Ralph Luther Criswell (October 12, 1861 – November 17, 1947) was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for ten years in the early 20th century.

Criswell was married in December 1885 in Tecumseh, Nebraska, to May Greene of Petersburg, Illinois, and after they moved to California in 1897 they lived in Santa Paula for a year, then settled at 529 West 41st Place, Los Angeles.

Criswell died in his home at 4728 Whitewood Avenue, Lakewood Village, Long Beach on November 17, 1947, and was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery.

The next year, in advance of a new campaign for City Council, he resigned from what was called the "red card" wing of the Socialist Party, writing in a letter to E.L. Osgood, chapter secretary: The Socialist movement has far outgrown the present party machinery, and I have decided to cast my lot with that large and constantly growing body of Socialists who believes that the red card organization has outlived its usefulness and that Socialism can no be better advanced through an organization formed as an ordinary political party .

In 1921 he was opposed by the Los Angeles Examiner but editorially endorsed by the Times,[10] and he thereupon placed second in the general election, after Robert Stewart Sparks.

1924, 1926 In both 1924 and 1926 Criswell was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Congress on a platform heavily directed toward completion of a dam in Boulder Canyon, Arizona, to bring water to Southern California.

Criswell was "credited with the successful passage of the ordinance whereby the unimportant city employee share equally with the 'white collar job holder in holidays and vacation privileges.

[17][18] At Criswell's urging and with his vigorous support, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution in April 1919 opposing what it said would be a "covenant for 'racial equality' that it had been "credibly informed" would be considered by the World War I peace conference then meeting in Paris.

The Criswell resolution claimed that the covenant would "grant oriental countries free immigration, naturalization, the elective franchise, the privilege to own agricultural and other lands and the right of intermarriage.

"[19] The Times broke a major story on June 6, 1922, with a photograph of an application for membership in the Ku Klux Klan, bearing Criswell's signature, stating that: I, the undersigned, a native born true and loyal citizen of the United States of America, being a white male Gentile person of temperate habits, sound in mind, and a believer in the tenets of the Christian religion, the maintenance of White Supremacy, the practice of an honorable clannishness and the principles of "pure Americanism," do voluntarily most respectfully, seriously and unselfishly petition you for citizenship in the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan , , , ,[20]Away in Washington, D.C., since May 30, Criswell at first said he did not know anything about it, but when he returned to Los Angeles he affirmed that he had signed the application, in blank, but that he had "no knowledge of the workings of the Klan."

"[22] Criswell locked horns with Police Chief Louis D. Oaks on several occasions, at one point in 1922 making "startling charges" that "members of the police department have been levying thousands of dollars in protection money"[23][24] and at another blocking for several weeks a request by the chief for 1,500 badges for his officers and 50 Dodge automobiles for his department.