Los Angeles County
Biographies
DR. JOHN RANDOLPH HAYNES
HAYNES, DR. JOHN
RANDOLPH, Physician, Los Angeles, California;
born Fairmont Springs, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania,
June 13, 1853; Father, James Sydney Haynes; mother Elvira Mann (Koons) Haynes. At
the age of 21 he received the degrees of M.D. and Ph.D. from the University
of Pennsylvania. Eight years later he married Miss Dora
Fellows of Wilkesbarre,
Pennsylvania. Owing to the ill health of members of his
family he removed to Los Angeles in 1887, after thirteen
years’ practice in Philadelphia. Here he engaged in the practice of medicine,
with his brother Francis, who attained great eminence as a surgeon, but whose
brilliant career was in 1898 cut short by death.
Dr. J. R. Haynes
has served as a member of the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission, with the
exception of a few months’ interval, from the date of its inception in
1903. In 1900 he organized The Direct
Legislation League of California and has served as its president up to the
present time.
Dr. Haynes is
referred to in the “California Outlook” of September 9, 1911, by its editor,
Mr. Charles D. Willard, in the following terms:
“There is in Dr.
John R. Haynes some of the material of which great law-makers are made, also
something of the hero and martyr, also a bit of the prophet and seer, and a lot
of the keen, vigorous man of affairs. It
took all of that to accomplish what he has put to his credit in the State of California. He arrived in Los Angeles
from Philadelphia in 1887 and
started right to work for direct legislation.
It took ten years to make the people understand what it was, and then
five years more to get it into the Los Angeles
city carter. He did it; nobody can
dispute the honor with him; and he was abused and insulted every inch of the
way. For ten years and more he has been
urging every State Legislature to let the people vote on a “people’s-rule”
amendment. At last he won that fight. Incidentally, as mere side issues, it might
be mentioned that he is one of the most eminent physicians of California, that
he is one of the city’s largest property holders, and that he is personally one
of the most poplar men in that part of the country.”
The foregoing
gives some insight into the progressive, practical quality which dominates Dr.
Haynes’ efforts in behalf of all worthy movements calculated by him to be for
the greatest good of the greatest number.
He was the first
to agitate the question of the adoption of the Initiative, Referendum and
Recall provisions for the city of Los Angeles, and largely through his untiring
energy they became, in 1903, a part of the city’s charter. The incorporation of the “Recall” was
especially his individual work; the first application of the principle, in
fact, into the actual machinery of government.
On this account he is known through the country as the “Father of the
Recall.” At the time of its adoption Los
Angeles was the only community in the world where a
majority of the electors had at any time the power to discharge unsatisfactory officials. Since that date the Recall has been adopted
by more than two hundred American cities and by three States.
Immediately after
the adoption of these Direct legislation provisions by the city, Dr. Haynes set
to work to secure the same measures for the State; and after eight years of
unremitting effort they were adopted in the election of October 10, 1911, by a
majority of 4 to 1.
An instance of
the practical value of the Initiative in government affairs occurred several
years ago, when Dr. Haynes, by its use, compelled the street railways in Los
Angeles to equip their cars with efficient fenders,
resulting in an enormous saving of life.
At that time the city of Los Angeles
had the highest fatality rate from street car accidents of any city in the
world. After correspondence with
officials of seventy-four cities in Europe and America, he drew up a safety
fender ordinance, which, by means of an initiative petition, he forced through
an unwilling street-railway-bossed Council, with the result that the
superintendent of the company himself some time later voluntarily stated to Dr.
Haynes that these fenders, put on as a result of the Initiative ordinance, he
estimated to have saved in a comparatively short space of time the lives of two
hundred people.
Dr. Haynes is now
endeavoring to reduce the rate of fatality in the coal mines of the United
States, which is now five times as great as in Europe. After a personal inspection of European mines
and interviews with many experts there and at home, he is strenuously
advocating the establishment of an interstate mining commission empowered to
prescribe safety regulations. He thinks
coal mines still owned by the nation should not be sold, but retained by the
Nation and operated either by the government or by leases safeguarding the
interest of the Nation and the lives of the miners.
Dr. Haynes is a
member of a large number of societies and clubs, medical, philanthropic, civic
and social in character, and State, national and even international in the
range of their activities.
Transcribed 6-4-08
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 51,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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