The Great Depression; Interview with Leone Baxter. Part 2

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Take five.

INTERVIEWER:

So let's begin, you were saying that you were young and starry eyed.

LEONE BAXTER:

INTERVIEWER:

Do you have any idea how much money was raised in the campaign against Sinclair?

LEONE BAXTER:

No I don't, I don't, I wish I did.

INTERVIEWER:

Uh-huh.

LEONE BAXTER:

I haven't any idea, but if you run across it I'd like to know.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

LEONE BAXTER:

I don't even, I should remember what our fee was.

INTERVIEWER:

Uh-huh.

LEONE BAXTER:

There were small fees in those days.

INTERVIEWER:

I think yours was probably small. I think there's a lot of money raised in Southern California.

LEONE BAXTER:

Yeah, oh I'm sure that's true, and particularly with the moving picture industry involved. I'm sure that Louis B. Mayer himself put a lot of money into it. And with Hearst, of course, on the same side, there must have been a lot of money. I don't recall. Isn't that a shame not to have that information?

INTERVIEWER:

By the way, were you aware of the newsreels that were put out against Sinclair?

LEONE BAXTER:

Newsreels? I don't remember any at all.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

LEONE BAXTER:

That doesn't mean anything that I can't—I was going to say in finishing the observation about what campaigns, what campaigns cost. When we finished the Central Valley Water Project campaign, our office was in Sacramento, and Clem and I both loaded up with all of our information, all of our cancelled checks for the whole campaign, our books in respect to it, our reports of where the money came from. Of course, we only had $40,000 to concern ourselves with, all of the information, all of the financial information of that campaign...

LEONE BAXTER:

...plus the reports from the John F. Forbes company. We both loaded up, we really had our arms full, and we went across the street to the Capital, to Frank Jordan's office. He was the Secretary of State and a good friend. He thought we were very funny. We put all that stuff down on Frank's desk, and, I didn't call him Frank then, I certainly called him Mr. Jordan, and so did Clem, we were kids, and he took one look at it and he said, \"I haven't got any place to file all that stuff, kids.\" So we took it all back to our office and sat down and wrote some of the first legislation requiring that the Secretary of State had a place to file all of that stuff, and that it was incumbent on candidates and promoters of legislation to make a report. Well, it hasn't worked, and you know why it hasn't worked, because the people who make it work, legislators, who write the legislation, have to report themselves, and this is a very difficult thing to do.

INTERVIEWER:

Can we go back on, back on the Sinclair campaign? I do want to just follow up on what we talked about before, about why you got involved in the campaign against him? And what you described, that you thought he wouldn't be a good governor because he didn't know how to, wasn't a politician.

LEONE BAXTER:

Mhm.

INTERVIEWER:

But did you feel that his policies could have any dangerous affects on the state of California, on business coming in?

LEONE BAXTER:

I don't think we thought that through, in that fashion. His own views, am I...

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yeah, we're rolling.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

We are rolling.

LEONE BAXTER:

I don't think we thought it through in that fashion. That was not our concern, about—his personal beliefs were, I must say, just as important to us as anything, any future he might have, good or bad, as governor. We simply didn't think that he, from his writings and from his speeches, we didn't think that he had the capability of being a sound governor.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. What? Did you feel that the Republican party was in a dilemma at that point, because...

LEONE BAXTER:

I'm sorry, what did you say?

INTERVIEWER:

Did you feel that the Republican party had a dilemma at that point because of the fact that many people didn't like Merriam as a candidate?

LEONE BAXTER:

It certainly did have a problem. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a campaign, in all the years, as stressful, as unsure, as mixed-up, as this campaign. I think we personally were more supportive of Sinclair than many of his Democratic friends. The Democrats organized a campaign against him, as you are aware, of course. It was a very very mixed-up situation, and yes, the Republicans were just as mixed-up as the Democrats.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, can you tell me how the campaign was managed differently than a normal electoral campaign? I think I read that you said that you used different kinds of techniques, instead of just going to the precinct and going door to door. What were the kind of techniques you used in the campaign against Sinclair?

LEONE BAXTER:

Let's see, what can I say about that?

INTERVIEWER:

Let's stop for a second. I may have asked you something that we weren't...

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Leone Baxter take six.

INTERVIEWER:

...tell me that you felt that the Southern...

INTERVIEWER:

...were doing things that you didn't approve of, you know, in the campaign against Sinclair, and do you think that they went too far?

LEONE BAXTER:

Oh yes, yes that was, our concern was mainly, as far as the Southern California Committee was concerned, our anxiety about it was mainly, in their vitriolic attack, it wasn't carefully thought out use of true information, of facts. It was, there, what can I say, they really went off of tangents on him being a communist, that was one of the main concerns, and anybody could have found out that he wasn't a communist. They should have known that, and if they knew it, they were wrong, of course, to accuse him of being a communist. I think that an interesting thing happened in that respect, speaking of a difference in opinion, between what they were doing in Southern California and what was being done up here. Freda Kirchwey, who was the publisher of _The Nation_ magazine, sent out a reporter, she sent out Carey McWilliams, a very fine writer. We didn't agree on much of anything, except that he believed thoroughly in what he was doing, we believed thoroughly in what we were doing. He became a very good friend, but at that time, his instructions from Freda Kirchwey were to flay Whitaker and Baxter, f-l-a-y [laughs], which, the word interested me when he told us. And I think that she sent him out to do that because she thought that we were managing the campaign and determining the use of the information that he was a communist. It wasn't true, and Carey learned that it wasn't true. But, rather than, he spent about, oh, I've forgotten how long now, better part of a week or two, in our office, and we gave him access to almost everything we had, and his final conclusion, to Mrs. Kirchwey, was that he continued to disagree with all of our objectives and our philosophy, but that our means of achieving those objectives he couldn't find a fault with. So that was very important to us that she, to get the word back to her that accusing the candidate of being a communist was not in our lexicon.

INTERVIEWER:

So the real vicious campaign against Sinclair that we often hear of, that was really the one that was being waged in Southern California?

LEONE BAXTER:

Oh yes, it was not being waged in the North.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, didn't you tell me before that you had a lot of integrity, and that you didn't want to wage that kind of campaign?

LEONE BAXTER:

I'm sorry?

INTERVIEWER:

You told me that you didn't want to get involved in that kind of dirty politics, is that right?

LEONE BAXTER:

We certainly didn't, and we were not.

INTERVIEWER:

Yeah, can you tell me that, in you own words?

LEONE BAXTER:

I don't want to seem too...

INTERVIEWER:

That's fine, let's not do that then.

LEONE BAXTER:

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, let's stop for a second.

INTERVIEWER:

...the primary in the election to, to defeat him?

LEONE BAXTER:

I don't recall exactly how long we had to carry on our campaign, but I do recall that everybody was enormously shocked that Sinclair had done so well, that people were so much in his camp. What that was due to we didn't have much time to think about, whether it was largely because Sinclair himself and his people were doing such and his volunteers were doing such a terrific job, or because, well, there are many other reasons. That's very bad, I can't say that. I know what I could say, but...

INTERVIEWER:

OK, we'll lean off that. OK, but...

INTERVIEWER:

Did you feel the dilemma to be working against Sinclair because it also meant you were working against Downey?

LEONE BAXTER:

I can't understand what you're saying.

INTERVIEWER:

Did you feel that there was a problem at all, working against Sinclair because you ended up also working against Downey, who was a friend of yours?

LEONE BAXTER:

That might've been, we might've expected that, because Downey was very devoted to Sinclair, and of course we were not, we were trying to defeat him.

INTERVIEWER:

So, was Downey an asset to, did you feel that Downey was an asset to the Sinclair campaign?

LEONE BAXTER:

He certainly was, he was one of the greatest assets they had, because he was widely trusted.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, can you start again, instead of saying \"he\" by saying \"Downey\"?

LEONE BAXTER:

Yes.

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

LEONE BAXTER:

You were asking if Sheridan Downey, Senator Sheridan Downey, later senator, was friendly and supportive, and how important that was to Sinclair. Downey was totally supportive, and worked very hard for Sinclair. I think that Downey was one of the few that understood the real problems that Sinclair had in his campaign, because he was a very practical man, in addition to being a very wise philosopher. I think it hurt him, hurt his heart as much as it hurt his mind, when Sinclair didn't make it. But I do believe that he understood the problems Sinclair had in his campaign, and why he had them, and why he would have even worse problems if he were elected. He was in a very, very difficult position. He was a gentleman though throughout, and I think I mentioned it to him. The morning after the election, his office was in the same building with ours, and Sheridan Downey knocked at the door, and came striding in with his hand out, he said, \"The vanquished greets the victor,\" and I thought that that was an exhibition of gentlemanliness, which you don't see a great deal of these days, a very lovely thing.

INTERVIEWER:

During your campaign, did you ever feel at any point that Sinclair would really win, once you started with your—

LEONE BAXTER:

Never, never. We worked like sin, as though we might lose tomorrow, but no, we never had a feeling he could possibly could win.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, can you tell me that again by saying \"Sinclair\" instead of \"he\"?

LEONE BAXTER:

Oh, you were asking if we ever had a feeling that Sinclair might lose [sic], and I must say no, we never, never had the faintest feeling that he could not be defeated. We feel that he was, we felt at the time, that he had done too many things and said too many things, damaging to himself, to his acceptance by the ordinary voters.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. I want you to, well, who did you vote for, in that campaign?

LEONE BAXTER:

I certainly didn't vote for either one of those men.

INTERVIEWER:

Did you vote for Haight?

LEONE BAXTER:

No, I didn't like Mr. Haight. I'm afraid I must not, I can't say. It sounds as though I didn't vote. I can't imagine not voting. I wonder what we did, maybe our files over at U.C. would indicate.

INTERVIEWER:

Did you feel—

LEONE BAXTER:

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. You said it was a time of unrest in California, were people afraid of what would happen? Was it a feeling overall of social upheaval and unrest?

LEONE BAXTER:

Yes, it was a time of great unrest, great concern, because there were no jobs. There was no way for a family to maintain itself. Many of the protecting devices we have now, we, of course, as you know, we didn't have that, and nobody knew what to do. And of course the political campaign, in a situation like that, particularly, with the great accusations hurled by either side against men who may be your leaders the day after election day didn't contribute anything helpful to that situation.

INTERVIEWER:

So people were looking for a voice to kind of save them, and offer them some help?

LEONE BAXTER:

Nothing could been more acceptable to people than to have somebody lead them out of that valley of concern, and worry, and anxiety. They wanted to look to Sinclair. They were willing almost to look anywhere to find a leader that could save them. It was a very difficult position for the state to be in.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. I'd like you, if you can, to tell me, can we stop for a second? I wanna go...

INTERVIEWER:

You know, tell me about Sinclair's literature and hiring a cartoonist, and the effectiveness of that tactic.

LEONE BAXTER:

Well, spurred by the feeling that some of the accusations that were being made about Sinclair, about his being a communist, for instance, we decided that we would have to find out about his positions on public affairs, and we would have to find out for sure, whether he was a communist is the main thing we were looking for. So we got hold of all of his writings, his books, his pamphlets, everything we could lay our hands on, and studied them with great care, feeling that that might be the way to identify the truth. We read his pamphlets on the meat packing industry, on Wall Street, the financiers, his comments on the church, on Christianity, on the institution of marriage, and many others, and we came to the conclusion that, not only was he not a communist, he was a socialist, without any question, but that he had some ideas, in respect to the lives of normal Americans, that were perhaps more usable in our type of campaign, than if we had discovered that he was a communist. So we decided to see if we could utilize, in his own words, his positions that would be important to voters.

We had

a cartoonist,

an editorial cartoonist,

in Sacramento, who's name was

Bill Lenoir,

who didn't do funny cartoons, but he did editorial cartoons and did them very beautifully because his art was really fine. Bill took quotations from Sinclair's writings and did some artwork, which we felt we could distribute to newspapers, and rather broadly, to illustrate what Sinclair's actual positions were on the various things. We thought that his own words, his own observations, would be as indicative of his positions, and how people should feel about his candidacy, as anything that could be said.

Bill made one cartoon that I remember

very,

very well

because it was reproduced, not only in California newspapers, but in the news magazines, the national magazines.

This was a picture of a beautiful, young bride in a white dress coming out of a church. A lovely, lovely picture, except that she had on the front of her dress, a big, black blot, which we called the \"Blot of Sinclairism.\" On this blot we superimposed precisely what Sinclair had said about the institution of marriage,

not taken out of context, quoted precisely in quotes.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you think that your work was instrumental in helping to defeat Sinclair?

LEONE BAXTER:

I know it was. He thought so, so I guess that's good enough for me.

INTERVIEWER:

And you thought that you had done, really, the kind of job that—

LEONE BAXTER:

We thought it a fair job, we thought it fair, and reasonable, more so than anybody else's idea of whether he would make a good governor or not.[coughs]

INTERVIEWER:

You said your goal was, what was your goal in your campaign? To defeat him as governor or to defeat him as a person?

LEONE BAXTER:

Oh dear, I'd never want to defeat anybody [coughs] as a person [coughs]. I'm through.

INTERVIEWER:

But you were distinguishing before about what you were doing in the Southern California [sic], that you were only interested in defeating him as a candidate.

LEONE BAXTER:

That was our interest.

Our job

was to see that Sinclair did not become governor of California. The fact that if he didn't become governor of California, we were stuck with Merriam—

LEONE BAXTER:

—was just a shame,

but, in our opinion, it was better, that would be better then having someone, than having Sinclair as governor.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Do you want to get that last line on film?

INTERVIEWER:

OK, that's the problem with cookies.

LEONE BAXTER:

Yeah, every campaign is a challenge, and fun. I don't think we've ever had a campaign that wasn't fun.

INTERVIEWER:

And what's the thrill in a campaign?

LEONE BAXTER:

Winning, winning, making your point. And when you're talking about assisting [coughs] a million people, or ten million people, to make a decision, that's the thrill of it really. It doesn't make any difference to me if I'm speaking to a group of 200 people in a room, it doesn't make any difference to me if they vote the way I'm going to vote or not, 200 people, but a million people, that's what's thrilling. [coughs]

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I'm going to ask you again the one question that we ran out of film on, you know, and that was what, you said, the goal was to make sure that Sinclair didn't become governor and the implications of that in terms of Merriam. I asked you, what was your goal in this campaign?

LEONE BAXTER:

Our goal was to see that Mr. Sinclair did not become governor of California. Unfortunately, if he did not become governor, that meant that we would have Merriam for another session, and that we felt unfortunate, but less unfortunate than if we were to elect Sinclair.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, one more time.

LEONE BAXTER:

Was that all right?

INTERVIEWER:

Yeah, one more time. Let's do it one more time.

LEONE BAXTER:

I'm worn, I'm worn, I'm worn, I'm out.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, no more times. OK, we're out.

LEONE BAXTER:

Was something the matter with that?