by Paul R. Spitzzeri
We conclude this post minutely examining the pages of the 15 March 1924 issue of the Municipal League of Los Angeles Bulletin with a lengthy piece headed “League’s Reply To Challenge Of The Los Angeles Record” concerning the association’s response to an offer by the more liberal of the Angel City’s press publications concerning “that paper’s strong intimations that graft, extravagance, and incompetency in the building of the coliseum [sic] by the Community Development Association had been charged by us.”
The Coliseum, still a landmark after just over a century and readying for its third Olympic Games as the venue will host the opening ceremonies and track and field events in 2028, was completed in April 1923 at a cost of around $1 million with the 80,000-seat stadium hosting, as its first major event, a centennial exposition commemorating the Monroe Doctrine from early July to early August. The CDA financed the project and then leased the structure to the city and county until the costs were paid on bonds, including from rentals, and the edifice turned over to the public.
Criticism of the way in which the Coliseum was built came from the League in a January 1924 issue of the Bulletin, as reported by the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News of the 26th under the title of “Who Runs Los Angeles Anyway?” It was noted that an August 1920 election on $900,000 in bonds to be issued for the project did not yield the two-thirds majority required, though it actually generated a 65% yes vote among over 57,000 voters. Yet, the League concluded that the narrow defeat meant that “the people apparently did not want a stadium.”
Despite the defeat, amid talk of resubmitting the bond issue in the November general election, the League declared that “the Community Development association decreed that they should have one and proceeded to line up the city council,” which included Boyle Workman, grand-nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, “and the board of supervisors in favor of appropriating the necessary funds out of the people’s taxes.” Moreover, it was asserted that “it was accomplished so quietly that the public did not know what was being done.”
The agreement called for $950,000 in eight installments, with $100,000 due six months after construction initiated, $124,000 a month after completion and declining amounts from $136,000 to $106,000 annually for a half-dozen years. Banks advanced monies at prevailing interest rates and were repaid by the city and county, while the CDA would have the privilege of controlling use of the Coliseum for half of each month for a decade “for exploiting Los Angeles.” It was charged that, while an accounting was due six months after completion, that is, October 1923, “we have been unable to find any record of the same.”
What the League did locate, however, was record of a 9 April 1923 agreement by which the city and county rescinded the split use agreement and gave the CDA total control of the venue’s operations. The association railed that, while the Angel City was in a “vigorous manhood,” having the Progressive victories of the initiative, referendum and recall and “wresting the city from the old Southern Pacific [Railroad] domination, and all of the other achievements (the Los Angeles Aqueduct and Port of Los Angeles being two preeminent examples) in recent years, it asked “does it not seem a little presumptuous for a small group of men to assume that our city has to be ‘coddled and sucked’ like an infant in arms in this matter of a stadium[?]”
Continuing to vent its opprobium, the League decried the public charge of $3 for attending events and it thundered that “a stadium is not desirable at the price of slavery” adding that “a free well informed people does not really need anything that it cannot get for itself.” Not quite a month later, in its 21 February edition, the Record briefly addressed League concerns about the venue and other matters in a Bulletin piece headed “The Secret Domination of the Press,” in which it was averred that the Coliseum was “slipped over” on residents by “trickery and secrecy” and that the media were guilty of “feeding the people diluted facts through a glass dropper.” This led the paper to declare,
Exactly. There is the problem, plainly stated. It is no longer a question of whether there is a newspaper conspiracy and whether the Community Development Association is an outcome of that conspiracy. The conspiracy is now taken for granted and the conspirators are given credit for enough conspiring to get something up their sleeves. The only question is, what is the mysterious object hidden there?
Two days later, with a large headline of “TRUTH The Coliseum—Steal or Boon? What Are Facts?”, the Record asked a serious of provocative questions about the necessity, benefit, value with attached strings, and others concerning the venue, including “was it foisted upon the people, by subterfuge, by a band of private citizens to gratify their own ambitions or serve their own interests after the voters had plainly announced,” again with almost two-thirds voting yes, “they did not want it?” and “have private citizens euchered [tricked] the city and county into the position of having to pay for the Coliseum, and in the meanwhile stolen the management of the structure, so that we have an instance of the public financing private enterprise?”
Stating that it had “profound respect” for the League, the Record quoted from the Bulletin that the Coliseum “was not wanted by the people” and that the CDA with help from the “secret domination of the press” got the city and county to agree to $50,000 more than the bond issue amount.” The paper reviewed the history of the Association, formed in October 1919 as the California Fiestas Association, which then quickly reoriented into the organization, incorporated in June 1920, that planned the venue, with former United States Senator Frank P. Flint (who hailed from a town, North Reading, Massachusetts, adjacent to the longtime home of the Temple families and was, among many activities, developer of Flintridge, now part of La Cañada—Flintridge), credited with the earliest incarnation.
The Record, however, found that there were no grounds for the League’s accusations of secrecy as it asserted that the venue agreement, including the financing aspect, was publicly known before the bond issue vote, while it also reminded readers the passage was only a few hundred votes shy of the very difficult to meet threshold of a two-thirds majority, with the areas registering the most “No” votes on a percentage basis being in the remotest areas in the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro. A second vote for an auditorium (this also fell barely short) was also on the ballot and this confused voters who apparently thought they were voting on a preference for one of the two. Lastly, it was noted that architect John Parkinson completed the plans on a fee of 3.5% instead of a more typical 6 or 7%.
In its edition of the 25th, the paper completed its analysis of the League’s charges, specifically that the Coliseum project was rammed through without proper oversight; that seating were not sufficient; that it lacked aesthetic quality; and that it was not built in a financially responsible manner. The Record noted that Parkinson’s plans were submitted to the Allied Architects Association of Los Angeles and the Municipal Art Commission, with approval given before a lease agreement was ratified and Allied was quoted as opining that getting 75,000 seats in the venue for some $800,000 was reasonable and that a “wholly permanent” version would cost roughly twice the amount. CDA officials said that making the entire seating arrangement permanent would be done at a cost of up to $300,000, but even that would fall short of the $1.6 million Allied thought was likely.
As to the beauty of the Coliseum, the Art Commission report stated that, if the venue was built, it would be “a most desirable addition and betterment to the civic progress of Los Angeles; one that is very badly needed, and will be of great value to the future growth and fame of the city.” It was added that “the design is simple and strong, with characteristics that make it fit into the general scheme of architectural development in Southern California.”
Concerning construction costs, work began in November 1921 and, when bids were solicited, the $800,000 was set by the CDA as the upper limit, but the lowest bid, from Edwards, Wildey and Dixon, was more than $30,000 north of that amount. It was reported that the Association met with contractors and, “after the nature of the enterprise had been thoroughly explained to them they lowered their bid, in a spirit of civic cooperation, to $772,000 . . . [and] still leave a margin of $28,000 to cover the architect’s cost-fee.” Not only this, most bids were from $900,000 to above a million dollars and the Association “cooperated with [the contractor] to secure price cuts from material men.”
Noting that the Coliseum was finished on time and on budget after fourteen months, the Record added that work through the Los Angeles Clearing House Association led to banks accepting the CDA’s notes for loans made for the project with the prominent Title Insurance and Trust Company (TICOR) as trustee and handing all the transactions pertaining to payment of interest and principal charges on those notes, based on the several years’ timeframe noted above. As with the contractor, it was highlighted that the banks, even though money was tight during a national recession, agreed, “in order to aid the civic enterprise,” to cut the interest rate by a point to 6%. According to Price-Waterhouse & Co,, which reviewed the financing, the end of repayment in May 1929 would yield a balance of almost $31,000 “as refund to the two governments,” meaning the city and county.
Concluding that the League was “off on the wrong foot here,” the Record ended its analysis by summarizing that the Coliseum, desired by a strong majority of voters, being the world’s largest such venue, and built economically, “was not slipped over in any secrecy” and that “no private citizens have profited,” but, rather, “have given valuable time and made financial sacrifices to the project,” nor had the city and county “lost control over the Coliseum management.” In fact, the paper ended, “the Coliseum is not in any way a steal, but is a great boon and in part a gift to the community.”
The next day, the Record ran a sidebar reiterated that money was saved, not stolen, in the project and stated that “the Municipal League should check this analysis” and, if found correct, “withdraw its careless charges” and “reckless statements,” adding that the paper “has stood with [the League] in a good many worthwhile battles on worthwhile things.” When it came to the Coliseum, however, the citizens’ group “has either gone off half cocked and spread baseless rumors” or the Record was “entirely mistaken.” Asserting that the League “stands convicted of slap-dash accusations” and “cannot be depended upon to know what it is talking about,” the paper offered to otherwise “print the League’s proof” to the contrary.
The paper’s issue of the 3rd included a brief piece in which League Secretary Anthony Pratt (a native of England, who served in this capacity for a quarter century and who was a devotee of Henry George’s economic theories, such as the single tax proposed in his famous 1879 work, Progress and Poverty) wrote of “our willingness and readiness to reply to your editorial broadside” as long as the response was published “in full as made.” The answer was “Fire When Ready!” though the League was implored to “stick to the facts and to the point.”
The answer from the League, as reprinted in the Bulletin, began with thanks expressed to the Record “for its fairness” as “that kind of journalism is really worth while” because it “invites the other side to use its columns to present any divergent view.” Yet, it claimed, he paper “didges the entire point at issue” because the League “did not decry cooperative effort” as it called for such by the press so long as it kept its “very important function of keeping the people thoroughly informed” including “the threshing out of differences of opinions” and “arriving at conclusions absolutely in the open” but “not as has been done, behind closed doors and with the people kept in the dark.
As to the disputed points, the League asserted that it “made no charge of graft, extravagance or corruption” against the CDA, but that the assertions made in January 1924 still stood. The first, concerning the Association’s maneuver, after the failed bond issue vote, to secure the commitment of the city and county for the $950,000 project, was such that “we should have made it even graver,” noting that a test suit was filed before the election to see if arrangement that did come to pass would legally stand. The fact that the vote fell short was, the argument continued, still important, as, if a similar effort was to have been made after a failed $35 million power bond vote in June 1923. What should have taken place was “an open campaign of enlightenment and argument” by the five main newspapers (Times, Express, Herald, Examiner and Record) for a resubmitted bond issue, which was considered, as noted above.
On the matter of the operational change from a split use to the CDA having complete control of Coliseum operations, the League merely reprinted the language from the original agreement as proof of the solidity of its second and third charges, including a revised contract statement that the city and county could use the venue “from time to time.” It also repeated hearsay from two municipal officials that the CDA manager sated that “the fifteen day clause was never intended to mean anything.” With respect to the lack of financial reporting, little was said other than that no public disclosure was made and the League “requested the Mayor [George E. Cryer] to demand such an accounting.”
As to the matter of “a secret domination of the press,” the rejoinder was that, even if there was no graft involved and the construction of the venue was completed with economy and efficiency,
we believe that for the public press to organization a combination to “put over” anything, however good in itself it may seem to them, is fraught with the greatest peril to our free institutions. No elective public official . . . can be expected to withstand the pressure of their combined demands and remain a free, outspoken, independent representative of the people as a whole.
Decrying what it said was a commonplace method of one paper approving a project only because another was opposed in “a childish and harmful procedure,” the League brought attention to the importance of having duly elected officials, not associations and citizens’ commissions tainting the process, as it viewed it. Allowing for a cheaper and faster process for building public projects like the Coliseum, it was asserted that there was “something fine and of incalculable value lost in the people permitting it to be done for them rather than in doing it for themselves.”
It was the press’ responsibility and “a mission to inform and lead the people toward higher levels of responsibility and achievement,” so the League called for the papers to “unite only in giving the people all the facts and both sides of vital questions,” so that,
Then if the people do not do the right, or the best thing, they have only themselves to blame and will pay for this lesson in democracy like we have to pay for all our schooling. Let us have done with the secret domination of the press.
In its answer in its issue of the 5th, the Record expressed that it was “glad the Municipal League did NOT mean what the Record understood it to mean” in the January Bulletin in what, if not a charge, was “STRONGLY TO INTIMATE” the claims of “graft, extravagance and incompetency.” What was basically left, the paper felt, was that the League’s reply “seems to be that the public press should not cooperate,” citing that statement about media combining to “put over” a project like the Coliseum in the way it was done. The gist was that each was entitled to its opinions and the paper would not accept any advice from the League any more than it would from the CDA, the Crime Commission, the Chamber of Commerce or the American Eugenics Association.
The Record also wondered why it would be a threat to democracy if it cooperated with other papers or the League on such issues as a mayoral candidate, a new civic center, or a union station for railroads (these last two were major issues at the time, leading in 1928 to the City Hall finished on the former Temple Block site and Union Station completed fifteen years later.) It called allegations of conspiracies by the press as “bugaboos [that] are puerile” and suggested that the League “had better disband, for it is surely more evil for its larger membership [of] 400-500 . . . to be enmeshed in the same sort of a culpable co-operation.”
The League did not disband, of course, and existed for several decades and the Record continued operation for about another decade, still largely left of its competitors, despite the defection of Reuben W. Borough to the Bulletin because of the concerns he expressed and covered earlier in this post. The Coliseum debate is certainly an interesting one, though such controversies are now shrouded in the mists of time, even if some of the issues can certainly resonate in various ways at almost any time, including our own.
I deeply resonate with the series of posts about the Municipal League of Los Angeles and their work a century ago, as I am currently engaged in a vigorous fight against our city over a housing development. Now that the structures have been built, it has become clear that the project completely disregards the concerns of existing residents while overly protecting the developer’s interests.
I have already made several presentations at City Council meetings and plan to take many more actions. The more I read these posts, the more I see how so-called public servants, once elected and in power, often succumb to graft – corruption, collusion, and coercion inevitably follow.