Earl Warren Oral History ProjectLegislator for Fair Employment, Fair Housing, and Public Health: William Byron RumfordWith an Introduction by A. Wayne AmersonAn Interview Conducted by Joyce A. Henderson, Amelia Fry, Edward FranceThe Bancroft Library
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Use Restrictions
All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the Regents of the University of California and William Byron Rumford, dated October 31, 1972. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley.
Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with William Byron Rumford requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.
Earl Warren Oral History Project
(California, 1926-1953)
Single Interview Volumes
Amerson, A. Wayne, Northern California and Its Challenges to a Negro in the Mid-1900s, with an introduction by Henry Ziesenhenne. 1974, 103 p.
Breed, Arthur, Jr., Alameda County and the California Legislature: 1935-1958. 1977, 65 p.
Burger, Warren. In process.
Carter, Oliver J., A Leader in the California Senate and the Democratic Party, 1940-1950. 1979, 200 p.
Carty, Edwin L., Hunting, Politics, and the Fish and Game Commission. 1975, 104 p.
Chatters, Ford, View from the Central Valley: The California Legislature, Water, Politics, and The State Personnel Board, with an introduction by Harold Schutt. 1976, 197 p.
Dellums, C. L., International President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Civil Rights Leader, with an introduction by Tarea Pittman. 1973, 159 p.
Faries, McIntyre, California Republicans, 1934-1953. 1973, 155 p.
Graves, Richard, Theoretician, Advocate, and Candidate in California State Government. 1973, 219 p.
Huntington, Emily H., A Career in Consumer Economics and Social Insurance, with an introduction by Charles A. Gulick. 1971, 111 p.
Jahnsen, Oscar J., Enforcing the Law Against Gambling, Bootlegging, Graft, Fraud, and Subversion, 1922-1942. 1976, 212 p.
Johnson, Gardiner. In process.
MacGregor, Helen S., A Career in Public Service with Earl Warren, with an introduction by Earl Warren. 1973, 249 p.
McGee, Richard Allen, Participant in the Evolution of American Corrections: 1931-1973. 1976, 223 p.
McLaughlin, Donald, Careers in Mining Geology and Management, University Governance and Teaching, with an introduction by Charles Meyer. 1975, 318 p.
Olney, Warren III, Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration in the Earl Warren Era. 1981, 523 p.
Patterson, Edgar James, Governor's Mansion Aide to Prison Counselor, with an introduction by Merrell F. Small. 1975, 79 p.
Pittman, Tarea, NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker, with an introduction by C. L. Dellums. 1974, 159 p.
Powers, Robert B., Law Enforcement, Race Relations: 1930-1960, with an introduction by Robert W. Kenny. 1971, 180 p.
Rumford, William Byron, Legislator for Fair Employment, Fair Housing, and Public Health, with an introduction by A. Wayne Amerson. 1973, 152 p.
Shell, Joseph. In process.
Sherry, Arthur H., The Alameda County District Attorney's Office and the California Crime Commission. 1976, 146 p.
Small, Merrell F., The Office of the Governor Under Earl Warren. 1972, 227 p.
Sweigert, William, Democrat, Friend, and Advisor to Earl Warren. In process.
Taylor, Paul Schuster, CALIFORNIA SOCIAL SCIENTIST, Three Volumes .
Volume I : Education, Field Research, and Family, with an introduction by Lawrence I. Hewes. 1973, 342 p.
Volume II and III : California Water and Agricultural Labor, with introductions by Paul W. Gates and George M. Foster. 1975, 519 p.
Warren, Earl, Conversations with Earl Warren on California Government. 1981, 337 p.
Wollenberg, Albert, To Do the Job Well: A Life in Legislative, Judicial, and Community Service. 1981, 396 p.
Multi-Interview VolumesPERSPECTIVES ON THE ALAMEDA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, with an introduction by Arthur H. Sherry. Three volumes .
Volume I : 1972, 137 p.
Mullins, John F., How Earl Warren Became District Attorney.
Balaban, Edith, Reminiscences about Nathan Harry Miller, Deputy District Attorney, Alameda County.
Hamlin, Judge Oliver D., Reminiscences about the Alameda County District Attorney's Office in the 1920s and 30s.
Shaw, Mary, Perspectives of a Newspaperwoman.
Shea, Willard W., Recollections of Alameda County's First Public Defender.
Volume II : 1973, 322 p.
Chamberlain, Richard H., Reminiscences about the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
Jester, Lloyd, Reminiscences of an Inspector in the District Attorney's Office.
Heinrichs, Beverly, Reminiscences of a Secretary in the District Attorney's Office.
Severin, Clarence E., Chief Clerk in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
Spence, Homer R., Attorney, Legislator, and Judge.
Daly, E. A., Alameda County Political Leader and Journalist.
Bruce, John, A Reporter Remembers Earl Warren.
Volume III : 1974, 165 p.
Coakley, J. Frank, A Career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
Hederman, Albert E., Jr., From Office Boy to Assistant District Attorney.
Jensen, Lowell, Reflections of the Alameda County District Attorney.
Oakley, James H., Early Life of a Warren Assistant.
EARL WARREN'S BAKERSFIELD. 1971, 185 p.
Ashe, Maryann, and Ruth Smith Henley, Earl Warren's Bakersfield.
Cavins, Omar, Coming of Age in Bakersfield.
Vaughan, Francis, Schooldays in Bakersfield.
Kreiser, Ralph, A Reporter Recollects the Warren Case.
Manford, Martin and Ernest McMillan, On Methias Warren.
BEE PERSPECTIVES OF THE WARREN ERA. 1976, 186 p.
Rodda, Richard, From the Capitol Press Room.
Phillips, Herbert L., Perspective of a Political Reporter.
Jones, Walter P., An Editor's Long Friendship with Earl Warren.
EARL WARREN'S CAMPAIGNS. Three Volumes .
Volume I : 1976, 324 p.
Barnes, Stanley N., Experiences in Grass Roots Organization.
Cunningham, Thomas J., Southern California Campaign Chairman for Earl Warren, 1946.
Draper, Murray, Warren's 1946 Campaign in Northern California.
Mailliard, William S., Earl Warren in the Governor's Office.
Mull, Archibald M., Jr., Warren Fund-Raiser; Bar Association Leader.
McNitt, Rollin Lee, A Democrat for Warren.
Volume II : 1977, 341 p.
Knowland, William F., California Republican Politics in the 1930s.
Feigenbaum, B. Joseph, Legislator, Partner of Jesse Steinhart, Aide to Earl Warren.
Ladar, Samuel, Jesse Steinhart, Race Relations, and Earl Warren.
Steinhart, John, Jesse and Amy Steinhart.
Hansen, Victor, West Coast Defense During World War II; The California Gubernatorial Campaign of 1950.
Mellon, Thomas J., Republican Campaigns of 1950 and 1952.
Volume III : 1978, 242 p.
McCormac, Keith, The Conservative Republicans of 1952.
CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS IN THE EARL WARREN ERA. 1976, 278 p.
Clifton, Florence, California Democrats, 1934-1950.
Clifton, Robert, The Democratic Party, Culbert L. Olson, and the Legislature.
Kent, Roger, A Democratic Leader Looks at the Warren Era.
Outland, George, James Roosevelt's Primary Campaign, 1950.
Post, Langdon, James Roosevelt's Northern California Campaign, 1950.
Roosevelt, James, Campaigning for Governor Against Earl Warren, 1950.
THE GOVERNOR'S FAMILY. 1980, 209 p.
Warren, Earl, Jr., California Politics.
Warren, James, Recollections of the Eldest Warren Son.
Warren, Nina (Honeybear) [Mrs. Stuart Brien], Growing Up in the Warren Family.
Warren, Robert, Playing, Hunting, Talking.
EARL WARREN: FELLOW CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS. 1979, 244 p.
Brown, Edmund G., Sr., The Governor's Lawyer.
Kenney, Robert, Attorney General for California and the 1946 Gubernatorial Campaign.
Kuchel, Thomas H., California State Controller.
CALIFORNIA STATE FINANCE IN THE 1940s, with an introduction by Stanley Scott. 1974, 406 p.
Links, Fred, An Overview of the Department of Finance.
Groff, Ellis, Some Details of Public Revenue and Expenditure in the 1940s.
Killion, George, Observations on Culbert Olson, Earl Warren, and Money Matters in Public Affairs.
Post, A. Alan, Watchdog on State Spending.
Leake, Paul, Statement on the Board of Equalization.
THE WARRENS: FOUR PERSONAL VIEWS. 1976, 137 p.
Albright, Horace, Earl Warren Job Hunting at the Legislature.
Stone, Irving and Jean, Earl Warren's Friend and Biographer.
Henderson, Betty Foot, Secretary to Two Warrens.
Swig, Benjamin H., Shared Social Concerns.
EARL WARREN AND HEALTH INSURANCE: 1943-1949. 1971, 216 p.
Lee, Russel VanArsdale, M.D., Pioneering in Prepaid Group Medicine.
Salsman, Byrl R., Shepherding Health Insurance Bills Through the California Legislature.
Claycombe, Gordon, The Making of a Legislative Committee Study.
Cline, John W., M.D., California Medical Association Crusade Against Compulsory State Health Insurance.
HUNTING AND FISHING WITH EARL WARREN. 1976, 186 p.
Cavanaugh, Bartley, A Mutual Interest in Government, Politics, and Sports.
Lynn, Wallace, Hunting and Baseball Companion.
THE JAPANESE-AMERICAN RELOCATION REVIEWED, with an introduction by Mike M. Masaoka. Two Volumes .
Volume I : Decision and Exodus. 1976, 196 p.
Rowe, James, The Japanese Evacuation Decision.
Heckendorf, Percy C., Planning for the Japanese Evacuation: Reforming Regulatory Agency Procedures.
Clark, Tom, Comments on the Japanese-American Relocation.
Ennis, Edward, A Justice Department Attorney Comments on the Japanese-American Relocation.
Wenig, Herbert, The California Attorney General's Office, the Judge Advocate General Corps, and Japanese-American Relocation.
Volume II : The Internment. 1974, 267 p.
Cozzens, Robert, Assistant National Director of the War Relocation Authority.
Myer, Dillon S., War Relocation Authority: The Director's Account.
Kingman, Ruth W., The Fair Play Committee and Citizen Participation.
Hibi, Hisako, painting of Tanforan and Topaz camps.
EARL WARREN: THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP. 1977, 245 p.
Brownell, Herbert, Earl Warren's Appointment to the Supreme Court.
Finkelstein, Louis, Earl Warren's Inquiry into Talmudic Law.
Hagerty, James, Campaigns Revisited: Earl Warren, Thomas Dewey, and Dwight Eisenhower.
Oliver, William, Inside the Warren Court, 1953-1954.
Richman, Martin F., Law Clerk for Chief Justice Warren, 1956-1957.
Stassen, Harold, Eisenhower, the 1952 Republican Convention, and Earl Warren.
LABOR LOOKS AT EARL WARREN. 1970, 145 p.
Bulcke, Germain, A Longshoreman's Observations.
Chaudet, Joseph W., A Printer's View.
Heide, Paul, A Warehouseman's Reminiscences.
Simonds, U. S., A Carpenter's Comments.
Vernon, Ernest H., A Machinist's Recollection.
LABOR LEADERS VIEW THE WARREN ERA, with an introduction by George W. Johns. 1976, 126 p.
Ash, Robert S., Alameda County Labor Council During the Warren Years.
Haggerty, Cornelius J., Labor, Los Angeles, and the Legislature.
EARL WARREN AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HYGIENE. 1973, 223 p.
Tallman, Frank F., M.D., Dynamics of Change in State Mental Institutions.
Hume, Portia Bell, M.D., Mother of Community Mental Health Services.
RICHARD M. NIXON IN THE WARREN ERA. 1980,
Jorgensen, Frank E., The Organization of Richard Nixon's Congressional Campaigns, 1946-1952.
Day, Roy O., Campaigning with Richard Nixon, 1946-1952.
Dinkelspiel, John Walton, Recollections of Richard Nixon's 1950 Senatorial Campaign in Northern California.
Adams, Earl, Financing Richard Nixon's Campaigns From 1946 to 1960.
Crocker, Roy P., Gathering Southern California Support for Richard Nixon in the 1950 Senate Race.
THE GOVERNOR AND THE PUBLIC, THE PRESS, AND THE LEGISLATURE. 1973, 177 p.
Gallagher, Marguerite, Administrative Procedures in Earl Warren's Office, 1938-53.
Scoggins, Verne, Observations on California Affairs by Governor Earl Warren's Press Secretary.
Vasey, Beach, Governor Warren and the Legislature.
EARL WARREN AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH, with an introduction by E. S. Rogers. 1973, 409 p.
Merrill, Malcolm H., M.D., M.P.H., A Director Reminisces.
Stead, Frank M., Environmental Pollution Control.
Ongerth, Henry, Recollections of the Bureau of Samitary Engineering.
Zimmerman, Kent A., M.D., Mental Health Concepts.
Arnstein, Lawrence, Public Health Advocates and Issues.
THE SHIPBOARD MURDER CASE: LABOR, RADICALISM, AND EARL WARREN, 1936-1941. 1976, 276 p.
Ramsay, Ernest G., Reminiscences of a Defendant in the Shipboard Murder Case.
Grossman, Aubrey, A Defense Attorney Assesses the King, Ramsay, Conner Case.
Harris, Myron, A Defense Attorney Reminisces.
Resner, Herbert, The Recollections of the Attorney for Frank Conner.
Johnson, Miriam Dinkin, The King-Ramsay-Conner Defense Committee: 1938-1941.
Odeen, Peter, Captain of the Point Lobos.
EARL WARREN AS EXECUTIVE: SOCIAL WELFARE AND STATE PARKS. 1977, 147 p.
Drury, Newton, A Conservative Comments on Earl Warren and Harold Ickes.
Schottland, Charles I., State Director of Social Welfare, 1950-54.
EARL WARREN: VIEWS AND EPISODES. 1976, 250 p.
Hale, Mildred, Schools, the PTA, and the State Board of Education.
Kerr, Clark, University of California Crises: Loyalty Oath and the Free Speech Movement.
Kragen, Adrian, State and Industry Interests in Taxation, and Observations of Earl Warren.
McConnell, Geraldine, Governor Warren, the Knowlands, and Columbia State Park.
McWilliams, Carey, California's Olson-Warren Era: Migrants and Social Welfare.
Siems, Edward H., Recollections of Masonic Brother Earl Warren.
EARL WARREN AND THE YOUTH AUTHORITY, with an introduction by Allen F. Breed. 1972, 279 p.
Holton, Karl, Development of Juvenile Correctional Practices.
Scudder, Kenyon J., Beginnings of Therapeutic Correctional Facilities.
Stark, Heman G., Juvenile Correctional Services and the Community.
Beam, Kenneth S., Clergyman and Community Coordinator.
Earl Warren Oral History Project
The Earl Warren Oral History Project, a special project of the Regional Oral History Office, was inaugurated in 1969 to produce tape-recorded interviews with persons prominent in the arenas of politics, governmental administration, and criminal justice during the Warren Era in California. Focusing on the years 1925-1953, the interviews were designed not only to document the life of Chief Justice Warren but to gain new information on the social and political changes of a state in the throes of a depression, then a war, then a postwar boom.
An effort was made to document the most significant events and trends by interviews with key participants who spoke from diverse vantage points. Most were queried on the one or two topics in which they were primarily involved; a few interviewees with special continuity and breadth of experience were asked to discuss a multiplicity of subjects. While the cut-off date of the period studied was October 1953, Earl Warren's departure for the United States Supreme Court, there was no attempt to end an interview perfunctorily when the narrator's account had to go beyond that date in order to complete the topic.
The interviews have stimulated the deposit of Warreniana in the form of papers from friends, aides, and the opposition; government documents; old movie newsreels; video tapes; and photographs. This Earl Warren collection is being added to The Bancroft Library's extensive holdings on twentieth century California politics and history.
The project has been financed by four outright grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a one year grant from the California State Legislature through the California Heritage Preservation Commission, and by gifts from local donors which were matched by the Endowment. Contributors include the former law clerks of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Cortez Society, many long-time supporters of "the Chief," and friends and colleagues of some of the major memoirists in the project. The Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation have jointly sponsored the Northern California Negro Political History Series, a unit of the Earl Warren Project.
Particular thanks are due the Friends of The Bancroft Library who were instrumental in raising local funds for matching, who served as custodian for all such funds, and who then supplemented from their own treasury all local contributions on a one-dollar-for-every-three dollars basis.
The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape record autobiographical interviews with persons prominent in the history of California and the West. The Office is under the administrative supervision of James D. Hart, Director of The Bancroft Library.
Amelia R. Fry, Director
Earl Warren Oral History Project
Willa K. Baum, Department Head
Regional Oral History Office
30 June 1976
Regional Oral History Office
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California at Berkeley
Principal Investigators
-
Principal Investigators
- Lawrence A. Harper
- Ira M. Heyman
- Arthur H. Sherry
Advisory Council
-
Advisory Council
- Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Walton E. Bean
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Richard M. Buxbaum
- William R. Dennes
- Joseph P. Harris
- James D. Hart
- John D. Hicks
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- William J. Hill
- Robert Kenny
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Adrian A. Kragen
- Thomas Kuchel
- Eugene C. Lee
- Mary Ellen Leary
- James R. Leiby
- Helen McGregor
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Dean E. McHenry
- Sheldon H. Messinger
- Frank C. Newman
- Allan Nevins
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Warren Olney III
*. Deceased during the term of the project.
- Bruce Poyer
- Sho Sato
- Mortimer Schwartz
- Merrell F. Small
- John D. Weaver
Project Interviewers
-
Project Interviewers
- Miriam Feingold
- Amelia R. Fry
- Joyce A. Henderson
- Rosemary Levenson
- Gabrielle Morris
Special Interviewers
-
Special Interviewers
- Orville Armstrong
- Willa K. Baum
- Malca Chall
- June Hogan
- Frank Jones
- Alice G. King
- Elizabeth Kirby
- Harriet Nathan
- Suzanne Riess
- Ruth Teiser
Introduction
Down the center of a narrow, fairly long, store building; lined on both sides with well-placed shelving, lower cabinets, and some counters, all neatly stocked with drugs, sundries, etc., one stopped at a counter on which there was a cash register placed next to a limited cleared space left for the personal service to the customers. Behind the counter space there was a glassed-off area where prescriptions were prepared. It was in that setting, Montgomery's Pharmacy, where I first met Byron. In time, I learned that he had recently passed the State Pharmacy Board examination, and was now hired by a Mr. Montgomery to work the evening shift.
From the State Relief Administration Office in Vallejo I had been transferred to Oakland. Clients were submitting billings from Montgomery's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street in Berkeley and I had not know it was there. I asked several persons about the place, and their reply, "Oh, it's just a drugstore," convinced me I should look at "just a drugstore." One evening I did just that. Off to the side of the entrance were several Negro weekly newspapers, and I walked over to the area and began browsing; finally selecting two, a Houston Informer and a Black Dispatch. As I casually looked through the periodicals, I listened well and determined that Mr. Montgomery was not there, and the neat young fellow behind the counter was a, "Byron," or a "Mr. Rumford." I also concluded that he knew the merchandise, he knew the prices, that he performed his duties with a sense of assurance, and finally, that he could do things with the cash register. I walked down the aisle, paid for my selections and suddenly realized that I had been listening to a person who was exceedingly gracious and very polite.
The following week I returned, bought the new editions of papers, paid for them; and as I turned to leave; in a disarming manner and with a twinkle in his eye the druggist queried, "Do I know you?" My reply, "You do now, I'm Wayne Amerson," started a friendship that has developed in a very personal way over the years. During these years we have worried with, talked about, and worked for generally the same community programs.
Just who, the why, the how, was this young druggist; educated for his profession in the state of California? Well... that is a rather long story, and it is my hope that through
Life, yours and mine, is a continuing process of challenges—it has always been that way—and one's ability to successfully work with these challenges usually terminates in a related pattern of accomplishment. These and the many accompanying pages will account for the varying areas of Byron's endeavors, and there is little doubt the reader can and will assess their value in relation to life as they know it now, but life was different in the 1920's and 30's. Those were the days; when there were few, so very few scholarships—for anyone; when the word, "fellowships," was not a part of the vocabulary of the "man (scarcely any man) on the street"; and "grant" was thought to be a proper name given to a male person or a conveyance given by written instrument. County welfare, in some areas, was non-existent, always penurious, and generally carried the stigma of the unwanted. These lean years prevailed until the federal government recognized human needs and initiated the Emergency Relief Administration—later in 1935 to become the State Relief Administration, with a related Federal Works Administration, generally known as W.P.A.
It was then when Byron and a small unorganized cadre of other young Negroes individually determined that they were equal in preparedness, equal in ability, and that they were going to take their rightful places in the affairs of the Bay Area. It was also a period in the lives of Negroes when all adults questioned, encouraged, and at times admonished every young Negro person, to, "stay in school," "get an education." It was during a time when Negro parents fearlessly moved from one state to another or from one city to another in order to provide a better public school education for their children; when those same parents willingly denied themselves dental and health care in order that their children could receive the benefits of an equal education; when Pullman porters; women who cooked, washed and ironed clothes for a living; laboring men; ministers; and even gamblers and their associates; all had the one bit of advice, "Stay in school." Each had his (or her) own way of making their encouragement known, but it always added up to, "Stay in school."
A new era in the life of the Negro in California and especially the Bay Area came with the "Depression." Many people came to the Berkeley-Oakland communities during these
Many hours were spent, Byron and I, in the prescription areas of his drugstores and in his home. We recognized the problem areas, we weighed potential pressures, we considered the possible alternatives and usually got around to having a good laugh before the evenings were over. Oftimes we were joined by other fellows, "all who were on their way."
For those were the days when a young Negro dared to decide he wanted to be an optometrist, enrolled in and completed the course, passed the State Licensing Board, and, is now one of Oakland's prominent optometrists; when another decided to be a veterinarian, and is an excellent one; when one fine morning the Richmond office of the State Relief Administration opened its doors as usual—and in walked a young Negro who was hired (the first in the state in that agency) to supervise the Budget Control Unit, a position which carried with it the responsibility of approving or rejecting the budgets of every State Relief Administration client in Contra Costa and Solano counties. The real "old timers" can tell of a man who decided he could cook turkey, ham and chicken better than any other person in the Bay Area—so—he opened a restaurant in a large building near Lake Merritt, and in those days he had customers standing in lines on the outside, waiting to get in to "Stephens." We cannot term them as "the good old days;" they were days of challenge, the days when a Negro man with a very limited elementary school education took two dozen rolls, two dozen hot dogs, a liquor license and a few bottles of whiskey, opened a counter service in a very small room on Wood Street and with hard work projected it into the finest Negro-owned restaurant and night spot on the Pacific Coast.
These were days in the beginning of the "depression years" but they also were days when a young Negro lawyer landed in the Bay Area with a tremendous amount of knowledge and boxes of law books; opened a cram course for law graduates to prepare for the "Bar Exams" and gained the reputation "if you could finish attorney Bussey's courses, you could pass the California Bar." Many lawyers, and judges of the Bay Area owe the beginnings of their years of success to the legal acumen of John Bussey.
You missed knowing a kindly gentleman who, when he was a young man wanted to be a diamond cutter and jeweler. Where would he learn the trade? Not in the United States of America; no, not in those days, so—he signed onto a freighter in the culinary department, sailed around the world 'til one day he found someone who provided him with the training and the tools. He returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and to a career of success and wealth.
Those were the lean days when a young auto mechanic decided he knew his trade so well that he dared to go to Hayward to open a shop. Hayward, one of several East Bay cities which openly made it known they wanted no Negro residents. At one time this same Negro auto mechanic was on contract with the City of Hayward to maintain their police cars.
Challenges, not really the exceptions, they were continuing reoccurrences; when social welfare workers for the State Relief Administration all had integrated caseloads; when, one day there was a small crack in the door of the Internal Revenue Office—and—in walked a young Negro accountant; when on another day the earth shook and the then-director of Alameda County Welfare Commission realized he had hired a Negro case worker. It was on a bright Tuesday morning the high hurdles began to shake from fear of being chopped up for firewood, and in walked the first Negro hired as a professional worker by the State Department of Employment.
There are many other incidents of equal importance—time, memory and space limit the continuing of these reflections—and—too, there was Byron Rumford who wanted to and did become an excellent pharmacist, who during the Depression years successfully met his challenges.
We also saw the tragic effects of "relief" on the poor; we knew of the bankruptcy of a people, when approximately 60% of the Negroes in California were on "relief"; we shuddered
Then came World War II. There were approximately twelve shipyards and military installations on the east side of the Bay and the practice of discrimination had caused the organizing of many protest groups, some of which had begun to pointedly register their objections. The President of the United States, nothing that these protests were national in scope, determined that the urgency of the war effort made it necessary to issue a directive regarding fair and equal employment. Those of the concerned Negro populace who were constantly alert to the potential future of the community, their neighborhoods, and their families began to look forward to life after the war would end. But it took a study by a research group from the Sociology Department of Fisk University to bring to the attention of the many longtime residents of the white as well as the Negro communities, the full impact of the probabilities which could result from the closing down of the war effort. The study emphasized three basic facts: Many employers indicated no intention of continuing to hire Negroes after the war was over; some industries would necessarily permanently close down; and but few of the World War II in-migrants were giving any indications of intention to return to their former homes. It became apparent that one could but expect that the nagging problems associated with discrimination and segregation could only tend to intensify when the war was over.
To endeavor to deal with some of these problem areas, a Council of Civic Unity was organized in San Francisco; one was started in Oakland, but it could not command enough public interest to continue as a viable group; and, in the Berkeley-North Oakland area the Berkeley Interracial Committee came to life. Many smaller groups developed, each in its own way joining in the efforts to meet the emergencies of the day and those that might occur tomorrow. Some positive results were realized in each organization; however when World War II terminated, only a committed federal government could have brought about any semblance of interracial understanding out of the confusion, but such commitment was not forthcoming.
The resulting pressures in the East Bay Area brought together many individuals occupying leadership roles in the older and established organizations. Through these and the many newly-organized civic improvement groups, appeals were made to city and county governments; but the results in most instances were considered as indicative that various governmental levels were either not aware or unable to understand the urgency of the problem areas. Leadership of the Oakland and Berkeley chapters of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the Berkeley Interracial Committee realized that the governments of these cities still clung to the hopes that if the situation became intense enough the in-migrants would "just leave."
After countless meetings, formal and informal, a few leaders of these groups in personal discussions concluded that minority representation in government would probably be the key to a more successful approach. Study of election returns of past years suggested a firm possibility of electing a Negro as state assemblyman from the district representing parts of Oakland and the adjoining city of Berkeley. Many more meetings, formal and informal, and hours of evaluations resulted in the choice of William Byron Rumford as the candidate, and the firm idea that the election could be won. Running against several opponents, the campaigning was carefully planned, the work of his friends and supporters was devotedly performed, and Byron's personal contacting of his potential constituents was thorough and convincing. He was elected, and for eighteen years served his district, the state of California, and the causes of human understanding with merit, honor, and distinction.
The many hours we have spent together have convinced me the choice of the people for their representation was remarkable. Few legislators carved their lives from such frugal backgrounds or maintained the willingness to relate the basic needs of their constituents to the days of their own most urgent needs, thus, determining one should do positive action in trying to help. To those who search the related pages for their historical value, I am of the opinion their needs will be satisfied, but it has been my concern that the readers of these same pages recognize that he was a young person with ambition and integrity who endeavored to make the most of every opportunity; who, along with friends had enemies; that, in the shadows of his many achievements were countless and devastating disappointments. To those same readers, I trust they recognize the humanness of the man, the man who had the
I doubt that Byron is through `tilting with windmills'; and in another time of another era, I expect there will be more chapters written; and, possibly one more able than I will provide a better setting. My task as I conceived it was to give in retrospect the feel of things as they happened at a given time.
P.O. Box 306
Berkeley, California
Interview History
William Byron Rumford was interviewed by the Regional Oral History Office as a part of the Earl Warren Era Project. His interview covers the highlights of his eighteen years as a member of the California Assembly, fifteen of which he spent as chairman of the Committee on Public Health. Now Mr. Rumford resides in Washington, D. C. and works for the Federal Trade Commission as assistant to the director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal-State Cooperation. His papers are housed in The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California.
Interviewers: Mr. Rumford was interviewed by Mrs. Joyce Henderson a specialist in Negro political history on the Earl Warren Era Project team; Mrs. Amelia Fry, director of the Earl Warren Era Project; and Dr. Edward France, chairman of the Black Studies Department of California State University, Hayward.
Conduct of the Interview: The first interview session was conducted by Joyce Henderson on July 10, 1970 in a small, rear office of Mr. Rumford's pharmacy located at 2960 Sacramento Street, in Berkeley. Two days after that short interview, Mr. Rumford left for Washington, D. C. to set up residence and to assume the position of assistant director for Education, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission. The following four interview sessions were conducted by Mrs. Amelia Fry on February 8, 9, 10, and 16, 1971, in Mr. Rumford's Washington office. The last interview session, held on September 13, 1971, took place during a visit by Mr. Rumford to Berkeley. It was conducted by Dr. Edward France, with Mrs. Henderson assisting, in a pleasant, upstairs office located above Rumford's Pharmacy in Berkeley.
Editing: The transcribed interview was edited by Joyce Henderson and then sent to Mr. Rumford in Washington, D. C. along with questions to assist him in correcting and expanding it. Editing and correction of the complete manuscript took much time because of the long distance over which communication with Mr. Rumford had to take place.
Interviewer-Editor
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California at Berkeley
Biographical Summary,
W. Byron Rumsford
PRESENT POSITION: Member of the Assembly (17th District) California Legislature.
PROFESSION: Pharmacist - Owner, Rumford's Pharmacy
2960 Sacramento Street
Berkeley, California
EDUCATION: Graduate, University of California, College of Pharmacy - Ph. G. 1931; Graduate, University of California, Political Science - A.B., 1949; Graduate Degree, University of California, Public Administration - M.S., 1959.
PUBLIC SERVICE: Rent Control Area #1, 1944-1948
California Legislature, Assemblyman, 1948 to present (9 terms).
MARITAL STATUS: Married, two children - two grandchildren.
ORGANIZATIONS: American Political Science Association
American Pharmaceutical Association
California Pharmaceutical Association
Commonwealth Club of California
Masonic Lodge
Berkeley Commons Club
Parent Teachers Association, Life Membership
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
Northern California Public Health Association
California Association for Health and Welfare
Assemblyman
WILLIAM BYRON RUMFORD
Berkeley
Assemblyman Rumford has served as Chairman of the Public Health Committee since 1953, and has completed a number of major studies in various fields related to Public Health including studies of Air Pollution, Hospitals and Hospital construction, Fluoridation, Radiation Control, Mental Health Drugs, Narcotic Addiction and Rehabilitation, Nursing, Medical Practices, Accident Prevention, and Restaurant Sanitation.
As a legislative leader in the field of Air Pollution Control, Mr. Rumford was instrumental in the development of the legislation which established the Bay Area Air Pollution Control District. He also introduced and led passage of the bill which requires the Department of Public Health to establish standards for the quality of air, and to designate hazardous pollution areas in the State.
In the area of human rights, he introduced and led passage of bills prohibiting discrimination in the hiring of public school teachers; establishment of California's Fair Employment Practices Commission; integration of the National Guard; and legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in the sales and rentals of housing accommodations in the State.
While serving as a member of the Government Organization Committee, Assemblyman Rumford participated in the development of legislation leading to the re-organization of the State Board of Equalization, and to the establishment of the new Alcoholic Beverage Control Department of that agency.
Conducted Public Health Committee investigations which led to the long overdue re-organization of the State Division of Narcotics, and introduced measure which provided for the rehabilitation and treatment of narcotic addicts. In 1955 Mr. Rumford successfully authored enabling legislation for allocation of federal and state funds for the construction of hospitals in the state. He led passage of bill providing an appropriation of $3,000,000 to the Department of Public Health for purchase and administration of polio vaccine. Introduced and led passage of bill to exempt prescribed medicines and insulin from State sales tax.
Other committees on which Assemblyman Rumford currently holds membership, in addition to the Public Health Committee of which he is Chairman, are Government Organization, Finance and Insurance, and Revenue and Taxation.
Included among the citations he has received for his outstanding work are:
- Friends of the Elderly Award - California Institute of Social Welfare, 1959
- Man of the Year Award - Urban League, 1949
- Meritorious Service Award - Los Angeles Urban League, 1964
- Commendatory Resolution - California Medical Association, 1959
- Outstanding Service to Public Education Award - Alameda County Education Association, 1958
- Life Membership - Parent Teachers Association, 1959
- Honorary Membership - California Optometric Association
- Outstanding Service Award - California Pharmaceutical Association, 1959
- Pharmacy Alumni Association Award, University of California, 1960
- Man of the Year Award - Alpha Zeta Omega Pharmaceutical Fraternity, 1964
- Outstanding Service Award - Consolidated Realty Board, 1964
- Ambassador of Goodwill to Germany - United States State Department, 1953
In summary, Assemblyman Rumford has played a major role in the development of two of the most important social service fields related to the daily lives of all Californians, namely, Human Rights and Public Health. Through his devoted efforts in these fields, and through his all-round ability as a Legislator, he has gained the respect and admiration of his fellow citizens throughout the State of California.
I Early Years
Family Background
RumfordMine was a broken home, you know. My mother's maiden name was Margaret Lee Johnson. My father's name was Chauncey G. Rumford.
Fry
Could I have the name of either sets or both sets of grandparents?
Rumford
Well, of course you know my mother married again.
Fry
I know. You might as well give us the name of your stepfather.
Rumford
Yes. His name was Elmer J. Williams. He was a barber. I don't know my grandfather's name on my mother's side (I never saw him). My grandmother's name was Louise Alice Johnson. That's on my mother's side.
Now on my father's side, Virginia L. Rumford was my grandmother. I forget what my granddad's name was. He lived up in Seattle. He died up there. I don't remember his name. I'm not sure, but it might have been Carroll Rumford.
Fry
Well, there are some archives, you know, being built up of all the blacks who migrated to California. We're kind of interested in this.
Rumford
You'd be interested to know that my grandmother's sister helped Miss [Delilah] Beasley write her book. You know Miss Beasley lived with my grandmother in her home in Los Angeles when she wrote
Fry
Oh!
Rumford
Oh yes! She was my grandmother's sister. Her name was Eva Carter Buckner. She wrote many songs; she wrote "The Tulsa Song"; she wrote quite a bit of poetry and did a lot of painting. My father's family moved to Los Angeles, oh, I'd say around 1910. They came out from Colorado Springs but they were originally from Iowa.
Fry
And she worked with Miss Beasley?
Rumford
She worked with Miss Beasley. They all worked together. It was Miss Beasley's book. She lived at 320 Burlington Street in Los Angeles.
Fry
She lived with you?
Rumford
Yes. She lived in that big house down there we had for a while at 320 N. Burlington Avenue.
Henderson
When were you born?
Rumford
February 2, 1908.
Henderson
You were born in Courtland, weren't you?
Rumford
Yes, Courtland, Arizona. Just put Arizona down there; Courtland doesn't exist anymore. It was a little mining town. See, my mother and grandmother came up through the West: New Mexico, around to Texas, up to Arizona. That's the way most of the settlers did in those early days when Arizona wasn't even a state. It became a state in 1912. So our people were early settlers there. I guess you'd call us pioneers, but we didn't think so at the time, you know. We came there in 1907, before it was a state. I guess now anybody who resides in Arizona prior to statehood is a pioneer. So, that was our beginning.
We had two grandmothers, and later my grandmother on my mother's side moved over to Tucson, and she fought discrimination in the schools down
Henderson
So that grandmother who fought discrimination was on your mother's side?
Rumford
Yes. Her name was Louise Alice Johnson, and she was a tough one. She was tough. That's my Uncle Clarence's mother. She ran a boarding house in Tombstone, Arizona, they tell me. I wouldn't remember these things, but she was down there in the early days of Arizona when they had to be tough. But I do remember her reason for leaving; she said she was not going to bring those kids up in a segregated environment. And she left.
My mother and I also eventually moved to Los Angeles. My brother went to Los Angeles to live with my grandmother on my dad's side one year before my mother and I went.
Henderson
What is your brother's name?
Rumford
Chauncey. He lives in Los Angeles now. He's older than I. Chauncey went to Los Angeles and lived with my dad's people, and I stayed with my mother. Later on, she and I moved to Phoenix where she married a barber (that was her second husband, my stepdad). Then we moved to Los Angeles in 1915.
Well, in the early days the barbers were an exclusive group of people. They were the only "professionals" we had outside of the preachers and a few doctors. The barbers worked with their hands, more or less, but it was light work. In those days in Phoenix, we had five or six barbershops with ten or twelve Negro barbers catering to whites. We had the best barbershops in town; they were all making money.
Then my stepdad and mother decided we'd better go to Los Angeles since most of the family was in Los Angeles by then. We came over—my mother, stepdad, and I—and established residence in Los Angeles, and I went to school in Los Angeles at an early age. I went to East First Street and Malabar Schools in Los Angeles. Both of my grandmothers were there. One lived in Boyle Heights, and one lived on the West Side. We went back and forth visiting both. My dad was there, I mean, my dad who had left us at an early age. (Tell you about that too; I will put a bill in for him.) [Laughter]
My stepdad didn't like the barber business as it was practiced in Los Angeles because he had worked on white people all his life, and here he was in a changed environment, and he had to work on Negroes and they didn't tip, as he was accustomed, and there wasn't enough money to be made. In Phoenix, it was different. Barbers there were waiting on the so-called better class of white people in town and getting good tips and making good money. He was one of the old-timers; he didn't like the L.A. setting so he said "We're going back." Imagine, we were leaving Los Angeles and going back to Phoenix. My parents took my brother and I back with them, and of course, they developed a family of their own. There were two girls and another boy, my half-sisters and brother.
Well, my stepdad didn't feel a great deal of responsibility toward us because, after all, we had a father. He wasn't doing too much for us, and we had to hustle. At ten and twelve years old, we were selling papers, delivering papers, doing everything under the sun to make a living, extra money, because we were a poor family, an extremely poor family. We knew the old man didn't want to do anything for us, so we just had to do the best
Well, I finished high school after going back to Phoenix in 1926. I finished high school in Phoenix. I had made a decision at that time that I was going to the University of California, Berkeley, and much of that story is in There Was Light by Irving Stone.
*. Stone, Irving, There Was Light, New York, 1970, pp. 403-408 .
College Years
HendersonWhen you came up to U.C., were you alone?
Rumford
Oh yes, I hit San Francisco when I was eighteen years old with nothing but a suitcase and a desire to go to school and work. And I remember distinctly I got a room in a crummy old hotel over there near the railroad station to save money. I worked a year and then I went to Sacramento Junior College for one year. There were a bunch of guys working on the railroads in Oakland and they said, "Well, why don't you go to Sacramento with us; you'll save money." And I said, "Okay, let's go on up. What difference does it make?" I could go to school in Sacramento anyway and eventually come to Cal. I spent one year up there. Dr. Kimbrough, who's now a practicing dentist down in San Diego and a fraternity brother, and Joe T. Gier, who taught at the University of California, both went to Cal with me. Joe became a brilliant scientist in electrical engineering and later taught at UCLA.
So after spending a year in Sacramento I had to make a choice of whether I wanted to go to law school or go into pharmacy, because I was interested in pharmacy the last year of high school. I'd gotten a job, $5.00 a week, filling bottles and working in a drugstore in Phoenix, so I had some latent interest in that subject matter. When I came to San Francisco, one of the fellows that was in school with us in Sacramento said he was going into pharmacy school, with no money, no source of funds at all. I said, "I think I'll go; I can get a job." He said, "Well, I can get you a job."
So, I was accepted into the U.C. School of Pharmacy in San Francisco, and then he got me a job parking cars at night at North Beach, over there at the Roof Garden Club. (It wasn't Finochio's then, but it later became Finochio's.) So I parked cars there till one or two o'clock in the morning, and made good money. I paid my way through school, working on the door and parking cars, and made the classes in the daytime too. I didn't get all A's. I couldn't, but I was satisfied to get through. That's all I wanted to do.
Henderson
In what year did you graduate from the school of pharmacy?
Rumford
In 1931. I spent three years there.
When I got out of school, I took any number of examinations for employment, and I passed the state examination. Not too many blacks worked for the state at the time. You were lucky to get a job as a janitor. I passed the examination for investigator on the Board of Pharmacy. I think I frightened everybody to death on the board when I was there for my oral examination. At least, I did get on the list. I took the examination for food and drug investigator and I flunked the oral after they asked me about Joe Louis. And later I came back, took it again, and I flunked it again.
Henderson
What was the nature of the question they asked about Joe Louis?
Rumford
If I thought he was a good fighter.
Henderson
And you failed?
Rumford
Failed the oral. They said, "Failed." I mean, that's all they asked me. "Well, you can go." Just like that. When I received the results, I had failed.
Henderson
What was your answer to that question?
Rumford
Well, I think he's an excellent prize fighter, and he seems to be doing a good job in his profession. He's outstanding and well-recognized. What else could I say?
Henderson
They expected you to say something negative?
Rumford
They didn't expect me to say anything; they were just asking me. They took me out of there so fast
Henderson
To whom did you appeal?
Rumford
To the personnel board through the member in Oakland, Mr. Christenson. This got so that it got under my skin. They were just blatantly kicking me out each time I took the oral. Blacks couldn't even get to first base. But anyway, what happened was very interesting.
Fry
Was that in about 1931?
Rumford
It was later than that.
Fry
Just before the war?
A Pharmacist at Highland Hospital
RumfordIt was about '33. Yes, because I took an examination with the county and went to work at Highland Hospital. I stayed for eight years. Old Doctor Black at Highland-Alameda Hospital didn't want any contact then between Negroes and whites; we couldn't eat in the dining room and all the rest.
Fry
Who didn't want you to go to work?
Rumford
Dr. Black, Benjamin Black, who was director of Highland Hospital. He was an old army physician.
Fry
Oh, and he didn't see any use in complicating things?
Well, he said, "You'd cause trouble." I told him, "I've never caused any trouble with anybody in my life!"
He said, "Well we'll give you a chance." And I said, "Well thank you." I needed the job, you know; it was during the Depression. I stayed at Highland approximately eight years and then I quit and started back to school, taking general college subjects. I was unhappy with the job; it was routine.
Fry
How did you happen to get hired by the hospital when no black had been hired before you?
Rumford
Well, I guess I've always been a barrier-breaker in a sense. It just has fallen my fate, really, more than anything else, and I've been a very persistent kind of a guy all my life. I just carried through something that I had to overcome. It was like getting accustomed to going down the track or hurdling; it's just another hurdle.
So I took this examination, as I indicated, and I passed it. Then I went out to get the job. I knew that nobody black had ever worked at Highland in any capacity. They had some student nurses out there going to school. They made them go home at night often at one or two A.M., and wouldn't let them stay in the dorm.
Fry
Black girls?
Rumford
Yes. Dr. Ben Black, who was then the head of the institution, was supposedly one of the outstanding authorities in hospital administration in the United States. He stayed there for about fifteen years, maybe longer than that. He was brought there for the purpose of running that institution. He was a very strict administrator. Of course, he reacted like an army colonel. Well, as I mentioned to you, he suggested to me that I might cause trouble by being employed at the hospital because I was black. I indicated to him that I never had any problem with any Caucasian that I knew of. All I wanted was a chance to go to work and do a job. So he said he'd give me a chance; and he did.
So you just talked him into it, primarily.
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
The county didn't try to assign people who passed this exam, did it?
Rumford
No. They just said, "You passed," and they sent me a notice to go out to Highland Hospital as assistant pharmacist.
Fry
Oh, they did? Was that after you had talked to Black?
Rumford
Oh, no. You see, the procedure is that you pass an examination and you're notified, regardless. When they need you, they send you a letter to go out to be interviewed by the administrator in whatever capacity. In this capacity it happened to be Dr. Black, who was the head of the Medical Institutions at Highland Hospital. So therefore I went out to see him about the job; I had the letter. I knew, and everybody else had known, that Black was supposedly a very prejudiced person.
Fry
And that was when he said that you'd just cause trouble?
Rumford
Yes. He said that I would cause trouble, but we never had any trouble.
Fry
Do you think that he came around? Did he ever hire any other blacks while you were out there on the basis of his experience with you?
Rumford
Not any that I know of. There may have been some helpers hired and that type of thing, but nobody in a professional capacity, that I know of.
Fry
So apparently he didn't reform. But at least you got to set a precedent.
Rumford
No. I, frankly, had friends on the Board of Supervisors, but they didn't influence him until after I began working there. The salary was very low, and I attempted to get it raised. He was reluctant to raise it, so I had friends to help me.
They finally raised the salary during the war. I was there during the early part of the war. People were making more money in the shipyards than I was making! [Laughs] So I gave up. And of course the odd thing about it was that when I told Dr. Black I was going to quit, he said, "You can't quit this job. You've got a beautiful laboratory here to work in." He didn't want me to leave [Laughs].
Fry
Well, as I remember during the war there was a large public movement toward eradicating venereal disease. So I wondered if Highland Hospital's responsibility for this increased during the war.
Rumford
No, there was no correlation there at all. I had resigned from that position prior to taking the veneral disease investigator job with the state. I imagine that I had taken several state examinations for jobs by then.
Fry
Oh, I see. Then also during World War II, Earl Warren appointed you to the Rent Control Board.
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
You were a permanent businessman by this time, weren't you?
Rumford
Well, let me explain what happened. You see I resigned from Highland, and I'd say within approximately a year I was appointed to this VD job. I worked at it approximately a year down
I had a chance then to buy this drugstore where I had worked originally when I graduated from school. The fellow who was there was drafted; he was a pharmacist, I think. His mother took over the business and she didn't want it. She didn't want to stay there alone. So then I bought this business. In fact, I kept the job as VD investigator while I owned the business for a while. Then I found that it wasn't working out so I quit the state and went to work completely at the store.
I imagine that was around '41 or '42—I have all these dates in my mind. I stayed at the pharmacy from '42 on.
II Beginning Public Service
The Rent Control Board
RumfordBut I would imagine that Warren appointed me to the Rent Control Board about '44 or something like that, you see, when I was in business. He first appointed Jeffrey Cohelan. Congressman Cohelan was serving on that board, too, when I was there. I stayed on the Rent Control Board for maybe a year or two.
Fry
Could you explain this Rent Control Board?
Rumford
Well during the war, you see, they put a ceiling on wages and rents primarily. The Rent Control Board was a regional board which was part of the federal program. They gave me a certificate for my service.
Fry
Office of Price Administration?
Rumford
Well, of something in that, yes. But the appointments had to come through the governor in each particular case. Ours was a concern for a particular area. I don't remember how far it did go, but it included the East Bay Area—Oakland, Berkeley and the environs. During the war, well, you can imagine, if they had no controls, rents and prices would have gone sky-high! Price control and rent control were very necessary at the time. Probably necessary now, to tell you the truth.
Fry
In this East Bay region, did the board set the ceilings and establish policy for hearings and things like this?
Yes. In other words if there was a complaint or if there was an appeal for an increase, we would take the matter into consideration along with the several factors involved—comparable rents and the location—and we would make a decision.
Fry
Oh, the board made this decision? I see.
Where was the most activity at the time? Was it in any one particular section that seemed to have a larger pressure for inflation?
Rumford
I would be guessing now, but I would say in sort of a general way, here and there, persons who felt that they should get more money for their property would just submit a request. They'd come in and [we'd] hold a hearing on it. We'd either sustain their request or deny it. I wouldn't know of any particular area. I think it was pretty much throughout the whole area.
Fry
Did you hear requests from renters wanting you to hold the line on certain properties?
Rumford
Yes, if they felt that they were being gouged.
Fry
It worked both ways?
Rumford
Oh yes. We heard appeals.
Fry
What was your particular function on this board?
Rumford
I was a member of the board.
Fry
Maybe you'd like to back up and say why you were appointed?
Rumford
I can't even tell you that. They were just appointing citizens, and I even forget who asked me if I would serve on the board now; but it was a public service job. We didn't get paid for it. We met once a week, something like that, for maybe a couple of hours.
Fry
So that this was your part of the war effort?
Veneral Disease Investigator
RumfordWell, that plus the VD control. During the war, we in VD control had to deal with army camps and apprehending persons who were carriers. Any time they'd get a new batch of soldiers down at Camp Knight we would always go down and interview them—the source of contacts.
Fry
Did you ever set up any kind of control over the houses of prostitution?
Rumford
Oh no.
Fry
You couldn't do that?
Rumford
The city would never recognize anything like that.
Fry
That they existed?
Rumford
Yes.
It was quite an experience, really it was!
Fry
Then you worked mostly with the military?
Rumford
I worked with the military and with the city clinics. We'd go out and bring people in who were scheduled to take treatment. VD is so prevalent now! I mean, it's all over!
Fry
Would you bring people in from Camp Knight?
Rumford
We'd bring them in if they'd miss their clinic appointment. You see, if they didn't show up for an appointment, we'd go get them. The military reported to their own army clinic.
Fry
You'd have to round them up.
Rumford
Oh yes. [Laughs] Oh boy, going in one of those dark halls down there! I'd knock on the door, and if they'd suspect my presence, they wouldn't open it. So I just stood there. One time, finally the door opened quietly and a big male came out of there. "What do you want?"
I said, "I came to see Miss So-and-so. Can I speak to her?"
"What do you want with her?"
"Well now if she wants to tell you that's her business, but I came out to see her."
"Well you'd better watch out!" [Laughs]
Fry
[Laughs] You were encroaching on his territory!
Rumford
[Laughing] There I was in that hallway and he was a great big fellow! I didn't say anything more. I came to speak to her.
Finally she came out and both of us rode with her. He rode down with her to the clinic.
They could be jailed for not keeping up their treatment. Oh yes, they could be quarantined. And we did a good job of cleaning it up. I have to pat myself on the back. We had a clinic in Oakland on 7th Street on the other side of Broadway there, about two blocks, and people would come in there religiously and take their treatment. One of the treatments was arsphenamine for syphilis—a terrible thing! Often they'd miss the veins, see. If they'd miss the vein the stuff would pop up and the arm would swell up!
Fry
Antibiotics have come out now.
Rumford
Yes, they've taken the place of arsphenamine. They hardly use any arsphenamines anymore. That's an arsenic preparation. They used that for curing syphilis.
Fry
I wonder what happened to this program after the war. Did it have any uses in peacetime?
Rumford
You see, we had a state agency. I worked for the state, but I was assigned to the Oakland Health Department. Oakland had a couple of officers, and we worked together. We'd get our folders every morning and go through those of people they were looking for, those who didn't come in, and those who were contaminated whenever the soldiers would
Fry
What was the state's pleasure about this after the war was over; did they keep this up?
Rumford
No! They just abandoned the department. They would send patients to the Public Health Department. They just abandoned the veneral disease program.
Fry
Why was that?
Rumford
Well, they just felt it was no longer wanted and that the cities could take care of their own program. Of course the program then just died out. I don't know what they're doing now. I'm sure they don't have any more investigators.
But we would contact doctors too. They would follow-up and religiously report their contacts in most cases—well, and then sometimes they wouldn't—but they cooperated very well generally.
Fry
Now all this time you were running your pharmacy.
Rumford
Right. I worked for the state for about a year.
Emergency Housing Committee
FryAt sometime you were on the Emergency Housing Committee.
Rumford
The mayor of Berkeley put me on it.
Fry
Now that was different from the Rent Control Board, is that right?
Rumford
Oh yes. I think Mayor Laurance Cross put me on that.
Was that in 1942 as I have here?
Rumford
The time has gone by and I have been involved in so many things that I am uncertain of the date.
Fry
At any rate, this is a war or post-war committee?
Rumford
Well, it was, I think, during the war and immediately afterwards.
Fry
What was the purpose of it?
Rumford
Well, there again housing, wherever it could be located. It was difficult for people to get homes. There were an awful lot of war-workers in California and the Emergency Housing Committee was to certify them for homes and to help them get located if possible. We had no control over the rentals or any of that picture.
Fry
Yes. It was mainly locating. Did you keep lists of housing?
Rumford
They had lists of housing, yes. The city of Berkeley did.
Fry
Were you able to do anything then in getting more integrated housing?
The Berkeley Interracial Committee
RumfordTo a degree. Frankly, during that period because of the influx of people from the South, we had an exaggerated social problem. We organized the Berkeley Interracial Committee, which was quite an organization. We had four or five hundred members in the city of Berkeley. Professor Tolman from the University of California was the chairman of the committee for a while. (He died some years ago.) Are you acquainted with the Tolman girls?
Fry
No, I am not.
Rumford
Tolman was a professor of psychology at the
It was organized to placate and to welcome some of the people and to ameliorate some of the problems that did arise as a result of the influx.
Signs appeared on San Pablo Avenue saying "No Negro Trade Solicited" and we urged they be taken down. Whatever the problems that arose, why we'd try to iron them out.
Fry
Did that committee work with the Emergency Housing Committee?
Rumford
Well, they may have. There may have been some members on it; I don't recall. This was non-official, of course.
Fry
It was a citizen's committee?
Rumford
Right, the Berkeley Interracial Committee. We met down at the Community Church, Buell Gallagher's church at 1802 Fairview Street, Berkeley. We had quite a membership! And they did a lot of good work.
There was a time, too, when I think they were trying to do something about the Japanese evacuation.
Fry
Was that coincident with the Committee on Fair Play?
Rumford
Yes. We functioned with the Committee on Fair Play. You see, there began to develop also state-wide organizations with which we were affiliated. Berkeley Interracial was affiliated with the
Fry
Oh, the people at the Y.
Rumford
At the Y. The Kingman's organization was Fair Play. They dealt primarily with the Japanese problem. But our concern was the total problem.
Fry
Did that committee kind of fizzle out?
Rumford
Yes. Well we had problems. [Laughs] A lot of those old radicals started yelling and going on over the place, and it was kind of broken up. We just broke it up because of constant confusion.
Fry
How long did it function?
Rumford
I'd say about five years.
Fry
OK. You don't mean the present radicals, do you?
Rumford
No. That's a relative term anyway.
Fry
Yes, that's why I have to kind of place it in time because the radicals then don't mean the radicals now.
Were the Kingmans able to do anything to help in FEP legislation or anything like that?
Rumford
Oh, I think their efforts generally were very helpful, frankly. They devoted quite a bit of their time to the Fair Employment Practices Committee at that time. They also functioned with the Berkeley Interracial Committee.
I think they were very effective at that particular time. They took the liberal point of view in these matters, which of course I think was the right point of view with respect to the treatment of Japanese, the effort to try to bring about a smoother—oh, what shall we call it—acclimation, I guess, for those from the South who were moving their homes to the West during the war period. This was quite a transition, you know, for those who came
There was an all out effort at that time to make them feel that they were part of the citizenry. So many of these people had opted to make the money and [Laughing] many of them who made money weren't particular about what went on. Many lived two in a room with a "hot bed" sort of arrangement; one worked in the night and one worked in the day And when they got the money, quite a number of them went back home. They were just in California to make the money. But while they were there they ran into some problems. Some of the "more stable citizens" in quotes, were a little unhappy with them. They had incidents on streetcars and things like that.
So Ruth and Harry worked in that particular field and were very effective.
Fry
I get the impression that they visited these people. Is that what you meant by a "Welcome Wagon" operation?
Rumford
I meant there was a general welcome to people who were newcomers. They used the term "Welcome Wagon" but that is in a broader sense. No, they didn't actually visit people. They did visit the Japanese, I imagine, in those concentration camps.
Fry
How would they contact these people in Berkeley during the war?
Rumford
Through the Berkeley Interracial Committee. It was sort of a broad participation on the part of those citizens who were interested in seeing that we didn't have trouble, because people were on edge at that particular time. Here we had a great influx of blacks, you see. People just were fearful. We had two or three incidents on the bus and other places—shoving, pushing, fighting and things of that nature.
You see, not only did you have the blacks, you had the white Southerners moving out here—the Okies.
Yes. That's a bad combination, isn't it?
Rumford
Well, they found a place where they had some bottles and had a battleground!
Fry
Oh really? In Berkeley?
Rumford
Well not only particularly Berkeley. You see, they had a train that used to run through Berkeley out to Richmond. There was always some kind of incident.
Fry
On that train.
Rumford
Yes, on the train, and there was always some kind of incident in line to get your check. It was that type of thing. It spilled over to the bars and the restaurants in Berkeley.
Fry
I still don't have a picture of how the work was done with these people and how they were communicated with. Was it through the committee that was already in the community, in the way of trying to change people's attitudes?
Rumford
Yes. Well, in Berkeley the Interracial Committee functioned wherever they needed to function. If people brought to them circumstances of institutions or conditions which they felt were creating a problem, why then the committee would intercede. They didn't look for the individual as such. I think many of these people in Berkeley felt that it would be a good thing to establish program policy. They helped the city, for one thing, to establish a Human Relations Commission to see that the Civil Service worked well, to see that the city was properly represented as far as the newcomer was concerned.
Eventually, they formed these special committees that went out on Christmas and New Year's to welcome people and open homes and that type of thing. But not so much of that was done at the outset. I think these came about later. But I think the real basic problem was finding places for these people to live and making them feel welcome. And as an offshoot of that, they had the interracial church in Berkeley. Reverend Buell Gallagher was the pastor there.
That was called the Berkeley Community Church?
Rumford
The South Berkeley Community Church. It resulted from efforts on the part of people to lessen the tensions, to make people feel that they were part of the citizenry.
Fry
I suppose I should go. I am supposed to be at the Chief Justice's [Warren's] chambers by three.
Rumford
You can come back again. You just tell the Chief Justice I said "Hello." Give him my best regards, and tell him I'm here now and that some of these days I'd love to come up and see him.
You know, he let me visit him up there once.
Fry
When you were in the legislature?
Rumford
That was one of the things I want to talk to you about later.
Fry
I thought maybe you were a help to him in the legislature on his health bills.
Rumford
Well, not only that. Yes, we took a position on health bills—and he was a help to me, too.
In fact he told me, he said, "Push those bills! And I'll sign them."
Oh, he was a great guy. He really was. Sometimes—there's so much difference in that courthouse now than when he was there—night and day! I just don't have any confidence in that outfit down there at all!
Fry
I think he made a big difference when he came in, too, apparently.
Rumford
I think he did. History and the record shows that. Yes, the record reveals that. He was a great man!
Fry
In 1948, was that the first time that you ran for the assembly?
Rumford
Yes. My first attempt was in 1948.
Why did you decide to run?
Rumford
Actually I had always been interested in politics. In fact as a very young adolescent, I was interested in politics. I guess it evolved from being a newspaper boy and being interested in contests in Arizona. I remember when Tom Campbell ran for governor down there against Hunt. It goes way back. I've always had an interest in politics. So when I came to the Bay Area, I still had some interest in politics.
The Appomattox Club
RumfordI got involved in a political organization in Berkeley called "The Appomattox Club," perhaps one of the first Negro political organizations in the Bay Area and particularly in Berkeley. It was a political organization designed to support candidates who it favored and to promote candidates if possible. However at that particular time the chance of getting a black candidate elected was not considered possible. So we largely supported candidates that we favored, that we thought were right on our issues of that particular period. Out of that Appomattox Club grew an effort to elect a black city councilman in Berkeley. I think it was Tom Berkley who ran for the Berkeley City Council first. Then Mrs. [Frances] Albrier ran, I think, for the city council.
I'm just giving you a little political background.
Fry
I'd like to have all of this.
Rumford
Somewhere I have all this information.
Fry
Oh, really?
Rumford
Yes, somewhere in my works.
Fry
This was during the time that you owned your drugstore?
Earlier than that. The Appomattox I think was in the '30's. Yes, we worked for Roosevelt. When was that, '32?
Fry
Well, that could have been any time between '32 and '44.
Rumford
Yes, because he was elected in 1932 and there was a fellow from Mississippi by the name of Newman that came out to California. He was from Mississippi and quite active in politics in Berkeley—such as it was.
Fry
He came out to Berkeley?
Rumford
Yes. He was living in Berkeley then and there was an army man by the name of Dalrymple. Major Dalrymple was a Caucasian, of course. He was appointed director of Prohibition.
Fry
You mean after Prohibition was—
Rumford
No, you see when Roosevelt went in they still had Prohibition and Dalrymple was given that job.
Fry
I see; so he was early.
Rumford
Then Dalrymple brought Newman back here [to Washington] with him. Dalrymple was appointed head of the whole business and had come out of Berkeley. Major Dalrymple.
Fry
Now was Newman black or white?
Rumford
Oh, Newman was black. He was one of the Southern politicians. I was just remembering and relating some of our cohorts at that particular time. So the Appomattox Club was of basic interest; this group was one of the first that was active in Berkeley politically.
Fry
Were you connected with any other large organizations, like NAACP?
Rumford
Oh, no, strictly political. It was a political organization. Its president died about six months ago.
Oh, that's too bad. Who was that?
Rumford
His name was Fryson. He lived at 1504 Ashby Avenue in Berkeley.
Fry
That would make an interesting chapter, you know?
Rumford
Yes. Black politics in Berkeley goes way back. We had quite an organization. Mrs. Don Barksdale's grandfather, Mr. Rowe, was active in it and Mrs. Barksdale can tell you about his activities.
III Early Years in the California Assembly
First Campaign and Election to the Assembly, 1948
RumfordSo as a result of that, we sponsored a candidate; I think it was Tom Berkley. I think he was the first and he barely lost. Then we sponsored Lionel Wilson. I don't know what year that was and he barely lost. The vote was split, I think, in Berkeley; they had two Negroes in the race. And as a result of these activities there was a latent desire to elect somebody to the state legislature. Frankly, I had sponsored Tom Berkley as a city councilman. Then I had sponsored him as the person to run for the assembly. There was a general meeting called. The left-wing CIO was at that time very strong in politics in the area. Kitty Griffin, Olie Fagenhauer—they were moving about at that particular time. They were calling the political shots as to who would do what, and they were attempting at the same time to say who would run in the black area—as they do now, see, no difference. So we met with them. We also met with the ministers at Rev. [L.S.] White's church, a C.M.E. church. We went down to talk about the possibility of selecting candidates throughout the 17th Assembly District.
There had been several attempts on the part of Negroes to win the 17th Assembly District, which was largely at that time in Oakland. As time went on they expanded the district line, you see, and part of it was out in Berkeley. In fact, the line when I ran for the legislature, I think, went down to Derby Street—which just barely included my house at the end of the line from all the way down
Fry
I'm sorry, what church?
Rumford
The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, the Reverend L.S. White, pastor. He's the same one who's pastor of that large church [Beebe Memorial C.M.E. Temple] on Telegraph now.
Fry
Oh, in Oakland?
Rumford
Yes. The same fellow. He went to New York and came back. Anyway, Mr. Berkley decided at this conference that he didn't want to run. They had several other people who were anxious to run, so they asked me if I wanted to run.
I said no, I hadn't anticipated running. I had my pharmacy business, and besides I had brought Mr. Berkley down for the purpose.
The CIO wouldn't support me anyway, I was told, so I said, "Well, maybe I am interested in running."
Fry
They would not?
Rumford
[Laughs] If I were sure they were not going to support me, I would have run.
Fry
Oh, they would not support you.
Rumford
That's what they said.
Fry
Why?
Rumford
I don't know. I didn't join in with the radical movements of the time. I'd always felt that our problems were problems that related to the established government, and I just was not concerned with their type of movement, that's all. I thought
Fry
Was the Communist label a problem or not?
Rumford
Yes, it was. The police were running them. They wouldn't let them meet on the street and they were chasing them off. A cop would chase them off the street if he found them making a speech from a soapbox, you know. That's the way it was then. But their activities were rampant—the same old thing, no different!
But anyway, the leadership scheduled a meeting for a caucus to be held by the Negro community to select a candidate. The rules were established whereby we would have two people speak for us. Whoever wanted to be a candidate was to let the chairman know and have two people there to speak for him. Then that day he was to speak for so many minutes. Well, it was just a question of getting your friends out there at the caucus. So we were able to get our friends out there at the caucus, and there were about four candidates who expressed their desire to have people speak for them at this meeting.
I can't ever forget because here I had taken Mr. Berkley down for the purpose of having him endorsed and was supporting him, and that night he got up and spoke for somebody else! [Laughs] It didn't go over too well with people that knew about it. So we had a vote and I won. I was selected to be the candidate.
Fry
Who spoke for you?
Rumford
Ben Watkins. He was a musician. He was very active in the community at the time. Then there was a lawyer. He's passed away now. But he spoke for me, and I think my sister-in-law spoke, too. She was one of them.
Fry
Your sister-in-law?
Rumford
She's a very good speaker.
What is her name?
Rumford
Carolyn Carrington. She was a teacher in Berkeley.
Anyway, I was selected by the caucus, and then of course, we planned it ourselves not to file if the caucus rejected either one of us. But they were very upset, some of the people were very upset about it. Mrs. Albrier, I don't think she's gotten over it yet! [Laughs] I don't think so.
And there was a newspaperman, James Jones, who lives here [in Washington, D.C.]. Yes, he runs a bar in downtown Washington.
Fry
Yet he'd been a newspaperman?
Rumford
Yes, ran a big newspaper in Oakland. He was a Republican, and he was very close to Knowland. Jones is his name. He's got a bar here, "Mr. J's Bar." He ran one of the early newspapers.
Fry
What kind of a newspaper was it?
Rumford
He covered the whole Bay Area.
Fry
Was it a Negro newspaper?
Rumford
Yes. James Jones, that's his name. Anyway, he's a veteran Republican. They tell me in town here, he's still a big one. [Laughs heartily] They say you can go to that bar and get a political argument out of him any time!
Fry
He'd be good to talk to, I guess, to get the Republican side of it.
Rumford
Yes, to get the other side of it. He didn't run though. He threatened to run. They were pretty mad. Anyway, we went on and won the community support, the support by and large of the ministerial alliance, which gave us the real support. They got behind us and allowed us to speak from the pulpits on Sundays and they raised money. Oh yes. The ministers have been a powerful group in the community life of the blacks since slavery and still are. They may fade out a little bit occasionally, and at this particular time they are
But it was the ministers who largely sponsored my candidacy, part of it. The left-wing CIO never did come in to help.
We went into the primary and we had a tough fight with a union white representative.
Fry
By union you mean CIO?
Rumford
No, AF of L. The AF of L and the CIO were split wide open. They didn't cooperate at all. Anyway, we didn't get the support of either labor group. But we went ahead to win the primary.
At that particular time we had cross-filing in California. There was a fellow by the name of Edgar Hurley who had cross-filed on the Republican ticket and there was something shady in his background. He was a former labor leader and had served in the legislature and wanted to return. Well, labor of course had their own man going.
Fry
And he was not the one.
Rumford
No.
Fry
Was he a Democrat?
Rumford
No. Hurley was a Republican. I was the Democrat. Then I also had a Negro Independent Progressive running against me whom CIO labor supported. Murray was his name.
Keep this in mind, there was cross-filing. Edgar Hurley cross-filed on the Democratic ticket and I cross-filed on the Republican ticket and vice versa. Well, on the final evening of the
Well, we went to court because of some precincts that didn't show up. We went out to look for them later. We couldn't find them. When they were brought in, he was ahead. So we went to court and had a recount in Judge Hoyt's court. The recount showed that we were pulling up in areas that they hadn't suspected. So when they got down to these other precincts in West Oakland, they wouldn't count them. They gave up. So I won the Democratic primary in this court fight. I went on to gain labor support plus the preachers, which was my base. The ministerial group plus the citizen groups all united. The Negro who was running on the Independent Progressive ticket didn't qualify. He had to poll a certain percentage of votes and he didn't do it. So he was out. Then the race was between myself and Hurley who had won the Republican primary. I won the general election by some 30,000 votes.
So that was my beginning in politics and I was elected, as I said, in 1948 by 30,000 votes and went to the legislature January, 1949.
Fry
Were there any special issues in the campaign?
Rumford
Well at that time, of course, we were striving for fair employment and we were fighting for abolition of discrimination in the National Guard and for the abolition of discrimination in the hiring of teachers. These were most of the things that we were concerned about. Taxes were always an issue; they always will be.
Fry
What kind of taxes? I know you had to be for less! [Laughs]
Rumford
Always. Always for less taxes. You see, the black people had little representation in Sacramento by and large. There was nobody concerned about pushing any legislation which would benefit the blacks, particularly prior to Hawkins. Gus Hawkins
Henderson
Can you describe your district a little more for us?
Rumford
Originally, my district barely included my home. I was right on the edge of it in 1948. It ran up to Grove Street, out Grove Street to all the way down Broadway, through West Oakland and back to Grove, to Derby Street in Berkeley, and down to the Bay. Then during the 1950 reapportionment, they took more of downtown Oakland over to the Oakland auditorium, all of West Oakland, down Telegraph Avenue, and then cut over Telegraph to Grove Street, up Shattuck and then over to Dwight Way, and then down Dwight Way to the Bay. That was the second enlargement. Now the third enlargement in 1960 is when they enlarged it all the way and took in Albany and all these [radical] kids in Berkeley, and that's where we began to get in trouble.
Henderson
In what way did you get in trouble?
Rumford
Well, you see, the white people in Berkeley and Albany had never had a Negro representative. They kind of resented it at first. But after I was in there a year or two, they thought that I was the only representative. I guess the coming of the kids and this new order of things affected me the last time that I ran. I never had a chance to talk to them. They just assumed, I guess, that I was reactionary, and that's the way it was. That was their general assumption, you know; after all, I had been in business. It doesn't matter how you got there, the radicals seem to feel that you're not suppose to get anywhere, I guess, unless they push you. [Laughter] So, they just didn't like it, you know, I mean I just wasn't part of that group.
They were radicals?
Rumford
I believed so.
Earl Warren
RumfordIn my first year in Sacramento Earl Warren was governor. And of course, coming from Alameda County, he knew something about me. He had appointed me to the Rent Control Board, as I mentioned.
Henderson
Did you know him before he was governor?
Rumford
I knew him, but not personally. You see, Earl Warren was a different personality in Alameda County than he was after he got up there as governor. He never had—I don't want to talk about it too much—broad association with Negroes, and he had very particular friends. "Jet" Allen was his closest friend, outside of Walter Gordon. But I, in no sense, was as close to Earl Warren as Walter Gordon, whom he went to school with and all.
But when I went to Sacramento, he knew that I was interested in certain things. One of the first things I did was my bill to abolish discrimination in the National Guard. When chatting with me occasionally, he encouraged me to press for this legislation, and he assured me that if it would get to his desk he would sign it. A couple of years later, I had the Fair Employment Practice bill, which of course had been up before the assembly prior to me getting there. And he had personally suggested to me that he wanted to see that bill passed. He said to me, "Amend that into one of those labor bills. I will sign it. I want to sign that bill." He became a changed person in this respect. And we had chats quite often up there.
I remember distinctly that I was doing some historical research. You know, people who are looking for stories should really go spend some time in the State Library in Sacramento and find out what Negroes did historically in this state.
They had some interesting personalities: captains that sailed seas; some streets are named after them in San Francisco. And those fellows met there, and they drew up their own manifesto and documents and presented them to the legislature. And what they said at that time could have been said today—every word that they used about oppression and rights and all that type of thing. It was a beautiful document. And I told the governor about it, and he said, "Gee, I'd like to read that." And I said, "I've only crude notes. I made them for myself while sitting in the library." He said, "Ah, I want them." So I said, "If you want them, I'll give them to you." So I gave them to him, and he said, "I just want to have a copy." He became interested in the Negro problem; he became interested historically in the contributions that were made here in this state, and in how Negroes felt.
Then, I invited him in 1953 to address our national fraternity, which is the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in Berkeley. It was, in fact, one of the first Negro fraternities on the campus. We had our national convention in Berkeley and it rained every day. Earl Warren had been ill in the hospital; he had had an operation. And while we had scheduled him to speak, I didn't think he was going to do it because he had been ill. But he got up out of that sick bed and came to that convention in that rain, and I'm telling you it rained for two
And we've seen each other since; we've talked about things. I said to him some time ago when I was in Washington, "We've had a little problem out there [in California]."
"Yes, so you did. Unfinished business." That's all he said. That's all he could say. He made no outside promises because that was before the Supreme Court got that case from Missouri on fair housing. And that has been my association with him. I had a chance to talk to him at dinners. I don't know that I can say anything more or unusual than what I've told you.
Masonry
FryI notice that you are a Mason. This is one of the things we are interested in about Earl Warren because he also was a Mason, and I think that this probably was one of primary organizations that kept him in touch with a wide range of people.
Rumford
Well, he was very active. Different from me, he was an active Mason. He was very active in his lodge. I keep my dues up, but I'm not very active.
Fry
Well, were black Masons in a different organization then?
Rumford
Yes. They are now.
They are?
Rumford
Yes. They are called "Prince Hall Masons." Prince Hall came over from England with one of the original charters. He's buried up in Boston.
Fry
Do they do much for the black cause, or did they when you were in California?
Rumford
Well, I'll tell you, Masonry, lodges and all, have had their day, more or less. They served a purpose during their period. Aside from providing burial funds and that type of thing, it was a great challenge to a person to belong to one of these organizations and work his way up. He gained some great mental satisfaction out of ascending through the chairs to the highest order and up and up through channels of his lodges. Also, it was a stimulating organization from the religious point of view. It afforded a person some degree of status, because the Masons didn't take in everybody. If a person belonged to a lodge, he had some status. There were very few places where a black man could get status, and he did achieve status through his lodge, through his church, and that kind of thing. So the lodges did serve a purpose, and there are some Caucasians that recognize Masonry, regardless of who wears the pin.
The black lodges take in Filipinos, Chinese or anybody; the Caucasians do not always.
Fry
Is this still true in Masonry?
Rumford
Well, it is still true as far as Masons are concerned. I noticed the other day in the Berkeley Gazette that they are trying to break up the "all white" clause in the Elks Lodge. Seems like the Japanese have raised some questions about it. So this is still true, oh yes. It depends on the individual.
Fry
I thought that was illegal now.
Rumford
No, many of the whites don't even recognize the black Masons. In fact there are two or three different groups. There's a clandestine group, too, as I understand it.
Of what?
Rumford
Of Masons.
Fry
Black or what?
Rumford
Yes, black. I don't know about the white. They may have the same problem.
Fry
Was the clandestine group the more radical branch or the less radical?
Rumford
We didn't have that "radical" problem up until whites [Laughs].
Fry
[Laughing] —started it.
Rumford
The so-called radicals of then are the conservatives of today.
Fry
Yes, the old NAACP radicals!
Rumford
Yes, that's right.
Fry
But why were they clandestine; why couldn't they have been Prince Hall?
Rumford
Because they couldn't get into Prince Hall or they weren't selected, they started their own group. It was a kind of offshoot.
Fry
Did this division between Prince Halls and whites exist all the way to the top of Masons?
Rumford
Oh, yes.
Fry
You don't have one national head of both of them?
Rumford
Oh, no. It is a separate and distinct lodge with a charter brought over from England by Prince Hall himself. In fact, we claim the original charter which established the Masonic Lodge in this country.
Fry
Then the whites ought to apply to you to let them in.
Rumford
[Laughs] That's right. As I say, we have Filipinos, Mexicans, and Orientals in our lodge. We have a very constant policy about that.
Yes, you have a coalition there now.
Rumford
Well, maybe. You see those people have recognized the Prince Hall as the offshoot of the original charter of Masonry.
Fry
So the Prince Halls, years ago, weren't too involved in issues of integration or anything like this?
Rumford
No, not particularly. They've probably done some of that at a more recent date. But they don't get involved in that kind of thing as a rule.
Fry
So there just wasn't any relation then between the California Prince Hall Masons and the Masons Earl Warren was in?
Rumford
No. None whatever.
The Bill to End Discrimination in the National Guard, 1949
RumfordIn my first session of the legislature I got the bill through on discrimination in the National Guard. That was the first thing we did. And of course some thought that was a great thing, and it was for a freshman, because they had been trying for years to get it through.
Fry
How did you manage to muster the support?
Rumford
Well, it was just by arm-twisting, trying to reason with those fellows. I had to talk to them individually. It was a fine experience because this was the first time I'd had to lobby for any legislation since being in the legislature.
I thought they met on time—that was such an orderly procedure—and I went up there and I sat and sat and nobody showed. There was one, or two, sitting there. So I said, "Aren't you going to hear my bill, what goes?"
And they answered, "Oh, yeah, they'll be in." It was a night meeting. They'd all been to the bars and they were all feeling no pain. So they
The hearing was postponed. They said, "You can set it again some time, you know." Then I went around and talked to fellows and said, "Look, fellows, you know this is important. Can't you give me a little help on this bill?" [Laughs] "What does it do?," they asked. I said, "It simply bars discrimination in the National Guard. If we're going to fight, I mean, why discriminate?"
And then I tried to point out there had been a group (the National Guard group from Salinas, California) that had been wiped out because they came from a certain locality—not because they weren't equipped to fight efficiently but because they came from the locality. And picking people on peculiar biases, either color or regional position, didn't make any sense. That was no way to build an army. A local group was not necessarily an efficient fighting organization.
So I finally got them to meet and I got the bill out of the assembly. They thought the senate was going to kill it anyway. So it went over to the senate. Well, it was worse over there. At night they'd meet and there wasn't one fellow present on the committee.
Fry
Nobody was there for the hearing?
Rumford
I thought, "What???? What kind of government is this??"
Fry
What committee heard it in the assembly?
Rumford
I don't know what it was. I think it was Military Affairs. So I convinced old Richard Dolwig. I'll never forget I had an awful time convincing him in the assembly! When I got over on the senate side, I had to convince Earl Desmond who was from an old Sacramento family. They ran things there as if they owned the place. I would come and talk to them.
I said, "Look, Senator, I think that it is time that we changed our position with respect to
[Imitates the Senator's deep, gravelly voice] "Well, I don't know. You can't get people together—ummmm."
Fry
For a meeting, you mean?
Rumford
No, he meant in the army.
So he said, (imitating his voice) "I'll tell you what you do, ahh, you come and see me in my office. I'll talk to some of the fellows," he says, "maybe we can get somewhere."
I said, "OK, Senator. I'd appreciate it if you would give it some thought. I think it is worthwhile."
"All right."
So I went to see him. "Well," he said, "I think we can help you."
"Oh, you can?"
"Yeah," he says, "Send your bill up there on such-and-such a day. We'll be there. No discussion. We're going to vote it out."
I said, "OK." So I set the bill for hearing and went on up.
(In the gravelly voice) "There's the bill you set and so-and-so-and-so on, and you have it. The bill is out. How's this?"
Fry
Oh, just like that? The democratic process!
Rumford
Oh, boy, that's something. It was very interesting and it was an experience for me. Of course, I guess I became part of it afterwards. I don't know, I hope I didn't. Not to that extent.
Fry
That was the bill to eliminate discrimination in the National Guard. One of our interviewees told us (not on tape, but off tape) that even though this bill was signed into law, it wasn't really recognized as law in the National Guard.
Well, for practical purposes, I think that he's correct. I think that they winked their eye at it for a long period of time. There were several reasons. One reason was that they had already set up a black unit, and the blacks didn't want to be transferred because they would lose their titles and ranks. It was said that they were comfortable in their own environment, so to speak. So I wouldn't say that is not true. But as time went on, they gradually broke the thing down, you see, because they wouldn't set up any more black units. But they had one in Los Angeles and one in Oakland that I know of. These black fellows had the major-general titles and all that stuff and of course they were kind of running things freehandedly until their request for more guardsmen. But they didn't set up any more black units; it was gradually broken down. I think this is true.
The Fair Employment Practices Bill
RumfordMr. Hawkins handled the FEPC bill first and later we'd both handled it off and on. Then he said, "Well, it is your time to handle the bill." As I said, he'd worked very hard on this legislation.
Fry
Yes, the first bill was tried in 1945 according to my notes.
Rumford
But the bill got through in '60, I think, when Brown was there. We couldn't get it out of commttee when Earl Warren was there. He wanted it out, too. He told me he was for it.
Fry
Yes, in 1955 it got through the assembly, according to my notes. The Commission was not established until 1959.
Rumford
In '50 what? It was '60, wasn't it?
Fry
'59.
Rumford
Brown wasn't there until '60.
Fry
He came in in '58.
Brown? In '58? Oh, I think he was elected in '58.
Fry
Yes, and came in in early '59.
Rumford
That's it. That's right. Well, it was passed in '59. Right.
I like to give credit to Mr. Hawkins because some people felt that we tried to take all the prestige for the FEPC bill. But I felt that Mr. Hawkins had done an awful lot of groundwork. I had worked too with C. L. Dellums and all. But it didn't matter. C.L. Dellums was simply the head of the Fair Practices Committee to establish Fair Employment Practice.
Fry
Which was a community committee.
Rumford
Yes. A statewide committee.
Fry
Statewide, both south and north?
Rumford
Right. And they met and they raised money. They had fought the petition, you know, that was on the ballot.
Fry
I wanted to ask you about that. That was before you became assemblyman.
Rumford
Right.
Fry
And were you involved in that at all?
Rumford
Yes, I made trips to Sacramento to help raise money and all.
Fry
Do you think it was a good idea to put it on the ballot?
Rumford
Oh, no. No. People don't understand the issues. They vote on their emotions. It has to be fought out under reasonable conditions with people that understand the basic issues and concerns.
Fry
My note says that Dellums opposed it too in 1946.
Rumford
Opposed putting it out?
Opposed putting it on the ballot.
Rumford
I don't know, he may have. I know he didn't think it was a good thing. Of course, again here we didn't have too much to say about it.
Fry
Well who did put it on the ballot? What did you say Hawkins' view was on that?
Rumford
Oh. I don't know what his views were. I imagine he wasn't particular about putting it on the ballot either, because we knew that if it was put on the ballot that it would be defeated. I think that it was sponsored largely by business interests who felt, "Well, if we get it on the ballot, it will be killed forever." See, merchants and manufacturers were fighting it and both conservative groups in the state carried the ball on that thing, I guess, and furnished much of the money. It was soundly defeated and we felt it would be. Nobody is going to vote to give somebody a job or as they said, "Take a job away." It never should have been on the ballot. I mean, any time you put any rights issue on the ballot, it's going to be defeated.
The same was true with Proposition 14. Proposition 14 passed, which purportedly, not directly, repealed the so-called Rumford Act. Now, I say "purportedly" because it really was an effort to amend the Constitution, rather than to repeal my law. To make it unconstitutional for blacks to buy anywhere they wanted to buy, that's what the initiative did. They could have easily repealed my law. All they had to do was say section so-and-so of the Health and Safety Code or Labor Code is hereby repealed. There is a difference, you see, between initiative and referendum. They went the initiative route, initiating a new constitutional provision in our Constitution which says a person shall have the right to discriminate, and that was the reason it was declared unconstitutional really. We hung our hats on that and fought it through the courts, and the court said, "You can't put that in the Constitution." Attorney Selvin had the case. He resided in Los Angeles.
But back to the FEPC bill, I carried the bill in '59 because it was my turn. We had alternated
Fry
My impression is that the senate was tougher than the assembly in this one also. Is that right?
Rumford
Oh yes. Very much so.
Fry
That's the rural vote.
Rumford
Yes, you see those fellows didn't have any black constituents to amount to anything. They had some good senators during that period. But then after Brown came in we got a good group of senators! We probably had the best group of senators we've ever had up there. Peterson and those guys—quite a few. I can't remember all their names; I won't even try! But they were a good group of senators that were elected during that period when Brown went in in the '58 election.
Fry
Why do you tie that to Brown? Was he pushing FEPC?
Rumford
Yes. He pledged to support it.
Fry
How do you contrast his support with Earl Warren's?
Rumford
Well, the Democratic Party, I think, endorsed it in their party platform. Brown, of course, ran on the promise that he would support it. In Warren's case, the question didn't come up. It certainly didn't get on the Republican Party platform, and it was never an issue where persons were considered taking a position publicly on it. But Earl Warren had expressed himself to me that he was for it.
Fry
I think it was one of the bills he suggested to the legislature in his legislative address.
Rumford
Yes, in his speech. Yes, I think he did.
Fry
When I talked to Almena Lomax, reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, she told me that she had the feeling that he did come out publicly for it as a bill. But she said that he hadn't worked for it and hadn't given it his support.
Well, she says that, but what can you do? I know he told me that he would support it. And then he said, "Put it in one of those labor bills [imitating sotto voce, conspiratorially], put it in there, put it in one of those labor bills!"
Fry
Is that what you did at that time?
Rumford
No, we didn't try to get it in a labor bill. However, from time to time, if you understand the workings of the legislature, you find a bill that is moving, that amends approximately the same code section that you are interested in. Then you can amend yours into the section and send it down to the governor. That is what Warren had in mind. You see, a labor bill, maybe it was a bill to establish a minimum wage, affects certain sections of the labor code. Well, the FEPC was also affecting certain sections of the labor code. Anywhere that you could find a bill that was moving and that had a labor code amendment in it, well, if you could amend your measure in there, you are all right. A lot of times people said, "Well, gee, don't try to kill my bill by putting that amendment in there! If you do, that means that the whole bill will go down the drain."
Fry
Is that why you didn't fit it in a bill at that time?
Rumford
Oh, we thought we couldn't find a bill, or we probably felt that we wouldn't try to put it in when somebody else was getting their needed legislation. There have been attempted amendments several times in bills, but we never could get the votes to get them amended. That is a pretty difficult thing in itself: amendment passing.
Fry
I have a schizophrenic viewpoint of labor's role in this. When I was in the library up at the California Federation of Labor going through their old records, their annual reports on the legislature to their membership showed their support of the FEPC.
Rumford
They didn't—not strongly.
Fry
But it was one of the things that they listed as a labor issue.
[Dubiously] Yes.
Fry
OK. But on the other hand, my impression is that this has always been one of the big hang-ups for fair employment: that the unions will not allow blacks to join. They won't see that they are called for work if they do join.
Rumford
One of the big problems today—in fact I was reading in this Sunday's magazine section where they had an article about Arthur Fletcher. You know Art Fletcher ran against me too.
Fry
Oh, he did? When did he run against you?
Rumford
Oh, I don't know. In the fifties, I guess, the late fifties or somewhere along there—maybe the sixties. Anyway, [Laughing] he was defeated by about 40,000 votes. Funny thing about politics! But they had a splendid article about him in the magazine section of Sunday's paper. It tells about his problems under the Philadelphia Plan.
Fry
Yes. Now that's a plan in which a quota system is decided.
Rumford
Yes. Twenty percent or something like that.
Fry
Twenty percent must be black.
Rumford
Well, he said that the blacks don't like it and the unions don't like it. Nobody is happy with it, other than the fact that those people were getting the jobs. Labor was just out-and-out opposed to it.
Fry
Haggerty is opposed to that, isn't he?
Rumford
Oh, yes. Yes, I talked to Haggerty. You know, Haggerty was in California.
Fry
Yes. He was still there when you were in the legislature.
Rumford
Oh, yes.
Fry
I wondered if you had talked to him about FEPC at the time.
Oh, sure! Oh, yes.
Fry
What did he say about it?
Rumford
Oh, they had a weak-kneed approach. They'd get up there and say they were for it, you know. "We testified for it." But some of the henchmen in the background, I think, were working against it. "Oh, we've got to do this"—one of those things.
But Haggerty always made a presentation before the committee!
Fry
Well, the union he represents, which is the Building Trades Union, I thought was one of the worst ones in discrimination.
Rumford
That's true, and it still is. It still is.
Fry
So it is a pretty muddy picture.
Rumford
It is, a pretty muddy picture. Now more so than ever, I think, when there is a scarcity of jobs, you'll find this position being taken by labor and they shy away from any kind of agreement or dilution of jobs for their membership, they say, based upon tenure and the right of an individual to a job after so long a period.
Fry
How did you manage to get the FEPC bill through committees in the legislature? Could you tell us?
Rumford
It is difficult to say how.
Fry
Could you tell us who helped you?
Rumford
We had some help from all of the Fair Employment Practice people, such as C.L. Dellums and Bill Becker, and also from the NAACP. Bill Becker gave an awful lot of time to it. He's a wonderful person. He not only helped me with that legislation, he helped me with a lot of legislation. I forget who he was hired by. I think the Fair Employment Committee paid him. Then, at one time he did work for some church group. Bill Becker. I think he has a job in San Francisco. He's the head of the Civil Rights Unity Committee or something.
Yes, something like that.
Rumford
Yes, one of those jobs, I'm not sure about it.
I'd like to give people all the credit that they're entitled to because, as I said, as far as I'm concerned I handled the legislation at the time and used what skills I might have had to get it through. But a lot of the basic work was done by Mr. Hawkins and other people to kind of loosen up the political position at that time.
Fry
What did the committee do? Was it letterwriting campaigns?
Rumford
Oh, they held meetings throughout the state. They'd come up and lobby in Sacramento. They'd send people into the offices to talk to legislators and there was gradually a general change in sentiment. You could see less opposition coming. In spite of the fact that we had a setback at the ballot, there was a change in position that was taking place. It became more of a political issue among Democrats. A lot of Democrats voted for it who really didn't want to. Some of the conservative areas voted for it.
Fry
Voted for it?
Rumford
Voted for the FEPC bill. They criticized it, and later they decided, well, maybe it will turn out all right.
Fry
Why would they vote for it if they didn't want to?
Rumford
Because it was part of the platform, and they were in the position of being a member of a political party on the one hand and representing a group of people on the other who cared less about fair employment.
For instance, out in Carlos Bee's district, Hayward and San Leandro, it wasn't a popular issue. But I think Carlos Bee supported it.
Fry
Personally, he probably was for it; do you think so?
Rumford
Yes. He wouldn't have supported it otherwise.
You mean some of them supported it because of pressure in the Democratic hierarchy?
Rumford
Right. Now on the other hand, there were some Republicans who supported it because they thought it was basically and morally right. Alan Pattee of Monterey, for instance, not only supported it but he got up and made a speech for it. He comes from a very conservative area and he got up and said, "We need it. You've got to support it." And he voted for it. So did Milton Marks of San Francisco. Milton came from what we call a "silk stocking" area. But we were able to hold these men, to get these men to go along with us.
Fry
What committees did that have to go through?
Rumford
Well, I guess it was Governmental Efficiency and Economy both in the assembly and the senate, and also I think it had to go to Ways and Means. In the assembly it was Ways and Means. Over in the senate, it was the Senate Finance Committee.
Fry
Do you remember any particular men you worked with in these hearings?
Rumford
George Miller played an important part.
Fry
From Contra Costa?
Rumford
Yes. We had a lot of good men there. I wasn't going to point out any one person, but Senator Stiern from Bakersfield was helpful.
Fry
Hmm!
Rumford
Yes, from those areas.
Fry
You know I had just kind of in my mind ruled Bakersfield out because I thought it was controlled by large agricultural interests.
Rumford
Well, it still is. Stiern has a bitter fight every time he comes up [for election]! But he has been able to hold his constituency. We've had extremely liberal representation from those areas. We had a fellow who was elected to the assembly when I was there by the name of Joe Louis, who was the nearest
Fry
Oh, he was?
Rumford
Yes, but poor people—they sacrificed the man. Coming from that area, you know, they had him take extreme positions, and he couldn't make it! He was getting up talking, and they were quoting him in Bakersfield and they were gunning for him. And when he got back to Bakersfield, they shot him down (he was defeated). It was a sad situation really because his election would not have been difficult had he come from one of the urban areas. But they had him staked out there, and depending on a lot of things that shouldn't have been, they defeated him after one term, just like they did Lewis Sherman.
Fry
Are you saying that the same people who had him committed to these issues were the people who shot him down?
Rumford
No, he was shot down because of his conservative constituency. There he was, talking liberal positions. Yes, Joe was a nice fellow, too. I hated to see that.
So that, I guess, gives you a picture of the Fair Employment Practice Act and its adoption. It was signed by Governor Brown and then it was hailed as a victory.
But I re-emphasize again for you that I don't take too much glory in the fact that I got the FEPC bill through because there were so many people working on it and they wanted the credit. I want to give them the credit!
Fry
What about the ground work in Sacramento? Did you have any lobbyists helping you?
Rumford
Well, we had Bill Becker, Mrs. Tarea Pittman of the NAACP, and the Jewish Labor League.
Fry
You weren't able to gather the aid of any professional lobbyist there on this, were you?
Oh, no. Becker, you see, was a lobbyist for the California Committee for FEPC. We had statements from the farm people, the Mexican community, from the Jewish Labor Committee, the Negro Women's League or something like that, ministerial groups that appeared before the committee—and that's the kind of a presentation we made before the committee. We probably had a minister or two, a Mexican-American, a Japanese-American, if they would come. The Japanese-Americans weren't too involved at that time.
Fry
Do you consider that or your Fair Housing Bill the most important legislation?
Rumford
Well, it is difficult for me to say which is more important. I told you what I went through to get a job. Let's see, what comes first, a job or a house? I think the job comes first. If a man can't get a job he can't work.
There was a time a black person couldn't get a job in a service station. You never saw a black face working for, say, Shell Oil or any of those stations. I mean just an ordinary manual labor job, no particular skill, no particular profession. We weren't able to get those jobs. Then, when we got the Fair Employment Practices Act the whole thing changed completely! You would see clerks in stores. When you go now, you see clerks in stores; you see them filling prescriptions. Nobody thinks anything about their color. The question is: do they have a license? Are they able to do it? Have they had the training?
This, we could never get! You wouldn't even hope to get it. We never saw a Negro girl, say, down at Kahn's Department Store doing anything! But the FEPC brought that all down. It was the law that did it. It made it possible for people to get a job largely based upon their ability to perform. I think that was significant and very important because it made little difference—it still does—if a person desires a big home or wants to move into a different neighborhood if he doesn't have the resources to do it. So it would seem to me that the first thing is to get a job and be able to make sufficient revenue so that they can live better.
That doesn't, however, belittle housing legislation because that is basically important sociologically and in various other areas where its importance is pointed out.
Fry
I wonder about the young blacks at the time of this FEPC legislation. Now they are so very active. Did you have a lot of active support from the young people?
Rumford
Well, we had support but I wouldn't say a lot of support. Young people now have been more active than ever in the political history that I have known of. They're active, all right, up there in Berkeley.
Fry
I am also curious about the role of the white community.
Rumford
There were quite a number of local whites in Berkeley and in the state—dedicated, sincere people really—who thought they could help, who thought the races could get along. As I pointed out to you, in Berkeley during the early periods of the war, there were those who put up signs and said that they "will not cater to the Negro trade." Those signs had to be taken down. It was about to start a race conflict. So some of the sincere and earnest people of Berkeley got together, and they worked on these issues. They worked on the issue of fair employment. Well, it was right. I'd like to give those people credit. Along with them, however, came some of the fair-haired liberals who wanted to coast a little bit in the limelight and who weren't sincere basically. We still have some of those.
Fry
What were they trying to get out of it?
Rumford
Well, to get elected, for one thing.
Fry
Oh, they were politicians.
Rumford
Other advantages is what they gained. But this doesn't discount the sincere, dedicated and knowledgeable persons who gave money and time and effort on behalf of the problems which we faced during the early war period.
In Southern California, was that primarily a black operation down there?
Rumford
No. They had help from the American church groups and Jewish labor groups. They raised money in Beverly Hills and other places for the cause of FEPC. There were a lot of good, solid white people. I just can't recall any names.
Fry
I wonder what was the political make-up of your district?
Rumford
When I first ran, it was largely Caucasian. I'd say about 60 - 40. The district changed rapidly after the war. Grove Street changed completely. It was solid white from Grove to Telegraph, and through North Oakland it was also largely Caucasian. It is all black now.
Fry
So that would be right after your first election that this changed.
Rumford
Well, it began to change because during the war period or during the period that I ran, there were quite a number of multiple housing units that were completely destroyed. They were wartime housing and they were destroyed, you see. Those people had to move somewhere so they'd move into white neighborhoods and the whites moved out. That's the procedure. Then we began to get that influx there at Codornices Village in Berkeley on San Pablo Avenue. Had you heard that before?
Fry
Yes.
Rumford
Oh yes, a big block of Negroes down there. There was this constant hue to destroy Codornices Village! To break it down and get rid of these people I think. [Laughs] I don't know what else. But it was subhousing; it was war housing. It was dangerous. It served a real purpose during the war; people couldn't get housing. Part of it, I think, is still used by the University.
Fry
Yes, I think it is the grad students that have that.
Was this issue of Codornices Village a hot issue that a legislator like yourself could deal with?
Well, of course my position was always one to protect the village from being destroyed because people had nowhere to go. It became an issue. What to do with the village became a city issue much more than anything else. There were thousands of blacks down there though, with nowhere to go.
The Civil Service Committee
FryWere you on the Civil Service Committee in the assembly quite early?
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
Like in your first term?
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
Did you deal with any discriminatory practices there?
Rumford
Well, we did. Yes. I think we introduced several bills. I can't recall now; at least, they didn't pass. But we did, not only in terms of legislation which passed, but in affecting policy generally.
For instance, at the time Negroes were having a problem with civil rights up and down the Valley, and we asked the attorney general to investigate the practices down there, because Negroes weren't able to eat anywhere and couldn't get anywhere to sleep. Brown, I think, was attorney general at the time. [We asked him] to make the investigation down in the Valley, which he did. We requested from the Highway Patrol that they change their policy with reference to hiring and this was in direct conversation with the director. We also had conferences with other people, Civil Service people, on hiring people on the Bay Bridge. [We had] conferences with them, and forever conferences with people who were rejected in upgrading their status. We had a problem with the State Department of Public Health when they would not hire a young lady who was a chemist. Oh, numerous of those things came about.
Were you a kind of a watchdog about this, to receive complaints? Or was there a committee?
Rumford
Naturally, I was a watchdog. There was no committee. I mean, people who knew I was in the legislature and knew that they had been denied some of their rights would get in touch with me.
Fry
Even though they were out of your district they would do this?
Rumford
Wherever they came from—they came from Sacramento if there was a problem—they would contact me. They, for all practical purposes, had no black representation otherwise.
Fry
Someone told me that the Civil Service Committee is very important and that pay raises are always at issue because Civil Service is always such a large hunk of the state budget. So I thought that perhaps just getting entangled in the pay raise issue is something you might remember.
Rumford
There were concerted efforts on the part of the California State Employees Association to get raises. That's a common thing, to keep their jobs and get raises, you know; one follows the other. Well I found, frankly, being honest with you, that being on the Civil Service Committee didn't affect the policies as I would have thought, that one didn't get much help out of those people. I don't think they appreciated the work we were trying to do for them.
Fry
Oh, the CSEA?
Rumford
Yes. I felt that I was losing time on the committee. I got off of it, I think, the second year.
You see, one of the questions is, in a practical sense, how do you get money when you run for re-election? It is a practical problem. The Civil Service not only didn't offer you any money, but they wouldn't even give you any publicity in their little magazine. While on that committee, all I was doing was voting for raises for them and helping them. I felt that I could better be somewhere else,
Fry
I noticed that groups like that frequently seem to make that mistake. They want to take the credit for raises. They have to portray it as being a very tough, single-handed fight! [Laughs]
Rumford
Right! And then they don't help you with your campaign for re-election. They let you drift! No help, you know. "We can't get involved in politics," they say. Not a dime! And it takes money.
I know that my senate election took me almost $30,000, $31,000 from people all over.
Fry
Did you have any big donors that were able to make it a lot easier sometimes?
Rumford
Oh, some of the largest gave $300 or $400, something like that. That was a big gift—for me.
Fry
Were most of your contributions from black sources?
Rumford
Yes. Contributions not only from black, but from Jewish people. When I ran for the senate there was a cross-section of people. We had terrific support. We'll go into that later.
Fry
That's great. Yes. We'll come back to your senate election next time.
Now shall we go into that "Little Hoover Committee" that you were on? My first question about (I am not quite sure when this was) is why were you on the committee? Were you there primarily to represent the Negro increase in the reorganization?
Rumford
Oh, no. I remember that committee; it was appointed by Sam Collins, who I guess was the Speaker when I went up there. I'm not sure who was the chairman of that committee; I believe it was Jim Silliman. I think he was the chairman of that committee. I was appointed, just as any other member of the legislature, to make a study of the government functions and to recommend changes in structure, in agencies, and in other governmental functions. We had two such
Fry
You don't remember any particular problems?
Rumford
Not as well as I do those handled on the Weinberger Committee.
Fry
OK. Then why don't we go on with the Weinberger Committee.
IV The Weinberger Committee - Government Organization
Records Management Program
RumfordWell, I don't recall the date. It was in the fifties, I think, that Casper Weinberger took over the governmental reorganization committee. He conducted an intensive reorganization campaign. I was assigned, if I remember correctly, as chairman of the Records Management Program. I might be getting confused; we can look that up. In the Records Management Program, we studied the methods of handling records as it pertained to documents of state—whether they should be retained and who makes a decision as to whether they should be retained or discarded, and at what point in the procedure does one decide to discard some of these documents once they become a written order or a written communication.
We found that there were quite a number of records being kept in steel cabinets in expensive office space. Downtown, for instance, you'd find a room like this just full of files. Our contention was that we could save an awful lot of money both in terms of expensive office space, and also in terms of the type of file that was used. We suggested the use of a paper or cardboard file, rather than a steel cabinet, and also to remove the files from the expensive office space and warehouse them somewhere else in an inexpensive place, rather than at 35 cents a square foot, maybe at 10 cents a square foot. We were able, I think, through that particular committee, to provide a savings of about $250,000 for the state in terms of cost of office space.
With the Weinberger Committee, we reorganized the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. We made
Fry
Tell me about that.
The State Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, 1953
RumfordWell, Mr. Weinberger was the chairman of this special committee. Glenn Coolidge was a member, an assemblyman from around Santa Cruz. He and Senator Johnson, myself, and Weinberger were the members of the joint committee. This joint committee studied the practices of allocating liquor licenses: how one received a liquor license and under what circumstances and what the procedures were. We found out that in San Diego County, they had listed liquor licenses as being in vacant lots and vacant places where nobody occupied the building. These, of course, were listed under certain names. This was a false and fictitious approach to getting a license. They would take that license and sell it to somebody, of course, and facilitate a transfer from that place to a bona fide place.
These were Board of Equalization people, you see, who allocated these licenses for themselves and they were just cleaning up, taking a bunch of licenses and saying, "We show a license for Joe Blow here" (vacant lot). And so when one of their friends came in and said he wanted to get a liquor license, they said, "Well, we think we can get you one. You know it will cost you a little money." So he'd pay $10 - 15 - 20,000 for a liquor license and they'd just take that from the vacant lot and transfer it over here on paper. So quite a few of them wound up in San Quentin. We took the jurisdiction of liquor licenses from out under the Board of Equalization and placed it within a new division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Fry
Oh, that is when that happened.
Rumford
Yes, we took it out completely.
Fry
Was that when William Bonelli—
Yes, he was in there too some kind of way. He was the head of the Board of Equalization.
Fry
Yes, he was on that board. Was this the time he got into trouble? Or was that later?
Rumford
I think this was before he got into trouble. But he knew about this operation and then he skipped out. Yes.
Fry
I think that that was about '54 or '55 when he skipped out.
Rumford
About. He just died. He'd been down in Mexico for fifteen, twenty years.
Fry
Did he die?
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
Oh, I didn't know.
Rumford
He died a couple of years ago—maybe one. He went to Mexico years ago. In fact, he had put in a claim for his pension, you see, because he had served as Director of Vocational Standards, Professional Vocational Standards. He served in that capacity also. I came in contact with him when I was rejected as VD investigator.
Fry
Oh, you did?
Rumford
Oh, yes. I talked to him and he was very much upset about it. He was disappointed; he was fair.
Fry
He was disappointed that you didn't get the job?
Rumford
Right. He was upset. In fact, he was one of the instigators, really, in trying to help straighten the thing out, because he was on the personnel board. I had passed several examinations and one of them was for inspector on the Board of Pharmacy. There was a very remote chance of me getting that job and I knew it. But anyway I passed the examination and I applied for it. Of course they were other examinations; we went through the whole story, because he happened to be the head of the whole Vocational Standards and Professional Bureau.
The Water Resources Act, 1956
RumfordThen the Weinberger Committee also changed the state's Water Law. We tried to set up a bureau—sort of an Internal Revenue Bureau—but we didn't get it passed. We did change the Water Law; we were successful in that.
Fry
What Water Law is that?
Rumford
California's whole Water Law, which set up the Water Board and the whole shebang! Weinberger was chairman of that. He took the leadership in that one.
Fry
Is this the Water Resources Act?
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
Is this the act that sets up the regional committee?
Rumford
Well I can't tell you all it did because it has been so many years ago, but it seems to me that it did, based upon watersheds or something of that nature. It has been so long ago; it was about twenty years ago, maybe. Way back there when Weinberger was there. That's how we became good friends—my working with him on that committee, the investigations that we had together. Of course, I had a great deal of respect for the man, for his integrity. We got a lot of heat from the liquor interests. That's why he was defeated when he ran for attorney general.
Fry
The liquor interests defeated him?
Rumford
I can't say that, but I think it is a fact. I am only guessing but this was the rumor, that they wanted no part of him because of this reorganization. He was beyond reproach, a very honest man.
Fry
About when was this?
Rumford
Gosh, I had a clipping [looking for it].
Fry
What I need to do is to establish about when the legislative report was made, so that it can be referred to.
Well, I thought maybe it would be in here but I don't see it in here. No, I don't see it there. I can't remember the dates on those things because every year it was a different story and so much went through the legislature and all. I thought maybe it had given a date there.
Weinberger went there around '52, so it must have been '53 or '54 or '55, something like that. [The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act passed in 1953.] I can tell you the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission was established. We did so much in the legislature. We did so many things that it is difficult for me to remember all these things.
Fry
Another one was that bill to prohibit discrimination in public works.
Rumford
Yes. We didn't have too much trouble with that in the assembly.
Fry
I have this dated about 1951.
Rumford
It was early. Just about that—'51, '52, somewhere along in there. I think it was in my second term.
Fry
It sounded like you were taking on the building trades unions.
Rumford
Well, wherever necessary we did, wherever necessary. Although we had union support to some degree.
Fry
Did you?
Rumford
To some degree. They gave me bills to handle for them. They always gave me the rough bills. "Two dollars an hour" was the most popular. What was it, they had some bill they had me working on there? Oh, the Wagner Act or something like that. We had to carry it for them. I carried a number of their bills.
But with that new outfit up there, they've got control. The Labor Council—you couldn't get anywhere with them!
Fry
What's that outfit? The one in the legislature?
No. The Central Labor Council. What's his name, the Frenchman? Dick Groulx, who's now secretary of Alameda Central Labor Council.
Fry
This was the person who was cool about the bill?
Rumford
He wasn't there then. Well, I'd say Haggerty and those weren't particular about the bill. But Haggerty never would come out against a bill, see. No. They'd whisper around. They had a fellow then by the name of Fink.
Fry
Oh, yes.
Rumford
You know Fink?
Fry
No, but I've read his name on the labor reports.
Rumford
He was the type of guy who would say [imitating]: "We're not interested. We don't care about it. Don't worry about it. Take a walk." That kind of thing. He was the hatchet man up there.
Fry
Fink, eh?
Rumford
Yes, he was the hatchet man.
Fry
But you did get it past the assembly?
Rumford
Oh, yes.
Fry
Well, who really went to bat for you on it? You said Eddy Gaffney helped you.
Rumford
Yes, Eddy Gaffney. It was an innocuous bill in the sense that there was public money involved, and it wasn't difficult to sell these guys on that basis.
The union said that we had an argument but that they still didn't want it. We were able to get it through.
Fry
Were you able to use the federal regulation on that as a precedent, or was this too early?
Rumford
It was a little early. I don't think we used the Roosevelt rules in there.
Well let's see, in '51 it'd been Truman.
Rumford
Truman? Again, I must—
Fry
You don't remember using that then in your argument?
Rumford
Really I don't, because it was not considered at the time a most significant bill. Besides that, I notice that you don't have down there one of the bills that got a lot of publicity: the so-called "Good Samaritan Act" [1959].
Fry
Oh really! Oh, yes.
Rumford
Which allowed doctors to treat injured people in an emergency without being sued. That was in the Reader's Digest. It was given wide publicity and adopted by quite a number of states.
Fry
Yes, it was. That was a pioneer measure then?
Rumford
Oh yes. Pioneer to the extent that doctors were refusing to treat persons in emergency accident cases and things of that nature because they'd get sued. This came about as a result of somebody, I forget who, who had been skiing up in the Sierras. He broke a leg and the doctors wouldn't touch him.
Fry
I have one more question about this bill to prohibit discrimination in public works. According to my notes Senator Tenney proposed that it be sent back from the floor because it was a little FEPC measure. He thought it was a "creeping FEPC bill."
Rumford
Probably so. You know, when you mention those kind of things it brings back some memories but that has been twenty-some-odd years ago. You'd have to check the files for some statements like that because the press would report it, although I couldn't remember what they said. I had so many bills that they were fighting over then! [Laughs]
Fry
I don't see how you remember any of them! The reason that this one caught my eye was that this was in 1951, the same time that the FEPC itself was—
Rumford
Defeated?
Yes, but it was becoming a big issue and a regular issue.
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
I wondered if this was an end-run to get it.
Rumford
Actually it was an orderly method of trying to use the legislative process to correct wrongs as much as we were trying to break barriers down wherever we could. Well we felt, here's an innocuous thing. At least we could get something anyhow. We could argue that it was federal money, it was taxpayer's money, it was public works. Why couldn't there be justice done? Then it gave some of these reactionaries a place of refuge.
They'd say, "Well, yeah, I can vote for that." [Imitating] "Well, I voted for that bill!"
V Assembly Committee on Public Health
Studies and Legislation on Air Pollution
FryWould you like to go into some of your work on air pollution? According to Dr. Merrill
*. Malcohm H. Merrill, M.D., California State Department of Public Health Deputy Director 1944-54, Acting Director 1951-52, Director 1954-65.
Rumford
Oh, we had quite a bit to do with all the legislation in air pollution. We made studies, there were several. There was some action prior to our allout effort. It's discussed in my master's thesis at Cal. My thesis on air pollution is recorded up there. You may want to look it up for some history.
But Randal Dickey did some studies on regional application of water and air. I don't know whether I was chairman of Public Health then or not. There was a sub-committee and we developed the first regional air pollution control law and bill. Richard Dolwig of San Mateo, who wanted the honor to say that he did it, asked me to let him handle the bill. I told him I didn't care, that it was all right with me. So I let him handle it. Yes, I let him have it.
He said, "Look, I need that legislation." So I said, "If you need it, go ahead. I don't care."
Fry
He needed it worse last year!
Rumford
[Laughing] He sure did!
You see, he had been instrumental in helping me get that National Guard bill that I told you about out of committee. He had lent it some effort. He said, "All right, I'll go with you." So when he asked me about this one, I said, "Well, go ahead Dolwig, if you need the bill" [expansively]. So we had a basis for funding air pollution control for the Bay Area, and he took it.
Fry
Well, that investigation must have taken, what, about a year?
Rumford
Yes, it went on for many years. But each year they had some studies. I think that I was chairman of Public Health when we did most of the basic work.
Fry
Well I would guess that you did much work on it because you became chairman of Public Health Committee in 1953 and this legislation occurred in 1955.
Rumford
Yes, from '53 until I got out of the assembly, which was about fifteen years in all.
Fry
You'd been on the Public Health Committee since 1949 according to my notes.
Rumford
Right.
Fry
There's a little story, perhaps apocryphal, that went along with this. Governor Knight was able to find $100,000 for the air pollution study because during his campaign for re-election there was a terrible smog crisis in Los Angeles [laughs] and he promised he would do something about it!
This was the irony of the whole approach to the solution of smog. For the first time we were dealing with an unknown and we were trying to legislate. We were trying to legislate against the natural forces of nature, and you couldn't pass a law to prevent contamination, pollution, without first passing laws to eliminate its source. Nobody at the time knew what was causing it. There was no agreement as to what caused smog. Some theories were that it was caused by the resumption of an active volcano out in the Pacific. Others said it was a result of the sulphur fumes coming from the
But still there was smog. Dorn was elected supervisor in Los Angeles to get rid of smog. Dorn came to Sacramento and demanded that we pass a law to get rid of smog. That was ridiculous!
Haagen-Smitt of Pasadena and Cal Tech developed the theory that it was unsaturated hydrocarbons acted upon by sunlight and other contaminants and floculent material that caused what we know as smog. We in the legislature accepted his theory because we had no better theory to accept. We made trips to Detroit to talk to the automotive industry about it. They refused to accept it. They went about conducting experiments that stimulated air conditions acted upon by sunlight with these unsaturated hydrocarbons and they reluctantly admitted after several experiments that this could be a possibility. Carcinogenic substances were formed also.
Really?
Rumford
Yes. During this period we were making studies on plant life down at Riverside and that is where we met Dr. John Middleton. Dr. Middleton is now the head of the air pollution control in the federal government. And his wife was once my secretary. My secretary became his wife, you see. They live here [in Washington].
I was honored here a few months ago when the U.S. Air Pollution Control sponsored a meeting of the World Symposium on Air Pollution Control, and they had me sit at the head table as one of those that had made a contribution.
Fry
We would like to have a newspapers account of that if you have it.
I don't know if I have one. I had something on it, but I may have thrown it away. Oh, that's a speech Middleton made. I didn't get rid of it. They just honored me there but there is nothing on the program of mine.
Fry
"The Second International Clean Air Congress."
Rumford
Yes. I was very fortunate. I thought it was very nice too, because it was the first time that anybody ever honored me for doing anything in smog control. There is a speech I made before the air pollution control organization in the Bay Area, but I've never seen it because I made it off the cuff. They tell me it was one of the best speeches. It had to do with some of the broad concepts. It has been recorded and they published it in one of their magazines or manuals. I asked for a copy of it.
Fry
Is this the Bay Area Air Pollution Control Board?
Rumford
No. It was an organization of air pollution control people.
Fry
Oh, I see, a citizen's committee.
Rumford
No, technicians, air pollution control men. They told me they printed my speech and they sent it to me, but I've never seen it. They said it was a wonderful talk.
At the time I told them that I didn't think they would get anywhere unless they got the people behind them.
Fry
It is really political now, isn't it?
Rumford
Yes. Well, they've got people behind them now. They want to do something about it. Sure.
But at the time we couldn't get to first base. I mean, it is too technical and it wasn't affecting the lives of people anywhere but Los Angeles; it gradually came to the Bay Area. Ben Linsky was the first Bay Area Pollution Control officer. I saw him at this conference. They ran him out of the Bay Area.
What was he?
Rumford
He was the Director of the Bay Area Pollution Control District. He was too tough; business drove him out. He's teaching at the University of West Virginia, I think, teaching air pollution control.
Fry
Would you agree that this did not get full public support until about two years ago in 1969 or so?
Rumford
That's right. The fact is the federal government wouldn't even talk to us about smog. The Californians, by and large, have paid the price of experimentation, development of the idea and concept which is now accepted by all the governments throughout the world as a source of smog, and that is the exhaust of the automobile. The people in the state paid a tremendous price for that in terms of taxes and assessments, all that went with it. The federal government didn't do anything.
I think Senator Tom Kuchel put in the first bill to do something about it. You see, you first have to define it. We first had to isolate the problem before we could do anything about it legislative-wise. We had to define what was acceptable air. What were we talking about? We know what acceptable water is now; it has been defined.
Fry
How did you manage to start research in the investigation and definition of air pollution?
Rumford
Well, the legislature didn't start the investigation, as far as smog was concerned. I think that Los Angeles County had long been engaged in trying to determine the cause of the phenomenon which they referred to as smog. I think Haagen-Smitt had really gone to work for them in terms of research. Of course our effort in that direction helped to implement the Haagen-Smitt theory by holding public hearings on smog control. Haagen-Smitt had developed this theory of unsaturated hydrocarbons acted upon by sunlight producing these acrimonious substances. We generally accepted his theory because there was no other theory, and it sounded reasonable. On that basis I think it was generally accepted throughout California that fumes that were being
Fry
And what did these men say? These were technicians that you talked with?
Rumford
Yes, and automotive engineers. Well, these men did not deny nor did they confirm the theory. They simply said that they were doing their own research. Up to that point there was no definite concept in reference to the problem.
Fry
So they weren't buying the Haagen-Smitt theory?
Rumford
No, not at that point. Even if they thought it was conceivable, they didn't indicate it. They showed us where they were doing their own experimentation, where they had simulated, as I mentioned, this large tube which inside had these hydrocarbons.
Fry
A tube with a sample of hydrocarbonated air, is that what you'd call it?
Rumford
Right. Yes, that's right. Plus the fact that they had a beam of light on it.
Fry
To represent sunlight?
Rumford
Right. They were simulating the atmospheric conditions in Southern California. So they really had all this work they were doing.
At the same time they were doing some work on afterburners, which gave indication that they rather technically admitted there were unburned hydrocarbons being emitted. The other point, of course, was whether these emissions were in fact causing this smog condition, which they later, I think, agreed to.
Fry
Well, what was the result of your trip then?
Rumford
The result of my trip was simply this: we talked at length with them, we saw their experimentation.
You talked to whom?
Rumford
We talked to the Chrysler people, the Ford people, the General Motors people and all the automobile producers, the Automobile Association in Detroit, on the legislature's position in reference to their responsibility to seeing that the air was clean or at least that they would remove, possibly through better engineering, large quantities of gases that were being emitted from the tailpipe.
You asked what benefit the trip was. Well, we saw evidence that they were engaged in research: one, as I mentioned in trying to develop a simulated smog condition; two, that they were producing afterburners in automobiles with the view in mind that they might be able to attach afterburners to the exhaust pipes thereby preventing the emissions of a great number of the unsaturated hydrocarbons. We saw some of these afterburners. They were made out of different substances. But they were not in their efficient form. Some of them produced excessive amounts of heat in the rear because they were burning, you see. They had to do more experimentation and more work on these.
Thirdly, we were able to convince them that the problem was of such a serious nature in California that they should send their technicians to appear before the legislature, and they did. I think the most significant part of the trip was that we were able to convince them to come to the Capitol in Sacramento and appear before the joint committee.
Fry
That was a joint committee of the legislature acting as a committee of the whole?
Rumford
Really it was a Committee of Public Health which invited them and also extended privilege to the senators to participate. It wasn't officially a joint committee in that respect. It was a public forum with the automobile people, questions being asked of them from the rostrum as they spoke.
Fry
Did this have good press coverage at the time?
Rumford
I don't know.
I was wondering if we'd be able to find it.
Rumford
Oh, I think so. They certainly should have something on it as important as the subject matter was at the time, and I can't tell you the date because those things just leave you, you know.
Fry
Yes.
Rumford
I can't remember when we went to Detroit—it was in the fifties.
Fry
Wasn't there a legislative report on this committee investigation that we could look up?
Rumford
I'm not too sure about that.
Fry
Or a committee report?
Rumford
Well, this was a special meeting and I don't think we kept any minutes on the thing. There may be in the files—
Fry
The Public Health Committee files?
Rumford
No, in the day-to-day reporting of legislative activities. There may be some mention made of the fact: "A 3 o'clock meeting of the automobile people with the sub-committee on Public Health."
Fry
Probably the easiest way to do it is to look under "Smog" in the Sacramento Bee files and see what is covered.
Rumford
That's right.
Fry
So at any rate, I wasn't sure how much public interest was in this at the time because this was before people got really worked up about the dangers of smog.
Rumford
That's right. You see, the people in our area weren't worked up too much and then the automobile industry was denying it really. They said, "Well, it is just a theory. We have no proof." There were all kinds of threats at that particular time against the automobile industry as to what would happen if they didn't do certain things because the
Fry
How many members from Los Angeles were on this committee? Or from Southern California? Did you have adequate representation there to give it some push?
Rumford
Well, Tom Rees was there and he was the main spokesman, I think, and probably chairman of the sub-committee. Yes. We had quite a number from Southern California; we had three or four of them. Sometimes the committee had six people on it, and sometimes it had twelve. The committees were not consistent as far as personnel was concerned. It depended upon the Speaker, how many he wanted to put on the committee. But I'd say that we had adequate representation from Southern California because I usually made it a point to put these people on that committee, and also to give them the sub-committee chairmanship.
Fry
Then after that, what was the next thing that happened in air pollution control?
Rumford
Well what happened was, I think, a new Speaker or somebody took it and put it (the smog problem) into some other area. I don't know if it was put into Transportation or what, but we lost the subject, you see.
Fry
You didn't have a second contact with the Detroit manufacturers after the Haagen-Smitt theory was accepted?
Rumford
I don't think so. No, we went there and then they came out to California.
Fry
Right away? This was just a short time between those two, or was it a number of years?
Rumford
No, months, I think.
Fry
Just months?
Rumford
Months, I think, because we went back there in the wintertime. I'll never forget; it was snowing. Seth Johnson was with me as a member of the committee
Then too, there are an awful lot of reports on smog itself. I don't know whether you've seen them or not: the L.A. studies and the studies the legislature made. They were supposed to keep those things as a record in Sacramento, a library reference; those materials belong to the legislature. Of course they started this thing a little late, you know, keeping these reports. It is a sad thing because many of those reports are very revealing— basic studies and historical value. They set up a reference library to keep control of all those reports. They made us turn over the raw material to them, the testimony and all—which was theirs; they paid for it. They used to just write a report and throw it away!
Fry
Was this kept in the room with all of the bills and so forth there?
Rumford
No.
Fry
Or was it over in the archives? Under the secretary of state?
Rumford
No, they had another little room they were putting those things in. I don't know if you are familiar with Sacramento and the Capitol. Well, there is an elevator that the legislators use to go up and down in. It was right off that hallway, the back hallway that goes back there. There is a little room there and they have designated a certain person for that purpose. [The Legislative Research Committee has moved to the old building.]
Fry
I see. Maybe we can track that down.
Rumford
You might go in and find out what records they have and then ask where the reference room is. They may have moved that stuff to the library. That's where it should go eventually but I know they were keeping all those reports in this little room there.
Well, I'll check that out with the archivist and if he doesn't have it, he may know where this little room is.
Rumford
Yes, there's a new set-up there now. Bob Moretti is the Speaker.
Fry
Oh. Well, [there are] not too many records from the fifties. It's been changed around a good deal.
I wonder what sort of recommendations were bandied about in the wind at that time that you can remember. What were people thinking about as solutions to the smog problem?
Rumford
Well, the only rash solution at that time was made by Rees. You may want to talk to him while you are here, because he was chairman of the sub-committee. He said then that they would make an effort to curb the activities of automobiles if something wasn't done. He'd abolish the use of them.
Fry
And put in a rapid transit system?
Rumford
[Laughing] He didn't make any recommendation.
Fry
Oh, just get rid of the automobile.
Rumford
Yes.
Fry
Did anyone suggest putting on electric railway systems and the overhead electric trolleys, which at that time had just been taken out of a lot of places?
Rumford
Yes. Well, of course the difference was that the transportation in 1929 and the 1930's was surface transportation. It was on the streets and that is the difference between it and the one in Berkeley, Oakland and other areas where the new transit will be overhead, by and large, except in Berkeley where it goes underground. That's the big difference. The earlier transportation systems were all surface—on the streets. We had a good coverage.
Fry
But they weren't internal combustion engines.
No, they were electrical—and they were killing people all the time. They were running into people; people were getting their legs cut off.
I don't know whether you're familiar with the real rail service spread we had in Berkeley. But they had one on 9th Street. They had the Key System on Sacramento Street. They had another red car (Southern Pacific car) on California Street. And they were always running into somebody—killing kids and everything else. Both the Southern Pacific and the Key System cars were up on Adeline and Ashby. They ran right up to University Avenue. Both of them were stopped. Then there was another red car on Ellsworth Street and another one that ran up to the Claremont Hotel. They had a lengthy span, all over! I mean the transportation service was terrific! But it also had some liabilities.
People were not using the cars. Automobiles became a little more promiscuous in their use, and nobody was riding street cars, other than the commuters. I imagine they were losing money. Southern Pacific owned those red cars.
Citizen Ambassador to Germany, 1953
FryYou mentioned that later on when you were on this trip to Germany that you looked at some forms of public transportation.
Rumford
Yes, I mentioned that we attended a transportation fair in Munich where we saw innovative ideas of transit. One I mentioned was a bus run by centrifugal force. I don't know how effective that could be because it had to have power occasionally to give it spin to run. I would imagine that about every four or five blocks or so you'd have to plug in and get another shot. But it was on exhibit.
Fry
This was in 1953 according to my notes.
Rumford
Right. I was in Germany in '53. I remember that definitely. That's correct.
Was this the same time that you were on the Air Pollution Committee?
Rumford
I was chairman of Public Health.
Fry
I mean Public Health.
Rumford
Yes. I was chairman of Public Health, and I turned my responsibilities over to Glenn Coolidge. The legislature gave me a leave of absence.
Fry
Were you able to bring anything of what you saw over there back to the committee?
Rumford
Yes. I brought back pictures of the monorail, which is a hanging thing like one of those old-fashioned baskets that they used to have in the department stores.
Fry
Oh yes.
Rumford
It was called the Wuppertal system. But it was not, in my thinking then, an efficient conveyance that we would want to use because it was mainly devised and erected over the riverbed to conserve space, and it was just a slow kind of a thing that wandered around the riverbed. I couldn't see any practical uses of that over here.
Fry
Were you particularly looking for something to replace an internal combustion engine?
Rumford
We were looking for methods of conveyance that were unusual and that of course did not have combustion engines, yes.
There was another one that they were using over there but it was rapid transit—that was combustion—but it was a rapid type of thing that ran on tires.
Fry
Oh. Really? I understand that at this time the feeling was that you shouldn't go back to the old red car system that was down in Southern California earlier because it also was a health hazard in that it killed people at crossings!
Well, they were very dangerous plus the fact that nobody was riding them. In fact, when they wanted to take the rails up, the only reason they took them up was that nobody was riding the cars. The cars would take you only so far. If you lived up the hill somewhere, you had to take the next best method to get up to wherever you lived. And more and more often wheels were being used as houses were built beyond the tracks.
Fry
Yes, and more and more roads and freeways being built for their use.
Rumford
Right.
Fry
Well, why don't we keep going on Germany. Tell me why you went on the trip. My notes say it was for the State Department as a "Citizen-Ambassador." Is that right? A good-will ambassador?
Rumford
Right. Just after the war, I guess quite a few years after, in '53. Prior to that time the State Department would bring German citizens over to this country on tours—prominent citizens, councilmen, academicians, persons who were technically trained, bankers and all—to give them an overview of the United States in the different interest which they possessed and to expose them to methods of living in this country, the life styles; to introduce them to ordinary people in some cases because they ordinarily would be taken to selected homes and areas. They would be shown what the people wanted them to see. Well this, they thought, would be a little different.
So Charles Aiken, of the University of California, Professor of Political Science, was taking the leadership in arranging for these tours. They weren't all German. There were other people as well. He asked if we wouldn't entertain some of them in our homes and take them around, let them see what they wanted to see—ghetto areas or whatever they wanted to see.
So we had taken several groups and we had had dinners in the home for them, talked to them, taken them around. There was an invitation extended when these people went back home to bring some Americans
Fry
Oh, out of 20?
Rumford
Yes. Mrs. Irene Prescott—you might know Mrs. Prescott. She's now with the International House.
Fry
Oh, of course! As a matter of fact she worked in our office a while.
Rumford
Then Dr. Gene Lee of the University of California.
Fry
Oh, of course. He is one of their advisors. [Laughs] This is an "in" group for us!
Rumford
Well, he was one of the big guys.
Fry
And you.
Rumford
And there was another fellow from Richmond by the name of Brombacher. He runs a printing establishment out there. Elton Brombacher. Elton was later placed on the FEPC Commission as one of the first commissioners.
Fry
Oh. Is he black or white?
Rumford
He's white. He was known out there in Richmond for the stand that he took when a black person moved to the neighborhood out there. They threatened to shoot it out. He stood on the lawn with flags and he wanted to see that this man received justice. On his own, for no particular reason other than he thought it was right! They were looking for people to put on the FEPC Commission and Senator George Miller recommended that Brombacher be put on. I don't know how long he served. He was one of the first commissioners.
So that's the way the trip got started. Dr. Aiken could tell you more about it. He's still at U.C., I think. I'd had a course from him in political science. The trip was completely enjoyable. We lived with the families. In Krefeld we stayed with a city councilman and his wife.
Oh, you really got to know them in their homes?
Rumford
Oh yes. We stayed with families when possible. Another person whose family we stayed with was a prominent engineer. In fact, I wrote him a letter the other day inviting him to come stay with us. We correspond occasionally. Then we stayed at a little aged home where they had several separate rooms. It was nice, too; we were really with the people. They met with us each day and we would visit some institution. They would show us some of the prominent places in their villages. We stayed in small towns, by and large.
Then after it was over we went to Frankfurt for sort of a summary conference. You see, we went over in a plane from New York. We all met there. There were some twenty as I said, and there were some from Philadelphia and there were some from Michigan—from all over. We get cards occasionally from those people that we were with. Two are very prominent people.
Fry
Besides just being a kind of return invitation, was there any underlying motive for this trip regarding what was going on at the time? For instance, we're always having a cold war with Berlin.
Rumford
Well, more than that. They wanted us to see Germany, and of course they showed us some of the things that they wanted us to see. They showed Germany and the reparations, how they were doing, what they were doing. They showed the destruction. That was tremendous. I mean, it had been bombed up one street and down the other. Portions of it were just wiped out completely! As a matter of fact, some of the bodies were still in that rubble. They didn't take time to move them out. They were just there.
They showed us some of the social conditions. They showed us some of the black soldiers and what they were doing over there.
Fry
Are you talking about our troops?
Rumford
Yes. They were a little upset about some of the things. There were a lot of illegitimate kids over there, for one thing. They took us through
We flew into Berlin, as an extra side trip. It was a real experience, too. We went to the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdam Platz where we saw the old Reichstag. It had burned down, you know. It was burned out. The Russians had occupied the Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdam Platz. They had erected a big monument to victory out at the Gate. They had to watch it all the time because the Germans threatened to blow it up. A great big statue with Stalin! It's still there now, I guess, because they wouldn't stand to see it torn down. Two great big tanks on each side. It was a beautiful thing, and there was a Russian soldier walking back and forth up there to make sure that it was maintained.
Fry
This was before the building of the Berlin Wall?
Rumford
Yes. At the Brandenburg Gate, there was Potsdam Platz. We went right to the line because the Russians wouldn't let us go any further. We had taken pictures and they threatened to shoot us. They raised their rifles and then we snatched the camera down.
Fry
Oh!
Rumford
Oh yes. It was a little bit shaky because once they grab you there, you don't know how long they are going to keep you!
Because I was the only black in that whole outfit, they spotted me [laughs]. We were right near the gate, see. I noticed this fellow rushed in to tell probably a superior officer. By that time I got back in the car, I was a little shaky.
Fry
He rushed to tell his superior officer what?
Rumford
Because there I was, a citizen—they wouldn't think anything of a soldier. The soldiers were there all the time.
Fry
But civilians were suspect?
Yes!
Fry
And especially if you were black?
Rumford
Right! [Laughs] I mean, I got out of there quickly, I tell you! I got back in that car because once they grab you, there is nothing you can do about it! They'd keep you as long as they want to keep you, you know, and interrogate you and ask "What are you doing around here?", find out what your business is and whatnot. The government would just have to plead with them in a high level conference somewhere to let you go. [Laughs] So I was glad to get out of there, to tell you the truth. You don't realize those things until you are faced with them.
My wife was there and she was taking a picture and I said, "Put that thing down!" [Imitates her objection.] I said, "The rifles are up to shoot! They don't want you to take any pictures."
Well, when it was over we came back to Frankfurt. We had a summary conference there. Then of course, we went our own way. My wife came over later than I; she was there in time for us to go to Berlin. She went to Berlin with me, and then we went all over. We went to Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, Florence, Rome, Venice, Munich—that was where we were investigating transportation methods—and then back to Frankfurt. Then we went over to Brussels, Paris and London and finally back home. So we really had a tour.
Fry
If you were running for election now and did that, you'd have to go to Africa, too!
Rumford
Yes, I suppose so. I may have to go to Africa now. It is so different now.
Fry
I wanted to ask you, were you always identified as a Negro? [He laughs.] I mean politically, because physically you're light-colored and I wondered how big a factor this was?
Rumford
It had really no significance at the time, one way or the other. Newspapers reported it everytime they wrote a story, until one time I asked the new guy
No, but I'll tell you because of the emphasis on blacks, I think it had some bearing on the feeling of people in recent times.
Fry
Recently.
Rumford
Young fellows take advantage of color sometimes. [Imitating] "We want somebody black!"
Fry
Yesterday you mentioned that sometime we might talk about the work that your Public Health Committee did on some of the newer issues that were just coming out then, like strontium 90 and what to do with the waste material from the destruction of isotopes.
Rumford
Well, we also did an awful lot of work in the civil rights area and humanitarian type of thing. In a non-legislative way, I worked with Josephine Baker to get Negroes hired as bus drivers in Alameda County. While we did carry a lot of legislation as part of the Public Health Committee, we did an awful lot of other things, too, for the general welfare of the people.
As chairman of the Public Health Committee, being one of the first of blacks holding a position like that I guess, we handled most of the legislation that came to the Public Health Committee in that particular field. Not that I handled it personally all myself, because I always took the position that it was very good to spread some of this around a little bit to the other fellows and allow some of them to carry important legislation.
Radiation Control
RumfordBut we did the studies on radiation control.
Fry
I'd like to know how that came up.
Rumford
For several reasons.
Fry
For a period there, this was not a concern in Public Health and then suddenly it was accepted as a justifiable concern.
Rumford
There were several reasons, I guess, why it became a prominent issue. One was that there was a growing interest in the use and misuse of x-ray machines and the natural consequences. At the time there were atomic bomb tests being performed in various areas in the Pacific, and people were becoming alarmed at the supposedly high concentrations of radiation being emitted and being carried to distant parts.
I think it was Governor Brown who set up the radiation division in his office. I forget the fellow's name who headed it. He's a professor at Cal. [Alex Grendon]
Fry
In radiation?
Rumford
Yes, he's out there now. He was pretty much disturbed and upset with the whole legislative process because he found the legislators were very inquisitive and he had never had the experience of being questioned so about his theories and opinions.
He [Grendon] is still alive because I ran into him once or twice. He was the director of radiation control. We put in a lot of radiation control measures and established concentration standards and that kind of thing, which was very important. I did mention to you that aside from that, we were in the period when the government said the states could now take over peacetime uses of atomic energy. This of course meant that we had to establish standards for uses of isotopes and the care and handling of isotopes, disposal of isotope wastes, and all of that type of thing.
I remember once, I think Don Mulford had a bill that implied that we would dispose of isotope radiation residue somewhere in Nevada and bury it in the desert. We were trying to negotiate with Nevada to do it.
Fry
And what was Nevada's response to this?
Rumford
Well, there were some questions asked. You see, there was a private company that wanted to do this by contract.
Fry
To take over the job?
Rumford
To take over, yes, to dispose of the radiation because it was a highly technical subject matter and it had to be handled with the utmost care, even on the highways. What do you do when you transport isotopes? Suppose you had a wreck and they fell out on the highway? A person would be contaminated with radiation.
Fry
Well, this did happen then, I remember. It always made big news stories when it did. A truck would lose a small vial with a radioactive isotope in it.
Rumford
Its use was a menace. Who controls it? Who dispenses it?
Fry
This was all just turned over to the state?
Rumford
Yes. You see, it was the state's property for peacetime uses. Of course I won't say that our legislation was perfect because it was largely innovative. But we had that kind of experience.
Fry
Well, what about atom-powered steam plants? Was this in that era, or did it come later?
Rumford
We didn't have to confront that too much. No, it hadn't gotten around to utilization. They were talking about it and I think there were one or two back East somewhere. But it hadn't developed to that extent. When they got into the problem of that, I was out of the legislature.
Fry
Did you set up a commission to deal with these?
All license and inspection was under control of the radiation director. But I think they have done away with that. I'd have put that in the Department of Public Health. But you see, it wasn't altogether a health matter, really. It involved industrial uses. They used a lot of material for determining the structure of pipes.
Fry
Of pipes?
Rumford
Yes, to decide whether a pipe was a problem, whether it had some deficiency in it after it was made.
Fry
Was this all under the Brown administration?
Rumford
Yes.
DDT Investigations
FryI remember from newspaper accounts of that period that this was when they began checking the atmosphere for radiation count, and strontium 90 suddenly became a live issue and California dairy cattle were supposed to have had a high count of strontium 90. It was about 1959.
Rumford
The State Department of Public Health and I think U.C., Davis were making some studies in that area. We didn't find this to be true. We did find in our investigations later that there was a large contamination of pesticide substances in the milk—DDT.
Fry
Oh! Really? Is that one of your investigations?
Rumford
Oh, yes.
Fry
That is kind of a cause celebre right now.
Rumford
I know. We were away ahead of them! We were so far ahead of people that it is unbelievable when you get here in Washington, the things that they're talking about! I think, "Why we did those studies ten or twelve years ago!" All of the pesticides! We went to Davis with Dr. Mrak, ex-chancellor at
Fry
Did you try a bill banning DDT?
Rumford
Oh yes. Nick Petris had a bill. He didn't know what he was doing half the time. He's a nice guy [Laughs] but that is all you can say about Nick. I don't know. He never did anything the whole time I was up there.
Fry
I was thinking about him awhile ago when we were talking about emissions from automobiles.
Rumford
Yes. Lately, he is now way out! He'd stopped the automobiles and all of it! Well, those fellows—I look back and say, "I wonder where you were ten years ago!" They've just suddenly now become important.
Fry
There is certainly a unanimous bipartisan concern now! [Laughs]
Rumford
Better late than never. I notice that he had a bill in to limit a family to only one car. One car per family. They never did define what a family was. Well, I won't get on him. [Laughs]
Fry
At any rate, you were unable to get any support at that time for limiting pesticides.
Rumford
We got through some legislation, which was not as stringent as we would have it, by limiting the control, I think, to the county agent or something like that, requiring the county agent to exercise some control. If there was to be a spray, they would have to inform the county agent. It's very limited control, really. Of course these fellows couldn't exist if they couldn't spray their crop.
Fry
For biological control?
Rumford
Biological control, yes. They did a lot of work many years ago. I don't know how far they got, whether it was ever effective or not. I doubt it.
Fry
Oh really? This seems to be the big push now.
Rumford
It was then. They were doing the basic work and that was taken out of the legislature five years, six years ago. It was started prior to me getting out, about ten or twelve years ago.
Here again, California was way ahead of the people in this kind of thing!
Fry
Its problems were way ahead, too.
Rumford
Now we can see that. You mentioned Dr. Merrill. I had dinner with him over at the Cosmos Club the other day. It was the first time that I'd seen him in a long time.
Fry
Oh, what was his role in all of this? Was he really on top of all these atmospheric health hazards and water pollution?
Rumford
Well, he was on top of what was then the paramount subjects and would take a position, yes. However, most of what I'm telling you were innovative ideas and we consulted with his staff on them, particularly when we got into environmental problems. Frank Stead and, I think, John Maga. Maga was the head of Air Pollution Control and Frank Stead was in Environmental Control. Ten years ago, Frank Stead talked about things that people are just now waking up to, polluting the streams being one.
VI Rumford's State Senatorial Campaign, 1966
Contenders for the Democratic Nomination
FryWould you like to go into your senate campaign?
Rumford
[Laughs] That's a good one.
Well all I'm trying to do in this one is try not to be biased, because I'm somewhat biased really.
Fry
Oh, you'll be expected to be biased! [Laughing]
Rumford
To some degree, I think a lot of people think I'm frustrated. But it is not really that.
Fry
Well you'd been in a lot of races up to that point, hadn't you?
Rumford
Oh yes. My feeling is this: now at the outset I might say that I had always a deep respect for the law. I was a lawmaker and I felt then and feel now that anybody who is in high position and who has as their responsibility to enforce the laws should either enforce the laws or they shouldn't be in office. That's my strong position. So when I find that in that experience which led me and leads me to believe that some of our high officers in high places, our elected officials, are closing their eyes to wrongdoings, I can't help but become disturbed; because how can they shade their eyes in one instance where there are violations of the law to the extent that they are almost participating in it and then ask the street people to behave! I mean, there is a clash in idealism. There's a confrontation. When we find people in one stage of their obligation who tend to overlook phases of violation of the law, and on the other hand they take
Fry
That is a good preface!
Rumford
I wanted to preface it with that remark and I want to say too that I've never felt that one should stay in office forever. I think that one has to be pragmatic enough to realize that he's in the game of politics. Of course you must represent the people continuously. If by necessity a change comes about, you must change with the period and the time. You'll be relieved. But in my case I think we were pretty much in tune with the time.
Fry
I don't think we've recorded how you first decided to run.
Rumford
I know you didn't. I just made that introductory statement.
Fry
I mean I think we talked about that a little bit off the tape.
Rumford
Well, we'll start from the beginning.
After I had served 18 years as a member of the assembly at that time in 1966, when the Supreme Court declared the one man - one vote concept applied to the counties in California, Alameda County was given another seat in the senate based upon its population. John Holmdahl was then a member of the senate from Alameda County, the sole member. The county was reapportioned, as I mentioned, to receive two state senate seats.
Mr. Holmdahl and those in the assembly who were doing the reapportioning saw fit not to divide Alameda County into two seats, but to have
Mr. Petris had said that he may give it some concern, but after approaching him two or three times, I got no concrete answer; so I indicated to him that I thought I would be interested in running for that seat and would make my candidacy known.
Well, after I did this, Mr. Petris announced his candidacy for the seat and of course there was a contemplated contest between Mr. Petris and myself because after having asked him two or three times, I felt that at this point I would not withdraw, that I would go ahead and seek the seat.
Prior to the time for filing for the office, Mr. Holmdahl, who was a senator at that time, announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election. Of course that eased the tension and the probability of a contest between Mr. Petris and myself. Mr. Petris came to my office and we discussed it and we agreed that I would run for the four year term and he would run for the two year term, because he indicated at that time that he was interested in running for statewide office following the next two years, so he would have an off-year.
As time went on and we came nearer to the closing of filing dates, Mr. Petris' law partner, Mr. Edward Fitzsimmons, entered the race. Mr. Fitzsimmons happens to be a friend of Mr. Crown's, Assemblyman Bob Crown. So he decided to enter the race. We both filed. Also Judge Victor Wagner, Superior Court judge, filed for the seat. We had
As we entered the primary battle, Mr. Petris then wrote a letter for Mr. Fitzsimmons, saying that he knew both of us well and that he thought that Mr. Fitzsimmons would make a better senator. Of course he left for Europe right afterward. As a result of the contest I defeated all of the candidates, Judge Wagner, Mr. Fitzsimmons and the other gentleman (I forget his name) by more than 30,000 votes, with a great percentage of these votes coming from the south county, surprisingly so. We carried the northern part of the county decisively.
The General Election Battle Against Lewis Sherman
RumfordWe went into the battle for the general election feeling that perhaps we had an excellent chance of winning. At no time however did we relax campaigning.
There was very little campaigning on the part of the Republican opposition; Mr. Lewis Sherman was the Republican candidate. He had obviously no large quantities of money to spend, very few, if any bill-boards and other material. It is generally conceded that we had an excellent chance of winning the race in view of the primary, in view of the opposition.
Fry
Excuse me, where did you get the nucleus of your support both in workers and money?
Rumford
Well, it came from the community at large and labor. I had always had this support anyway for eighteen years. It wasn't difficult to get that. My record was pretty well-known throughout the county in the field of public health and housing. At that time, housing was an issue. We discussed it in all areas of the county. But we had anticipated that if we got about 30-33% of the vote in the south county that we could win.
Fry
I see; because I knew that they had trounced the Fair Housing Bill in south county.
Rumford
Oh yes, all over.
The Missing Ballots
RumfordWell, we went ahead into the general election, and on the night of the returns they were using for the first time the new mechanized cubic votronic reporting system—the computer. We were merely given returns pasted up on the glass partitions of the courthouse room. They just pasted these figures up there.
Fry
Where were you?
Rumford
In the courthouse. We always went to the courthouse to get the returns.
A reporter came to me early in the morning; the vote had tipped back and forth and I would lead for a while and Mr. Sherman would be at the bottom. So a reporter came to me and said, "There are some 10,000 votes in the back that have not been counted." Jack Blue never at one time offered to give me such information.
So I asked him about this. I said, "Mr. Blue, I understand there are some votes that haven't been counted." He said, "Yes, there are votes there."
I said, "Well, how many votes do you have?" and he said, "I judge it is around 10,000."
And I said, [incredulous] "Ten thousand votes haven't been counted? What is the reason?"
He said they wouldn't go through the machine for some reason or other. They were dog-eared or something. I said, "Well, when do you intend to count these votes?"
He said, "Well, we'll probably count them tomorrow." [Laughs] And at the same time they've announced that all the precincts were in and that I was behind, I think, by 600 votes.
The following morning a group of us came down to talk to Mr. Blue, and he had suggested that they were going to count these dog-eared ballots, supposedly 10,000 of them. We watched them repair maybe four or five ballots. We didn't see anywhere near 10,000 ballots. So I told Mr. Blue that under the circumstances I thought I should have a recount.
You mean that they never did hand count these ballots?
Rumford
I never saw any 10,000 ballots, no. There were never any 10,000 ballots that were counted down there and I watched them every morning. They ran some through, but I don't think there were over 50 votes that were torn.
I'll tell you the story and you can ask some questions.
So Mr. Blue had asked me to come down the next day and have a sampling of the ballots. He said that the law allows the sampling, a 1% sampling. So I said fine, we'd come down and we did. We pulled out 10 precincts at random and we counted these votes to compare them with the statistics that he had, and in each precinct we picked up from 20 to 50 votes. There was over 300 votes in ten precincts in which we increased our tally.
We took these figures down. We said that under the circumstances we were supposedly 600 behind, that we had no choice other than to have a recount. So we went out to raise some money and indicated that we were going to have a recount.
Well, there is a waiting period of about 15 days from the election to the official tabulation, after which, of course, you have a recount. During that time they must have done an awful lot of things. We began the recount. We opened up the ballots and in the process, the girls counting the ballots noticed that the ballots had never been folded. You see it was very difficult to tell about this kind of thing. And we noticed also that there was handwriting on the ballots against Jeff Cohelan. Let's see, it was the name "Scheer" written in. The handwriting was the same or nearly so. It was like that [Demonstrating: Scheer]. You see, they were trying to make it appear that it was consistently different handwriting throughout.
Fry
Oh, I see.
Rumford
But it was definitely what I thought was a clear example of the same handwriting. I'm not an expert.
What we did was, we called upstairs to the Board of Supervisors and asked one of the members of the board to send down some handwriting people. And of course they sent down two deputies. The two deputies came down and I asked if they were handwriting experts and they said no, but as such they had testified in courts and court trials, and their testimony was accepted by the courts generally. The looked at the ballots for half an hour or so and said that the handwriting was all the same. So then I told Mr. Blue that I wouldn't count any more. I wasn't going to count anymore; it was a waste of time and money. Obviously they were taking the election.
So I went over to see Mr. Cohelan for help, because it was a congressional election. He reluctantly went with me over to Mr. Poole's [Cecil Poole, the U.S. Attorney].
Here's the irony of this. Mr. Poole reluctantly said, he'd send the FBI out to look around and see what they could find. And they were out for about ten days. They came back and said there was nothing to it.
I said, "Well, Mr. Poole, I think the evidence is in the ballots themselves. You can't get anything by talking to people on the streets!" So he didn't want to grab the ballots. I couldn't convince him under those circumstances to grab the ballots. So there was nothing I could do.
I went to Frank Coakley [Alameda County D.A.] and told him of the experiences that we had. Then we were comparing statistics and we noticed there was a big variation between a number of votes that came in at that particular time and the final determination, as to number of ballots and the number of precincts. And we noticed that in checking the precincts that several precincts had identical reporting.
Charles O'Brien, the deputy attorney-general, requested that the gentlemen from the State Identification Bureau, who was an expert in handwriting, make a determination of the handwriting of the contest.
Morrill came down from Sacramento the following day. He looked at the handwriting for about twenty or thirty minutes on several ballots and then he said, "No, the handwriting is not the same."
So I said, "Well, there would be no point in me going further with any studies. It is obvious that I could get nowhere." But I did finally go to Mr. Coakley and asked Mr. Coakley if it would be possible for me to hire an outside handwriting expert, a third person, to convince myself that the handwriting was not the same. Mr. Coakley indicated to me that I had spent a lot of money and time in the effort and that he was the district attorney and that he would like to get the man. So he said he would.
I said, "Well, I would like to pay for it."
He said, "No, I will not let you pay for it. This is my obligation and I will get Mr. Peterson who is with the Postal Department in San Francisco. He is one of the best in the nation."
I said, "Well, why not Mr. Kirk of the University of California, the criminalogist?"
He said, "Well he is really not a handwriting man."
So he was the district attorney; there was nothing I could do but to agree with him. So he said, "You'll hear from me in two weeks, after Mr. Peterson has examined the handwriting."
So after about two weeks I heard from him. What he had done was to send all the specimens of handwriting on the ballots to Sacramento, back to Morrill, to make sure that the handwriting was either removed or was not there. Then he turned the ballots over to Peterson. The fact is, Coakley foolishly wrote me that they had had an examination of these ballots by Peterson. He sent me a letter saying this fellow had examined them and said, "No, they are not the same." He had first sent them back to Morrill to make sure that the handwriting wouldn't be there.
You see, as I understand it from some of the people, they let Peterson look at the ballots. And of course, Peterson looked at them and said, "No, they're not the same." That was only after they had gone back to Sacramento to Morrill! So there was nothing I could do. But I continued to examine the reports and we saw fallacies in the number of ballots that had been returned and there were also fallacies in the number of votes returned that night of election as compared with the total. They didn't compare whatsoever. They were off about seven or eight thousand.
Fry
You mean seven or eight thousand that never showed up?
Rumford
Well, either too many or too less. There wasn't any correlation in the figure at all. You see, when they closed the figure that night [of] election they said one precinct left. This was supposed to have been, well, not more than two or three hundred. Yet there were several thousand unaccounted for ballots at that particular time, because we had these reports.
So we continued to dig and dig and we finally made studies door-to-door of precincts to determine whether the voters really lived in these places. We found, as I indicated, that there were quite a number of people that had moved or died and were still on the list. Houses had been knocked down in West Oakland and they still had been receiving sample ballots.
We found in our studies that (and I covered about ten precincts door-to-door) there had been no purging of the county list for years and that thousands of sample ballots were lodged in the post offices, both in Oakland and Berkeley. Some twenty thousand or more in Oakland, fifteen thousand or more in Berkeley—undelivered sample ballots, which indicated that people had either moved or that they were double registered as indicated and that these sample ballots were free to be used, substituted in any manner that they so desired.
We brought this to the attention, too, I might mention, of the Grand Jury at the time. They listened
Fry
The Grand Jury is appointed by three judges?
Rumford
No. Each judge has the right to appoint and submit names.
Fry
Oh, three names.
Rumford
Yes, three names, something like that, yes. The Superior Court judges submit the names and these names are thrown into a hopper and are drawn out by lot, and if one is drawn, why then he is put on there. From all these names they draw twenty, maybe thirty. In the second drawing then they draw the ones that are going to serve on the Grand Jury.
Well, as I say, we had complete suspicions of the whole thing because of what had happened. We had no control over the official action of those responsible. We felt that we had some knowledge of who was interested in trying to do something like this, but we could not prove it. All we know is what we have found out.
Now. In 1969 my name was submitted for the Grand Jury. I told them [laughs] I didn't think my name would be drawn. Anyway it was put in. It wasn't drawn. In 1970 it was put in again, and my name was drawn for the Grand Jury.
One of the first things that I did was to apply for the committee on—oh, I don't know what it is called, it is something having to do with the operation of our electoral system. We began to make inquiries as to the practices, but not particularly of my contest because that was out and it couldn't be considered. But it was inquiries into the process by which they are allowing people to register, methods they were using—if any at all—and why they still had so many people on the list that were ineligible to vote, why they had so many thousands of ballots that were in the post office.
Fry
You served on the Grand Jury after Jensen, the new district attorney, was in?
Rumford
Yes, he was there. This was 1970. In fact, he was there before. He knew what went on.
Fry
He was there as an assistant district attorney?
Rumford
Yes. He sat in when I testified before the Grand Jury. But as I say, the irony of the whole thing is that to me these people are doing more to destroy this system than the kids out throwing the bottles. And I believe, frankly, that for better government in Alameda County that they all should resign. Because it is commonly known; I've talked to fellows in the street who participated in the thing in the first place and who told me the district attorney's office knows all about it.
Fry
Participated in what? In the election?
Rumford
In the maneuver, yes. They indicated to me that they did that.
Fry
A Grand Jury can hold hearings. Were any hearings ever held on that?
Rumford
Just a hearing as far as I know. They never tell you anything. I went before a committee of the Grand Jury.
Fry
You mean in 1968?
Rumford
In 1967, I think it was.
Fry
At any rate, after the election.
Rumford
Yes, after the election. We didn't get anywhere with them. They wouldn't—they couldn't do anything.
Now. I think the important thing is that in 1970 in our Grand Jury studies, we brought out all this. The committee submitted their report, if you want to read it.
Fry
Yes, I guess that should be referred to.
Rumford
Oh yes, the '70 Grand Jury report goes all into corrections of the election methods, not as far as I would have like to have had them, but nevertheless they made some good recommendations.
In inquiries by me and another member who was on the committee, one person who worked on a computer that night told us that five precincts did not come in nor were they reported the night of my election.
Fry
They never did?
Rumford
Five precincts! Now this is Grand Jury information. I have a witness who heard this individual say it and he was on the computer that night. So. There isn't anything that we can do about it, but that doesn't absolve the individuals who participated in it and who know that as far as I'm concerned it was a crooked election. And I don't think they need to sympathize with me because I don't need any sympathy. As I said, I've always had a deep respect for the law—and still do. But I think those individuals who occupy high places and who participated in that kind of skulduggery should resign from public office!!
Now Mr. Coakley has resigned, and as I've said, we have a witness now, which we didn't have then, but we have now. We have a witness on both sides. A witness to the statement also. So as long as those individuals persist in maintaining office in Alameda County, I think you're always going to have that type of an election.
Fry
There is no indictment. Why?
Rumford
Well, no. You mean, the first time I went before the Grand Jury?
Yes, the first time and the second time.
Rumford
Oh, I think the first time, Mr. Jensen (now D.A.) presided over the committee. They sat there and I think they squashed it! They just said, oh, there was nothing to it. Because Mr. Coakley kept indicating, "I gave you the facts there," you know. He wasn't about to let anything come up.
Fry
I see. So just no evidence.
Rumford
No, nothing happened.
Fry
And then by the time you got this man to make the statement that the five precincts hadn't come in, it was too late.
Rumford
Oh, that was when I was on the '70 Grand Jury. We were not investigating a particular election then. But we mentioned that to him, you see. The fact is that I brought up to Jack Blue the fact that he'd allowed me to look at ten precincts and that we had picked up some more than two or three hundred votes and his answer was that he didn't remember! Of course that was convenient for him not to remember. He didn't remember that.
But how those people can sit in their respective offices and demand respect from the people and try to put people in jail for doing something else is beyond me!
Fry
Yes, this was all during the street battles in Berkeley.
Rumford
Yes, it was.
Fry
Large police actions.
Rumford
Yes, it was. As I say, we had the statements about the precincts that didn't come in. The statement that was made to us. We had witness to that. The information we had was on paper! Well, I told you about Mr. Coakley's promise to bring in a handwriting specialist to look at the ballots. Now he did— I emphasize—he did bring Mr. Peterson in, I was told, only after, only after he had sent those ballots to Sacramento or at least let Morrill see those ballots
A newspaper reporter called Coakley, asked him if he'd made a study of the ballots the last week and he said, "Last week, no." The reporter said, "You didn't make a study of the ballots?" He said, "No."
So I called him up and I said, "I understand that you have given a story to the press that you didn't examine the ballots."
He said, "Well, I didn't say that."
"Well, what did you say?"
"She said `last week' and I told her no."
"But you didn't tell her that you'd examined the ballots?"
He said, "She didn't ask me that. She asked me if I'd examined them last week."
Fry
At what point did this reporter call down? Was this before Coakley sent them to Sacramento?
Rumford
Yes, I think so. Because it is pretty hard to convince anybody that a man who's in office as long as Coakley was in office—and personally, it was difficult for me to believe it—would do the things that he did, and I'm pointing out what he did. He did not do what he said he was going to do.
Fry
Who was the reporter who tipped you off during the election night; from what paper was he? Can you tell us that?
Rumford
Well, I don't know. I'd rather not.
Fry
Well, OK. It is a place to get a further detailed story.
Rumford
I'd rather not. He was nice enough to tell me at the time and I don't want to get him—
Fry
Well, it is not important. Oh, the other question
Rumford
They were supposed to be! Murphy, Hannon, Purcell, Sweeney, and Ressitto were on the board.
Fry
I wondered if there was a supervisor you could have worked through?
Rumford
Yes. I worked with Kent Purcell and I told Kent about the thing, and Kent would only shake his head. They were told, I think, to keep their mouths closed. I'll just relay the facts.
The facts were these: Mr. Sherman was Caucasian. He was a Republican and the balance of power in Sacramento was nip and tuck. And Democrats or whoever won that election would tilt the balance of power in Sacramento.
Fry
In the senate, you're talking about? Yes, there was a one-man difference in the party line-up.
Rumford
Right. So they just couldn't see a black man, I guess, and a Democrat too, tilting the scale to that degree. But I said that we do not seek any sympathy. It doesn't make any difference. I could lose; we've been in politics. But more than that, it is the undermining of the system of justice. I mean, the whole thing is just permeated—and the people who've been dickering with it know it. How they are going to clean that thing up, I don't know!
Fry
Yes, that was going to be my next question. Where would you or anyone else begin?
Rumford
Well, I personally couldn't, because I'm involved. And they'd say, "Well it was sour grapes, you know, he's sour because of the election."
Sometimes I feel that I'm pragmatic enough to believe that what's going to be is going to be. But I do think for the good of the community that those people ought to get out—for their own good and for the good of the community. I think that the
Fry
Since this election was four years ago, is it too late to take any further legal action on the election?
Rumford
Oh, yes! Yes. It is too late as far as the criminal action goes. I don't know about civil action. But it is hard to prove this kind of thing. I mean, now they have destroyed all the evidence. We don't have it. The only thing we have to hang our hat on is the testimony we have and also the statement by the individual which we have proof to. The five precincts didn't come in; they declared the election at that particular time. This we do have. Of course we had all the other figures to show that there was no correlation in the figures whatsoever.
The thing about it is that both Brown and Cranston lost votes at the time, too. I estimate that they got away with about 30,000 votes.
Fry
You mean against Brown and Cranston?
Rumford
Yes. Well, I think it cost us all votes.
Fry
You mean you and Brown and Cranston lost a total of 30,000?
Rumford
Oh, easy that! Yes. I think so. We lost a lot of votes, because when we had the recount in my precincts—what I refer to as "my" are those areas that I represented for so many years—there were hundreds and hundreds of no votes at all, just blanks.
Fry
Blank votes?
Rumford
Blanks. When we showed these to Mr. Blue and asked him, "What about this?" he said, "They must have had a program against you." Never could they get such a program going, never! Why, there were just thousands of them in the district where I was. And oddly enough we won in Union City. And in
Fry
And the man who won is already out of office again!
Rumford
I told him he wasn't going to be in office long! How can he keep an office that he didn't win? You see, he didn't win it in the first place! He knew that.
Fry
By the way, what role did Sherman play in all this recount? Did you ever approach him on it?
Rumford
Oh, he was there and he was taking it. For after all, they were giving him something! [Laughs] I didn't blame him. He had nothing to do with it. He had absolutely nothing to do with it! The fact is, I think he was really reluctant to take it. The forces must have been awfully strong in Alameda County. How could they do that when they know it is well known???? And then demand respect! They have no respect—as I told them. They know that. I sat with them on the Grand Jury and that Jack Blue was shaking like an October leaf really, if he'd fall from the tree—and he should! And he should.
Fry
It's almost time for your eleven o'clock meeting. Could you just tell me in one sentence [laughs] how you got to Washington after losing the election?
Rumford
Oh. Mr. Weinberger asked me. We had worked together.
Fry
This is Casper Weinberger, who was head of the Government Organizational Committee?
Rumford
Yes. We had worked together in the assembly and he asked me to come here and work with him. I thought it would be a good break for me to get out
Fry
When Weinberger asked you to come back here he was the head of the Federal Trade Commission?
Rumford
Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Right.
Fry
And that brings you up to date.
Rumford
I've been meaning to get one of those Grand Jury reports. That would be interesting.
Fry
I think it would be good if we can get a copy of one of those, and put it with this interview. Where do we go to get those, in the courthouse?
Rumford
Yes, you may have to pay for it. I don't know. Either that or you can get one from the library.
Fry
Maybe the library will have all those files.
Rumford
The Committee on Courts Enforcement, I think, was the name of the committee that did the study.
Fry
Oh, it had the word "Courts" in it too.
Rumford
"Enforcement in the Courts," I think. It had to do with the studies of the electoral system.
Fry
The Committee on Courts and Elections maybe, or something like that. Would that be it?
Rumford
No, not "Elections." It didn't mention elections at all.
Fry
Well it will have the names of the members.
Rumford
It should have. I don't know whether it really did or not.
Fry
You don't have a copy of that, do you?
Rumford
I have at home but I don't have here.
Well, that committee—I want to tell you this—was keenly interested in that whole operation. Oh yes, they were a little different from prior juries.
The district attorney didn't control these people to the degree that they couldn't get anything out of the studies. If this Grand Jury had been in there when I first went before the Grand Jury, it would have been a different story.
Mr. Coakley still retains an office in the courthouse, which I think is irregular. And as I said, he sits there overlooking what is being done. Maybe it is for his own protection, I don't know. [Laughs] But the Alameda County election officials certainly didn't out maneuver me. They just took the election. There was nothing I could do about it. I had had enough investigative experience over a period of years to know just what to look for.
Fry
Oh, it sounds incredible.
Rumford
Well, it is.
Fry
That was the first computerized count. Was that some of the problem?
Rumford
Well, they claimed that it was the problem, but it wasn't the problem. You know, the computer man was there. The odd thing was that the cubic-votronic agent sat through the whole thing, and I told him that we couldn't recommend his computer. Unless they would speak out, why, we would have no alternative other than to condemn their computer system. In fact it would be interesting to talk to those people.
Fry
It would. Who was it?
Rumford
I think the Cubic-Votronic Company of San Diego. He sat there the whole time. One day I saw an official of the Votronic Company in Sacramento and he said to me, "Some day I would like to talk to you." I believe he meant talk to me about the 1966 election and his company's computer.
Since 1966 some counties in California have removed the computer, the votronic-cubic system, as part of their totalizing system (Orange County for example). But Alameda County still retains the computer—it works well for the results they hope to achieve.
Present Activities
FryDo you have a vita lying around somewhere that would tie down some dates?
Rumford
Oh, I had some material. I used to keep a little scrapbook. I am going back out to Berkeley the 7th of March for just one to two days. My daughter's getting married, and they can untangle some of that stuff.
Fry
That will be fine. If you can do it when your daughter is getting married, you're a better man than I am! [Laughs]
Rumford
Well, I hope to get there before, on the 5th. But because we moved and because so much of my stuff is jumbled up, I can't put my hands on it. I used to be able to put my hands on a lot of that material. I saved up an awful lot of stuff.
Fry
Yes. Well, I guess what we'll want to do is to have those scrapbooks eventually in The Bancroft Library.
Rumford
I have tons. Of course, I am supposed to write a book on that Fair Housing thing.
Fry
Oh, are you?
Rumford
I got a request for it from a publishing house. They want me to do it, but I don't seem to have the time.
Fry
Well, maybe we could work on that when you tape record.
Rumford
[Showing] You see here?
Fry
Harcourt, Brace Publishers.
Rumford
Yes. A man came to me and they said—well, there are several things. I could do a story on that Alameda County political situation, which I think is interesting.
Fry
Well, why don't you keep my card, just as a reminder of where you'd like to put your papers and scrapbooks and things like that.
Well, I've got a lot of it scattered. I've got letters from Kennedy and former Vice President Humphrey. I don't know how valuable it is, but I have a pair of the vice president's cuff links he gave me too. In fact, I've just begun to renew my acquaintances with these fellows; you know, most of them are right here. I never said anything to anybody, but I've been calling some people lately. It is going to be very interesting. I got very close to Humphrey, you know, throughout the years. And half of those representatives from California I served with in California.
Fry
A lot of them were in the legislature?
Rumford
Oh yes, quite a number of them. So, it has been interesting.
Fry
How do you like this present job?
Rumford
Oh, I like it very well. It's a challenge. It's new and we're innovating with new ideas. We don't know what's going to happen to this division. The president probably has things in mind for it such as splitting it up, making a stronger consumer agency out of a part of it, which would be good. Either that or give it greater powers, you see. The F.T.C. does not have sufficient legal powers now to do the kind of job that needs to be done in the field of consumer affairs. You know it's politics— I don't know how the Democrats are going to take this. [Laughs]
Fry
Yes, you wonder. Wow! Well the pressure must be just all over the place, because there are not many lobbyists for consumer interests. You don't have any counter-pressures on your side, to speak of.
Rumford
Well, the only pressure we have is the fact that Mr. Weinberger asked me to come back here, and he wasn't about to see me put out of here. [Laughs] So maybe it'll calm down.
Fry
You've got a couple of senators probably who can go to bat for you now, right?
Rumford
Well, if they have any influence with the administration. But Weinberger is the man who talks here. He asked me to come.
VII The Fair Housing Bill and Proposition 14, 1963-1964
(Date of Interview: September 13, 1971, Berkeley. Interview conducted by Professor Edward France and Joyce Henderson.)
FranceMr. Rumford, you were the author and chief sponsor of AB1240, the Fair Housing Bill—better known as the Rumford Fair Housing Bill. When did you introduce this important controversial bill?
Rumford
Well this bill was introduced at the regular general session of the California legislature in 1963.
France
Why did you think it was necessary to introduce your bill?
Rumford
Well, actually it was not my idea entirely. It was the idea of several people. If you will note in the record you will find out that Governor Brown had put it on his agenda as number one of the important legislative factors for consideration. It was also endorsed by the NAACP who had held several meetings on it, trying to implement the Hawkins Act and the Unruh Act. It was also supported largely by the Democratic Party. They made it a part of their party platform to support a stronger housing act. So it wasn't just me. Whereas I believed wholeheartedly in the program, Brown and some of the rest of them later wanted to say "It was his (my) bill," because of fright and fear I imagine, [laughing] more than anything else. But it was a program which was outlined by several groups of people and I was included.
France
Yes. This is, as we said, quite a controversial bill. Would you care to discuss further some of the
Rumford
Yes. You see, the bill just didn't spring up overnight. There was a need for this type of legislation. Mr. Hawkins had in '59, I think it was, introduced his bill, AB801, which covered public assisted housing and there was some fight over that. He was able to get a favorable vote of 88-1 if I remember correctly. Then Unruh had amended Section 51, which was a Civil Rights Act, to broaden it to include all businesses. This was interpreted as including the business of housing, those engaged in the renting, leasing or selling, or housing which would affect brokers and the sale and so forth. So it was not a spontaneous thing. It arose as a result of several different ideas and several different needs.
In the first place, there had been successful housing acts passed in several states of the Union, New York among them. I think there were some 12 states or so that had housing laws on the books. The Democratic Party, as I said, had taken a position. The legislature had prompted a study by the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee which indicated that there was widespread discrimination in housing throughout the state of California. In Watts, a high density area, alone there was wide-spread discrimination in housing and people were locked in because of their color. They could not break through these barriers. It was evident from the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee report that something had to be done, that the housing situation in California nearly presented an explosive situation. So in consequence of these documented factors we then, at the request of the organizations which I have already named, particularly the NAACP and Governor Brown's office and the several different organizations, introduced this legislation which would have broader impact in the housing field and centralize its administration. Under the Unruh Act you had the Civil Rights Act which would require the individual who had been victimized to file a suit himself in the courts in order to get compensation or justice.
Henderson
Did Unruh amend his act after it became law?
Mr. Unruh amended Section 51 of the Civil Rights Act, which had been on the books in California for many years and provided that there shall be no discrimination against persons because of race, color or creed. In public accommodation, Mr. Unruh, in the 1959 session, amended Section 51—broadened it to include any person engaged in doing business. This inclusion, of course, affected brokers in the course of their business—selling, renting, or leasing property. As the act was amended by Mr. Unruh, it meant that the brokers themselves would be responsible under the law for their own actions, and that they would be subject to fine or whatever penal conditions were provided by the courts if they were guilty of discimination. Of course, this included the selling or buying of homes. This is what we mean when we say, "The Unruh Amendment to the Civil Rights Code"—Section 51 of the Civil Rights Code.
Augustus Hawkins, in his act, concerned himself primarily with publicly assisted housing. There was a gap, and there was no covering for private housing, private ownership, sales and so forth that was involved. Actually, what we did was put the two acts together. We put the Hawkins Act, AB801, and we took sections of Section 51 of the Civil Rights program, which is the so-called Unruh Act, and put them together and gave it administrative enforcement. Of course we made certain changes. We eliminated single-owner homes which the owner sold himself. It was not a revolutionary bill because most of what we had in it was already on the books anyway. But there were people who wanted to spread misinformation in order to gather criticism and to foment trouble and circulated rumors about what the bill would do and the composition of it.
France
Yes. Now you state that the bill was not revolutionary, yet there were several amendments. Did the bill come out in its final form as strong a bill as you would wish?
Rumford
One never gets what he wants in the legislature. We had to take what, more or less, we could get under the circumstances. I would say that the bill was not as strong as I would have liked to have it but the legislature in itself is a platform of
France
Did the defeat of a similar and earlier bill in Berkeley influence your thinking greatly in making proposed amendments or in writing your bill in its final form?
Rumford
Well yes, it did to some degree. If I could just refresh your memory:
The Berkeley City Council had passed a Fair Housing Law which embraced the small renter in Berkeley, the person who was renting rooms out of his home to students. It was comparatively strong, this particular area; nevertheless, it was necessary because it was the type of housing which was being used by students. If the law was going to be effective it would have to embrace that area.
The City Council had already passed it and then of course the real estate group went ahead and got a referendum and had it repealed by some 2,000 votes—a very close vote. There was generally a lot of misinformation on the law. They repealed it by 2,000 votes in April, 1963, when our bill was being heard in the state assembly. Yes, it did have some effect.
Mr. Unruh and several other legislators pointed out to us in Sacramento that the people weren't ready for the Fair Housing bill and that we would have an awful time trying to get it through. We took into consideration some of their suggestions
When we moved to the assembly floor, we took in a few more amendments to appease those here and there, but they were not substantive, really. We were able to get the bill passed by the assembly. It passed the assembly by a vote of 47 to 24 and that is a handy vote. We were completely satisfied with it. Based upon the support of the governor's office, the NAACP, and labor we were able to get this passed. The bill then went over to the senate where it was assigned to the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee, headed by Senator Luther Gibson of Vallejo.
Henderson
Can you specify what few more amendments you added when the bill was moved to the assembly floor?
Rumford
It's very difficult at this juncture for me to point out the amendments. There were a host of amendments, technical and otherwise, that were accepted by our committee. Some of them suggested were minor amendments, and perhaps one or two were major. I've already mentioned that one of the major amendments was to amend the bill to exclude the single homeowner. So, it's very difficult for me to go into the amendments. There were hundreds of them that were given to me, and most of them we rejected.
Henderson
Who asked for these amendments?
Rumford
They were asked for by different legislators. The members of the Democratic Caucus had discussed them. Again, it's difficult for me to point out individuals. I can just say they were asked by legislators.
Henderson
How, if you did, did you strengthen the bill before sending it to the senate?
Rumford
We strengthened the bill by simply adding the provisions of the Unruh Act.
I might mention to you that after the bill went to the senate, the CORE organization attempted
A lengthy hearing was held on the bill and then it was taken under submission by Senator Gibson, which meant that his committee would attempt to deal with me to reduce the bill to almost nothing, and then to pass it out, because there was an awful lot of public political pressure to do something about the legislation. The date of when this bill was first heard before the senate committee is indicated somewhere.
Henderson
During the time in which the committee negotiated with you, did you meet with all members or with just some of them?
Rumford
We met with just a few members of the committee. Not at any time since the original meeting did we ever meet with the senate committee as a whole.
Henderson
I understand that some committee members indicated that the amendments had never been enacted by the entire eleven members.
Rumford
This is true. The only way amendments can be adopted by committee is that they be submitted to the committee as a whole and adopted by them. Now when members suggest committee amendments to you, this doesn't necessarily mean that they have been adopted by the committee. In this case, committee members submitted prospective, possible proposals in the form of amendments to me, which I rejected.
Henderson
It was reported that the sixteen-page set of amendments that you offered Senator Gibson was much like those suggested to you earlier by Gibson. Is that true?
Not hardly. Senator Gibson had his own ideas on the amendments, and if they were the same as my amendments, then of course we would have accepted them. There would have been no problem. But this not being true, we did not accept the amendments, because they were not the same type of amendments that we wanted, or at least not the ones that we could live with.
But the bill was held up for approximately three months in the senate committee in which Mr. Gibson indicated that there would be another public hearing held. All this time they were attempting to deal with me privately and to get me to subject myself to their amendments which would have nullified the act entirely. I refused to go along with them and we made a few more amendments which we thought would be acceptable to their committee. They did not hold an official committee meeting on this bill until the last day of the session, when they held a star chamber session on the bill, without witnesses being present as far as I know. It was probably an open hearing but they just didn't announce it, and they passed the bill out, "Recommendation - Do pass."
Now their strategy in holding this star chamber session (it wasn't even a public session because I know I wasn't there) was to pass the bill out because they felt that the senate had a long agenda pending and that there would be no way to reach that particular legislation before adjournment. Well we heard that they had passed the bill out and we consulted with some of our supporters in the senate. We figured a way out whereby we could get that bill heard before adjournment. Now the parlimentary maneuver that we executed over in the senate in order to get this bill moved up on the calendar was that Senator Rattigan, who is now a state district court judge, got the floor and he moved that AB1240 be set as a special order of business at 11 o'clock. Now this kind of upset the strategists. That motion was not debatable. It was seconded. It was not debatable, but there was discussion on the propriety of the motion. Discussion not on the bill, but on the strategy: upsetting the calendar and all that kind of thing. Then a vote was taken and we were victorious, I think, by some 22 to 18 votes, which
So they took the bill up at 11 o'clock and there was considerable debate. In short, the vote was finally taken around 11:30, and we got 24 votes. We picked up two additional votes in opposition to the first vote which indicated that we had 22 to 18. We then had 24 votes in favor. But the bill had then to go back on the assembly side for concurrence and senate amendments. Well Mr. Unruh had indicated that there would be no legislation passed in the assembly until that bill got back. There were some who were kind of upset about it. Mr. Unruh called for the legislation. There was a point of order raised that the bill was not back from the senate. So things were held up for five minutes until the bill did come back from the senate. The assembly raised the point that the bill was at the desk and that we should consider it. So we did take it up. When I started to debate the bill, the assemblymen said, "We've heard the bill, we know what it does. Mr. Chairman, we don't think that we need to debate this bill any longer. We don't think we need explanation. We'll call for the opposition."
So the opposition got up and expressed themselves and said that an initiative would follow if this bill were passed. The initiative, of course, did follow. But then the final vote was taken, and there was tremendous applause from the assemblymen themselves because there had been a long period of delay and battle over this legislation.
So that is the sum and substance of the legislative process of the fair housing bill. Of course the governor did sign the bill and it became effective in September, 1963.
At the outset, the California Real Estate Association were in opposition to the legislation. The Apartment House Owners Association also was in opposition, and the Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations were opposed to it. They strongly opposed it. In fact, they had made California the battleground for a national showdown on housing legislation. There were several states that were considering housing legislation at the time, and they felt that if in so-called "liberal" California they could defeat this legislation, their chance of defeating it in other areas was very good. Furthermore they had hoped, as they did, to spell out in the Constitution the right to sell or to deal with whomever they so desired as far as the use of sale property is concerned. Basically that is what they were trying to do—to establish in the Constitution a basic concept which would give them the right to discriminate. Proposition 14 basically was this kind of legislation. So the California Real Estate Association was assisted in its financial efforts by the national organization that sent money into California and had many paid workers working throughout the state to assist them in putting over Proposition 14.
France
You mentioned that the national real estate organization supplied money to help defeat the Rumford Act and to help pass Proposition 14. I have seen a statement somewhere that there was some doubt as to whether an inordinate amount of money was spent in comparison to what they spend on other similar amendments or referendums.
Rumford
Well, of course, that is a relative thing. I do not have before me any references to any other amounts of money spent. I simply said that a large amount of money was sent here. In proportion to other propositions which have appeared on the ballot, I have no way of knowing this. I could go to Sacramento and look at the records, but I can't comment on that. I know that they did send money out here and money was spent. Maybe they didn't need much money as far as that goes. They had an issue which was highly inflammatory, an issue dealing with blacks and whites. Maybe you are correct. This, as I said before, I can't answer
France
This is interesting in view of the fact that in 1963 and '64 the national trend seemed to be toward a movement for equality for all groups and yet housing seemed to have been one of the glaring exceptions. Would you comment on that?
Rumford
Well, here again I don't have the dates on which we had the student movements. But it seems to me, regarding this earlier period, that you had a situation in which the students began to revolt against the status quo in the South. You had Miss Rosie Parks of Alabama. You had all these things which were done at this time. The Little Rock situation is another. So I am not too sure about this, Eddy. We'll say that there was considerable momentum in several different directions. Certainly in California where we had had a new Democratic administration after so many years of Republican control, we felt that now was the time to move into these civil rights areas and accomplish something. The Democrats were in a frame of mind to accept our legislation, to decide to remedy some of our civil rights, and I could only look at it from that point of view. They were receptive. And yet in the housing situation we had to tread softly with these guys because they were afraid. Housing is a very sensitive area and there was much misinformation about what the legislation would do, and the fear that blacks were going to come from all over the country to demand housing was exploited. There were numerous scare tactics which were used to frighten people into voting for Proposition 14. I am not too sure that this was an era of good feelings, so to speak. I am not too sure that this is correct.
France
I had in mind the general statement, oh, it may not be true, that housing seems to be the one commodity that doesn't obey the law of supply and demand, or is the one thing that money won't always buy. I wonder if you would care to comment on whether this is a valid assumption or not?
Rumford
No. I don't think that we can draw a red line of
So yes, more and more in the new areas in the West, in the North, you have segregated patterns, persons of minority groups and other cultural groups who have been isolated and separated, either on their own volition or mandatorily; and largely in the black areas it is by design that they have created an intolerable situation where there is a limited amount of space, congested areas, highly conducive to crime and all of the things that reduce the effectiveness of a good democratic society. As a consequence, there is a natural tendency to break out of these areas and based upon the principle in America that an individual can go as far as his ability and economic condition will allow him, it would only be natural that the black man or the red man or whoever would want to seek his level in this economic situation and his attempt to do so would create a conflict.
That's the basis of much of our housing fight. It isn't that we want to live next door to a Caucasian. I see nothing uplifting or degrading, really, about living next door to one. They are people and if they are decent people, we like to live next door to a decent neighbor. We take that position. But that he happens to be of certain color has no bearing and should have no bearing upon the individual's selection. If he selects to live and reside in a certain neighborhood, he is interested in the neighborhood and of course the neighborhood is comprised of people—not necessarily black and white people.
So these are some of the fundamental questions, as I see them, that can foment disorder. More than that, we find today as a result of patterns of housing segregation the attendant effort to overcome some of these cultural deficiencies by busing people from one area to the other to the school! Now this would not be necessary if people were allowed to move freely and live where they would like to live based upon their own choice, as I see it.
France
With the passage of the Rumford Bill in 1963 the opposition had lost the battle but they refused to recognize that they'd lost the war, and so a movement began for the initiative which later became famous as Proposition 14 in 1964. If we assume that those in power take as positive approach toward civil rights legislation as they can, in many cases it hasn't proved effective. Why the great opposition to the action of the California government at that time? Why the attempt to undo what had been done?
Rumford
Well, having spent considerable time in the California legislature dealing with the problem of civil rights and trying to rectify many of the wrongs that exist in the so-called legal process by the legislative method, I would like to think that the representatives who voted for the legislation expressed the opinion, the ideas, and concepts of the people they represented. But this is not wholly true. There is—and I don't think that we can avoid it—a basic racism in this country which exists and is contrary to some of our basic concepts as expressed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and other documents. When we attempt to emphasize or to develop concepts or practices based upon the concepts in these documents you find that there is a contradiction. Some of those people who express a strong position on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other documents, will be some of those who are prone to express themselves forcefully on discrimination and to try to justify this by twisting the concepts of the Constitution.
Proposition 14 was an attempt to spell out in the Constitution of the state of California the right of an individual who owned property, who had control of property, who leased it out, rented it
Now Proposition 14, of course, was fought throughout the state from every corner, from every little nook in the state of California. Newspapers took positions on it. Some of our outstanding newspapers were in opposition to it. The California Federation of Labor came out against it. The churches throughout the state as a group came out against it. Prominent citizens throughout the state came out against Proposition 14 and yet when the final vote was taken, Proposition 14 passed almost 2 to 1. This was a sad day in the state of California, but the propaganda that was used up and down the state was, in effect, that a person could walk in and take your home, that the blacks were coming from all over the nation to occupy homes in the state of California. The whole proposition was built on fear and discrimination and racism; however, there were those who expressed themselves as being liberals and who felt that this proposition was necessary in order to protect their homes.
France
The question of educating the public had come up. Originally when Proposition 14 was to go on the ballot in the primary election, there was a successful fight to keep it off the ballot, out of the primary election, and to postpone it until the November election with the idea of educating the public to its true meaning. Evidently, the faith in the people was misplaced because the people even with this extended period still voted approximately 2 to 1 against it. Where do you think a breakdown occurred, or do you think there was a breakdown?
Rumford
Let me answer your first question which dealt with the technicalities of whether Proposition 14 should have been put on the June ballot or on the November ballot.
There was considerable discussion in the legislature as to when this should be placed on the ballot. There were other propositions to be considered in the June election and there were those who felt that if we got it on there, there would be this terrible battle—which really took place—and the other propositions would be lost. That was one of the reasons it was placed on the November ballot. The other reason of course was the one that you mentioned, that there needed to be an awful lot of education as to what was going to take place if this proposition was adopted. It was the strong feeling on the part of those in opposition to Proposition 14 that the workers, the common people, and the minorities would necessarily need a really good education and it would take some time to do this. It would take at least, say, five or six months. So this is correct. They bided their time and they chose to put the proposition on the ballot in November because they thought that it would give sufficient time for educational purposes.
France
Just a simple question about the way the proposition was written: "No on 14" or "Yes on 14." I talked to people, especially the minority element, who voted "yes" thinking they were supporting fair housing.
Rumford
You see, it is very confusing. You are correct. The proposition was, "Shall a constitutional amendment be adopted?" This constitutional amendment of course, I'll state again, is the one which would freeze into the Constitution of the state of California the right to discriminate. And the question was, "Shall this be adopted?" A positive vote, as far as we were concerned, would have been a "no" vote, you see. But the people who misinterpreted this proposition, thinking they were supporting fair housing, voted "yes." "Yes, we want fair housing." But they were really voting "yes" to the opposite. So it was very confusing and propositions in themselves are very complex, particularly when you word them in such a way that it can be misinterpreted in one way or the other. There was an awful lot of confusion in this case. It is really not known how many people were actually against the proposition who, thinking they were voting for fair housing, voted "yes."
Numerous cases were prevalent in the lower courts and the municipal court judges did pass on these cases. However, they did not attempt to embrace the constitutional question. So the cases were carried to the Supreme Court of the state of California on the basis of their constitutional implications. In 1966, in May I believe it was, the California State Supreme Court issued a decision which declared Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Now this was appealed on the part of the sponsors of Proposition 14 and was taken to the United States Supreme Court.
France
It would seem that in these long series of court cases, they would have gone to the chief sponsor or the man who was supposed to know most about the act, to have him appear. Were you frequently called in on the discussions when these cases were before the court?
Rumford
No, I wasn't—not particularly. Occasionally we would discuss it with lawyers but I would say as a general rule that we were not called in, the reason being, of course, that once a law is spelled out, it is on the books; it is there for anybody to read. The meaning is there, although the intent may be questioned. But Proposition 14 was not written by me. It was written by law firms which were against the Fair Housing Act. So consequently they wouldn't be interested in my point of view. My point of view would naturally be negative toward the proposition, and I had expressed such throughout the state of California.
Henderson
Were these cases you speak of filed by citizens against real estate brokers?
Rumford
Yes. I find it very difficult at this point to remember each and all of the cases; however, some are filed in Sacramento, some are filed in Southern California, and I think there's one in San Francisco. This will have to be researched. I regret I do not recall the specific names of the cases filed. In most cases, these were cases which were filed against real estate brokers for discriminating, and in some instances against apartment house owners.
I did confer with some of the lawyers who defended the Fair Housing Law before the Supreme Court, and unfortunately, here again, I do not remember their names. However, one very prominent lawyer lived in Los Angeles.
I think it important here, aside from the legal battle that ensued, to explain the difference in the approach in the initiative and the referendum, because many people are unaware that there is in the state of California the referendum procedure which would have nullified my act without this initiative business. Now. There are two methods whereby the people can react against legislation. They can do as they did with respect to Proposition 14. They can instigate an initiative measure which means they themselves are going to develop legislation, put it on the ballot, and submit it to the people for their consideration. This is what they did on Proposition 14. This proposition was a Constitutional amendment which in effect would have nullified all housing acts and which would have also spelled out in the Constitution the right of an individual to discriminate against anybody he so desires. The other approach of course is the referendum. Now the referendum is often submitted when people who have been subjected to laws passed by the legislature want to reject these laws and all they do then is get sufficient number of signatures to put on the ballot. They could vote down the law that was adopted by the legislature and they would simply say that this law was hereby repealed.
Now this is the approach that the California Real Estate Association and the Apartment House Owners Association did not want to take. They were fooling the people into believing that they were adopting a referendum, when in fact they were adopting an initiative. A referendum, had it been adopted, would have repealed my legislation and there would have been no other recourse. We could not have gone to the courts on that because the people have a right to undo anything the legislature does. So you see, the people were thinking that they were really repealing my law, when in fact they were establishing basic Constitutional law which would spell out the fact that you could discriminate legally. I wanted to make that clear
On May the 29th, 1967, almost a year later, the United States Supreme Court on a five to four decision upheld the California State Supreme Court in declaring Proposition 14 unconstitutional.
France
In May, 1967. Now it is some four years later, Mr. Rumford. If you had to do it again, would you do it again?
Rumford
Oh, sure! I think that there is no substitute for right. Either we have a Constitution which protects all of its citizens or we do not; and if we do not, then we do not have a democratic society in this nation. I think it is absolutely necessary that all people have the right to move about freely in this nation, to purchase and to sell. I do not think that there should be any restrictions whatsoever based upon race, color, creed, ancestry, or religion. I think our legislation attempted to do away with such restrictions.
Now the Supreme Court, in reviewing other cases that came before it, indicated that it was spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that there should be no discrimination in the selling or buying of property—and it is spelled out! So it really wasn't new. I think we had just failed to look back through the corridors of some of our statutes and to indicate that this legislation was not new, that it was simply implementing what was already on the books. It was placed on there in 1866.
To answer the question whether I would do it again politically: I think I would. It didn't hurt me politically. There are some politicians who state today that they were injured by the housing legislation. Governor Brown has even made that statement. I disagree with Governor Brown, because in my election I was thoroughly satisfied. When I ran for the senate in 1966 I won by a large majority in the primary, in which the people had a chance to vote for an expressed racist who, in every one of the speeches that he made on a platform, had pointed out that I was the one that wrote the housing act. It didn't hurt me at all. Now, I am not going to get into what happened during the campaign because that's a long story which gave me an awful lot of misgivings about the political situation in Alameda County. I do not feel that I lost the election in the general election (and I have reasons to say that and I can offer proof).
But no, I would do the same thing. The Supreme Court has upheld me in both positions—the state and the federal. I do not think, however, that putting a law on the books is the ultimate solution to solving some of the grave problems which face us as a social group here in this country. But I would say that if people were allowed to move freely, to live as they so choose in this state of ours and in the nation, there would be no need for busing, which is only a method whereby an intercultural exposition can take place.
So denying one the simple right to buy property and the right to live where he so chooses has created problems by those who attempt to foment and to continue a system of discrimination against people for what they look like, for what they are, or for what their religion happens to be.
France
It has been stated by some that the Rumford Fair Housing Act aided primarily those blacks who had credit, who had money, in brief, the black middleclass, if you will; but that it had done nothing or very little for the great masses of the people.
Rumford
I don't know if anything was ever done just for the masses of the people. I think that everything that is done is done for people in general. If something is wrong, it should be righted. Now
Now this law doesn't say that only some economic groups will benefit from it. It simply says, "There shall be no discrimination based upon race, religion or color or ancestry." It doesn't say that an economic group within certain restrictive limits shall benefit.
It is always interesting when those who want to make light of what has been developed twist their thinking in order to support their side of the issue. Now you have to think a little deeper than that. If these individuals say that it does not affect the low economic group, then of course it does not affect those white people down there.
And I refuse to believe that. I think there is just as much discrimination on the low plane as there is on the high plane; and I think if we benefit at all, we benefit in the so-called middle-class areas, whatever this happens to be. I haven't been able to define what is middle-class in America. Everybody is striving to be middle-class. We are taking the so-called poor and we're raising them. That is why we have a poverty program—to raise them to a higher economic level.
It is always interesting to see how these issues can be manipulated to fit the thinking of those who want to discredit anything that is accomplished. And even if the middle-class did benefit, I see nothing wrong with that. I see nothing wrong with anything that benefits anybody in this society.
We have a poverty program in the United States, as I mentioned before; it is designed to help the poor. It isn't designed to help the middle-class, and I could use the same logic by saying, "It doesn't do anything for the middle-class, so there-fore I am not interested in it." I am interested in it because it will do something for the poor. Generally these kind of propositions are put forth by those people who want to utilize some of our problems for their own causes. If we think it through seriously, we can discredit their propositions.
France
Most of this happened essentially before the one-man, one-vote theory by the Supreme Court concerning representation. How much support did you get in counties such as Yuba and Modoc?
Rumford
Well, as you know, California, I think, has some 52 counties. Prior to the one-man, one-vote concept, the Democrats had large representation in the senate. We had 40 senators. One or two of the senators represented more than one county, by and large, and this was acceptable.
Prior to the 1958 election we had some very conservative senators in the senate and we could hardly get anything through. Although I had been successful in getting quite a number of civil rights acts into law, it was very difficult because they would shove any such legislation into the Committee on Governmental Efficiency and Economy and we couldn't get anywhere. But in 1958 we elected a great group of young Democratic senators in these counties. These young people were objective in their thinking and dedicated to the civil rights programs. It was during this Brown period that we were able to get quite a number of bills enacted in the civil rights area. The housing bill was, of course, one of them. We had some excellent representatives from these smaller counties. Unfortunately we had to lose these fellows under the one-man, one-vote proposition. Today, the senate, I imagine, is just about evenly balanced. But California's last great group of senators were certainly liberal ones and I for one secured a great deal of help from these young fellows.
France
These "young Turks" elected in 1958, would you care to name a few of them?
Oh yes. I can remember O'Sullivan. He came from one of the northern counties. Rattigan, who came out of Santa Rosa. Senator Rattigan was the one who made the motion to set it as a special order of business before the senate at 11 o'clock. There was Senator Cobey from Merced, Senator Short from Stockton. Senator Begovich assisted us, and also Senator Rodda from Sacramento. They were a great group of young people who came along with a different point of view and who expressed a sincere effort to right some of the wrongs that had been perpetrated on citizens of this state.
France
You would have had a similar support in the assembly. Ordinarily these bills, for a number of years, had to pass in the assembly. So up until 1958, at least, would you say that the senate then was your chief stumbling block?
Rumford
Yes. In 1961 Mr. [Augustus] Hawkins was able to get his bill, AB801 through, which dealt primarily with publicly assisted housing and, if you remember, he had sponsored the FEPC any number of times, and of course I handled it also. We handled the bills alternately, and I was able to get the Fair Employment Practice Act through in '59. Later on, it was the housing act. Although I wouldn't say it was easy and simple to get these bills passed, my work was made much easier by the fact that they had been handled by Mr. Hawkins previously.
France
Did Mr. Hawkins' bill, AB801, have a difficult time in the senate?
Rumford
Yes, it did. It did. It had a battle all the way, but nevertheless it was passed. It confined itself, as I said before, to publicly assisted housing and it was very difficult for the senate to fail to act on a bill which actually was utilizing tax-supported monies for its purposes.
France
Speaking of public assisted housing, there was a powerful minority person as director of the Housing Authority in Washington named Dr. Robert Weaver. Did he have any influence on the things that happened here in California?
[Laughs] That is a good question. There were all kinds of rumors up in Sacramento that there was an awful lot of pressure being put on Senator Gibson because he was from Vallejo and he had Mare Island in his district, which of course is a ship-building and repair installation. The rumor had it that the White House was putting the heat on Gibson to put that bill out because if he didn't they'd cut off his money in his ship-building area. I don't think this was true.
What did happen, however, was that the minute Proposition 14 was passed, the federal government cut off all of the public monies for housing to be built in the state of California, saying that they wouldn't go for any discrimination, and of course California had sensed that this would happen. The federal government just cut off all funds to California. These monies were not given back until Proposition 14 was nullified.
Yes, there was an awful lot of pressure coming from several different ends, as I understand it, and it seemed to work.
Transcriber: Arlene Weber
Final Typist: Keiko Sugimoto
The Fair Housing Act
by
Assemblyman W. Byron Rumford
Much has been said about the Fair Housing Act, and when the Bill was introduced, we never thought that it would cause so much commotion both in the State of California and throughout the United States. With a campaign shaping up on the initiative measure, Proposition 14, introduced by the California Real Estate Association to amend the Housing Act and make other substantive changes through a Constitutional Amendment, we can expect additional commotion and much misrepresentation in the months to come.
A discussion of the background of the Law is most certainly in order and should be valuable to those who seek to defend it in face of the CREA initiative.
It should first be recognized that fair housing has been part of the Democratic Party platform as well as part of the Republican Party platform. Governor Brown has campaigned actively on that issue. Early in 1963, it became apparent that the time was ripe for action on this subject. After studying the congressional reports, the reports of the United States Commission on Civil Rights with respect to housing, as well as various reports that had been compiled by the California Assembly on the subject; it was concluded by the Governor and most legislators that 1963 was the year to take action to make housing accessible to all Americans alike.
In its report the United States Commission on Civil Rights had indicated that housing, as a commodity, was one item the acquisition of which was "not freely accessible to all Americans."
In advance of our legislative move, we studied the history of acts by other states. We found that in 1896, in the City of New York, the number of new immigrants was so heavy and discrimination against them was so prevalent, that it was necessary to establish an ordinance so the Irish then could have access to housing. Since that particular time there have been at least ten other states that have adopted laws dealing with fair housing. Outstanding, of course, is the State of New York. Governor Brown inquired from Governor Rockefeller about the success of the legislation in that state, and Mr. Rockefeller indicated that the law was working very well. Governor Brown conferred with Governor Hatfield of Oregon, a state which has long had a fair housing law, and received similar encouragement. Accordingly, in 1963, a bill was introduced at the behest of Governor Brown to abolish discrimination in housing against Americans because of their color, ancestry or their religion. Unfortunately, the bill that was introduced was not the bill that was finally adopted. The final bill was much weaker, and it was, in addition, a combination of laws that had been on the books since 1959.
In 1959, the Democratic controlled Legislature adopted the Hawkins "Publicly Assisted Act". This provided that housing that had been constructed with the public assistance by VA, FHA, or CalVet was to be free of discrimination.
In 1959, we also adopted the Fair Employment Practices Act which had been requested by Governor Brown and had been a campaign issue in 1958. Also, in 1959, we changed Section 51 of the Civil Code, the so-called Unruh Act, to make it include "any business whatsoever" in defining the areas to which discrimination was to be excluded.
The bill that I was fortunate to introduce in 1963 and which since has borne my name was a strong bill in the field of housing. It was
The bill then moved to the Senate and was referred to the Governmental Efficiency Committee of the Senate some time in April. It was heard before that committee but remained in the committee as there was an indication that adjustments and changes were desired. Pending before that committee were proposals for over 100 amendments to the bill at that time. We were concerned about the delay at this point because we knew that we had a favorable Senate in that many of the Senators had pledged themselves to support the party platform. Some senators who were not favorable inclined toward the legislation, attempted to hold it in committee and to amend the bill to include the three earlier acts described above which had been on the books since 1959. Frankly, while we were not too pleased with their action, we felt it was acceptable, and we could get the bill adopted. Actually, this maneuver was an attempt on behalf of some individuals to kill the legislation. There were some 200 [illegible data] be heard on the Senate floor the night the bill was finally let out of the committee, and they thought they would never get through the calendar. But, several of the Senators supporting the bill were alert, and the bill was set for
This then was the history of the legislation which took over five months to enact and what the opposition says was rammed through the Legislature. Granted that the action on the final night was quite hasty, this is quite often true with legislation in Sacramento during the closing hours of sessions; but in view of the adequate time for hearings since its first introduction in February, the charge of being rammed through the Legislature does not hold water. We should recognize that there is little chance of ramming anything through our legislative body, partic ularly with our systems of checks and balances. We are happy that it did take this long because it gave all a chance to rebutt the argument that the Fair Housing Law did not have a full and complete hearing.
You may recall that during the course of legislative action of this bill, there was a sit-in in Sacramento. Those of us who supported the bill did not suggest the sit-in, in fact many of us felt that it was uncalled for. The bill was moving along nicely but the sit-ins were there and the fact that they were there was given wide publicity.
Opponents of the bill have made many charges against it, and these charges should be carefully understood for they do not bear up under close examination. One of the loose charges is that administrative procedures under the act amount to a kangaroo court and further that the Commission itself, is politically appointed, and this is intended
Those who have had any experience in government know that there are over 150 boards and commissions that function under the California Administrative Procedures Act. This Act has been established to control methods of operation and all activities and matters that come before these various boards and the commissions. The commission concerned with fair housing cannot act any differently than other commission, procedures are spelled out to ensure that they are properly conducted. The hearing officers are on civil service, and they are chosen from a list of elegibles. The commission itself is "politically appointed" but there are only two types of government employees, either civil service or political appointments. If the opponents do not like a "political appointee", they can point to that fact with disdain and convey then the impression that politics has played a heavy part in the appointment; and if the individual concerned is a civil servant, then the opponents will label him a "bureaucrat"-so it seems that it just can't come out right as far as the opponents are concerned.
There is the charge that the Fair Housing Act provides for fines. This is not true. The law has no fine. The law does provide a ceiling on damages. Because in some instances a person who has been aggrieved can file a suit for civil damages, and sometimes these suits seek damages which are exhorbitant. The Legislature accordingly put a ceiling of $500 on the damages which could be collected. There are, of course, penalties that may come about when a person refuses to comply with a court order. The court then holds that individual in contempt of court, but this could be true under any court order and is not peculiar to the Fair Housing Act itself.
The Act has been on the books since September 1963, and during that time, the commission has handled some 90 odd cases. Most of them have been arbitrated and conciliated with the advantage to both parties, and only one case has gone to court. This one case went to court because of the desire on the part of individuals to test it before the courts of the land, and so it was by design and purpose that this case became a legal issue.
We believe the Fair Housing Act is a fairly good working piece of legislation, and it is unfortunate that the CREA would not give it a chance to work. The facts clearly indicate that ghettos were developed in our cities, and with them have come crime, delinquency, and certain ill-health considerations with which the Legislature has been concerned. This entire area has been one that has been debated and argued in a sensible and reasonable atmosphere, and we are quite concerned that the issue should be decided on that basis of merit and not by an appeal to emotion.
It is significant to add that during the consideration of this legislation in Sacramento, the Real Estate Association consulted with me and requested that I amend a section in the bill. That request was for language which said this, "nothing contained in this part shall be construed to prohibit selection based upon race, color, religion, national ancestry, national origin, or ancestry." This simply meant that a person should have the right to select people for the sale, leasing, or rental of their property based on factors other than race, color, or creed. I saw nothing wrong with their request, and we agreed that it should be placed in the bill. The CREA indicated that with this amendment in the bill they would support it, and we thought that we had them pleased. Much to our chagrin, it did not work out that way.
We began to wonder why they attacked the legislation. First, some of them attempted a referendum which would have blocked adoption of the bill. In order for the referendum to succeed they had to solicit a number of signatures by September 20, 1963. This they were not able to do, and so the Fair Housing Act went into effect. Now it appears obvious , in retrospect, that they did not attempt to repeal this legislation because they had other things in mind. If they had wanted to block passage of the Fair Housing Act, all they had to do was to carry through on the referendum, secure the signatures, and hence block adoption of the Act.
When we go back and look at the actions of the California Real Estate Association, we find that they had other plans. As far back as September 1948, we find discussion in their own organizational magazine of "enforcement of race restrictions by an amendment to the Federal Constitution", and so it became apparent after September 1963 that this is what they were interested in doing - to push for a constitutional amendment which would provide for segregation in a legalized manner, by writing it into our state constitution. A complete analysis of the position of CREA has been done by one of the professors of Sacramento State College, and the record that he has come up with is quite amazing.
In opposing the CREA initiative, we should clearly understand exactly what it is. It is not just an act to repeal the Fair Housing Act. Instead, it introduces a new concept in dealing with property which will be written into our state constitution. The initiative says this, "neither the state nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit, or abridge directly or indirectly the right of any person who is willing or desirous to sell, rent, or lease any part of
Their act is an attempt to revert to the 17th century, to the despotic theory of the use of property. The courts of our land have held in at least three cases that have gone to the Supreme Court - one case originating in New York - that "Neither property nor contract rights are absolute. For government cannot exist if a citizen may at will use his property to the detriment of his fellows or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental to the private rights are those of the public to regulate them in the common interest."
We are satisfied that if the CREA initiative does pass, it will be taken to the Supreme Court and will be declared unconstitutional. We have asked our Legislative Counsel in Sacramento to tell us what this initiative will do, and this is the reply that we got: "As can be seen, the language of the proposed initiative measure is extremely broad. The extent of coverage and the effect of the measure will depend to a great extent upon the interpretation placed upon the language by the court in cases arising after adoption of the measure, if it is adopted. The courts will by that time have several aids to interpretation to assist them in ascertaining what the language means
We believe this initiative is dangerous because it could affect other laws dealing with real estate and property. It could perhaps affect the rule of perpetuities on land and property. And the rule of unlawful restraint and alienation of property, the general law of unusual anti-social dispositions, and the insistence upon formalities as a prerequisite for full efficacy. We feel that the law may also affect the probate of wills, and it may affect the law of auction. It is a dangerous instrument and should not be adopted.
It is interesting to note that many supporters of this initiative are the right-wingers who strongly proclaim that our government is a republican form of government and that we have representatives in Sacramento and in Washington to vote for our interests. These extremists deny that our form of government is a form of democracy wherein the people express themselves and are responsible directly to the governmental process. But what have these extremists done - they have gone ahead and used the democratic process. Instead of relying on the representatives of the people that adopted this legislation, they now seek to support broad public action based largely on emotion to reverse the law and to propose their own more extreme proposition.
Today we have five or six initiative measures on the ballots and this is possibly only the beginning. As these issues become more and more controversial and as they are placed before us in Sacramento, the Legislators are going to say, well, if the people want to vote, let the people vote, and the Legislators will shirk their responsibilities. This year the people will vote, on pay TV, on the railroad, on the lottery amendment as well as on the housing amendment and several other amendments. It appears that the people are not informed
If this trend continues we are going to have to take a good look at our initiative procedure because it is apparent that it is being abused, and we might wind up with something on the ballot which might do us great harm.
I am certainly in favor of the referendum because I think that the referendum offers us a check on the acts of the Legislature. If we in the Legislature ever do anything that is wrong, the people can use the referendum procedure to repeal it. However, the canger of the initiative procedure, as I see it, carried to an extreme, is in the ability of special interest groups to exploit it.
Look at the lottery initiative. Here, a small special interest group have tied themselves into the lottery so that if the act passed, these special interest people will get a definite portion of the funds from the people in California. I think this is dangerous.
There are several areas in which changes might be needed in our initiative procedure. Perhaps, we should require additional names to be sure that they cannot be adopted too hastily. Again, we might find it necessary to regulate the individuals who promote these initiatives, for these individuals often get as much as $250,000 for pushing a measure on the ballot.
So, I think that we must recognize that it is important to know what the citizens will be voting on this fall in the CREA initiative.
Many have said that the Fair Housing Act is a bad law because it will deny you your right to sell your property to whomever you wish. Generally, we sell our property to a person who is able to pay. There is an old saying that goes "we can't choose our neighbors, thank God we can choose our friends."
Now, the CREA wants to choose both for us. Maybe we have some good neighbors, but it has not been the custom to choose for us. It seems to me that if a person is able financially and is an American citizen of good repute, he should be allowed to live anywhere he desires. It would also appear to me that in this time of stress and strain with/threats of war, if we cannot live together here in this country amicably, why should we be trying to fight in other areas to protect the interests of other persons with whom we might have the same problems if they lived here with us.
Certainly, as we talk seriously of going to the moon, we ought to be ready to straighten out our living conditions here first.
Opponents have stated that there will be a mass movement of Negroes if we pass the Fair Housing Act, that there would be somebody knocking at your door saying, "I'm here," That just hasn't happened. The law passed, it has been in effect for almost nine months, and all of the dreadful things that the opponents said would come about have not happened. This reflects on the legislative procedure where the issues were debated, and a vote taken to project the will of the majority of our people.
I have been asked why I do not speak out and condemn the pickets in San Francisco. Now, I did not favor the pickets when they came to Sacramento because I prefer the legislative process, but I am in no position at this time to condemn a group that has been successful in what they are trying to do - even more successful than I have been. It took me five months to get my legislation through the Legislature and to have the Governor sign it; and what do we have, we now have one of the strongest organizations in the state attempting to ratify an initiative petition creating turmoil and confusion, and in effect denying the legal legislative method by which we achieved this particular gain. In other words, our work in the Legislature remains
We have some good realtors on our side, some honest to goodness people working with us who see the light, but the leadership of the CREA refuses to let them express themselves even at Director's meetings.
I was recently in the City of Anaheim, and that was quite an experience. Pickets outside of the meeting hall were parading up and down,and their signs read "Your reason is treason", and"Rumford go home", and all that type of thing. I never thought they would look upon me in that manner, but I guess it all depends on the conditions under which you meet these extremists.
We have a job to do in this coming election. Reaction is threatening us. We have already seen Birch Society candidates or at least individuals who act like them, running against Republicans of moderate political temperament. It is important that we elect and send to Sacramento men who can do sober thinking and enact needed legislation. We have had too much of the extreme position. It is a dangerous situation when one cannot speak up in this country, where democracy has always been the expression of the individual himself and his desires. Let us keep this fair housing legislation on the books of our state.
VOTE "NO" ON PROPOSITION 14.
It is difficult to express in words a fitting tribute to an old friend and colleague. Your years of service to the people of the State of California have been an outstanding example of dedication to the public good.
The void you leave as an experienced legislator and committee chairman may never be adequately filled. You have earned and deserve the highest respect and admiration of your colleagues. There is no doubt that you have gained the distinction of being the acknowledged legislative leader and expert in the difficult and complex field of health. California is a better, healthier place to live because of your work.
I want to express my personal thanks to you for the outstanding contribution you have made to the development of the legislative branch as an equal force in California government. I know that the future holds good things for you and I hope you will continue your valuable contribution to public life in California.
I wish you the very best in the years to come.
Index — William Byron Rumford
- Aiken, Charles, 80
- air pollution (see environmental protection)
- Alameda County-Highland Hospital, 8-12
- Albrier, Frances, 24, 30
- Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, 59-60, 63
- Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, 35
- American Federation of Labor (AF of L), 31
- Apartment House Owners' Association, 120, 127
- Appomattox Club, 24
- Army, U.S., 15
- Assembly, California, 27, passim
- automobile industry, 72-73
- Baker, Josephine, 85
- Barksdale, Mrs. Tom, 26
- Bartell, Harry, 11
- Bay Area Air Pollution Control Board, 70
- Beasley, Delilah, 1
- Becker, Bill, 48, 51
- Bee, Carlos, 49
- Begovich, John, 132
- Berkeley, City of
- Berkeley Gazette, 37
- Berkeley Interracial Committee, 18-24
- Berkley, Tom, 24, 29
- Black, Benjamin, 8-9
- Blue, Jack, 95-97, 103, 107
- Bonelli, William, 60-61
- Brombacher, Elton, 81
- Brown, Edmund G., 42, 45, 86, 88, 106, 112, 129
- Buckner, Eva Carter, 2
- Building Trades Union, 48, 63
- Caldecott, Tom, 11
- California Federation of Labor, 46, 124
- California Real Estate Association, 120, 127
- California, State of
- California State Employees' Association, 56
- Camp Knight, 15
- campaigns
- Carrington, Carolyn, 30
- Central Labor Council, 63-64
- civil rights (see Fair Employment Practices Bill; housing, fair housing)
- Coakley, Frank, 97-100, 102-104, 109
- Cobey, James, 132
- Cohelan, Jeffrey, 13, 96-97
- Coleman, John, 6
- Collins, Sam, 57
- Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, 28
- communism, 29
- Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 27-28, 31
- Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), 116-117
- consumer affairs, 111
- Coolidge, Glenn, 60, 79
- CORE, 116-117
- Cranston, Alan, 106
- Crown, Bob, 93
- Cross, Laurance, 17
- cross-filing, 31
- Cubic Votronic Company, 109
- Dellums, C. L., 43, 48
- Democratic Party, 45, 49, 112, 116
- Desmond, Earl, 40
- Dickey, Randal, 67
- Dolwig, Richard, 40, 67
- Dorn, Warren, 69
- elections (see also campaigns, voting), 27-33, 44, 49, 95-96, 106, 118-119
- Elks' Club, 37
- environmental protection
- Fagenhauer, Olie, 27
- Fair Employment Practices Bill, 42-55
- Fair Employment Practices Committee, 20, 43-49, 51-52
- fair housing (see housing, Proposition 14)
- fair housing bill, 52, 112-133
- Fair Play, Committee on, 19
- Federal Trade Commission, 108-111
- finance, state, 56
- Fitzsimmons, Edward, 93-94
- Fletcher, Arthur, 47
- fraternal organizations, 35-37
- Gaffney, Eddie, 64
- Gallagher, Buell, 19, 22
- Gilson, Luther, 116-117, 133
- Gier, Joe T., 5
- "Good Samaritan Act", 65
- Gordon, Walter, 34
- Grendon, Alex, 86
- Griffin, Kitty, 27
- Groulx, Dick, 64
- Haggerty, C. J., 47, 64
- Hawkins Act, 112-113
- Hawkins, Augustus, 32, 43-45, 49, 132
- Highland Hospital (Alameda County), 8-12
- Holmdahl, John, 92-93
- Hoover Committee, 57
- housing
- Humphrey, Hubert H., 111
- Hurley, Edgar, 31
- Japanese-Americans
- Japanese land seizure, relocation, 19-20
- Jensen, Lowell, 101, 103
- Jewish Labor League, 51-52
- Johnson, Louise Alice, 1
- Johnson, Margaret Lee, 1
- Johnson, Seth, 75
- Jones, James, 30
- Kent, Jack, 19
- Kimbrough, J. J., 5
- Kingman, Harry, 20
- Kingman, Ruth, 20
- Knight, Goodwin J., 68
- Knox, Ellis, 5
- Kuchel, Thomas, 71
- labor unions, 27, 46-47, 48, 51-52, 63-64
- Lee, Eugene, 81
- Legislature, Calif. (see Assembly; Senate; politics, legislative)
- lobbying, 20, 39-43, 48-49, 51-52, 54, 63-64, 89, 111, 120, 133
- Lomax, Alemena, 45
- Linsky, Ben, 70
- Louis, Joe, 50-51
- Maga, Joh, 90
- Marks, Milton, 50
- Masons, 36
- Merrill, Malcolm H., 67, 90
- Middleton, Dr. John, 69
- Miller, George, 50, 81
- Moretti, Bob, 77
- Mrak, Emil, 88-89
- Mulford, Don, 87
- NAACP, 48, 51, 112
- National Guard, 32, 34, 39-42, 68
- Negro Independent Progressive Party, 31
- Oakland, City of
- Health Department, 16
- Oakland Tribune, 85
- O'Brien, Charles, 97
- O'Sullivan, Virgil, 132
- Parks, Rosa, 121
- Pattee, Alan, 50
- Pattiman, Tarea, 51
- pesticide control (see environmental protection)
- Petris, Nick, 89, 93-94
- petroleum industry, 69
- Philadelphia Plan, 47
- politics
- Poole, Cecil, 97
- Prescott, Irene, 81
- Prince Hall Masons, 36-39
- Prohibition, 25
- Proposition 14, 44, 120-121, 123-133 (see also Housing, fair housing)
- prostitution, 15-16
- Purcell, Kent, 105
- radiation control (see environmental protection)
- Rattigan, Joseph, 118-119, 132
- Reader's Digest, 65
- reapportionment
- Rees, Tom, 75, 77
- Rent Control Board, state, 11, 13-14
- Republican Party, 45
- Rodda, Albert, 132
- Rumford, Chauncey G., 1
- Rumford, Virginia L., 1
- Roosevelt, F. D., 25
- Sacramento Bee, 74
- Sacramento Junior College, 5
- Salzman, Ed, 85
- Senate, California, 40, 45, passim
- Sherman, Lewis, 51, 94-95, 105, 107
- Silliman, Jim, 57
- South Berkeley Community Church, 23
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 31
- Stead, Frank, 90
- Stiern, Walter, 50
- Stone, Irving, 5
- Supreme Court, U.S., 36, 126-128
- Tenney, Jack, 65
- There Was Light, 5
- Tolman, Edward, 18
- transportation, public, 77-80
- U.S. Air Pollution Control Board, 69
- United States government
- University of California
- University of West Virginia, 71
- Unruh, Jesse, 112-115, 119
- Unruh Act, 112-113, 116
- venereal disease control, 7, 11, 15-17
- voting, 95-99, 102-104, 106-107, 124, 125 (see also elections)
- Wagner, Victor, 93-94
- Wagner Act, 63
- Warren, Earl, 11, 23, 34-36, 42, 45
- Water Resources Act, 62
- Watkins, Ben, 29
- Weaver, Robert, 132
- Weinberger, Casper J., 58, 59-60, 62-63, 107, 111
- White, L. S., 27
- Williams, Elmer J., 1
- Wilson, Lionel, 27
- World Symposium on Air Pollution Control, 69
- World War II, 11
Amelia R. Fry
Graduated from the University of Oklahoma, B.A. in psychology and English, M.A. in educational psychology and English, University of Illinois; additional work, University of Chicago, California State University at Hayward.
Instructor, freshman English at University of Illinois and at Hiram College. Reporter, suburban daily newspaper, 1966-67.
Interviewer, Regional Oral History Office, 1959—; conducted interview series on University history, woman suffrage, the history of conservation and forestry, public administration and politics. Director, Earl Warren Era Oral History Project, documenting governmental/political history of California 1925-1953; director, Goodwin Knight-Edmund G. Brown Era Project.
Author of articles in professional and popular journals; instructor, summer Oral History Institute, University of Vermont, 1975, 1976, and oral history workshops for Oral History Association and historical agencies; consultant to other oral history projects; oral history editor, Journal of Library History, 1969-1974; secretary, the Oral History Association, 1970-1973.
Joyce A. Henderson
Graduated from California State University, Hayward in 1968 with a B.A. degree and in 1972 with an M.A. degree, both in English.
Taught freshman and remedial English at California State University, 1969-72. Also taught at Laney College, Oakland, 1971-72.
Joined the staff of the Regional Oral History Office in June, 1970.
Conducted interviews on Negro Political History. Served as educational consultant for Regional Oral History Office.
Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb8n39p2g3&brand=oac4
Title: Legislator for fair employment, fair housing and public health : oral history transcript / William Byron Rumford
By: Rumford, William Byron, Interviewee, Henderson, Joyce, Interviewer, Fry, Amelia R, Interviewer, France, Edward, Interviewer
Date: 1970-1973
Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
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