The New Order of Cincinnatus (NOOC) was a young men's political organization established in Seattle, Washington in the 1930s. The short-lived "conservative and moralistic reform group" was a municipal party that challenged both the Democratic and Republican parties, electing David Lockwood (in 1934) and Frederick G. Hamley, a lawyer, public official and judge, and Arthur B. Langlie (in 1935) to the Seattle City Council.Nard Jones (1972), Seattle, Garden City, New York: Doubleday. . p. 209–210. Jones says "George Lockwood", but Seattle City Council Members, 1869-Present Chronological Listing, Seattle City Archives, accessed 9 August 2009, says "David E. Lockwood". Lockwood, age 26 at the time of his election, was the youngest person ever to sit on the council.Chuck Taylor, Ralph B. Potts, Political Reformer, Attorney And Promoter Of The Arts, Seattle Times, April 19, 1991. Accessed online 9 August 2008. In 1938, Langlie became Seattle mayor, but by then the NOOC was fading. During its brief existence, the group spread beyond Seattle, and was active in Tacoma, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco.Preliminary Guide to the Russell O. Vognild Papers, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. Accessed online 9 August 2008. Cites for Tacoma.Preliminary Guide to the Corbett McLean Papers, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. Accessed online 9 August 2008. Cites for Portland.Preliminary Guide to the George McLaughlin Papers, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. Accessed online 9 August 2008. Cites for San Francisco.
The nature of NOOC An outgrowth of Seattle's non-partisan Municipal League,David Wilma, Depression, The Great, 1929-1939, HistoryLink, March 5, 2002. Accessed online 9 August 2008. named for the Roman farmer and statesman Cincinnatus, the NOOC was founded in September 1933 by approximately 10 young men including Seattle attorney Ralph Bushnell Potts.; Potts gives a detailed account of discussions beginning in August leading to formal founding in September. Potts, who Richard C. Berner describes as the "prime mover and first commander" of the NOOC, had resigned from the presidency of the Consolidated Republican Clubs of King County to start the group. The NOOC's idealistic, mostly middle-class professional supporters reacted against both political corruption and labor unionism. They required the candidates they supported to disaffiliate from the established political parties and to limit campaign contributions to US$25. A May 1934 NOOC leaflet called for a "rebirth of political idealism among the younger citizens of America… [T]he major political parties have become nothing but job-hunting cliques… Cincinnatus advocates a Spartan-like devotion to honesty, efficiency, and ability in government."Frederick G. Hamley Papers, University of Washington Library, Box 18-1, quoted in The group called for a reduction of 40% in Seattle city taxes, in a context where the city had already made large cuts: by the time the NOOC had a significant foothold on the city council, opposing councilman James Scavotto could argue that the city had already cut operating costs 50% in five years.
The NOOC also advocated a vastly increased state-level police constabulary, with no intermediate levels between the state and municipalities. This police force would consist entirely of men under age 40, trained by a State Police School, and enlisting for a military-style four-year term rather than being free to resign at any time.
The NOOC restricted its membership to men ages 21 to 35, indicates that those who "enlisted" before the age of 35 were allowed to remain members until they turned 40, and that there was eventually a notion of "auxiliary" status for older men and for women. and was organized along military lines to the point of resembling a fascist organization. By December 1933, Potts had built the NOOC into an organization with 17 divisions in Washington State each headed by a "captain"; statewide officers were "majors" and "colonels". In early 1934, 50 Cincinnatans marched to city hall to file three candidate petitions for city council, all of them dressed in white shirts and green and yellow headpieces (the colors of Seattle's Roosevelt High School). They used a slightly rewritten version of Sigmund Romberg's "Stout Hearted Men" as their anthem. This "proto-fascist" style was a matter of tension within the organization from the outset. NOOC councilman Frederick Hamley's diary indicates that he and his fellow councilman David Lockwood generally disliked this aspect of the group and focused mainly on local municipal issues. In February 1934 they and others defeated a proposal that the members of the organization should routinely stand and salute Potts when he entered the room.
History in Seattle
1934 NOOC formed in September 1933. The next month they demanded the resignation of King County Commissioner John C. Stevenson (born John C. Stockman). Stevenson had avoided extradition to New York, where he was wanted for stock fraud; the NOOC further accused him of mismanagement of the county relief. They failed, but the attention gained encouraged them to run candidates for public office themselves. David Lockwood, Wellington Rhinehart, and Lloyd Johnson filed to run in the February 1934 primaries. Their total campaign budget was less than US$600.
Seattle City Council offices are officially nonpartisan, and there is no official acknowledgment or a party or ticket. These three NOOC candidates in 1934 got around this by all listing "Cincinnatus" as their middle names on the ballot, which the election officials permitted. In this period, three of the nine Seattle City Council positions were up for election each year, with the top six candidates in the primary election going on to a general election.
The NOOC candidates were supported by the Washington Taxpayers Council, as was conservative incumbent John E. Carroll. Of the Cincinnatans, only Lockwood made it through the primaries,According to , Lockwood came in sixth in the primary, just making the cut; the other Cincinnatus candidates were in two of the next four places, out of a field of 35. but he gained office despite a complete lack of newspaper endorsements, coming in second in the general election.That is according to . says he came in first and had the second-highest vote total recorded up to that time by any councilmanic candidate. He took office in June amidst the Maritime Strike of 1934, which had led to lethal violence in Seattle.BOLA Architecture + Planning & Northwest Archaeological Associates, Inc., Port of Seattle North Bay Project DEIS: Historic and Cultural Resources , Port of Seattle, April 5, 2005, p. 13 (page 15 of the PDF). Accessed online 25 July 2008.
Elected mayor at the same time Lockwood joined the council was Charles William Smith. Smith and his police chief, W. B. Kirtley, undoubtedly tolerated Seattle's then-longstanding police corruption. Lockwood further accused Smith of profiting personally from this corruption and tied Smith's toleration of corruption to his toleration of a growing budget deficit. Among the remedies he proposed were a fixed term for police chiefs, making the chief more independent of the mayor (and thereby separating the mayor from any system of police payoffs).
Carried away by their success in Seattle and the interest in forming other chapters around the state, the NOOC contested the statewide November elections. Among their candidates were William J. Wilkins for U. S. Senate, Cecil R. Fuller for the 1st District congressional seat, and John W. Day for King County Prosecutor. Running with great enthusiasm but very little budget, they did not elect anyone, but did have the best third-party results of any slate since the Bull Moosers in 1912.
1935 In the 1935 election, the NOOC ran only two candidates for the three available city council seats, endorsing former PTA president Mildred Powell for the third seat. Originally the two NOOC candidates were to be Frederick Hamley and Leo Mortland, but the latter was a bit too enthusiastic in identifying as a Republican. When he gleefully announced his endorsement by the 36th District Republican Club, the NOOC decided he was no longer their candidate and replaced him with Arthur Langlie (although Langlie was never an official member of the NOOC).
Incumbents William Gaines, Frank Fitts, and David Levine chose to campaign jointly, with the backing of the Central Labor Council and the newly formed Washington Commonwealth Federation. They accused the NOOC of being a "secret organization" and intending to impose a "fascist dictatorship". Nonetheless, Langlie and Frederick Hamley led in the primaries, followed by the incumbents; the sixth candidate was the NOOC-endorsed Powell. This time, Langlie and Hamley gained the endorsements of all three major dailies. Of the incumbents, only Levine secured any such endorsement, from the Seattle Star. Langlie and Hamley came in as the top two in the general election. Powell was also elected. It was Levine's only defeat in a political career lasting more than three decades.Seattle City Council Members, 1869-Present Chronological Listing. Accessed online 9 August 2008."David Levine, former city councilman, dies", Seattle Times, May 9, 1972, p. C15."David Levine, Long Active On City Council", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 10, 1972. Because of some resignations, Langlie and Hamley took office immediately after the election.
Secure in the knowledge that they needed only one other council vote to override any mayoral veto, the three NOOC council members used these council positions to investigate corruption and to reduce city spending. Lockwood updated proposals he already had for a central purchasing office and a central garage; he also framed a response to municipally owned Seattle City Light's proposal to buy out the Seattle operations of the Puget Sound Power and Light Company, which the NOOC opposed. Hamlie and Langlie were assigned to investigate the city's street railway system, which was in chronic financial trouble,Peterson, Lorin & Davenport, Noah C. (1950), Living in Seattle, Seattle: Seattle Public Schools, p. 145-146. and the police department. As they turned up substantial evidence of police corruption, it became clear that Powell would also be interested in proposals to reform the police. The council voted 5 to 4 for a budget that would cut 120 city jobs, mainly in the police and fire departments and public schools. Mayor Smith vetoed this, and his veto was sustained because Powell opposed the school cuts. The city budget was put on hold until September.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer attacked Mayor Smith for running a "wide open" city, for refusing to make cuts in the departments controlled by the mayor's office, for being associated with a corrupt police-based political machine, and for a recent upsurge in illegal gambling, prostitution, and Sunday liquor sales. The P-I was not alone in these views: The Argus compared Smith to the legendarily corrupt Hiram Gill and the United States Navy made it known that they were considering placing the entire city of Seattle off limits for sailors on leave. Further condemnations of this state of affairs came from the Clean Government League, the Morals Committee of the Council of Churches, and the Philippine-American Chronicle, which published detailed exposés of the "Chinese Gambling Syndicate" and the police's policy of closing down only the "small fry".