THE VERDICT:The day I sat at boss’ desk

About the closest thing to a political boss I can recall in Orange County was W.B. “Bry” Williams. From the 1920s through the ‘40s, he exercised enormous influence over political affairs as the quiet but acknowledged head of the county’s power structure. Few were elected or appointed to important political office without his approval.

This was not a big-city-type machine with ward heelers, precinct captains and rigged elections. Williams was the president of the First National Bank of Santa Ana, and he operated as the leader of a loose confederation of large landowners and wealthy men who, by dint of their position in the community, exerted a great deal of influence in various parts of the county.

Many of the names are familiar today, even if people don’t know the connection.

There were the Spurgeons and the Jeromes in Santa Ana, the Kuchels and McFaddens in Anaheim, the Chapmans in Fullerton, the Kraemers in Placentia, the Utts in Tustin, the Edwards in Orange, Horace Head in Garden Grove, Tom Talbert in what is now Fountain Valley and Phil Stanton in the west end of the county.

This list is not comprehensive, just representative. You notice there are no coastal towns listed. That’s because the coast didn’t count. Seal Beach and Newport Beach were summer resorts. Huntington Beach was an oil field. Laguna Beach was an artists’ colony. Dana Point was nothing but miles of paved streets meandering through acres of vacant lots. San Clemente was a scattering of white houses with red tile roofs, the remnants of Ole Hanson’s dream.

Williams and his friends ran the country as benevolent despots. Like most despots, they thought their decisions were for the good of the county. A democratic system it was not. Women were not represented, nor minorities, and there were virtually no Democrats.

Williams was a stocky, erect man with a square jaw, a thatch of white hair and a peculiar, military-like gait. Each day he marched from his home — a small, white-frame dwelling on the corner of 15th and Main streets in Santa Ana, to the bank at 4th Street and Main. There he held court.

Appearances before him were as stylized as an oriental dance. His desk was just inside the railing at the bank. For common people, he sat at his desk while the common person leaned against the railing to talk to him. Important people stayed behind the railing, but Williams stood up and talked to them eyeball to eyeball. For really important people, Williams not only stood, he invited them inside the railing to sit at the desk.

I know about this because I went through the chairs, so to speak. As a young, struggling and normally ambitious lawyer, I regularly stood at the railing to speak to him while he sat at his desk. Then, when I was appointed to the Superior Court, I moved up a notch. He stood to speak to me.

But when I won my first election, wow!

Williams was a political animal. Success was measured at the ballot box, and I had passed the litmus test.

I can even remember what he said: “Every precinct! Three to one! Bob, that’s a record!”

That was when Williams invited me inside the railing to sit at his desk. That was when I knew I had arrived.