Winston S. Churchill in California.

Leary, David T.

British statesman Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965), the World War II leader who inspired his land's "finest hour," spent about three weeks in California during September 1929. Although he had visited North America before, and would do so again, this was his one and only experience of the Great West.

Along with Winston were his younger brother, Jack, and their respective sons, Randolph and Johnny. Winston's wife, Clementine, and Jack's wife, Gwendeline, were originally to have accompanied their husbands, but Clementine suffered a bout of throat trouble and gave up the thought, which presumably caused Gwendeline to do the same. Thus, Randolph and Johnny completed the foursome.

Winston and Clementine had four children who reached adult years. Randolph was the second of these and the only son. Jack and Gwendeline had three offspring, two boys and a girl. Johnny was the eldest.

The California visit was actually part of a much larger venture. The Churchills docked at Quebec early in August and crossed Canada mostly by rail. In the first week of September they entered the U. S. at Seattle, destined for northern and then southern California. After brief excursions to Yosemite Valley and the Grand Canyon, they traveled directly east. Reaching New York by early October, the group separated: Randolph and Johnny, both Oxford students, returned to academe; Winston and Jack, not similarly committed, toured Civil War battlefields and otherwise did not leave New York until October's end. (1)

Churchill had several purposes, vacationing very much among them. "I am traveling primarily for rest and pleasure," he told a future host, "to see these wonderful countries, of which I have heard so much, and to meet the men who are guiding them." (2) But Churchill this early was not just a prominent politician (most recently chancellor of the exchequer), he was a very successful writer, (3) and his North American experiences would become topics in a series of weekly articles for the London Daily Telegraph.

Twelve in number, they started appearing late in 1929; two were devoted to California. (4) Also, as he progressed, he could cultivate future prospects: indeed, when he left the U.S., Churchill had contracted for twenty-two new articles. (5) Finally, however consciously he intended it, the trip would offer opportunities to voice his ideas. Never mind that he claimed to have "no political mission and no axe to grind," (6) he gave substantive speeches and interviews all along the way.

So although Churchill was in California less than a month, and even if his activities during the time did not alter history, the interviews and speeches he gave, the letters and newspaper articles he wrote do merit attention. They highlight his liking for California, which, because of his readership and sheer prominence, most surely resounded abroad. They highlight his quest for Anglo-American cooperation, which saw attainment in World War II and later. And they highlight his phenomenal intuition, which went a long way toward making him one of the century's great figures. (7)

From the time he left Britain until he set foot in the U. S., Churchill was in the hands of the Canadian Pacific Railway. (8) CPR President Edward W. Beatty had had a role in shaping the Prince of Wales's 1919 visit; likewise in 1939 for the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth. It was good business for the railway, (9) and in Churchill's case all the more so, because his Daily Telegraph articles would, if nothing else, publicize Canada.

Reaching Seattle on September 6, boarding a late-evening train, (10) the four Churchills were momentarily on their own. But the next afternoon, at Grants Pass, Oregon, Gerald Campbell, British consul-general at San Francisco, was ready with an automobile. South they all drove, stopping the first night at Crescent City, California, the second at Willits, staying in local hotels. Because the single car proved crowded, on September 8 a vice-consul met them at Eureka with another. (11)

Churchill's fascination with California began on his first full day in the state, driving through groves of the world's tallest trees, the giant sequoias from which the Redwood Highway takes its name. "The road is an aisle in a cathedral of trees," he rhapsodized. One, reportedly topping four hundred feet, had a base so huge that getting round it took fifteen people with hands linked. There were fewer in the Churchill party, but some British seamen, also sight-seeing, helped make up the human chain. (12) In the Telegraph, Churchill identified this redwood as "The Big Tree," and indeed a lofty sequoia, so-named, stands south of Crescent City in Prairie Creek Red-woods State Park. (13) Farther along, however, south of Eureka at Bull Creek Flat, the group stopped for lunch, made quite a visit to the big trees, and helped circle one of them. (14) "The Giant Tree" is there, in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. (15) It is probably the redwood Churchill identified. Regardless, neither of the two in question presently to ps 360 feet. (16)

Leaving Willits on September 9, the group turned into the Napa Valley and paused at the Beaulieu Vineyard, whose French-born owner, Georges de Latour, in this time of Prohibition, was making sacramental wine. The group lunched with the vintner that day. Sharing some of his wine over a meal, probably violating the Volstead Act, did not seem to bother Latour. Surely it did not bother Churchill, who had scant use for Prohibition. (17)

Yet the Churchills, in fact, had been concerned about Prohibition when they left Canada. Randolph had stashed their whiskey and brandy in his own luggage, assuring that he would be the one to draw fire if a search caused trouble. However, not only did the group pass border inspection without incident, but one of the inspectors was present later when a Seattle hotel keeper served beer by way of momentary hospitality. (18) Filial efforts apparently continued, inasmuch as Churchill wrote his wife, more than ten days afterward that "Randolph acts as an unfailing Ganymede. Up to the present I have never been without what was necessary." (19) Yet Randolph found that liquor was provided publicly both in San Francisco and Los Angeles, (20) so his filial ministration might not have been too necessary.

By late that afternoon or early evening, the Churchills reached the mansion of banker William H. Crocker, just south of San Francisco, at Hillsborough. (21) Here they spent three nights. (22) A son of one of the famed "big four" of California railroading, Crocker had made himself a person of consequence, not just in banking, but also in public service. He had a multitude of notable friends, many of whom enjoyed his hospitality. (23)

Churchill's sojourn in the Bay Area was a busy one. There was a view of Seal Rocks, a nighttime visit to the Lick Observatory, and a momentous long-distance call to Chartwell, his home in Britain. There were public engagements, too--notably at the Bohemian Club. Seal Rocks, on the Pacific, south of the Golden Gate, was a tourist attraction then as now. Churchill had heard about it and particularly wanted to go there. The visit, probably on September 10, proved disappointing, however, because there were no seals--just marine birds. (24) Still, Churchill's interest suggests the intriguing possibility that he first heard of the spot from his parents, who had been in San Francisco and Monterey many years earlier, during August of 1894. (25) Even so, one must note that Churchill's mother, the former Jennie Jerome, eventually described watching seals at Monterey, not at San Francisco. (26)

On the second full day of his San Francisco visit, Churchill departed from purely recreational pleasures to speak to the press about international concerns. Recent bloodshed between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, over which Britain held a League of Nations mandate, had drawn much attention. Having been colonial secretary from 1921 to 1922, with significant responsibility for implementing the mandate, Churchill could comment and did. Meeting with reporters after a lunch at the Bohemian Club on September 11, he stated, "The Arab and the Jew must and will learn to live together in Palestine." (27) About the same time, he wrote an article on the subject, which he got into the hands of editors at the Zionist Record of New York and the Sunday Times of London. (28) His view of the hostilities in Palestine was compatible with his longstanding Zionist sympathies. (29) One might also be optimistic and maintain that, despite periodically failed cease-fire agreements, it will eventually prove a significant example of his r emarkable intuition.

Erected in 1888 on Mt. Hamilton in the Diablo Mountains, the Lick Observatory, with its 36-inch refracting telescope, was an institution of world consequence. It was named for James Lick, the San Francisco benefactor who funded it. It truly impressed Churchill the night of September 11. After their long, serpentine ride through the hills, to the delight of the Churchill party University of California President William W. Campbell--whose academic specialty was astronomy--focused the observatory's equipment on Saturn, the moon, and other heavenly bodies. Churchill was captivated. "I could go on for a long time about all we saw and heard," he wrote his wife. And he made his enthusiasm apparent in the Daily Telegraph: "Celestial jewellery!" he exclaimed. (30)

The next day, a transatlantic telephone call to his wife and children at Chartwell was accomplished from atop the Pacific Telephone Co. headquarters in San Francisco. It involved several links, but the connection was a good one, which Churchill celebrated in the Daily Telegraph. "Why say the age of miracles is past?" he queried. "It is just beginning." (31) The call had special importance, inasmuch as Churchill placed it on the couple's twenty-first wedding anniversary, a fact hardly lost on a buoyant Mrs. Churchill. "I hope we will have many happy returns of today," she responded. (32)

Much of the San Francisco skyline Churchill saw that autumn was relatively recent construction which replaced landmarks reduced to rubble in the earthquake of 1906. Intrigued by the greatest force of the destruction, in the Daily Telegraph Churchill emphasized it was not the quake, but the resulting fires, that had devastated San Francisco nearly a quarter-century earlier. Rebuilt, he said, the city had a vertical quality by contrast to Los Angeles. He erred, however, when he referred to the city's "forty-storey buildings." In 1929, and for years, the Russ Building, rising thirty-one floors, was San Francisco's tallest. (33)

The group moved south on September 12 for a night at Pebble Beach, U. S. Minister to the Netherlands Richard M. Tobin having offered the use of a sister's residence there. Traveling ahead to open the place was Mrs. William C. Van Antwerp, wife of a prominent Bay Area stockbroker with whom Churchill had just placed funds for investment. (34)

On September 13 the Churchills continued south to the palatial San Simeon estate of fabled publisher William Randolph Hearst, where they stayed four nights and Hearst's wife, Millicent, presided as hostess. (35) Churchill's work had been appearing in Hearst's Cosmopolitan since 1924, and the two men had met previously, in 1928. Hearst, never mind, always charted his own course (Johnny Churchill referred to "Hearst's campaign against England"). (36) However, for the moment, host and guest got along well, perhaps inspiring the statesman to confide to William Crocker, "He [Hearst] seems very much set upon the idea of closer and more intimate relations between the English speaking peoples--a cause, which, as you know, is very near my heart." (37)

While he was at Pebble Beach, Churchill had relaxed and made time for painting, (38) his celebrated pastime. He did so at San Simeon, as well. (39) Otherwise, despite the availability of tennis, swimming, riding, even a zoo, (40) his specific activities have gone largely unnoted. And regrettably neither the Pebble Beach nor the San Simeon artworks seem to have survived. No question, however, the young Churchills had a lively time--Randolph almost too much so. Pursuing an attractive female guest right into Winston's quarters, by mistake, was one thing; paying special attention to a Hearst daughter-in-law, as recounted by both Winston and Johnny, was quite another. (41)

Still, Hearst and Churchill shared the first of several cars in a drive south on September 17. And on September 30, Consul-General Campbell wrote lauding the good will generated by the visit. (42) Churchill had lost no ground for the moment; whether he changed Hearst's views essentially is another matter, as will be seen.

On September 18 both Hearst and Churchill addressed a large luncheon gathering at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City. Churchill told the audience, dotted with Hollywood figures and pretty much representing the whole film industry, "You are an educational institution which spreads its influence all over the world, from one end of the globe to the other." Hollywood as a political entity was perhaps not yet so significantly influential, but Churchill, superbly intuitive, presently took both radio and "talkies" into account and predicted their added impact. In his remarks he also pursued his cherished geopolitical goal, arguing that "the peace and safety of the world" lay in British-American association. And he made his liking for California abundantly clear. "I have only one regret," he declared, "only one pang which racks my bosom, and that is that I have never been here before." (43)

Churchill spent nine nights in southern California, yet tracking him remains a challenge. Right after the MGM speech, he seems to have doubled back to Montecito, immediately south of Santa Barbara, for two nights at the residence of former U. S. Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo. (44) And for several nights, probably the last five of his Southland tour, he was a guest at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. (45) But what about the other two, the first and fourth? A good guess is that the group was at the Santa Monica home of Hearst's mistress, actress Marion Davies, where Hollywood was at their disposition. Randolph, Winston, and Johnny all make the above itinerary, however discontinuous, appear correct. (46)

Once at the Biltmore, the party was in the hands of Henry M. Robinson and James R. Page, (47) both successful financiers. Robinson was the older of the two, with some standing in national and international affairs, but Page had immediate responsibility for the visitors. (48) There was a fishing excursion to Catalina Island on September 22, during which Churchill landed a 188-pound marlin. (49) Yet the Anglo-American theme was now very much in the forefront of his conversations.

On September 23, at the California Club, Churchill appealed to a number of business and professional leaders for increased Anglo-American understanding and good will. "The co-operation of the two great English-speaking powers," he said, "means peace for the world." He also stressed the same topic at several gatherings that he sponsored personally. Here, though, most of the guests were probably already Anglophiles: he was likely preaching to the choir. (50)

There was more of Hollywood, however. On September 24 the group visited Charlie Chaplin's studio, saw Shoulder Arms and some of City Lights. Then it was on to a glittering film premiere, still in the company of London-born Chaplin, who became a Churchill favorite. "You [could] not help liking him," Churchill wrote his wife. "The boys were fascinated by him." (51)

The Churchills' fascination got a boost several years later, when Chaplin visited Chartwell. He turned up dressed as himself, of course, not as the Little Tramp, his famous character. But before he left, he asked for a walking stick, stepped into a closet, and presently emerged as the tramp--much to everyone's delight. (52)

Actually, Churchill harbored screen-writing aspirations, although they never came to much. In 1929, however, he wanted Chaplin to play Napoleon in a film that he, Churchill, would script. (53) Probably on September 25 he visited actor John Barrymore, who, unlike Chaplin, was scarcely a new acquaintance. Churchill had met Barrymore's older sister, actress Ethel Barrymore, perhaps during 1902, perhaps four years earlier. (54) Just in her early twenties, if that, she was beguiling not only Churchill, but all of London's theater-going West End, and rumor soon enough had the couple engaged. (55) Winston did in fact propose to her, but well before he and Clementine really came to know each other. Ethel refused him, maybe wary about the combination of theater and political life. (56) Even so, they maintained an enduring friendship. (57)

Ethel may have introduced her brother John to Winston as early as 1898. Clearly the two men were close by 1925: in that year, Churchill's encouragement kept Barrymore from leaving a London production of Hamlet. Hence it was natural that in Los Angeles Churchill would drive to the Warner Bros. studio, join Barrymore on the set of The Man from Blankley's, and later dine with him. (58)

In his Daily Telegraph remarks, Churchill was rightly observant of Los Angeles's dispersed, horizontal quality--and its related car culture. "The distances are enormous," he said. "You motor ten miles to luncheon in one direction and ten miles to dinner in another." It was shrewd commentary, and three-quarters of a century later urban Californians' sense of what constitutes a "reasonable" driving distance for such activities has grown ever more expansive, which specialists have certainly verified. (59)

Yet Churchill erred, not necessarily by emphasizing oil and especially movies, as he did in the Daily Telegraph, but rather by suggesting they were the city's most significant economic bases. (60) In 1930, in fact, barely 1 percent of Los Angeles's gainfully occupied people were laborers in petroleum refineries or actors or showmen. (61) However, in fairness it should be noted that Los Angeles's booming oil industry and its burgeoning motion picture business drew many a newcomer's attention. (62) Churchill was wrong, too, when he said poverty did not exist. (63) The 1930 census recorded 44,480 unemployed people in Los Angeles. (64) Although the start of the Great Depression might have accounted for some of this, as early as fiscal year 1924-25, the city made a special study of the problem of homeless men. (65) He may not have encountered the city's pockets of true poverty; if he did he very likely would have been thinking about the kind of poverty he had seen in Europe. (66)

Churchill had certainly met civic and political leaders and tried to sway opinion toward Anglo-American partnership. So the question might be, with what result? When it came to William Randolph Hearst, Churchill's efforts to rally the newspaper scion were not ultimately fruitful. In 1927 Hearst himself had proposed that English-speaking nations join to maintain peace. (67) And at the MGM lunch, just before Churchill's remarks, Hearst had sounded much the same note. (68) Still he--and his publications--actually held back until December 1941, until the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, even as Hitler's aggressions became increasingly blatant. (69)

Although Churchill doubtless welcomed Hearst's eventual support, perhaps more a consequence of his vision of partnership was southern California's participation in the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA). Though a decade passed before its formation was announced by Kansas editor William Allen White in May 1940 (70)-- just as Churchill became Britain's World War II prime minister--several of its key activists had met with Churchill in Los Angeles or thereabouts. Actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who had been at the 1929 MGM luncheon with Hearst and Churchill, served as a vice-chairman of the committee's southern California chapter. Caltech physicist and Nobel laureate Robert A. Millikan, among those on the Catalina Island fishing trip, became its honorary chairman. Rufus B. von Kleinsmid, USC's president and a guest at the California Club lunch, was on the advisory committee. (71) Fairbanks, Millikan, and von Kleinsmid were also CDAAA national committee members. (72) While no immediate evidenc e links Churchill's 1929 visit to the CDAAA's eventual birth, the possibility is thought provoking.

One other point: Max Farrand, director of the Huntington Library, was a guest both on the fishing trip and at the California Club lunch. (73) Churchill relied on letters from the library's Brydges Collection in his biography of the first Duke of Marlborough, which he was indeed beginning in 1929. (74) Thus a quick leap might have it that Churchill actually visited the library and worked there; the truth seems to be different. Farrand perhaps mentioned the collection, but it was not ready for use in 1929. (75) As it happened, in 1932 Churchill would employ a local researcher to investigate the collection. (76) Like numerous busy authors, he did in fact enlist research assistants throughout much of his literary life. Nevertheless, he did the writing. (77)

The Churchill excursion to the Southland concluded, the party left Los Angeles late on September 26, bound north for Yosemite Valley. (78) The evening departure suggests they traveled aboard steel magnate Charles Schwab's private railway car, which Schwab had offered in early August. (79) The Churchills visited Yosemite the next day. (80) Winston picnicked at Inspiration Point and then spent the afternoon atop Glacier Point. The Van Antwerps were among the touring group once more. "Incomparable with anything else in the United States, Canada or England," was how Churchill found Yosemite, said Van Antwerp. (81)

The next day Churchill was in Bakersfield, now for sure in Schwab's car. (82) Writing his wife from Barstow on September 29, he was still in California but headed east. (83) And on the 29th or 30th of September, he reached the Grand Canyon. (84) In a youthful prank, Johnny and Randolph stood on their heads near the canyon's rim. Not sensing the actual, safe distance between their sons and the rim, the senior Churchills were alarmed and taken aback. (85)

The Grand Canyon should have demonstrated again how much Churchill appreciated nature's beauty. In Canada, on the way west, he had visited Banff Springs and Lake Louise. At the latter he made time for painting--two or three of the images survive at Chartwell. (86) Indeed, he called Lake Louise "a spot which in all of my travels I have never seen surpassed." (87) Something is nonetheless puzzling: it is that Churchill described neither Yosemite nor the Grand Canyon in his writing, and if he did any painting at either place, the images have gone unremarked. Further research, perhaps, may uncover other writings, correspondence, or paintings which expand the record of Churchill's time in the West.

Continuing on their U.S. tour, the Churchills reached Chicago on October 2, where investor and government figure Bernard M. Baruch was waiting to meet them. There was at least one public event before they all moved along to New York, now in Baruch's railway car, and now very much in his hands. (88) Baruch and Churchill had become good friends at the time of World War I and remained so, (89) which made for networking. Baruch had prompted Crocker's San Francisco invitation, (90) he suggested Van Antwerp to Churchill, (91) and he alerted McAdoo, although McAdoo was at Hearst's estate along with Churchill and reportedly issued his invitation then. (92) Baruch also contacted Henry M. Robinson who, having planned travel to the nation's capital, drew in James R. Page. (93) And while Schwab had met Churchill twice in 1914, during negotiations that secured for his Bethlehem Steel Co. a contract to build submarines for the British, it was Baruch who first told Schwab that Churchill planned to visit the U.S. (94)

There was other networking, too. Publisher Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) in 1912 had urged Churchill to visit Canada; it was Aitken who energized Hearst's 1929 invitation. (95) And even though Tobin had been minister to the Netherlands as late as 1929 and may already have met Churchill, a letter to Tobin from Churchill's cousin Frederick E. Guest probably facilitated the stay at Pebble Beach. (96)

Churchill's Daily Telegraph articles about California were distinctly positive. Indeed, he set the tone in the first article's first paragraph, where he reported being given to understand that Californians could easily drive the state's length at will. And, he continued, "They would certainly be well advised to try the experiment, for a more beautiful region I have hardly ever seen." (97) Shortly, however, he moved into some disquieting language. "Take it for all in all," he wrote having crossed the Great Basin and formed a regional impression," the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains offer a spacious, delectable land, where the white man may work or play on every day in the year." And with just a sentence intervening, he went on, "The people who have established themselves and are dominant in these thriving scenes represent what is perhaps the finest Anglo-Saxon stock to be found in the American Union." (98)

Although Churchill referred briefly to the slopes of the Rockies, he was, after all, really discussing California. And California was on the way to demographic diversity: among its 5.7 million residents, according to the 1930 census, were 637,000 people of color. (99) While Churchill must have encountered some of them, he focused on the activities and accomplishments of white Anglo-Saxons. One might simply acknowledge strains of racism in Churchill's era and 1ife, (100) stipulate his imagined U. S. society was not diverse, (101) and move along. Several points merit further examination, however.

Churchill certainly sprang from a time when Anglo-Saxonism animated opinion-leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. (102) Despite this phenomenon, Anglo-Saxonism did not necessarily connote genetic supremacism. (103) Also, whatever its 1929 connotation for Churchill personally, a decade later he withstood the century's most notorious racist, Adolf Hitler. And finally, in 1929 geopolitical cooperation absorbed him above most other matters.

Although Churchill's quest for geopolitical cooperation was obvious in his remarks in California, it also turned up in New York, (104) and again in the very first of his Daily Telegraph articles. (105) The matter was one to which he devoted much of his life, as he said in 1963. (106) But was there a special subtlety about his 1929 remarks? What was this "world peace" to which he returned repeatedly? Here, particularly, Churchill's political and intellectual complexity--his critics might have called it his inconsistency--emerges sharply. He was, for example, a sometime admirer of Benito Mussolini. (107) Moreover, as chancellor of the exchequer, he slashed each of his military budgets, with only the Royal Air Force escaping. (108) Nevertheless, he opposed Bolshevism very soon. (109) And by 1924, if not previously, he was downright worried about Germany's anger at the Versailles Treaty. (110) His specific wariness of Hitler's growing power--as early as 1929--might warrant more argument. (111) Yet even if, in The Second World War, he exaggerated his first opposition to the dictators, (112) his essential, early intuition was superb: Anglo-American unity could meet global challenge, as indeed it would, in his era, and most recently, in ours.

In sum, here was a British visitor who, when not all did, genuinely liked California. Here was one who, because of his position, his vision, and his writing, gave California fresh international standing. And here was one who, not the least by his formidable intuition, brought the world to California.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL MILESTONES

YEARS MILESTONES U.S. PRESIDENTS


1874 Born at Blenheim Palace, eldest son Ulysses S. Grant
 of Lord Randolph Churchill and 1869-1877
 Jennie Jerome

1893 Graduates from Harrow School Grover Cleveland
 1893-1897
1894-95 Graduates from Sandhurst Royal
 Military College; commissioned a
 cavalry officer

1895 Publishes first newspaper article

1899 Leaves regular army William McKinley
 1897-1901
1901 Becomes a Member of Parliament

1908 Marries Clementine Hozier; five Theodore Roosevelt
 children are born to them through 1901-1909
 1922

1911 Named First Lord of the Admiralty William Howard Taft
 1909-1913
1917 Named Minister of Munitions Woodrow Wilson
 1913-1921
1921 Named Secretary of State for the Warren G. Harding
 Colonies 1921-1923

1922 Buys Chartwell Manor, Kent

1923-29 Publishes The World Crisis, a four-
 volume history of World War I

1924 Named Chancellor of the Exchequer Calvin Coolidge
 1923-1929
1929 Begins his "years in the Herbert Hoover
 wilderness" 1929-1933

1931-32 Lecture tour in the United States

1933-38 Publishes Marlborough, the four- Franklin D. Roosevelt
 volume biography of his great 1933-1945
 ancestor

1939 Named First Lord of the Admiralty

1940 Named Prime Minister and Minister
 of Defense

1946 Makes "iron Curtain" speech, Harry S. Truman
 Fulton, Mo. 1945-1953

1948-54 Publishes his six-volume memoir,
 The Second World War

1951 Named Prime Minister

1953 Made a knight; awarded Nobel Prize Dwight D. Eisenhower
 for Literature 1953-1961

1956-58 Publishes History of the English-
 Speaking Peoples, four volumes

1963 Made honorary U.S. citizen John F. Kennedy
 1961-1963

1964 Leaves Parliament, having served as Lyndon B. Johnson
 an M.P. 1901-1922 and 1924-1964 1963-1969

1965 Dies in London

YEARS CALIFORNIA
 GOVERNORS

1874 Newton Booth
 1871-1875


1893 Henry H. Markham
 1891-1895
1894-95



1895 James H. Budd
 1895-1899
1899 Henry T. Gage
 1899-1903
1901

1908 James N. Gillett
 1907-1911


1911 Hiram W. Johnson
 1911-1917
1917 William D. Stephens
 1917-1923
1921


1922

1923-29 Friend Wm. Richardson
 1923-1927

1924

1929 C.C. Young
 1927-1931

1931-32 James Rolph, Jr.
 1931-1934
1933-38



1939 Culbert L. Olson
 1939-1943
1940


1946 Earl Warren
 1943-1953

1948-54


1951

1953 Goodwin J. Knight
 1953-1959

1956-58


1963 Edmund G. Brown, Sr.
 1959-1967

1964


1965

(1.) Biographies of Churchill abound. The most extensive is Randolph S. Churchill and Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, 8 vols. (London: Heinemann, 1966-88). Randolph S. Churchill did the first two volumes, Martin Gilbert the remaining six. They are hereafter cited as either Randolph Churchill, Churchill, or Gilbert, Churchill, according to author. For the California trip see Gilbert, Churchill, vol.5 (1976).

Winston S. Churchill's own correspondence is virtually indispensable. Much of it is in the many companion volumes to Randolph S. Churchill and Martin Gilbert's biography. For the trip see Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume V, Companion Part 2 (London: Heinemann, 1981), hereafter cited as Gilbert, Companion.

A recollection of the trip is in John Spencer Churchill's A Churchill Canvas (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), hereafter cited as John Churchill, Canvas. A contemporaneous account is in Randolph S. Churchill's diary Twenty-One Years (Boston: Houghton Miffin, 1965), hereafter cited as Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One.

Robert H. Pilpel, Churchill in America, 1895-1961, An Affectionate Portrait (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976) is a lively book about Churchill's many U.S. visits with Chap. 5 treating that of 1929. Two survey articles are especially helpful. The earlier is Manfred Weidhorn, "America through Churchill's Eyes," Thought 50 (March 1975): 5-34. More recent is John H. Chettle, "Winston Churchill in America," Smithsonian 32 (April 2001): 80-90.

(2.) Winston S. Churchill to William Crocker, 29 July 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 30. Winston S. Churchill is hereafter cited as WSC. See also San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 3; Los Angeles Examiner, 19 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 5.

(3.) For Churchill as an author, see Manfred Weidhorn, Sword and Pen, A Survey of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974), esp. 1-2; William Manchester, The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. 1, Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 756, 764-65; Keith Alldritt, Churchill the Writer, His Life as a Man of Letters (London: Hutchinson, 1992), esp. chaps. 6-7.

(4.) Gilbert, Churchill, 5:334, 351. The twelve Daily Telegraph articles appeared from 18 Nov. 1929 through 3 Feb. 1930; they are hereafter cited as WSC, Telegraph. At least some appeared elsewhere, too, either at the time or later. The San Francisco Chronicle carried four of them, and several are in Winston S. Churchill, ed. [WSC's grandson], The Great Republic, A History of America, Sir Winston Churchill (New York: Random House, 1999).

(5.) WSC to Clementine Churchill, telegram, 18 Oct. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 105; Gilbert, Churchill, 5:349. Clementine Churchill is hereafter cited as CC.

(6.) WSC to Bernard Baruch, 28 June 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 10.

(7.) Both Churchill's search for cooperation and his intuitive quality are subjects all in themselves. But on the first, just for example, see Fraser J. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain, Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), esp. 4-20. On the second, again just for example, see Anthony Storr, "The Man," in A.J.P. Taylor et al., Churchill Revised, A Critical Assessment (New York: Dial Press, 1969), esp. 238-39.

(8.) WSC to Bernard Baruch, 28 June 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 9; WSC to CC, 8 Aug. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 37 n. 2; Gilbert, Churchill, 5:340-45.

(9.) Robert M. Stampp, "Steel of Empire," in Hugh A. Dempsey, ed., The CPR West, The Iron Road and the Making of a Nation (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1984), esp. 283-89.

(10.) Seattle Daily Times, 7 Sept. 1929, 1; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 Sept. 1929, 2.

(11.) WSC to CC, 18 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 82; The hotels were the Lauff (Crescent City American, 13 Sept. 1929, 1) and the Van (Willits News 13 Sept. 1929, 1).

(12.) WSC to CC, 18 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 82; WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929, 8.

(13.) WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929, 8; Stephen C. Sillett, "Biology of Redwood Forest Canopies" (summary of results of recent studies at the Institute for Forest Canopy Research, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Humboldt State University [Arcata, Calif.], 2001), 1.

(14.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 84; Humboldt Times (Eureka), 10 Sept. 1929, 3. The vice-consul and second car were probably waiting at the Eureka Inn.

(15.) Sillett, "Biology," 2.

(16.) Ibid., 1,2.

(17.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 84-85; WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 93; WSC, Telegraph, 2 Dec. 1929, 10.

(18.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 82-83.

(19.) WSC to CC, 18 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 82.

(20.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 85, 90.

(21.) San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 1. Although the Crocker residence ("New Place") was actually in Hillsborough, it was so near Burlingame that Crocker and thus Churchill spoke of it as being there.

(22.) WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 93-95.

(23.) David Warren Ryder, "Great Citizen," A Biography of William H. Crocker (San Francisco: Historical Publications, 1962), esp. 118-19, 200-202.

(24.) San Francisco Examiner, 10 Sept. 1929, 1; WSC, Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1929, 8.

(25.) San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Aug. 1894, 10; San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Aug. 1894, 4; Ralph G. Martin, Jennie, The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, vol. 1, The Romantic Years, 1854-1895 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 328-29.

(26.) Mrs. George Cornwallis-West [Jennie Jerome Churchill], The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill (New York: Century, 1908), 314.

(27.) San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 3; cf. San Francisco Examiner, 12 Sept. 1929, 1, 3. Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete, Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), esp. chap. 14, is useful here.

(28.) Gilbert, Companion, 86 n. 1.

(29.) Oskar F. Rabinowicz, Winston Churchill on Jewish Problems (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), 36-37, 195; Gilbert, Churchill, 4 (1975): 484-85; Michael J. Cohen, Churchill and the Jews (London: F. Cass, 1985), 55-56.

(30.) WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 94-95; WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929, 8.

(31.) WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929, 8.

(32.) CC to WSC, telegram, 12 Sept. 1929, in Mary [Churchill] Soames, ed., Winston and Clementine, The Personal Letters of the Churchills (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 344.

(33.) WSC, Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1929, 8. For the Russ Building, see the U.S. Federal Writers' Project, California, A Guide to the Golden State (New York: Hastings House, 1939), 279, and David Gebhard et al., The Guide to Architecture in San Francisco and Northern California, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985), 67.

(34.) WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, WSC to CC, 1929 Sept. 1929, both in Gilbert, Companion, 95, 98. When Tobin died, Mrs. Charles Tobin Clark was a surviving sister (San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Jan. 1952, 11). She did have a residence at Pebble Beach (Polk's Salinas, Monterey and Pacific Grove Directory, 1928 [San Francisco: R. L. Polk, 1928], 513).

(35.) WSC to CC, 19 Sept. 1929, WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, both in Gilbert, Companion, 87-88, 96-97; Gilbert, Churchill, 5:346-47. For Hearst see W. A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst, A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), esp. 444-45; David Nasaw, The Chief, A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), esp. 378-79.

(36.) Frederick Woods, A Bibliography of the Works of Sir Winston Churchill (London: Kaye & Ward, 1969), 216. For their earlier acquaintance, see Soames, Winston and Clementine, 346 n. 3. See also WSC to CC, 19 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 87. Johnny's remarks are in John Churchill, Canvas, 89.

(37.) WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 96; WSC to William Crocker, 19 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 89.

(38.) Randolph S. Churchill and Helmut Gernsheim, eds., Churchill, His Life in Photographs (New York: Rinehart, 1955), fig. 132.

(39.) Swanberg, Citizen, 416; Nasaw, Chief, 418.

(40.) Swanberg, Citizen, 453-54; Nasaw, Chief, 369-70.

(41.) WSC to CC, 19 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 88; John Churchill, Canvas, 89.

(42.) John Churchill, Canvas, 90; Gilbert, Churchill, 5:349.

(43.) Los Angeles Examiner, 19 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, pp. 5, 13, has the full text; cf. Los Angeles Times, 19 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, pp. 1, 3. See also Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America, A Cultural History of American Movies, rev. ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), esp. chaps. 13, 16, 19.

(44.) WSC to CC, 19 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 88. Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 88-89; Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 20 Sept. 1929, 1.

(45.) Cf. Gilbert, Churchill, 5:348.

(46.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 89-90; WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 97; John Churchill, Canvas, 90-91.

(47.) Los Angeles Times, 19 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, p. 3.

(48.) WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 97. For background on Robinson and Page, see Rockwell Hereford, A Whole Man--Henry Mauris Robinson and a Half Century--1890-1940 (Pacific Grove, Calif.: Boxwood Press, 1985), esp. chaps. 2, 14; "James Page, L. A. Civic Leader, Dies," Los Angeles Times, 22 July 1962, sec. C, pp. 1, 9.

(49.) Los Angeles Times, 23 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, p. 1.

(50.) His remarks appeared in both the Los Angeles Times, 24 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, p. 1, and the Los Angeles Examiner, 24 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 1. Also see WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 98.

(51.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 90; Gilbert, Companion, 97. Although City Lights was not released until 1931, Chaplin began filming in December 1928 and did not finish for almost two years. When Churchill visited the studio, Chaplin might have shown him rushes or footage from the uncompleted film. See David Robinson, Chaplin: His Life and Art (New York: McGrawHill, 1985).

(52.) Sarah Churchill, A Thread in the Tapestry (New York: Dodd Mend, 1967), 35-36.

(53.) Randolph Churchill, Twenty-One, 90; Alldritt, Churchill, 95, 119-21.

(54.) Ethel Barrymore, Memories, An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955), 125; John Kobler, Damned in Paradise, The Life of John Barrymore (New York: Atheneum, 1977), 51-52.

(55.) Kobler, Damned, 52.

(56.) Randolph Churchill, Churchill, 2 (1967): 252; Mary [Churchill] Soames, Clementine Churchill, The Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), 44, 48-49.

(57.) Barrymore, Memories, esp. 300; Randolph Churchill, Churchill, 2:252; Soames, Clementine, 300.

(58.) Gene Fowler, Good Night, Sweet Prince, The Life & Times of John Barrymore (Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1944), 223, 332; Kobler, Damned, 256.

(59.) Churchill, Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1929, 8. For one study on the automobile in southern California, see Scott L. Bottles, Los Angeles and the Automobile, The Making of the Modern City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), esp. 4-19.

(60.) WSC, Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1929, 8.

(61.) U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census: Population, vol. 4 (Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1933), 172, 176, 180.

(62.) Carey McWilliams, Southern California Country, An Island on the Land (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946), 242.

(63.) WSC, Telegraph, 30 Dec. 1929, 8.

(64.) U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census: 1930, Unemployment, vol. 1 (Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1931), 151.

(65.) City of Los Angeles, Social Service Commission, Twelfth Annual Report (Los Angeles: City of Los Angeles, 1925), 10, in storage location C2038, Los Angeles City Archives.

(66.) WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929, 8.

(67.) William Randolph Hearst, "English Speaking Nations of the World Should Join to Maintain Peace," in E. F. Tompkins, ed., Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco: Priv. pub., 1948), 194-97.

(68.) Los Angeles Examiner, 19 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 5.

(69.) Swanberg, Hearst, 488-89, 493-94, 499; Nasaw, Chief, 554-55, 560-61.

(70.) New York Times, 20 May 1940, 11. See also Walter Johnson, William Allen White's America (New York: Henry Holt, 1947), 526-30.

(71.) John Perry Wood to Mrs. Thomas E. Workman, 30 Oct. 1940, in Workman Family Papers, series 2, box 5, folder 1, Center for the Study of Los Angeles Research Collection, Loyola Marymount University See the letterhead.

(72.) Gilmore Stott to Robert A. Millikan, 18 Dec. 1940, in Robert A. Millikan Collection, box 21, folder 14, Institute Archives, California Institute of Technology See the letterhead.

(73.) Los Angeles Times, 23 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, p. 2; Los Angeles Times, 24 Sept. 1929, sec. 2, p.2.

(74.) WSC to CC, 8 Aug. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 38-39.

(75.) Charles Sherburn et al., "Huntington Library Collections," Huntington Library Bulletin, 1 (1931): 93.

(76.) WSC to [Librarian, Huntington Library], 21 July1932, in Huntington Manuscript 54965, Henry E. Huntington Library San Marino, Calif. Churchill had just learned of pertinent papers and sought copies. For more of his quest, see nos. 54966-69.

(77.) Maurice Ashley, Churchill as Historian (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1968), 26-28; Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill, A Historian's Journey (London: HarperCollins, 1994), 137-52.

(78.) Los Angeles Examiner, 26 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 15; San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, P.1.

(79.) Charles Schwab to WSC, telegram, 9 Aug. 1929, WSC to Schwab, 10 Aug. 1929, WSC to Schwab, 27 Aug. 1929, all in Gilbert, Companion, 41-42, 60.

(80.) San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 1; Mariposa Gazette, 4 Oct. 1929, 1.

(81.) Merced Sun-Star, 28 Sept. 1929, 2; William Van Antwerp to WSC, 23 Nov. 33, in Gilbert, Companion, 683.

(82.) San Francisco Chronicle, 30 Sept. 1929, sec. 1, p. 12.

(83.) WSC to CC, 29 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 96.

(84.) WSC to Bernard Baruch, telegram, 29 Sept. 1929, Baruch to WSC, telegram, 30 Sept. 1929, both in Baruch Papers, Selected Correspondence, vol. 22 (1929), Mudd Manuscript Library Princeton University.

(85.) John Churchill, Canvas, 93-94.

(86.) David Coombs, comp., Churchill, His Paintings (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1967), 120-21; Mary [Churchill] Soames, Winston Churchill, His Life as a Painter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 75.

(87.) WSC to CC, 1 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 68.

(88.) Gilbert, Churchill, 5:349.

(89.) Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch, vol. 2, The Public Years (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 71, 121-23, 345.

(90.) WSC to Bernard Baruch, 28 July 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 28. Baruch and Crocker had been business associates (Margaret L. Coit, Mr. Baruch [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957], 125-26, 346).

(91.) WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 95. VanAntwerp had been governor of the New York Stock Exchange (New York Times, 18 Feb. 1938, 19).

(92.) WSC to Bernard Baruch, 28 July 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 28;Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 18 Sept. 1929, 7; WSC to CC, 19 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 88. McAdoo had been secretary of the treasury in the Wilson Administration when Churchill was first lord of the admiralty and later minister of munitions, so he and Churchill would at least have known about each other (William G. McAdoo, Crowded Years, The Reminiscences of William C. McAdoo [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931], esp. chaps. 24-27).

(93.) M.A. Boyle [Baruch's secretary] to Henry M. Robinson, telegram, 29 Aug. 1929, Robinson to Boyle, telegram, 7 Sept. 1929, both in Baruch Papers, Selected Correspondence, vol. 22 (1929), Mudd Manuscript Library Princeton University Baruch and Robinson had been together at the Versailles Conference (U. S. Department of State, Papers Relating to Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. 3 [Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1943], 3; Hereford, Whole Man, 161.

(94.) Robert Hessen, Steel Titan, The Life of Charles M. Schwab (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 212-16,237-38; Charles Schwab to WSC, telegram, 9 Aug. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 41.

(95.) Randolph Churchill, Churchill, 2:572-74; William Randolph Hearst to WSC, telegram, 18 July 1929, WSC to Lord Beaverbrook, 20 July 1929, the last two in Gilbert, Companion, 22.

(96.) Gilbert, Companion, 30 n. 1; WSC to Bernard Baruch, 20 July 1929, in Baruch Papers, Selected Correspondence, vol. 22 (1929), Mudd Manuscript Library Princeton University; WSC to CC, 25 Sept. 1929, in Gilbert, Companion, 95.

(97.) WSC, Telegraph, 23 Dec. 1929,8.

(98.) Ibid.

(99.) U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census: 1930,Abstract (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1933), 84.

(100.) Manchester, Last Lion, 842.

(101.) Weidhorn, "America," 33-34; Harbutt, Iron Curtain, 17.

(102.) H. C. Allen, Great Britain and the United States, A History of Anglo-American Relations (17831952) (London: Odhams Press, 1954), 96.

(103.) Bradford Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, England and the United States, 1895-1914 (New York: Atheneum, 1968), 81-83; Stuart Anderson, Race and Rapprochement, AngloSaxonism and Anglo-American Relations, 1895-1904 (East Brunswick, N. J.: Associated University Presses, 1981), 174-75.

(104.) New York Times, 26 Oct. 1929, 3.

(105.) WSC, Telegraph 18 Nov. 1929, 10.

(106.) Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, vol. 8 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), 8709-10. For a collection of Churchill's speaking and writing to the subject, see Kay Halle, ed., Winston Churchill on America and Britain, A Selection of His Thoughts on Anglo-American Relations (New York: Walker, 1970), which includes three of the Telegraph pieces.

(107.) Gilbert, Churchill, 5:142,225-26; A. J. P. Taylor, "The Statesman," in Taylor, Churchill, 28, 32.

(108.) Manchester, Last Lion, 790.

(109.) Gilbert, Churchill, 4: esp. 227,440; Harbutt, Iron Curtain, 23-30.

(110.) Gilbert, Churchill, 5:49-52.

(111.) Manchester, Last Lion, 870-73; Gordon A. Craig, "Churchill and Germany" in Robert Blake and Win. Roger Louis, eds., Churchill (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 32.

(112.) Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 38-51. For an evenhanded discussion of the whole work, see Piers Brendon, Winston Churchill, A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 205-06.

David T. Leary is a California native, born in Los Angeles. He did his undergraduate work at Stanford University and received his doctorate from the University of Southern California. He taught history at Pasadena City College for a number of years and is now a professor emeritus. He continues to travel widely, especially to places of historical interest.