by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As Boyle Workman, president of the Los Angeles City Council since 1919, launched his campaign in mid-March 1921 to be mayor in competition against incumbent Meredith P. Snyder and challenger George E. Cryer, he began by offering a general platform that included boosting further development of the Port of Los Angeles, effecting a new city charter, improving the efficiency of municipal administration and improving revenue from the sale of power and water.
Within about a month and, as the primary election loomed on 3 May (the highlighted object from the Homestead’s holdings for this post is a sample ballot), however, the strategy, coordinated by Workman’s campaign manager Jesse R. Shafer, an attorney, shifted significantly, almost certainly because the broad approach he’d initially taken did not stake out enough electoral territory to distinguish himself from Cryer and Snyder.
The Los Angeles Record of 12 April reported that, “Boyle Workman, candidate for mayor, today announced that he is opposed to all Sunday blue laws [which closed businesses on the Christian holy day and hearkened back to Puritan laws in the colonial period] and, if elected chief executive of the city, will do all in his power to prevent their enactment.” Moreover, the account went on, “he also declared himself opposed to the prohibition [of alcoholic beverage manufacturing, sale and public possession] enforcement ordinance that will be presented to the voters at the June 7 election,” and the candidate was quoted as uttering,
The people of California have spoken on many occasions against drastic prohibition laws. I stand to enforce the laws, but I do not wish to see the city of Los Angeles place herself in a position that should congress [sic] amend the Volstead act [the national enabling legislation for enforcement, beginning at the start of 1920, of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution], we could not enjoy the same privileges as will other sections of the state and country.
The council chief added that he wanted to avoid laws and ordinances that would “make us ridiculous in the eyes of the world” and, with an eye to tourism, which was a major part of the regional economy, “we want the people to come to our beautiful city and we want them to come and stay with us.” But, if proscriptions were too onerous, he concluded, there would be a situation in which there would be a threat to how “visitors enjoy the freedom that every man, woman and child are entitled to” including how they “worship their God in their way and not in the way some one may choose for them.”
The Los Angeles Express of the same day reported that “declaring that the saloon has gone never to return, and that it is well that it has, Boyle Workman . . . issued a statement in which he proposes to defend the ‘personal liberties of the people of Los Angeles.” In this account, the focus was almost entirely on the prohibition issue, though it was noted that he was against any “blue” or “Sunday” laws or ordinances “that will handicap the growth of Los Angeles and make its people a laughing stock.”
When it came to Prohibition, Workman stated,
I am thoroughly convinced that if you allow beer and wine to be dispensed you will do away with the bootlegger [this already becoming the largest problem to emerge from enforcement of the national law].
It is fair to say that the man who has his cellar full of liquor can enjoy himself because he has the means to purchase it and deny the laboring man the same privilege because he cannot afford it? Give the man who labor[s] the privilege of buying his beer and wine and he will be content.
Clearly, the appeal to the working man was an attempt to secure a voting bloc that Workman, Shafer and others on the campaign team felt separated them from the other candidates. Among those involved in the effort were campaign chair Roy C. Seeley, a realtor, and James G. Scarborough, Jr., who was married to Workman’s daughter, Eleanor. Those listed as campaign supporters included such notables as former United States Senator Robert N. Bulla, Dr. Norman Bridge, Arthur Braly, Richard J. Dillon, Jackson Graves, Homer Laughlin, Jr., E. Avery McCarthy, Henry O’Melveny, Frank R. Putnam, Joseph F. Sartori and Robert M. Widney, whose daughter Frances was Workman’s wife.
Frances Widney Workman was not mentioned a great deal during the campaign, but the Express of the 21st did briefly observe that “among the women specially interested,” it bearing remembering that it was a decade before that California voters established that women could vote in local, county and state elections and the 19th Amendment, enacted just the prior year, extended the franchise to national elections, “in political affairs at this time, aside from the clubwomen candidates for official position, is Mrs. Boyle Workman, who is assisting her husband actively.”
The account continued that Frances Workman “is to be found at Mr. Workman’s campaign headquarters,” situated in the still-surviving Washington Building at the southwest corner of Spring and 3rd streets and where Shafer kept his law office, “every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to meet the womenfolk specially.” It concluded that “Mrs. Workman is a campaigner de luxe, who is proving a most valuable member of the [campaign] committee.”
Several letters to the editor of newspapers written to affirm their support for the candidate are of interest in looking at Workman’s campaign. In the Times of the 18th, Frank E. Leeper leapt forward “to express to you my heartiest approval of the noble, firm and manly stand taken by Boyle Workman . . . shown by his declaration of his principles . . . wherein he refers to a question of vital importance and one affecting the liberty and rights of a free people. and which is of paramount significance in building up our great city.”
Leeper enthused that Workman “is deserving of the respect and support of every liberty-loving citizen of our community” while adding that the native son of the Golden State “has proven himself a ‘real man.'” Moreover, the writer proclaimed, “God knows our country is in dire need of men of his type” especially as the June ballot measure, if passed, “would mean a bone-dry Los Angeles, when even a home brew would not be permitted” and “the sanctity of the home would certainly cease to exist” due to illicit search and seizure powers granted to authorities.
The next day’s edition of the paper printed another letter, by John C. Merril, who opined that “to an innocent bystander in the world of municipal politics,” this seemingly calculated to reach those not normally inclined to participate in low-turnout primary elections, “a statement of Boyle Workman . . . is, to say the least, refreshing.” Merril propounded that, for the first time in years, a candidate for the Angel City’s highest office “had the courage to come out and face an issue squarely,” and the writer declared,
Mr. Workman has unfurled the banner of personal liberty and aligned himself against the forces of parochial bigotry, who have become, in late years, so strong a factor in Southern California elections. Mr. Workman’s stand deserves the commendation and support of every clear thinking, decent minded voter in Los Angeles.
The Times of the 21st published a letter from Charles D. Hunt, who mentioned Merril and offered that “such wholesome fearlessness as displayed by Mr. Boyle Workman is so little in evidence in these days of political hypocrisy that one wonders whether Mr. Workman will be able to stand up against the inevitable onslaught of the Anti-Saloon League, W.C.T.U. [Women’s Christian Temperance Union], and other such fanatical organizations” which led the charge to secure Prohibition and which, the writer supposed, were financially supported by the likes of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, along with Coca-Cola and makers of grape juice.
Hunt acknowledged that “the country has indeed received a blessing in the abolishment of the saloon and that despicable and disreputable element” that infested them, but was concerned about “violating the sanctity of the Constitution.” As a veteran of the late World War, the writer also deplored the alleged deal made by the American Legion in supporting Prohibition in order to secure bonus payments from the government for those who fought in the conflict.
The correspondent also addressed the possible link of Prohibition to “the present crime wave,” while adding that “the prohibitionists lied when they told us that prohibition was going to solve the [crime] problem.” Hunt concluded that, while he was throwing his support to Workman, he was concerned that the candidate was “altogether too outspoken and too honest to hold any chance of success,” especially given the predominance of the “Pomona species among us,” this referring to that city on the county’s eastern edge, passing a blue law “passed by such a small majority.”
The edition of the Times from the 24th noted that “Workman Gets Heavy Backing” as it declared that “prominent business and professional men . . . as well as leaders in education and social work have indorsed Boyle Workman for Mayor in letters received” at campaign headquarters. Some of these were from women and it was added that “from all sections of Los Angeles are coming emphatic testimonials to the fact that men and women from every walk of life have confidence in the ability and integrity of Boyle Workman and in his fitness to take charge of the affairs of Los Angeles as Mayor and conduct those affairs efficiently and in a businesslike manner.”
As noted in the first part of this post, the paper was clearly supporting the council president’s candidacy and, in this piece, it cited several supporters, such as Guaranty Trust and Savings Bank Vice-President W.W. Gibbs, Jr., who offered a personal testament that Workman was “a splendid, high type of gentleman” and “a clear-thinking, courageous man.” Theodore Roberts, who was in the film business, approved of the candidate’s “clear statement of policy” and he colorfully continued,
In these days of fads and fancies, where the weirdest theory of government finds its flock of supporters following like sheep to the ballotings, it behooves us all to watch our step lest we be led away from the safe and sane policies that made our State.
A new plague is upon us—or is it a recrudescence to the dark ages of [Puritan] Massachusetts or Connecticut?—that manifests itself in the promulgation of fool laws . . . no constitution is safe—neither State nor national.
We pray for a Moses to lead us out of this wilderness of tangled laws and the man who will come out flat-footed for common-sense and lead us to believe again that the Statue of Liberty was meant for something more than a lighthouse, will be welcomed with loud acclaim.
As far as I can I will influence those about me in your favor.
More circumspect in his support was Milo W. Bekins, the head of the Bekins Moving and Storage Company, who wrote Workman, “I was glad to see your name listed as a condidate [sic] for Mayor . . . [and] that you stood by your convictions in the Bullock matter [see part one of this post].” Mrs. Charles F. Gray, an educational and social figure in the city, offered her “unqualified support” and vote, asserting “his knowledge of affairs and of the needs of our City cannot be questioned, nor can his sincerity of purpose be doubted.”
Elizabeth Kenney, a rare woman lawyer in the Angel City, remarked that,
The Workman name stands for high honor in Los Angeles and Boyle Workman has most successfully upheld that standing. Experience, which began for him as a boy and which has continued on through the years until today, qualifies him for the position as Mayor of Los Angeles. There are great problems to face and Mr. Workman is equipped with the knowledge and ability to handle the work.
In the “Politics” column of the paper, penned by “The Watchman,” the unnamed “Sentry on His Beat,” it was observed that there was a week-and-a-half until the primary election and “the campaign is reaching its heated stage.” It was added that individuals and groups in Los Angeles which were opposed to the Sunday blue laws and which involved a movement that was anticipated to ramp up over the course of the following year, “are solidly behind Boyle Workman for Mayor.”
With respect to that issue, the candidate submitted a lengthy statement, which is well worth seeing in its entirety:
I am absolutely against Sunday blue law legislation and as Mayor shall oppose such measures being placed among the ordinances of the city. We must crush the spirit of Puritanism that is endangering our social fabric. It is threatening to destroy the moving-picture business, our baseball games, our football matches, our bathing beaches, our Sunday newspapers, Sunday automobiling, excursion steamers, in fact every means of recreation on Sunday. The greatest evil of all is that the blue law radicals want to capture the whole of our government, local and national. Under the blue laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Puritans administered religion to unwilling subjects by means of the whipping post, the ducking stool, the pillory, fines, prisons and the gibbet. Every voter in Los Angeles should remember this, because the people at the back of the movement are well financed and this is going to come to pass again, unless we are wide awake to meet every emergency.
We will return soon with a part three as the “Workman for Mayor” campaign headed into its final days before the primary election, so check back in with us for that!
Since both Prohibition and the Volstead Act were already in full effect by 1920, I wonder what legal authority Workman could have had – even if elected Mayor of Los Angeles – to override federal law. At most, he might quietly relax enforcement by turning a blind eye to illegal activities and reducing support for law enforcement efforts – as an old Chinese saying goes, “Open one eye and close the other” (睜一隻眼閉一隻眼).
Given how many citizens supported his campaign in 1921 and resonated with his declarations, this kind of dual faceted behavior – as what another Chinese proverb describes as “outwardly obeying on Yang side but inwardly resisting on Yin side” (陽奉陰違) – must have been a common practice of administration in many cities during that era.