page_title: Hiram Johnson
section_title: Governor
hierarchical_section_title: Hiram Johnson / Governor
context_page_description: Hiram Warren Johnson was initially a leading American progressive and then a Liberal Isolationist Republican politician from California. He served as the 23rd Governor of California from 1911 to 1917 and as a United States Senator from 1917 to 1945. He was also Theodore Roosevelt's running mate in the 1912 presidential election on the Progressive ticket.
  After working as a stenographer and reporter, Johnson embarked on a legal career. He began his practice in his hometown of Sacramento, California, but moved to San Francisco, where he worked as an assistant district attorney. Gaining statewide notoriety for his prosecutions of public corruption, Johnson won the 1910 California gubernatorial election with the backing of the Lincoln–Roosevelt League. He instituted several progressive reforms, establishing a railroad commission and introducing aspects of direct democracy such as the power to recall state officials. Johnson joined with Roosevelt and other progressives to form the Progressive Party and won the party's 1912 vice presidential nomination. In one of the best third party performances in U.S. history, the ticket finished second nationally in the popular and electoral vote.
context_section_description: In 1910, Johnson won the gubernatorial election as a member of the Lincoln–Roosevelt League, a Progressive Republican movement running on an anti-Southern Pacific Railroad platform. He toured the state in an open automobile. In office, Johnson was a populist who implemented many important reforms. Among them was the popular election of U.S. senators, which stripped away the sole franchise of the California State Legislature to vote for federal senators. Johnson's administration also pushed for the ability of candidates to register in more than one political party, a reform that he believed would cripple the influence of what he viewed as a monolithic political establishment. In 1911, Johnson and the Progressives added initiative, referendum, and recall to the state government, giving California a degree of direct democracy unmatched by any other U.S. state.
  Johnson was instrumental in the establishment of a railroad commission to regulate the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad. On taking office, Johnson soon paroled the convicted Southern Pacific train bandit Chris Evans but required that he leave California.
  Although initially opposed to the bill, Johnson eventually gave in to political pressure and supported the California Alien Land Law of 1913 as a fledgling Liberal Progressive, legislation which prevented Asian immigrants (excluded from naturalized citizenship because of their race) from owning land in the state.
  Nationally, Johnson was a founder of the Progressive Party in 1912. That same year, he was the party's vice presidential candidate, sharing a ticket with former President Theodore Roosevelt; his selection helped Roosevelt to carry California by 0.2 percent of the votes. The Progressives finished second nationally ahead of the incumbent Republican, President William Howard Taft, but still lost the election to the Democrats and their candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
  Johnson was re-elected governor of California in 1914, almost doubling his opponent's vote total.
caption: Johnson during his tenure as governor
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