by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A prior post here featured a 1927 issue of the Municipal League of Los Angeles Bulletin, the organ of a group of watchdogs keeping a close eye on the operations of the Angel City’s government, and we offer a second edition of the publication, this one from 15 March 1924 and acquired along with other items associated with Otto J. Zahn (1872-1965.) Zahn was born in Oakland to Prussian-born parents who soon moved to Los Angeles, where he was involved in mining and real estate. We’ll look to issue a post on him as the items in our collection pertain to his political interests, including service on the Los Angeles City Council from 1925-1927, during which time Boyle Workman, great-nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, was a member and its president.
The newsletter, which sported “Light On Your City’s Affairs” as its motto, contains a good deal of notable content concerning the administration of the rapidly growing metropolis in the middle of the Roaring Twenties. Its first main feature was titled “Fighting Behind the Bodies of Little Children” and which asked the provocative question, “are the private power interests of Los Angeles driven to such a pass that they must resort to fighting the public behind the bodies of our school children?”
A rejoinder was offered by the League’s President David Woodhead after approval for release by its Executive Committee once it learned from the Los Angeles Times of 6 March of “the formation of another dummy organization to fight the power bonds” proposed for voter approval. The organization, the Tax Reduction Alliance, was announced by former Board of Education member Frank O. Bristol, and Woodhead charged that,
Attempting to hide their sinister motives behind the bodies of innocent little school children, the paid agents and willing workers for the private power corporations have opened their attack upon the proposed issue of bonds to provide vitally necessary extensions to the city’s municipal power and light system.
Woodhead further excoriated “this ridiculously misnamed, so-called organization” which stated that “it is organized to support a $34,640,000 school bond issue and to oppose with all its might any bonds proposed for the extension of the development and distribution of electric power and light by the Power Bureau,” meaning the city-owned electrical distribution department.
The League chief executive remarked that Bristol knew full well that, “no matter how necessary these school bonds are,” the tens of millions of dollars involved “will be a direct tax” and that all of the interest and principal payments were to come from the pocketbooks of Angel City taxpayers. Yet, “with that knowledge, he and his associates have deliberately set out to hoodwink the people by naming their so-called organization ‘The Tax Reduction Alliance.'” The entity was slammed as “a cheap political trick” designed solely “to mislead and confuse the people.”
Woodhead further commented that “those opposing the power bonds also know that not one penny of taxes is being levied or collected on account of outstanding municipal power bonds” and that any interest and principal outlays “are made from revenues derived from the sale of electric energy, and not taxes.” Despite these facts, he charged, the Alliance “have the brazen effrontery” to take a position that misinformed the electorate.
It was fully acknowledged that “added school facilities for the education of this city’s children must be provided” and readers were reminded that a 1920 school bond issue of $9.5 million was passed by city voters, followed two years later by another $17 million sought by the Board of Education. Even this latest request of another doubling of funds was such that if it was “found to be be based upon a sound and reasonable estimate of school needs, there is no doubt but that it also will be authorized gladly by the people.”
Woodhead, however, asked, “what has all this to do with the proposed issue of power bonds?” as well as “why is it that this ‘Tax Reduction Alliance’ finds it necessary to cloak its bitter opposition to power bonds behind a trumped up crusade in behalf of school bonds?” After all, he continued, they were different types of financial instruments, as noted above, with respect to revenue generation. While it was certainly the case that incredible growth during the Twenties necessitated more schools and facilities, “sober minded citizens realize further that it has been the supplies of cheap water and power provided by our municipal water and power systems that have made possible the city’s amazing growth.” Without further investment, “the growth and prosperity of Los Angeles will be brought to a sudden and deadly halt” and school improvements would, then, not be needed.
Woodhead concluded his statement by propounding that,
We have had, successively, the power trust’s fight against the municipal power bond issues under the cloak of such “dummy” organizations as “The People’s Economy League,” “The Los Angeles Taxpayers’ Association,” “The Tax Study Club,” the “Tax Investigation and Economy League,” and “The Working People’s Civic League.” These organizations obstructed the way of the municipal power bureau’s betterment of service by all sorts of vicious tricks, subterfuges, intrigues and litigations.
Now comes the “Tax Reduction Alliance” which, I believe, is the power trust under its usual “dummy” campaign disguise. The hand of the power barons will be seen in this newest vehicle of obstruction to the people’s best interests in Los Angeles and the people ought to be informed as to the true nature of the new power trust wolf just beginning its predatory masquerade under the sheep’s guise.”
A sidebar also informed perusers of the pages of the publication that Bristol, “a jolly good fellow” and “uplifter” of the community, was “a friend of the Power Trust.” When he ran for the Board of Education, his manager and an organizer of a Committee of 1,000 that pushed for his election, was David Babcock, partner of a local bond house that also managed “the bond issues of the private power companies of Los Angeles and Southern California.”
That firm was Blyth, Witter and Company of San Francisco, with co-founder Dean Witter leaving to found his own long-time brokerage house. Blyth, Witter and Company, it was stated, “sends out from time to time a few news service to the newspapers for use on their financial pages and this service has spiritedly assailed public ownership” of utilities, while Babcock was said to be “an ardent advocate of private ownership of public utilities under state regulation.
On the last page of the newsletter are two items related to this subject, including one regarding a Citizens’ Committee of 200 gathering at City Hall on 4 March leading to the creation of a committee for public control of natural resources, with Mayor George E. Cryer (Workman, as city council president, served as mayor pro tem in Cryer’s absence) elected chair for the organization formed to promote a trio of bond issues totaling $38 million. The Bulletin asserted that “the meeting was an enthusiastic demonstration for the proposed bond issues to develop the local electric and water distribution systems and an additional water supply on the Colorado river.”
For these issues, $8 million was to be “for water storage facilities in Los Angeles and in Owens Valley, for improvements of the existing water system,” known as the Los Angeles Aqueduct, as well as “for a survey to determine the most feasible route for bringing water into Southern California from the Colorado River,” a project that led to the formation of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The second issue was for a total of $24 million in a three-year period “for expanding and improving the local electrical distribution system,” while the third, for $6 million, was “for the erection of steam electric generation plant to meet immediate needs pending the development of further hydro-electric power.”
Cryer told the assemblage that “the bureau of power and light alone had saved the people more than $20,000,000 in rate reductions in the 14 years of its existence,” beyond surplus earnings from 1909 to 1923 of close to $6.5 million,” and he generally praised “the remarkable success of Los Angeles’ water and power projects.” Among his remarks were that,
Los Angeles has already demonstrated to the world that it is possible for an American municipality to own and operate, efficiently and economically, a great public utility for the benefit of its people.
Citizens of Los Angeles must now determine, once and for all, whether the vast natural resources at their command shall be exploited by privately-owned utility corporations for private gain, or whether they will adhere to the proposition that—
“The natural resources of California are the God-given heritage of the people, and ‘it shall be the policy and purpose of the State to conserve, develop and control the waters of the State for the use and benefit of the people.'”
They may do this by giving their assent to the recommendations of the Board of Public Service Commissioners, or by their dissent, they may place the shackles on the wheels of progress and their own prosperity.
It is for the people to decide.
The publication also hailed a turnabout by the powerful Times, which it said was “apparently the only outstanding opponent of the Swing-Johnson bill,” which was legislation introduced by Representative Phil Swing and Senator Hiram Johnson, both of California, in Congress for federal funding of the Colorado River project and what became the Hoover Dam, though the act was not passed and signed by President Calvin Coolidge until just prior to Christmas 1928. Stating that it was “pleased to state that the owner of the Times has come over on the people’s side of this big question,” the newsletter selected three quotes from the paper.
One of these asserted that “the Times has never printed a word opposing the Boulder dam [as it was originally known] project” and, in fact, “has consistently used its resources in favor of the project to harness the river.” Moreover, it praised the site as the best available because this was the determination of engineers rather than politicians, while it also claimed that a speech by publisher Harry Chandler led the California Development Association to issue a resolution to Congress in support.
On the last day of February, another highly influential organization, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce issued its own resolution in which its board members “approve the plan of having the city of Los Angeles, through its proper officials, commit itself to taking such reasonable share of the power rights at the Boulder Canyon dam for power use within the limits of the city of Los Angeles, including power necessary to pump water for use by the city of Los Angeles,” subject to federal approval of what was “fair and reasonable” for “the needs and necessities of other communities.”
The account ended that “with everybody apparently for it,” even officials from Southern California Edison—three of whom, however, resigned their membership with the League since the last edition of the Bulletin, “we should confidently expect the United States Government to act at once,” though it would be a decade before the Dam project was completed, a dozen years before hydroelectric generators began their work, and not until 1941 when the aqueduct began delivering water managed by Metropolitan.
Now Los Angeles receives, with its current Department of Water and Power formed in 1925, a little more than half its water from the Colorado and California aqueducts (35% is from the Los Angeles Aqueduct and 12% from local groundwater), while only 2% of its electricity comes from the Hoover Dam hydroelectric system, though its uses 15% of all the power generated from it. With accelerating climate change, the future of water and power, however, is a growing concern.
We will return next with part two, examining other contents of this issue of the Municipal League of Los Angeles Bulletin, so be sure to check back in with us for that continuation of this post!