Culbert Olson | |
|---|---|
 Olson in 1935 | |
| 29th Governor of California | |
| In office January 2, 1939 – January 4, 1943 | |
| Lieutenant | Ellis E. Patterson |
| Preceded by | Frank Merriam |
| Succeeded by | Earl Warren |
| Member of theCalifornia Senate from the38th district | |
| In office January 7, 1935 – January 2, 1939 | |
| Preceded by | J. W. McKinley |
| Succeeded by | Robert W. Kenny |
| Chairman of the California Democratic Party | |
| In office September 29, 1934 – September 26, 1937 | |
| Preceded by | Maurice Harrison |
| Succeeded by | Clifford C. Anglim |
| Member of theUtah State Senate from the 6th district | |
| In office January 8, 1917 – January 10, 1921 | |
| Preceded by | Multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | Multi-member district |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Culbert Levy Olson (1876-11-07)November 7, 1876 Fillmore, Utah, U.S. |
| Died | April 13, 1962(1962-04-13) (aged 85) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children |
|
| Relatives | Edmund Rice (ancestor) William H. King (first cousin) |
| Education | |
| Profession | Journalist,lawyer |
| Signature |  |
This broadcast contains a campaign speech on old age assistance and pension benefits. Recorded 1942 | |
Culbert Levy Olson (November 7, 1876 – April 13, 1962) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 29thgovernor of California from 1939 to 1943. A member of theDemocratic Party, Olson was previously elected to both theUtah State Senate andCalifornia State Senate, serving one term in each. During his term as governor, Olson struggled to passNew Deal legislation due to hostility from theCalifornia legislature. He also supported theinternment and removal of Japanese Americans from California after the United States enteredWorld War II. He was the firstatheist governor of an American state.
Olson was born inFillmore, Utah, the son of Delilah Cornelia (née King) and George Daniel Olson, on November 7, 1876. Olson's mother was asuffragette and became the first female elected official in Utah. His first cousin was U.S. SenatorWilliam H. King, and both were descendants ofEdmund Rice, an early immigrant toMassachusetts Bay Colony.[1]
Olson's mother and father belonged tothe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, Culbert was unconvinced of the existence ofGod, and became an atheist at the age of ten.
Leaving school at the age of 14, Olson worked briefly as a telegraph operator. In 1890, he enrolled atBrigham Young University inProvo, where he studied law and journalism.
Upon graduating at the age of 19 in 1895, Olson embarked on a career as a journalist with theDaily Ogden Standard. During the1896 presidential election, Olson campaigned forDemocratic candidateWilliam Jennings Bryan. After the election, Olson moved briefly toMichigan, studying law at theUniversity of Michigan, and then later toWashington, D.C., where he worked as a newspaper correspondent and secretary for theU.S. Congress. During his time in the capital, Olson attended law school atGeorge Washington University, and he was admitted to the Utah Bar in 1901.[2]
Olson moved back to Utah in 1901, settling inSalt Lake City to join a law practice. Building a reputation of defendingtrade unionists and political progressives, Olson was elected to theUtah State Senate in 1916. During his four years in the State Senate, Olson wrote and endorsed legislation to endchild labor in the state, guaranteeold age pensions, and expand government control ofpublic utilities.
Olson declined to run again for the State Senate in the 1920 general election. Instead, Olson relocated toLos Angeles, California, beginning another law practice, where he again gained a reputation of investigating corporate fraud. Politics never remained far. Olson campaigned openly forProgressive Party candidateRobert La Follette in1924, and forDemocratFranklin Roosevelt in1932.
In 1934, in the middle of theGreat Depression, Olson ran as a Democrat for theCalifornia State Senate, representingLos Angeles. During the 1934 state general elections, Olson campaigned for formerSocialist Party member andDemocratic nominee forgovernor,Upton Sinclair, participating in Sinclair'sEnd Poverty in California campaign.[2] While Sinclair lost the gubernatorial election toRepublicanFrank Merriam, Olson was elected to theCalifornia State Senate that year.
While in the state Senate, the secondstate legislative seat to which he was elected, Olson openly supported Roosevelt'sNew Deal policies towards the unemployed. Seeing large business interests as a barrier to change, Olson wrote the Olson Oil Bill to cut down oil company monopolies in the state.
With the open support of President Roosevelt, Olson ran forgovernor of California in the1938 election against conservative Republican and anti-labor incumbent GovernorFrank Merriam. Merriam, known for suppressing the1934 Longshore Strike and his conservative fiscal policies, was a highly unpopular candidate among progressives and unionists, with even conservative Republicans angered by his 1935 tax reforms. Merriam lost soundly to Olson. He was the first Democrat to win the governorship sinceJames Budd's election in 1894, breaking the 40-year Democrat isolation from the governorship.
Olson was inaugurated as California's twenty-ninth executive on January 2, 1939, the first Democrat to serve as governor of California in 40 years. He refused to say "so help me God" during hisoath of office tostate Supreme Court chief justiceWilliam H. Waste. Olson remarked earlier to justice Waste that "God couldn't help me at all, and that there isn't any such person." Instead, Olson said, "I will affirm."[2]
In his inaugural address, Olson pointed at progressives and theLeft for his inspiration, citing that "[t]hey point the way forward - toward the achievement of the aspiration of the people for an economy that will afford general employment, abundant production, equitable distribution, social security and old age retirement, which our country, with its ample resources, great facilities and the genius of its people, is capable of providing."[3]
Olson's tenure in the governorship got off to a rocky start. He collapsed four days after hisinauguration, and doctors discovered that he was suffering from an ailing heart. On top of personal health matters, Kate Jeremy Olson, the Governor's wife of nearly thirty-nine years, died shortly after he assumed the office.[6]
Among those Olson appointed to his cabinet were businessmanGeorge Killion asdirector of Finance, labor leaderGeorge G. Kidwell asdirector of Industrial Relations, and social workerMartha Chickering asdirector of Social Welfare.[7] During his tenure, he appointed four associate justices to the state Supreme Court:Jesse W. Carter,Phil S. Gibson,Roger J. Traynor, andB. Rey Schauer. After the death of chief justice Waste in 1940, Olson elevated Gibson to the position.
Contrasting with the conservative policies of GovernorFrank Merriam, Olson promoted friendly relations with the state's labor unions. In September 1939, he officially pardonedTom Mooney, a labor activist andpolitical prisoner accused of plotting the1916 Preparedness Day Bombing inSan Francisco. Olson cited scant evidence against Mooney as the reason for his pardon. The next month, Olson pardoned Mooney's alleged accomplice,Warren Billings.[2]
Although a number of progessive reforms were carried out during Olson's time as governor,[8][9] his relationship with theCalifornia State Legislature was often bitter. With a conservative coalition of Republicans[10] and ten “economy bloc” Democrats[11] controlling theAssembly, and business-friendly Republicans in theSenate, Olson had little room to promote hisNew Deal politics, while the Legislature remained wary of Olson'sleftist agenda. In the first year of his governorship, Olson's proposed budget was cut by nearly 100 million dollars, while the Legislature also defeated legislation to raise income, bank and corporate taxes, as well as Olson's bills to regulatelobbyists and reform the state penal system. State-subsidized relief for farmers was cut nearly in half.[6] In addition, Olson's proposal of compulsoryuniversal health insurance for every Californian was defeated by theAssembly, with 48 votes against and only 20 votes in favor of the proposal.[12]
Olson installed a telephonehotline to the Legislature to get immediate word of lawmakers' positions on bills in committee or on the floor for a vote.[13]
During his tenure, Olson grew increasingly critical of theRoman Catholic Church and its presence in the state educational system, and raised the ire of ArchbishopsJohn J. Cantwell of Los Angeles andJohn J. Mitty of San Francisco. Asecularatheist, Olson was disturbed by the state legislature's passage of two bills in 1941, one to give free transportation to students attending Catholic schools, and the other to release Catholic children from public schools in the middle of the school day in order to attendcatechism, leaving the schools and other students idle until the Catholic students returned. Olson signed the first bill into law, later citing the enormous pressure of the Catholic Church on his office and on state lawmakers, but he vetoed the second ("early release") bill.[2]
After the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor in December 1941, and the entry of the United States into theSecond World War, many in California feared aJapanese invasion. In the wake of the attack, Olson urged calm from Californians.[14] In a plea for racial tolerance, broadcast on December 14, he stated he had assurances from "every racial group" of their loyalty and devotion to the United States, even reading a telegram he had received from a Japanese citizen.[15] Olson attempted to revoke the business licenses of "enemy alien" Japanese in California.[16] (Japanese immigrants were prohibited by law from becoming U.S. citizens and were therefore permanent aliens, although many had resided in California for decades.) On February 19, 1942, PresidentFranklin Roosevelt issuedExecutive Order 9066, allowing U.S. military commanders to create zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." Based on that, all West CoastJapanese Americans, including American-bornNisei andSansei, in addition to the non-citizenIssei, were forcibly relocated to isolatedinternment camps over the next several months.
The pro-internment recommendations of GeneralJohn L. DeWitt (head of theWestern Defense Command) were embarrassing for Governor Olson. On February 2, 1942, the Governor, following a meeting with DeWitt, said that mass evacuation would not be necessary; DeWitt pursued his plans regardless of Olson's disagreement.[17] However, despite his preference for excluding Japanese Americans only from "coastal California", and allowing adult men to work in labor camps as an alternative to incarceration, Olson wholeheartedly supported the eviction.[16] A long-time supporter of nearly every Roosevelt position on economics, politics and foreign policy, on March 6, 1942, he testified before aU.S. House committee on the danger of allowing Japanese Americans to remain free: "Because of the extreme difficulty in distinguishing between loyal Japanese Americans, and there are many who are loyal to this country, and those other Japanese whose loyalty is to theMikado, I believe in the wholesale evacuation of the Japanese people from coastal California."[18]
By the1942 election, Republicans were accusing Olson of blatant partisan politics during wartime, citing Olson's often bitter divides with the State Legislature. The Republicans nominatedCalifornia Attorney GeneralEarl Warren as the party's nominee for the governorship. Warren, a centrist Republican, campaigned as a moderate who would appeal to both liberals and conservatives during a time of war, where California was considered as a possible front line, while accusing Olson of being an uncompromisingleft-wing Democrat.
Olson lost re-election to Warren in an electoral landslide, receiving just 42% of the vote to Warren's 57%. In later years, Olson blamed "the active hostility of a certain privately owned power corporation and theRoman Catholic Church in California" for his defeat.
Following his departure from the governorship, Olson returned to law. He regained the public spotlight again in the 1950s, when the Legislature voted to exempt Catholic schools from real estate taxes. Olson filed anamicus curiae brief to the state Supreme Court, asking the court to explain how the state's exemption of a religious organization from civil taxes was constitutional.
In 1957, Olson became president of the United Secularists of America, a body ofsecularists,atheists, andfreethinkers.
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting aworld constitution.[19][20] As a result, for the first time in human history, aWorld Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt theConstitution for the Federation of Earth.[21]
Olson died inLos Angeles on April 13, 1962, aged 85. He is buried inForest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California.
Olson's son John was appointed a judge of theLos AngelesMunicipal Court by governorPat Brown in 1962,[22] serving until his death in 1971.[23]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Governor of California 1939–1943 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of California 1938,1942 | Succeeded by |
| Under Spain (1769–1822) |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Under Mexico (1822–1846) | ||
| Under U.S. military (1846–1850) | ||
| U.S. state (since 1850) | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
