L.A. Slips Into the Mud of the Mainstream

News Item, July 27, 1989 : The mayor of Atlantic City, N.J., a reformer who had been swept into office on the heels of political corruption, was arrested for bribery, conspiracy and official misconduct. Twelve other city officials were also arrested.

“Atlantic City? Remember when we drove there in an ice storm?”

“No . . . yes. Pass the oranges, hon.”

“Who runs the place if they jail the mayor and his cronies?”

“Pass the jam. New Jersey? You must be kidding. Some other bums. They’re all corrupt. I’m gone. Is the traffic moving on the San Diego?”

News Item: July 27, 1989: A Los Angeles City Council committee hears testimony about an attempt to cover up facts surrounding a deposit of tax funds in a bank that paid consultant fees to Mayor Tom Bradley.

As the ‘80s stumble to a close, cynicism overwhelms indignation. Isn’t private gain the name of the game throughout the land? Friends of the Department of Housing and Urban Development are leaders in what everyone seems to be doing: trading contacts and information for bucks. They make some calls, send a few letters--and line their pockets.

The former Florida Republican Party chairman helps steer a HUD low-income rental project to Lufkin, Tex. Hard work, as he testified, since the HUD headquarters is a “big building” and he “spent hours walking the halls.” How many hours exactly did he spend? One hundred, but not without compensation. In fact, he bettered the minimum wage--getting about $400,000, or $4,000 an hour. This work did not divert him from his commitment to the homeless of Jacksonville, Fla., which earned him another $100,000.

Everyone seems to benefit from these dealings--at least everyone in government. For city officials, alas, the gains are usually smaller, since the spigots are narrower. Yet the figures bandied about Mayor Bradley seem embarrassingly small. For $18,000 did our mayor really help direct city funds to one bank? Surely a major metropolis like Los Angeles could do better. Where are the HUD or Pentagon connections? Why should a Jacksonville, Fla., homeless “consultant” humiliate Los Angeles officials?

We re-enter the world of that Baltimore iconoclast, H.L. Mencken; perhaps we never left it. Mencken observed that Americans still insanely assumed that some politicians were superior to others. “What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better? The former assumption, I believe, is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false . . . A good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.” Politicians, concluded Mencken, simply bilk taxpayers; they only seek to augment their compensation to “all the traffic will bear.”

We need Mencken today; he would have loved fat-cat homeless consultants and jailed Atlantic City mayors (of the last six, four were arrested). Mencken would have savored the spectacle of corrupt politicians swearing fealty to the commonweal. Dissolute wheelers and dealers outraged at insults to the flag. He would have enjoyed the tale of treasurers whiting-out documents; auditors who cannot audit; investment officials pointing fingers.

But wasn’t California supposed to be different, at least in myth? Wasn’t this the difference between Los Angeles and Atlantic City or Jersey City or Chicago? The climate was milder, the land richer and the people friendlier and more honest. In the 19th Century, visitors and settlers to California promoted a vision of a better world; books like “California for Health, Pleasure and Residence” (1872) by the New York journalist Charles Nordhoff and “Happy Days in Southern California” (1898) by the Boston businessman Frederick Rindge extolled a new and sweeter civilization.

Of course, it was a myth. Los Angeles was as mean and violent as any American city. It still holds its own in poverty, racism and gangs. It is a world capital of cranks and hucksters. Yet myths have lives of their own. If only a myth distinguishes Los Angeles from Chicago or New York, this is something; the myth sustains lives and hopes.

Bradley entered politics as a reformer pitted against the old guard, Sam Yorty. “In Los Angeles today,” Bradley stated in his 1969 mayoral campaign, “ ‘commissioner’ has too often meant corruption. Briefings on zonings or harbors have too often meant bribery. And civil servant has come to mean conflict of interest.” In Los Angeles today, these words still ring true. Of course, 20 years do not kill the myth of Southern California--the orange groves, sun, mountains, the sea, a better life--but surely the vision is harder to grasp. More than ever, pollution, violence and the seediness of local politics edge Los Angeles into the mainstream of American life; that’s no place to be.