The Llano colonist. [volume] (Llano, Calif.) 191?-1937, 1922-10-21
Woostersauce

Out here in California, politics is
taking a strange turn.
California is expanding industrially
in ways never before known. Vast
fortunes are being made in real estate.
More and more people are coming.
The spirit Of Los Angeles is. spread
ing over the entire state It will not be
long until real estate and peanuts, real
ESTATE and soda pop, real estate and au-
to supplies, real estate and chiroprac-
tic adjustments, real estate and lawns
moved, knives sharpened, and junk
bought and sold, will be the signs seen
Through the state, as they frequently
are in and about Los Angeles.
We are no longer the spirit Of the
West, however. No longer is CaIifor-
mia a care-free, glorious land of equal
lily, freedom of thought and independ-
ence.
We have put the soft pedal on those
things.
The word radical is now applied
to anything not positively reactionary.
Ito be safe, don't have anything resem-
bling new idea.
Repression is felt, and people with
ideas which do not conform with the
Requirements of democratic and repub-
lican platforms, and with the real es-
tate, mercantile, and banking interests,
must keep pretty quiet.
But to get back to the political sit
uation.
Hiram Johnson was opposed in the
Republican primaries. He won by a
large majority; but, nevertheless, he
was slipping steadily when election day
saved him.
Governor Stephens, another factor
in the Republican machine, failed to
get through the first real election test
in his entire career. Friend W. Rich
ardson, who has had both feet in the
public trough for many years, got the
nomination for governor on the Repub-
lican ticket. Normally that is enough.
But Richardson had falling out
with the Republican machine.
On the Democratic ticket, Thomas
Lee WooIwine, said by his admirers
and those who do not know him well
to be Southern gentleman, by others
conceded merely as being from Virgin
ia, got the Democratic nomination.
Now it is generally conceded by
democrats and Republicans that there
is a vast and imassable gulf between
those two grand old parties.
But when Richardson, who defeated
1.-The machine candidate for the Repub-
lican nomination and thus headed the
Republican ticket, began to press his
victories and wished to name the head
of the Republican state committee, it
was time to call halt.
So the machine Johnson directing
threw Friend Richardson overheard
and hitched the Republican machine
behind the Democratic candidate. That
puts Senator Hiram Johnson, once pro-
gressivc, now Republican, with Thomas
Lee WooIwine, never in his life pro-
gressive and never likely to be any
thing except Democrat.
But it meant either tie up with a
Democrat, or else let the machine be
run by Richardson. The machines the
thing, SO they slip a knife deftIy be-
tween the ribs of Friend Richardson,
and will try to stampede the more or
less intelligent people of California in
to voting for Woolwine.
The eleventh-hour entrance of Stitt
Wilson once socialist mayor of Berke-
ley. now member of the Democratic
party, will probably have no effect OH
the outcome, even though it is claimed
he is endorsed by Labor.
The Single Takers have again got
their resolution on the ballot and it
will again be voted on this year. This
L Al