page_title: William Stephens
section_title: Governorship
hierarchical_section_title: William Stephens / Governorship
caption_attribution_description: English: William Stephens (1859-1944), 24th Governor of California. Picture cropped from Stephens welcoming of Edward, Prince of Wales on his visit to San Diego.
context_page_description: William Dennison Stephens was an American federal and state politician. A three-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1916, Stephens was the 24th governor of California from 1917 to 1923.
context_section_description: Nearly immediately, Stephens faced controversy regarding the Preparedness Day Bombing, a terrorist attack on the San Francisco Preparedness Day parade on July 22, 1916. The attack was blamed on left wing radicals, in particular union leader and former Industrial Workers of the World member Thomas Mooney, and his alleged accomplice, Warren Billings. Both Mooney and Billings were convicted, though critics said later that the trial was conducted in a lynch mob atmosphere. Governor Stephens supported both convictions. However, international sympathy for Mooney quickly spread, making him one of the United States's most famous political prisoners. There was national and international pressure on Stephens to intervene for Mooney. President Woodrow Wilson personally telegraphed Stephens to ask him to review the case against Mooney. Stephens yielded, but only slightly, commuting Mooney's death sentence to life imprisonment.
  Despite this slight clemency, militant labor radicals continued to pressure Stephens, resulting in threats, and eventually, actions of violence. On the evening of December 17, 1917, a dynamite bomb exploded at the foot of the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento. Although Stephens was not injured, the explosion caused considerable damage to the kitchen. Radicals from the IWW were later blamed for the attack. In an unrelated threat, labor radicals also threatened to destroy both the California State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion if a $50,000 ransom was not met.
  Stephens responded to threats from labor radicals, and to subversion worries during World War I, with the California Criminal Syndicalism Act, targeting radical labor unionists and their advocacy of violent confrontation with state authorities. Despite numerous threats on his life and state property, Stephens refused to pardon Thomas Mooney for the remainder of his administration. Mooney was eventually pardoned by labor-sympathetic Democratic governor Culbert Olson in 1939.
  A Progressive like his predecessor Hiram Johnson, Stephens chose not to expand on the reforms made by Johnson. Instead, Stephens sought to keep the electoral and bureaucratic reforms already put in place.
  In the 1918 state general elections, Stephens won renomination for the Republican Party, campaigning on a platform to solidify Progressive reforms within the state government. He easily won the election, trouncing independent and former Democratic candidate Theodore A. Bell by a 20% margin of the vote. Other candidates included Republican Mayor of San Francisco James Rolph, who appeared as a write-in candidate at 3%, and Henry H. Roser of the Socialist Party of America with 4.2%.
  After his successful election to the governorship to a full four-year term, Stephens grew increasingly concerned over the needs of returning World War I  veterans. Stephens argued that the state government had a mandate to provide benefits for returning veterans, such as government-sponsored retraining and funds to help re-employment. Through his advocacy, a veteran assistance program was established. During the same time period, Stephens also supported state and federal prohibition of alcohol.
  Like his predecessor Hiram Johnson, Stephens remained highly suspicious of Asian immigration to California, especially from Japan, which he viewed as an increasingly belligerent nation. In 1919, Stephens openly urged the California State Legislature to enact stricter exclusion laws to restrict Japanese immigrants. He declared that the influx of Japanese was a threat not only to California but to the United States. Through the remainder of his governorship, Stephens sought the aid of other governors and public officials to restrict Japanese immigration. In part, some of his goals were realized by the federal Immigration Act of 1924.
  Despite threats on his life, Stephens remained publicly visible throughout his governorship. He was part of the general welcoming committee when Edward, Prince of Wales, arrived aboard HMS Renown in San Diego Bay in 1920, during the future British monarch's first visit to California. Steph
caption: Governor Stephens walking with Edward, Prince of Wales in San Diego in 1920.
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