The More Things Change

By James Preston Allen

I was reminded recently by Lionel Rolfe, one of our occasional contributors and one of the authors of a somewhat obscure history of Los Angeles entitled, Bread and Hyacinths—the Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles, that this city wasn’t always so labor friendly. In fact 100 years ago, the City of Angels was known as one of the most anti-labor cities on the West Coast– this is before the Longshoremen’s union was born out of bloody strife, even before Harry Bridges, the hero of dockworkers, had landed in America.

A century ago, belonging to a union garnered any worker the label of being a “radical” or worse a “communist,” while in fact the largest contingent of labor activists were some brand of socialist. Not unlike today, the real political power of this city was held not by the elected officials, but by the power brokers that elected them.

Gen. Harrison Otis, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, was one of them, and he vehemently opposed unions of any size or stripe. He organized the Merchants and Manufacturer’s Association to combat the growing tide of union activists who often went on strike for such “radical” ideas as the eight-hour workday, minimum wages, and child labor laws. One of the champions of these “socialist” ideals was Job Harriman, a one time evangelical social Christian minister, who left the ministry to change the world in the here and now, not in the here after. In short he was what is referred to as a “utopian socialist.”

Harriman, later became a civil rights and free speech lawyer, and made a name for himself defending workers who had been arrested for breaking the municipal laws that barred picketing or holding public rallies without police permits––both clearly constitutional violations. He and Otis were archenemies as the conflict between manufacturers and labor escalated into violence.

Harriman ultimately took his challenge of the L.A. power-elite to the campaign for mayor just at the very time labor strife literally exploded in downtown Los Angeles with an explosion at the headquarters of the L.A. Times newspaper, which killed some 20 people and injured many more. When the Times finally printed the edition late that day, Oct. 1, 1910, the headline screamed, “Unionist Bombs Wreck The Times. ” To this day, it is unclear whether the explosion was caused by a gas leak in the building or if it were dynamited by either an agent provocateur or a union anarchist– but the blame, fanned by public reaction to the deaths and publisher Otis exploitation of the event, was cast at union radicals.

Coincidentally, one of LAPD’s notoriously corrupt detectives “discovered” two bombs the next day: one at Gen. Otis’ home and the other at the home of Felix Zeehandelaar of the Merchants and Manufactures Association. Later, two trade union activists, James and John McNamara, were fingered as the Times bombers and were arrested and tried. None other than Job Harriman and the brilliant civil rights attorney, Clarence Darrow, defended them. Ultimately the McNamara brothers, facing the death penalty, copped a plea bargain after false testimony was presented in court.

Harriman ran for mayor of Los Angeles and won 20,157 votes against the incumbent Alexander who received 16,790–– just enough to scare the L.A. power-elites, but not enough to avoid having a run-off. Harriman ultimately lost when the McNamara brothers in a surprise move, switched their pleas from not guilty to guilty, discrediting Harriman and his defense of the unionists.

One hundred years later, nearly all of the progressive era reforms have been enacted into law, the labor movement for the past two decades has been in an ascendancy and the corruption and brutality of the LAPD has been reformed by constitutional consent decrees and a new model of community based policing. The era of General Otis and the LA Times controlling City Hall ended. Yet it does seem strange that even with the election of a supposedly progressive and pro-union mayor, such as Villaraigosa, this city finds itself faced with certain reactionary reforms, slashing of budgets and jobs and the roll back of services. It’s almost reminiscent of the battles between the Otis and Harriman. Union jobs at LAUSD and within the other city unions are in jeopardy. The city continues to out-source services and privatize certain non-public safety services such as cultural affairs and the operation of cultural facilities such as the Warner Grand Theater.

One can only wonder where all of this cutting will lead and whether the city and its citizens will be any better off than before? Ultimately the long arch of progressive reforms in this city have now been stalled by the crisis of capital on Wall Street, which have forced the government both local and state to retrench, and the battle lines between social democracy and free market capital are again redrawn. Perhaps the best example of this political reenactment is between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman for the governor’s seat. It is a historic struggle between two archenemies––forces that have been at it since the dawn of California’s history, fraught with shades of racism, bigotry, fear and social injustice while striving for some utopian dream that continues to elude all those who reach out to touch the future.