The “New Deal”

  As we look ahead to an uncertain economic future brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic, let's look back at what steps government took to propel the Depression economy forward.          


On March 4, 1933, a huge crowd gathered around radios on Pine Avenue to listen to the inauguration of a new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

This new invention, the radio, brought the ceremonies in Washington to life.  To many, it felt as if they were actually witnessing the event, listening to the music, the cheers, the vows taken and the inaugural address itself.  Some thought it was actually better than being there, for how else could you get a first-hand, detailed report of things as they happened?  It was definitely preferable to being part of the crowding, milling mass in Washington.

            Later that evening there was a gathering in the Municipal Auditorium to celebrate the new Democratic regime. Various speakers, the Municipal Band, and the American Legion Drum Corps helped celebrate the new leadership that most hoped would pilot the country to a more prosperous era.

            Roosevelt was quick to act.  On March 6, 1933, in order to keep the banking system of the country from collapsing, FDR used the powers given by the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 and suspended all transactions in the Federal Reserve and other banks and financial institutions.  On March 9, Congress met in a special session and passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act.  This gave the president the power to reorganize all insolvent banks and provided the means by which sound banks could reopen their doors without long delay.  As Roosevelt was "shaking up" the financial community, Long Beach experienced a "shaking up" of its own.

           

Earthquake

          

  In late February 1933, demolition work on the picturesque old Hotel Virginia began.  It was estimated that it would require fifty men over a period of sixty days to complete the work   Huge fifteen ton air compressors operating 18 compressed air hammers were brought in and huge steel chutes running from the building to a continuous line of trucks  were employed.  However, the demolition crew got some help they weren’t expecting---at 5:54 p.m. on the evening of March 10, 1933, an earthquake struck.

         Memories for thousands were flash frozen --- preserved for a lifetime --- when the ground around Long Beach shook for 11 seemingly never ending seconds.  The killer force quake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, occurred at the optimum time to save lives.  Most people were home for dinner, off the streets and away from the schools that would face almost total destruction.  Still, 51 people were killed in Long Beach and an additional 91 in surrounding areas.

            Bricks and debris rained down on the streets, loosened by the powerful movement of the earth.  Buildings crumbled, streets buckled and fires erupted in several spots. Telephone poles swayed and snapped, putting the city's 32,052 phones out of service.  Electricity was gone but an alert gas company worker turned off the city's gas lines during the temblor preventing further fires.

            Fortunately, the city had a disaster plan, and the help of the Pacific Fleet anchored off the Long Beach coast. Electricity was restored to the downtown area by 7:30 p.m., but outlining hospitals were without power.  The city disaster center got on their portable radio and called on anyone with access to bootleg liquor to bring it to the command center.  From here they took it to hospitals to use in sterilizing surgical instruments.  Within an hour after the first jolt, all roads leading into the city were patrolled with the help of 2000 Navy men who came ashore with loads of blankets and supplies immediately after the first shock.  They stayed for almost a week, helping anywhere they could.

            In the area affected by the earthquake, 4,883 people were injured; 1,893 homes were destroyed, 31,495 damaged; 207 buildings were declared uninhabitable, 1,550 were deemed repairable.  All of the Long Beach schools suffered considerably, as did the city's churches.  On March 13, the State Legislature voted $50,000 ($996,000 today)for emergency relief in the way of food and clothing.  Later $150,000 ($3 million today) was appropriated for rehabilitation work in the quake struck area.  On March 14, the Senate passed a bill appropriating $5,000,000 ($100 million) as an outright gift for relief.  Long Beach, however, declined to accept any of this money, advising Washington authorities it did not desire charity, but rather an opportunity to borrow the money needed to carry on the work of rehabilitation.  Acting on this, Congress amended the act permitting loans from the funds.

            Long Beach bounced back quickly.  Rebuilding operations began the day after the quake.  By March 16, more than 5000 men were employed at removing debris and putting the town back together. Business activities resumed as quickly as possible.  By March 15, 75 stores had reopened.

            Tourists flocked to Long Beach to see the damage.  On March 20, over 200,000 cars and one million sightseers were in town.  By April, Long Beach was more or less back to normal. 

The Economy in 1934

            1934 marked the turning point in Long Beach's economic decline; after all, it would be hard to sink any further after the disasters of 1933.  Things were getting better. Long Beach was recovering from the effects of the earthquake; the Pacific Coast Club reopened in January with a week-long celebration; the renovated, redecorated and refurbished Imperial Theater opened its doors in August.  On June 30, 1934, beachgoers had a treat in store for them when a new $400,000 ($7.7 million), 37-acre state park on Alamitos Bay Peninsula opened. On September 1, 1934, five thousand attended the opening of the new Long Beach post office. The seven-story steel and concrete building was a far cry from the original one-story frame structure at Pine and Ocean which housed the first Long Beach Post Office forty-nine years earlier. 

            Gradually the Depression was lessening, but conditions in Long Beach were not as rosy as they seemed. In 1934, the finances of the city were at the lowest ebb in years.  In January, a petition was filed to recall all nine members of the City Council, the City Manager and the City Attorney.  Failure to prosecute the oil companies, who owed the city large sums of money on royalties, was given as the major reason for the recall.  Other charges cited were: incompetence, mismanagement, misuse of public funds, carelessness and a disregard for the rights of the citizens of Long Beach.  On July 10, voters ousted all City Council members and the City Attorney.

  

          It was an interesting time for Long Beach.  How was the city to run when there were no elected officials?  The City Charter stated recalled officials had to leave office at once. City Attorney Reid complied and George Trammell was appointed by the Council to fill the vacancy.  But what to do without a City Council?  There were two options:  the governor could intervene and appoint a temporary Council until the vacancies were filled, or, based on State law, the recalled Council could continue to hold sessions and transact business until the election of their successors.  Since State law superseded local laws, the second option was instituted, but not for long -- an election for new officials was called for August 17, 1934.

            It was a fascinating election.  There were more than 130 candidates for the nine offices and when election records were checked it was found that a vast throng of men and women registered to vote were not qualified to do so.  Despite these problems, Frank Barnes, Clarence Wagner, John Schimmer, Benjamin Kirkland, Thomas Eaton, Carl Fletcher, Melvin Campbell, Leroy Cederberg and Virgil Spongberg were voted into office.  The new Council members pledged to institute strict economic measures in running city government and balancing the budget.  It would be up to them, according to the City Charter, to either keep the current City Manager and City Attorney or seek new ones.

            The new regime faced the immediate problem of balancing the budget.  On August 24, 1934, trying to live up to their campaign pledges, the Council voted an eighteen per cent salary cut for all city employees. By doing this, they balanced the budget and avoided raising tax or gas rates or abolishing free trash collection. City employees were outraged, having already taken cuts ranging from 13 to 30 per cent during the past three years.  The firemen, with their wages fixed by city ordinance, flatly refused to accept a wage reduction.  The Council quickly backed down coming up with an indefinite plan for slashing here, pinching there and raising the gas rate.  The Council needed help and help was to come in the form of a new City Manager -- Randall Dorton.

  

12/12/1938

          On September 13, the City Council agreed on the selection of Randall M. Dorton, City Manager of Monterey for nine years, as the new City Manager of Long Beach.  Dorton was a graduate of the University of California, holding a master's degree in political science.  This was the first time since the appointment of Charles E. Hewes in 1921 that Long Beach had selected a candidate from outside the city to fill the important administrative role.  Hewes had tried to be an impartial manager, abiding by the City Charter, not the political machinations of the city.  He had been recalled the following year, and a "Long Beach man" appointed in his stead.  Would another "outsider" fall victim to the Long Beach political machine?  Amazingly, Dorton set a record for time in office.  The average time spent in the role of City Manager by his eight predecessors (Charles Hewes, Charles Windham, Charles Henderson, H.S. Callahan, George Buck, C.C. Lewis, E.S. Dobbin, James Bonner) was eighteen months, Dorton, who began serving on October 1, 1934 left office on August 31, 1939.

            Dorton had a hard road ahead of him.  Within six months of their election, another recall attempt was aimed at the new City Council.  Proposition 17, on the ballot in 1935, was designed to stop what was called "recall racketeering."  It was common practice for hired people to take voters to City Hall to sign recall petitions.  Often those who signed were given monetary rewards.  Proposition 17 prohibited such practices and also increased the required number of recall petition signers from 10 to 25 percent of qualified voters.  It also exempted the City Manager from recall, making the Long Beach Charter conform to the general plan of the Council-Manager form of government, which stipulated Councilmen were responsible to the people, and the City Manager to the Council.  The charter amendment carried by a majority of 5150 and the anti-recall forces swept all but one of the 137 precincts in the City.

The WPA

            Long Beach survived an earthquake in 1933 and a recall election in 1934. Better times were to follow when, on May 6, 1935, Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order, to organize "light" public works projects for those workers not employed by the "heavy" public works agencies such as the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). All were to work for their money because Roosevelt shared former President Herbert Hoover's aversion to the dole, calling it, “a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

            In order to qualify as a WPA project, the projects could not compete with private enterprise and had to have a persuasive social value.  Where people had useful skills, the WPA eagerly used them.  Discovering that artists, musicians, and writers were hit hard by the economic times of the 1930s, the WPA organized projects to utilize their talents.

Naples Canal Walls After 1933 Earthquake

            Not all proposed WPA projects were approved, much to the dismay of Naples residents. Since the early 1930s, the canal walls of Naples, built in 1905, had been crumbling.  The 1933 earthquake was the final straw, collapsing the already fragile walls.  For four years, Naples residents petitioned the City and the federal government to repair them, even threatening to secede from Long Beach if their demands weren't met.  They were outraged when WPA Administration officials turned down funding saying the canals should be filled in.  The costs were too high in proportion to the number of people to benefit, the government claimed.  Eventually, with the aid of state, county and city funds, reconstruction work started.

            On August 26, 1939, Naples held a celebration and formally dedicated the new walls.  In attendance was Arthur M. Parsons, 81, known as the "father of Naples."  It was due to his efforts that the community had begun.  Adding a touch of pageantry to the afternoon's celebration was the appearance of King Neptune and his court, which floated down the Rivo Alto Canal.  Perhaps the most popular event was the men's bathing beauty contest, which brought lots of laughter from the on lookers.

            A few days after the Naples dedication, war broke out in Europe. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On September 3, Poland’s allies declared war on Germany. World War II had begun. The Great Depression was soon over as European nations looked to America and the country’s industrial strength to supply their economic and war needs. Industry and employment skyrocketed in the United States, especially in Southern California with the growth of shipyards, aviation and oil production.