 1914: 24 were elected as Republican, 10 as Democrat, seven as Progressive, 10 as Republican-Progressive, seven as Republican-Democrat, seven as Democrat-Progressive, six as Republican-Democrat-Progressive, and the other nine had various combinations of Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Prohibitionist, and Socialist nominations. One assembly member, a Socialist, had all five parties’ nominations! Thus, from the beginning, cross-filing suggested that party labels had little meaning if one person could simultaneously be the candidate of both the Republican and Socialist parties (despite their contradictory platforms) or of both the Democratic and Prohibitionist parties (which took contrary positions on alcohol) or of the Republican, Democratic, Socialist, and Prohibitionist parties!

By 1914, progressivism seemed to be waning in California. The many new laws adopted in 1911 and 1913 addressed nearly all concerns that reformers had voiced before 1910. In 1915, the legislature added little to that list of reforms. The next year, in 1916, Theodore Roosevelt urged his followers to return to the Republicans, and most Progressives followed his lead. Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1916, and his lieutenant governor, William D. Stephens, became governor. Then, in April 1917, the nation went to war, and many Californians turned their attention from reform to mobilizing a war machine. Women continued their political activism, however, and in 1918 four women won seats in the state legislature. In 1919, the legislature enacted significant restrictions on child labor.