C. C. Young

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Clement Calhoun Young
26th Governor of California
In office January 4, 1927 – January 6, 1931
Lieutenant	Buron Fitts (1927-1928) H. L. Carnahan (1928-1931)
Preceded by	Friend Richardson
Succeeded by	James Rolph
Born	April 28, 1869(1869-04-28) Lisbon, New Hampshire
Died	December 24, 1947 (aged 78) Berkeley, California
Political party	Progressive; Republican
Spouse	Lyla Jeannette Vincent
Profession	Teacher, politician
Religion	Congregationalist

Clement Calhoun Young (April 28, 1869 – December 24, 1947) was an American teacher and politician who was affiliated with the original Progressive Party and later the Republican Party. He was elected to five consecutive terms to the California State Assembly between 1909 to 1919, then as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of California from 1919 to 1927. Shortly afterwards, he was elected in a landslide victory as the 26th Governor of California between 1927 and 1931. Young is considered to have been one of the last governors from the Progressive movement.

[edit] Biography

Born in Lisbon, New Hampshire, Young moved to California at an early age, having graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1892. After his graduation, Young embarked on a career as a high school teacher, teaching in Santa Rosa between 1892 to 1893 and later at Lowell High School in San Francisco from 1893 to 1906, heading the school's English department. While at Lowell, Young actively participated in the National Education Association, attending and speaking at its conferences, including giving a speech entitled "the Use of a Library," at the association's conference in Los Angeles in 1899, arguing for greater cooperation between public schools and public libraries.^[1] Students at Lowell popularly nicknamed Young "C-Square," due to his initializing of his first and middle name, Clement Calhoun.^[2] In 1904, Young, along with Charles Mills Gayley, published The Principles and Progress of English Poetry.^[3] The book was published and distributed by the Macmillan Company.

While teaching, he established his home in Berkeley, where he lived until his death in 1947, except for the years he served as governor.

Young was a close friend of realtor and conservationist Duncan McDuffie, and worked for Mason-McDuffie, a real estate general partnership based in Berkeley. Young would work or consult for Mason-McDuffie until 1944. He also helped McDuffie, who had served as president of the Save the Redwoods League, establish the State Parks system upon his election as governor. [1]

After his departure from Lowell in 1906, Young began to become greater involved in state politics. In 1908, he was successfully elected to the California State Assembly for the district which included mainly Berkeley. In the Assembly, Young became a political ally to Governor Hiram Johnson and quickly rose through the chamber's ranks, becoming Assembly Speaker in 1913. In the following year's legislative elections, Young was elected as a member of the Progressive Party, though his flirtation with the party lasted for a single term before its dissolving in 1916 and quickly returned to Republican ranks, though he remained sympathetic to the Progressive movement for much of the rest of his political career.

In the 1918 general elections, Young successfully won the race for the Lieutenant Governor of California, a position that he won re-election to four years later in 1922. In the 1920 U.S. presidential election, Young served as an elector in the Electoral College.^[4]

By 1926, frustration within inner Republican ranks with the conservative governorship of Friend Richardson had reached its zenith. During the party's gubernatorial primary election, Progressives overcame conservative and corporate opposition to elect Young as the Republican Party's nomination, knocking Richardson out of the general election.^[5] In the gubernatorial campaign, Young earned vocal support from former governor Hiram Johnson and prominent banker Amadeo Giannini. By the actual election itself, Young won in a landslide, garnering 71.3 percent of the vote, easily defeating his rivals who included Democrat Justus S. Wardell and Socialist author Upton Sinclair.^[6]

[edit] Governor

Beginning his governorship on January 4, 1927, Young's agenda included reorganizing the state's various commissions and departments into his cabinet to greater coordinate state governmental affairs. "Some system like this would, I believe, be far more businesslike and effective than such haphazard and infrequent consultations as must otherwise normally take place between a Governor and our numerous unrelated boards and commissions," Young said.^[7]

Among other of his priorities was the financing of the state highway system through a fuel tax rather than by state bonds, more clearly defined roles for the State Board of Education and the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction to eliminate conflicting duties, upholding the direct primary, and the creation of penal facilities specifically for convicted females, believing that "San Quentin is no place for our women prisoners."^[8]

In his first year of office, Young signed legislation from the California State Legislature to authorize the creation of a California State Parks Commission. Headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the survey commission investigated land across the state suitable for state protection and their future financing.^[9] A year later in a voter initiative supported by Young, state voters approved the creation of California State Park system.

In late June 1927, Young personally intervened for Charlotte Anita Whitney, a member of the Communist Party of the United States, who had been convicted under the 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act passed under Governor William Stephens. In 1919, Whitney had been arrested in Oakland after having defied civic authorities in making a speech in behalf of John McHugh, a member to the Industrial Workers of the World. The anti-syndicalist law that had prosecuted her had recently been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Whitney v. California, stating that threats of violence against the state and individuals were not considered as free speech under the First Amendment. Following the high federal court's decision, Young unconditionally pardoned Whitney, believing that putting her into a cell was "unthinkable." Young added that the law under which she was convicted was undoubtedly constitutional, but that "abnormal conditions attending the trial" greatly influenced the jury and that "under ordinary circumstances" the case never would have been prosecuted.^[10]

On November 23, 1927, inmates at Folsom Prison rioted, taking control of a majority of the interior facilities, including taking several prison guards as hostages. Young responded by mobilizing the California Army National Guard, ordering commanders to encircle the prison with their units, supported by heavy machine guns and two tanks shipped by train from Salinas.^[11] The heavy show of military force in full view of the rioters forced the revolting prisoners to capitulate peacefully.

In 1928, staring alongside British actor Ronald Colman, Young appeared in the film short Governor C.C. Young Hails Greater Talkie Season, appealing to early talking picture audiences to attend family friendly movies and to ignore films that depicted negative images of society.^[12]

Young (center left) with aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh (center right).

In October 1929, Young, along with President Herbert Hoover, established the Hoover-Young San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge Commission to investigate the feasibility of a bridge linking the East Bay to San Francisco. The commission submitted its report in August 1930, concluding that not only was the bridge necessary to the development of the area, but that it was "entirely feasible from economic and construction viewpoints."^[13] The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge eventually was completed and opened to traffic in late 1936.

Following a strike by Mexican agricultural laborers in the Imperial Valley in 1928, Young commissioned an investigation on the status of Mexican working conditions. The investigation's findings, presented to Young in 1930, concluded that Mexican immigrants made up a majority of farm labor, had supplanted other immigrant groups and were now doing the work white European Americans would not do.^[14] The report also outlined that many labor contracting practices, including the withholding of 25 percent of immigrant farm labor salaries, were likely to be illegal.^[15]

Despite Young's Progressive credentials, Progressive attitudes towards the governor soured in 1929 after Young's appointee to the state Superintendent of Banks, Will C. Wood, approved the merger between Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy with Orra E. Monnette's Bank of America.^[16] While Young denied that Giannini's support to his gubernatorial candidacy in 1926 was the reason for his support to the merger, his decision did not sit well with Progressives, who viewed economic conglomerations with suspicion. In 1930, constitutional restrictions on corporations were repealed.

The souring mood between Young and Progressives, along with the beginning of the Great Depression, severely hurt his chances of garnering the Republican renomination for the governorship. Despite campaign slogans that included "Re-Elect C.C. Young - He left $31 million in the treasury," Young was defeated by James Rolph, the charismatic Mayor of San Francisco, in the party's primary election in 1930.^[17]

[edit] Post-governorship

Young congratulating gold medal winner James Bausch at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Following his defeat Young shortly afterwards retired from politics. However, Young remained publicly visible, attending the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where the former governor personally met and congratulated several of the athletes.

Until 1944, Young devoted much of his working time to Mason-McDuffie, serving as its vice president.

He died on Christmas Eve 1947 in Berkeley at the age of 77.

[edit] Family

Young was married to Lyla Jeannette Vincent and had two children, Barbara and Lucy Young. Lucy Young would become a television actress in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, appearing in the BBC series' Out of the Unknown and Dixon of Dock Green. In 2000, Young provided her voice for the first-person shooter game, TimeSplitters.^[18]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Governors of California Profile of C. C. Young
• C. C. Young at the Internet Movie Database

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