National Affairs: Measure of a Mayor

While orange groves were being uprooted to make way for suburbia, and new six-lane freeways reached out to ease the swollen traffic arteries, one of the few unchanging Los Angeles landmarks over the past 14 years has been its mayor, Fletcher

Bowron. A onetime newspaper reporter and superior court judge, Bowron swept into office in 1938 as a reform candidate, soon established good, grey government in the City of the Angels, and was re-elected three times on the strength of it.

But as the city changed, so did its political habits. Expansion spawned some...

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