Hiram Johnson

Early years

Johnson was born in Sacramento, California on September 2, 1866; his father was Grove Lawrence Johnson, a Republican Representative and a member of the California State Legislature who was accused of election irregularities and using his political offices to look after his personal financial interests. His mother was Annie DeMontfredy, partially descended of a family of Huguenots who had left France after the Edict of Nantes, to escape religious persecution. Annie was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, claiming descent from a general of the Continental Army. Johnson had a brother and three sisters.

After attending public schools and Heald College, Johnson first worked as a shorthand reporter and stenographer in law offices. He eventually pursued a legal career, studying at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He was admitted to the bar in 1888 and commenced practice in his hometown. In 1902, he moved to San Francisco. He served as assistant district attorney and became active in reform politics, taking up an anti-corruption mantle. He attracted statewide attention in 1908 when he assisted Francis J. Heney in the graft prosecution of Abe Ruef and Mayor Eugene Schmitz. His success was due in large measure to the fact that after Heney was gunned down in the courtroom, he took the lead for the prosecution and won the case. He married Minne L. McNeal; the couple had two sons.

Governor

In 1910, Johnson won the gubernatorial election as a member of the Lincoln–Roosevelt League, a liberal Republican movement running on an anti-Southern Pacific Railroad platform. He toured the state in an open automobile. In office, Johnson was a populist who implemented many important reforms. Among them was the popular election of U.S. senators, which stripped away the sole franchise of the California State Legislature to vote for federal senators. Johnson's administration also pushed for the ability of candidates to register in more than one political party, a reform that he believed would cripple the influence of what he viewed as a monolithic political establishment. In 1911, Johnson and the Progressives added initiative, referendum, and recall to the state government, giving California a degree of direct democracy unmatched by any other U.S. state.

Johnson was instrumental in the establishment of a railroad commission to regulate the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad. On taking office, Johnson soon paroled the convicted Southern Pacific train bandit Chris Evans but required that he leave California.

Although initially opposed to the bill, Johnson eventually gave in to political pressure and supported the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented Asian immigrants (excluded from naturalized citizenship because of their race) from owning land in the state.

Nationally, Johnson was a founder of the Progressive Party in 1912. That same year, he was the party's vice presidential candidate, sharing a ticket with former President Theodore Roosevelt; his selection helped Roosevelt to carry California by 0.2 percent of the votes. The Progressives finished second nationally ahead of the incumbent Republican, President William Howard Taft, but still lost the election to the Democrats and their candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

Johnson was re-elected governor of California in 1914, almost doubling his opponent's vote total.

Senator

In 1916, Johnson ran successfully for the U.S. Senate, defeating Democrat George S. Patton, Sr., and assuming office on March 16, 1917. It is alleged that was the year that he spoke the words for which he is best remembered today: "The first casualty when war comes is truth" about United States entry into World War I. However, the source of the famous quote has yet to be determined. From 1917 to 1929, he resided at Riversdale in Riverdale Park, Maryland.

Following Theodore Roosevelt's death in January 1919, Johnson was regarded as the natural leader of the Progressive Party. In 1920, however, he did not attempt to revive the Progressive Party, but ran for President as a Republican. He was defeated for the Republican presidential nomination by U.S. Senator Warren Harding of Ohio. Johnson also did not get the support of Roosevelt's family, who instead supported Roosevelt's long-time friend Leonard Wood. At the convention, Johnson was asked to serve as Harding's running mate, but he declined.

Johnson helped push through the Immigration Act of 1924, having worked with Valentine S. McClatchy and other anti-Japanese lobbyists to prohibit Japanese and other East Asian immigrants from entering the United States.

Johnson sought the 1924 Republican nomination against President Calvin Coolidge, but his campaign was derailed after he lost the California primary. Johnson declined to challenge Herbert Hoover for the 1928 presidential nomination, instead choosing to seek re-election to the Senate.

When the motion picture industry sought someone to establish a self-regulatory process and to help the industry fend off official censorship, three candidates were identified: Herbert Hoover, Johnson and Will H. Hays. Hays, who had campaigned actively for Harding among industry leaders, was ultimately named to head the new Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in early 1922.

As a senator, Johnson proved extremely popular. In 1934, Johnson was re-elected with 94.5 percent of the popular vote because he was nominated by both Republicans and Democrats and his only opponent was Socialist George Ross Kirkpatrick.

In the 1932 presidential election, Johnson broke with President Hoover, and was one of the most prominent Republicans in the country to support Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the early presidency of Roosevelt, Johnson supported the president's economic recovery package, the New Deal, and frequently crossed the floor to aid the Democrats. He even endorsed FDR in the 1932 and 1936 presidential elections, although he never switched party affiliation. He became disenchanted with Roosevelt and the New Deal following FDR's unsuccessful attempt to increase the size of the Supreme Court. As a staunch isolationist, Johnson voted against the League of Nations. He was not present when the Senate voted to ratify the treaty to create a similar organization, the United Nations, but he made it known that he would have voted against ratification; only senators Henrik Shipstead and William Langer actually cast votes against the United Nations Charter.

In 1943, a confidential analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made by British scholar Isaiah Berlin for his Foreign Office stated that Johnson:

is the Isolationists' elder statesman and the only surviving member of the [William E. ] Borah- [Henry Cabot] Lodge-Johnson combination which led the fight against the League in 1919 and 1920. He is an implacable and uncompromising Isolationist with immense prestige in California, of which he has twice been Governor. His election to the Senate has not been opposed for many years by either party. He is acutely Pacific-conscious and is a champion of a more adequate defence of the West Coast. He is a member of the Farm Bloc and is au fond, against foreign affairs as such; his view of Europe as a sink of iniquity has not changed in any particular since 1912, when he founded a short-lived progressive party. His prestige in Congress is still great and his parliamentary skill should not be underestimated.

Johnson achieved Senate seniority as Chairman of the Committee on Cuban Relations in the Sixty-sixth Congress; he was also a member of the Patents, Immigration, Territories and Insular Possessions and Commerce committees.

Death

Having served in the Senate for almost thirty years, Johnson died in the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on August 6, 1945, ironically (for a staunch isolationist) on the date of the first deployment of nuclear weapons in warfare, by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. He was interred in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.

Legacy

Johnson gained some recognition in the media and general public during the 2003 California recall election because he was the most important person behind the introduction of the law that allowed state officials to be recalled. Also, then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to Johnson's progressive legacy in his campaign speeches.

On August 25, 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Johnson would be one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit. The induction ceremony was on December 1, 2009 in Sacramento.

The Hiram Johnson papers reside at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento, California is named in his honor.