Research Catalog

Title

John Randolph Haynes, California progressive / Tom Sitton.

Author

Sitton, Tom, 1949-

Publication

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

ix, 331 p., [14] p. of plates : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

For four decades, John Randolph Haynes (1853-1937) was in the forefront of social-reform crusades and political action in Los Angeles and California, with his most important legacies in the fields of direct legislation and public ownership of utilities. He was the individual most responsible for the adoption of the initiative, referendum, and recall in Los Angeles in 1902 and in California in 1911. His vigilant protection of these measures thereafter and his promotion of direct legislation throughout the nation earned him the title "father of direct legislation" in California. From 1910 until his death, Haynes's chief priority was to shape the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power into a glowing example of public ownership of utilities. Today, LADWP operates the world's largest municipal water and electrical power generation and distribution system, continuing to serve the needs of an ever-growing region whose extent even Haynes could not have envisaged. In many ways, Haynes is an enigma. He was not a typical progressive, having amassed a fortune in his medical practice and in real estate, mining, and other capitalistic ventures. However, he spent a large portion of his wealth to promote a form of gradual, democratic socialism in the United States. Haynes advocated the transformation of the nation's economy and government, yet he campaigned for morality laws that limited personal freedom. Haynes's motivation was not social status or money, both of which he had before his conversion to social reform. Nor was it political power: he never ran for office (except as a temporary freeholder) or created a personal political machine. His primary motive was a perhaps arrogant yet honest desire to aid in the creation of a more just society by improving the living and working conditions of the less fortunate. In one way or another, Haynes participated in all the major social and political events that shaped California and Los Angeles in a most dynamic era of their development. In a broader sense, Haynes's life serves as a yardstick with which to measure other progressives of his time and as a key for understanding the motivation of those idealists who helped shape our present political institutions.

Subject

• Haynes, John Randolph, 1853-
• 1850-1950
• Politicians > California > Biography
• Social reformers > California > Biography
• Progressivism (United States politics)
• California > Politics and government > 1850-1950

Genre/Form

Biographies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-318) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Ch. 1. "My Idea of My Biography" -- Ch. 2. First Decade in the City of Angels -- Ch. 3. A Reformer at 44 -- Ch. 4. Direct Legislation: The Means to All Reform Ends -- Ch. 5. Less Than Socialism: Municipal Ownership and Regulation -- Ch. 6. Godfather of Urban Reform -- Ch. 7. From City to State: Haynes and the California Progressives, Phase I -- Ch. 8. "The Rise and Fall of Goo-Goo" -- Ch. 9. A Reformer's Passage Through World War I -- Ch. 10. "We Cannot Afford to Permit the Reactionaries to Dig In" -- Ch. 11. Preparing for the Afterlife: The Origins of the Haynes Foundation -- Ch. 12. "The Unfortunate Dr. Haynes": Young-Cryer Boom Through Rolph-Porter Bust -- Ch. 13. New Dealer Haynes -- Ch. 14. A Reformer's Remembrance.

ISBN

0804720673 (cloth : acid-free paper) :

LCCN

^^^92007879^

OCLC

• 25369420
• SCSB-11161089

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library