Hiram Johnson, governor of California around 1911 and part of the Progressive Republican party. It is so odd to think that Republicans at one point were actually progressive, fighting for the environment, working folk, attempting to combat the concentration of wealth.
Below is amusing quote from an excellent book on California history.
“The personality of Hiram Johnson bore some resemblance to that of Theodore Roosevelt, and in the early years of their association Johnson exploited this resemblance to the point of imitating Roosevelt’s gestures and exclamations. Both were extraordinarily intelligent and courageous political fighters, but also had in extraordinary degree the human failing of self-centeredness. It might have been said of Johnson, as it was said of Roosevelt that he disliked attending weddings and funerals because at a wedding he was not the groom and at the funeral he was not the corpse.”
California – An Interpretive History – Eight Edition James Rawls, Walton Bean (p. 280)
Progressive Republican party, these days seems like quite an oxymoron. While politicians are al
ways full of themselves, the quote above puts a comic spin on the self-indulgence