Back in the 1950s, California had two Republican senators. What a concept, right? Their two senators were Minority Leader William F. Knowland and Thomas Kuchel. Knowland was counted among the conservatives and was a Cold War hawk, making opposition to Communist China and support of Nationalist China a signature issue. He had been a key player in pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to passage, although he was unable to prevent the adoption of weakening provisions. California’s governor at the time was Goodwin “Goodie” Knight. From the late 19^th century to this time, Republicans had been the dominant party in California. The last time the state had two Democratic senators was during the War of the Rebellion, and from 1896 onward, only once had a Democrat been elected governor, Cuthbert Olson, in 1938. He only served one term and is not considered one of the state’s notable governors, and had been succeeded by Republican Earl Warren, one of the state’s most notable governors and by this time chief justice. California Republicans were at the time a big tent party, having had prominent conservatives as well as progressives. Knowland as Republican leader since 1953 was one of the most prominent men in Washington.

William F. Knowland

By 1957, Knowland had his eyes set outside of the Senate. The 1958 elections were coming up, and on October 3rd, he announced he was running for governor. A popular narrative surrounding this decision is that Knowland had his eyes on the presidency and thought that being governor would be a good stepping stone to a 1960 run. He addressed this at the time, stating, “if nominated and elected, I will devote myself faithfully to the administration of the duties of the office for the term or terms to which I might be elected” but declined to issue a Sherman statement definitively ruling out a presidential run (Montgomery & Johnson, 240). Knowland’s declining to do so continued the speculation and accusations. In a 1970 interview, he denied the presidency was his motive, rather that he wanted to end his career on a high note and he wanted to return to California to be closer to his family (Frantz, 46). Knowland, however, would have to challenge popular Governor Knight for renomination, a task he felt up to. Knight initially resolved to face off Senator Knowland, however, he had secured the support of his colleague Kuchel as well as the entire Republican Congressional delegation and worse yet polling was showing he would be losing to Knowland 3 to 1 (Montgomery & Johnson, 240-241).  Knight kept out of the public eye in early November, but once he reemerged, he announced his bid for the Senate. Critics accused Knowland of masterminding the swapping of offices. However, he held that circumstances had “…opened up a false charge that this was a deal, whereby in effect I had entered into [an agreement] with Knight to get him out of the governorship and in turn get him into the senatorial race, which plagued me during the campaign” (Frantz, 45). If this is so, who or what was behind Governor Knight choosing to switch elections? The major sources were Vice President Nixon and the Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles Times and were backing Knowland. In 1964, Knight himself identified Richard Nixon as the source of pressure for his switch, stating, “The long series of disasters which Republicans have suffered in California since 1958 can be traced to the ‘big switch’ in which I was denied financial aid unless I agreed to run for senator instead of governor” (Montgomery & Johnson, 242-243).  This switch negatively impacted the Republican ticket but in particular Knowland’s campaign. Essentially, Knowland was taking the fall for Nixon’s scheming. What’s more, Democrats had two solid candidates for both offices: Edmund “Pat” Brown and Clair Engle. Brown had been elected state attorney general in 1950 and Engle had represented the Sacramento Valley in Congress since 1943. Brown, a popular figure, ran on a platform of “responsible liberalism” and Engle could point to a significant achievement in his record in securing funds for the Central Valley irrigation project. There was also a significant statewide issue that benefited the Democrats and haunted the Republicans.

The Impact of Prop 18

An important issue in a number of states were “right to work” proposals. In California, this was Prop 18, and if enacted it would have allowed employees at a company that had a union to not join it as a condition of employment. This proposition motivated unions to go into overdrive in campaigning and getting their members out to vote. Knowland, who had repeatedly supported measures curbing the power of organized labor in the Senate, supported Prop 18 while Governor Knight opposed. Knight’s opposition as well as his record as governor did secure him some organized labor support. Knowland’s opponent, Democrat Edmund “Pat” Brown, ran heavily against Prop 18. Knight’s opponent, Democratic Congressman Clair Engle, also managed to win organized labor support.

Other Issues

Another issue for Knowland’s campaign was that he did not appear all that much in California in the early stages of the primary campaign, opting instead to campaign from Washington and worse yet, while he initially supported complete federal funding of the Trinity River portion of the Central Valley Project, he changed course and announced support or a deal involving Pacific Gas and Electric Company, in which they would construct power stations and sell the power for profit, with Pat Brown promptly taking the opposite position (Montgomery & Johnson, 243-244). Numerous missteps occurred in the Knowland campaign and there was clear disunity between Knowland and Knight. One such misstep was his wife Helen sending out copies of a pamphlet to Republican officials titled “Meet the Man Who Plans to Rule America”, a hit piece on United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther by the extremely right-wing pamphleteer Joseph P. Kamp who had been accused of being anti-Semitic and a fascist (Montgomery & Johnson, 248-249). However, a devastating blow to the campaign came about when the disunity of the Republican ticket became official. On October 4^th, Knight announced that he would not be supporting Knowland’s campaign for governor over his positions on labor issues (Montgomery & Johnson, 249). By the final weeks of the campaign, obituaries were being preemptively written for the Knowland campaign. Historically in California, the press supported Republican politicians, but the senator and Helen continued to make missteps on the campaign, and this resulted in a withdrawal of an endorsement by the San Francisco Chronicle and the endorsement of Pat Brown by the normally Republican San Francisco Examiner (Montgomery & Johnson, 252).

Results

The 1958 election resulted in Democrat Pat Brown winning 60-40 and Democrat Clair Engle winning 57-43 for the Senate. This was the real start of the rise of the Democratic Party in California. In Knowland’s home turf of Oakland, Republican Congressman John J. Allen lost reelection to Democrat Jeffery Cohelan, and Oakland would only move more and more to the left, never again being represented by a Republican. Knowland was reserved on whether he had made a mistake running for governor, stating, “Now, I don’t say that I would have been elected that year because we lost a lot of Republicans. You remember Sputnik had been put up. We had a recession on. We lost senators in the states where they didn’t even have the right-to-work issue on the ballot” (Frantz, 45). Worse yet for Republicans, Democrats managed to win control of both the State Senate and Assembly, the first time they had held both in many years. Democrats have consistently held majorities in both chambers since, the only exceptions being 1969 to 1971, when Republicans held a majority in both, and 1994 to 1996, when Republicans held a majority in the State Assembly. It is honestly hard for me to overstate how good of an election 1958 was for Democrats and liberalism and how bad it was for Republicans and conservatism. Pat Brown summed up the situation for the GOP, “The election has eliminated two people who very frankly, no matter what they say, don’t like Mr. Nixon. And I’m referring to Mr. Knowland and Mr. Knight. He’s the only one left, so you might say that helped – that left Nixon in charge of the Republican Party in California. There’s no one to challenge his leadership out here now” (Montgomery & Johnson, 258). Newly elected Clair Engle thought similarly. He stated, “Knight and Knowland were fighting like men until [Nixon] interceded and ran them in tandem” although he did not rule out a political comeback for Knowland (Montgomery & Johnson, 258)

Aftermath

Although Knowland maintained background influence in the California Republican Party and publicly through his ownership of the Oakland Tribune and supported Goldwater, Reagan, and Nixon, his political career was over. His end was tragic, he committed suicide in 1974 as he was facing financial ruin. His successor, Clair Engle, would tragically die of a brain tumor in office in 1964. Knight would try for office one more time, but lost the 1962 gubernatorial primary to Richard Nixon. Pat Brown would win another term in 1962, defeating Nixon and resulting in Nixon’s famous remark to the press, “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference”. Although Brown would be defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1966, his son, Jerry, would serve in multiple positions in California, most notably governor from 1975 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2019.

References

Frantz, J.B. (1970, March 23). Oral history transcript, William F. Knowland, interview 1 (I). LBJ Presidential Library.

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https://discoverlbj.org/item/oh-knowlandw-19700323-1-00-05

Knight and Engle Win Labor Backing. (1958, April 15). The New York Times.

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Knowland Bid for Governor Fails; Engle Beats Knight in Senate Race. The Harvard Crimson.

Retrieved from

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1958/11/5/knowland-bid-for-governor-fails-engle/

Montgomery, G.B. & Johnson, J.W. (1998). One step from the White House: the rise and fall of Senator William F. Knowland. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4k4005jq;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print

Nov. 7, 1962 – Richard Nixon’s “Last Press Conference”. Real Time 1960s.

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Pawel, M. (2018, November 6). The 1958 Governor’s Race That Launched a Dynasty. Zocalo Public Square.

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The 1958 Governor’s Race That Launched a Dynasty