George E. Cryer

George Edward Cryer (born May 13, 1875 in Waterloo , Douglas County , Nebraska , †  May 24, 1961 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American politician . Between 1921 and 1929 he was mayor of the city of Los Angeles.

Career

In 1885, George Cryer came to Southern California with his parents . He attended public schools in Redlands and Pasadena . He then graduated from Los Angeles High School . During the Spanish-American War of 1898 he was a soldier in a volunteer unit from California. After studying law at the University of Michigan and being admitted to the bar, he began working in this profession in Los Angeles in 1903. While at college, he was co-editor of the Michigan Law Review journal . Between 1910 and 1912, Cryer was assistant federal attorney and then until 1913 legal representative of the city of Los Angeles. From 1915 to 1919 he was an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles County . He made a name for himself by bringing prominent corruption charges to court.

Politically, Cryer joined the Republican Party . In 1921 he was elected mayor of Los Angeles. He held this office after three re-elections - the last time in 1925 against Benjamin Franklin Bledsoe - between July 1, 1921 and July 1, 1929. During this time, Los Angeles experienced an enormous boom. At that time the population exceeded the million mark. The film industry was booming. The town hall , which is still in operation today, was built as well as a city library. Construction for the Olympic Games planned for 1932 was also tackled. Cryer had campaigned for the games to be awarded to Los Angeles. This enormous growth of the city made it necessary to adapt the infrastructure. This concerned, among other things, the expansion of the road network and the water supply as well as the sewage system. Airmail and regular flight connections between California and New York City have also existed since that time .

Cryer's tenure also had its downsides. He has been accused of working too closely with Kent Kane Parrot , known as Los Angeles' political boss . There have even been voices that said Cryer was a pawn of the corrupt Parrot, who was the actual mayor. Parrot was compared to William Tweed , the notorious director of Tammany Hall in New York in the early 1870s. In 1929, the pressure on Cryer because of his political connection to Parrot became so great that he decided not to run again. Between 1929 and 1931 he was involved in a defamation trial with clergyman Robert P. Shuler . He had described the mayor in his radio sermons as an exploiter, among other things. Cryer sued Shuler unsuccessfully.

After serving as mayor, George Cryer returned to practice as a lawyer. In 1933 he applied unsuccessfully to return to the office of mayor. In the meantime he became president of the Mutual Oil Company . He died in Los Angeles on May 24, 1961.

Web links

• George E. Cryer in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• George E. Cryer at The Political Graveyard
• The Mayors of Los Angeles