L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

While Mickey started his: The following year Los Angeles would surpass it—a lead L.A. would maintain until the 1990s. Klein, The History of Forgetting, 75. However, Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 73, disputes the belief, widespread at the time, that Los Angeles was suffering a crime wave.

“The white spot of …”: “The Soul of the City,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1923, 114.

By 1922, Harry Chandler: In 1909, progressive reformers had dismantled the old ward system that had allowed Democrats, Catholics, and Jews to be elected to political office in favor of a system that provided for only citywide at-large elections. The result was a city government dominated by Times readers—white, middle-class Protestant Republicans. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 9.

The Times newsroom claimed that Chandler was the eleventh wealthiest man in the world. Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 125; “The White Spot Glistens Brightly,” Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1921, II; Taylor, “It Costs $1000 to Have Lunch with Harry Chandler,” Saturday Evening Post, December 16, 1939.

Now was just such: Sitton, “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making, 305.

At first, everything went: Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 219. Los Angeles mayors initially served only two-year terms, hence the high tally.

This was embarrassing: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

By firing Oaks and: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

Bootlegging had been a profitable: Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 60.

At first, much of: Anderson, Beverly Hills Is My Beat, 130. See also Nathan, “How Whiskey Smugglers Buy and Land Cargoes, Well-Organized Groups Engaged in Desperate Game of Rum-Running,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1926, B5; Rappleye, All-American Mafioso, 40; and Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 60. It is not surprising that Nathan neglects to mention Combination figures such as Guy McAfee, who had ties to the Chandler-favored Cryer administration.

In the big eastern: Law enforcement was too. Historian Robert Fogelson has argued that people engaged in both professions for similar reasons, notably out of a desire for upward social mobility. According to Fogelson, this is one of the reasons why graft and corruption were so prevalent in urban police departments: Many of the men who staffed them were as interested in getting ahead as the men who were paying them off. See Fogelson, Big City Police 29, 35.

For more on Crawford, see “Crawford Career Hectic, Politician Gained Wide Notoriety as ‘Pay-Off Man’ in Morris Lavine Extortion Case,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1931, 2. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 305-6.

Crawford got back in: The exact relationship between Crawford and Marco is unclear. While Crawford seems to have kept a hand in prostitution, he was apparently more of a political fixer; Marco, in contrast, was more hands on. Most accounts of the era accord Crawford the position of primacy; however, some describe Marco as the leader of the Combination. Others point to Guy McAfee, “Detective McAfee is Exonerated,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1916, I9.

Cornero tried to buy: I say “seemed overt” because in this instance, Farmer’s claim of self-defense was actually quite plausible. Nonetheless, in general it was clear that Farmer enjoyed considerable advantages, including (somewhat later) having his personal attorney on the Police Commission. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 233, 237.

“Mr. Cryer, how much …”: “Bledsoe Hurls Defy at Cryer, Challenges Parrot’s Status as De-Facto Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1925.

“Shall We Re-Elect…” “Shall We Re-Elect Kent Parrot?” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1925, A1.

The Times publisher was: For a discussion of Parrot’s sway over the LAPD, see “Oaks Names Kent Parrot, Charges Lawyer Interfered in Police Department, ‘Dictatorial and Threatening,’” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1923, I14; “Dark Trails to City Hall are Uncovered: How Negro Politicians Make and Unmake Police Vice Squad Told in Heath Case,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1923, and “Kent Parrot Accused by Richards as ‘Sinister,’ Retiring Harbor Commissioner Names Him as Would-Be Boss,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1923, Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine,” 372-73.

In truth, each camp: Sitton, “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” 312. See also Domanick, To Protect and Serve, 40-49, for an extended and colorful discussion of James Davis.