While orange groves were being uprooted to make way for suburbia, and new six-lane freeways reached out to ease the swollen traffic arteries, one of the few unchanging Los Angeles landmarks over the past 14 years has been its mayor, Fletcher
Bowron. A onetime newspaper reporter and superior court judge, Bowron swept into office in 1938 as a reform candidate, soon established good, grey government in the City of the Angels, and was re-elected three times on the strength of it.
But as the city changed, so did its political habits. Expansion spawned some...