(How Nixon ended up in the California Governorship)
In 1958, Senator William Knowland (R) of California got tired of being the Senate Minority Leader. His goal was on the White House and he did not think running from a Senate that was 49-47 with 2 Independents could he successfully be freed up to run. He knew he needed the Governorship. He knew that President Eisenhower was only lukewarm to his Vice President, also from California, so it was a shock in March 1957, when Knowland announced he was running for Governor. He stated that he could beat the probable Democratic nominee, Attorney General Pat Brown (D). There was only one problem....popular incumbent Governor Goodwin J. Knight (R) was in office and looked to run for reelection. On January 7, 1957, he was taping an interview with CBS radio reporter Griffing Bancroft. "We wonder if you are a candidate for the Republican [Presidential] nomination in 1960," Bancroft then asked. The senator responded, "I would say that was entirely a premature question." Bancroft followed up with "Do you plan to seek reelection to the Senate in 1958?" When Knowland replied, "I do not plan to be a candidate for reelection to the United States Senate in 1958," Bancroft asked the obvious follow-up: "What are your plans, sir?" Knowland smiled and said"Well, I do not know, except that I think I would like to be Governor of California." While the Washington press corps was shocked, the media in Sacramento were stunned. California governor Goodwin Knight was delivering his annual "state of the state" address to a joint session of the legislature when the news spread through the capital. The timing of the announcement may have been accidental, but it destroyed Knight's annual day on page one throughout the state. As he tried to complete the speech, the press already was running out to follow the Knowland story. Before Knight's final lines were read, Republican State Controller Robert Kirkwood was announcing his candidacy for the Senate seat Knowland was vacating. When that news hit, Republican Robert C. McDavid of Altadena, a member of the State Board of Equalization, promptly declared he would run for Kirkwood's seat. Los Angeles Mayor Larry Poulson had already announced his Governor bid versus Knight and welcomed Knowland into the race. Governor Knight expressed complete amazement when told of Knowland's retirement by reporters just after he concluded his speech, but he declined to speculate why Knowland might challenge him for the Governorship. Caught by reporters at the assembly rostrum, the Governor did say he had no plans to seek Knowland's Senate seat. Still in shock, Knight said he had talked with Knowland at a luncheon in Los Angeles just three weeks earlier, and the senator made no mention of plans to retire. He obviously was shaken to the core but initially planned to run for reelection against a U.S. Senator and the Mayor of Los Angeles come hell or high water.
On August 19, 1957, Knight declared his plans to seek reelection and issued a direct challenge to Knowland to fight it out for the nomination. Sounding more and more like a gubernatorial candidate, Knowland said on the following day that he had no qualms about challenging Knight for the Governorship: "I always have assumed the Governor would be a candidate for renomination. There are no changes in my plans that have been previously announced." August 21, 1957, he announced a committee to be in charge of the five-week tour that would end October 8. In the north, Oakland businessman Robert Barkell, San Francisco attorney John Dinkelspiel, and Capitola nursery operator Worth Brown were named to head what was looking like a full-scale campaign for governor. In the south, the representatives were Los Angeles attorney M. Philip Davis, Redlands newspaper publisher William Moore, and Frank Lowe, a retired minister and chairman of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee. Under the direction of Harry J. Crawford, a Pasadena lawyer, a group calling itself the Committee for Republican Victory began a letter campaign to California Republicans warning in late spring of the impending war between the Senator and the Governor. "It is a well-known fact to most Republicans that if Senator Knowland carries out his announced intention not to seek reelection, the probability of his being succeeded by a Democrat is very great," Crawford wrote. Crawford convened a meeting of twenty-five-member group was made up of Republican doctors, lawyers, and businessmen who had no connections to either of the Republican leaders. Also, there were representatives for the majors, namely Lt. Governor Harold J. Powers represetning Knight and Knowland's father, former U.S. Congressman Joe Knowland representing his son. Finally, Knight begrudgingly dropped his reelection bid after a few weeks. However, in the process of doing that he suddenly found a crowded field. First State Senator Donald Grunsky announced the formation of an Ivy Baker Priest for Governor Campaign Committee. Grunsky was assisted by Robert Finch. The Mormon female U.S. Treasurer had dilligently served the Eisenhower Administration since 1953. Also Priest had run for Congress in Utah twice before. She had strong support developing across the state. Kirkwood suddenly dropped his reelection bid and pushed his political benefactor, Greek-American George Christopher, the popular Mayor of San Francisco, who immigrated to America when he was ten years old. Christopher was known for his strong stand on civil rights; his childhood experience of anti-Greek sentiment informed his stand. He gained worldwide headlines offering his home to the baseball player, Willie Mays after it was reported that a Forest Hill realtor had refused to sell to Mays. Christopher also lobbied and succeeded in opening mental health and alcohol treatment centers under city funding. He has U.S. Senator Thomas Kuchel (R) promoting his candidacy. By the time Governor Goodwin entered into the Senate race, he knew he and his biggest promoter, Harold J. Powers had a tough road ahead of them.
The California Democrats were a bit more united but not much more so. Democratic State Chairman Roger Kent of Mann County flatly predicted that Knowland would run for Governor and that his action would make it easier for Democrats to regain control of the state. For this reason he was strongly pressuring Attorney General Pat Brown to run for Governor and U.S. Congressman Clair Engle for U.S. Senate. However, there was a very highly organized and highly vocal second group in the California Dems of progressives chaired by Alan Cranston, named the California Democratic Council, and they were promoting a different slate of candidates. Cranston was promoting U.S. Congressman James Roosevelt, the 1950 Gubernatorial nominee and son of the popular former President, for Governor. He was also promoting another 1950 nominee, former U.S. Congresswoman and Los Angeles Board of Supervisors Chair, Helen Gahagan Douglas for U.S. Senate. Once Poulson focused on the Governor's race, Roosevelt backed off his own Governor bid to focus on a bid for Mayor of Los Angeles. Finally, Cranston talked U.S. Congressman Will Rogers, Jr. (D) into a Governor bid. Son of a very celebrated father. A sincere and somewhat impassioned young man who believes strongly in collaboration and in cooperation with the United Nations. A trifle callow and politically inexperienced, he will undoubtedly be a vigorous and enthusiastic champion of all-out post-war co-operation with the United Nations. His fervent adherence to the liberal ideals suddenly made him not so palatable statewide.
Engle was a moderate from northern California who looked well positioned to run for the U.S. Senate seat. Engle was a former State Senator from northern California before Congressman. Engle's biggest legislative accomplishment was passing a law to allow conversion of unused fairgrounds to house migrant farmworkers to ease a severe labor shortage. Engle was elected to a full term in 1944 and re-elected to the following six Congresses, serving until January 3, 1959. Then, the district had 18 counties in northern California, and only the district in Nevada was physically larger. Thus, Engle used his pilot's license to campaign and meet with constituents. He was dubbed the
flying congressman and once flew solo to his home in California from Washington, D.C. He was sometimes jokingly referred to as "Congressman Fireball" because of the his activity, his colorful language, and the clouds of smoke from his cigars. But though he sponsored several major expansions of the California Central Valley Water Project as well as the Saline Water Conversion Research Program, and a low-interest loan program relating to small irrigation projects. He also became known as a key supporter of the Taft-Hartley Act, which made him an anathema to labor and progressives like Cranston. After her bitter 1950 U.S. Senate bid, Douglas seemed toxic. But in 1952, Douglas had made a comeback with a strong bid for the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, strongly supported by the Screen Actors Guild and her husband, actor Melvyn Douglas. Some called Douglas the "Voice of Hollywood" and she had been dilligent in speaking up and taking on the House Un-American Activities Committee. U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) of Wisconsin picked up where Nixon left off calling her "Moscow Helen" and slandering her. Douglas finally got the upper hand when called before Senator McCarthy's Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. After McCarthy tried to blister Douglas with ties to Communism, Douglas fired back. She likened the Senator to Joseph Goebbels and of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them." The committee room suddenly erupted into cheers and McCarthy left the room. Douglas was congratulated by former colleagues. She returned to Los Angeles where there was a draft effort to get her to run for Governor or Lt. Governor. She wisely turned those offers down and bided her time. In 1956, she almost pulled the trigger on a U.S. Senate bid and backed off at the last moment. Now in 1958, it appeared to be her time to come back. A third Democrat entered the hustings for Senate. Businessman George H. McLain, a social organizer who was closely tied to Upton Sinclair in his 1934 Gubernatorial bid and later served in the cabinet of Governor Culbert Olson, after which McLain gained control of an organization, the California Institute of Social Welfare and McLain's main platform for political organizing. After leading a series of ballot proposition campaigns that all failed in the early 1950s, McLain was looking to the Senate for himself.
Early on in the campaign came Proposition 18, which was an anti-union proposition. For both Engle and Knowland's stand on the right-to-work issue was producing growing concern in organized labor for both. Engle sought to dispel it by insisting that rank-and-file members of the union movement supported his efforts to remedy union abuses. He continued to refer to his stand as "union democracy." Meanwhile, Knowland took heat from his own party. At a September 20 press conference in Sacramento, Governor Knight called Knowland's proposal "a step backward" and declared, "No politician can successfully turn the clock back in labor-management relations any more than he can reverse the trend of our rapidly expanding economy." The Governor said so-called right-to-work schemes are misnamed and should be labeled anti-union shop measures. Two days later, Douglas attacked Engle openly and by name on a Sacramento television news show, accusing the Congressman of "a pattern of violent attacks" on organized labor. Douglas said that among California's Republican and Democratic leaders, "Clair Engle and Bill Knowland stands together, each wearing the name of another party on their shoulders, and the stain of corporate money on their hearts as the attack on labor in California," and she pledged to utilize the infamous filibuster to any "right-to-work" bill that might come across her Senate desk should she win. Engle, in turn, was saying that certain union leaders had marked him for "political liquidation" because of his stand on right-to-work, but he stated he would not be intimidated, "if I never hold public office for another day in my life.
On April 21, 1958, Knowland took his right-to-work argument directly to organized labor. At a Fresno meeting of the California Congress of Industrial Organizations' Council on Political Education (COPE), he said he understood "how Daniel felt in the lion's den." He spoke for thirty minutes before the unsmiling audience, calling on the AFL-CIO members to support him even if their leaders did not. After the senator left the platform, convention delegates adopted resolutions opposing right-to-work legislation. By a voice vote, they adopted a straight Democratic slate, even forsaking their old friend Goodwin Knight. A motion was made for a dual endorsement of Knight and Democratic senatorial candidate Helen Gahagan Douglas, but it was rejected. Meanwhile, no matter what Rogers did, the primary campaign kept being steered back to the Senate Democrats fight with big labor. Pat Brown helped keep the pot boiling by telling California audiences that Rogers really didn't want labor reform, he merely wanted a scapegoat for workers' problems. " Roger's response was that Brown's attitude is, 'Why cure the patient when you can kill him?'"
On primary day, Brown buried Rogers 61%-39%. Meanwhile, Douglas won a respectable 50% to Engle's 42% and 8% for McClain. On the Republican side, Knowland ran a rather anemic 54%-46% over Poulson, while Knight barely beat back Christopher and Priest. Though Knight won 38%, Christopher got 34% and Priest got 28%. The results did not bode well for the fall. On primary night, Douglas rejoiced in a ballroom in Los Angeles packed with jubilant supporters to the tune of "I've Got Rythmn" led by Ethel Merman!
We've got Helen
For our Senator.
We've got Pat for Governor too,
Who can ask for anything more?
The Democrats seemed jubilant while the Republicans were split and despondent, as well as the fact, Knight refused to be on the same stage as Knowland. Knowland's campaign meanwhile accused Knight of having assisted Poulson's campaign. Lt. Governor Powers when asked about it simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "Not sure but Norris is a true blue California Republican!" The primary was a shocking wake-up call with cross-filing in the combined primary Brown had a majority of more than 600,000 votes. Douglas was closer with 546,000 votes to Knight's 402,000 votes, but the fact was both Democrats led their prospective Republican opponents.
The senator called an emergency strategy meeting of his statewide Republican leaders on June 14 and 15 in San Jose to try to get back on track. On June 12 his state campaign manager, Edward S.Shattuck, who had been scheduled to preside, resigned from the Knowland organization over the disarray of the campaign. That same week, Goodwin Knight broke with the Republican campaign firm Whitaker and Baxter, his managers since his first political race for lieutenant governor in 1946; he apparently blamed them for his poor primary showing. The GOP was in shambles. At the San Jose meeting, Knowland rejected advice from many of his 200 campaign leaders to back off from his antilabor stand. He told the Republicans he intended to stick by his principles even if that would cost him the governorship. After assuming full responsibility for not having spent more time in the state prior to the election, he left the convention and flew back to Washington without making any substantial changes in his staff. The campaign group continued to be impressed with Knowland's integrity, intelligence, and energy, but they wondered openly about his stubbornness. Knowland proposed that all Republican candidates for statewide office join forces against the Democrats, the common enemy, and he endorsed all GOP candidates, including Knight. The governor quickly announced he would run an independent campaign in the Senate race. When Knowland announced plans to be in Sacramento on June 28 to address an American Legion convention, Knight called a press conference to say he would be out of town. The governor said he was meeting with some Democratic friends in Los Angeles. The senator countered by changing his plans to arrive in Sacramento a day early, so that he could meet with Knight. On June 27, the two Republican rivals met for an hour and fifteen minutes in the governor's office; they emerged with no noticeable change in their stances. Afterward, Knight press secretary Tom Bright handed out a statement: "Senator Knowland and Governor Knight held a pleasant hour's talk this afternoon. They discussed questions concerning the campaign and they proposed to continue these talks either by telephone or in person during the days ahead. They have nothing more to say on this matter."
Then in late August, Knowland's wife dropped a bombshell. The senator's wife came across a pamphlet written by Joseph Kamp, an eastern muckraker so far to the right that he was considered a fascist by many members of Congress. Kamp, the author of a book titled
We Must Abolish the United States (1950), was thought to be anti-Semitic and had gone to jail for contempt of Congress after he refused to identify the backers of his poison-pen writings. Mrs. Knowland, however, either did not know of his reputation or didn't care. She was so enamored with his new pamphlet—
Meet the Man Who Plans to Rule America , a virulent piece about Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers-that she distributed about 500 copies to California Republicans. She was planning to mail out thousands of additional copies when the
New York Times broke the story about a link between the Knowland campaign and Kamp. The
Times said financing was being provided for the pamphlets by Donaldson Brown, former vice chairman of the board of General Motors Corporation; Pierre S. du Pont II, a director of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company; and Charles M. White, chairman of the board of Republic Steel Corporation. Brown immediately expressed outrage, saying Knowland was "doing business with elements which would not stop at imposing a Fascist dictatorship over the American people." Douglas joined in and compared Knowland's tactics to those of Nixon's "Pink Lady" smears of 1950 and Joe McCarthy's attacks. Douglas asked at rally after rally, "Goodie Knight said good night and didn't say a peep when Joe McCarthy attacked Americans and the U.S. Army. What red-blooded American believes it's acceptable to attack the very men and women whose uniform keeps us safe at night? It's time for California to say Goodnight to Goodie Knight!" By Labor Day, he was back in Oakland declaring that hoodlum elements had infiltrated unions and that labor democracy was needed to allow members to regain control of their organizations. At a rally in downtown Los Angeles, Brown responded to Knowland's attacks, saying, "I oppose the mislabeled right-to-work law as a return to the ugly and destructive law of the economic jungle. I believe in legal or collective bargaining as a basic right of both labor and management." A new blow to Knowland's campaign came on October 4. At a meeting of United Press International editors in Los Angeles, Goodwin Knight announced officially that he could not support the senator for governor because of his right-to-work views. "It is a rugged and hard fight in California," Knowland said when told of Knight's stand. "I personally am supporting the whole Republican ticket regardless of Knight's position in this backyard quarreling." Douglas added pressure when provided by a supporter of Christophers' primary campaign a 1953 letter from Knight to a Christopher in which the Governor wrote, "I agree with you the right-to-work proposal should have been adopted by the legislature," With only two weeks to go before the November 4 election, political pundits were not writing about whether Bill Knowland would win or lose, but how badly he would be beaten. Some predicted Pat Brown would win the governorship by a million votes. Knowland was tired, and he must have considered how different things would have been if he had been running for his Senate seat instead of for Governor. The senator, still riding his antiunion horse but arguing that rank-and-file members would vote for him, went into the Fontana United Steelworkers Union hail on October 23 to tell his side of the story. The 1,000-seat hall had only twelve people in it—a jury commissioner and the prospective jurors he was interviewing. A nearby union office had a sign on it that said, "Offices closed. Attending Pat Brown meetings." Knowland sighed, and said, "It's what I've been saying. They only want to hear one side."
On October 30, just five days before the election, Republican William A. Burkett, state superintendent of banks, threw his support to Pat Brown and Helen Douglas, charging Knowland and Knight with destroying the Republican Party in California. The same day, the
San Francisco Chronicle withdrew its endorsement of Knowland. The newspaper stated: "The
Chronicle supported Senator William Knowland in the primary election. Unfortunately, however, we have been unfavorably impressed with his subsequent campaign. We now no longer feel we can unqualifiedly urge his election, and therefore suggest our readers vote for the candidate of their choice." Although the
Chronicle made no endorsement, its action against Knowland ended the three-newspaper axis that had dominated California Republican politics for so long. The strongly Republican (but self proclaimed "politically independent")
San Francisco Examiner , flagship of the Hearst empire, did endorse Pat Brown and Helen Douglas. Just before the election, in the weekend editions, the senator did gain an endorsement, from the
Los Angeles Times . "Knowland, who didn't have to enter the fight, is staking his career and the national welfare of the Republican Party on his campaign," the editorial stated. "He will fight to the last bell and we are staying in his corner." In a last-ditch effort to halt the campaign's hemorrhaging, Knowland staged a twenty-hour telethon in Southern California to try to reach voters before the November 4 election. He went on the air from Hollywood, with crews relaying questions from passersby in Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and Los Angeles International Airport. Actor Randolph Scott and actresses Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple Black dropped in to wish him luck, and two dozen telephone operators took questions from television viewers. Knowland was on screen from 10:30 Friday night until 7 P.M. Saturday, November i. Although the show originated in Southern California, it also was shown on stations in Stockton and Sacramento, covering much of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. For the most part, the campaign was over.
Brown meanwhile traveled with Douglas extensively who was feted by Henry Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Helen Hayes, Rosalind Russell, Clark Gable, Ethel Merman, Lauren Bacall, and others. They were all flown around on a chartered Trans World Airways Convair 600 called the Golden Arrow. It was owned by the elusive billionaire Howard Hughes who the gossips said for years had been one of Douglas' lovers. Also campaigning with them were Senators John F. Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts and Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas (a known lover of Douglas) and also rivals for the 1960 Presidential nomination.
That night in Los Angeles, Knowland took his family and staff to see
The Last Hurrah , a sentimental Spencer Tracy film about a boss in a New England town fighting for his political life. Estelle Knowland remembered: "There was an intermission, and at the intermission we went out in the foyer for a breath of air, and who was there—Pat and Bernice Brown." The family returned to Oakland on Tuesday to await the returns at the
Tribune office. From his assistant publisher's desk, the senator kept his own tally of votes as they came in from the precincts. The bad news came early: the first report gave Brown 1,385 votes and Knowland 564. Bill Knowland showed no emotion, calmly greeting family members and friends who dropped by to watch the returns. His eighty-five-year-old father, J. R. Knowland, also sat poker-faced as he watched the numbers roil up for Brown. The Senator chuckled once, when the tiny Sierra hamlet of Pike came in with Knowland, 8, Brown, I. But there was no dramatic narrowing of the margin, just steadily mounting gains for Brown. With the exception of Secretary of State Frank Jordan, the entire Republican slate was going down with Knowland. Less than two hours after the polls closed, Brown declared victory. Knight wasn't ready to concede to Douglas. He had been in the election business twenty-six years, and although the early returns were grim, more than 80 percent of the state still hadn't been counted.
While J. R. Knowland stayed at the newspaper, the Senator and his family drove across the Bay Bridge to his San Francisco headquarters on lower Market Street. Shortly after they arrived, the Senator took one more look at the returns and began writing a congratulatory telegram to Pat Brown. While Jim Gleason screamed for him not to concede, Knowland signaled to Manolis to take the telegram down the street to the Western Union office and send it. Meanwhile, at the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento, Knight also realized he had been beaten. At 10:32 P.M., the Governor addressed his crowd of campaign workers and the television cameras. "I have sent my congratulations to Senator-Elect Helen Gahagan Douglas," he said over the shouts of "No!" from his loyal followers. And in a final dig at Knowland, Knight bellowed "I believe though she is from the other party, she'll be a damned sight better representative of California interests then the previous occupant."
Meanwhile, each Democrat had built a coalition and celebrated their stunning wins with their supporters. Douglas had Hollywood royalty who rubbed elbows with African-American leadership from across the state and union bosses. Brown also had union bosses who joined his sheriffs and attorneys who all had joined in helping him win. Together they both at their headquarters, Brown in San Francisco and Douglas in Los Angeles, celebrated an earth-shattering win. Douglas shouted out to a crowded headquarters, "How sweet it is to be back, ladies and gentlemen." Brown meanwhile celebrated and said, "Happy Days are here again, folks!"
