by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we continue with our look at the Los Angeles campaign for contenders for the office of mayor for the 3 May 1921 primary election, focusing on City Council President Boyle Workman’s efforts, we return with more examples of support for his run for chief executive. In its issue of 25 April, the Los Angeles Times, which seemed to be a booster for Workman, published extensive remarks from “society and club woman” Maude Deverell Foster, who’d recently returned home from an eight-month trip through the United States and declared that “the eyes of the entire country are on Los Angeles, speculatively watching developments in our political field.”
Foster told the paper that, in Chicago, the Angel City was known, with a wink, as “chemically pure” and that Windy City denizens (of course, with a high degree of purity among them!) purported asked such questions as, “What is the trouble out there?” and “Are there not any men big enough in Los Angeles to clean house thoroughly, and keep it clean?” As she visited Cleveland and asked a business figure why he did not invest in Los Angeles, she apparently was told “We are waiting until we can feel assured that we will receive fair treatment there.”
As far as the close eye being kept on the metropolis, Foster remarked that “Eastern capital is pulling at the leash” and it was imperative that “the thing we need to do first of all [is] to convince it that we are anxious to see it come in” and this meant that it was vital that voters “elect a man to the office of Mayor in whom easterners as well as ourselves can have utter confidence.” To that point, she commented,
I am glad to find that Boyle Workman is a candidate for that office. He comes well equipped to handle the affairs of our city. He is, without a doubt, the man for whom we have been searching, the man of vision, the just, businesslike and courageous individual, who will clean our house and keep it clean, stop the sly winks of our critics and offer the newcomers the thing that is the right of every living human, a square deal.
The next day’s edition of the paper cited two more testimonials of support for Workman, including from Ella P. True, said to be “prominent in musical and literary circles,” that is, among the women’s clubs, and who wrote that she was consistently asked why she backed the candidate. True’s reply was that Workman “is a man of absolute integrity, unimpeachable honesty, and has the courage of his convictions” and that “he cannot be bought—either by money or influence.”
With his extensive business and political experience, moreover, it was clear, opined True, that Workman had the citizens’ best interests at heart for the current situation and for those to come and she concluded that “he is capable and efficient and stands for what is highest and best in municipal government,” exhorting that “we need such men in public office.”
St. Cyr Hookstratten, the secretary/treasurer of the L.J. Christopher Company, well-known confectioners, wrote of his endorsement, saying that Workman’s election was in the best interests of the Angel City’s residents. He, too, stressed the political and professional qualifications of the candidate and offered that “his vision is invaluable for the position,” while his experience in the last half decade of growth in Los Angeles “gives him the inside viewpoint” just as his representation of residents on the Council “gives him the viewpoint of the public as well.”
The Los Angeles Express, also of the 26th, quoted from a new statement from the candidate, in which he said that what he would tell his constituents once he took the oath as mayor was “keep your grocery store, your moving picture theater, your delicatessen shop or your ball park open all Sunday if you wish.”
This was because, having identified the threat of Sunday “blue” laws, which would shut down business activity on the Sabbath, Workman felt that “it is the duty of every man to keep from trampling on the toes of the other fellow unless he is actually committing a criminal offense.” The key was that “these great United States were formed with the idea of personal freedom as the basic principle.”
The following day’s issue of the paper cited Workman’s campaign manager, attorney Jesse R. Shafer, as opining that the prior edition’s straw poll “is highly satisfactory,” noting that “a greater part of it took place before Mr. Workman’s active campaign was inaugurated.” Given this, Shafer concluded, “the people of Los Angeles have recognized the courage, integrity and executive ability of Mr. Workman and will register this recognition by electing him mayor.”
The blanketing of the city with 300,000 flyers that promoted “Mr. Workman’s decisive stand for personal freedom” was said by the Times, also of the 27th, to have generated “great enthusiasm by citizens” and “a host of voters rallying to his support.” As volunteers went door-to-door, as well as to street corners, they were purportedly told by many residents, “tell Boyle Workman I’m for him” or “if this is Boyle Workman’s stand I’m going to vote for him.” A West Adams denizen was said to have sighed with relief and exclaimed, “at last we discover a man who can command the respect of the most particular voter,” an interesting statement about the general electorate.
Strangely, as the Times added that there was a veritable “avalanche of calls from people” extending their support, this was said to be in “appreciation of Mr. Workman’s flat-footed statements” against blue laws, the proposed “bone-dry” ordinance regarding alcoholic beverages that was to be voted on at the 7 June general election, “and radical legislation of any kind,” while he was also “in favor of restoring under the law the use of light wines and beer.” The term “flat-footed” often is used to mean awkward, clumsy or uninspired action or words, but the paper obviously meant that Workman’s feet were on the ground in a sensible or practical manner.
Anticipating criticism for his stances, the candidate commented, in terms that are notable to us now,
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not advocate a “wide-open” city, and I intend, when elected Mayor of Los Angeles, to see that the laws are obeyed. But I will not stand idle and permit any laws to be foisted upon us that would make it a criminal offense for a housewife to sweep off her porch on Sundays.
Personal freedom is something we all desire and to which we are all entitled. We are advancing—not retrograding, as some would have us believe—and we can not advance dragging with us an iron ball of restricting ideas.
[After discussing the basic freedoms propounded by the founding fathers] Slowly our forefathers abandoned the ideas which they found to be obnoxious and limiting, and advanced with an ever-widening thought. Today there has arisen among us an element that would revive long-dead laws and force us to adopt them. Hysterically they besiege us and I propose to meet their attack with the realization in mind that the Statue of Liberty is something more than a lighthouse—that it is the representation of a great and noble idea—personal freedom.
When it came to Prohibition, the candidate remarked that “we are facing an extremely humorous situation” because it was a common practice for persons to secure “with the aid of a physician’s prescription light wines and beer for medicinal purposes.” This led Workman, with “a twinkle of amusement” in his eyes, to prognosticate “that there will soon be a wave of sickness sweep over this city and men will be hiding their desires under a cloak of hypocrisy” and he concluded with a call that “let’s permit men to be honest with themselves and their associates.”
In its edition of the 28th, the Express reported that “Dr. Alymer [Harold Decimas Aylmer] Harding, organizer and head of the American Independence League, has announced his support for Boyle Workman for mayor.” Harding cited the candidate’s opposition to Sunday blue laws as critical because such legislation “will stop the development of California and insult our liberty.”
How important this endorsement was, however, is a question as Harding was an obscure figure, a native of England who resided in several places (Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, Stockton) as well as Los Angeles and was variously, or simultaneously, a lecturer, artist, electrical engineer, poet, spiritualist, minister (perhaps his “doctor” moniker related to some theological degree), and draftsman, and it is not known if his organization had much standing or longevity to it.
On the same day, the Times published a statement from Workman attacking incumbent Mayor Meredith P. Snyder, who held the position early in the century when Workman’s father, William H., was city treasurer, for asserting that there was a “paving trust” controlling the sidewalk and street work in the city and that Snyder could not get much accomplish in his current term because of an “obdurate” City Council, headed by his challenger.
With regard to the first point, Workman asserted that Snyder knew better than anyone that these assertions were “bunk,” with the first easily refuted by the fact that the mayor wrote the Council that a cement base be used on all city pavement projects and that this was after a federal grand jury indicted cement producers who then pled guilty for forming a trust. As for that obstinacy of Workman and his colleagues, he wrote, “I challenge [Snyder] to point out a single instance where the Council refused to approve his appointments or refused to ratify his action in removing any commissioner or head of any department.
The Express of the 29th printed a Workman campaign statement that decided to depart temporarily from the major issues and focus instead on his pioneer pedigree in the Angel City in informing potential voters that,
The name of Workman is a household word in Los Angeles. Boyle Workman’s grandfather, Andrew A. Boyle, came to Los Angeles in 1858, when the population of the town at that time was 3,000 people. But he had been preceded four years by William H. Workman, father of the present candidate for mayor. He was one of the 500 resident Americans in the community in 1854.
Andrew A. Boyle was a member of the city council in 1867 [in fact, he served in 1867-1868 and 1870]. William H. Workman was also in the city council [for six terms between 1872 and 1880] and later was elected mayor [for two terms in 1887 and 1888, though nothing was said about his three terms as treasurer from 1900-1906]. Boyle Workman has been traveling along similar lines.
That day’s Hollywood Citizen offered a notable critique of the Times and its assumed role in ridding the Angel City of vice through its efforts to defeat Snyder’s reelection campaign because of his stand against allowing the Bullock’s department store to receive approval from the Council [earlier in this post, this was discussed, including Workman’s steadfast stance for giving this permission].
The paper, however, scored the Times for “lacking in sincerity when it shouts against vice at the same time that it favors the candidacy for Mayor of Boyle Workman who openly appeals for the support of those interested in a wide-open town. The Citizen also took the Express to task for having “done a good job of wallowing in the mud” for Bullock’s and Arthur Letts, the owner of The Broadway who gave John G. Bullock his start with his own store in 1907, in “a grab of public property” with the “bridge” linking Bullock’s over St. Vincent’s Place. Moreover, the Los Angeles Examiner was praised for exposing the scheme, even though its opponents averred that its publisher, media mogul William Randolph Hearst, did this to punish Bullock’s for not advertising in his paper.
On the last day of the month, the Express informed readers that “supporters of Boyle Workman were wearing a cheerful smile today, being confident of Mr. Workman’s success” due to “his wide popularity.” A new statement repeated the household name status of the family moniker, adding that “the Workman family has been identified with the progress of Los Angeles for more than half a century.”
While his support of the further development of the Port of Los Angeles, given more prominence in the early days of his campaign, was reiterated and his “personal liberty” philosophy concerning Sunday blue laws was also mentioned again, the focus turned more toward Prohibition and, obviously aware of much of the mainstream feelings of Angel City voters, it was clarified that,
This does not mean that he favors the return of the saloons, [and] the unlimited selling of whisky and other hard liquors. His attitude is that if beer and light wines are allowed to be dispensed, bootlegging [a significant problem from the onset of Prohibition at the start of 1920] will cease, and it will then be possible to enforce the Volstead act [the enabling legislation for enforcement of the federal law].
The paper also issued its “Recommendations for the Primary” in which it critiqued the candidates for mayor. Snyder, it adjudged, “has given Los Angeles honest and capable administration,” while “Mr. Cryer has rendered the city many services of value” demonstrating “a superior talent for public affairs” while also being “clean, high-minded and of demonstrated efficiency.”
Concerning the City Council president, the Express opined that,
Boyle Workman’s career in the council has proved him to be a practical, level-headed, courageous man, who has the stuff in him to stand against whatever odds for what he thinks is right. His whole life has been identified constructively with Los Angeles and he comes of stock conspicuous in the building of the city.
Given that the paper spent more ink on Workman, less so on Cryer and only those few words on Snyder, it seemed that its views were fairly clear, but it did conclude that, “Voting for any one of the three, voters can’t go wrong,” which seemed to indicate that there was no fundamental difference between any of the trio.
Also on the 30th, the Spanish-language paper, La Prensa, published a campaign statement and advertisement, perhaps the only such push by the candidate to local Latinos, this latter asserting that “A Vote for Boyle Workman for Mayor Is a Vote for Individual Liberty,” while the former advised potential voters that,
Declaring that former citizens of Europe and their descendants have been robbed of their privileges by the use of light wines and beers in this country, Mr. Boyle Workman presents himself with all frankness in favor of Individual Liberty, which has earned him thousands of votes. At Workman’s campaign headquarters, the candidate issued the following statement:
“The enactment of idiotic laws has been a monomania with a certain class of people who want to force us to adopt the most restrictive ideas of the Dark Ages. They will not admit that we have common sense or the ability to attend to our own business in a clean and sane manner, but want to force us to accept their judgment and narrow thoughts as our own.”
With that statement, which has resonance for our own times just over a century later, we’ll pause here and return with part four tomorrow carrying the coverage of the campaign into its final few days. Be sure to join us then!
While we believe Prohibition era’s laws were overly harsh and lacking humanity. we also find ourselves criticizing today’s society for being too permissive – allowing homelessness to occupy city streets and opioids to claim the lives of young people. I believe finding the right balance between excessive control and excessive freedom remains a continuous pursuit, requiring constant learning and adjustment.