The Several Lives of John
C. Stevenson
 John
C. Stevenson was a husky, baldheaded mystery man who first
attracted attention in the Northwest as the unctuous voice of the
Painless Parker chain of advertising dentists.
His
salary was reported to be $1000 a week, and he lived up to it; his
house was one of the finest in town, he flew a $20,000 plane, he
piloted a cabin cruiser on Puget Sound. While proclaiming the
luster of his patron's lifelike dentures, Stevenson built up a
large radio audience; he liked being an oracle and soon was
hawking political nostrums along with dental floss. He had the
technique down pat: he criticized specific wrongs and proposed
vague remedies.
In
1932 he filed in the Democratic primary for King County
commissioner. He ran as "Radio Speaker John C. Stevenson,"
and in a field of nobodies he couldn't miss. He was radical enough
to appeal to Seattle's great mass of unemployed and underpaid; he
was plausible enough to appeal to the farmers who normally shunned
the type of soothsayer who found favor on the Skid Road.
From
the day he was elected, he was the most important commissioner any
county in the state ever had. He was, as the saying goes, "a
comer," and the Washington Commonwealth Federation was
delighted to sponsor him.
But
there was more to Stevenson than met the ear. He had materialized
out of nowhere, like the great Gatsby, and there were odd rumors
about where he got his wealth. When he was about to be sworn in as
county commissioner, a citizen arose to protest that Stevenson
wasn't a citizen, that he had flown in the Royal Canadian Air
Force and was a Canadian. Stevenson admitted he had flown for
Canada, denied that he was a Canadian, and refused - on grounds of
possible self-incrimination - to reveal the name he had been known
by in Canada. He was allowed to take office.
A
few months later Governor Lehman of New York informed authorities
in Olympia that Stevenson was known back East as John P. Stockman
and was wanted for fraud in connection with a fake stock sale.
Stevenson said he was Stockman, all right, but that he was
innocent; he fought extradition. Governor Martin was in an
uncomfortable spot. Should he, or should he not, turn over to New
York a man who was at once an influential Democrat and a serious
rival? He refused extradition and eventually the charges against
Stevenson were dropped.
Any
gratitude that the Radio Speaker felt did not last beyond 1936. In
the summer of that year Stevenson felt he was ready to take the
state away from Governor Martin and filed in the Democratic
gubernatorial primary. The voters were faced with a complicated
choice between the rich, honest, unimaginative, conservative
incumbent and his rich, opportunistic, brilliant, radical
opponent.
The
Commonwealth Federation supported Stevenson, ardently at first,
then less enthusiastically when it became apparent that he was
going to lose. What went wrong with the Radio Speaker's campaign
was an experimental election device - the state is always adopting
such devices, to the confusion of professional politicians - the
blanket primary. Under this system voters can shop around and vote
for one candidate for each office, no matter which party he is
running for. Any Republican who felt like it could vote for
Governor Martin in the primary, and since the Republican
nomination was in the bag for mass-backed ex-Governor Roland
Hartley, thousands of Republicans joyously indicated they would
help the conservative Democrats beat Stevenson in the September
primary.
Nobody
trusted the public opinion polls very much, but when the gamblers
started giving two-tone on Martin, the Commonwealth Federation
bosses decided it was time to cut and run. At the last possible
moment they held a quick caucus and announced they were filing a
written ticket of their own for the November finals.
The
Commonwealth candidate would be Howard Costigan, a former barber
and mural painter, who had talked his way into the position of
executive secretary for the Federation. This tactic was based on a
correct interpretation of the way the primary votes would run, but
it infuriated Stevenson and his supporters and it helped split the
Federation.
Stevenson
lost the nomination by 40,000 votes.
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