Angelo Joseph Rossi
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Angelo Joseph Rossi (January 22, 1878 – April 4, 1948) was a U.S. political figure who served as mayor of San Francisco.
Rossi was born in Volcano, Amador County, California. He was president of a florist firm.
A Republican, he served as San Francisco's mayor from 1931 to 1944. Rossi was mayor when the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge were built, and he presided over the building of Treasure Island and the "Golden Gate International Exposition" (World's Fair) of 1939. Under his administration, the city resisted compliance with the Raker Act which required San Francisco to sell power from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite to municipalities or municipal water districts, and not to any corporations, a condition of use of the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
He was adamantly anti-Communist, and labeled labor organizing and strikes as the work of agitators. During the July San Francisco general strike of 1934, Rossi organized a committee to thwart the strike and move freight; he called on Governor Merriam to send the National Guard to quell the strike. Two strikers were killed by bullets, and eighty-five were hospitalized. In an exrtended trike in the late 1930s, Rossi attacked Harry Bridges, West Coast C.I.O. leader, saying the city is "sick of alien" in a telegram to President Roosevelt asking federal intervention. During World War II, he called for "more detailed investigation of Japanese-Americans" than those of Germans or Italians.
He died in 1948, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma, California. A playground in the Richmond district of San Francisco is named for him.
Preceded by: James Rolph, Jr. |
Mayor of San Francisco 1931–1944 |
Succeeded by: Roger Lapham |
[edit] References
- http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist5/treasis.html
- http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist4/maritime13.html
- http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rossi.html/Labor Day Speech Monday, September 4, 1939