Interview of John Anson Ford

1.1. CHAPTER I: FAMILY BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION

FORD

We have in the Ford family quite an old family Bible in which was written in a somewhat uncertain hand, on the inside of the front cover the name "John Ford, Alderman of Coventry;" in fading letters, also on the cover, is the date 1809. Apparently this John Ford was an immediate ancestor of my Grandfather Ford. The latter was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1819.We have been in England on various occasions in recent years, and once I went to Coventry and found there once had been a John Ford in Coventry. Apparently he'd been in politics like myself. He left a memorial — an Elizabethan type of institution called Ford Hospital. The hospital is today an old people's home, a very picturesque place, with what we would call a little central patio, or courtyard, with the rooms of the two-story structure looking down into the enclosure, a place for relaxation and rest for the inmates.Grandfather Ford was an interesting man who has a very precious place in the memory of us boys because of his gentleness and his colorful background as a missionary in India. I've learned in more recent years that he was left an orphan boy in Boston at the age of seven or eight, his father and mother having died at about the same time. He lived with a thrifty, prosperous New England farmer who was very kind to him in many ways, but who never adopted him. His name was Sawtelle; they pronounced it Sá-tell. From some of his brief references I gather that his boyhood was rather somber and devoid of childhood pleasures.After graduating from Harvard College in 1842 and Andover Seminary, Grandfather went with his bride to India on a sailing vessel. During our boyhood we treasured many souvenirs from India and heard many times of the four-months' stormy voyage to that faraway land, and the six years that Grandfather Ford and Grandmother Ford spent in Madurai, India; a portion of the time they spent in a village called Passamuli.Grandmother's health in India was not good, so they returned to the United States and Grandfather continued in the ministry as a congregational minister. His services in India were under the auspices of the American Board of Foreign Missions, that being one of the earliest, perhaps the earliest, of the mission boards of the various denominations. It might be said that he was of the second wave of missionaries who went from America to foreign lands, the initial movement having been led by the Judsons and the Scudders.Grandmother died before I was born and Grandfather spent nearly half of his time thereafter in our household, a very devout, helpful, patient member of the family. There was a strong attachment between Grandfather and my mother, as well as an affectionate relationship between Father and Grandfather. The rest of the time he spent with my two uncles on the Ford side. One was John J. Sawtelle Ford of Chicago, publisher of one of the first trade magazines produced in America, known as the Picture and Art Trade. He was very successful financially. He and his wife spent their winters in Florida, the forerunners of the present flood tide of tourists. Grandfather often went with them. The rest of the year he spent with my other uncle, my father's brother, George Ford, who lived in various places in Indian territory and other parts of the Southwest as a merchant.My father was a Presbyterian minister, having graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts and Union Theological Seminary in New York. He preached in various rural Presbyterian churches in Illinois and Wisconsin for forty years. Following his ministry he retired and with my mother came to live in the house next door to us at 1552 North Mariposa, Hollywood. Our home was at 1556 North Mariposa in 1921.

CUNNINGHAM

Do you remember when your father came into the Northwest area from New England?

FORD

Well, let me see, I was born in 1883, September 29. Father was then pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Waukegan, Illinois. Previous to that, my older brother George, now a medical physician in Detroit, was born on the same day of the month, September 29, l879; father was then a pastor in the rural parish of Oxford, Wisconsin. So to answer your question, Father must have come west in the early '70's after completing his theological course in Union Seminary in New York City. He often told of going down in the Bowery in New York City, to preach to the "poor and forgotten." It was quite an intriguing reminiscence.Father's parishes were not large. From Waukegan he moved to Elwood, Illinois, but my memory doesn't run back that far; and from there we went to a very interesting and prosperous country parish in northern Illinois called the Du Page Presbyterian Church. I have visited it two or three times since, and it's fine farming country. The original edifice later was incorporated into a large structure, built in recent years. The church stood plain and unadorned in the flat landscape of that prosperous Scotch-American community. From there come my first recollections connected with farm life. Attached to the manse, which was next door to the Presbyterian Church, were three or four acres of fertile ground which Father tilled using our old horse. Prince. In a part of the acreage we had pasturage for our Jersey cow.I remember the birth of that cow's calf, and I also remember father undertaking to operate a cultivator with Prince as the horse pulling the cultivator. Father was at the cultivator handles and because we didn't have long enough reins, he put George on Prince to drive, while Father operated the cultivator. For some reason or other. Prince became frightened, and started galloping at top speed with Father hanging onto the cultivator as best he could and brother George, who was perhaps seven or eight, frantically dinging to the neck of the horse. Father was afraid George would fall off and be mutilated by the cultivator, fortunately, that didn't take place and tragedy was averted when Prince halted at the fence. But the wild ride became quite a legend in the family.If I were to pick out in retrospect, some of the impressions that life in Du Page contributed, I now realize that mother was very sensitive to human interests and human needs, very sympathetic, and much beloved. Father was first of all dedicated to untrammeled and undiluted dispensation of the Gospel. However, he had certain interests which are unusual for a minister. For example, he gathered together the younger women in the parish and organized them into a painting class — oil painting. They got easels from somewhere and painted still life (fruit and flowers) on canvas in the churchyard. He loved to paint, although he had never had any lessons. Most enduring of his works of art, if they could be called that, is my portrait, 22 x 34 inches, which now hangs on the wall of our living room. I was three or four at the time. However, he didn't undertake to make a front view of the face, but depicted just a one-quarter view showing me blowing soap bubbles. He didn't have canvas at that particular time, so he took burlap, made a frame, and stretched it on the frame, and as you see, it gave a rather distinctive texture to the background; then he took it to town, the nearest town being Naperville, Illinois, and had it framed. It has become something of an heirloom.Father also organized the boys as a sort of precursor of the Boy Scouts. He took us to the river and taught us to swim in Du Page River; and he also taught us how to make and fly kites. I have a vivid recollection of maybe eight, ten, boys with many colored kites, flying them in the pasture adjacent to the manse. I remember my first Christmas time in that old white church with its slender white spire. Going into the church, apparently a day or two before Christmas, all of the ladies of the parish were busy making wreaths and festoons of evergreen and cedar boughs that had been brought to decorate the rather severe interior of the sanctuary.

CUNNINGHAM

What about your mother's side of the family?

FORD

My mother's father and mother were, when I first knew of them, farmers in the central part of Wisconsin, not far from the city of Portage, while Grandfather and Grandmother Holmes were living on the farm, the little community of Endeavor was established. Grandfather Almon Holmes came from north central New York State. There must have been a well-established Holmes family there, because I've often heard them speak of Holmesville, New York. He and his young wife settled on this sandy farm near Portage, Wisconsin. To me it doesn't look like very prosperous or fertile soil for farming, but my older cousin, Mrs. Una Winter, notes in her reminiscences that he "built the farm up quite successfully and had an adequate competence from it". He was also, in the earlier years, a schoolteacher for the local school later on. He was a school trustee.Grandmother Holmes has written very delightful reminiscences which she dictated to one of her granddaughters, Mrs. Una Winter, and which are a part of our family records. She was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, October 11, 1820. At about age four, her parents moved to Lower Canada (now Quebec). In her happy girlhood she enjoyed both rural and city life. There was certainly a rugged and sharp contrast for her between her childhood culture and refinement and her married life on the prairies of Wisconsin in the 1840' s, but she took it all in stride with a persistent optimism. In one of the poems she wrote, she tells of the gems she found among the cultured people of the community in Wisconsin.My father moved from rural Du Page Presbyterian Church to Merrill, Wisconsin in the middle 1890' s. He had two parishes during my boyhood in that state; the first one (Merrill) was pretty well up in the northern part of the state, a lumbering town. Our house was near the outskirts of the town on the edge of an over-cut forest, the second growth being perhaps twenty or thirty years old.In that forest of pines and poplar I learned to enjoy wintergreen berries, a small red berry with a very delightful flavor, still used to flavor ice cream, gum, etc. Did you ever taste it? Trailing arbutus grew among the moss and humus of the forest. It was always a very delightful experience, to discover fragrant trailing arbutus.There was a rather steep embankment not far from our home. In the side of that embankment I dug out a cave in which we created a small fireplace. We installed an old piece of stovepipe, which provided a vent for the fireplace. We would retire to this secluded retreat like little cave men and escape all the unpleasantness of modern civilization!Let me backtrack a moment. Shortly before we left Du Page, I recall that late one night brother George and I were hastened from our beds and hustled off to the Emery's neighboring farmhouse. It was all something of a mystery to me until the next day when I was informed that a baby brother had arrived at the parsonage — James Holmes Ford, my second and younger brother, February 15, 1891.In Merrill, Wisconsin, I was the "baby-sitter"; actually, I suppose, my older brother George and I together, were. My baby brother was endowed with golden hair and curls, and part of my duties was to put him in the large-wheeled baby carriage, and by means of a rope, I would push her, down the wooden sidewalk (no cement walks then) for a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet, and then with the rope, draw him back, thus saving myself the task of walking back and forth.Another feature of life in Merrill, Wisconsin, was going down to the Wisconsin river where were logs in great quantities, fascinated, we would watch the lumbermen snag the logs into various pools, sorting them out according to their markings. Often a lumberman would get on a log and spin it with great skill. On occasion we boys copied the lumbermen's feat! How it was we didn't drown I'm not sure, but evidently we didn't. We boys owe a special debt to our parents for the amount of time and thought they gave that we might be introduced to good literature and other things of culture. Mother spent many hours helping me memorize numerous poems. such as Whittier's "Snow Bound," Grey's "Elegy," Longfellow's "Evangeline," and many Bible verses. Father undertook to give me pointers in public speaking and gesturing. During the long winter evenings we heard our parents and Grandfather Ford read to each other David Copperfield and several other Dickens novels. And occasionally, there was some of Shakespeare, father doing the reading, regular household chores and family prayers were a part of our daily boyhood routine.Whenever we changed parishes in those earlier boyhood years, I always dreaded going to the new school. Merrill, Wisconsin, was no exception. Children are very conservative about changing friends and changing environment, and it was a painful process for me. In the course of getting acquainted with these boys, I recall one fist fight in which I engaged. I was never much of a fighter, but this boy, who was about my size (I'd like to say he was a little larger, but I'm not quite sure), engaged in something of a quarrel on a subject I don't recall. By common agreement we retired to the abandoned basement in a sheltered place. There we settled this big argument and somehow I don't recall any bloody noses or shrieks of pain on either side, but I believe that I won the battle. It was one of the few fistic encounters in my entire boyhood career.In due time, Father moved to a second Wisconsin parish in the town of Greenwood. There, as I was growing older, he introduced me still further to public speaking, with his guidance, I prepared a so-called oration on "Dwight L. Moody," one of father's favorites, if he wasn't mine. Crudely I built this biographical oration up to a climax so that it ended with something about the name of Dwight L. Moody in letters of gold. Father was always helping us toys to improve our minds.In 1893 occurred the greatest adventure of my boyhood. Our entire family, together with the family of my uncle George from the Southwest, were invited to visit the World's Fair in Chicago as guests of my uncle, John Sawtelle Ford (and wife), who was the publisher of the Picture and Park Trade in Chicago. He had a handsome home at what was then 5616 Washington Street in the Hyde Park section (street numbers and street names have been changed since). All of us gathered in this lovely house. It must have been quite a burden for my Aunt Karia, who had no children. We were required to use the back stairs as our shoes would mark the fine oak front stairs. A particular incident that I recall was my father's taking my older brother George to the World's Fair and trying to get him interested in the beautiful statuary, in the artistic lagoons, etc. But none of these, not even the imposing architecture, which we now know became a model for American design for many years, appealed to my brother George. Father used to tell with much laughter, years after, that while he was pointing out the beauties of the fair's statuary and the architecture he turned to discover that George was admiring the moving sidewalk and tugging at Father's hand in that direction.Let us return now to the experiences in Greenwood, Wisconsin. We learned, as we had in Merrill, to endure the ruggedness of hard winters. For example, we had no indoor toilets, we learned, too, that periods of depression occurred in our parish, and, while my parents never intimated it to us boys (there were three of us now). There must have been a serious financial crisis in the family. But it never occurred to us that we were poor. But it is evident there was a shortage of funds, because one day a large wooden packing box arrived from the city of warren, Pennsylvania which was full of clothing suitable for three boys of our various ages, as well as for a grown man and woman. I now realize that it was what was known as a "missionary box" sent by the more prosperous parish in Warren, Pennsylvania, to this parish, which was, no doubt, listed as a frontier outpost in Wisconsin.It must have been considerable financial assistance to father and mother in that serious situation, for the entire parish was "hard up." We boys often wished that we could have another happy surprise like that, but that's the only occasion where a missionary box ever came to our household.George moved up into high school days in Greenwood. The high school was a part of the rambling, gaunt two-story building on the edge of town, in which the grades as well as the high school studies were taught. In eighth grade, my teacher was a Miss Demming, who was quite charming; I must have been a real cross to her, because on at least one occasion I recall that her admonitions to mend my ways were followed by her breaking into tears.Later on, as principal of the school, a man named B.C. Dodge, came to Greenwood, and a young doctor moved into the community by the name of W.R. Kennedy. These two men were much admired by us three Ford boys. Mr. Dodge, by a chain of circumstances that I won't stop to enumerate now, wrote me a very complimentary and kindly letter about three years ago from his home in the East; it was a genuine surprise to hear from him.Doctor Kennedy married a cousin of mine, Edna Mason, who had come to visit us in Greenwood. I should perhaps have said that, just as my father had two brothers, John Sawtelle and George, so my mother had two sisters, Florence and Grace. Florence married a minister by the name of Phillip H. Kason, and Edna Mason, their only daughter was the one who married this Doctor Kennedy. Thus our early years were tied in closely with Greenwood. Later the Kennedys moved to Milwaukee, where Doctor Kennedy engaged in a very lucrative medical practice. From Greenwood, our family moved to Warren, Illinois. There I took the equivalent of high school training in Warren Academy. This was one of the private schools scattered through the Middlewest which sprang up because of inadequate high school facilities. It was non-denominational, but it had a Christian background. While wholly independent, it was a "feeder" to Beloit College.The Academy occupied a single three-story building not far from our home. It was a small school but because of a fine faculty maintained a good academic tradition. The Academy was an important influence in the life of brother George and myself. We had debating societies, concerts and other student affairs which were quite stimulating to the seventy-five or a hundred students.Many of the teachers came from Beloit. There was one notable principal by the name of McClusky who had made a record as a track athlete at Beloit, and who later became a missionary in India. Father having been born in India, a real affinity sprang up between them. Another teacher was Miss Grace Chamberlain. Miss Chamberlain graduated in the first coeducational class at Beloit College. From 1847 until 1898, Beloit College had been a men's school. To me she was a very beautiful and charming woman. She and my mother became very great friends. In recent years it's been my privilege at Beloit gatherings to see her and her husband, Judge Charles Rose, also a graduate of Beloit, who became one of Wisconsin's leading Jurists.So it was in Warren, Illinois, that I got a taste of academic life, academic activities, academic standards. Father had talked a great deal about his own alma mater, Williams College, Massachusetts, and its president, Mark Hopkins, who had made an indelible impression on his life, but there was no possibility of ever going back to Williams College for us boys because of the financial burden involved.During their period of engagement Mother had spent a year in Auburndale, Massachusetts, at a girls' finishing school, Auburndale Seminary. The principal, much admired by Mother, was C.C. Bragden. By a strange coincidence, some fifty years later I came across C.C. Bragden as a neighbor of a friend of mine in Pasadena. Mother was still living and I brought Mother and Mr. Bragden together in a memorable reunion.In Warren, Illinois, I had an unusual introduction to civic and political matters. Father interested himself very little in politics unless there was a moral issue involved, and the moral issue of that day was getting rid of the saloons. Father did one thing which we the family felt was quite out of character for him. He engaged in a series of secret meetings with selected community leaders. They secretly organized, and finally publicly announced the creation of a branch of the Anti-Saloon League. This clandestine effort eventually emerged in a long drawn-out, bitter community fight, with the intensities and personal antipathies that arise in a small community where sentiment is sharply divided on an issue such as local option. Illinois was one of the first states to espouse the anti-saloon cause, and Warren was one of those towns which fought back and forth to get rid of the liquor businesses which certainly were not a social asset to the community.Interestingly enough, among the various girls I kept company with was a saloon-keeper's daughter. I never knew her father and I never patronized his institution, but Leo, as she was called (an odd name for a girl) exerted a real charm over me, and we were close school friends for several months. Subsequently, my attentions were diverted to another girl, Josephine, who was in the class ahead of me in the academy. We had many delightful hours together. There was only one fly in the ointment: namely, she had previously given considerable attention to one of her own classmates, and he was not reconciled to the change of her attention to me. Eventually she married her classmate. Years later, I called on Josephine, who was then a widow. Of course, she had changed greatly and I'm sorry to say, her married life had not been very happy.One of my great adventures of those years was a trip to Europe. Let me tell you of one incident of this happy "summer", in which we produced advertising copy for Grape Nuts, the breakfast food.Yes, it was a novel advertising stunt, conceived by Father, and it had an unanticipated outcome, as I will narrate presently. But the notable thing was that Father and I were having a trip abroad together, with bicycles as our mode of transportation. England and Scotland were our chief objectives but we did digress to Paris, just to get a taste of "the continent."It all happened in the summer of 1901, my last vacation before college; I graduated from Warren Academy in 1902, then clerked in a store for one year. Thoughtful financial aid from Father's brother, my Uncle John, helped to make this happy adventure possible. The long train ride from Chicago, to Toronto, to Montreal was a novel and stimulating prelude to my first ocean voyage — via a Canadian-Pacific "Empress of Ireland" down the majestic St. Lawrence. On being assigned to a tiny cabin in the tourist (rear) section of the vessel, my curiosity soon enabled me to get a general idea of the complex plan of the largest ship I had ever seen.A few hours' stop at Quebec was a revelation to us both. Here was a foreign land indeed, with street language and street signs in French, including a quaint cut-off bit of thoroughfare where I learned the meaning of the French phrase cul-de-sac. The battlemented architecture of the massive Hotel Frontenac, dominating the surrounding city from its elevated site, gave us a foretaste of much imposing architecture we were to see when we uncrated our bicycles at Liverpool and started off in a strange land (carefully keeping to the left side of the road).A modicum of seasickness was followed by two or three days of fair and comfortable sailing. Father did not tell me whether or not he recalled much about his voyage in early boyhood from India to America but I am sure our ocean trip was as much a novelty for him as for me. Just being in a vast ocean out of sight of land for days was a peculiar and memorable experience.Later, when at last we reached the top of a pass we paused to take a well-earned rest, Father seating himself on a boulder wrapped in his waterproof cape. Reaching into his compact luggage bundle he produced a package of Grape Nuts, which he began to eat out of hand. The situation seemed to me so novel that I proceeded to take a picture, with the well-known breakfast-food package prominently displayed in the foreground.When we got home and had my amateur film shots developed we all were much pleased with the mist-shrouded view of Father seated on a Trossach boulder, eating Grape Nuts. By this time he was engrossed in raising funds for a new Presbyterian church for his Warren, Illinois, parish. "I'll send that photo to the Grape Nuts people," said Father, "with a letter telling how their product helped me through the Trossachs and tell them that whatever they will pay me for the photo will be turned over to our church building fund."But many months passed and no reply was received. We all decided to "forget it." But after another period of months I found myself in Beloit, and by chance I opened McClure's magazine one day and discovered a full-page Grape Nuts advertisement, with the upper half of the display occupied by my kodak snapshot. Greatly excited, I wrote home to tell of my discovery and ask how big a contribution it had brought. Father's reply was brief and it was not difficult to surmise this real disappointment. The Grape Nuts concern had sent him five dollars!We did a little public speaking at Warren Academy, and I am sure that helped me in later years. After graduating in 1902, a year intervened before I went to Beloit College. During that last year in Warren, I had a job as a clerk in Justus's general store. It was my task to open up the store in the morning and "sweep out." Gradually I learned sales techniques in all departments from groceries to lingerie. I acquired at least a superficial familiarity with how to cut plug tobacco, how to measure oatmeal and sugar and package it, and how to accept and give credit for butter brought in by the farmers, in their crocks. I even learned how to sell corsets and stockings to the ladies, and was quite adept at measuring calico, using the edge of the counter with its markings to count off the yards. I learned something about inexpensive lace curtains, scrim and oil cloth.For this year I had close contact with the rank and file of villagers and the farmers, who came to trade, particularly on Saturdays. Saturday was the big day in Warren, as it is in most of those small towns in the Middlewest: farmers coming in with their horse-and-buggies, tying them to the hitching post in front of the store, and trading until late at night. Frequently my duties as clerk extended to eleven o'clock. Sometimes I would have to help lock up the store. We had no clerks' union, of course; perhaps that's why my wages were twenty-five per month. With most of my meager wages saved for my education I went to Beloit College (Beloit, Wisconsin), enrolling in the class of 1907. For the first few months I roomed in a private home. My older brother, George, had been a freshman (Sigma Chi fraternity) at Beloit four years before and at the end of his first year decided to take up the new profession of osteopathy and enrolled in the osteopathic college at Des Moines. On receiving his degree of D.D., he canvassed several cities and finally opened his office in Detroit, Michigan. After his years of success now it is hard to fully realize the courage that it took with almost no funds to pioneer among complete strangers in a profession that was quite new to the public and untried. After a few years he enrolled in the Wayne medical school and won his M.D. degree. Thereafter, while practicing medicine, he still occasionally employs osteopathic therapy. All of the Ford family was very proud when, a few years ago, the Wayne County Medical Association presented George with a gold caduceus (medicine's traditional emblem) in recognition of his fifty years of medical practice.My younger brother, James Holmes Ford — known to many as Holmes — saw military service during the first World War — real action in France. He also went to Beloit for his freshman year and then transferred to Oberlin College where he graduated, and like myself, found his wife (Louise Arnold, a music student) in the college's student body. For many years James was a successful teacher and later served on the staff of the Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools. Now retired, he and Louise live in Santa Barbara, each contributing much to the community life — Louise as a professional cellist end James as a leader among retired teachers and other retired groups. He still does some public speaking and is an amateur artist.While I was a freshman at Beloit College, I was "bid" by the Sigma Chi fraternity. I was somewhat cool to the proposition, and finally declined. I reasoned: it might distract from my studies. Also I had an idea that it wasn't democratic to belong to a fraternity, but as I will state in a moment I reversed myself a year later.I did go in for a few extracurricular activities. I was a member of the freshman football squad, briefly, but the record is nothing to boast about, because we only played one game against the sophomores, and we probably lost. Debating I took seriously, and after a series of preliminaries, I won a position on the intercollegiate freshman debating team. We debated Ripon College in the freshman year and won. A year later as a member of the Sophomore team we debated Carleton College and won again. That tradition of debating continued on through my four years in college; each time I won in the preliminaries and qualified for the final college team. While we did win in my freshman and sophomore years, in my junior and senior years, we debated Knox College and lost both years. Both Knox decisions were one-to-two against Beloit.In my sophomore year, I was again bid to the Sigma Chi fraternity, although I had fully expected that having once declined a bid I would never be invited again. This time, being older and wiser or perhaps given more to expediency, I accepted the bid and became a full-fledged Sigma Chi, Alpha Zeta Chapter, and have been ever since. Today we recognize that there are both good and evil in the college fraternity system that affects both those who are members and those who are not. Our school was democratic; and there was little social distinction. There was a minimum of snobbishness in those days, but I recognized that there are evil conditions that are quite harmful to the student body that is divided because of fraternities.In Beloit College I was a mediocre student, never failing any courses and never heading any classes. In my junior year I met an attractive brown-eyed classmate who had transferred from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Her name was Lois Goldsmith, a descendant of the brother of Oliver Goldsmith the poet, and a member of a fine family, with a Canadian background but long residents of Chicago. This friendship increased in intimacy until we were engaged in 1909, and on June 22, 1911, we were married in her parents' church in Wheaton, Illinois — a beautiful and elaborate affair.Lois and I graduated in 1907, an event surcharged by an eager forward look and much youthful sentiment. I think I won a small prize in some speaking contest and Lois participated in a dramatic program.As a junior and senior I had tried out in oratorical contests (our college has been highly successful in the intercollegiate oratorical field) but I never got beyond the preliminaries. Interestingly enough, I finally won oratorical honors at Beloit, but it took fifty years to do it. In 1957, I was invited to deliver the commencement address on which occasion my alma mater awarded me the honorary degree of LL.D. ("with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto"!)

1.2. CHAPTER II: THE NEWSPAPER WORLD

CUNNINGHAM

As a means of helping pay some college debts I secured a position as history teacher in Beloit High School. This position I held for two years, learning more about European and ancient history than I had ever learned in college.During my second teaching year I became increasingly concerned about my future although I consulted with no one. (I don't recall that they had counsellors in those days.) My own decision as to a future profession came when I was reading the autobiography of a distinguished educator and diplomat, Andrew D. White.In the course of his autobiography, he said that if he were to recommend a calling for a young man it would be the newspaper profession. I accepted that suggestion, and decided that, rather than accept another year's contract with Beloit High School, I would go down to the big city of Chicago and get a job as a reporter. Someone directed me to the Chicago City News Service, where reporters could start at the very bottom rung in learning the business of news-gathering. This contact I remember vividly, because the man to whom I made application for a position as a reporter was hardly prepossessing in appearance. Because of some accident, his face was badly scarred, and in addition his manner and his voice reflected the traditional hard-boiled attitude of a newspaperman who had seen the dark and seamy side of life.However, this representative of the City news service gave me a job. He explained that the City news service covered various fields of routine reporting, which produced news memoranda that were made available to all of the newspapers alike. I was put on the payroll, at eight dollars a week, and I was to cover Oak Park and other adjoining suburbs on the west side of Chicago. The police station in Oak Park was designated as a principal source for news-gathering, as well as the mortuaries and occasionally the homes of prominent individuals, such as the Reverend Doctor William E. Barton, pastor of the Oak Park Congregational Church; Dr. Barton had considerable facility in "making" the Chicago dailies in connection with his ministerial, spiritual, and literary activities. This contact brought me together with his son, Bruce Barton, who was about my own age and who was making a far more brilliant start than I in the newspaper field. Bruce advanced quickly from a reporter's job for the Oak Leaves Publishing Company of Oak Park to various New York connections. These included the editing of Every Week, a syndicated weekly publication, and a position of considerable importance with Colliers. Out of this grew contacts which resulted in the nationally known advertising firm of Batton, Barton, Durstin and Osborn.Bruce Barton died a few days ago, aged 80. His career presents a contrast to mine — and some similarities.In our early years we were casual, but not intimate, friends. Not until his death had I realized that up to a certain point there was a most unexpected similarity in our lives.We were both sons of ministers.We both graduated from small colleges in 1907 — Bruce from Amherst and I from Beloit.About half a century later, he received an LL.D. from his alma mater and I an LL.D. from mine.At the beginning of our careers we both worked for C.M. Donaldson, of Oak Leaves Publishing Company of Oak Park, Illinois. At Donaldson's death many years later, together we bought and had installed on Donaldson's Forest Lawn grave, a bronze marker of special design which included the Oak Leaves motto: "The Press No Less Than Public Office is a Public Trust."Bruce wrote an eloquent, sentimental tribute for Forest Lawn's advertising campaign which was widely used.I repeatedly, through several years, vigorously opposed Forest Lawn's annual sharp reduction in taxes, which I regarded as unjust, unethical, and achieved by political manipulation.Bruce was elected to Congress for one term in 1957; I was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1934 beginning 24 years of service.In 1940 Bruce was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate from New York.In 1940 I was an unsuccessful candidate for primary nomination as a candidate against Senator Hiram Johnson.Beyond this point the contrast between Bruce 's phenomenal successes nation-wide and my moderate achievements in local fields is very marked.Bruce wrote many books that received national acclaim. I wrote one book that was good enough but had only local appeal.Bruce started an advertising agency that grew to national proportions and had several branch offices.My advertising and public relations office never outgrew two modest rooms and a personnel of three or four.Bruce was prominently identified with large financial institutions, whereas I twice declined directorship in new-born savings and loan associations which have since proven very prosperous.Bruce 's support of charitable and cultural interests was on a regional and national scale.I shared in several local cultural enterprises only and supported civil rights and political issues on a state-wide basis.As an indication of human frailty, but more significantly, as proof of integrity and moral courage of the highest order, Bruce publicly announced several years ago, that as an aftermath of a moral lapse he had been periodically paying blackmail to a demanding woman, but that henceforth he would no longer bow to such threats.Of course there were many differences in our careers which I have passed over (for the diversity of Bruce 's achievements was great). Yet to find so many similar aspects of two widely separated lives is quite novel. But I do not know that any significant observations can be deduced except perhaps this: both men were ambitious, but one was bold, daring, impulsive, and self-confident, thereby gaining fame, fortune, and acclaim for many types of service. The other man was cautious, sometimes timid, and sensitive to the welfare of others. His inadequacies may have been compensated for, in part, by tenacity.My eight-dollar-a-week connection with the City News Service lasted only a few weeks because I became acquainted with one of the local papers in Oak Park, a weekly under the editorship of C.M. Pierce. I came to know about interesting people in Oak Park, including the famous Frank Lloyd Wright, then a rising architect; and other celebrities, including an Episcopal rector who had some personal difficulties on one occasion but whose moral slip I purposely ignored and did not pass on my information. I learned something about newspaper accuracy by giving an imperfect caption to a photograph of Grenfell , the widely known missionary in Labrador. As I recall it, I wrote his name "William T, Grenfell" instead of Wilfred T. Grenfell. I was very much humiliated by this inexcusable error.After some months with C.M. Pierce, I had an opportunity to work for the Oak Leaves Company, which published a magazine-type of weekly paper on glossy newsprint with good halftones. The head of this outfit was Orren M. Donaldson, an excellent writer, a student of economics and government, and above all a man of the highest professional ethics and moral standards; the latter he derived from his father who had been a Methodist preacher. Donaldson's motto, which he carried on Oak Leaves' masthead, was: "The press no less than public office is a public trust." His philosophy, his diligence, and the unique form of his weekly paper all contributed to his success. Week by week, year by year, the publication grew in popularity and in advertising volume, so that some weeks it would be sixty-four pages or more. Donaldson, however, was not a sagacious businessman, and perhaps one of his weaknesses was an unselfish emphasis upon service and not enough emphasis on keeping a proper balance between a mounting income and a mounting outgo. He got along well with his employees. But a persuasive salesman could--and did--sell him new equipment and new machinery beyond the earnings of his expanding printing plant.Adjoining Oak Park was a large German community known as Forest Park, socially, politically, and culturally an almost diametric opposite to the cultured middle-class American group born and bred in Oak Park. I presume its population may have been fifty thousand, largely German. While Oak Park in those days had no saloons or liquor establishments of any kind, Forest Park had many, some of these establishments were operated by old-fashioned Germans who knew nothing of the modern type of cocktail lounge, but conducted clean, quiet, wholesome saloons whose principal patronage was from whole families who came in and sat around the tables and enjoyed a glass of Schlitz beer. This beverage was often accompanied by sandwiches of rye bread and cheese, and incidentally it became one of my frequently patronized places for Iunch as I covered Forest Park on foot and by streetcar to get the news.Donaldson wanted to start a weekly paper in Forest Park. Taking a cue from the ingenious name he had devised for his own publication Oak Leaves, he proposed that I should become the editor, manager, and copy boy for Forest Leaves in Forest Park. This was a considerably better salary than the eight dollars a week that the City Press or Pierce had paid. I found working for Donaldson was a real delight. He gave me a free hand and I was in sympathy with his ideas of journalism. Particularly did he impress me with the importance of treating news on a factual, unprejudiced basis without sensationalism and without favor, partiality, or prejudice. That standard in writing the news for Forest Leaves developed in me a habit of objectivity.The big task of the week in Forest Park was reporting the City Council's activities for that large village. The City Council was composed almost entirely of Germans who had no particular political ideals and who had dipped profitably into the practical field of politics. The expanding community needed many improvements, and I had good reason to believe that many of the improvements that were instituted, such as the paving of miles of Forest Park streets with vitrified brick, were brought about by greasing the palms of some or all of the councilmen. This, as I say, I could not prove, but it did pose for me an Interesting moral dilemma: here was a community which without some special incentive would never have paved its streets because of its extreme conservatism, but with the aid of bribes acquired some much-needed improvements.

CUNNINGHAM

Who did you suspect? — the brick companies?

FORD

I think it was the brick companies or the contractors. I remember the mayor was a genial, hard-working tradesman. I was never able to accuse him of accepting a bribe; I don't know as I ever charged him with it in my Forest Leaves columns.I also learned something about the mental outlook — the temperament of the Germans, because Forest Park was overwhelmingly German, and a large percentage of them were Lutherans. The largest church was affiliated with the Missouri Synod, a conservative branch of Lutheranism. This body of sturdy Teutons, perhaps including some of the councilmen, exercised a non-progressive influence in the community. The pastor was austere and absolutely inflexible. Perhaps the incident that I best remember was going to a Lutheran service and when the hymn was announced (in German), the congregation rose as one man and hit the first word of that hymn with startling power — "Ein Feste Burg" ("A Mighty Fortress is Our God"). I have never heard the equal, and I've listened to a lot of congregational singing.In Forest Park I learned a lesson which is worth recording since it points up the hazards of loose talking. Across the street from the Forest Leaves office was a blacksmith shop manned by a husky smith. The exact cause of my contact with the smithy's wife is now obscure, but not the sequel. It was evidently some snide remark I had addressed to the wife when unsuccessfully undertaking to collect a small bill due my paper. Whatever the remark, I soon discovered that it was ill advised and probably ill tempered.That afternoon I was seated in my swivel editorial chair, my back to the front door, when I heard footsteps behind me. I swung around and there was the blacksmith. He was mad — very mad. And he blurted out, "You can't talk to my wife that way!"Before I knew it, the village smithy's "large and sinewy hand," as Longfellow would say, was clenched into a mighty fist which made a punch at me that would have done credit to Cessius Clay. Instinctively I jerked my head sideways and the blow intended for my eyes and nose just grazed my right temple and cheek bone.I haltingly stammered some sort of apology. My angry attacker hesitated a moment and then suddenly turned on his heel and left.Still somewhat dazed by the blitz, I instinctively put my hand to the side of my face and found a substantial stream of blood running down my cheek!In due time I got back to newspaper work in Chicago. One of my early free-lance magazine articles had been for the Technical World, whose editor, Henry H. Hyde, later became a Chicago Tribune columnist. The Tribune was printed in two principal sections, the second section featuring local news and the first section general, national, and international news. Mr. Hyde was given the responsibility of writing a special left-hand front-page column in the second section, called "We Will." That is Chicago's motto, and it appeared at the head of his column every day.I went to call on Hyde soon after he had assumed his duties with the Tribune. He was, perhaps, somewhat overwhelmed with his responsibilities; at any rate, I seemed to have given him a pretty good sales talk, because he accepted me as an assistant. I would now call the job that of "legman." Day by day he would give me assignments to investigate and gather material for him.The assignments were of infinite variety, and took me to all parts of the city of Chicago and Cook County; they gave me an intimate insight into almost every level and strata of Chicago's life over a period of two years. Among the assignments was an interview with some Russian exiles who were living in an abandoned basement on the west side, who had escaped from Czarist Russia and whose specialty had been the making of bombs. Their bombs had been used, or had been intended for use, during the revolutionary days. They imparted to me, after I made their friendly acquaintance, some of their secrets as to how to make their strange product. I might add I never put that information into use.Another story which I thought was quite a scoop but which never received much recognition in the press: the first airplane that had ever been seen in Chicago. It had little resemblance to the airplane as we now know it, but an ingenious man had secretly built a wood-frame airplane, really not much more than a glider, and had concealed this in a thicket in a Chicago suburb, Riverside. I was the first reporter to find the contraption. Incidentally this was one of my City Press stories, not a Tribune story. It was the Daily News that kept after me, wanting to know where this airplane manufacturer was located. I kept it a secret as long as I could because I wanted to have exclusive benefits of the story.On one occasion, I interviewed multi-millionaire Harold McCormick, who was then president of the Chicago Grand Opera Company. For the purposes of the interview he called together all of his directors, most of whom also were millionaires. I was quite impressed, but of course it was only because I could speak for the Chicago Tribune that these men all assembled.Another interesting interview that I had was with Charles G. Dawes, Chicago banker and later Vice-President of the United States. Dawes had built and endowed some model lodging houses for the hundreds of bums that surged in and out of Chicago according to the season. It was (rather strangely) a memorial to his talented son who had met an untimely death. The devotion of Mr. Dawes to his son reflected something of the social viewpoint of people like Jane Addams, who was then exerting a large influence in Chicago's thinking; I found these lodging houses with their cubicles for the bums a very revealing experience.

CUNNINGHAM

This Charles Dawes was the same man who authored the War Reparations Plan in the 1920's?

FORD

Yes, I think it was. A very personable man; a large man physically, genial and kindly. I think he treated me with patience and understanding, realizing I was a young cub reporter.On another occasion, I interviewed Frederick Stock, for many years the popular and famous conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, which had its own Orchestra Hall on Michigan Avenue. Stock's story of how he stimulated interest in fine music was most interesting. Mr. Hyde used it for a whole column. On returning to the Chicago Tribune offices with my data about Mr. Stock, I remarked that he had given me two tickets to the forthcoming orchestra concert. For this Hyde chided me quite severely, saying that I should never accept a gratuity of any kind in the future, that it was contrary to the rules of the Tribune. I always remembered this chiding, and have frequently wished since that all reporters could follow the same kind of rule. While that particular courtesy had no evil implications, there is, I've found in subsequent years, sometimes a certain dealing on the side between reporters and people about whom they're reporting, which is unwholesome and absolutely contrary to the best newspaper tradition. Mr. Hyde let me keep the two tickets, and I think I heard my first symphony concert as a result.Speaking of music, I recall that I also had an opportunity to hear my first grand opera. I took Lois to this English grand opera playing in Chicago. What the name of the company was, I don't recall, but it was the opera in which "The Last Rose of Summer" is sung. I little realized at the time that many years thereafter I would be helping to organize an opera guild in Los Angeles which would become a principal factor in supporting and encouraging annual presentations by the San Francisco Opera in the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. For as County Supervisor I gave enthusiastic support to the group who wanted to bring opera to our city and to that end established happy collaboration with San Francisco's opera company. My contribution consisted chiefly in helping the supervisors "make up their minds" to lend substantial financial support.But back to the Chicago Tribune. Jim Keeley was the managing editor, but during the time I was serving as Mr. Hyde's legman, he was discharged and Robert McCormick, a principal heir to the Tribune property took over personally. I only saw Mr. McCormick once or twice in the halls. On one occasion, Woodrow Wilson, then President of the United States, made what has since been recognized as a bad move in sending the Marines to Vera Cruz, Mexico. Evidently this military move was the subject of a Tribune editorial conference which took place in Mr. McCormick's office. (I should interject that Colonel McCormick was very proud of his military title. Subsequently, through the years, by national radio programs which he paid for, he proceeded to critically analyze many military operations, particularly those of the United States.) Well, at the conclusion of this conference which apparently resulted in condemning Woodrow Wilson, I saw Mr. McCormick emerge from his office door and start down the hall. He was muttering to himself, "Puddin' head Wilson, that's all I've got to say, Puddin' head Wilson." Inasmuch as President Wilson was one of my idols, I conceived a secret antipathy to Colonel McCormick from then on. [laughter] I should have said I had a short experience before my two years with the Tribune, as an editorial assistant on a Presbyterian weekly called The Continent. C.R. Williamson was the managing editor and Nolan R. Best was the editor-in-chief. This weekly, like most denominational papers, had a hard struggle and made a rather pathetic contribution to journalism in general; yet it had had a long history behind it under the name of The Interior. My contribution to The Continent, must have been very minor. For me it was a colorless interlude.On the other hand my Tribune experience was a stimulating and rewarding one, but I found no chance for advancement there and eventually applied to H.H. Windsor, publisher of Popular Mechanics, for a position on his staff. Popular Mechanics was published from offices in the Montgomery Ward building on Michigan Avenue directly opposite the Art Institute; during luncheon time, winter or summer, I frequently visited the Art Institute and became acquainted with some of its fine paintings such as "The Song of the Lark" and some of the imaginative paintings by Turner. Mr. Windsor subsequently came to be, in my mind, typical of many hard-boiled employers. He had originally worked exceedingly hard with the idea of a popular journal which specialized in mechanical matters. For seven years Windsor experimented with his project, and for seven years he lost money. The eighth year he agreed with himself he would try it once more, and in that year the idea caught on. When I joined the staff as one of three or four assistant editors, he was making big money. The struggle to succeed apparently had given him bad digestion and a highly nervous and apprehensive temperament, so that every time he caught cold he immediately jumped on a train and hastened to a warmer climate where he could get rid of it. He had a fear of being stricken down with pneumonia. Popular Mechanics had about a hundred pages of advertising at that time, and the standard price for advertising was four hundred dollars per month for a full page. That would mean, if my arithmetic is correct, forty thousand dollars gross income for advertising per month. The magazine sold for fifteen cents a copy, and I learned that the fifteen cents about covered all the cost of producing the magazine — paper and us eminent ( ! ) editors who each had a little cubicle on the 7th or 8th floor of the Montgomery Ward Building. We were constantly under surveillance of a maiden lady who was Mr. Windsor's private secretary. In her soft shoes, she would walk up and down the aisles and see that everybody was busy and not spending too much time on social chatting.The managing editor also was a hard working woman, Josephine Peabody. She was a perfect carbon copy of all his wishes and desires; she deserved considerable credit for helping pioneer this particular type of a magazine which popularized for high-school age and older the ever-expanding mechanical, technical, and scientific developments fast taking place in those days.The benefit to me was, I've always felt, very real. As a reporter and as a college student I had known little about technical matters. But from time to time Miss Peabody would bring me a pile of technical magazines or descriptions, tell me to reduce the essence of these articles to two hundred and fifty or five hundred words that a layman could understand, much of it represented an entirely new field to me, and I had to dig hard to comprehend some of the source material. Then I had to discipline my vocabulary to convert it into accurate but simple language. If I have developed any facility in writing, I would say it's probably due first, to my experience with Mr. Hyde, who continually stressed the personalized aspect of a story to make it human and vibrant (when I filled his column while he was on vacation I tried to practice this) and second, to write simply and briefly without extra words. So, to the "We Will" column in the Chicago Tribune and to Popular Mechanics magazine I owe a considerable debt: not that the result is astonishing in any respect, but for me it was worthwhile.For four years I struggled along in Popular Mechanics, never particularly happy, but it was a living. As I have said, we were married June 22, 1911, and set up housekeeping in the suburb of Glen Lllyn, twenty-five miles west of Chicago, a charming little suburb set partly in a forest and partly on a series of hills. For that first little house, which we called "Hilltop," we saved our money very assiduously and were able to buy a nice set of dining room furniture (you're sitting on one of the two chairs left), a six-foot oriental rug which I think I bought for seven dollars and a half and which is now all worn out (I still save it under the piano as a matter of sentiment), and a four-poster bed. We disposed of it and now Mrs. Ford greatly regrets that we haven't got it.Buying the furniture was partly possible because of the modest income we got from Popular Mechanics. Windsor should have given us better hours ; we worked six full days except for a short period in the summer when we had a half of Saturday off. That experience gave me some appreciation of the wide gap between employer and employee. It was unsafe and unwise for an individual employee to complain. All the power and all the control as to working conditions, wages, rested with Mr. windsor and his gumshoe secretary.That reminds me of one of my assignments with Mr. Hyde on the Chicago Tribune , which I think properly deserves mention here: it was one of my most illuminating experiences in the labor field. Mr. Hyde told me to go to Hart, Schaffner and Marx, the famous clothiers, and find out how it was that they had finally settled a long and bitter strike of the clothing workers. I went over to the Hart, Schaffner and Marx factory and was told to see Mr. Schaffner, member of the firm. Mr. Schaffner was a tall, courtly, and courteous man of, I suppose, Jewish ancestry, who received me most graciously. He was exceedingly interested in having a proper story told about how they had settled their strike. It was a famous labor episode in those days; it marked a new chapter, I think, in labor relations in Chicago, and was of national significance. Through that contact, I met, besides Mr. Schaffner, the foreman of the clothing workers, a young, vigorous, modest-spoken man who had real vision and none of the rabid intolerance that is sometimes associated with labor leaders. His name was Sidney Hillman. Of course, Sidney Hillman eventually became a national figure in the labor field, not only in the garment making industry, but in the whole field of labor. He became a confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he's perhaps most easily identified because of the phrase which Roosevelt's critics often used against him, "Check it with Sidney." Wasn't that the phrase, "Check it with Sidney."?Hillman impressed me as a sincere, intelligent young student of labor problems and economics in general.A third personality I met in this connection was a Mr. Taylor from Streeter, Illinois. Taylor had been a coal miner in the coal mines of southern Illinois; having come over from Wales as a boy, he knew the coal-mining business. With great diligence he had studied nights and become a well-educated man, particularly in the field of economics and labor relations. He had emerged from one of the bitter and murderous strikes in the southern Illinois coal fields as a successful and mutually accepted conciliator for the miners. He became widely and favorably known as an arbitrator. When the Hart, Schaffner and Marx strike reached the point where arbitration was possible, they called in this Mr. Taylor. I spent considerable time with him. He took an interest in enlightening me on some of the fundamentals of the whole labor movement, at its best and at its worst, and I recall that, at my request, he gave me his photograph which I've kept for many years; all through subsequent years, and particularly since my days as a supervisor, I've had a better understanding of the labor man's point of view, his shortcomings and his aspirations and his achievements.Well, Mr. Windsor knew nothing of the field of labor relations, and we saw little of him. I remember when he hired me he gave me one shock. He asked me how old I was, and I told him I was thirty-two. He said, "Isn't that pretty old?" It hadn't occurred to me that I was getting old at that time, but he took me on. For about four years, I labored those long weeks through, running through the heart of Chicago's downtown district each day's end to catch the train at the Northwestern station, which after nearly an hour's tedious ride got into Glen Ellyn and my little bride. I experienced the drudgery and the monotony and the impoverishment of social contact which came to this suburbanite who tried to earn a living for his family and to take some part in the community.War came on while I was working for Popular Mechanics, bringing me two concerns. One was whether or not I was to be drafted, but having a wife and an infant child, I was not called to active service. However, my younger brother, James Holmes, went to the front in France, where he served as an ambulance driver. My interest in the war continued, although I can't claim I ever had any anxiety to enlist or to make a name for myself as a soldier. But I was determined to find a government wartime job in Washington. Several names were suggested as being those with whom I might correspond to secure a position, and I diligently wrote many letters without success. One of those to whom I wrote was Roger Babson. Roger Babson had been drafted to set up a special division in the Labor Department, the purpose of which was to devise training courses for all the principal crafts and trades, so that manpower at home might become more efficient in war production.Finally, I went to Mr. Windsor. I told him of my increasing desire to get wartime employment, and asked if I might take a couple of days off. Mr. Windsor reluctantly gave me permission to go to Washington. The train trip was a serious adventure for me. My arrival in Washington made a vivid impression — a sunny, balmy day; and as i walked past the White House and other imposing buildings, with hundreds and thousands of government clerks going casually and rather happily to work on the broad sidewalks under the spreading elms, I received a thrilling impression I have never forgotten.I went directly to the office of Roger Babson in the Labor Department. Eventually I was ushered into his private office. He was standing in front of a fireplace with his back toward me as I entered; he turned as I approached and gave him my name, and I said I had come from Chicago to follow up my written application for a job. He laughed quite heartily, and his astonishment was quite apparent. Perhaps my persistence in coming to Washington impressed him. The interview ended with my securing a job as a writer in connection with the preparation of these wartime courses, to be printed in a pamphlet form, and dealing with how workers could be trained in efficiency to increase manpower effectiveness. What I accomplished, or the particular trades that I dealt with, is gone from my memory, but I have always felt that the idea was an excellent one.However, the war was making progress. On one or two occasions we saw President Wilson. In one instance I saw him head a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, on foot as I recall, something which Presidents wouldn't engage in nowadays.Because the Labor Department decided to discontinue this particular service [the efficiency pamphlets] and because the war was approaching an end, I sought employment in the Department of Agriculture, which had a well-organized information news bureau. [My little adventure in taking photos on the White House lawn I tell elsewhere.] The office was organized very much like a newspaper office, and the reportorial staff was assigned to different bureaus of the Department of Agriculture bringing in their daily reports. These were in turn edited and issued as press releases for the American press. Here again I was adding to my background of knowledge, and getting additional beneficial training.Among the bureaus in the Department of Agriculture which were assigned to me were the Weather Bureau, the Bureau of Chemistry, and the Bureau of Animal Husbandry. The latter was headed by a veterinarian of distinction. Our stories emanating from that bureau stressed pure-blood stock, the purebred idea being reiterated again and again in various forms with many types of examples. Much of what the head of that department initiated in those wartime days has since been widely accepted. The general level of stock breeding throughout America has greatly improved because of that campaign which we stressed.In the Bureau of Chemistry, one particular story I covered comes to mind: namely, the great increase in the per capita consumption of sugar. I may be wrong in my figures, but as I recall the story, in Colonial days the average consumption of granulated sugar per capita was somewhere between one and two pounds a year, whereas the average wartime consumption had increased to some nineteen pounds per capita. Perhaps by now the per capita consumption of sugar is far greater than that. The result is that we have a lot of diabetics, malnutrition, and other diseases which conspire to keep the doctors busy.Another bureau which I covered was the Weather Bureau. The Weather Bureau was then a branch of the Forestry Department; I had the Forestry Department also. One story which I wrote with the help of the weather Bureau I called "the biography of a hurricane," which I described step- by-step as it came up out of the Caribbean. That was used extensively in Sunday supplements across the country.The Forestry Department gave me an insight into conservation and the development of the West. I did a story on Christmas trees and how proper selection of small Christmas trees was beneficial to crowded forests rather than harmful as many people believed. I did a story on the first navel oranges, which were transplanted to California by the Department of Agriculture from South America. A far-sighted and imaginative federal official, living in South America, had shipped to the Department a number of slips, for planting in the United States. Only one or two of the specimens lived. One of them did survive in Riverside, California, and ever since has been regarded as the grandfather of all the navel oranges in the state.To have irritated President Woodrow Wilson while he was hard at work in the White House is a very doubtful distinction, but I must plead guilty on the grounds that in my small way I was trying to help win the war, just as the President was.It came about in this fashion. As a member of the news reporting staff of the Department of Agriculture during the latter part of the First World War, I conceived and arranged a publicity stunt on the south lawn of the White House.Wartime shortages were making wool pretty scarce and as a symbol to inspire Americans to raise more sheep several lambs were put out to pasture on the White House lawn. This was a picturesque patriotic gesture which no doubt accomplished its purpose.My contribution was simple and logical enough, namely have some "Grow More Wool" signs made and make photographs of the sheep and lambs, with the White House in the close background. And to give the whole a human touch, have a small boy standing beside the sign, presumably acting as a young shepherd. It so happened that I had a small boy in my family who met the requirements perfectly — strange coincidence, wasn't it? Our son John was then emerging from babyhood. We had the signs made and got permission from some less-than-top authority to invade the white House grounds, assemble the sheep, and produce photographs "according to script."The whole project started off well. The sun was shining bright. The photographer appeared at the White House grounds promptly, as did I with small son John. A lesser White House functionary, whom we can call euphemistically a "gardener shepherd," was on duty as arranged.The first duty, once inside the well-guarded grounds, was to prepare the set-up for the Department of Agriculture photographer. This was not difficult. John and the signs were carefully arranged on the lawn so that the windows of the President's office and other easily identifiable portions of the White House would serve as a middle-distance background.The next and climactic task was to round up the sheep and lambs close to but not obstructing the view of "Grow More Wool" signs — and of course continue young John in a shepherd-like posture.We actually got off to a good start. Several preliminary, and one or two "final" shots were made. But to mix up a familiar phrase, "the lambs almost led us to the slaugter." One thing we had not counted on, despite painstaking calculations — the bleating of the sheep and lambs. It was loud and long, vvith rising and falling cadences such as were very foreign to my frightened ears. The bucolic cacophony continued for several minutes while the photographer and the "rounder-upper" (gardener) worked nervously. Our nervousness seemed to intensify the bleating.In the midst of all this, there suddenly emerged from the White House a man whose agitation was well indicated by the frantic waving of both arms. "For heaven's sake, STOP! What's this all about? The President is greatly disturbed!" In tone, if not in words, he also added, "GET OUT!"We will never know if, during those fleeting bleating moments some distinguished foreign diplomat was given an irritated brush-off because of the President's anger and annoyance; we will never know if the President's pen faltered while composing an immortal Wilsonian phrase because of those sheep. But the photos came out well.

1.3. CHAPTER III: LOS ANGELES

FORD

The months were passing, and presently peace was in sight. For me, it meant that probably the personnel in all Federal departments would be seriously decreased, and, although I had obtained civil service status through a series of examinations, I came to two conclusions: first, that permanent security in Washington was unlikely and second, that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life as a civil service employee even though I might be able to retain the job. I began to think of California, which Mrs. Ford and I had visited in 1915 as a part of an excursion under the touring auspices of a very competent tour conductor, Mrs. Yrex Cuthbert. Incidentally, Mrs. Cuthbert had conducted our European tour in 1914, which Mrs. Ford and I had enjoyed as a sort of belated honeymoon. That's another story —how we saw the start of World War I in six different countries.But I'd always had California in mind ever since the Cuthbert tour in 1915 I when we visited the World's Fair in San Diego and the World's Fair in San Francisco. Also, I'd had my interest intensified in California by the unceasing praise that flowed from the lips of John Edwin Hogg, who was a Californian working at my side in Popular Mechanics. At about the time I had left Popular Mechanics, he had returned to his beloved California. Having visited California in '15, and having had intriguing letters from John Hogg in 1919, I finally decided that it was time for me to make a move if I were ever going to make a move and be anything but a civil service employee or a mediocre reporter.So in the summer of 1920, I bought my first automobile, a second-hand Chevrolet with flapping side-curtains and folding top, and learned to drive. Resigning from my Department of Agriculture job with its Civil Service rating, I set out for California by way of Chicago, stopping there for a week to visit my father and mother and Mrs. Ford's father and mother. Two or three things might be mentioned about that trip: first, there were no paved roads except in the cities; second, there were no street signs to adequately direct you, and no special accommodations like motels or lodging houses along the way; and third, the farther west we got, the greater was the increase in the number of migratory people headed for the coast.After leaving Chicago, we went by way of Kansas City, where I bought a tent and some cooking equipment, and part of the time from there to California we would stop at night and make camp. We got into a bad snowstorm in Trinidad, Colorado, where we were marooned for three days, finally getting over Raton Pass beyond Trinidad and down into New Mexico. We followed the Santa Fe Trail beyond Kansas City, and that was quite helpful. Yes, we averaged about a hundred and twenty-five miles a day! Somewhere after crossing the Colorado River into California we had difficulties with our timer, and we stopped out in the desert to try to fix it; being inexperienced we took the whole thing apart and then didn't know how to put it together again. It just would not work properly. The explosions were not synchronized and we struggled at the thing all day under the desert sun. We were about ready to give up, when along came some more migrant travelers —one of them was a mechanic. He stopped and took hold of the thing, and in half an hour he had it all put together and working! I sure would like to see that guy and thank him again for that life-saving service.We finally reached the top of Cajon Pass, having slithered through miles and miles of sand and dust, but we got to the summit and there was a large sign. I would say it was at least eight feet square. The sign read something like this: "Cheer up, your troubles are all behind you! Paved road from here to Los Angeles!" It was sure a cheering sign for us. At this same high rate of speed, 125 miles a day, we finally arrived in Los Angeles and the home of a former collegemate of Mrs. Ford's, Miss Suzanne Thayer. It was Halloween night, October 31, 1920. We were grimy and dirty from our long experience in the desert, unwashed, covered with grease, I guess, and pretty disreputable in our clothes, but Suzanne Thayer took us into her home on Toberman Street and greeted us like brother and sister. We apologized for our appearance. She said that was entirely unnecessary; that they were having a Hard-Times Halloween party, and that we were just dressed for the occasion. That was our introduction to Los Angeles.The beginnings of our business career in Los Angeles were simple and humble, my friend, John Edwin Hogg, had succeeded in renting a small office in a building on the southwest corner of Second and Broadway, a building subsequently purchased by the Water and Power Department. This small office, I recall, cost us fifteen dollars a month. We began our publicity and public relations enterprise very modestly. Indeed, we only acquired furniture, other than a table and a couple of chairs and two typewriters, very slowly, apportioning our expenditures in accord with our income. One reason for this was that neither of us had much capital reserve. My recollection is that mine was less than a thousand dollars in the form of United States government bonds.In those early efforts, I made the acquaintance of many very interesting people. Among them I recall Judge James H. Pope who, soon after I made his acquaintance, transferred from the position of a reporter for the Hearst daily papers to the position of municipal judge. Judge Pope recently retired, in 1961, from that same position. He was an active churchman and a leading member of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hollywood. Another friend was Judge Guy [F.] Bush, who was one of twins; his brother, Eli Bush, like himself being a lawyer. Both became good supporters of mine; they retained me to handle publicity in connection with the campaign of Guy Bush for municipal judge. Still another lawyer friend of mine was Judge Robert [H.] Scott, who was, like the other men, identified with a layman's city-wide organization which came into considerable prominence in the 1920' s: the United Church Brotherhood of Los Angeles.It had an extensive membership among a large number of the Protestant churches, and represented a well-intentioned effort on the part of Protestant Church men to introduce high moral principles into practical civil matters, and civic service. The movement acquired considerable strength and momentum for a time. For one or two years I served as its president and, as such, appeared in many parts of the city at public meetings.Independent of this connection with the Protestant movement, both my partner and I were gradually building up contacts with eastern firms who retained us at modest fees to produce articles and photographs showing the use of their products. Our special field was in the motor and transportation lines. Evinrude Outboard Motors retained us to engage in spectacular or picturesque boating trips on various bodies of water, and Hupmobile retained us to produce pictures and travel tours in Hawaii. I travelled to Hawaii in cooperation with the Hupmobile people, and made some picturesque trips around Oahu and Hawaii, or "the big island" as it's called. Concurrently with the preparation of the Hupmobile copy I did similar work for Evinrude Outboard Motors.I recall that, returning from Hawaii, I decided to save money on transportation and "went steerage." There were four other steerage passengers, all Chinese. We occupied one bay of the lowest quarters in the ship and got along fine. I think some of the Caucasian passengers looked with surprise at my steerage classification.Several very interesting assignments were undertaken by us while servicing the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company of Milwaukee. We contracted with them to make picturesque expeditions of various sorts. (My partner John Hogg was even more active in this field that I, and often engaged in rather spectacular excursions which produced some very beautiful photographs. Indeed, John Hogg was more advanced in those early years in photography than I was, and I learned a good deal from him.) This connection with Harley-Davidson gave me a memorably rough trip to Boulder Canyon on the Colorado River in the days before the Boulder Dam (later, Hoover Dam) was constructed.When we learned that the Federal Government was making exploratory soundings and borings on the Colorado River in Boulder Canyon, we got a commission from Harley-Davidson to ride one of their motorcycles and sidecars to that remote site. This was in January in the early twenties. I invited my father-in-law, Alfred Goldsmith, then in his early sixties, to accompany me on this adventurous trip. Looking back on my journey one realizes what advances have been made in road construction. Beyond Cajon Pass there was only a rough undulating gravel road. We spent our first night camping out in Barstow. It got so cold that we finally abandoned camp and retreated to the station's passenger waiting room, where we found steam-radiator warmth and a little better rest.Continuing the second day, we went as far as Goffs, There we were delayed by a hitch hike trip to Needles to purchase some additional spark plugs, needed as replacements on the motorcycle. From Goffs we journeyed across very rough country via a seldom-used rocky road to Searchlight, Nevada, where we spent a night in a typical western mining town, with saloons and brothels operating quite openly.From Searchlipht we continued on the rocky, hilly road to St. Thomas, where I had my first close-up of Mormons and a Mormon community. These folks were very cordial and hospitable to us; and we spent an evening with one of the families, the elder, bearded father of the clan occupying the time by reminiscing on his pioneer days. To my surprise, the Mormons had neither horns nor evil characteristics. My chief conception of Mormons had been derived from much earlier days when there had been wide-spread national agitation against them because of their polygamy. This family was thrifty and industrious, with a group of fine, well-bred sons and daughters. I enlarged my education by getting a new appreciation of what fine citizens these Mormon people were. One characteristic of the village inspired me to make a few photographs: down the side of each street was a ditch through which mountain water ran for domestic use and irrigation. At the back of each home, branch ditches led to cisterns, where the water was filtered giving them a supply of drinking water.The following day, Father Goldsmith and I mounted our motorcycle and sidecar, and drove down the wash of the Virgin River, finally coming into Boulder Canyon and to the shore of the Colorado River. The river at that point runs through high, precipitous cliffs. The U.S. engineers were at work on a float a short distance from shore, making bores into the bed of the river to determine the character of the bedrock, its depth and its strength. Their astonishment at seeing a motorcycle come down that wash was almost laughable. They could hardly believe that this was possible, and gave us credit for being their first visitors since establishing camp a relatively short time before. We could get no information from them as to the character of their borings, but we did get material enough for a good story on picturesque Boulder Canyon. The work of those exploring engineers, as it developed, demonstrated that Boulder Canyon wes not geologically suitable for the construction of the dam, which was actually built at another nearby canyon site. Although the name Boulder Canyon Dam was attached to the gigantic structure built years after, it was finally changed to Hoover Dam in honor of Herbert Hoover who had been responsible for furthering the legislation.On another occasion, I made two trips in successive summers 1927 and 1928 to Europe, combining assignments from various advertising clients. At the same time Mrs. Ford and I gave limited service to the Cuthbert European tours. Mrs. Ford was exceedingly helpful in assisting Mrs. E. Y. Cuthbert who took her parties annually on the grand tour of Europe. In some eases, I too, assisted in explaining about historic spots to our travelers. On one of those two trips Mrs. Cuthbert was assisted, in addition to myself, by a famous movie star, Gene Lockhart. I say famous, but at that time Gene had not yet achieved fame and was, like myself, looking for opportunities to pick up a few shekels wherever he could. An amusing thing happened to Gene, as we were taking our respective divisions of the touring party through Oxford. Latiner's and Ridley's martyrdom at the stake was then memorialized in one of the central streets of the town by a large round tablet set in the pavement giving their names and the date, and stating that on this spot they were burned for their adherence to religious freedom. This particular day, Gene Lockhart was in charge of the combined groups , and led them down the street until he came to a large circular metal marker, where he paused, reverently took off his hat, and said that on this spot Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake. I approached the spot, looked down, and saw that he was standing not near the marker, which was about fifty or a hundred feet away, but on top of a sewer cap! We sure had fun with Gene and the tourists because of this mistake. Incidentally, and parenthetically, I was in Oxford in 1959 and tried to discover the marker without success. It apparently had been removed, and a monument in honor of the martyrs had been erected at a short distance from the original site.On one of these trips when Mrs. Ford accompanied me, I also took a young photographer, rewarding him by giving him a free trip without any expense on his part. Planning for this adventurous undertaking in business and pleasure was a bit complicated. After we arrived at Glasgow, I had a letter from Paul [G.] Hoffman, then president of the Studebaker Company, authorizing me to pick up an Erskine car in Glasgow for the purpose of making a tour of western Europe, returning it to London. The Scottish Studebaker dealer was a bit skeptical as to my qualifications, and required me in his presence to telephone London at my expense to get verification that I was an authorized representative of the American Studebaker Company. After that verification, he was very cordial and cooperative. I recall, in the early morning, fitting our car up with all our luggage; we planned to parallel the itinerary of the Cuthbert party, so that from day to day we would meet them at their respective hotel stops and spend the morning traveling or sight-seeing with them; then in the afternoon, while they were resting or shopping, we would get into our Erskine and proceed to the next sight-seeing stop on the itinerary, eventually joining them at their hotel. It was a strenuous procedure, but it seemed to work out very well.Just as I was leaving Glasgow, I had a glimpse of Scottish thrift. When we had all loaded our luggage and were just about to depart, the Studebaker dealer rushed out from his office and said in a rich Scottish brogue, "There is just one item I forgot. You have three gallons of petrol in your tank that you haven't paid for," and I had to give him a few shillings so that he was fully reimbursed.It was a delightful experience, although some of the days were hard work. With my photographer, we drove down from Scotland to London, crossed the Channel into Holland, went through Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and down to Rome. Then we turned back and arrived at London. Before concluding my reference to European trips, I should say that on one trip, we had one real adventure on our east-bound journey from Montreal down the St. Lawrence River and out into the Atlantic, which happily did not have any serious results. We were going half-speed out beyond the New Foundland Banks, in a very dense fog. I was on the forward upper deck when suddenly within a few yards I saw straight ahead an iceberg which was probably a hundred feet high. The ship struck the iceberg a severe, glancing blow, and the bow rose as it partially mounted what was evidently a hidden extension of the iceberg below the surface of the water; amid the grinding and crunching of ice, the ship began to list to the right (I probably should say "to the starboard") to the point where chairs and dishes on the tables began to slide. Then, fortunately , the bow of the ship slid off the hidden shelf of ice and slowly righted itself, but not until considerable damage had been done, including the breaking off of one of the propeller blades. After thorough examination, we proceeded on our way without further incident and arrived in England one day late. As on several other trips to England and the continent, we found every day interesting and exciting.It was Lois's privilege and mine to count Carrie Jacobs Bond, beloved composer and songwriter, a good friend. The author of "End of a Perfect Day," "Just a 'Wearyin' for You," "I Love You Truly," and many other beloved songs of her generation, lived not too far from us in a rambling hillside house north of Franklin just west of Highland Avenue. During our several visits in her quaintly furnished home, we met many of her friends. Sometimes she would play her own compositions for us. The popularity of her songs was so great, she told me, that her royalties topped that of all the members of ASCAP (American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers).On one occasion in the '20's, she loaned us the use of her home in Grossmont, California for a weekend. It was a delightful cottage in a secluded location overlooking the town east of San Diego. Oddly enough, my chief remembrance of this pleasant outing is the melody of "My Blue Heaven" (not composed by Mrs. Bond), which was played over and over again on a neighbor's phonograph.On another occasion Lois and I were staying at Riverside's Mission Inn, a hotel unsurpassed in all southern California in those days for its sumptuous hospitality, its fabulous collection of antiques from all over the world, particularly Japan and China; for its chapel dominated by a gold-leaf-encrusted carved altar that reached to the sanctuary's high ceiling; by the remarkable collection of insignia "wings" donated by several hundred fliers of our World Wars; and many other unique features provided by the Inn's master, Frank Miller. Our suite was on the top floor of the inn and looked down into the Spanish-type patio where many of the meals were served. This lovely suite which we were privileged to occupy was named the "Carrie Jacobs Bond Suite" because it was in those rooms that Mrs. Bond wrote her most famous song, "End of a Perfect Day."Both the harsh poverty of her days of widowhood, and the fame and monetary fortune of her later years were responsible, no doubt, for the taut nerves and quick anger which her adoring audiences never suspected. One illustration of this side of her character was her frequent change of maids. She seemed to have great difficulty in keeping a maid more than a few weeks or months. Like many famous artists she was demanding when it came to recognition in public appearances. The untimely death of her son only added to an irritability that seemed to increase with the years. The publishing of her biography, Roads of Melody, in 1927, by a leading book publisher did much to lift her spirits.Over a period of two or three years in the '20's, I collaborated with Mrs. Bond in producing a syndicated weekly newspaper column entitled "Friendly Preachments, " which carried her name. I originated the idea one evening while looking over some of her letters and poems. The undertaking was only moderately successful, with about half a dozen dailies in various parts of the country using the feature. The money returns which I divided with Mrs. Bond were small. The Los Angeles Evening Express and a paper in Rochester, New York, were our largest subscribers. With the assistance of and some guidance by Mrs. Bond, I wrote the first few "preachments." Thereafter the weekly installments were about a hundred percent mine. Throughout this experience —and always —our relations with Mrs. Bond were not only friendly but cordial. She had a super-sensitiveness and creativity that was near to genius and her haunting melodies brought cheer and comfort to millions.The United Church Brotherhood movement in Los Angeles to which I have referred finally took a turn which proved in the end to be not too profitable or worthwhile. One of our active members was John Clinton Porter, who had been appointed to the 1928 Grand Jury, just as I also was. This year of public service proved to be epochal in local civic history: under the foremanship of Colonel Thomas Cook this jury proceeded to examine the record of the District attorney Asa Keyes. Ordinarily the district attorney himself has supervision of the activities of the Grand Jury, but under the law, the Grand Jury can operate independently of the district attorney. It was that alternative which we followed in investigating the record of this veteran public official. He was finally indicted by us for accepting a bribe and attempting to bribe. I'm speaking now from memory and the exact accusation may not be correct, but Asa Keyes, because of our indictment, was tried and found guilty; after months of delays and frantic appeals he was finally sent to the penitentiary. This experience was disillusioning but also probably beneficial to the community in that it caused a good many wrong-doers to correct their ways.Another by-product of the 1928 Grand Jury's history was the election of John C. Porter as mayor of Los Angeles. Mr. Porter was a very distinguished-looking man, large of frame and with a fine noble countenance, and although he was a very poor public speaker, his appearance together with his identification with the Grand Jury resulted in his being elected to the highest office in the City of Los Angeles. He did not prove, in my judgment, to be a successful or a competent mayor. He had neither the experience nor the judgment to meet the complicated problems that arose, particularly as the City Council was difficult to work with and naturally viewed with some jealousy the added prestige and power the mayor's office possessed. An example of Mr. Porter's poor judgment, as I see it, occurred vvhen Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for election as President and visited Los Angeles. Mr. Porter as mayor refused, because of differences in politics, to welcome him. But at the eleventh hour he regretted his decision, and the story is that he hurried from his office as the Roosevelt caravan was passing the City Hall, without success attempting to overtake it to express his welcome to the candidate. On another occasion, Mr. Porter was touring in France. Being a staunch Prohibitionist, he refused to drink a toast in the presence of many foreign diplomats and other officials, thereby getting nationwide unfavorable publicity.

CUNNINGHAM

He was, however, a Reform candidate, wasn't he?

FORD

Porter was a Reform candidate, and with very sincere intentions, he attempted to give Los Angeles a Reform administration. Undoubtedly an examination of the record will show that he undertook many worthwhile things. There were rumors from time to time that people close to him were not activated by the same high motives that he was, and that in fact he was more or less betrayed by those around him. That is something which would require a good deal of research to verify.

CUNNINGHAM

Was there a general movement to clean up City Hall politics at this time? There was a scandal over the building of a hospital, too, in 1928, wasn't there?

FORD

The hospital had long been under construction at that time, and the long delay in its completion did cause an investigation in 1929 or thereabouts. I don't know that anyone was ever convicted of any corrupt practices, although several County officials were called before the Grand Jury. It's my private opinion that there was corruption in connection with it, but I have no evidence to prove it.During Mr. Porter's campaign I had one experience which was quite enlightening to me. There was a very energetic young lad who was raising money for Porter's campaign, and word came to me that he was putting fifty percent of all the money he raised into his own pocket, only turning over the other fifty percent for campaign purposes. This, it seemed to me, was anything but honorable. I went to the young man and told him of the rumor, asking him if it could possibly be true. His reply was, "Why, certainly, and what the hell are you going to do about it?" To my surprise, I found that there was nothing dishonest in it as far as the statutes were concerned, and that probably it was not an uncommon practice for certain types of campaign promoters to take a large percentage of the money they raise as a part of their own compensation. Through the years I have come to know that there are so many evils connected with campaign financing that basic and drastic reforms must be instituted. I have called our present methods of campaign financing the "cancer" in American politics. It's insidious and very hard to eliminate; it has a tendency to go undercover and assume various disguises, whether a candidate is activated by the highest motives or selfish motives.May I turn aside from the very serious aspects of political campaigning to give you an interesting glimpse of Jim Farley?In the early '30's, when I was chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee, I went to Bakersfield to meet Jim Farley, who was then chairman of the National Democratic Committee, and undoubtedly one of the most influential political figures in the country. His visit to Bakersfield was political in nature and I went there to invite him to Los Angeles.One might say that Jim was a politician "pure and simple." The phrase is apt. Farley had a keen sense of honor and integrity that often surprised politicians of lesser caliber. And there was a certain simplicity about his thinking that definitely removed him from the category of statesmanship. A kind of sixth sense enabled him to appraise trends of thought and the voting preferences of the voting public, but constructive-thought leadership was lacking.He was a tremendous asset to the Democratic party and to FDR, under whom he served as Postmaster General. But Jim had another quality which somehow seemed to multiply his political effectiveness greatly. It was his uncanny capacity to remember names and faces.My visit to Bakersfield provided a striking example of that ability. As I was entering the Bakersfield hotel lobby to meet Farley—we were already casual acquaintances—I was greeted by a Bakersfield friend, Tom McManus, one of the region's leading Republicans. "John, " he called to me from the fringe of the crowd that jammed the hotel lobby, manifestly to shake Farley's hand, "John, would you introduce me to Jim?"I was glad to assent. Together we wormed our way with some difficulty through the milling citizenry until we were within arm's length of the master politician, who was shaking hands and greeting strangers and friends at the rate of several a minute."Jim," I called out, "I want you to meet one of Bakersfield 's leading Republicans, Tom McManus."With a friendly smile Farley reached out and shook Tom's hand and almost immediately turned to repeat the process with scores that were crowding around him.This episode took place in the morning . It was late that evening that I was again in the hotel lobby. Again it was filled with as many men—mostly Democrats—as the room would hold. Jim had had a busy day conferring with Democratic committees from up and down the San Joaquin Valley. After that he had gone to a night football game in the stadium. There the presence of the famous politician from Washington, D.C., had been publicly announced. And at the close of the game, Jim had held an informal reception, shaking hands with literally hundreds and hundreds of admirers.Despite the morning and afternoon crowded with committee meetings and the informal reception for all the football fans, Jim's strength and cordiality did not seem to have diminished as I watched him put on a continuing performance of handshaking.Presently at the far side of the room I noticed Tom McManus. Just about the same moment I saw Jim look up and recognize Tom, who certainly was just one of several thousand that Jim had met for the first time that day.Jim waved his hand and shouted across the crowd, "Hi, Mac!"If Jim could have probed and comprehended the great social and international issues of that day as skillfully as he remembered names and faces, he might well have eventually realized his ambition to be President.I think that is an interesting digression from the subject we were discussing—campaign financing. In my book, Thirty Explosive Years in Los Angeles County, I have a chapter entitled "The Cancer in Politics." I didn't put a lot of figures in this chapter on the evil but I am seriously and soberly convinced that until we find a better way to finance campaigns, it's going to continue to undermine American democracy. What did I say at the end? The average voter doesn't realize all [these influences from bribery and so on.] He's unaware of the conditions that motivate giving to candidates except in a very vague way. He himself rarely thinks of helping to pay campaign bills. Some individuals with concerns in special interests are more sophisticated, they go along with the concept that "after all, ours isn't a pure democracy, and some of us have to assume the responsibility of seeing that public affairs are run right." In some sections of the country, not southern California, businesses and labor groups alike have gone further and yielded to the giving of bribes on the premise that this is the only way that we can stay in business." In times of political stress involving either candidates or issues, it was difficult for Los Angeles County to distinguish intense selfish interest in giving from out-and-out bribery. Such a condition produces nothing short of a civic cancer in the body politic. In the period covered by this narrative, the evil had increased, (p. 219)I never felt that I was actually being offered a bribe. There were perhaps three occasions which might be considered an approach to bribery. One time when I was proposed for the Board of Supervisors and did not run (that was four years before I became a candidate), I remember a committee asked me if I had a mortgage on my house, and they implied that they might take care of the mortgage. Fortunately, I didn't pursue that offer at all. On another occasion, we had the question of collecting garbage in the unincorporated territory of the county, and one of the big garbage operators was in my office. I thought that he wanted to suggest something, so that he could get the contract, but I wouldn't let him get to the point. The third occasion was when the county was looking to expanding its ownership in the Civic Center, and there was one man who had property abutting on the Civic Center that would be quite properly considered for purchase by the county. This man, without my knowing what he had in mind. Invited me out to his house for lunch, and he had the most delicious lunch that you ever saw, one of the finest steaks I ever ate. After that, he began to talk in kind of circumlocution, and he even mentioned something about a fund or something or other that he wanted to—well, I never did get what his idea was. But, he talked about money.

DIXON

What do you think of this idea of being able to allocate one dollar of your income tax toward campaign funds?

FORD

I think it's a good idea.Of course, I go farther than that. I think that everybody ought to pay to vote. That is, I—let me explain. I don't think there is a single citizen who couldn't afford a dollar an election for the privilege to vote, or a dollar a year, perhaps. Now here's my scheme—I outline it in Thirty Explosive Years. We go to great pains and public expense to elect a Democratic County Central Committee, and a Republican County Central Committee, or any other county central committee. If there is any other party. Now, they don't have much authority and they certainly don't have any money, except what they can scrape by gifts and pleading and browbeating. But here, if every Democrat paid, once a year, a dollar, and then this would be a fund that this committee would be responsible for under very carefully enumerated conditions. They could use it for spending for literature, for employing television and so on, all in accord with a schedule and all in accord with equal opportunity for the different candidates. Now, it is not a perfect system, but I think it's greatly improved.Then another thing, I wouldn't prohibit private contributions, but I would make some prohibition as to the amount. And second, and this I think is very Important, all gifts must be reported publicly before election, not after. I would begin, say, two months before a campaign starts, and every candidate would have to file how much money he'd received so far, or how much pledges he'd received, and then one month later he'd file it again. And then three days before election, he'd make his final filing.

DIXON

What do you think about a shorter campaign period?

FORD

It should be much shorter. It's much too long.

DIXON

I know in England, what is it, three weeks that they have?

FORD

They rush it up—much more satisfactory.

DIXON

There's not nearly as much money involved.

FORD

I don't know what their system of control is, but I understand it's much more effective.

DIXON

Yes, it's a controlled financial situation.

FORD

Yes. Definitely. Well, we're in a bad way on that. As I suggested before, the United Church Brotherhood was probably one of the important factors in the election of Porter as mayor. Out of that experience the Brotherhood men learned a definite lesson: namely, that good intentions are not sufficient in politics if you are lacking in experience. Those of us who shared in the election of Mr. Porter with a good deal of faith and hope began to think more deeply on the matter as his term progressed, and we realized that the promotion of reform is a vast and complicated problem which certainly entails a lot of practical, technical familiarity with politics, as well as an awareness of the pitfalls confronting anyone who attempts to change the political course of a municipality or any unit of government. The Brotherhood leaders finally decided that without in any sense repudiating Mr. Porter, and with full recognition of his noble purposes, the Brotherhood as an organization would not thereafter engage in political campaigns. Members were urged to inform themselves about civic matters and individually to make their contributions toward civic decency, but to refrain as a group of religious laymen from formally entering into political campaigns. That formula became generally accepted; however, in the years that followed, the Brotherhood movement gradually lost its momentum and finally passed into oblivion.Well, what of the life, the outstanding aspects of Los Angeles in those 1920' s? Here is one fact: Hollywood had been thrust into a worldwide fame which almost turned its head, or at least turned the heads of the property owners along Hollywood Boulevard, who began to conceive of their property as so valuable that they raised rents very rapidly, driving many a shopkeeper from the famous Boulevard where he had been making a good living. On the other hand, a few of the downtown business firms moved westward, such as the Broadway store which built a branch store at Hollywood and Vine. The Taft brothers built a height-limit office building across the street from the Broadway, but overextended their credit to the point where they finally lost control of it. Barker Brothers established a fine furniture store in a new building at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland. Charles E. Toberman, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hollywood, engaged in several building enterprises, all of which were profitable, although in the Depression, which was to come in the early '30's, he lost a fortune; with characteristic persistence, however, he won it back later, Hollywood was more in the limelight than Los Angeles itself, as we found when we were traveling in Europe: the mention of Los Angeles meant very little to the people we contacted in hotels and on the streets, but mention Hollywood and they responded with a glow and a curiosity that was very marked.While Hollywood was growing, Los Angeles was also growing very rapidly. The suburbs were beginning to enlarge. The San Fernando Valley was swiftly being transformed from an irrigated desert land into an expanding subdivision, with Van Nuys, North Hollywood, and other community centers each developing their own retail stores and outlets. The Los Angeles Harbor, which in the previous decade had been established after a long and bitter fight led by Senator Stephen [D.] White, was beginning to lay claim to recognition as one of the major ports of the world through dredging and the building of docks and terminal facilities. The City of Los Angeles, which owned the Harbor, was beginning to realize one of its great dreams, and more and more shipping lines were making Los Angeles a port-of-call. All this was a part of the expansion which was still centered in downtown Los Angeles. The decentralization which in subsequent decades was to mark the expansion of Los Angeles had scarcely begun. For example, one of the best-patronized theaters was "Million Dollar Theater," build by Sid Grauman at the comer of Third and Broadway, a beautifully ornate building which showed the finest of silent motion pictures. In subsequent decades, it gradually became less popular (because Broadway changed), and finally resorted to the display of movies from Mexico in the Spanish language.Mention should be made, concerning this period of the twenties, of the spectacular development in the entertainment field, by Sid Grauman and others. Grauman's first great adventure in Hollywood was the building of the Egyptian Theater, where he put on spectacular previews which often cost fabulous amounts and became as great an attraction for the theater-goers as the films themselves. Following his success at the Egyptian Theater with its beautiful forecourt, he built Grauman's Chinese Theater, whose forecourt has retained its fame down through the years as film, radio, and television celebrities are invited to put their footprints in the soft concrete laid for that purpose.So, as the population [of Los Angeles] was growing rapidly, transportation and the increase in motor travel was bringing a severe problem. No one seemed to know what the answer was until finally the first section of what is now a vast freeway system was constructed from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles, following in the main the Arroyo Seco route. This was a non-stop route from the edge of Pasadena into Los Angeles Civic Center, representing a real innovation in highway construction in California. Motorists were captivated by it. However, it was not really an innovation in principle as far as Europe was concerned; in 1927 I had had the thrill of riding on an autobahn in Northern Italy where you could travel at unlimited speed for long distances.

1.4. CHAPTER IV: THE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

FORD

In the late 1920' s, my name apparently was becoming somewhat better known throughout the city. I was approached by a representative of a politically influential group headed by Mrs. Helen Werner, who subsequently became known as "Queen Helen," boss of Los Angeles and perhaps the boss of the local underworld. This group wanted to know if I would be interested in running for the [Los Angeles County] Board of Supervisors, I met with the committee on one or two occasions, feeling very much like a babe in the woods. They asked me if I owed any money on my house, and they implied that they would be glad to take care of the mortgage if there was one. Fortunately, some cautious instinct prompted me to proceed very slowly with these offers, and I declined to become a candidate. Subsequent developments proved this to be a very wise decision, because the Werner political regime became exceedingly unsavory, and the things that were attached to Heln Werner's name were anything but the kinds of events and policies I would want to be identified with.Three or four years later, sometime in the summer of 1934, my name was again proposed as a candidate for the Board of Supervisors. The proposal came from a neighbor of mine, George N. Wedge, who operated a grocery store on North Edgemont near Melrose Avenue. Mr. Wedge was a very interesting and a very admirable citizen: self-effacing, thoughtful, and industrious in all matters pertaining to civic advancement. He'd been raised in northern New York, had had some experience as a school teacher and had attended Columbia University. He loved Abraham Lincoln and biographies of Lincoln his other special interest was a collection of stamps for which he spent a good many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars. He never made a speech. He always stayed very modestly in the background, but I learned to trust his judgment— he had a sort of political instinct that was very valuable. Supporting his suggestion that I run for Supervisor was another friend, Professor Lewis Knott Koontz, a professor of history at UCLA. The University was then in its early stages, and was still located on Vermont Avenue in buildings which have subsequently been occupied by Los Angeles City College.The CampaignThe suggestion of these two men caused me to give careful thought to the idea. I had no funds to spare at the time. My advertising business had been reduced to a very intermittent trickle by the Depression, and anything that offered a steady income, such as five thousand dollars for serving on the Board of Supervisors, was quite attractive. Without campaign funds, and without any organized body of support, it was a difficult decision to make. But I finally decided to try it, and we organized as best we could a citizens' committee composed largely of friends in and around Hollywood. The late Doctor Alfred Weltkamp, who was a fellow church member of the Mount Hollywood Church, volunteered the first contribution of five dollars; the pastor of the church. Rev. Allan A. Hunter, volunteered the use of his telephone, while property on Sunset Boulevard owned by James G. Warren was given to me rent free as headquarters. Telephone messages were carried by volunteer runners between the pastor's house and our Sunset headquarters, the distance between the two being three or four blocks. Mrs. Ford entered into this campaign venture with a great deal of zest. The upstairs bedroom in our house at 1556 North Mariposa was converted into a workshop, and by a simplified use of the silk-screen method of duplication, she set about to produce hundreds of bumper signs for automobiles. These were attached to the bumpers of friendly automobile owners, and we began to get a considerable amount of publicity, at least in the Hollywood area. The Hollywood Citizen appeared friendly but did not give us an endorsement until the campaign had been in progress a considerable time.My volunteer campaign manager finally was chosen in the person of H. Morgan Harris, who had been identified with the student body of UCLA down on Vermont Avenue, and whose acquaintance with a number of liberal-minded people such as Doctor Kilbourne, Dr. Elmer Belt, and others brought into our camp an element of dedication and strength. In due time the Third Supervisorial District Association, headed by Herbert Scholfield of 1717 North Stanley, brought us additional support. Mr. Scholfield had been identified with a previous supervisorial campaign and was desirous of defeating the incumbent, Colonel Harry Baine; [Mr. Scholfield's friend, Don Mahaffey, had been the supervisor, died in office.] The incumbent supervisor, Harry Baine, had very substantial resources behind him, but he lacked popular appeal and was subject to a great deal of criticism. In the supervisorial primaries in which there were thirteen candidates, Baine came out first and I was second.However, I think that I would not have won second position out of those thirteen contenders in the primary if it had not been that the city and the county were still in a depression. The people were disturbed. They wanted a change. They were unemployed in great numbers, and the 1934 campaign of Upton Sinclair for governor aroused a great deal of activity. The EPIC slogan ["End poverty in California"] stirred the imagination of a multitude of people, and the EPIC movement gave me opportunities to attend many meetings where I could address the voters, even though I was never formally endorsed by it.

CUNNINGHAM

Did you ever publicly support their candidates?

FORD

I did not conceal my support but I do not recall making any public endorsement of Mr. Sinclair.

DIXON

Reuben Borough has stated that, I think I told you before. In the recall election of Frank Shaw your name was put forward as a possible candidate, but that you were a little too liberal, and suspect because of the EPIC connection.

FORD

Yes. Well, I'm satisfied that that's true. Clifford Clinton was the driving force who exposed the Frank Shaw regime with his privately financed radio programs— financed entirely by himself, I think. And I'm sure that Clifford Clinton was afraid that I was socialistically inclined, and he wasn't enthusiastic about my being a candidate in the recall against Frank Shaw. But I didn't blame him for that— he was entitled to it, and in a sense I was somewhat unknown to him, anyway. He didn't know how dangerous I was.

DIXON

Yes. [laughter] Well, he certainly didn't want an unknown element at that time. [laughter]

FORD

Well, later on, you know, Clifford really wanted to run for mayor himself, and I wasn't for that, either. [laughter] He was a good businessman, but I don't think....early in 1934, I changed my registration from Republican to Democrat; and made an announcement at a meeting of the then-existing Municipal League. It was after I became a candidate. The office of the Supervisor was non-partisan, as were all the local offices, but I received a great deal of friendly support as a result of my action. My name was added to the various "tickets" which were circulated by the Democrats on behalf of assemblymen and Sinclair. The friendly reception that I had at all meetings held under Democratic auspices was a definite help in my campaign. Nor was I rejected at Republican gatherings. Our cash resources were pitifully small but I never have ceased to be grateful for my first campaign contribution, wholly unsolicited, that came from Dr. Alfred Weltkamp. It was only five dollars but at that moment it was like a hundred.As I say there were thirteen supervisorial candidates, including Supervisor Harry Baine. When the votes were counted he headed the list and I was second, thus giving me a fighting chance to win in the finals, which I did by a vote of 83,598 to Baine's 76,875.A day very close to election day I will remember as long as I live. Despite busy campaigning I made it a point to drop in briefly practically every day to see my parents who lived next door. At this time Mother was ill, but I had not realized the seriousness of her condition. Standing in the doorway of her bedroom I told her of the election then close at hand and how much it meant to me. Her only reply as she lay there quietly was, "May the angels' white wings be over you." I said goodbye and returned home. In a few moments an old family friend who had been with Mother came to our door to say that Mother had passed on. On how many occasions since I have recalled her last words.Depression MeasuresWhen I was elected to the Board of Supervisors in December, 1934, I found myself in a completely new world, although various aspects of the county's situation were already familiar to me through my 1928 experience on the County Grand Jury. The Supervisors were conscious of the national emergency which had arisen with the Great Depression; the Welfare Department was all but overcome by the magnitude of its burden. Something like 375,000 people were on one form of relief or another during the peak of the Depression. Frequently we heard reports of prominent citizens who ended their lives because they saw no way out of the tragedy which had overcome them industrially and financially. At times, the meetings of the Board of Supervisors were crowded with distraught people who demanded that we do more than was being done for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of unemployed.As national history shows, very soon dependence upon and cooperation with the Federal Government was recognized as essential, as was also the cooperation of the state through the SRA [State Relief Administration] and WPA [Works Progress Administration]. One of the WPA projects in which I became interested was the support of unemployed artists in the community. We found there was a large number of very capable painters who were quite desperate. Accordingly, I proposed as a WPA project a series of murals for the walls of the Board of Supervisors' hearing room in the Hall of Records built about 1900. At my instigation, a committee of historians and literary experts was formed, headed by Miss Althea Warren, Librarian of the Los Angeles City Library. The charge which we gave this committee was to formulate a series of topics relating to California's history, and to suggest a series of paintings picturing foreign countries which had had an impact on the Territory or State of California; the subject was, if possible, to have something to do with written records, since the murals were for the Hall of Records. Miss Warren and her committee associates produced a fine study which was eventually reduced to a very beautiful brochure by the WPA project, and artists set about during a series of months to fulfill the commission. The first painting depicts Felipe de Neve standing in what is now the Los Angeles Plaza proclaiming the founding of the City of Los Angeles in 1781. A second mural is a very colorful representation of the signing of the Magna Carta in the presence of the lords and nobles of England; another one of the series is the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Still another shows that early explorer of the West, Jedediah Smith writing in his diary as he paused in his transcontinental journey in the 1820's. His diary is one of the first written accounts of an overland journey across the Great Plains and on to the Far West.

CUNNINGHAM

Yes, he was one of the first to travel overland to California.

FORD

Another of the murals depicts the Butterfield Stage; also on the east wall there was unveiled a painting showing the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe in 1848, as well as one pertaining to the retirement of the Russians from California. These paintings, I've been assured, will be preserved and transferred from the walls of what we now call the old Hall of Records to the new Hall of Records at Temple and Broadway, or some other suitable place.The grave unemployment problem in the Depression stimulated me to originate, or sponsor, several other WPA projects, which, I am proud to say, are still a benefit to our community. (By referring to the undertakings in which I had a special personal interest, I would not in any way disparage the other hundreds of projects that enabled our city and county to withstand the shock of the Great Depression.) Here are other items on my list:Hollywood Bowl: The headquarters building with offices and a complete kitchen, together with the garden dining area surrounded by an artistic stone wall of sandstone. (Day by day it was a delight to see the skill with which long-unemployed masons fashioned these garden walls and the office building, using fine craftsmanship which they had learned in the Old Country.)Statue and Fountain to Music: This monument of quite heroic proportions stands at the main entrance to the Bowl. George Stanley, a one-time Otis Art Institute student, was the sculptor responsible for the design and most of the work on this landmark. It gave him and many others months of employment. Aside from the modernistic lines of the dominant figure and the terraced sheets of falling water that surrounded the base of the statue, I was impressed by the massiveness of the huge cube of solid concrete that was poured into the ground to serve as an earthquake-proof foundation for the central superstructure. This hidden concrete mass is seventeen feet deep, seventeen feet long and seventeen feet wide!Two much-needed restrooms were also constructed under WPA auspices on Bowl premises at that time.What is known as the Long Hall was constructed as the first facility in Plummer Park, whose purchase I had initiated in 1935. This building, constructed around an attractive patio, housed all of the park's indoor activities for a few years. Eventually I secured a county appropriation to build the larger auditorium known as Fiesta Hall.Governmental ReformA big change which was to take place in County government had to do with the Purchasing Department. Soon after I was elected Supervisor, complaints came to me that the operations of the County Purchasing Agent were not in the interest of the general public. Specifically, the complaint was that the some 2,000 patients in the General Hospital were being given both meat and vegetables of a very inferior quality: it became so persistent that I finally decided to quietly appoint a committee of restaurant people to make an investigation of the food situation there. Of the three restaurant operators whom I privately asked to assist, Mr. Clifford Clinton of Clifton's Cafeteria proved to be the most active and most effective. He personally made a quiet, unpublicized investigation of the dining room, kitchen, and menus of the Los Angeles County General Hospital, and provided me with a written report which was very caustic in its content. In fact, it was so critical that I hesitated to make it public without his consent, but on asking him for his permission he said there was no question at all, he'd be very glad to have it published.The report created a real furor in the Board of Supervisors and in the dally press; it reflected particularly on the Purchasing Agent and the policies which had grown up In his office. I became convinced that this poor service to the General Hospital was but one example of the bad and possibly corrupt purchasing being directed by the Purchasing Agent and his staff. As a result, the Superintendent of the hospital was removed from office, and I began a campaign to remove the Purchasing Agent himself. However, he was in strong with the Board of Supervisors and, as I recall. It was something more than two years before I was able to get a majority vote to remove him.The clrcumstances leading to his discharge were as follows: I am sorry to say the metropolitan press gave little attention to my attacks on the Purchasing Agent's policies, but the Hollywood Citizen , of which Judge Harlan [Q.] Palmer was the editor and publisher, ran articles from time to time supporting my campaign, which had been up to that time unsuccessful. Finally, Judge Palmer published a caustic editorial in which he so strongly criticized the Purchasing Agent, so that the latter decided to sue the paper for libel. This suit attracted much attention. Judge Palmer, having been a lawyer, conducted his own case, and plaintiff lost his suit; the Judge, in returning his verdict, so caustically criticized the Purchasing Agent that I was able to secure votes for his discharge from not only Herbert [C.] Legg, who had been my sole supporter, but also now from Gordon McDonough, then Supervisor and subsequently Congressman in Washington.The discharge of the Purchasing Agent was the beginning of a real reform in the Purchasing Department, an office which spends millions of dollars every year, that this fight has resulted in far-reaching savings to the people of the county from that day to this.The Supervisors were pretty unanimous that it was necessary to get a new Purchasing Agent, and that we should get a man of excellent reputation. We finally selected one who eventually was confirmed by Civil Service, Colonel (later Major General) Wayne Allen, who had been with the Key System of San Francisco and Oakland. Allen took cognizance of public indignation at the practices that had obtained in the Purchasing Department, and proceeded to drastically reform that office, setting up policies which down through the years have, I believe, been carefully observed to the great benefit of the tax-paying public. Eventually, Mr. Allen was selected as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the county, and his assistant, J. W. Hughes, became Acting Purchasing Agent, with Mr. Allen retaining the title for a considerable period of time. Mr. Allen eventually devoted his full time to the Chief Administrative Office, and Mr. Hughes became in fact as well as in name the purchasing agent for the county, until his untimely death from a malignant malady.In county government, during the past three decades, I would say that there was in general an increasing trend toward efficiency, with the realization that cheap politics is mighty expensive and contributes to inefficiency and worse. The best instance of this awakening on the part of the Board of Supervisors was the creation of the above-mentioned office of Chief Administrative Officer. The Chief Administrative Officer was not primarily a civil service position, nor was it a position endowed with supreme powers. All of the decisions of the Chief Administrative Officer were subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors, in whom the final authority rested. However, a tremendous mass of administrative appraisal and executive recommendations were really decisive and constituted a part of the duties of our first Chief Administrative Officer, Colonel Allen. He brought both efficiency and a non-political approach to the business affairs of the county, with the result that department heads gave increasing attention to their services, and hiring the best available material.This tendency toward greater governmental efficiency had an excellent forerunner in the person of Harry Scoville, who headed a county bureau for a number of years in which he undertook, at the request of the Supervisors, to examine the projects and activities of the many-sided county service, and to use these studies to promote economy of operation, and a better orientation to the special needs of the county. Eventually, Harry Scoville's Bureau of Efficiency was superseded by Colonel Allen's own Chief Administrative Office, which steadily grew in size and operation until it had forty or fifty experts in various fields analyzing county government, helping in the preparation of the budget, and promoting a businesslike atmosphere throughout all the county's departments, of which there now were more than fifty.The Smog ProblemPerhaps the most aggravated issue during the period, beginning in the late forties and extending on into the fifties, was the growing awareness of air pollution. During the Second World War, everybody was so concerned with stepping up production to a maximum that the question of air pollution and the regulation of industry had attracted little attention; but with the war out of the way and industry readjusting itself to peacetime conditions, there were times when the smog was so thick that the Board of Supervisors was swamped with protests. This continued over a period of years before the county finally yielded to public demand, and passed ordinances setting up certain standards on air pollution, with penalties for their violation. There were practically no precedents to go by. Months and years were consumed in air analyses and in devising apparatus to determine the real nature of air pollutants. There was no other city systematically doing such research. Others, particularly Pittsburgh and Chicago and perhaps Cleveland, had experienced air pollution chiefly from large quantities of soft-coal smoke or hard-coal fumes, but that was a condition from which Los Angeles did not suffer as coal is not used in our industries. Here, the burning of oil, the existence of a large number of refineries, the growing multitude of automobiles, and the practice of burning refuse in backyard incinerators all contributed to the aggravated condition.One of the first lines of attack was against the use of incinerators, after air pollution standards had been set up and enforcement officers employed by the Supervisors: it was finally rather reluctantly proposed to the Supervisors to outlaw incinerators in all Los Angeles County territory, both incorporated and unincorporated. This, of course, angered some city administrations, although incinerators already had been unlawful in some other sections of the county. Looking back, it is difficult to realize what a tremendous storm of protest was whipped up by housewives who were determined not to give up their incinerators, and by commercial interests which manufactured them and had built up a very prosperous business. These two elements, together with a press that always seemed eager to seize upon anything making good headlines, confronted the Supervisors with a very difficult situation. Finally, a series of hearings was held in the middle fifties, where it was shown that the practice of maintaining backyard incinerators, as well as those in apartment houses or commercial concerns, was archaic, unsanitary, and hazardous from a fire standpoint. We succeeded, in 1955, in getting an order passed banning them, but, as I recall, when the deadline for their actual elimination approached, the Board of Supervisors wavered and granted two years of grace, until about 1957.However, incinerators were finally banished: then it developed that we still had eye irritation and air pollution, and that the smog problem had not been solved after all. Actually, it never had been claimed that banishing the incinerators would solve the whole problem, but the public was rather quick to make that assumption. Accordingly the Supervisors were again subject to a drumfire of criticism, particularly in the fall and spring. Again and again, committees and delegations would fill the Board Room demanding that further drastic action be taken. The scientists who were a part of the staff of the Air Pollution Control District which we had set up were likewise more desperate than they were willing to admit. None was sure how this evil could be remedied. One of their proposals had to do with the elimination of sulfur from fumes generated in refining crude oil; accordingly, the county demanded that sulfur should be eliminated in the refining process. In one instance three refineries joined hands and built special equipment for the purpose of recovering it. This was a fortunate move both for the oil companies and for the county, because it developed that many companies were unaware that there was a possible by-product in refining; the now sulfur-recovery plant produced many tons of pure sulfur for which there developed a very excellent market. I visited one plant and saw the hot amber-colored liquid sulfur flowing out of the pipes into a big container where it was cooled, becoming a beautiful saffron block which in turn was marketed very profitably.But again the elimination of sulfur from the fumes of the refineries did not solve the smog problem.The greatest volume of protests came from Pasadena and vicinity. Each afternoon the shift in the wind from seaward to landward caused accumulated smog from the Los Angeles industrial districts and the city in general gradually to settle against the Sierra Madre Mountains adjoining Pasadena on the east; real estate values were actually affected, and many people with respiratory difficulties actually suffered seriously.Even at the present time, in 1961, the smog problem hasn't been solved. To bridge over briefly a gap of some years, the pioneer work of the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District has persisted, with further research, convincing the general public as well as the scientists that, while the refineries and the backyard incinerators were undoubtedly serious offenders, a still greater offense ie committed dally by the three million automobiles travelling the streets of Los Angeles County. Three million automobiles, of course, consume still many more millions of gallons of gasoline; and continued tests (often made with new types of apparatus which the Air Pollution District had to originate and build) show that there must be installed on the automobiles of this region some kind of device which will eliminate the powerful noxious fumes coming from automobile mufflers. Public consciousness of air pollution has increased so that there has been in recent years state and nation-wide agitation on the subject. Governor [Edmund G.] Brown has evidenced real interest in the problem, and at his instigation, a law was passed setting up a California State Air Pollution Commission with authority to establish standards and devise means to correct pollution with regard to moving vehicles; the County Air Pollution District thereupon was assigned the task of supervising within its territory air pollution arising from stationary sources.

CUNNINGHAM

Is it generally agreed now, as far as you know, that automobiles seem to be the primary offenders?

FORD

The automobiles are now considered to be the chief offenders, and people look forward quite optimistically to the day when an acceptable muffler or control device on each car will cut down the pollution to such a degree that we'll really have purer air. My own view is that this will be a big help, but I have also come to the conclusion that any population center of several millions of people living in a semi-arid, semi-tropical region in which there is only six to twelve inches of rain a year can never expect to escape periods of accumulated pollution. The very existence of people, with their normal activities, is bound to put in the air various kinds of pollution which can only be eliminated by strong winds or rain; I doubt if we will ever have completely clean air since we have such long rainless seasons.The Toy-Loan LibraryOne of the minor developments following the war and the Depression periods was the creation of the Los Angeles County Toy-Loan Library. The idea originated sometime in the forties, when the people who were still suffering from the Depression found that they did not have playthings for small children in their families. Someone proposed—I think the idea originated in San Diego—that used toys should be collected, rehabilitated, and loaned to needy children. This was originally begun as a sort of WPA project, and it immediately attracted my interest. I was able to secure a small appropriation of a few hundred dollars from the Supervisors to help the volunteer beginnings of the program. The rapid growth of the idea is really astounding, because out of that small beginning there grew an organized system with eventually more than forty distribution centers manned by women volunteers. The county rented a small factory and warehouse to which toys were brought in by the truckload, tons of toys. Mrs. Margaret Fling was early retained to take charge of the project; she remains with it up to the present time, and tells me that there are now over forty toy-loan libraries run by PTA women or women's clubs. On certain days each week, toys can be borrowed not only by needy children but by children of any family. Borrowers can return for additional borrowing if they keep their toys in good shape. Thus small children are taught care for property. More than 300,000 little girls have been given the privilege of adopting dolls, and each little foster mother is given a colorful certificate if she has demonstrated proper care in handling them. She then becomes the permanent owner of one doll. The number of toys loaned from the project to date (1961) now exceeds eight million. Mrs. Fling developed an important feature in the rehabilitation of the toys by bringing in crippled and handicapped people who are on relief, and under her patient guidance, training them to do simple operations in the repairing, painting, and reassembling of toys. Several hundred people, in the course of the toy-loan history, have actually found a great deal of satisfaction in this work, and a large proportion of them have been trained to go into private industry and become self-supporting.Transportation ProblemsThe transit problem was another of the problems confronting the community which necessarily enlisted the attention of the Supervisors, although transportation is not actually one of the Supervisors' responsibilities. The Metropolitan Transit Authority was finally created by action of the legislature as a preliminary to the eventual acquisition of the two existing transportation lines, the so-called "yellow car" line and the "red car" line. These two systems served different portions of the city and overlapped in some instances, but the merging of the two was difficult, since they each had tracks of different gauge. The Supervisors opposed the purchase of the car lines by the newly-created Metropolitan Transit Authority, but their opposition was not successful, and legislation in Sacramento permitted the purchase. A price was paid which many people felt was far too high, and from that time on, it has been one of the barriers to a full, modern solution to the transportation problem. The Metropolitan Transit Authority was given tax exemption and complete freedom in the setting of its rates without review by the Public Utilities Commission; as a consequence, has raised the fares far higher than they ever were before.Various proposals for a modern transportation system in Los Angeles have been examined; it would seem that one of the barriers to the fulfillment of any of them is the excessive financial burden that must be assumed by any new system, since the Metropolitan Transit Authority has preempted the franchise rights. However, this isn't the only thing that has made solution of the transportation problem difficult: an equally large obstacle is the wide dispersal of the population. Los Angeles has been characterized as seven suburbs looking for a city, and this sparse population, relatively speaking, makes extended lines and rights-of-way necessary, involving higher operational costs than would obtain in a city where more people were living on multiple levels, like New York or Chicago.City Politics

CUNNINGHAM

Would you discuss your campaign for mayor in 1937—how it happened to come about, its development? What was the status of city politics at that time?

FORD

The city administration in the latter 1930's was headed by Mayor Frank L. Shaw, who had been a city Councilman earlier and who'd also been a County Supervisor from the southern portion of the county, thereby continuing his political climb to the mayoralty of Los Angeles. He had the support of the metropolitan papers, particularly the Times. A strong influence in his administration was his brother, Joe Shaw, who had served some time in the Navy. When Shaw's term for re-election approached in 1937, I was asked to be a candidate against him. There were considerable rumblings and much discontent because prostitution and gambling were prevalent. Various police scandals had aroused the public to the point of bringing Shaw's regime into serious question. In one instance, a prominent witness who had testified against the administration was badly wrecked by a bomb placed in his automobile. When he started his car. It created a great explosion. The biggest explosion from the Harry Raymond incident, however, was the political repercussions.The Shaw brothers manifestly believed in building a strong political machine on the basis of patronage and many felt on intimidation; and as I got into the campaign as a candidate with limited campaign funds, I discovered at various meetings I addressed that frequently there were hoodlums in the audience evidently planted there whose purpose was to break up the meetings. On one occasion, at a rather large meeting being addressed by Mr. Shaw, a persistent heckler was knocked into the aisle by a man seated a row behind him. Witnesses stated that the assailant had gotten within arm's reach when the heckler continued his questioning. They stated that the assailant was equipped with brass knuckles, and that there were apparently other hoodlums at the rear prepared to support the attacker violently against anyone who undertook to criticize Shaw as a candidate. This sort of thing happened a good many times. The implication of Communism was brought in as a means of discrediting my candidacy. On one occasion, just before election, an airplane flew over the city and scattered streamers which were printed in red, reading "Vote for John Anson Ford for Mayor," signed Young Communist League of America. There was no Young Communist League of America, but the effect upon the voters was as desired. I did not have support from any of the metropolitan papers. The manifest corruption and inefficiency of the government attracted little criticism in the press.The result of the election was that Mr. Shaw was returned to office by a vote of about 125,000. As time has passed, I've been very grateful that I did not win that office. I don't know that I could have made a successful mayor under those evil conditions and certainly I would have had a most difficult, and perhaps a torturing time, because the evil forces of the city were tremendously strongly entrenched.However, only a short time after my defeat, the agitation began for Mr. Shaw's recall. This was in considerable measure initiated by Clifford Clinton, who had earlier manifested an interest in civic affairs by preparing the report for me on the terrible food at General Hospital and probable corruption in the Purchasing Department of the county. For some reason which has never been officially explained but of which the implications are rather obvious, the city administration immediately began to harass Clinton and his restaurants, undoubtedly at the instigation of the Mayor's office. One recalls that the Mayor, not too long before, had been himself a Supervisor and perhaps closely identified with some of the county's bad practices. At any rate, the Health Department of the city began making inspections of Clinton's restaurants and demanding drastic changes in his kitchen equipment, requiring him to expend large sums of money to install new vents and new apparatus. Police officers began appearing, and then colored people began coming to the cafeteria, something that was not common in those days. The assumption was Negroes would drive away the white patrons, but Clinton being a missionary's son, greeted the colored people cordially and experienced no loss of patronage: in fact, it probably helped.All of this opened Clifford Clinton's eyes to the fact that there was a very corrupt city administration. At his own expense he hired radio time night after night, and began broadcasting throughout the region news of the corrupt conditions which he had found. For all this Clinton's house was badly wrecked by a bomb. Fortunately no one was injured.The recall committee asked me If I wished to run again against Shaw, although they did not strongly urge me to do so. Two considerations, chiefly, led me to decline as a candidate. One was the fact that I felt Clinton did not wish me to run. He was a conservative and I was a liberal and I had a feeling he was apprehensive either as to my ability or my liberalism. The other consideration was the fact that deadline for entering the campaign for supervisor in the third district was close at hand. Without assurance of strong support from all recall interests I did not feel justified in abandoning my excellent chances of being re-elected county supervisor. They finally secured the consent of a fine superior court judge, Fletcher Bowron, to be the candidate.Hence one year after Shaw's defeat of myself, he in turn was defeated by Bowron, who began a period of city reform which lasted, I believe, for twelve years. The report around the city hall was that when they turned over the mayor's handsome Buick to Mr. Bowron as his official car, someone, in lifting up the floor rug in front of the back seat, discovered a square metal plate screwed to the floor, under which was a shallow compartment perhaps two or three inches deep and twelve or sixteen inches square. The grapevine story was that this was where the money from the prostitutes and gamblers was assembled before being driven down across the border to be cached somewhere in Mexico. That, of course, is something that has never been proved. After Shaw's defeat he engaged in a real estate business for several years. After his death there ensued a law suit concerning his estate which involved, according to press reports, half a million dollarsBowron did a wonderful Job in reorienting the whole city administration, and he gave the city the cleanest and best government it had had for a long time.Flood ControlThe rapid expansion of the city resulted in the need for many physical improvements which necessarily cost money, and in the early fifties a storm drain bond issue of some $628,000 was proposed. Eventually bonds were voted, and the operation of the storm drains was transferred to the Flood Control District which is administered by the supervisors. Up to that time it had been operated as a separate phase of municipal service.The Hollywood BowlThe Hollywood Bowl also met a crisis in the fifties; having overextended itself in the presentation of some operatic performances, it was in the red and suddenly closed its doors in the middle of the season. This awakened the community to the significance of the Bowl's programs in the cultural life of the community, and a citizens' committee was formed which included many downtown leaders. These interested citizens supplemented and in some cases supplanted the Hollywood leaders who heretofore had dominated the Bowl management. Among new supporters was Mrs. Norman Chandler, whom I nominated for chairman of special Emergency Committee. She assumed the task, and proceeded to raise a special fund of $100,000 to reopen the Bowl, with the initial concert featuring prominent artists in the musical world who donated their services in response to Mrs. Chandler's plea. The Bowl had not only overreached itself in some of its expensive programing, but its physical plant had been seriously depleted; electrical wiring was unsafe and out of date; the stage was in rotting condition; the seats were in need of repair. And so an extensive program of rehabilitation was inaugurated which took several seasons to complete.In the meantime, a proposal was made, which I supported strongly, that the Bowl property should be deeded to the county. Formerly it had been private property held in the name of the Bowl Association. With the deeding of the property to the county, the county leased it back to the Association for a period of years, so that in management and operation there was actually no change, except that the property was not subject to taxation. Eventually, although not immediately, the county at my instigation assigned the Bowl to the Park Department for maintenance as a park, so that the watering and care of the grounds the year around was in expert hands, and the Bowl Association was relieved of that financial burden.At the same time, the Bowl made a careful study of all its problems. One conclusion was that parking facilities would have to be greatly enlarged, as the habits of the theater-going public had been motorized, one might say, and the long walks necessitated by remote parking and steep slopes were not acceptable to the new generation of Bowl patrons. Likewise, there was some change in the programing. It was agreed under the new board of directors, of which I was one and in which Mrs. Chandler was a dominant factor, that the Saturday night concerts each week should be more popular in character, including jazz and other light musical productions, where's the Symphonies under the Stars should be featured on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Many new programs were introduced, such as a Walt Disney night, a Gershwin night, and Rodgers and Hammerstein night. These drew large audiences, sometimes nearly filling all the 20,000 seats and producing revenue which helped to carry the Tuesday and Thursday night programs. The attendance for the latter was seldom sufficient to cover their cost.The parking problem was a difficult one, and it was only by reason of the generous cooperation of the Board of Supervisors that we were able to really solve it. In a relatively short time, we acquired two parking lots, two large parcels of property, one on the east and the other on the west side of Highland Avenue, each of which was encumbered with more than twenty houses. These residences were not new, but many of them were in excellent shape, and only the eminent domain authority of the county made it possible to move in and condemn them out of public necessity. The cost for both of these lots was something in the neighborhood of a million dollars apiece, or a total of two million dollars together, but they were a great factor in bringing the Bowl back to popular support, so that it became more nearly self-sustaining. Even so, it has always had an annual subsidy ever since I was on the Board of Supervisors. When I was elected, the subsidy was ten thousand dollars; when I left, it had been increased to about sixty-four thousand dollars. The expenditures for maintenance of the grounds, and the two million dollars for the parking lots, were in addition to the county's regular subsidy.The other improvements, to which I was very proud to have contributed, were made earlier than the period I've been discussing and were introduced as WPA projects. The statue of "Music" surmounting a fountain at the entrance, the office and tea garden on Pepper Tree Lane, and the substantial rest room facilities were all WPA projects which I proposed to the Board and which they endorsed. So much for a glimpse of the changing aspect of the Hollywood Bowl.The Art InstituteAnother cultural advance had to do with the Art Institute. The Art Institute was a gift to the county by General Harrison Gray Otis back somewhere in the teens of the century, about 1916, as I recall. He donated his handsome residence and property on Wilshire and Lakeview just west of MacArthur Park, and the gift was accepted by the Supervisors. Roscoe Shrader for many years was the dean, and art students enjoyed the benefit of an excellent art school, although its program was never characterized by great innovations or sensational developments. In fact, during my early years on the Board of Supervisors, some of the Supervisors criticized the Art Institute severely because it was not entirely self-supporting, drawing upon county funds for its maintenance. Over my protest Raymond Darby, then a Supervisor, got a motion passed which offered the Art Institute as a gift to either the University of California in Los Angeles or to the [Los Angeles] School system, whichever would take it over. Neither of these institutions, however, was interested in accepting an art school because, as they explained to the Supervisors, their interest in art did not go so far as to undertake the training of professional artists: rather, their aim was at most to train teachers to the point where they could instruct elementary or high school students in the early elements of art, drawing, painting, and so on.This close call prompted me to initiate certain changes in the Art Institute management. The first was to get the Supervisors to separate the Institute from the County Museum, and to set it up as a separate department with a separate board of governors. (Earlier we had succeeded in having the board of governors at the Museum set up on a basis of term appointments rather than with indefinite terms.) We now created, with the Supervisors' approval, separate board of governors for the Art Institute, with staggered terms of four years each. I was largely responsible for the personnel of the first board, which my colleagues approved, and which included several distinguished citizens, including Mr. Paul [H.] Helms, the millionaire baker; Edward [A.] Dickson, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California; Mrs. Florence Irish, Mrs. Norman Chandler, and others, to a total of fifteen. With this backing for the Institute, the Supervisors took a new interest, giving it more deference, and I was able to get into the budget from year to year various appropriations which, over a period of years, resulted in complete reconstruction and the building of a new modern physical plant.One of the early steps in which Mr. Dickson, Mr. Harry Chandler, and others shared was the acquisition of the Earl property immediately west of the Otis Art Institute property. The Earl property had been the residence of the late Edwin T. Earl, a rival of Harrison Gray Otis. There was a bit of irony in the fact that the properties of these two men who had been such great rivals had now been joined as a memorial to General Otis. In due time, we tore down first the Earl and then the Otis residences, and step-by-step we erected three beautiful, appropriately designed units which gave the school a physical plant worth well in excess of a million dollars, not counting the value of the land itself, which was increasing very rapidly. The Supervisors shared with a committee of two members of the board of governors (one being Mrs. Florence Irish) in getting a new director for the Institute in the person of Millard Sheets, who had spent twenty years as head of the Art Department of Scripps College in Claremont. Mr. Sheets brought dynamic leadership to the Lob Angeles County Art Institute (its name was later restored to the original name, the Otis Art Institute) and after a year or two he succeeded in getting it accredited with the Western College Association, which, after a very careful inspection, granted it authority to confer the degree of Master of Fine Arts. It was the only institution west of Chicago to have that privilege.Mr. Sheets' changes in administration placed increasing emphasis on postgraduate art work, and admission standards were set up that included two years of liberal arts training as a prerequisite to becoming a student at the Institute, unless one was enrolled in certain secondary courses. The new buildings not only provided beautiful classrooms with north-light studios and two attractive galleries for the exhibition of student work, but included a fourth structure, a ceramics building, equipped with two fine large kilns. In which the ceramics students could produce their works of art. By such steps the Art Institute became a great factor in the cultural life of the West, particularly because of the initiative Mr. Sheets brought to it.Hancock ParkAt about this time, I was happy to share in the rehabilitation of Hancock Park. Soon after the turn of the century, the site which is now Hancock Park had been discovered to possess oil pools in which a fabulous quantity of fossil remains were found, preserved and embedded in great pools of crude oil that welled up through the earth. This, in its early days, had created great excitement and attracted worldwide attention and, as a result, excavations in these pools had produced tens of thousands of skeletons, sometimes broken and with separated bones. But they were reassembled and a famous division of the County Museum was thus enriched archaeologically. Through exchanges, many other gifts were brought to the museum from other museum centers far and near.Following this, the tract of twenty-two acres of land which [George] Allan Hancock, the owner, had deeded to the county because of its scientific worth, was all but completely neglected. In the early days, the Supervisors had commissioned an artist to make cement figures of several of the prehistoric animals. These had been set up on the twenty-two acres beside the pools but for years they were surrounded only by weeds and refuse. One of my objectives as Supervisor was to correct this condition. Over a period of four years, we spent nearly a million dollars landscaping the property, putting in winding walks, planting appropriate trees and shrubs native to the region, and building an observation pit which, with some reconstruction, graphically illustrated the manner in which fossils through prehistoric times had been accumulated and preserved in the pools of tar. Thus Hancock Park became an added asset to the people of the county and almost immediately was visited by large numbers.The Civic CenterAnother significant feature of this period was the awakening of both the Supervisors and the public to the value of a comprehensive Civic Center. For many years, the city and the county had been without a plan for the location of new buildings. The site of the City Hall, built about 1925, had rather vaguely suggested that other buildings should be clustered around it, but earlier the Hall of Justice had been erected by the county without reference to any well-organized plan. At various times, different arrangements of public buildings had been put on paper, but no effective publicly accepted plan had guided either the City Council or the Board of Supervisors.The lack of a plan was well illustrated by an episode in the Board of Supervisors soon after I was elected, in 1934 or 1935, when Herbert Payne, the then powerful controller of the county's financial affairs, brought to the Board of Supervisors an elaborate set of blueprints for a new courthouse. These had been prepared largely at the instigation of Mr. Payne and without explicit authorization by the Board of Supervisors. The question of a new courthouse had been a subject of frequent discussion since the old brownstone courthouse at Broadway and Temple Street had been damaged by an earthquake and later demolished in 1935. But when Mr. Payne brought his set of blueprints to the Board of Supervisors, the new members on the Board , including Herbert Legg and myself , immediately raised questions as to who had authorized their preparation. It developed that there had been no explicit authorization and that the county was not financially responsible to Mr. Underwood, the architect, for their preparation. The plans contemplated the erection of a rather ornate two-towered structure facing on Broadway immediately opposite the old Hall of Records, which is located at 220 North Broadway. This incident helps to emphasize the point that neither the public, the Board of Supervisors, nor city nor county planners had at that time formally or clearly adopted any Civic Center plan; at any rate, we rejected Mr. Underwood's blueprints and declined to pay his fee, which I think he had set at some fifty or sixty thousand dollars.The Supervisors began to talk more and more about the need for a well-organized, well-balanced civic plan. My own oft-repeated plea, frequently shared by others, was that a county with the population, wealth, and influence of Los Angeles County should locate and construct all new facilities in conformity with a plan which would express materially and artistically the great strength and potential of the community. One or two inadequate plans were given consideration. Finally, through continual agitation and after much discussion, there did emerge a large, comprehensive concept of a civic center. In which the city, county, state, and federal government all had a part. One agency which lent its support to the proposed building program was the Civic Center Authority, a body with limited powers, created by concurrent resolutions of the City Council and the Board of Supervisors. For a time, I served as chairman. Its function was to bring to the attention of its respective sponsors any type of development that either conformed or failed to conform to the broad concept of a civic center.Eventually, this concept was reduced to drawings and received the official approval of the Board of Supervisors and the City Council. Great credit for perfecting the Civic Center Plan and finally securing its official approval goes to Arthur J. Will, Sr., then the Chief Administrative Officer, who brought into play all his great powers of persuasion before finally succeeding. The Arthur J. Will fountain in the Mall is a memorial to him. My recollection is that it comprised an area bounded by Grand Avenue on the west, First Street on the south, San Pedro Street on the east, and what are now the Hollywood and Santa Ana freeways on the north. The plan showed the tentative locations of projected future buildings of the county and city, and had an important psychological effect on the community as the years passed. I mean by that people began to anticipate with pride an imposing complex of public buildings, each of which was a symbol of the strength and the greatness and the varied activities of the community. The plan anticipated local city government needs, the widely diversified county government, the increasing activity of state government, and overall federal expansion. The state government's need for more intimate relationship with southern California and the local community was emphasized by the demolition of the old Times building at First and Broadway, and the erection of a handsome eight or nine-story State Building on the north side of First Street between Broadway and Spring. This fit into the general civic center plan, boundaries of which I've already described.It was not paradoxical that while we were awakening to the need of a civic center (and incidentally, many other cities began to adopt civic center plans too) another outstanding new era was under way: the decentralization of authority. Because of the exploding population, the magnitude of county government had grown to the point where many county functions centralized in the Civic Center had to be decentralized by establishing branches in different parts of the county. One of the first to do this was the Superior Court, which established a branch in Pomona, and later in Long Beach, Santa Monica, Burbank, Glendale, and Beverly Hills. The Probation Department established offices in several of the larger population centers, and was thus able to carry on its affairs with more efficiency. The District Attorney opened several outlying offices, as did the Regional Planning Commission and other branches of county government. Decentralization had become a recognized necessity, with the population rapidly expanding towards six million, making Los Angeles County the largest in the United States, and giving it a population greater than that of any in the then forty-eight states of the union except seven.Further Support to the ArtsAnother marked trend was the increased support which the Board of Supervisors gave to cultural activities. Judge [William M.] Bowen and Howard Robertson had, back about 1913, made a notable step in this direction when they induced the county to establish a well-housed museum in Exposition Park. Thereafter, this phase of the cultural life of the county seemed to come more or less to a stalemate. As I've mentioned before, Harrison Gray Otis of the Times had, before his death, deeded to the county his mansion to be used as an art institute; that cultural undertaking likewise had received some support from the Board of Supervisors, but there was no expansion, and little growing interest in its work. Both of these institutions were subjects of real concern to me. Early in my service as Supervisor, I succeeded in getting my colleagues to pass an ordinance creating a board of governors for each of these institutions. (The latter board of governors had been composed of excellent men serving indeterminate terms.) Under my plan, the appointees, of the Board of Supervisors served staggered terms of four years each. This brought into active support a large number of civic-minded people and accelerated popular interest of both the Museum and the Art Institute, indirectly resulting in growing support from the Supervisors themselves, as they made up their annual budgets. Millard Sheets, formerly of Scripps College, as new director gave the Institute a great thrust forward.The relationship of the Board of Supervisors to the field of music was greatly intensified when we succeeded, by a visit to the legislature in Sacramento, in securing a law which made financial contributions to non-profit musical and dramatic enterprises a legitimate county expenditure. In securing this important law I worked in collaboration with Mrs. Ida Koverman of MGM. The county had been making very modest annual contributions of about ten thousand dollars to the Hollywood Bowl, under the guise of contributing to advertising, via the Chamber of Commerce. With the passage of the new law, we were able to make direct contributions, and these appropriations steadily increased through the years so that, as I recall, the maximum contribution in the latter part of my service was between ninety and a hundred thousand dollars for the Hollywood Bowl alone. That was separate from the special appropriations, amounting to some two million dollars, which had been made for the acquisition of land for the parking lots on either side of Highland Avenue, adjacent to the Hollywood Bowl.While the Bowl was the principal recipient of county subsidies in the field of music, the Philharmonic Orchestra also received, as the result of an appeal by Harvey [S.] Mudd, an annual appropriation which for several years was approximately sixty-four thousand dollars. The Opera Guild, which gave performances in Shrine Auditorium for high school youngsters at low cost on Saturday afternoons, was given an annual subsidy of some twenty-five thousand dollars. The Educational Opera Association, another non-profit enterprise which presented costumed operas in English before high school students in their auditoriums, received a subsidy of some twenty-five hundred dollars a year. Various communities were encouraged to organize or expand neighborhood orchestras composed of non-professionals, who met at stated periods and developed considerable skill and facility in the preparation of orchestral music. The number of orchestras that became eligible for county subsidy totaled twelve and, I think, in more recent years became nearly twenty.With the expansion of the county's support of music, it became obvious that some sort of a special body representing the Supervisors was needed as an appropriate vehicle for administering these funds. I therefore induced the Board of Supervisors to establish a Music Commission, whose services through the years have become a very valuable county adjunct. While it does not have authority independent of the Supervisors to allocate any funds, their recommendations have come to be relied on more and more, so that it is now almost an unwritten law that all these diverse musical activities must receive the approval of the Music Commission. The commission consists of fifteen non-salaried citizens, representing the five different supervisorial districts. They have a secretary, paid by the Supervisors, and were given free office facilities in the Civic Center and eventually were housed in the Dorothy Chandler Music Center.Recreational FacilitiesIn the early thirties, the county had given relatively little attention to the matter of recreation. What was done was in effect a sort of auxiliary interest of the county forester. Before I came on the Board, the county had designated a former employee of the County Forestry Department to take charge of the county parks. In the early thirties, therefore, there began a more conscious effort on the part of the Supervisors to provide recreational facilities for the expanding population. Among those who advocated such an expansion was Supervisor William A. Smith, who himself had been a forester in his earlier years. In his district in the eastern part of the county, on one occasion, he headed up a purchasing program which involved the acquisition of some twelve or fifteen park sites of ten acres or more each. Somewhat earlier. In my own district, I instituted the purchase of sites which became known as Plummer Park and West Hollywood Park. On the east side, I headed up the move to convert a neglected swale into a park on Brooklyn Avenue, making it also a regional civic center in which we located the Branch Office of the Sheriff's Department, the Branch Courts Building, and, eventually, a branch for the Probation Department and other county departments. A swimming pool was also built in this East Los Angeles Park, and other facilities, such as ball diamonds, were added. On Whittler Boulevard, Just east of Indiana Avenue, the county had owned a small park which had formerly been a hospital under Jewish auspices. In the course of the years, we greatly expanded this property on my initiative condemning the street on the southern boundary and acquiring several houses to the south of this, Laguna Park, as it was named.Another evidence of the expanding interest in recreation was the better organization of the department itself, and the eventual hiring of Norman [S.] Johnson as its director: he brought business efficiency and long-range planning into the activities of the entire department. Eventually more than fifty parks with organized and supervised play became a part of the county's recreational activity, with the encouragement of independent nonprofit civic bodies the utilization of the buildings and grounds of these areas was a very significant expansion of public recreation in all its aspects. At Plummer Park alone, no less than forty-two cultural, civic and patriotic used the facilities regularly each month.Shortly before retiring from the Board of Supervisors, I was instrumental in helping the Board acquire some fifty-four acres lying between Bell Gardens and Downey on the north bank of the Rio Hondo. Partly under my successor, Supervisor Debs, this has been developed very extensively, with an Olympic-size swimming pool, three baseball diamonds, picnic grounds, a full-size indoor gymnasium, an auditorium with stage and dressing rooms, a kitchen, and several other facilities. As a compliment to me and as a complete surprise, the Board named this facility John Anson Ford Park one day when I was not participating in the session. Actually much credit for acquiring this park goes to my deputy, Ray Nortvedt, who first suggested the purchase and sped up its acquisition.A larger project is the Whittier Narrows project, the result of a lease from the federal government of about a thousand acres of flood control land which the county had acquired and deeded to the federal government for flood control purposes. A large dam had been erected at the lower end of this area, but because of the infrequency of floods from the Sierra Madre Mountains to the north, the county consummated the lease with the federal government, and has been in the process for several years of converting a portion of this potential flood area into a great recreation park. It includes a lake stocked by the state with thousands of fish, named Herbert Legg Fishing Lake in honor of the late Herbert [C.] Legg, who had done much to develop the land for recreational purposes. A golf course is contemplated in the future, as well as many other recreational features.The county's development of golf courses is another phase of its awakening to the need of greatly expanded recreational facilities for the growing population. Under the leadership of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, the county acquired what is known as the Western Avenue Golf Course, immediately south of the boundary of the City of Los Angeles, making golfing facilities available to the people of modest means, including Negroes and those of other minority races. These golf courses, four or five of which have been established by the county in different parts of the territory, without exception have proven to be sources of revenue, which is naturally turned back into expanding and maintaining the best possible recreational facilities. Lakewood acquired a golf course by lease; this is the least favorable of all arrangements for golfing facilities, but even here the county is offering a large population an opportunity to play at low cost. Another golf course was developed as a part of Arcadia [County] Park. Arcadia Park was acquired by the county in the early thirties, when the federal government closed down its balloon school there, and deeded the entire area to the county for park purposes. In the eastern part of the county near Covina is the Puddingstone Reservoir, a flood control project in the foothills which was necessary for the protection of residential land lying below the location of Puddlngstone Dam. With the growing interest in recreation, the county acquired additional land above the Puddingstone area and, through a series of administrative acts, expanded its facilities, planted hundreds of trees, and made a contract with the Metropolitan Water District to maintain the water level in the reservoir, making possible fishing and boating and general recreational activities. This has become one of the finest park centers in the eastern portion of the county.The Relationship of County and City GovernmentsThe explosive growth of the county's population resulted during the thirties and forties and fifties in the development of a great number of new communities, many of which eventually incorporated as independent cities. Unfortunately, the state law did not have adequate restrictions on the incorporation of cities: any small group of people who signed a petition could set up a city government, even though there might be only a few hundred people in the area affected. Several things have grown out of this situation, some of which have been definitely beneficial and some of which have had bad social and governmental penalties.One of the good things was the development of the Lakewood Plan, which was established simultaneously with the creation of the city of Lakewood. The people of this new far-flung subdivision of several thousand population wanted local independent government, but were fearful of the expensive overhead in such a government. Accordingly, a plan was evolved whereby the city of Lakewood would have a minimum of salaried employees; at the outset there was only one full-time employee, a clerk, and a city council whose members received compensation, only for the time they were in session. The plan consists of a series of contracts entered into between the City of Lakewood and the county government of Los Angeles, by means of which all the municipal services the people of the City of Lakewood desired were to be performed by the county, at cost. There was a total of something like eighteen different contracts, including police service provided by the Sheriff's Department, planning and zoning service supplied by the Regional Planning Department, public health service through the county Health Department, recreational supervision through the county Park Department, and so on. As I say, all this service was rendered at cost, computed very carefully and with due allowance for a reasonable amount of county overhead.The Lakewood Plan was an innovation in this area and attracted such wide attention, that many other smaller cities in the county subsequently negotiated contracts with the county government. Business increased to such an extent that the county finally established under the Chief Administrative Officer a special office which gives all of its time to contacting these nearby communities and negotiating contracts with them. The number of contracts varies from city to city. Some want only police service; some want their own police officers. Some want the county to conduct its civil service examinations. Others want zoning problems to be handled by the county's own zoning experts. Some want sanitation and health matters to be handled by the county. The number of contracts with any one given city varies a great deal with the decisions and desires of the individual community. All told, I believe there are many hundred contracts which have been negotiated. In my judgment, this has been an important step toward solving the problems arising from the multiplicity of small cities. These little communities, some of which have less than a thousand inhabitants, cannot afford to have expert, experienced services, and this way, they do derive the benefits of expert governmental services in any desired department, at a cost which is regarded as a definite saving in local government. What is, perhaps, the most Important step is that it provides local control of local affairs, while making available the experience of experts ordinarily found only in large unite of government.

CUNNINGHAM

Do you foresee a time in Los Angeles when we might have an operation similar to that in San Francisco, where county and city government are combined?

FORD

The combination of county and city government, such as they have in San Francisco, has been discussed a good many times; but the more one gets into the intricacies of local problems, the less possibility of such a combination there seems to be. First of all, while the city has two or more million people, the county has six million, and a large part of the county would be unwilling to merge its government with the city's, inasmuch as the city has special needs and requirements which might be viewed with some jealousy. A further question is could any real economy be achieved by merging two organizations, both of which are so large as to more or less need a personnel set-up of its own. We at one time took a preliminary step towards such a merger when Dr. [George] Parrish, the City Health Officer, and Dr. Hugh Pomeroy both died within a period of a few weeks; the possibility of merging the two health departments then received a careful study. Actually, the city was more reluctant to engage in a merger effort than was the county, but nevertheless an expert analysis and survey was made, and it was found that, for example, we would not be able to reduce the number of employees, because all who were employed by the city presumably were all well employed, and the services that they performed would have to be continued. The same was true of the county. There might have been some saving at the very top of the administration; obviously, we could get along with one health officer instead of two; but the responsibility of administering the city's public health needs was so great that, if the county took it over, it would immediately have to create a special deputy health officer to give effective supervision to the city activity. Some years after my retirement, the County took over the City Health Department but the extent of resulting economies have not been determined by 1966.That one concrete illustration helped to lessen my interest in merging services, although an election seldom takes place without somebody's proposing consolidation, apparently without having full knowledge of all its implications.The same thing could be said of the city and county libraries. Here is the largest county library in the United States, and here is one of the great city libraries in the United States, but when you begin to think of merging the two, you don't find any substantial benefits in economy, and, indeed, you eliminate to some extent a certain competitive situation which often results in one library's setting up standards which the other library strives to meet.You could expand that same principle in many other ways. Perhaps the best way to summarize the argument against consolidation is to say that consolidation of two very large units is apt to create an unwieldy organization, the operation and supervision of which from the top becomes certainly as expensive and perhaps more expensive than it is at the present time. I think it's somewhat comparable to some of the huge corporations like Standard Oil or United States Steel, whose overhead and top officers constitute a very heavy burden upon the organization. However, we should add that in many matters there is cordial co-operation between departments in various cities. The police officers and the sheriff's departments meet together in a manner mutually beneficial to many functions of both city and county government.

1.5. CHAPTER V: OTHER POLITICAL CONNECTIONS

FORD

In the early 1930's, after my election as Supervisor, I was elected chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee. This position brought me in touch with a body of eager citizens who wanted to participate in public life and who were, under California state law, elected from their respective areas to serve on the County Central Committee, which is the official voice of county Democracy just as the Republican Committee is the official voice of county Republicanism. The functions of the committee, however, are limited, and, other than serving as a sounding board for public opinion or providing an occasional opportunity to become acquainted with candidates, it is not as significant as one might suppose. We had regular monthly meetings which were often marked by both enthusiasm and hectic controversy, so that as chairman I looked forward to presiding over them. For over seventeen years one of my deputies, Arthur Miley, was an invaluable personal adviser to me in political matters. His great contribution as a county official was the infinite pains with which he served welfare cases.As a member of the County Committee I was likewise a member of the State Central Committee which, as the late Ray Files, one of our Democratic leaders, used to say, had two functions: one was to be born and the other was to die at the end of its term. However, the State Central Committee, like the County Committee, is a clearing house for ideas, and is, in some degree, an effective spokesman for public sentiment on political issues. It does not have either the means or the authority to run a campaign or to determine the direction of county or state Democratic policies. There has grown up in recent years a more effective organization which has not supplanted either the County or the State Central Committee, known as the Council of Democratic Clubs, of which there have been several hundred organized in the State. These clubs hold conventions comparable in some respects to the old political conventions, but are distinct from them in spirit and in the independence of the individual delegates. They do engage in pre-election and pre-primary endorsement of candidates, which is not permitted to the County or the State Central Committee. Up to now these delegates have not been boss controlled. The State and County committees are supposed to get into the campaigns following the primaries, and give organized support to the candidates; they do a certain amount of important work in that connection, but the Council of Democratic Clubs really gets into the act before the primaries, and in many cases their endorsement determines who the candidate shall be.With the, you might say, unauthorized development of these clubs (unauthorized as far as the law is concerned), there came into the Democratic Party even more than into the Republican Party a potent force for practical political action. In the main, these clubs represent grass-roots sentiment, and they bring together workers in large numbers, who are activated by unselfish interest in politics rather than by a desire to secure patronage or positions. Actually, there is no organization or individual in the state which has sufficient patronage to stimulate membership in these clubs or to develop a political organization such as we find in Tammany or other eastern political organizations. With the exception of the governor's office, we don't have the patronage. Civil service is too prevalent, and limitations on public officials, while not complete, are so extensive that most workers who take part in these clubs do so because of a deep personal interest in politics; they desire to express themselves democratically and to make a contribution to what they think is the welfare of their state or county. I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the club idea. It is possible that in the years to come it might evolve to the point where somebody could develop into "boss" and thus create a sort of duplication of Tammany, but that does not seem likely at the present time. The wholesomeness of these conventions, the intensity of their arguments and the devotion of all the delegates to the Democratic cause is heartening.I want to make my endorsement of the club idea quite plain, even though one of my efforts to secure their endorsement failed. At the suggestion of Governor Brown, I became a candidate in 1958 in the election for the office of Secretary of State of the State of California, and although I did not put on a campaign among these club members, I suppose I relied on their good will, that of the governor, and the fact that I had a wide acquaintance to gain their support. A capable lawyer of Spanish-American background, Hank Lopez, however, also desired to get their endorsement for the position of Secretary of State, and put on a very intensive campaign up and down the State of California, with the result that the convention delegates voted him their endorsement. I kept my promise and withdrew my name. This was one step in building an endorsement of the complete ticket for all the state offices. I should add, without glorying in the fact, that all the other candidates for state offices, headed by Governor Pat Brown, were finally elected except Lopez. He didn't make it for Secretary of State. However, one of the reasons for his losing was that he was pitted against Frank Jordan, who had been (both he and his father of the same name) from time immemorial Secretary of State of California, so that Mr. Lopez had a very difficult competitor.Coincident with the development of these clubs was a growing interest on the part of California Democrats in national politics. Mr. Roosevelt's record had been a great stimulus to the Democratic Party in this state, followed by Mr. Truman who frequently visited California and gave the organization a shot in the arm. In the early fifties, Senator Estes Kefauver began to engage in nation-wide political activity, looking toward securing the nomination for the presidency in 1952. He visited all parts of the country, making several trips to California, at which time he contacted me to ask if I would head his California committee. At first I declined, but some weeks later, following a long-distance call from the Senator in Connecticut, I agreed to head up his activities here. We proceeded to enlist supporters and to engage in a series of meetings up and down the state. The Attorney General, then Edmund Q. Brown, did not come out in support of Kefauver but contended, as did many of his friends and followers, that the nomination should be left to the convention. Eventually, however, for the purposes of heading up a movement to elect independent delegates, Mr. Brown allowed himself to be the favorite son candidate for the presidency. Our respective campaigns grew in intensity and, at least on one occasion, Mr. Brown and I appeared on the same platform, he advocating his own independent delegation to the convention and I advocating a delegation committed to Mr. Kefauver.The Kefauver delegation was overwhelmingly elected at the primary, and therefore became the official representative to the Democratic National Committee. Following the state law, the State Central Committee nominated me as National Committeeman, and we went to the 1952 convention in Chicago as the delegation solidly committed to Senator Kefauver. The developments of that convention are well-known political history. Our California delegation, with George Miller of Richmond, California, as its "field marshal," stayed with Kefauver to the very last, when finally Adlai Stevenson was overwhelmingly elected and Kefauver shunted to one side; there was real resentment at the time of the arbitrariness of Speaker [Sam] Rayburn in refusing to give adequate recognition to Senator Kefauver.As National Committeeman, I only had the opportunity to attend one or two of the meetings of the National Committee subsequent to the nomination of Mr. Stevenson. Inasmuch as I had shared in giving a lot of emphasis to Kefauver as a suitable candidate, I had had my misgivings regarding Mr. Stevenson, who I feared might be more or less a puppet for Jake Arvey, the boss of Chicago and a well-known politician of the Tammany type. For the purpose of clarifying my own mind in the matter, I made a trip to Springfield to visit Governor Stevenson at my own expense. However, I went with an already favorable attitude toward Mr. Stevenson, because of his remarkable acceptance address before the Democratic National Convention. This eloquent plea for the Democratic cause and the Democratic victory was on such a high level and was done with such a statesmanlike attitude that I went to see him convinced that he was not the puppet of Jake Arvey, who in the Chicago sector of the convention had been one of his strongest supporters.My visit to Springfield confirmed my realization that Stevenson was a man of extraordinary character and ability, and that he was completely independent of Jake Arvey, although not taking an attitude that would alienate Arvey in the political campaigning. Mr. Stevenson received me courteously, while making no effort to curry my favor, going about his many governmental duties as usual. The day I was there, he had an engagement to speak before the Farm Editors of Illinois at the State Fairgrounds, and he invited me to accompany him on that trip to the luncheon in which the Farm Editors participated. That trip afforded the principal opportunity I had to talk privately with him that day. One bit of conversation remains in my memory. He explained that he was very proud of his administration's record on the State Fair. He said that when he became governor the indebtedness which burdened the State Fair was some eight or nine hundred thousand dollars, and that by careful husbanding they had reduced this indebtedness to some two hundred thousand dollars, as I recall. Of this demonstration of economy and efficiency he was very proud. I remarked that he certainly was to be congratulated, and that he should have little trouble in liquidating the balance of the two hundred thousand dollars with all of the income that I was sure he would have from parimutuel betting returns. He turned to me and said rather emphatically, "We don't have parimutuel betting on the State Fairgrounds and I don't think that's a proper activity to be carried on there, because among the principal patrons and beneficiaries of the Fairgrounds are young people from the farms and cities of Illinois, so we don't have parimutuel." To me, coming from California where parimutuel was riding high, and producing rather fabulous revenues for the state, this was an utterance that seemed bold and courageous: it indicated a certain moral sensitivity that you don't find in many candidates for public office.Following that day's visit came many other contacts with Governor Stevenson as his campaign progressed in '52 and subsequently in '56. I was with him frequently, heard him speak, saw him labor long and meticulously over his speeches — often handwritten — interlining the manuscript with corrections often up to the last minute before going on the platform. At the outset, the experience of meeting these crowds seemed a relatively new experience for him, and at times he seemed rather to shrink from mingling with them, perhaps wishing to withdraw and contemplate the issues and speech that he was going to make. However, he always was a good sport, and if I saw a reluctance on his part as we drove from meeting to meeting to appear before big crowds or small audiences, there was no outward evidence of any reluctance to play his part as a candidate.Another incident I recall took place in Los Angeles one Sunday. Considerable thought was given to what was the proper thing for a candidate to do on Sunday. It was decided that he would, if he so desired, attend some service of worship. I suggested that he might like to go to the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard, where my son was bass soloist in the church quartet; I thought he would enjoy hearing him sing. This was arranged, and Mr. Stevenson and I attended Immanuel Church that particular Sunday. The Governor's presence was acknowledged by the pastor in his preliminary comments, and when, later in the service, communion was served, Mr. Stevenson participated, even though he is a member of the Unitarian denomination, which is quite different in its theology from the Presbyterian.You will recall that Stevenson, following his first defeat for the presidency, showed his wonderful sense of humor as well as a resilience of spirit. He said he was reminded of Lincoln's story after suffering defeat. He was like the big boy, he said, who stubbed his toe and found that it hurt too much to laugh and that he was too big to cry.All of Stevenson's supporters were equally depressed by his second defeat. How well I remember his television remarks on the night of that keen disappointment. Quoting Fra Angelico, if I remember right, he said, "There is a radiance and a glory in the darkness, could we but see; and to see we have only to look."This moved me deeply and I find in my intermittent diary that I wrote him a letter on December 19, 1960, in which I said, in part:Dear Governor: Permit me to quote you from memory: "There is a radiance and a glory in the darkness could we but see; and to see we have only to look." This United Nations task to which you have set your hand, thinking more of service than of self, may prove to carry responsibilities as great as any in the Administration.Am I too unearthly when I say far too much of our "peace" talk is predicated on "dealing with strength;" not enough has been said about "justice," "whether you or we are the stronger."I have often thought of the Sunday in Immanuel Church in Los Angeles when we both took the communion. Our theology, I am sure, was very different from many around us. But I feel that we shared in recognizing that service, and at times sacrifice, give something of a divinity to life. That is part of the radiance and glory that we always do not see. John Anson In a few days a reply came back, dated January 6, 1960:Dear John: Thank you for your letter. I have no illusions about the difficulties I face and your thought of me is comforting and encouraging. With warmest good wishes.Sincerely yours, Adlai

1.6. CHAPTER VI:SOME INTERESTING ENCOUNTERS

FORD

I suppose every boy has certain heroes he worships. I learned that one of my heroes, Teddy Roosevelt, was coming to Galena, Illinois. We were living in Warren, Illinois, not far down the railroad tracks, so to speak, from Galena, and so I saved money to see this famous man. It cost me three or four dollars to get there. I went down because he was going to make a speech in recognition and honor of General Grant's birthday. Galena was very proud of the fact that Grant lived in their town.I suppose Teddy Roosevelt was doing some political planning. He must have been Governor of New York then. Anyhow, I went down, and I remember that first of all, I looked over his private railroad car very carefully, and peered in the windows, but I couldn't see anybody. Then I went to the hall where he made his speech. I don't remember anything about his speech, but I do remember that after the speech everybody lined up to shake hands with him. Of course, that, I now recognize, was a good political gimmick. So I decided I'd get in line and shake hands with him, too. I was then about sixteen, I think. Having shaken hands with him once, then I went back and got in the slow-moving line and shook hands with him again! [laughter] If my pride was hurt at all, it was that he didn't remember that he'd shaken hands with me on my first time around!Well, I do remember this remark. Somebody congratulated him on his wonderful record at San Juan Hill. "Aw," he says, "that's just a little war; that didn't amount to anything at all. " I remember that.It was years later, when I was a reporter, a manager, an editor for Forest Leaves, Roosevelt was coming to Chicago, and I saw him a second time. That must have been after he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in the Bull Moose Party. I heard that he was going to be at the Northwestern Station and I went down with a bunch of newspapermen there. When I had wormed my way in I told him that I was representing a little suburban paper, and that we'd been having some editorials in the same line of talk that he had been discussing about the press, namely, condemning the corruption in prize fighting, especially in New York State. He listened very kindly, and finally he said, "Well, I'm glad you're fighting them." That was all I wanted. I just had the one sentence, one quote, but from that I went home and wrote a column in my paper about it, saying that Roosevelt endorsed my campaign and my editorials.The other thing I remember about him (this didn't seem to apply the first time) was that, on this second meeting, when I shook hands with him I was almost shocked at the softness of his hand. Here he was, the embodiment of the strenuous life, yet the palm of his hand was as soft as a baby's. It made a great impression on me. Of course, I don't suppose he'd done any manual work for years and years. Well, that's my little story about Teddy Roosevelt.Speaking about presidents, Mrs. Ford and I had an interesting contact with John F. Kennedy while he was still Senator. Again, like Teddy Roosevelt, I think he had the presidency in mind, and so we were invited to a rather large party at Peter Lawford's home down on Santa Monica beach. I was then interested in another candidate for the presidency — it was either Kefauver or Stevenson, but I think it may have been Kefauver at that time. Yes, we were pleased and honored to see this young senator, but we didn't think he had any chance for the presidency. He was very gracious and very informal and very handsome. The incident that was then in the public mind was that he had just been out on the beach a day or two before in his swimming trunks, and had been surrounded by all these admiring young girls and so on. You remember that in the press?

DIXON

I remember.

FORD

Of course, that was good presidential publicity too. On another occasion I came in close contact with Kennedy but I didn't actually speak with him. They have a big stadium at East Los Angeles Junior College, and during the close of Kennedy's campaign, he made one of his important speeches to an enormous crowd. By the time I was able to get there, the crowd was so great that the gates were closed and they wouldn't let anybody in, but I was then one of the County Supervisors and a deputy sheriff saw me and recognized me. He waved to me and he said, "Come on through." When I finally forced my way through the "outside" crowd, he opened the gate and let me in. By then the "inside" crowd was so great that I couldn't get in the entrance to the stadium, so he took me around to the wall and boosted me over the wall that enclosed the athletic field and kept the "inside" crowd from the large speaker's platform. All those seats were occupied, but I wormed my way down to the front of the section and finally got a seat while he made a very stirring speech. Of course, the crowd was fabulously enthusiastic.

DIXON

Was that one of his foreign policy speeches? I think he made one out here.

FORD

I can't tell you what his subject was, but the thing that makes me especially remember this is that a friend of mine, one of the newspaper reporters, subsequently sent me a photograph which he took just as the crowd was breaking up and Kennedy was leaving the platform. That is one of my most prize photographs, because here in the center of the picture is Kennedy with his sister beside him, and next to him is Stevenson, and then Clare Engle, those three all having passed away since. On the other side of him is [Pat] Brown, and I'm a little bit in the background. It's nice to have such a photo. Pure accident that I was in it. There are so many people I find in reviewing my intermittent diary, all kinds of people, some of them identified with Hollywood's famous history, and many of them identified with public life, and a few of them international figures. One time, at my suggestion, the Board of Governors of the County Museum of History, Science and Art named a gallery after Mr. [William Randolph] Hearst. As a result of that, Mr. Hearst began sending gifts to the museum. Almost every week he would call up end say, "Send over a truck to San Simeon" or someplace, and back would come all kinds of precious art objects. Some years later I asked the director of the museum how much this amounted to. Well, he said he thought Hearst had sent in about two million dollars worth of material. I would say the county directors' resolution paid off!

DIXON

Good heavens !

FORD

And all because I got the directors to name this gallery after him. But the only time I ever met Mr. Hearst was when, after some period of time had elapsed, the Supervisors wanted to thank him for his generosity. We went down as a body to Marion Davies' residence in Santa Monica and presented him with a scroll thanking him for his gifts to the County Museum.I had one other interesting connection, not with Hearst, but with Hearst's castle.

DIXON

Up at San Simeon?

FORD

Yes. After Hearst died, there was a good deal in the papers about what they would do with that castle. I had been there once through the invitation of a son, David Hearst, and I was tremendously intrigued with the beauty of it; most of it is gorgeous, and fine art, really. While the public was debating what the state should do, I induced my Board of Supervisors to pass a resolution urging the State Park Commission to accept this gift. They had been hesitating because they didn't know how much expense would be involved to maintain the property. So we passed the resolution and interestingly enough, the Hearst paper copied the resolution, made a photograph of it, and it occupied half a page. This argument as to whether the state should accept this gift or not continued for some months. Finally I had occasion to plan a trip to Oakland, and I was so concerned about this that I wrote Joe [Joseph R.] Knowland, who was then the chairman of the State Park and Beaches Commission, that I wanted to talk to him about that gift and why they should accept it. He wrote back and said he'd be very glad to see me, and I did call on him in Oakland. He had Mr. Drury of the staff there in the office to meet me at the same appointed hour. Well, I knew that Joe was interested in all kinds of park expansion, and so on. But he said, "Ford, we've had made a survey of this problem, and it's not a one-sided thing by any manner. I'm going to ask Mr. Drury to tell you the result of his survey."So Drury took over. "Well," he said, "we've made a very careful survey and it's unfavorable. We don't think that the Park Commission should accept this gift." I was astonished. "Well," he said, "for two or three reasons. In the first place, because it's located far off the highway. Also, it's not a main-traveled road; it's out of normal travel. Another consideration is that it's in a region that is afflicted with great many days of fog, and we don't believe that the attendance would be enough to make it worthwhile to accept this."Isn't that amazing?And do you know that, after they accepted it, the applications for admission to the Hearst castle pile up so that sometimes it's weeks and weeks before you can get in, and this in spite of the fact they're now charging two or three dollars for admission!

DIXON

A friend of mine spoke to one of the guards who said that if they were allowed to keep the gate receipts instead of turning them over to the General Fund, they could more than support the cost of operating San Simeon, just from the gate receipts. It's amazing how shortsighted they were.

FORD

Well, I thought that was an interesting experience in contacting Hearst.Now, in going back to the different presidents that I have seen or contacted, I only saw Franklin D. Roosevelt once, and that was in one of his early campaigns. He was in California, I think I must have been a County Committeeman, or maybe I was chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee. Roosevelt was in his private car on one of the railroad sidings, and a lot of us lined up to say hello to him and shake his hand. When I finally got to him in the long line that was greeting him, I said, "Mr. President, there is a Republican in New York who is very ambitious, I think, to become president. I've known him from boyhood, or early manhood, and he's now a congressman. I think you ought to watch out for him. His name is Bruce Barton." And he looked up to me as we shook hands and he sort of laughed, and in his eastern accent said, "Ford, he'll never make it'." [Imitated accent — laughter] That was my only contact with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Before long. Barton dropped out of politics.I did have a very pleasant contact with Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. She received me graciously and perhaps spent ten or fifteen minutes with me. One thing I remember about that call was that she said something about "Franklin" being so busy. They were concerned with getting some word to him. She said, "We finally talked it over and decided who would be the best one to get in to him, and get a favorable response, and we finally appointed Cissy," one of the grandchildren. Cissy was to be given the message to take in to the President.The other thing she told me at the time was the problem that she had had with trying to get the roof of a hospital in Washington, D.C., which was primarily a Negro hospital in those days, mended and put in good condition. She said the hospital had so run down that even the roof over the operating room leaked, and while the surgeons were operating on patients sometimes the water would drip through.

DIXON

Oh, good heavens!

FORD

And she said, "I made up my mind that we're just going to make Congress do something about it." The difficulty was that the District of Columbia committee who had charge of improvements of that sort was dominated by Southerners and a Southern chairman. She said, "I called up this chairman and he promised to do something. Weeks went by and nothing was done. Finally," she said, "I went in to Franklin, and I said, 'Franklin, you must do something about this.' He wearily said, 'All right, I'll call him up.' And he called him up and still they didn't do anything. And," she said, "I had to go in to Franklin again before they would make an appropriation for this hospital. I went in to him a second time, and he then called in the chairman to the White House and told him that if he wanted to do any more business with the President, he'd better do something about that hospital repair job. That is the only way he finally did succeed in getting the repairs made." And Mrs. Roosevelt added, "You know, this Southern chairman was so afraid that some of his opponents would find out the fact that he had proposed an appropriation for a Negro hospital, he was sure that they'd use that against him."It shows that we've traveled a long ways, because that was not too long ago. Well, that's a little glimpse of Mrs. Roosevelt.I had an interesting interview with Harry Truman in his White House office on another occasion. For many years, I had interested myself in a type of monument which I called a "Monument to Democracy," on the theory that since we have a monument to liberty (the Statue of Liberty) on the east coast, now, in the evolution of the nation's westward trend, we should have a corresponding companion statue — to Democracy — on the west coast. I had interested Millard Sheets, who drew some very good sketches, and finally produced a handsome brochure. So I went down to Washington to sell my idea.I guess I went down on County business of some kind, and got an appointment with the President. Or rather, first I got an appointment with Oscar Chapman, who was then Secretary of the Interior, and he said, "If you ever get that thing started, I think I can make the area a national monument."I had envisioned this monument as something as follows: I'd worked out the major elements of the design. It was to be a statue with three heroic male figures with arms upraised, standing sort of back to back, and all together upholding a translucent globe of the world. One figure would be a black man, one figure would be a white man, and one a brown or a yellow man, symbolical of the different races of mankind. This is democracy upholding the world. Within, the translucent globe would be a light which would be visible at night out to sea or to the airport — we wanted to place it on the top of Palos Verdes Hills. Mrs. Vanderlip, the survivor of the owner of Palos Verdes, was very much interested in the idea, but those things take a long time.I took the idea to Truman, and he said, informally, that he would be honorary chairman of a committee, with the understanding that Mr. [Herbert] Hoover would also be honorary chairman.Then all I had to do was to go out and raise two million dollars. [laughter] But many things came along. Wartime intervened, Korea, and the top of Palos Verdes where I wanted the monument was occupied by the government with radio buildings and so on. But actually, I've never given up the idea.

DIXON

I think it's a wonderful idea.

FORD

My present hope is to interest the Harbor Commission at Long Beach, perhaps jointly with the Harbor Commission in Los Angeles. They're now talking about building islands out in the harbor, as you know. And now the project has dragged on so many years that this would be the right time to erect a monument in commemoration of the Second Centennial of the Declaration of Independence.

DIXON

That's true. Another ten years...

FORD

You see, the first Statue of Liberty was really in honor of the First Centennial, and this would be just a hundred years later, and this would be looking west instead of east and would emphasize democracy, which is so important in these days with the Orient. The idea is all right, if I could just get somebody to back it up. I've talked to many people about it in the course of the years. Once I thought I had Conrad Hilton interested, because he has hotels all over the world. And once Ed Pauley said he would help me if I'd put it downtown. [laughter] And so I've never really quite gotten it over, but I still have two or three copies of the beautiful deckle-edge brochure. Some day when I feel that I've got enough courage and pep and vinegar, maybe I may go down and talk to the Harbor Commission in Long Beach, or perhaps President Johnson.

1.7. CHAPTER VII:THE FORT MOORE MEMORIAL

FORD

My interest in the monument to democracy derives in part from experience I had with the Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial, next to the Board of Education building where the waterfall is. That was my idea. Did you know that?

DIXON

No, I didn't know that.

FORD

Well, briefly the story is this: and it took ten struggling years to get that thing built. Two lovely elderly women, Mrs. Moses Davis and Mrs. McAllister, came to me back in the '40's and said, "Mr. Ford, do you realize that the first American flag in Southern California was raised on the site of Fort Moore July 4, 1847?" I think that was the year. And she said, "We think that there should be some kind of a memorial there to commemorate that. That was quite an event, as the territory changed over from the Mexican to American."I was immediately intrigued with the idea, and finally I took it to my Board of Supervisors. To make a long story short, the idea evolved from a rather small memorial into a big memorial. The main elements of the project were something like this: I first got a small appropriation with which we could hold a design contest under the auspices of the American Institute of Architects and have it well organized. They had a set of rules and so on that we would follow. So we got an additional appropriation and then we advertised a prize of $20,000 for the best design for a memorial to fit this site to commemorate the first raising of the American flag in Southern California. We had something like seventy-two responses. With the approval of the Supervisors, we selected an award jury. We got a distinguished artist from Chicago and an art authority from San Francisco and one local businessman and a historian — we had quite a fine jury. We put all these competing designs on display and the jury spent two days studying them, and finally picked out this design that we now have on the hillside east of the Board of Education. A lot of credit goes to Mrs. Chandler, because I got her to serve on the committee; she "stayed with it" in spite of many, many delays and difficulties as to material and adequate appropriations. I asked for and obtained so many appropriations that one Supervisor said that this wasn't Fort Moore Memorial, this was "Fort More and More Memorial." [laughter]Of the more than seventy architectural competitors, the winner was a young Japanese American, Kagumi Adachi, aided by his engineer, Aike Nugano. A few years before, both of them had been interned in a U.S. concentration camp.

DIXON

Oh, how appropriate!

FORD

Yes, I thought so. Well, we had to get help beside that from the County, so next, with Mrs. Chandler's help, we went over and got an audience with the City Council, and after weeks' delay, got them, reluctantly, to give us $80,000. Then we said, "Well, now, who's next?" I think the next one we tackled was the Bureau of Water and Power, and they finally gave us $80,000. One great difficulty there was whether it was legal for them to spend money for this purpose. We had endless conferences with the lawyers (you know how they can string things out), but we finally got an okay, and we secured the $80,000 from that Department. Then we went to the Board of Education, and there we secured $80,000 from them. I think the County by that time had probably put in $300,000. It was really "Fort More and More."Still we were short of money. We found that the plain cement surface of the monument wall wasn't satisfactory — it had to be covered with ornamental brick, and that entailed additional expense. So we searched around. I talked to Mrs. Davis and she said, "You know, I think this monument is in part a memorial to the Mormon Battalion,'' because the Mormon Battalion was the principal element in this famous trek overland from Kansas City, or someplace in the Middle West, to Los Angeles. It was the longest military trek, up to that time, in American history at any rate. So she said, "I think because of this we can get the Mormon Church to help us." In the end, they gave us $75,000.She said, "We don't want any excessive emphasis upon it, but we would like recognition as to the proper part that the Mormon Battalion played in our pioneer history."We relied very much on Dr. Glenn Dumke, of Occidental College, now Chancellor of the State Colleges, to work out a series of episodes that could be memorialized by a bas-relief, and one of them had to do with the Mormon Battalion.So we then had a second competition for a sculptor who would prepare these bas-reliefs to occupy one-third of the memorial wall. Out of several competitors who submitted photographs and sketches of their work, we selected Henry Kreis, of Connecticut, who came west and spent several weeks preparing the molds for these bas-reliefs which were then converted into ceramic tile — all the bas-reliefs are in ceramic tile.We also used the services of Albert Stewart, who taught sculpture at Scripps College. He supplemented Mr. Kreis' work, and, among other things, designed the dramatic figure of the eagle which is a part of the pylon in front of the memorial wall. A detail about this pylon, some seventy feet high, which the public will never know: to secure an earthquake-proof foundation, the engineers bored downward forty feet until they struck solid bedrock on which they poured cement for the pylon's foundations. Another sculptured contribution by Mr. Stewart was a series of small intaglio historic panels ornamenting the back of the long stone bench at the base of the pylon.That's the story of that monument. I was saying that ten years' experience is what gives me courage to not quite give up on the "Monument for Democracy Upholding the World." I know how long these things take. I even proposed once that it be put in San Francisco Bay, but they backed and filled, and there were several interfering complications there. I thought perhaps Alcatraz Island would be proper, now that they're taking the prison away, but they've got a commission in Washington which is now studying something for that island. At least I've given them an opportunity, and how sorry they'll be when we get it built down in Long Beach! [laughter] Well, then, Mr. Truman was interested, and I think as I said a moment ago, he said that he would be willing to serve as one of our honorary chairmen. I'm sorry that it hasn't progressed farther.

1.8. CHAPTER VIII: POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES

FORD

So far I've talked a good deal about politics. I met Omar Bradley one time; he sat at my table at a dinner party. I didn't see anything very dramatic or unusual about him, except he had a very strong lower jaw! I think maybe it's that lower jaw that helped make him the Chief of Staff. He's one of the great military leaders of our time.

DIXON

Yes, he is.

FORD

While we're talking about political figures, one of my favorites, I say it with a lot of sincerity, is Pat Brown. Governor Brown. I came to know him intimately over the eight years that I served on the Fair Employment Commission. There is a characteristic of Pat that it's a little difficult to describe. I would call it "transparency." He doesn't simulate. He is exceedingly open, and being open, you discover that he is not strong for intrigue or subtleties. Sometimes that's gotten him into a good deal of trouble. He'll say things, you know, off the cuff. Just as he felt about it, and then it gets him into hot water. But I have seen many public men in high places and I must say that these qualities about Pat have caused me to admire him greatly.No, I don't think he's the greatest statesman in the world. He's not a "high-brow" intellectual; he doesn't pretend to be. Nor does he assume a pose. He just is himself, very earnest, very dedicated. He has a deep affection for California, and I think he'll go down in history as one of our best governors. He has a deep human sympathy and he has made it really effective in much of his legislative program.

DIXON

Would you care to comment at all on his successor?

FORD

Well, I never have met Ronald Reagan, but I don't mind saying (and I suppose some of these opinions still reflect campaign intensities) that I don't see how Reagan can administer the Governor's office with confidence. What the American public has not yet learned is that politics is as much a profession as medicine or dentistry or architecture. It's a complex profession. Every once in awhile the public elects somebody to high office who hasn't had any experience, and he stumbles around and picks up enough information so that he makes a respectable showing, but often it's a very costly showing.I think of my own case, for instance. I knew very little about the inside of County government when I was elected Supervisor in 1934, but as I look back now, I'm convinced that because I was a novice, because I didn't know what it was all about, the majority on the Board put over things that they couldn't possibly put over as I became experienced and more sophisticated. I knew more about the profession of politics.And Reagan is in that fix now. He comes in with his good intentions, and his Ideas as to conservatism and economy and business efficiency and so on, but he's not equipped for this profession. He's not equipped for it. The state undoubtedly will pay a heavy price — they may not know it then, but false economies may well become a very dramatic issue in some future campaign. When you have ignorance or lack of experience in any large business you're going to have to pay a price for it. Much will depend on the people who are around Reagan. He needs a lot of political savvy to really know who he's putting around him. Partly due to his experience as an actor he has a pleasing address, but it seems to me his basic conservatism is contrary to the spirit of the times.We've talked about politics. Now let me make some reference to people outside the field of politics, maybe in the Hollywood area.

DIXON

Yes, please.

FORD

One day in the early 40's I read in the Los Angeles Times that William S. Hart, "silent" movie hero, had donated to the city his residence on Sunset Boulevard. He thought it perhaps would be a nice little park. I was so impressed with the generosity of that act (although I had met Hart once) that I sat down and wrote a letter congratulating him on the generous donation.He wrote back and said, "Thank you for the letter, but," he added, "you will be interested to know that in my will I'm going to leave my ranch out at Newhall for a public park to the county, but if they don't want it, I'll give it to the state." That was, of course, mighty pleasing.The years passed, and finally William S. Hart died. I watched the papers very anxiously to see if he had actually fulfilled his promise. Sure enough, his will provided that, after giving $100,000 to his wife, from whom he had been estranged for many years; and to his son, who likewise had lived with his mother in the east and had largely ignored Hart during his last illness and so on, he had given $100,000; and he also made gifts to several other people; and then, after these bequests had been taken care of, the balance of his liquid estate assets were to be given to the County, together with his 200-acre ranch at Newhall as a County park. Well, I was thrilled he had fulfilled his dream, and a great asset would come to the County. His letter to me had said he felt obligated to the public because the public had made him a success.We were greatly disappointed when, a few weeks after the announcement of the will, the son started a suit to break the will. The story of that suit is really a sad commentary. In my judgment, on judicial procedure in probate matters, because it took ten years of costly wrangling in the court before the County finally got a favorable settlement.The three executors were prominent Los Angeles men (l don't recall their names, but I did know some of them personally). It appears that they somewhat neglected the property in those ten years of litigation, because many of the reels of silent films which were a part of his bequest, were destroyed by water and injured. And the lovely ranch house high on the hill, which is now a real tourist attraction, was neglected. At the outset, his assets, aside from his bequests and the ranch, were estimated at between $900,000 and a million dollars. But when the County finally won the suit and all fees and bills were paid the assets had diminished to a little less than $98,000. That's the story of the William S. Hart Park. In the ranch house, you'll see a copy of my letter to Mr, Hart and a copy of his letter to me. They framed them and put them in the hallway somewhere.Here is another celebrity I met. Before I was Supervisor, I did some free-lance writing. I got the assignment from a magazine called The Independent to write a story about Douglas Fairbanks. The Independent was run by Henry Ford — no relation of mine — and it used quite a number of my articles. So I made the appointment with Doug Fairbanks. This was on the set of his very fabulous silent picture, Robin Hood . I took along my small son, got some pictures of him on the castle steps, in the causeway near the portcullis, and finally shots of Doug himself. Frankly, while I have a copy of the article somewhere, I don't remember what he said except one thing. We were finally settled down in a studio and he said, "Well, what do you want me to say?" [laughter] I was quite taken back and had to do some mental gymnastics to think of a question to ask him, of course. But, anyhow, he was very gracious, and we had a very nice time together.

DIXON

He wasn't a very tall man, was he?

FORD

No, but he had a fine physique, though he wasn't a particularly muscular man. But he was thoughtful and we had a good interview and I got a good story.Years later, after I became Supervisor, I had occasion to meet Mary Pickford. I went up to her home, "Picfair," which she and Doug had bought and where they lived before they were separated, and Mary was very cordial. I was talking to her about a Hollywood Museum for Motion Pictures, for the motion picture industry, and she was very much interested. I hope she still is, because I feel that this great mass media of the world centers in Hollywood. Year after year important historical mementos and other objects are being lost or dissipated and perhaps never can be recovered. The community is making a very great mistake in not following through on the beginning which the Supervisors made for a movie museum. Many things have complicated the situation since I was on the Board of Supervisors, but if I were there I should still be pushing for that museum, Mary was sympathetic with this, and perhaps somewhere in her will she's got provision for it. I hope so.

DIXON

Do you think the museum will ever get off the ground?

FORD

Well, the nub of the difficulty that the Supervisors and other civic-minded people have run into is that the studios can't resist the temptation to use the proposed museum as a sounding board for special new pictures that are coming out. And now, in recent years, the immediate need for one aspect of the museum is taken care of by Universal City, who conducts tours so that people can go through and see the studios at work. But that's not the main function of a museum. A museum very properly should have a studio that could show the tourists and visitors how pictures are made — perhaps see pictures actually being made, but in addition to that it should be the repository of all sorts of valuable articles connected with the history of the development of the motion picture business.Now, in that connection, to show you how long I've been interested in the idea, years before Cecil De Mille died I went out and talked with him about this. He had already conceived the Idea himself, and took me into his private office and said, "Here is the original camera with which I made The Squaw Man." And he said If we were to estimate what this has contributed to the motion picture industry, we could hardly compute it. And then he said, "I have all my working scripts. I've kept them all, with all my personal notations on the margin as to how the actors should do this or that, or what should take place. This is all available for the museum." And yet nothing has been done. I think it's really a reflection on the intelligence and the lack of civic enterprise on the part of the picture industry itself, and the public in general.Speaking of Cecil De Mllle, he lived right over the hill here. Just behind these houses across the street from where we're sitting, in Laughlln Park. I never saw him over there, but his residence is still there.Mrs. Ford and I were traveling around the world in 195, and when we came down from Beirut to Cairo, we went out also to Luxor. Then, of course, we wanted to go out to the pyramids. They said that near the pyramids there was a motion picture company shooting some pictures, and wouldn't I like to go out and see that? We did. There was Cecil De Mllle with 3000 extras, shooting The Ten Commandments, with magnificent sets. I introduced myself and Mrs. Ford, He was very friendly and we had pictures taken together. He introduced us to Charlton Heston and we two had our picture taken with him, and it was quite an interesting experience. As we watched the rehearsals, I think I saw the "flight from Egypt" about seven times! [laughter] All these Israelites would come swarming out of a huge Egyptian gateway, and they'd get out about so far with the donkeys and the ducks and the dogs and all the rest. Then De Mllle would fire a pistol, and the exodus would stop, and they'd all go back in and do it over again.Well, I'm very proud of the fact that, subsequent to meeting him on the deserts of Egypt, I got my Board of Supervisors to pass a citation; he came down and we presented it to him. It was little enough that we, the community, could do, outside of the motion picture area itself, to give him this citation, I think he was really very appreciative of it.That is one example of the "citation" custom that I think I initiated, or revived, for I am cure other agencies had the same idea. But it does seem to me I initiated the idea of citations at the Board of Supervisors.

DIXON

For public service. . .

FORD

For public service, yes. Now I think they've kind of run it into the ground now — too many politically inspired. As an example, that one that I showed you that I got last night![laughter]Another celebrity: Steve Allen and I served a few years ago on a state committee commemorating Library Week. We met in Fresno, and had a special program there. Steve is quite literary and has had an unusual education. He made a very good library talk. I was pleased to see that side of Steve Allen, because we sometimes think of those people as being just comedians, or something of that sort.One of my friendships of which I'm particularly proud is my friendship with Will Durant, historian. I first became acquainted with him in the early days of my supervisorship, possibly before. I was invited with others to share with him in an organization which he called The Declaration of Independence . We had quite a dream, a great idea. Unfortunately, some participants became very contentious in our executive group and the thing finally faded away. Will Durant got a little discouraged. But the idea was a good one. We were emphasizing through publicity releases and committees in different communities the human brotherhood cooperation, mutual tolerance and understanding.So Will Durant and I have a friendship that's continued on through the years, although I can't say that it's intimate or have we met frequently. I have been in his home. He had described to me in detail the successive steps by which he writes his manuscripts, which is an exceedingly arduous, painstaking thing. I can't give all the details of it, but I remember that. In his reading in any broad field that he's concerned with, he prepares little slips of paper on which he makes notations and quotations and references. Then, after he's accumulated a few hundred of these, he sorts them, according to subject matter and correlates them. When he starts to write and gets down to a particular subject, he goes over to this pile of slips which ai very helpful to him in enriching his references with specific items and details.Years later, when Huntington Library asked me to write something about county government, and I finally, after about a year's effort, produced a manuscript called Thirty Explosive Years in Los Angeles County , I had the temerity to ask Will Durant if he would read the manuscript. That was asking a good deal. It shows how generous he is, because he doesn't do anything but read all day. Anyhow, he consented, and he wrote back that he was surprised how good it was."Quite frankly," he said, "I didn't know that you could write like that."Well, then I asked, "Would you write a foreword for it?" which he did. And I've been very proud of that foreword. And if Huntington Library had just mentioned that fact on the jacket of the cover, I think I'd have increased the sales of my book, although the sales have been quite gratifying.Now, my contact with Will Durant is renewed each summer at Hollywood Bowl. His box is almost across the aisle from the box that the Hollywood Bowl has given to Mrs. Ford and me for life. So we greet each other at the Bowl concerts. And I'm pleased to say that after a slight illness a year or two ago. Will seems to be in good health. He and I are almost the same age, and he's still pressing on, writing.I've seen Edward G. Robinson a few times, and I've been interested in the fact that he's an art connoisseur. I was in his home before he and Mrs . Robinson were separated. He had a fabulous collection of paintings, very valuable paintings. I don't know what disposition was made of those when the two of them separated. The matter was in the papers a good deal.

DIXON

There was quite a bit of contention. Some of them luckily have gone to the new Los Angeles Art Museum, haven't they?

FORD

Perhaps they have. I hope they are being saved for the public.Speaking of famous paintings, there is a prominent man in Hollywood who is something of an art connoisseur, at least he has become so in recent years. His name is A. E. England.

DIXON

Oh, the automobile man.

FORD

Yes, the automobile man. Parenthetically, England was chairman of the committee that put on my retirement dinner, and he was one of the men that helped make it such a success. As near as I can tell. It was the biggest retirement dinner ever held around here. I shouldn't go into the details of that now, because I'm leading up to a story that England told me, but I'll add that we had l00 people at this dinner, and they presented Mrs. Ford and me with quite fabulous gifts. Art Linkletter was the master of ceremonies. This was in December 1958, and finally they pulled aside the curtain on the platform and here was a lovely blue Buick. And then, Ed Pauley said they wanted to get rid of me and send me to Russia, so they gave Mrs. Ford and me two round-trip air tickets to Europe, to Copenhagen. And then somebody else said, "Well, when you get over there, you'll need some money," so they gave me checks for $22001 That was about the nicest retirement dinner that I've ever heard of. Other people have been given automobiles, but I don't think anybody else got tickets to get them out of the country', [laughter] Yes, that was pretty nice.Ab England, incidentally, is prominent in civic affairs; he's now a member of Mayor Yorty's commission for parks and playgrounds. Now for the art connoisseur story. He invited me and Mrs. Ford to dinner in his new, beautiful apartment at the Ardmore Wllshlre. He had in his apartment, which is twice the size of ordinary apartments, many art objects. He said, "You see this painting on the wall?" I looked at it; it was about as big as one of these l8" x 20" paintings here by John Hilton. "Well," he said, "this is the story behind that. I had W. & J. Sloane come and lay out this apartment, tell me the kind of furniture I ought to have, where I should put this and that, where I should hang my pictures. After about two day work, the man called me up at the office, and he said, 'By the way, Mr. England, how about your insurance? Have you got your paintings insured?' You know, I hadn't thought much about it, but I said, 'Sure, they're all insured.' Well, the Sloane man went on, 'You've got one there that you ought to have insured for about $80,000. That's a Monet.'"And he explained, "This is how I got it. I never realized how valuable it was. Years ago I was in Paris, and as I was leaving that city, I had $500 that I wanted to spend before coming back home, I went to some art adviser, and I said, 'I've got $500, and I want to buy a painting; what do you suggest?' The result was I bought this picture for $500. But I never realized its value until the Sloane man told me." I have known Chief Justice Earl Warren for many years, well enough to call him "Earl." He made two memorable addresses for the County, one when we broke ground for the new courthouse (that was March 26, 195), and then when the courthouse was completed, we wanted somebody to dedicate it, and we celled the Chief Justice again. On one of those occasions, I've forgotten which one, I was Chairman of the Board and I presided. On my retirement, one of the nicest letters sent in, from people who couldn't come to this retirement dinner, was a very generous letter from Earl Warren. He signed himself "Earl" and called me "John," so we have that pleasant acquaintance.The most memorable occasion on which I met Earl Warren was on March 20, 1953, when the government had selected leading public officials to see the first explosion of an atomic bomb on American soil — a public demonstration. So I went over to Yucca Flats (it's right near Las Vegas), and Earl Warren was there; he was then governor. We were together at this demonstration. We had to get up at two o'clock in the morning, leave the hotel, and drive several miles to Yucca Plats. We were permitted to come within seven miles of the site of the explosion. We were assigned to a hillside having some high projecting rocks. They advised us to back up against the rocks and lean against them, so that the concussion from the explosion wouldn't knock us over. I will always remember that. It was, of course, a terribly overpowering experience, even though subsequent explosions abroad were vastly bigger than that one. The eight was fabulous beyond words. Fabulous beyond words, with all the giant mushroom in the sky and all that went with it.When Khrushchev was here, I was one of those who went to hear him speak, and was not pleased with the way the Police Department handled him as a foreign visitor. Giving him the runaround about going to Disneyland, I thought was pretty shabby. And I didn't care for the way Mayor Poulson tried to Irritate him and needle him about "burying" us. "We're going to bury you and you're not going to bury us," which was a bit of distortion in translating some kind of a Russian phrase, I think Khrushchev meant that their system would eventually prove to be superior to our system.

DIXON

Pass us by.

FORD

Yes, pass us by. Well, anyhow, I went up and shook hands with the man afterward. This same Mr. A, E. England and I, so far as I observed, were the only people that went up and shook hands with him.

DIXON

I'll be darned. The others didn't want. . . . Ford: Very few people. No, they gave a respectable handclap when he finished; but, anyhow, Ab England happened to be near me, and he said to me, "I want to go up and shake hands with that man." And so we did, perhaps at the risk of being listed as Communists for the rest of our lives! And I'm always glad I did.When Mrs. Ford and I were planning our trip to Europe after retirement. Dr. Raymond Allen, of UCLA, said, "Ford, I hear you're going to Russia. Wouldn't you like an introduction to Mikoyan?" Of course I was delighted. He wrote a letter to Mikoyan, and so when I got to Moscow, I had a date with him, and went over to the Kremlin. He gave me about twenty minutes. With a translator, there wasn't anything very earthshaking about our conversation. Let me show you the souvenir that he gave me. See, this is a hemisphere with a Sputnik arising from the surface of the earth, as you see, and the initials of the Soviet Union on the side. I assume it's gold-plated. On the occasion of Khrushchev's visit to Los Angeles I got him to write his initials on the base of the Sputnik gift from Mikoyan.Would you be interested in a few words about the time I interviewed Luther Burbank?

DIXON

Oh, my, yes.

FORD

That was in the '20' s. I went up to Santa Maria on a magazine assignment — remained about half a day with Luther Burbank. He was a delightful man, and he seemed to enjoy the time with us. He had been very reluctant to have us come in the first place, but my two or three letters persuaded him. In his early letter he said, "I'm so annoyed by reporters; I don't think I want to see you." But after I came he was very courteous and kindly.I remember two or three things about the interview. One was when he took us out to show his walnut tree that he had developed, a rapid-growing species. Oh, I'd say it was almost twelve inches in diameter. He told us what a short life it had had, but because of his cross-breeding, it got that large. Then he took us into his greenhouse where he had some other plants. There the thing that impressed me was, as he spread his hands over them, he almost seemed to talk to them. There seemed to be communication between him and the plants. In fact, he indicated that he really felt there was an exchange between those living things and himself. He had that kind of an affection, really. It was quite moving to see his simplicity of spirit and feel his dedication. That gave him charm, of course. We were immediately drawn to him. Then I recall a bit of humor. We went into the study and he began to search for some papers that he wanted to show me. He opened up a desk drawer, and here was his set of upper false teeth. [laughter] Right in the drawer there.I wish I had a copy of the letter he wrote me after I wrote my story. He wrote me such a generous letter. He said, "I like your story very much. You'll a crack writer." [laughter] My friends, of course, said I was a cracked writer.Another international figure is Ben Gurion, whom I met on two occasions. One was in '51> when Mrs. Ford and I made a trip to Israel . We were part of a party that did a very thorough two-weeks tour of Israel. Israel is small, you know. The then prime minister gave us an interview which reflected the spirit of dedication that we were to find throughout Israel . We did an intensive job, very carefully planned by the Israeli government, together with the local Los Angeles cooperating committee. In our conversation with Ben Gurion, we were impressed with his dedication. The picturesqueness of his appearance, with his halo of bushy white hair, and his kindly round face, was striking. He told us about the dreams of the government of Israel.Israel was then only three years old, as a government, and of course they had lots of problems, but you caught something of the amazing audacity of the Jewish people, who were furthering and prompting that great undertaking. It was very stimulating, and we felt deeply the boldness of their program, to think how much they had accomplished. Subsequent years have borne out and justified that boldness and that vision.The other time that I met him was when he came to Lob Angeles and addressed an outdoor mass meeting on the grounds of the city hall. I don't know how it happened about that I was asked to introduce him, but I think I made one of my best short speeches on that occasion, [laughter] That's not saying too much. [laughter] Well, so much for a great variety of things. If I were to go through this index, Mrs. Dixon, it would prove to be endless, I'm sure.

DIXON

These are some of the highlights, though. I was interested in the notation you had under the "C's," about the Catholic vote and Nixon, Was there some observation you had?

FORD

I'd have to look in the diary to be sure, but I think my point is that Kennedy would have overwhelmed Nixon if it hadn't been for the opposition to a Catholic being president. I think that was my point.

DIXON

Let me ask this. Did you ever get painted with Jack Tenney's paint brush?

FORD

Yes, I think I was on his list of questionable personalities.

1.9. CHAPTER IX: SUPERVISORY STAFF MEMBERS

FORD

There are a few people on my staff to whom a great deal of credit goes for whatever I was able to accomplish as supervisor, and the same can be said for whatever I've been able to accomplish on the Fair Employment Practices Commission. I owe a great deal to the young people who were associated with me. When I was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1934, I found that each supervisor was entitled to one deputy, and looking about for a deputy I could have confidence in and one who had some newspaper experience (which I thought would be a good asset), I went to Harlan Palmer, the publisher of the Hollywood Citizen. I said, "You have a reporter by the name of Ed Stickney. Would you be willing to give him to me to be my deputy?"He thought it over and said, "Well, John, I think maybe I could let him go for a year."So that's how my relationship with Stickney began, and he was my only deputy for many years. Later I had three deputies and eventually four. Stickney was with me 23 years, [laughter] An invaluable man.He had qualities which perhaps weren't apparent to the outside public when he came to me. He was unmarried. he had never made a speech (and deputies ought to be able to make speeches), he was unaccustomed to social life. But before he got through, he married one of my secretaries [laughter], and he learned to dance, and he learned to drive a car, and he learned to be a very good speechmaker. He had good judgment and worked hard.He was always a good newspaper writer, but the thing that I prized particularly about Ed Stickney, in addition to a warm personal friendship, was a very sensitive sense of integrity, and a capacity to be completely accurate. Those qualities were very priceless in serving as my alternate many occasions. He often had to go out and make speeches for me as time went on. Shortly before I retired, knowing that he'd have to change his position with the county, he was made chief of a bureau in the county whose function it is to make cash awards to county employees who develop profitable, money-saving Ideas for the county. And he's been doing that for nearly eight years. My second deputy who was with me many years, was Arthur Mlley. Arthur was an entirely different type. Stlckney was a devout Christian Scientist. Arthur Mlley was a devout Catholic. Stlckney being a Christian Scientist, I think didn't have particular inherent sympathy with the "underdog." But Arthur Mlley was very sensitive and very sympathetic to the needy. Par more than I shall ever know, he helped endless people who were in trouble. People going to the hospital, people trying to get old-age pensions, people who were being oppressed by their taxes, and blind people, and all the rest — Arthur was continuously serving them until he reached retirement age. He was a very valuable man.Finally, a third deputy was Ray Nortvedt from the town of Bell Gardens. Ray knew a good deal about real estate, and the transactions involved in acquiring property.One day he came to me and he said, "John, each supervisor has some money in the budget to acquire some new parks. The Boy Scouts are leaving their site near Bell Gardens; why don't you go down and buy that for a park?" I said, "Well, that sounds like a very good suggestion; get the Park Department to give you their view of it."And they did; they said it was a fine site. Ray found it was soon to be subdivided, so he went down and pre-empted the property. The county purchased fifty-four acres altogether and made it a lovely park. Then one day, shortly before I retired, the Board asked me to step out of the room, and they received petitions from the people in the neighborhood to name the park after me. And BO when I came back in the room, "Well," Chairman Chace said, "Ford, you've got a park named after you." [laughter] So that's John Anson Park, but it was Ray Nortvedt who made it possible. It lies between Bell Gardens and Downey and is magnificently furnished with a swimming pool, gymnasium, ball fields, dining room, kiddie slides, picnic fireplaces, etc.There's a third man as important as any of these men, Sam Games, who had been the City Clerk for several years in Montebello. Sam had suffered some injuries in the war, but was a very ardent liberal and a very competent man, particularly in the field of local government. He had a host of friends. A fourth deputy was Dirk Wood, who later became city manager for the city of Cudahy.

1.10. CHAPTER X THE HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION

FORD

Perhaps we ought to say something, at the possible risk of a little repetition, about the County Human Relations Committee, with respect to Negroes, Japanese, and Mexican-Americans.

DIXON

Now, you were in on the founding of the Human Relations Council.

FORD

Yes.

DIXON

Well, why don't you just go into that, and then work into the PEPC.

FORD

I'm sure you're interested in knowing how the community's attitude has been greatly modified and sometimes actually reversed with respect to Negroes, Mexican-Americans, and Japanese. And in each of these changed relationships, I'm very pleased to have had a small part. At the beginning it might be stated in this way. During the close of the Second World War, the City of Los Angeles was pretty well filled with soldiers who were on the way to the front. As you may recall, they felt that the close of the war was near, and yet they were under obligation to go to the front. They looked upon the stay in Los Angeles as sort of a last fling. They went up and down the streets of the downtown area, that is, some of them did, and painted the town red. Just how the disturbance with the Mexican-Americans started, I'm not altogether sure. I don't know that anyone is, but at any rate, some of the boys in uniform were very much taken with some of the Mexican girls, because of their pretty ways and faces. This resulted in conflicts between some of the Mexican-American boys and some of the boys in uniform. The result was that some fierce fist fights occurred. Then the thing snowballed into really what eventually became known as the "Zoot Suit" riots. The Mexican boys, many of them unemployed, already feeling alienated from the Anglo-American society, coalesced together into gangs and pitched upon the boys in uniform, and the boys fought back. We had a very serious time, particularly in downtown Los Angeles on Main Street and in some sections of the East Side. There were a number of violent conflicts. Fortunately, no one was killed, but I do recall it was reported that in one fight one boy had an eye gouged out.Finally, both the commercial authorities and the military realized that they should step in. The military stepped in, and put Los Angeles off-limits as far as trade was concerned. That immediately touched a sensitive commercial nerve, and things began to happen in several directions to remedy an obvious inequity and try and pacify these people who had been so much disturbed.At that time one of the county employees. Dr. George Oleason, who had been a YMCA secretary, suggested to me that the county ought to form some kind of a committee of civic-minded leaders who would make a particular study of the relationship of the Mexican-Americans first of all, and all minorities to the whole community. So, on my motion, the Supervisors set up the Human Relations Committee. This was composed of several civic-minded people of prominence. From the very beginning they did a very constructive job in helping to interpret the injustices from which Mexican-Americans and other minorities were suffering. The outstanding and obvious injustice was lack of recreation facilities on the East Side. The Community Chest became concerned; it revised its budget and provided, as I recall, a three -year program of stepping up the recreation facilities for the East Side area. Something like a million dollars was to be spent for better playgrounds, better recreation facilities, and better recreation supervision. That arrangement had a very beneficial effect. The Human Relations Committee itself did a great deal through public utterances and by calling conferences to help the average layman to understand the injustices the Mexican-Americans were suffering.Of course, it was very obvious that the Mexican-Americans were not the only ones. The Negroes had a different type of a problem; they also were a minority group seriously disadvantaged. So began a series of conferences and the development of this commission. At the outset. it was a committee. But after some years of effort, under the leadership of Mrs. [Ida] Lazard, our Human Relations Committee chairman, and under my urgency, the Supervisors finally changed the Human Relations Committee to a commission. This gave it more status and more power. The change was accomplished late in 1958, shortly before I retired. This also gave them a better, a more stable budget, and enabled them to retain employees on a regular Civil Service status. Then they proceeded to procure the services of a very able Negro by the name of John Buggs, who has been with the Human Relations Commission until early in 1967, and who has guided many a successful effort at ameliorating friction and disturbances in many a community. Well, that's rather preliminary to indicating that the county and I have been interested in not only the Mexican-Americans, but also the Negroes, whose problems were becoming well known to the Human Relations Commission and some of the Supervisors. It also brings to mind the disturbing events that took place when the Japanese were evacuated, at the beginning of the war with Japan.

DIXON

I wanted to ask about that, too.

FORD

Yes. This, of course, was earlier than the formation of the Human Relations Commission itself, or the Human Relations Committee, but some of us in the county government tried to do something helpful for the Japanese -American families that were being evacuated in those dark war days. While we couldn't stop evacuation, and we couldn't prevent their being herded shamelessly into these concentration camps — which is what they really were — we did try to show to those families that some of the Anglo-Americans had a deep appreciation of their problem. In various ways we indicated to these families who were being deported to the concentration camps, that they had our sympathy and our support.One evidence of that hangs on my wall in my PEP office, namely, a very handsome hand-lettered re sol ut inn that the Nisei gave me expressing deep appreciation for what I had tried to do as one of many friends of the Japanese-Americans.

DIXON

I think that was one of the most unfair things, unjust things, really.

FORD

The injustice that resulted from the war hysteria was really a great tragedy, and the nobility and the courage and the forbearance which the Japanese displayed is almost without parallel in American history. It's difficult to think of a hundred thousand people of one nationality or group sustaining so many insults, so much injustice, so much oppression and yet retaining a real loyalty to their adopted country, and with a few exceptions always showing very great forbearance.

1.11. CHAPTER XI: THE FEPC

FORD

In the early fifties there was a public demand for a fair employment practices act, which I sponsored on the Board of Supervisors, but the passage of which I was never able to secure because the majority of the Board was opposed to it. Probably this had a good effect in the long run: eventually a state-wide statute with more authority and broader application was passed in Sacramento in 1958. Perhaps some of these things that I have related were influential with Governor Pat Brown, when he was called upon to select the personnel for the newly created Fair Employment Practices Commission. It authorized the appointment of five commissioners serving on a per diem basis, with a paid civil service selected staff. It had a modest appropriation for the maintenance of an office and staff. In 1959, the Governor finally appointed the different members for the Pair Employment Practices Commission, five of them at the outset; a few years later it was changed to seven. He asked me to be the chairman of this commission for the first year, which I was glad to accept. I felt that perhaps some of my close contacts with these different minority groups would help me to interpret the law of nondiscrimination, particularly in the field of employment. Actually, when the year was up. I was retained for another two and a half years, so for nearly four years I was the chairman of FEPC and I am still a member. This legislation and the administration of the Fair Employment Practices Commission represents a new chapter in California history, a chapter which is paralleled by the history of New York particularly, and eventually a number of other states. New York preceded us in trying to solve the problem of discrimination in employment.We were charged by the Governor, when we received our appointments, that he didn't want a commission which was trying to exact reprisals; he didn't want a commission that was trying to be spectacular or to deliver anything but equity and with even balance to administer a law so that all men, regardless of race, color, religion, national background, would have an equal chance with employers. In these nearly eight years the commission has been in existence, it has, in my judgment, made a great contribution toward public acceptance of nondiscrimination in employment. I would not imply that discrimination doesn't exist because we are still receiving complaints at the offices of the Fair Employment Commission to the extent of perhaps a hundred or more every month. These are carefully investigated by our excellent Civil Service staff, about ten in southern California and ten or twelve in northern California. These investigators are called "con- Bultants." When a complaint is received from any person who feels he has been discriminated against in the matter of employment, because of his race or religion or ancestral background, the case is immediately assigned to one commissioner, and that commissioner in turn works with a consultant who might be called a "field investigator." The consultant doesn't have authority to determine the equity or inequity of a complaint, but he does undertake to get all the facts and bring them to the commissioner, so that working very closely, each commissioner and the assigned consultant handle hundreds of cases.This, I think, should be put in the record — that the number of cases of discrimination which we have been able to prove, is much less than the number of complaints that we have received. At first I was quite disturbed that we didn't have a larger percentage of convictions, or at least more determinations of discrimination. But the more I became acquainted with the field and the more I became acquainted with the character of the complaints, the more I realized that, for one thing, we often got the chronic cases of people who, in many instances, were not as competent as they thought they were. An impartial appraisal of their abilities and of their treatment by their employer would often reveal that they weren't discriminated against but that they were not competent. So our total for this seven years and nine months shows 5,88 complaints, of which 56 are pending. Of the remaining total, 1370 have resulted in corrective action. In 3321 cases, evidence was insufficient to sustain the complaints. In 137 cases, we had no jurisdiction and 457 cases were withdrawn. First of all, we must admit that sometimes there is discrimination and we can't prove it. Second, and perhaps more important, is the fact that when a complaint is filed, news of this spreads through any shop or factory or store or wherever it may be, and everybody is alerted to the fact that discrimination for race, religion, or ancestral background is against the law. We have found that it's had a very wholesome effect, even though a complainant would come before us with incomplete evidence, or might prove to be an incompetent employee. But the fact that the complaint was made and investigated impartially results in a better chance for all workers not to be discriminated against. By the same token, of course, the employers are more careful in the manner in which they handle their employees and in the manner in which they handle recruits for employment. The Improved attitude on the part of the general public has really amazed me — most encouraging.A great many employers said, "Why, we don't discriminate, but we don't ever have any applications from Negroes or Mexican-Americans."And one of the first questions we ask is, "Well, where do you get your recruits? Your applicants?"The usual answer is, "The Los Angeles Times." And of course we then remind them that there are thousands of minority workers who never read the Los Angeles Times, or Examiner, as far as that's concerned. So a different approach has been introduced among a great many employers. They now realize that they have to go out into the communities where these minority people are and show them the kind of working opportunities that are available.A notable example of that is Donald Douglas, Jr., who on several occasions has appeared at special gatherings in the high schools and in minority neighborhoods, where these Mexican-Americans and Negroes have been invited to come in and hear from Donald Douglas himself what kind of jobs there are in the airplane industry, what preparation one must have, how much pre-employment training is offered. And usually in the lobbies or in the foyer of the high school auditorium, there will be exhibits showing the different machines that they share in building. That has helped to open up to the minorities many channels of employment that hadn't been open to them before.I should add, since you're related to the UCLA, that one other very heartening thing is UCLA's interest in these minority people. Your tremendous tutorial program, on the one hand, and going into the high schools to enlist prospective high school graduates, enlist their interest in continuing their high school course and going on to college, I think is wonderful. If I recall, at one of the meetings with Chancellor Murphy or later with several members of the faculty and student representatives, a young man got up and said there were four or five hundred students enrolled in the tutorial program. They were doing this on their own expense, paying their own carfare, on their own time, and frequently going into the homes of the minority people. That has a tremendous impact, not only on the prospective student, but on the fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, to think that an educated person from the college would come into their home and try and interest them in furthering their education!

DIXON

We think it's a shame that the newspapers don't give front-page publicity to this kind of thing instead of to the vocal minority that has been getting the headlines.

FORD

Yes, I talked to the Times people about it, and I was a little bit surprised. They sent me facsimile copies of their stories, and there was far more coverage then I had realized, but of course, it still doesn't get the sensational headlines that the law-breakers and the defiers do.

DIXON

May I ask you, what course does a case take? Now you have a complaint from an individual who says "I've been discriminated against," for one reason or another, and if you find that this is true, then what happens?

FORD

The next step is to call in the employer, and have an informal, you might say an off -the -re cord, conference with him, with the understanding that whatever he may say will not be held against him; it's a privileged conference. We present our facts as we have found them, and state our belief that it is our conclusion that he hasn't treated this employee fairly. He then has a chance, then and there, to make a settlement, or to say, "I'll take this person back and give him another trial," or "I see that he hasn't been given an opportunity for promotion as he should," and so on.Now, if the employer still refuses to comply with our suggestions, then we have to go to what's called a "public hearing." That is a more formal procedure, in which the whole commission, with the exception of the commissioner who handled the case, sits and hears de novo, from the beginning, and tries to decide independent of what the other commissioner may have thought. The employer or his lawyer can make his statement, and the complainant can testify. This hearing is conducted very carefully in accord with judicial rules of evidence, under the direction of a trained "hearing officer." So that it's quite formal; it's really practically a trial. The transcript of the whole proceeding is kept.Then, if the employer still disagrees with our findings (a recent case of this sort took three days; we haven't had too many but we've had a few), and says, "Well, I didn't discriminate— this so-and-so wasn't any good anyhow," or, "We never said this and that," then he can go to court. The procedure, however, in court, to my mind, isn't altogether satisfactory. A complete transcript of everything that's said in the hearing is given to the judge, and he makes his decision by reading the transcript.

DIXON

Then there is not a regular courtroom trial involved at this point?

FORD

That's the way we proceed. We've only had four or five cases go to court, and we haven't had much success either. Because defense lawyers are very skillful in reading the "right things" into the record, making a typewritten record; they know how to make it look very favorable. I think you get quite a different impression by reading a transcript than you do by looking into the face of witnesses.On the other hand, if a complainant feels that the commissioner hasn't given him a fair decision, his next step is to appeal to the commission for a hearing before all the other commissioners, and that is conducted more informally, and yet he has that added opportunity for appealing for justice. If he still feels that he hasn't gotten justice from the whole commission, minus the one participating commissioner, then he can go to court.This all has to do with the field of employment. Now, when the law was amended, under the Ramford Act, to include housing, we haven't had near as many housing cases, but each one has had a lot more weight to it. We've been involved accumulating much more evidence and it has been much more difficult to arrive at an equitable decision. We have had a few cases where landlords have yielded before taking the thing to court, and out of the small number that have gone to court, I am sorry I cannot give you the wins and losses in our court cases. Just a handful of cases have gone to court.

DIXON

Now you said the consultants were Civil Service people. Do they take a regular Civil Service examination?

FORD

Oh, yes. The specifications were very carefully drawn, and examinations are conducted by the State Personnel Board. I think a college degree is required plus one or two years, perhaps more than that, in social service or in industrial relations, labor relations, or in business management.

DIXON

Are they both men and women?

FORD

Both men and women, and all nationalities. We have ten working out of the Los Angeles office, ten or twelve out of San Francisco, one in San Diego, and one in Fresno. I would say about half of them are Negroes, three or four are Mexican-Americans; two or three of them are Jewish, maybe more than that, and they're all very able men. I said to Mrs. Ford on more than one occasion that I was always very proud of the type of employees that I had under me with the county, particularly my own staff of deputies and stenographers. But none of them had quite the kind of dedication that these consultants have. As I said, these people were selected with great care by the State Personnel Board through their examinations, and then by personal interviews with Mr. Edward Howden. Mr. Howden was appointed by the Governor as our chief of staff. One of his very valuable contributions to the cause of race relations and nondiscrimination was the kind of a staff he's given to us commissioners. Really, he did a very careful job.

1.12. CHAPTER XII: THE UCLA MEDICAL SCHOOL

DIXON

We have read an article by [Mrs. Stafford] Viola Warren saying that. In the discussion of the establishment of the [UCLA] Medical School, you were asked to use any kind of influence or words to help. I wonder If you would comment on her statement.

FORD

She indicated that what I said was helpful?

DIXON

Yes,

FORD

Well, that really reminds me of something that occurred a long time ago. Long before the Medical School was a reality, I knew that they were working hard to get it. The thing did appeal to me as a very much needed public institution. Stafford Warren did contact me, and what I did was to get a favorable resolution through the Board of Supervisors. It was timed just right and had a decisive influence on the legislature. I do recall Stafford Warren telling me, "Well, Ford, you're their grandfather of this Medical School. We wouldn't have had it If, at that critical time, the Supervisors, under your Impetus, hadn't taken that action."

DIXON

It seems to me that Mrs. Warren said that some county funds were going to the USC Medical School at that time, and that it was your opinion that these funds would be better off at UCLA in a public school rather than in a private school, and this had something to do with it.

FORD

That's possible. That suggests an ancillary line of thought, which perhaps would be proper to put in here. The county had been "used" by USC, should I say, in many ways, or you might say there's been a large degree of cooperation between the two. But a few years back, while I was on the Board of Supervisors, I had a strong disagreement with the management of the USC Medical School, a disagreement in which I lost out. It arose in this way. The Medical School representatives came to us, particularly influential members on the Board of Trustees of USC, came to us and said that the Medical School was in a bad way financially. At least, the heavy running expense was greater than the income, and they proposed that there should be a new arrangement between the county government and the maintenance of service in the County Hospital. It seems that, since the beginning of the County Hospital, fifty or sixty years ago, the arrangement had always been the county would provide the hospital buildings and its equipment and the nurses and the medicines; and the medical schools would send their students and faculty over there to practice on the patients This had been established so long that many people had never thought to question it, but when SC got short of funds, they thought that it was about time that the county should begin paying the faculty members for coming over and taking care of their patlents. In view of the county's contribution — housing, hospital equipment, medicines, operating facilities and instruments and nurses, it seemed to me it was an unfair arrangement. Our past traditional arrangement was much fairer. I have always felt that the county was being taken advantage of because of the political influence of some of the USC trustees. I had quite a sharp difference publicly and privately with different members of the Board of Trustees at SC, but they succeeded in getting the requisite number of votes on the Board of Supervisors. Since that time we have entered into a yearly contract with USC to pay their faculty members for coming over and conducting classes and taking care of our patients in the General Hospital, while much of these doctors' service really consists in teaching. The result is that, having made the arrangement with SC, then the Seventh-Day Adventists claimed that they had to have the same privilege, and the Osteopathic College claimed the same privilege. From then on, we undertook an annual obligation to the extent of a million dollars a year. I presume that it's considerably more than a million dollars a year by now. Whether the county has a similar relation since then, with the UCLA Medical School or not, I don't know, but probably they do.Involved in this somewhere was this other fund that you speak of, but my recollection isn't clear as to what the funds were. You'd have to ask Staff Warren about it. In fact. Staff once said, "I'm going to write you a letter for the record on this, since you're the grandfather of the [laughter] Medical School." But I don't think we ever got the letter.

1.13. CHAPTER XIII: THE FEPC AND THE RUMFORD ACT

FORD

Getting back to the Fair Employment Practices Commission, with the passage of the Rumford Act, we had the added responsibility given us to investigate and undertake to correct inequities with the matter of housing rentals in discrimination, because the law provided that it was unlawful for any landlord having more than four apartments or any real estate agent having private houses under his jurisdiction for sale, to discriminate against a buyer solely on the basis of race or religion. We have only had a few hundred cases, and we have corrected a number of housing discriminatory practices. Of course, we've had many cases where we couldn't prove discrimination. Each month these detailed figures are carefully complied and reported to us. The renting of an apartment or the selling of a house involves a great many factors besides the race, and it's not Impossible for a landlord or a prospective seller to interject a lot of things that don't have anything to do with race, but happen to be very helpful in restricting applicants because they are of a minority race. But we have made real progress. One or two conclusions emerged out of all this . First, I'm convinced that, given a well-enforced Fair Housing Law, that very rapidly the great fear, the great imaginary apprehension that exists among landlords particularly would dissipate. Perhaps not immediately, but we have found that Negroes and other minorities who are in a position economically to go out and rent in middle class "white" neighborhoods, are almost invariably acceptable people. When you know them individually, they are acceptable. As soon as the landlords and the prospective tenants learn this, learn to know the individual involved, then a lot of their fear dissipates. But if you talk in general terms, they panic: "This is going to be transformed into a black neighborhood, and we've got to get out'. And property values are going to drop." Actually, we have never been able to establish that property values have dropped, except where there has been "block busting" and superinduced panic.

DIXON

I've heard surveys that said that property values have risen.

FORD

Yes. They've made some surveys in the north on that field, and there's no evidence to indicate that with normal integration property value goes down. I think it's partly a question of education. And, of course, the people, the Negro families particularly, that are able to move into the white neighborhoods, are doing a great deal to help dispel this apprehension, yet it's surprising how deep-seated this racial antipathy is. There's still a lot of educational work to be done, I'm very hopeful that the open-housing law will remain on the books. Thanks to the State Supreme Court decision, and the United States Supreme Court's favorable decision, open housing l£ constitutional. No state can afford to legalize discriminatory housing.Speaking of housing of the poor, not necessarily of the minorities, but that means many other minorities also, I take a little pride in being the author of the motion that set up the first public housing project in California

DIXON

Oh, really? Now, which was this?

FORD

Now that takes us way back — I hadn't thought of it until this moment, and, early in my supervisorial days, we began, because of the Depression, to be aware of outrageous housing conditions. I remember Dr. Pomeroy, the County Health Officer at that time, said, "You think we don't have any slums — you come with me and I'll show you." Well, we didn't have high apartments all crowded in onto narrow streets like they do in New York, but he took me over on the East Side, and here were hundreds of miserable shacks, with perhaps one bedroom in which five or six or seven people would be sleeping, and the sanitary conditions were appalling — there was sometimes no indoor toilet facilities at all, only perhaps one faucet for running water and that might be in the yard. The picture that remains in my mind particularly was when Dr. Pomeroy reached up and pulled down a loose piece of wallpaper. I think there was five hundred cockroaches behind that wallpaper. All of that was part of the incentive that many people had, to try and get some kind of improved housing. There was no state law which provided for a public housing authority; it was only a dream, even in Washington. But we had a citizens' council that met at the Clark Hotel dining room at periodic intervals, and they kept hammering away on the need of some sort of public housing. They put the finger on the county, because we had all these relief cases. My colleagues were very indifferent about it, but I did finally get an item of a hundred thousand dollars in the budget for county public housing, I don't know what a hundred thousand dollars could have done for housing, but they put it in there, and then eventually the other supervisors took it out again. But we did instruct our County Engineer to draw up some plans — this shows how far we were from realization of what we have today — but we did instruct the engineer to draw up some plans for a group of houses with estimates as to how much it would cost to build.We went one step farther, trying to meet the objection that this was involving a lot of money. The county engineer actually did another thing, at my instigation largely, and that was to build two houses of rammed earth as samples. Do you know what rammed earth is?

DIXON

No, I don't.

FORD

Well, they put up temporary walls, and pound earth into it and make it hard, sort of a modified adobe sort of a house. And we built two of those houses down on the south side. I don't know what's become of them, but they were occupied for a while.But, concurrently, legislation was being agitated, and finally materialized in Sacramento. The Sacramento law was a follow-up of the federal law. And the state law provided that a county could set up a public housing authority, and qualify for federal funds. And the day that that law became effective, I made the motion to create a housing authority, and it was passed. We did set up a housing authority. We were way ahead of the city in those days as far as public housing was concerned, and this housing authority built the first publicly owned housing group out on the East Side, the Maravilla Project adjacent to East Los Angeles Park on Brooklyn Avenue.I was still quite a novice in legislation, but I recall how the real estate people brought in certain Mexican-Americans whom they had coached to tell how much they prized their houses, and to condemn any of this property was taking away their castles and their private rights — it is hard to realize how bitterly that idea was opposed. Public housing hasn't met the whole problem, but it has certainly met a very important need.The second housing project that we finally got constructed was the Carmelitas, down toward North Long Beach.Then, rather tardily, the city established a public housing commission, also. Neither of these commissions were wholly satisfactorily to me. The personnel appointed by the Board of Supervisors in my case, and then the city, appointed by the Mayor of the City Council, was often composed of people who really didn't have sympathy with the idea. We, the county, suffered from that studied skepticism very seriously. They built honest buildings, and then they hired a staff which wasn't really deeply sympathetic with the principle involved. They felt that this was socialism, and "we are against it anyhow, but so long as it's our duty we'll have to do it." There's been too much of that in the county housing authority history and in the city housing authority history as well. It takes a sincere sympathetic interest in the problems of the people, and a recognition that private enterprise isn't meeting the situation. Well, that's a little digression, but I thought you would be interested in that. Fortunately, some capitalists have come to recognize that private enterprise has failed miserably when it comes to providing housing for very poor families.

1.14. CHAPTER XIV: POLITICS AS A PROFESSION

FORD

One thing about American life and American politics: there are a great many people that haven't yet learned that public office and politics is really a profession. Too many people are under the misapprehension that by some magic, you can elect whom you like and whom you respect, and that he can go into whatever office you elect him for, and do the job. Period.

DIXON

And just automatically do it.

FORD

Automatically. And politics is as complicated a profession as medicine, or architecture, or engineering, but people don't always realize it. They don't know it's complicated in quite a different way. It involves, I would say offhand, two major areas: one is an intimate knowledge of the indefinite ramification of public services that have to be rendered, and the conditions that have to be met. The technicalities in the rendering of these public services are as involved as big business.The other aspect of the profession of politics lies in the necessity of having an intimate personal knowledge of the personalities involved. Without knowing the people whom you have to appoint or with whom you have to work, how to appraise their promises, how to appraise their capacities, how to appraise their staying quality, you are terribly handicapped. Of course, from my standpoint, that's where Mr. Reagan has had a tremendous job on his hands. He just jumped right in deep into a vast, complicated situation, and with all the best advisers in the world, he's still going to have a very, very difficult time. So that is one of the things that American voters themselves. . . . Some of them take cognizance of it, but too often they somehow think that if he's elected, he can do the job regardless. More and more, we must recognize that politics is a profession. Now, it can be a prostituted profession. There are very skillful politicians who know all this and use the information for their own advantage. That's another thing.

DIXON

And they give, then, the "bad apple" reputation.

FORD

Yes. There is another aspect of California which I found quite different from Chicago where I did my newspaper work, much of it. We don't have the equivalent of "bosses" out here.

DIXON

No. The ward healers.

FORD

No, we don't. Too much of the government is under Civil Service. Consequently, there aren't too many rewards to be handed out. Now, the governor's job, one might say, is an exception, because the governor does have a tremendous volume of appointments to make. And I don't know whether there's any way that that could be circumvented. He has judges, he has supervisors (in case incumbents die), commissioners by the dozens — almost by the hundreds — and perhaps the specifications for these jobs could be drawn more tightly than they are. But outside of the governor's job, there isn't much patronage, relatively speaking. The result is that we have a lot of people who are interested in politics for the legitimate reason that they want to be of service — they want to be active, effective citizens, they enjoy politics. I am amazed at the year-by-year, campalgn-by-campaign devotion of so many people who have worked infinitely hard, with no prospect of reward.

DIXON

Yes. None whatever.

FORD

Now, that's different from what it is in Chicago. If you're working in Chicago, why people are sure you're going to get something out of it, at least if you win.

1.15. CHAPTER XV: THE IMPACT OF TELEVISION

DIXON

Now, If you have a few minutes, and you'd care to speak of the impact of television.

FORD

While I have no research data with which to clinch my statement, I have about concluded that television, particularly augmented by radio, is making a greater impact on the life, the thought, the background, the emotional response of America than newspapers and schools and churches put together. We don't seem to comprehend the colossal magnitude of its impact. In the first place, it's going eighteen hours a day everybody isn't listening eighteen hours — I don't mean that — but it's eighteen hours a day broadcasting, and it's multiplied by, in this community, seven or eight or twelve television stations. The television has motion and sound and form, all combined — and a lot of color, too. Now, you don't get that in school; you don't get that when you're reading a newspaper; you don't get it when you go to church. Furthermore, this motion and sound and thought is usually prepared by people who are experts in transmitting ideas and emotions to others. I feel that our presidential campaigns, our governor's campaigns (we've just had a demonstration) and even our regional campaigns, are going to be more and more television determined. And we're just beginning to wake up to it.But beyond that, what the rising generation is thinking arises very largely, I think, from the indirect or direct influence of television. We sit down at lunch, and what is the first subject, somebody says, "Well, I saw this on television." You begin to realize that they're not conscious of it, and we're not conscious of it, but television is transmitting an endless stream of Ideas. Well, the classic example of it, of course. is the way in which commercials have helped to keep cigarette use built up.

DIXON

Yes. That's true.

FORD

In spite of any amount of unfavorable scientific information that might be broadcast once or twice. Yes. If I turned on this television here in this room and left it on for eighteen hours, how many cigarette ads would you get in the course of those eighteen hours? You'd get a hundred or. . . All the stations. That has an overwhelming influence. And of course. It shows how many things influence our decisions and our actions besides logic and cold information. It's a thousand involuntary emotional reactions that come from all the joy and smiles and all the activities that take place at these idealistic occasions where they alleged enjoying these cigarettes. But that applies, of course, to many many other products that are being sold on television.

DIXON

I have heard it stated that television has certainly changed the whole aspect of political campaigning.

FORD

Definitely.

DIXON

First of all, in the national conventions, the smoke -filled room has a TV camera in the comer now. There's not as much possibility for the kinds of deals that once were supposed to have gone on.

FORD

Everything that's done in a convention is now very carefully scheduled and carefully shaped because they bear in mind these TV cameras.

DIXON

Let the camera do your profile now. And that, too, is one of the things that I think helped Kennedy win his election — his appearance as opposed to Nixon.

FORD

Definitely. Yes, he had a better television presence.

DIXON

And Nixon didn't come off at all well in the comparison.

FORD

Right .

DIXON

With Reagan also, presence counted.

FORD

Same thing.

DIXON

Here was a man who was used to a camera.

FORD

His pauses, and his smiles and everything, all came as a result of long experience. I don't know what this is going to lead to. It's a tremendous educational medium, and it's a tremendous arm for commerce. I recall listening to the College Bowl, sponsored by General Electric. What is their motto? "Progress is our most important business." But the time when I first began listening to that program they had just been convicted of an atrocious offense in Washington in the way of influencing legislation. So that I had to keep that in mind. But they have a good program, and I do like to listen to it. What an example of TV power'.How we are going to achieve an adequate balance between the public's rights in the matter of program content and the promotion of commercial advantage is a very difficult problem. I agree with Newton Minow. What was his phrase that he used?

DIXON

The wasteland, the great wasteland. TV is the. .

FORD

Oh yes. The desert wasteland. Well, that's one of the problems that remains for a lot of discussion in the future because television is an enormous influence, and it has done a great deal of good.But I think the uprising of the students in different parts of the world, not exclusively in Berkeley, I think they were all stimulated by television. Yet, surely the benefits of TV far outweigh its enormous evils.

1.16. CHAPTER XVI: THE CONDOMINIUM CHURCH

FORD

Should I tell about the condominium church?

DIXON

Yes, please do.

FORD

Well, for forty-some years, Mrs. Ford and I belonged to a little Congregational church in this neighborhood — Mt, Hollywood Congregational Church — which has had a membership of maybe two hundred, three hundred, all these years. Very dedicated pastors. And as I go to church, I pass a little Methodist church, the Los Feliz Methodist Church, which is about the same size, or maybe a little smaller and south of Sunset Boulevard, there's a little Japanese church, mostly Japanese. East of us there is a Bethany Presbyterian Church, and on Fountain there is a Fountain Avenue Baptist Church, all within a radius of three or four miles. All these churches are struggling; they're not sinking, they're not going out of sight, they're just holding their own — all raising a budget and all own a little property.I got to thinking if there would be some way in which we could achieve greater efficiency without destroying any of the inherent aspects of the respective denominations, it might be met by devising what I call a "condominium church." The first step, for each church to sell its property, and the five or six churches could, in that way, raise over a million dollars. Then they could incorporate and build a plant that would be modern in its facilities and more adequate in every way, and undoubtedly more attractive architecturally, and so on.In addition to a central church plant they would retain each of the five ministers on the ministerial staff. But if there were five ministers, each minister would only preach once in five Sundays. The rest of the time he could devote himself to other ministerial services, which certainly are very much needed in a population as distraught as our population is.And this church might be devised so that it had a central sanctuary. Among its educational facilities would be classrooms for religious study. There should be at least one substantial classroom, or chapel, for each denomination. So that every denomination would have at least one meeting place in this new structure which would be exclusively theirs.This condominium church would have a dual membership. You would join the condominium church, but you would also retain your membership in your respective denomination, and your pastoral relationship wouldn't be disturbed because you'd still have your pastor, although he preached but once in five Sundays instead of every Sunday. The study classes, on ordinary Sundays, would be in accord with the desires of the five ministers and their congregations. In some cases, they might decide that there could be mergers of the youth of the different denominations under one leadership. On other days, they might want to retain the denominational separation so that the youngsters could be inoculated with their particular doctrines. Two or three times a year, the pastor of the Methodists, for example, would have a service in which his congregation would not merge with the larger congregation; he'd call them separately and tell them the Methodist doctrines.Well, that gives you roughly a little idea of how the condominium would be organized. I think there would be two or three definite benefits from such a condominium church. One would be great economy. The amount of money that five congregations could pour into a common treasury would be as much as the five separate contributions. But here they would be able to save money and use it to better advantage. For instance, they could have a better choir instead of five choirs. They could have a higher-priced choir director. They might be able to employ youth leaders that no one church could employ, and so on. And the maintenance of the property — the central church probably wouldn't be five times the maintenance of those five separate churches. So they'd save some money there.An even more important benefit from the condominium church, as I see it, would be two-fold — first on the minister himself, and second on the congregation. If a minister was preaching to a congregation that included his own flock plus four other flocks, he would have to give a great deal of thought to how he could helpfully preach to these people who represented a broader spectrum than what he had been accustomed to. And as a result of that, I think many members of these five flocks would themselves get a broader concept of what religion is, and they'd have a chance to compare the points of view of the five pastors through the five successive weeks and so on. That would be exceedingly valuable.And, finally, I think that there is a very great need, a critical need, of reorienting church life. The purpose of a church should not be so much to try and bring people into the organization, and to generate and produce certain ideals which will go out from the congregation to people, whether they belong to the church or not.I'm sure that the church is facing some very serious questions. This is especially true for young priests and young ministers. That's shown by the way they responded to the needs of the South in the Civil Rights Movement.The other day I went to hear Harvey Cox. (He wrote The Secular Church .) I was quite amazed. I went way out to Brentwood. They filled that school auditorium with people, I imagine, many of whom had never been inside of churches, but they were very much concerned with Harvey Cox's ideas. Some of the things he said I would certainly agree with. He said that we are in the midst of a revolution greater than the Protestant revolution, and he said many other things that were very stimulating. The audience frequently broke into applause — he had his audience with him, yet he wasn't a spellbinder in any sense. He read his address, but he had quite a vivid presentation. He didn't get into the field of theology, either, but he did emphasize this Idea that the churches should not be concerned with building themselves up; they should be concerned with going out and sharing their concepts of service with others. Much of his message emphasizes the original Biblical concept, rather than the concept that's grown up in recent centuries.And now, Mrs. Dixon, at the end of this rambling account, I should include a jingle which is an adaptation from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' well-known verse:I will sit near the seats of the mightyIf I can, until I'm ninety.And what I'll do then.In the following ten,I leave to the Lord God Almighty.