Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Page 7
PERSPECTIVES (Column)
Granger Wins Election as City Attorney, State Assemblyman—Loses Other Races
By ROGER M. GRACE
150th in a Series
LEWIS C. GRANGER was as much a politician as a lawyer, running for various elective posts, losing more often than winning, gaining some offices through appointment.
He was clobbered in the contest for district attorney of the First District (Los Angeles and San Diego counties) on April 1, 1850. William C. Ferrell, who was on a power-backed slate, drew 427 votes, Granger received 87 (all in Los Angeles County), and a non-lawyer got 11.
Whether Granger ran in the generally overlooked election of Oct. 7, 1850, is not known; all I’ve been able to ascertain is that an election for First District DA did take place in San Diego and Los Angeles, and the incumbent, William C. Farrell, was reelected.
In the first DA’s race to take place in Los Angeles County, alone, held on Sept. 3, 1851, Granger lost. As previously recited here, Isaac S.K. Ogier defeated him by a vote of 285-192, took office in October, resigned within the month, and the Court of Sessions appointed Granger to take over.
Born May 17, 1819, Granger was only 31 when he assumed office. He resigned by early July of 1852.
Though prowess as an office-seeker was lacking in his initial campaigns, Granger did go on to win some races.
Maurice Harris Newmark in
“Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913,” recounts that
Granger “attained popularity through his Fourth of July
oration” in 1852, adding:
“Granger was, in fact, a fluent and attractive speaker; which accounted, perhaps, for his election as [Los Angeles ] City Attorney in 1855, after he had served the city as a member of the Common Council in 1854.”
He also served for a year, by appointment of the council in May, 1853, as a member of the city’s first Board of Education, along with J. Lancaster Brent, who would become a member of the state Assembly, and Stephen C. Foster, later mayor, and after that, a county supervisor.
The text of Granger’s Fourth of July speech comprised nearly two full columns on the front page of the Los Angeles Star on July 10, 1852.
The speech contains a warning similar to one Lord Acton would utter in 1887. The text includes this:
“So corrupting are the influences of office, so tenacious of the honor and influence of office do men become, that Freedom, to be safe, must never sleep. The love of power is insinuating; it dazzles and fascinates its votary, until he becomes like the young lover, only satisfied when in the presence of his mistress. Hence should the people be ever jealous of their public servants, and hold them to strict accountability.”
It was on May 7, 1855, that voters chose him as city attorney. Granger received 186 votes, according to the May 12 edition of the Los Angeles Star…but he could have won had he received but a single vote. He drew no opponent.
The May 18 issue of the Sacramento Daily Union notes that Granger and the new city treasurer, “together with two or three of the Council elected, were nominated by the Anti-Know Nothings.”
The “Know Nothings”—unflattering nickname of the American Party—were a band of bigots alarmed over the large numbers of Catholics emigrating to the U.S. from Ireland and Germany, and desirous of closing the nation’s gates. Like Sergeant Schultz on TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes,” members in the early days oft exclaimed, “I know nothing!”, robotically uttering that phrase when queried as to their clandestine activities.
The “Anti-Know Nothings,” such as former Baptist minister Granger, decried the anti-Catholic movement…and the anti-Irish aspect could not have failed to rile Granger, whose wife, Isabel, had been born in Ireland.
In that 1855 city election, Know-Nothing Thomas Foster, a physician, was elected mayor by 13 votes over Anti-Know Nothing William G. Dryden, a lawyer who was soon to become the district judge.
While Foster was seen at the time as a Know-Nothing, historians advise that he was a Democrat. Why the discrepancy? Nat B. Read, in his 2008 book, “Don Benito Wilson, Los Angeles 1841 to 1878,” provides illumination:
“Know-Nothings met in their secret society meetings to choose candidates, who would then run using their regular party labels. The candidates’ names were often kept secret until just before an election to keep opponents off guard and to minimize political attacks.”
Not content with the office he just secured, Granger was a candidate in the Sept. 5 election for state senator from the First District, comprised of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Bernardino counties. He lost to a man who had been the second mayor of the City of Los Angeles and then a county supervisor, Benjamin D. Wilson—widely known as “Don Benito.” (Wilson had been a client of Granger’s law firm in 1852 in a matter before the U.S. Land Commission.)
Read says that Wilson ran for the Senate seat as a Whig “but it was widely known that he went to the state capital as a Know-Nothing.”
Granger did not announce his candidacy in the usual manner for the time: placing a simple announcement (or “card”) in the local newspaper. Instead, he placed a political advertisement setting forth his platform. Under the heading “A CARD,” he made clear his disavowal of Know Nothing precepts, saying, in part:
“I am in favor…of the following articles of the democratic faith, rendered peculiarly important at this time—Equal political rights between the native and adopted citizens—rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and bought by the blood of republicans of every land—no civil distinction whatever between the Catholic, or Protestant, or advocate of other religious creed—no religious test for public office….I am opposed to all secret political societies in this republic, as inconsistent with the nature of our institutions—unnecessary—and dangerous to the freedom of the citizen.”
Other planks included “protection to the wines of Los Angeles by prohibiting the retail of foreign wines in this State.”
Granger was able to win in San Bernardino County. Edward Leo Lyman, in his 1996 book, “San Bernardino: The Rise and Fall of a California Community,” attributes this to the large Mormon population there and the endorsement of Granger at a public meeting by Charles Coulson Rich, a co-founder of the colony (and a client of Granger).
In San Bernardino, the tally was 216 for Granger and 72 for Wilson, according to the Los Angeles Star’s edition of Sept. 8, 1855, while the count in Los Angeles was 546 for Granger and 851 for Wilson.
The Democratic State Journal on Sept. 25 tells of the tally in San Diego: Granger 27; Wilson 114.
Granger was among those chosen at the state Republican Convention on Aug. 28, 1856, as a presidential elector, according to the next day’s issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
Despite being anti-slavery—that cause being the prime tenet of the new political party—Granger did not long remain a Republican.
The July 27, 1857 edition of the Daily Alta California makes reference to “Lewis Granger, recently a Republican, but more lately converted to Democracy [the Democratic Party] and the Catholic Church.”
Granger also changed his residence. He moved in 1857 to Oroville, in Butte County.
His wife and children remained in Los Angeles until their house here could be sold, providing funds for the purchase of an abode in Oroville. In March 16, 1857 letter to his wife, Granger remarks:
“Things appear to be shaping themselves here to give me the office of District Judge next fall, if I want it. It is an office of honor here, and sufficient to give a family a fine support; and enable us to lay up $2,000. a year besides—its term continues for six years without re-election. But keep this matter very still—as it is all in the future, and no one should calculate upon others than himself for elevation and success in life.”
A judgeship did not materialize.
On July 23, 1859, the Anti-Lecompte Democrats (an anti-slavery faction) nominated Granger as their candidate for state senator from Butte and Plumas counties. He lost.
He became a secretary to Anti-Lecompte Democrat Gov. John G. Downey, who gained office in 1860.
In his only try for statewide office, Granger failed. Running for attorney general on the Democratic ticket in 1863, he pulled 43,615 votes, considerably short of the 64,777 cast for John G. McCullough, the Union (Republican) candidate, in a year that saw a Republican sweep. (McCullough later became governor of Vermont.)
Granger was an acidic critic of President Abraham Lincoln. Among the Papers of Lewis Granger at the Huntington Library is one in a folder marked “Miscellaneous.” It’s a scrap of paper ridiculing the president. There’s writing by Granger on both sides, the back side having lines printed on it, as on paper used by children in school—except that Granger wrote across the lines rather than on them. Undated and with corrections scribbled, it bears the heading, “It is all a Joke now.”
My guess is that it was the script for a speech, perhaps one used in his campaign for attorney general. It might have been penned for an earlier purpose, but not earlier by much. It refers to a proclamation by Lincoln calling for prayer; that was issued April 10, 1862.
Here’s Granger’s message:
1. Representative men will stamp the characteristics of their own mind to a great extent on the party with which they associate. This is very true with respect to an Administration. A. Lincoln is a great old joker — has not his superior in that line in the U.S. Every occurrence – truth – principle is turned by his singular mind into a joke. Life itself with all its sober realities has come to seem to him a great practical joke.
2. His election was a joke. The Wide Awakes [a paramilitary group of young Republicans] went through the campaign like a joke. When he went to take the Presidential Chair, he went there as no other President ever did – in the disguise of a “Highland plaid,”–it was a great joke. [Actually, this tale was a great hoax. It was perpetrated by a correspondent for the New York Times who mendaciously reported that Lincoln, obsessed with the need for security, entered Washington for his inauguration wearing “a Scotch plaid cap and a very long military cloak, so that he was entirely unrecognizable.”]
3. His Inaugural Message left the whole country in doubt whether it meant peace or war–it was a joke.
4. After war commenced and [Confederacy President] Jeff Davis issued a proclamation for fasting & prayer to Almighty God, for the success of the rebel armies, & Bull Run was the first battle & success – Uncle Abe issued his proclamation for the same thing. It was a joke. For when that did not bring success and Uncle Abe asked a friend if God was against us after all the fasting & prayer on his proclamation, his friend replied–that God must have thought him joking when he issued it.
5. The party following their leader call his Administration the Government of the U.S. It’s a joke.
6. The war has been conducted so singularly that it seems to have been planned & carried on, as a great practical joke.
6. [sic] The Uncle Abe men say that the whole Democracy [Democratic Party] are in heart & soul plotting with Secessionists. This is a great joke. For if the 1,200,000 Democrats of the North were really plotting with the South, & should strike hands with them – where would Uncle Abe’s party be then? Would it be a joke if carried out?
A needed source of income was provided when Gov. William Irvin appointed Granger as notary public for Ventura County. The appointment is reported in the Sept. 27, 1879 issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
In a decided upswing in his career, Granger was elected to two two-year terms in the Assembly, serving from 1883-85 and 1887-89.
A reward for loyal service to the Democratic Party came on Jan. 25, 1888, when President Grover Cleveland appointed Granger as receiver of public moneys at Marysville, Calif. The Senate confirmed on Feb. 16.
Granger remained at the post until his death on May 20, 1890. He left his widow, six children, and 21 grandchildren.
In “Reminiscences of a Ranger,” published nine years earlier, lawyer Horace Bell recalls Granger in his days as a fellow Angeleno, describing him as “one of the ablest and best of our pioneer lawyers, and one of the most generous of men, and withal a most classical scholar.” He adds:
“I do think that Lewis C. Granger would work harder, go farther and experience more pleasure in serving a friend and in doing an act of generosity than any man I ever knew.”
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company