New-York tribune., 1920-02-15
BY Theodore M. knappen

IL Marysville, or Oroville, or
Porterville, or down any
other dusty road of California--and
.hsv are some dusty, those California
roads. when not muddy paved or
o;led-pounded, lurched and skidded
little red auto, festooned with
covbeils, for five long months in the
wear of grace of 1910.
The bells were notice to all that
hoard them that Hiram Warren
Johnson's gubernatorial boom was
On the march. Arrived in the afore-
said Los Molinos or any one of the
.housand villages of the Golden State,
one Of the Johnson sons, acting as
chauffeur for his father. would arise
and ,angle the bells into a grand
.onsummation Of all discord, and the
sunburned native sons would come
ont from under the wide canopies Of
.hs village stores and defy a Cali
,ornia sun at 10 in the shade while
.hsy listened to Hi johnson telling
and illustrating how he would kick
thu Southern Pacific Railway and
~ ", S. Herrin out Of power and
keep them out.
Mostly the voters came to the red
automobile to scoff and jeer-
among themselves-for few men
there be who will care to jeer openly
at fighting Hiram johnson.
The Whole Campaign
The red automobile and Johnson's
fighting voice were about the whole
Of the publicity department Of the
Johnson campaign in q state 500
miles long, 25O miles wide, $1,000
feet high, 800 feet low and inhabited
BY S,000,000 persons.
For forty years the Southern Pa
cifc had ruled California and It's
dynasty seemed as firmly established
as that of the Mikado. With it, in
almost solid phalanx, stood the
newspapers of mountain and plain,
hamlet and city.
OF those who knew and under
stood the state Of bondage and polit-
ical depravity into which the state
was sunk few >dared to voice their
knowledge-and if they had the
courage they had to do the voicing
literally, for there was no friendly
tress through which to speak. So,
hiram Johnson, selected to lead
the reiuyenated Lincoln Roosevelt
League in the effort to overthrow
the old regime, had to go to the
people from the snowy Siskiyous to
the burning Sierra Madres with his
red auto and it's jangling cowbells
and the rasping voice that We'd with
the bells In tearing the circumam-
bient. They were not the somnolent
bells Of the quiet pasture lot and
placid bossy, but the wild bells of
the stampeding herd. And when the
bells subsided and the voice succeed
ed them there was no chance for the
somniferous. You either liked John
son or you didn't like him; you
either stayed TO listen and warmed
to the fighting mood yourself or you
fed as from q splitting machine gun.
Well, all the while that the little
tsd auto was carrying It's column Of
dust UP and down the highways and
the byways of the generous state
The newspapers were either ignoring
It or making fun Of it, and those Of
their readers who had not been per
sonally undeceived by cowbells and
the challenging Johnsonian voice ex-
pected the Southern Pacific to con-
tinue TO rule after the 1910 election
as it had before. But fate is not
always revealed by history, and the
DAY after the primary election Cali
fornia awakened to fnd that the
perambulating auto Of red and the
pugnacious voice 1t transported far
aud wide had lined up $4,000 more
sovereign voters than any Of the
other candidates for the Republican
nomination.
1t began to look as though the
old gods were going. They took
refuge In the Democratic camp, and
after five months Of primary cam
paigning the tanned and dust-en-
shrouded, but still tireless, johnson
mad to fight the fight Of desperation
lor two more months.
And then Johnson was elected
Governor. Then, ye gods, what a
time Of kicking out and houseclean-
ingl
A Real Governor
AS be had told five hundred audi
saces would be the outcome, John