by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Occupying a good deal of ink in the Los Angeles press in the first week of December 1874, as the Angel City’s first boom, small as it was compared to later ones, ascended to its peak, was the municipal election of the 8th, most importantly the mayoral contest. The Los Angeles Herald, which was just over a year old and the edition of the 6th of which is the featured object from the Museum’s collection for this post, was owned by The Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing Company, the treasurer of which was F.P.F. Temple, while its president was Prudent Beaudry.
A native of St. Anne des Plaines or the adjacent Mascouche, Quebec, Canada, both near Montreal, Beaudry, born in 1816 according to a baptismal record and 1819 in his local obituary (other sources vary quite widely) was the sixth of fourteen children born to Prudent Beaudry and Marie-Anne Bohemier and his older brother, Jean-Louis served as mayor of Montreal for ten years over three terms between 1862 and 1885.
When he died, it was reported that he was successful in business in Canada and traveled on several occasions in Europe before pulling up stakes and migrating to Gold Rush California, operating stores in San Francisco and Marysville, north of Sacramento, though a fire in the latter destroyed his enterprise.
Heading south, he settled in Los Angeles in 1852 (his Beaudry Block on Calle de los Negros near Aliso Street, first made of adobe and, in 1857, replaced with a seven-store brick complex, was established not long afterward and housed his store, as well as the first Spanish-language newspaper in town, El Clamor Público, which was published from 1855 to 1859) and was a merchant for fifteen years.
With the onset of this first sustained growth period, Beaudry expended larger sums on buying up property in the hills west of downtown where Bunker Hill and Bellevue Terrace were laid out. The Los Angeles Times of 30 May 1893 commented that “it is to his faith and expenditure of money that was due the early settlement of this section.”
The paper further remarked that Beaudry “was always in the advance upon questions of municipal improvement” with his involvement in water delivery specifically featured, including the development of a pumping system to his hillside subdivisions, while “in opening and grading streets he was indefatigable.” The westward extension of Temple Street, for example, was cited as largely due to his initiative.
Moreover, the Times highlighted that fact that “in 1875, he, together with Hon. B[enjamin]D. Wilson and F.P.F. Temple, organized a corporation and laid out the present colonies of Pasadena and Alhambra,” though it was actually more the latter that was subdivided as part of the Lake Vineyard Land and Water Company, of which Temple was treasurer.
The obituary further stated, “owing to the financial crisis that occurred in 1876, and to the failure of Mr. Temple, litigation ensued, and, as a result, Mr. Beaudry was seriously crippled financially.” Yet, Beaudry’s economic status brightened during the Boom of the 1880s (in which William H. Workman was the Angel City’s mayor) and he and younger brother Victor, who joined him in the Fifties, developed the Temple Street Railway, a cable streetcar line.
The obituary concluded with praise of the late capitalist:
Only those who have lived in Los Angeles many years can form an idea of how great a debt the city owes to this unobtrusive, quietly—energetic man.
His wealth was always kept occupied in developing new enterprises, and thus was diffused among the poorer people. His philanthropy was of that best kind—he furnished work whereby a man could earn his livelihood.
The Herald of 31 March also paid tribute to its former part-owner, observing that “for forty years he had impressed his earnest and energetic character upon every movement designed to develop and build up the interests of this city and county.” His foresight in acquiring those large holdings in town was lauded and he was lionized for “undertaking stupendous works of street improvement, including the “precipitous gulch” that was Temple Street.
Noting that Beaudry “possessed in a very remarkable degree all the elements of a great city builder,” the paper cited friends who felt he would have been a multi-millionaire had he chosen to live in San Francisco instead, while adding that “Los Angeles would have reached the stage of advanced development a decade sooner than she did had she had more Beaudrys.” Unmarried and childless, the deceased was said to have “lived greatly within himself” with few close, though devoted, friends, but also to have left a deep imprint on the city he “so largely helped to build up.”
In late 1874, after more than two decades in Los Angeles and after three years representing the second ward on the Common (City) Council, Beaudry mounted his campaign for the chief executive position. Naturally, the Herald promoted his candidacy, while the rival Express vociferously opposed it. In its editorial page, the former, under the heading of “A Trick of the Ring,” this referring to a cabal in town that supported Beaudry’s opponent, Francisco Sabichi,” exhorted readers,
Citizens, look well to your tickets [ballots]. Scan them closely. We have been shown a ticket, of which we are told thousands are printed, on which the name of “P. Peaudry” appears for Mayor. is intended to deceive the friends of Mr. BEAUDRY and cause them to lose their vote by using a ballot that will be thrown out. The ring managers must be reduced to the lowest extremes when they will stoop to trick so contemptible as this.
Separately, there was a warning that the opposition People’s Ticket engaged in other underhanded measures for council seats, as well as that for city marshal. Other content on the page concerned what the paper called a libelous assertion about Beaudry’s involvement in land dealings as well as its lambasting of the Express for criticism of the fact that the candidate was, for the first year of its existence, president of the private Los Angeles Water Company, supplier of all domestic water in town, including to his subdivisions.
Other sections attacked the rival paper for its purported attacks on Beaudry, including one where the editor of the Express was said to have “offered a direct insult to our German born citizens by announcing it as his opinion that the Chinese tongue was more useful in this country than the German language,” while apparently asking German denizens of the Angel City to vote for its preferred candidate, George O. Tiffany, who just happened to be the third mayoral office seeker.
A correspondent identified only as “Forty-Nine” assailed “the shameless course of these newspapers,” denoted the “watered press” in apparent reference to Beaudry’s recent conflicts in getting water to his developments, for their “falsehoods and libels” that, it was claimed, actually would secure him hundreds of votes. The writer fulminated that,
If the Water Company distributed water as freely as they do ink through these common sewers of vituperation, there would be no lack of the former beverage, at reasonable rates. Their biggest squirt would not carry the volume.
Blasting the water company as a monopoly, “Forty-Nine” inquired “is it not infamous that a man like Beaudry, who has been a useful, active citizen” and generally free from aspersions against him “should now be made the object of unmeasured abuse” by presumed mouthpieces for what was deemed “a soulless corporation.”
The correspondent further raged that “it is a singular feature in the history of public affairs” that the company “can by the use of money and hired presses, control municipal elections” while also employing iron-fisted tactics like denying the rights of a landowner to dig wells and distribute water.” Moreover, the firm, which held a 30-year after which the city took control of water distribution and maintains that right to this day, was accused of exorbitant prices for supplying water to customers, while also constantly seeking “a new grant of lots and lands” from the Council.
In its “Final Suggestion” to readers prior to the next day’s election, the Herald asserted that its only motivation in an unduly lengthy mayoral campaign was “the cause of the people,” while accusing “the ring” of putting the Express owner on the ballot to take votes from Beaudry because it could not otherwise do so through Sabichi. Moreover, it stated that Tiffany admitted that he could not win the election, while the Herald believed that, should he win, he would side with the water company and against “the people.”
It also reminded voters that, when Tiffany was foreman of a recent grand jury, he “went out of his line of duty to visit and whitewash the reservoir of the company” to buttress the water company’s libel suit filed against the Herald regarding the supposed cleanliness, or lack thereof, of what was stored there and then delivered to customers. Sabichi was opposed as the original “ring” candidate, but the concern was more about this shadowy group and its deep ties to the water company.
Among the charges leveled against the firm and the ring was that the company would divert water distributed for gardens and vineyards in the western portion of the city and send it to the east side of the river. This seemed an indictment on banker Isaias W. Hellman, who would soon (spring 1875) be, with William H. Workman and John Lazzarovich, founder of the new tract of Boyle Heights, so the implication was that there was something of a water war between Beaudry and Hellman, along with their allies (F.P.F. Temple, for example, was Hellman’s former banking partner, but their Hellman, Temple and Company institution, with William Workman as silent partner, ended early in 1871, so there may have been some bad lingering feeling there). The editorial continued,
The HERALD advocates the election of Mr. BEAUDRY because it believes him to be the only candidate who will stand between the people and the aggressions of those who care little how great they may oppress the many so the few are enriched. Of his integrity as a man and worth as a citizen, we are assured by the people of Los Angeles, with whom he has lived and been intimately associates for the past twenty-two years . . . He is an active, enterprising, liberal, live citizen. He is so closely identified with Los Angeles that her interests are his . . . He is building houses, digging streets, irrigating land and furnishing homes for the many, but he is doing it all with his own money. He is known as a man of the strictest honesty in his dealings, and he is doing more to encourage people and capital to locate in Los Angeles than all the special franchise corporations with which Los Angeles is cursed. He is a progressive man, and, we believe, the man of all the candidates now running for Mayor whom the people should elect.
On the local news page, the paper expressed the view that the following day “will bring the grand culmination of the political excitement, and we believe all will experience a sense of relief when it is past.” Moreover, stated the Herald, “we do not anticipate any disorderly demonstrations” as it expected that “the peace and good order of the city will remain unruffled.”
As important to this, it asserted that, because of state law, “the saloons will all be closed . . . or at least they will not sell intoxicating drinks” and the paper beseeched readers to vote early “and vote for the best men—against all rings and monopolies and for the good of the city and the community.”
There was a fourth candidate, Louis J. Sacriste, but, when the votes were tallied, the final return showing Beaudry outpolling all three of his opponents combined, garnering 816 votes and easily winning in all three wards, while Sabichi received 337 votes, Tiffany getting 213 and Sacriste taking 176. Beaudry went on to win a second one-year term, serving through early December 1876 when the financial disaster settled into a long economic malaise as part of the national “Long Depression” covering most of the decade.
Among the twelve council members, four from each ward, Elijah H. Workman finished third in the Third, behind Lewis Wolfskill and Charles Huber, with an interesting (and, evidently, planned) rotation with his brother, William H. The city treasurer position when to James J. Mellus, who deposited municipal funds at the Temple and Workman bank under the promise of the earning of a remarkably high 7% interest—the $23,000 so placed ended up being lost in the bank’s failure.
Being a Sunday, the day was rather light on other news, which likely partially explains the intense focus on the election. In the “Local Brevities” column, it was noted that surveyor George Hansen was to work on the Centinela project, of which Temple was president and which involved subdivision of lands near modern Culver City, Inglewood and adjoining areas and for which an auction was scheduled for January 1875.
Governor Romualdo Pacheco, who was lieutenant governor from 1871, succeeded to the position when his predecessor Newton Booth resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate and served ten months, was a recent visitor to the Angel City, but “was attacked with hemmorhage [sic] of the lungs” on Thanksgiving when on a steamer heading back north, though he was reported to be improving.
A notice of the silver wedding anniversary of E.J.C. Kewen, a noted and intense orator, attorney and former state legislator who owned and resided at El Molino Viejo, the Mission San Gabriel mill building in modern San Marino, was also reported. The company of actor Florence Kent, who leased the Merced Theatre next to the Pico House hotel off the Plaza and whose career in Utah, Nevada and other cities in California soon included, in May 1875, her arrest for skipping out on a hotel bill in San Luis Obispo, was also lauded for its “fine performance” and “fun on hand without stint.”
George B. Davis, proprietor of the Alden Fruit Drying Works, which was financially supported by F.P.F. Temple and located in East Los Angeles, now Lincoln Heights, was said to be in need of “all the good apples and pears to be had in the market” for his establishment. The examining board for new teachers in the county met and concluded to hand out first, second and third level certificates to eight instructors.
A strange little item was the report that the body of J.M. Smalley was embalmed by a Doctor Lyford and the Herald, prior to the funeral service at St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church at the southwest corner of Temple and New High streets, “saw the corpse as it lay in an elegant casket at the undertaker’s establishment,” perhaps that of Victor Ponet, and the paper remarked that “the features were quite natural—almost lifelike.”
Lastly, there was reference to a report in the San Francisco Examiner regarding the election and the campaign for city marshal. The commentary was that:
Among the aspirants for the Marshalship of Los Angeles is Emeil [Emil] Harris, one of Vasquez’s captors. Mr. Harris came to California twenty-six years ago. His election will be gratifying to his many friends in San Francisco, Stockton and Marysville, in all of which he formerly resided and is well known and well liked. He has every requisite qualification for the position which he seeks.
Harris resided in the Angel City for five years to date and, after operating a saloon, became a constable, including service during the horrific Chinese Massacre of 24 October 1871. As noted in the quote, he played a key role in the capture of the notorious bandido Tiburcio Vásquez in spring 1874 as part a posse formed by Sheriff William R. Rowland. Though Harris barely lost the election to Juan José Carrillo, he went on to a notable career as a prior post here summarized.
This edition of the Herald, notable as it is for its laser focus on the morrow’s election, helps us to understand the oft-contentious campaigning for local offices, specifically the mayor’s race, although the 1873 and 1875 county elections also proved to be filled with bitter invective and sharp-tongued critiques, particularly when F.P.F. Temple sought the treasurer position. Finally, itt is certainly interesting to compare the media coverage then to now