by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Andrew Boyle Workman (1868-1942), who went by his middle name, was the third generation in his family to hold political office in Los Angeles. His grandfather, Andrew A. Boyle, for whom he was named, was a member of the Common (City) Council in the late 1860s, while his father, William H. Workman served on the Board of Education and the Common Council during that decade and in the following one, following this with a two-year term as mayor from 1886-1888, service on the parks commission during the Nineties ad then three terms as city treasurer from 1901-1907.
Boyle was assistant to his father during the mayoral and treasurer terms, the first beginning when he was just 18 years old, and, in between those stints he worked in business, including with William May Garland, who went on to be a major downtown developer and chair of the committee that planned and carried out the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Boyle also worked as a clerk in The Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, as an insurance agent and in the city engineer’s office. After he and his father helped found the American Savings Bank, Boyle was vice-president when William H. headed the institution and he also owned the Monarch Brick Company for a time.
Boyle’s return to city government came in 1913 when he was appointed to the Public Service Commission, which oversaw utilities in the Angel City, and he remained with the organization for four years. In 1919, amid press comment that he was following in the footsteps of his forebears, Workman ran for and secured a seat on the City Council and was then selected to be its president.
With the two-year term ending, Workman decided to throw his hat in the ring for the mayoral seat, challenging incumbent Meredith P. Snyder, a shoe company owner who was a police commissioner in 1891-1892 and on the City Council from 1894-1896, served a single term as mayor from 1896 to 1898.
He returned as chief executive for a second stint of two terms from 1900-1904, during much of which time William H. was treasurer and when the two were among the rare Democrats holding public office during near-total Republican dominance. Snyder served with Boyle on the Public Service (City Ethics) Commission from 1913 to 1917 and then launched his campaign to a return to the Mayor’s office in 1919, winning the seat as Boyle joined the City Council.
With the 1921 campaign and a primary on 3 May in which the top two vote-getters would face off in a June election, Workman decided to challenge Snyder, while several others jumped in the race, including George E. Cryer, a former assistant federal attorney, chief assistant city attorney and deputy district attorney and who, during this period of 1910-1917 was widely recognized as a crusader against corruption by public officials. Quickly enough, the other contenders quietly dropped out, leaving Cryer, Snyder and Workman as the candidates.
The first reference to the latter in the race was in the 7 March edition of the Los Angeles Express, when it briefly reported that “three candidates for mayor formally announced their intentions to enter the race by taking out petitions today,” including the incumbent and Alfred A. Wright, a public accountant and former deputy city auditor.
The Los Angeles Times of the 13th remarked that “Boyle Workman, who is planning an aggressive campaign for Mayor” intended to base his campaign “on a determined opposition to William R. Hearst’s attempt to run the city government of Los Angeles from his office 3000 miles away in New York.”
The media tycoon’s Los Angeles Examiner launched an effort to get a city ordinance rescinded that allowed merchant John Bullock to build bridge and basement connections across St. Vincent’s Place (his named for the Catholic college, of which Workman was a graduate, along with his cousin, Walter P. Temple, owner of the Homestead, and which is now Loyola Marymount University) to connect his stores facing Broadway and Hill Street and it was publicized as an attempt to curb favorable treatment of the merchant by the City.
Hearst was successful in getting two propositions on the primary election ballot for voters to decide whether to revoke permits given by the city to Bullock in 1917 and 1919, while a third was put forward concerning whether the City was to take $12,000 annually from the merchant and allow the project to proceed—see below for Workman’s explanation of how that issue came to pass.
Critics, however, asserted that this power move by Hearst (generally acknowledged to be the inspiration for Orson Welles’ titular figure in the 1941 classic film, Citizen Kane) was to punish Bullock for a refusal to advertise his store in the Examiner. The Times, obviously a competitor of Hearst, added that “Mr. Workman plans to lay before every voter in the city the full story of Hearst’s efforts to use the city government to punish his enemies.”
The following day’s Express published an initial statement from Workman, in which he began by thanking the more than 44,000 voters who “expressed their confidence in me” and placed him on the Council. Next, he stated that he was a key supporter of the further development of the Port of Los Angeles and would appoint to the harbor commission those who would lead to it “forging ahead as a world port,” while also generating greater revenues for the City.
Workman’s next mention was for a new city charter, something that his father undertook during his term as mayor some 35 years prior, while he also addressed the need to work with the Council and department heads in a dedication “to the end of rendering to the citizens an efficient, harmonious, businesslike administration of the city’s affairs.” Finances were also to be addressed so that monies received by the power and water departments would help lower the taxes paid by residents.
The candidate then commented that “I am proud of Los Angeles, the city of my birth, and jealous of its honor and its reputation for fair dealing. I shall, therefore, continue to oppose the efforts of W.R. Hearst of New York to dictate the policies of the city.” This included the media mogul’s attempts to get city officials “to break faith with the business men . . . and to block public improvements in order that Hearst might punish his enemies.” Lastly, Workman remarked,
It is my ambition to render to the city as mayor the same progressive and constructive service which marked the administration of my father, the late William H. Workman.
When the next day’s edition of the Times, however, presented its account of Workman’s statement, it chose to place the Hearst statement first, as if it was the top priority of the candidate, and this certainly seems more indicative of the importance the paper assigned in its ongoing battle with Hearst and his media empire.
A strange and entertaining take on the early campaign appeared in the Express of the 18th, in which its “cowboy” journalist, known only as “Bill,” portrayed the five candidates in the race at the time as cowpokes under the heading of “Ride ‘Em Cowboy!!!” Snyder was dubbed “The Hard-Riding Kid,” Cryer as “The Nebraska Kid,” Wright as “Pittsburgh,” and department store owner Frank B. Silverwood as his existing nickname as “Dad.” A cartoon put the candidates into vivid caricatures for readers.
As for the Council president, “Bill” wrote,
Boyle Workman, better known as “Buck.” Sure totes a mean rope. He says he learnt ridin’ from his dad . . . “Buck” has been ridin’ the local range fer some time. He’s one of the well known Council Bluff [get it?] outfit. “Buck” figgers he’s been on the range long enough. To tackle this yere hoss Los A. And make her eat outa his hand.
“When I gets through ridin’ this hoss,” says “Buck,” confidential like, “She’ll be so tame that she’ll stand without hitchin’. What she craves is a feed of them there harbor oats. She’s all right—that little hoss. All she needs is somebody that knows how to ride . . . Whut can stick the spurs into her. And make her scratch gravel.
In a brief resume under the heading of “Won Him Friends,” the Times of 5 April noted that Workman polled the most votes for council in 1919, while thinking it germane to observe that “he was the first white child born east of the river in Los Angeles in the first American-built house,” the brick residence of his grandfather that was then occupied by Boyle’s younger brother, William H., Jr., “on Boyle Heights.
The paper added that Workman’s involvement in public service and the Angel City’s development spanned “from the time when it included only a few scattered thousands to its present position today as the metropolis of the Pacific Coast.” After noting his work as assistant to his father and on the Public Service Commission, the article remarked that “he was indorsed [sic] by the Association for Betterment of Public Service when he ran for the City Council two years ago.
Lastly, the Times, again showing its particular interest, observed that,
His determined stand in the matter of keeping faith with Bullock’s, as a matter of fair play and also of maintaining the reputation of the city government for integrity and good faith in the face of bitter personal attacks made on him by W.R. Hearst in the columns of the Los Angeles Examiner and Evening Herald [later merged as the Herald-Examiner], has made thousands of friends for Mr. Workman.
In the next day’s edition of the paper, Workman took a swipe at Snyder, as he announced the opening of campaign headquarters in a suite of rooms on the 6th floor of the Washington Building, which still stands at the southwest corner of Spring and 3rd streets and is now a state building including the Angel City’s offices of the governor.
The candidate told the press, “I am going right after Mayor Snyder in my campaign, for already Hearst’s Examiner and Herald have begun their efforts to try and fool the people to secure votes for Snyder.” After sarcastically noting that he’d read accounts in the latter paper trumpeting the achievements of the incumbent, Workman asserted, “the Mayor cannot point to one single saving to the taxpayers of which he could truthfully say, ‘I, Mayor Snyder, saved the citizens this amount.”
Moreover, the Council president remarked that “the inspired newspaper story” have kudos to the chief executive for cost-cutting that was actually entirely attributable to the executive body, including the “motorizing” of the fire department and adding to the acreage of the sprawling Griffith Park. The candidate concluded, “let the Mayor’s friends, the Hearst newspapers, stick to the truth about the Snyder administration, and the picture will not be a rosy one.”
In its issue of the 10th, the Times provided some extensive coverage of Workman’s platform as part of a series spotlighting the major candidates and the issues he cited were fundamentally the same as expressed in his opening campaign statement, though the paper’s first quote from him was that “I am a native-born Californian and I stand, as Californians have always stood, for personal liberty.”
While he went on to note his support for further harbor development; for improving city administration; for increasing receipts from city-owned utilities; and for overseeing the implementation of a new city charter, essentially in the same language utilized before, Workman added, “I have no apologies to offer for my record in the City Council” as he again professed his determination to protect the municipality’s reputation.
Moreover, he told the press, “I have always been in favor of the city’s receiving payment for the use of the space over St. Vincent’s Place if a legal method could be found for accepting such payment” as he added that the city attorney told the Council in 1919 that there were no grounds for charging Bullock. So, a permit was granted, as in 1917, for the “bridge” joining the two Bullock buildings, but, there was a change in thinking, so that payment could be provided” as the third proposition mentioned above concerned.
Reiterating his determination to combat the undue influence sought by Hearst, the council president proclaimed that, “the city government of Los Angeles is the people’s government of all of its people, and I am for Los Angeles, first, last and always.” Supporters believed that Workman’s showing in the 1919 election meant that he “has an enormous army of admirers” who would choose him as the next mayor “especially in view of the personal attacks made on him in the columns of the Los Angeles Examiner.”
The candidate remarked, “the attacks do not worry me in the slightest. I have lived my entire life in this city, and the people of Los Angeles know me.” In reviewing some of Workman’s history, it was noted that, when his father settled in the area in 1854, “but 100 [of the Angel City’s denizens] were white people,” while the contributions of Andrew Boyle and William H. Workman were praised. After the candidate’s education at St. Vincent and Santa Clara College (now the University of Santa Clara near San Jose), he was “early showing a bent for public life.”
This included, as a member of the council, an avid interest in the power and water departments, of which he “became conversant” while on the Public Service Commission. It was remarked that Workman was “insisting that these departments of the city government be so administered that the original promise made to the citizens that these utilities should pay their own way be kept.”
There was, however, one more notable statement, relating to that “personal liberty” mentioned in the earliest portion of the article, especially as it applied to the candidate’s comment that “I am opposed to Sunday blue laws.” In fact, by mid-April, Workman’s platform was evolving and shifting and we’ll return with part two to pick up the story from there, so check back with us to following the tale.
To me, Boyle Workman’s campaign statement – declaring his commitment to providing Los Angeles citizens with “an efficient and businesslike administration of the city’s affairs” – is truly impressive. It strongly echoes today’s government efficiency movements in Washington, D.C., and it is especially remarkable that Boyle recognized the core principles of sound governance a century ago.
While Boyle’s dedication to public service may be partly attributed to family traits passed down through generations, I believe the hands-on experience he gained by accompanying his father in governmental affairs from the age of 18 played a vital role in shaping his interests and aspirations. As the old Chinese saying goes, “A tiger father has no dog son” (虎父無犬子) – a phrase that captures not only the power of inheritance but also the power of influence.