Surprise in California

Rich, urbane Culbert Levy Olson, elderly matinee idol of Western politics, looks like the movies' conception of a Governor. Thick, white hair sets off his handsome, ruddy face. He has the half-weary smile, the resonant, half-weary voice of an elderly statesman. He likes to dress impeccably, smoke impeccably good cigars and espouse impeccably liberal ideas, not to say a few fancy pension schemes, if necessary.

But as Governor of California the last four years, Culbert Olson has had a wearily difficult time. A New Deal Democrat, he had to contend with a Republican State Senate, an almost evenly divided State Assembly, a hostile press (at one time he flatly refused to see any Hearst reporters) and a Republican attorney general. Last week it seemed as if his attorney general--serious, hard-working Earl Warren--might resolve all Culbert Olson's difficulties by throwing him out of office this November.

Running in both the Republican and Democratic primaries, Earl Warren easily won the Republican nomination with 633,000 votes. In the Democratic primary the score was Olson 496,000; Warren 395,000. Thus (as far as the primary was concerned) Warren got more than twice as many votes as Olson.

Rugged, ambitious Earl Warren made his reputation as the crusading district attorney of Alameda County (Oakland, Berkeley and the East Bay waterfront). There, in 13 years, he waged campaigns against bail-bond brokers, liquor-law violators, cleaning & dyeing racketeers, grafting politicians and labor "goon squads."

As California's attorney general, Earl Warren continued his dogged crusading: broke up illegal dog racing, harried bookmakers, made a spectacular raid on four gambling ships anchored off the coast near Los Angeles.

Culbert Olson was helped to the Governor's chair by enthusiastic support from the remnants of Upton Sinclair's EPIC following, Ham 'N' Eggers and from organized labor, to whom he had promised the pardon of labor's martyr, Tom Mooney. He since infuriated the Ham 'N' Eggers by turning down their fantastic pension plan, sponsoring one of his own. When war came, others were impatient with his dalliance: for months he bickered with the legislature over providing an adequate State Guard.

While Olson dawdled, Warren grabbed the ball, became a keyman in sponsoring anti-sabotage and alien legislation, organizing civil defense. With war the paramount issue, some Californians, conscious of their coastline, are beginning to think that Warren is the man to keep the ball.

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