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A Town To Learn In (Page 4)
Frustrated by the slow progress of labor organization in Los Angeles, largely thwarted in their bid to undermine the Times' publisher by resort to secondary boycotts of his major advertisers, as well as the enticement of San Francisco-based William Randolph Hearst to open a competing paper, the Examiner, in Los Angeles, radical elements in the union movement determined to take matters into their own hands. On October 1, 1910, at 1:07 A.M., a powerful dynamite explosion rocked the offices of General Otis's newspaper. The ensuing fire, fed by broken gas lines, soon engulfed the shattered building. The bombing killed twenty employees and maimed some eighty others.
The action turned much of the public against organized labor. Not even celebrated defense attorney Clarence Darrow could do much more than plea bargain for the defendants - among them, militant national leaders of the radical Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union. After months of emphatic and spirited protestations of innocence, supported by much of organized labor and quixotic social reformers such as Lincoln Steffens, the accused ultimately owned up to the crime.
To Ben Weingart, twenty-two years old, struggling to make his way in the world, a young man whose natural sympathies probably favored the workingman, the path to success in Los Angeles was no doubt clearly illuminated by the concussive blast and lurid flames of the L.A. Times bombing. If the conflict between wealth and want was at once pervasive and eternal, better to position oneself on the side more likely to prevail.
In Los Angeles, even more than elsewhere, Ben could not help but notice, it was inherently better to have than have not. Moreover, especially in Los Angeles, it was manifestly true that God seemed to favor those who helped themselves. In this Eden of Opportunity, an able and ambitious man, one who worked hard, used his brains, kept his eyes open, and understood the lay of the land, could go far.
One such entrepreneur was Robert A. Rowan. Thanks to Rowan, in 1905, just prior to Ben's arrival, Los Angeles had been graced with a splendid new hotel, the Alexandria, at Fifth and Spring. Until the Biltmore was constructed eighteen years later, the Alexandria, designed by John Parkinson, proved the epitome of Angeleno elegance. The hotel, a meeting place for the wealthy, powerful, and celebrated, was the financial creation of a young man, less than ten years older than Ben Weingart.
While still in his twenties, Robert A. Rowan had formed his own real estate firm. Rowan was apparently the first Los Angeles developer to exploit the potential of a financial practice previously unused in Southern California. The ingenious technique involved establishing a separate corporation for each new building venture, then transferring the construction site to the corporate entity, in exchange for the capital stock. The company then sold long-term mortgage bonds to pay for the construction of the building.
By means of this technique, Rowan was able to finance and build several of the most prominent buildings that rose in Los Angeles during the first twelve years of Ben Weingart's residence in the city. Though Rowan himself died in 1918, the financial technique he pioneered would not be lost upon others seeking to develop the city. Ultimately, among those who learned best from Rowan's example would be an alert, ambitious, energetic young man named Ben Weingart.
For the moment, however, Ben was busy delivering laundry and trying to figure out how to leverage his way into ownership, another equity position. No doubt any equity would have had its attraction, but Ben was particularly drawn to real property, the most tangible and marketable commodity in Los Angeles. The one lesson he clearly picked up early from Rowan and others, among them Henry Edwards Huntington and the leaders of the water aqueduct effort, was that the only way to build quickly - especially build wealth - was to fuel the engine of a good idea with the potent, relatively inexpensive energy of other people's money.
As it happened, a man named Orth, owner of the Winchester and other hotels to which Ben catered, had taken to sharing his financial woes with the affable, young laundry cart driver he traded pleasantries with every day. Ben Weingart, it soon became apparent, could come up with succinct potential solutions even faster than the failing businessman could identify his problems.
Soon enough, Orth suggested that, since Ben seemed to understand the hotel business better than he himself did, why not manage the Winchester for him? Confident that he could implement profitable policies, Ben agreed to the profit-sharing proposal.
As the efficient practices that Ben devised began making money for both men, Orth extended the management offer to other hotels that he owned. Ben took him up on it, careful to negotiate a deal that ultimately led to his gaining ownership of several properties.
No matter it was long and winding, fraught with potential perils, the way to wealth now lay open. The Winchester proved to be the first of the more than 200 hotels and apartment buildings that Ben Weingart would eventually own.
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