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No sooner did Billy Knowland arrive at Alameda High School than he set about organizing a student Conservative Party ("Economy But Not False Economy"). He held nearly every school office, graduated as president of his class and of the student body. His rival candidate has a rueful memory of the occasion: "I was an athlete and a popular guy. Billy didn't play anything. But he knew how to make other kids take him seriously."
"You Had to Admire Him." Knowland attended the University of California, came home after 3½ years with an A.B., an executive job with the Tribune—and a wife. Characteristically, he had known Helen Herrick since the sixth grade, had gone with her for eight years, bought a ring, made careful arrangements and then—on New Year's Eve, 1926—eloped.
Young Bill (made the Tribune's assistant publisher in 1933) had always had a sort of proprietary relationship with the newspaper. As a boy he decided he did not like its Sunday comics and demanded—unsuccessfully—that J.R. fire the managing editor. During his school years he had sometimes worked summers and weekends at the Tribune, at one time conducted a children's column called "Aunt Elsie." One of his efforts began: "Heidie-ho, kiddies, this is Billy Knowland with another story." Now, however, his duties were vague. He put in some time on the Tribune's business side, helped streamline the logotype—and feverishly pursued his political career.
That career was soon linked, in a way that made political history, to the career of another fast-rising California Republican: Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren. Old J.R. always had been a staunch backer of young Earl Warren. Warren and Billy first met about the time Herbert Hoover was campaigning against Al Smith in 1928. Warren was struck by the political skill and vigor of the man 17 years his junior. Says Warren: "You had to admire him." The admiration was mutual. Knowland became a leading spirit among the young California Republicans who were later Warren's greatest political strength. There is a California legend that Warren, repaying his debt to Joe Knowland, lifted Bill to political prominence. Actually, Earl and Bill helped each other in near-equal degree. Explains Warren: "It was a friendship of honorable men." For more than two decades, Earl Warren and Bill Knowland fought side by side in California's bloody political wars.
"Billy's Done It." Bill's first try for public office came in 1932, when he ran for state assemblyman in the same district his father had represented. In Republican Alameda, the payoff was in the primary, and it was a hard four-way fight. On election night tough old J.R., weeping tears of delight, went around to all his friends to boast: "Billy's done it!" As the youngest (25) member of the state assembly, Billy sponsored successful legislation that ranged from an anti-lynching bill to one that protected cactus. Two years later, again following after his father, he entered the state senate. Named chairman of the finance committee, he authored the personal-income-tax law that still remains on California's books.