Hiram Johnson

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Hiram Johnson (1919)

Hiram Warren Johnson (* 2 September 1866 in Sacramento , California ; † 6. August 1945 in Bethesda , Maryland ) was an American politician of the Republican Party . He was Governor of California from 1911 to 1917 and then represented this state in the US Senate from 1917 to 1945 . Johnson was one of the leading figures in the United States' progressive movement.

Life

Earlier years and political advancement

Johnson was born in Sacramento. His father, Grove L. Johnson, was a California MP in the United States House of Representatives and became famous for fighting corruption by confronting corrupt politicians directly with a pistol and branding them. Educated in public schools, Johnson first worked as a stenographer and shorthand writer at various law firms. Eventually he decided to become a lawyer and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley . In 1888 he passed the state examination ("Bar Exam") and became a fully qualified lawyer, whereupon he founded his own law firm in his hometown of Sacramento.

In 1902 he moved to San Francisco , where he served as an assistant attorney for the local county ("County"). Soon he became involved in reform policy and emphasized the fight against corruption, as his father had done. He launched an anti-corruption campaign and became widely known in 1907 when he won an infamous bribery trial for shooting his predecessor in the courtroom.

Governor of California

Johnson during his tenure as governor

In 1910, the Republicans nominated Johnson for the presidency of California governor after incumbent James Gillett resigned . In the gubernatorial election on November 8, 1910, he won with a vote of 46 percent against the Democrat Theodore A. Bell (40 percent) and the socialist Jackson S. Wilson (12 percent). Johnson took up his new post as head of government of the West Coast state on January 3, 1911. Johnson was at that time a member of the so-called Lincoln – Roosevelt League , a liberal movement on the left wing of the Republicans. This faction positioned itself against the Southern Pacific railway company; Johnson traveled around California by car, a new campaign method of this era. As incumbent governor, Johnson was a “populist” who pushed through several progressivist reforms. Among these were the direct election of US senators (previously they were elected by the parliaments of the respective states ), support for women campaigners and a reform of the electoral law so that candidates could register for multiple parties. He also succeeded in including the possibility of a recall against the governor and other members of the state government in the constitution. At the only recall in California's history in 2003, newly elected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to Hiram Johnson in campaign speeches. During his tenure as governor, a law was also passed prohibiting Asian immigrants from acquiring real estate in California. Although Johnson was critical of this project, he made a concession to the members of Parliament by signing the resolution.

In November 1914, Johnson was confirmed for a second term by a clear margin. This time, however, he ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party founded by former Republican US President Theodore Roosevelt . With 49.6 percent of the vote, Johnson clearly defeated both Republican John D. Fredericks (29 percent) and Democrat JB Curtin (12 percent). To date, he is also the last California governor who was not elected to this office as either a Democratic or Republican candidate. In January 1915 he was sworn in again as governor. He was also the first (and only the second) California governor to be re-elected in 1853.

In 1916, Johnson sought a seat in the US Senate. After he was able to win this election in November 1916 thanks to his popularity in California, he resigned as governor in March 1917 after just over half of his term in office. Under the Constitution, the previous Lieutenant Governor William Stephens assumed the highest office in the state.

Candidacy for US Vice President

Hiram Johnson (right) and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912

At the federal level, Johnson was one of the founders of the Progressive Party in 1912 . In the same year he ran for the office of Vice President alongside former President Theodore Roosevelt . The Californian Johnson was supposed to represent a geographical balance to Roosevelt from New York , on the other hand, due to his popularity in California, he seemed a suitable candidate to win this populous state. In addition, both politicians had very similar political positions.

Although the new party lost the campaign to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson , Johnson helped his party by winning by just 0.2 percent of the vote in the state of California. The Roosevelt and Johnson duo also succeeded in relegating Republican incumbent William Howard Taft to third place. It was the last time to date that a third-party candidate was among the top two presidential candidates. Although the Progressive Party achieved a remarkable result for a third party in 1912, it could not hold its ground in the long term. Both Johnson and Roosevelt returned to the Republican Party, while other progressives joined the Democratic Party, in which progressive forces had clearly gained influence since the beginning of the 20th century. For the 1916 election , Roosevelt was initially nominated, but he ruled out a new run, as did Johnson (after the former president's rejection). In this election Johnson refused to approve the Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes . During a stay in Long Beach, he stayed at the same hotel as the governor. Even so, there was no meeting between the two politicians, possibly because Hughes had not been informed that Johnson was also at the hotel. However, the incident, known as the forgotten handshake, was perceived as a snub, so that he subsequently refused Hughes full support in the election campaign in California.

Career in the United States Senate

Johnson (center) between Senate colleagues in front of the Capitol (around 1927)

After his election to the Senate, Johnson took up his mandate on March 6, 1917. After Theodore Roosevelt's death in 1919, Johnson was seen as the definite leader of American progressives. The following year he lost to Warren G. Harding at the Republican nomination convention for the presidential election . In 1924 he got only ten votes at the party convention when he ran against President Calvin Coolidge . At the time, national sentiment had turned more in favor of the conservative (and free market ) Republicans, for whom Presidents Harding and Coolidge stood. As a result, the progressive wing of the Republicans had also lost influence within the party. However, Johnson stayed in the Senate, where he was always popular with California voters. In 1940 he won again with 94.5 percent of the vote.

In Congress, Johnson continued to advocate progressive reforms domestically. In foreign policy he pursued an isolationist course. In this context, the saying "The first victim of every war is the truth" is ascribed to him (although this well-known quote has several ascriptions). Johnson voted in 1919, along with most of the other Republicans, against the ratification of the League of Nations proposed by President Woodrow Wilson as a consequence of the First World War . During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Johnson vigorously supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's reform and economic recovery program , known as the New Deal . Although he frequently supported the politics of the Democrats, he never changed his own party membership. His positive attitude towards President Roosevelt changed when he tried to increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court . The background was that this would have enabled Roosevelt to appoint even more judges himself, in order to shift the proportion of votes in the Supreme Court, as the long-time conservative Supreme Court had previously declared a number of New Deal laws to be unconstitutional . Johnson eventually became chairman of the Senate Committee on Relations with Cuba and a member of the committees on patents, immigration, territorial and island ownership, and trade in the 66th Congress. In the mid-1940s, during the final stages of World War II, Johnson's health deteriorated noticeably. In the summer of 1945 he was no longer able to take part in several Senate meetings; including during the ratification of the United Nations . Johnson recently said that he did not want to ratify the treaty. After a career in the Senate of nearly 30 years, Johnson died at the age of 78 on August 6, 1945 at Bethesda Naval Hospital . He was buried in the Cyprus Lawn Cemetery in San Francisco.

He was succeeded in the Senate by his Republican party colleague William F. Knowland , who later also rose to influential positions.

Private life

In 1886 he married Minne L. McNeal, with whom he had two sons.

Web links

Commons : Hiram Johnson  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hiram Johnson biography at the Governor's Library (English)
personal data
SURNAME Johnson, Hiram
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johnson, Hiram Warren (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Sacramento , California
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1945
Place of death Bethesda , Maryland