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Culbert Levy Olson who in 1920 moved to Los Angeles from Salt Lake City, already rich and confident of his prowess as a lawyer, banker, politician. From his father, a furnituremaker, restless but shrewd Danish blood moved slowly in his veins; from his mother, the blood of Rufus King who signed the Constitution. The silver crest that he wears today covers a head that has revolved Democratic nostrums since Bryan's first ("Cross of Gold") Presidential campaign in 1896. He warned the Democratic convention of 1920 (which nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Vice President) that unless it became progressive, the third party almost produced by Roosevelt I would arise.
Old Bob La Toilette's party arose four years later, but shrewd Culbert Olson stuck to his law practice until he saw Franklin Roosevelt's second and greater star on the horizon in 1932. He stumped for him, in 1934 toyed with the idea of running for Governor, instead filed for State Senator from Los Angeles and waited for offers of endorsement from the Democratic State factions which were squabbling over Upton Sinclair's howling EPIC. The EPICs chose him (not he them, he insists) but that did not poison him for the McAdoo-Creel faction, who compromised on him for chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee.
When Senator McAdoo and George Creel lost control to Upton Sinclair, and while the latter was being strangled at the polls, Candidate Olson made Democratic friends across the State, entered the State Senate. That was his groundwork for this year's race for Governor. EPIC and the later Townsend Plan were, to him, passing fancies to be saluted diplomatically, not embraced.
Meantime, he voted for increased State old age pensions, the Central Valley Water Project (Shasta Dam—TIME, Sept. 19), utility cooperatives, a labor relations act like the Wagner Act. And, as a professional oil lawyer, he dived into the fierce fight over the State's subsea oil fields at Huntington which were being tapped by private companies from shore. His bill to stop this or collect big royalties was displaced last spring by a counterbill of Republican Governor Merriam, but is up for referendum this election and affords Mr. Olson an issue with unhappy Mr. Merriam far clearer than the Pension plan. Californians understand that Culbert Olson intends to pardon Convict Tom Mooney right after the election.
Frank Finley Merriam, 73, is a stodgy Iowa product who tasted politics there before the turn of the century and who crawled up to California's Governorship through both its legislative houses (five terms in the lower) while learning, in journalism, real estate and banking, what California's entrenched but now outnumbered families wanted. This year while Culbert Olson was strong enough to avoid openly committing himself to $30 Every Thursday, Mr. Merriam has been in an uncomfortable spot. Having four years ago been the conservative champion against EPIC, this year he felt impelled to promise a thorough hearing for the Townsend Plan.