Memoirs of Peter Boudoures Chapter 17 Dr. Angel Runs for Supervisor

Dr. Peter Angel 1931 AHEPA Photo

The Maison Paul Restaurant, from the time that I became president of the Greek-American League and up to the time that it ceased doing business in 1961, had become the center of activities for the Greek community. There was a table in the dining room where every day my old friends Dr. Peter Angel, Jimmy Baldas, Dr. Christ Abramopoulos, Charles Constantine, Ted Andronicos, John Vellis, Chris Katon, Peter Papageorge and many others would gather for lunch. They always found something to talk about. And I, not having any better sense, spent half my time near the table listening and participating in the conversation. I should have been taking better care of the customers coming in, greeting them, and seeing that they were served properly.

I want to tell you about John Vellis, an outstanding Greek, and how he initiated our first campaign to get a Greek-American elected to public office. He had started as on office boy with Guggenheim and Company, the second largest dry fruit packers in California, located on California Street in San Francisco. He eventually became a buyer, then general manager, and then president of the company. He was an exceptional person, a man of character, ability, honesty and full of good ideas. Once or twice a week he'd walk all the way from California and Battery Street to the Maison Paul for lunch. One evening he and Dr. Angel came in for dinner and sat in one of the private booths. I could tell they had something special in mind and they finally let the "cat out of the bag." They were considering having Dr. Angel declare his candidacy for the Board of Supervisors in the 1929 elections. I knew that the doctor had enough knowledge, willingness and ability to make a good supervisor. Still, I did not look upon it with favor. Not that I didn't like to see him as Supervisor, I would have loved it, but I felt that we did not have enough Greek voters. Also, we were not well enough known. We did not have the support of the Downtown Association, or of the Chamber of Commerce, or of the newspapers, or of labor, all of which were essential for any candidate to have even half a chance to be elected.

I tried to explain this not so much to the doctor, because he always looked at things with an optimistic view, he always saw the bright side of things; but, to John Vellis who was a conservative man. Somehow the doctor had convinced John that we must support the doctor and we must do our utmost to get him elected. So, it fell upon me to assume the chairmanship of collecting money from our own people. I made my contribution. Then I went out and worked. I think we raised about seven or eight thousand dollars which at that time was a lot of money. There were about forty-nine candidates running for supervisor.

We put on quite a campaign. We hired a public relations man, Joe O'Conner, who was very popular and very sincere. He had good connections with the press and with various organizations. He has since passed away' but, we had become good friends. Later on when the AHEPA convention was held in San Francisco we hired him to handle the publicity. After that, we hired him again during the Second World War to help with the Greek War Relief.

However, when the elections were over in 1929 the doctor was fifteenth, with six to be elected. So, all we accomplished was to tell the world that we were alive and a power to be reckoned with. We had placed on the ballot an unknown candidate who had held no political office, from the smallest minority of foreign citizens, and he came in fifteenth out of forty-nine candidates. He received a total of 22,000 votes when the entire Greek population, men, women and children, was not more than 5,000. Subsequently, the doctor was appointed Greek interpreter in the local courts together with Nicholas Valianos who had been appointed earlier. As a result of this campaign and at the cost of about seven to eight thousand dollars, we were able to remind the politicians that we were still here and were a power with which they had to reckon.