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Volume 063-4 - October 2009 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
NCHS Bulletin October 2009
such economic controls weren’t deemed necessary. General Johnson was identified as “dictator” of NRA, hardly a
term of support. An editorial cartoon showed a pugnacious
Johnson, sleeves rolled up, poking the stomach of an overweight gentleman labeled as “Industry” and holding a sign
that read, “Intelligent and Planned Operation of Business,
OR ELSE—.”
In time editor Edmund Kinyon acquiesced to the new
federal program as he came to hope that it might improve
the business climate. After several weeks of watching local
merchants and tradesmen as they embraced the code, the
newspaperman wrote words of strong support: “This is a
ove
magnificent experiment and it behooves the people to support it unqualifiedly. ... The NRA touches everyone.”
When the editor wrote that “patriotic Republicans
throughout the country are standing loyally behind the
President in his efforts to relieve distress,” he may have had
a particular Republican in mind. If there was one person
responsible for winning the editor’s support for NRA it was
his trusted friend, Charles Edward Clinch, the merchant and
political leader. Clinch used to come into the newspaper office and pull up a chair alongside Kinyon’s desk and the two
men would talk about the history of the gold region, always
a favorite subject, and discuss politics and current events.
Kinyon remembered:
Ever his stay was short, but therein I glimpsed something of the ideals which were his, the visions which he
cherished, the regrets which beset him in matters where
he felt his achieving had fallen short.
During such quiet conversations, Clinch undoubtedly
talked about the NRA. As a pioneer merchant, self-made
man and loyal Republican, Clinch was at once the least
likely and most effective spokesman for the local efforts of
the New Deal. His enthusiasm for the President’s programs
indicated the wide support that Roosevelt drew on in the
early days of his administration.
C. E. Clinch, a trim man with white hair and moustache,
a neat tie and a handkerchief protruding from his breast
pocket, was 75 when the NRA came along. At that stage of
life he could look back on a brilliant career. He had grown
up with California and had flourished in its principle goldproducing county. The son of immigrant parents, Clinch was
born in El Dorado County, California, in 1858. His father,
Patrick Clinch, originated in Ireland and came to California
around Cape Horn in 1850. His mother, Isabella Eliza Gill,
was born in Sydney, Australia and came to California with
her family in the same year. The elder Clinches married in
the Episcopal church in Coloma, El Dorado County. When
their son Charles was eight they moved to Grass Valley, a,
spending their first night there at the Wisconsin Hotel.
The elder Clinch died in 1866, leaving a widow and two
sons, and destining Charles to begin his working life early.
His mother supported the family as a seamstress while her
son completed his grammar school education at the Winchester School in Grass Valley. His education beyond that
came from studying at night. He started his career as a clerk
in a store and eventually became a partner in a local grocery. In 1889 he established the Clinch & Company grocery
in Grass Valley. The Clinch grocery incorporated as Clinch
Mercantile Company in 1903 and developed into the largest
grocery business in the county. Soon after he came to the
area in 1911, Edmund Kinyon wandered into Clinch Mercantile:
During my first meandering along the quaint and
crooked streets of Grass Valley—looking diligently for
the grass which was not and the valley which was not—I
entered, quite by chance and without the slightest foreknowledge, a Mill Street store bearing the sign, Clinch
Mercantile Company—and my astonishment that so
pretentious merchandizing was to be found in a mountain ~~,
town which, to my unaccustomed eyes, seemed small
and not a little nondescript, is something still to recall.