James
Rolph was born on 23rd August, 1869. He owned a shipbuilding business
and served as mayor of San Francisco
for nineteen years. He was initially a reformer advocating the municipal
ownership of streetcars, water and power facilities.
After
the First World War his business declined and
he came under the influence of Herbert Fleishhacker, the man who controlled
the Anglo-California National Bank.
Rolph
was an alcoholic and a strong opponent of Prohibition.
He openly ignored the prohibition laws and once sent a case of whiskey
to a man waiting to be executed. On another occasion he refused to
protect two kidnappers and when they were lynched
by a mob, made a statement saying that justice had been served.
A
member of the Republican Party, Rolph
was elected as Governor of California in 1930. He took up the post
in 1931 and during his period of office the Olympic Games was held
in Los Angeles and Alcatraz became
a federal prison.
Rolph controversially refused to pardon Tom
Mooney and Warren Billings, who
had been wrongly imprisoned for the bombing which occurred in San
Francisco in 1916. Roger Baldwin
of the American Civil Liberties Union,
commented that Rolph would not pardon Mooney and Billings unless "Fleishhacker
changes his mind - which is damn unlikely according to every one who
knows him."
James
Rolph died in Santa Clara County, California on 2nd June, 1934.
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