Twenty-seventh governor of California, former 30th mayor of San FranciscoFor the schooner built in 1899, see James Rolph (ship).

James "Sunny Jim" Rolph Jr. (August 23, 1869:– June 2, 1934) was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected to a single term as the 27th governor of California from January 6, 1931, until his death on June 2, 1934, at the height of the Great Depression. Previously, Rolph had been the 30th mayor of San Francisco from January 8, 1912, until his resignation to become governor. Rolph remains the longest-serving mayor in San Francisco history.

Contents

• 1 Life and career
• 2 Death
• 3 Legacy
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Life and career

Annie M. Rolph at dock

Rolph was born in San Francisco, the son of Margaret (Nicol) and James Rolph. He had four brothers and two sisters. After attending school in the Mission District, he went to work as an office boy in a commission house. He married Annie Marshall Reid (1872–1956) and had at least one son: James Rolph, III (1904-1980).

Rolph entered the shipping business in 1900, by forming a partnership with George Hind. Over the next decade, he served as president of two banks, one of which he helped establish. Although he was asked to run for mayor in 1909, he chose to wait until 1911 to run for mayor—a position that he would hold for nineteen years. As mayor, he was known as "Sunny Jim", and his theme song was "There Are Smiles That Make You Happy". In 1915 he appeared as himself in an early do*entary film *led Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, which starred Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand and was directed by Arbuckle. In 1924, Rolph appeared as himself in a Slim Summerville comedy short film, Hello, Frisco.

Rolph knew of the power in San Francisco of the Roman Catholic Church. Italians, Irish, French and Germans made up the majority of the population of the City. He established a deep friendship with Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna. In turn, Hanna would support Rolph in his 1930 election as governor of California.

In addition to his mayoral duties and overseeing his shipping interests, he directed the Ship Owners and Merchants Tugboat Company and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He also was vice-president of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and president of the Merchants' Exchange. He resigned in 1931 to *ume the office of governor of California.

Rolph received considerable criticism for publicly praising the citizens of San Jose following the November 1933 lynching of the confessed kidnapper-murderers of Brooke Hart, a local department store heir, while promising to pardon anyone involved, thereby earning the nickname, "Governor Lynch.": 98  Four days before the lynching he had announced he would not call on the National Guard to prevent the lynching, which was already being discussed locally.: 149 

After violence erupted during the San Joaquin cotton strike in October 1933, Governor Rolph appointed a fact-finding committee to investigate the deaths of several strikers. When the committee met in Visalia on October 19, 1933, Caroline Decker, a labor activist who had taken part in other California agricultural actions, took testimony from the strikers who testified about the growers' *aults on striking workers.

Death

After suffering several heart attacks, Rolph died in Santa Clara County on June 2, 1934, aged 64, three years into his term. He was the second California governor to die in office, the first being Washington Bartlett in 1887; like Rolph, Bartlett had also been elected while mayor of San Francisco but died during his only gubernatorial term. Rolph is buried at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. He was succeeded as governor by Lieutenant Governor Frank Merriam.

Legacy

On September 7, 1934, the California Toll Bridge Authority p*ed a resolution "that...the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge be dedicated as a lasting memorial to the memory of James Rolph, Jr."

References

External links

• San Francisco Bay Area portal

• Biography from the State of California
• James Rolph, Jr. at The Political Graveyard
• Biography from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
• James Rolph at IMDb

Defenders of lynching

• Theodore G. Bilbo
• Coleman Livingston Blease
• Julian Carr
• Sidney Johnston Catts
• Thomas Dixon Jr.
• Rebecca Latimer Felton
• John Temple Graves
• John Trotwood Moore
• John Tyler Morgan
• James Rolph
• Goodloe Sutton
• Benjamin Tillman
• James K. Vardaman
• Thomas E. Watson

Memory

• America's Black Holocaust Museum
• Civil Rights Memorial
• The Legacy Museum
• The National Memorial for Peace and Justice
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Southern Poverty Law Center

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Categories

• Lynching in the United States
• Lynching deaths in the United States