“Energize and Promote the Highest and Best Welfare of the Southland”: The Greater Los Angeles Association Weekly Bulletin, 12 May 1924, Part Two

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

With part one of this post largely focusing on the contents of the fourth issue, published on 12 May 1924, of the weekly bulletin of the Greater Los Angeles Association, launched just several weeks prior with the aim of forming an Industrial Underwriting Corporation that would provide $50 million in stock subscribed funding for current and future manufacturing enterprises in the region, we turn to further efforts by the organization, headed by realtor Harry H. Merrick, in the period afterward.

The day following the publication’s release, the Van Nuys News extensive covered a presentation made to that community’s Kiwanis Club by Andrew E. Warmington, president of an insecticide company, who discussed the Association’s plans. He used an interesting metaphor in telling the group, after an introduction in which he “recounted the growth of civilizations in the world’s history where they topped and were engulfed under their own structures [strictures?],” by remarking that, “Los Angeles cannot sustain itself as a jelly fish upon its disintegrated tissue but must forge ahead with creative genius and keep pace with the manifold natural advantages which California possesses over other localities.”

Warmington discussed the decline in agriculture in other states and added that “the adoption of a firm plan of industrial development” in our area would mean that “the lone bump in the highway of progress would be removed.” In addition to talking about the $50 million financing plan, he stated that a felt need was in “securing locations from from 12,000 to 15,000 young men who complete their scholastic training this year and are ready to embark in business careers,” as well to provide employment for half of a quarter million persons coming for tourist, but who “necessarily must look to their own labor for support.”

He ended his talk with the comment that, while the goals of the Association could be achieved by working with a small cadre of financiers, it was believed that “to attain its true objects and aims it be made to embrace the entire community.” After the confab, locals involved in civic organizations met with Warmington to discuss “an intensive membership campaign which is to be conducted this week”—this was discussed in the newsletter with respect to nearly 30 other communities in the region.

In the coming weeks, outreach was reported in several cities and towns. The Los Angeles Times of the 15th cited a local correspondent who wrote that “two hundred of Anaheim’s most progressive citizens held a rousing meeting at the Elks Club yesterday and enthusiastically indorsed the . . . movement to develop the industrial possibilities of Southern California.” Warmington, Merrick’s business partner Robert L. Ruddick, Sidney H. Woodruff of the Hollywoodland tract and two Fullerton men spoke of the merits of the Association’s concept and a local committee was formed to promote local interest.

The next day’s Pasadena Star-News briefly reported that “the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce unanimously indorsed plans of the Greater Los Angeles Association to ‘keep the white spot white,'” using the organization’s motto. Also on the 16th, the Times cited a local correspondent from Monrovia that a dinner at the ‘Leven Oaks Hotel with Warmington and others discussing the Association’s plans. A speaker from Fullerton, apparently the Reverend Walter L. Thornton of the First Christian Church, gave “a brilliant address” in which he “pointed out the great facilities of Southern California for manufacturing and the need to utilize these resources as well as her agricultural resources and charm of climate.” The result of the gathering, it was reported, was support of the concept.

The Times of the 17th remarked that “the White Spot, greater industrial Burbank and general progress” were discussed at a banquet and open forum at Benmar, a development northeast of downtown that included an industrial element, and 300 persons attended. Glendale business figure Oliver O. Clark “talked with intimate knowledge of greater Burbank and painted a picture of the bustling metropolis and its army of industrial workers” to be part of the plan.

Robert E. Moody added that “the Foothill City just had entered upon the most active expansion campaign it had ever known,” while Merrick discussed the aims and expectations of the Association. Mayor James Crawford expressed satisfaction with his city’s level of support and asserted that “when the campaign is finished it will be found that the city had exceeded the quota set for it.”

Within a few days, the Orange County Supervisors voiced agreement with the plans and its resolution declared “that the operation of such an organization . . . will probably produce greater practical, substantial and beneficial results than any other organization ever established” and stood to “secure the greatest and most permanent beneficial results.” Moreover, the supervisors, including Thomas B. Talbert, a director of the Association, opined that the project “will be of great benefit to the harbor possibilities of this county.”

The 24 May number of the Hollywood Citizen-News ran a feature under the heading of “HOLLYWOODLAND IS ‘WHITE SPOT’,” as George R. Hannan, the tract’s sales manager asked readers,

Have you seen the great “white spot” which blazes its cheery message each night on the crests of the Hollywoodland hills? Do you wonder what it is? It is the “white spot” of Hollywoodland, and it represents that in less than one year approximately $2,500,000 in sales of homesites in the hills of Hollywoodland have been made.

Hannan referred to the massive sign above the development and which was called the “biggest electric sign in the world,” but it was also “supplemented by [a] blazing disc that blazons forth [the] claim of business supremacy.” In other words, a smaller sign below the Hollywoodland one directly concerned the Greater Los Angeles Association’s efforts and, while this latter is long gone, the former remains, albeit without the last four letters and is a world-recognized landmark generally thought to have always been promoting the movie industry, rather than a housing development.

Hannan continued that “the great ‘white spot’ campaign . . . is demonstrating that Los Angeles and Southern California are in the midst of the most prosperous era of history, for on every hand has been discovered evidences of unprecedented growth and expansion.” Thousands of new residents were anticipated and upcoming months were to include “the greatest tourist invasion the Southland has ever experienced.”

What this meant, the sales official went on, was that there was the increasing “realization that Southern California is the one place upon the globe to live, and the right to happiness and contentment here is the ownership of real property, which means the purchase of homes and homesites, not only in Los Angeles, but throughout all of Southern California.”

As for manufacturing, climate was obviously critical, but the Association plan was also crucial and it was added that the latter was “the one fundamental principle which was lacking in the balanced development of our progress” and “the drive forward for Southern California will eclipse all past records.” It was certainly a stretch to directly link the Hollywoodland development to the industrial plan that had no nearby component, but Hannan’s boss, Woodruff, was a member of the Association’s directorate and a speaker at community meetings.

Another gimmick of sorts was reported on in the Los Angeles Express of the 28th as the paper informed readers,

The reversed optimists of Los Angeles have been stampeded, turned about-face and lined up once more as boosters through the efforts of the Greater Los Angeles association in stating the facts relative to business conditions here.

One of the helps toward the movement is the constant circulation of the “White Spot” car, which carries on its top, sides and fenders the names of many large business organizations of Los Angeles whose business is good. When it was announced that such a car would be used to further the idea of keeping the white spot white, telephone requests began to come into the office of the Paul G. Hoffman company for space for the firm names.

Hoffman, a spectacularly successful dealer of Studebakers (he later ran the company), was, of course, an Association director. The article noted that, with the demand for advertising on the vehicle, tags were to be added to other parts of the car. Herrick thanked Hoffman for his efforts in assisting the aims of the organization and that such cooperation was sure to result in the success of its intentions. Notably, the vehicle was not a new Studebaker, but a “light 6” older model called the “Edison car” because of its extensive use by the utility company.

Another figure pushing the Association and its work was attorney and banker Orra E. Monnette, president of the Bank of America. He began his article in the Times of the 25th by noting,

Southern California and Los Angeles have had a growth in population, in business and countryside development which has been the astonishment of recent years. The marvelous growth, development and prosperity of this Southland has attracted thousands to settle and engage in business, and to build communities on the Pacific Coast.

For Monette, the region was noted for “happy living” because the growth brought “the best people of all sections of the country and even of the world,” so that, with “a very minimum of ignorance, illiteracy and poverty, the superior intelligence, capacities, and resources of the best families of America have entered into the development of California.” This, however, wasn’t all in the rosy assessment, as he asserted that “a fine spirit of co-operation and generous hospitality, and an abiding faith in the permanency of its growth and prosperity have been the fundamental elements of this section.”

No other booster could have said this better when it came to the use of such words as “permanency” while Monnette also betrayed his class consciousness in decrying the lower orders and praising the highest levels of society. He, though, also acknowledged the key lack amid all of the positivity, this being “more positive attention and support to industrial development and encouragement of manufacturing and commercial ventures founded upon sound principles and stable foundations.”

He added that there were plenty of raw materials, specifically minerals, while a large area of four states and “Old Mexico” were considered “tributary to Los Angeles,” and, in these region were plenty of those minerals, as well as coal, lumber and oil. Some of the most fertile agricultural sections were also nearby and shipping via the Pacific Ocean and the Panama Canal was also highlighted. He noted that “the factory will assist in solving the farm problem” by turning cotton, fiber and wool into clothing and sending food to distant markets.

Allowing for existing successes in the regional business realm and seemingly acknowledging, without stating the name, the work of the influential Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Monnette insisted that, without interfering in that work, the Association was determined “to create an organization of such magnitude and strength, financial support and wide membership that a new impetus of potential energy might be supplied to meet the needs” of industry and manufacturing in the area.

The writer identified four substantial benefits from the Association’s plan, including the locations of the enterprises enhanced or established; the use of capital normally sent eastward through industrial bonds and stocks; the increase in labor; and the construction of dwellings for those in the businesses part of the concept. Monnette commented, though, that “the paramount advantage lies in the stabilize [stabilization] of values.”

Reiterating that the Association’s purpose was essentially to “energize and promote the highest and best welfare of the Southland,” the business and legal leader added that the underwriting firm to be established with that $50 million in capital stock so that it could “finance, assist and develop each and every worthy industrial, commercial and manufacturing enterprise which should be invited to engage in business in this section of the United States.”

To hammer home his points, Monnette concluded with:

There is no reason why all products of trade and industry cannot be manufactured and supplied from this section, with a profit, and more business and better business obtained with a variety of trade efforts which will give a substantial, larger and more influential growth to Southern California. It will also afford a substantial basis for the future prosperity and financial solidity of our cities and State.

Of course, Monnette and other champions of the Association and its concept were speaking on behalf of and to members of their economic class during this tail end of the long-lasting Gilded Age that was largely built on industrial growth and expansion in the late 19th and early 20th century. His positivist stance was hardly unique and the Times, as big a booster as any in the area at the time, noted, in its issue of the 29th, the “Stimulus of Growth.”

The paper remarked that, “the drives being conducted by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Los Angeles Association to further industrial development in this area, described by international investigators as ideal for manufacturing, are shown by the Chamber’s report to be adding stimulus to remarkable growth recorded last year.” It bears remembering that 1923 was the peak year of the latest and greatest boom in the region.

It was recorded that at the end of that year there were some 5,000 manufacturing establishments in metropolitan Los Angeles with products produced totaling some $1.1 billion in value and with a work force of about 250,000 persons. There were 700 new factories and plants in 1923 with an investment of $50 million, and close to 400 new ones in the first third of the current year and not far under $30 million invested. Lastly, the Chamber stated that there were about 250 businesses demonstrating interest in setting up shop in the area.

Yet, while Monnette briefly mentioned labor and housing for workers, something hardly noted in all of the talk about the Association’s ambitions, it is well worth reading a question in the more liberal Los Angeles Record of the last day of June as Earl Kennedy, a resident of the increasingly working class Bunker Hill section of downtown offered a compelling statement about conditions a century ago and now for those not in Monette’s orbit:

I have taken great interest in the progress of the Greater Los Angeles association, and have listened to several talks on the radio, but will you please tell me how a working man is going to make both ends meet with the present high rents[?] It seems absurd to talk factories and send broadcast propaganda of that nature, unless steps are taken to house the working people so that they can live like respectable citizens, and not like a bunch of animals.

With this, though it was thought this would be a two-part post, we have enough material of interest and instruction to carry on with a third part, so join us for that tomorrow.