CALIFORNIA: Miracle of 1935

When Chicago’s Century of Progress opened two years ago, two enterprising Midwesterners of 19 sat up all night for the distinction of being the fair’s first sightseers. Midwesterners, when they age and retire, make their way by thousands to Southern California. Hence last week bent, grey-headed Howard Jackson, a onetime publisher of Oshkosh, Wis., was the first man to hand his ticket to a sombreroed gatekeeper and pass through the turnstile at San Diego’s California Pacific International Exposition.

Situated on the brink of the Pacific ten miles from the Mexican border, San Diego is a bustling city of 150,000 whose chief assets are one of the world’s finest harbors, the adjacent rich resort colony of Coronado, the biggest West Coast naval station and Army, Navy and Marine air bases. From Chicago the city’s resourceful businessmen borrowed their reason for having a fair this year. It was to represent, approximately, “four centuries of progress” dating from 1542 when Portuguese Navigator Cabrillo’s ships entered the harbor. More realistic were San Diego’s two main inducements to hold a fair: 1) to bait ten million tourists into the city before Armistice Day; 2) to put to some practical use 1,400-acre Balboa Park and the many permanent neo-Hispanic buildings by the late Bertram Goodhue left over from the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-16.* Accordingly, the citizenry passed the hat to collect $500,000 for organization expenses, concessionaires were invited to participate, the U. S. Government appropriated $125,000 for a building, Henry Ford and Standard Oil erected two more, 32 foreign governments are represented in the House of Pacific Relations, and “a city of magic in a land of dreams” became California’s latest attraction last week.

Notable was the official opening fanfare. Secretary of Commerce Roper was on hand to hope that the Federal exhibit would be ”of educational value to the country.” Undersecretary of State Phillips assured California that out of Japan’s commercial invasion of the U. S. would come “a cooperative solution.” Postmaster General Farley struck off a big 3¢ commemorative stamp which was sure to get him into more philatelic hot water because the most prominent feature was the Ford building. And at 8 p. m. on opening day, President Roosevelt from Washington radioed that he hoped to get out to San Diego’s show this summer. Following the Presidential address, the lights went on. ”Chicago went in for brilliant glitter,” San Diego’s newshawks had observed. “San Diego will aim at soft glow.”

Under the soft glow of colored lights playing on bowers of palm and eucalyptus trees, a comfortable but by no means spectacular crowd of 25,000 began to see the fair sights in earnest. In the Palace of Science was many a 20th Century industrial gadget and the original gold spike with which Leland Stanford joined the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads in 1869. In the Ford Bowl was playing the San Diego Symphony, to be followed throughout the summer by orchestras from Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and the 250-voiced Mormon Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake-City. Mexico had again sent north its Monte Alban Mayan treasures. But the real fun was, as usual, to be had on the Midway.

Snuggled in a ravine was the “Gold Gulch Mining Camp,” complete with an oldtime saloon, ogling dance hall gals and some bearded characters in hickory shirts splashing in a muddy wallow with pans. Tabloid versions of Shakespearean drama were playing at “Shakespeare’s Old Globe Theatre,” an oldtime Chicago attraction. A concession called “The Hollywood Parade” exhibited Mary Pickford’s curls, Charlie Chaplin’s shoes, some old cinema sets, and bogus picturemaking. A horse show called “The Days of Saladin” was featuring a grey stallion said to have been ridden by Rudolph Valentino, and in the Indian Village Chief Big Tree, supposed to have posed for The End of the Trail, went on view. Climax of the whole brummagem business was the “Zoro Gardens.” There a bearded oldster in a G-string and a chorus of gauzy young female exhibitionists were conducting a “nudist colony.” For 25¢ a spectator could stare at them. then go off among the trees, take off his own clothes, join the colony. A crowd of thrifty peeping-toms took in the whole show through the knotholes of the surrounding fence (see cut, p. 16).

All this was billed as “The Miracle of 1935,” and San Diego was enthusiastically determined to make its fair a success. So eager was Mayor Percy James Benbough that all ranks of the citizenry should profit from the exposition, and all kinds of visitors should find the city hospitable, that last fortnight he called into the Chamber of Commerce Auditorium 225 local saloonkeepers, gamblers, bookmakers and dive-operators. In an hour’s speech notable for its frankness, this one time police chief who also runs an undertaking establishment on the side, warned his listeners: “Don’t let your money go to anyone who claims he can fix you at City Hall. We are going to get rid of the chiseler and the rat and we need your help. … If you insist on doing an illegal business—and mind you, I am not telling you it is all right—take your chances. … It will break you if you have to pay protection money and fines, too.”

Said President Martin Healy of the San Diego Liberal Businessmen’s Association (bars, night-clubs): “It’s just what we wanted to hear.”

Said Johnny Hiehl of the Hercules Club: “I don’t see anything wrong with the Mayor at all.”

Said Herman (“The Jew Kid”) Hetzel of the Gold Club: “It was a very sensible talk. He’ll make a good Mayor. Bookmaking isn’t really a crime.”

*In competition with the great Panama Pacific International Exposition held the same year at San Francisco to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal. True to the tradition of Northern and Southern California rivalry, San Francisco will stage a world’s fair in 1937 to mark the completion of its two new bay bridges.