During the Great Depression, the Los Angeles area was rife with
radical movements. Although many observers thought their ideas
unworkable, even dangerous, Southern Californians voted for them by
the tens of thousands. This book asks why. To find answers, author
Errol Wayne Stevens takes readers through the history of such
movements as the Utopian Society, Dr. Francis Townsend's old-age
revolving pension plan, Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California
gubernatorial campaign, and Retirement Life Payments, known as Ham
and Eggs. The book also examines the Los Angeles Communists and the
free-market capitalists, both quasi-religious movements with large
followings, as well as the self-help cooperatives, a spontaneous
upsurge of neighbors who came together to help one another in a
time of desperate need. As to these movements' extraordinary
popularity, Stevens finds the standard explanations unpersuasive.
He debunks the idea that naIve, unsophisticated Southern
Californians, living aimless, empty lives, suffering from ennui,
and longing for community, readily supported charismatic leaders
who promised a way out of the Great Depression. In Stevens's
telling, Southern Californians supported these movements because
they spoke to their needs. Fearful or desperate, some elderly and
hopeless, Angelenos cared less about the programs' feasibility than
about their promise of relief. As one Ham and Eggs supporter
succinctly explained: "It may be a racket and maybe it won't work
more than a couple of weeks, but that will be $60 more than I ever
got before for one vote." Finding parallels between past and
present, readers might wonder why people remain loyal to programs
that prove unrealistic, or why voters continue to support leaders
who reveal, time and again, their ignorance or dishonesty. In its
illumination of a troubled time in American history not so long
ago, this book offers insight into our own.
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