City Council Elections Tate ousted incumbent City Council member
Carl Ingold Jacobson from his
13th District seat in 1933 and was reelected in 1935 and 1937. In that era the district had its east boundary at Sheffield Street, south at Alhambra Avenue, west at Benton Way and north in an irregular line from Pullman Street to Fountain Avenue. He left office in 1939.
Controversies 1934: Tate criticized the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration for what he called a "new racket" in that, he said, it was planning to use the old
Saint Vincent's Hospital on
Sunset Boulevard near Beaudry Avenue "as a clearinghouse for transient youths." In the vicinity, he said, were "thousands of families who are denied Federal relief because they had sufficient ambition to acquire property" but became unemployed. He added: "If they must harbor these tramps, they should be taken out into the country where they won't interfere with the family life of our citizens."
1936: Tate was an anti-communist activist, and in 1936 he sought to justify a proposal prepared by him and Council Member
Evan Lewis that would turn over to the Police Commission the granting of
parade permits. He asked Police Lieutenant Luke Lane, head of the police
intelligence unit to read out a list of names of people who had been arrested a few days before for gathering at the
Plaza without a permit. Lane stepped to the microphone with his records and declared that "Pat Callahan was district organizer for the Communist party in Phoenix, Ariz., in 1934." "Just a minute," interrupted
Epic Councilman Parley Parker Christensen|[Parley Parker] Christensen, "this is an attempt to blacken a man's character and he should be present and be given an opportunity to be heard. This is America." "Yes," shot back Councilman Robert S. MacAlister|[Robert S.] Macalister, "that's why we think it is all right that the records of these men be known."
State Tate was appointed by Governor
Culbert L. Olson as chief of the
State Division of Beaches and Parks in 1939 and served until 1943. Tate was backed by the State Park Commission in a 4–1 vote, but was vehemently opposed by Los Angeles bookseller
Ernest Dawson, who resigned from the commission in protest. Tate succeeded
A.E. Henning, also a former L.A. City Council member. In a February 1940 appearance before a State Assembly committee investigating "communistic influences" in the State Relief Administration, Tate said that he had begun to "worry about Communists filtering into the Democratic party." ==References==