43 Facts About Hiram Johnson

1.

Hiram Warren Johnson was an American attorney and politician who served as the 23rd governor of California from 1911 to 1917.

2.

Hiram Johnson was elected in 1916 as the United States Senator from California, where he was re-elected to five terms and served until his death in 1945.

3.

Hiram Johnson ran for vice president on Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive ticket in the 1912 presidential election.

4.

Later, Hiram Johnson was a vocal opponent of the United Nations Charter.

5.

Hiram Johnson began his practice in his hometown of Sacramento, California.

6.

Hiram Johnson instituted several progressive reforms, establishing a railroad commission and introducing aspects of direct democracy, such as the power to recall state officials.

7.

Hiram Johnson was elected to the US Senate in 1916, becoming a leader of the chamber's Progressive Republicans.

8.

Hiram Johnson made his biggest mark in the Senate as an early voice for isolationism, opposing US entry into World War I and US participation in the League of Nations.

9.

Hiram Johnson unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 and 1924.

10.

Hiram Johnson supported Democratic nominee Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election.

11.

Hiram Johnson was in increasingly poor health in his later years, but remained in the Senate until his death in 1945.

12.

Hiram Johnson was born in Sacramento on September 2,1866.

13.

Hiram Johnson's father, Grove Lawrence Johnson, was an attorney and Republican US Representative and a member of the California State Legislature whose career was marred by accusations of election fraud and graft.

14.

Hiram Johnson's mother, Annie De Montfredy, was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution based on her descent from Pierre Van Cortlandt and Philip Van Cortlandt.

15.

Hiram Johnson attended the public schools of Sacramento and was 16 when he graduated from Sacramento High School in 1882 as the class valedictorian.

16.

Too young to begin attending college, Hiram Johnson worked as a shorthand reporter and stenographer in his father's law office and attended Heald's Business College.

17.

Hiram Johnson studied law at the University of California, Berkeley from 1884 to 1886, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

18.

In 1899, Johnson backed the mayoral campaign of George H Clark.

19.

In 1902, Hiram Johnson moved to San Francisco, where he quickly developed a reputation as a fearless litigator, primarily as a criminal defense lawyer, while becoming became active in reform politics.

20.

Hiram Johnson attracted statewide attention in 1908 when he assisted District Attorney Francis J Heney in the prosecution of Abe Ruef and Mayor Eugene Schmitz for graft.

21.

Hiram Johnson helped establish rules that made voting and the political process easier.

22.

In office, Hiram Johnson was a populist who promoted a number of democratic reforms: the election of US Senators by direct popular vote rather than the state legislature, cross-filing, initiative, referendum, and recall elections.

23.

Hiram Johnson's reforms gave California a degree of direct democracy unmatched by any other US state at the time.

24.

Hiram Johnson was instrumental in reining in the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad through the establishment of a state railroad commission.

25.

On taking office, Hiram Johnson paroled Chris Evans, convicted as the Southern Pacific train bandit, but required that he leave California.

26.

In 1912, Hiram Johnson was a founder of the national Progressive Party and ran as the party's vice presidential candidate, sharing a ticket with former President Theodore Roosevelt.

27.

Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson narrowly carried California but finished second nationally behind the Democratic ticket of Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Marshall.

28.

In 1917, as one of his final acts as governor before ascending to the US Senate, Hiram Johnson signed Senate Constitutional Amendment 26, providing health insurance for all in the Golden State.

29.

In 1916, Johnson ran successfully for the US Senate, defeating conservative Democrat George S Patton Sr.

30.

Senator Johnson was among three candidates identified to head a new group, alongside Herbert Hoover and Will H Hays.

31.

Hiram Johnson was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continuously for 25 years, from the 66th Congress through the 78th Congress and one of its longest serving members.

32.

In 1945, Hiram Johnson was absent when the vote took place for ratification of United Nations Charter, but made it known that he would have voted against this outcome.

33.

Hiram Johnson did not get the support of Roosevelt's family, who instead supported Roosevelt's long-time friend Leonard Wood.

34.

At the convention, Hiram Johnson was asked to serve as Harding's running mate, but he declined.

35.

Hiram Johnson sought the 1924 Republican nomination against President Calvin Coolidge, but his campaign was derailed after he lost the California primary.

36.

Hiram Johnson declined to challenge Herbert Hoover for the 1928 presidential nomination, instead choosing to seek re-election to the Senate.

37.

Hiram Johnson was one of the most prominent Republicans to support Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt.

38.

Archie Hiram Johnson was a major of field artillery corps and was wounded in action during the First World War.

39.

Hiram Johnson had been in failing health for several months.

40.

Hiram Johnson was interred in a mausoleum constructed at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California and his remains are interred with those of his wife, Minnie, and two sons.

41.

Hiram Johnson held the record as California's longest-serving United States Senator for over 75 years, until it was broken by Democrat Dianne Feinstein on March 28,2021.

42.

Hiram Johnson remains the longest serving Republican senator and the longest serving male senator from California.

43.

The Hiram Johnson papers, consisting primarily of hundreds of letters that Johnson wrote to his two sons over the course of decades, and that his son, Hiram Jr.