The Great Depression; Interview with Katherine (Kay) Burton. Part 2; Interview with Stanley Gordon. Part 1

INTERVIEWER:

That was a struggle, to make that [unintelligible]. [laughs] We ready? OK. Let's go back to the Sinclair campaign.

KATHERINE BURTON:

I'm looking that way.

INTERVIEWER:

You're looking at me. OK. When you were, I asked you, did you ever feel like there was a low point during the campaign?

KATHERINE BURTON:

For me, there was never a low point in the Sinclair campaign. I was on a high the whole time, and everybody who I knew in it was on a high. We were convinced we were going to win. We felt sure he was going to be the next governor, and he would end poverty in California. And that was something that was very, very exciting.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you remember election night, what you felt when, when you found out he, that he was losing? Was that a shock to you?

KATHERINE BURTON:

Well, the people that I was involved with most closely were mostly the young people. And we were sure he was, that the election had been stolen from him.

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry.

KATHERINE BURTON:

We were sure that the—

INTERVIEWER:

KATHERINE BURTON:

Oh. On election night, I was with other young people who had worked in the campaign, students. And we were sure that he was going, going to win when the count came in. And when the count came in and he had lost, we couldn't believe it. We couldn't accept it, and for years everybody I knew who had been in that came [sic - \"campaign\"] believed that the election had been stolen.

INTERVIEWER:

I'm actually going to ask you to start one more time. When you say \"he,\" can you say \"Sinclair\" instead of \"he\"? And, and don't refer to the future. Just stay in the past. Don't say \"for years afterwards\". Just, you have to remember what you remembered at that moment.

KATHERINE BURTON:

OK.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. So back to election night.

KATHERINE BURTON:

On election night, I was with a group of other young people who had worked in the campaign, and we sat there waiting for the results, feeling sure that Upton Sinclair had won and that he would be the next governor and end poverty in California. And we just couldn't believe that there had been an honest count. We felt that the election had been stolen.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. Did you feel that, before the election night, when you thought Sinclair would win, did you feel that there would be a change in your life afterwards? You know, the idea that the poverty, did you feel like it would be election night, and then there would be like a new world? Or, or, or do you remember what you felt?

KATHERINE BURTON:

The thing I felt, that if Sinclair were to win that there would be a lot of opportunity for the ordinary people of this country, and it would help Southern California especially turn around.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. Do you just want to go back to one point that we talked about earlier about being on the ACLU board, because of another little camera problem at that point? Can you tell me again very simply that you were the student representative on the ACLU board with Upton Sinclair? OK.

KATHERINE BURTON:

Do you want me to mention the other student?

INTERVIEWER:

You can...not really. You say you were with another one of two student representatives.

KATHERINE BURTON:

I was one of two student representatives on the ACLU board of Los Angeles. And, he was, Upton Sinclair was on that board, and—

INTERVIEWER:

Start again.

KATHERINE BURTON:

I was one of two students on the board of the ACLU of Los Angeles. Upton Sinclair was a member of that board.

INTERVIEWER:

Great. OK. Do you—put yourself in for a moment in the shoes of the people who were in the anti-Sinclair forces. Did they have reason to be afraid of Upton Sinclair and EPIC? Which, which—if you were on that side, would you have felt or acted the way they did?

KATHERINE BURTON:

The people who were opposing the Upton Sinclair campaign were people who wanted to continue the political hold they had on California, Southern California, and Los Angeles especially.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you think their fears were justified, that their would, that their control would be gone?

KATHERINE BURTON:

I think their fears were entirely unjustified. I thought then, and I think now that they were simply interested in retaining control of the whole political system of California, which enabled tremendous corporate growth, but in agriculture and industry and in the development of land and all the rest of it.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you remember the fake newsreels that, that, that were shown in theaters? Did you ever see them at the time?

KATHERINE BURTON:

I don't remember any of the fake newsreels that were shown. I'm sure, I know that they were there.

INTERVIEWER:

Let me take one, one, one more question, and go back to actually the very beginning when we were talking. When I asked you the, how the Depression affected you personally, you gave a nice long answer but you also were not always looking at me. Can you tell me a very short answer and look at me and tell me how the Depression affected you personally?

KATHERINE BURTON:

The Depression affected me personally in two ways. It made me question my future. Here I was going to college. Would I even have a job when I got through? And then my family was suffering, and of course that affected me greatly. My parents lost our home.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. Can we stop for a second?

INTERVIEWER:

OK, just back again. When you said, you talked about one of the points in the Depression that you were, you didn't know what your future would be like. Can you repeat that because there was horns in the background? OK.

KATHERINE BURTON:

The Depression made me think, \"What would my future be?\" because I was a student. I was preparing to go out into the world and earn a living, and it seemed as if there was no way of going out into the world to earn a living. Go out to the world to be unemployed and scrounging.

INTERVIEWER:

Good, good. Did you go to the movies at that time? Do you remember, what did, what did movies mean to you in the '30s?

KATHERINE BURTON:

The movies in the '30s were really a great escape. Everybody that I knew went to the movies, and we went to all kinds of movies and enjoyed every bit of it.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you remember any titles in particular of kind of big escape films that you liked? [inaudible]

KATHERINE BURTON:

Well, I don't really, because in order to do that I'd have to know the dates and...

INTERVIEWER:

That's fine. OK, great. I think that we're done.

[End of Burton interview; beginning of Gordon interview]

INTERVIEWER:

OK. Tell me what you remember about the Great—the one thing that stands out in your mind about the Great Depression.

STANLEY GORDON:

The one thing is that I missed the Great Depression entirely because I had a job that I loved at the Los Angeles Times. And I met the girl that I wanted to marry and was so busy pursuing her for the next four years that I wasn't aware that a depression was going on.

INTERVIEWER:

You said to me before that these years were like the best years of your life.

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, easily. It's a—the job at the—

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry. Could we stop for a second?

INTERVIEWER:

You told me that the Great Depression was, this was the best years of your life. So, if you could tell me again and use those, you know, words in your answer.

STANLEY GORDON:

Yeah. Actually, was the Great Depression was the best years of my life, because I had a job that I loved at the Los Angeles Times and I had a girl I wanted to marry. And I pursued her for four years while the Depression was going on and didn't even notice the hard times.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, very good. Tell me about being hired for the, by the L.A. Times. Was that exciting to you?

STANLEY GORDON:

It was the most important thing that ever happened to me. I was a nineteen year old kid, and the Times [Los Angeles Times] was putting in a new library system in what they called the morgue, and I was hired to help in that. And I was delighted. A job with the L.A. Times was the best job in the world.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, great. What was, what was it, what did you like about the job? Tell me, was it...?

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, it was just like working for, for a family, because the newspaper was family-owned and family-operated. Harry Chandler took care of all of us on the staff like as though we were members of the family. His three sons worked right there with us, and his daughter Constance was a reporter. And we didn't have any—the pay was low, and we didn't, we didn't have a pension system or a health insurance, anything like that, but we didn't need it. Because if any of us were sick, our pay went on regardless of whether we were there or not. It's real paternalistic.

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry, could you tell me that again, because I interrupted you.

STANLEY GORDON:

More about the, what it was like?

INTERVIEWER:

You started to say it was a very, very paternalistic?

STANLEY GORDON:

It was just a beautiful place to work. I can't say enough about it. I just revere the memory of Harry Chandler—

STANLEY GORDON:

—and love everybody in his family.

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, [unintelligible]

INTERVIEWER:

But she was a student at the time.

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh.

INTERVIEWER:

So, OK, ready? OK. I want you to tell me a little bit about your, your job at, as it related to Upton Sinclair, what you were doing in 1934?

STANLEY GORDON:

Sure, I'll tell you.

INTERVIEWER:

We're ready.

STANLEY GORDON:

When do you want me to start?

INTERVIEWER:

Just start by telling me what the Times [Los Angeles Times] asked you do to, how, how, I mean just, just describe what the job was as it related to Sinclair?

STANLEY GORDON:

But are, are we going now?

INTERVIEWER:

Yes.

STANLEY GORDON:

Are we live? Oh, [unintelligible]

My job at the Times [Los Angeles Times] was editorial researcher

in the library as well as—I started in as a file clerk, you know, filing stories, and then researching anything they would, that the editors asked me to. And at the time of Sinclair's campaign, they wanted

to verify these quotes

that came in from somebody. I didn't know where they got them, but they had this series of quotes from, taken from his novels.

And they sent me over to the library.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I'm going to stop you for a moment. Can you, when you're telling me this, when you're saying they took these quotes and they reprinted them, they printed them up in the L.A. Times, right?

STANLEY GORDON:

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you tell me that in your answer?

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, try it again.

STANLEY GORDON:

Right now, start?

INTERVIEWER:

Yes.

STANLEY GORDON:

The Times [Los Angeles Times] was running a series of quotations from Sinclair's fiction in box, in boxes every day. And they sent me to the library to verify the fact that these quotes really appeared in, in the books that we mentioned.

INTERVIEWER:

So what did you do?

STANLEY GORDON:

Went to the library and then there's some of the quotes I couldn't find in the library. I went to his campaign headquarters hoping to find some of his books there, and I didn't find any of his books, but he came in, in person, so I got to shake hands with him and had a jolly greeting and went on my way.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. I want you to kind of tell me the end, the end of this again by saying, instead of saying, \"he\", tell me who \"he\" is.

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, Upton—

INTERVIEWER:

Yeah, so you said, yeah, so say that you went to the headquarters to look for some books.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

INTERVIEWER:

OK, we're ready.

STANLEY GORDON:

I couldn't find some of these quotations at the public library, so I went to Upton Sinclair's campaign headquarters on Figueroa Street hoping to find the literature there that I needed. I couldn't find it, but while I was there, he, he came hurrying in. He'd been out somewhere on a campaign speech. Oh, I got, had a nice meeting with him and he gave me a big handshake and a smile and went on his way, later.

INTERVIEWER:

What did you think about meeting Upton Sinclair?

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, I enjoyed meeting him, because I, I had read his books.

INTERVIEWER:

Oh, I'm sorry. Could you start again by saying, \"I enjoyed meeting—\" [unintelligible] Sorry, I was talking while you were talking. OK, now.

STANLEY GORDON:

I enjoyed meeting Upton Sinclair because I had read his books and enjoyed them.

INTERVIEWER:

When you met him, did you feel like you were meeting a candidate for governor? Or did you feel like—did he have that kind of stature and feeling about him?

STANLEY GORDON:

I couldn't see him, I couldn't see Upton Sinclair as a governor at all. To me he seemed to be a, a dreamer, but a nice man and a pleasant fellow to meet, but not to be governor.

INTERVIEWER:

Why? Do you remember why you felt that way?

STANLEY GORDON:

I thought his EPIC, Upton Sinclair's EPIC—

INTERVIEWER:

Start again, OK?

STANLEY GORDON:

I thought Upton Sinclair's EPIC scheme was too far-fetched. We already had the Roosevelt program in effect and it was working. And—but Sinclair's scheme just didn't interest me.

INTERVIEWER:

Did you feel that it could be dangerous for the state of California, that it could cause, start causing more problems or did you just feel it wasn't, wasn't workable? What, what's that? Just one moment.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, I asked you about whether you Upton Sinclair's plan would work, and you told me what you—

STANLEY GORDON:

Well, I thought Upton Sinclair's plan would, was just too far-fetched, and it would be dangerous for California. And he, as a person he was a nice man, but he just didn't seem to me to be a governor.

INTERVIEWER:

And why did you feel this way?

STANLEY GORDON:

Well, for one reason, I suppose I was brainwashed in a nice way by my long-term work in the L.A. Times.

INTERVIEWER:

And what was the L.A. Times' position on Sinclair?

STANLEY GORDON:

Well, they were opposing him with everything they had.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you know why the L.A. Times was so much in opposition to Sinclair?

STANLEY GORDON:

Because the L.A. Times in those days was a house organ for the Republican party.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. And—so that was know [sic] by everybody? That, that it was a, that it was a very—that it was a house organ for the Republicans?

STANLEY GORDON:

Oh, yes it—the, the Los Angeles Times was famous for its Republican conservatism. And every reader of the Times [Los Angeles Times] knew it, and they didn't expect to see any Democratic propaganda in the Times [Los Angeles Times].

INTERVIEWER:

And you were telling me that you, you saw Merriam come to the Times [Los Angeles Times] once?

STANLEY GORDON:

Governor Merriam used to come to visit people in the Times' [Los Angeles Times] editorial room. I'd—I'd met him there more than once.

INTERVIEWER:

And why do you think, why was Merriam coming over to the Times [Los Angeles Times]? What do you think?

STANLEY GORDON:

Almost every politician came into the city room with the Times [Los Angeles Times] one time or another, but he didn't appear there regularly.

INTERVIEWER:

You had said, and I don't know if this is something, that you thought that he used to get advice from the Times [Los Angeles Times], or get some, consult with them on certain positions, and...

STANLEY GORDON:

I don't know why he was there, but I'm sure he talked to Kyle Palmer—

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry, can you start again by, by saying who \"he\" is? OK.

STANLEY GORDON:

I don't know why Governor Merriam was in the city room, but we all assumed that he was there to see Kyle Palmer, who was our political editor, and sort of our Republican boss for Southern California.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. Tell me about those, again, about the articles, the boxes for, the quote from Sinclair. Did you think people, and, I mean, I know you went and you saw the quotes and you verified them, do you think people took them seriously? What did, what did you think about that?

STANLEY GORDON:

I was amused by this whole series of Upton Sinclair quotes, because they came from his novels, and I just couldn't imagine that anybody would take this stuff seriously as relating to his political position.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you explain that a little bit more? I mean, if someone didn't know about this. Was it, what do you mean that they came from his novels?

STANLEY GORDON:

Well,

the quotes were, were statements made by characters in his novels. They weren't Sinclair speaking himself,

you know. And—

INTERVIEWER:

But when they appeared on the L.A. Times, did it look like it was Sinclair speaking, or did you know that they were from characters from his novels?

STANLEY GORDON:

Well, they,

they ran under a heading that said, \"Sinclair says this\" or \"Sinclair says that.\" But actually

the quote was somebody, some character in a Sinclair novel denouncing somebody or some institution, and...

INTERVIEWER:

Were you concerned about that at all? Did it seem like it was right or not right or just part of politics?

STANLEY GORDON:

I thought it was funny that we were running these things, because I couldn't imagine people taking—

STANLEY GORDON:

—taking them seriously.

INTERVIEWER:

We're on a break.