Alameda County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter VII Toward A Model Community 1941
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Book Title: Berkeley The First Seventy-Five Years

1941-

VII: Toward a Model Community

BERKELEY has had praise from many sources for the excellence of its municipal
government. In 1929 Jerome Kerwin of the University of Chicago, after making a
survey of the administration of American cities, put Berkeley with Cincinnati at
the head of his list with a score of 95. In 1934 Howard E Jones, secretary of
the National Municipal League, pronounced it "the best governed medium-sized
city in the United States." In the same year Fred Telford, director of municipal
research for the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, wrote to City Manager
Hollis Thompson that "here in New Jersey ... we say it is the best governed city
in the United States and that it furnishes its citizens more services and better
services than any other city. We say, too, that it is a low cost city and in
numerous ways hold it up as an example that New Jersey cities should copy." Even
abroad, London, a periodical devoted to local government in the British Empire,
published an article quoting C. Montague Harris, an international authority on
municipal government, as saying that "a personal investigation of its
administration gives the impression that it can justify this claim [to being one
of the two best-governed cities in the United States]."

  In a still broader survey, Edward L. Thorndike of Teachers College, Columbia
University, set up "indices of the general goodness of life for good people" for
the 310 United States cities with a population in 1930 of 30,000 or over. He
considered a great variety of factors ranging from the infant death rate, per
capita deaths from homicide, syphilis, and automobile accidents, and employment
of children under fourteen years, to per capita expenditures for schools and for
teachers' salaries, per capita number of homes owned, and per capita circulation
of selected magazines. On the basis of these criteria of "goodness." Berkeley
tied with Brookline, Massachusetts, for fourth place, being preceded only by
Pasadena, Montclair, and Cleveland Heights.

  Berkeley's high standing among American municipalities is the result of steady
civic development during the sixty-three years since its incorporation in i 878.
The large educational and church elements in its population have taken a close
interest in municipal affairs and have generally managed to repress sectional,
group, or political interests. Its boards, councils, and commissions have
consistently included teachers and professional men. It has benefited from the
advice and influence of the university's experts on government: Professor
William Carey Jones, dean of the School of Jurisprudence, headed the board of
freeholders which drew up the charter of 1909, establishing a nonpartisan
commission form of government that became a model for many other cities.
Professor Samuel C. May, a specialist in municipal government, later head of the
university's Bureau of Public Administration, was influential in effecting the
shift to the council-manager plan in 1923 and was elected to the first council
under the new system.

  In adopting the council-manager plan Berkeley joined the move from politial to
business administration of city governments. The five-man commission which had
served since 1909 had been nonpartisan, but it divided both administrative and
legislative functions among all members, nonr of whom was paid a high enough
salary to permit full-time devotion to the job. The new plan concentrated
administrative responsibility for all departments except schools in a single
well-paid manager (salaries of the first three appointees ranged from $7,000 to
the legal maximum of $10,000 per year, chosen by the council "without regard to
his political beliefs, and solely on the basis of his executive and
administrative qualifications." Elective officials were a mayor, an auditor,
eight councilman, and four school directors. The council became primarily a
legislative and policy-making body, controlling salaries of subordinate city
officials but prohibited by the charter, either as a group or as individuals,
from giving "orders to any of the subordinates of the City Manager, either
publicly or privately." Since it was nonpartisan, and since members served on a
limited-fee basis ($5.00 per meeting for members, $10.00 for the mayor, maximum
of $20.00 and $40.00 per month, respectively), it had little to offer candidates
in the way of political power or self-aggrandizement. Consequently it attracted
as candidates for membership principally business and professional men and women
with a genuine feeling of responsibility for municipal affairs. Much of the
credit for the efficiency of Berkeley's government has been placed with them,
both because of their freedom from petty, personal quarrels and their selection
of able city managers—John N. Edy (1923-1930), who balanced the city's budget
during his first year and established a sound administrative system; Hollis R,
Thompson (1930-1940), who continued his predecessor's efficient practices; and
Chester C. Fisk (1940- ), who came into the position with a good background of
administrative experience and a close familiarity with the job.

  Another example of the city's civic progressiveness was the "stockholder" plan
instituted by Mavor Frank Stewart Gaines in 1939, which received Nationwide
attention as "The Berkeley Plan." At the mayor's special invitation ten
citizens, or "stockholders." attend each meeting of the council, to observe the
workings of the city government and to partake in discussion of business
matters. "The basic idea," Mayor Gaines explained in the National Municipal
Review, "is to arouse in our citizens a greater sense of responsibility for the
affairs of local government. Our aim is to put citizens to work for democracy
and to stimulate their interest in the American method of government."

  Mayor Gaines decided on this method of inducing citizen participation in the
government as an answer to the complaint that the people are " 'governed by
politicians' because their municipal governments have been magnificent mysteries
to them.' " "The average council meeting in the average American city of today,"
he said, "is an affair ill-attended by the citizenry, customarily attended only
by those with some axe to grind, and often attended only by professional
hangers-on .  .  .

  "Our new Berkeley method is designed to convince citizens that they do,
indeed, govern themselves—just as the old New Englanders knew for a
certainty—and that they are the 'stockholders' in the community corporation, to
whom the councilmen, as their board of directors, are strictly responsible."

  Names of prospective "stockholders" are selected from the precinct lists,
through samplings covering all sections of the city. Invitations are divided
equally between men and women, Democrats and Republicans, twenty being sent out
for each meeting in the expectation that only about half the recipients will be
able to accept. The "stockholders" are given copies of the city charter; the
mayor delivers a brief explanation of the council's procedure, and invites the
stockholders to make suggestions or to interrupt the council's discussions "at
any time a question may occur to them."

  To the criticism that this plan would retard the operations of the council the
mayor answered that "the affairs... are handled just as expeditiously as before,
and probably more so. Petty, futile obstructions tend to disappear when mayor,
city officers, and council are placed fully on their behaviour in the presence
of the 'stockholders' who are given carte blanche to criticize."

  Under the spur of such civic responsibility on the part of its citizens and
elected officials as this, it is not surprising that Berkeley developed a
government distinguished not only for general efficiency, but for notable
achievements of individual departments.

Berkeley's "College Cops"

PERHAPS no one of the municipal departments attracted more favorable publicity
than the police department, and its excellence results largely from the work of
one man, August Vollmer. When he was elected town marshal in 1905 Berkeley was a
growing community of about 20,000, with but eight police officers and a
reputation among crooks for having the poorest protection of any town on the
Pacific Coast, "while," Vollmer wrote in the Berkeley Reporter, "we should have
the best police department in the United States, especially when we consider:
First. The class of people who make their homes here. Second. The nearness of
two large cities which harbor many criminals. Third. That two trans-continental
main lines run through this town. Fourth. The ease with which it is possible to
hide here, and the many different routes that may be taken to leave after having
committed a crime."

  Without overpolicing the community, Vollmer became a pioneer in an
intelligent, intensive effort to prevent crime. He upheld the theory that
criminals are essentially pathological or social problems and that brutal
treatment of prisoners accomplishes nothing toward reform. He turned his office
into a chemical laboratory where every phase of criminology was studied. A
prospective member of his force was required to achieve a very high grade (135)
in the Alpha test used by the Army during the World War—a grade achieved by only
ten per cent of the Army's men.

  Under Vollmer's direction the Berkeley department initiated many new
procedures in police work. The first electric police signal light system in the
United States was installed in Berkeley in 1906. The city had the first
completely motorized police department in the Nation in 1913, when patrolmen's
motorcycles were replaced with automobiles. The first experimental work in the
field of radio communication with police cars was conducted by the Berkeley
department. The record system devised in 1906 by C. D. Lee, later captain of
detectives, became the foundation for scientific police record systems now used
widely throughout the country.

  The much discussed "lie detector" (polygraph in scientific terminology) was
developed by John A. Larsen, a member of the Berkeley police force who had
received his Ph.D. degree in physiology and was working for a degree in
medicine. This instrument operates on the theory that effort to deceive creates
nervous tensions which, combined with any conscious effort to control these
reactions, can be detected by means of apparatus for recording respiratory
changes, pulse wave, and blood pressure. In 1921 Larsen read—at Vollmer's
request—an article by William Marston, a member of the Boston Bar, who had
experimented with blood pressure in the detection of falsehoods. Improving upon
Marston's method by the use of devices producing a continuous record of blood
pressure and pulse rate, Larsen assembled the first cumbersome forerunner of the
modern polygraph. Leonard Keeler (a son of the Berkeley poet, Charles Keeler),
then a high school student, became interested in the machine and assisted Larson
in its operation. The first time the polygraph was officially used in criminal
investigation in Berkeley was in 1921. A smaller, more portable "lie detector"
was later constructed by Larsen and Keeler, and the latter, who specialized in
criminology, subsequently developed his own version of the polygraph.

  The Keeler polygraph now has a wide variety of commercial uses. For ten years
many of Chicago's banks, department stores, chain stores, and restaurants have
been using the machine with astonishing results. In 1931 the apparatus was
demonstrated to the underwriters of Lloyd's in London, resulting in premium
reductions up to ten per cent for banks giving periodic tests with the polygraph
to all their employees.

  The first scientific crime detection laboratory in the United States, the
forerunner of similar laboratories now functioning in all parts of the country,
was organized in 1915 by Dr. Albert Schneider of the Berkeley Police Department,
who is also credited with having written the first articles describing
scientific crime detection using laboratory equipment. Dr. Schneider's
laboratory was ridiculed quite generally during its early years, before its
value was proved. Likewise, the first scientific training of police officers in
America, inaugurated at the University of California at Berkeley in 1916, was
heralded by cartoons and caricatures in leading newspapers.

  Not satisfied with mere apprehension of criminals, Vollmer turned his
attention to striking at the roots of crime. In April, 1919, a plan devised by
Dr. Jau Don Ball, police department psychiatrist, was adopted by the
superintendent of Berkeley's schools at Vollmer's suggestion. A special survey
of Hawthorne School was conducted to determine the causes of school, home,
neighborhood, and community problems and to ascertain their relationship to
physical, mental, nervous, temperamental, and character defects of students. The
findings were used as a basis for establishing methods of scientific
examination, classification, and segregation of school children and for
instructing principals in the proper selection of teachers for the various
grades and special classes.

  One of the social workers who conducted the survey of Hawthorne School, Mrs.
Elisabeth Lossing, was placed in charge of the Crime Prevention Division of the
police department—among the first in operation in California—when it was
organized by Chief Vollmer in 1925. Concerned primarily with prevention of
juvenile delinquency among boys up to twelve years of age and girls to
twenty-one, the division also works on a variety of problems, including
supervision of adult cases of mental illness, senility, and unfavorable domestic
relations and many other matters pertaining to the welfare of children. A
policewoman assistant to Mrs. Lossing was appointed in 1934. In recent years
much of the work of the division has been accomplished by a group of volunteer
helpers, estimated by Mrs. Lossing at "a dozen or more, sometimes as high as 30"
who serve without pay.

  Supervision of boys from twelve to twenty-one, begun by Inspector Frank L.
Waterbury who retired in 1936, became, in 1941, a full-time activity conducted
by Officer A. E. Riedel. Flexible in scope, the division employs distinctive
methods of surveillance such as unofficial police probation for youthful
offenders not within the jurisdiction of juvenile courts or other standard
agencies.

  The first Junior Traffic Police force in the country was organized in Berkeley
by the police department, with the cooperation of the public schools, in 1923.
The idea originated with D. H. Fraser and Clarence P. Taylor, members of the
department, who submitted it to C. D. Lee, then acting chief of police in the
absence of Chief Vollmer, who had been called to Los Angeles to reorganize the
police department of that city. Lee thought well of the plan and put it into
operation with six boys assigned to regulate traffic near the old Franklin
School. In 1941 the organization had grown to include seven hundred members, who
protect all public and two parochial schools. In addition to the prevention of
accidents in the vicinity of the schools, the organization provides disciplinary
training for the boy officers. Each year it saves the city an estimated fifty
thousand dollars which would be necessary to provide equal regulation by adult
police.

  The Berkeley Traffic Safety Commission, a civic organization, was formed in
1924 to cooperate with the police department in reducing traffic accidents.
Berkeley won second place among all American cities in its population class in
the National Pedestrian Protection Contest for 1939. During the fiscal year
1938-39 it was awarded honorable mention by the National Safety Council in
recognition of noteworthy achievements in the conservation of human life, being
rated fourth safest city in the United States.

  In recognition of his outstanding ability and achievements in police
administration, Vollmer was elected president of the International Association
of Police Chiefs in 1921. Subsequently he reorganized the police departments of
many American cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and
Havana, Cuba. He left his command in Berkeley in 1929 to head the department of
research at the University of Chicago, with the title of Professor of Police
Administration, and later returned to Berkeley to lecture in the same capacity
at the University of California.

  After Vollmer's retirement in 1929, the high standard of Berkeley's police
administration was maintained by Police Chief John A. Greening, previously
administrative assistant to Vollmer. According to the uniform crime reports of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation for die fiscal year 1938-39, fewer crimes
were committed in Berkeley during that period than in the average city of
California, the Pacific Coast, and the United States. Ratings based on the
number of crimes per 100,000 population were: Berkeley, 1,388.3; Pacific Coast
cities, 2,470.2; and California cities, 2,471.0. During the same period Berkeley
had 72 per cent fewer robberies than the average Pacific Coast city and 83.5 per
cent fewer than the average California city of any size; the burglary rate was
25 per cent less in Berkeley than in the average United States city and 49 per
cent less than in the average Pacific Coast city of the same population size.

  Berkeley's per capita cost of police protection in 1940 was $2.88, against an
average of $3.11 in comparable United States cities. In the same year police
officers in Berkeley numbered .95 per 1,000 population, against 1.20 in
comparable cities. The low cost of police protection was attributed by Chief
Greening to the careful selection and proper training of officers and the use of
efficient, modern equipment.

  Since 1919 high school graduation or its equivalent (determined by the chief
of police), perfect physical condition, and unimpeachable reputation have been
required of all applicants for admission to the police department's probationary
training period of two years—one of the longest in the country. Fifty-three per
cent of the force are university trained. The most complete library of standard
works in the field of law enforcement in the United States—with the exception of
the library of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—including many books
translated from foreign languages, is maintained by the department for the use
of members of the force. Funds are budgeted by the city each year for the
purchase of additional volumes. As a result of their thorough training, many
former members of the Berkeley force have achieved distinction in the police
administration of cities throughout the Nation and even in cities as remote as
Nanking and Honolulu. In 1941 Chief Greening was a member of two special
committees of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, an officer of
the Pacific Coast International Association of Law Enforcement Officials, and a
member of the National Police Academy-police school of the United
States—conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When the academy was
established in 1935 its lecture courses on five subjects—development of
statistics and record systems, preparation of spot maps and reports, and
training of personnel—were set up by Chief Greening.

  Housed in the Hall of Justice—completed in November, 1939—Berkeley's police
department was reported in 1941 by Chief Greening to have "undoubtedly the most
modern police administration building of any city of its population size in the
United States."

  The first dual switchboard in the United States—combining duplicate control
mechanisms for all police radio and telephone communication-was specially built
and installed in the new Hall of Justice by telephone company engineers and
police department technicians. The Berkeley department was the first in the
United States to use "business machines"— mechanical devices similar to those
used by the United States Census Bureau for sorting perforated cards—to develop
various types of statistics. Its collection of civilian fingerprints (more than
56,000) is the largest in the country outside the Federal Bureau of Identification.

  The Berkeley police department is completely motorized, all officers owning
their automobiles and being paid car allowances. Each of the vehicles contains
two-way radio equipment. The broadcasting station— which at one time had
contracts with law enforcement agencies of seven counties—was California's
largest municipal station from 1933 to 1938.

  In 1934 specially trained Doberman Pinscher dogs were first used for police
work in California by the Berkeley department. Twelve of these animals, valued
at about $ 1,000 each, were owned by individual members of the Berkeley police
force in 1941.

The Public School System

UNTIL 1909 the public schools of Berkeley were only average schools in a State
which had long had high educational standards, and because of the rapid growth
of the town many of the buildings were overcrowded; but an important advance was
made in that year. President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University had earlier
pointed out the disadvantages of grouping students from grades one to eight in
one type of school and then abruptly transferring them into the differently
organized high school; he contended that a better arrangement would be to
introduce an intermediate school for grades seven, eight, and nine and to limit
the high school to a three-year course. In 1909, upon the recommendation of
Superintendent Frank F. Bunker, two intermediate schools were set up. The
department system as used in high schools was adopted and the curriculum
enriched by the addition of Latin, modern languages, music, and mechanical and
freehand drawing. Particular attention was given to the problem of the younger
adolescent. One of these schools, the McKinley, opened in January, 1910, had a
building of its own and thus could lay claim to being the first junior high
school in the country, although that designation did not come until later. The
system has since been widely and successfully adopted. Berkeley had in 1941
three such schools so located as to be accessible to all sections of the city.

  Berkeley's school system is designed with the needs of its students uppermost
in mind. Courses of study are developed each year by special committees selected
from the teaching staff, who study modern trends in educational procedure. On
the basis of surveys made each year under the direction of the Bureau of
Research and Guidance to discover cases of maladjustment in the public schools,
special classes are organized for the more capable pupils as well as for those
slow in learning. Every student is given a mental test to determine his native
ability. On the basis of these tests students are grouped as X's, Y's, and
Z's—above average, average, and below average in intelligence, respectively. For
students below even the "Z" level there are special classes with enrollment
limited to sixteen. Special teachers are provided for pupils having hearing or
speech defects; crippled and handicapped children who are unable to attend
school are instructed in their homes.

  For students less interested in academic subjects, a wide range of interests
and skills is developed by industrial education. For boys there are courses in
carpentry, cabinet making, sheet metal work, plumbing, machine shop, electric
shop, cement work, printing, mechanical drafting, pattern making. These courses
serve both as prevocational and as vocational training for students intending to
follow a skilled trade. For girls an extensive program in home economics extends
from the simple weaving, knitting, and sewing taught in junior high school
grades to senior high school courses which enable a young woman to design and
make her own clothes and hats. Similarly, cooking instruction leads to advanced
work in selecting food, preparing menus, serving meals, and cooking for invalids.

  In addition to vocational work, which is distributed throughout the system,
there was formed in 1920 the part-time high school, designed for young people
from fourteen to twenty who could not be absorbed by industry and who were not
qualified for regular high school work. In 1932 it acquired its own building and
was renamed the McKinley High School. The work was so organized that a student
could get a high school diploma or merely take certain courses which he felt
would benefit him. Since its establishment there has been a marked increase in
the attendance of adults, to whom many of the vocational courses are open, as
part of an extensive night school curriculum.

  In physical education, compulsory in all California schools, Berkeley has gone
further than many cities. A school nurse makes a physical examination of school
children. Each child is weighed twice a year or, if underweight, once a month.
There is a "follow-up" of cases of convalescent children who have communicable
diseases. Mid-morning milk and hot noon lunches are provided. There are
conferences with mothers about diet. Health instruction is given in
collaboration with the physical education departments.

  The city is justly proud of its Preventorium School—more generally known as
the "Sunshine School." Established August 9, 1926, with forty children, it had
been conceived by Dr. W E Shepard, at the time director of health education in
the Berkeley schools and of the Berkeley Health Center and also City Health
Officer. The Alameda County Tuberculosis Association donated special equipment;
the Health Center furnished equipment, medical supplies, medical examinations,
and supervision; the Berkeley School Lunch Committee provided free lunches; and
the Berkeley Exchange Club made available transportation for children who could
not pay carfare. In 1927 the Sunshine School Committee recommended that the
school be continued and enlarged to care for sixty children. In the fall of 1929
the Board of Education took over administration and support of the school and
enlarged it to care for eighty children.

  When the McKinley School was closed as an elementary unit the Sunshine School
was moved to its present location. It now educates between 100 and 150 children
who are in need of a rest regime. These are largely convalescents from acute
illness, cardiacs, and children with organic defects. The school has a sun
platform, showers and dressing rooms besides its classrooms. After attending
classes from nine to ten, students have an hour of sun bathing, then a rest
hour, an hour for lunch, and a second rest hour after lunch, with school work
again from two to four in the afternoon. Approximately 70 per cent of those
enrolled have shown improvement.

  A preventorium of another sort was begun in 1924 by Dr. Virgil E. Dickson,
then research director and assistant superintendent of schools, now
superintendent, in an effort to meet the problems of maladjusted youth. Dr.
Dickson and the heads of the police department, the health department, the
welfare society, and the department of playgrounds, recreation and parks, along
with others from each of these departments, constituting a so-called
coordinating council, meet weekly to discuss problem cases and set up policies.
The council supervises a "behavior research and service clinic," consisting of a
physician, a psychiatrist, a staff of psychiatric social workers to whom the
most serious behavior problems from schools are referred. Examinations are made
of the nature of the difficulty, causes traced as far as possible, adjustments
made, treatments given, results recorded. Only children whose parents agree to
cooperate are treated; other problem children, along with normal children of the
same group and social background, serve as "controls" in a scientific test of
the value of the treatments. All too frequently the committee reports "the
problem child is found to be the result of problem parents."

  The constantly increasing school population required erection of new buildings
until in 1940 Berkeley's public school system included twenty modern educational
plants. The original high school building, constructed in 1901, was
reconstructed after damage in the earthquake of 1906, and in 1934 was razed to
make way for modern buildings. Within recent years all high school educational
departments have been rapidly expanded; advanced courses in journalism and
dramatics and beginning courses in automobile driving, photography, radio
broadcasting, and piano have been introduced since 1937. The grade point average
of Berkeley high school students entering the university over a period of
several years has been 1.40, while the average of students from all large high
schools (over 500 enrollment) during that period was 1.21.

  A plan to foster improved understanding and relations between school pupils of
the Americas by the exchange of high school teachers, believed to be the first
move of its kind, was approved by the Berkeley Board of Education in March,
1941. The plan, providing for the exchange of two teachers between Berkeley and
Mexico City, was evolved by Dr. Dickson following conferences with Dr. Herbert
Sein, Deputy Commissioner of Education for Mexico, who visited Berkeley in 1940.

  In general the sense of social responsibility of the Berkeley public schools
was well expressed by H. B. Wilson, a former superintendent, when he declared
that "the function of the public schools of these days is to train each person
so that he may carry as satisfactorily as possible all of life's responsibilities."

Berkeley's Firefighters

IN EXPERIENCE, methods, and equipment for the prevention and control of fires,
the city has gone far since that July day in 1882 when, according to the
Advocate, West Berkeley became "fortunate in having a number of energetic young
men [making up] a fire brigade which they will be sure to maintain with
efficiency." Such volunteer companies—small groups of red-shirted men who
dragged hose carts through the lanes of the town —served with questionable
efficiency until 1904, when Berkeley had its first paid firemen.

  Berkeley's first fire chief, head of the volunteer fire department of
early-days as well as of the city's first paid department, was James Kenney, who
died in 1916 in a factory fire a stone's throw from the public park in West
Berkeley which was later named in his honor. Kenney it was who influenced August
Vollmer to run for office as town marshall on a reform ticket in 1905.

  G. Sydney Rose, who succeeded Kenney as fire chief, was instrumental in
establishing both the Fire Prevention Bureau and the two-platoon system. During
his administration the first inhalator was purchased and intensive rescue
training was inaugurated under direction of the Bureau of Mines at the
university. After the death of Rose in April, 1927, George Haggerty became
chief. During the eleven years of his command the personnel and equipment of the
department were increased to 95 men, 10 lire stations, and 12 fire companies.
Haggerty constructed a smoke blower —a nationally important
innovation—displacing 10,000 feet of air per minute, which proved valuable in
fires involving heavy smoke.

  The disastrous fire of 1923 brought strenuous efforts to abolish the use of
wooden shingles, culminating in passage by the City Council of an ordinance
banning them. It was largely through the personal efforts of Chiefs Rose and
Haggerty, however, rather than because of the ordinance —which was repealed in a
referendum election—that most of Berkeley's new homes were covered with
fire-retardant roofing instead of the wooden shingles which had been blamed for
spreading the flames of 1923 far and wide. Meanwhile, activities of the
department's Fire Prevention Bureau included elimination of old buildings
constituting fire hazards. An abundant water supply from the Mokelumne River
also contributed to Berkeley's safety from disastrous fires. In 1941
availability of the city's water supply had been increased until less than sixty
street intersections in the en ire community were without fire hydrants.

  In 1937 the National Fire Protective Association rated Berkeley one of the
twelve safest cities in the Nation. The city's per capita fire loss for the five
years ending in 1937 was twenty-three cents, compared with an average of $1.51
for the Nation's larger cities. Annual observance of fire prevention week,
featuring essay contests in the schools and special broadcasts from the local
radio station, KRF, were credited with making important contributions to this
record.

  John S. Eichelberger, present fire chief, had served thirty two years in the
department prior to his appointment in August, 1938. He commands an efficient
and well-equipped force. In addition to standard apparatus the department
operates a rescue and salvage wagon equipped with a fixed 1,000-watt lamp and
four portable 400-watt lamps, first aid equipment, salvage covers, gas masks,
oxygen helmets, an electric drill and oxygen cutting outfit, sprinkler heads,
and a radio receiver. The automobile furnished for the fire chief is equipped
with a two-way radio, and vehicles driven by deputy and assistant chiefs contain
radio receivers.

  Berkeley's fire and police departments occupy key positions in the Disaster
Preparedness Plan, adopted by the City Council in February, 1927. First
considered as a means of preventing a repetition of the disorganization which
followed the 1923 lire, the plan was subsequently expanded "to provide for the
most effective and immediate mobilization of resources needed to alleviate
suffering caused by any form of disaster which may visit Berkeley."

  Administration of the plan is vested in a coordinating committee consisting of
the mayor, the chairman of the Berkeley chapter of the American Red Cross, the
city manager, and a representative of the president of the University of
California. The plan is designed to insure protection of persons and property,
adequate public relief and rehabilitation, and preservation of order.
Participating groups include the Red Cross, city Health Department, American
Legion, Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, university R.O.T.C., Boy Scouts, public
utilities firms, hospitals, radio stations, and numerous civic and social
organizations. The plan also provides for assistance from many outside sources
such as the State public health agencies, the National Guard, and the military,
naval, and marine forces of the United States.

Facilities for Recreation

ANOTHER of Berkeley's best-known departments of city government is recreation,
of which Charles W. Davis is superintendent. At nineteen public playgrounds
persons of all ages may be found, ranging from pre school boys and girls using
swings, slides, and wading pools to elderly men active on the bowling green.
There is abundant opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, softball,
volleyball, tennis, and badminton on city fields or courts.

  For the followers of aquatic sports the Berkeley Aquatic Park, built between
1935 and 1940 with WPA labor, extends for a mile along the Bay shore between
Ashby and University Avenues. Rowboats, small sailboats, and electric power
boats traverse its placid surface. In one end of the tide-filled lagoon, kept at
high level by the use of tide gates, model yachts are raced.

  The Yacht Harbor, also constructed by the WPA with municipal sponsorship, is
4,000 feet long and 1,600 feet wide, ranging from four to thirty feet in depth.
Earthen walls with rock facing protect craft in stormy weather from the waves of
the Bay. There is berthing space for more than three hundred pleasure craft. The
new white gambrel-roofed Yacht Club House serves as a social center. The long
pier near-by, originally built three miles out into the Bay to meet the
automobile ferries to San Francisco but now superseded by the Bay Bridge, is
still in use as a fishing pier.

  In addition to these resources, Berkeley was considering in 1941 the need for
a municipal swimming pool, a museum, a "little theater" and more extensive play
areas in the South Berkeley and Westbrae districts.

  Besides its playgrounds, Berkeley maintains north of the campus a number of
parks of a more decorative sort. Codornices Park, following the canyon of a
creek, has been terraced and made into a rose garden; Mortar Rock Park, where
Indians once ground their corn, affords a fine view of the Bay and the Marin
County hills: Cragmont Rock Park, with its curious rock formations, surrounds a
lofty lookout stat ion where sunrise services are held on Easter; and John
Hinkel Park, named for public-spirited John Hinkel, who presented it to the
city, has an outdoor theater where the Berkeley Community Players give
performances during the summer.

  Outside its boundaries the city maintains three mountain playgrounds. It
leased from the Federal Government in 1923 a portion of Tahoe National Forest
near Echo Lake. Here, at an elevation of 7,600 feet near the summit of the
Placerville-Tahoe Highway, summer cabins and camping facilities overlook a
splendid panorama of mountain scenery, placed near lakes and streams which are
well stocked with fish. At the 3,500-foot elevation on the south fork of the
Stanislaus River, on the Big Oak Flat Road, is another municipal camp with
hiking, horseback riding, swimming, and organized games as attractions. Nearer
home the city owns the Cazadero Camp in a fine stand of redwoods near the
Russian River where, in conjunction with a "family camp" special camps for boys
and girls provide a varied program.

  Although it is not under the direct supervision of the city's recreation
department, Berkeley's residents profit from another publicly owned play area
adjoining the city—the Charles Lee Tilden Regional Park. As long ago as 1868 the
great landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead, urged the creation of a park
in the hills above Berkeley. The idea was kept alive by Professor John C.
Merriam and his son, John C. Merriam, Jr., and by the Contra Costa Hills Club
under the leadership of Harold French. It was largely their work which led to
the acquisition jointly by seven of the nine Eastbay cities of public utilities
property and its transformation into one of the parks of the Eastbay Regional
Park system. The area has camping places, picnic grounds, playfields, and a golf
course, as well as foot and horse trails.

The City's Everyday Work

ASIDE from the public library, which has over forty-five thousand card-holding
patrons for its five buildings, the rest of Berkeley's many municipal
departments are chiefly operational divisions which do not come prominently into
the public eye.

  Berkeley's health department concerns itself with the inspection of cattle in
the 289 dairies in the surrounding country which supply milk to Berkeley
residents; with the inspection of the city's 700 food establishments; with the
distribution of information, particularly concerning prenatal care. A staff of
thirteen public health nurses carries on a public health program which Berkeley
was the first American city to institute, begun in 1923. Largely as a result of
the work of this department, Berkeley's general death and infant mortality rates
not only are well below the average for California as a whole, but are far below
the average for the entire country.

  The Department of Equipment Maintenance sees to the rolling stock of the city.
The Department of Garbage Collection operates seventeen trucks in the collection
of garbage and refuse. The Department of Public Works has the responsibility of
maintaining streets and sewers, and—by its electrical division—the city's
lighting, police- and fire-alarm systems. There are also the Assessor's Office,
which determines property values for taxation; the Building Department, which
inspects buildings, supervises sanitation, repairs, and demolition; the
Auditor's Office, Department of City Engineering, Legal Department, Bureau of
Purchasing and Budgetary Control, Department of Personnel and Research,
Department of Public Charities, Department of Treasurer-Collector, and
Department of City Planning—eighteen in all, a large number for a city of
Berkeley's size, but a number which has not lessened the efficiency of municipal
operations. In his second annual report, City Manager John N. Edy said that
Berkeley had "more departments, therefore department heads, than many city
manager cities. The reason for this is my conviction that . . . combining
offices and duties does not always result in the employment of fewer people. On
the contrary, it not infrequently happens that, after combining two offices or
positions, three people are found to be performing the work previously done by
two. We have been careful to guard against the situation in Berkeley,
endeavoring to maintain a compact organization in which responsibility is fixed
and definite."

  In support of Edy's contention is the excellent financial condition of the
city government, which remained sound throughout the depression, and which
frequently found a slight annual surplus of receipts over operating costs.

The Unofficial Government

IN A MULTITUDE of activities other than those supported by the municipality
Berkeley has shown that its people are progressive and public-spirited. From the
days when the Berkeley Political Equality Society was working for women's
rights, women in Berkeley have played an increasingly prominent part in the
city's civic affairs. In 1906 they advanced a long step towards woman suffrage
when a committee framing a new city charter recommended that they be permitted
to vote on all school matters and be eligible for places on the board of
education. Since the first woman member of the board was elected in July, 1909,
there has always been at least one feminine member. Berkeley sent a woman to the
State Legislature in 1919. In 1923 Mrs. Carrie L. Hoyt was elected to the first
City Council under the new council-manager form of government, and she has
served continuously since. In 1931 she was made vice-mayor, serving as the
city's chief executive during the mayor's absence. Another woman, Mrs. Benita
Herrick, has also served on the council for several years. Most of the city's
commissions include women members.

  In service and welfare organizations Berkeley women have done notable work.
During the World War Mrs. Samuel Marks marshalled many Berkeley women for
participation in the National League for Women's Service. A canteen was
established in the old Elks' building, where improvised clubrooms provided
headquarters for eight hundred aviators. This Berkeley unit later received a
medal from the government for distinguished work. During the influenza epidemic
the building was converted into a nursing home. In 1927 the women's division of
the Community Chest was organized in Berkeley with Mrs. Marks as chairman, and
it made an excellent record for money-raising.

  The civic consciousness of Berkeley women has also been demonstrated by the
growth of their clubs. "Club life in Berkeley is attractive by reason of
variety" said Wells Drury, secretary of die Chamber of Commerce, in a magazine
article published in 1919. "There are three kinds of clubs,— clubs for men,
clubs for women, and clubs to which both men and women are admitted. All of
these devote much time and attention to the serious affairs of life. This is
particularly true of the women's clubs of Berkeley, which are not merely social
organizations, although the society of the community is a highly-developed
organism. Women here devote much attention to civic betterment and public
affairs, as befits their character as voters and lawmakers."

  Berkeley's many women's clubs were scattered and, in many cases, without
regular headquarters until 1930, when the half-million-dollar Worn en's City
Club house was completed. Preliminary steps toward formation of the club had
been taken at a meeting of the Business and Professional Women's Club in 1926,
and organization was effected that year by a committee composed of
representatives of the Berkeley League of Women Voters, California Writers'
Club, College Women's Club, Etude Club, League of American Pen Women, Monday
Study Club, Political Science Club, Northbrae Women's Club, Twentieth Century
Club, Women's Army and Navy Club, and Berkeley Piano Club. In 1941 the Berkeley
Women's City Club was one of the leading organizations of its kind in the United
States, with almost five thousand members.

  Berkeley also has benefited extensively from the interest in civic affairs
displayed by its many service clubs and business organizations. These were
influential in promoting beautification of city streets through planting of
trees and shrubs. In 1940 most of them joined forces to secure passage of a
$125,000 bond issue providing for development of a civic center, bounded by
Allston Way and Milvia, Center, and Grove Streets.

  This development had been discussed for thirty-odd years. Objections had been
raised against the cost of such a project. Some people said that Berkeley had
enough parks and foliage, that the near-by campus of the University of
California was a veritable park itself. But when submitted for a vote, the civic
center proposal received enthusiastic public approval.

  The plan called for landscaping of the center itself and for control of
architecture in the surrounding area. WPA assistance was obtained in installing
lawns, trees, hedges, benches, Maypoles, fountains, and a shallow pool intended
to make the center a pleasant place for the citizen to stop and rest. An
elevated paved area was planned to accommodate speakers, pageants, and band
players.

  Architecture around the center was regulated by an ordinance passed April 3,
1941, specifying that "the development of the Civic Center in the City of
Berkeley and the property surrounding and in the neighborhood of the Civic
Center should proceed along the lines of good order, good taste and with due
regard to the public interests involved ... a reasonable degree of control
should be exercised over the character and design of public, private and
semi-public buildings" located near-by. The ordinance required submission of
building plans to the Planning Commission.

  Another demonstration of Berkeley's civic consciousness was made in plans for
celebrating the city's Diamond Jubilee in the spring of 1941. The city
government, service clubs and business organizations, women's clubs, the
university and other schools, and many individuals joined in commemorating the
seventy-fifth anniversary of the naming of Berkeley. Directors of the Berkeley
Festival Association included a representative cross-section of the city's
business, cultural, and official life. Its president was Lester W Hink, merchant
and president of the Berkeley Country Club; vice-president was George Dunscomb,
publisher of the Berkeley Daily Gazette. The executive committee was composed of
William E. Chamberlain, impresario who had managed the Berkeley Musical
Association for twenty-five years; Reece Clark and Richard W Young, attorneys;
Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of California; and John M.
Olney, business-man. Its secretary was J. Delbert Sarber, general manager of the
Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.

  The association's board of directors included, as representatives of the city,
Mayor Frank Gaines, Councilman Richard S. French (who is also superintendent of
the School for the Blind), Superintendent of Recreation Charles W Davis, City
Manager Chester C. Fisk, Superintendent of Schools Virgil E. Dickson, High
School Principal Elwin Le Tendre, Librarian Susan Smith, and Justice Oliver
Youngs, Jr. Representing the university, in addition to President Sproul, were
Vice-President and Provost Monroe E. Deutsch, Medical Director William G.
Donald, Professors William B. Herms and William Popper, and Robert Sibley,
executive secretary of the alumni association. Business and professional men,
most of whom represented service clubs and business organizations, included
bankers G. T. Douglas and Warde W. Sorrick, H. S. Howard (secretary of the
Service Club Council), Jake Levingston, Philip N. McCombs, Dr. W E. Mitchell,
William Parks, Walter H. RatclifF, Maurice Read, Emery Stone, W H. Woolsey, and
Raymond Young. Other groups were represented by Thomas E. Caldecott, member of
the Alameda County Board of Supervisors; Reverend Joseph C. Carpenter, president
of the Council of Churches; Mrs. E. J. Hadden, president of the Women's City
Club; Mrs. Samuel Marks, head of the Community Chest (also chairman of the
Women's Board of the Festival Association); and Mrs. Ralph W Robinson, president
of the Berkeley Art Association.

  This board planned a program that both would attract renewed attention to
Berkeley as a cultural center and would serve as an appropriate commemoration of
the city's anniversary. With Samuel J. Hume—who had been director of the Greek
Theatre during its most resplendent days in the early twenties—as general
director, the association scheduled a series of concerts and plays in the Greek
Theatre extending from May 4 to June 10 that was reminiscent of the theater's
early history. The program opened on May 4 with a presentation of the oratorio
Elijah, in which Mine. Ernestine Schumann-Heink had sung in a notable
performance in 1919; this time John Charles Thomas was the star. One week later
the San Francisco Opera Ballet was scheduled to give three ballets, In Old
Vienna, Chopinade, and Romeo and Juliet, under the direction of Willam
Christensen. On May 18 Offenbach's light opera, Orpheus in the Underworld, was
presented in English starring Vera Schwarz as Eurydice; on May 25, a concert by
the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Walter; on June 1,
George Bernard Shaw's drama, Saint Joan, in which Elena Miramova played the
title role; and on June 8, Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, with Lois Moran
in the cast. This regular series was followed on June 1 o with a special concert
by the Berkeley Young People's Symphony Orchestra, a ninety-piece organization
that had received considerable praise during its four years of existence, with
Jessica Marcelli as conductor.

  The program was planned to fulfill the announced intention of the
association's president, Lester Hink, "to present a festival that will be
distinguished as befits our city and will include the best that is
representative of music, the drama, and the dance." It was a type of
commemoration both characteristic of and appropriate to Berkeley, which during
its first three-quarters of a century had received world-wide acclaim as a city
of learning, a center of culture, the "Athens of the West."

  The city had come a long way indeed since that day in May, 1866, seventy-five
years before, when the trustees of the College of California had christened it.
It was only remotely like the city they had envisioned. It was even less like
the open-wooded pasture land where Jose Domingo Peralta had constructed a rude
adobe house just a century before, and where during the 1840's fat cattle grazed
in a primitive Spanish Arcadia. The city, with its neighbor Albany, had
completely covered and obscured Jose Domingo's portion of the Rancho San
Antonio. It had spread out to the limit of its physical expansion on all sides
and was spilling over into adjoining areas across the county line to the north
and east. With most of its residential property occupied, it had little prospect
of increasing its population much beyond the 85,547 permanent residents counted
in the 1940 census. Its leaders could concentrate on fulfilling the dictum of
President Benjamin Ide Wheeler a quarter-century before, to make it not a
"greater Berkeley" but a "better Berkeley." With a notable municipal government,
a high percentage of owned homes, a diversified and growing industrial section,
it is well along the road toward becoming a model American community.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

BERKELEY
THE FIRST SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS

COMPILED BY WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 

CO-SPONSORS: 
CITY OF BERKELEY  
BERKELEY FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION 

PUBLISHED BY THE GILLICK PRESS -BERKELEY- CALIFORNIA MCMXLI



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