Hiram Johnson

He instituted several progressive reforms, establishing a railroad commission and introducing aspects of direct democracy, such as the power to recall state officials.[1] His father, Grove Lawrence Johnson, was an attorney and Republican U.S. Representative and a member of the California State Legislature whose career was marred by accusations of election fraud and graft.[9] In 1902, Johnson moved to San Francisco, where he quickly developed a reputation as a fearless litigator, primarily as a criminal defense lawyer, while becoming active in reform politics.[10] He attracted statewide attention in 1908 when he assisted District Attorney Francis J. Heney in the prosecution of Abe Ruef and Mayor Eugene Schmitz for graft.[11] In 1910, Johnson won the gubernatorial election as a member of the Lincoln–Roosevelt League, a Progressive Republican movement, running on a platform opposed to the Southern Pacific Railroad.During his campaign, he toured the state in an open automobile, covering thousands of miles and visiting small communities throughout California that were inaccessible by rail.Senators by direct popular vote rather than the state legislature (which was later ratified nationwide by a constitutional amendment), cross-filing, initiative, referendum, and recall elections.On taking office, Johnson paroled Chris Evans, convicted as the Southern Pacific train bandit, but required that he leave California.Their second-place finish, ahead of incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, remains among the strongest for any third party in American history.Hays, who had managed President Harding's 1920 campaign, was ultimately named to head the new Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in early 1922.[21] During Roosevelt's first term, Johnson supported the president's New Deal economic recovery package and frequently "crossed the floor" to aid the Democrats.[23][24] Having served in the Senate for almost thirty years, Johnson died of a cerebral thrombosis at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on August 6, 1945, the same day as the US-conducted atomic bombing of Hiroshima.During his first term gubernatorial inaugural address on January 3, 1911, Johnson declared that his first duty was "to eliminate every private interest from the government and to make the public service of the State responsive solely to the people."[26] On August 25, 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Johnson would be one of 13 inducted into the California Hall of Fame that year.Johnson held the record as California's longest-serving United States Senator for over 75 years, until it was broken by Democrat Dianne Feinstein on March 28, 2021.

Hiram Johnson at the 1913 California State Fair