Ham and Eggs” Movement in Southern
The “Ham and Eggs” Movement in Southern California: Public Opinion on Economic Redistribution in the 1938 Campaign R. Michael Alvarez* William Deverell** Elizabeth Penn*** Abstract We examine an important case study of the controversial use of the initiative process in California: the colorful “Ham and Eggs” movement of 1938, a misguided attempt to provide elderly Californians with a weekly pension. Our analysis focuses on a collection of postcard survey responses recently discovered at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. This survey, conducted in 1938 by the Research Institute, posed questions about a series of pressing issues, including the various Ham and Eggs initiatives. We provide a qualitative study of the open-ended responses provided by survey participants along with a quantitative analysis of the fixed-choice questions. As best as we are aware, this is the only survey data on California politics of this period. Thus our analysis, while necessarily limited, sheds additional light on this important period of California politics. * Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology. ** Professor of History, University of Southern California. *** Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University. The “Ham and Eggs” Movement in Southern California: Public Opinion on Economic Redistribution in the 1938 Campaign 1 Introduction Contemporary political observers often rail against the initiative process in California, blaming it for virtually all of the state’s current ills: a failing public education system, crumbling public infrastructure, and a dysfunctional state government. As political commentator David Broder recently warned, “the initiative process, an import now just over one hundred years old, threatens to challenge or even subvert the American system of government in the next few decades.”1 The many critics of the initiative process ignore much of the state’s political history in suggesting that problems with the initiative are of recent vintage.
[Show full text]