The Battle for Beverly Hills

by Nancie Clare

  Naturally, it was William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner that managed to get a few digs in about the rich and famous who lived in Beverly Hills, casting the election as a rather frivolous exercise of the leisure class that had little better to do. (The paper had a conflicted approach to the moneyed suburb. Even though it cast itself as the voice of the people, Hearst’s mistress, actress Marion Davies, had one of the palatial mansions—paid for and maintained by Hearst—that the paper so loved to pillory.) The Examiner’s article is headlined “Plain Water Stirs Beverly,” and it tells of a fund-raising effort by the anti-annexationists that raised $32,000 in about four minutes before naming some of the more illustrious non-celeb and celeb “antis”: “among the [no-to-LA] are such plethoric individuals as Frederick K. Stearns, multimillionaire pharmaceutical manufacturer; S.M. Spalding, with a car for every mood; J.K. Woolwine, brother of the District Attorney, and a host of other celebrities, which includes such hill dwellers as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Ray, Fred Niblo and Will Rogers.

  “The town is plastered with red-type rejoinders, data, charges, counter-charges and a great deal of other naked language, the latest on the boards being a large sheet hurtling this: ‘Lie No. 1.’”2

  There are no records indicating exactly how the city fathers felt about the involvement of the moving picture folk, only anecdotal asides in notes for articles and in the transcript of the 1946 conversation with onetime owner of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Stanley Anderson. It’s a good guess, though, that those who were against the annexation welcomed the support of their famous neighbors and those in favor of joining Los Angeles chafed at what looked like the outsized influence of the picture folk.

  But it is the involvement of the picture folk and their influence that changed the equation; this political campaign differed from any that had taken place previously anywhere else in the world. Both sides had hired marketing and publicity men, so there were certainly plenty of the more conventional approaches that had stood the test of time for informing and trying to influence the electorate one way or another. Aside from the external trappings of any election, such as signs and banners, there were plenty of informational meetings, mostly at the city’s schools, with experts that included hydraulic engineers, the city’s Board of Trustees—as officials of the civic government were called—representatives of the Rodeo Land and Water Company, developers, and realtors.

  It was all in the presentation. By any measure, especially wealth, the citizenry of Beverly Hills was sophisticated for its time. They took the issue of deciding on annexation seriously, were engaged in the campaign, and were interested in learning everything they could about the impact it would have on their city. But the meetings with experts and elected officials were just that, meetings—where a man, or men—would address and take questions from citizens in an audience. Each armed with their own set of facts that fit their arguments, these were the experts—technocrats, bureaucrats, and businessmen—who could speak knowledgeably about water tables, wells, purification plants, land values, density, transportation, and schools. There was no doubt that the men who campaigned both for and against felt they had the best interests of the city and its denizens at heart. Since most of the men were successful in their chosen fields, they were often very convincing when they spoke. Informational gatherings on the challenges Beverly Hills was facing were elucidating, but in a thoroughly conventional, expected way.

  So what was it that made Mary Pickford think she, and by extension her team of fellow picture folk, could step in and change the calculus of an election process and influence voters? Well, for one thing, from her experience promoting Liberty Bonds she had a pretty good idea how instant recognition owing to her fame could be channeled into influence. But in the Liberty Bond tours, she was exhorting the crowds to channel their better selves and support the war effort; in Beverly Hills she would be convincing her neighbors to join her in taking a leap of faith. For most canvassers for a cause, the first step in the process would be introducing themselves and trying to get a foot in the door to make their case. That’s not something Mary Pickford and the other seven celebs had to do. When you have one of the world’s most famous faces, introductions are redundant; if you show up at a neighbor’s front door, it’s a foregone conclusion that you’re going to be invited in. While it was true that Mary and her cohorts were not experts in the nuts and bolts of city services such as water, trash collection, and sewage treatment, that wasn’t the platform they were campaigning on. It was their belief that cities were not just places that existed in geography, they were ideas, and that was the object of their crusade to remain independent.3 Los Angeles was one idea: that water meant might and might meant right. In little over fifteen years, fueled first by the anticipation of and then by the reality of the melted snowpack that streamed down from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains through the Owens Valley, and then by the petroleum being sucked from under the ground, Los Angeles had become a megalomaniacal steamroller subsuming the cities that stood in line waiting to be absorbed. The independent city of Hollywood had been an idea; a teetotal town with ruler-straight streets lined with pepper trees and a church on every corner. For all the promises that Los Angeles made in 1910 to Hollywood, a city founded by those who eschewed alcohol, after Hollywood voted for annexation and Los Angeles had voted to accept its annexation, none of those assurances had been kept. Quite likely, with the same instincts that had served Mary her entire life, she intuited that things would go the same way for Beverly Hills. The garden city with its large lots on curvilinear streets, each bordered by a single kind of tree, and a permanent greensward adjacent to Santa Monica Boulevard, on the length that ran through Beverly Hills, created to forever separate the residential and business districts, would not stand. Los Angeles had its own way of doing “city” and it involved businesses on main streets, such as Santa Monica Boulevard, and cheek-by-jowl housing packed on the straight streets that bisected the commercial streets at right angles. Eventually, and judging by the changes the independent city of Hollywood underwent fairly quickly after annexation, what had made Beverly Hills unique would be lost. For the campaign for Beverly Hills to remain an independent city, Mary would have to create a different approach. That may just have been the secret sauce that Mary Pickford figured out and put to use: making the leap between connecting with an audience and making a personal, often one-on-one, live-and-in-person connection with her neighbors. She and her fellow anti-annexationist picture folk were actors, familiar with assuming roles and making audiences believe. They were perfectly capable of shifting their performances depending on the role and the intended audience. Experts could give opinions to the citizens of Beverly Hills in an effort to make them see the respective sides, but since making others suspend disbelief was their stock-in-trade, by making themselves available up close and in person, Mary and her cohorts could make the same citizens believe. It worked because people felt as though they knew and trusted Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Will Rogers, Conrad Nagel, Rudolph Valentino, and Fred Niblo—and actually had a personal relationship with them through their roles in the movies. Mary Pickford, Doug Fairbanks, and the rest of the team capitalized on that illusion and had only to establish the common denominator of a shared hometown to make a connection that would resonate and matter. And by going door-to-door,4 that’s exactly what they did. All it cost was time on the part of the picture folk, but the value of their time and effort in convincing their Beverly Hills neighbors to vote against annexation was priceless. Residents of other cities who were opposed to annexation to Los Angeles, including Hollywood and Venice, hadn’t had celebrities to aid their cause.

  Of the two sides, the anti-annexationists certainly had more reason for concern about the outcome. The issue of adequate water for Beverly Hills, and where additional sources would be found, was front and center. The legal process being brought by the pro-annexationists contesting the quality of the additional water so
urce that Beverly Hills had found was moving forward in Sacramento, the state capital, with its first hearing set for April 7, 1923. Both sides realized that, depending on the rulings of the California State Board of Health, the timing for the hearings was either propitious or calamitous. However, the anti-annexationists felt they had the most to lose. If the Board of Health determined the water was unsafe so close to the election, that message might mean the death knell for Beverly Hills. In the absence of a ruling, and with the attention of Beverly Hills citizens fixed on the machinations that were taking place in front of the California State Board of Health in Sacramento in the days leading up to the special election on Tuesday, April 24, 1923, their work was necessary.

  According to the minutes of the first meeting before the State Board of Health in Sacramento on April 7, 1923, with both representatives of the Rodeo Land and Water Company’s Beverly Hills Utility Company, City Engineer A. J. Salisbury, and trustee and attorney Paul E. Schwab from the City of Beverly Hills in attendance, the City of Beverly Hills requested a permit to develop a well water supply and a permit for sewage disposal. No decisions on the quality of water from the new well were made. According to the minutes of the meeting, the motion was carried and a public hearing was scheduled for nine o’clock in the morning, April 20, 1923, at the Pacific Finance Building in Los Angeles.5 Because the hearing in Los Angeles was scheduled four days before the vote, the outcome had the potential to deliver the election to one side or the other. The stakes could not have been higher.

  Although there are no minutes of the April 20, 1923, meeting held in Los Angeles, the proceedings were covered by two of the city’s daily papers, the Los Angeles Examiner and the Los Angeles Times. And according to the Examiner, there were fireworks coming from both sides. Given the timing, the hearing gave the pro-annexation advocates the opportunity for a preemptive move: If the trustees of the City of Beverly Hills’ petition for the authority to install a water supply system was turned down, the vote on annexation the following Tuesday would certainly go in favor of joining Los Angeles. After all, Beverly Hills had to have water. To that end, pro-annexation advocates, with their doctors, scientists, and lawyers in tow, showed up in force to do what they could to stop the process. The anti-annexationists had come prepared with their own team of experts that included attorney and city trustee Paul E. Schwab along with City Engineer A. J. Salisbury, both of whom attended the first meeting in Sacramento, along with attorney Major Walter Tuller and J. B. Lippincott (the hydraulic engineer who had worked for both sides of the annexation issue and was now on the anti-annexation payroll). Representing the pro-annexation cause was Francis J. Heney, hired by the Rodeo Land and Water Company as their chief council for the effort. Heney was assisted by H. F. Prince as well as engineers A. L. Sonderegger and E. R. Bowen.

  Both sides of the annexation argument lined up to testify before Dr. Walter M. Dickie, the secretary of the California State Board of Health; Chief Engineer F. R. Goudrey of the southern division; and attorney J. M. McFarland. Each side spoke about the quality of water from the Gold Seal Well, the name of the potential new water source for Beverly Hills, in what was seen as a battle by proxy for the election that was to take place the following week. According to coverage in the Los Angeles Examiner, “Dr. C.G. Griffin of a local chemical company filed a report at the hearing in which he condemned the water from the well as unfit for human consumption and domestic purposes. He said the mineral matter made it too hard for laundry, cooking, bathing and other domestic purposes, and unfit to drink.”6 The health expert for the anti-annexation side, Dr. Walter Brem, countered that the mineral content made the water “the kind a health resort might like to use.”7

  The key witness of the proceeding was C. G. Gillespie, the California State Board of Health’s sanitary engineer. In his testimony, Gillespie said that the Gold Seal Well “might be safe if it were drilled deep enough with two iron pipes, one inside, the other with a concrete filling between.” But there was a caveat, according to Gillespie, “the well, after being drilled to 150 feet, might not produce enough water to bother about.” At that, the anti-annexationist lawyers pounced, saying that “the proceedings were of a political rather than an inquisitory nature, and that the main purpose was to sway voters at the annexation election which Beverly Hills will hold next Tuesday.”8

  And so it went. Sensing that the matter had as much or more to do with politics than the safety of Beverly Hills’ future water supply, the Board of Health adjourned and postponed further consideration, along with their decision on issuing a permit to drill the new well, until its next regular meeting, which would be in May—after the annexation election. At the end of its coverage of the April 20 hearing, the Los Angeles Examiner wrote, “Should annexation to Los Angeles be voted at next Tuesday’s election the whole controversy will end, as Beverly Hills will get Owens River aqueduct water, and the disputed wells will not be needed.”9 While the pro-annexationists had been unable to stop consideration for a permit being issued, they must have been quite pleased by the article’s conclusion; they couldn’t have said it better themselves.

  No doubt the Beverly Hills Eight worked feverishly over the weekend to counter the L.A. Examiner news article that appeared the Saturday before the election. Then, on Monday, April 23, 1923, the day before Beverly Hills voters were to go to the polls, the pro-annexationists sprang their final pre-election stunt. Bottles containing water with a high and quite odoriferous sulfur content were placed on every doorstep with a note that said, “Warning! Drink Sparingly of This Water, As It Has Laxative Qualities,” followed by this all-capital-letter admonition: “THIS IS A SAMPLE OF THE WATER WHICH THE TRUSTEES OF THE CITY OF BEVERLY HILLS PROPOSE AS A WATER SUPPLY FOR OUR CITY!” The label concluded with the official-sounding, “An Affidavit certifying that this water is a true sample taken from the well the trustees propose is deposited at the First National Bank of Beverly Hills.”10 Bottles of smelly water were piddling accomplishments for Harrison Lewis, the Rodeo Land and Water Company employee who was in charge of the pro-annexation campaign. Lewis had been the Rodeo Land and Water Company employee who had tried to turn anti-annexationist William Joyce to the pro-annexation side and he was well known for attention-getting publicity stunts. According to reports in the Los Angeles Record, the previous December, Lewis had “personally superintended the printer’s ink bombing” exhorting development in Beverly Hills by dropping flyers from the open cockpit of an airplane on the attendees of the California Real Estate Convention that took place in Anaheim.11

  According to recollections of former city clerk Firminger, judging by the signage displayed on homes and businesses, the general feeling in Beverly Hills was distinctly anti-annexation. But that could be an example of twenty-twenty hindsight on his part; when it comes to the outcome of an election, looks can be deceiving. None of the anti-annexationists, famous silent screen stars and prominent wealthy citizens alike, would have gone to bed the night before the election confident of victory.

  Tuesday, April 24, 1923, dawned cool and clear, if a bit on the damp side, with a relative humidity of seventy-five percent. The forecast from the local office of the U.S. Weather Service printed in the Los Angeles Times that morning was for continued clear skies, no precipitation, and a high intraday temperature of 67°F,12 perfect conditions for going to the polls. At last, as B. J. Firminger wrote, “The shouting and tumult, the arguing and buttonholeing [sic] ended, the day of the great annexation election finally arrived.”13 According to the Examiner, “The campaign … was one of the most spectacular ever staged in California. It is estimated that the two sides spent something like $75,000, which is about $75 a voter.”14

  By the terms set forward in Resolution #73, the polling place, located at the city clerk’s office at City Hall on Canon Drive near Burton Way, was to be opened at six a.m. and stay open until seven p.m. For the purposes of the special election, “one special election precinct is hereby created … and shall embrace all of the territory with
in the said City of Beverly Hills.”15

  As usual, it was the coverage in the Los Angeles Examiner that was the most colorful. In its April 25, 1923, edition it wrote:

  “The motion picture stars who have helped to make the hills of this suburban Elysium blossom with their palatial piles nearly all voted early, and they did not overlook the very practical requisite of loading their cars down with an interesting miscellany of maid servants, chauffeurs, gardeners, chefs and what not. The sentiment among these, it was reported, was unanimously against annexation. Among the names to go into the register during the early morning watches were those of Priscilla Dean, Enid Bennett, Gloria Swanson, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ray, Douglas McLean, Fred K. Niblo, Hobart Bosworth and Robert McKim.”16

  According to former Beverly Hills city clerk Firminger, about 90 percent of the city’s registered voters went to the polling place that day17 in what was “said to be the largest vote ever recorded in a single Los Angeles county precinct.”18 The atmosphere was tense, to say the least. Francis J. Heney, the San Francisco lawyer hired by the pro-annexation Rodeo Land and Water Company, was in attendance “with law book in hand, seated where he could look the electorate in the face.”19 In fact, according to the April 25, 1923, L.A. Examiner article, “The room was full of challengers and every citizen had to run a gauntlet of the codes and statutes appertaining: it was enough to make the most honest sovereign voter shudder with a sense of guilt to find all these suspicious eyes boring him through.”20