Many Parallels, but Stark Differences in Recall 65 Years Ago

He was reelected just the year before.

His budget was in the red by about 30%.

Some of the legislators he had to work with didn’t feel exactly chummy toward him.

When the movement to recall him began gaining steam, he challenged the legality of the signatures, and snarled that the process was “an amazing misuse of the recall power to impose [opponents’] pet peeves on the majority of our citizens.”

He campaigned ferociously, with movie stars rallying to his side.

And he lost, by a bigger margin than the one that reelected him.

I am not reading Gray Davis’ palm.

I am reading old newspaper clippings, from the autumn of 1938, when Frank Shaw was recalled as mayor of Los Angeles -- believed to be the first time in the nation’s history a mayor had been recalled.

Shaw was a flat-out crook. His aide, his brother Joe, was assistant crook.

Frank Shaw and his political cronies filled up their campaign chests with cash skimmed from gamblers, bootleggers and whorehouse madams.

Under the procedures of the “Shaw spoils system,” businesses got shaken down for $5,000 down payments and $500-a-month protection money to stay open.

Shaw’s brother peddled police promotions and the answers to tests for Police Department jobs right from his City Hall desk.

Frank Shaw was so rotten that he promised little children ice cream cones for handing out his fliers -- and then didn’t come through.

On Shaw’s behalf, police spied on reformers and do-gooders, tapped their phones, strong-armed and bullied them. The head of the reform movement, the man who founded Clifton’s cafeterias, saw his taxes raised, his family threatened, his home bombed.

Finally, nearly 120,000 angry Angelenos signed petitions to recall Shaw, and 6,000 people met at the Olympic Auditorium to rally for a successor.

The campaign was short and ugly. Candidate Fletcher Bowron, who ended up winning, got death threats. Shaw chivalrously offered police protection. Bowron refused -- a smart move; an LAPD captain already had bombed the reform movement’s chief investigator and nearly killed him.

When the recall votes were counted and City Hall’s doors finally banged shut on Shaw, his brother, his crooked police chief and sundry cronies, the new mayor hung out a big red sign: “Under New Management.”

As to some of the differences between then and now:

Recall petitions against Shaw accused him of turning a blind eye (and an open hand) to racketeering and organized crime running amok across the city -- clearly criminal conduct.

The recall petitions against Davis accuse him of “gross mismanagement” of the budget and energy messes, blaming him for “poor schools, traffic jams, outrageous utility bills” and the like. It isn’t a praiseworthy showing, by any measure, but it isn’t in the penal code either.

The state sets no standards for the reasons for a recall; the Constitution is clear about the “how” but silent on the “why.” Theoretically, voters could recall a governor if they don’t happen to like his brand of after-shave.

Has anyone gotten a whiff of Davis recently?

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I once wrote that the most dangerous real estate in California was between Gray Davis and a TV camera. Then I amended it to the ground between Davis and a campaign contribution. Now I think it’s the landscape between Davis and Oct. 7.

If there’s anything that animates Gray Davis, it’s the prospect of a fight. If there’s anything that will keep the fight going, it’s money -- the flabbergasting outlay of scores of millions that will be spent by perhaps half a dozen candidates.

As Democratic political consultant Bill Carrick told my colleague Dan Morain, “Keep the kids away from the television and also the mailboxes. I don’t think this is going to be pretty.”

There are some other big numbers out there too: the state budget of $100 billion, the state budget gap of $38 billion -- and the cost of the recall election, something along the lines of $30 million or $40 million.

The state Senate hacked gobbets off the state budget over the weekend before sending the bloody carcass over to the Assembly. Here’s a brief shopping list of cuts, each of which the money to be spent on the recall could have paid for:

* Almost all $42 million of a K-12 school improvement program.

* All $31 million of an elementary school intensive reading program.

* The $11 million that is nearly the entire state arts budget, plus $29 million for UC research.

* All $32 million for a juvenile justice crime prevention program; $750,000 to keep 22 fire lookout stations open; $1.7 million to keep a Barstow veterans nursing home open; and $2.7 million for a senior companion program.

* $16 million in cuts to local public libraries -- a 50% whack from last year -- and $23 million for after-school and over-age-13 child-care programs.

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Something like a dozen people have already let it be known that they plan to run for governor. Why not you? For just $3,500 and the signatures of your 65 closest friends who are registered voters, there is your name, on the ballot, mailed to millions of California households.

Short of mooning the president, it’s the slam-dunkingest publicity there is. It’s summer; the nation’s political blowhards are running on Coppertone fumes. They haven’t got anything much to shriek about until the Iowa caucuses in January. They have hours and hours of air time to fill. This is bread and meat to them -- and free fame for you.

So, everybody, if you can, run for governor. (Gray Davis may be the only adult Californian who is legally barred from running. Funny old world, isn’t it?)

I expect I can get 65 signatures just standing in line at Starbucks. As for the $3,500 -- well, I was saving for a new car, but now I probably can’t afford the gas or the new registration fee anyway.

Get enough of us to run for governor and fork over the filing fee, and maybe the election will pay for itself. At least something good will have come of this.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt. morrison@latimes.com.