Culbert
Olson was born in Filmore, Utah on 7th November, 1876. His mother
was involved in the campaign for women's suffrage
and eventually became the first female elected official in Utah. He
was brought up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormon) but rejected religion at an early age.
At
the age of fourteen Olson left school and found work as a telegraph
operator. In 1890 Olson enrolled in the Brigham Young University at
Provo, Utah. After graduating he found work as a journalist for the
Daily Ogden Standard.
Olson
took a keen interest in politics and in 1896 campaigned for William
Jennings Bryan. He later moved to Washington
as a newspaper correspondent.
Olson
studied law at George Washington University and the University of
Michigan and was admitted to the Utah Bar in 1901. Olson became a
lawyer in Salt Lake City. A member of
the Democratic Party, Olson was elected
to the state legislature of Utah in 1916. Over the next four years
he advocated an end to child labour, progressive
taxation, old age pensions, government control of public utilities
and legislation to protect the rights of trade unionists.
In
1920 Olson moved to Los Angeles. In
his law practice he gained a reputation for investigating business
fraud. In the 1924 presidential election he campaigned for Robert
La Follette and the Progressive Party
and later for the novelist, Upton
Sinclair,
when he tried to become Governor of California.
A
strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the New Deal, in 1934 Olson became
state chairman of the Democratic Party.
In November 1938 Olson was elected as Governor of California, the
first Democrat to hold this office for forty-four years.
One
of the first acts was to pardon Tom Mooney,
a trade union leader who had been convicted
of a bombing which occurred in San Francisco
in 1916. Although strong evidence existed that the District Attorney
of the time, Charles Fickert, had framed
Mooney, the Republican governors during this period, William
Stephens (1917-1923), Friend Richardson
(1923-1927), Clement Young (1927-1931),
James Rolph (1931-1934) and Frank
Merriam (1934-39) refused to order his release. In October 1939,
Olson pardoned Warren Billings, a friend
of Mooney's who had also been imprisoned for the bombing.
As
governor
Olson tried to introduce an advanced New
Deal in California. In Olson's words that would provide "economic
security from the cradle to the grave, under a government that recognizes
the right to an education, to employment on a basis of just reward,
and to retirement at old age in comfort and decency, as inalienable
as the right to life itself."
Olson
was defeated in his campaign to be re-elected in 1942. Olson, an atheist,
told a friend that he lost "because of the active hostility of
a certain privately owned power corporation and the Roman Catholic
Church in California."
In
1957 Culbert Olson became president of the United Secularists of America
and held the post until his death in Los
Angeles on 13th April, 1962.
(1)
Culbert L. Olson, interviewed by Paul Coats in 1961.
I was born in a small country town. The entire community belonged
to one religion and church, which controlled the educational, cultural
and civic affairs of the community. Any apostate was looked upon as
having fallen by the wayside by the influence of the "Devil."
It may be that I was naturally a skeptic, for, notwithstanding the
religious influence of my early youth, I did not join in the emotion
that other children seemed to enjoy in their emotional response to
the passionate sermons of the church teachers who told of revelation
from God and the appearance of an angel to the prophet, seer, revelator
and founder of the church. Reason forced me to conclude that the founder
was a bold, ambitious impostor whose revelations did not make sense.
My conclusion was not reached easily because of my desire to conform
with the religion of my Mother whom I dearly loved - the kindest,
most humane and self-sacrificing person I have ever known.
(2)
Tom
Mooney, letter to Aline Barnsdall
(13th June, 1938)
Olson visited me last week
and told about the desperate plight in which he finds himself with
regard to the necessary finances in order to conduct a vigorous campaign.
It is not a pushover for him by any means. This is
our one sure shot for freedom if he is elected and in the event that
the United States
Supreme Court fails to liberate me in the Fall.
(3)
Culbert L. Olson, Inaugural Address (January 2, 1939)
I wish to assure every
citizen that I enter the high office of Governor of our great State
free of all prejudices, even against those who most bitterly, and
sometimes unfairly, opposed my election. I respect honest differences
of philosophy and viewpoint on public policies. Marked differences
in partisan opinion, for the most part, arise out of differences in
understanding our common problems and the methods necessary to meet
them through government. These are but the natural and healthy attributes
of a functioning democracy.
Every person in California,
regardless of party, color, creed or station in life, must know that,
not only am I without prejudice, but I regard it as my sacred duty,
under the oath I have taken today, to protect every person's civil
liberties, and equality before the law, with every power at my command.
These are precious rights. The founders of our republic and the preservers
of the Union made supreme sacrifices for these rights. They are the
very cornerstone of our democracy.
As we witness destruction
of democracy elsewhere in the world, accompanied by denial of civil
liberties and inhuman persecutions, under the rule of despots and
dictators, so extreme as to shock the moral sense of mankind, it seems
appropriate that we Californians, on this occasion, should announce
to the world that despotism shall not take root in our State; that
the preservation of our American civil liberties and democratic institutions
shall be the first duty and firm determination of our government.
America has built enormously
productive facilities for manufacturing. Our scientists, engineers
and technicians have literally recreated the world in which we live.
It is now well known that we have both the capacity and the ability
to produce abundantly for all. But these advances, wonderful as they
are, have brought along their own new and extremely difficult problems.
We are a long, long way from the goal of social justice. We have yet
failed to solve the question of distribution that attends our newly
developed productive skills and capacities. This failure has plunged
us into hard times and depression - the longest and most persistent
in modern times.
But with all of our seeming
failure; with all our difficulties and economic mal-adjustments; despite
the puzzling paradox of unemployment and poverty in the midst of potential
plenty, every right-thinking citizen, native or foreign born, regards
his American citizenship as his most precious possession. He knows
that it is a part of the sovereign power of the people to guide their
own destinies.
Confronted by economic
and social crisis, are we going to move forward toward the destiny
of true democracy, or slide backward toward the abyss of regimented
dictatorship?
In the final analysis,
this depends upon the intelligence with which the people exercise
their franchise, upon the wisdom and integrity of their leadership;
and upon the courage with which we face our problems.
Until all the electorate
shall have the benefit of a free education to aid them in the expression
of their citizenship, it may be expected that in the future, as in
the past, a large proportion may be confused and guided away from
their purpose to go forward for their collective welfare, by deliberately
false or selfish propaganda, superficial considerations, or provincial
circumstances. Such impediments may delay, but they must not be permitted
to defeat the ultimate successful working of American democracy.
The people of California
want employment, a decent standard of living, education, opportunities
for youth, social security, old age retirement, protection against
pauperism and starvation. Activities in private industry and individual
enterprise must be guided by these social objectives, if our present
economy is to survive.
Owners of capital and means
of production and distribution must realize their responsibility to
society - not to radically engage in human exploitation, but to conservatively
engage in management for human advancement. They must be satisfied
with stability and permanency of investments for strictly conservative
and safe returns. Our policies in the field of industrial relations
will be to aid in establishing this sound basis for industrial activity.
In the field of private
industry, the right of organized labor to honest collective bargaining
must be protected; minimum wages must be established and vigorously
enforced to maintain a decent American standard of living; vocational
training must be extended, and the doors of employment and of opportunity
for advancement, through useful and meritorious service, must be opened
to the eager, splendid youth of our State. Youth's social-minded ideals,
developed while in training for lifetime service, must not be shattered
upon their entrance to adult life by a selfish, cold unwelcome world.
California's elderly citizens
have taken the lead in bringing the general public to the realization
of the plight of those who, having served their best years in American
industry, must be left to spend their declining days in poverty and
misery, unless social security programs provide for their retirement
in health and comfort.
Such programs have been
started, with provisions for partial aid to the support of those in
need who have reached the age of sixty-five years. California has
more than matched the small amount ($15.00 per month) provided for
such eligibles by the Federal Government to make a total of thirty-five
dollars per month. This amount, however inadequate, is more liberal
than that paid by any other State. A total of thirty-two and one-half
million dollars per annum is now required of the State and the counties
to meet this pension; yet the amount of the pension is too low and
the age limit too high. For our State to meet the amount required
to provide this inadequate pension for those of its citizens who find
themselves in need of pensions at the age of sixty years would require
approximately forty-eight and a quarter million dollars per annum.
Old age pensions must be
furnished by those who are producing and by the machinery of production.
Public support of the old
or the young can only be furnished by taxation in one form or another.
When other states fail to
provide aid for their aged, equal to ours, it may naturally be expected
that their citizens approaching the eligible age will seek residence
here. This places a disproportionate share of the tax for this worthy
social purpose upon our State. For the purpose of uniformity, it is
necessary that old age pensions, in their entirety, be financed by the
Federal Government. We shall continue to urge an adequate Federal old
age security program.
Meantime we shall favor
State aid for pensions to the aged to the limit that State finances
will permit. That limit, however, because of the tax necessary for
present unemployment relief, may for a time at least, be very nearly
reached. But as our tax burden is linked with unemployment, so is
it linked with the need for old age pensions. More liberal old-age
pensions may be anticipated when the unemployed are placed at productive
work for their own support and the heavy tax burden for unemployment
relief is thus reduced.
(4)
Culbert
Olson, Convention
of the United Secularists of America (August 1952)
Social problems are created by economic maladjustment, poverty in
the midst of plenty, mass unemployment occurring when war or preparation
for war is not providing full employment; continued concentration
of the wealth and control of the national economy in the hands of
a small percentage of the population opposing every effort of government
to interpose controls for economic stabilization and for the general
welfare.
To my way of thinking,
it is the social responsibility of government in promoting the general
welfare, to exercise controls of stabilization of the national economy;
to plan and provide for full employment when private industry fails;
to prevent business cycles which result in industrial depressions;
to provide for ways and means of making available to all the people
health protection, and the utmost in educational services; to protect
the national resources against wasteful exploitation for private greed;
to plan and carry forward huge projects in the great river valleys
of the country for flood control, reclamation, and conservation of
water resources, harnessing the water power and providing and making
available to the people hydro-electric power at reasonable cost; to
protect civil rights and enforce social justice in industrial relations
regardless of race or creed and, I might add, to require the federal
licenses of radio and television circuits to grant secularists equal
rights with churches to discuss religious subjects over the air. .
. .
The political cry that such
progress will lead to dictatorship and regimentation is pure demagoguery.
Socially minded citizens, and certainly all secularists, in our constitutional
democratic-republican form of government will be the first to protect
the rights of man in our American democracy as social progress develops
through democratic processes and constitutional means.
(5)
Culbert
Olson, Convention of the United Secularists of America (October 1956)
Our present state of affairs has been reached after centuries of the
predominant power and influence of religious superstition and god-worship.
Organized religions, led by church priesthoods, claim leadership of
the people's minds and thoughts by virtue of divine authority.
It is certain that organized
religion and prayers to their almighty deity have not been the means
of saving humanity from want or from wars, a large proportion of which
have been wars for power between conflicting religious dogmas. Nor
have the principles of morality taught as a part of religious doctrine,
become prevalent by that method. Witness the extent of selfishness,
greed, opportunism, hypocrisy, and crime which now permeates our society.
(6)
Culbert
Olson, Progressive World,
(February 1961)
I wouldn't say that religion has promoted the social progress of mankind.
I say that it has been a detriment to the progress of civilization,
and I would also say this: that the emancipation of the mind from
religious superstition is as essential to the progress of civilization
as is emancipation from physical slavery.
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