Robert B Powers

Birth and youth

Robert "Bob" B. Powers was born Oct 3, 1900, in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He dropped out of public school in the fifth grade.

He enlisted in military service at 17 years old somewhat charmed at the stories of Lawrence of Arabia and was assigned to the 12th Cavalry Regiment. He worked as a personnel sergeant in 1920. Because he had picked up typing skills he then was a clerk in the office of the chief of cavalry in Washington D. C. into 1922. When he was discharged he served as a state trooper and corporal in New Jersey into 1923. He quit, hoping for advancement but working for an oil company to Feb 1924 was not it. Neither was re-enlisting as he found after a few months in 1924 at Fort Slocum (New York). Instead he worked as a railroad “special agent” protecting trains and added time as a deputy sheriff in New Mexico and Arizona.

Bakersfield police force

Powers was hired as a motorcycle patrolman in January 1928 for the Bakersfield Police Department though his actual work initially was as a stenographer. And he married Mildred Irwin, daughter of a former district attorney, December 1928. They had two sons by 1941.

Because of his training as a solo officer earlier he made a reputation of solo achievements in the force and made sergeant in 1930. He developed an interest in traffic patrolling and management of security for schools. In 1931 he made lieutenant, and then Chief of police of the Bakersfield police force in 1933. Along the way he undertook professional training at the University of California at Los Angeles police school, the FBI school at Monterey and the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA.

He viewed the overall police force across the state as ill-educated, politically connected, and "corrupt" by modern standards. Out of a desire to shore up an independent and capable police force under his authority he began to revise procedures and investigative techniques and at the same time revise local regulation so that the chief's position was under civil service and thus under the city manager and not directly responsible to the city council. Progressively he instituted on-the-job training that included public school type curriculum like English classes so that officers would be more enabled to use words instead of weapons, and professional skills like handling fingerprints. He got the police to actually learn the law so that they didn't cause problems for themselves. In Apr 1944 Powers wrote a "letter to the editor" of the local newspaper about rules of engagement of police - that a policeman has an instant choice of killing someone or not whereas courts can take weeks or months to decide, and thus sometimes lets an apparent criminal escape.

When he was appointed chief there were 38 houses of prostitution known in the community and only 11 when he left as Chief. Powers was also a strong voice in determining successive chiefs through to 1966. His appointed successor was able to close the remaining 11.

Significant actions while Chief

California Agricultural Strike 1933

Perhaps his first major engagement as chief of police was in the repercussions of the California Agricultural Strike 1933. Under his review the marchers were allowed to take murdered bodies to City Hall to make their protest, noting, (when interviewed in 1970,) "Their motives may have been to turn this country 'Red', but their activities in attempting to get a living wage for the workers were certainly justified."

Case of Mathias Warren

From May-to-Oct 1938 a murder case consumed his time - that of Mathias Warren, father to Earl Warren who was soon to be was Attorney General, then governor, and in time, supreme court judge. On hearing of the murder then district attorney Warren, who had cultivated a relationship with police in various departments and reporters, came to Bakersfield along with many friends seeking to help and there was some tension how the investigation would proceed. Powers insisted and Warren let Powers be in charge. Ultimately no one was charged with the crime - Powers ended up viewing it as a breaking-and-entering that became murder from a transient as Mathias Warren had chosen to live on a messy property while his wealth was tied up in land holdings. Of course the matter was covered in many newspaper stories. However, as time went on the importance of the case, at least to Powers, had more to do with the increasing prominence of Earl Warren. Powers noted the transients of the period were the Okies, indeed The Grapes of Wrath was set in Bakersfield, and that the local establishment tried to keep them pushed out of the way.

Women officers

In June 1939 Powers took the stance of supporting an initiative to get women on the police force if they were college educated and paid well. It proved difficult to get the right funding with no officers hired by March 1941. However the first was hired by summer 1941 and by the spring of 1942 what women officers and staff should wear was an active area of conversation.

Probed by political backlash

Powers had run across a local politician taking a bribe and sought prosecution. Through assistance with then attorney general Earl Warren a case was pursued but ended in a hung jury. Powers was himself then put under investigation by the city council and reports on its progress were carried in the newspapers March-to-April 1942. The final judgement was that the case against Powers was politically motivated and he had done no significant wrong. Powers took a leave of absence and for a period in World War II Powers and his lead staff were all enlisted in the Coast Guard from May 1942 to July 1943, ending service as chief gunner’s mate, and instructor in gunnery.

A State Chief

Soon after returning to service in Bakersfield Powers was called up for a state level service, taking another leave of absence from Bakersfield. In July 1944 Powers was appointed to a wartime state committee on law enforcement under then Governor Earl Warren.

In December 1944 Powers wrote for the committee advising fair treatment of Japanese as war ends.

Initiated during wartime, the committee was revised and extended during peacetime and then attorney general Robert W. Kenny named him Law Enforcement Coordinator for the State of California in January 1945 and the family moved to Sacramento in February.

Race relations

In early 1945 Powers was directed to a race relations meeting in Chicago with the new American Council on Race Relations and began an endeavor of learning himself and then promulgating race relations issues across police departments. The first major project started in Richmond, California with Davis McEntire. Initial efforts were aimed at training the police in human relations including trying to eliminate prejudice and present the unfairness of segregation and discrimination based on race - factors later observed to be widespread needs. The work brought together leaders of the California Department of Corrections, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Japanese American Citizens League, and a Nisei, second-generation American of Japanese descent, US Marine. Together the social norms and prejudices of the day were vented, discussed, and broken down across a week of open-ended discussions. Following the training incendiary incidents arose in the community and the police took novel actions ensuring fairness and peace was retained. The Saturday Evening Post covered it in Cops don't have to be brutal, Dec 28, 1946. Following this numerous police departments even outside California were informed of the training and a booklet A Guide to Race Relations for Peace Officers was created and distributed, (including excerpts in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper.) There was a prospective project by the young American Council on Race Relations using it and on making a training film with Powers writing the script, working with Edwin Embree. Out of this Powers was on a short list of leaders in the field though more recent scholarship critiqued the program for not including the local minority leadership of the time.

Powers retired from police service in 1947 over differences with the new administration and was interested in promoting race relations issues.

Bahá'í

Around December 1946 to April 1947 Powers investigated the Bahá'í Faith while seeking a religious basis for living. He was attracted by the Bahá'í teaching of an unfettered search after truth. The first Bahá’í book he read was This Earth One Country - “When I read the chapter on Islam I accepted Muhammad as a Prophet. When I’d finished the book I was a Bahá’í…" The book was oriented to the Bahá'í understanding of a view across religions and world peace. It was written by one of the first Jews of Canada to join the religion. This approach was reflected in his essay for the radio program This I Believe by Edward R. Murrow entitled "I stopped carrying a gun" in 1954.

Los Angeles

Powers first appears publicly presenting the religion in February 1948 giving a talk in Los Angeles Bahá'í Center. That year he also publicly reflected on his career in law enforcement writing two articles for the Saturday Evening Post - a two part series Crime was my business. In it of his twenty five years in police work he said "It's a long time to last without becoming a cynic" and:

During some of those years I was ridden by fear of being double-crossed out of my job by politicians. Often I dreaded that some situation would catch me unaware and daub me with the yellow mud of a coward's reputation. I worried that I'd lose my temper, go haywire and end up before the grand jury twisting my uniform buttons nervously and begging for mercy. There was the wear and tear of wondering if the chiefs I served under would let me down when I needed to be backed up. And after I got to be chief, there was never a time when someone didn't hate my guts, and I had to be up on my toes to keep my enemies from feathering my back with knives.

He contributed an article in 1948 to volume 11 of the multi-year survey of the status of the religion's community around the world The Bahá'í World entitled An Experiment in Race Relations about his experience in 1945 dealing with race tensions. In 1949 he joined the editorial committee working on volume 12 and continued service in 1950. Around the same time he served on the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly, chaired the committee overseeing the Bahá'í activities of the western states, and continued to be visible giving talks on the religion.

Around these activities Powers was called upon by the State Assembly Committee on Crime and Correction to investigate a situation in Oakland that suggested police brutality in confronting communists and black-power protestors - issues that continued into the Berkeley riots (1960s). Powers found evidence that convinced him there were several murders by police being pushed into confrontations by leadership. He found the whole situation evil and hurt him physically to confront.

In 1950 he cooperated in an effort to integrate a school in Duncan Arizona supporting a local civilian and fellow Bahá'í - Betty Toomis - and then attorney Stewart Udall.

In the period Powers' son, Robert Jr, was in the military and was stationed in Guam from about May 1953 into 1956 and was accorded the title Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for his service to the religion while there.

Arizona

Powers and son Stephen were visible in September 1956 in a Bahá'í youth group in Tucson and in December 1959 he attended the Arizona state Bahá'í convention coming from Flagstaff. Powers suffered a stroke about 1960 but he was soon visible living in Yuma and giving a talk on the religion in April 1961 and 1962.

Bakersfield

The first known Bahá'í in Bakersfield was Mrs. W. H. Repogle who died about March–April 1934. A talk on the local radio station then named KPMC (now KNZR (AM)) broadcast a Bahá'í's story in 1938. A community of Bahá'ís is visible by 1964 and giving public talks in Bakersfield in 1965. Stephen had returned to Bakersfield before 1965 and begun working for the police department, the very year that first female office of the Bakersfield police, hired by his father, retired. Powers himself had also returned and he was visible giving a talk on the religion in 1966. However, after working for the force for 3 years Stephen testified against the police, as a policeman, about an incident in Bakersfield resulting in a race harassment case against the police, and then father and son received harassment. Stephen resigned from the force August 1969.

With the appointment of Earl Warren to the US Supreme Court a project to collect oral histories from those that knew him was undertaken and Powers was interviewed in Bakersfield. The resulting book was published in 1971. Among the anecdotes he told the interviewer, he remarked on a childhood event he said affected his whole life:

I wanted to tell you something… and I think it's affected my whole life, and I don't know if I can tell it very well, but I've thought about it a lot of times.

I can tell how old I was because of where we lived - you know we moved all the time - and when I was just about two years old, I was walking down the street and having a hell of a lot of trouble because my shoelaces were untied and had come out of the holes, and every time I'd take a step I would step on one of those strings and stumble. And, you know, it was a major problem. A flat tire's nothing compared to that. And everybody who would pass would laugh and think it was so funny you know, me stumbling along.

And I passed a house, and there was a woman, and I remember that she was a little tongue-tied, sitting on a step. And she saw what was happening, and she called me in. And she spent about 20 minutes treating me like an adult, teaching me how - of course the ends were gone off the shoestrings - to twist the end and put it through the hole. Then we laced and unlaced my shoes three or four times until I knew how to do it, and then she taught me how to tie a knot. And we sat there for a while, and then I went along. And, as little as I was, I thought, "I'd like to be like that kind of person. I'd like to be like her." I think it influenced my entire life, a little thing.

The families of father and son Powers moved back to Tucson and was visible at a program for the World Religion Day observance in 1972.

Powers died December 1976, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, aged 76. He is buried at the Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens Cemetery.

Remembered

March 5, 2010 a rebroadcast of Powers' This I Believe episode was aired on The Bob Edwards Show. The event was marked in Bakersfield. The show remains available on Audible.com and iTunes. In the presentation the commentators reviewed his forward thinking efforts and the wide scale of his reading across religions and they were struck by his pursuit of knowledge from an awareness of Lawrence of Arabia to actually reading the Qur'an, the way the Bahá'í quote "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" was emphasized in his life and was found when there were so few Bahá'ís around, and the way the New Testament inspired him to "put down his gun".