The Chief

by David Nasaw

  Prohibition has led to wide-spread invasion of the rights and liberties of a free people. It has substituted tyranny for liberty and despotism for democracy. It has violated the sanctity of the home, and made every man and every man’s house and every man’s family subject of a system of espionage that is only equaled by that of Russia. Prohibition has increased crime enormously, startlingly, dangerously ... Prohibition has filled our jails with young boys, and has associated them with hardened criminals ... Prohibition has corrupted our police system ... Prohibition has divided our people into factions almost as bitterly hostile to each other as the factions that existed before the Civil War.24

  He did not let up on this campaign until the Prohibition Amendment was repealed.

  After a brief rebound in early 1930, the American economy continued to deteriorate. A spectacular drought brought ruin to much of rural America, turning huge sections of the Midwest into a dust bowl. Overall investment continued to decline. Unemployment increased, the banks began to fail, and breadlines to form. By January of 1931, there were in New York City alone, according to the historian Edward Robb Ellis, eighty-two breadlines serving an average of 85,000 meals a day, two of them operated and paid for by Hearst, one at Times Square, the other at Columbus Circle.25

  The Hearst lines, as the songwriter Yip Harburg recalled, were the biggest in the city: “He had a big truck with several people on it, and big cauldrons of hot soup, bread. Fellows with burlap on their shoes were lined up all around Columbus Circle, and went for blocks and blocks around the park, waiting.” At the time, Harburg was writing a show called Americana. In one skit, “Mrs. Ogden Reid of the Herald Tribune was very jealous of Hearst’s beautiful bread line. It was bigger than her bread line. It was a satiric, volatile show. We needed a song for it.” That song became “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime.”26

  In June of 1931, Hearst responded to the worsening economic situation by presenting his own plan for economic recovery in a speech delivered live from 11 P.M. to 11:15 P.M. over the eighty-two stations in William Paley’s CBS Radio Network. The next morning, the speech was published in full on the front pages of the Hearst newspapers. In an aristocratic accent not unlike FDR’s, the Chief called for the immediate expenditure of $5 billion to provide public works jobs for the unemployed at prevailing wages. Offering his own version of the “underconsumption” thesis, Hearst claimed that consumer dollars had been withdrawn from the economy by the twin scourges of overcapitalization (too much money had been invested in unproductive speculative stock issues) and profiteering. For prosperity to return, there had to be a sharp increase in “the purchasing power of the masses.”27

  Though proposals for increasing government expenditure on public works had earlier been floated by politicians, citizens’ groups, and Hoover himself, no one had come anywhere close to suggesting that the federal government should spend $5 billion that it didn’t have at a moment in the nation’s history when the deficit was rising to unprecedented levels. Hearst’s plan was bold, imaginative, and in a great many respects quite similar to the public works projects that would, two years later, become the centerpiece of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

  Immediately following the Chief’s radio address, the Hearst papers launched their print campaign for the Chief’s $5 billion prosperity plan. On June 6, the editorial page cartoon by Winsor McCay, still Hearst’s favorite illustrator, pictured a raft of unemployed men dressed all in black, afloat on a sea of money. The cartoon was labeled “Want in the Midst of Plenty”; the caption read, “There is plenty of money in the country, plenty of money in the savings banks. It should be spent to employ labor on a grand scale.” To the left of the cartoon was the related editorial, “For a Prosperity Loan!,” which referred, if only obliquely, to Hoover in its final paragraph: “The country is crying aloud for courageous national leaders who will formulate plans for using the nation’s credit economically and effectively instead of star gazing and wondering why prosperity disappeared.”28

  The Chief fully expected that the Hoover administration would respond to his plan. As Hearst had reminded his listeners in his radio address, Hoover, as a presidential candidate, had “won many to his support [including Hearst himself] by the magnificent program of public improvements which he described as the main feature of his policy.” All Hearst now asked him to do was to fulfill this campaign pledge. When Hoover, however, not only refused to endorse Hearst’s recovery plan but paid it no attention whatsoever, the Chief lost his patience and began to turn on the president.

  Two weeks later, Hoover committed what for Hearst was the unpardonable sin of approving a one-year moratorium on the repayment of European war debts. Instead of spending to put Americans back to work, he was, Hearst declared, taking money out of their pockets and giving it to Europe’s bankers:

  I say that American taxpayers have enough taxes to pay on obligations they have already incurred, and that they should not be asked to pay any further the price of European war frenzy, and that any American politician who asks them to pay for past European wars or supply funds for future European wars should be impeached by the Congress of the United States and tried for treason to his people and his country. This plan for revision of war debts, with America paying the piper while war-mad Europe dances is purely a plan of international bankers, who make money through commissions out of spoliation of their countrymen.

  Directly challenging the president, Hearst declared for Calvin Coolidge for the next president of the United States and hinted that if Coolidge were not available, he would throw his support to Franklin Roosevelt:

  The American people want a vigorous American in the White House, and they are going to have one—either a Coolidge or a Roosevelt. Not all the subsidies of foreign nations, lavishly spent in American politics by international bankers, are going to prevent American voters from electing the next time an American President who will stand staunchly for the interests of his own country and the welfare of his own people first, last and all the time.

  From this moment on, seldom a day would pass without an attack by the Hearst papers on Hoover as incompetent, uncaring, and committed more to the welfare of the European economy than the well-being of his own people. On July 14,1931, Winsor McCay’s editorial-page cartoon figured the president as a bent old man in a dark suit, with his back turned on an endless “U.S. Bread Line,” throwing a life raft labeled “moratorium” to a sinking Germany. The text of the adjoining editorial read, “Why Not Extend Economic Relief Here, Mr. Hoover?”29

  The Chief was determined to let no occasion pass to demonstrate to the American public that Hoover was not on their side. In October, on returning from Europe, he directed Ed Coblentz in New York to “make well printed pamphlet of my first two letters from London against [debt] moratorium ... please include my most recent article on Europe’s endeavor to transfer war debt. Send to all members of Congress, governors of state, Mayors, Legislators.” When the president called upon the churches in the fall of 1931 to do more for the unemployed and impoverished, Hearst reminded him caustically in a front-page editorial in all his newspapers that “conditions here at home are a Government problem; not merely a problem for churches and private charities. The American people do not want charity; they want work.”30

  28. “An Incorrigible Optimist”

  “W. R. WAS AN INCORRIGIBLE OPTIMIST,” Jack Neylan remembered, “the last man to believe in the Depression.” While Hearst did not dispute the fact that millions of Americans were suffering, he refused to believe that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the economy. On December 23,1931, as the nation prepared for the Christmas holidays, Willicombe telegrammed Hearst’s editors with instructions that the “Chief would like all papers to avoid use of the word ‘depression’ as much as possible and certainly to avoid any emphasis on the depression.” It was time, the Chief believed, to stop complaining and look ahead.1

  Hearst’s own spending and entertaining became more frantic, more spectacular, more lavish
as the Depression worsened, as if to signal that he was too strong, self-reliant, and self-confident to be swayed by temporary economic dislocation. Through the early 1930s, he and Marion were well on their way toward becoming the new king and queen of Hollywood in place of Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, whose reign was dissolving along with their marriage. (They were divorced in 1936.) The San Simeon guest lists continued to grow, limited only by the number of rooms on the hill. To accommodate additional guests and larger, more extravagant parties, Hearst ordered the completion of the eight new bedrooms under construction and laid plans for a Great Hall in the rear of Casa Grande. “I think this can be made the grandest hall in America,” he wrote Julia Morgan in April 1932. “When this hall is not in use as a ballroom or a banqueting hall, it could be used to contain some of the important collections in cases in the middle of the room. We could also use a lot of armor there.... That is the scheme! Isn’t it a pippin?” The letter was signed, “Your assistant architect.”2

  Even without the banquet hall/ballroom, which was never built, the Hearst-Davies weekends and parties were, according to the Hollywood gossip and historian Kenneth Anger, “the most extravagant the movie colony had ever seen; the Golden People grabbed at the chance of an invitation.” The Chief outdid himself for birthdays—his and Marion’s—for leave-takings and returns, and for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.3

  He and Marion did their Christmas shopping at San Simeon. Bullock’s, I. Magnin’s, and the other major Los Angeles department stores would send trucks full of possible presents to San Simeon, where they were unloaded and laid out on the floor of the Assembly Room. Marion and W. R. would go through the room carefully, picking and choosing the gifts they wanted to give that season.4

  Come Christmas, Frances Marion remembered, “in that great baronial hall we called ‘The Big Room,’ there would be a towering pine with a mound of packages underneath. Cases of champagne would be brought up from the cellar and there were garlands of mistletoe hung overhead with wreaths of evergreen on the doors.... Mr. Hearst would have white deer brought up from the zoo and quartered on the tennis courts. They would have sleigh bells strapped on them and would jingle to the delight of the children. After dinner Mr. Hearst and Marion would pass out expensive presents. To one he would give a black pearl, to another a whole silver service, someone would get a diamond bracelet, emerald earrings, or some other thing of great beauty and value.”5

  The most famous parties were the masquerades Marion gave at her beach house or San Simeon to celebrate the New Year and W. R.’s birthday. Costumes were supplied by the Western Costume Company, which outfitted all the studios. “They would just call up and say, ‘Send up a couple of costumers,’” King Vidor remembered. “I mean people, two or three, with trunks and trunks, racks of costumes, many more than were needed to costume the people there. So then you went up in the library.... and you’d go pick out your own costume. And it was very important that you did the best you could.”6

  On New Year’s Eve 1932, Hearst and Marion held a “kids” masquerade at the Santa Monica beach house that was so extravagant even Louella Parsons felt obliged to make excuses and tell her readers that “the beauty of this party was that the costumes were inexpensive.” Clark Gable came as a Boy Scout, Joan Crawford as Shirley Temple; Marion wore an incredibly short toddler’s sun dress and a white bonnet.7

  For Hearst’s seventieth birthday, in April of 1933, the theme was the Old West; for his seventy-first, the guests came dressed in colorful Tyrolean peasant costumes. In the years to come, there were circus parties with a full-size merry-go-round from the Warner Brothers lot; a Forty-Niners party; Cowboy and Indian parties; a Civil War masquerade; a Midsummer Night’s Dream party with a 125-piece orchestra supplied by Jack Warner; and a Your Favorite Movie Star party, where Gary Cooper came as Dr. Fu Manchu and Groucho Marx as Rex, the Wonder Horse.8

  W. R. almost always dressed for the occasion—as President James Madison, a circus ringmaster, a Western gunslinger, a Tyrolean peasant—and always looked slightly ridiculous. Photographs taken at the parties show him in a jolly mood, feeding cake to his son Bill, posing next to Hedda Hopper, or standing for a picture with Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, and Louella.

  Hearst’s routine at San Simeon did not change significantly. According to his son Bill, Jr., W. R. usually rose “around ten or so.... He wore big silk nightgowns, heavy, heavy silk. And then in robes and slippers he’d paddle around. And he’d work in the morning ... on the phone and make notes and stuff. Willicombe would send him in the mail.”

  Neither W. R. nor Marion appeared much before noon or had breakfast with their guests who assembled in the Morning Room, where staff took their orders. The food was served and eaten in the Refectory. “Breakfast was always just there. It was a buffet,” Bill, Jr. remembered. “Boxes of cornflakes and cream and milk and sugar and honey and stuff on the tables. And then if you wanted eggs you just said what you wanted.”9

  Lunch was served, buffet style, at 2 P.M. in the Refectory, though once guests had filled their plates and taken their seats, they were attended by the butler. Colleen Moore recalled that both luncheon and dinner were served with the same “beautiful blue Venetian glass, Blue Willow china, paper napkins, and bottles of catsup, mustard, pickles, jellies, etcetera. I guess Mr. Hearst had to prove his place was a ranch after all. You know, we all used to wonder what became of the bottles and jars that were left half full at the end of the meal, because at the next meal there were always new ones, freshly opened.”10

  After lunch, Hearst’s and Marion’s guests were free to do as they pleased in the afternoon, though the Chief always tried to get them to go outdoors. Colleen Moore remembers gathering with friends in San Simeon sitting rooms before roaring fires, curled up in enormous sofas, to “gossip and talk, and pretty soon Mr. Hearst would come in. He would say, ‘Come on now, get out and get the fresh air,’ and he’d make us all go out and go horseback riding. It was just dreadful. Marion was terrified of horses, just terrified.”11

  For those like Marion and Colleen Moore who did not want to ride, there were card games and jigsaw puzzles—some of them specially designed by Parker Brothers—in the Assembly Room,12 a library of books on the second floor, sunbathing on the terraces, swimming in the pools or at the beach at the bottom of the hill, visits to the zoo, and tennis, which had become something of a fad in Southern California in the 1920s. At San Simeon, almost everyone played. For those who arrived without the proper equipment, there were private dressing rooms near the courts with tennis rackets, shoes, and “whites” in every size. For the serious players, there were pros to hit balls with, including the champion Bill Tilden and the future champion Alice Marble. Tournaments were arranged for the weekends, with everyone involved as players or spectators. Hearst himself was an avid player and tried to take time out to play in the afternoon. Well into his seventies, with his Stetson on his head, he would stand in the middle of the court and expect his opponent to hit the ball back to him. He played with everyone—from actor Dick Powell to Alice Marble. As Joel McCrea recalled, the Chief “didn’t run around much, but if he could reach the ball and hit it, he did.”13

  More than anything else, the Chief enjoyed talking about his art collections with anyone who was interested. Bill Apperson, the son of Hearst’s cousin and ranch manager, Randolph Apperson, recalled in his oral history that when he showed an interest in the antiques and the paintings, Hearst, “was kind enough to give me some instruction, and to have discussions with me about it. Those were wonderful times down in the library on the second floor....If there were other young people here with their families, they were always invited, so he’d have four or five of us together when he’d give these little lectures for us.” Billy Haines, Marion’s co-star in Show People who later became one of Hollywood’s most important interior decorators, claimed that he learned most of what he knew from extended discussions with W. R. at San Simeon.14

  Hearst also tried to find time to go horseback rid
ing with his guests or take long walks or swim in his outdoor pool. Ilka Chase, who admitted in her autobiography that she had always found Mr. Hearst’s presence “alarming,” recalled the afternoon when “he scared me to death ... in the swimming pool, where he looked like an octopus.... He dived in and came up quite near me, and the sight of his long head with the white hair plastered down over his brow by the water, and his strange light eyes gleaming on a level with my own, sent me thrashing to the far end of the pool.”15

  Hearst’s favorite leisure activity was taking his guests on long horseback excursion-picnics to the far reaches of the ranch. Even in his seventies, the Chief loved nothing better than leading a party over miles and miles of trails, until they were all too tired to go on. “It really was a sadistic ride,” King Vidor remembered. “He’d let people lie down for about fifteen minutes and then he’d say, ‘Come on, up and at ’em! Let’s go!’” Occasionally, he would take his guests on an overnight “picnic” to a specially chosen destination. These excursions were planned in advance with almost military precision. Cars loaded with food, ice, and champagne were sent ahead so that when the riders arrived at their location, there was a fully supplied minicamp waiting for them. “We went over the mountain,” Eleanor Boardman remembered many years later. “It was a long way ... We saw smoke coming up. When we got there they had a big bonfire going; there was a tent for every person with a card table and with a wooden floor. There was a screen door. And we slept. We went to bed early. Bright and early the next morning, he yelled ‘Whoopee! Everybody up! I’m going down to that creek to clean that tooth.’ Then we’d ... get back into the same saddle again, a long trek home.... aching, hurting.” That night, there’d be dancing “all around the dining room,” with Hearst leading the way.16