The Liberals

They were part-time party workers and armchair politicians--college professors, businessmen, young lawyers, and the labor rank-and-file. They met last week in a Fresno hotel to endorse some candidates for elective office. The California Democratic Council proved that grass roots are not always green.

Since Adlai Stevenson's bid for the Presidency in 1952, California (Big "D") Democracy has undergone a complex devolution back to the little man. The West's multiplying middle class and mushroom unionism suddenly discovered a stake in the political nation. People too busy, too old, or too worried to pay more than breakfast table attention to affairs of state began to meet on Friday nights in a neighbor's home; they gathered into organizations throughout the Golden State, invited speakers and began to read the Congressional Record.

Cake sales and community dances brought assembly-men and city councilors before the local public. Clubs, women's luncheon groups, and cocktail party statesmen served notice on the Democratic machine that they were tired of grubby candidates the calibre of Jimmy Roosevelt and Richard Graves. Years '52-'56 were the years of building, the hours of the amateur and the liberal, November mornings with young men like Richard Richards. Issues became important.

California, the land of cults and characters, had seen youth assert itself before--when Upton Sinclair almost captured the state house and Hiram Johnson clicked his heels in the Capitol. California, the political incubator for Knowlands, Knights, and Nixons, endured in its weary Western way the assault of the amateurs.

The assault never really materialized. The clubs elected representatives; the representatives went to district meetings; the district meetings nominated delegates to the state convention. But all along the line, the professionals shifted quorums and re-read constitutions, and only the talk was great.

In 1954, despite the clubs, Sam Yorty was the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. Congressman Yorty was a professional, a mustached Democratic Dewey who fought no-holds-barred and never heard of amateur idealism. Liberals were treated to a campaign in which both candidates accused each other of being soft on subversives. Yorty lost to Thomas Kuchel by half a million votes.

State Senator Richard Richards, the fair-haired boy of young Democracy, fared scarcely better against Kuchel in Eisenhower's 1956 popularity contest. Idealists like Ray Simpson in the 18th C.D. spoke long and futile words about the hydrogen bomb and American foreign policy. The public delivered no mandates.

By the winter of 1957 the hour of idealism has expended itself. The little clubs and luncheon groups had seen Adlai Stevenson flop twice. Nights by the radio listening to returns embittered the early hopefulness.

Last week the Republican big-weights had jockeyed themselves into position. At Fresno's amateur Democratic fling, there were few amateurs. The years had been a bitter education. Red-eyed, knowledgeable, and disillusioned, they nominated Pat Brown for governor--against William Knowland; and Congressman Clair Engle for senator--against "Goodie" Knight. They passed up Petter Odeguard (a Berkeley political science professor) and Richard Richards, and endorsed a ticket of warmed-over conservative vegetables to serve to the public in November.

California is five-to-three Democratic, but pool-room Angelenos and the Gardena oddsmakers are betting on Knowland and Knight. The past has proven that in times of muddy principles, the big name always wins. Meanwhile, the amateurs have gone back to bedroom grumbling and the sort of self-indulgence that keeps America on the middle road to nowhere.