Los Angeles County
Biographies
JOHN PERRY WOOD
WOOD, JOHN PERRY, Judge, Superior Court, Los Angeles, Cal, was born at Baltimore, Md., March 30, 1879, the son of Rev. John A. Wood, and Ida L. (Perry) Wood. His father is a Methodist minister noted for his eloquence and good works. Judge Wood married Claudine B. Hazen of New York City, June 17, 1911, at Pasadena, Cal.
When two weeks old he was taken to Pennsylvania and there received his earliest schooling. Graduating from the Everett, Penn., High School, he entered Dickinson College and in 1900 had received from his alma mater both his B.A. and A.M. degrees. He entered the Yale Law School, graduating in 1902.
After leaving the law school Mr. Wood located in Los Angeles, and after a year with one of the leading law firms of that city, he opened his own office in Pasadena. In May, 1905, upon the election of a city administration pledged to certain reforms, he was asked to accept the appointive office of Judge of the Police Court of Pasadena. After a year he was appointed to the office of City Attorney.
He threw himself into the work of solving the city’s problems and was soon recognized as the brains of the administration. He held the office for four years, under two different administrations, looking after the city’s legal affairs and directing its policies toward the entire dissolution of the public’s business from all private interests. His work for Pasadena has been of advantage in the cause of cities generally. The city was involved in a dispute with a powerful lighting concern over the lighting service given the city and its residents. Investigation was made and it was decided that the electricity supplied for the city street lighting was only one-third of the amount required by the city’s contract. Then Mr. Wood discovered that the lighting contract was unlawful, and advised the City Council that the lighting concern could recover nothing. Under a former administration an attempt had been made to evade a law limiting city lighting contracts to one year by a scheme of leasing the distributing system to the city for a long term of years, and buying energy year by year, the leaving contract calling for two-thirds of the total price. The city offered to pay fifty per cent of the company’s demand. The company refused and kept on furnishing light under the contract, presenting its bills each month and having them refused. After a large amount was piled up suit was commenced in the Federal courts. The City Attorney demurred the company out of both the lower and the Appellate courts, and the company received nothing.
It was in this controversy that Pasadena’s municipal lighting project was born, the people voting bonds for that purpose. The company went into the courts to enjoin their sale and bond buyers were scared off. The city took money from its treasury to start a street lighting plant, and certain citizens sued to enjoin this. The city was harassed with numerous lawsuits in both the State and Federal courts. All of these suits City Attorney Wood won for the city. In the end the bonds were sold and a plant built which furnishes light to the people at five cents per kilowatt, with a profit to the city, as against the twelve and a half cent rate previously charged by the private concern. The latter now sells at four cents per kilowatt, but the city’s plant prospers.
In 1908, the Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company were claiming the right to have their poles and wires in the streets of California cities without franchises from the city. Their old franchises were expiring, and they were claiming rights as interstate lines under old acts of Congress, and under various State statutes gotten in the days before the people woke up. This was probably the City Attorney’s hardest fight, but the cause of the cities was finally won.
Mr. Wood became highly respected by the public as a lawyer and a vigorous advocate of the square deal. As a result, at the elections in 1910 the Lincoln-Roosevelt League of Los Angeles County put him up as a candidate for the office of Judge of the Superior Court. This was without his solicitation and somewhat against his will, for he desired to continue in the work he was doing, but he was elected by a comfortable majority, and has occupied the office since the 1st of January, 1911.
Judge Wood has always been associated with the better movements for political reform in Southern California. He belongs to the Masonic Order, and is a member of the Overland Club and the Annandale Country Club of Pasadena and the Union League Club of Los Angeles.
Transcribed 3-26-10
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 395, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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