ON THE EDGE OF THE PACIFIC RIM: CAPITALISM AND WORK ON THE LOS ANGELES WATERFRONT

BY WILLIAM C. BRUCHER B.A., BATES COLLEGE, 2002 A.M., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2007

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2012

© Copyright 2012 by William C. Brucher

This dissertation by William C. Brucher is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date ______Elliott J. Gorn, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date ______Seth E. Rockman, Reader

Date ______Robert O. Self, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date ______Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School

iii

Curriculum Vitae

William C. Brucher was born on March 11, 1980, in Bangor, Maine and grew up in the nearby town of Bradford. He graduated with a B.A. in history from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 2002. From July 2002 through August 2006, he worked as a union organizer in the healthcare and human service industries for the Service Employees

International Union and the Maine State Employees Association. He entered the Ph.D. program in history at Brown University in September 2006, earned his master’s degree in

May 2007, and passed his qualifying exams in December 2008. While at Brown, he studied modern U.S. social and cultural history, transnational labor history, and modern

Latin American history. He has served as a teaching assistant in a wide variety of early and modern U.S. and Latin American history courses. His dissertation research was funded by two year-long Brown University Graduate School fellowships, a William

McLoughlin travel fellowship from the Brown Department of History, a summer grant from the Historical Society of Southern California, and a John Randolph Haynes and

Dorothy Haynes Foundation Fellowship in Los Angeles History at the Huntington

Library. He has authored a book review in the Michigan Historical Quarterly, the

“Labor Unions and Strikes” chapter in the forthcoming textbook Conflicts in American

History Volume 6: The Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, and World War II, 1920-

1945, and the article “From the Picket Line to the Playground: Labor, Environmental

Activism, and the International Paper Strike in Jay, Maine” in the journal Labor History in 2011.

iv

Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the assistance and support of mentors, colleagues, friends, and family. Elliott Gorn has been a wonderful advisor throughout the course of this project, from its initial conception to its completion. His always comprehensive and thoughtful feedback has made me a much better writer. Our wide-ranging (and incredibly entertaining) conversations on history, politics, literature, music, and culture have shaped my scholarship in profound ways. I could not ask for better dissertation readers than Seth Rockman and Robert Self. Seth’s work on early

American labor and political economy has shaped my approach to twentieth-century U.S. history. I will always be grateful for his encouragement of my work. Robert’s sweeping knowledge and detailed notes have also strengthened every aspect of my dissertation. As director of graduate studies, Robert has also been a vital source of support for me and every other graduate student in the Brown Department of History. I would also like to thank several faculty members who been wonderful teachers and mentors, including

James N. Green, Karl Jacoby, Mari-Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Michael Vorenberg.

Mary-Beth Bryson, Julissa Bautista, and Cherrie Guerzon have all been gracious and helpful to me throughout my time at Brown.

Several institutions have supported my work. The Brown Graduate School was generous for funding two years of my research and writing. The Department of History provided an additional travel fellowship for a trip to the National Archives. A two-month

John Randolph Haynes and Dorothy Haynes Foundation Fellowship in Los Angeles

History at the Huntington Library granted me access to several archival collections related to the early history of L.A. Harbor. I thank the Huntington archivists, librarians,

v and staff members, including Bill Frank, Mario Einaudi, Susi Krasnoo, Juan Gomez,

Meredith Berbée, and Sara Georgi for their help. The Regional History Center at the

University of Southern California houses the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce

Collection, another trove of sources that proved indispensable for my project. I thank

USC librarian Dace Taube for helping me navigate the collection. The collections at the

Southern California Library and the Urban Archives Center at California State University,

Northridge gave me unparalleled access to the harbor’s labor history. I thank retired archivist Robert G. Marshal and retired longshoreman Tony Salcido for curating the

ILWU Local 13 collections at the Urban Archives Center, as well as reading room supervisor David Sigler for his courteous help in accessing the collections. I also thank the volunteers at the San Pedro Bay Historical Society who were kind enough to introduce me to their community’s history. I am grateful to the Historical Society of

Long Beach for inviting me to participate in their first annual community history conference in 2010. The Historical Society of Southern California gave me a generous grant in the summer of 2010 to pursue additional research.

I received valuable comments on early versions of my dissertation chapters at three conferences in 2011. I would like to recognize Nelson Lichtenstein, Richard John, and the participants in the “Capitalism in Action” graduate student conference at Harvard,

James Gregory, Moon Ho-Jung, and the participants in the “Race, Radicalism, and

Repression on the Pacific Coast and Beyond” conference at the University of Washington, and Shana Bernstein and the participants in the Pacific Coast Branch of the American

Historical Association annual meeting.

vi

I am deeply indebted to Hilmar Jensen, Lillian Guerra, James Leamon, Elizabeth

Tobin, and Christopher Beam for nurturing my love of history when I was an undergraduate at Bates College. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at the

Service Employees International Union and the Maine State Employees Association, including Carl Stamm, Iris Halpern, Todd Ricker, and Matt McDonald. The experience of working on organizing campaigns in communities throughout the country deepened my understanding of labor, economic, and political issues and has grounded my work in the academy.

My friends and family have been a vital source of support and camaraderie throughout my life. I am particularly grateful to Derek Seidman, Sean Dinces, and Chris

Lamberti for closely reading much of my dissertation, and giving me great advice for making it a better work. They are great scholars, and even greater friends. In addition to

Sean and Derek, Wen Jin, Lindsay Goss, and Oddný Helgadóttir were generous in reading and discussing one of my chapters for our Mellon workshop. Kevin Brown also provided incredibly insightful comments on an early version of my second chapter. I would also like to thank Sara Fingal, Stephen Wicken, Emily Wicken, and the other

Brown history grad students for making our program not only a great intellectual community, but for making it fun. George Pullen, one of my oldest friends, was a gracious host while I was in Maryland last summer to visit the National Archives. Noah

Petro has always been a great friend in college, in graduate school, and beyond.

From a very young age, my grandparents Walter Nelson, Mary Nelson, and

Elizabeth Brucher sparked my interest in the past through their stories and recollections.

I miss them dearly. My parents, Ingrid Nelson and Richard Brucher, have always been

vii enthusiastic champions of my academic and professional endeavors. They are my role models. Katherine Brucher, Margaret Payne, and Genevieve Payne are the best siblings in the world. I am honored to have an incredibly supportive extended family, including

Carl, Bev, Alec, Abbey, and Ellie Nelson, Elizabeth Payne, Peter DiCola, Bernie and

Ann Novak, and Kathy, James, Liz, Alex, Jack, and Jenny Johnson.

Finally, none of this would have happened without the love and companionship of

Annie Johnson. She has been with me throughout the last six years, from Providence to

Los Angeles and back again, and all of our adventures in between with Maple and Sadie.

Annie, I love you buddy. I can’t wait to start new adventures—wherever they take us.

viii

Table of Contents Page Introduction: Los Angeles Harbor and the Pacific Rim Metropolis 1

Chapter 1: Visible Hands: Business, Politics, and the 12 Shaping of Los Angeles Harbor, 1853-1920

Chapter 2: Commodities and Industries: Port Development 54 and the Emergence of Global Los Angeles, 1917-1940

Chapter 3: Arteries of Trade, Ideologies of Empire: Los Angeles 95 Harbor and the Pursuit of Global Commerce through Cultural Outreach, 1917-1940

Chapter 4: Striking at “The Heart of the Capitalistic System”: 127 Labor Conflict in Los Angeles Harbor, 1885-1940

Chapter 5: The Anxieties of Progress: Modernization, Labor, and 182 Race on the Postwar Los Angeles Waterfront

Conclusion: Los Angeles Harbor in the Neoliberal Age 231

Appendix A: Total Commerce, Imports, and Exports: 242 Port of Los Angeles. 1913-1940

Appendix B: Foreign Imports and Foreign Exports: 244 Port of Los Angeles, 1913-1940

Appendix C: Total Foreign Imports and Exports, Asian Imports 246 and Exports, and Latin American Imports and Exports: Port of Los Angeles, 1934-1940

Appendix D: Imports, Exports, and Total Commerce: 248 Port of Los Angeles, 1941-1980

Appendix E: Foreign Imports and Foreign Exports: 249 Port of Los Angeles. 1941-1980

Appendix F: Manufacturing Workers in the United States, California, 250 and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, 1953-1980

Appendix G: Shipping Containers Used, Total Tonnage Shipped, 251 Total Man-Hours, and Total Tons: West Coast Ports, 1960-1980

Bibliography 252

ix

Introduction

Los Angeles Harbor and the Pacific Rim Metropolis

“In the century that is opening,” Theodore Roosevelt declared in a speech in San

Francisco in May 1903, “the commerce and command of the Pacific will be factors of incalculable moment in the world’s history.”1 The president’s celebration of the United

States’ emergence as “a power of the first class in the Pacific” in the War of 1898 had many antecedents, ranging from New England merchants’ pursuit of the China trade since the eighteenth century, the politics and practices of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion throughout the nineteenth century, and Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 exhortation that the U.S. must build its maritime power to secure foreign markets for its growing industrial output.2 Like Mahan, business leaders in Los Angeles and other West

Coast cities believed that increasing foreign trade held the key to future economic prosperity. Noting the conquest of the Philippines, “the formal annexation” of Hawaii, and potential commercial opportunities throughout Asia, Los Angeles Chamber of

Commerce secretary Charles Dwight Willard reasoned in 1899 that the U.S. was “the legitimate and natural commercial ally of the whole Orient.” The only thing standing in

1 Theodore Roosevelt quoted in Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power, first Collier Books ed. (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 159. See also Bruce Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 137-138.

2 Cumings, 3-93; Alfred Thayer Mahan, “The United States Looking Outward,” The Atlantic Monthly, December 1890, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1890/12/the-united-states-looking- outward/6348/

1 the way of L.A. leading America’s dominion of the Pacific was the lack of a deep-water seaport on the city’s shores.3

Willard was among the first in a long line of business and civic leaders who championed the development of Los Angeles Harbor as a gateway for transnational trade and as an engine for commercial and industrial growth. He argued that L.A. was the most rational place for building a modern port on the California coast because “it marks the western end of the shortest route” between the Atlantic and the Pacific.4 Fourteen years later, the L.A. harbor commission boasted that their port would connect the rich agricultural products and natural resources of California and the southwestern U.S. to domestic and foreign markets.5 City and business leaders have continued to make these arguments in more recent time periods by pointing to the dramatic expansion of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together comprise the harbor on San Pedro Bay.

Tom Bradley, the city’s mayor from 1973 to 1993, credited the increase in foreign trade during his administration for making L.A. “the gateway for the Pacific Rim in particular, but really the whole world.”6 Today L.A.’s port administrators celebrate the harbor’s

3 Charles Dwight Willard, The Free Harbor Contest at Los Angeles; An Account of the Long Fight Waged by the People of Southern California at a Point Open to Competition (Los Angeles: Kingsley-Barnes & Neuner Company, 1899), 19-20. http://books.google.com/books?id=zFYaAAAAYAAJ

4 Ibid., 22-25.

5 The Port of Los Angeles: Its History, Development, Tributary Territory, Present and Prospective Commerce, and Relation to the Panama Canal; Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners; Port Statistics; and Laws, Ordinances and Rules Governing the Harbor (Los Angeles: The Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, 1913), 9, 19.

6 Tom Bradley interview quoted in Steven P. Erie, Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 3. Similar quotes from Bradley are in Erie, 91- 92 and Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 7-8; Thomas Bradley, interviewed by Bernard Galm, “The Impossible Dream,” April 13, 1979, University of California, Los Angeles Department of Special Collections, Tape Number VII, Side One, http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4c6009nh&chunk.id=div00022&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire _text

2 transformation “from a desolate site into one of the largest, busiest and most successful manmade harbors in the world… America’s premier gateway for goods and services, and a bustling center for global commerce.”7

These statements may seem prescient in light of the growth of Los Angeles and the surrounding Southland region since the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1930,

L.A.’s population swelled from 1,610 to 1.2 million residents, with another million living in the metropolitan area. Through phases of economic and demographic expansion and the building of vast transportation, water, and agricultural networks, the city and region became, in the words of Robert Fogelson’s seminal The Fragmented Metropolis, “a flourishing commercial entrepôt, an impressive industrial center of the great Southwest.”8

This growth continued through World War II and the postwar period. The city had 1.5 million residents in 1940, before expanding to nearly 2 million in 1950, 2.5 million in

1960, and 3 million in 1970. By 1990, Los Angeles had overtaken Chicago to become the second most-populous city in the United States, after New York.9

“On the Edge of the Pacific Rim” examines the history of Los Angeles Harbor as it was transformed into a major seaport from the late nineteenth century to 1980. I argue that the harbor was fundamental not only to the economic growth of L.A., but also to the

7 “Cabrillo’s Legacy,” Port of Los Angeles website, http://www.portoflosangeles.org/history/cabrillo.asp

8 Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles 1850-1930, First Paperback ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 1.

9 Los Angeles population data from 1940 to 1950 from United States Census Bureau “Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places” tables, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab18.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab19.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab20.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab21.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab22.txt

3 city’s status as a Pacific Rim metropolis. This dissertation is not just a chronology of the harbor’s evolution, but a parable for American capitalism. The harbor reveals much about L.A.’s role in the broader currents of regional and global political economy in the twentieth century. This study begins by using contests over control of the harbor to foreground the complex interplay between private and public interests in shaping economic development. Municipal ownership of the harbor proved the most effective way of securing the private interests of those businesses organized as the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. Here, as in many other instances within U.S. economic history, marshaling the resources of the state proved indispensible to a pattern of development too readily attributed to impartial market forces.

Despite the rhetoric of Charles Dwight Willard and other boosters, the growth of

L.A. Harbor was not inevitable, nor was it a smooth process. City, business, and labor leaders competed to control the processes that transformed the harbor into the West

Coast’s busiest seaport in the 1920s. With the harbor under city ownership and open to new shipping, commercial, and industrial enterprises, city and business leaders turned to the task of building the maritime trade that they believed was their birthright. The subsequent movement of domestic and global commodities through the harbor may seem to be another example of what Nelson Lichtenstein terms “merchant capitalism.” This system manifested in the sea trades of European and American merchants from the early modern period through the mid-nineteenth century and the contemporary globalized supply chain business models of Wal-Mart and large retailers. In both periods shippers and merchants have arguably played a larger role in directing the economy than the actual

4 commodity producers and manufacturers.10 Certainly, the harbor’s early-to-mid twentieth-century commerce should be understood as a form of globalization because it happened in a transnational context. The trade in Californian cotton and citrus or Latin

American coffee and bananas were part of domestic and foreign consumer and commercial markets. Yet there was a qualitative difference between “merchant capitalism” and much of the city’s harbor trade. The transnational movement of commodities made L.A.’s twentieth-century growth as an industrial—and not just a commercial—powerhouse possible.

The development of Los Angeles Harbor also sheds light on the multi-sided history of U.S.-foreign relations in the twentieth century. Realizing the need for improved economic relations with the city’s Pacific Rim neighbors, the L.A. Chamber of

Commerce sponsored ambitious trade missions to Asia and Latin America in the 1920s and 1930s. In turn, the organization urged the city’s white business leaders to reassess their racial and cultural attitudes toward their foreign counterparts. These efforts were closely linked to the wielding of U.S. military, political, and economic power abroad.

For instance, the trade missions mirrored the work of U.S. government agents to secure foreign markets for American corporations throughout the early twentieth century.

Nevertheless, pursuing trade through outreach presented myriad challenges. On the one hand, Chamber leaders began to appreciate the languages, cultures, and political and economic aspirations of people in other nations. On the other hand, these same members of L.A.’s white elite could not abandon their notions of racial superiority. They

10 Nelson Lichtenstein, “The Return of Merchant Capitalism,” Political Economy of Modern Capitalism website, Harvard University, November 2010, http://scholar-dev2.iq.harvard.edu/polecon/event/lichtenstein See also Lichtenstein, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009).

5 continued to believe that they were destined to play the dominant role in a new economic empire spanning the Pacific Rim.

Finally, “On the Edge of the Pacific Rim” integrates the histories of labor and political economy. Maritime trade has been instrumental in the growth of global capitalism from the early modern period to the present because it allows the flow of natural resources, finished goods, and—just as crucially—labor around the world. Ports are not only sites of social conflict, but spaces of working-class formation.11 To be clear,

L.A. Harbor’s economic activity was made possible by the labor of many people— everyone from the engineers and construction workers who designed and built port facilities to the sailors, longshoremen, and warehouse workers charged with moving goods from ship to shore. From the late nineteenth century through the 1930s, the city’s maritime enterprises strived to control the labor process on the waterfront, just as they had struggled to control all other aspects of the harbor’s economic activity. The battles between employers and workers followed the broad parameters of not only the labor history of the city and region, but of the United States. While employers used their

11 Calvin Winslow, “Introduction” in Waterfront Workers: New Perspectives on Race and Class, ed. Winslow (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 1. Other scholarship on ports, waterfront cities, maritime trades, and class formation includes Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000); Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Seth Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Survival, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007); Howard Kimmeldorf, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988); Harvey Schwartz, The March Inland: Origins of the ILWU Warehouse Division, 1934-1938 (Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles, 1978); David Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); James T. Fisher, On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009); Leon Fink, Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World’s First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

6 economic power and the power of city and state authorities to end strikes and institute

“open shop” hiring schemes, workers pursued militant and creative ways of securing their interests. After the success of the maritime union movement in the 1930s and 1940s, over the next thirty years the locus of labor struggle shifted to the pace of technological change on the docks and conflicts within the workforce over racial discrimination and fairness.

L.A.’s ascendance as the largest West Coast and second-largest U.S. metropolis did not happen in a solely domestic context. However, few scholars have thoroughly explored L.A.’s relationship to the Pacific Rim, or how that relationship has helped shape the city and its economy. Steven Erie and Abraham Lowenthal recognize the nineteenth century and early twentieth century histories of L.A.’s and California’s participation in the transnational economy but mostly focus on the present and recent past in their respective works. Former Los Angeles Times journalist James Flanigan and sociologists

Edna Bonacich and Jake Wilson (though writing from different perspectives) also focus on the present when explaining the region’s and the harbor’s position in the “global supply chain” linking the U.S. to the World.12 Even Mike Davis’ City of Quartz credits

L.A.’s position as “the second city of a vast Pacific Rim ‘co-prosperity sphere’ dominated by Tokyo” to 1980s economic forces that made the city “both imperium and colony.”13 In spite of some other recent scholarship, one can easily overlook the earlier

12 Erie; Abraham Lowenthal, Global California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); James Flanigan, Smile Southern California, You’re the Center of the Universe: The Economy and People of a Global Region (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson, Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).

13 Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, Vintage Books ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 105.

7 efforts of business and political leaders to assert L.A.’s place in a global network of exchange.14 The five chapters of this dissertation address this gap in L.A.’s historiography by revealing distinct developments in the evolution of the harbor’s political economy throughout the twentieth century.

The first chapter traces early conflicts between public and private interests over ownership of the harbor. Recognizing the need for a modern seaport, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of city and business leaders lobbied the federal government to dredge shipping channels and build a breakwater for a “free harbor” on the shores of

San Pedro and Wilmington, against the wishes of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The railroad wanted the federal harbor appropriation to go to Santa Monica, where it controlled access to the sea. While the San Pedro and Wilmington proponents triumphed in the “free harbor fight” of the 1890s, the question of who controlled the waterfront remained unresolved. A handful of shipping, stevedoring, lumber, and railroad companies (including the Southern Pacific) claimed ownership of the tidelands, and hoped that the federal subsidies to modernize the harbor would aid the profitability of their enterprises. At the same time, the Chamber believed a municipal port would break the monopoly power of the private tidelands owners and allow for more competition, which would in turn spur the city’s commercial and industrial development. Through the

1910s, the Chamber vigorously supported city leaders as they formed a harbor commission, secured the annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington into L.A. proper, and pursued the expropriation of the tidelands in state and federal courts.

14 James Tejani, “San Pedro Bay and the making of an American Pacific: Private enterprise, state imperatives, and the industrialization of natural resources, 1846-1917” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2009); Philip J. Ethington, Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles since 13,000 B.P. (forthcoming).

8 Once the ownership of the harbor was resolved, the second chapter documents, city and business leaders strove to simultaneously increase the harbor’s commerce and the region’s industrial capacity. The trade in domestic and global commodities rapidly accelerated in the 1920s, quickly making it the busiest seaport on the West Coast and the second busiest in the nation, after the Port of New York. Indeed, L.A. primarily exported the region’s resources and manufactured goods to both domestic and foreign markets through the 1930s. This global trade helped mitigate the effects of the Great Depression on the region’s economy and set the stage for the industrial and commercial resurgence during World War II and the postwar period.

Chapter 3 follows the attempts by the L.A. Chamber of Commerce to build cultural linkages between L.A. and the Pacific Rim in the 1920s and the 1930s. Chamber leaders sought advice from U.S. consular officers and American businessmen stationed abroad. In turn, the Chamber published volumes on what it perceived to be the economic conditions, political systems, languages, and cultural and religious practices of foreign nations and peoples it in its magazines and technical literature. The chapter then follows the Chamber’s trade missions to Latin America and Asia and places them in the context of U.S.-foreign relations. The organization’s efforts in Latin America in the 1930s adhered to the parameters of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” of promoting both commerce and cultural exchange. And even though the Chamber largely ignored the warnings of the federal government by strengthening ties with the

Japanese Empire until the eve of World War II, this came on the heels of earlier U.S. plans to increase commerce with Asia and claim supremacy over the Pacific. Even though Chamber leaders could not abandon their notions of white supremacy and cultural

9 superiority completely, they began to think of the nations and peoples of the Pacific Rim in new terms.

Chapter 4 examines the struggles between waterfront employers and longshoremen (the largest group of cargo handlers based in the harbor) from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. Longshoremen fought for the right to organize at the turn of the century, only to be met by employers and a wider L.A. business community that insisted on maintaining the “open shop,” or more accurately, union-free workplaces. As nascent efforts to organize unions affiliated with the American

Federation of Labor failed, an increasing number of longshoremen were attracted to the

Industrial Workers of the World’s radical critique of capitalism and its vision of uniting maritime crafts. Workers mounted an audacious strike in the Port of Los Angeles in the spring of 1923. The IWW’s organizing drive ultimately collapsed in the wake of the employers’ blacklist and hiring of strikebreakers, police and judicial repression, and antiradical violence perpetrated by reactionary citizens groups. Shipping and stevedoring companies used the defeat of organized labor as an opportunity to perfect the open shop in the 1920s by setting up a central hiring agency that supplied longshoremen to the docks on an as-needed basis. While management touted fair working conditions in the press, workers chafed under low pay, dangerous conditions, and inconsistent work opportunities. The resurgent maritime unions of the 1930s, including the International

Longshoremen’s Association, and its successor, the International Longshoremen’s and

Warehousemen’s Union, ensured that working people in the waterfront communities shared, however modestly, in the harbor’s prosperity.

10 The final chapter analyzes the growth of the harbor during World War II and the postwar period. The harbor continued to play a central role in linking the city to an expanding transnational economy. The structure of that economy underwent significant changes as Cold War federal trade policies increasingly favored foreign imports over exports. By the 1960s and 1970s, the advent of container shipping made the movement of foreign goods into the harbor cheaper and faster. While the ports of Los Angeles and

Long Beach had once been part of the region’s industrialization, they were increasingly becoming the conduits of overseas production. Finally, the same technological innovations that helped increase trade threatened the jobs of waterfront workers, just as foreign imports undermined blue collar employment in the region’s manufacturing industries. Moreover, the longshoremen’s union’s hard-won prosperity was not shared equally. Job segregation persisted on the waterfront that often pitted white, Latino, and

African-American workers against one another. The harbor became more entangled in global capitalism, arguably fulfilling the longstanding visions of city and business leaders to turn Los Angeles into a Pacific Rim metropolis. Yet the benefits of this metropolis to ordinary workers and residents were questionable by the end of the twentieth century.

11 Chapter 1

Visible Hands: Business, Politics, and the Shaping of Los Angeles Harbor, 1853-1920

There is perhaps no event more famous in the history of Los Angeles Harbor than the “free harbor fight,” whose tales of political intrigue had been told in area newspapers on a regular basis during the 1890s and in local chronicles ever since. The backers of a publicly controlled municipal harbor at San Pedro and Wilmington, located twenty miles south of downtown L.A., prevailed over the Southern Pacific Railroad, which wanted federal funding to develop a deep-water port in Santa Monica—where it would monopolize rail access to the sea. After a protracted battle in the pages of L.A.’s press, the meeting rooms of the city’s civic organizations, and in the chambers of the U.S.

House and Senate, “free harbor” advocates won the $3 million federal appropriation to build a breakwater across San Pedro Bay and dredge the outer harbor.1

The “free harbor fight” has often been interpreted as a victory for progressive politics over the corporate dominance of the Southern Pacific. A coalition of ordinary citizens defeated the “Octopus,” the corporation with the strongest stranglehold over

California’s transportation and economic development in the late nineteenth century. But as the historian William Deverell argues in Railroad Crossing, this “morality tale” interpretation of the fight is overly simplistic, if not patently false. The “citizens” who opposed the Southern Pacific did not do so for the sake of the public, but for the sake of their own wallets. The San Pedro proponents were led by the Los Angeles Terminal

1 The “free harbor fight” has been covered by many sources, including William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), 93-122; Fogelson, 108-114; Erie, 45; Tom Sitton, Grand Ventures: The Banning Family and the Shaping of Southern California (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 2010), 181-182.

12 Railway Company, which built a rival line linking the city to Rattlesnake Island (later renamed Terminal Island for its owner), a long, thin sandbar formed by the outflow of the

L.A. River immediately south of Wilmington, east of San Pedro, and west of Long Beach.

Together with prominent San Pedro business and land owners, Terminal Railway director and investor Thomas E. Gibbon rallied votes in the L.A. Chamber of Commerce to get the organization to endorse San Pedro and lobbied the California congressional delegation and the Rivers and Harbors committee to secure funding. Gibbon and the

Terminal Railway had powerful allies who could rival the influence of Southern Pacific president Collis Huntington, including Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis

(who kept the issue at the forefront of his newspaper) and other leading L.A. businessmen.

The “free harbor fight” was not so much a contest between a progressive-minded public and the Southern Pacific, but a fight been two rival business factions who were hoping to profit from their property and railroad investments.2 As one of Gibbon’s letters put it,

Terminal Railway investors believed that the “mere beginning” of federal improvements to San Pedro Bay “almost double” the value of their land.3

As important as the “free harbor fight” was, it was not the only major event in the making of modern Los Angeles Harbor. Municipal control over waterfront development was codified with the founding of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners on

December 9, 1907. 4 A century later, the harbor commission continues to preside over the development of the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro and Wilmington, placing the

2 Deverell, Railroad Crossing, 93-122.

3 Thomas E. Gibbon to Charles E. Clark, undated, Ellen Bergman Collection of the Papers of Thomas E. Gibbon, Box 37, Folder 3, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. [Hereafter Gibbon Papers, Huntington].

4 “Names Harbor Commission,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1907.

13 city at the center of what political scientist Steven Erie calls “a statist growth regime.”

As Erie argues in Globalizing L.A., city harbor ownership and other important developments like the ascension of reformist local and state politicians from 1906 to

1910 turned Los Angeles “to the massive task of building the public infrastructure necessary for the region’s commercial and industrial development.”5 Erie is right to emphasize the role of the Los Angeles and Long Beach municipal governments in developing their ports as public institutions, and their subsequent roles in the processes of regional economic development and the growth of global capitalism. Yet the relationship between the public sector and private interests is very much a two-way street.

In L.A. and Long Beach, as in other polities throughout the United States and the world, the business community has played an active and often decisive role in shaping governmental institutions and their policies. This has been especially true in the case of

Los Angeles Harbor. From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and other allied business interests asserted their influence over the development of the harbor, just as they did with much of the region’s civic and political life. The Los Angeles Times revealed the business community’s direct role in the creation of the harbor commission, noting that mayor Arthur C. Harper and the city council created the board “at the request of the Chamber of Commerce, approved by the Merchants’ and Manufacturer’s Association and the Municipal League.” The

Chamber passed a resolution demanding a harbor commission on Saturday; the mayor granted their request on Monday.6

5 Erie, Globalizing L.A., 51-52.

6 “Names Harbor Commission,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1907.

14 This is not to suggest that the entirety of the Los Angeles business community acted in unison on harbor development. Several businesses kept most of the San Pedro and Wilmington waterfront in private hands at the turn of the twentieth century. The first part of this chapter discusses how these corporations, including the Banning Company, the Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill and Lumber Company, and the Southern Pacific Railroad, competed and cooperated with one another in harbor enterprises. As I discuss in the ensuing sections of this chapter, the 1890s “free harbor fight” did not resolve the question of who had the right to own the tidelands, the valuable property directly on the waterfront.

The large harbor corporations claimed legal ownership of the tidelands and lobbied the federal government to develop the harbor while allowing it to stay in private hands. The

L.A. Chamber of Commerce, representing an even larger portion of the business community, believed that only governmental agencies had the financial resources and expertise to build and manage a truly “free harbor” accessible to new transportation companies, steamship lines, and other waterfront industries.

These competing agendas complicate the meaning of public and private ownership and economic development. The private tidelands holders claimed that they were in the best position to increase harbor commerce and attract new businesses to the waterfront, thus arguing that private ownership would directly benefit the public. The

L.A. Chamber of Commerce favored municipal ownership of the tidelands, but it also represented business interests who hoped to use the harbor for private economic gain.

The Chamber’s push for public ownership did not imply, as it often does with contemporary understandings of public and private contests over land use, that it was taking a broad anti-corporate stance or that it wanted all of the revenue derived from

15 maritime commerce in the harbor to wind up in city coffers. In this instance, Chamber leaders believed that the public, or more accurately the state, should serve as an apparatus of legal power that would referee competition among private entities and use its resources and institutions to foster economic growth. The Chamber laid claim to state power to affect the outcome it desired, and shrouded its claim in the name of the public.

With the support of the Chamber and the wider business community, the city of

Los Angeles led harbor development with the founding of the harbor commission in 1907, the annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington in 1909, and the use of municipal bonds to aid port construction. Most importantly, the Chamber and the city pursued legal and legislative battles to win municipal ownership of the tidelands beginning in 1909. After seven years of litigation in the state and federal court systems, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of public ownership of the harbor, ending private claims to the tidelands.

Because of this ruling and the other instances of state intervention, the development of

Los Angeles Harbor in the early twentieth century should not be attributed to the

“invisible hand” of impartial market forces. The efforts of the state—and those of the business interests who sought to marshal the resources of the state—were the visible hands shaping the harbor.

For L.A.’s boosters, the harbor was key to realizing their grandiose dream of a

Pacific Rim metropolis. The city doubled in population from 50,000 to 102,000 residents between 1890 and 1900, and more than tripled to 319,000 in 1910. Business and political leaders believed that the region’s population and economy would expand even further, and that a modern harbor was essential to achieving maximum growth. Summing up this logic in 1913, the L.A. harbor commission declared that the city needed a port

16 “surrounded by busy and prosperous people, whose industry creates commerce in vast volume,” a place from which “arteries of trade stretch away long distances to rich interior regions, bring their products for trans-shipment to many lands, and taking in return the commerce of foreign climes.”7 In this context, the question of who owned the waterfront became a matter of who would control and benefit from the region’s domestic and foreign commerce.

Early Los Angeles Harbor Enterprises and Private Tidelands Ownership

William, Joseph, and Hancock Banning had little reason (and no incentive) to question their family’s ownership of the Wilmington tidelands, a 400-acre parcel of waterfront property on the inner portion of Los Angeles Harbor. Their father, Phineas

Banning, began his acquisition of the land in 1866, under an 1863 law that allowed the state to sell “swamp and overflowed lands” to private interests. Phineas Banning’s application to acquire the property was upheld by a state court in 1878 over the objections of another petitioner, granting him the title to the land upon completing his payments to the state in 1881.8 Banning had long been associated with L.A. Harbor. He was among the first successful American entrepreneurs to set up business in San Pedro, launching a freight shipping and stagecoach service between Los Angeles and the waterfront with George C. Alexander in 1853. By the following year the two men operated barges to move freight from the waterfront’s shallow waters to ships moored in

7 The Port of Los Angeles: Past, Present and Future (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1913), 9.

8 Sitton, Grand Ventures, 240; Banning Company v. State of California 240 U.S. 142 (1916). Documents detailing the transfer of the Wilmington Tidelands from the state to Phineas Banning are located in Box 2, Folder 2 of the Banning Company Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. [Hereafter Banning Collection, Huntington].

17 the bay. Though the business prospered with a contract to move supplies for the U.S.

Army, it failed after it lost money on a venture to supply Mormon settlers in Utah.

Banning decided to move his next harbor businesses to the Wilmington inner harbor. He acquired much of Wilmington’s property from the Dominguez family’s Rancho San

Pedro in the late 1850s, naming the site after his Delaware hometown. Banning’s new businesses mostly prospered over the next few decades. He supplied the Union army during the Civil War, secured state funding to finance the Los Angeles and San Pedro railroad connecting the harbor to the city, and built a lucrative relationship with the

Southern Pacific when it took over the small railroad and connected it to its main line in the 1870s. Banning also helped secure the first, albeit meager, federal funding to dredge the inner harbor to a ten foot depth and control silting in 1872. Upon his death in 1885,

Phineas Banning passed profitable enterprises and valuable tidelands properties to his heirs.9

The Banning Family used its tidelands ownership to leverage their relationships with other corporations. The Bannings purchased Santa Catalina Island in 1892 and reorganized its businesses into two overlapping entities to support the development of a resort on the island. The Wilmington Transportation Company (WTC) and the Banning

Company handled passenger and freight operations to Catalina and shipping and stevedoring ventures in L.A. Harbor. The family also negotiated deals with railroad companies to keep their operations running smoothly. 10 For instance, a March 1902

9 Phineas Banning’s harbor businesses are detailed in the first seven chapters of Sitton, Grand Ventures. The businesses mentioned in this paragraph are discussed on pages 40-52, 79-85, 105-117, 124-131.

10 The reorganization of Banning Family businesses and the purchase of Santa Catalina Island are covered in Sitton, Grand Ventures, 174-179.

18 agreement gave the California-Pacific Railway right of way over the Banning tidelands in return for the railway carrying the “freight, goods, wares, merchandise and packages” that would be shipped between Catalina and San Pedro at predetermined rates.11

Similarly, a 1907 agreement between the Pacific Electric and the WTC allowed both companies to sell joint tickets for rail fare and ferry service to the island.12 The Bannings also granted railroads tideland access for nominal fees. The California Pacific received an additional right of way in San Pedro for five dollars in 1902, the Los Angeles Inter

Urban Railway Company received several parcels of land for ten dollars in 1907, and the

Pacific Electric received a right of way in Wilmington in 1903.13 Rather than governmental agencies, the family exercised power over how the tidelands were used.

The Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill and Lumber Company was another major harbor business and tideland property holder. It was formed in 1883 when father and son

George and William G. Kerckhoff partnered with James Cuzner, with the Kerckhoffs holding three-quarters of the firm’s 2,000 shares capitalized at $200,000.14 Having previously run a successful hardware business in Terre-Haute, Indiana, the Kerckhoffs established their new company with the hope of covering all aspects of the lumber trade.

Within a decade, Kerckhoff-Cuzner ran wholesale and retail lumberyards in San Pedro,

11 March 1902 agreement between the Banning Company and the California-Pacific Railway Company, Box 1, Folder 5, Banning Collection, Huntington.

12 August 5, 1907 agreement between the Wilmington Transportation Company and the Pacific Electric Railway, Box 1, Folder 5, Banning Collection, Huntington.

13 June 7, 1902 agreement between the Banning Company and the California Pacific Railway; January 6, 1905 agreement between the Banning Company and the Los Angeles Inter Urban Railway; 1903 Banning agreement with Pacific Electric Railway, Box 1, Folder 5, Banning Company Collection.

14 “Articles of Incorporation of the Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company,” December 13, 1883, Box 1, Folder 1, Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. [Herafter Kerckhoff-Cuzner Collection, Huntington].

19 Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Azusa, operated steam vessels from its San Pedro wharf, and generated tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.15 By the 1910s, Kerckhoff-Cuzner owned timberlands in several western states, operated lumber mills in Oregon, and had a fleet of vessels transporting lumber throughout the Pacific Coast. The company became, in the words of one national business reference book in 1915, “one of the gigantic enterprises of the West.”16 The success of Kerckhoff-Cuzner and other waterfront lumber companies are emblematic of the lucrative lumber trade that linked Los Angeles with the Pacific Northwest.

The surviving records of Kerckhoff-Cuzner further illustrate the interconnectedness of private harbor enterprises at the turn of the twentieth century. The company entered a five-year agreement with the Wilmington Transportation Company to

“tow all lumber vessels coming to San Pedro” at the rate of 20 cents per thousand feet of lumber, to transport lumber by barge to the wharf at a rate of 75 cents per thousand feet, supply stevedores to unload the lumber from the barges, and to furnish water at one cent per gallon and ballast at one dollar per ton to lumber vessels. In return, Kerckhoff-

Cuzner agreed not to compete with the WTC by offering the same services in the harbor.

The lumber company agreed to pay the WTC’s established rates for its services, vowed not to assign, sell, or lease its wharf franchise to a third company unless that company

15 Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company 1892 ledger book, Kerckhoff-Cuzner Collection, Huntington.

16 “Kerckhoff, William George,” Press Reference Library: Notables of the West, Vol. 2 (New York: International News Service, 1915), 348, http://books.google.com/books?id=-YA_AAAAYAAJ

20 continued the WTC contract, and agreed to pay the WTC up to $25,000 in damages should it breach the contract.17

The relationship between the Bannings and Kerckhoff-Cuzner was nevertheless contentious. William Kerckhoff attempted to buy Boschke’s Island (also called Smith’s

Island, located immediately north of San Pedro and southwest of Wilmington) for

$15,000 from its namesake in 1888, only to find that the Bannings and the Southern

Pacific Railroad claimed overlapping titles to the property. Albert Boschke took $10,000 dollars as a down payment from Kerckhoff, and was supposed to obtain the remaining

$5,000 if he could secure the land title from the state within one year. The Banning and

Southern Pacific property claims delayed the title transfer until 1895, causing Kerckhoff to renege on the remaining $5,000 and strike a deal with the other companies. Kerckhoff agreed to pay the railroad $1000 and grant it a right-of-way on the island, pay $640 in fees to the state patent office, and send an additional $1500 to Boschke’s family. Most notably, Kerckhoff gave the Bannings the east portion of the island and a strip of land facing the Wilmington inner harbor (nearly one-third of the island’s property). With the land dispute finally settled, Kerckhoff-Cuzner continued to make deals with the Bannings, the Southern Pacific, and other harbor companies, often trading properties and wharf and railroad access.18

17 Agreement between Wilmington Transportation Company and Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company, May 14, 1885, Box 1 Folder 5, Kerckhoff-Cuzner Collection, Huntington.

18 The Boschke Island land dispute is documented in Box 1, Folders 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, and 31, Kerckhoff-Cuzner Collection, Huntington. The final settlement is outlined in Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company letter to L.W. Blinn, 1895, Box 1, Folder 25; Martha Ellen Boschke letter to William George Kerckhoff, February 8, 1895, Box 1, Folder 23; Jerome Madden to William George Kerckhoff, March 1, 1895, and March 5, 1895, Box 1 Folder 28; and Southern Pacific Railroad quitclaim of deed to Smith’s Island, March 7, 1895, Box 1, Folder 28, Kerckhoff-Cuzner Collection, Huntington.

21

The Politics of Public and Private Waterfront Development

The Boschke’s Island dispute underscored the larger problems surrounding private waterfront ownership. The Banning Company and the Southern Pacific held the development of the island hostage until they received the concessions they sought. Both companies remained entrenched on the San Pedro and Wilmington waterfronts, despite the “free harbor fight” of the 1890s. The outcome of the fight may have signaled the decline of the railroad’s efforts to develop Santa Monica, but it did not stop it, the

Banning family, and other private tideland holders from pressing ahead with their plans to develop the harbor. If anything, the prospect of a federally funded deep-water port encouraged their schemes. The Southern Pacific and the Bannings had enjoyed a close business relationship since the 1870s. The railroad helped the Banning Company solidify its dominance over stevedoring and barge and towing operations in San Pedro and

Wilmington. The Bannings would have continued the partnership in Santa Monica had the “free harbor fight” turned out differently.19 The relationship between the two companies continued into the new century.

After the federal government began constructing the San Pedro Bay breakwater and other improvements to the outer harbor in 1899, it turned its attention to the

Wilmington inner harbor. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Los Angeles announced that the inner harbor needed a 400 foot-wide and 20-foot deep navigation channel, and a 1600-foot wide turning basin in order to accommodate ships. 20 The

19 Sitton, Grand Ventures, 110-113, 181-182.

20 “Favors a Contract,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1902.

22 following year the U.S. Harbor Board, consisting of federal officials and engineers, held hearings to mark the harbor’s boundaries. Many businesses, including the Southern

Pacific, Pacific Electric Railway, Kerckhoff-Cuzner, and the Banning Company, petitioned the board to draw the harbor lines close to their properties and wharfs in order to take advantage of the government’s improvement projects. The L.A. Times reported that the Banning Company had plans to join “local and eastern capitalists” in establishing an iron shipbuilding yard on Mormon Island, a small island situated in northern portion of the Wilmington inner harbor that was part of the Banning family’s tidelands property.

The paper predicted that the shipyard could rival those in San Francisco and Seattle and would soon employ several thousand men, but for one catch. “Nothing can be done until the government engineers fix the lines,” William Banning told the paper, “so that it can be seen whether there will be adequate launching facilities for the proposed works.”

With that, the Bannings pushed the Harbor Board to assist private enterprise. The board could use its authority to accommodate ambitious projects like the shipyard, or risk stifling the economic development of the region.21

Not content with the first harbor lines proposal, the Banning Company continued to lobby the federal government. In a March 29, 1903, petition to the U.S. Harbor Board, the company announced its intention to sell or lease portions of its Mormon Island tidelands “to personas, firms and corporations, for trading, manufacturing, shipping, and other mercantile purposes.” The petition complained that the board’s proposal would

“deprive” the company of much of its tidelands, “the loss of which cannot be fully compensated for in money.” More importantly, it warned that the harbor lines would

21 “Build Ships at San Pedro,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1903.

23 “give practical monopoly of the three sides of the proposed Inner Harbor” to the San

Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Company (successor to the Terminal Railway company) and the Southern Pacific Railroad, who would maintain their rights-of-way, ownership, or control of inner harbor property, while leaving the company’s remaining property “so narrow as to be of scarcely any utility.” Illustrating the Southern Pacific’s continued dominance, the petition asserted that the two railroads “may act together as one concern,” and thus stifle the ability of other businesses to operate in the harbor.22

The Banning Company offered a different solution. It called on the U.S. Harbor

Board to adopt harbor lines that would grant the most businesses the greatest amount of harbor access.23 The company continued to petition the board, each time asserting that its requests were in the best interest of private enterprise. In January 1904 it submitted a proposal for harbor lines that would supposedly allow for a large wharf and deep shipping channel, increase harbor traffic, and make Mormon Island land available for other shipping companies and industries.24 The company reiterated its position in an

August 1905 petition to General Alexander Mackenzie, the chief of the Army Corps of

Engineers in Washington, D.C. It continued to argue that the government’s harbor lines proposal would give practical control of the waterfront to the Southern Pacific and San

Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake railroads and diminish the usefulness of remaining

Banning property. The petition further proposed that the government should act on the company’s “peninsular plan,” the dredging of the inner harbor and the creation of a

22 Banning Company petition to United States Harbor Board, United States Engineers Office, Los Angeles, Cal., May 29, 1903, Box 2, Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington.

23 Ibid.

24 “Banning Company petition to United States Harbor Board, United States Engineer’s Office, Los Angeles, January 27, 1904, Box 2, Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington.

24 peninsula connecting the Wilmington mainland to Mormon Island that would provide additional space for wharves. The company also stated its willingness to give some of its tidelands back to the government (except for Mormon Island) in order to accelerate the improvements it desired.25

The Banning Company continued to pursue the “peninsular plan” for several years. However, the company’s opposition to the Southern Pacific and San Pedro, Los

Angeles and Salt Lake railroads’ dominance in the harbor fell by the wayside. This was perhaps due to the Banning family’s long history of business partnerships with the

Southern Pacific, which suggests that they may not have actually believed that the railroads posed a monopolistic threat to harbor commerce. The company joined the railroads in hiring Thomas E. Gibbon, the same lawyer who led the opposition to the

Southern Pacific during the “free harbor fight,” to lobby the federal government to adopt a new version of the “peninsular plan.” In a letter to his clients Gibbon indicated that

Captain Amos A. Fries, the U.S. engineer assigned to L.A. Harbor, supported the companies’ plans to conduct dredging and reclamation projects near their tidelands.

Gibbon further reported that he had a successful meeting with the chief engineer in

Washington:

I endeavored to impress upon General McKenzie the assurance that our companies were all desirous of co-operating in every way which their interest would permit with the plans of the Government for the improvements of that portion of the Inner Harbor of San Pedro involved, and to explain to him that the modifications of the plan as suggested by Captain Fries were in no sense vital to the plans of the Government, but

25 Banning Company petition to Brigadier General A. Mackenzie, Chief of Engineers of the United States, Washington D.C., Box 2 Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington. The chief engineer’s name is spelled “McKenzie,” “MacKenzie,” and “Mackenzie” in Banning Collection documents and other early twentieth century sources. He is identified as Major General Alexander Mackenzie in an obituary, “Memoirs of Deceased Members,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 84 (1921): 799-801.

25 would be of considerable importance to the interests of my clients… I feel justified in saying further that I am very positive that whatever Captain Fries’ feelings may have been toward our interests in the past he is now thoroughly convinced that we are all endeavoring in good faith to co- operate with him in substantially carrying out his project, and that his feeling toward us and our interests is of the kindest character.

Gibbon concluded his letter by stating that he had “no doubt” that the companies’ dredging and land reclamation projects would be approved by the federal government, though he warned of “captious and unreasonable” opposition from other quarters. 26

The Banning Company’s previous petitions to the Harbor Board emphasized that its plans were in the best interests of the public because it would allow for more businesses and individuals to take advantage of the harbor and further the economic development of the region. Gibbon’s letter, on the other hand, revealed the Banning and railroad companies’ “interests”—their naked ambitions to get the federal government to sanction their own projects, and their use of political capital to influence federal authorities. Like the “free harbor fight” of the previous decade, Los Angeles Harbor remained a political theater for the private interests seeking to use the federal government for economic gain.

“Free Harbor Fight” Redux

In order to forestall opposition to its harbor plans, the Banning Company sent invitations to the members of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Harbor Committee to tour Mormon Island in January 1907.27 This effort backfired. The Chamber responded

26 Thomas E. Gibbon to Southern Pacific Company, San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Company, and Banning Company, undated [1907], Box 2, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

27 Banning Company invitations to L.A. Chamber of Commerce Harbor Committee, January 11, 1907, Box 2, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

26 by writing its own letter to harbor engineer Amos Fries. The organization claimed that it represented the broad commercial interests of Los Angeles and its surrounding region, and thus hoped to obtain three objectives: a “free harbor,” speedy harbor development, and government funding for more harbor improvements. The Chamber defined a “free harbor” as publicly owned and controlled land on the established harbor lines with deep water and wharf facilities accessible at any time “to responsible and competitive commercial and transportation interests.” The Chamber wished to hasten harbor development because the existing facilities were not adequate, but would not sacrifice public ownership of the harbor in favor of allowing quick private schemes. Finally, the

Chamber argued that only the federal government could develop and adopt an adequate plan for the inner harbor, and unlike private companies, would not be beholden to shareholders expecting dividends on their investments.28

The Chamber resurrected its arguments from the “free harbor fight.” In his 1899 book about the conflict, Charles Dwight Willard drew a distinction between Santa

Monica and San Pedro harbors by defining the latter as “free and accessible to any number of railroads, or private individuals, that might choose build wharves out into the harbor.”29 Leading southern California businessmen signed the Chamber’s 1907 letter to

Amos Fries. William D. Stephens was a partner in a wholesale grocery business (and would later hold the offices of interim L.A. mayor after Arthur C. Harper’s resignation in

1909, U.S. congressman, and California governor). F.Q. Story was one of the region’s

28 Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce letter to Captain Amos A. Fries, United States Engineer’s Office, Los Angeles, January 23, 1907, Box 2, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

29 Willard, 15-16.

27 largest citrus growers. George H. Stewart and Chamber president W.J. Washburn were bankers. J.O. Koepfli was a former president of the Merchants and Manufacturers

Association, while William J. Hunsaker had served as counsel for the Santa Fe Railroad, one of the Southern Pacific’s competitors. Willard also signed the letter—he had used his position as a newspaper writer and Chamber secretary to advocate for San Pedro in the 1890s, and had remained active in harbor affairs ever since.30 It is likely that these other Chamber members had a direct interest in using the harbor for their businesses, sought to finance or invest in harbor-related commerce, or at least saw opportunities for the region’s economic growth if the harbor could be wrested from private ownership. To that end, the Chamber’s letter encouraged the state to take legal action to assert its ownership of the tidelands and it warned against acquiescing to the “peninsular plan.” If the plan was adopted, the letter predicted, “the claim to private ownership in the tide lands will be so greatly strengthened that dispossession will be very difficult” and “the future inner harbor will become fixed in private or corporate control, with great resulting injury to public interests.” Furthermore, the letter argued that private ownership of the inner harbor tidelands would cut off future aid because the federal government would not want to appropriate money to a private waterfront.31

30 For information on these L.A. Chamber of Commerce members see “Stephens, William Dennison,” The International Who’s Who (New York: The International Who’s Who Publishing Co., 1912), 985 http://books.google.com/books?id=I-wRAAAAYAAJ ;“F.Q. Story,” Press Reference Library: Notables of the Southwest (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Examiner, 1912), 450 http://books.google.com/books?id=- Xs_AAAAYAAJ ; “Proceedings of the California Banker’s Convention” (Los Angeles: The Times-Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1891), 30 http://books.google.com/books?id=JQMaAQAAIAAJ ; Leroy Armstrong, Financial California (San Francisco: Coast Banker Publishing Co., 1916), 93; James Miller Guinn, A History of California and the Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Vol. III (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), 837 http://books.google.com/books?id=cxYVAAAAYAAJ ; Willard, 145-146, 197-198.

31 Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce letter to Captain Amos A. Fries, United States Engineer’s Office, Los Angeles, January 23, 1907, Box 2, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

28 The Chamber’s pressure on the federal government was likely effective. In May

1908, Amos Fries revoked the Banning Company’s permission to build bulkheads and fill tidelands in the inner harbor.32 Fries, despite Thomas E. Gibbon’s report to the contrary, worried that the Southern Pacific controlled too much of the harbor’s commerce.33 The

Banning Company subsequently attempted to sell its tideland property in Wilmington and

San Pedro to the railroad for $250,000, with the exception of Mormon Island and a few other tracts. The railroad agreed to continue to move Banning freight and use its Pacific

Electric subsidiary for passenger service to the Catalina ferry terminal. The Bannings further acquiesced to limit the amount of land they sold to other parties and to continue oppose harbor improvement plans contrary to the companies’ interests. The Bannings never got to enjoy the fruits of this agreement, as it stipulated that the railroad would only buy the lands once it received the property deeds.34 Instead, with the backing of the

Chamber of Commerce and much of the business community, the city of Los Angeles used its new harbor commission to coordinate the legal and legislative strategies to recover the tidelands.

The Tidelands Lawsuits and the Push for Municipal Harbor Ownership

The formation of the L.A. Board of Harbor Commissioners in December 1907 further solidified the Chamber’s influence over harbor affairs. The mayor named former

Chamber vice president F.W. Braun to the commission and current Chamber president

32 Amos A. Fries letter to Banning Company, May 21, 1908, Box 2, Folder 5, Banning Collection, Huntington.

33 Fogelson, 114-115.

34 Banning Company agreement to sell tidelands to the Southern Pacific Company, June 16, 1908, Box 2 Folder 5, Banning Company Collection; Sitton, Grand Ventures, 241.

29 George H. Stewart chairman. 35 As the Times put it, “The appointment of the commission is intended to give official recognition and standing to the harbor committee of the Chamber of Commerce.”36 In a move especially galling to the Banning Company and the Southern Pacific, Thomas E. Gibbon was also named to the commission.

Gibbon’s appointment put him directly at odds with his previous employers. Pointing out that his company had paid him $5000 to advocate for its interests in 1907, Southern

Pacific general superintendent R.H. Ingram expressed his dismay that Gibbon now opposed its Wilmington inner harbor plans as a harbor commissioner.37 Gibbon denied the contradictory nature of his predicament, and even got Amos Fries to confirm that the

1907 inner harbor plans that he lobbied on the companies’ behalf were less drastic than subsequent proposals.38

Gibbon’s defense of his actions would have done nothing to assuage the fears of private tidelands owners. In short order, he went from working for the owners to reclaiming his late nineteenth century mantle as a “free harbor” leader. Just like the original “free harbor” fight, the demarcations between public and private interests were not all that clear. The Banning Company in particular had tried to frame its “peninsular plan” as a boon to the public, arguing that it would attract more businesses to the harbor and expand the region’s economy. The L.A. Chamber’s advocacy of municipal harbor

35 “The Member’s Annual of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, March, 1908,” Carton 40, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Collection, Regional History Center, University of Southern California. [Hereafter LACC Collection, USC].

36 “Names Harbor Commission,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1907.

37 R.H. Ingram to Thomas E. Gibbon, June 26, 1908, Box 36, Folder 1, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

38 Thomas E. Gibbon to R.H. Ingram, June 25, 1908 and Amos A. Fries to Thomas E. Gibbon, June 30, 1908, Box 36, Folder 1, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

30 ownership perhaps represented a more credible claim of public interest. Yet the Chamber represented powerful businessmen who undoubtedly saw port development as a boon to their private interests, and the reins to the “public” harbor commission were given to the group’s leaders. The opposing sides—both led by members of the region’s economic elite—continued to battle for control of the waterfront.

The Bannings were not yet ready give up pressing their private claims. A series of petitions to the U.S. Secretary of War Jacob M. Dixon (the authority over the Army

Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Harbor Board) captures the family’s continued ambitions as well as the L.A. harbor commission’s opposition to private inner harbor development. In 1908, Hancock Banning and two family relatives filed a petition with the federal government to build a new pier off of their Wilmington tideland property.

The harbor commission objected on several grounds. It accused the family of being

“presumptuous”—stating that the family “assume[d] to know the needs of commerce better than [the federal government’s] Board of high-class, expert Harbor Engineers” and was “seeking special privileges” before the government set the harbor lines. More importantly, the harbor commission presented a legal case against private tidelands ownership. It argued that even though the inner harbor was included with the Spanish and Mexican governments’ Rancho San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes land grants, and even though the U.S. government subsequently recognized those grants after the conquest of California, the government defined the inner harbor as navigable water and excluded it from the grants. The harbor commission argued that since the Banning tidelands were under navigable water at high tide, the government should claim them for public use. The harbor commission insisted that since private tidelands ownership was a

31 “misrepresentation of the law,” the Bannings’ improvement schemes would, to parrot the

L.A. Chamber’s rhetoric, hinder future development. 39

The Banning family took offense to the harbor commission’s accusations and furnished a point-by-point rebuttal to the secretary of war. The family admitted that they sought to enhance their financial interests, but denied that they were doing so ‘at the expense of the public,’ or that their plans would have any affect on the federal government’s harbor policies. They described the harbor commission’s contention that the family was mounting ‘an indirect attack upon the whole scheme of harbor improvement’ as “palpably absurd.” Finally, the family stated that they and other private property holders were willing to cede much of the tidelands back to the government, but were opposed by the harbor commission. The Bannings admitted that the commission objected to this particular proposal because it could be used to validate private tidelands ownership—that the family must own the land if they had the right to give it away.

Beyond that, the family likely wished to infer that the commission was being greedy in its attempt to seize the tidelands, and dishonest by claiming that private corporations could not be trusted with harbor development.40

The harbor commission enlisted California Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb to aid its cause. Webb determined private tidelands ownership to be unlawful and filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to return the property to public

39 Los Angeles Harbor Commission petition to Jacob M. Dickinson, United States Secretary of War, Washington D.C., March 30, 1909, Box 3, Folder 1, Banning Collection, Huntington.

40 Banning Company to Jacob M. Dickinson, United States Secretary of War, undated (likely April 1909), Box 3, Folder 1, Banning Collection, Huntington.

32 ownership.41 In his own biennial state report in 1910, Webb wrote that the state “was without power to convey” the tidelands to individuals and corporations. He also reiterated the rationale of the Chamber of Commerce and the harbor commission by stating that successful litigation by the state would result in a “free public harbor” to benefit southern California.42 With the full weight of California’s top lawyer behind it, thirteen lawsuits to reclaim different tidelands tracts began their long journey through the state and federal court systems. Webb, city attorneys, and the law firm Anderson &

Anderson represented the city and state in the suits. Beginning with the first superior court cases in 1909, the courts consistently ruled in favor of public ownership of the tidelands.43 The Banning Company, the Southern Pacific, Kerckhoff-Cuzner and other private landowners kept appealing the rulings, extending the legal battle for seven years.

The harbor commission continued to argue that the tidelands were protected from private ownership under federal law because they bordered navigable water. The plaintiffs also used California state law to build their case. While Phineas Banning acquired tidelands property under an 1863 law, article 15 of California’s amended 1879 constitution gave the state jurisdiction over harbor property. The first section of article

15 granted the state eminent domain over tidelands bordering navigable water. The second section stated that no private party claiming or occupying tideland property had the right block the public’s right-of-way to navigable water. Most importantly, the third section declared:

41 Los Angeles Harbor Commission to Jacob M. Dickinson, United States Secretary of War, Washington D.C., March 30, 1909, Box 3, Folder 1, Banning Collection, Huntington.

42 “Biennial Report of the Attorney General of the State of California,” (Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1910), 5-6 http://books.google.com/books?id=BabcAAAAIAAJ

43 The Port of Los Angeles: Past, Present and Future, 61-66.

33 All tide-lands within two miles of any incorporated city or town in this state, and fronting on the waters of any harbor, estuary, bay, or inlet used for the purposed of navigation, shall be withheld from grant to private persons, partnerships, or corporations.44

The third section was made law by the state assembly in 1870. Free harbor advocates believed they had an open-and-shut case because the constitution unambiguously gave the state the right to take back the tidelands.

The Banning Company and other private tideland holders interpreted the law differently. In a Los Angeles County Superior Court case concerning one tideland lot, the private tideland holders denied that the entire Wilmington inner harbor contained navigable water and denied state ownership of the land, alluding that sections 1 and 2 of article 15 of the state constitution did not apply. As for section 3, they argued that the land had not been within two miles of either Wilmington prior to December 26, 1905, or

San Pedro prior to March 1, 1888, the cities’ dates of incorporation. The issue of incorporation was especially important to the private tideland holders. They claimed that they had owned and paid taxes on the land and noted that the state had no plan to refund the survey costs and purchase money for the original property deeds. They also argued that the state affirmed the validity of Phineas Banning’s tideland purchase application by ruling in favor of him instead of the overlapping application by William McFadden in

1879. Moreover, they asserted that Wilmington was not an incorporated municipality throughout the late nineteenth century. The plaintiffs disagreed, arguing that Wilmington had originally been incorporated as a town in 1872, though the state assembly repealed

44 Constitution of the State of California in F.P. Deering, The Codes and Statutes of California, As Amended in Force at the Close of the Twenty-Sixth Session of the Legislature, 1885 (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1886), 66. http://books.google.com/books?id=gSdEAAAAYAAJ See also Sitton, Grand Ventures, 242-243.

34 incorporation in 1887 prior to its reincorporation in 1905. Long aware of potential tideland deed issues, Banning Company lawyer Charles T. Healy contacted several members of the Wilmington Board of Trustees from the 1872 incorporation. In a 1905 affidavit Healy swore that all of the former trustees denied holding any official meetings, assessing or collecting taxes, or performing the municipal functions required by state law.

The Banning Company hoped that this would be enough to show that their tidelands were not within two miles of a bona fide town when they were purchased.45

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the company’s final appeal in 1916. Justice

Joseph McKenna, a former U.S. congressman from California, delivered the opinion of the court. While McKenna’s critics accused him of being a political ally of California railroad interests upon his nomination to the Supreme Court in 1898, perhaps it was not surprising that he concurred with every other judge in the previous state and federal tideland cases, or refused to buck the powerful political and economic interests backing the state’s case. The Supreme Court concluded that while Phineas Banning could have purchased the tidelands under California’s 1863 law, he did not pay for the land until

1881. The state’s constitution was in full effect by then, giving it the right to reclaim the land. The court also upheld Wilmington’s 1872 incorporation as lawful, further reaffirming the state’s jurisdiction to control tidelands within two miles of a municipality.

As for Phineas Banning’s payments to survey and purchase the tidelands, the court ruled that they were not legally binding contracts protected by the U.S. Constitution. The court

45 People v. Banning Company et al., County of Los Angeles Superior Court, No. 65219; Brief for Defendants, People v. Hancock Banning et al., No. 68462, Box 3, Folder 1, Banning Collection, Huntington; Sworn statement by Charles T. Healy regarding Wilmington incorporation, Los Angeles, Cal., November 23, 1905, Box 2, Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington; Banning Company et al., v. People of the State of California 240 U.S. 142 (1916).

35 also concluded that previous legal decisions involving land disputes between states and private parties set no precedent that would give the Banning Company the privilege to purchase tidelands when doing so was prohibited by state law.46

The tidelands decision was a prime example of the Supreme Court intervening in economic affairs. Most famously, the Gibbons v. Ogden ruling by the John Marshall court in 1824 ended the steamship passenger service monopoly that had been granted to

Chancellor James Livingston (and subsequently Aaron Ogden) by the state of New York in 1798, allowing rival operators to compete in the trade. And while each decision involved different sets of laws (Gibbons v. Ogden upheld the right of the federal government to regulate commerce, while the tidelands case upheld California’s right to re-appropriate waterfront property under state law), both restricted monopoly privileges and promoted competition. However, neither ruling was simply a case of the Supreme

Court limiting private interests for the sake of a more democratic marketplace. The wealthy landowner and entrepreneur Thomas Gibbons and his partner, the young ship captain and future railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, pursued their case against

Aaron Ogden to gain a foothold in the lucrative New York steamship trade. Similarly, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce was instrumental in supporting the tidelands lawsuits against the Banning Company and the Southern Pacific because many of its members wanted to pursue business opportunities in the harbor.47

46 Banning Company et al., v. People of the State of California 240 U.S. 142 (1916); Thomas Reed Powell, “Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on Constitutional Questions III 1914-1917” The American Political Science Review, 12 (1918): 643-644. Information on Justice Joseph McKenna is in Timothy L. Hall, Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2001), 226-229.

47 On Gibbons v. Ogden, see Thomas H. Cox, Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009), ix-xvi, 133-167; T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: the Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 36-63; Herbert A. Johnson, Gibbons v. Ogden:

36 The city of Los Angeles made several strategic moves to take control of the harbor while the tidelands cases made their long journey through the courts. One of the obstacles blocking L.A.’s municipal control of the harbor was physical: the city was over twenty miles from the harbor district, and the state required all municipalities to have contiguous borders. As a remedy L.A. annexed a half-mile-wide “shoestring” of property to the San Pedro and Wilmington borders in 1906 and secured passage of a state law that would allow the harbor communities to join the city in 1908. As Robert Fogelson, Tom

Sitton, and other historians have discussed, the prospect of joining L.A. did not sit well with many San Pedro and Wilmington voters, who feared that consolidation would mean higher taxes, less political autonomy, and the movement of trade inland from the waterfront. Backed by the Chamber, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, the harbor commission, the major newspapers, and other leading civic institutions, the

Consolidation Commission of Los Angeles placated harbor community voters by promising an additional $10 million municipal bond for port development, road construction between the city and harbor, and public works expenditures. The Banning

Company, the Southern Pacific, and other harbor corporations once again feared encroachment on their tidelands ownership and organized opposition to consolidation on the local and state level. Wilmington and San Pedro voters ultimately cast their lot with consolidation and the promises of economic growth in August 1909, though Banning and the Southern Pacific contested the validity of consolidation in court until 1912.48

John Marshall, Steamboats, and the Commerce Clause (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 55-137. 48 Sitton, Grand Ventures, 238-239; Fogelson, 115-117; Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Vol. I (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), 363-364, http://books.google.com/books?id=zxUVAAAAYAAJ; “Report of the Consolidation Committee of Los Angeles,” June 8, 1909, Box 36, Folder 9, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

37 The state further enabled L.A.’s control over the waterfront by passing the Los

Angeles Tidelands Act in 1911, transferring any property recovered by the state in the tidelands lawsuits to the city. The Banning Company and the Southern Pacific also tried to block this measure, along with San Francisco commercial interests who feared the growth of L.A. as a rival port. The act easily passed when pro Southern Pacific politicians were swept out of state office in the 1910 elections and the San Francisco delegation dropped its opposition in return for getting support for similar legislation concerning the San Francisco Bay tidelands.49 Municipal consolidation, the passage of the Los Angeles Tidelands Act, and the Supreme Court ruling assured the city’s ownership of the entire waterfront.

“Free harbor” rhetoric was conspicuously absent from the Supreme Court’s tidelands decision. Nevertheless, the press celebrated the economic and political significance of the litigation’s outcome. The Times reported that the decision would allow the state to recover millions of dollars worth of tideland property in every

California harbor. The biggest beneficiary was Los Angeles, whose harbor commission could finally realize its full plans for the rapid growth of the Port of Los Angeles.50 The national Municipal Journal concurred, stating that the 450 acres recovered in the lawsuits were of “enormous value” and reported that “big ship lines are now, or will soon be, operating wharves, paying the city many thousands of dollars a year for the privilege.”51

Yet the harbor’s immediate economic prospects were not so clear.

49 Sitton, Grand Ventures, 242-243.

50 “City is Owner of Tidelands,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1916.

51 “City Wins Title to Harbor,” Municipal Journal XI, no. 10 (1916): 342. http://books.google.com/books?id=zpdMAAAAYAAJ

38

Financing and Building a Modern Port

The Port of Los Angeles underwent major changes in the period between the founding of the L.A. harbor commission in 1907 and the 1916 Supreme Court decision.

City voters approved a $3 million bond for port development in 1910, the first portion of the $10 million promised to Wilmington and San Pedro residents in return for the harbor communities’ consolidation with L.A. (though this money was not made available until

April 1912, when consolidation was upheld in court). Together with an additional $2.5 million bond approved in 1913, the city embarked on a flurry of harbor improvements.

The city obtained a right-of-way for Harbor Boulevard, running from the Wilmington-

San Pedro Road southward to the San Pedro outer harbor and obtained ownership of

Timm’s Point, near the location of the port’s new 2520-foot outer harbor wharf and transit shed complex, Municipal Pier No. 1. The city also planned to build 1,605 feet of wharf in the inner harbor, build a transit shed near Mormon Island to lease to the

American-Hawaiian company, improve roads, and build additional docks, warehouses, and transit sheds.52 While the city employed engineers and laborers to accomplish these projects, it also needed outside help. The city sent its chief engineer to survey the construction methods used in other west coast ports in 1912.53 The same year the city contracted Washington D.C.-based harbor engineer E.P. Goodrich to develop plans for

52 The Port of Los Angeles: Past, Present and Future, 57-60, 70-73.

53 The west coast port survey by city engineer Homer Hamlin is in Box 36, Folder 1, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

39 concrete and wooden wharf construction, warehouse construction, and fire prevention.54

Funding from municipal bonds, competent municipal leadership, and outside knowledge and expertise were crucial to facilitating port development.

The transformation of Los Angeles Harbor from a shallow anchorage to a deep, protected port presented myriad engineering challenges. Some of the major changes of the early twentieth century give a sense of scale. The first portion of the federally funded breakwater extended from Port Fermin and proceeded at an easterly arc across San Pedro

Bay toward Long Beach. Federal engineers initially planned this portion of the breakwater to be 8,500 feet long when construction began in 1899, but extended it to

11,000 feet upon completion in 1910. Constructed with stones that weighed between

1,000 pounds and 20 tons apiece, the breakwater’s superstructure is 200 feet wide at its base, between 20 and 48 feet wide above water level, and 14 feet taller than water level at low tide. A railroad trestle was built over the breakwater’s route, allowing stones to be dropped from flat cars by steam shovel or by laborers using crowbars. Most of the rock was quarried from Chatsworth, Riverside, and other regions inland. Some 2.3 million long tons of stone were used to build the first portion of the breakwater at a cost of nearly

$3 million in federal appropriations.55

Widening and dredging shipping channels and backfilling tidelands throughout the outer and inner harbors also required plenty of engineering expertise, physical labor, time, and money. For instance, it took the federal government from 1905 to 1910 to

54 E.P. Goodrich’s consulting to the city is outlined in correspondence between Goodrich and harbor commissioner Thomas E. Gibbon from February to November 1912 in Box 36, Folder 1, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

55 Lois J. Weinman and E. Gary Stickel, Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Areas Cultural Resource Survey (Los Angeles: U.S. Army Engineer District, 1978), 84; Amos A. Fries, “San Pedro Harbor,” Out West Magazine 27 (1907): 308-313. http://books.google.com/books?id=4OpYAAAAMAAJ

40 dredge a 400-foot wide, 20 to 25-foot deep, and 14,000-foot long shipping channel in the inner harbor. Costing just over $364,000 (the suction dredge barge cost nearly $119,000 itself), the project removed 4,322,261 cubic yards of mud, clay, and rock from the harbor floor that was used to create new harbor property around Terminal Island. Deeming the project insufficient for accommodating future shipping, the federal government appropriated another $400,000 in 1910 to deepen the main channel to 30 feet and create two additional channels to the east and west basins of the inner harbor. 56

In addition to the legal battle over tidelands ownership and the engineering challenges of port construction, the relationship between the Chamber-allied harbor commissioners and L.A. mayor George Alexander frayed by the summer of 1912.

Alexander had ceded much of the jurisdiction over harbor facility construction to the

Bureau of Harbor Improvement. The city’s board of public works effectively controlled the bureau and relegated the harbor commission to the background. By March 1912, all three harbor commissioners (Thomas E. Gibbon, C.E. Richards, and A.K. Malloy) passed a resolution to restore their board as the “lone hand” in all waterfront affairs. The Times used news of the resolution to underscore the confusion surrounding the divergent plans of the harbor commission and the board of public works.57 Public works responded by forming a new harbor advisory committee without the harbor commissioners.58 In turn

Richards and Malloy resigned from the commission out of frustration in May, followed

56 Annual Reports of the War Department, Part 1 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910), 902-908. http://books.google.com/books?id=nYcEAAAAYAAJ

57 “Harbor Board is Lone Hand,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1912.

58 “Is Harbor Board on Sidetrack?” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1912.

41 by commission secretary A.P. Fleming on June 12.59 Alexander was quoted accusing

Gibbon of holding harbor commission meetings in secret in a June 8 Los Angeles

Examiner article. Gibbon denied any wrongdoing in a private letter to the mayor, but he too resigned on June 25. 60

Gibbon aired his grievances to the press. Published two days before his resignation, Gibbon’s first statement outlined his disagreement with the mayor over proposals for the city to either build an electrical power distribution system of its own, acquire one owned by a private utility, or take steps to get better service from private utilities. Gibbon followed with a lengthy open letter published two days after his resignation. He criticized the board of public works for mismanaging construction projects and the mayor for failing to sell municipal bonds for the Owens River aqueduct

(business leaders believed the project was necessary for the city to gain access to water for agricultural and industrial expansion). Gibbon accused the board of public works and the mayor of delaying harbor development projects, noting that they had not spent any money on the San Pedro outer harbor for the past two years. Finally, Gibbon suggested that the main reason city-controlled land on the inner harbor received improvements was because it would increase the value of Wilmington property owned by one of the public works commissioners.61 In short, Gibbon made a case for how municipal leaders put

59 “General Chaffee Ridicules One Harbor Plan,” Los Angeles Tribune, May 7, 1912. Clipping in Box 36, Folder 1, Gibbon Papers, Huntington; Fleming’s resignation is reported in “Harbor Man Resigns; Scorches the Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1912.

60 Thomas E. Gibbon to Mayor George Alexander, June 8, 1912, Box 36, Folder 9, Gibbon Papers, Huntington; “Harbor Board is Headless,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1912.

61 “Gibbon and the Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1912; “Gibbon Flays Mayor and Administration,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1912; “Mr. T.E. Gibbon Writes Open Letter to Mayor Alexander,” Los Angeles Record, June 27, 1912, newspaper clipping in Box 36, Folder 8, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

42 their personal interests before those of the public and failed to take the steps necessary to develop the city’s economic infrastructure.

Personal and political conflicts among city bureaucrats posed a challenge to harbor development, but the controversy died down soon after Gibbon’s exit. Mayor

Alexander reconstituted the harbor commission in July 1912 and restored its control over harbor projects. The new commissioners continued the improvements mentioned earlier in this chapter with the bond money of 1912 and 1913. Gibbon did not remain absent from waterfront affairs. The L.A. Chamber of Commerce appointed him to the head of its harbor committee in January 1914, which continued to push the harbor commission and the federal government to develop the waterfront.62

Port Growth: Real and Imagined

Commerce grew with the expansion and modernization of the Port of Los Angeles.

Some 965 ships carrying 356,371 tons visited the harbor in 1902 while 480 ships carrying

791,069 tons visited in 1907. Demonstrating exponential growth during the first five since the harbor commission’s founding, 2,935 ships carrying 2,453,000 net tons visited in 1912. The value of imports rose from $676,615 in 1902 to $1,558,322 in 1907, and again to $3,225,618 in 1912. Export values reportedly went from a mere $80.00 in 1902 to $47,000 in 1907 and $161,735 in 1912. Lumber imports more than doubled from

242,095,076 feet to 720,883,630 feet, which undoubtedly increased the revenue of

Kerckhoff-Cuzner and other waterfront lumber companies. Foreshadowing the growth of one of the port’s most crucial commodities from the late 1910s through the 1920s, the

62 L.A. Chamber of Commerce secretary Frank Wiggins to T.E. Gibbon, Box 18, Folder 19, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

43 port’s trade in oil increased from 6,600 barrels in 1902 to 319,665 barrels in 1907 and

1,170,583 barrels in 1912.63

For the harbor commission, the Chamber of Commerce, and other port boosters, these statistics gave ammunition to the cause of municipal harbor ownership. In its 1913 report The Port of Los Angeles: Past, Present and Future, the harbor commission framed its predictions for future growth as a rhetorical question:

If a city of a half million population has been built without special attention being given to its port possibilities, what will be its growth when it takes advantage of water transportation to build up its commerce, and when the opening of the Panama Canal, and the position of the city with reference to world trade, will give a tremendous stimulus to such commerce?64

The commission reasoned that the port was not a primary cause for L.A.’s previous growth, since its urban core was located twenty miles inland. The city had ample room to expand its residential, commercial, and industrial districts toward the waterfront.

Increased federal and municipal port funding would allow the city to take advantage of increased trade. The harbor remained a fundamental part of the circular discourse of

L.A.’s economic and political leaders, just as it had in the “free harbor” contest of the

1890s: a growing port needed the help of its city and a growing city needed the help of its port.65

City and business leaders were especially bullish about the opening of the Panama

Canal in 1914. The harbor commission predicted that Los Angeles would surpass San

63 Ibid., 46-47. The L.A. harbor commission’s valuation of 1902 exports seems artificially low, though it may not have included the 6,600 barrels of oil traded through the port that year. However, the 1902 oil figure may have referred to imports, while the 1907 and 1912 oil figures may have referred to exports due to an increase in oil production in Southern California.

64 The Port of Los Angeles: Past, Present and Future, 12.

65 Ibid., 11-13.

44 Francisco as the largest west coast port because it was located 413 miles closer to the canal. Because L.A. was further east than San Francisco, the commission also claimed that their city’s “tributary territory” for domestic trade encompassed the entire southwestern Unites States, southern Nevada, portions of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and

Montana, and even parts of the mid-west. For instance, the rail distance to Kansas City from L.A. was as little as 1,758 miles, as opposed to 2,111 miles from San Francisco.

The harbor commission likewise calculated that L.A. was closer to St. Louis by 400 miles and virtually equidistant from Chicago by railroad. Claiming such a vast hinterland as its trading territory, the commission believed that the Port of Los Angeles would be the primary shipping point for the western United States. The canal would cut thousands of nautical miles from voyages between L.A. and Europe, the east and gulf coasts of North

America, and the north and east coasts of South America, and place the port on the trading nexus between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The harbor commission predicted that domestic shipping from the east coast of the United States could would cost as little as $3.00 to $10.00 a ton—drastically cheaper than the $15.00 to $30.00 a ton charged by the transcontinental railways.66

Outgoing L.A. Chamber of Commerce president (and future U.S. congressman)

Henry Z. Osborne expressed similar hopes for the Panama Canal’s influence on port development and increased trade in his valedictory address to the organization’s 1913 annual banquet. Osborne told his fellow businessmen that the canal would make L.A.

Harbor a world port. But he warned that “the great steamship lines of Europe and

America” would judge the port on its “conveniences and efficiency of administration.”

66 Ibid., 15-22.

45 He further encouraged private capital investment in wharf construction to supplement the harbor commission’s efforts, and urged city leaders to give “every concession possible which does not endanger the public welfare” to businesses requiring new shipping facilities. Finally, Osborne pushed city merchants to increase trade with Latin America and Asia.67 At the following year’s banquet, outgoing president Arthur W. Kinney and incoming president Louis M. Cole were less guarded in their predictions. “The great inflow of world trade must now come through the Canal to the Pacific,” Kinney confidently stated, “The more that this ever-broadening commerce makes busy and enriches our Coast, the more will the arts and industries unfold in every form of beauty and grandeur. Destiny has decreed for us a proud place in the mighty empire of trade; let us, therefore, endeavor to meet destiny half way.” Cole agreed. Between the Chamber’s efforts “to put Los Angeles Harbor indelibly on the map” and the opening of the canal, they would succeed in making L.A. “the greatest import and export city on the whole

Pacific Coast.”68

Environmental and Geopolitical Challenges

The heady rhetoric of Chamber officials was common to nineteenth and twentieth century civic boosters in the United States.69 But before exploring how harbor advocates

67 Henry Z. Osborne’s speech is printed in “The Member’s Annual of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, March, 1913,” 74. Carton 40, LACC Collection, USC.

68 The speeches by Arthur W. Kinney and Louis M. Cole are printed in “The Member’s Annual of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, March, 1913,” 82, 89. Carton 40, LACC Collection, USC

69 L.A. and California boosterism is discussed in Mike Davis, City of Quartz, 24-30; Fogelson, 63-74; and throughout Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). William Cronon offers an astute analysis of boosterism in Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), 31-54.

46 attempted to realize their dreams in the next chapter, attention must be paid to some of the difficulties they faced in the interim. Breakwater construction, dredging, and backfilling tidelands drastically changed the harbor’s geography but did not eliminate a significant environmental threat. El Niño rains swelled the Los Angeles River in the winter of 1913-1914, causing widespread damage in the flood plain stretching south of downtown L.A. to Long Beach. As Blake Gumprecht details in his history of the river, the flood deposited four million cubic yards of silt in the harbor.70 Silt clogged the east basin of the inner harbor and threatened the turning channel used by ships. Torrential rains washed out waterfront streets in San Pedro. The harbor commission and the

Chamber’s harbor committee immediately turned to the federal government for help.

The U.S. harbor engineers put together a $32,000 emergency fund to re-dredge the inner harbor in March.71

Long Beach was not as lucky. Located on the eastern side of San Pedro Bay,

Long Beach began developing port facilities at the turn of the twentieth century. While it failed in an attempt to annex Wilmington and San Pedro, the city annexed the eastern half of Terminal Island and other vacant waterfront property on the eastern side of L.A.

Harbor by 1909. The Long Beach Land and Navigation Company and its successor the

Los Angeles Dock and Terminal Company owned 800 acres of the Long Beach waterfront from 1887 to 1924. Working with its city government, the latter company

70 Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 167-172.

71“San Pedro Channels Menaced by the Storm,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1914; “Cutting a New Channel Through Storm Silt,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1914; Clarence Matson to Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, March 5, 1914, Box 18, Folder 19, Gibbon Papers, Huntington; H.B. Gurley to Thomas E. Gibbon, Harbor Committee, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, March 12, 1914, Box 18, Folder 19, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

47 spent nearly $2 million to create an ocean entrance to the Port of Long Beach and dredge the Cerritos Channel that connected it with the Wilmington inner harbor above Terminal

Island. The nascent port enjoyed some success. Craig Shipbuilding opened its yard in

1907 and the first shipload of lumber reached the new municipal dock in 1911. The silting from the 1913-1914 L.A. River floods made the port unviable and neither the city nor the Dock and Terminal Company had enough resources to fix the damage and continue building until new federal and municipal funds were made available in 1916 and

1925.72 The 1913-1914 floods, along with other damaging floods in 1916, 1934, and

1938, were the catalyst for diverting the river’s outlet east of the Port of Long Beach, creating flood control dams, and paving the main channel with concrete—a series of municipal and federal projects that cost millions, spanned decades, and permanently changed the region’s riparian ecology.73

World War I put the L.A. political and business leaders’ dream of expanded trade on hold despite the simultaneous opening of the Panama Canal in August 1914. “A more striking example of the irony of circumstances could hardly be found,” the Port of Los

Angeles 1914-1915 annual report lamented, “the opening of the Canal to the nations of the world, which had been awaited for years, found the majority of European countries involved in the greatest war the world has ever known, shipping paralyzed, and the business of the Canal practically confined to that between the ports of the east and west

72 Erie, 63-72; Walter Case, History of Long Beach and Vicinity, Vol. I (Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1927), 267-293.

73 Gumprecht, 173-234; Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), 122-127.

48 coast of the United States.”74 Total commerce only increased from 1,682,794 tons in the

1913-1914 fiscal year to 1,739,548 tons in 1914-1915. The actual number of ships visiting the port dropped from 3,919 to 2,620 despite the cargo increase. The vast majority of those ships were American, with a scattering of Mexican, Japanese, British,

Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, and Dutch vessels. Foreign imports and exports accounted for a mere 114,601 tons—just 6.6 percent of the total commerce.75

Foreign trade failed to materialize again in 1915-1916. Increased lumber imports and petroleum exports raised port commerce to 2,051,785 tons, but foreign trade dropped to 96,871 tons, 4.7 percent of the total commerce. Part of the drop could be explained by the mudslides that closed the Panama Canal from September 1915 to April 1916, but a stark decline in available ships was the bigger culprit. Many steamship lines that normally visited the harbor diverted their vessels to the Atlantic war trade in order to take advantage of shipping rates that had risen as much as 800 percent. With a slightly more modest shipping rate increase from $8.00 to $40.00 per ton, the Pacific war trade mostly benefited the ports of Seattle and San Francisco due to their closer proximity to

Vladivostok and the Russian war theatre. Moreover, shipping lines largely abandoned trade between the east and west coasts of the U.S., diverting cargo back to the transcontinental railroads, who in turn raised their rates. The war did not stop the harbor commission from carrying out dredging, waterfront road improvements, and new dock and warehouse construction. The commission also began construction of a new “Fish

74 The Port of Los Angeles: Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles for the Year Ending June 30, 1915; Port Statistics; and Laws, Ordinances and Rules Governing Los Angeles Harbor; also Abridged Report of the Board of the Harbor Commissioners for the Year Ending June 30, 1914 (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1915), 9.

75 Ibid., 41, 58, 131.

49 Harbor” on the San Pedro side of Terminal Island, including a new wholesale fish market and leases to Van Camp, White Star, and other national seafood companies to build canneries and fishermen’s barracks. Finally, the expansion of oil production (including a tidelands lease to Standard Oil) and improved railroad access to the waterfront gave the harbor commission some hope.76

The End of the Banning Company

Like the Port of Los Angeles’ World War I difficulties, the final years of the

Banning Company illustrate that harbor commerce did not guarantee high returns.

Despite losing ownership of their tidelands property in the 1916 U.S. Supreme Court case, the city granted the company a 30-year lease to Mormon Island and allowed it to continue its shipping and stevedoring operations. The Banning family subleased the property to other companies, including several shipbuilding and repair companies, a lumber mill, a steel yard, and a packing company. The harbor commission even paid the Banning

Company nearly $2,000 to construct a paved road across the island.77 The generous tidelands lease seemed to give the company the opportunity to accomplish the goals it had originally articulated a decade earlier with the “peninsular plan,” even if it had

76 The Port of Los Angeles Annual Report for the Year Ending June 30, 1916 (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1917), 227-262.

77 Indenture between City of Los Angeles and Banning Company for lease of Mormon Island Tidelands, 1916, Box 4, Folder 1 Banning Collection, Huntington; Lease agreement between Los Angeles and Banning Company, July 24, 1917, Box 4, Folder 1, Banning Collection, Huntington; L.A. Harbor Commission agreement with Banning Company to reimburse cost of paved road on Mormon Island, April 15, 1918, Box 4, Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington; 1918-1920 lease agreements between Banning family members and Ralph J. Chandler Shipbuilding Company, Fulton Shipbuilding Company, American Mexican Packing Company, SE Cressey, KA Miller, Andy Martins (machine shop and ship repair), E. Riveroll (California Electric Steel Company), Everett H. Seaver (ship building and repairing, docking, and marine work), P.A. Larson (shipbuilding and repairing and machine shop), Cudahy Walnut Land Company (sawmill, lumber planning, and wood manufacturing), and Hampton Brothers (carpet cleaning), Box 4, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

50 nominally lost its ownership of the waterfront property. Unfortunately, the lease came on the heels of a several-year decline in the company’s fortunes. The company reported a profit of $35,623 in 1911, with total earnings of $190,688 and expenses of $155,065.

Giving a sense of scope to its operations, the company stevedored 115,530 tons and moved another 152,993 tons of merchandise that year. Profits were lower over the next two years at $31,552 in 1912 and $32,738 in 1913 and dropped precipitously to $21,663 in 1914. Profits rebounded to $28,714 in 1915, but declined even more severely to

$9,351 in 1916 and $8,547 in 1917.

One definitive factor for the low 1916 profits was a strike by maritime workers.

Though labor is the subject of this study’s fourth chapter, it is worth mentioning here that the workers’ actions—despite the steadfast opposition of employers and city authorities—had enough power to drastically slow the harbor’s commerce. In the three months leading up to the strike, the Banning Company took in receipts between $33,000 and $37,000 a month for its waterfront operations. In the strike months of June and July, the company received only $7,671 and $4,302, respectively. The company listed an additional $8,025 “strike expense” in its 1916 account—a further hit to its profit margin.78 Clearly, the company could not depend on a steady rate of return.

Apart from the 1916 strike, it is difficult to interpret all of the reasons for the company’s misfortunes based on numbers alone. The remaining financial documents are incomplete and do not shed much light on the ups and downs of its weekly, monthly, or yearly activities. Still, it seems that World War I did not help the company’s bottom line for most years of the conflict, and perhaps the tidelands legal battle, the failed deal to sell

78 Banning Company yearly accounts are in Box 1, Folder 3, Banning Collection, Huntington.

51 the tidelands to the Southern Pacific in 1912, increased competition from other harbor businesses, and changing regional and national economic conditions also played a role.

As Tom Sitton discusses in his recent book about the Banning family, the final blow came when the Pacific Steamship Company ended its stevedoring contract with the company and gave it to a local of the International Longshoremen’s Association in 1919.

Coupled with its decision to sell Santa Catalina Island to Chicago chewing gum magnate

William Wrigley, Jr., the family sold the Banning Company assets to its superintendent

Edward Mahar in 1920. Mahar continued using the company name, but the family no longer played a significant role in harbor commerce.79

Conclusion

The demise of the Banning Company signaled the end of an era in the history of

Los Angeles Harbor. At the turn of the twentieth century Banning, the Kerckhoff-Cuzner

Mill and Lumber Company, and the Southern Pacific Railroad were among the corporations who looked forward to dominating the harbor commerce of a growing metropolis. They used their ownership of the tidelands to leverage business deals and push the federal government to spend money on harbor improvements while sanctioning private schemes like the “peninsular plan.” A new era emerged with the city of Los

Angeles’ growing control over the waterfront. The establishment of a municipal harbor commission, the tidelands litigation, and the annexation of Wilmington and San Pedro helped the city accomplish this task from 1907 to 1916.

79 Sitton, Grand Ventures, 244-248; The Banning Company’s sale of its waterfront operations to Edward Mahar are mentioned in an unsigned letter to the San Pedro Lumber Company, August 14, 1920, Box 1, Folder 4, Banning Collection, Huntington.

52 The meaning of this gradual municipal takeover of the harbor deserves scrutiny.

The private sector continued to shape harbor development. The Los Angeles Chamber of

Commerce was a fundamental catalyst in the legal and political fights for municipal control, and its constituent members—a large portion of the region’s business elite— hoped to reap the economic rewards of an expanded port. In effect, the city reigned in one set of capitalists, including the Banning Company and the Southern Pacific, in favor of helping an even larger group of capitalists. Through bond measures, the city joined the federal government in pouring public money and resources into the environmental transformation of the harbor and new port facilities. The Port of Los Angeles did not emerge as a result of the free market. Still, it was established in the name of expanding a market economy that would benefit the private sector, and hopefully encourage the expansion of trade and industry in the region. While several factors delayed this from happening like engineering challenges, silting from the 1913-1914 L.A. River floods, and the World War I shipping slump, L.A.’s business and political leaders looked forward to accomplishing their goals in the 1920s.

53 Chapter 2

Commodities and Industries: Port Development and the Emergence of Global Los Angeles, 1917-1940

The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce referred to their city and its surrounding region as “Nature’s Workshop” throughout the 1920s. Despite the myriad meanings of

“nature” and “workshop,” the Chamber used the terms as literal descriptors. “Nature” alluded to the region’s mild climate conditions that allowed businesses to operate year round without weather delays or high heating costs and the vast geographic spaces for new residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial districts. And while “workshop” was an antiquated term by the twentieth century (after all, the Chamber wanted to develop state-of-the art large-scale industries, not mere workshops), the organization employed the term to remind prospective capitalists that L.A. was “where nature helps industry most.” Cheap and abundant supplies of water, electrical power, fuel, and raw materials were at hand to allow a variety of new enterprises to expand and flourish.1

These claims about nature’s relationship to the city were not unique to Los

Angeles. William Cronon’s pathbreaking Nature’s Metropolis reveals how Chicago’s nineteenth-century economy centered on a commodities trade that included grain and livestock from the prairie and timber from the Michigan and Wisconsin woods. Like their latter day L.A. counterparts, Chicago boosters believed that their city’s proximity to rich natural and agricultural resources foreordained its growth. When it came to getting

1 The term “Nature’s Workshop” was used in the Chamber’s annual “General Industrial Reports” from 1922 through 1930 and in the promotional pamphlet “Facts About Industrial Los Angeles: Nature’s Workshop” (Industrial Department of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1926), Cartons 52 and 53, LACC Collection, USC. The term is also briefly discussed in “Part Three: Nature and Culture” in Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles, eds. William Deverell and Greg Hise (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 201-202 and in Hise, “Nature’s Workshop: Industry and Urban Expansion in Southern California, 1900-1950,” Journal of Historical Geography 27 (2001): 74-92.

54 these commodities to market, Chicago’s business community readily incorporated harbor improvements and railroads into their “doctrine of natural advantage.” Even if dredging the mouth of the Chicago River to construct a port on Lake Michigan and building railroads were manifestations of ‘second nature,’ that which was “designed by people and

‘improved’ toward human ends,” they were regarded as “natural” as the resources and geographical features of ‘first nature.’ By the mid nineteenth century, the railroad was the primary “unnatural instrument” that helped Chicago fulfill its ‘natural’ destiny as the gateway to the Great West.2

Los Angeles Harbor became increasingly unnatural with every new construction phase throughout the twentieth century, though it was made natural through the discourses of economic and political power. City and business leaders were enthusiastic about altering the harbor’s environment to suit their commercial needs, but they consistently framed their efforts as perfecting nature and described the harbor as the conduit through which the natural resources of Southern California, the American West, and the Pacific Rim would be traded. “Los Angeles Harbor, made to order, does not have to contend with disadvantages under which many so-called natural harbors labor,” wrote

L.A. harbor commission secretary Clarence H. Matson in 1917, “It has no bar at the entrance. Its water area is made only with a view to accommodate shipping, and with no great waste area to a strong tidal ebb and flow. Its land areas have been created to handle its commerce, and with a view to the growth of that commerce in years to come.”3

2 Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 54-57; 71-74.

3 Clarence H. Matson, The Port of Los Angeles: Its Opportunities and Possibilities for Building Up a Great Foreign Trade; Industrial Resources and Tributary Territory—Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles for the Year Ending June 30, 1916; Port Statistics (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1917), 11.

55 Present and future city enterprises could take advantage of the natural resources at their disposal, but would not have to worry about any of the limitations nature placed on the harbor. More importantly, the city’s status as “Nature’s Workshop” would allow it to become a global center for trade and manufacturing.

The ties between commodities and natural resources, industrial and commercial development, the harbor, and global trade were central to L.A. political and economic discourse in the 1920s and 1930s. This chapter analyzes the steps business and city leaders took to turn L.A. harbor into a world port and build industries during these decades. They understood that if L.A. were to become a global metropolis, it could not rely on real estate development, tourism, and entertainment alone—the very economic and cultural elements that have been long associated with the city’s image. The securing of the municipal harbor broke the monopoly control of the Southern Pacific and the

Banning Company over the waterfront and allowed for faster harbor development, a process that married public resources with a variety of private shipping, warehousing, and industrial enterprises. Harbor and industrial development efforts were both rhetorical and practical. City and business leaders continued making bold predictions about the future, just like they had since the turn of the century. They also demanded the expansion of port facilities in the 1920s. In turn, L.A. and Long Beach officials worked to secure additional municipal and federal funds, and even made plans to merge the cities’ ports into one joint authority in 1925. While the merger failed, both ports continued to grow in tandem, further solidifying Los Angeles harbor’s status as a major seaport.

As William Cronon and other environmental historians remind us, the economic livelihood of a metropolitan city often depends on the regions that supply the

56 commodities for its industries and markets. In L.A.’s case, the city’s backcountry, hinterland, or “tributary territory” was transnational in scope. Pursuing foreign and domestic trade was a major part of an L.A. business culture that prided itself on turning the city into the primary gateway for Pacific commerce, positioning the city as the chokepoint between the transnational backcountry, external markets, and emerging industries. The Chamber took steps to quantify commerce and better understand how regional and transnational trade was developing through the harbor. The movement of oil, citrus, cotton, borax, rubber, bananas, and other domestic and foreign commodities cemented the harbor’s place in transnational production and distribution networks. The processing of many of these commodities into finished goods fueled city and regional industries beginning in the 1920s, contributing to L.A.’s ascendance as the leading industrial center on the West Coast and as one of the largest industrial cities in the nation.

The sale of the finished goods to consumer markets, including foreign export markets, further connected the city to the world. This trade helped mitigate the effects of the Great

Depression and set the stage for the region’s industrial and commercial resurgence during

World War II and the post-war period. Moreover, the growing number of national and multinational industrial and shipping corporations that took part in these processes indicates that L.A.’s “globalization” in the 1920s and 1930s was not just the making of the Chamber and local business and political elites, even though the boosters undoubtedly welcomed their city’s massive economic growth.

Harbor Expansion

Once again demonstrating the fluidity between the L.A. city government and the business community, harbor commission secretary Clarence H. Matson left his post in

57 1920 to become the manager of the Chamber’s Trade Extension Bureau.4 Matson led the organization’s efforts to establish L.A. as a leading player in global trade. The Chamber and allied business organizations published a wealth of literature that related the economic development of the city to harbor commerce beginning in the 1920s.

Published under the aegis of the “World Commerce Bureau,” Matson edited a Handbook of World Trade that featured information on harbor facilities, steamship lines and shipping routes, import and export commodities, and the trade related efforts of the

Chamber, the Associated Jobbers, and the World Traders of Los Angeles. Active in the early 1920s, the World Traders included many of the same banks, and businesses, and individuals active in the Chamber who were “interested in the development of foreign trade through the port of Los Angeles.”5

The Chamber retained its position as the most important business group in harbor affairs. The organization continued pushing for local and federal government policies that would enhance trade opportunities in its monthly magazine Southern California

Business. The magazine’s very first article in February 1922 implored the citizens of Los

Angeles and Long Beach to spend between $50 million and $75 million on harbor improvements in addition to calling for another $20 million in federal appropriations.

Since port commerce had more than doubled to 4,306,000 tons in 1920-1921 compared to

4 Biographical information about Matson is found in “Matson, Port Booster, Dies,” Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1943. The text of Matson’s obituary is reprinted in the introduction to his posthumous book, Building a World Gateway: The Story of Los Angeles Harbor (Los Angeles: Pacific Era Publishing, 1945), 13-14.

5 Matson, ed., Handbook of World Trade (Los Angeles: World Commerce Bureau, 1920), http://books.google.com/books?id=YCgwAAAAYAAJ ; “World Traders on Harbor Facilities,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1920; “Directors are Chosen: World Traders of Los Angeles Hold Annual Meeting Here,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1921.

58 1914-1915, the region needed “to keep pace with the growth of water borne freight” and make long term harbor plans for the following decades.6

Southern California Business continued to run articles written by local businessmen that promoted harbor development and expanding trade. L.A.

Lumbermen’s Exchange Secretary Henry Riddiford wrote that the city remained the largest lumber importer among U.S. cities in 1921 (notwithstanding a seamen’s strike), boasting that if all of the lumber brought in by water were sawed into 1 inch by 12 inch boards “it would have built a five-foot board sidewalk around the world, with enough boards left to more than reach the North Pole.” Or put to more practical uses, the

614,098,918 board feet of lumber worth $15 million was enough to build 52,000 new five-room bungalows that could house 260,000 people. The thrust of Riddiford’s article reinforced the Chamber’s longstanding message: the harbor was crucial to sustaining the city’s growth.7 Other articles in a special issue commemorating the 1922 “Pageant of

Progress and Industrial Exposition” in L.A. did the same by relating harbor imports and exports to growing industries in steel, seafood, shipbuilding, and the production of cotton and other crops throughout the region.8 Indeed, early covers of the magazine featured harbor and shipping scenes along with artistic renderings of warehouses, factories, trains,

6 Henry M. Robinson, “What of Your Harbor?” Southern California Business 1, no. 1 (1922): 1, 4, 42-45.

7 Henry Riddiford, “Could Build a Walk Around the World,” Southern California Business 1, no. 3 (1922), 19, 30.

8 The contents of the “Pageant of Progress and Industrial Exposition Issue” included Fred L. Baker, “Forming New Iron and Steel Center,” Admiral W.S. Benson, “Put Man-Power Back of Harbor Work,” W.E. Aughinbaugh, “Pacific Southwest Near to World’s Great Markets,” J. Dabney Day, “King Cotton Thrives in Southwest,” and L.E. Caverly, “The Making of A Cosmopolitan Port,” Southern California Business, 1 no. 8 (1922).

59 trolleys, trucks, oil derricks, orange groves, power lines, building construction, and the other trappings of the modern L.A. metropolis.9

In most respects Southern California Business was like the other booster publications produced by the Chamber from the 1890s through the 1910s, albeit in a glossier form that was distributed to the 10,000 Chamber members in the L.A. region,

3,500 subscribers in the San Joaquin Valley, and 650 subscribers in Hawaii. The

Chamber also published technical literature that used data to tie the industrialization of the region to harbor commerce. The 1922 “General Industrial Report” (and subsequent annual reports published through 1933) listed the city’s population, street and rail infrastructures, water supply, oil production, electrical power distribution, telephone communications, building permits, factories, and the values of economic activities like manufacturing, payroll, banking, and imports and exports. Just like the harbor commission’s arguments from the previous decade, the report reiterated that the city was the primary Pacific gateway to domestic trade in the southwestern, western, and midwestern U.S. because of its shorter rail connections to those areas and the most logical shipping point to the east coast due to the harbor’s proximity to the Panama Canal.

Estimating more than $15,000,000 in total public expenditures on improvements, the report claimed that the harbor contained “some of the finest port facilities in America” and was uniquely situated for importing Pacific Rim commodities.10

The Chamber accomplished some of its goals for extra harbor funding by 1925.

In 1922 the organization launched the “Greater Harbor Committee of One Hundred.”

9 See for instance the covers of Southern California Business 1 no. 1 (1922) and 1 no. 8 (1922).

10 “General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California” (Los Angeles: Industrial Department of Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1922), Carton 52, LACC Collection, USC.

60 The committee consisted of 100 business leaders who spent $1,000 each to fund a survey for harbor improvements. The new group doubled its membership in 1923 and embarked on a plan to secure federal appropriations for continued breakwater construction and dredging in both harbors, an additional $5 million municipal bond for the Port of Long

Beach, and a $15 million bond for the Port of Los Angeles.11 Combined with another

$9.3 million in harbor bonds already approved by L.A. voters in 1919 and 1921, and nearly $5 million in bonds approved by Long Beach voters in 1916, both ports had the resources they needed to expand by the middle of the decade.12

The Greater Harbor Committee pushed for the formal consolidation of the ports of

Los Angeles and Long Beach into one joint port authority. Long Beach city and business leaders wanted to rebuild their port after the devastating 1913-1914 floods. The city’s government made plans to dredge the inner and outer harbors to a 30-foot depth by the end of 1925, continue to dredge to 40 feet in anticipation of accommodating larger ships in the future, and use the dredged material to create dozens of new acres of waterfront property.13 “Every day brings fulfillment of the promise that the opening of Long Beach

Harbor will result in the establishment here of the industrial, commercial and general business enterprises, which will figure in a large way in the creation of payrolls and the expansion of those factors which make for local progress,” one Long Beach Press-

11 “Harbor Committee of One Hundred,” Southern California Business 1 no. 9 (1922), 19, 44; “Harbor Body is Organized,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1923; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1923, to June 30, 1924” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1924), 37-38; “All For One Harbor,” Long Beach Press- Telegram, January 4, 1925.

12 Erie, 56, 67.

13 “City’s Harbor Open to World By Next Year,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, December 24, 1924; “City Manager Urges Deep Harbor,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, December 24, 1924; “Area of Sixty Acres Filled by Dredges,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, December 27, 1924.

61 Telegram editorial boldly predicted, “The accumulation of these city-building influences will be rapid, henceforth.”14 Just like their L.A. predecessors in previous decades, Long

Beach harbor boosters hoped that their port would take advantage of the “Shifting of the commerce of the seas from the Atlantic to the Pacific” and emerge “as the gate to the new world market.”15

Charles E. Gordon, a member of the Greater Harbor Committee who also served as a Long Beach harbor commissioner and consulting engineer, urged consolidation at a dinner for city leaders in February 1925. ‘There can be no question as to the superiority of the joint harbor district,’ Gordon argued, ‘This is where raw material, coming in by ship, meets raw material, arriving in by rail, to be used in economic fabrication.’ Gordon used the new Pacific Coast Borax plant in Wilmington and the future Pacific Coast Steel plant in Long Beach as specific examples. ‘The raw borax is shipped from inland to the harbor, where it is prepared for shipment all over the world by steamer…. Likewise the ore, lime and coke will be shipped by rail from inland to harbor and go out to the world from Long Beach harbor in the form of steel. Where rail and water meet there is possible the greatest maximum of efficiency of industry.’16 With that, Gordon summarized the economic rationale for harbor development in Southern California generally, and the merging of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach specifically.

Long Beach city leaders seemed amenable to Gordon’s message at first. A Press-

Telegram editorial thanked the Greater Harbor Committee for supporting the

14 Editorial, Long Beach Press-Telegram, January 20, 1925.

15 “Port Pictured As Gate of World,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, December 28, 1924.

16 “Industrial Advantage of Harbor District Stressed by Commissioner Gordon,” Long Beach Press- Telegram, February 10, 1925.

62 development of the Port of Long Beach. Plans to create a “belt line railroad” connecting both ports’ docks with the area rail systems and other projects were cited as proof that the joint harbor was “destined to be one great center of commerce” that would help the region’s economy. Though the newspaper stated that it “was difficult to find possible excuse for conflict between Los Angeles and Long Beach over harbor plans or harbor use,” it anticipated that port improvements would—and should—particularly benefit the smaller city:

It will make little difference to Los Angeles whether freight intended for the interior city is docked at San Pedro, Wilmington, or Long Beach. The distance by rail is approximately the same, if anything a little shorter from Long Beach than from San Pedro. It makes great difference to Long Beach, however, whether freight is landed at San Pedro or Wilmington or at its own municipal docks. Los Angeles and the whole Southwest will benefit from what Long Beach is doing to improve its harbor.17

Despite the apparent “willingness to work together [with L.A.] at all times under any circumstances,” it was clear that many Long Beach business and political leaders saw the

Port of Long Beach as a separate (and potentially superior) from its neighbor. They believed their port could capture its share of domestic and global trade.

Long Beach leaders grew increasingly reluctant as negotiations to merge the ports commenced in early 1925. Noting the ‘bickering and back-biting and near scandal’ among members of the L.A. harbor commission reported in another newspaper, the

Press-Telegram stated in March 1925 that “Long Beach will be justified in hesitating to turn over the management of its harbor to a commission dominated by the larger city.”18

Indeed, two months later the Times accused L.A. mayor George Cryer and harbor

17 “All for One Harbor,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, January 4, 1925.

18 “Observations and Viewpoints,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, January 22, 1924.

63 commissioner Edgar McKee of managing the Port of Los Angeles poorly, awarding tidelands leases to their cronies, and failing to spend harbor funds in an appropriate manner. The Times also pitted the Chamber against the city by reporting that the Greater

Harbor Committee objected to the harbor commission’s decision to fire its veteran harbor engineer. The paper averred that the port’s exponential growth in the early 1920s was not due to Cryer and McKee’s administrative acumen, but because “vast quantities of oil that had to be shipped by water from this port forced that growth in the face of frightful handicaps.”19

Despite rumors that the federal government would refuse to fund both ports if they remained separate, the Long Beach city council narrowly voted against forming the joint harbor district with L.A.20 Summarizing anti-unification sentiment, the editors of the

Press-Telegram concluded that the harbor district would be dominated by the larger city and potentially stifle development on the Long Beach side of the waterfront.21 Long

Beach mayor Charles Windham concurred, declaring that the city would have “sold its birthright and blotted out its identity” if it approved the merger.22

The Long Beach city government’s decision not to merge with Los Angeles can be interpreted in different ways. On one hand, the decision may seem reactionary.

Rather than develop a joint port authority that could potentially operate more efficiently, coordinate infrastructure improvements, and manage trade, Long Beach opted for local

19 “The Harbor Mess,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1925.

20 “Measure As Now Drafted Disapproved,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 7, 1925; “Port District Assailed by Windham,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 11, 1925.

21 “Port Future at Stake,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 27, 1925.

22 “Port District Assailed by Windham,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, March 11, 1925.

64 control on the pretense that the alternative would mean domination by its larger neighbor, even though the port’s trade would still depend in large part on the L.A. business community’s use of its facilities. Long Beach would not develop in isolation from Los

Angeles. On the other hand, the decision can be seen as both progressive and prescient.

The Port of Long Beach managed to grow into a modern facility on its own accord. Like

L.A., Long Beach industries sprouted alongside the port. Most importantly, the discovery of oil on Long Beach tidelands property (part of the Wilmington oil field) made the port financially self-sufficient for several decades starting in 1933. Unlike L.A., the Long Beach city government and harbor commission did not have to raise bond revenues to fund harbor development. Oil revenue paid for it.23

The Growth of Trade

With the harbor improvements underway, the volume of trade exploded at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. By the 1925-1926 fiscal year, the Port of Los

Angeles’ total commerce had risen to over 23 million tons—more than five times the tonnage of 1920-1921, and thirteen times the tonnage of 1914-1915. The port’s trade surpassed that of San Francisco beginning in 1922-1923, to become the second busiest port in the nation behind New York. Oil shipments, the major commodity fueling the port’s growth, increased from 3,262,194 barrels in 1914-1915 to 15,987,953 in 1920-

1921, before skyrocketing to 137,606,488 in 1923-1924, 126,784,270 in 1924-1923, and

122,915,888 in 1925-1926. Merchandise shipments (encompassing every commodity from abrasives to zinc, excluding oil and lumber) rose from 435,250 tons in 1914-1915 to

23 Erie, 71-73.

65 541,905 tons in 1920-1921, and increased nearly sevenfold to 3,644,156 tons in 1925-

1926. Lumber shipping dropped from a peak of 1,915,452,600 board feet in 1923-1924 to 1,214,503,660 board feet in 1925-1926, but this was still more than twice the amount of shipped during each year of World War I. Port of Long Beach commerce was much less than that of L.A., though it nearly tripled from 358,899 tons to 1,072,907 tons from

1925 to 1926. The small port continued to grow for the remainder of the decade. Nearly

4 million tons passed over the Long Beach docks by 1930.24

The Port of Los Angeles maintained its high volume of trade until the eve of the

Great Depression. Though it did not experience the same exponential growth that it did at the beginning of the decade, total commerce rose to 25.9 million tons by the end of the

1929-1930 fiscal year. Port commerce declined by some metrics compared to 1925-1926.

Lumber shipments decreased to 940,707,607 board feet. Outbound coastwise commerce to other U.S. West Coast ports dropped from 8.96 million tons to 8.56 million tons.

Intercoastal outbound shipments to the U.S. east and gulf coasts dropped from 4.97 million tons to 3.53 million tons and outbound shipments to Hawaii dropped from

469,000 tons to 431,000 tons. However, there was an overall increase in oil shipments

(surpassing 139 million barrels), increases in Hawaiian inbound, intercoastal inbound,

24 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926,” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1926), 18, 27; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1927), 66; “Los Angeles Harbor Second in U.S.,” Southern California Business 2, no. 3 (1923): 9, 50; Matson, Building a World Gateway, 13; The Port of Long Beach: America’s Most Modern Port (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, ca. 1948), 18.

66 and coastwise inbound shipments (excluding lumber), and a substantial increase in foreign imports and exports.25

The graph on the following page illustrates the growth of commerce in the Port of

Los Angeles from the 1912-1913 to 1929-1930 fiscal years. Specific inbound and outbound tonnage data is missing for 1920-1921 through 1923-1924, though outbound shipments would have accounted for most of the growth. See Appendix A for an additional table and graph on port commerce from 1912-1913 through 1939-1940.

25 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926,” 65; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1930), 25, 76.

67

68 Trade between Los Angeles and foreign countries and territories also grew in the

1920s. Foreign imports accounted for 468,847 tons and foreign exports (primarily oil) accounted for 4,369,171 tons at the Port of Los Angeles in 1925-1926. Imports rose to

748,015 tons and exports rose to 7,454,351 tons in 1929-1930. While this was certainly a major increase over the previous decade, foreign trade was but 20 percent of the port’s total commerce in 1925-1926. And even though foreign trade accounted for nearly 32 percent of port commerce by 1929-1930, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce wanted more growth. It established the Marine Exchange to document trade in the ports of Los

Angeles and Long Beach. Founded in 1923 with the blessing of the harbor commission, the Marine Exchange operated a 24-hour lookout in the harbor to keep track of ship arrivals and departures, collect information about cargoes, and relay information to city newspapers and merchants.26

The data compiled by the Marine Exchange was published in reports that detailed the origins of the harbor’s imports and exports. The reports included manufacturing and foreign trade directories published from the late 1920s through the 1930s featured an alphabetical listing of manufacturers and their products in Los Angeles, San Pedro,

Wilmington, Long Beach, and other communities throughout the region. The directories ranked the top export and import markets for the ports by tonnage and value, and provided a detailed listing of the commodities shipped by country. For example, the

1929-1930 foreign trade directory listed England as the top exports market with

1,132,195 tons valued at just over $36 million. Japan ranked second with slightly more export-tons than England, 1,336,334, but less value at $27.8 million. China ranked third

26 “Port News Bureau is Operating,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1923; “Captain Chandler is New Head of Marine Exchange,” Southern California Business 6, no. 6 (1927): 18, 35, 39.

69 with 558,907 tons worth $13 million, Australia fourth with 266,333 tons worth $10.9 million, and Canada fifth with 846,987 tons worth $10.2 million. Panama, the highest ranked Latin American export market, came in at twelfth with 592,414 tons worth $4.7 million. In all, the report listed 69 countries and territories that received over 7 million tons of L.A.’s maritime exports worth $161 million. The principle export remained petroleum products (gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, and crude oil), but many other commodities accounted for a large portion of the trade, including citrus, cotton, borax, scrap and finished steel and iron, and machinery.27

Foreign import tonnage was just a tenth of export tonnage in 1929-1930: 745,126 tons valued at $50.6 million from 60 countries. The most valuable imports came from the British Straits Settlements colonies on the Malay Peninsula (32,680 tons valued at

$9.8 million), nearly all of which was crude rubber. The other main sources of rubber were Ceylon (Sri Lanka), valued at $555,200, and the Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra (Indonesia), valued at $1.09 million and $549,756, respectively. Iron and steel pipes and plates, calcium nitrate, and machinery and tools helped make Germany the second largest source of imports to L.A., some 72,062 tons worth $4.7 million. Copra

(dried coconut meat), hardwood lumber, refined sugar, and hemp made the Philippines the third largest source of imports with 86,997 tons valued at $4.16 million. Coffee valued at $3.7 million from Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin American, African, and

Pacific Rim countries, bananas valued at $1.27 million from Costa Rica, Guatemala,

Panama, and Mexico, and raw and finished silk valued at $712,893 from Japan, China,

England, France, Australia, and China, and newsprint and lumber from Canada valued at

27 Foreign Trade Directory of Los Angeles County, U.S.A. (Departments of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1931), 694-711, Carton 54, LACC Collection, USC.

70 $2.3 million joined hundreds of other raw materials and finished goods that were brought to L.A. for manufacturing or consumer markets.28

The graph on the following page traces the expansion of foreign trade (especially foreign exports) through the Port of Los Angeles from the 1924-1925 through 1929-1930 fiscal years. See Appendix B for an additional table and graph on foreign commerce from

1912-1913 through 1939-1940.

28 Ibid., 713-732.

71

72 Regional Commodities, Global Exports

The fact that the harbor exported far more than it imported was a testament to the

L.A. region’s rapid industrial growth over the past decade. The wide-ranging commodities trade likewise signaled L.A.’s participation in a transnational economy and reinforced the narrative that L.A. was at center of a Pacific economic empire. Returning to the theme of “Nature’s Workshop” and the concepts explored in the work of William

Cronon and other environmental historians, the flow of commodities illustrates the relationships between commodity producing regions (what the harbor commission referred to as the “tributary territory”), the harbor, and the city’s economy. Like nineteenth century Chicago, the economic development of 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles partially depended on logging and milling wood from thousands distant forests. Billions of board feet of softwood lumber from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and

British Columbia went directly into construction projects large and small throughout the region, while hardwood lumber from the Atlantic Coast, the Philippines, and Japan fed the region’s furniture and cabinetry workshops. Major lumber companies like Kerckhoff-

Cuzner, Hammond, L.W. Blinn, McCormick, E.K. Wood, San Pedro, and Consolidated together operated on 190 acres of port property, leasing their own separate wharves and yards. Another group of so-called “independent” lumber companies took advantage of the Port of Los Angeles’ municipal lumber dock.29

Los Angeles Harbor exported many of California’s primary agricultural and industrial products. For instance, the development of L.A. and Long Beach as oil ports was a result of the growth of the state’s petroleum industry. As the historians Nancy

29 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930,” 32-33.

73 Quam-Wickham and Paul Sabin show in their respective works, and as Upton Sinclair dramatized in his 1927 novel Oil! and its 2007 film adaptation There Will Be Blood, the petroleum industry played a dominant role in the political economy of early twentieth century California. The state led the nation in oil production throughout much of this period and produced 25 percent of the world’s oil in 1922—the very same period when oil increasingly displaced coal to fulfill the world’s energy needs. With the discoveries of the Los Angeles city oil field in 1890, the Long Beach and Signal Hill fields in 1921, the Wilmington field in 1932, and other major discoveries in Los Angeles, Orange, Kern,

Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties, the harbor became an ideal location for trading petroleum.30

Vertically integrated subsidiaries of national and global oil companies including

Associated Oil, General Petroleum, Hancock Oil, Richfield Oil, Shell, Standard Oil,

Sunset Pacific Oil, the Texas Company, Union Oil, Western Oil and Refining, and Case

Oil drilled crude oil from the central and southern California fields, operated refineries, and exported a wide variety of petroleum products through the facilities they operated in the harbor in the 1920s and 1930s. The oil industry employed thousands of workers

(many of whom toiled under dangerous conditions), drastically altered the landscape and environment of oil producing and refining communities, and to the dismay of progressive reformers and radicals, accumulated vast amounts of wealth and wielded incredible

30 Nancy Quam-Wickham, “Petroleocrats and Proletarians: Work, Class, and Politics in the California Oil Industry, 1917-1925,” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1994), 5-11; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930,” 24-31; “Oil and Gas Production History in California” (Sacramento: California Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, California Department of Conservation, 2003-2005), ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/history/History_of_Calif.pdf ; Upton Sinclair, Oil! (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1927); There Will Be Blood, DVD, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Hollywood: Paramount Home Entertainment, 2007).

74 power in local, state, and national politics. And while the federal government and the state government tried to limit the excesses of the oil market, profits from drilling on public lands and public investment in roads and highways further wedded California’s economy and political systems to the industry. Petroleum products proved to be vital commodities to L.A. harbor trade, and as those products were shipped to expanding domestic and global markets by the 1920s, the California oil industry grew.31

Other major commodities traded through the harbor like citrus fruit, cotton, and borax similarly tied the development of Los Angeles Harbor to other regions in

California. According to Douglas Sackman’s Orange Empire, “From the 1880s through

World War II, the citrus industry was the primary engine of the growth machine in

Southern California.” Defining the “growth machine” as the ‘apparatus of interlocking progrowth associations and governmental units,’ Sackman argues that newspapers, corporations, and business groups like the L.A. Chamber of Commerce “turned the land into factories of fruit.” And while Sackman’s thesis is somewhat overstated—after all, the history of L.A. harbor alone shows that many other regional commodities, industries, and trade networks were central to the region’s “growth machine” throughout the same time period—the proliferation of packing houses, workers’ camps, and millions of citrus trees in cultivated groves fundamentally altered the natural and built environments of Southern

California. 32 The harbor played an important role in the citrus industry. Over 2 million boxes of oranges, lemons, and grapefruit carrying the famous Sun-Kist label and other

31 Paul Sabin, Crude Politics: the California Oil Market, 1900-1940 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 1-11; Quam-Wickham, “Petroleocrats and Proletarians,” 114-119; Quam- Wickham, “‘Cities Sacrificed on the Altar of Oil’: Popular Opposition to Oil Development in 1920s Los Angeles” Environmental History 3, no. 2 (1998): 189-209.

32 Douglas Cazaux Sackman, Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 5.

75 popular trademarks were shipped from the Port of Los Angeles in 1929-1930, nearly half of which (964,694 boxes) was exported to Europe. By 1938, the ports shipped an estimated 3,440,000 million boxes to Europe alone.33

The California cotton industry’s meteoric growth from 1920 to 1930 was deemed

“another revolutionary change” in the state’s agricultural economy in Carey McWilliams’

1939 book Factories in the Field. Large scale cotton planting was first attempted in the state from the mid to late nineteenth century. In spite of favorable growing conditions in

Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced, and Tulare counties in the San Joaquin Valley, uncompetitive prices with the southern U.S. cotton crop, the scarce availability of labor, and the lack of suitable transportation networks to eastern markets made cotton less profitable than other crops through the 1910s. The industry took off once growers began cultivating Acala cotton in 1923, a high-yield variety that commanded a 2 to 5 cent per pound premium over southern U.S. cotton. In 1919, 7,823 acres of cotton were under cultivation in the San Joaquin Valley. The introduction of Acala increased the amount of cotton acreage to 95,000 in 1925. Acreage rose to 247,400 in 1929 and peaked at

587,600 in 1937. The cotton industry followed the pattern set by other large-scale agricultural crops in the state. Planting, cultivation, and processing used low wage

Mexican and Anglo labor and took advantage of technological innovations. Moreover, the large cotton producers who came to dominate the industry were closely intertwined with local and state governments (which in turn regulated the cotton market and labor

33 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930,” 21; “Citrus Exports Hit High Mark,” Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1938.

76 largely in favor of the industry), major banks for financing, and the railroad and trucking industries for transportation.34

Los Angeles Harbor facilities were also used for transporting cotton to market.

Port of Los Angeles cotton exports rose from a mere 14,043 bales in 1920 to 104,086 bales in 1921, and jumped to 360,000 bales by 1929.35 The L.A. harbor commission helped accelerate this growth by installing a high-density cotton compress in Municipal

Warehouse Number 1 in the San Pedro Outer Harbor, paying $80,000 for the machine and $250,000 for its building and rail connection. The hydraulic compress enabled more cotton to be loaded on ships by increasing each bale’s density from 22 to 40 pounds per cubic foot, thus reducing its physical dimensions without reducing its weight. In another manifestation of a public-private partnership at the harbor, the commission outsourced compress operations to the Union Terminal Warehouse Company before awarding the contract to the Los Angeles Compress & Warehouse Company in 1927. The latter company operated two upgraded machines that compressed 90 cotton bales per hour and could store 28,000 bales in its new waterfront warehouses.36

34 Carey McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California, University of California Press ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 193-194; Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), 17-47, 211.

35 J. Dabney Day, “King Cotton Thrives in Southwest,” Southern California Business 1, no. 8 (1922): 36; “Cotton Export Trade at Peak,” Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1930.

36 S.C. McLung, “New Cotton Compress to Conserve Space,” Southern Pacific Bulletin 8, no. 11 (1919), 10; “Annual Reports of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1918, to June 30, 1920” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners), 13-14; Union Terminal Warehouse High Density Cotton Compress advertisement, Southern California Business 1, no. 10 (1922); “Big Cotton Compress,” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1921; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1927, to June 30, 1928” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1928), 30.

77 Since the nineteenth century, some of the word’s greatest deposits of borax and other mineral salts have been extracted from dry lake beds in Death Valley, Searles

Valley, Trona, Boron, and other areas of the Mojave Desert located over 100 miles inland from L.A. harbor. Though perhaps most familiar to consumers as 20 Mule Team detergent (a brand tied to American folklore through a 1940 M.G.M. western sharing its name and the 1952-1975 Death Valley Days television series it sponsored), borax had many commercial and industrial uses. The L.A. Times dubbed it “The Million-Dollar

‘Dirt’” in a 1932 article, writing, “from Death Valley, along the shining rails of modern transport pours a steady stream of borax on its way to Los Angeles Harbor to be prepared for market. Into the holds of ships it goes, and out to sea to the great industrial nations of the world,” including Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries. The mineral was used as a flux for welding, soldering, and glazing porcelain, pottery, and kitchen utensils. Manufacturers used it to make deodorants, insecticides, glazed paper, glue, textiles, and leather goods.37 The Pacific Coast Borax Company

(which became majority British-owned after its merger with Borax Consolidated, Ltd. in

1899) opened a 300,000 square foot processing plant and warehouse on 800 feet of

Wilmington inner harbor frontage in 1924. The Port of Los Angeles shipped over 55,000 tons of borax worth $3 million during the 1928-1929 fiscal year. A year later, the port shipped 98,500 tons, with 88,000 tons exported to foreign markets.38

37 “Borax—The Million-Dollar ‘Dirt,’” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1932.

38 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1928, to June 30, 1929,” 33; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930,” 35. The economic history of borax production in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century California by Pacific Coast Borax and other companies is covered in N.J. Travis and E.J. Cocks, The Tincal Trail: a History of Borax (London: Harrap Limited, 1984), 38-68, 74-99, 114-207.

78 Global Imports, Regional Industries

Oil, citrus, cotton, and borax were domestic commodities extracted and processed in Southern California prior to export through the harbor. However, many foreign commodities-related industries also established facilities in the harbor area in the 1920s and 1930s. Several national tire companies set up branch factories in the L.A. region to turn Southeast Asian crude rubber into tires, including Goodyear in 1919 and Firestone and B.F. Goodrich in 1928. By 1930 the Chamber boasted that these factories made L.A. the second largest tire production center—a “World Rubber Center” capitalized at $32 million with 10,000 workers who could produce 45,000 tires and 50,000 inner tubes per day.39 The Los Angeles Soap Company established a plant in Wilmington in 1929 to process copra and vegetable oils imported from the Philippines and other Pacific regions into soap and livestock feed for the consumer and agricultural markets.40 Beginning in

1927, the United Fruit Company put five of its ships in weekly service between Central

America and the Port of Los Angeles to import and distribute bananas to the southwestern consumer market.41

While going into detail about the production of all of these foreign commodities is beyond the scope of this project, it is worth emphasizing that they tied the economic development of the Los Angeles region (and by extension California, the U.S. southwest,

39 “General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California” (Los Angeles: Industrial Department of Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1930), Carton 52, LACC Collection, USC.

40 “Copra Traffic Gain Forecast,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1929; W.F. Sutor, “Ahoy—The Shore! It Was World Trade Hailing An Equipment Concern With a New Job—Handling Copra,” Southern California Business 11, no. 2 (1932), 20; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1934), 70.

41 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934,” 71.

79 and the nation) to economic, political, social, and cultural processes that unfolded across borders to other parts of the world. For instance, many scholars have examined the

United Fruit Company’s history in Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The consumption of bananas as a common household food staple in places like

Los Angeles was not simply a matter of producing, shipping, and marketing a crop.

Cultivating bananas involved massive environmental changes through the creation of plantations and transportation systems, coercive labor regimes that affected the lives of local and migrant workers, and the company’s meddling in—and often overt domination of—the political economy of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and other nations. Similar processes unfolded in Hawaiian pineapple and sugar plantations, Filipino coconut and copra plantations, and South Asian rubber plantations, and many of the other places throughout the world that produced commodities shipped through Los Angeles Harbor.

Control of land and production by colonial or transnational enterprises, environmental change, and hierarchical labor regimes were embedded in the production, distribution, marketing, and consumption of these commodities. 42 Many American consumers may

42 On the United Fruit Company in Latin America consult Aviva Chomsky, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996); Paul J. Dosal, Doing Business With Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1993); Peter Chapman, Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World (New York: Canongate, 2007); Steve Striffler and Mark Moberg, eds., Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). On Hawaii consult Noel J. Kent, Hawaii: Islands Under the Influence, University of Hawaii Press ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993). An early twentieth century overview of copra production in the Philippines is Hugo Herman Miller and Charles H. Storms, Economic Conditions in the Philippines (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1919), 82-94, http://books.google.com/books?id=D41MAAAAMAAJ. For an overview of U.S. colonialism in the Philippines, consult Paul A. Kramer: The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). The U.S. government published an early history of the development of South Asian rubber production, John A. Fowler, “Plantation Rubber in the Netherlands East Indies and British Malaya,” Trade Bulletin No. 27, in Supplement to Commerce Reports (Washington D.C.: Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1922), http://books.google.com/books?id=EqsgZ2o05jgC . Rubber and other Asian exports are documented in Greg Bankoff and Peter Boomgaard, “Introduction: Natural Resources and the Shape of Asian History, 1500-200” in A History of Natural Resources in Asia: The Wealth of Nature, eds. Bankoff and Boomgaard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 5-8; Michael Dove, The Banana Tree at the Gate:

80 have been unaware of these linkages, and the commodities companies and their allies in the L.A. Chamber of Commerce chose to gloss over the ramifications of their practices.

But the connections between foreign commodities, shipping through the port, and processing and selling in the L.A. regional economy were nevertheless significant.

The Great Depression

“In the Pacific Southwest we not only find our existing business structure set up for the advance,” L.A. Chamber of Commerce president Shannon Crandall wrote in his

January 1930 Southern California Business column, “but hard work during the years when stock speculation hypnotized the rest of the nation has brought us results which should materialize this year.” Crandall downplayed the threat of the Great Depression, arguing that L.A.’s business community had put most of its energy into building industry and exports rather than making risky investments. He believed that the city’s industries would continue to grow, even as prices dropped, businesses closed, and more workers lost their jobs throughout the nation.43 The immediate effect of the Depression on Port of

Los Angeles commerce was rather slight, with a decrease of 179,000 tons (from approximately 26 million tons) between the 1928-1929 and 1929-1930 fiscal years. Port

a History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in Borneo (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). A history of natural rubber cultivation in Mesoamerica and Africa and the rise of the rubber industry is documented in John Loadman, Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber, a Modern Marvel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). On rubber in South America see John Hemming, Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008) and Greg Grandin, Forlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009).

43 Shannon Crandall, “The President’s Page,” Southern California Business 9, no. 1 (1930), 7.

81 of Long Beach tonnages actually increased from 2.5 million to just over 4 million tons from 1929 to 1930.44

Crandall’s optimism was premature (if not blinded by the Chamber’s relentless boosterism), especially in the realm of harbor commerce. By the close of the 1931 fiscal year, Port of Los Angeles shipping dropped over 2 million tons from the previous year.

Long Beach tonnages dropped by 1.2 million—a 30 percent decline. Both ports slid further. Total commerce at the Port of Los Angeles was 17,850,906 million tons in 1933, the lowest since the oil export boom began in 1922, and only surpassed 20 million tons in one year (1937-1938) for the rest of the decade. Port of Long Beach annual tonnages remained between 2.3 and 2.9 million in the same period. 45 While the aforementioned discovery of oil on Long Beach harbor property offset operating losses in that port, Port of Los Angeles finances were hard hit. Harbor revenues dropped nearly 30 percent, but operating expenses remained constant. The harbor commission’s annual deficit grew five-fold to $750,000, forcing the port to rely on federal funding for harbor improvements.46

The graph on the following page illustrates the decline and stagnation of Port of

Los Angeles Harbor commerce from the 1930-1931 through 1939-1940 fiscal years

44 Harbor tonnage statistics for the Depression years are compiled in “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1940” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1940), 113 and The Port of Long Beach: America’s Most Modern Port, 18.

45 “Annual Reports of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1940,” 113; The Port of Long Beach: America’s Most Modern Port, 18.

46 Erie, 79.

82 during the Great Depression. See Appendices A and B for additional tables and graphs on total port commerce and foreign commerce from 1912-1913 through 1939-1940.

83

84 The decline in exports was especially vexing for California oil producers. In

Globalizing L.A., Steven Erie blames the increase on foreign import duties through the

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed by the Hoover administration in 1930 and the subsequent “foreign retaliation” against U.S. exports for the drop. While the Chamber also labeled protectionist policies by the U.S. and other nations “A Potent Cause of

World Depression,” the organization’s Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping outlined many other factors that contributed to the oil export drop in a 1936 report.47 The value of all petroleum exports through Los Angeles Harbor decreased from $92.2 million in 1930 to $32.4 million in 1935, though the value of all other merchandise exports increased from $45 to $53.5 million. Part of this decline was explained by the loss in value of oil as a commodity: it went from $2.00 a barrel to $1.25 a barrel. However, the amount of barrels shipped went from approximately 133 million to 87 million as well, enough to cause the harbor to lose its position as “the greatest oil exporting region in the world.”48

Most significantly, changes in foreign markets undermined L.A.’s oil exports.

For instance, Argentina still received its largest portion of oil from the United States in

47 Erie, 79; “A Potent Cause of World Depression,” Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Bulletin VIII, no. 14, October 16, 1933. U.S. foreign trade historian Alfred E. Eckes, Jr. questions the popular political and academic wisdom that the “infamous” Smoot-Hawley Act exacerbated the Great Depression to such a large degree. He points out that the act did not establish the highest tariff level in U.S. history and that “the average U.S. on dutiable goods regularly exceeded tariff levels enacted in 1930” over the preceding century. Rather, the negative effects of the Depression on the value of goods made the tariff seem worse. Had prices remained at 1929 levels, the tariff rate on dutiable items would not have been as high. Moreover, Eckes points out that both dutiable and non-dutiable imports declined, meaning there was not necessarily a correlation between the act’s passage and the drop in foreign commerce. Eckes concludes that the stock market crash, dropping prices, and less demand were much more important factors than Smoot-Hawley in worsening the Depression in the early 1930s. See Alfred E. Eckes, Jr., Opening America’s Markets: U.S. Foreign Trade Since 1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 100-139.

48 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1940,” 85; “World Markets for Petroleum Exports” (Los Angeles: Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the California Oil and Gas Association, 1936), 1-7, LACC Collection, USC.

85 1934, but that nation was also importing oil from Venezuela. Chile’s oil imports shifted from California to a different U.S. region. In Mexico, U.S. imports were almost completely offset by domestic production. The United Kingdom went from importing 57 percent of its oil from the U.S. in 1930, to only 13.3% in 1935, in spite of its growing oil consumption. Britain bought more of its oil from Mexico, Persia, and other nations. The decline in oil exports was a rude awakening for the Los Angele business community.

The Chamber, the harbor commission, and other boosters perhaps assumed that L.A., by virtue of its proximity to natural resources and modern harbor and transportation infrastructure, would continue to lead exports in a commodity as basic as petroleum. Still, they would have had difficulty predicting that other oil discoveries throughout the world

(and in the U.S.) would eclipse L.A., or that that foreign nations would find new sources to fulfill their energy needs.49

The Great Depression certainly had a negative effect on Los Angeles Harbor commerce, especially compared to the rapid growth in domestic and foreign trade in the

1920s. Yet harbor trade never reverted to the low volumes of the 1910s. Perhaps this can be partially explained by L.A.’s population growth from 1.2 million in 1930 to 1.5 million in 1940, meaning that consumer demand for at least some of the harbor’s imports remained strong.50 For instance, banana imports (primarily from Central America) remained steady at approximately 50,000 annual tons between 1934 and 1938, before climbing to 59,000 tons during the 1938-1939 fiscal year and 64,000 tons for the 1940-

49“World Markets for Petroleum Exports,” 13-14; 21-23; 31-36; 39-60.

50 “Table 16. Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1930,” U.S. Bureau of the Census website, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab16.txt ; “Table 17. Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1940,” U.S. Bureau of the Census website, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt

86 1941 fiscal year.51 Domestic and foreign demand for many of the harbor’s exports did not dry up completely. As the next chapter documents, Japan became an increasingly important market for the harbor’s exports throughout the 1930s. On the eve of U.S. involvement in World War II, the L.A. harbor commission expressed confidence in the harbor’s future. Port of Los Angeles exports dropped by seven percent between the

1939-1940 and 1940-1941 fiscal years largely because the war had cut off the European commercial market (similar to World War I). Still, the commission could point to an increase in imports and the business community’s ongoing plans to turn the harbor into a major trade hub with Latin America.52 At the same time, the Chamber was sanguine about the harbor’s prospects for trade after the war—before U.S. intervention:

In looking forward to an era of reconstruction and rebuilding, we believe that the part which we should play should be one of service—an effort to aid our friends in other lands to become established once more, to purchase from them such of their products as we may be able to use, and to supply them in return with commodities which they may need in their efforts to build a new civilization.53

51 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1934, to June 30, 1935” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1935), 59; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1935, to June 30, 1936” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1936), 53; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1936, to June 30, 1937” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1937), 51; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1937, to June 30, 1938” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1938), 27; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1938, to June 30, 1939” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1939), 28; “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1940, to June 30, 1941” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1941), 44. Banana import statistics were not listed in the 1939-1940 annual report.

52 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1940, to June 30, 1941,” 11, 25-29.

53 “Foreign Trade of Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor, 1940” Foreign Trade Bulletin No. 221 (Marine Exchange, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1941), Carton 59, LACC Collection, USC.

87 Neither the depression nor the war would dissuade L.A.’s boosters from believing that demand would recover and that the city’s global commercial and industrial reach would continue to grow into the future.

Industrial Ascendance

The Los Angeles region’s industrial base grew massively in the 1920s and 1930s, making it the largest manufacturing center on the West Coast. In 1919, the U.S. Census

Bureau reported that Los Angeles County had 3,514 manufacturing establishments producing nearly $418 million worth of products with a workforce of 61,665 and a payroll of $72.5 million. In 1929, the county boasted 4,908 establishments manufacturing over $1.3 billion worth of products and employing 114,480 workers earning nearly $176 million in annual payroll. In comparison to Northern California, L.A.

County’s 215.79 percent growth rate in the value of its manufacturing products for the decade outpaced the 20.08 percent growth rate of the San Francisco Bay counties, which had a similar number of manufacturing establishments but far more workers in 1919.54

Los Angeles had gone from being the twenty-eighth ranked manufacturing center in the nation to the ninth in a decade.55 Industrial output in L.A. dropped to 60 percent of these levels by 1933, though it recovered fully by 1937 and continued to grow. In the 1930s,

54 The San Francisco Bay counties included San Francisco (which is both a city and a county), Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Marin. Industrial growth in the city of Los Angeles paralleled the growth of L.A. County. In 1919, the city had 2,540 manufacturing establishments producing $278 million in products with 47,118 workers earning $55 million in annual payroll. By 1929, the city had 3,437 establishments producing $757 million in products with 76, 023 workers earning $112 million in payroll. U.S. Census data published in “General Industrial Report of Los Angeles County, California” (Industrial Department, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1932), Carton 52, LACC Collection, USC.

55 Hise, “Industry and Imaginative Geographies” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, eds. Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 19; Fogelson, 132-134.

88 over 1,300 new plants opened while nearly 2,000 others expanded production in the city, providing 76,000 additional jobs.56

The industrialization of the L.A. region entailed more than the establishment of new factories, increased production, and the employment of thousands of workers.

Industrialists, developers, design professionals, and civic leaders worked together to shape the urban and industrial expansion of the region in the 1920s. 57 In addition to the establishment of branch factories by Goodyear, Firestone, and other major eastern manufacturers, locally owned industries continued to develop. Much of the nation’s aerospace and entertainment industries remained based in the L.A. region, including the aircraft manufacturers Lockheed in Burbank, Hughes in Culver City, McDonnell in Long

Beach, and the movie studios in and around Hollywood.58 Perhaps more importantly, the urban development historian Greg Hise argues, the Chamber and the business community articulated an “imaginative geography” that placed the city at the center of a trade network that spanned the hinterlands of the southwest.59

The “imaginative geography” of industrial Los Angeles can be traced back earlier than the 1920s. The L.A. Chamber of Commerce, harbor commission, and other boosters stated essentially the same vision when they promoted harbor development from the

1890s through the 1910s. Not only did they want L.A. to become a major economic and industrial center in the U.S. West, they hoped that building a modern seaport would

56 Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 48-49, 346 n. 20.

57 Hise, “Industries and Imaginative Geographies,” 15, 24-25.

58 Nicolaides, 48-49; Hise, “Industries and Imaginative Geographies,” 32-33; Hise, “Nature’s Workshop,” 85-88.

59 Hise, “Industries and Imaginative Geographies,” 25.

89 enable the city to become a major center for global trade. And more than imagining it, they took steps to make it happen: they secured the funding to build the harbor and implemented programs to build the commerce that would simultaneously fuel the growth of L.A.’s industrial base. As I document in the next chapter, the business community also took concrete steps to increase trade with foreign regions including Latin American and Asia throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Conclusion: A Global Harbor

Despite the role of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce in directing the region’s growth and the prominence of locally owned industries like aerospace and motion pictures, it is worth emphasizing that industrial and commercial development during the

1920s and 1930s did not happen in a solely local—or even regional—context. The movement of exports and imports through the harbor placed the region in a global network of exchange. This trade was crucial to the success of many regional industries, including oil, cotton, citrus, rubber, and borax. By the late 1930s, even the aerospace industry exported millions of dollars worth of its products through the arguably more antiquated transportation method of waterborne shipping.60

Corporations from other parts of the nation and world took part in the development of the region as a manufacturing and shipping center. Manufacturers from the eastern U.S., including Goodyear, Firestone, and other tire companies, invested massive amounts of capital in the region to build branch factories that employed

60 For instance, 2,148 tons of airplanes, parts, and accessories valued at $30,990,815 were exported through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 1939, “Foreign Trade of Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor, 1940,” 14.

90 thousands of workers. Still, at least some of the revenues and profits from these operations would have left the region, and many of the managerial decisions would have happened in board rooms and offices far removed from the local business community. In other words, capital flowed both ways between the city and corporations based elsewhere.61 Similarly, the Pacific Coast Borax Company continued to mine borax in the

Mojave Desert, process it at a facility in Wilmington, and ship if through the harbor, though the company was headquartered thousands of miles away in London. 62 The

United Fruit Company imported bananas through the harbor to sell them to a growing southern California and southwestern U.S. market, but this was a small part of a massive corporation whose properties and production and distribution operations spanned the

Americas and beyond. The oil companies operating in southern California were based in many places. While some were local, including the Union Oil Company and the

Richfield Oil Company, others were based elsewhere in the state, including the Standard

Oil Company of California in San Francisco. The Royal Dutch Shell Corporation of

Britain and the Netherlands owned a controlling interest of the Shell Oil Company of

California, making it one of many subsidiaries of a transnational corporation operated throughout the world.63

61 On the flow of capital, see for instance Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy Year Request for Cheap Labor, New Press ed. (New York: The New Press, 2001). Cowie’s book traces the flow of capital from RCA across the United States and into Mexico in the twentieth century as the corporation set up new factories to take advantage of lower labor costs in subsequent cities. The geographer Theodore Klimasewski notes that branch factories can have stronger ties to national markets through their parent corporations than they do to the local or regional markets in which they are established. But unlike Klimasewski’s rural Appalachian study area, many of the branch factories in L.A. were set up to take advantage of a strong regional market. Klimasewski, “Corporate Dominance of Manufacturing in Appalachia” Geographical Review 68, no. 1 (1978): 94-102.

62 Travis and Cocks, 75-77.

63 California oil company incorporation records were found using the California Secretary of State Corporations Records Online, http://kepler.sos.ca.gov . On the development of the Union Oil Company,

91 Returning our attention to the harbor, many local, regional, national, and global companies were involved in moving goods through the ports of Los Angeles and Long

Beach. The stevedoring, warehousing, trucking, and ship chandlery companies were primarily local operations in the 1920s and 1930s. For instance, the Associated Banning

Company (the new company formed after the Banning family sold its harbor businesses), the Crescent Wharf & Warehouse Company, and the Outer Harbor Wharf & Dock

Company all based their stevedoring operations in San Pedro and Wilmington. The three major transcontinental railroads that connected to the harbor (the Southern Pacific, the

Union Pacific, and the Santa Fe) were not based in Los Angeles, though they had local shipping agents and offices.64

Finally, the ships that transported cargo to and from the harbor’s wharves came from all over the world. For example, 529 Norwegian, 478 British, 448 Japanese, 163

Danish, 83 Swedish, 78 German, 71 French, 57 Dutch, 36 French, 24 Italian, 22, Mexican, and dozens of other foreign-flagged ships arrived in the Port of Los Angeles in 1938-

1939, operated by companies including Maersk, Mitsui, North German Lloyd, the

Johnson Line, and the “K” Line. The number of American vessels visiting the port was much larger at 3,752, but the major steamship companies operating them were largely

see Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Vol. II (Los Angeles: Historical Record Company, 1915), 436-437. http://books.google.com/books?id=FBYVAAAAYAAJ . On the Standard Oil Company of California, see Standard Oil Bulletin I (1923), http://books.google.com/books?id=MGQlAQAAIAAJ . On the relationship between Royal Dutch Shell, the Shell Oil Company of California, and other Shell subsidiaries, see “Royal Dutch Interests Expanding,” Oil and Gas Journal, March 29, 1917, http://books.google.com/books?id=1581AQAAIAAJ&pg=RA7-PA3 ; “Shell Deal Underway to Absorb Union Oil,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1921.

64 A directory of harbor businesses was published in the “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1935, to June 30, 1936” and subsequent annual reports.

92 based in other cities. 65 Even the locally owned Los Angeles Steamship Company

(LASSCO) that had been founded in 1920 to carry cargo and passengers between L.A.,

San Francisco, and Hawaii had been bought by a much larger competitor in 1931, the San

Francisco-based Matson Navigation Company.66 Of course, the ownership of these ships had little bearing on the volume of cargo that moved through the port or the relationship between the cargo and the region’s industries and commercial markets. Nevertheless, the presence of so many national and foreign ships further illustrates that the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and the local business community were not the only institutions extending the harbor’s reach and connecting the city and region to the transnational economy.

The growth of domestic and foreign commerce through Los Angeles Harbor beginning in the 1920s was part of larger processes in the economic history of Southern

California and in the history of U.S. capitalism. The flow of domestic and foreign commodities, whether it was the products of “Nature’s Workshop” like oil, citrus, cotton, and borax or foreign rubber, copra, and bananas, were crucial to the city’s industrial and commercial expansion and the development of the West Coast U.S. as an economic center. The growth of harbor trade and industry in the early twentieth century helped enable the region’s continued industrial and commercial ascendance during World War II and the postwar period. This industrial and export-focused economy was not the import- based “globalization” that has developed in the region and the nation in recent decades, even though Los Angeles Harbor has played a central role in both time periods. These

65 Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1938, to June 30, 1939”, 97, 104-106.

66 “Fleets’ Fusion Celebrated: Matson and Lassco Speakers Hail New Sea Era at Lunch Before Malolo Sails,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1931; Gordon Ghareeb and Martin Cox, Hollywood to Honolulu: the Story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company (Providence: Steamship Historical Society of America, 2009).

93 processes cemented L.A.’s place on the edge of a transnational Pacific Rim economy in the first half of the twentieth century, although the Chamber, the harbor commission, and other boosters undoubtedly believed that their city was at the center of the Pacific Rim.

94 Chapter 3

Arteries of Trade, Ideologies of Empire: Los Angeles Harbor and the Pursuit of Global Commerce through Cultural Outreach, 1917-1940

“This harbor,” Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners secretary Clarence

H. Matson declared in 1917, “forms the gateway which connects the Los Angeles of today and of the future with the great outside world. It is the means by which Los

Angeles now proposes to build up a trade with the lands beyond the seas.” The actual decline in commercial shipping at the Port of Los Angeles during World War I was, in

Matson’s view, merely delaying L.A.’s inevitable ascendance as the dominant city for

Pacific Rim commerce. He solicited information about trade opportunities from U.S. consular officers stationed in cities throughout Latin America, Asia, and the rest of the world. Compiled as a near-200 page supplement to the 1915-1916 Port of Los Angeles annual report, Matson hoped his foreign trade guide would instruct L.A. merchants and manufacturers about the best foreign markets for trade and inform foreign buyers about the availability of L.A. products. While local industries may “have been too busy to make any great effort to build up a foreign trade” in previous years due to high domestic demand, Matson remarked that organizations like the new Trade Extension Bureau of the

Los Angeles Chamber of Chamber of Commerce (which Matson subsequently led after he left the harbor commission in 1920) were focusing the business community’s attention beyond U.S. borders.1

The U.S. consular reports published in Matson’s foreign trade guide gave credence to the notion that L.A. businesses could reach a wide global market. For

1 Matson, The Port of Los Angeles: Its Opportunities and Possibilities for Building Up a Great Foreign Trade, 11-13.

95 instance, the general report on China stated that the growing republic was “just awaking to tremendous possibilities” and offered a “great field for Los Angeles trade.” Many of the individual consular reports from China offered practical advice on how to ship goods to the port cities and how U.S. businessmen could adapt themselves to languages and customs. Paul R. Josselyn, the American vice-consul stationed in Canton (Guangdong), listed the L.A. products that might find a market in the region, but warned that American exporters often assumed that China “was merely an outlet for surplus stocks” and “that anything was good enough for the Chinese.” “As a matter of fact,” Josselyn wrote, “the

Chinese merchant is a keen business man who knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it… He is familiar with local conditions, the hardships of handling, climatic changes, facilities for trans-shipments inland, and when he expresses a desire for some special packing, it is because one at least of the unusual conditions demands it.”2

The type of cultural and practical expertise that Josselyn and other U.S. consular officers offered would prove useful to the L.A. business community in the 1920s and

1930s. Yet overcoming prejudice and embracing different cultures remained a difficult matter. As the previous chapters of this dissertation illustrate, business and political leaders firmly believed that the harbor’s modernization and the opening of the Panama

Canal would cement the city’s place in global trade in the 1910s. A decade later, the boosters’ dreams seemed to come true. Millions of dollars in public financing went into building modern harbor facilities on the San Pedro, Terminal Island, Wilmington, and

Long Beach waterfronts. Nearly twenty million tons of oil, citrus, cotton, and other commodities moved between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and dozens of

2 Ibid., 13-88.

96 nations on an annual basis from 1922 through 1940.3 Promoting this trade entailed more than creating new port infrastructure, tracking commerce, and encouraging manufacturers to build factories in the region. It was also an ideological and cultural project.

Clarence Matson and the other trade experts employed by the Chamber wanted

L.A. to become a global metropolis. In order to accomplish this, they had to imagine how a Pacific Rim commercial and cultural network would function. The Chamber came to the conclusion that its white membership needed to adopt new racial and cultural attitudes toward their foreign counterparts. This was especially important for Latin

America and Asia because the Chamber believed that those regions would become the city’s most lucrative foreign markets. This chapter begins by discussing the historical context of racial politics in early twentieth century Los Angeles and then traces the

Chamber’s outreach to Latin America. The organization used its monthly magazine

Southern California Business and other publications to change cultural and racial biases by insisting that Latin America had a growing capitalist economy. More importantly, the

Chamber sent its representatives on trade missions throughout Latin America to gain insight on those region’s markets. These efforts were closely linked to U.S. federal government initiatives, including the Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s and the work of consulates to assist U.S. business interests in Latin America.

The Chamber also published literature that promoted commerce with Asia and sent representatives on comprehensive trade missions to Japan, China, and other territories throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Once again, foreign trade advocates

3 Information on port commerce and commodities may be found in the Annual Reports of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of Los Angeles published in the 1920s and 1930s; Manufacturing and Foreign Trade Directories published by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce from 1928 through 1931; Matson, Building a World Gateway, 13; The Port of Long Beach: America’s Most Modern Port, 18.

97 recognized that the patronizing or hostile attitudes of white Californians alienated their potential trading partners, and that cultural sensitivity aided commerce. But unlike its alignment with the Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America, the Chamber distanced itself from the federal government (and much of the U.S. public) by fully embracing trade with the Japanese Empire in the mid-to-late 1930s. To many members of the L.A. business community, increasing trade with Japan was a way to mitigate the economic conditions of the Great Depression. It meant even more to Clarence Matson and others who believed that they were building a Pacific Rim economic empire that would carry Los

Angeles into a prosperous future. Furthermore, trade with Asia and Latin America was closely linked to the military, political, and economic might of the United States. The L.A. business community was a benefactor and agent of empire, even if it willfully ignored the complexities and consequences of U.S. power. Like with the financing of harbor improvements in the early twentieth century, the private sector’s pursuit of foreign trade depended on the apparatuses of state power.

As they encountered their Latin American and Asian counterparts, L.A. Chamber leaders and foreign trade advocates began to recognize that the Pacific Rim was full of distinct cultures and societies that were in many ways equal to those of the United States.

Yet the Chamber leaders did not abandon their racialized thinking. They never challenged the belief that white elites would play the leading role in building this transnational market and asserted that L.A. represented the triumph of Anglo-Saxon civilization. This ethnocentrism was not completely diminished by their outreach efforts.

98 Racial Politics in Los Angeles

White business and political leaders in Los Angeles had a complex relationship with residents and workers of Asian and Latin American descent. Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce literature from the 1920s boasted that the city’s 50,000 Mexican and

Mexican American residents provided a cheap, docile, and hard-working labor force.4

The L.A. Merchants and Manufacturers Association and other civic organizations appropriated the region’s Mexican past through the pageantry of La Fiesta, a yearly festival used to boost tourism and local business that began in 1894. Yet white elites simultaneously burnished the city’s image as an Anglo-Saxon paradise. As inclusive as the discourse surrounding events like La Fiesta seemed on the surface, they highlighted racial, ethnic, and class distinctions, and certainly “whitewashed” the violence with which European Americans came to dominate the region.5

Anti-Asian prejudice in California and the United States reached a high water mark in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Chinese exclusion was a central platform of the San Francisco-based California Workingmen’s Party in the

1870s. Despite the demise of the Workingmen’s Party, anti-Chinese sentiment spread to both major political parties nationwide and culminated with the passage of the federal

Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Racism against Chinese immigrants and laborers played a major role in how working-class Irish and other European Americans in the U.S. West

4 Clark Davis, Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 72; “General Industrial Report of Los Angeles, California” (Los Angeles: Industrial Department, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1923), Carton 52, LACC Collection, USC.

5 Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 49-90; Mike Davis, City of Quartz, 26-27.

99 came to identify their ethnicity as white.6 By the turn of the twentieth century, policies restricting the immigration, citizenship, property, and labor rights of Japanese people and other Asian peoples were likewise established in California and the nation.7

In early twentieth century L.A., however, Japanese residents had some room to maneuver in the city’s political and cultural environments. Scott Kurashige’s The Shifting

Grounds of Race documents how Japanese workers, like their African American counterparts, found job opportunities in L.A.’s “open shop” businesses that they could not find in other cities with more powerful white-dominated trade unions. As Kurashige notes, L.A.’s capitalists could easily reconcile their political beliefs about racial tolerance with their economic interests. Like the railroad and agricultural employers of the nineteenth century U.S. West, they welcomed workers who provided affordable labor and diluted the power of the white labor movement.8

In other instances upper and middle class whites vigorously defended racially segregated neighborhoods and labor regimes in L.A. As the next two chapters discuss,

Los Angeles Harbor employers in the early twentieth century used the considerable economic, political, and legal tools at their disposal to limit the power (if not eliminate

6 The major book on anti-Chinese politics and the white working class in nineteenth century California remains Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971). White working class culture and anti- Chinese racism is examined in Robert G. Lee, Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999). See also Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A History of the American West (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 340-342.

7 See for instance Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: the Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962); Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: a History of Asian Americans (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989).

8 Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race, 13-35.

100 the presence) of maritime labor unions on the waterfront. Racism also served as one of those tools. Threatened by a militant labor movement led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the early 1920s, harbor employers allied with reactionary citizen groups to undermine the workers’ attempts at multiethnic and multiracial solidarity. The employers, along with many other members of the wider business community, believed that maintaining a stratified racial order would help them maintain the economic and social order of the city. The resurgent maritime unions of the 1930s inherited complex and often-contradictory practices that led them to embrace the rhetoric of racial inclusion while maintaining the exclusion that was entrenched throughout the city’s neighborhoods and workplaces. Conflicts over race and access to jobs continued well into the post-

World War II period.

The Pursuit of Trade in Latin America

The L.A. Chamber of Commerce pursued its policy of promoting foreign trade through tolerance despite the city’s contradictory domestic racial politics. The first issue of Southern California Business in 1922 featured an article by W. Morgan Palmer, the adviser and interpreter to the U.S. Minister to China, which celebrated Chinese, Japanese,

Korean, and other Asian peoples for their cultural and economic accomplishments.9 The

Chamber enlisted John C. Allen to offer his expertise on U.S.-Latin American trade in an article in the same issue. Allen had spent 26 years working as a railway station agent, travelling salesman, and plantation manager in Mexico and Central America, and served as the U.S. deputy consul-general in Monterey, Mexico before returning to L.A. to head

9 W. Morgan Palmer, “Our Four Hundred Million Friends,” Southern California Business 1, no. 1 (1922): 14, 39-40.

101 the Latin-American Trade Bureau (also known as the Asociación Internacional de

California). Working out of Chamber offices, Allen and the bureau published The

Neighbors and Los Vecinos, English and Spanish-language editions of a monthly magazine devoted to fostering trade and goodwill between California and Latin

America.10

Allen recommended better coordination of transportation, credit, and banking systems between L.A. and Latin America in his Southern California Business article.

Reflecting on his recent 11,576-mile journey through Mexico, Central America, and

South America, Allen wrote:

I met the businessmen of those countries; importers, exporters, growers and manufacturers. Among these men there is a profound interest in Los Angeles. They see a mighty future for Los Angeles as the logical port, the market for their products, and the most convenient buying place in the whole of these United States. But they see the obstructions in the way, or we will say the lack of facilities, to carry a large and mutual exchange of business.11

Though his claims were likely exaggerated, Allen’s purpose was to show that L.A. had the most potential of any U.S. city for tapping the fertile Latin American market. Allen further recommended that U.S. citizens needed to do away with their “erroneous ideas” about Latin American countries and their residents. “Let me say first that I felt just as safe down there as I do in Los Angeles,” Allen continued, “I stopped at all kinds of hotels and inns, at all kinds of cities, towns and crossroads, meeting all kinds of people but never was I molested, abused, insulted, robbed or murdered. Very much to the contrary, I

10 John C. Allen’s professional background is documented in “The City and Environs,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1914; “Latin-American Trade Bureau Planned Here,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 1914; “To Strengthen Relations,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1915; John C. Allen, “Latin American Trade,” American Globe 12, no. 3 (1915): 6; “The Office Whirl: Brief Biographical Sketches of People in the International Bank Building,” American Globe 12, no. 3 (1915): 11.

11 Allen, “Latin American Trip An Eye-Opener,” Southern California Business 1, no. 1 (1922): 9.

102 was treated everywhere with the utmost courtesy and kindness on all sides and in every country.”12 By focusing on his personal safety during his journey, Allen proved the presence of white fears of Latin America by going out of his way to dispel them. His overarching message was clear: in order to build trade relations, L.A. businessmen needed to approach Latin Americans with respect, not contempt and mistrust. Goodwill had to replace ignorance for the sake of strong commercial ties.

The Chamber took Allen’s recommendations to heart over the next two decades.

As it promoted harbor and industrial development at home, the organization continued to promote foreign trade abroad. Southern California Business regularly ran articles advertising commercial opportunities in foreign countries and territories. 13 The magazine reported an immediate increase in trade with the U.S. territory of Hawaii in late

1922 as the result of a Chamber trade mission and a new shipping line connecting L.A. with the islands. The Chamber hoped that it could repeat this success in South America.

Reporting on a new passenger and shipping line between Los Angeles Harbor and port cities including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and

Montevideo, Uruguay, Clarence Matson wrote that South America could become a great consumer of California goods, but that the commercial “potentialities” of the continent were unknown. He remarked, “no one knows what might be done in the way of citrus

12 Ibid., 33.

13 Articles promoting foreign trade include Maynard McFie, “Fertile Trade Field in Mexico,” Southern California Business 1, no. 2 (1922); “First Los Angeles Ship for Hawaii: Rapid Progress at Harbor – Transcontinental Lines Perfect Plans for Entering Heavy Import and Export Trade” and Maurice Carraso, “Foreign Trade in the Southwest,” Southern California Business 1, no. 4 (1922); W.E. Aughinbaugh, “Pacific Southwest Near World’s Great Markets,” Southern California Business 1, no. 8 (1922); “Hawaii Excursion Brings New Light,” Southern California Business 1, no. 9 (1922); Morris M. Rathbun, “Ambling Through Alohaland,” Southern California Business 1, no. 10 (1922); James H. Hill, “Exchanging Products with Hawaii,” Southern California Business 1, no. 11 (1922).

103 markets in Uruguay and Argentina” and hoped that refrigeration facilities on the new ships would allow the direct shipping of fresh fruits. 14 While it may have been strange to focus on fruit exports—Brazil produced citrus and actually bordered Argentina and

Uruguay—Matson made a larger point about the need to gain practical insight into foreign markets.15

The Chamber organized subsequent trade missions to Latin America to accomplish that very task. A group of 15 L.A. businessmen took part in a 62-member trade mission from the U.S. west coast on the new shipping line to the east coast of South

America in early 1923. The Chamber sponsored an even more comprehensive trade mission to Central America and South America in 1930 and 1931. Egbert Adams, the

Chamber’s Latin American Representative, travelled to national capitals, ports, and leading commercial centers in Panama and the U.S.-occupied Canal Zone, Colombia,

Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. The sixteen separate “Latin

American Bulletins” Adams wrote for each region followed a similar format. Each began with demographic and geographical information about the region and continued with passages about transportation infrastructure and overall commercial activity. The bulletins then broke into subsections that listed the names of businesses and industries by category, the natural resources and export commodities produced in the region, and the type of imports local businesses either bought from North American and European firms or would potentially buy from California firms. 16

14 Matson, “Shaking Hands with South America,” Southern California Business 1, no. 11 (1922).

15 Brazilian citrus production is mentioned in Sackman, Orange Empire, 18, 22, 76. See also Pierre Laszlo, Citrus: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007).

16 Egbert Adams’ reports are “Latin American Bulletin No. 1.: Trade Opportunities in the Republic of Panama and the Canal Zone, March 1, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 2: Cali, Colombia: Fast

104 Adams also revealed the names of individual Latin American merchants and trade representatives who were willing to do business with their Southern California counterparts. In some cases, he made a general note of the types of goods that the local merchants wanted to import or export. In others, he was much more specific. The

Bogotá, Colombia bulletin stated that the director of the Colombian government’s

Departamento Nacional de Provision “manifested a special interest in lubricating oils, automobile tires and seeds, and would like to receive prices and information from the

Union Oil Co., Gilmore Oil Co., Export Petroleum Corp., Samson Tire and Rubber Co.,

Germain Seed & Plant Co., and The Export Corporation, Ltd.” In the same report Adams noted that Hermidez Padilla, a bilingual merchant from the U.S. who had already sold

“about a million dollars worth of merchandise in Colombia last year,” requested contracts to represent several dozen Southern California oil, tire, and manufacturing companies by name.17

Beyond providing commercial and industrial information, most of Adams’ reports discussed the “reception” he received in each region he visited. At first glance, Adams’ remarks on how he was treated by his hosts seem banal:

Growing Center of the Cauca Valley, March 10, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 3: Republic of Colombia, Manzales, Pereira, and Armenia, May 1, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 4: Bogota: Capital of the Republic of Colombia, May 12, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 5: Medellin, Colombia, May 19, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 6: Barranquilla, Colombia, May 31, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 7: Guayaquil, Ecuador, August 12, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 8: Quito, Capital of Ecuador; August 18, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 9: Lima, Capital of Peru, September 2, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 10: Arequipa, Peru October 8, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 11: La Paz, Bolivia, November 15, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 12: Antofagasta, Chile, November 34, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 13: Valparaiso, Chile, December 12, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 14: Santiago, Chile, December 19, 1930;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 15: Buenos Aires and Mendoza, Argentina, February 11, 1931;” “Latin American Bulletin No. 16: Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Santos, March 10, 1931” (Los Angeles: Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1930-1931), LACC-Latin American Trade Bulletins Folder, Carton 61, LACC Collection, USC.

17 Adams, “Latin American Bulletin No. 4: Bogota, Capital of the Republic of Colombia,” 11-12.

105 Your representative was well received in Guayaquil [Ecuador] and a very friendly attitude on the part of the people generally, was apparent. The courteous manner and very accommodating spirit of the Ecuadorian government officials and employees were evident and manifested whenever any of these people were contacted during the sojourn of the writer in their country.18

He was likewise “well received” in Bogotá, Colombia, La Paz, Bolivia, and Antofagasta,

Chile, “especially well received” in Lima, Peru, and was welcomed with “courteous friendliness and hospitality” in Medellín, Colombia.19 But Adams’ generic platitudes had profound implications. They attempted to demystify the region’s markets for a U.S. audience. Adams went out of his way to creative a positive image of Latin America. His constant invocation of how cordially he was received deliberately dispelled stereotypes of

Latin American suspicion, anger, or hostility to U.S. citizens. Rather than present the region as undeveloped, Adams showed that Latin America had capitalists and government officials who were already engaged in significant industrial and commercial enterprises. With financing, motivation, and the right knowledge, Los Angeles businesses could tap the Latin American market and increase their participation in transnational commerce. Moreover, as Adams averred, Latin America would welcome them for doing so.

Latin American Trade and United States Policy

The Great Depression motivated the Chamber to redouble its efforts to educate its member businesses on how to conduct foreign trade. The organization released a

18 Adams, “Latin American Bulletin No. 7: Guayaquil, Ecuador,” 19.

19 Adams, “Latin American Bulletin No. 4: Bogota, Capital of the Republic of Colombia,” 17; “Latin American Bulletin No. 11: La Paz Bolivia,” 6; “Latin American Bulletin No. 9: Lima: Capital of Peru,” 25; “Latin American Bulletin No. 5: Medellin, Colombia,” 16.

106 comprehensive “Fundamentals of Exporting” guide in 1937 to highlight its trade contacts with foreign merchants, businesses, trade organizations, and government officials and to promote the sale of L.A. goods abroad. Though much of the guide provided information on working with shipping lines, packing cargoes for export, and navigating customs regulations, it also gave advice about bridging cultural divides with foreign customers.

The guide told L.A. exporters to refrain from high-pressure sales tactics and be consistent and cooperative in dealing with overseas customers. It recommended that all advertisements and direct mailings needed to be written in foreign languages in order to convey “the courtesy, the graciousness and the politeness which incites action on the part

[of] foreign speaking people,” and not haphazardly translated from English. 20

The Chamber went further in its incorporation of cultural outreach into its foreign trade program by 1939. Noting that California “owes its origins to Latin America” because of its Spanish and Mexican past, the Chamber encouraged the L.A. business community to follow the advice of Daniel C. Roper, the former Secretary of Commerce in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential administration. One foreign trade guide quoted

Roper:

There are no physical, political or cultural barriers between us. The 21 American Republics own a heritage of common ideals and objectives. The need is to strengthen our mutual friendship by the continuous cultivation of understanding through personal contacts. We gain these through the interchange of visits, the two-way flow of culture and literature, and the reciprocal exchange of goods and services.21

20 Stanley T. Olafson, “Fundamentals of Exporting: Helpful Information for Exporters: Locating Export Markets, Obtaining Export Business, Handling Export Orders, Financing Export Transactions” (Los Angeles: Los Angeles: Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1937), 4, 22-23, 29, Carton 60, LACC Collection, USC.

21 “Foreign Trade Week Speakers Manual, 1939” (Los Angeles: Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1939), 71, LACC-World Trade #2 Folder, Carton 60, LACC Collection, USC.

107

With that, the Chamber embraced an important part of the Roosevelt administration’s

Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America by focusing on strong economic and cultural relations.

Under the leadership of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the Roosevelt administration negotiated reciprocal trade treaties where the U.S. relaxed duties on certain imports from several foreign nations in return for lower duties on American exports to those nations.22 Noting that reciprocal treaties had significantly increased U.S. commerce with many Latin American nations between 1934 and 1938, the Chamber argued that L.A. could get a bigger share of trade by taking a few innovative steps. City schools could send teachers and students on exchanges with Latin American schools, and teach Spanish as a second language. And perhaps most imaginatively, the Hollywood movie studios could produce movies about Simón Bolívar and “other South American patriots” to reinforce liberal political and economic ideals in the Americas.23 Even popular culture had the potential to encourage commerce.

The federal government had long played a major role in promoting U.S. trade throughout Latin America prior to the Good Neighbor Policy. The Department of State’s

Foreign Service worked on behalf of American business interests through embassies in foreign capitals and consulates in other major foreign cities. Like Egbert Adams’ bulletins for the L.A. Chamber (though on a much larger scale), U.S. consular officers compiled and published information about current economic conditions, future prospects

22 On the “Good Neighbor Policy” and the reciprocal trade treaties negotiated by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, consult Eckes, 140-177; Frederick B. Pike, FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Walter LaFeber, The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad Since 1750 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989).

23 “Foreign Trade Week Speakers Manual, 1939,” 75-76.

108 for U.S. trade, and customs and tariff policies in many Latin American regions.24 The government also got involved in local trade disputes involving U.S. corporations. For example, an April 30, 1924, report from the American consulate in Colon, Panama stated that the French tire company Michelin was preparing to market its tires 42 percent below the cost of Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, and other U.S. tire brands on the Panamanian market. Upon learning this information (which was secretly procured by a former U.S. consular officer working as an import appraiser for the Panamanian government), the

Colon consulate immediately contacted the State Department in Washington D.C., which shared the information with the Rubber Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In turn, the Rubber Division proposed issuing a “Special Circular” that would instruct

U.S. tire manufacturers on how to deal with their French competitor.25 By assisting

American tire companies in Panama, the federal government assumed that protecting the foreign markets of U.S. businesses was a vital part of the nation’s economic policies.

Direct intervention on behalf of U.S. businesses in Latin America was not the only strategy advocated by government officials. Though a 1929 report from the U.S. embassy in Santiago stated “no special governmental effort is necessary, or even desirable, for the advancement of American business interests in Chile,” it nevertheless

24 U.S. consulates generated economic reports on Latin American for the Department of State, Department of Commerce, and other federal agencies. See for example “Notes on Colombia For Use by American Exporters,” U.S. Consulate, Barranquila, Colombia, March 1, 1919, Box 5929, Folder 3; “Shipment of Samples and Advertising Matter to Latin America and the West Indies,” Trade Information Bulletin No. 250, Supplement to Commerce Reports, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce, August 4, 1924, Box 6930, Folder 1; “Commercial and Industrial Report on Ecuador,” American Consul General, Guayaquil, Ecuador, November 8, 1922, Box 5933, Folder 1, Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State, Decimal File 1910-1929, National Archives at College Park, Maryland [hereafter RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives]

25 “French Attempt to Undersell American Tires,” report from U.S. Consulate, Colon, Panama, to U.S. Department of State, Washington D.C., April 30, 1924; F.R. Eldridge to Wilbur J. Carr, May, 23, 1924, Box 5928, Folder 5, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

109 framed U.S.-Chilean relations in terms of the successful ownership of key industries by large American enterprises. The American Smelting and Refining Company and the

Anaconda Copper Company dominated Chile’s lucrative copper and nitrate mining industries. Firestone, Goodyear, Ford, General Motors, Singer Sewing Machine,

Westinghouse, International Telephone and Telegraph, and U.S. Steel were some of the other U.S. corporations that captured significant pieces of the Chilean domestic market.

Articulating a prototype of the Good Neighbor Policy, the embassy recommended that the U.S. government “endeavor to consolidate our economic successes and to assist the

Chilean mentality to catch up with them.” Further industrial and commercial development in Chile by both U.S. and local firms, the embassy reasoned, was beneficial to the United States.26

In addition to assisting American businesses while working at their overseas posts, consular officers took part in trade conferences in the United States when they were on home leave. The State Department and the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce jointly arranged the conference travel itineraries, which typically sent consular officers to several U.S. cities to hold meetings with businessmen about trade opportunities abroad. 27

The L.A. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s L.A. district office (located in the Chamber’s building) were enthusiastic participants in these conferences. A letter from L.A. district office director James H. Smiley to his superiors at

26 W.S. Culbertson to the Secretary of State, October 4, 1929. Box 5941, Folder 2, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

27 O.P. Hopkins to Wilbur J. Carr, May 7, 1928. Hopkins’ letter reveals, “ninety Consular officers with good commercial records will be available each year for trade conferences.” See also Wilbur J. Carr to Perry J. Stevenson, September 19, 1928, for a list of consular officer trade conference assignments in 1928. The purposes of the trade conferences are also discussed in Ernest B. Price, “Advertising the Foreign Service,” Department of State, November 6, 1929. Box 1136, Folder 1, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

110 the Department of Commerce highlighted the overlapping economic agendas of the government and the L.A. business community. In a 1929 request for a conference with

William Blocker, the American consul at the Pacific port city of Mazatlán, Mexico,

Smiley wrote:

Two years ago, when Blocker was here he did some awfully good promotion work for us. By “us” I mean our office and also the Chamber of Commerce. I have just notified [Clarence] Matson to the effect that Blocker is scheduled to return, and it has been decided that his presence in Los Angeles will mean dollars and cents to our business men.28

Matson concurred, writing in a separate letter that Blocker’s visit would be “greatly appreciated by our business men interested in Mexico.”29 This correspondence is further evidence that the L.A. business community appreciated and relied upon the federal government’s role in promoting U.S. trade with Latin America.

The Pursuit of Trade in Asia

United States consular officers stationed in China and Japan also visited Los

Angeles for trade conferences in 1928 and 1929.30 By that time, L.A. business leaders were just as eager to trade with Asia as they were with Latin America. L.A. Chamber of

Commerce publications described the continent as a giant market that was ready and willing to do business with the West. And just like with Latin America, the organization

28 James H. Smiley to Harold Dotterer, June 18, 1929. Box 1136, Folder 4, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

29 Clarence H. Matson to Wilbur J. Carr, June 24, 1929. Box 1136, Folder 4, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

30 Samuel Sokobin to the Secretary of State, November 27, 1928, Box 1136, Folder 1, RG 59, DF 1910- 1929, National Archives; Wilbur J. Carr to Charles L. De Vault, December 15, 1928, Box 1136, Folder 2, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives; Charles L. De Vault to the Secretary of State, March 30, 1929, Box 1136, Folder 3, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives; James H. Smiley, to the Director, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, August 15, 1929, Box 1137, Folder 1, RG 59, DF 1910-1929, National Archives.

111 urged its members to respect Asian cultures. “The Chinese, particularly the younger generation, which is acquiring a modern education and which will soon control much of the business of the republic, are beginning to display a decidedly proud and sometimes almost ‘touchy’ spirit,” a director of a Christian college in China wrote in a 1924

Southern California Business article, “Only the nation which will learn their prejudices and respect them, and which will study their languages and customs, will gain their good will and trade. Los Angeles, if she hopes to come into her own in the Chinese market of the future, must begin her preparations now.”31 Appreciating and bridging such cultural differences, the author concluded, was the key to increasing L.A.’s trade with China.

The Chamber sent former L.A. Board of Harbor Commissioners president

Christopher M. Gordon on a tour of Japan, China, and the Philippines in 1924. Clarence

Matson surveyed L.A. businesses on the goods they wished to export to Asia. In turn,

Gordon was charged with locating the appropriate markets for those goods when he arrived in major Asian cities.32 Gordon was particularly impressed by what he witnessed in Japan. The L.A. Times remarked, “Mr. Gordon finds the Japanese an alert, progressive and industrious people and one with which Los Angeles would find it profitable to do business.” Gordon further stated that Japan’s modern government, press, and education system would help create an “extensive market” for L.A.’s raw materials and manufactured products.33

31 C.E. Taylor, “The Chinese Will Need Many Things,” Southern California Business 3, no. 4 (1924): 49.

32 “Rich Trade of Orient Sought,” Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1924; “Off on Orient Tour,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1924.

33 “Reports on Orient Trade,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1924.

112 Export agent Samuel L. Kreider articulated a grand (though unrealized) plan to promote trade with Japan after he completed a journey to that nation in 1926. Kreider noted that “the little empire of Japan buys more merchandise from the United States than all of the rest of Asia combined,” including steel and iron, petroleum, cotton, lumber, and manufactured goods. In return, Japan exported 500 million dollars worth of silk, textiles, and other items to the U.S. Due to Japan’s relative proximity across the Pacific and the presence of the largest Japanese population of any U.S. city, Kreider argued that L.A. should build a “Japanese business community” that would showcase “beautiful wares and art objects from the Orient” and attract tourists. “Naturally such an enterprise would be reflected back in largely increased imports of the finer lines of oriental merchandise,”

Kreider concluded, “and this, in turn, would lead to an increased demand for Los Angeles products in Japan, and closer welding of the two countries.”34 The economic activity of the so-called ‘little empire of Japan’ fostered giant aspirations for businessmen like

Kreider.

Clarence Matson led another L.A. Chamber of Commerce trade mission to China and Japan in 1931. Like Krieder, Matson’s voyage inspired an idea to create a center for

Japanese arts and culture along East First Street at the heart of Little Tokyo, L.A.’s primary Japanese neighborhood. The L.A. Times described Matson’s plan:

A narrow lantern-lighted street, tiny shops lining its course; kimono-clad inhabitants going about their business; a Japanese theater; tea gardens, colorful lacquered-gateways; now and then a rickshaw jogging along; Japanese art centers; oriental architecture; oriental atmosphere; a cross- section of Nippon.35

34 S.L. Kreider, “Japan and Southern California as Trade Allies,” Southern California Business 5, no. 9 (1926), 16-17, 46.

35 “Nipponese Center Here to be Bit of Old Japan,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1931.

113

Matson’s vision may have been an orientalist’s caricature of traditional Japan (similar to the Japanese pavilions at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago or Disney World’s Epcot

Center), but he emphasized that ‘The Japanese have a culture and an art too fine for us to neglect, especially when the opportunity to learn it is at our very feet.’36 The center, later dubbed “Little Kyoto,” was not built despite talks between the Chamber and local

Japanese businessmen. As Lon Kurashige reveals in Japanese Celebration and Conflict,

L.A.’s Japanese merchants were much more interested in catering to the second- generation Nisei shoppers in their community through the mid-1930s. Community leaders used Nisei Week and the “Buy Lil’ Tokyo” campaigns to inculcate a strong ethnic identity. Japanese businessmen gradually sought the patronage of white consumers and increased their efforts to present their community as modern and Americanized, though exotic. By 1940, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles used Nisei Week to advertise Little Tokyo as an entertaining destination for tourists.37

Matson’s proposed “Little Kyoto” and the Japanese business community’s later efforts to attract white consumers was indicative of the ongoing interest in Japanese and

Asian culture in the United States. Exhibitions of Asian art, music, and theater were common in greater Los Angeles from the late 1920s through the 1930s.38 In the realm of

36 Ibid.

37 Lon Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934-1990 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002), 42-59.

38 The L.A. Chamber’s further plans to build “Little Kyoto” are discussed in “Japanese Town Planned,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1932. Japanese and Asian art, music, and theater exhibitions in the Los Angeles area are mentioned in “City’s Japanese Show Art,” Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1929; “Closer Ties with Japan Aim of Rally,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1931; “Varied Exhibits Reviewed,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1931; “Japan’s Living Painters Magnificently Displayed,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1932; “‘Sakura’ to be Featured of Art Club Festival,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1933; “Oriental Art Topic of Club,” Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1934; “Ebell Club Plans Program Extolling

114 higher education, the “Oriental studies” programs at the University of Southern

California and Pomona College taught Asian languages, literature, and history to an increasing number of students, including those interested in pursuing business opportunities in Asia.39

Arts and education aside, the primary purpose of the Chamber’s 1931 Asian trade mission was to build transnational commerce. Matson shared his observations from the voyage in a Southern California Business article. Rather than focus on kimonos, tea gardens, and the aspects of traditional Asian culture that he wanted to put on display in

Little Kyoto, Matson described how both Japan and China were rapidly developing with new industries and transportation infrastructure, drawing a comparison to how Los

Angeles similarly grew in the early twentieth century. He emphasized that Japanese political and business leaders had already accomplished western-style modernization in their nation, and that young leaders educated in American and English universities were taking similar strides in China. Matson characterized the Los Angeles’ trade and industry as a mutual part of Asia’s “awakening” and the birth of a “new Pacific civilization.”40

Matson visited Japan, Manchuria, and other Chinese territories under Japanese control on a 1936 trade mission. His report described the region’s current and future appetites for petroleum, cotton, citrus, and other products as yet more evidence of a

Japanese Arts,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1934; “Nipponese Art Has Brilliant Colors,” Los Angeles Times, July 31, 1936; “Arts of Japan Shown in Pasadena Gallery,” Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1936.

39 “The University of Southern California,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1930; “Students Tell of Far East,” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1930; “Study of China Tongue Spurred,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1932; “Asia Studies Here Pushed,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1936; “Orient Affairs to Be Discussed,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1927. See also Samuel Hideo Yamashita, “Asian Studies at American Private Colleges, 1808-1990” in Asia in the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Case for Asian Studies in Liberal arts Education, eds. Suzanne Wilson Barnett and Van Jay Symons (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), 28-30.

40 Matson, “The Answer Lies Over the Ocean,” Southern California Business 11, no. 2 (1932), 8-9.

115 growing Pacific trade network that depended on “the future of Los Angeles-Long Beach

Harbor as a world port.” Perhaps most tellingly, he downplayed Japan’s repeated attacks on the Chinese mainland. His report entirely ignored Japan’s growing imperial ambitions, while the ensuing political turmoil in China was written off as “civil strife” that was “so common that the Chinese people themselves think little of it.” The only potential problem in China, according to Matson, was that the shifting political landscape made it hard to predict how fast its economy would grow (though he argued that it would grow all the same). Moreover, he barely acknowledged Manchukuo’s status as a Japanese

‘puppet’ state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, preferring to refer to it as a budding “new nation”—another market for L.A.41

The Chamber continued to celebrate L.A.’s trade with Japan in the years immediately preceding U.S. entry into World War II. The organization boasted that

Southern California was exporting nearly $4 million worth of goods each month to Japan by June 1939, commerce worth at least $125,000 a day to L.A. businesses.42 Other U.S. business groups also sought to strengthen economic ties with Japan in the 1930s. W.

Cameron Forbes, who had served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan during the Hoover administration, led an “American Economic Mission” to Japan, China, and the

Philippines in 1935. With the support of the New York City-based National Foreign

Trade Council (and its affiliated organization, the Japanese American Trade Council),

Forbes and the U.S. businessmen on the mission met with Japanese officials to discuss

41 Matson, “Trade Opportunities in the Orient: A Survey of Japan, China, and Manchoukuo” (Los Angeles: Department of Foreign Commerce and Shipping, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1936), LACC- Asia/British Empire Folder, Carton 61, LACC Collection, USC.

42 “Station L.A.C. of C.: the Voice of Foreign Trade,” Southern California Business, June 26, 1939. Southern California Business switched from its monthly magazine format to a weekly newspaper format on April 10, 1939. It continued to be published by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

116 better reciprocal trade relations between the two nations. And though the federal government did not sanction the mission, the participants discussed the possibility of relaxing U.S. restrictions on Japanese immigration under the 1924 Immigration Act.

Changing the immigration law was not only a matter of pride for Japanese leaders, but also a matter of sound economic principle for the L.A. Times, the Chamber, and many other U.S. newspapers and business groups who advocated strong economic ties with

Japan in the 1930s. Once again, leaders of the L.A. business community recognized that racism—this time manifested in federal law—was a potential impediment to commerce.43

Strengthening trade with Japan was controversial, however. Unlike its alignment with the federal government’s Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America, the L.A.

Chamber chose to ignore the warnings of federal officials who increasingly believed that

Japan’s growth was happening at the expense of broader U.S. economic, political, and military interests in the Pacific.44 In the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of

Manchuria in 1931, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson and other government leaders charged that Japan abrogated the Open Door Policy in China. Drafted in 1900 and codified by the Nine-Power Treaty in 1922, the policy stipulated that the world’s most powerful nations (including the U.S., U.K., France, and Japan) would nominally respect

43 “Discussions with the American Economic Mission,” May 1935; “American Economic Mission to Far East” (New York; National Foreign Trade Council, 1925). The American Economic Mission is also discussed in State Department correspondence, including Joseph C. Grew to the Secretary of State, May 3, 1935, Box 3605, Folder 3, RG 59, Decimal File 1930-1939 [hereafter DF 1930-1939], National Archives. The Los Angeles Times was strongly in favor of the federal government restricting Japanese immigration in 1924. The position of the newspaper changed by 1928, when Times owner Harry Chandler stated that the policy of singling out a particular nation for restriction was unfair. The L.A. Chamber took the same position as the Times by 1930. See Izumi Hirobe, Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: Modifying the Exclusion Cause of the 1924 Immigration Act (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 52, 117, 137- 139, 152-153, 171, 175.

44 LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 174-179.

117 China’s sovereignty. More importantly, the policy guaranteed that the nations would have equal access to China’s markets (which the nations enforced by placing their armed forces on Chinese territory).45 Criticism of Japan by the U.S. government intensified during the Roosevelt administration. In 1938, Secretary of State Cordell Hull rebuked

Japan for restricting American enterprises from the Chinese domestic market in favor of

Japanese corporations.46 The latter may not have worried the L.A. Chamber, since it was primarily interested in the Japanese Empire as an export market for Californian goods and raw materials. Yet even W. Cameron Forbes, despite his earlier efforts to promote trade with Japan, argued in a 1939 article that “It does not comport with the dignity of the

United States to have a third party dictate our relations, whether economic or political, with any friendly country in the world.” Forbes reasoned that the U.S. needed to expand its naval presence in the Pacific to counter Japan and potentially use military force to

“protect” American citizens and property in Asia.47

The wider L.A. community did not unanimously support trade with Japan. Many residents had misgivings that went beyond those expressed by government officials.

Several hundred Chinese residents picketed a Japanese ship that docked on Terminal

Island to receive a shipment of scrap iron on May 5, 1939. A gang of longshoremen

45 State Department documents on Japan’s apparent violations of the Open Door Policy include Henry L. Stimson to William E. Borah, February 24, 1932; “Open Door Policy,” Department of State, Division of Far Eastern affairs report, February 22, 1932; Julean Arnold to Stanley K. Hornbeck, July 19, 1932, Box 3585, Folder 2, DF 1930-1939, National Archives.

46 Hull issued the U.S. government’s rebuke to the Japanese government as a “note” on October 6, 1938. See Department of State telegram, November 3, 1938. Newspaper coverage of the rebuke includes “The Note to Tokyo,” New York Times, October 28, 1938; “A Justified Protest to Japan,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 28, 1938; “Defending the Open Door,” New York Journal of Commerce, October 28, 1938, Box 3586, Folder 2, DF 1930-1939, National Archives.

47 W. Cameron Forbes, “American Policies in the Far East,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 73, no. 2 (1939): 20.

118 honored the protest and refused to load the cargo, in violation of the contract between the

International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) and the steamship companies. Though an arbitrator subsequently suspended the longshoremen from their jobs for one week, he nevertheless sympathized with the protesters by stating that “the world stands aghast” at the “invading and hated Japanese military machine, whose brutality and inhumanity beggars description.”48 The protest had no immediate impact on trade with Japan, but was an example of growing political support for ending U.S. exports like metal and petroleum that could be used as war materiel by the Japanese military. The Roosevelt administration passed these restrictions in 1940 and 1941, soon before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.49

The Chamber’s efforts to promote trade with Latin America and Asia appeared to pay off. Total foreign exports from the Port of Los Angeles began at 3.7 million tons in the 1933-1934 fiscal year and reached 4.5 million tons by the 1939-1940 fiscal year

(peaking at over 5 million tons in the 1937-1938 fiscal year). Exports to Asia rose from nearly 1.7 million tons to over 2.2 million tons over the same time period, peaking at 2.8 million tons in 1937-1938. Latin American exports were much lower than Asian exports, though they still grew from 791,167 tons in 1933-1934 to over 1.4 million ton in 1939-

1940. Foreign imports from both regions also grew over this time period. See Appendix

C for a graph and chart of this commerce.

48 “The Penalty Awards of Irvin Stalmaster, Permanent Arbitrator under the Agreement Between the Waterfront Employers Association of the Pacific Coast and the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union” (Los Angeles: Southland Publishing, 1939), 3-40, Box 10, Folder 8, Register of Union Files Collection, Southern California Library, Los Angeles, California. [Hereafter Union Files Collection, SCL].

49 On U.S. trade restrictions against Japan before World War II, consult Edward S. Miller, Bankrupting the Enemy: the U.S. Financial Siege of Japan Before Pearl Harbor (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007), especially pages 84-97, 168-180, and 191-204.

119

The Limits of Racial and Cultural Tolerance

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce officials like Clarence Matson and Egbert

Adams took their work to build foreign trade in the 1920s and 1930s seriously. They embarked on long trade missions, met countless foreign businessmen and government officials, and wrote hundreds of pages documenting what they interpreted as the current and future possibilities for L.A.’s increased participation in transnational trade. They spoke with authority when they encouraged the city’s business leaders to reassess their cultural attitudes. Of course, the primary goal of the Chamber’s foreign trade advocates was to build commerce. Nevertheless, they sincerely believed that changing perceptions about foreign peoples were an important means to that end.

Yet as Chamber officials recognized that racism and cultural insensitivity would damage trade with Asia and Latin America, their new attitudes were often mediated through the lens of white supremacy and sustained by the profit motive. Clarence

Matson’s writings specifically championed those Asian leaders who embraced western education, technological innovations, business methods, and customs. In that sense, he was really asking white L.A. business leaders to appreciate the similarities they had with their Asian counterparts. Matson’s interest in traditional Asian culture, manifested in his plan to build the Little Kyoto arts center, had overarching commercial motives. As much as he wanted to encourage white Angelenos to appreciate Japanese culture, he believed the center would be “a quaint addition to [the city’s] business and amusement districts.”50

50 “Japanese Town Planned,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1932.

120 Southern California Business published a 1929 speech by the former Fresno

Republican editor and California progressive leader Chester H. Rowell to the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce that took Matson’s ideas to the extreme. “The white man goes around to the countries of the brown men and he treats them with much scorn and contempt—everywhere except in one place,” Rowell stated, “That place is Japan.” He went on to say that Japan commanded white America’s respect not because of the

“beauty of their art and the fineness of their civilization,” but “because they have a strong government, a great army and navy, and the mailed fist to make us do it.” To respect

Japan, in other words, was to appreciate how they had emulated the United States and the

European powers. Even more insidiously, Rowell argued that all Asian people accepted a doctrine of “individual superiority.” “The Chinese coolie will stand for a lot of abuse,”

Rowell commented, “He gets a lot of it, from the superior members of his own race, and he will stand for it from us, providing we do not exhibit our contempt as racial, by treating the superior members of his race in the same way.”51 By emphasizing class rather than race, Rowell legitimized western exploitation of Asian labor while doling out respect to the modernized Asian elite. Rowell’s language may have gone beyond what

Matson wrote in his articles and trade mission reports, but the underlying perception of

Asian cultures and peoples was similar.52

51 Chester H. Rowell, “Our Stake in the Pacific,” Southern California Business 8, no. 7 (1929): 43. Rowell’s activities in the California progressive movement may be found in Starr, Inventing the Dream, 235-241, 252, 259-271. Most notably, Rowell led the Lincoln-Roosevelt League that championed Hiram Johnson’s successful gubernatorial bid and the election of other progressives to the California State Assembly in 1910.

52 Rowell had in fact lauded the archetypal Chinese agricultural worker in California as “the ideal industrial machine, the perfect ox [who] will transform less food into more work, with less administrative friction, than any other creature” in a 1909 article. He praised Japanese residents in California for attending American high schools and universities, adopting western clothing, and for being “energetic, versatile and adaptable.” At the same time, however, he staunchly defended the federal government’s Asian exclusion

121 Nor did L.A. Chamber of Commerce leaders challenge the notion that white elites would play the leading role in building a transnational market based in their city.

Clarence Matson argued that Los Angeles Harbor represented the pinnacle of white racial ascendance in many of the writings from his thirty-year career:

Here on the shores of the Pacific the Anglo-Saxon race will climax. Here it will come in ever-increasing numbers—and the peak of this westward movement is Los Angeles. A world metropolis, such as Los Angeles was destined to become, must have highways—by sea as well as by land—and the highways of the sea demand a port where ships may come and go, and riches may be sent out and brought in from the uttermost parts of the earth. And so came Los Angeles Harbor.53

Matson’s passage goes to the core of the “cult of Anglo-Saxonness” that Clark Davis explores in his history of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century white-collar culture in Los Angeles. Many Southern California Business articles, as well as speeches

Chamber officers delivered at the organization’s banquets and functions, featured language that reinforced racial hierarchy. Los Angeles was the ‘White Spot of the

Commercial Map,’ a place of unparalleled economic growth by and for Anglo-Saxon

Americans. This ignored or diminished the presence of Mexican, Japanese, Chinese,

laws for preventing what he termed the “national menace” of unlimited Asian immigration that would overwhelm “the frontier of the white man’s world,” the Pacific coast. See Chester H. Rowell, “Chinese and Japanese Immigrants—A Comparison,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science XXXIV, no. 2 (1909): 3-10. This article was published alongside several anti- and pro- Asian exclusion articles in the same journal issue, titled “Chinese and Japanese in America.” Newspaper editors and journalists, labor leaders, judges and legal experts, politicians, government officials, military officers, clergy, and professors wrote the articles. http://books.google.com/books?id=AMLyTlyO75IC

53 Matson, Building a World Gateway, 17-18. Matson used similar language to relate the development of the harbor and the growth of the Los Angeles region to “the westward march of civilization” in “The Port of Los Angeles: Its History, Development, and Commerce” (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1922), 10 and in “The Story of Los Angeles Harbor: Its History, Development, and Growth of Its Commerce” (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1935), 1-2.

122 African American, and even white working class and Southern European communities in the region.54

L.A., Foreign Trade, and U.S. Empire

The L.A. Chamber of Commerce exhibited a marked sense of exceptionalism while it pursued the combined goals of harbor improvements, industrial development, and foreign trade expansion in the 1920s and 1930s. The achievement of some of these goals may appear to be a case study in classical economics: Latin American and Asian demands meeting Los Angeles supplies (and vice-versa) on a free market. But such an interpretation is insufficient. As the previous chapters of this study show, the ports of

Los Angeles and Long Beach needed a substantial amount of public financing and planning, even if such efforts were done in the name of facilitating private enterprise.

Moreover, the Los Angeles business community’s engagement in foreign trade depended on the power of the United States.

Beginning with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and continuing through the Spanish

American War of 1898, the federal government used the political, economic, and military might of the nation to further open Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South

America to U.S. business interests. That is not to say that many Latin Americans did not want to trade with the U.S., or that U.S. businessmen did not have to compete with

54 Sylvester L. Weaver, “The ‘White Spot’ in 1922,” Southern California Business 1, no. 1 (1922): 13, 38; Clark Davis, 72-75; Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe, 1-10; Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race, 13-24; Scott Kurashige, “Between “White Spot” and “World City”: Racial Integration and the Roots of Multiculturalism” in A Companion to Los Angeles, eds. William Deverell and Greg Hise (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 56-71; Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), 20-24; Mark Wild, Street Meeting: Multiethnic Neighborhoods in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 38-61.

123 European and Latin American producers and merchants. Still, they had the benefit of many favorable conditions. Indeed, many of the businesses Egbert Adams documented on his trade mission were U.S. and European-owned firms, and he often met with Anglo

American businessmen, civic groups, and trade organizations throughout Latin America.

Californians seeking to trade with Asian nations like Japan and China and U.S. territories like Hawaii and the Philippines in the twentieth century likewise benefited from the nation’s economic, political, and military interventions across the Pacific that began in the nineteenth century. The federal government may have been leery of trading with

Japan by the late 1930s, but that was preceded by decades of efforts to “open” the Asian market.55

The Los Angeles business community’s pursuit of foreign trade through L.A.

Harbor, like the building of the harbor itself, was made possible through state power.

The U.S. government’s overt projection of military, economic, and political power southward to Latin American and westward across the Pacific and through the direct assistance of American business interests by U.S. consulates was closely linked to the

Chamber’s efforts to help L.A. businesses participate in foreign trade in the 1920s and

1930s. These efforts faced some obstacles. The Great Depression and the drop in exports posed real challenges after foreign trade had grown rapidly in the previous

55 Scholarship on nineteenth century and twentieth century U.S. political, economic, and military interventionism includes LaFeber, The New Empire: Interpretations of American Expansionism, 1860-1898, 35th Anniversary ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); LaFeber, The Clash; William Appleman Williams, Empire as a Way of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Julio Moreno, Yankee Don’t Go Home: Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Louis A. Perez, Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006).

124 decade. Trade with Latin America may not have reached the levels that Clarence Matson,

Egbert Adams, and other Chamber leaders hoped and trade with Japan faced increasing resistance from federal officials and local activists in the late 1930s.

Conclusion: Reimagining the Pacific Rim

The leaders of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce approached the Pacific

Rim with a combination of practical business sense and Anglo-Saxonism in the 1920s and 1930s. Through their efforts to build foreign commerce, they realized that the attitudes of the L.A. business community toward Latin America and Asia had to change.

Overt white supremacy and ignorance of other cultures was bad for business. Ecuador and Colombia were not economic backwaters, but emerging markets with capitalists and government officials excited to do business with Americans. Japan was not a nation of simple laborers, but a rich empire with burgeoning industries and a powerful military.

Simply put, L.A. business leaders had to temper their racism in the face of the reality of geopolitics and nation-states. They reimagined the Pacific Rim as a rapidly advancing, complex marketplace with diverse peoples who would serve as trading partners.

Even though Chamber leaders increasingly articulated an appreciation of cultural differences and similarities between the United States and its Pacific Rim neighbors, they could not overcome their own condescension and racialized thinking. Nor could they escape L.A. and California’s whitewashed past and the decades long processes of both erasing the presence of other peoples and asserting Anglo Saxon dominance. A newfound, though deeply problematic tolerance may have reached Latin America and

Asia, but it was still predicated on the notion that L.A. would naturally dominate the

125 Pacific Rim. White business elites continued to relate their notions of racial superiority to their economic success.

126 Chapter 4

Striking at “The Heart of the Capitalistic System”: Labor Conflict in Los Angeles Harbor, 1885-1940

Prologue: Klansmen, Vigilantes, and Wobblies

“Far in the distance one could see the mounted vanguard flanking a hooded rider bearing a flaming cross. In the dim sheen of the motley lights of the waterfront, penetrating a hazy fog, one could discern the long, weird cavalcade of hooded apparitions slowly winding its ominous movement toward the city proper.” A journalist writing for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) used these dramatic words to describe the march of more than a thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan in San Pedro on the night of March 1, 1924. The marchers proceeded through town to the IWW hall located on the southeast corner of Twelfth and Center streets in order to deliver a message to the

Wobblies attending their evening meeting. Surrounding the hall, the Klan delivered an ultimatum, “If you are aliens, willing to become good Americans, you will not be molested. If you don’t like the country you can go back to where you came from and if you have no country to go to, —you can go to hell.”1 Standing for the principles of

“Americanism,” the “invisible empire” promised to aid L.A. authorities in preventing the

IWW “from destroying the community.”2 The radical union was not welcome in in the

United States, and certainly not in Los Angeles and San Pedro.

The Wobblies had staged an audacious strike in the Port of Los Angeles the previous spring. Despite the combined efforts of maritime employers and their allies in

1 Harry Fisher, “Ku Klux Klan Tries Intimidation,” Industrial Pioneer I, no. 12 (1924): 30-31.

2 “Members of I.W.W. Get Silent Warning From Hooded Order,” San Pedro Daily Pilot, March 3, 1924.

127 city hall and the police department to jail union leaders and break the strike, the Wobblies maintained a foothold on the waterfront. The Klan march was, according to the IWW journalist, “a concerted effort of the ship owners’ organization and the chamber of commerce, aided and abetted by the uniformed minions, to encompass the extermination of the organization that interfered with their profits eleven months ago.”3 Indeed, some of the most powerful organizations of the L.A. business community were committed to eradicating unions in favor of the “open shop.” The L.A. Merchants and Manufacturers

Association (M & M), the shipowners’ staunch ally, proclaimed that the open shop represented the pinnacle of “Americanism” and “Prosperity.” Crediting the open shop for L.A.’s economic expansion in the early twentieth century, the M & M declared in

1922, “The outstanding fact is that this great city of ours, the greatest on the Pacific Coast, is getting along considerably better than any other city is because it is free—free from the domination of organized labor, or the domination of anything else.”4

The IWW had good reasons to worry about the alliance between the Klan, maritime employers, and the government in enforcing the open shop and upholding the politics of “Americanism.” The national Red Scare in the wake of the Russian

Revolution and World War I resulted in the repression of radical organizations by local, state, and federal authorities. Under the guise of the Espionage Act, the federal government imprisoned and prosecuted socialist leader Eugene V. Debs and hundreds of

3 Fisher, Industrial Pioneer I, no. 12: 30-31.

4 “Los Angeles and the Open Shop III: About Some Propaganda and Some Facts Concerning It” (Los Angeles: The Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Los Angeles, 1922). The “Los Angeles and the Open Shop” pamphlet series is in the stacks of the Central Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. On the open shop policies of L.A. employers and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, see also Fogelson, 129-132; Grace Heilman Stimson, Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955), 252-259; Mike Davis, “Sunshine and the Open Shop: Ford and Darwin in 1920s Los Angeles” in Metropolis in the Making, 101-102.

128 IWW activists, including William “Big Bill” Haywood (who skipped bail and fled to the

Soviet Union). The federal government also ordered the deportation of Emma Goldman and other foreign-born radicals during and after the war.5 The state of California joined in the wave of anti-radical repression by effectively banning the IWW and other left-wing organizations with a sweeping “criminal syndicalism” law. Reactionary citizens groups also threatened the IWW. Members of the American Legion celebrated Armistice Day in

1919 by staging an armed attack on the Centralia, Washington IWW hall. The legionnaires captured, castrated, and lynched Wesley Everest, a Wobbly who happened to be a World War I veteran. Violence between the IWW and the Legion also erupted in

Los Angeles. City officials deputized legionnaires, giving them legal cover to demolish the L.A. IWW hall and assault its occupants on November 14, 1919.6 These and other legal and extralegal antiradical actions provided a context for what unfolded in San Pedro five years later.

An armed group of 150 vigilantes stormed the San Pedro IWW hall on the evening of Saturday, June 14, 1924. The mob broke the windows and smashed and set

5 On the Red Scare, see Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), 376-444; Dubofsky, ‘Big Bill’ Haywood (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987); Ernest Freeberg, Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955); Regan Schmidt, Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen, 2000); James R. Green, World of the Worker: Labor in Twentieth-Century America, First Illinois Paperback ed. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 90-97.

6 Errol Wayne Stevens, Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 137-139; Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 28-57. Anti-IWW violence is also discussed in Dubofsky, We Shall Be All; Norman H. Clark, Mill Town: A Social History of Everett, Washington, from its Earliest Beginnings on the Shores of Puget Sound to the Tragic and Infamous Event Known as the Everett Massacre (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970); Greg Hall, Harvest Wobblies: the Industrial Workers of the World and Agricultural Laborers in the American West, 1905-1930 (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001).

129 fire to the furniture on the sidewalk. The Industrial Worker, the union’s West Coast newspaper, reported that the raiders attacked the Wobblies and their family members who had gathered earlier in the hall for a night of singing and entertainment, sending twenty men and women to the hospital and injuring another thirty with cuts, bruises, body blows, and head wounds.7 In a particularly gruesome move, the vigilantes overturned a coffee pot and pushed several children into its scalding liquid. Lena Milos, a nine-year old victim who had come to the hall to sing recounted to the IWW press, “I told [my attacker that] he was pushing me into the coffee and he said, ‘That’s alright, you won’t sing at any

Wobbly entertainments,’ and he set me right into the coffee boiler.”8 Another victim recalled the attack in an oral history interview six decades later, “they busted out the window and kicked the people around. We went out the back door where they were cooking coffee, and I was pushed in. I still got scars… I was nine years old.”9

The mob, which may have included sailors, legionnaires, and members of the hooded order, followed through on the Klan’s earlier promise to rid San Pedro of radicals.

As the hall was being ransacked, a smaller group assaulted and abducted seven men, drove them to a remote canyon, and stripped them naked to be tarred and feathered. One of the abductees, Tom Sullivan, recounted his interrogation by a vigilante for The Nation magazine:

7 “Mob Scalds 4 Children, Maims 50 Men, Kidnaps 7; Police Stay Neutral, Is Record in San Pedro Raid,” Industrial Worker, June 21, 1924; “San Pedro Story Told,” Industrial Worker, June 28, 1924; Mary Reed, “San Pedro,” The Nation, July 9, 1924.

8 “Over Eight Hundred Hear Geo. Speed Expose the Truth About the San Pedro Raid,” Industrial Pioneer II, no. 4 (1924): 5. A slightly different quote from Lena Milos’ attacker was printed in Reed, The Nation, July 9, 1924: “We’ll fix you so you’ll never perform another entertainment.”

9 John Rodin interview from the 1980s published in Harvey Schwartz, Solidarity Stories: An Oral History of the ILWU (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 63-65.

130 He asked me: “Do you belong to the I.W.W.?” “Yes.” “Are you proud of it?” “Yes.” “Where were you born?” “San Francisco.” “Will you give up the organization?” And I told him: “No, not at no tar-and-feather party. If I ever give up my card I’ll give it up at the membership meeting and explain to the members why I’ve given it up.

Sullivan stated that the mob let one Wobbly go after he renounced his membership in the union. Another was spared because he was carrying an American Federation of Labor union card in addition to his red IWW card. A Mexican Wobbly was released because he had previously fought in a prizefight at a sailor’s benefit. The rest were tarred and feathered and were forced to walk back to San Pedro without their clothes and shoes.

They made it seven miles before a motorist was kind enough to pick them up and offer them food and clothing.10

Los Angeles newspapers alleged that the attack was in retaliation to a particularly strident display of un-American behavior by the Wobblies. Forty-eight Navy sailors died from a gun turret explosion on the U.S.S. Mississippi battleship when it was moored in

Los Angeles Harbor on June 12, 1924. The press printed unsubstantiated rumors that the

IWW celebrated this tragedy, or worse, planned to dynamite the funeral home where the dead sailors had been taken.11 The IWW also interpreted the raid as an act of vengeance—though not as retaliation for making flippant or threatening remarks about the dead sailors. Patriotism was merely an excuse for the raid, not its cause. The

Wobblies believed that the L.A. capitalists who controlled economic and political power

10 Reed, The Nation, July 9, 1924.

11See for instance “Sailors Wreck Wobblies’ Hall: Raid is Caused by Asserted Navy Blast Sneers,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1924; “Navy Men Tar and Feather Six I.W.W., Klan Sends Death Threat to Official,” Los Angeles Examiner, June 16, 1924; “Guard Over Bodies to Be Doubled Today: Threats of Reds Arouse Authorities,” San Pedro Daily Pilot, June 16, 1924; The IWW reprinted a similar story from the Associated Press that ran on June 15, 1924 in “Alibis Begin After the Raid,” Industrial Worker, June 21, 1924.

131 in the city had instigated the violence. The police department’s subsequent failure to respond to the raid and arrest its perpetrators, and the cops’ vigilance at enforcing

California’s criminal syndicalism law by arresting hundreds of IWW activists over the previous year, were proof of capital’s manipulation of state power. The violent crackdown on the IWW reasserted the economic order on the waterfront.12

While the suppression of the Wobblies in San Pedro may not be as well known as the battles in Homestead, Haymarket, or Lawrence, the conflicts between workers and employers on the Los Angeles Waterfront reflected broader trends in U.S. labor history from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. Employers throughout the nation believed that they had to wield tight control over their workforces in order to sustain the profitability and efficiency of their enterprises. At the same time, millions of workers turned to everything from craft unionism to radical activism to secure a measure of economic security, safety, and agency on the job.13 In the half-century between 1885 and

1940, L.A. Harbor’s employers and workers fought with each other not only over wages and conditions, but also over the labor process. Like the pursuit of port development, industry, and domestic and foreign trade, controlling the harbor workforce was a central

12 Alfred Kohn, “One Who Knows Tells Cause of Raid,” Industrial Worker, June 25, 1924. See also Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams, 52-54, 57; Stevens, xvii-xviii, 142-164.

13 On U.S. labor history during this time period, consult David Montgomery, Workers’ Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: the Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Green, The World of the Worker; Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006); David Brody, In Labor’s Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001); Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Robert H. Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007).

132 strategy for maritime employers and L.A.’s business community. They demanded the right to hire the longshoremen they wanted and deploy them to handle cargo from ship to shore on an as-needed basis. However, labor activists also understood the harbor’s importance in the regional and global economy, and believed that its prosperity needed to be shared more widely. On a more basic level, workers and unionists realized that their jobs could be dangerous and that employment prospects could easily shift with the cycles of the economy.

In the aftermath of the “free harbor” debates surrounding port development in the first decade of the twentieth century, labor movement activists pushed not only for municipal ownership of the waterfront, but more meaningful public participation in the actual trade operations of the harbor. They worried that the revenues from commerce would too readily wind up in private hands. The IWW vowed to organize waterfront workers two decades later, declaring that “San Pedro and the Marine Transport workers must be organized, for Pedro is the heart of Los Angeles and the maritime industry is the heart of the capitalistic system.”14 The union recognized the port’s significance precisely because its trade created commercial links throughout the world and carried the commodities that fueled industries and developed markets. The Wobblies hoped that a successful organizing drive and strike in San Pedro would be a step in achieving “the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism,” as the preamble to their constitution stated.15 These high economic stakes also meant that maritime

14 “Educating Southern California,” Industrial Worker, March 17, 1923.

15 The full texts of the original 1905 and the edited 1908 “Preamble to the Industrial Workers of the World Constitution” may be found at http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/history261/oct0106.htm and http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/images/industrial_worker/1200w/Preamble%20(edited)-- Oct.%207,%201909--p.4.1200w.jpg

133 employers had a vested interest in keeping the workforce under control. The suppression of the IWW ushered in a decade of the open shop under the guise of the employer- operated Marine Service Bureau.

The Bureau promised high labor standards, a fair wage scale, and ample work opportunities for registered longshoremen, but it became one the major fault lines of struggle between capital and labor. Workers charged that the Bureau allowed dangerous working conditions to persist and created a system of favoritism on the docks. Like other

U.S. ports that either had open shop hiring like the Bureau or corrupt company union hiring halls, a portion of the L.A. and Long Beach harbor workforce gained consistent work while most others found only sporadic employment. The majority of longshoremen were “casual” workers from the 1920s through the early 1930s, despite the Bureau’s claims to the contrary. For these workers, the Bureau (or “Fink Hall,” as many called it) reinforced that they were left out of the vision of public prosperity through harbor development that continued to be championed by the business community, city politicians, mainstream newspapers, and other civic boosters.

The L.A. and Long Beach members of the newly reconstituted International

Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 38-82 enthusiastically participated in the resurgent maritime unionism of the 1934 “Big Strike” that spread from every port from

San Diego to Seattle. The strike was a repudiation of the open shop and the unfairness of the “Fink Hall.” Maritime employers and city authorities tried to crush the strike the same way they had the IWW a decade earlier. This time the workers were ready to meet force with militancy, organizational skill, and a measure of violence. The strike succeeded in large part because of the unity of maritime workers throughout the West

134 Coast and because of New Deal federal policies that sanctioned collective bargaining.

Labor conflicts continued for the rest of the decade, and despite internal rifts that threatened to divide the local from their brethren in other West Coast cities, union members voted to join the CIO-affiliated International Longshoremen’s and

Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) in 1937. Like their forbears in the IWW, ILWU leaders recognized that the maritime industry was a vital part of the economy and that workers could use their power to win monetary gains and improved working conditions. The

ILWU embarked on a bold campaign to unite with other maritime trades and to organize many of the warehouse companies and commodity industries associated with harbor trade.

Perhaps most importantly, the success of the maritime labor movement in Los

Angeles shifted control over the labor process away from employers to the workers themselves. It also meant that workers got to share in the harbor’s prosperity. They enjoyed substantial material gains through activism and collective bargaining—economic security that helped alleviate poverty and provide dignity on the job.

Labor Pains, 1885-1921

The antecedents for the conflicts between organized labor, maritime employers, and city authorities in Los Angeles Harbor in the 1920s and 1930s can be traced back decades earlier. In 1885 and 1886, the newly chartered Coast Seamen’s Union

(forerunner to the Sailors Union of the Pacific and the International Seamen’s Union) went on strike in San Francisco and San Pedro to protest shipowners’ plans to lower wages and use nonunion crews. Though these strikes failed, unionists continued to recognize the strategic importance of San Pedro. Los Angeles Harbor commerce

135 increased from 281,000 tons in 1886 to 466,000 tons in 1887, as lumber shipments fueled the construction boom in Los Angeles. With the demand for labor so high, ship captains had little choice but to supplement their crews with dues-paying members of the union to man the ships sailing to San Pedro. Many members of the sailor’s union also worked as longshoremen and lumber handlers on the San Pedro waterfront. When the Shipowners’

Association attempted to force these men to return to sea and compel the lumber companies to hire nonunion crews to work on the docks, the sailors union and the

Longshoremen’s and Lumbermen’s Association (another recently-formed union) struck on December 1, 1887 with the assistance of the Knights of Labor. 16

Just like they would in the subsequent labor disputes of the early twentieth century, the shipowners refused to recognize the longshoremen’s union. “I will not attend the a meeting of the union, nor will I treat [the] men as an organized body,” a manager stated in a Los Angeles Times interview, “ I reserve the right on behalf of the company, to [meet] with individual seamen, and will do so in the future.”17 The Lumber

Dealers’ Association of Los Angeles was just as intractable, stating that it would furnish strikebreakers to work the eighteen lumber vessels tied up in the harbor. 18 The leading members of the L.A. business community subsequently adopted this commitment to the open shop. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the Merchants and

Manufacturers Association emerged as the leading business organization dedicated to the eradication of the L.A. labor movement. Like the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, the

16 Stimson, 81-86; Harbor commerce statistics are from the Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, 1924-1925, reprinted in Fogelson, 109.

17 “At San Pedro. True State of Affairs at the Port Yesterday.,” Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1887.

18 Stimson, 85; “The San Pedro War,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1887.

136 association was originally founded to promote the industrial and commercial development of the city. It abandoned any pretense of neutrality in labor disputes by

1903 in response to strikes and union boycotts of many businesses. Times publisher

Harrison Gray Otis, whose company had been battling the Typographical Union for over a decade, became another champion of the open shop. He wrote in one editorial,

“Employers of labor should be ready to meet and vanquish those who make unreasonable and arrogant demands upon them.” Hiring strikebreakers and permanently blacklisting union supporters became the business community’s new tools for combatting the labor movement.19

Hints of the strident anti-unionism of the Times were already present in its coverage of the 1887 strike. By featuring (and failing to question) the perspectives of the shipowners and the lumber dealers, the paper acted as a mouthpiece for the employers during the strike. The Times raised the specter of union violence—though a state government investigator later stated that little actual violence occurred during the strike.

The paper also reported that the L.A. County Sheriff intervened in the strike by sending thirty deputies to maintain order on behalf of the employers and that he vowed to “put down the strike even if he has to call out every man in the country (sic) who can bear arms.”20 The Knights of Labor called off the walkout on December 15, 1887, after the strike failed to prevent employers from shipping with nonunion crews. Few picketers were hired back to their jobs, which further damaged the immediate prospects for

19 Stimson, 256-259. The Otis editorial is quoted in Stimson, 259. The formation of the M and M and the rise of open-shop movement is also discussed in Stevens, 40-41, 53-54. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century labor conflicts in Los Angeles are featured throughout Stimson’s book.

20 “Salt San Pedro,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1887; Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1887.

137 successfully organizing the waterfront. The sheriff department’s involvement foreshadowed the collusion between government forces, maritime employers, and the mainstream press during future waterfront labor conflicts.

San Pedro longshoremen and lumber handlers made another concerted effort to unionize in the first decade of the twentieth century, hoping to secure decent wages and working conditions as the Port of Los Angeles grew. Under the leadership of business agent Z.W. Craig, Local no. 3 of the Pacific Coast Federation of Longshoremen joined the Sailors Union of Pacific by striking against steamship, stevedore, and lumber employers’ use of nonunion crews in the summer of 1906. True to form, the Times characterized the strikers as a “disgraceful” and “cowardly” group of longshoremen, dockworkers, and “half-drunken sailors” who had been “egged on by union thugs” to make a “murderous assault” by throwing rocks at the Coronado steamer as it docked at the San Pedro Lumber Company wharf, supposedly threatening the safety of the vessel’s captain and crew. The paper also took pains to contrast the strikers and the operators of the Coronado:

It is a significant fact that among the crowd of strikers yesterday there was scarcely a dozen American citizens, the others to a man are foreigners who speak scarcely a word of English, and are controlled by “Boss” [Z.W.] Craig and his satellites. The owners of the Coronado and her officers are Americans, the vessel is an American ship, and she was in an American port when the cowardly assault was made upon her.21

The paper concluded that the “better class of citizens of San Pedro” rejected the actions of the strikers and agreed that the ship had the right “under American law” to use the

21 “Disgraceful Union Riot,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1906.

138 harbor “without interference on the part of a mob of unnaturalized foreign ruffians who happen to belong to some un-American labor union.”22

The Times, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, and the wider San

Pedro and Los Angeles business community were more threatened by the consequences the strike had on harbor commerce. The San Francisco-based Steamship Association announced that it would withhold ships from San Pedro until there was enough “ample security” against the “attacks of union bruisers and strike-breeders.” The Times worried that the boycott would ruin the lumber trade in San Pedro, sending ships to bypass the nascent Port of Los Angeles in favor of the smaller harbors of Santa Monica, Redondo

Beach, and perhaps even San Diego. But rather than fault the Steamship Association for its action, the paper scapegoated union leader Z.W. Craig as the individual most responsible for the strike. “San Pedro might just as well extend the breakwater across the harbor’s entrance… for unless enough independent American workmen can be found who will handle vessels carrying non-union crews, “Boss” Dictator Craig will have accomplished the same result.”23

The steamship operators, lumber companies, maritime employers, and their allies in the government, courts, and press made a sustained effort to break the strike and reassert control over the harbor. After the employers petitioned Los Angeles Superior

Court, Judge N.P. Conrey issued a sweeping order that banned picketing and prevented the union from interfering with the “loading and unloading goods, wares, merchandise, lumber and other commodities” and from “obstructing, molesting or interfering” with any

22 Ibid.

23 “Bar the Unions from Both,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1906.

139 person who seeking employment or already working.24 It was the only injunction issued against picketing in L.A. County in the first decade of the twentieth century, though it was by no means the last time the courts would intervene on behalf of employers during labor disputes in the region in ensuing decades.25

The ballot box was another site of conflict during the 1906 strike. The city of San

Pedro held an election on August 3 to appoint freeholders to draft a new city charter.

Z.W. Craig and a group of local businessmen led competing slates of candidates. The

Times used the election as another opportunity to deride the labor movement’s agenda.

Electing Craig’s slate, the paper asserted, would be a willful abandonment of the promises of the “free harbor”:

Wilmington Bay was selected [by the federal government], not because San Pedro wanted a harbor, but because the commercial center of Southern California, the city of Los Angeles, demanded that a free harbor be created there… The fight for a free harbor was made and won by Los Angeles for the people against private monopoly… There is no free harbor at San Pedro. It is Boss Craig’s harbor, and no ship can enter it or depart from it without his leave.26

The Times further remarked on the futility of letting organized labor’s allies run San

Pedro: the real estate value of city lots had supposedly fallen by $200 to $300, merchants had lost fifty percent of their business, and even the bartenders at the taverns near the waterfront dosed behind their empty, polished counters.27 In other words, allowing Craig and his allies to persist in San Pedro would spell ruin for the immediate community, and

24 “Law Takes Steps to Squelch Lawlessness,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1906.

25 Jeffrey Stansbury, “Organized Workers and the Making of Los Angeles, 1890-1915” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2008), 42.

26 “Our Harbor Sealed Against Commerce,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1906.

27 Ibid.

140 more importantly, the “free harbor” and the economic aspirations of the entire region. An editorial concluded on the morning of the election, “The whole Southern California, and indeed the entire state suffers from the effects of the malady eating at the heart of San

Pedro, and of which that long-suffering city has a chance to begin to rid herself this very day.28

The business community applauded the defeat of Z.W. Craig’s slate in the August

3, 1906, San Pedro freeholders vote.29 The combined weight of the injunction, the use of strikebreakers, and divisions within the both the local and West Coast labor movement proved too much for the longshoremen’s union. It ended the walkout in December, acquiescing to a lower wage scale, and worse: the open shop. By then, strikebreakers had replaced most of the union members.30 The Times, of course, had severely distorted the actual views and agenda of Z.W. Craig and the local labor movement. Craig was arguably more committed to the concept of a “free harbor” than the L.A. Chamber of

Commerce and other boosters. Craig articulated his vision in September 1906, in the midst of the strike. He argued that since railroads and wharves were “natural monopolies,” they should be publically owned. He further stated that the city should

“build such wharves and warehouses as the demands of commerce may from time to time require” and that each railroad should “have their cars set in on equal terms and delivered to them at the government-owned terminal.” Craig believed that under the current system, each privately operated wharf served as a “tollgate” that was “therefore a tax on

28 “San Pedro’s Day of Reckoning,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1906.

29 “Bravo, San Pedro!,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1906; “Dumping of Craig,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1906.

30 Stimson, 302-303; “Longshoremen Quit Strike,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1906.

141 commerce.” “The more we tax commerce, the less commerce we shall have,” he concluded, “Do we really want this to become a great commercial port? If so, let us get rid of those who are continually levying tribute.”31

The ownership of the waterfront tidelands had not been resolved when Craig published his views in favor of true public ownership of harbor wharves, warehouses, and railroads in 1906. But even as the cities of San Pedro and Wilmington consolidated with

Los Angeles and the legal battle to reclaim the tidelands began, labor activists still worried that the harbor would be publically owned in name only. Jeffrey Stansbury’s comprehensive study of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century L.A. labor politics reveals that the harbor unions were instrumental in getting wider regional labor movement support for the 1890s fight to build the “free harbor” in San Pedro and the

1909 consolidation campaign. The Los Angeles Citizen, a weekly pro-labor newspaper, wrote in February 1912:

Much of the waterfront…has been taken from the people and given to private interests. The City is only improving that portion of the bay that will add materially to privately-owned holdings. In the outer harbor, which holds the key to the entire situation, no work has been done by the city. It is here the real improvement should be made at this time.32

Several months after these concerns were published, Thomas E. Gibbon also argued that the city was not improving the outer harbor and resigned from the harbor commission in protest (see Chapter 1).33

31 Z.W. Craig, “San Pedro’s Problem: How to Utilize the Breakwater,” Los Angeles Citizen, September 21, 1906, quoted in Stansbury, 233.

32 Los Angeles Citizen, February 2, 1912, quoted in Stansbury, 232.

33 “Gibbon and the Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1912; “Gibbon Flays Mayor and Administration,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1912; “Mr. T.E. Gibbon Writes Open Letter to Mayor Alexander,” Los Angeles Record, June 27, 1912, newspaper clipping in Box 36, Folder 8, Gibbon Papers, Huntington.

142 Even though it expressed similar rhetoric to Gibbon and some harbor leaders, the harbor commission and the business community excluded the labor movement from playing any significant role in harbor politics and development. This is perhaps not surprising given L.A. employers’ strident efforts to maintain the open shop. Still, Mayor

George Alexander had been elected on a progressive platform, and he and his allies proclaimed their commitment to municipal harbor development.34 But the differences in the “free harbor” platforms of the labor movement and the city government were both a matter of semantics and substance. Union leaders like Z.W. Craig saw city owned harbor operations as inherently more efficient than the private wharves, warehouses, and railroads that were motivated primarily by the ability to profit by charging the highest possible rates and lowering their labor costs. The Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, believed that municipal harbor ownership was a way to secure the interests of more businesses by diminishing the monopoly power of the Southern Pacific, the Banning

Company, and the other private interests claiming exclusive ownership of the tidelands.

In this sense, the L.A. business community believed that state power should be used to both promote competition and limit the power of organized labor.

Despite being pushed to the margins by both employers and the city, maritime unions continued to take an interest in the harbor. The Longshoremen’s Union of the

Pacific formed in 1908, which later became the District 38 of the International

Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), a semi-autonomous branch of the American

Federation of Labor affiliate that had members on ocean, river, and lake waterfronts throughout the U.S. and Canada. San Pedro longshoremen later formed ILA Local 38-18

34 Stansbury, 227-234.

143 and hosted the district’s sixth annual convention in May 1913.35 Convention speakers waxed euphoric about the union’s ability to secure greater wages, shorter workdays, and more dignity for rank and file longshoremen in San Pedro and other West Coast ports.

Bert Mackley, a pro-union San Pedro businessman, proclaimed that Local 38-18 in particular was a “very important factor” in “San Pedro’s greatness as a seaport.” L.A.

Central Labor Council secretary-treasurer L.W. Buttler declared that area businessmen and employers “had been awakened to the fact that they had been misled by the [anti- union Merchants and Manufacturers Association], and consequently the organized workers of Los Angeles were making rapid strides, and the organizations growing by leaps and bounds. ”36

The convention’s optimism aside, the ILA faced similar challenges to its forbears throughout the 1910s. San Pedro longshoremen and lumber handlers joined a coast wide walkout in June 1916 in order to win higher wages. Like previous strikes, the local employers and lumberyards and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association hired strikebreakers, lobbied the city government for extra police protection, and won an anti-

35 The inability of San Pedro longshoremen to send delegates to the first convention is mentioned on “Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific, Portland, Oregon, September 21, 22, 23, 24, and 15 1908” (Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1908), 9. The Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific became the Pacific District of the ILA by the time of its third convention, see “Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Pacific District of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Held at Longshoremen’s Hall, Aberdeen, Washington, September 12-15, 1910” (Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1910). The entire proceedings from the first eight conventions of the Pacific District I.L.A. are available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCkFAQAAIAAJ

36 “Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of the Pacific District of the International Longshoremen’s Association Held at Sailors Union Hall, San Pedro, Cal., May 5 to 10, 1913” (Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1913), 3-5. After the San Pedro longshoremen’s union defeat in the 1906 strike, Z.W. Craig published the San Pedro Tribune and also served as a reporter on harbor affairs for L.A. area newspapers. Failing to mention Craig’s background as a union leader, the Times called him “One of the local shipping industry’s pioneer figures” upon reporting his death from a heart attack at age 69. See “Pioneer Figure of Harbor Passes,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1932.

144 picketing injunction from the courts. The strike eventually fizzled out in a few months even though it had cost stevedore firms like the Banning Company plenty of money (see

Chapter 1). Local 38-18 managed to hold on through World War I, but another strike proved disastrous in 1919. The International Seamen’s Union and its subsidiary, the

Sailors Union of Pacific, likewise suffered a major defeat in its 1921 coastwise strike.37

With both the sailors and longshoremen thoroughly beaten, the Merchants and

Manufacturers and Pacific Steamship Owners associations created nonunion hiring agencies to maintain the open shop. The employers first set up the Sea Service Bureau to hire seamen “without reference to a man’s union affiliation” (or more, accurately, men with no union affiliation to begin with). 38 The administrators of the Sea Service Bureau established a similar hiring agency for longshoremen in May 1922, the Marine Service

Bureau mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. It was modeled after a company- controlled hiring hall established in Seattle in 1921. The Bureau seemed to be the final nail in the coffin of ILA Local 38-18. San Pedro longshoremen soon turned to a more radical organization.39

Criminal Syndicalists: The IWW in San Pedro, 1922-1924

The Industrial Workers of the World had made sporadic appearances on the Los

Angeles waterfront since its inception in 1905. Within a year a handful of Wobblies challenged the mainstream craft unionism of Z.W. Craig’s San Pedro longshoremen’s

37 Richard S. Perry and Louis B. Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, 1911-1941 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), 176-183.

38 “Harbor Action Hits Unionites,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1921.

39 Perry and Perry, 182-183.

145 local.40 Joe Hill, the famous Swedish-born Wobbly songwriter-turned-martyr, joined the union when he was living in San Pedro from 1911 to 1913. He wrote some of his best- known songs in San Pedro, including “The Preacher and the Slave” and “Casey Jones the

Union Scab” (the latter for the benefit of striking Southern Pacific railroad workers). In a letter written from his Utah jail cell in 1914 (he was arrested, convicted, and executed for robbing and murdering two shopkeepers in Salt Lake City—though many labor activists and scholars have long maintained his innocence), Hill stated that he served as the IWW secretary during a dock strike in 1912 and that he had been arrested a year later in San

Pedro on a trumped-up robbery charge for his actions.41 The strike in question involved

200 Italian longshoremen who demanded a pay increase and lasted for several days in

July 1912. Ethnic conflict likely caused the strike’s failure, as the non-Italian majority of longshoremen continued to work.42

The IWW made a big return to the waterfront ten years later. The November 18,

1922, edition of the Industrial Worker, the union’s official West Coast newspaper, informed its readers that the union’s General Executive Board issued a call for all

“footloose members to proceed to San Pedro, California” to help the Marine Transport

Workers Industrial Union branch pursue its “fight for free speech” and eliminate

California’s criminal syndicalism law. The Industrial Worker further reported that “like most Southern California towns,” the authorities in San Pedro are “attempting to arrest

40 Stansbury, 329.

41 Hill’s time in San Pedro is discussed in Gibbs M. Smith, Joe Hill (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1969), 15, 19-22, 37-38, 43, 52-63, 121; William M. Adler, The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011), 12, 27-28, 30, 86-87, 150, 160-161, 183-186, 203-211.

42 Perry and Perry, 165; Stevens, 145.

146 I.W.W. delegates and break up meetings.”43 But the IWW’s real support came from its efforts to improve wages and working conditions. The Wobblies understood that organizing the Port of Los Angeles would be both a symbolic and strategic victory, placing the union in a position to end the stranglehold that maritime employers held over their workers, stand up to police intimidation and judicial repression, and most importantly, disrupt the foundations of the economic system.44 The union understood that shipping companies could easily bypass Portland in order to use non-union or AFL labor in other ports, causing one IWW writer to astutely observe that “Capital is international, and cares little about where and how profit is made, only that it is made.”45

The IWW hoped that its efforts in San Pedro would be in the service of a nationwide general strike that would begin on or before May Day in 1923.46 With a call to the workers to “wake up this monster of Capitalism” and “Show him that you are still free men,” the IWW began its strike on April 25. The longshoremen in the separate

Federation of Marine Transport Workers (made up of remnants from ILA Local 38-18) joined them.47 The strike demands were straightforward: the abolishment of the “fink hall,” a monthly wage of $100 for seamen, 8 hour shifts for seamen and 6 hour shifts for

43 “Fight for Free Speech Started in Southern Cal.,” Industrial Worker, November 18, 1922.

44 “Educating Southern California,” Industrial Worker, March 17, 1923.

45 “Dock Strikers Put Boycott on Whole Coast To Stop Disguised Shipments; To Hit Boss in Barbarous Cal.,” Industrial Worker, January 6, 1923.

46 “Strike! Strike This Spring,” Industrial Worker, February 24, 1923.

47 Perry and Perry, 182-183.

147 marine firemen, $1.00 an hour and a 44 hour work week for longshoremen and other harbor workers, and double pay for overtime.48

The IWW publicized the strike’s early success. The union’s May Day festivities in San Pedro featured a red airplane dropping leaflets and a red automobile with the painted slogans touring waterfront streets to visit the crowds of Wobblies, sympathizers, and spectators who gathered to celebrate the holiday.49 The union claimed that it had tied up 62 ships by May 4, documenting specific instances where English and Spanish- speaking crews joined the strike and identifying the ships and docks that were being manned by non-striking workers. Within a few weeks, the walkout caused several steamship lines and railroads to embargo the docks.50 The Wobblies continued to make public displays of their strength in San Pedro, including “the greatest radical demonstration in the history of California” on May 16 with thousands of participants. The effective job actions, successful marches, and large street meetings at Liberty Hill fed the

Wobblies’ belief that the “port of Los Angeles was practically in the possession of I.W.W. marine strikers and their sympathizers.” 51

48 “General Strike Demands of the Marine Transport Workers Union,” reprinted in Nelson Van Valen, “The Industrial Workers of the World in the Los Angeles Area, 1919-1923” (master’s thesis, Claremont Graduate School, 1951), 138. Another strike call was issued by Marine Transport Workers’ Industrial Union no. 510 on April 25, 1923 that gave more detailed information about the demands for improved wages and working conditions for licensed officers, deck hands, engine-room hands, and stewards working on cargo ships, the pumpmen on oil tankers, and for stevedores and teamsters working in the ports, reprinted in Hyman Weintraub, “The I.W.W. In California, 1908-1931” (master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1947), between pages 227 and 228. Strike demands were reiterated in an appeal to “Longshoremen and Sailors Marine Workers in General,” Industrial Worker, May 9, 1923.

49 “I.W.W. Aeroplane Bombs Workers With Strike Call,” Industrial Worker, May 12, 1923; Stevens, 147- 148; Weintraub, 228; Van Valen, 141-142.

50 “Striking Marine Transport Workers Tie Up Many Vessels,” Industrial Worker, May 9, 1923; “San Pedro Port 90 Per Cent Struck,” Industrial Worker, May 23, 1923.

51 “Speakers Climb House Tops Singing Crowd Runs Town,” Industrial Worker, May 23, 1923; Van Valen, 141-142.

148 The strike’s success defied the expectations of the local press. Though the San

Pedro Daily Pilot expressed some sympathy for the politics of conservative unionists like the venerable sailors union president Andrew Furuseth, it joined the Times and other anti- union forces in opposing the IWW. Nevertheless, the paper began to question the role that the Marine Service Bureau played in fomenting discontent among the ports workers in a series of front page editorials entitled “Fink Hall.” The May 17 editorial reported, perhaps apocryphally, that a member of a citizen’s committee “went down to ‘Fink Hall’ to see if a conference could not be arranged by which the old time longshoremen, who are not identified with the I.W.W., could not be gotten back to work.” The editorial continued by stating that the “only complaint of the longshoremen seemed to be the administration of ‘Fink Hall’” and that a “prominent city official” proposed to a gathering of maritime employers that the “men would go back to work” if the Shipowners

Association manager Edwin Nichols were fired. The bosses reacted to these proposals

“with much the same decorum that one would expect in an I.W.W. meeting” by telling the strikers ‘to go to hell.’52 The paper stopped short of supporting union hiring halls. It hoped that the “fink hall” would be beneficial if it “can weed out the I.W.W. agitators.”

Still, it concluded that there was something amiss when “loyal Americans” were willing to quit work and join a strike led by radicals.53

52 ““Fink Hall,”” San Pedro Daily Pilot, May 18, 1923.

53 ““Fink Hall,”” San Pedro Daily Pilot, June 8, 1923.

149 The employers and municipal authorities moved to break the strike on several fronts. In the aftermath of the May Day events, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that it would send an additional 100 officers and 40 detectives to the harbor. 54

The police declared all IWW street meetings illegal and flooded the city’s jails and stockades with Wobblies. The famous author and muckraker Upton Sinclair, who had lived in Pasadena since 1916, was taken aback by the suppression of freedom of speech.

On a visit to the Merchants and Manufacturers Association offices, he discovered that the lumber baron A.B. Hammond, who had already gained notoriety for busting unions in his

Northern California forests and mills, was especially active in directing the police campaign. Sinclair decided to do something. Los Angeles mayor George E. Cryer reluctantly gave him permission to give a speech in San Pedro. But when Sinclair and his entourage began to recite the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to a crowd of

Wobblies gathered on a private lot near the waterfront named “Liberty Hill” on the evening of May 15, they were promptly arrested and jailed for the night. Sinclair’s ordeal made headlines around the world, garnered some public sympathy, embarrassed the mayor and the police department, and led to the establishment of the American Civil

Liberties Union chapter in Southern California. A year later, Sinclair dramatized the suppression of the IWW in his play The Singing Jailbirds. Still, raising awareness about the freedom of speech did not easily translate into economic power for the strikers.55

54 “Police Force Augmented Will Enforce Edict Against Street Talks,” San Pedro Daily Pilot, May 3, 1923; “Wedge Gets Five Days in Jail,” San Pedro Daily Pilot, May 4, 1923.

55 Stevens, 149-155; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 52; Perry and Perry, 185-186; Sinclair, The Singing Jailbirds: A Drama in Four Acts (Pasadena: Published by the Author, 1924).

150 The employers stated that they would blacklist IWW agitators but would consider rehiring any strikers who had families and owned houses in the surrounding area. If these men failed to return to work, however, the employers announced they would hire strikebreakers. This was a blunt attempt to divide the “old time” longshoremen affiliated with the Federation of Marine Transport Workers the radical outsiders. Race also factored in to the employer’s campaign to undermine the IWW. The Wobblies attempted to transcend ethnic, linguistic, and cultural barriers by uniting white, immigrant, and

Spanish-speaking workers in the port’s industries. 56 Steamship Owners Association president E.A. Mills flatly rejected this inclusiveness in his scheme to hire replacement workers:

We are prepared to open two camps, one at Wilmington and one in the outer harbor. Steps have been taken to bring in about 300 picked white men for each of these camps. Every man we bring in will be a picked white man with clean records. There will be no wholesale importation of negroes. We want to employ San Pedro and Wilmington men with families but if we cannot get them we shall have to import men. Some of these will be brought fro[m] as far as Salt Lake City, some from San Francisco. You can be assured that there will be no men among them who have I.W.W. records in the Department of Justice.57 This statement sent a strong message that the employers would only tolerate those workers who fit the archetype of citizen homeowners—not the interracial, foreign, radical, or otherwise different agitators in the IWW. Mills likely hoped that middle and upper

56 The multiethnic makeup of the IWW’s Maritime Transport Workers Industrial Union is referenced in “Marine Transport Workers Song,” Industrial Worker, February 10, 1923; “Striking Marine Transport Workers Tie Up Many Vessels,” Industrial Worker, May 9, 1923.

57 “Department of Labor Moves to End Strike, Orders Men Back to Work,” San Pedro Daily Pilot, May 5, 1923.

151 class residents would respond positively to this gesture of racial purity because it complemented the image of Los Angeles as an affluent, safe, and homogenous metropolis.

The IWW reported that the workers voted to “transfer the strike to the job” on

May 24, placing a positive spin on the end of the walkout. It boasted that it had built up a strong membership in the harbor area and that the employers would not be able to operate without hiring Wobbly crews, but the reality was more complicated. The IWW was by no means vanquished; it continued to hold large public meetings despite ongoing police harassment. It managed to stage a brief strike in July in response to protest the arrest of several delegates. The union never achieved the national “general strike” that it had hoped for in the early months of 1923. Outside of San Pedro, job actions in other ports were either sporadic or nonexistent. Nor did the strike manage to have much of an impact in the lumber, oil, or other commodity industries. Even though most of the imported strikebreakers left the port, the Shipowners Association maintained its blacklist and kept hiring through the Marine Service Bureau. It did not offer to recognize the more conservative Federation of Marine Transport Workers, which faded away after it failed to follow through on a strike threat in August 1923. With the aid of their allies in the press, the employers and municipal authorities continued their campaign to eradicate the

Wobblies and return to the pre-strike status quo.58

The blacklist and continued police harassment weakened the IWW by the spring and summer of 1924, but violence on the part of reactionary citizens was also a critical factor in driving the Wobblies from the harbor. The employer’s smear campaign in the media helped set the stage for the Ku Klux Klan’ s San Pedro demonstration on March 1

58 Weintraub, 232-235; Van Valen, 172-181; Stevens, 155-157; Perry and Perry, 185-190.

152 and the vicious mob attack on the IWW hall on June 14 described in the opening of the chapter. The police may have also played a direct role in fomenting violence. A police captain issued an astonishing order to his men on March 22, 1924:

The I.W.W. situation here is a situation that should be handled by the citizens here. If they are dissatisfied with their activities they should get together and settle the difficulty among themselves. It is those whose business is affected and not the workings of the police department… I do not want the police department dragged into it by assisting them. Be neutral in this fight and we will have the respect of all.59

This statement invited right wing citizens to take the law into their own hands and invited groups like the Klan to turn their rhetoric into vigilante action. It was clear that the police would play no role in protecting the property or the safety of IWW activists, or as it soon turned out, the families and supporters of the ordinary workers who supported the union and struggled for better jobs. Of course, the police had been anything but neutral towards the IWW. The full weight of the law backed the employers and the city government and court system were enthusiastic partners in the quest to drive the Wobblies from the harbor.

Nonetheless, it was quite stunning for the police department to endorse vigilante justice.

Work Under the Marine Service Bureau

The IWW struggled to remain in San Pedro after the June 14, 1924, vigilante raid.

Rather than prosecute those who had staged the raid, city authorities continued their campaign to expel the Wobblies. 60 The Industrial Worker signaled the union’s final defeat. By January 1925, there was no one willing to sell the paper and no active

59 March 22, 1924 police orders, quoted in Van Valen, 190.

60 On the final defeat of the IWW in San Pedro see Weintraub, 245-246; Van Valen, 197-206; Stevens, 162-164.

153 members left to keep its branch functioning.61 Like in the aftermath of the failed strikes of 1887, 1906, and 1919, the steamship owners, maritime employers, and lumber dealers had free reign to shape employment practices. With that, they made the Marine Service

Bureau—the “Fink Hall” that unionists despised—the central hiring agency for all dockworkers.

The Bureau was supposed to eliminate the need for a large number of casual (or part time) waterfront workers, and more importantly for the purpose of maintaining the open shop, prevent unions from controlling hiring or negotiating over wages and working conditions.62 Combined with the use of new cranes and motorized trucks and tractors to move larger loads between ships and docks, the agency was touted as a boon to longshore labor efficiency. In February 1924 the Bureau reported that it needed 2,200 registered men to do the same amount of work that 3,500 men had done previously. Only 1,400 longshoremen received steady employment in July of the same year.63 By 1927, Bureau manager Edwin Nichols boasted that the per-ton labor costs of handling cargo and the other docking charges in the Port of Los Angeles were the lowest in the country. The number of registered longshoremen rose to 1,500 in 1925 and 1926 and to 1,650 in

1927.64 Labor efficiency seems apparent when one considers the annual tonnages that the

Port of Los Angeles handled between 1923 and 1927. Shipping increased markedly from nearly 19 million tons in 1923 to over 26 million tons in 1934, even though the number of

61 Industrial Worker, January 15, 1925, quoted in Weintraub, 246 and in Van Valen, 205.

62 “Harbor Action Hinders Unionites,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1921; “Dockmen to Accept New Plan,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1922.

63 “Labor-Saving Methods Used in Handling Ship Cargoes, Working Conditions at Port Declared Ideal,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1924; “Busy Month at Marine Bureau,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1926.

64 “Cargo Handled at Least Cost,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1927.

154 registered longshoremen dropped from 2200 to 1400 in the wake of the IWW strike.

Tonnage dropped in 1925, but as it increased over the next two years, the number of registered longshoremen only increased gradually. The Bureau 65

The Marine Service Bureau was especially eager to highlight how it benefited workers more than union membership. Several months after the end of the 1923 IWW strike, Edwin Nichols announced a “voluntary” increase in wages for longshoremen ranging from 10 cents to 12.5 cents per hour. The new rate of $.80 or $.90 per hour for most longshoremen was, however, less than the IWW’s demand for $1.00 an hour.

Nichols declared that the Bureau wanted to reward the longshoremen for their hard work.

Though no actual workers were quoted, the Times reported, “Waterfront men deem the voluntary increase as an answer to the critics of the ‘open shop’ and to agitators of strikes.

It proves, they say, that the best way to better pay is the peaceful way based on service.”66

Two months later, the Times reiterated that West Coast ports featured the highest peacetime wages for sailors and longshoremen than any other harbor in the world. The newspaper upheld the Marine Service Bureau’s Industrial Relations Committee (or

Industrial Court), a five-member body made up of maritime employers, as a paragon of fairness. The paper quoted Eugene A. Mills, the president of the L.A branch of the

Shipowners’ Association:

The insidious activities here of the I.W.W. and other Red organizations, by uncalled for strikes and outrageous demands, necessitated the establishment of the Service Bureau. Grievances by the

65 Port of Los Angeles tonnage data from 1923 through 1927 taken from “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, Fiscal Year July 1, 1929 to June 30, 1930,” 67.

66 “Wage Boost is Given to Stevedores,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1923.

155 score of course, came to our attention and the organization of the Industrial Relations Committee was a result. For months the idea of an Industrial Court was ridiculed by the longshoremen, but today it works perfectly. The men themselves are its strongest boosters. Personally, I am certain that it has done more to keep peace in the family than anything that has ever been done here. I can say with confidence that the I.W.W. has been cleaned out of the waterfront labor situation here since the trouble last spring and our greatest help in weeding out these Reds have been the waterfront workers themselves.67

Of course, clearing the IWW from the harbor was more the result of police and judicial oppression, the employers’ blacklist, and later, the reactionary mob that attacked the union hall. But that did not stop the Bureau from presenting its practices as a harmonious labor regime that negated the need for unions, especially radical unions that threatened the very economic foundations of the harbor.

The Marine Service Bureau stated its commitment to occupational safety. In

1928 and 1929 it worked with federal officials to implement new rules, including making ship hatches more secure, fixing faulty equipment, placing first aid kits and telephone numbers for emergency doctors and hospitals on the docks, and placing the responsibility on foremen to get aid for injured workers. The Bureau claimed Los Angeles to be the safest port in the nation because there had been no fatalities among longshoremen handling cargo on the docks since 1918 and no fatalities among those handling cargo on the ships since 1926.68 Published in cooperation with the Bureau and other West Coast port employers, the Shipowners Association’s 1931 rulebook set hundreds of regulations

67 Labor-Saving Methods Used in Handling Ship Cargoes, Working Conditions at Port Declared Ideal,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1924.

68 “New Rules for Cargo Workers,” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1928; “Cargo Workers Safety Sought,” May 23, 1929.

156 governing normal working conditions, emergency procedures, and the maintenance and upkeep of equipment. Once again, the employers placed the burden of maintaining safety on their managers. Any injury was supposed to be immediately reported and treated by medical professionals. For their part, ordinary longshoremen only had to “use the safety devices provided, to practice the safety methods prescribed, and to cooperate in all that makes for safety.”69

Like Frederick W. Taylor’s scientific management, Henry Ford’s assembly lines, and other early twentieth-century capitalist production regimes, the Bureau championed both its efficiency and its fairness to workers. Its labor system was in line with the rational planning of the harbor municipal harbor itself, as well as the business community’s efforts to stimulate the domestic and global trade of commodities through the harbor. The Bureau intertwined open shop and pro-growth ideologies. Beyond eviscerating organized labor, the business community believed that non-union hiring systems created productive workers and model citizen homeowners. By the 1920s, working class neighborhoods made up of relatively affordable prefabricated homes flourished near the region’s industrial zones.70 Owning that “little bungalow” for many

L.A. workers was, as Becky Nicolaides argues in My Blue Heaven, a “viable route to family security” and acted “as a surrogate to Los Angles workers who lacked an alternative in a strong labor movement because of the city’s rabidly open-shop climate.”71

69 “Pacific Marine Safety Code: Stevedoring Operations on Board Ship” (Pacific Coast Marine Safety Code Committee, Pacific American Steamship Association, Shipowners’ Association of the Pacific Coast, Waterfront Employers’ Association in the Major Ports, 1931), 15. Rulebook located in Box 28, Folder 7, “Marine Federation of the Pacific, 1931-1941, 1951,” Union Files Collection, SCL.

70 Mike Davis, “Sunshine and the Open Shop,” 111-114.

71 Nicolaides, 27-28.

157 For its part, the Bureau claimed that 1,000 of its registered workers (two-thirds of the workforce) in July 1925 were “men with families.”72

The reality of the open shop was quite different for those workers who could not find remunerative employment or afford the payments on a $2,000 bungalow—including longshoremen. The testimonies of several workers who found employment through the

Bureau expose the pitfalls of complete employer control over the waterfront. Despite claims that registered workers found full time employment, many longshoremen remained casuals (part-timers). These men had to gather or “shape up” in the alleyway outside of the Bureau offices. Pete Grassi began his waterfront career when he turned 18 in 1928. He remembered that Edwin Nichols and the Bureau dispatchers would “throw” job tickets at a crowd of casuals, causing the men to fight each other for a chance to earn a day’s pay.73 Pete Dragovich recalled similar conditions. Before he began working on the docks as a high school student in 1930, Dragovich sold newspapers at the Bureau’s office in the 1920s. He said that the casuals had to “stand around all day to get a job” and would only work for a few hours at a time.74

Some casuals tried to avoid the Bureau altogether. Al Langley, who had trained as an engineer and held jobs as a smelter, boilermaker, and riveter in Canada and New

Jersey, remembered “prospecting” for work as a casual longshoreman when he moved to

San Pedro in the early thirties. “Well, if you hung around [the Bureau hiring hall] you’d

72 “Service Bureau to Decide Site,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1925.

73 Peter “Pete” Grassi, interviewed by Tony Salcido, transcribed by Jennie Kogak, March 1, 1990, and June 21, 1990, ILWU Local 13 Oral History Project, Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge [Hereafter Local 13 Oral History Project, CSUN], 6-7.

74 Pete J. Dragovich, interviewed by Hector Rojas, transcribed by Jennie Kogak, November 23, 1983, Local 13 Local 13 Oral History Project, CSUN, 4.

158 never get a job,” Langley told his interviewer fifty years later, “You had to go out where the work was [the docks] and if they needed a man right away they would hire you and you worked from anywhere from ten minutes to forty-eight hours.” To deal with the boredom of waiting to be hired, Langley and other casuals would shoot craps or play poker for nickels and dimes, if they could afford to make such a modest wager.75 Pete

Grassi had similar experiences. He would “hustle a job” at the San Pedro outer harbor, sometimes after waiting eight or ten hours in order to get two hours of “rush” work before a ship sailed. When there were no jobs in the outer harbor, he took the streetcar to the Wilmington inner harbor or the ferry to Terminal Island to find work elsewhere in the

Port of Los Angeles.76

Others bribed managers and foremen. “You got so many jobs for a gallon of wine,” according to Grassi.77 Frank Sundstedt, whose sister had been badly injured in the mob attack on the IWW Hall in 1924, elaborated. Men would stick matches in their hats to signal their willingness to pay a bribe: “Three matches was a code. Maybe it meant a duck to the boss, or a chicken, or a bottle of wine or whiskey.” Henry Gaitan, one of the few Mexican-American lift-jitney (forklift) operators on the waterfront, put it bluntly, “If you had a nice-looking sister, and liquor, and a wife that would put out, you’d have a job.” Ed Thayne was lucky enough to have steady employment, but when he refused to help paint his foreman’s house on his day off, he lost his job when he showed up to work

75 Alfred E. Langley, interviewed by Tom W. Brown, transcribed by Robert G. Marshall, April 3, 1984, Local 13 Oral History Project, CSUN, 6-9.

76 Grassi interview, 4-5.

77 Ibid.

159 the next day. “And [the foreman] just left me standing there,” Thayne recalled, “He assigned five guys [to work], and then he just looked at me and walked away.”78

Instead of the fairness that Bureau managers touted in the press, the workers experienced rampant corruption in the hiring process. But what about the Bureau’s supposedly high wages and safe working conditions? What about the experiences of those longshoremen who found full time employment and kept their jobs? Again, the workers’ perspectives are revealing. Pete Dragovich stated that the Bureau only paid its high, $.90 per hour wage rate for cargo that was unloaded directly on or off a ship. If the cargo was unloaded from the ship and then piled on the dock as a “first point of rest,” the wage rate dropped to $.50 per hour for loading the same cargo into boxcars.79 Pete

Grassi and Ed Thayne remembered that the Bureau forced the longshoremen to “accept” a $.10 per hour wage cut.80 By 1933, the average wage for a longshoreman in San Pedro was $10.45 per week, qualifying at least half of the workforce for government relief.

Meanwhile, those seamen who wished to ship out of the Port of Los Angeles had to wait up to nine months. This large pool of the under- and unemployed similarly drove down seamen’s’ wages. 81

The work was not particularly safe, either. “You had to work period, if it was safe or not,” according to Grassi. Complaining would get a worker fired. “The

78 Frank Sundstedt, Henry Gaitan, and Ed Thayne interview excerpts published in Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 64-67.

79 Dragovich interview, 3.

80 Grassi interview, 8-9; Thayne interview in Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 67. The Times reported that longshoremen’s pay would rise $.10 per hour to $.85 in December 1933, indicating that wages had actually dropped $.5 to $.15 from the $.80 to $.90 per hour wage rate the Bureau implemented in 1923. See “Dock Workers’ Pay on Docket,” Los Angeles Times, December 14, 1933.

81 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 104.

160 companies were so greedy and hoggish that they wanted to get every ounce of energy and blood out of you that they could,” Thayne elaborated, “If you were hurt it didn’t mean anything to them… The boss just said, ‘There’s the cargo—you work it.’” While short shifts resulted in little pay, long shifts often resulted in fatigue and unsafe working conditions. Henry Gaitan recalled working a thirty-two hour shift pulling metal ore in his lift-jitney. His coworkers had to wake him up after he fell asleep at hour thirty.82 In

1934, A.H. “Pedro Pete” Petersen testified before the National Longshoremen’s Board (a federal agency formed to investigate working conditions and mediate waterfront labor disputes) that he had worked forty Sundays a year for the past five years as a member of a steady gang, often pulling twenty-four hour shifts. He could either work the shifts to earn the money he needed, or quit the gang and shape-up with the other casuals outside of the

Marine Service Bureau.83

The difficulty of loading cargo by hand was not captured in the Bureau’s rosy reports to the press or the dry, statistics-driven commodities trade reports published by the L.A. harbor commission and Chamber of Commerce. Elmer Mevert’s hands bled from the “rough burlap” of nitrate sacks, his shoulders swelled from packing bananas.

Sesame seed sacks were “slick as silk” and weighed 220 pounds. “You couldn’t stack those things for love or money,” he recalled, “If you had a bum partner who didn’t know how to handle them, you broke your goddamn neck.” For Pete Dragovich, the hardest jobs were lifting 50 to 180-pound bales of scrap iron and 250-pound sacks of borax.

82 Grassi interview, 11; Gaitan and Thayne interviews in Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 65-66.

83 A.H. Petersen testimony before the National Longshoremen’s Board, 1934, published in David F. Selvin, A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996), 39.

161 Frank “Rocky” Flint remembered the dangers of handling rubber: “the [cargo] hook would slice through it [and] it would have a tendency to hook into a human being instead of the bale of rubber.” Shoveling copra was relatively easy, except for the tendency for workers to develop “copra itch around their middle,” a skin rash that had to be treated with calamine lotion. “But it was just miserable,” Flint said, “because you continually wanted to scratch.”84

The Marine Service Bureau not a unique waterfront labor regime in most respects.

Similar working conditions prevailed in other ports in the 1920s and early 1930s, whether they were open shop like the “Fink Halls” in Seattle and Portland and dozens of small ports or run through a company union like the Longshoremen’s Association of San

Francisco and the Bay District (known as the “Blue Book” union). In each of these

Pacific harbors, hundreds of casual workers shaped up for the opportunity to work dangerous jobs at low pay.85

Rebuilding Maritime Unionism

Pacific Coast maritime workers were ready to rebel against their employers by the early 1930s. Most historical accounts of the resurgence of maritime unionism have focused on San Francisco. Whether they were members of the Communist Party’s fledgling Marine Workers Industrial Union, old members of the IWW, or militant unionists of another stripe, a core of rank and file activists began to organize in the Bay

84 Elmer Mevert interview in Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 66; Dragovich interview, 11; Frank “Rocky” Flint, interviewed by Bob Chacon, January 27, 1984, Local 13 Oral History Project, CSUN.

85 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 104-106; Ottilie Markholt, Maritime Solidarity: Pacific Coast Unionism, 1929-1938 (Tacoma: Pacific Coast Maritime History Committee, 1998), 20-37.

162 Area. They published a mimeographed newsletter, the Waterfront Worker, that advocated the abolition of the company-controlled Blue Book union and the return of a strong, member-driven organization that would have the power to improve working conditions. By the summer of 1933 the Waterfront Worker advocated that longshoremen rejoin the International Longshoremen’s Association, but push for militant policies and rank and file democracy. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s New Deal policies also helped motivate unionization. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act stated that workers had the right to organize and bargain collectively through the representatives of their own choosing. Just as it had encouraged thousands of miners who flocked to the United Mine Workers throughout the nation’s coalfields, the act inspired longshoremen to swell the ranks of the ILA in San Francisco and other ports.86

Though its officers were stalwart American Federation of Labor craft unionists and sympathetic to the controversial, if not corrupt, ILA president Joseph Ryan, the San

Francisco rank and file coalesced around the leadership of Harry Bridges, one of the contributors to the Waterfront Worker. A sharp-witted former sailor from Australia who had settled in San Francisco in 1920, Bridges took part in the 1921 failed seamen’s strike, briefly joined the IWW, and eventually found work as a longshoreman. He exuded confidence and articulated a sophisticated understanding of the ongoing class struggle between the waterfront bosses and workers. But more importantly, according to the labor historian Bruce Nelson, Bridges “was an intensely practical man who knew instinctively that any effort to organize the maritime workers would have to take full account of their limited aspirations and consciousness.” Bridges understood that workers desperately

86 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 118-125.

163 wanted change, but he also knew that revolutionary unionism was not the answer because

‘it went right over [the longshoremen’s] heads.’ At the ILA convention held in San

Francisco in February and March 1934, Bridges and his supporters pushed the union to adopt a program in favor of abolishing the shape up and establishing union-controlled hiring halls, a coast wide union contract covering all Pacific ports, and a new federation that would unite all of the maritime trades.87

Los Angeles and Long Beach longshoremen also joined the new ILA Local 38-82 en masse in the summer of 1933. Over the following months, the local’s leaders remained in close communication with union officials in other ports and took part in the

February-March 1934 ILA convention. The local vowed that it would “use the available methods opened by the Government to force the employers to recognize us.”88 Not surprisingly, the Marine Service Bureau refused to acknowledge the ILA. “Collective bargaining with longshoremen has been the bureau’s practice for a decade, practically the thing now authorized by the National Industrial Recovery Act,” a Bureau official dismissively stated to the Times in July 1933, “We see no benefit from unionization, rather disadvantages to the men. By cooperative agreement employers and employees have met, adjusted wage scales, working conditions and redress of grievances.”89 It was quite a feat of linguistic gymnastics for the Bureau to claim that its open-shop policies

87 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 112-114, 125. On Bridges’ early work experiences and union leadership, see Harvey Schwartz, “Harry Bridges and the Scholars: Looking at History’s Verdict” California History 59, no. 1 (1980): 66-79; Robert W. Cherny, “Harry Bridges: Making of a Labor Radical, 1901-1934” Pacific Historical Review 64, no. 3 (1995): 363-388.

88 Minutes of the Regular Meeting, December 19, 1933, in Regular Meetings: minutes, Aug 1 – Dec 9., 1933, Vol. 1-8 [ILA Local 38-82], 21, Series 1, Box 1, Folder 2, ILWU Local 13 Collection, Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge. [Hereafter Local 13 Collection, CSUN]. The other meeting minutes in this folder document the administrative functions of the union from 1933 through 1934.

89 “Longshoremen Facing Rebuff,” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1933.

164 were somehow equivalent to collective bargaining. When the Los Angeles Regional

Labor Board held a certification election for the ILA in January 1934, the Bureau tersely stated that it was unaware that the vote was being held. And despite the union winning the election in a landslide, 1262 to 32, the Bureau declared the result unbinding and announced that it would continue to represent the non-union workers.90

The San Francisco and L.A.-Long Beach ILA locals were both committed to building a coast wide union, but there were many political and philosophical differences below the surface. Harry Bridges made no secret of his affinity for Marxist theory, his advocacy of the class struggle, or his willingness to work closely with Communist Party members—though he later denied being a member himself when he faced federal deportation charges in the 1940s and 1950s. 91 On the other hand, L.A.-Long Beach secretary-treasurer A.H. “Pedro Pete” Petersen, president W.R. “Slim Bob” Patterson, and business agent W.J. “Sharkey” Hull were staunchly anti-communist and remained proponents of craft unionism. At one membership meeting Petersen “gave a talk concerning the two elements attempting to destroy the union, the communists and the stool-pigeons.”92 The San Francisco Waterfront Worker routinely blasted Petersen in its pages. For instance, the January 2, 1934, issue criticized both Petersen and ILA president

Joseph Ryan for supporting the arbitration of labor disputes and for relying on “phony” elections sanctioned by the Recovery Act, arguing that they were far too conciliatory to

90 “Longshoremen Plan for Vote,” Los Angeles Times, January 4, 1934; “Union Poll Held Futile,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1934.

91 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 114-129; Schwartz, “Harry Bridges and the Scholars,” 68; Cherny, 382-388.

92 Minutes of Regular Meeting, March 20, 1934, Reg. Meetings: minutes, Jan 3 – Dec 18, 1934, Vol. 2-B, Series 1, Box 1, Folder 4, Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

165 the employers. The paper argued that the workers had to demonstrate their commitment to the union though action, not just by voting. Moreover, it accused Petersen, Patterson, and Hull of being “exceptionally bureaucratic” in running Local 38-82 by making executive decisions, ignoring the will of the rank and file, and lining their pockets with dues money by paying themselves generous salaries.93

Petersen defended his local’s decision to hold a union election under the Recovery

Act in an angry letter to the Waterfront Worker. “But we in San Pedro have

CONFIDENCE enough in our solidarity to held an election under the auspices of the

Govt.,” he retorted, “You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension when you maintain that the men that the men have shown that they want the I.L.A. to represent them. The Govt., no matter how much they would like to believe you, have to find out for themselves and their method of determining who is who, is thru elections.” Given the

Marine Service Bureau’s resistance to the election, Petersen made a salient point about the vote’s legitimacy. As for being bureaucratic, he questioned how the union could possibly function “if it didn’t have officers at the head of the organization.”94 Yet

Petersen faced plenty of dissent from his members. A group of anonymous longshoremen published a San Pedro edition of the Waterfront Worker in 1934 to be “the voice of the oppressed workers crying out in pain and anger against the slave driving

93 Waterfront Worker, San Francisco ed., 2, no. 1, January 2, 1934, 1, 8.; Waterfront Worker 2, no. 2, January 15, 1934, 3. The complete San Francisco Waterfront Worker collection is hosted by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, University of Washington, http://depts.washington.edu/labpics2/repository/v/waterfront_workers/wworker

94 A.H. Petersen letter, Waterfront Worker 2, no. 2, 4. Note: Petersen’s last name is often spelled “Peterson” in primary and secondary sources.

166 bosses.”95 Like in the San Francisco edition of the paper, Petersen and the local leadership remained favorite targets. A cartoon depicted “Pedro Pete” as a huckster shilling life insurance to his impoverished membership. Another showed him as an adolescent errand boy doing the bidding of Marine Service Bureau manager Edwin

Nichols. Yet another showed him dutifully licking the boot of a shipowner, referring to his “OBSCENE AND DEGRADING SPECTACLE” of inviting an industry representative to speak at one of the local’s meetings. Local president W.R. Patterson was caricatured as a sanctimonious reactionary preacher in another cartoon for red- baiting his political opponents. Worst of all, the paper accused Petersen, Patterson, and

Hull of building “Tammany Hall Machine Rule” by trying to manipulate their election to a negotiation committee with the employers, while ignoring rank and file demands.96

The San Pedro Waterfront Worker also published stories from the local docks and news from other ports alongside its tongue-in-cheek commentary, humorous gossip, and satirical cartoons. The paper printed the names of men who had scabbed during the 1923

IWW strike, belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, or favored keeping the Marine Service

Bureau and called for their expulsion from the waterfront.97 It provided gruesome depictions of one-the-job accidents, including severed fingers and smashed bones, caused

95 “Our Policy,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed., 1, no. 1, February 17, 1934, Box 16, Folder 5, Register of the Harry Renton Bridges Papers, 1938-1955, SCL. Three issues of the San Pedro edition appear in this collection: numbers 1, 2, and 4 (indicating that at least four issues were published). These issues do not appear in the Waterfront Worker online archive, nor have I found these or any other issues of the San Pedro edition in the Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

96 “Pedro Pete Petering Out,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed., 1, no. 1; “Pete Coming Back from Mr. Nicholas,” “Rev. W.R. Patterson,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed., 1, no. 2, March 5, 1934; “Boot- Licker-Pete Doing-His-Daily Dozen!,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed., 1, no. 4, May 1, 1934.

97 “On the Spot,” “Remarks,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed. 1, no. 1; “Remarks,” “Louis Disner,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed. 1, no. 2; Letters to the editor from “Vigilant” and “Longshoreman with his eyes open,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed. 1, no. 4.

167 by the employers’ policies. “The only way to fight against this man killing speed-up, we repeat – is to organize Dock and Gang Committees and stand together to insist that some regard be paid to our lives,” the paper agitated, “Even if we wish to join a suicide club we are poor specimens of manhood if we will leave our families to exist on the miserable compensation given to our bodies.”98 Allegations of the local union leadership’s incompetence, pettiness, and wrongdoing took up plenty of copy space in the Waterfront

Worker but its efforts to awaken longshoremen to the everyday dangers of their jobs and the degradation of being ruled by misanthropic bosses was just as important.

The Big Strike

The battle over control of the harbor’s labor process culminated in the “Big

Strike” of 1934. Over the course of 83 days beginning on May 9, longshoremen struck every port from San Diego to Seattle in a coordinated action. The Big Strike began after the shipowners refused the demands adopted by the ILA rank and file caucus. In turn, the rank and filers refused to accept an unwritten “gentlemen’s agreement” brokered by ILA president Joseph Ryan and other officials that would have only resulted in limited union recognition and allowed the employers to continue to hire nonunion workers. Once again, most historians, journalists, and other chroniclers of the strike have focused on San

Francisco. The violent clashes between the police and the picketers, including the

“Bloody Thursday” of July 5 that claimed the lives of strikers Howard S. Sperry and Nick

Bordoise, solidified rank and file resolve. The rebellion culminated in a general strike from that united longshoremen, sailors, teamsters, and other union members from July 16

98 “A Few More Casualties,” Waterfront Worker, San Pedro ed., 1, no. 4.

168 through July 20 that brought much of the city’s commerce to a halt. The strike ended on

July 30 when the maritime workers returned to work with promises from the National

Longshoremen’s Board to negotiate a settlement.99

While overshadowed by the events in San Francisco, the strike also took several dramatic turns in Los Angeles Harbor. The 1,300 members of ILA Local 38-82 joined the walkout with the hope of eliminating the Fink Hall from the waterfront once and for all. The San Pedro News-Pilot reported that the strike “paralyzed shipping” on the morning of its first day. This success did not last long. Just like the IWW strike in 1923, the employers and the city authorities tried to use every tool at their disposal to end the strike. Within hours, the Marine Service Bureau mustered 300 strikebreakers who were members of the Mutual Protective Association of Los Angles and Long Beach Harbors, a supposedly “independent” union, and its management boasted that it had another 1,000 casuals at their disposal.100 The Merchants and Manufacturers Association immediately set up strikebreaker hiring offices in L.A., Vernon, and Wilmington, recruited nearly

1,300 replacement longshoremen, and housed them on ships docked in the harbor and behind stockades on the docks. Within a week, nearly 300 policemen under the command of Captain William “Red” Hynes (whose “Red Squad” had been harassing radicals throughout the city since the IWW strike) arrived at the harbor to keep the docks open.101 Patrolmen guarded strikebreakers as they entered and exited the docks. Plain- clothes officers summarily arrested picketers and hauled them to a city jail in San Pedro.

99 Chronicles of the Big Strike in San Francisco are in Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 127-155; Selvin, 88-240; Markholt, 85-89, 119-122, 151-178.

100 “Strike Cripples Shipping, Small Crews Hired to Work Dozen Ships,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 9, 1934.

101 Perry and Perry, 366-367.

169 For example, sailors union member Thomas Sharpe told The Nation magazine that a member of the Red Squad had arrested him. The officer beat him “unmercifully” at the police station, shattering his leg, breaking his shoulder, and rupturing an artery. Sharpe spent the next month in either the hospital or jail before a court declined to press charges and ordered his release.102

The L.A. longshoremen had also learned an important lesson from the 1923 strike: that they should not let the employers and police have a monopoly on violence.

The first strike-related death on the entire coast happened in Wilmington on the night of

May 14. Three hundred ILA members raided a strikebreaker compound located near the west basin of the inner harbor. One of the hired deputies guarding the compound shot

Dickie Parker through the heart, killing him instantly. Parker was twenty years old and had joined the union the previous day. Fifty-one year-old union member John Knudsen died three weeks later of the gunshot wound he suffered during the fight. Several other picketers and strikebreakers were injured in the raid. At the time, local newspapers reported that the raiders attempted to set fire to the stockade surrounding the compound and viciously attacked the guards and strikebreakers. The union denied these allegations, saying that the picketers were fired upon without provocation.103 In an oral history interview conducted decades later, one of the strikers admitted that the raid was planned

102 Thomas Sharpe testimony from The Nation printed in Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 131. See also “14 Jailed in Police Raid,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 21, 1934.

103 Perry and Perry, 367; Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 131-132; Selvin, 104; “One Slain, Score Injured in Strike Riot at West Basin,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 15, 1934; Second Strike Riot Victim Dies,” San Pedro News-Pilot, June 5, 1934.

170 ahead of time, but that the level of violence was unexpected. “[A]ll hell turned loose,” he recalled, “There was tear gas bombs and everything else.”104

Dickie Parker’s public funeral was the largest in San Pedro since the 1924 U.S.S.

Mississippi explosion (ironically, the same disaster that had served as a pretext for the vigilante raid on the IWW hall). The News-Pilot described the “impressive” two-mile long funeral procession of over a thousand union members silently marching with precision in front of 5,000 spectators.105 Parker’s death further galvanized the union into action. Picketers blocked a streetcar carrying strikebreakers on the morning of May 23 and convinced over 150 of the men to return to Los Angeles.106 Replacement workers nevertheless flooded the harbor area. Al Langley and other strikers spied on the employers’ recruitment offices. When a strikebreaker left the offices, Langley recalled,

“we would knock him over and take his money from him and tell him, ‘Look, don’t ever come back here again! You get back to Oklahoma or someplace and stay there!’”107

Pete Dragovich expressed some sympathy for those who were poor, hungry, and needed a job at the height of the Great Depression. “[U]nfortunately it was just people that wanted work,” he explained, “but hell they were trying to beat us…beat us out of our jobs, and we didn’t want ‘em around and so there was a lot of fist cuffs and damage done.” Dragovich elaborated on the violence he and the other union members unleashed on the strikebreakers:

104 Archie (Jumbo) Royal interview, Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 70.

105 “Police Mass to Prevent Parade,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 22, 1934.

106 “Trolleys Are Jerked to Halt Replacements,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 23, 1934.

107 Langley interview, 15.

171 We’d wait [for the strikebreakers] to come out of the various areas with their cars and then run ‘em off the road and beat the hell out of them and take any money got away from them and…jewelry and everything else. We didn’t let them get by with much. There was a little maiming going on, but I don’t think there were any lives taken.108

Dragovich’s testimony may seem to reinforce the cultural stereotype of the brutish longshoreman, like the thugs who harass Terry Malloy in the 1954 film On The

Waterfront. Newspaper articles documented the escalation of violence between picketers, strikebreakers, and policemen, often pinning the blame on militants and “red” agitators.109 Yet it is important to consider the strategy and forethought that went into the strikers’ actions. They planned their surveillance activities and organized groups to intercept strikebreakers. Most impressively, Local 38-82 tried to figure out the names of strikebreakers and gather intelligence about where they lived and worked. All of the information was printed on the three by five-inch index cards. One card from May 24,

1934, lists a strikebreaker’s name, address, telephone number, car make and model, license plate number and a brief description: “Moved to Harbor City- Scab checker at

Matson and is harboring 3 scabs who live with him.” While many of the strikebreakers had addresses near the harbor, a few lived dozens of miles away in places like Glendale,

Santa Monica, or in Los Angeles proper. Some of the cards identify men armed with guns, perhaps private security guards who were hired to protect other strikebreakers.

Others tell different stories. Two cards identify college students, one from Berkeley and one from the nearby University of Southern California. Finally, some cards reveal more economic desperation than desire to break the strike. One scab from Wilmington was

108 Dragovich interview, 5-6.

109 See for instance, “150 Dispersed on Docks; Red Attack Fails,” San Pedro News-Pilot; “Police Rout Raiding Strikers,” San Pedro News-Pilot, June 25, 1934.

172 “longshoring from necessity.” Another card states that the county welfare office encouraged a man to cross the picket line and go to work when his family was taken off relief.110

There were other key differences between the 1934 strike and the 1923 IWW strike. Despite the employers’ success at keeping the harbor open, the L.A. and Long

Beach strikers were in a coordinated action with their brethren in other ports. The strike crippled shipping elsewhere on the coast, giving the maritime unions far more leverage than they would have had in a walkout limited to a single port. San Francisco lost 2.7 million workdays and $100 million in wages and business alone.111 The longshoremen were further strengthened when the seamen’s unions joined the walkout on May 16.112

Despite the efforts of employers and local and state authorities to defeat the unions, the federal government helped broker a negotiated settlement on a coastwise level. This was a reversal in the use of state power. Pacific shipowners and maritime employers— especially in open shop Los Angeles—had previously been able to marshal the tools of the state to their advantage in labor relations. Of course, there were no strong labor laws protecting the right to organize prior to the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act or its successor, the National Labor Relations Act. City and state politicians, police forces, and courts had consistently backed the employers during the maritime strikes that occurred between 1886 and 1923. The tables began to turn in the wake of the Big Strike.113

110 Scab Index Card Files, Series II, Box 48, ILWU Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

111 Selvin, 236-237.

112 “Seamen Join Longshore Strike,” San Pedro News-Pilot, May 16, 1934.

113 Perry and Perry, 366-367.

173 Labor Gains, 1934-1940

Rank and file longshoremen had good reason to question whether they had won the battle with their employers. The writers of the Waterfront Worker distrusted federal interference with the organization of the ILA prior to the Big Strike. The settlement of the walkout validated some of these fears. The initial deal brokered by the U.S government’s National Longshoremen’s Board did not permit a closed shop, but called for a joint hiring hall that would also be run by the employers. Over 1,000 strikers immediately resumed their jobs in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach after the walkout ended, but nearly 100 nonunion longshoremen remained on the docks.114 Even though they had successfully shut down the port of San Francisco, Bay Area strike leaders and their allies worried that they had been beaten. The general strike portion of the walkout had only lasted four days before the non-maritime unionists returned to work.

They feared that the employers and government would be able to stem militant labor actions in the future. Even with union members back on the job, activists were not sure if they would be able to achieve their demands.115

Remaining committed to the open shop, the L.A. Times believed that the strikers should have been completely eliminated from the waterfront. An editorial argued, “the strike was a wanton desertion of fair employment—and a still more wanton blow at the prosperity of the entire Pacific.” Had Los Angeles Harbor not remained open with the service of the “courageous and loyal” strikebreakers, “the Pacific Coast would have had to lower its colors as an oceanic shipping depot.” The editors concluded that it was a

114 “Dock Men Return to Work; Seamen Disagree on Truce,” San Pedro News-Pilot, July 31, 1934.

115 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 156-157.

174 “matter of common commercial decency” and “honorable fair dealing” to allow more strikebreakers to remain on the job.116 For the longshoremen who risked their jobs in the

Big Strike, the only “fair dealing” the strikebreakers deserved was a swift kick off the waterfront. Joe Stahl, who had crossed the picket line for nine days early in the strike before joining the ILA, recalled that a group of fifty to sixty union members forcibly ran two gangs of strikebreakers off the docks.117 The only workers that the local would allow were either members of the union who had taken part in the strike, or new hires that were

“sponsored” into the union by an existing member.118 Ignoring the concept of a joint hiring hall, the local dispatched gangs of longshoremen on a rotational basis.

Longshoremen in L.A., San Francisco, and other harbors also staged wildcat strikes to win improvements. Arbitrators often sided with the union in order to keep port operations running smoothly, ensuring that longshoremen received a six-hour workday, reasonable cargo load limits, and slower pace of work. Union members also agreed to limit themselves to 120 hours of work per month, allowing more men to receive full time employment.119

These actions signaled the transition of control over L.A. harbor’s cargo handling labor process from the employers to the workers. Harry Bridges and the leadership of the

ILA Pacific District took other steps to consolidate the union’s economic gains. The ILA, the Sailors Union of the Pacific, and other maritime unions joined forces in the Maritime

116 “A Matter of Justice,” Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1934.

117 Joe Stahl, interview in Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 72.

118 Evidence of an official sponsorship policy may be found in the Membership Committee minutes and rosters beginning in 1935, Series 1, Box 34, Folders 6 and 11, Box 35, Folder 6, Box 37, Folder 1, ILWU Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

119 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 157-161; Markholt, 207-226.

175 Federation of Pacific in 1935. This attempt to unite workers across craft lines had the potential of fulfilling the IWW’s old pledge to build “one big union” in the industry.

Though the federation helped the unions maintain their gains from the 1934 strike and win another major coastwise strike in 1936 and 1937, it ultimately collapsed over personality conflicts, philosophical and political differences, and jurisdictional disputes.

Harry Bridges remained allied to the Communist Party, broke with the American

Federation of Labor, and led the West Coast longshoremen into a new union affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937, the International

Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). Only the Port of Tacoma and a few other small Puget Sound harbors remained in the ILA. Under the leadership of Harry

Lundeberg, a militant activist who had immigrated to San Francisco from Norway, the

Sailors Union of the Pacific also stuck with the AFL. Lundeberg and the SUP soon became bitter enemies with the ILWU and the CIO’s upstart seaman’s organization, the

National Maritime Union.120

The conflicts in the federation also posed a minor threat to solidarity in Los

Angeles. A.H. “Pedro Pete” Petersen and some of the Local 38-82 officers maneuvered to stay in the ILA and out of the ILWU, preferring craft unionism to Harry Bridges’ radicalism. An open letter to Local 38-82 written by three union members supported the

CIO’s industrial unionism because it would eliminate the “factionalism” and “friction” between separate unions. Perhaps referring to Bridges’ appointment as the West Coast

CIO director by John L. Lewis, the letter writers further argued that the longshoremen’s union would be the “decisive and vital voice” of the new federation. Most importantly,

120 Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 189-222.

176 the letter implored the L.A. and Long Beach rank and file to keep the union intact as “the weapon by which we maintain our current conditions” and not let Petersen divide the membership for his own gain:

It is widely known that A.H. Peterson and his stooges long ago saw their hold on the I.L.A. slipping, and they decided then that they would have to let it go into the hands of progressive union-minded men. Their new program was to SEEK TO DISRUPT IT, TO SMASH IT, then pick up the pieces and build a new organization that would be nothing but a glorified slave market of the old days, but with the label of the AF of L on it, and themselves as the officers and big shots. IF YOU ARE AGAINST THIS PROGRAM OF THE FAKIRS, then say so and help us to stop them in their tracks RIGHT NOW.121

The rank and file voted overwhelmingly to become ILWU Local 13. After a convoluted legal battle waged by Petersen over ownership of the union’s property, assets, and hiring hall, a judge ruled that Local 13 could take the place of Local 38-82. Local 13 kicked

Petersen and his few allies (nicknamed the “Dirty Dozen”) out of the industry. Petersen became an organizer for the AFL. He sparred with Bridges in 1940 when he unsuccessfully attempted to get the ILA certified as the union at Port Hueneme in

Ventura County, over the objections of the ILWU. Former local president W.R. “Slim

Bob” Patterson and other members of the “Dirty Dozen” found work at the L.A. Harbor shipyards.122

121 “STOP THIS DISRUPTION IN THE I.L.A.,” open letter from M.L. McGowan, L.B. Thomas, and E. Mevert to Local 38-83 members, undated [ca. 1937-1938], Box 9, Folder 4, ILWU Local 26, Los Angeles, California. Bulletins and newsletters, 1937-1939, Union Files Collection, SCL.

122 Perry and Perry, 385-389; Markholt, 337-339; “Bridges Demands C.I.O. Control of Port Hueneme Before N.L.R.B.,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1940; “Hates of Port Union Aired at Hueneme Labor Meeting,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1940. The fate of the “Dirty Dozen” is also mentioned in oral history interviews, including Langley interview, 22; Grassi interview, 30-31; George W. Love interview with Tony Salcido, May 16, 19, 30, 1989, transcription by Robert G. Marshall and Farah Ortega, Local 13 Oral History Collection, CSUN, 66.

177 Like its predecessors, both the ILA and the ILWU recognized that ports were part of a larger network of commodity chains and transportation systems. Beginning in the

Bay Area in 1934, the longshoremen’s union embarked on a major campaign to not only organize the warehouses near the waterfront, but the massive storage and distribution complexes located further inland. This “March Inland,” Harvey Schwartz documents in his book, promised to “fortify the union’s general and strategic position in dealing with management.”123 In the Los Angeles region, ILA Local 38-106 and its successor, ILWU

Local 26, organized the cotton compress and warehouse workers in the San Pedro outer harbor, workers at several large flour and grain mills, cold storage and grocery food warehouses, wholesale hardware, drug, paper, and textile waste material distributors, and steel and scrap metal yards. 124 Bitter jurisdictional disputes with the Teamsters union offset these victories in northern and southern California and limited the reach of the

ILWU. The vast majority of transportation workers remained outside of the Maritime

Federation and the ILWU because they belonged to the Teamsters or one of the railroad brotherhoods. Workers in oil, rubber, and other commodity industries tied to the ports did not belong to the ILWU either, although many were allied through the CIO (and successful organization by any union severely weakened the open shop in L.A. by the late

1930s). Finally, the agricultural workers who harvested the citrus, fruit, and vegetables that were shipped through West Coast harbors struggled—and usually failed—to

123 Schwartz, The March Inland, 14.

124 The industries organized by Locals 38-106 and 26 are mentioned in “Unions Try to Enlist Workers: Cotton Compress, Warehouse Employees Sought,” Los Angeles Sentinel, January 7, 1937; “Lodge Reports,” The Los Angeles Warehouse Union News 1, no. 1, September 7, 1937, Box 9, Folder 4, ILWU Local 26, Union Files Collection, SCL.

178 organize in the 1930s and beyond in the face of brutal opposition by growers and local authorities.125

Conclusion: New Era for Workers

The successful organization of longshoremen in Los Angeles Harbor in the 1930s and the subsequent transfer of job control to the union was a stunning reversal for maritime employers. The shipowners and stevedore companies had successfully used the muscle of the state to suppress the labor movement and crush strikes since the late nineteenth century. The defeat of the militant IWW and the establishment of the Marine

Service Bureau in the 1920s was the pinnacle of capital’s power over labor. The Bureau supplied labor to the docks through a regimented hiring system. Losing out to a hastily organized International Longshoremen’s Association local during the 1934 strike— especially when the harbor had stayed open through the use of strikebreakers—was an unimaginable defeat for the open shop adherents in the L.A. business community. The federal mandate of bargaining with the maritime unions on a coastwise level further robbed local bosses like Edwin Nichols of the ability to wield power over the harbor workforce.

125 On the ILWU-Teamsters dispute see Schwartz, The March Inland, 106-172; “Labor Racketeers and Goons Cannot Stop Our Progress!,” The Los Angeles Warehouse Union News 1, no. 1; “N.L.R.B. Hearing of Zellerbach Case Ends,” The Los Angeles Warehouse Union News 1, no. 5, October 18, 1937; “Teamster Officials & Police Protect Scabs at Taylor Milling Corporation!,” “I.B.T.-Mill Agreement Exposed!,” “A Tale of Two Unions,” ILWU Local 26 flyers, undated [ca. 1937-1938], Box 9, Folder 4, ILWU Local 26, Register of Union Files Collection. On AFL and CIO organizing in Los Angeles and the eventual triumph over the open shop consult Perry and Perry, 442-537. On agricultural organizing in California in the 1930s see McWilliams, 211-229; Weber, 79-111, 164-167, 180-199; Cletus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), 105-257.

179 The labor movement did not achieve all of its aims either. Just like the L.A.

Board of Harbor Commissioners, the Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Times, and other boosters, union activists had long appreciated the important role that the harbor played in the local, regional, and global economists. The IWW could not follow through on its promise to organize “the heart of the capitalistic system.” A decade later, the

Maritime Federation’s push for solidarity across craft lines and the ILWU’s “March

Inland” came closer, but fell short due to political and jurisdictional conflicts. Z.W.

Craig’s early twentieth century vision of for more meaningful public ownership of the

“free harbor” never returned as a priority with the triumph of maritime unionism in the

1930s. The longshoremen were far more concerned with making their work safer and their lives more prosperous.

Still, it is impossible to understate how meaningful these job improvements were for ordinary workers. Pete Dragovich kept a time book documenting his hours, income, and expenses in 1935, the first full year of the ILA’s new contract with the Pacific Coast maritime employers. He worked 253 days, averaging nearly five days a week. He received $.95 and then $1.05 hour for straight time and $1.40 and $1.50 for overtime, earning a total of $2,244.51 (the buying power of $36,852.40 in 2011). He earned an average of $187 per month, with highs of over $220 per month in March, May, and

August and a low of $112 in November. This was enough money to support his family.

He paid his grocery and utility bills and put gas in his car. He got haircuts and bought new work clothes and shoes. He bought candy and ice cream for his children. He indulged in cigarettes and the occasional drink of beer or whiskey. He spent his free time bowling, playing pool, golfing, and watching ball games. He gave his wife spending

180 money and took her out to dinners, dances, and shows.126 This was the good life compared to shaping up in the alley outside of the Fink Hall; this was a small token of the prosperity that the boosters of Los Angeles Harbor had promised the public.

Maintaining this prosperity—and sharing it with workers of different races— would prove difficult as cargo handling in Los Angeles Harbor experienced massive technology changes during World War II and the postwar period. The ILWU was a fixture on the waterfront, but maritime employers looked for new ways of reasserting their control over the labor process.

126 Pete Dragovich time book, 1935, Series II, Box 37, Folder 3, Dragovich: Pete, memorabilia, Local 13 Collection, CSUN. The 2011 buying power for Dragovich’s 1935 earnings was determined using the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index inflation calculator, http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

181 Chapter 5

The Anxieties of Progress: Modernization, Labor, and Race on the Postwar Los Angeles Waterfront

The winter 1968-1969 issue of Los Angeles Scope announced that L.A. had emerged as “World Trade’s “Magic” City.” Published by Mayor Sam Yorty’s City

Economic Development Board, the magazine boasted that the West Coast’s largest metropolis offered new office complexes, hosted the burgeoning entertainment and aerospace industries, and was home to the state-of-the art Los Angeles International

Airport. The Scope gave the city’s massive harbor complex special prominence, labeling the Port of Los Angeles the “Center of World Commerce.”1 This rhetoric was not unique to the 1960s. The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, the Chamber of

Commerce, and other boosters had envisioned the port as a gateway to regional and global trade since its inception. This dream seemed to come true as the port’s commerce rapidly expanded in the 1920s, endured through the Great Depression, and rebounded by the start of World War II.

Much like Clarence Matson and other Chamber of Commerce leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, Mayor Yorty and several harbor commissioners and city councilors embarked on a journey to Asia in 1962 to strengthen the “bonds of trade and friendship between the

Port of Los Angeles and the business capitals of the Far East.” Though they also visited

Manila, Taipei, and Hong Kong, the trade mission focused mainly on Japan. The L.A. delegation met with government and port officials and the heads of shipping lines, manufacturers, and banks in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya, which had

1 “Los Angeles: World Trade’s “Magic” City,” Los Angeles Scope 4, no. 1 (Winter 1968-1969): 4-5; “Port of Los Angeles: Center of World Commerce,” Los Angeles Scope 4, no. 1: 24-27.

182 been one of L.A.’s sister cities since 1958.2 Within five years, the port entered into formal trade agreements with four Japanese prefectures, including Nagasaki, Okayama,

Miyagi, and most importantly, Hokkaido. The Scope explained the significance of this particular pact:

…the Port of Los Angeles expects to increase present exports and imports between Southern California and Hokkaido by approximately 200,000 tons per year. Additionally, all of the products of Hokkaido destined for Southern California will flow through this Harbor and, in turn, exports from here will be marked via Port of Los Angeles. The City of Los Angeles will benefit from the increased trade, and our relations with the people of Japan will be enhanced.3

This eagerness to trade with Japan mirrors the sentiments of the 1930s Chamber—with some major differences. The city officials and harbor commissioners of the 1960s were not doing business with an empire that threatened the sovereignty of its neighbors, nor challenged the military and political supremacy of the United States in the Pacific. After all of its enthusiasm for the “Little Empire of Japan,” the Chamber had to abruptly change its tune after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In early 1942, it sheepishly relayed a request from the U.S. Treasury Department for L.A. exporters to provide information on the nature and value of shipments they had made to Asian territories “now controlled by the enemy.”4

While they wanted practical information on Asian exports, government authorities never questioned the patriotism of the Chamber officials. This was not true for the

100,000 first-generation Japanese immigrants (Issei) and second-generation Japanese-

2 ““The Port of Los Angeles 1961-1962 Annual Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1962), 7.

3 “Port of Los Angeles: Center of World Commerce,” Los Angeles Scope 4, no. 1: 25-26.

4 “Report on Sales to Asiatic Markets Asked,” Southern California Business, January 26, 1942.

183 American citizens (Nisei) living on the West Coast who were sent to internment camps by the federal government for the duration of the war. Scholars have long doubted the military necessity of President Roosevelt’s 1942 executive order for internment or the

Supreme Court’s 1944 decision to uphold its legality in Korematsu v. United States.

Institutional, economic, and cultural racism against the Japanese and other Asian communities had manifested throughout the nation (and especially in California and the

West) since the nineteenth century. Internment was an expedient way for politicians on all levels of government to drum up support for the war effort by both demonizing the enemy and reassuring non-Japanese residents that the nation was secure. It also benefited powerful white agricultural interests who wanted to eliminate competition from Japanese

American growers.5

In Los Angeles, Mayor Fletcher Bowron relied on the arguments that Japanese residents posed such a threat that they could not be allowed to participate in the city’s economic and civic life. “Finally and perhaps most shamelessly,” the historian Scott

Kurashige argues, “Bowron advanced the Catch-22 argument that an absence of evidence of sabotage by Japanese Americans signaled that a sneak attack was imminent.”6 The same went for the 2,000 Issei and Nisei residents on Terminal Island in East San Pedro, amidst the piers and warehouses of the Port of Los Angeles. A handful of Japanese emigrants were among the pioneers of the harbor’s fishing industry, having moved to

Terminal Island in 1901 to fish for abalone. Hundreds more arrived from the late 1910s

5 Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race, 108-131; For an overview of the politics of internment, see Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).

6 Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race, 120.

184 through the 1930s. Japanese men crewed the fishing boats while women found work on the cannery packing lines. A small network of Japanese-operated restaurants, stores, and businesses along Tuna Street supported the surrounding community of small cottages.

While many of the residents continued to attend either Buddhist or Shinto services, a few converted to Christianity and attended a Baptist mission. Residents also celebrated

Japanese holidays and took part in traditional Japanese sports and leisure activities. Still,

Japanese children learned English in the local school and studied U.S. history and civics.

The Terminal Islanders also adopted western clothing and used a dialect that mixed

English and Japanese vocabulary.7

The federal expulsion and internment orders were a complete shock to the

Japanese community. As they did in other Japanese neighborhoods throughout Southern

California immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, FBI agents rounded up male community leaders on Terminal Island.8 All of the Japanese fishermen were arrested in

February 1942. “I guess fishing was a crime to them at that time because they took every fishermen in the whole island,” recalled former island resident Fusaye Hashimoto in a documentary film interview over 40 years later, “Just a very sad sight. Nothing but crying when they were taking our fathers away.” The remaining island residents were given 48 hours to evacuate their homes in late February. Junk dealers descended on the island and bought residents’ furniture and valuables for a fraction of their worth. The fishermen lost their boats. The residents had no houses to return to after the war, after

7 Kanshi Stanley Yamashita, “Terminal Island: Ethnography of an Ethnic Community: Its Dissolution and Reorganization to a Non-Spatial Community” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Irvine, 1985), 43-49; 96-134; 137-149; A Time Remembered: The Terminal Island Story, VHS, directed by Trevor Greenwood (Los Angeles: Churchill Media, 1994).

8 “Japanese Aliens’ Roundup Starts,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1941; A Time Remembered.

185 they and 11,000 other detainees spent over three years in the desolate “war relocation center” in Manzanar, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Their houses had been leased from the cannery companies, which in turn leased the property from the L.A. harbor commission. Neither the city nor the federal government allowed the community to move back to Terminal Island.9

Japanese American people may not have returned to Terminal Island after the war but eventually Japanese goods did. Over the next two decades, L.A.’s government and business elites buried the negative memories of the war and were ready to pursue friendship through trade once again. This marked the beginning of a reversal in Los

Angeles Harbor commerce. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the city’s boosters argued that a modern seaport was necessary for the region’s economic growth.

The flow of commodities through the harbor fueled the establishment of tire plants, oil refineries, and other industries in the 1920s and 1930s. In turn, the Port of Los Angeles and the neighboring Port of Long Beach served as the primary shipping point for the products of California and the American West. The volume of imports gradually overtook exports in the postwar period, making the ports the primary U.S. gateway for goods manufactured in Japan and other Pacific Rim nations. This change may seem insignificant compared to the continued growth in total commerce. However, as the first section of this chapter demonstrates, it was part of a major transformation in the U.S. economy. The stagnation and loss of manufacturing affected many communities throughout the nation, including parts of the Los Angeles region by the 1970s.

9 A Time Remembered. Fusaye Hashimoto was also interviewed in for the Terminal Island Life History Project, Online Archive of California, in 1994, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt367n993t&chunk.id=d0e1698&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text

186 The shift to imports was also accelerated by a new transportation technology.

Intermodal shipping containers—those ubiquitous steel boxes used on modern cargo ships, stack-trains, and tractor-trailer trucks—transformed the economic geography of the world by facilitating the efficient movement of goods with low cost production overseas.

Yet container shipping should not be regarded as the inevitable result of a free market.

The harbor commissions of Los Angeles and Long Beach continued to pour public resources into new port infrastructure throughout the postwar period. And while port officials used neutral language to describe containerization (for instance, “modern facilities with the latest in freight transportation technologies” in Long Beach), it threatened to disrupt the rhythm of work on the waterfront.10 Harry Bridges and the leadership of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union understood this. The union and West Coast maritime employers brokered the Mechanization and

Modernization Agreement in 1960 that promised to give longshoremen economic benefits in return for allowing new cargo handling technologies to be introduced on the waterfront.

Port modernization in Los Angeles Harbor remained a contentious issue for the members of ILWU Local 13. They were the only major local membership to oppose the pact, worrying that it gave too much power to their employers. These fears were vindicated by the late 1960s as container shipping eviscerated job opportunities and threatened their livelihoods. These tensions led directly to the 1971-1972 West Coast dock strike. Work methods were not the only challenge to the waterfront status quo.

Race relations among the workforce had been contentious since the early twentieth

10 “Sea-Land Service Comes to Port,” Harbor Highlights: Port of Long Beach California 8, no. 3 (1962): 1-3.

187 century. Hundreds of black longshoremen waged a protracted legal battle to secure their place as full members of Local 13 in the 1940s and 1950s. The next generation of black workers in the 1960s and 1970s used new civil rights and fair employment laws to assert their claims to better jobs. This litigation was especially contentious because it pitted the traditional hiring practices of Local 13’s mostly white leaders against the black workers’ demands for a more egalitarian racial and economic order. The postwar conflicts over race and employment shed new light on the experiences of workers, unions, and the law in the context of technological change. The technological “progress” of the harbor was offset by economic uncertainty and racial tensions, creating a social and cultural context for the anxieties felt by waterfront workers.

Los Angeles Harbor in War and Peace

Historians and other scholars have long credited World War II for lifting the

United States out of the Great Depression. In order to build the “Arsenal of Democracy,”

$26 billion was invested in new industrial production, increasing the net assets (the value of plants and equipment) of the nation’s industrial facilities from $40 billion to $66 billion. Approximately two-thirds of the money came directly from federal coffers. The defense industries were the main beneficiaries of government spending. The shipbuilding industry and aviation industries had assets of $162 million and $114 million, respectively, in 1939. During the war, the nation’s shipyards received $2.2 billion to build new plants and buy equipment, while the aircraft manufacturers received over $3.3 billion. Civilian industries, including steel, likewise received $5 billion. The government spent far more money to equip its armed forces (and those of its allies) with state-of-the art weapons and

188 supplies. Defense spending alone increased from $1.66 billion in 1940 to $6.13 billion in

1941, before ballooning to $22.05 billion in 1943, $43.98 billion in 1943, $62.95 billion in 1944, and $64.53 billion in 1945.11

California especially benefited from this largesse. The state received $35 billion in federal investments (the highest amount in the nation after New York and Michigan), which more than doubled its manufacturing economy. Nearly 1.6 million people moved to California to satisfy the demand for labor (part of the state’s total population growth from 6.9 million to 10.6 million people from 1940 to 1950). The need for workers also helped groups that had faced diminished job prospects during the Depression, including women, Mexican Americans, and the white “Okie” Dust Bowl migrants. The war accelerated L.A. County’s industrial and demographic growth. The county population grew from 2,785,643 in 1940 to approximately 3,365,000 in 1945. Over 230,000 men and women worked in the county’s aircraft factories alone, churning out fighters and bombers for Lockheed, Douglas, Northrop, North American, Convair, and other leading companies.12

The harbor played a central role in the war effort. Bethlehem Steel, Consolidated

Steel, Western Pipe & Steel, Todd Shipyards Corporation, and the California

Shipbuilding Corporation (a joint venture between Todd and the Kaiser Corporation, whose mill in nearby Fontana supplied steel to many of the region’s industries) employed

11 Gary Hooks and Leonard E. Bloomquist, “The Legacy of World War II for Regional Growth and Decline: The Cumulative Effects of Wartime Investments on U.S. Manufacturing, 1947-1972” Social Forces 71 (1992): 303-306; Christopher J. Tassava, “The American Economy During World War II,” Economic History Association website, 2010, http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tassava.WWII

12 Starr, Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), viii-ix, 123; “Population Growth by Single Year Los Angeles County, 1850-1998,” Los Angeles Education Partnership website, 1998, http://www.laep.org/target/science/population/table.html

189 90,000 workers in the harbor’s shipyards and produced over five million deadweight tons of new vessels. Harbor operations fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy during the war. Though federal authorities kept specific information about imports and exports a secret, the Port of Los Angeles went from handling 13 million tons in 1941-1942 to over

24 million tons in 1944-1945, while the Port of Long Beach increased from 2.5 million tons to 5.9 million tons. The L.A. harbor commission later reported that 42 percent of the oil and 65 percent of the cargo capacity used by the military in the Pacific theater was shipped through California, with the bulk coming from the Southland. The Reeves Field

Naval Air Station and Long Beach Naval Dry Docks (located between the two ports on the southern shore of Terminal Island) and Fort MacArthur in San Pedro were among many California military installations used as defense, training, and staging areas throughout the conflict.13

Federal government officials, national business interests, and labor leaders hoped to sustain the nation’s economic output and full employment after the war by continuing defense spending and reconverting major industries from military to civilian production.

The mass consumption of new homes, automobiles, appliances, and other products by a growing middle class, the historian Lizabeth Cohen explains, “promised to fulfill the long-sought goal of delivering an adequate standard of living to all Americans.”14 Civic and business leaders in Los Angeles and other cities likewise understood that consumer spending sustained local industries and jobs. To that end, the L.A. and Long Beach

13“1947 Annual Report,” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1947), 18-19; The Port of Long Beach California: America’s Most Modern Port, 18.

14 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Vintage Books ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 113-114.

190 harbor commissions emphasized the hidden roles that the ports played in the everyday lives of Southland residents. For instance, a scene from a 1955 promotional film produced by the L.A. harbor commission featured a brief segment on consumer imports narrated by “a Los Angeles housewife.” Using a cartoon-animated version of the quintessential middle class white American nuclear family as a backdrop, she asked:

Do you like papayas, bananas, pineapples, tropical fruit? These come through our harbor. And you wouldn’t have much of an automobile without 40 imports from 20 nations to give it glass, chrome, tires, its paintjob. What to drink? Tea, coffee, chocolate, cola: all of these imported from 26 foreign countries. And life is more comfortable with that pipe made of foreign briar, imported tobacco for a blend, an evening newspaper on stock from mills of faraway countries, that smoking jacket of imported wool, and felt slippers for those tired feet. Do you know we need 48 imports from 18 countries for telephones? Or Sis couldn’t make those hour-long calls—which mightn’t be a bad idea. And Junior, he’d be just as happy, but a lot dirtier, without oils and fats to make soap. And speaking of fat, how about butter fat, enriched by products shipped in to the harbor for use in Los Angeles County.15

Whether aimed directly at Los Angeles area residents or (more likely) at domestic and foreign shippers and manufacturers, the film and similar promotional materials reinforced the significance of the harbor’s trade to the economic life of Los Angeles and Southern

California. This was nearly the same message that the L.A. Chamber of Commerce had promoted throughout the early twentieth century, but with more of a consumerist spin.16

In addition to their enthusiasm for consumer products, harbor officials continued to emphasize L.A.’s industrial dominance. Though there were minor declines in shipping

15 Port of Los Angeles: Latitude North 34° Longitude West 118°, DVD, directed by Ozzie Glover (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, ca. 1955). The film is available as a part of the “Steppin’ Back in Time” video series from the Port of Los Angeles. There is no date on the film transfer, though its production and first viewing is mentioned in “Chicago Premiere for Film on L.A. Harbor,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1955.

16 See also the inaugural issues of the Port of Long Beach’s publication, Harbor Highlights 1, nos. 1-4 (1955); “Your Harbor in Everyday Living” in “1948 Annual Report,” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1948), 22-33.

191 during a few years of this time period, Port of Los Angeles commerce had increased from

15.4 million tons in 1946-1947 to 23.3 million tons in 1958-1959. The port continued to ship more cargo than it received, with outbound shipments (or exports, including domestic and foreign shipments from the port) averaging more than twice the amount of inbound receipts (or imports, including domestic and foreign shipments to the port) for each fiscal year from the late 1940s through the 1950s. A closer look at this shipping data reveals a different trend over the long term. While exports outnumbered imports in the 1950s, imports grew at a faster rate than exports in every year except 1950, 1955, and

1959. Exports decreased in the 1960s while imports grew considerably. The Port of Los

Angeles shipped 15.6 million tons in 1959-1960, but only 14.5 million tons in 1969-1970.

Imports rose from 9 million to 11.4 million tons over the same time period. The port imported more than it exported for the first time in 1971-1972. By 1979-1980, the Port of Los Angeles imported 26.7 million tons and exported 18.5 million tons (see Chart on the following page and Appendix D).17 Though detailed data is only readily available from 1964 through 1977, Port of Long Beach shipping went through a similar (though arguably less dramatic) transformation. It shipped slightly more goods than it received in the mid-to-late 1960s, but imports surpassed exports by 1971-1972.18

17 Shipping data taken from the Port of Los Angeles Annual Reports from 1946-1947 through 1979-1980.

18 Shipping data taken from Port of Long Beach annual reports, fiscal years 1964-1965 through 1976-1977. The Long Beach harbor commission did not publish specific shipping data in 1977-1978, except to state that combined foreign imports and exports were 20.5 million tons and accounted for 61 percent of total harbor commerce.

192

193 The trend for foreign commerce in the Port of Los Angeles was even more striking. Due to the destruction of the economic infrastructure of much of Europe and

Asia during World War II, the port imported a mere 315,541 tons from foreign markets in

1946-1948, down from 562,815 tons in 1940-1941. Foreign exports were much higher at

1.65 million tons, though this was still well below the 3 million tons exported in 1940-

1941. In less than a decade, foreign imports closely matched or surpassed foreign exports.

Nearly 2 million tons were imported in 1952-53, compared to 1.5 million tons exported to foreign markets. Foreign exports trounced imports in 1954-1955 (2.9 million tons compared to 1.4 million tons), but imports soon recovered. Foreign imports doubled exports in 1962-1963 (6 million tons compared to 3 million tons). In the early-to-mid

1970s, foreign imports inched towards 10 million tons on an annual basis (and surpassed

12 million tons in 1976-1977 and 1979-1980), while exports hovered from 3 to 4 million tons—close to pre-World War II levels. Moreover, foreign imports accounted for an increasing share of the port’s commerce. They represented only 9 percent of inbound receipts and 2 percent of total port commerce in 1946-1947. In the mid-to-late 1950s, foreign imports represented from 30 to 40 percent of inbound receipts and 10 to 15 percent of total commerce. By the 1960s and 1970s, foreign imports routinely accounted for more than half of inbound receipts (reaching 64 percent in both 1973-1974 and 1977-

1978) and for more than 30 percent of total commerce in several years (see the graph on the following page and Appendix E).19

19 Shipping data taken from the Port of Los Angeles annual reports from 1946-1947 through 1979-1980.

194

195 So what factors caused the rise in imports and the decline of exports? Some of the factors had little to do with the harbor itself, or arguably, the decisions of local and regional industry leaders. The U.S. government embraced somewhat contradictory policies towards foreign trade in the aftermath of World War II. Officials from the departments of State, Commerce, and Treasury continued to promote American exports and aid the competitiveness of U.S. corporations in foreign markets—the very policies that the L.A. Chamber of Commerce tried to take advantage of before the war in its pursuit of Latin American and Asian trade. The Truman administration shifted toward a policy of trade liberalization in order to counter Soviet expansionism in Europe, Asia, and the developing world. One of the government’s immediate agendas was, according to U.S. foreign trade policy scholar Alfred E. Eckes, Jr., “to integrate former enemies

Germany, Italy, and Japan into a thriving international economy and thus anchor these nations to the West economically and militarily.” Beyond providing $33 billion in non- military foreign aid to help rebuild industries and infrastructure between 1946 and 1953, the U.S. took steps to lower tariffs and promote the freer flow of goods. It joined other western bloc nations to negotiate the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaties (the first of which was enacted in Geneva in 1947), which resulted in reciprocal reductions in import duties.20

The U.S. worked to stimulate the economies of its Cold War allies—most notably,

Japan. American occupation forces took steps to reform Japan’s society and economy, which included antitrust measures aimed at dismantling large industrial and financial conglomerates (zaibatsus) into smaller entities. Though these measures encouraged

20 Eckes, 157-165.

196 American manufacturers to supply Japan with much needed goods in the short term, they were not enough to revive the Japanese economy. By the late 1940s, the Economic

Cooperation Administration and other U.S. agencies took more proactive steps to rebuild

Japan’s industries and secure their domestic and export markets. The U.S. helped Japan develop strong economic ties with its neighbors in South Korea and Taiwan and reversed its earlier reforms by allowing Mitsubishi and other prominent conglomerates to remain intact. American corporations also shared technology and expertise with their Japanese counterparts. Motorola and RCA aided electronic companies like NEC, while DuPont helped Toyo Rayon manufacture chemicals.21

Most significantly, the Eisenhower administration enacted tariff reductions on

Japanese imports ranging from cheap toys, shoes, and textiles to more expensive electronics, cameras, and automobiles. These reductions were one-sided. While U.S. government officials willingly opened the American market to Japan (ignoring the concerns of domestic industries, including textile producers who immediately had to compete with lower cost Japanese producers), Japanese officials resisted lowering import duties on U.S. goods. As one Japanese delegate explained in the 1955 trade negotiations with the United States, it was a matter of “national policy” to develop new industries.

Without import protections, the Japanese auto, optical, and food industries would not be able to withstand competition from American firms.22 Such ‘asymmetric protection’ schemes, the economist Ha-Joon Chang argues in a recent book, were key to enabling

Japan, South Korea, and other developing nations to build their industrial capacity and

21 William S. Borden, The Pacific Alliance: United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery, 1947-1955 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 1-17; LaFeber, The Clash, 257-324.

22 Eckes, 169-172.

197 grow their economies. In other words, a large measure of protectionism at home along with better access to the U.S. and other markets abroad were the key to these nations’ economic success, not the so-called free trade championed by many contemporary neoliberal economists and political leaders.23

The Port of Los Angeles’ 1960s trade agreements with Japan were negotiated in the context of the U.S. government’s tariff policies and Japan’s reindustrialization. They were not merely the product of goodwill between L.A. city leaders and their Japanese counterparts. Still, one should not diminish the role played by the L.A. and Long Beach harbor commissions in making trade expansion possible. After lobbying from the L.A.

Chamber of Commerce and the L.A. harbor commission and city hall, the federal government designated the nation’s fourth foreign trade zone in the Port of Los Angeles in 1949. The zone allowed foreign goods to be temporarily imported, combined with domestic goods, and then exported elsewhere without incurring tariff duties.24 More importantly, the harbor commission poured millions of dollars into new harbor facilities.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the commission spent $4.3 million on a modern passenger and freight terminal for the American President Lines and $6 million on an even larger passenger and freight terminal for the Matson line that covered 46 acres and featured a transit shed that could hold 100,000 tons of cargo and used 13 motorized cargo ramps to facilitate the movements of goods from ship to shore. In 1955 the commission claimed that it had spent $30 million dollars on these and other new facilities and harbor

23 Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), 19-39; Erie, 80.

24 “1949 Annual Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1949), 23.

198 improvements since the end of World War II.25 This infrastructure could move cargo in either direction, but with federal trade policy favoring imports, it became one of the crucial means by which Southern California and the U.S. entered a new phase of globalization.

Port expenditures on new infrastructure exploded in the 1960s as the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor commissions rushed to build container facilities, despite the new technology’s humble beginnings. Shippers had experimented with using steel cargo containers of various sizes since the 1920s, but it was not until 1956 when trucking executive Malcom McLean’s Pan-Atlantic Sea-Land Service shipped the first tractor- trailer containers between Newark and Houston on the Ideal-X, a converted tanker.26 The

Matson line was the first West Coast shipping company to use containers. Its Hawaiian

Merchant, a converted World War II cargo ship, carried twenty containers from L.A. to

Hawaii in 1958. The L.A. harbor commission spent a mere $1.85 million to build

Matson’s first container terminal in the 1958-1959 fiscal year. A few years later the harbor commission announced that it would spend $40 million on new facilities over five years, funded in large part by selling $28 million in harbor bonds.27 The commission spent $5 million for a container terminal for the Johnson, Grace, and American Export-

Isbrandtsen shipping lines and another $4 million for a container terminal for the Furness,

25 “1948 Annual Report,” 8; “1949 Annual Report,” 8; “45th Annual Report” [1952-1953] (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioner, 1953), 7; “47th Annual Report” [1954-1955] (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1955), 18. Other harbor expenditures on new wharves, warehouses, and other facilities are detailed in the annual reports throughout this time period.

26 Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 36-53.

27 “Port of Los Angeles Annual Report, 1958-1959” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1959), 6; “The Port of Los Angeles, 1969” [Annual Report] (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1969), 5. In 1959, L.A. voters granted the L.A. harbor commission the ability to sell its own bonds. In turn, the commission billed its bonds for harbor improvement “growth without taxation.” See Erie, 81, 84; “The Port of Los Angeles 1961-1962 Annual Report,” 5.

199 Withy & Co. shipping line in 1963-1964. Two years later it earmarked another $7.2 million for a container facility on Terminal Island. In 1966-1967, the commission announced that it would spend over $200 million for an “upgraded and expanded” long- range master plan that would involve further development of port property on Terminal

Island and $40 million for additional cargo terminals.28

The L.A. harbor commission’s spending spree continued into the 1970s, including

$10 million for the East-West Container terminal, $10 million for a container terminal shared by Japanese shipping lines, and additional money for upgraded cranes, wharves, and storage facilities for Matson and other existing container operations. The capital program ballooned to $305 million for five years of improvements beginning in 1975, for more container facilities and, just as importantly, for dredging the harbor beyond its 35- foot depth to accommodate the largest container ships and tankers.29 The Long Beach harbor commission also threw its resources into container shipping, beginning with its

$300,000 terminal for Sea-Land in 1962. By 1970, the Port of Long Beach boasted 50 acres of harbor property devoted to container operations with plans for another 300 acres.

The crown jewel of this expansion was a $10 million container facility for International

Transportation Service that opened in 1972. 30

28 “Port of Los Angeles 1964 Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1964), 7-8; “Port of Los Angeles 1966 Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1966), 7; “Port of Los Angeles 1967 Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1967), 6-7.

29 ““Port of Los Angeles 1971 Report” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1971),” 5; “Port of Los Angeles 1975” [Annual Report] (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1975), 6-7; 10-17; “1978 Port of Los Angeles” [Annual Report] (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1978), 6-7.

30 “Sea-Land Service Comes to Port,” Harbor Highlights (1962): 1-3; ”The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1969” (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1969), 13; “The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1970” (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1970), 19; “Port of Long Beach 1972 Harbor Highlights” [Annual Report] (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1972).

200 The shipping container quickly became the most important innovation in the harbor and ocean commerce of the postwar period. As the economist Marc Levinson documents, the universal adoption of containers by the world’s shipping lines, railroads, and trucking companies over the past fifty years has drastically reduced the cost of transporting goods across long distances. Ocean freight costs comprised 12 percent of the value of U.S. exports and 10 percent of the imports in 1961, prior to the widespread use of shipping containers. Nearly half of those freight costs were incurred in ports due to the amount of time and labor it took to transfer loose cargo (break bulk) by piece.

Shipping costs exceeded the value of most tariffs, making them a deterrent to foreign trade. The use of giant gantry cranes to transfer containers between ship and shore drastically reduced the amount of time vessels spent in port. The cost of moving goods with containers was half that of using conventional break bulk in 1970. Shipping costs dropped even further as more containers were used to ship single commodities loaded directly from the point of production.31 “These savings in freight costs, in inventory costs, and in time to market have encouraged ever longer supply chains,” Levinson argues,

“allowing buyers in once country to purchase from sellers halfway around the globe with little fear that the gaskets will not arrive when needed or that the dolls will not be on the toy store shelf by Christmas.” Indeed, the growth rate in the volume of international trade in manufactured goods more than doubled the growth rates in the volumes of global manufacturing production and global economic output by 1966—when containers had been in use for less than a decade.32

31 Levinson, 8-10, 246-247.

32 Ibid.,11.

201 Cargo containers were not the only innovation in shipping and cargo handling that sped up the flow of goods. Railroad upgrades and federal and state highway projects linked Los Angeles Harbor to the nation’s overland trade routes. In particular, the Harbor

Freeway (Interstate 110) connected the Port of Los Angeles and the Long Beach Freeway

(Interstate 710) connected the Port of Long Beach to the nation’s interstate highway system, while the Vincent Thomas Bridge (a 1,500 foot-long suspension bridge completed in 1963) connected the two ports and their freeways via Terminal Island.33

The installation of massive bulk loaders in the Port of Long Beach in 1963 and the Port of Los Angeles in 1953 and 1966 helped automate the shipping of raw commodities. The loaders were giant conveyor systems that could move mountains of salt, ore, or grain directly to and from a ship’s hold, without the need of longshoremen loading individual sacks. One of the major export commodities that the loaders handled in the 1960s was iron ore from the Kaiser Corporation’s mines. Much of this ore was sent to Japan to be converted into steel in that nation’s industry.34 Some of that steel wound up in Japanese cars that were imported into the U.S. market in increasing numbers in the 1970s on new

“roll on-roll off” ships.35

The amount of foreign goods imported to the United States has risen since the

1960s as much of the nation’s manufacturing base has withered. While it is difficult to

33 On freeway and rail expansion see Erie, 144-171; “1949 Annual Report,” 9; “Legislation to Extend Harbor Freeway,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1961; “Work Begun on Bridge Over L.A. Port Channel,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1961; “Vincent Thomas Bridge to Be Dedicated Saturday,” September 27, 1963; “Long Beach Freeway Link to Open Today,” Los Angele Times, December 8, 1952.

34 “$1,250,000 Bulk Loader Plant Set at Harbor,” Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1953; “New Bulk Loader Terminal Opens” Port of Long Beach Harbor Highlights 9, no. 1 (1963): 6-11; “Port of Los Angeles 1964 Report,” 9; “Port of Los Angeles 1966 Report,” 10.

35 “The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1970,” 17; “Long Beach Harbor Hard Pressed to Meet Demand,” Los Angeles Times, December 15, 1975.

202 ascribe direct causality to containers and other innovations in shipping, a brief analysis of employment statistics in the federal government’s County Business Patterns reports shows that manufacturing played a diminishing role in the U.S., California, and Los

Angeles regional labor markets from the 1950s through the 1970s. Manufacturing workers accounted for approximately 40 percent of the U.S. total workforce (including only those workers contributing to the Social Security program) in 1953, 1956, and 1959.

In 1965, the manufacturing workforce slid to 37 percent of the total workforce. It declined further to 34.5 percent in 1970, 30 percent in 1975, and 28 percent in 1980.

Statewide statistics for California reveal a less dramatic change. Manufacturing accounted for between 30 and 34 percent of the workforce between 1953 and 1965, but it too declined to 26 percent by 1980. Los Angeles County and the greater Los Angeles area (L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties, also known collectively as the Southland) had higher concentrations of manufacturing workers than the rest of the state from the 1950s through the 1970s. The Southland contained over 60 percent of the state’s manufacturing workforce and over half of the state’s total workforce throughout this time period. But like the national statistic, manufacturing dropped from 40 percent of the Southland workforce in 1953 to 34.5 percent in 1965 and to 29 percent in 1980 (see Appendix F).36

36 Data compiled from County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1953: Part 10, Pacific States and Territories (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1953); County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1956: Part 10, Pacific States (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1956); County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1959: Part 10, Pacific States (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1959); County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1959: Part 1, U.S. Summary (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1959); County Business Patterns 1965: California, CBP-65-6 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1965); County Business Patterns 1965: U.S. Summary, CBP-65-1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,

203 When factored in with the postwar federal trade policies that opened the

American market to imports, it is entirely plausible that many U.S. manufacturers found it increasingly difficult to compete in a global economy that married inexpensive and highly efficient container shipping with low cost offshore production. Yet domestic corporations had long relocated capital and production from one region to another, often in order to discipline the power of unionized workers, assert more control over production, or take advantage of favorable taxes and regulations in new locations. Los

Angeles benefited from these very practices as eastern manufacturers, including auto and tire companies, opened branch factories in the region beginning in the 1920s and 1930s.37

Fifty years later, the region began to suffer from these practices as it experienced deindustrialization. Firestone, Goodyear, Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Bethlehem

Steel, U.S. Steel, and other major manufacturers closed factories and took as many as

1965); County Business Patterns 1970: California, CBP-70-6 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1970); County Business Patterns 1970: U.S. Summary, CBP-70-1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1970); County Business Patterns 1975: California, CBP-75-6 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975); County Business Patterns 1975: U.S. Summary, CBP-75-1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975); County Business Patterns 1980: California, CBP-80-6 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980); County Business Patterns 1980: U.S. Summary, CBP-80-1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980). All employment data reported from the mid-March pay period (the week including March 12). The data pools included members of the workforce who qualified for Social Security, thus excluding those not enrolled in the Social Security program including domestic workers and some public sector workers. Calculations based on County Business Patterns data overstate the percentage of manufacturing jobs in the total workforce. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that manufacturing accounted for 33.7 percent of U.S. nonfarm wage and salary employment in 1950, 31 percent in 1960, 27.3 percent in 1970, and 22.4 percent in 1980. Including farm employment in the statistics would diminish the manufacturing percentage further. See Ronald E. Kutscher, “The American Work Force, 1992-2005: Historical Trends, 1950-92, and Current Uncertainties,” Monthly Labor Review, November 1993, 7.

37 On the mobility of capital and twentieth-century U.S. manufacturers see Cowie, 1-11; Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, Princeton Classic ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 125-177; Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 23-34; Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, eds., Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001); Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982).

204 70,000 jobs out of the L.A. labor market. While the service sector may have continued to expand, the loss of employment left many workers and their neighborhoods ill-equipped to adapt to the new economy.38

West Coast United Auto Workers director Paul Schrade blamed the 1971 shutdown of the Chrysler plant in the City of Commerce (located 18 miles north of the

Port of Long Beach) on the automaker’s failure to build small cars that could compete with its Japanese and German competitors. While Chrysler cited “new techniques in rail shipment and the growth of other Pacific area markets” as the primary reasons for closing the factory, imports had risen from 26 percent to 41 percent of Southland car sales between 1968 and 1971. At the same time, Chrysler’s share of the local market dropped from 14 percent to 11.5 percent.39 Still, the image of a major automaker abandoning its

L.A. facility and laying off 1,300 workers stands in major contrast to not only to the discourse of early twentieth-century L.A. Chamber of Commerce leaders who touted the region’s industrial and transportation advantages and unlimited growth potential, but to the image of auto carrier ships docking in the harbor and unloading 2,200 Toyotas at a time.40

The ascendance of imports over exports signaled a reversal of the harbor’s role in the postwar Los Angeles economy. Rather than serving as an engine for industrial growth in Southern California, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach became the

38 Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 176-189; “Chrysler to Close Plant Here July 9, 1,300 Workers Affected; UAW Blames Imports,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1971; “Tire Makers Quit L.A.—Top U.S. Market,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1978; “U.S. Steel Plans Plant Shutdowns, Facility in Torrance Among Those Affected,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1979; “Ford to Close L.A. Area Plant, 1,670 to be Idled at Pico Rivera,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1980.

39 Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1971.

40 “The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1970,” 17.

205 entry point for Pacific Rim imports. Diminishing (or ignoring) the loss of domestic manufacturing jobs, harbor officials were quick to highlight the ports’ economic benefits.

In 1975, the Long Beach harbor commission claimed that its port alone contributed to over 70,000 jobs in the region, directly added $240 million to the local economy, and infused another $2.3 billion in indirect yearly benefits through its trade.41 This raises another important question: even if mechanized and containerized harbor trade hurt

L.A.’s factory workers, did it at least benefit the longshoremen who were moving the cargo?

Mechanization and Waterfront Labor

After honoring the labor movement’s no-strike pledge and pushing its members to increase productivity to aid the war effort, the International Longshoremen’s and

Warehousemen’s Union faced immediate opposition from the coast wide Waterfront

Employers Association after World War II. National business leaders hoped to reign in the labor movement after 5 million union workers took part in a 1946 strike wave that shut down coal mines, railroads, and many other industries. The new Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President

Truman’s veto in 1947, a sweeping anti-labor law that took away unions’ ability to stage secondary boycotts and sympathy strikes and their ability to force employers to give preferential hiring to union members. The new law also gave the president the right to intervene in any strike that he deemed against the national interest and force strikers to

41 “Port of Long Beach Harbor Highlights” [1975 Annual Report] (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1975).

206 return to their jobs for eighty days while their unions and employers sorted out their differences.42

The maritime industry hoped to use Taft-Hartley to wrest control over port hiring halls away from the ILWU. And since the new law mandated that union leaders repudiate membership in the Communist Party, the employers believed they could rid themselves of Harry Bridges once and for all (though Bridges still insisted that he was not a party member). The ILWU refused to acquiesce to these demands and went on strike in September 1948. Bridges and the union leadership knew what they were up against. They had kept track of finances of the employers, mapping the interlocking connections between every major shipping line and the banks, manufacturers, and agricultural interests with which they did business. They documented the federal merchant marine and shipbuilding subsidies that had infused hundreds of millions of dollars of assets and profits into the maritime industry, especially during the war. The union simply refused to make concessions to an industry that had accumulated so much private and public wealth. In an impressive showing of solidarity, every member of each

ILWU local refused to vote in the National Labor Relations Board’s referendum on the employer’s final offer. The employers caved in to the union after three months. The

Waterfront Employers Association reconstituted itself as the Pacific Maritime

42 For overviews of the Taft-Hartley Act, see Green, World of the Worker, 197-199; Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 114-118; Philip Dray, There is Power in a Union: the Epic Story of Labor in America (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 496- 499.

207 Association (PMA) and hired different managers who promised to forge a cooperative relationship with the union.43

The ILWU maintained its control over waterfront working conditions in the wake of the 1948 strike. Many longshoremen took advantage of this by using a “four on-four off” practice where only half of an eight-man gang would work at any particular time.44

Bridges and ILWU leaders recognized that such practices placed the union in an increasingly untenable (if not unlawful) position. They understood that employers planned to introduce new technologies to the waterfront. Instead of fighting change, the leadership explored the possibilities for making mechanization beneficial to the rank and file. The union convened a caucus with delegates from each local to discuss mechanization in 1956—the same year the first container ship sailed in the United States.

Many delegates hoped the union would hold the line on gang size, even if it meant having more men on the job than necessary. Bridges proposed that gangs be reduced for less demanding jobs on the docks and increased for the more labor-intensive job of stowing cargo in a ship’s hold. The committee ultimately recommended a quid pro quo arrangement with the PMA. The union would agree to increases in mechanization in return for reducing the normal work shift from nine to eight hours a day.45

43 The ILWU Story: Six Decades of Militant Unionism, second ed. (San Francisco: International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 2004), 12-16; “Facts for June 15” newsletter, 1948, Box 56, Folder 16, Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

44 Lincoln Fairley, Facing Mechanization: The West Coast Longshore Plan (Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979), 11-17, 34. The ILWU’s hiring and work practices are also discussed in Quam-Wickham, “Who Controls the Hiring Hall? The Struggle for Job Control in the ILWU During World War II,” The CIO’s Left-Led Unions, ed. Steve Rosswurm (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992).

45 Fairley, 54-61.

208 The language of the committee report hinted at what would become the union’s official line on mechanization. The report stated:

If we are to successfully gain a shorter work day now, which perhaps can only be accomplished by more readily accepting automation, then we must now reexamine our entire approach to this problem. We believe that it is possible to encourage mechanization in the industry and at the same time establish and reaffirm our work jurisdiction…46

The committee report presented mechanization as the inevitable byproduct of industrial progress rather than explaining it as a PMA demand. Harry Bridges’ written remarks on the report strengthened the committee’s stance. Framing opposition to mechanization as a “losing battle,” Bridges told union members, “We should accept mechanization and start making it work for us, not against us.”47

Union leaders also educated their membership on the benefits of technological changes in The Dispatcher, the union’s bi-weekly newspaper. For instance, one editorial cartoon titled “More Time to Live” reinforced middle class ideals about mass consumption and male breadwinners’ abilities to earn a family wage. The cartoon depicted a longshoreman returning to his suburban home after work and being greeted by his adoring son, wife, and daughter. The cartoon’s caption proclaimed the goal of using new technology to shorten the workday while maintaining full take-home pay. It calmed the fear of job displacement by noting the “benefits” of machines, like household appliances that reduced women’s “wearisome housework” and freed time for mothers to spend with their children. And if machines could help housewives, they would also make the job easier for longshoremen:

46 Ibid., 62.

47 Ibid., 63.

209 With the coming of the machine long hours on the job no longer make sense. What does make sense is a man getting home to his family while the sun is still shining, and taking home on payday just as much or more wherewithal he did when he worked long hours. It makes sense for a father to be acquainted with his children, to be able to take them on after school outings. It makes sense that a man be able to devote himself to hobbies and cultural pursuits. More time to live means living longer and that makes very good sense.48

The rhetorical trope of “sense” reinforced the logic of working less, earning more, and spending time outside of the workplace to strengthen family bonds and cultivate leisure activities.

On October 18, 1960, the ILWU and the PMA announced Mechanization and

Modernization Agreement. The M&M allowed the shipping companies to “Operate efficiently,” “Change methods of work,” and “Utilize labor saving-devices.” In return, the union won a $29 million fund to provide early retirement benefits for registered longshoremen with 15 to 25 years of experience. It also guaranteed no layoffs and a minimum of 35 hours worth of weekly wages for full-time longshoremen.49 Despite this promise of generous compensation, transcripts from the union’s coast wide caucus meetings in April and October 1960 reveal the doubts that some local union leaders had about the impending agreement. Delegates from Local 13 in Los Angeles and Long

Beach were especially critical. One predicted that the M & M “will cause a great deal of controversy” on the grounds that Local 13 members opposed a proposal to give hiring

48 “More Time to Live,” The Dispatcher, October 25, 1957. On middle class consumption and the family wage, see Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic, 154-155, 164.

49 “Memorandum of Agreement Between the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union and Pacific Maritime Association On Mechanization and Modernization,” October 18, 1960 reprinted in Herb Mills, ed., “The Contract Framework of West Coast Longshoring—from the ’34 strike and its arbitrated settlement to the container technologies and the strike of 1971 and 1972,” 2006, http://www.ilwu10hmills.com/articles/pdfs/Article17_2.pdf ; “Complete Referendum on Mechanization January 3, Ballots for Secret Vote Are Readied,” The Dispatcher, November 18, 1960.

210 preferences to registered longshoremen from other ports. He claimed to agree that members from declining ports should be able to transfer to more prosperous ports, but nevertheless worried that it would undermine the local’s long-standing “sponsorship” practice of hiring the male relatives of its current members. “I am pretty grateful for my dad making a longshoremen out of me years ago,” he stated, “and I am sure that my boy is grateful for my making a longshoreman out of him just recently.”50 Another Local 13 delegate argued that union members expected that bonuses from the Mechanization and

Modernization fund would go directly into their pockets, instead of being used for the 35- hour weekly wage guarantee.51

Yet another Local 13 delegate expressed his doubts about the early retirement provisions in the agreement. He predicted that mechanized jobs would convince older members to keep working, declaring, “When I am 63 years of age I am not going to accept three hundred and fifty bucks [in monthly pension payments]. Why should I? I can work on the waterfront and make six hundred bucks a month and the work is going to be a hell of a lot easier.” The delegate argued that the union would be better off spending its money on organizing new waterfront operations, including container work. “I can envision a day,” he worried, “where the ILWU members of Local 13…are going to be working from the ‘front right on the ship and the rest of the work, the containerization, the banding, the marking, the lift-jitney work, is going to be done by some other joker who comes in there from some other union.”52 While these remarks about the union

50 “Proceedings of the Longshore, Ship Clerks and Walking Bosses’ Caucus of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union,” Vol. 1, 4-6 April 1960, Series 1, Box 48, Folder 3, Local 13 Collection, CSUN, 158-160.

51 Ibid., 170-171.

52 Ibid., 230-238.

211 losing its jurisdiction somewhat contradict the delegate’s predictions that mechanization would make waterfront work easier in the future, he nonetheless raised important questions about the M & M’s ability to cope with a changing industry.

ILWU President Harry Bridges and Secretary-Treasurer Louis Goldblatt addressed the concerns raised by the Local 13 delegation. In the April caucus Goldblatt resisted the idea of using the mechanization fund to pay bonuses to the members. While such a proposal might be good enough for “unions that don’t want to face up or struggle with some of the more difficult problems of the day,” it was not good enough for the

ILWU. “We are struggling instead with a problem that is now crawling right up the back of the labor movement,” Goldblatt declared, “Ours is the only Union so far that at least has its hands on the problem.” Goldblatt reminded the delegates that automation was chipping away at the steel, automobile, oil, and textile workforces. He continued by saying that the National Association of Manufacturers and other business interests wanted to pursue mechanization as their prerogative, where they could ‘free enterprise’ with machines while unemployed workers could ‘free enterprise’ by looking for new jobs.

For Goldblatt, the M & M was a first step in guaranteeing longshoremen a basic livelihood in the future. It represented a “completely new course for the industry and for

American labor” because it would tax the machine for the benefit of workers.53

Harry Bridges showed less patience for the critics of the M & M in the October caucus. Living up to his reputation as a sharp orator, Bridges unleashed his frustration:

… This is not the time for playing ‘possum… It is time for plain talk around here and for kicking out the idea of talking about what we are

53 “Proceedings of the Longshore, Ship Clerks and Walking Bosses’ Caucus of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union,” Vol. 1, 4-6 April 1960, Series 1, Box 48, Folder 4, Local 13 Collection, CSUN, 321-325.

212 “giving up” and what we are “losing”. We are not giving up anything; we are not losing anything. We are proposing that some changes be made for a price. The price? A share of the machine…

Calling the complaints of the M & M critics “chicken-shit beefs,” Bridges argued that the agreement was going to make the shipping companies pay a heavy price for technological changes by guaranteeing better, safer, and easier jobs for workers. Besides, sticking to inefficient work practices “was no way to fight capitalism.” Bridges promised that if the caucus got behind the agreement, “the main trouble will be to close the door of my office and the doors of the other offices around here to keep the other union leaders from knocking on the door and keeping us busy telling them how it was done.”54

Local 13 members rejected the M & M by a vote of 1,864 to 1,065, though it was approved by the entire West Coast union membership by a vote of 7,882 to 3,695.55 In spite of the cooperation that prevailed between the ILWU and the PMA when the M & M was in its final negotiations, labor relations in Los Angeles Harbor remained strained.

Local 13 accused a Matson Navigation Company supervisor of kicking its president,

George Kuvakas, in the groin and assaulting other union officers during a dispute over working a ship in late July 1960.56 A month later the local refused to work Matson’s

Hawaiian Citizen, the first all-container ship on the Pacific coast. Matson locked out the union in retaliation. Kuvakas later explained that the local’s main issue was Matson’s refusal to allow enough workers to safely discharge the containers off of the ship. The

54 “Proceedings of the Longshore, Ship Clerks and Walking Bosses’ Caucus of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union,” Vol. 1, 3-8 October 1960, Series 1, Box 49, Folder 3, Local 13 Collection, CSUN, 53-54, 60-63.

55 “$29 Million Pact Okayed” and “How Locals Voted on Mechanization and Modernization,” The Dispatcher, January 13, 1961.

56 “Area Meeting No. 9-60,” July 22, 1960, Series 1, Box 22 Folder 4, Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

213 company wanted only two men to guide the containers off the crane and onto tractor- trailer truck chassis. Kuvakas insisted on four—which was still far less than the hundred longshoremen it would take to unload a conventional ship. The ILWU leadership intervened in the dispute by forcing the local to sign a separate agreement to return to work under conditions favorable to the employer—an agreement many rank and filers decried as a “yellow dog contract” that sold out their interests.57

Harry Bridges and other ILWU leaders touted the Mechanization and

Modernization Agreement under the assumption that they had crafted a novel solution to the displacement of workers by technology. However, some of the misgivings about the agreement expressed by Local 13 officers proved prescient. Longshore labor productivity rose 139 percent while national nonfarm productivity only rose 29 percent between 1960 and 1970. Productivity more than doubled between 1966 and 1970 due to the rapid expansion of container shipping. 58 At the same time, the number of hours it took to move cargo dropped significantly. In 1960, West Coast waterfront workers moved nearly 28.5 million tons in just under 24 million man-hours. A decade later, the volume of cargo increased by 110 percent to 60 million tons while man-hours decreased by 17 percent to fewer than 20 million. The volume of cargo increased to nearly 114 million tons in 1980 (an 89 percent increase over 1970), but man-hours decreased by 32 percent to 13.6 million. In total, tonnages increased by 299 percent and man-hours

57 “Reg, Meetings: minutes,” January 7 – December 15, 1960, Vol. 28-B, Series 1, Box 9, Folder 5, Local 13 Collection, CSUN; Levinson, 114; George Kuvakas, Sr., interview by Tony Salcido, transcript by Robert G. Marshall, March 10, 1992, 24-32, Local 13 Oral History Collection, CSUN; Stanley Weir, interviewed by Pat McCauley, March 3, 1991. Labor History: Individual Labor Activists. The Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive, California State University, Long Beach. Interview 4d Segment 3 (8:55-13:38) Segkey: sws1120, http://www.csulb.edu/voaha

58 Fairley, 306-309.

214 decreased by 44 percent between 1960 and 1980. The productivity increase was primarily due to containers. Some 723,899 containers were shipped in 1960, climbing to

8,782,425 in 1970, and 34,961,122 in 1980 (see graph on the following page and

Appendix G).59

59 West Coast total tonnage, total hours, and containers statistics from the 1981 Pacific Maritime Association annual report, reprinted in Herb Mills, “The Linguistic Bond of the Dockers circa the Mid- Sixties, Their Language of Sea and Ship” (Published by Author), 62-63, http://www.ilwu10hmills.com/articles/pdfs/Article13.pdf

215

216 Another significant problem with the M & M manifested after the agreement was renewed in 1966. Section 9.43 of the new contract gave shipping companies the right to hire their own crews of “steady, skilled men.” The steady man clause was a bargaining priority for the PMA as shipping and stevedoring companies wanted a workforce under their control that could operate container cranes and other sophisticated equipment. Even though the ILWU’s agreement to the clause was contingent on safeguarding the jobs of skilled men who worked through the hiring hall, the provision further weakened union control over hiring practices and the equal distribution of work among members as cargo container operations grew on the West Coast. Section 9.43 came under fired from local leaders and rank and filers who saw steady men maintain their hours while the majority of longshoremen were left to divvy up the shrinking pot of man-hours. The locals and the shipping companies argued over which skills were included in the definition of

“steady men” and which operations the men would perform.60

Local 13 officers especially despised the steady man clause. One warned the

ILWU’s labor relations committee, “9.43 will not be instituted in this port under any circumstances” and threatened a wildcat strike.61 On the other hand, Harry Brides argued that the clause was necessary in order for the union to maintain its jurisdiction over all dock operations, citing instances where employers had attempted to hire nonmembers to work steady jobs before. The locals, the ILWU, and the PMA continued to debate the issue through the late 1960s, often pitting Bridges against what another union official described as “opportunistic local leaders who figured they had a good issue.” Still, the

60 Ibid., 255-257.

61 “Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting,” December 14, 1967, Series 1, Box 11, Folder 2, Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

217 stance taken by these local leaders revealed a deep-seated fear that the union might lose its control over hiring—a right they had fought for and won in the strikes of 1934 and

1948.62

Perhaps section 9.43 would have been less contentious had container shipping, along with the rise of productivity and the loss of work opportunity, not proliferated so quickly in the late 1960s. At the same time, the ILWU had trouble asserting its jurisdiction over loading and unloading cargo containers because workers who were paid less did much of that work at freight stations away from the docks.63 The container issue was not resolved in the 1970-1971 contract negotiations between the ILWU and the PMA.

The union’s major demands included full jurisdiction over loading and unloading containers and a 40-hour workweek guarantee for full-time longshoremen and 32 hours for part-timers. Unlike the negotiations on mechanization over the previous fifteen years, the PMA refused to consider the union’s demands.64 On July 1, 1971, the union began its first coast wide strike since 1948 with approval from 96 percent of the membership.65

The strike shut down West Coast shipping from San Diego to Seattle. In a reversal from the late 1950s and early 1960s, the union’s strike literature no longer described mechanization as a salvation from the burdens of backbreaking labor.

Mechanization itself was a burden, or worse, it was robbing longshoremen of their

62 Fairley, 256-263.

63 Ibid., 275-295.

64 “Contract Demands,” The Dispatcher, November 6, 1970; “Union’s Strike Position,” The Dispatcher, June 11, 1971.

65 “Coast on Strike,” The Dispatcher, July 2, 1971.

218 livelihoods. One pamphlet stated that the biggest strike issue centered on what longshoremen were to do about ‘progress:’

We, like many other workers, are faced with a technological revolution of new “labor-saving” devices and methods of operation. This what our employer means by “progress”…but, if this “progress” is left unchecked, it will simply mean that our employer will line up at the bank with ever bigger profits, while we line up at the unemployment and welfare office.

It is essential for labor to challenge the notion that the employer—in the name of “progress”—can simply go ahead and slash his workforce or close his factory or, as is being planned in our industry, close an entire port…and to do this without any regard to the people or community involved…66

Harry Bridges and the ILWU leadership had in fact promoted the M & M as the union’s challenge to the unmediated introduction of technology on the waterfront—a guaranteed

“share of the benefits of technical change” for working longshoremen and the promise of a new cooperative era of labor relations. For rank and filers walking the picket lines in the summer of 1971, such a promise rang hollow.

President Nixon used the Taft-Hartley Act to force the union back to work in

October 1971, but the strike resumed when his injunction expired eighty days later.67

The strike ended in February 1972 when 6,803 members voted to ratify a contract that granted wage increases and union jurisdiction over containers near the docks, although the National Labor Relations Board ruled in 1974 that the ILWU and the PMA could not force container warehouses to relocate to the waterfront.68 The steady man clause

66 “THE LONGSHORE STRIKE, ” Strike Committee: working papers, 1971-1972, Series 2, Box 5, Folder 25, Local 13 Collection, CSUN.

67 “Now It’s Taft-Hartley!” The Dispatcher, October 8, 1971; “President Obtains Work Order, Halts West Coast Dock Strike,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1971.

68 Fairley, 293-294.

219 remained in the contract. Some 2,761 longshoremen voted no, showing that a substantial minority was unhappy with the new agreement.69 Moreover, the strike did not address another fundamental problem: racial inequality in Local 13.

Racial Equality and Declining Opportunity

Despite the ILWU’s well-known commitment to racial equality (especially in the

Local 10 ports of San Francisco and Oakland), rampant racial discrimination persisted on the postwar Los Angeles waterfront just as it had in many of the city’s other workplaces.

As several historians have shown, the African Americans who flocked to L.A. for work before, during, and after World War II faced a highly segregated housing market, employers who used discriminatory hiring practices, and local unions that were often indifferent or hostile to their position in the labor market. At the same time, many

African American residents took part in the struggle for civil rights, along with activists from the region’s Latino and Asian communities.70 A small part of this history unfolded on the waterfront, where racial discrimination in employment dated back to the early twentieth century.

The first convention of the Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific (which later became Pacific Coast District 38 of the International Longshoremen’s Association) in

1906 adopted a unanimous resolution in favor of extending the Chinese Exclusion Act to

“Japanese, Koreans, and other Asiatic laborers” on the grounds that their wages and

69 “Coast Dock Agreement,” The Dispatcher, February 11, 1972; “Strike is Over,” The Dispatcher, February 24, 1972.

70 On the civil rights movement in Los Angeles, see Sides, 131-168; Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race, 232-267; Shana Bernstein, Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth- Century Los Angeles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

220 living conditions “prove destructive of the American standards” and because of the

“racial incompatibility” between “the peoples of the Orient and the United States.”71

While there are few mentions of race and ethnicity in the sparse annals of 1910s L.A. waterfront labor history, ethnic conflict between Italian and non-Italian workers may have contributed to the failure of the 1912 IWW strike that Joe Hill played a role in organizing. The employers’ Marine Service Bureau tried to reassert the racial order, as well as the economic order, by insisting that it would only hire white men to serve as strikebreakers in the 1924 IWW strike and would avoid “the wholesale importation of negroes” (see chapter 4). Of the 2,049 registered members of ILA Local 38-82 (the precursor to Local 13) after the 1934 strike, 80 were Mexican Americans. Most of them worked in lumber gangs, the historian Bruce Nelson reveals, “because labor in the lumber mills and yard adjacent to the harbor had become the province of the ‘Mexicans.’” Even as some of these workers began to work general cargo in the 1940s, dispatchers assigned them to segregated gangs and managers excluded them from skilled jobs.72

The local relegated black workers even further to its margins in the 1930s and

1940s. A journalist from the African American Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper reported in August 1934 that black workers had promised not to cross the picket line during the

Big Strike. In return, Local 38-82 secretary-treasurer A.H. “Pedro Pete” Petersen had

“avowed that colored longshoremen would be accorded every consideration when the when the strike was settled.” Especially because the San Francisco local “had thrown

71 “Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific, Portland, Oregon, September 21, 22, 23, 24, and 15 1908,” 23.

72 Nelson, Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 122-123.

221 their doors open to Negroes,” L.A.’s black longshoremen felt they had been “double- crossed” by their white counterparts. Petersen refused to meet with them, let alone hire them. The Sentinel journalist concluded:

The men seeking these jobs are experienced in this kind of work. They represent a cross section of stevedores who have worked out of every port in this nation. The writer has learned that there are 90 gangs on the docks and the colored workers believe they should have 10 of these gangs or representatives in every one of them.73

Black workers in Los Angeles were allowed into the ILA the following year, with a major caveat. Rather than allowing them to work on the docks, they were placed in a separate local (which later became ILWU Local 26) and only allowed to work in the harbor’s cotton compress. The waterfront’s “color bar”—as the Sentinel described it— remained in firmly in place.74

The first large group of black longshoremen went to work on the L.A. docks in

World War II. The story of Walter Williams is emblematic of the difficulties that these workers faced from their white coworkers and the Local 13 leadership. Born in Georgia in 1918 but raised in Los Angeles, Williams was no stranger to the fraught racial politics on the shop floors of L.A.’s burgeoning industries. He lost one of his first jobs as a truck driver when the Teamsters had him replaced with an unemployed white driver. After attempting to form a union at an area foundry in 1940, Williams worked as an organizer for the Los Angeles CIO Council and pushed its leadership to follow though on its commitment to create a multiracial labor movement. Williams left his CIO position two years later to train as a welder at the Calship shipyard in the harbor, hoping to learn a

73 “Leader of Union Breaks Pledge To L.A. Longshoremen,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 16, 1934.

74 “Longshoremen Win Fight for Employment at Local Harbor,” Los Angeles Sentinel, February 21, 1935; “Unions Appeal For Hands-Off Strike Policy,” Los Angeles Sentinel, November 24, 1936.

222 skilled trade that could offer him a long-term livelihood. Appalled by the AFL-affiliated

Boilermakers union’s practice of placing black workers in an “auxiliary” local separate from white workers, Williams decided to try his hand at dock work in 1943 because it paid better than welding and because he thought the CIO-affiliated Local 13 would be more egalitarian. Faced with a wartime labor shortage, Local 13 had little choice but to assign jobs to Williams and other black workers in order to keep cargo moving. In a series of oral history interviews decades later, Williams recalled the insults and epithets used by many of his white colleagues and their refusal to work in multiracial gangs. This treatment took a toll on him and other black longshoremen, with mutual animosity boiling over into fistfights and brawls on several occasions.75

Due to its member-driven structure, it is of little surprise that the racism of the white rank and file translated into institutional racism in Local 13. Local leaders refused to grant Williams and the other black longshoremen full membership in the local, and instead enrolled them in Local 26 with the cotton compress and warehouse workers. The officials maintained that the black workers were merely temporary additions the workforce. Williams recalled that local president L.B. Thomas proclaimed in a membership meeting that he would make the union ‘lily-white’ after the war. Thomas followed through on his promise in 1946. The white majority voted to deregister the 500 least senior longshoremen. Most of those workers, dubbed “the Unemployed 500,” were

African American. As shipping gradually picked up again in the late 1940s, the labor historian Bruce Nelson explains, the local had the opportunity to rehire these workers.

75 Walter E. Williams, interviews by Tony Salcido and Robert G. Marshall, transcribed by Robert G. Marshall, Farah Ortega, and Tony Salcido, November 10, 1988 and October 4, 1989, Local 13 Oral History Collection, CSUN, 1-30, 58-69. Bruce Nelson and Josh Sides have both featured Walter Williams in their books. See Sides, 62-72; Nelson, Divided We Stand, 110-113.

223 Some 901 members had retired, died, or left the industry by 1949. But rather than reregister the Unemployed 500, the local chose to hire returning servicemen and white former members who had left the local during the war to work in other ports or industries.

The white majority and Latino minority membership were also allowed to “sponsor” their brothers, sons, nephews and friends into the union ahead of the Unemployed 500.76

Williams and several other members of the Unemployed 500 filed a lawsuit to be reinstated as full members of Local 13. They argued that they not only had more seniority than many of the white men who were allowed to rejoin the local after the war, but that their deregistration violated the antidiscrimination policies of the federal government’s wartime Fair Employment Practices Commission. Though some wanted to sue the local for lost pay and damages, Williams urged a different course of action. He firmly believed that Local 13 had violated their civil rights by deregistering them, but he still believed that the local, and especially the ILWU as a whole, served the class interests of workers because of its militant record of fighting for improved wages, benefits and working conditions. Under pressure from Harry Bridges and ILWU headquarters, the local finally reregistered Williams and 200 members of the Unemployed 500 who had remained in L.A. and wished to return to the waterfront by 1949 and 1950. Yet the local leaders did not welcome them back out of contrition or kindness. The growth of port commerce (especially during the Korean War) had created enough labor demand for their return, and allowed for a convenient resolution of the conflict.77

76 Nelson, Divided We Stand, 113-117; Sides, 72-74; Walter E. Williams interview, 4-5.

77 Nelson, Divided We Stand, 116, 125-126; A chronology of the deregistration and reregistration of the Unemployed 500 is in “Brief on Behalf of International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local 13. In Arbitration Proceedings Pursuant to Collective Bargaining Agreement Between the Parties In the Matter of a Controversy between Walter Williams, et al., Grievors and Pacific Maritime Association, et

224 The struggle of Walter Williams and the Unemployed 500 continued into the

1950s and 1960s. Even though some got their jobs back, they did not receive many of their seniority rights until they took further action through the California Division of Fair

Employment Practices and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to restore the seniority they lost from the years that they were laid off. Williams’ outspoken leadership on challenging employment discrimination and fighting for African American civil rights on and off the docks served as a role model for the next generation of black longshoremen (Williams was later married to Myrlie Evers, the widow of the slain

Mississippi NAACP secretary Medgar Evers, from 1976 until his death in 1995, right before she was elected national chairwoman of the NAACP).78 Despite the legal challenge of the Unemployed 500, the local’s sponsorship system persisted. The sponsored friends and relatives of the existing white majority received a Class-A, or full time, status and became full members of the union. The majority of new black longshoremen were not sponsored and retained either a Class-C status as casual workers or a part-time, Class-B status (along with lower wages, fewer work opportunities, and limited union membership rights) even though they had more work experience than many of their newly sponsored Class-A counterparts.79

al., Respondents. Involving Claims to Vacation Benefits.” Case #16-7, NLRB Proceedings, 4. Apr 1967, Box 6, Folder 5, Norman Leonard and William H. Carder Collections, Urban Archives Center, California State University-Northridge [Hereafter Leonard and Carder Collections, CSUN].

78 “Brief on Behalf of International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local 13,” Case #16-7, NLRB Proceedings, 4. Apr 1967, Box 6, Folder 5, Carder and Leonard Collections, CSUN; Williams interviews, 11-14; “I Heard That…,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 5, 1976; “Final Rites Held for Walter Williams, Husband of NAACP Head,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 2, 1995.

79 For an explanation of Class-B registration, see Stanley Weir, Singlejack Solidarity, ed. George Lipsitz (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 39-47. Weir states that he was among the first 700 “B-men” hired to work through Bay Area ILWU Local 10 in 1959. Prior to the Class-A/Class-B/Class-C designations in 1959, the ILWU made a distinction between “union members, who had the first pick of jobs; permit workers, who picked next, and casuals, who picked last.” The categories were used to comply

225 Demonstrating the reach of the civil rights movement into the nation’s workplaces, the Congress of Racial Equality pressured Local 13 to end sponsorship in the late 1960s.

When that did not work, James Phillips, Henry Gatlin, and other Class-B African

American longshoremen sought redress through the National Labor Relations Board in

1969-1970. They charged that sponsorship violated the hiring procedures of the coast- wide ILWU-PMA contract, and more importantly, violated their right to fair union representation under Section 8(b) of the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRB ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, determining that sponsorship encouraged unlawful racial discrimination.80 But rather than comply, Local 13 appealed the decision in the federal courts. In an odd twist, George Shibley, who had built his reputation as the civil rights lawyer who successfully defended the Mexican American youths in the 1944 Zoot Suit

Riot trial, represented the local. Shibley argued that the plaintiffs’ evidence and testimony was not correct, that the burden of proof for discrimination was unduly on the union and not on the employer, and that sponsorship was not racially motivated. The U.S.

Ninth Circuit Court summarily rejected the local’s appeal and upheld the NLRB’s decision in 1977. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the lower court’s decision by refusing to hear the case.81

with the Taft-Hartley Act, which outlawed employers from preferentially hiring union members. With the ILWU’s continued control over the hiring hall, union members arguably retained a de facto employment preference. See Schwartz, Solidarity Stories, 302.

80 International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local No. 13 and Henry A. Gatlin and James Phillips and Pacific Maritime Association, Intervenor, Case 21-CB-3296, Case 21-CB-3326, National Labor Relations Board, 183 N.L.R.B. 221, June 10, 1970.

81 National Labor Relations Board v International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local No. 13, No. 74-3158, 549 F.2d 1346, (9th Cir. 1977) International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, Local No. 13 v National Labor Relations Board, No. 77-283, 434 U.S. 922, (U.S. 1977). Legal files surrounding the Phillips-Gatlin case may be found in Boxes ILWU-GS 4, 17, 18, 22, and 24, George Shibley Collection, Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge. [Hereafter Shibley Collection, CSUN].

226 In a 1975 legal case related more directly to mechanization, Forest Bates, Elbert

Kelley, and other black longshoremen sued the Pacific Maritime Association and Local

13 over section 9.43 of the contract, the steady man clause. The plaintiffs charged that both the PMA and the union were allowing shipping companies to violate Title VII of the

1964 Civil Rights Act because shipping and stevedoring companies were exclusively hiring white union members as crane operators. Kelley, a Class-A longshoreman who had gained crane-operating experience as an Army stevedore during the Vietnam War, explained how the lawsuit came about in an interview:

Well, it wasn’t very difficult to determine a course of action. [In the early seventies] there were numerous successful affirmative action lawsuits being won throughout the country… If you read any African-American publication at the time, Ebony, Jet, or whatever… you were hearing a lot about these cases being filed and being won… And we felt at that point in time, there was no way in the world Local 13, and the Pacific Maritime Association, could prove that they weren’t discriminating against African- Americans…

So we had no problem putting a case together. We had no problem securing financing. The NAACP and other people were out there, ready to give us the money to finance the case… We were able to find… excellent young attorneys that wanted to take on these cases… Keep in mind, all us were, like, …under thirty at the time, but we were hot to trot, you know, and we wanted to ram it up Local 13’s butt, and some of [these] employers because of the way they were treating black workers.82

While some Local 13 activists saw this case as an opportunity to eliminate section 9.43 altogether, the plaintiffs compelled Local 13 and the PMA to implement a consent decree in 1979. The decree stipulated that black longshoremen would receive 40 percent of the

82 Elbert Kelley, interview by Tony Salcido, transcribed by Jennie Kogak, May 7, 1996, Local 13 Oral History Collection. As Kelley’s testimony indicates, black members of Local 13 were inspired by other successful lawsuits challenging racial discrimination. See for instance Nancy McLean, Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 76- 113; Lichtenstein, State of the Union, 191-207.

227 new steady man positions maritime employers created on the docks.83 The Phillips-

Gatlin and Bates lawsuits helped remedy racial inequality on the waterfront.

Demonstrating their far-reaching impact, these cases helped provide the basis for a 1983 consent decree that allowed the first large group of women to be hired as Local 13 longshoremen.84 Waterfront labor in Los Angeles and Long Beach was no longer the privileged enclave of white male workers.

Conclusion

The actions of Local 13 throughout the late 1940s saga of the Unemployed 500 was, as Bruce Nelson suggests, a prime example of white workers using their institutional control of the labor movement to defend their racial privileges. Their actions also reaffirmed the racial divisions that were prevalent in the neighborhoods and workplaces of L.A. and many other postwar American cities.85 One could attribute similar motivations to the local leadership in the 1960s and 1970s. As the long period it took for the Phillips-Gatlin and Bates cases to resolve indicates, intransigent union leaders were slow, and often unwilling, to respond to the needs of black workers. The local’s legal arguments in these cases hinged on its power to determine who worked on the waterfront, and went to great length to demonstrate—albeit unsuccessfully—that it had done northing illegal or untoward.

83 Forest Bates, et al. v Pacific Maritime Association et al., 75-1346-WMB, (C.D. Cal. 1979); John Pandora, One Member’s Opinion, Issue 14, Local 13 ed., 1977; Claire Spiegel, “Black Longshoremen OK Affirmative Action Plan,” Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1978. Files related to the Bates case are located in box ILWU-GS 8, Shibley Collection, CSUN.

84 Deborah Taylor Golden et al. v Pacific Maritime Association, et al., 80-4770-RMT, (C.D. Cal. 1983). Files related to the Golden consent decree are located in boxes ILWU-GS 6 and 21, Shibley Collection, CSUN.

85 See for instance Sugrue, 91-123; Self, 61-95; McLean, 76-113.

228 Yet the context of declining work opportunities and lost jobs in the maritime industry should also be taken into account. These factors helped racial discrimination to persist, or at the very least, complicated its eradication. The postwar gains made by longshoremen were threatened by port modernization. As this study documents, longshore man-hours declined even though labor efficiency rose in the 1960s and 1970s.

The number of longshoremen in all West Coast ports dropped from 14,500 to 8,400 between 1960 and 1980.86 Local 13 went from approximately 3,900 registered longshoremen in 1960 to 2,381 in 1980—a 39 percent decrease.87 While it was bonds instead of taxpayers’ money, the hundreds of millions of dollars that the ports of Los

Angeles and Long Beach invested in new facilities and container terminals was a case of public resources being put to use to aid market capitalism. But unlike the early twentieth century, this phase new phase of economic development did not just disrupt the lives of longshoremen who had to contend with automation. Like their counterparts in other industrial centers throughout the nation, Southland workers were faced with deindustrialization in part due to the massive influx of imports through the harbor. With the diminishing manufacturing labor market—punctuated by the departure of major auto, rubber, and steel plants—longshoremen undoubtedly coveted their jobs even more.

Many white Local 13 members likely saw sponsorship as a way to insulate their families and communities against job loss. For black workers, getting and maintaining full time jobs on the waterfront with high pay, generous benefits, and union protections

86 William Finlay, Work on the Waterfront: Worker Power and Technological Change in a West Coast Port (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 5.

87 1960 Local 13 registration figure from “1960-1961 Annual Report, Port of Los Angeles” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1961), inner cover; 1980 registration figure from 1981 Pacific Maritime Association annual report, reprinted in Mills, “The Linguistic Bond of the Dockers,” 54.

229 were far better than many of the employment alternatives in the region’s expanding service sector. Of course, the fear of unemployment was not a moral or legal rationale for maintaining institutional racism. But it is important to recognize that the question of who would continue to prosper from unionized waterfront employment as job opportunities diminished was fundamental to longshoremen of all races in Los Angeles,

Long Beach, and other West Coast ports in the 1960s and 1970s.

230 Conclusion

Los Angeles Harbor in the Neoliberal Age

The global “neoliberal” economic order of the past thirty-five years has witnessed the deregulation of financial markets, the privatization of public resources and programs, and millennial beliefs in a “new economy” marked by unlimited progress in information, technology, and communications. The movement of physical goods through “free trade” in the transnational “free market” is another hallmark of neoliberal thought and practice, a throwback to an earlier form of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century liberalism that favored lowered tariffs to spur trade in cheaper agricultural, natural resource, and manufacturing commodities and products between nations.1 Contemporary

Los Angeles Harbor reflects neoliberalism (or its somewhat less precise but more recognizable variant, “globalization”) in some key ways. The Port of Los Angeles now spans 7,500 acres along forty-three miles of waterfront in San Pedro, Wilmington, and the western end of Terminal Island. It handles the single largest amount of container traffic of any port in the nation, including many of the automobiles, electronics, apparel, and other goods produced abroad that help form the basis of the U.S. consumer economy.

The Port of Long Beach is the nation’s second-busiest port in container traffic,

1 On neoliberalism and its historical roots consult David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); David McNally, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance (Oakland: PM Press, 2010); Doug Henwood, After the New Economy: The Binge… and the Hangover that Won’t Go Away (New York: New Press, 2003).

231 solidifying the joint harbor’s status as one of the most important sites for trade between the United States, the Pacific Rim, and the rest of the world.2

The growth of L.A. Harbor may seem like the fulfillment of the visions of the city’s boosters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One can imagine that the sheer volume of trade and the level of commercial activity surrounding the harbor would impress Charles Dwight Willard, Thomas E. Gibbon, Clarence Matson and others from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Harbor Commissioners.

As the first three chapters of this study document, these political and business leaders directed their energies toward turning L.A. into a Pacific Rim metropolis. Indeed, the roots of the city’s “globalization” can be traced back over a century. Beyond the rhetoric of the boosters, the maritime trade in domestic and global commodities like oil, lumber, citrus, cotton, borax, rubber, copra, bananas, and hundreds of others helped fuel Los

Angeles and the Southland’s economic growth. Matson and the Chamber’s use of trade missions also spurred the region’s commerce across the Pacific Rim. The business community came into closer contact with its foreign counterparts (although the Chamber fell short of completely reframing cultural and racial attitudes, despite the apparent sincerity of its efforts).

Other aspects of the contemporary harbor economy would be less recognizable to the early boosters. They might be in awe of technological achievements, including the acres of shipping containers stacked five high, the robot-like gantry cranes, or the massive container ships and tankers moored at the piers. More importantly, they might

2“ Erie, 5-6; About the Port,” Port of Los Angeles website, http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/about.asp ; “FAQs,” http://www.portoflosangeles.org/about/faqs.asp ; “Table 1087. Top U.S. Ports/Waterways by Container Traffic: 2009,” U.S. Bureau of the Census, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1087.pdf

232 be surprised that the harbor is serving a different purpose in our transnational economy.

Throughout the early twentieth century, the boosters positioned the harbor as an engine for the region’s industrialization. By the 1920s and 1930s, the simultaneous efforts to build port facilities and attract manufacturing industries to the L.A. region had paid off, as the harbor exported much more than it imported. Even the Chamber’s foreign trade missions were mostly done in the name of finding overseas markets for L.A.’s products, and importing essential commodities that were not produced domestically (including rubber) but could be turned into finished goods in the city’s factories (including tires).

The gradual decline of exports, the increase in imports, and the erosion of the manufacturing base transformed the harbor’s and the region’s political economy from the

1940s through the 1970s. These changes have continued and accelerated in the neoliberal age. While administrators at the Port of Los Angeles have been pursuing a strategy of increasing exports over the past two years, recent statistics reveal the unlikelihood of diminishing the supremacy of imports.3 In 2010, the American Association of Port

Authorities reported that foreign imports reached over 73 million tons at the ports of Los

Angeles and Long Beach, while foreign exports only tallied 45 million tons. Total domestic trade (inbound and outbound) was much lower at 19 million tons.4 Some 80 percent of Asian manufacturing goods shipped by container to the United States have passed through the ports in the past decade. Six of the seven largest importers of goods through containers to the U.S. were retailers in 2009. Wal-Mart topped the list, followed

3 Geraldine Knatz, video interview with the Journal of Commerce, 2012, Port of Los Angeles website, http://www.portoflosangeles.org/temp/032012_JOC_GK_TPM.wmv

4 “U.S. Port Rankings By Cargo Volume 2010,” American Association of Port Authorities website, http://aapa.files.cms- plus.com/Statistics/2010%20U.S.%20PORT%20RANKINGS%20BY%20CARGO%20TONNAGE.pdf

233 by Target, Home Depot, Sears, Lowe’s, and Costco.5 As Edna Bonacich and Jake

Wilson point out in their recent book on global logistics, “Almost by definition, importers are entities that are linked to foreign production, whether they are U.S. or foreign companies.” Since the 1960s retailers have perfected a system of overseas factories that pay workers subsistence wages to produce the consumer goods that are sent to the U.S. on container ships.6 The harbor remains tied to an industrial manufacturing system, but the production side of that system is in Asia, not L.A.

In contrast to the neoliberal agenda of privatizing public institutions, however,

Los Angeles Harbor remains public property administered by the L.A. and Long Beach harbor commissions. In this case, much like the function of the “free harbor” over a century ago, the resources of the state are still fundamental to supporting capitalism. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year on infrastructure and operations. For instance, the Port of Los Angeles spent over $175 million on commercial development, environmental studies, security, shipping terminal upgrades, and other capital improvements and another $254 million in operating and administrative expenses in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. While these expenses are normally covered by docking fees, tidelands leases for warehouses and shipping terminals, and other forms of revenue, the port also carried over $757 million in bonded debt. The Port of Long Beach reported that nearly $500 million of its $881 million budget would go to improvement projects for 2009-2010, largely paid for by terminal leases and existing cash reserves. Both ports boast that they do not rely on taxpayers’

5 Bonacich and Wilson, vii, 23-26; “The Journal of Commerce Top 100 Importers in 2009: U.S. Foreign Trade Via Ocean Container Transport,” Journal of Commerce, May 31, 2010.

6 Bonacich and Wilson, 26-27.

234 money. Yet as public non-profit entities, they expend considerable resources in order to provide the private maritime shipping industry state of the art facilities that keep goods flowing.7

Even with the cycle of continuous infrastructure upgrades, both ports are facing new challenges. Similar to the Great Depression, the recent global financial crisis has reduced (but not eliminated) harbor commerce. Shipping tonnages dropped by 20 percent at the Port of Los Angeles from 2007 to 2009 and have yet to completely recover, after commerce had quadrupled over the previous 25-year period. Tonnages at the Port of Long Beach also dropped by 24 percent from 2007 to 2009.8 While L.A. and Long

Beach continue to lead the nation in container traffic, the ports of Houston and South

Louisiana handle much more cargo, including domestic shipments and foreign exports.

Other ports on the Gulf Coast and the eastern seaboard also top L.A. and Long Beach in total shipping.9 The planned widening of the Panama Canal in 2014 may further erode

L.A. Harbor’s position. This is somewhat ironic, given how L.A.’s business community lauded the opening of the canal in 1914 and predicted that it would help solidify the city’s place on maritime trade routes stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A widened canal that can accommodate the largest container vessels may cause many future

7 “Port of Los Angeles (Harbor Department of the City of Los Angeles) Annual Financial Report, June 30, 2009 and 2008 (With Independent Auditor’s Report Thereon),” (Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 2010), 11-21; “Building the Port of the Future: Port of Long Beach Annual Report 2009” (Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 2010), 10, http://www.polb.com/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7445

8 “Tonnage Data in Million Metric Revenue Tons (MMRT) by Fiscal Year (July 1 through June 30), Port of Los Angele website, http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/tonnage.asp ; “Building the Port of the Future,” 8.

9 “U.S. Port Rankings By Cargo Volume 2010”; “Overview,” Port of Houston Authority website, http://www.portofhouston.com/about-us/overview ; “Port of South Louisiana Overview,” Port of South Louisiana website, http://www.portsl.com/overview.htm

235 shipments from Asia to bypass L.A. for eastern ports (as of now, containers bound for eastern destinations are often discharged in L.A. Harbor and loaded on trucks and stack- trains).10

Community residents and workers also have concerns about the present and future of Los Angeles Harbor. For residents of San Pedro, Wilmington, and Long Beach, the harbor poses immediate environmental and public health hazards. While a group of area homeowners have taken issue with container facilities blocking their views of San Pedro

Bay, Bill Sharpsteen has shown that the most significant problems are water and air pollution. Oil, chemicals, and bacteria from urban and industrial runoff have diminished the safety and quality of the water at the harbor’s public marinas and beaches, although port and city officials have bowed to public pressure and legal mandates to make improvements. Air quality was particularly bad in the 2000s due to the high concentration of diesel particulates from the thousands of trucks, trains, and ships that visit the harbor, not to mention the wider smog problem afflicting the L.A. Basin.

Dubbed the “diesel death zone” by one public health advocate, the likelihood of residents contracting cancer, asthma, emphysema, or other cardio-pulmonary ailments became much higher in the harbor communities than in neighborhoods farther inland. 11 To reduce these risks, administrators from both ports have mandated that trucks meet higher

10 “2010 CITT Point/Counterpoint Panama Canal Expansion Webcast,” Center for International Trade & Transportation, California State University, Long Beach website, http://www.amp.csulb.edu/uces/citt/201010_CITT_Meeting.asx ; “CSULB Forum Talks Port of Long Beach, Panama Canal Expansion,” Long Beach Post, September 22, 2010.

11 Bill Sharpsteen, The Docks (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011), 60-91. On harbor pollution past and present, “Industrial Pollution Takes High Fish Toll,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1963; “Harbor Manager Sees 10-Year Fight Against Pollution,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1969; Wade Graham, “Dark Side of the New Economy,” Natural Resources Defense Council OnEarth website, March 1, 2007, http://onearth.lin.nrdcdev.org/article/dark-side-of-the-new-economy ; “Clear View of Dirty Air,” Random Lengths News, http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/archive/clear.htmls

236 emission standards, have adopted hybrid-electric locomotives for the harbor’s belt line railroad, and have encouraged ships to plug into electrical power from the wharf instead of using their diesel engines while in port. These initiatives—costing as much as $2 billion to implement—have helped the ports reach their goal of reducing truck-based emissions by 80 percent.12

The pace of technological change in the maritime industry is threatening the long- term employment prospects of longshoremen, just as it did in the earlier period of automation and containerization in the 1960s and 1970s. And like before, maritime employers are using technology as a tool for reasserting their control over the labor process.13 One of the main issues in contract negotiations between the International

Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association in 2002 was the employers’ plan to introduce computerized scanners and information technology that would have replaced the jobs of 600 unionized clerks who kept track of shipping containers. Unable to reach an agreement, the PMA locked out the union in every port on the West Coast. Like Nixon in the 1971-1972 strike, President George W. Bush issued an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act to force the ports to reopen—partly due to pressure from the large retailers who depended on container shipments from Asia to keep their stores stocked. The ILWU secured a contract after six months of negotiation that

12 “Environment,” Port of Los Angeles website, http://www.portofla.org/idx_environment.asp ; “Environment,” Port of Long Beach website, http://www.polb.com/environment/default.asp ; “LA Ports Meet Clean Air Goals Years Ahead of Schedule,” Natural Resources Defense Council press release, October 1, 2009, http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/091001.asp

13 On technology as a tool for labor discipline, see Sugrue, 130-135; David Stiegerwald, “Walter Reuther, the UAW, and the Dilemmas of Automation,” Labor History 51 (2010): 429-453.

237 granted pay and benefit increases, but allowed the PMA to adopt the technologies it wanted at the potential expense of the clerks’ jobs.14

The current six-year ILWU-PMA contract negotiated in 2008 enables shipping companies to install automated stacking cranes in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and other

West Coast ports. Evoking the 1960s “Mechanization and Modernization” agreements, the job displacement caused by these cranes is offset by wage and benefit increases (full- time longshoremen now earn upwards of $30.00 per hour) and union jurisdiction over the maintenance and operation of the cranes.15 Still, the downturn in shipping during the recent financial crisis has resulted in fewer work opportunities. ILWU organizing director Peter Olney reported after visiting L.A.-Long Beach Local 13 last year, “Many of our members are not getting their hours and are underwater… Many of our members are ashamed to admit they are struggling to keep their homes.”16 While Olney’s comments may overstate the financial predicament of most ILWU members, some waterfront employers are intent on skirting the union’s contract in favor of cheaper labor.

For instance, a multinational grain company in the Port of Longview, Washington locked out ILWU longshoremen last year from its brand-new facility. The company relented after the union and allies from the Occupy Movement and community groups engaged in protracted picketing, civil disobedience, and litigation. Meanwhile, labor activists have

14 Bonacich and Wilson, 194-197; Ron Brockmeyer, “West Coast Dock Struggle at Front Line of War on Labor,” Theory/Practice News & Letters, November 2002, http://www.newsandletters.org/Issues/2002/November/Lead_Nov02.htm ; “Longshoremen Negotiate Beyond Deadline,” New York Times, July 2, 2002; “Modernizing the Waterfront” [2002 Annual Report] (San Francisco: Pacific Maritime Association, 2002), http:// www.pmanet.org/pubs/annualreports/2002/ar2002_pages_17_34.pdf

15 “Changes coming to Docks,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 2, 2008; “President’s Message,” The Dispatcher, September 2008.

16 Peter Olney, “The Hiring Hall and Home Defense: A Powerful Linkage,” BeyondChron: The Voice of the Rest, November 4, 2011, http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9663

238 been charged with vandalism and the ILWU has been fined $300,000 by the National

Labor Relations Board for violating the Taft-Hartley Act because it attempted to stop the facility’s operation during the lockout.17

The most significant problem facing organized labor in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and other ports throughout the West Coast and the nation may not be automated cargo handling or employers’ attempts to undermine the contract standards of longshoremen.

In the contemporary neoliberal age, the problem is that ILWU members are among the few unionized and highly compensated workers in the supply chains that stretch from the factory floors of China to the Wal-Mart shelves of Anytown, USA. As the photographer and essayist Allan Sekula remarks in Fish Story, “The container ship [flies] a Bahamian flag of convenience. It was built by Koreans laboring long hours in the giant shipyards of

Ulsan. The crew, underpaid and overworked, could be Honduran or Filipino.”18 Low pay and difficult working conditions are also the norm for the truck drivers and warehouse workers who handle the containers once they leave the ports. As so-called

“owner-operators,” truck drivers (most of whom are immigrant workers) are responsible for leasing their rigs, even though they must work exclusively for trucking companies in order to get jobs. With the support of the “Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports,” an organization made up of the Teamsters Union and environmental groups, the Port of Los

Angeles has tried to make trucking companies classify drivers as employees and pay for more environmentally friendly rigs under the clean trucks program. The American

Trucking Association is fighting a legal battle to keep the drivers classified as owner-

17 “EGT Signs Contract, But County Attorney Still Prosecuting Workers,” The Dispatcher, February 23, 2012.

18 Allan Sekula, Fish Story (Rotterdam: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 1995), 12.

239 operators. The Coalition worries that if drivers are not able to make a decent living due to the high costs of truck ownership, they may not be able to afford the maintenance necessary to keep exhaust emissions at safe levels.19

Wal-Mart contracts with warehouse companies in Fontana, a former steel town located seventy miles inland from the harbor. The warehouse complexes are massive, employing nearly 100,000 low-paid and mostly-immigrant workers. And similar to their experiences with the port truck drivers, labor unions are having a difficult time making headway. Even though Wal-Mart itself is shrewd at avoiding unionization at its stores, its warehouse contractors employ a variety of temporary staffing agencies to keep their workforce in constant flux. Much like it does with factory suppliers in Asia, Wal-Mart also keeps pressure on its warehouses to keep costs low and wages low. The Teamsters and other unions have experimented with new methods for organizing the warehouses in recent years. Yet the economic power of the retailers and the use subcontractors and temp agencies have made unionization a nearly impossible task and have frustrated efforts to raise wages and working standards of warehouse workers anywhere close to that of the longshoremen.20

So how does one square Los Angeles Harbor’s past with its present and future?

The harbor was a central part of L.A.’s industrial expansion and participation in a global network of exchange in the first half of the twentieth century. The flow of goods has continued across the production and distribution systems of the neoliberal age, yet the

19 “Fighting the Cycle of Poverty and Pollution at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,” Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, http://cleanandsafeports.org/los-angeleslong-beach

20 Harold Meyerson, “The Shipping Point,” The American Prospect, June 25, 2009; Bonacich and Wilson, 225-240; “Warehouse Industry Facts,” Warehouse Workers United website, http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/index.php?id=warehouse-facts

240 harbor is still a public institution serving as a critical structural element in a transnational capitalist economy. Of course, the sluggish economy, the expansion of the Panama Canal, environmental concerns, and a whole host of unforeseen problems may diminish the harbor’s commerce in the months and years to come. Then again, Los Angeles and the

Southland will continue as a Pacific Rim metropolis—a substantial market for the products imported through the harbor on a daily basis. But if one stops to consider the human side of the equation, the harbor remains a contested place for the ordinary people living and toiling in its shadow.

241 Appendix A

Total Commerce, Imports, and Exports: Port of Los Angeles, 1913-1940

Data from Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners Annual Reports, 1912-1913 through 1939-1940.

242

243 Appendix B

Foreign Imports and Foreign Exports: Port of Los Angeles, 1913-1940

Data from Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners Annual Reports, 1912-1913 through 1939-1940.

244

245 Appendix C

Total Foreign Imports and Exports, Asian Imports and Exports, and Latin American Imports and Exports: Port of Los Angeles, 1934-1940

Total Total Latin Latin Foreign Foreign Asian Asian American American Exports Imports Exports Imports Exports Imports Fiscal Year (U.S. Tons) (U.S. Tons) (U.S. Tons) (U.S. Tons) (U.S. Tons) (U.S. Tons) 1934 3684953 500816 1662636 241071 791167 108940 1935 4027561 642740 1873584 327914 791399 404531 1936 4003950 809467 1828372 336603 779789 224026 1937 4124161 747834 2117723 311833 912372 201509 1938 5122545 666054 2815567 238211 1152378 143707 1939 4382879 536854 2212890 211329 1006770 131792 1940 4529840 559626 2256882 262136 1414259 166143

246

247 Appendix D

Imports, Exports, and Total Commerce: Port of Los Angeles, 1941-1980

Total Commerce Inbound Receipts Outbound Shipments Fiscal Year (Imports and Exports, U.S. Tons) (Imports, U.S. Tons) (Exports, U.S. Tons) 1941 18679785 5566141 13113644 1942 13091902 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1943 14341373 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1944 19352478 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1945 24188176 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1946 17694060 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1947 15443689 3454236 11989453 1948 17766398 3699239 14067159 1949 17115867 4082074 13033793 1950 22693233 5399586 17293647 1951 23699624 6281523 17418101 1952 24022510 6614078 17408432 1953 24762587 8412961 16349626 1954 26513998 9578611 16935387 1955 24819837 8344939 16474898 1956 24082933 8522737 15560196 1957 24125432 9268873 14856559 1958 21869027 8668197 13200830 1959 23298574 7664088 15634486 1960 24620397 9054744 15565653 1961 25012412 9960668 15051744 1962 26088015 10807272 15280743 1963 24351976 10630732 13721244 1964 24494049 10112402 14381647 1965 25125011 12413657 12711354 1966 26182113 12017326 14164787 1967 26293560 11744515 14549045 1968 28931577 12514868 16416709 1969 26946622 12004670 14941952 1970 25937196 11461622 14475574 1971 27240590 13381379 13859211 1972 25594549 13462528 12132021 1973 26146305 14806994 11339311 1974 27046754 15173504 11873250 1975 26828377 14257681 12570696 1976 28808072 15729102 13078970 1977 33900206 20594342 13305864 1978 36451305 (No Data) (No Data) 1979 44364677 (No Data) (No Data) 1980 45174335 26695727 18478608 Data from Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners Annual Reports, 1940-1941 through 1979-1980.

248 Appendix E

Foreign Imports and Foreign Exports: Port of Los Angeles, 1941-1980

Fiscal Year Foreign Imports (U.S. Tons) Foreign Exports (U.S. Tons) 1941 562815 3074358 1942 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1943 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1944 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1945 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1946 (World War II-No Data) (World War II-No Data) 1947 315541 1653432 1948 455071 1514829 1949 590289 1150958 1950 627750 1350915 1951 942738 1862278 1952 823966 2768144 1953 1968605 1544303 1954 1747422 2000592 1955 1439190 2793630 1956 2580084 2422890 1957 2841680 2817148 1958 3493530 2746613 1959 2732791 2933678 1960 3895137 2879889 1961 4827895 3108649 1962 5928017 2984528 1963 5862945 2816731 1964 5550813 3211331 1965 7885663 2723693 1966 6600150 3229034 1967 5906457 4452308 1968 5098408 5095715 1969 5833847 4388278 1970 5237385 4324220 1971 6412749 4544478 1972 7864164 2623221 1973 8427947 3716918 1974 9742030 4050708 1975 8486695 3340028 1976 8980396 2945445 1977 13331788 3338869 1978 (No Data) (No Data) 1979 (No Data) (No Data) 1980 12067672 3902703

Data from Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners Annual Reports, fiscal years 1940-1941 through 1979-1980.

249 Appendix F Manufacturing Workers in the United States, California, and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, 1953-1980

Manufacturing Workers’ Year U.S. Total Workers U.S. Manufacturing Workers Percentage of U.S. Workforce 1953 43318754 17297366 39.9304329 1956 40692115 16832410 41.36528662 1959 41903940 16206932 38.67639177 1965 47743277 17593093 36.84936206 1970 57265292 19761548 34.50877016 1975 60564361 18374397 30.33862935 1980 74835525 21151842 28.26443992

California Manufacturing Manufacturing Workers’ Year California Total Workers Workers Percentage of California Workforce 1953 3287317 1025688 31.20137182 1956 3349243 1132480 33.81301387 1959 3713252 1238769 33.36075763 1965 4512509 1359818 30.13441081 1970 5517039 1608244 29.15049178 1975 5999041 1605211 26.75779345 1980 8275310 2100467 25.38233613

Manufacturing Workers’ L.A. Metropolitan Area L.A. Metropolitan Area Percentage of L.A. Metropolitan Year Total Workers Manufacturing Workers Area Workforce 1953 1671129 668857 40.02425905 1956 1920622 748678 38.98101761 1959 2097811 794024 37.85012091 1965 2551023 879088 34.46021459 1970 3101565 1036356 33.41397004 1975 3269199 1008710 30.85495866 1980 4444624 1287104 28.95867007

The L.A. Metropolitan Area includes L.A. County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Ventura County. Data is taken from County Business Patterns reports published by the U.S. Government. The “total workers” statistics only includes those workers enrolled in Social Security, thus excluding a significant segment of the actual workforce.

250 Appendix G Shipping Containers Used, Total Tonnage Shipped, Total Man-Hours, and Total Tons Per Man-Hour: West Coast Ports, 1960-1980

Year Shipping Containers Total Tonnage Total Man-Hours Tons per Man-Hour 1960 723899 28495619 23757382 1.199442725 1961 1402798 28097982 22293093 1.260389574 1962 2081697 27762094 21210919 1.308858612 1963 2760597 32292305 22512410 1.434422392 1964 3439496 34222791 22498509 1.521113732 1965 4118395 40151909 24387133 1.646438267 1966 4797295 45640702 26653343 1.712381895 1967 5476194 49885315 25482708 1.957614356 1968 6155093 54459228 25235089 2.158075527 1969 6833993 57761482 24310961 2.375944003 1970 8782425 60025612 19693920 3.04792606 1971 8237217 48477674 14838081 3.267112102 1972 12427891 59633061 15824173 3.768478833 1973 17286133 70954893 15734545 4.509497605 1974 19645497 75537386 14808231 5.101040496 1975 17826596 66968534 12130379 5.520728907 1976 23221682 76289936 12349221 6.177712424 1977 26414368 78570431 12024044 6.534443071 1978 28819244 91973495 12909558 7.124449574 1979 31004124 103135709 13540093 7.617060607 1980 34961122 113682374 13376301 8.498790062

Data from 1981 Pacific Maritime Association annual report, reprinted in Herb Mills, “The Linguistic Bond of the Dockers circa the Mid-Sixties.”

251 Bibliography

Archival Collections The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA: Banning Company Collection Ellen Bergman Collection of the Papers of Thomas E. Gibbon John Haskell Kemble Collection of Maritime Ephemera Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill & Lumber Company Collection Rare Books Collection

National Archives at College Park, MD: Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State, Decimal File 1910-1929; Decimal File 1930-1939 Regional History Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Collection Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, CA: Register of Union Files Collection Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge, Los Angeles, CA: George Shibley Collection ILWU Local 13 Collection ILWU Local 13 Oral History Project Norman Leonard and William H. Carder Collections

Additional Archives, Libraries, and Historical Societies

Anne Rand Memorial Library, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, San Francisco, CA Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles, CA Doheny Memorial Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Historical Society of Long Beach, CA Honnald/Mudd Library, Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Brown University, Providence, RI Los Angeles City Archive, Los Angeles, CA Port of Los Angeles Archive, San Pedro, CA Richard Riordan Central Library, Los Angeles Public Libraries, Los Angeles, CA San Pedro Bay Historical Society, San Pedro, CA University Library, California State University, Long Beach, CA

252 Newspapers and Periodicals American Globe The American Prospect The Atlantic Monthly The Dispatcher Harbor Highlights: Port of Long Beach California Industrial Pioneer Industrial Worker Journal of Commerce Long Beach Post Long Beach Press-Telegram Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Bulletin Los Angeles Citizen Los Angeles Examiner Los Angeles Record Los Angeles Scope Los Angeles Sentinel Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Tribune The Los Angeles Warehouse Union News Municipal Journal The Nation New York Journal of Commerce New York Times Oil and Gas Journal Out West Magazine Philadelphia Inquirer Random Lengths News San Pedro Daily Pilot San Pedro News-Pilot Seattle Post-Intelligencer Southern California Business Southern Pacific Bulletin Standard Oil Bulletin Theory/Practice News & Letters Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers Waterfront Worker, San Francisco Edition Waterfront Worker, San Pedro Edition.

Books and Articles “1947 Annual Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1947. “1948 Annual Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1948. “1949 Annual Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1949.

253 “1978 Port of Los Angeles” [Annual Report]. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1978. “47th Annual Report” [1954-1955]. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1955. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1926. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1927. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1927, to June 30, 1928.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1928. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1929, to June 30, 1930.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1930. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1934. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1934, to June 30, 1935.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1935. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1935, to June 30, 1936.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1936. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1936, to June 30, 1937.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1937. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1937, to June 30, 1938.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1938. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1938, to June 30, 1939.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1939. “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1940.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1940.

254 “Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., Fiscal Year July 1, 1940, to June 30, 1941.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1941. Annual Reports of the War Department, Part 1. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910. “Biennial Report of the Attorney General of the State of California.” Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1910. “Building the Port of the Future: Port of Long Beach Annual Report 2009.” Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 2010. http://www.polb.com/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7445 Constitution of the State of California. In F.P. Deering, The Codes and Statutes of California, As Amended in Force at the Close of the Twenty-Sixth Session of the Legislature, 1885. San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1886. County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1953: Part 10, Pacific States and Territories. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1953. County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1956: Part 10, Pacific States. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1956. County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1959: Part 1, U.S. Summary. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1959). County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1959: Part 10, Pacific States. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1959. County Business Patterns 1965: U.S. Summary, CBP-65-1. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1965. County Business Patterns 1965: California, CBP-65-6. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1965. County Business Patterns 1970: U.S. Summary, CBP-70-1. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1970. County Business Patterns 1970: California, CBP-70-6. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1970. County Business Patterns 1975: U.S. Summary, CBP-75-1. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975.

255 County Business Patterns 1975: California, CBP-75-6. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975. County Business Patterns 1980: U.S. Summary, CBP-80-1. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980. County Business Patterns 1980: California, CBP-80-6. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980. The ILWU Story: Six Decades of Militant Unionism. Second edition. San Francisco: International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 2004. The International Who’s Who. New York: The International Who’s Who Publishing Co., 1912. http://books.google.com/books?id=I-wRAAAAYAAJ “Los Angeles and the Open Shop III: About Some Propaganda and Some Facts Concerning It.” Los Angeles: The Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Los Angeles, 1922. “Memorandum of Agreement Between the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union and Pacific Maritime Association On Mechanization and Modernization,” October 18, 1960. Reprinted in Herb Mills, ed., “The Contract Framework of West Coast Longshoring—from the ’34 strike and its arbitrated settlement to the container technologies and the strike of 1971 and 1972,” 2006. http://www.ilwu10hmills.com/articles/pdfs/Article17_2.pdf “Modernizing the Waterfront” [2002 Annual Report]. San Francisco: Pacific Maritime Association, 2002. http:// www.pmanet.org/pubs/annualreports/2002/ar2002_pages_17_34.pdf “Oil and Gas Production History in California.” Sacramento: California Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, California Department of Conservation, 2003-2005. ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/history/History_of_Calif.pdf “Port of Long Beach 1972 Harbor Highlights” [Annual Report]. Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1972. “Port of Long Beach Harbor Highlights” [1975 Annual Report]. Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1975. The Port of Long Beach: America’s Most Modern Port. Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, ca. 1948. “The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1969.” Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1969. “The Port of Long Beach, California Fiscal Year Report, 1970.” Long Beach: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1970.

256 “Port of Los Angeles Annual Report, 1958-1959.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1959. “The Port of Los Angeles 1961-1962 Annual Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1962. “Port of Los Angeles 1964 Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1964. “Port of Los Angeles 1966 Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1966. “Port of Los Angeles 1967 Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1967. “The Port of Los Angeles, 1969” [Annual Report]. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1969. “Port of Los Angeles 1971 Report.” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1971. “Port of Los Angeles 1975” [Annual Report]. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1975. “Port of Los Angeles (Harbor Department of the City of Los Angeles) Annual Financial Report, June 30, 2009 and 2008 (With Independent Auditor’s Report Thereon).” Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 2010. The Port of Los Angeles: Its History, Development, Tributary Territory, Present and Prospective Commerce, and Relation to the Panama Canal; Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners; Port Statistics; and Laws, Ordinances and Rules Governing the Harbor. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1913. “Preamble to the Industrial Workers of the World Constitution.” Industrial Workers of the World, 1905, 1908. http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/history261/oct0106.htm ; http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/images/industrial_worker/1200w/P reamble%20(edited)--Oct.%207,%201909--p.4.1200w.jpg Press Reference Library: Notables of the Southwest. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Examiner, 1912. http://books.google.com/books?id=-Xs_AAAAYAAJ Press Reference Library: Notables of the West. Vol. 2. New York: International News Service, 1915. http://books.google.com/books?id=-YA_AAAAYAAJ “Proceedings of the California Banker’s Convention.” Los Angeles: The Times-Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1891. http://books.google.com/books?id=JQMaAQAAIAAJ “Proceedings of the First Annual Convention of the Longshoremen’s Union of the Pacific, Portland, Oregon, September 21, 22, 23, 24, and 15 1908.” Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1908. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCkFAQAAIAAJ

257 “Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of the Pacific District of the International Longshoremen’s Association Held at Sailors Union Hall, San Pedro, Cal., May 5 to 10, 1913.” Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1913. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCkFAQAAIAAJ “Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Pacific District of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Held at Longshoremen’s Hall, Aberdeen, Washington, September 12-15, 1910.” Portland, OR: Multnomah Printing Company, 1910. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCkFAQAAIAAJ Adler, William M. The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011. Armstrong, Leroy. Financial California. San Francisco: Coast Banker Publishing Co., 1916. Avila, Eric. Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. Bankoff, Greg and Peter Boomgaard, eds. A History of Natural Resources in Asia: The Wealth of Nature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Beale, Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. First Collier Books edition. New York: Collier Books, 1962 Bernstein, Shana. Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth- Century Los Angeles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Bluestone, Barry and Bennett Harrison. The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry. New York: Basic Books, 1982. Bonacich, Edna and Jake B. Wilson. Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. Borden, William S. The Pacific Alliance: United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery, 1947-1955. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Brody, David. In Labor’s Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Case, Walter. History of Long Beach and Vicinity. Vol. I. Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1927. Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008. Chapman, Peter. Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World. New York: Canongate, 2007.

258 Cherny, Robert W. “Harry Bridges: Making of a Labor Radical, 1901-1934.” Pacific Historical Review 64, no. 3 (1995): 363-388. Chomsky, Aviva. West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Clark, Norman H. Mill Town: A Social History of Everett, Washington, from its Earliest Beginnings on the Shores of Puget Sound to the Tragic and Infamous Event Known as the Everett Massacre. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970. Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Cole, Peter. Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. Cowie, Jefferson. Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy Year Request for Cheap Labor. New Press ed. New York: The New Press, 2001. Cowie. Jefferson and Joseph Heathcott, eds. Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Cox, Thomas H. Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009. Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. Cumings, Bruce. Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Daniel, Cletus E. Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982. Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice: the Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962. Davis, Clark. Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Vintage Books edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. ------. “Sunshine and the Open Shop: Ford and Darwin in 1920s Los Angeles.” Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, edited by Tom Sitton and William Deverell. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. Deverell, William. Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.

259 ------. Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. Deverell, William and Greg Hise, eds. Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Dosal, Paul J. Doing Business With Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1993. Dove, Michael. The Banana Tree at the Gate: a History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in Borneo. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Dray, Philip. There is Power in a Union: the Epic Story of Labor in America. New York: Doubleday, 2010. Dubofsky, Melvyn. ‘Big Bill’ Haywood. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987. ------. We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969. Eckes, Jr., Alfred E. Opening America’s Markets: U.S. Foreign Trade Since 1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Enstad, Nan. Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Erie, Steven P. Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Ethington, Philip J. Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles since 13,000 B.P. (forthcoming). Fairley, Lincoln. Facing Mechanization: The West Coast Longshore Plan. Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979. Fink, Leon. Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World’s First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Finlay, William. Work on the Waterfront: Worker Power and Technological Change in a West Coast Port. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. Fisher, James T. On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Flanigan, James. Smile Southern California, You’re the Center of the Universe: The Economy and People of a Global Region. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles 1850-1930. First Paperback ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.

260 Forbes, W. Cameron “American Policies in the Far East.” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 73, no. 2 (1939): 5-28. Fowler, John A. “Plantation Rubber in the Netherlands East Indies and British Malaya.” Trade Bulletin No. 27. In Supplement to Commerce Reports. Washington D.C.: Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1922. http://books.google.com/books?id=EqsgZ2o05jgC Freeberg, Ernest. Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. Ghareeb, Gordon and Martin Cox. Hollywood to Honolulu: the Story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company. Providence: Steamship Historical Society of America, 2009. Gorn, Elliott J. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001. Grandin, Greg. Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006. ------. Forlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Green, James R. Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006. ------. World of the Worker: Labor in Twentieth-Century America. First Illinois Paperback ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Guinn, James Miller. A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs. Vol. I. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915. http://books.google.com/books?id=zxUVAAAAYAAJ ------. A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs. Vol. II. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915. http://books.google.com/books?id=FBYVAAAAYAAJ ------. A History of California and the Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs. Vol III. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915. http://books.google.com/books?id=cxYVAAAAYAAJ Gumprecht, Blake. The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

261 Hall, Greg. Harvest Wobblies: the Industrial Workers of the World and Agricultural Laborers in the American West, 1905-1930. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001. Hall, Timothy L. Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2001. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ------. The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Hemming, John. Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008. Henwood, Doug. After the New Economy: The Binge… and the Hangover that Won’t Go Away. New York: New Press, 2003. Hirobe, Izumi. Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: Modifying the Exclusion Cause of the 1924 Immigration Act. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Hise, Greg. “Industry and Imaginative Geographies.” In Metropolis in the Making. ------. “Nature’s Workshop: Industry and Urban Expansion in Southern California, 1900-1950.” Journal of Historical Geography 27 (2001): 74-92. Hooks, Gary and Leonard E. Bloomquist. “The Legacy of World War II for Regional Growth and Decline: The Cumulative Effects of Wartime Investments on U.S. Manufacturing, 1947-1972.” Social Forces 71 (1992): 303-337. Johnson, Herbert A. Gibbons v. Ogden: John Marshall, Steamboats, and the Commerce Clause. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010. Kent, Noel J. Hawaii: Islands Under the Influence. University of Hawaii Press ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. Kimmeldorf, Howard. Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. Klimasewski, Theodore. “Corporate Dominance of Manufacturing in Appalachia” Geographical Review 68, no. 1 (1978): 94-102. Kramer, Paul A. The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Kurashige, Lon. Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival, 1934-1990. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002.

262 Kurashige, Scott. “Between “White Spot” and “World City”: Racial Integration and the Roots of Multiculturalism.” In A Companion to Los Angeles, edited by William Deverell and Greg Hise. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. ------. The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Kutscher, Ronald E. “The American Work Force, 1992-2005: Historical Trends, 1950-92, and Current Uncertainties.” Monthly Labor Review, November 1993. LaFeber, Walter. The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad Since 1750. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. ------. The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. ------. The New Empire: Interpretations of American Expansionism, 1860-1898. 35th Anniversary ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Laszlo, Pierre. Citrus: A History. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007. Lee, Robert G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Levinson, Marc. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009. ------. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Linebaugh, Peter and Marcus Rediker. The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000. Loadman, John. Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber, a Modern Marvel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Lowenthal, Abraham. Global California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Markholt, Ottilie. Maritime Solidarity: Pacific Coast Unionism, 1929-1938. Tacoma: Pacific Coast Maritime History Committee, 1998. Matson, Clarence H. Building a World Gateway: The Story of Los Angeles Harbor. Los Angeles: Pacific Era Publishing, 1945. ------. “The Port of Los Angeles: Its History, Development, and Commerce.” Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1922.

263 ------. The Port of Los Angeles: Its Opportunities and Possibilities for Building Up a Great Foreign Trade; Industrial Resources and Tributary Territory—Annual Report of the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles for the Year Ending June 30, 1916; Port Statistics. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, 1917. ------. “The Story of Los Angeles Harbor: Its History, Development, and Growth of Its Commerce.” Los Angeles: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1935. Matson, Clarence H., ed. Handbook of World Trade. Los Angeles: World Commerce Bureau, 1920. http://books.google.com/books?id=YCgwAAAAYAAJ McLean, Nancy. Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. McNally, David. Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance. Oakland: PM Press, 2010. McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. University of California Press ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. Miller, Edward S. Bankrupting the Enemy: the U.S. Financial Siege of Japan Before Pearl Harbor. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. Miller, Hugo Herman and Charles H. Storms. Economic Conditions in the Philippines. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1919. http://books.google.com/books?id=D41MAAAAMAAJ Mills, Herb. “The Linguistic Bond of the Dockers circa the Mid-Sixties, Their Language of Sea and Ship.” Published by Author. http://www.ilwu10hmills.com/articles/pdfs/Article13.pdf Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: the Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ------. Workers’ Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Moreno, Julio. Yankee Don’t Go Home: Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Murray, Robert K. Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955. Nelson, Bruce. Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

264 ------. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Nicolaides, Becky. My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920-1965. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Perez, Jr., Louis A. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Perry, Richard S. and Louis B. Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, 1911-1941. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963. Pike, Frederick B. FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. Powell, Thomas Reed. “Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on Constitutional Questions III 1914-1917.” The American Political Science Review, 12 (1918): 643-644. Quam-Wickham, Nancy. “‘Cities Sacrificed on the Altar of Oil’: Popular Opposition to Oil Development in 1920s Los Angeles.” Environmental History 3, no. 2 (1998): 189-209. ------. “Petroleocrats and Proletarians: Work, Class, and Politics in the California Oil Industry, 1917-1925.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1994. ------. “Who Controls the Hiring Hall? The Struggle for Job Control in the ILWU During World War II.” In The CIO’s Left-Led Unions, edited by Steve Rosswurm. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Rockman, Seth. Scraping By: Wage Labor, Survival, and Survival in Early Baltimore. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Rowell, Chester H. “Chinese and Japanese Immigrants—A Comparison.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science XXXIV, no. 2 (1909): 3- 10. Sabin, Paul. Crude Politics: the California Oil Market, 1900-1940. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Sackman, Douglas Cazaux. Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005.

265 Saxton, Alexander. The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971. Schmidt, Regan. Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press University of Copenhagen, 2000. Schoultz, Lars. Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Schwartz, Harvey. “Harry Bridges and the Scholars: Looking at History’s Verdict.” California History 59, no. 1 (1980): 66-79. ------. The March Inland: Origins of the ILWU Warehouse Division, 1934-1938. Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles, 1978. ------. Solidarity Stories: An Oral History of the ILWU. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009. Sekula, Allan. Fish Story. Rotterdam: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 1995. Self, Robert O. American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Selvin, David F. A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. Sharpsteen, Bill. The Docks. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Sides, Josh. L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Sinclair, Upton. Oil! New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1927. ------. The Singing Jailbirds: A Drama in Four Acts. Pasadena: Published by the Author, 1924. Sitton, Tom. Grand Ventures: The Banning Family and the Shaping of Southern California. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 2010. Smith, Gibbs M. Joe Hill. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1969. Stansbury, Jeffrey. “Organized Workers and the Making of Los Angeles, 1890-1915.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2008. Starr, Kevin. Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ------. Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

266 ------. Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Steger, Manfred B. and Ravi K. Roy. Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Stevens, Errol Wayne. Radical L.A.: From Coxey’s Army to the Watts Riots. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009. Stiegerwald, David. “Walter Reuther, the UAW, and the Dilemmas of Automation.” Labor History 51 (2010): 429-453. Stiles, T.J. The First Tycoon: the Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Stimson, Grace Heilman. Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955. Striffler, Steve and Mark Moberg, eds. Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Sugrue, Thomas. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton Classic Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: a History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989. Tejani, James. “San Pedro Bay and the making of an American Pacific: Private enterprise, state imperatives, and the industrialization of natural resources, 1846-1917.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2009. Travis, N.J. and E.J. Cocks, The Tincal Trail: a History of Borax. London: Harrap Limited, 1984. Van Valen, Nelson. “The Industrial Workers of the World in the Los Angeles Area, 1919-1923.” Master’s thesis, Claremont Graduate School, 1951. Weber, Devra. Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. Weinman, Lois J. and E. Gary Stickel. Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Areas Cultural Resource Survey. Los Angeles: U.S. Army Engineer District, 1978. Weintraub, Hyman. “The I.W.W. In California, 1908-1931.” Master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1947. Weir, Stanley. Singlejack Solidarity, edited by George Lipsitz. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Wellman, David. The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

267 White, Richard. “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A History of the American West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Wild, Mark. Street Meeting: Multiethnic Neighborhoods in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Willard, Charles Dwight. The Free Harbor Contest at Los Angeles; An Account of the Long Fight Waged by the People of Southern California at a Point Open to Competition. Los Angeles: Kingsley-Barnes & Neuner Company, 1899. http://books.google.com/books?id=zFYaAAAAYAAJ Williams, William Appleman. Empire as a Way of Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Winslow, Calvin, ed. Waterfront Workers: New Perspectives on Race and Class. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Yamashita, Kanshi Stanley. “Terminal Island: Ethnography of an Ethnic Community: Its Dissolution and Reorganization to a Non-Spatial Community.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Irvine, 1985. Yamashita, Samuel Hideo “Asian Studies at American Private Colleges, 1808-1990.” In Asia in the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Case for Asian Studies in Liberal arts Education, edited by Suzanne Wilson Barnett and Van Jay Symons. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Zieger, Robert H. For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007. Films and Videos A Time Remembered: The Terminal Island Story, VHS, directed by Trevor Greenwood. Los Angeles: Churchill Media, 1994. Port of Los Angeles: Latitude North 34° Longitude West 118°, DVD, directed by Ozzie Glover. Los Angeles: Board of Harbor Commissioners, ca. 1955. “Steppin’ Back in Time” video series, Port of Los Angeles. There Will Be Blood, DVD, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Hollywood: Paramount Home Entertainment, 2007. Websites “2010 CITT Point/Counterpoint Panama Canal Expansion Webcast.” Center for International Trade & Transportation, California State University, Long Beach website. http://www.amp.csulb.edu/uces/citt/201010_CITT_Meeting.asx “About the Port.” Port of Los Angeles website. http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/about.asp

268 Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index inflation calculator. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm “Cabrillo’s Legacy.” Port of Los Angeles website. http://www.portoflosangeles.org/history/cabrillo.asp California Secretary of State Corporations Records website. http://kepler.sos.ca.gov “Environment.” Port of Long Beach website. http://www.polb.com/environment/default.asp “Environment.” Port of Los Angeles website. http://www.portofla.org/idx_environment.asp “FAQs.” Port of Los Angeles website. http://www.portoflosangeles.org/about/faqs.asp. “Fighting the Cycle of Poverty and Pollution at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.” Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports website. http://cleanandsafeports.org/los-angeleslong-beach Fusaye Hashimoto Interview, Terminal Island Life History Project, Japanese American National Museum, Online Archive of California. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt367n993t&chunk.id=d0e1698&brand=oa c4&doc.view=entire_text Geraldine Knatz video interview with the Journal of Commerce, 2012. Port of Los Angeles website. http://www.portoflosangeles.org/temp/032012_JOC_GK_TPM.wmv “LA Ports Meet Clean Air Goals Years Ahead of Schedule,” Natural Resources Defense Council press release, October 1, 2009. http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/091001.asp “Overview.” Port of Houston Authority website. http://www.portofhouston.com/about- us/overview. “Population Growth by Single Year Los Angeles County, 1850-1998.” Los Angeles Education Partnership website, 1998. http://www.laep.org/target/science/population/table.html “Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places.” United States Census Bureau websites. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab18.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab19.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab20.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab21.txt http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab22.txt “Port of South Louisiana Overview.” Port of South Louisiana website. http://www.portsl.com/overview.htm

269 “Table 1087. Top U.S. Ports/Waterways by Container Traffic: 2009.” U.S. Bureau of the Census website. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1087.pdf Thomas Bradley, interviewed by Bernard Galm, “The Impossible Dream,” April 13, 1979, University of California, Los Angeles Department of Special Collections website, Tape Number VII, Side One, http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4c6009nh&chunk.id=div00022&brand=cal isphere&doc.view=entire_text “Tonnage Data in Million Metric Revenue Tons (MMRT) by Fiscal Year (July 1 through June 30). Port of Los Angele website. http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/tonnage.asp “U.S. Port Rankings By Cargo Volume 2010.” American Association of Port Authorities website. http://aapa.files.cms- plus.com/Statistics/2010%20U.S.%20PORT%20RANKINGS%20BY%20CARG O%20TONNAGE.pdf “Warehouse Industry Facts.” Warehouse Workers United website. http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/index.php?id=warehouse-facts Graham, Wade. “Dark Side of the New Economy.” Natural Resources Defense Council OnEarth website, March 1, 2007. http://onearth.lin.nrdcdev.org/article/dark-side- of-the-new-economy Lichtenstein, Nelson. “The Return of Merchant Capitalism.” Political Economy of Modern Capitalism website, Harvard University, November 2010. http://scholar- dev2.iq.harvard.edu/polecon/event/lichtenstein Tassava, Christopher J. “The American Economy During World War II.” Economic History Association website, 2010. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tassava.WWII

270