THE RACE IN CALIFORNIA
Windmiller, Marshall
The Race in California by MARSHALL WINDMILLER This will be no ordinary Indian-wrestle," Democratic State Chairman Eugene L. Wyman told the California Democratic convention in Sacramento on August...
...Even if Brown lost the election, Nixon, as governor, would have to be solicitous of the man who controls the Assembly, and Speaker Unruh's power, already enormous, might grown even greater...
...What California does in November will be felt throughout the nation...
...And Brown has strong support from labor, which cannot abide Richard Nixon...
...If anti-Communism is to be the issue, it cannot be the crude variety of 1950...
...First, by gerrymandering the state last year and creating a large number of safe legislative seats, the Democrats reduced sharply the number of local contests of the exciting type that bring out voters, placing the statewide candidates at a disadvantage...
...Firmly in the saddle in Los Angeles, Unruh then made a move at the state Democratic convention which seemed curiously inept for the tough young pro...
...By the end of this year California will be the most populous state in the union...
...It might also explain why Unruh was willing to rock the boat so violently with his anti-Birch, anti-Communist resolution...
...The Francis Amendment was qualified for the ballot in a signature campaign waged by a Rightist organization called the California Committee to Combat Communism...
...With this showy opposition to Birchism behind him, Nixon began to probe for ways to take the offensive...
...He estimated that at the most there were no more than thirty-five Communists "in this big Democratic Party from the Oregon border to Mexico...
...This explains some of the Northern opposition to Proposition Twenty-three, a Senate reapportionment measure which would increase the membership of that body from forty to fifty...
...On balance he has been a good governor...
...Could it be the spurious anti-Communism with which Nixon defeated Helen Gahagan Douglas for the U. S. Senate in 1950...
...After much confusion, a roll call was taken, and Unruh lost by a vote of 267-193...
...Still, with a well-financed advertising campaign, it could pass...
...Today Chotiner is working as a "volunteer" on Nixon's staff...
...Eugene Wyman was right when he said that this will be "no ordinary Indian wrestle...
...Many club members feel that they have been had by the establishments in both Sacramento and Washington, and they may sit this one out...
...But Governor Brown has several things working for him too...
...the state Senate, where George Miller is perhaps the most powerful figure...
...Unruh's power bid is now out in the open, clearly apparent not only to the Southern California club people who have fought him for two years, but also to the Northern California liberals who were previously impressed by his liberal voting record...
...The organization originated in Los Angeles and raised money and recruited workers for three Congressional primary races...
...He is coauthor of the book "Communism in India...
...In May he attacked the unofficial California Democratic Council (CDC), the 55,000-member grass-roots club movement that came out of the Adlai Stevenson campaign in 1952...
...Undoubtedly the fact that there was a meaningful contest only in the Republican primary—Nixon versus the more Right-wing Assemblyman Joseph Shell—was responsible in large measure for the proportionately greater Republican turnout...
...Democrats who belong to the John Birch Society are the conservative Democrats who have supported our candidates over the years...
...Statewide they are supporting Republican Tom Coakley for attorney general against the popular Democratic incumbent, Stanley Mosk, and Max Rafferty against Ralph Richardson for state superintendent of public instruction...
...Three factors are working against Brown and his Democratic ticket...
...On the other hand, the Birch-oriented Right is operating within the party system and controls some enthusiastic manpower and a considerable amount of money...
...One must understand the political climate of California to appreciate how Democratic liberals would react to this kind of language...
...By means of a tactic the CDC has charged was illegal, he finally defeated the CDC this summer and installed his man, Assemblyman Tom Bane, as Los Angeles county chairman...
...There are three main impediments to Unruh's control of the state Democratic Party: Governor Brown...
...The official party leaders have taken the clubs for granted, have not defended them forcefully when they were under attack by Rightists, and have repudiated large chunks of the CDC program...
...Loyalty oaths have been on the books for years, teachers have been harassed, state un-American activities committees have published annual smear compendia, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities has made two forays in recent years into the state, one of which resulted in the notorious water-hosing of students by police on the San Francisco City Hall steps...
...They are waiting to indoctrinate your children...
...Rafferty told the Republican State Convention in Sacramento that Richardson was backed by "an organized and well financed campaign to seduce your children...
...Known in the press as "Big Daddy," the greatly overweight Unruh personifies the stereotype of the political boss, and because he controls the collection and distribution of campaign funds from the "third house" (the lobbies) and the vast Southern California savings and loan industry, he has the power to act like one...
...At the time of the June primary, the Democrats had a four-to-three edge in total voter registration, and they may have improved this margin by their registration drive during the summer...
...To defeat Governor "Pat" Brown, Nixon must find some way to hold on to most of the Republican votes while winning over a large number of Democrats...
...It is a state with many difficult problems—urban overpopulation and inefficient local government, an economy that is top-heavy with defense industry, and a growing militancy among ethnic minorities...
...In late August, Nixon's efforts to snowball anti-Communism into a major campaign issue received an assist from an unexpected quarter: speaker of the state assembly Jesse Unruh, a thirty-nine-year old DemoMARSHAtL WINDMILLER, assistant professor of international relations at San Francisco State College, is co-editor of The Liberal Democrat, an independent California political journal, and a regular foreign affairs commentator on radio stations KPFA, Berkeley, KPFK, Los Angeles, and WBAI, New York...
...Opposed to me are the serried ranks of the ADA, CDC, and the left-wing labor unions...
...This reputation was enhanced by close relations with the White House stemming from his support of Senator Kennedy's Presidential ambitions at the Los Angeles convention...
...Third, the CDC club movement is apathetic and disenchanted...
...To illustrate the point, Wyman called a press conference to display samples of bumper strips such as, "Is Brown Pink?," referring to Governor Edmund G. Brown, Democratic candidate to succeed himself...
...But it is also a state of strange religious sects and off-beat political movements...
...This police-state measure is so bad that not only the liberal organizations like Americans for Democratic Action and the American Civil Liberties Union, but even the Los Angeles Times, the study section of the eminently conservative San Francisco Commonwealth Club, and Richard Nixon himself have all opposed it...
...Miller tried to cut the most offensive paragraphs out of the Unruh resolution, which he referred to as "a real dog...
...But only 53.4 per cent of the Democrats went to the polls in June, while 69.3 per cent of the Republicans turned out...
...Chotiner told the delegates: "Everyone I know who is a member of the Birch Society is a loyal American and is among those who constitute the hard core of the Republican Party...
...Why concede to Nixon that domestic Communism is a big issue or that it may be a problem within the Democratic Party, which it is not...
...California is traditionally a progressive state where even the Republican Party can produce liberals like Hiram Johnson and Earl Warren...
...Although Unruh admitted in the resolutions committee that his draft included some poor wording, he pressed hard for its adoption...
...Ironically, the man who performed the surgery was the same Murray Chotiner who had managed Nixon's earlier campaigns...
...To the press he explained: "The resolution says that Robert Welch is a dictator . . . that there is no place in the Republican Party for people who accept his leadership...
...I began my political career investigating Communist activities as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee," he said...
...Smear attacks such as this always seem to happen to people who run against Richard Nixon in California," Wyman observed...
...If they are breaking the law, call a cop...
...Should its candidates win this fall, CLR may set the pace for a new style of politics in California...
...But they do focus attention on the major problem that confronts Richard Nixon, Republican candidate for governor of California, in his bid to salvage his political career from the wreckage of his close loss of the Presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960...
...CLR is an attempt to make political capital of the peace and civil rights movements by concentrating liberal resources in a limited number of Congressional campaigns...
...It faces an effective Democratic administration that has preempted the middle of the road...
...It would "virtually destroy a man with an unpopular idea...
...It was against this background and with passionate contempt for witch-hunting that the liberal Democrats at the Sacramento convention reacted to Jesse Unruh's "Little Francis Amendment...
...When Miller's amendment was put to a voice vote, the convention delegates shouted approval, but Tom Bane ruled it was defeated...
...If I do not win you are not going to find Republicans in California in a few years...
...Why go on the defensive...
...Today the political spectrum is lopsided...
...and the CDC...
...These bully-boy tactics stirred up a considerable opposition that might otherwise have lain dormant, and by the time Unruh's man Tom Bane had deliberately miscalled from the chair at least two voice votes, the convention was in an uproar...
...What is the magic formula...
...Some faker would say 'throw him out.'" Miller denounced the Unruh resolution as "an impediment to free speech, free society, and free membership in the Democratic Party...
...This year the state's leading professional anti-Communist, former Assemblyman Louis Francis, is sponsoring a referendum by initiative (Proposition Twenty-four, titled the "Francis Amendment") which is ostensibly an anti-subversive measure but in actuality is clearly aimed at liberals...
...The CCCC boasted in January that "funds are no problem" and that $500,000 to $1 million would be spent to insure passage of the proposal...
...The delegates were furious...
...At Chico, Nixon went all-out on the anti-Communist theme...
...Brown, taking advantage of the weakest element in Nixon's image, had come out with billboards acclaiming the Governor as "A Man You Can Trust...
...By the middle of September, the campaign in California was in high gear...
...He will probably win...
...He accused the CDC of "Left-wing extremism" and said Governor Brown was its "captive...
...The California Republican Party, heavily infiltrated with Rightists (three of its Congressional candidates are admitted members of the John Birch Society), is deeply divided over personalities, organization, and ideology...
...Richardson has run a non-partisan campaign for the non-partisan office and has discussed the issues in a mild-mannered and statesmanlike way...
...CLR has become a statewide organization and is now backing two additional candidates...
...He has the support of the California Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association, and many other educational and professional groups...
...The opposition to the Unruh motion was led by another pro, forty-eight year old state Senator George Miller, Jr., of Martinez, chairman of the Senate finance committee and in 1952 one of the architects of the CDC...
...But they will not crush the party and we will not send it to new heights by this resolution...
...He introduced a resolution which said: "The Communist Party and the John Birch Society are totalitarian groups opposed to the principles of freedom upon which the Democratic Party is based...
...It must be anti-Communism without extremism—forceful enough to impress the Republican Rightists but "responsible" enough to avoid alienating the moderates...
...So far there is no evidence that anyone directly concerned with the Nixon campaign was responsible for the bumper strips...
...Nixon began building an image of moderation by attacking the leadership of the John Birch Society with a resolution he proposed to California Republicans at a convention in Berkeley last March...
...There are indications that Nixon and the Republicans have come to this conclusion...
...A race relations time-bomb is ticking in California, and the Democrats have not been paying enough attention to it...
...Still, the Democrats are worried, for there are signs of considerable apathy in the ranks...
...they came from an extreme Right bookstore in Los Angeles...
...The Governor rushed into print with a repudiation of five of the six positions, including CDC's opposition to loyalty oaths, its support for the creation of police review boards, and its demand for abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
...Out of this confusion has come a new grouping known as Califor-nians for Liberal Representation...
...All present indications are that the gubernatorial contest will be extremely close...
...He said the party should "avoid the kind of witch-hunt which we deplore in our platform...
...refused to let Nixon divide the Democrats and pledged "all-out support" for Brown...
...The Race in California by MARSHALL WINDMILLER This will be no ordinary Indian-wrestle," Democratic State Chairman Eugene L. Wyman told the California Democratic convention in Sacramento on August 26 in regard to the quickening election campaign, "for we expect a bitter, even savage and vicious contest, a hand-to-hand melee of gouging, of merciless infighting, of catch-as-catch-can, with no holds barred...
...in the opinion of many, he is masterminding Nixon's strategy...
...The chairman of the convention added: "We are proud you are a Republican...
...Nixon recognized this in March when he said that the major issue "in the campaign this November will be which of the candidates for governor will develop the most effective and responsible program for fighting Communism within California...
...In July he cited six positions allegedly taken by CDC and called upon Brown to repudiate them...
...While we are spending billions to oppose Communism abroad, it is imperative that we also have an effective anti-Communist program at home...
...Unruh has never liked the CDC, for the clubs have not always backed his candidates for public office and have always stood in the way of his capturing the dominating Los Angeles County Committee...
...Nixon's anti-Birch resolution caused a bitter row on the floor of the convention and emerged completely emasculated...
...Unswayed by the appeals of a few close colleagues, Unruh staked his prestige on adoption of the resolution and began twisting arms...
...The polls show Brown slightly ahead, but the polls give no clue to the problem of voter turnout, which could be crucial...
...I believe that on this issue I have a record and the experience to lead this state as it should be led in this fight...
...The Democratic Party is big enough to extend its facilities to unpopular ideas...
...He has enacted fair-employment legislation, established a consumer counsel, reorganized the state's system of higher education, and balanced the budget four years in a row...
...Five of the new senators would come from Los Angeles county and would most likely be Unruh men...
...The adoption of the resolution, he said, would "sow seeds of dissension in the Democratic Party...
...The "findings" of "any court, officer, board, commission, agency, or other body of government of the United States" could be borrowed for the purpose of making these determinations...
...What if it did tear the CDC and the Democratic Party apart...
...This time he managed to put Brown on the defensive...
...He has pushed through a massive water development program which will stand him in good stead with the voters even though some liberals regard it as a gigantic giveaway because the famous 160-acre limitation, the long-standing bulwark against unjust enrichment, was cut out of it...
...It gives the power to identify organizations as "Communist-action," "Communist-front," or "subversive" to any grand jury, superior, or appellate court of California...
...Liberal activity in California is not so sharply focused as that of the Right-wing mainly because of CDC's inability to make up its mind whether it is a handmaiden of, or a pressure group within, the Democratic Party...
...they asked...
...It is particularly strong in Los Angeles where the Negro community is infuriated at police brutality...
...He apparently did not know that on the loyalty oath issue he was repudiating the official stand of his own party...
...At the time of the convention Chotiner was the paid campaign manager of the Right extremist Loyd Wright, a former president of the American Bar Association, who was seeking the Republican U. S. Senate nomination...
...Before becoming speaker this year, Unruh had been chairman of the powerful Assembly ways and means committee, and with a combination of shrewdness, ability, and ruthlessness had earned the reputation of being the most powerful Democrat in the state...
...They hurt the cause of anti-Communism, and it is time we get the demagogues, exaggerators, and nuts off our backs so we can do an effective job in this field...
...The Rightists appear to be concentrating their energies on two statewide campaigns and on the Congressional races of avowed Birchers, H. L. Richardson and Representatives John H. Rousselot and Edgar W. Hiestand...
...The incident caused considerable grumbling among liberals, but CDC President Tom Carvey, Jr...
...now therefore, be it resolved, that the state Democratic chairman [an Unruh man] be hereby instructed to appoint a committee to recommend within a year a procedure, which is both effective and fair, to deny membership in any organization which is chartered [as the CDC clubs are] by an official arm of the Democratic Party or any organization which bears the name 'Democrat' or 'Democratic' to any member of the Communist Party, the John Birch Society or any other totalitarian group...
...Two CLR-backed candidates, George Brown and Edward Roybal, won...
...Members of organizations so labeled would be denied the right to run for office, to hold public employment, and to receive tax exemptions...
...Second, many Democrats have taken the minority groups for granted, yet there is a growing spirit of rebellion among the 900,000 Negroes and 700,-000 Mexican-Americans...
...It is a state that will have thirty-eight representatives in the Eighty-eighth Congress and will play a major role in the 1964 national conventions of both political parties...
...Brown's repudiation of the idea of establishing the kind of police review boards that have functioned successfully in Philadelphia may hurt him badly among the Negroes with whom the review boards have become a touchstone of liberal sincerity on the race question...
...Next to Texas, California has the largest concentration of Birchers, Right-wing nuts, and Red-baiting newspapers in the nation...
...California, which has not had a single item of anti-subversive legislation in the past four years, must reverse this dismal record and become a shining example to the nation...
...If one defines the Left in terms of longshoremen leader Harry Bridges (who, curiously, is a registered Republican) or Vincent Hall inan, former Independent Progressive Party Presidential candidate, then the Left is without political muscle and is outside of party politics...
Vol. 26 • October 1962 • No. 10
