Bowron was born in
Poway, California, the youngest of three children. His
Yankee parents, who had migrated from the
Midwest, sent him to
Los Angeles High School, where he graduated in 1904. In 1907, he began studies at
UC Berkeley, where his two brothers had graduated, then enrolled in the
University of Southern California Law School two years later where he became a member of the
Delta Chi fraternity. He dropped out of law school and became a reporter for
San Francisco,
Oakland and Los Angeles newspapers, working the City Hall and court beats in the latter city. He was finally admitted to the bar in 1917. Upon the U.S. entry into
World War I in 1917, Bowron enlisted in the Army, serving in the
14th Field Artillery before transferring to the
military intelligence division. Upon his return, he once again practiced law before he married Irene Martin in 1922. The following year, he was appointed as a
deputy state corporations commissioner. His work in that capacity caught the attention of California governor,
Friend Richardson, who hired him as executive secretary in 1925, and then appointed him to the superior court in 1926. In his first tenure as a superior court judge, which lasted 12 years, Bowron became the first jurist on the
West Coast to use the pre-trial calendar system. Judge and Mrs. Bowron adopted an orphaned baby in July 1934.
Mayor He was then elected mayor of Los Angeles on a
fusion ticket in 1938 in the wake of the corruption arising from the previous administration of
Frank L. Shaw, and earned the reputation of being lawful, unlike his predecessor. This was part of what he called the Los Angeles Urban Reform Revival. , left, a Pima Indian survivor of the
Mt. Suribachi Flag-raising, and Sgt. Henry Reed, Indian veteran of
Bataan Death March, call on Mayor Bowron. They are here on a trip to protest court rulings discriminating against their race in housing." at piano. Proclamation of Music Week, 1952 Los Angeles grew enormously during the war years, with very large defense industries. After the war Bowron began construction of the
Los Angeles International Airport and the 1st phases of the elaborate freeway system. He obtained hundred million dollars from the Federal Housing Authority for the construction of 10,000 units. As president of the
American Municipal Association, representing 9500 cities, he was the leader of the nation's mayors in their dealings with the federal government. A high priority was eliminating
organized crime from the city's police department. He forced the resignation of numerous officers, and prevented Los Angeles from becoming a wide open town. Bowron ran on
nonpartisan fusion tickets, but his popularity declined in his 4th term. The Los Angeles Citizens Committee demanded his recall, claiming he was responsible for high taxes and continued police corruption. In 1952 he lost his reelection bid in the Republican primary to
Norris Poulson, a conservative opponent of public housing. He served during the era of
World War II, most notably supporting the removal of
Japanese Americans from California and their subsequent
Internment. In January 1942 Bowron began to call for relocating Japanese Americans away from the coast and putting them to work in farm camps. He forced all Japanese American employees of the City of Los Angeles to take a leave of absence and circulated propaganda targeted at people of Japanese descent. By February he was pushing for internment on his
radio show, quoted on
Abraham Lincoln's birthday in support of the camps: "There isn't a shadow of a doubt but that Lincoln, the mild-mannered man whose memory we regard with almost saint-like reverence, would make short work of rounding up the Japanese and putting them where they could do no harm." He continued by talking about "the people born on American soil who have secret loyalty to the Japanese Emperor." Bowron also attempted to pass a
constitutional amendment under which American-born Japanese would be stripped of their citizen rights if they held dual U.S.-Japanese citizenship or if their parents were ineligible for U.S. citizenship. He additionally proposed allowing the government to ignore portions of the
Selective Service Act and call Japanese Americans, including women and those whose age or physical status would otherwise exempt them, into non-combat military service if the war required it. ==Later life==