Such scenes were often duplicated in the Senate. When the fight over the Direct Primary bill had the Senate by the ears, Johnnie Lynch, George Van Smith, even President of the Senate Warren Porter, exerted themselves to compel concurrence in the machine-backed Assembly amendments. This was done in the Senate chamber, when the Senate was in session, and Johnnie Lynch and Van Smith in particular were conspicuous in the work in behalf of the machine's policy.

But it was noticeable, that those who advocated reform policies took no such liberties on the floor of either House. They knew better. The danger involved for the lobbyist for reform measures was emphasized the night the measure prohibiting the sale of intoxicants within a mile and a half of Stanford University passed the Assembly.

Charles R. Detrick of Palo Alto, during the call of the House ordered on account of the Stanford bill, was discussing the merits of the measure with Assemblyman Bohnett, who was leading the fight for its passage. It was not a case of lobbying at all, for both men were for the bill,

Nevertheless, Assemblyman Schmitt[99a], who overheard Detrick mention the measure, warned the Stanford man, that if he (Detrick) did not cease his "lobbying" for the bill that he (Schmitt) would have him (Detrick) excluded from the chamber.

Senator Walker, although a member of the Senate, had much the same experience. Walker was discussing the Stanford bill with a friend, when one of the opponents of the measure threatened him with expulsion from the floor of the Assembly if he did not desist.

And even while these threats were being made against the proponents of the bill, opponents of the measure were working openly on the floor of the Assembly chamber against its passage. No suggestion was made that the rule prohibiting lobbying be enforced against them.



[98] A party of newspapermen were in Anderson's office one evening, when two or three machine men came in. With a wink to Anderson one of the newspapermen asked - "The head of your detective bureau is that keen looking young fellow, with reddish brown hair and brown eyes, is he not, Anderson?" Anderson joined in the Joke and nodded. One of the machine men left the room immediately. Within an hour, a hunt was being made from one end of Sacramento to the other, for a "keen-looking young man with reddish brown hair and brown eyes."

[99] The communication which insulted Wheelan read as follows:

The Hon. Albert P. Wheelan, Member of Assembly.

Dear Sir: -

The People's Legislative Bureau, organized chiefly for the collection and dissemination of accurate information regarding legislation, and the attitude of members of the Legislature thereon, notes that you are recorded as having been absent when the roll was called on the motion to refer the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill back to the committee.

As our record is intended to be permanent, and will be placed in the hands of all the newspapers and civic organizations throughout the State, we wish to ask if you have any objection to furnishing us the reason for your absence, so that we may enter it upon our record. Respectfully yours,

GEORGE B. ANDERSON,

Secretary.

[99a] This is the same Schmitt who objected so strenuously to professors of the State University being identified with reform movements.



Chapter XXII.

The Machine Lobbyist At Work.

How, Jere Burke Arrayed the County Officials of the State Against Two Beneficial Measures - How the Power of the Southern Pacific Was Employed Against a California Enterprise - Danger Which Constantly Menaces Legitimate Enterprises.



The problem of drawing the line between legitimate and reprehensible lobbying has perplexed wiser men than sat in the California Legislature of 1909.

On the side of the lobbyist it may be said there seems no good reason why a citizen or representative of a corporation which is interested in pending legislation should not appear at the Capitol and in a legitimate way present his case to the members of the Legislature. In fact, the theory of committee consideration of measures introduced in Senate or Assembly, is based on the principle that it is the citizen's right to be heard on any matter that may be pending before the Legislature. The citizen cannot be heard before either the Senate or Assembly; he can, however, present his case to the committee the decision of which carries weight with that branch of the Legislature for which it acts. No one can object, for example, that Mr. P. F. Dunne appeared before the Senate Committee on Corporations, when the Railroad Regulation bill was under consideration, to present the railroad's side. Mr. Dunne appeared openly and aboveboard, and although he sought deliberately to misrepresent the situation to the Committee, nevertheless to object to his visiting Sacramento, or even to the work which he did while there, would be forced and far-fetched.

In the same way, Mr. Seth Mann, representing the shippers of California, appeared before the Committee and presented the side of the shippers. Mr. Mann spoke for the shippers precisely as Mr. Dunne spoke for the railroads. Mr. Mann, however, did not stoop to misrepresentation and deception.

But if Mr. Dunne for the railroads or Mr. Mann for the shippers had departed from openly-presented argument to buttonhole Senators or Assemblymen to tell them they must vote for or against a given measure, or look out for trouble, immediately would he be open to criticism. If either went during roll call from Legislator to Legislator to tell the members how they were to vote, again would he be justly criticized. Or had Mr. Dunne employed the influence of the great corporation which he represents to defeat or pass a measure in which his company can have no legitimate interest, again would there be good reason for complaint. Mr. Dunne could very properly - while acting as agent of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company - urge in a legitimate way the corporation's objections to the Demurrage bill, to the Full Crew bill, to the Railroad Regulation bill, or any other measure affecting common carriers. But for Mr. Dunne to have employed the influence of his position as political representative of a common carrier to force the passage of the Change of Venue bill for example, or defeat an effective Direct Primary bill, or the Party Circle bill, or the Judicial Column bill, would have been most reprehensible, for the Southern Pacific Company can have no legitimate interest in any of these measures.

So far as the writer knows, Mr. Dunne did not concern himself with any measure, except those in which his company was legitimately interested. But paid servants of the Southern Pacific Company were at Sacramento throughout the entire session, and managed to have their fingers in about all that was going on. The most conspicuous of them was Mr. J. T. Burke, more familiarly known as "Jere" Burke.

A fair sample of Burke's methods - and Burke is merely typical of the objectionable lobbyist - is found in the campaign which was carried on against Senate Bills 1229 and 1230. Had these measures become laws, it would have been possible for county assessors to discover property, owned principally by public service corporations, which at present escapes taxation. It is estimated that the total taxable value of this untaxed property is $100,000,000. It is not taxed because assessors have no means of reaching it. Mr. Burke's company could have no legitimate interest in Senate Bills 1229 and 1230. This statement is made, of course, on the assumption that the officials of the Southern Pacific Company aim to make honest returns to the tax collector. But to return to Senate Bills 1229 and 1230, and Burke's connection with them.

The two measures were intended to amend sections of the Codes relating to the assessment of property. Section 3681 of the Political Code provides that "during the session of the Board (of Supervisors sitting as a Board of Equalization) it may direct the Assessor to assess any taxable property that has escaped assessment, or to add to the amount, number and quality of property, when a false or incompetent list has been rendered."

Under this section, as it at present reads, the Supervisors may direct the Assessor to assess property that may have escaped assessment, but there is no machinery provided by which the property may be discovered. Senate Bill 1229 provided the machinery by which the unassessed property might be discovered, by adding to the section quoted above: "And the Board (the Supervisors sitting as a Board of Equalization) may employ legal or other assistance in discovering any taxable property that has escaped assessment in the performance of their duties under this section."

Senate Bill 1230, the companion bill, provided that the Supervisors may subpena witnesses in all matters pending before them when sitting as a Board of Equalization. Under the present law, they can compel attendance of witnesses only upon the particular point under consideration.

The necessity of the amendments was generally admitted. The task of the Assessor is at best no easy one. Through his deputies he must list all the property in his county - that he can find.

The holdings of the small property owners are in sight, and, down to the last chicken, go on the assessment roll.

The property of the large corporation is not so readily discovered and $100,000,000 worth of it, according to conservative estimate, escapes assessment. The Assessors, with comparatively small force of deputies, have no way to force its assessment.

The Board of Supervisors, sitting as a Board of Equalization, may know that the unassessed property is in existence, but has no way to reach it. The Board may, under section 3681 of the Political Code quoted above, direct the Assessor to assess it, but the law stops there. There is no machinery provided for the discovery of the property. Senate Bills 1229 and 1230 provided the machinery. They were introduced by Senator Sanford of Mendocino. Before their significance was appreciated by Southern Pacific lobbyists, the Senate Judiciary Committee had recommended them for passage.

When Burke did grasp the significance of the measures, he demanded of Sanford that they be withdrawn. The argument which Burke advanced against them was in effect as follows:

"These bills are the most un-American propositions I ever heard of," said Burke. "They make of the Boards of Supervisors inquisitorial bodies. The corporations have property which they prefer to conceal. They prefer arbitrary assessments. They do not care to make returns to the Assessor. The passage of these bills would compel them to make returns."

In other words, the corporations, if Jere Burke, their legislative representative, reflects their sentiments, prefer that the Assessors continue to guess at the value of their properties. If the guess be too high, the corporations can compel reductions; if the guess be too low, they rest content. But, however the corporations may approve the guessing method of assessment, it has not proved equable, has not been fair to the farmer, the merchant and the householder, who under oath make honest returns to the Assessor.

Burke's argument, however, failed to move Sanford. The Senator from Mendocino refused to withdraw the bills. And then a curious thing happened. The members of the Senate were, within three days after Sanford had refused to withdraw the bills, fairly swamped with telegrams and letters from County Assessors and County Supervisors, protesting against the passage of the bills, on the ground that their passage would be a reflection upon the County Assessors of the State. Many who thus telegraphed or wrote, stated that they had not seen the bills but added in effect, "We understand that they are bad bills and should be defeated."

Of course, there was no evidence that Burke or his agents had instigated the telegrams. But there was a shrewd suspicion that such was the case. Sanford's answer to the Supervisors and Assessors was most effective. He mailed them copies of the Sacramento Bee which set forth the actual purpose of the bills, and copies of the bills themselves. Immediately Assessors and Supervisors who had wired their Senators to oppose the bills, sent telegrams withdrawing their opposition.

In passing it may be said that neither bill passed the Senate. Bill No. 1229 passed second reading, but was amended on third reading, March 11, and was not heard of again. Bill No. 1230 passed second reading, but was not read the third time. There are other ways to kill good bills than to bluff their authors into withdrawing them, or by stirring up State-wide antagonism to them. The incident shows, however, the State-wide ramifications of the machine. Within three days it was possible for the machine to create the impression from one end of the State to the other, that Senate Bills 1229 and 1230 were bad bills, measures casting reflection upon the County Assessors. Only the prompt action of Senator Sanford dispelled this impression. It also demonstrates the powerful backing behind the machine agents kept at Sacramento during a Legislative session.

It is bad enough when the far-reaching influence of the machine is employed to defeat measures which provide the machinery to enable public officials to enforce the law, against beneficiaries of the system, but when one of the agents employs this influence to promote his personal interests in a matter in which the particular corporation which he represents can have no interest whatever, particular emphasis is given the evils of the machine domination and reprehensible lobbying. To illustrate:

A peculiar situation which has developed at Owens Lake in Inyo County, made it necessary and proper that slight amendment be made to the law of eminent domain. The water of Owens Lake is heavily charged with soda. Some years ago, the Inyo Development Company was organized to recover this soda. The company invested $200,000 in establishing a soda-ash plant at the lakeside. This does not include the cost of building a railroad from the Lake to Mound House, Nevada, a distance of about 400 miles. The investment proved a success. The company harvests as high as 10,000 tons of soda ash a year. As the product is worth as high as $30 a ton at San Francisco, the enterprise adds an important industry to the developed resources of the State. The method of recovering the soda is simple. The water is drawn from the lake into vats, where it is left to evaporate. The soda is then recovered.

Owing to the fact that the waters of Owens Lake are constantly receding, a considerable strip of land has, during recent years, been uncovered between the company's holdings near the lake. and the water. The water from which the soda is reclaimed has to be piped over this land.

Recently former employees of the Inyo Development Company took up the land lying between the company's property and the lake, and under the name of the Natural Soda Products Company, propose to go into the business of manufacturing soda ash on their own account.

Not long since the new company began to complain of the old company's pipe, which crosses the new company's land. The old company saw that it had trouble ahead unless it could condemn a strip of the recently reclaimed land for a pipe line. It was found, however, that there is no law in California by which this could be done. Under the law of eminent domain land could be condemned for almost any other purpose than to establish a pipe line to carry water not to be used for irrigation or domestic purposes. An attempt was therefore made to have the law governing eminent domain amended so as to read that land could be condemned "for oil pipe lines and pipe lines for conducting the waters of any lake which are not fit for irrigation or domestic purposes, and which contain soda or other minerals' or chemical substances in solution, and also pumps and machinery for raising the same and forcing the same through such pipes."

This amendment was included in Senate Bill 797, and in the companion Assembly Bill 815. Senate Bill 797 passed the Senate and was referred to the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, where the amendment providing for the soda water pipe line was added. This bill received a favorable recommendation from the Assembly Judiciary Committee and was returned to the Assembly. And then a very mysterious thing happened. Without apparent reason the bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Corporations. Provision for soda water pipe lines, so far as the Assembly was concerned, came to a sudden ending.

At the time Senate Bill 797 was undergoing suppression in the Assembly, the companion bill, Assembly Bill 815, was pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The measure was amended to make possible the condemnation of land for a soda water pipe line. Chairman Willis of the Committee expressed himself as satisfied with the amendment. And as amended, the bill was referred back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do pass as amended. Two days later, however, Senator Willis stated on the floor of the Senate that he had information from Inyo County which convinced him that the amendment was not desirable, and should be excluded from the bill. He stated that the county officials of Inyo County opposed the amendment, and for that reason suggested that the amendment be dropped. He stated that the Assembly would refuse to concur in the amendment even though the bill were passed with it. Mr. Willis' wishes were respected and the bill re-amended. Provisions for condemning land for soda water pipe lines came to as dead a stop in the Senate as in the Assembly. The next development in this comparatively unimportant incident of the session, was the discovery that Mr. J. T. Burke of Berkeley, member of the Southern Pacific law department, the Jere Burke of Southern Pacific lobbying, is one of the directors of the Natural Soda Products Company, which owns the land over which the Inyo Development Company would build a pipe line, a pipe line upon which the future prosperity of the Inyo Development Company largely rests. Burke was alleged to have opposed the amendment - and so far as the writer knows the charge was never denied - and with having brought about the defeat of the amendment. In other words, Mr. Burke is charged with throwing the full weight of the influence of the large corporation (the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which he represents) on the side of a small corporation in which he is a director, and against a third corporation, which has large interests at stake. And the citizen who stands for fair play should not lose sight of the fact that Mr. Burke's corporation, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, is the principal factor in the machine which works against good government, fair play, the "square deal" in business and politics which President Roosevelt insisted upon. The Inyo Development Company failed in its perfectly legitimate purpose because arrayed against it was in effect the political influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the tenderloin, and all the other elements that go to make up the political machine in California. And the fact should not be lost sight of that no other independent enterprise in California, even where it has, as has the Inyo Development Company, hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, is immune against similar experiences.

Early in the session when the lobbying question was, because of the excitement over Anderson, decidedly prominent, Sanford in the Senate and Callan in the Assembly introduced bills requiring lobbyists who appear at the Capitol during a legislative session to register their names, the names of their employers and the amount and nature of their compensation. At the close of the session they were, under the terms of the measures, required to file a detailed statement of their expenditures.

Had these measures become laws they might have proved very embarrassing to certain gentlemen who were very well received by the machine element in both Senate and Assembly chamber.

But they didn't become laws.

The Assembly bill went to the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which held it two months, finally, on March 16th, reporting it to the Assembly without recommendation. On March 19th, the measure was refused passage.

The Senate bill went to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee referred it back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do not pass. On January 29th, it, too, was defeated.

The lobbying problem, like Jere Burke, continues with us.



Chapter XXIII.

Influence of the San Francisco Delegation.

Casts Nearly Twenty-five Per Cent of the Vote in Each House - Majority Invariably Found on the Side of the Machine - Opposed Passage of the Walker-Otis Bill - Instrumental in Amending the Direct Primary Law - Defeated Local Option Bill.



The popular idea that the State outside San Francisco is not concerned about political conditions at the metropolis is not borne out by the record of the legislative session of 1909. The San Francisco delegations in Senate and Assembly had, as they always have had and will have for many a year to come, the deciding voice in practically all important issues.

San Francisco elects within one of 25 per cent of the members of the State Senate, and within two of 25 per cent of the Assembly. In other words, nine of the forty Senators come from San Francisco, and eighteen of the eighty Assemblymen. The nine San Francisco Senators and the eighteen San Francisco Assemblymen join with the outside members in making laws not for San Francisco alone, but for the entire State. Their numbers give them decided advantage. The character of the laws passed at a legislative session almost invariably bears the stamp of the character of the San Francisco delegation. The character of the delegation depends upon political conditions at San Francisco. The whole State, then, is concerned in the efforts of the best citizenship of the metropolis to oust from power the corrupt element that has so long dominated San Francisco politics.

The record of the San Francisco delegation at the session of 1909, while better in the Assembly than in the Senate, is not one for San Francisco - or the State for that matter - to enthuse over. The votes on test questions of the eighteen members of the Assembly and of the nine members of the Senate, will be found set forth in tables in the appendix.

The table showing the votes of the nine San Francisco Senators covers sixteen roll calls, on which the San Francisco Senators cast 128 votes, ninety-nine of which were in support of machine policies and only twenty-nine against. Thus the nine Senators averaged on sixteen roll calls, eleven votes for the machine and three votes against. Had the San Francisco Senators broken even on the issues involved; that is to say, had sixty-four of the 128 votes been cast for the machine, and sixty-four against the machine, and the sixty-four anti-machine votes been evenly distributed among the several issues, the machine would have been defeated on every issue coming before the Senate.

The Assembly showing is not quite so overwhelmingly machine as that of the Senate, but it is bad enough. Eleven roll calls are considered. On these the eighteen San Francisco Assemblymen cast a total of 165 votes, of which 108 were for machine policies and fifty-seven against. Thus, even in the Assembly, the vote was approximately 2 to 1 in favor of the machine. Of the fifty-seven anti-machine votes, eleven were cast by Callan, who made an absolutely clean record, nine by Gerdes and seven by Lightner, a total of twenty-seven for the three. Deducted from the total of anti-machine votes, this leaves only thirty anti-machine votes for the remaining fifteen members of the delegation. Or to put it the other way, Callan, Gerdes and Lightner cast among them only four machine votes, which leaves 104 machine votes cast by the other fifteen San Francisco members.

On the individual issues the San Francisco Senators and Assemblymen made as bad a showing as does their vote in the aggregate. The passage of the Walker-Otis Racetrack Gambling bill for example demonstrates that the poolsellers had little hold upon the legislators of any community of the State outside of San Francisco. In the Senate but seven votes were cast against the bill. Five of the seven came from the San Francisco delegation - Finn, Hare, Hartman, Reily and Wolfe. The two remaining came from Alameda and Shasta-Siskiyou Counties. Leavitt, representing Alameda, and Weed, representing Shasta and Siskiyou, voted with the five San Francisco Senators against suppressing bookmaking and pool-selling.

The record of the San Francisco Assembly delegation on the anti-gambling measure is scarcely less suggestive. Before the Walker-Otis bill could pass the Assembly the proponents of the measure had to win six fights, as is shown by the table giving the several votes taken in the Assembly on the Walker-Otis bill. The three most important of the six were:

1. To prevent the bill being referred back to the Committee on Public Morals.

2. To pass the measure on third reading without amendment.

3. To prevent reconsideration of the vote by which the bill had been passed.

In the first fight twenty-three Assemblymen voted to refer the bill back to the Committee. Of these twelve - more than one-half - were from San Francisco.

The day of the second fight, only ten Assemblymen voted on the side of the gamblers. Every one of the ten was from San Francisco.

In the third fight, on the motion to reconsider, nineteen Assemblymen voted for reconsideration. Of these, ten, more than fifty per cent, were from San Francisco.

Or, to put it in a lump, in the three most important fights over the Walker-Otis bill in the Assembly, in the aggregate fifty-two votes were cast against the measure. Of these, thirty-two were from San Francisco Assemblymen. Only twenty were from outside San Francisco.

The universal demand throughout the State for the passage of an anti-pool selling measure offset the influence and the vote of the San Francisco delegation in both Senate and Assembly. But in the issues more involved, where the lines were more closely drawn, San Francisco practically made the laws for the whole State. This could be demonstrated by many instances. The most striking perhaps are shown by the histories of the Direct Primary measure and the Railroad Regulation bills.

When the first fight over the Direct Primary bill came up in the Senate, it will be remembered, the anti-machine forces defeated the machine by a vote of twenty-seven to thirteen. Of the thirteen Senators who voted to amend the bill to the liking of Wolfe and Leavitt, six - almost fifty per cent - were from San Francisco. They were Finn, Hare, Hartman, Kennedy, Reily, Wolfe.

When the machine element had succeeded in amending the Direct Primary measure to its liking in the Assembly and there came a new alignment on the bill in the Senate, eight of the nine San Francisco Senators voted with Wolfe and Leavitt for the amendments, which denied the people of California State-wide vote on candidates for the United States Senate. One San Francisco Senator only, Anthony, voted with the better element in the Senate, against the amendments.

Had only two of the nine Senators from San Francisco voted for the bill in its original form, the measure would have been passed by a vote of twenty-one to nineteen without the machine amendments.

The influence of the San Francisco members in shaping the Direct Primary law was even more forcibly illustrated in the Assembly. Of the eighteen San Francisco Assemblymen, fifteen voted for the Assembly amendments, two, Callan and Gerdes, voted against them, and Hopkins is not recorded as voting.

It will be remembered that the amendments were read into the bill by a vote of thirty-six to thirty-eight. Had the San Francisco delegation divided even on this vote, had nine voted for the amendments and nine against, the vote would have been forty-three against putting them in the bill, and thirty-two for, the bill would not have been amended in the Assembly; it would have become a law in the same shape that it had originally passed the Senate. It is noticeable that in an Assembly of eighty members, only twenty-three of the Assemblymen who voted for the Assembly amendments to the Direct Primary bill were from outside San Francisco. In the Senate eight of the twenty Senators who voted for the amendments were from San Francisco, only twelve were from outside that city. Thus, out of 120 members in the Legislature, ninety-three of whom were from outside San Francisco, only thirty-five from districts outside the metropolis voted for the Assembly, or machine amendments to the Direct Primary bill. But twenty-three of the twenty-seven San Francisco Senators and Assemblymen did vote for them, and only three of the San Francisco members voted against them.

It will be seen that the people of California who live outside San Francisco are decidedly interested in the character of Senators and Assemblymen whom that city sends to the Legislature.

The people of San Francisco are, of course, as much concerned over reasonable regulation of the transportation companies as Californians living outside that city. But the San Francisco Senators were a unit in their opposition to the passage of an effective railroad regulation measure.

The fight over the railroad regulation came in the Senate. The final line-up showed eighteen Senators for the effective Stetson bill and against the ineffective Wright bill; while twenty-two Senators were against the Stetson bill and for the Wright bill. The Wright bill was accordingly passed. Every one of the nine San Francisco Senators voted for the Wright bill. Only thirteen Senators who voted for the Wright bill were from outside San Francisco.

In a word, the proponents of the Stetson bill were from the start handicapped by a solid delegation of nine from San Francisco which they could not overcome. Had three of the nine San Francisco Senators been for the Stetson bill, that measure would now be the law of California.

The transportation issue was fought out in the Assembly over the Sanford Senate resolution endorsing Bristow's plan to establish a line of Government steamers between San Francisco and Panama. The fruit growers of Southern California are particularly interested in this project. The Assembly, however, amended all reference to the Bristow report and all criticism of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the railroads out of the resolution.

Of the eighteen San Francisco Assemblymen only one, Callan, voted against the amendments; fourteen - Beatty, Beban, Coghlan, Collum, Cullen, Hopkins, Lightner, Macauley, McManus, Nelson, O'Neil, Pugh, Perine and Wheelan - voted for the amendments, while three - Black, Gerdes and Schmitt - did not vote at all.

The Local Option bill was also killed by San Francisco votes. This measure was strongly backed by the rural districts. The various counties, particularly those engaged in farming, dairying and fruit growing, sent representatives to the Legislature instructed to vote for Local Option. The issue in all ways concerned the country districts rather than the large cities. But the votes of the San Francisco Senators defeated the Local Option bill.

The first fight over the Local Option bill came when in the ordinary course of events it reached third reading. Instead of letting a vote be taken on the measure, Wolfe moved that it be referred to the Judiciary Committee. This was clearly a move against the passage of the bill, for it meant delay which might prove fatal. But Wolfe's motion prevailed by a vote of twenty to fifteen. The nine San Francisco Senators voted to refer the bill to the committee, only eleven Senators from outside San Francisco voted with them.

The nine members from San Francisco continued consistent in their opposition to the measure. When the Local Option bill did come to a vote their nine votes were cast against it.

The people of Del Norte county and the people of San Diego county are denied the privilege of voting "Wet or dry" because of the opposition to the Local Option bill of the solid San Francisco delegation in the Senate. It will be seen that the people of these distant counties are decidedly interested in political conditions in San Francisco, for in a large way the character of the San Francisco delegation in the Legislature is unmistakably reflected in the laws which are passed for the government of the entire State.

Taken as a whole, the San Francisco delegation in Senate and Assembly were nothing for that city to be proud of, and at a critical moment San Francisco came near paying dearly for her Hartmans, Hares, Macauleys and McManuses. But for the intervention of the country members the Islais Creek bond project would have been defeated.

The improvement calls for the purchase of sixty-three water blocks at Islais Creek to be converted into an inland harbor. The future development of San Francisco depends largely upon this improvement. But private interests demanded that nineteen of the sixty-three blocks be excluded from the plan, which would have rendered the whole project impracticable. When the fight came on, San Francisco Senators and Assemblymen opposed the purchase of the sixty-three blocks.

To begin with, Senator Wolfe, as member of the State Harbors Committee, had signed a report which recommended that forty-four blocks only be purchased. But Wolfe afterwards insisted that he had signed the report not knowing what he was doing.

When the fight for the improvement came up in the Senate, only two Senators, Hartman and Reily, both of San Francisco, opposed the project. They were in the end ignominiously defeated, every Senator present voting against them. But both Hartman and Reily did the best they knew how to defeat the purchase of the area necessary for the improvement.

The San Francisco delegation in its opposition to the Islais Creek project had better success in the Assembly. Nine San Francisco Assemblymen, Beban, Black, Cullen, Lightner, Macauley, McManus, O'Neil, Perine and Wheelan, united against the measure as it had passed the Senate. They succeeded in throwing doubt upon the necessity of the purchase of sixty-three blocks, and finally won twenty-two outside members over to their way of thinking. Had it not been for the efforts of Assemblymen Callan, Beatty and Nelson of San Francisco, backed by the Los Angeles delegation, the Islais Creek Harbor project would unquestionably have been defeated in the Assembly, solely because of the opposition of nine San Francisco Assemblymen.

But there is plenty of evidence of improved political conditions at San Francisco. An anti-machine Board of Supervisors is standing out manfully against the demands of machine-protected interests. The District Attorney's office is, indeed, pressing representatives of those interests pretty close to the doors of the penitentiary, although the District Attorney is handicapped by laws for which San Francisco is largely responsible, because of the character of the men whom session after session she has sent to the Legislature.

There is, however, enough to warrant the belief that San Francisco will improve the character of the Assembly and Senate delegation. Upon such improvement, the well-being of the whole State largely depends.



Chapter XXIV.

Attacks On And Defense of the Fish Commission

Fast Becoming a Powerful Political Factor - Enormous Fund Which It Expends Practically Without Check. - Legislative Investigation Blocked - Scheme to Give Commissioners Salary Fails.



Without the general public realizing just what is going on, the machine is, in the State Fish and Game Commission, building up an adjunct which seems destined to play an important part in any fight that may be carried on by the independent electors to break the machine's strangle-hold upon the State. Naturally the machine element in the Legislature was prepared always to rally to the defense of the Commission, and the defense was necessary, for the Commission is vulnerable, and was attacked at many points.

The Commission is perhaps the most extraordinary institution in the State. At its head is General George Stone, one-time chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. At its tail is Jake Steppacher, another one-time potent politician who has passed the days of his usefulness. Between Stone at the lead and Steppacher at the tail, is an astonishing array of formerly prominent politicians, as well as politicians who are decidedly in the present. In fact, the Fish and Game Commission is fast becoming one of the most potent adjuncts to the State political machine, that strictly non-partisan organization which guards the interests of the tenderloin, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the racetrack gamblers, their associates and allies, and which rather presumptuously assumes to be the Republican Party of California.

One of the features of the session of 1909 was the keen little fight of the anti-machine members of the Legislature to restore the Fish and Game Commission to its one-time simplicity, legitimacy and usefulness, and the efforts of the machine members to prevent this.

Up to two years ago, under the name of Fish Commission, the now Fish and Game Commission did most admirable work on an allowance of about $50,000. So far as the writer can ascertain, the Commission's income up to 1907 never exceeded $54,000 in any one year; usually it was a trifle under $50,000.

But in 1907 a tax of $1 a year was imposed upon all citizens of California who wished to go hunting. Citizens of other States, wishing to hunt in California, are under the same law taxed $10 a year, while foreigners are taxed $25. The law provides that the income thus raised be turned over to the Fish Commission.

The first year that the law was in force, the Commission received $116,579 on account of it. This, with moneys received from State appropriations, fines collected and the like, swelled the Commission's income for that year, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, to $184,467.70, an increase of more that $130,000 from the previous fiscal year.

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, the cost of conducting the Governor's office, including the Governor's salary, the salaries of his secretaries and clerks, stationery, postage stamps, secret service, everything in a word in connection with the office, was $32,377.

In the same way the expense of conducting the State Controller's office was $23,417; of the State Treasurer's office, $16,751 ; of the Attorney General's office, $33,082; of the Surveyor General's office, $20,679; of the State Superintendent of Schools' office, $22,380.

But the General Stone captained - or perhaps generaled - Fish Commission had for that year a modest bit of $184,467. The Fish Commission then, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, cost California almost six times as much as did the Governor's office, eight times as much as did the Controller's office, eleven times as much as did the State Treasurer's office, almost six times as much as did the Attorney General's office, more than nine times as much as the Surveyor General's office, and eight times as much as did the State Department of Public Instruction. And let it be borne in mind that this does not include the sums which the various counties paid for game wardens and for local protection of game, the best protection, by the way, and the most practical.

The $184,467, did not go to the counties. It went exclusively to General Stone's Commission. It will be seen that General Stone's Commission has a very good thing of it.

Another surprising feature of the Stone-Generaled Commission is that there is little check upon its expenditures. If the Governor wishes to raise the salary of his secretary or one of his stenographers he must appeal to the Legislature for permission. The State Controller, the State Treasurer, the Secretary of State, the State superintendent of Schools, and so on down the list Of State officials, are powerless to increase the salary of an assistant or of a clerk, or of an office boy, without legislative sanction.

But not so General Stone's Commission. The Commission is left to do pretty much as it pleases with its income. So, recently, without saying a word to anybody, it increased the salary of one of its deputies (Vogelsang) from $200 to $300 a month. Three hundred dollars a month is $3600 a year. Up to this year the salary of the State Controller, of the Secretary of State, of the State Treasurer, of the Surveyor General, of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, etc., was only $3,000 a year. So it will be seen that one of General Stone's Deputies was drawing $600 a year more salary from the State than the elected State officials.

Jake Steppacher and other politicians, finding easy berths in the Commission, were also granted generous salary increases.

But in ways other than generous increase in the salaries of its deputies has the Fish Commission shown its kingly independence. The law provides that each State official and Commission shall, biennially, in the September before the Legislature convenes, file with the Governor a report of its activities and expenditures. This enables the Governor to make such recommendations as he may deem necessary in his message to the Legislature. The Controller, Attorney General, in fact all the State officials and departments, observed the law last September with but one exception. The Fish Commission, costing the State from six to eleven times more money that the State departments, did not file a report with the Governor.

The fact that the Commission had filed no report in September, the generous increase in salaries of its deputies, alleged instances of arbitrary conduct of its representatives, resulted in a resolution being introduced by Assemblyman Harry Polsley, demanding that the Commission be made the subject of legislative inquiry.

The resolution was referred to the Assembly Committee on Fish and Game, a committee notoriously in sympathy with the Commission. The Committee held a sort of preliminary hearing which resulted in a general whitewashing[100]. Polsley made out what was generally regarded as a prima facie case against the Commission, but the Committee did not choose to consider it such, and so the investigation got no further[100a].

But it was noticeable after the "preliminary hearing" that the advocates of the Fish Commission measures did not show up so sprightly confident of their passage as before. Polsley's efforts were by no means lost. Many measures intended to strengthen the already gigantically strong Commission failed of passage, or had their viciousness amended out of them, which, had it not been for Polsley's efforts, might have become laws.

The most important of these was Senate Bill 741. The measure as originally introduced by Senator Willis provided that "every person in the State of California, who hunts, pursues or kills any of the wild birds or animals, excepting predatory birds or animals, or fishes for or catches with hook and line any of the protected fish of this State, without first procuring a license therefor, as provided in this Act, is guilty of a misdemeanor."

Had the act become a law as introduced, not only those who hunt, but those who fish, would have been obliged to pay one dollar for a license. Thus, if a family of father, mother and three children wanted to go fishing, they would first have had to pay five dollars for the privilege.

The writer has it from a gentleman who has made careful study of the Fish Commission and its ways that the licensing of amateur fishers would have increased the income of the Fish and Game Commission $150,000 a year. This, with the income already enjoyed by the Commission of $184,000 a year, would have swelled its annual income to more than $330,000. This sum is $90,000 more than it cost to maintain the Stockton Hospital for the Insane for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908; $125,000 more than the maintenance of the Agnews Asylum for that year; $122,000 more than the cost of the maintenance of the Folsom State Prison. The Fish and Game Commission was scarcely modest in its demands[101].

Naturally, the backers of the Fish and Game Commission made a hard fight for the measure's passage. But in spite of their efforts they could not edge it through the Senate until March 3d. In the Assembly, the measure met genuine opposition.

The Assembly Committee on Fish and Game of course recommended it for passage, and on March 15th, after a hot fight, it actually passed the Assembly. But Cattell gave notice of reconsideration. Incidentally, Governor Gillett let it be known that he would veto any measure that required amateur fishermen to pay license. This was a damper upon the Fish Commission crowd. When Cattell called the bill up for reconsideration it was reconsidered and defeated. However, Leeds accepted an amendment which struck out the clause which provided that amateur fishermen must pay a license tax. On Leeds' motion the next day, the amended bill was reconsidered and passed.

The three Fish and Game Commissioners serve without salary. Their compensation comes from the pleasure of disbursing upwards of $200,000 a year, what political prestige there may be in it, and rather generous expense money[102]. But a bill was introduced to give each Commissioner a salary of $3,000 a year. The measure did not become law, for which the writer believes much credit is due Assemblymen Polsley of Red Bluff. The State was thus saved $9,000 a year. General Stone and his associates are just that amount out of pocket. They have, however, given no indication of resigning their offices because the salary has been denied them.

But if the Fish and Game Commission was unsuccessful in increasing its revenue and putting through other measures from the standpoint of its members advantageous, its opponents were quite as unsuccessful in their attacks upon the Commission. Like the panther cat that guards her young, the agents of the Commission fought to retain the advantages which they had secured in 1907, and were generally successful.

The chief of the attacks was that of Assemblyman Polsley, author of Assembly Bill 433. This bill wasn't very long, contained less than five lines, in fact, and just forty-three words, but its passage would have saved the people of California more than $100,000 a year, or almost as much as it costs the State to run the Governor's office, the Controller's office, the State Treasurer's office and the office of State Superintendent of Schools combined. Assembly Bill 433 repealed the law of 1907, under which hunters are required to pay the Fish and Game Commission for the privilege of going hunting. The bill was introduced January 15th. It was referred to the notorious Assembly Committee on Fish and Game. There it was held until March 10th. It was then referred back to the Assembly with the recommendation that it "do not pass." That settled Assembly Bill 433.

Another measure which caused the agents of the Fish Commission much worry was introduced in the Assembly by Preston and in the Senate by Sanford. This bill provided that $50,000 should be paid out of the Fish and Game Commission fund each year to be used in paying bounties for exterminating coyotes. This would have left the Commission only about $130,000 a year. Naturally, the agents of the Commission resented the raid on their funds. The measure was referred to the Assembly Committee on Fish and Game. This was on January 18th. And it never was heard of after.

The companion Senate measure, introduced by Sanford, got further, but not much. The Senate Committee reported it "without recommendation." But even so, it passed second reading and went to engrossment and third reading. There it languished. On March 18th it was withdrawn by its author.

Another measure which gave the Commissioners a deal of worry was one introduced by Johnson of Placer, which provided that to each hunter who took fifty blue jay heads to the County's Clerk's office should be issued a hunter's license free. It was thought that this would encourage boys to kill blue jays for the hunter's license prize, value one dollar. But General Stone could not see it that way.

"If this bill becomes a law," said General Stone, "we shall have to retrench somewhere."

The bill didn't become a law, and the Fish and Game Commission was saved.

But the most "unkindest cut of all" came when the Assembly attempted to break into that sacred Fish and Game Commission fund by way of resolution. The Assembly actually adopted a resolution calling for a Commission to be appointed by the Governor for the purpose of ascertaining the feasibility of dividing the State into game districts, and generously providing $5,000 out of the Fish Commission fund for that purpose. Naturally the agents of the Fish Commission were scandalized at this proposed reckless expenditure of moneys from their fund by somebody else. But they were powerless. The resolution went through.

Rather late in the session the Assembly discovered that under the law it cannot "resolute" money out of any fund other than the Assembly contingent fund. The resolution was not, therefore, worth the paper it was printed on. Once again the sacred Fish Commission fund was saved.

But the Assembly could switch money out of the fund by legislative enactment, and a bill covering the same ground as the resolution was introduced without delay.

The measure passed the Assembly but did not reach the Senate until March 22d, two days before adjournment. That was very late for such a measure, but a heroic effort was made to secure its passage.

On Estudillo's motion, an attempt was made to suspend the State Constitution, declare the bill a matter of special urgency, and pass it forthwith. But the motion failed. Again did the Fish Commission escape a raid on its fund.

Senator Walker and Assemblyman Rutherford introduced measures providing for a distribution of the fund with counties, which at any rate looked pretty good to the counties, although the agents of the Fish Commission were not pleased at all.

The bills provided that one-half of the moneys collected from the sale of hunters' licenses, and on account of fines for infringement of the State game laws, should be paid to the counties in which collected, and the balance go to the Fish Commission fund.

Walker's bill was introduced on January 8th. It went to the Senate Committee on Fish and Game and was never heard of after.

Rutherford's bill was introduced on January 15th. It went to the Assembly Committee on Fish and Game. Like the Walker bill, the Rutherford bill was lost in committee oblivion.

Such, from the standpoint of the more important bills to increase and to decrease the Fish Commission fund, was the record of fish and game legislation. The Fish and Game Commission - and its overgrown fund - is still with us. But it might have been infinitely worse. Bad little boys who play hookey from Sunday-school to go fishing, for example, might have - in addition to the other frightful penalties imposed on them - been compelled to pay a license tax of $1 for the privilege.



[100] That the Fish and Game Committee would whitewash the Commission was recognized from the first. Even members of the machine who stand for genuine game protection objected to this committee making the investigation. When the motion was made to refer the resolution to this committee, Assemblyman Greer of Sacramento, took the floor to protest:

"It is useless to refer the matter to the Committee on Fish and Game," said Greer, "for we all know what that committee will do. We'll get no action there. Let it go to some committee that will give it consideration."

[100a] The Fish and Game Commission was very bitter against Polsley and all who approved his course. Because of the incident, Game Warden Welch of Santa Cruz County lost his position. Welch was a county official, paid by the county. The Commission complained that he had written a letter to Polsley commending the Assemblyman for his effort to secure a report 'from the Commission. Santa Cruz County receives a monthly stipend from the Commission toward the support of the Brookdale hatchery. The writer is reliably informed that one of the Commissioners stated that the Commission would do nothing for Santa Cruz County so long as "that man Welch" remained in office. Welch was removed by the Supervisors. Welch has a national-wide reputation as a game warden, and such papers as the "Forest and Stream," New York, and "Sports Afield," Chicago, have joined the California press in denunciation of his dismissal.

As these pages are going through the press, word comes from Santa Cruz that Welch has been reinstated by Judge Lucas F. Smith of the Superior Court of Santa Cruz County.

In summarizing his findings, Judge Smith holds that the local Board of Supervisors exceeded its legal power in declaring vacant the office of voluntary warden, which Welch held; exceeded its legal authority in removing Welch without specific charges being prepared, notice served on him and an opportunity given for a hearing.

[101] All sorts of estimates have been made of the income that would have been enjoyed by the Fish and Game Commission, had this bill become a law. The lowest that the writer knows of, made by a disinterested person, places the increase at $50,000 a year.

[102] Some of the commission's expense accounts on file with the State Controller are curiosities. For example, General Stone when he is on commission business taxes the fund $1 for breakfast, $1 for lunch, $1 for dinner. It thus costs the Commission three annual hunter's licenses to feed General Stone for a day.



Chapter XXV.

The Rewarding of the Faithful.

Senators and Assemblymen Whose Votes Were Cast Against Reform Measures Given State and Federal Positions in Some Instances, in Others Appointed to Holdover Committees or Sent on Trips at the Expense of the State.



The machine has many ways of rewarding the faithful who persist until the end. The faithful member of Senate or Assembly may be rewarded by a Federal appointment (Senator Bates has just been graciously recognized in this way[102a]) or he may be given a State job (witness Senator Price or Assemblyman Beardslee) ; or he may be put on a legislative hold-over committee to investigate something, or to represent the State at something, or to prepare some kind of a bill to be introduced at the next session of the Legislature.

This last is perhaps the most genteel method of reward. It entails little work, gives the beneficiary a certain distinction and pays very well.

Nine Senators were rewarded in this way in the closing hours of the session of 1909. There might have been ten, but that prince of "bandwagon" Senators, Welch, had to be rewarded twice, so but nine got holdover committeeships. They are Wolfe, Welch, Wright, Willis, Leavitt, Bills (labeled Republicans), Kennedy, Hare and Curtin (labeled Democrats). The names of the nine are not unfamiliar. With the exception of that of Curtin, their votes during the session were consistently cast on the side of the machine. For them to be rewarded came as a matter of course.

The machine will continue to reward such men until the people take the Legislature out of machine hands. But that is another story.

The Legislative Holdover Committee is about as useless a thing as can be imagined. This is very well illustrated by the State's experience with the so-called Harbors Committee, appointed by the Legislature of 1907 to inquire into harbor conditions throughout the State.

The committee consisted of three Senators and three Assemblymen. The Senators managed to incur expenses of $2,524.20. Assemblymen were more modest. Their expenses were only $1,851.80, making a total expense charge for the committee of $4,376.

But the $4,376 covers the committee's expenses only, does not provide compensation for the committeemen. A bill appropriating $6,000 for that purpose was introduced at the session of 1909. This gave the committeemen $1,000 each for their services. It made the investigation cost the State $10,376[102b].

The Harbors Committee - or somebody or something else, the writer is not sure which - prepared an elaborate report of the committee's findings. But owing to a surprising blunder that involved Senator Wolfe most curiously, the report was not filed until March 23, the day before the Legislature adjourned. The report was ordered printed in the journal, but it did not appear in the journal of the 23rd, which was circulated on the morning of the 24th. Instead, was a note to the effect that it would appear in the corrected journal. So, few knew that it had been filed at all, and it went unnoticed by the daily press.

But the details of the report[102c] were known to the general public long before it was filed with the Senate, and its provisions made Senator Wolfe appear to exceptional disadvantage. Wolfe was a member of the Harbors Committee, as was Senator Wright. Among the recommendations set forth in the report as originally prepared, was one that forty-four blocks only of land be purchased by the State for the improvement of the San Francisco Harbor at Islais Creek, instead of the sixty-three blocks necessary for practical harbor development.

Senator Wolfe was a warm advocate of the sixty-three block plan which is the only practical plan, by the way, and shows that Senator Wolfe can land on the right side of things occasionally. But it was very discouraging for Senator Wolfe to be confronted with the unfiled report of his own Harbors Committee, endorsed by his own signature as committeeman, in which the purchase of only forty-four blocks was urged.

Senator Wolfe's defense was ingenious. He stated that he had signed the report as a matter of courtesy, not really knowing what it contained. The incident illustrates the value to the State of such legislative investigations.

But in spite of the curious history of Wolfe's Harbors Committee, he was given another holdover committee in 1909. The Senate - on Wolfe's motion - adopted a resolution setting aside $5,000 to meet the expenses of a holdover committee to consist of three members to investigate the cause of recent advances in the cost of foodstuffs. Senators Wolfe, Welch and Hare are honored with the appointments. Lieutenant-Governor Porter appointed.

Senator Wolfe, from the machine standpoint, certainly earned the distinction thus thrust upon him, and his share of the money. Senator Wolfe was not in good health during the session, but in spite of his indisposition he managed to be present in the Senate Chamber, where often, pale, haggard and plainly on the verge of breakdown, he fought valiantly against the reform measures which were aimed at the prestige of the State machine, and the domination of the tenderloin, the Southern Pacific Railroad, the racetrack gamblers and allied interests in State politics.

Wolfe led the fight against the Walker-Otis Anti-Gambling bill, against the Local Option bill, against the effective Stetson Railroad Regulation bill, against the Direct Primary bill, against admitting Senator Bell of Pasadena to the Republican caucus, against the bill to prohibit the sale of intoxicants within a mile and a half of Stanford University, against the initiative amendment to the Constitution, against the amendment to the Constitution to correct ambiguities as to the powers and duties of the State Railroad Commission, and against Burnett's resolution for the investigation of the cause of the increase in freight rates and express charges. Senator Wolfe also led the fight for the passage of the Change of Venue bill.

Curiously enough, Senator Wolfe's stock argument, used in most of the opposition to reform measures, was to the effect that if such measures became laws, the Republican party in California would be undermined. Senator Wolfe's argument had great weight with Republicans like Leavitt and Weed and Democrats like Hare and Kennedy. For the "good of the Republican party," these gentlemen generally voted as Senator Wolfe dictated.

Senator Welch, the second member of the Pure Food Committee, is at least entitled to gracious consideration at the hands of the Wolfe-Leavitt element. Senator Welch was one of the twenty-seven Call-heralded heroes who defeated the Wolfe-Leavitt element in the first fight on the Direct Primary bill in the Senate. And Senator Welch was one of the seven heroes who "flopped" to the Wolfe-Leavitt side when the psychological moment came. Welch's one vote in the final struggle would have decided the Direct Primary fight for the side of the reform element. But when the reform element needed Welch he was found snugly quartered with Wolfe and Leavitt.

Welch voted for the Walker-Otis bill, but he was one of the last members of the Senate to be counted for that measure. Indeed, Welch caught the rear of the bandwagon on that issue just in time.

On railroad issues Welch's record is as good as the Southern Pacific Railroad could wish. He voted against the adoption of the practical absolute rate, and for the impracticable maximum rate; he voted for the ineffective Wright bill and against the effective Stetson bill. He voted against the Constitutional Amendment simplyfying the wording of the Constitution in those sections which prescribe the powers and duties of the Railroad Commissioners.

So Senator Welch had his appointment to the Food Investigation Committee due him. He was also made member of the Legislative Committee to represent the State at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition, of which more later. Thus Senator Welch rounded out the session very satisfactorily to Senator Welch and to the machine, if not to the State of California.

Senator Hare is down in the legislative records as a Democrat. He voted on most measures consistently under the lead of Wolfe and Leavitt. His appointment need not, therefore, cause surprise.

When the Direct Primary bill was before the Senate Committee on Election Laws, Hare's vote was with those of Wolfe and Leavitt to make the measure as ineffective as possible. Hare was among the thirteen unworthies who voted against the measure when the first fight was made for it on the floor of the Senate; he was among the twenty who finally, under Wolfe's leadership, held the measure up in the Senate until by trick it could be amended to the machine's liking. Hare was one of the seven Senators who voted against the Walker-Otis Anti-Gambling bill. He was one of those who voted for the passage of the Change of Venue bill.

On railroad measures Hare voted against the Stetson bill and for the Wright bill, against the absolute rate and for the maximum rate. He voted against the amendment to the Constitution to clear up the alleged ambiguity regarding the powers and duties of the Railroad Commissioners.

Lack of space prevents continuance of the review of Hare's votes. But enough has been said to show that this "Democrat" was entitled to the honor at the hands of the Performer, Republican Lieutenant Governor Warren Porter, of appointment to the Holdover Committee which, under the leadership of Senator Eddie Wolfe, will investigate the cause of the increase in the price of foodstuffs.

But a far more desirable appointment was to the committee which is to represent the State at the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition. By concurrent resolution the Senate and Assembly decided that seven Senators, seven Assemblymen, one Lieutenant Governor (Warren Porter) and one Governor (Gillett) should attend the exposition at the State's expense. For this purpose $7,000 of the State's money has been provided.

The seven Senators appointed by Performer Porter are Wright, Willis, Welch, Leavitt, Bills, Kennedy, Curtin.

The seven Assemblymen appointed by Speaker Stanton are Transue, Beardslee, Leeds, Hewitt, McManus, McClellan and Schimtt.

The records of the Senators thus honored show them worthy the machine's consideration. Their votes on the banner measures before the Legislature last winter were as follows:

Against the Walker-Otis bill, to prohibit poolselling and bookmaking (Anti-Gambling bill) - Leavitt - 1.

For the Walker-Otis bill-Bills, Curtin, Kennedy, Willis, Welch, Wright - 6.

Only seven Senators voted against the Walker-Otis bill. Of the seven Leavitt is given the Alaska trip; Wolfe and Hare are put on the Food Investigation Committee. Thus of nine Senators who got on holdover committees three were among the seven who voted in the interest of the gambling element.

The records made by the State Senators who will attend the exposition at the State's expense in the Direct Primary fight are quite as suggestive. When the first attempt was made in the Senate to force the machine amendments into the bill, February 18, the seven Senators voted as follows:

For the machine's amendments - Bills, Kennedy, Leavitt, Willis.

Against the machine's amendments - Curtin, Welch, Wright.

Thirteen Senators on February 18 voted for the machine's amendments. Of their number Hare and Wolfe are on the Food Investigation Committee; Bills, Kennedy, Leavitt and Willis are to attend the exposition at the State's expense. Thus six of the thirteen have been rewarded.

The machine, having failed to amend the Direct Primary bill in the Senate, amended it in the Assembly. When the measure was returned to the Senate, six of the seven Senators who will attend the exposition voted to concur in the Assembly amendments. They were, Bills, Kennedy, Leavitt, Welch, Willis and Wright. Only one of the seven voted against the machine amendments, Curtin.

The records of the seven favored, trip-taking Senators on railroad regulation measures are as follows:

For the Wright bill, against the Stetson bill; for the maximum rate, against the absolute rate - Leavitt, Welch, Willis, Wright, Bills, Kennedy - 6.

Against the Wright bill, for the Stetson bill, against the maximum rate, for the absolute rate - Curtin - 1.

Against the constitutional amendment to make clear the powers and duties of Railroad Commissioners - Bills, Kennedy, Leavitt, Welch, Willis - 5.

For the amendment - Curtin, Wright - 2.

Against the Burnett resolution calling for an investigation of the cause for an increase in freight rates - Bills, Kennedy, Leavitt, Willis, Wright - 5.

For the resolution - 0.

Absent or not voting - Curtin, Welch - 2.

The records of the seven on the Local Option bill and the Change of Venue bill are:

Against Local Option - Leavitt, Welch, Willis, Bills, Curtin, Kennedy - 6.

For Local Option - Wright - 1.

For the Change of Venue bill - Bills, Leavitt, Welch, Willis, Wright - 5.

Against the Change of Venue bill - Curtin, Kennedy - 2.

Kennedy, to be sure, voted against the Change of Venue bill when that measure passed the Senate. But Senator Kennedy was unaccountably absent the next morning when the Change of Venue bill was taken up on a motion for reconsideration. Because of Kennedy's absence, the motion to reconsider the measure was lost, and its defeat prevented. Senator Kennedy is scarcely entitled to credit for being recorded on the right side of this measure.

Nine Senators are included in the two hold-over committees which are under consideration. As Wolfe and Hare invariably voted with Leavitt, it will be seen that eight of the nine voted against the Stetson bill and for the Wright bill; seven of the nine voted against the Constitutional amendment to make plain the constitutional powers and duties of the Railroad Commissioners; seven of the nine voted against investigating the cause of increase in freight and express rates to the Pacific Coast; eight of the nine voted against local option; seven voted for the Change of Venue bill, and one of the two others as good as voted for it, although on record against the measure.

As Republican Senators Bell, Birdsall, Black, Boynton, Cutten, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Strobridge and Thompson, who were invariably on the right side of things, look upon the records of the "Democrats" and "Republicans" included among the nine favored receivers of plums, they can scarcely be blamed for demanding with the discouraged little boy - What's the use of being good, anyhow?

And as the Democratic Senators, Caminetti, Campbell, Cartwright, Holohan, Miller and Sanford, who worked with the anti-machine Republicans for the passage of good laws and the defeat of bad ones look upon the favored Hare and Kennedy they cannot be blamed if the same question occurs to them also.

The indications are that the Senators who were thus overlooked will have "to wait for theirs," until The People of California, and not the machine, award the prizes for faithful public service.

Of the seven Assemblymen who will attend the Alaska-Yukon Exposition, one, Hewitt, voted against the machine on every important issue that came up. The other six are a spotted lot.

The six - Beardslee, Leeds, McManus, McClellan, Schmitt and Transue - voted for the famous "gag rules" which the Assembly rejected by a vote of 41 to 32. Indeed, Beardslee and Transue were on the Committee on Rules which the Assembly, when it rejected the Committee's rules, repudiated.

In the fight for the passage of the Walker-Otis Anti-Gambling bill, two of the six, Leeds and Transue, managed to keep their records straight. On the six roll-calls taken on the measure before it passed the Assembly, Beardslee voted five times against the bill and once for it; McManus voted six times against it; Schmitt voted five times against it, on one roll-call he did not vote; while McClellan voted four times for it and twice against.

Five of the six, Beardslee, Leeds, McManus, McClellan and Schmitt voted against forcing out of the Committee on Federal Relations the Sanford resolution, which called for a government line of steamers from Panama to San Francisco. The five voted for the Johnson amendments to the resolutions, which cut out all criticizing reference to the rate-boosting combinations between the great transportation companies. Transue was absent when the vote to force the resolution out of committee was taken. But he was present to vote for the Johnson amendments.

Five of the six, Leeds, McManus, McClellan, Schmitt and Transue, voted for the machine amendments to the Direct Primary bill, which were read into that measure in the Assembly, and which resulted in the Senate deadlock over the measure. Beardslee voted against the amendments.

Five of the six - Beardslee, Leeds, McManus, McClellan and Transue - voted against the Holohan bill to remove the party circle from the election ballot. Schmitt did not vote on this measure.

Assemblyman Hewitt will, at the Alaska-Yukon, find himself in distinguished company. From the Wolfe-Leavitt-Johnson standpoint, he is the only one of his associates who cannot be said to have earned the preferment thrust upon him.



[102a] As these forms are going through the press, word comes that Senator Willis has been made Assistant United States District Attorney at Los Angeles. See Willis' record, Table "A" of the appendix.

[102b] The State Constitution provides no method of compensation for such services. The providing of this compensation, therefore, becomes a matter of great delicacy. It is done, under a decision of the Supreme Court that that tribunal cannot go back of a legislative Act, but must abide by the wording of the Act. The appropriation bills to compensate the members for their services on hold-over Committees are worded to meet the opinion of the courts. The money is invariably appropriated "to pay the claim of," etc. The Legislature is, according to the courts, the sole Judge of whether the alleged claim is a claim and not a petition for a gift. The "to -pay- the-claim-of" bills never fail to pull down the money.

[102c] The report as originally drawn, and as it was signed by Senator Wolfe and his associates.



Chapter XXVI.

The Holdover Senators.

Eleven of Them May Be Counted Upon to Vote Against the Machine at the Session of 1911, Two Are Doubtful, One Will Probably Vote with the Majority, While Six May Be Counted Upon to Support Machine Policies.



Twenty of the 120 members who sat in the Legislature of 1909 - half of the forty Senators - hold over and will serve in the Legislature of 1911. The twenty constitute the strength with which the machine and the anti-machine forces will enter the field in the struggle for control of the Legislature two years hence.

The machine has, long before this, taken stock of those twenty holdover Senators. Machine agents unquestionably know what the holdover members owe and to whom indebted; know their family history; know the church to which they belong, their lodges, their likes, their dislikes and their prejudices; know how they can be "reached" if vulnerable; know how they can be "kept in line" if already tarred with the machine brush.

But the plain citizen, not within the charmed circle of machine protection, is not concerning himself much about these holdovers. He scarcely knows their names. It is safe to say that not 2 per cent of the voters of California could off-hand name the twenty holdover members of the Upper House of the Legislature.

In other words, the machine is posted, and the citizen is not. And here is the secret of much of the machine's success. In its campaign for control of affairs, the machine knows to a nicety just what to expect from men in public life; the plain citizen is without such information.

In the Appendix will be found a table, "Table H," showing the votes of the twenty holdover Senators on sixteen roll calls. Representative citizens, all standing for good government, may differ as to the desirability or undesirability of several of the measures included in the list. But by and large the average normal citizen will hold that certain of the sixteen measures are desirable and others undesirable. Thus all would probably agree that the Change of Venue bill is undesirable legislation, and declare the Walker-Otis Anti-Racetrack Gambling measure to be desirable, although they might honestly differ on the Local Option bill.

On the sixteen roll calls the twenty holdover Senators cast 283 votes. Of the 283, 164 are recorded against what the normal citizen would regard as bad measures, or for what the normal citizen would regard as good measures. In other words, speaking broadly, 164 of the 283 votes were cast against machine policies. Only 119 were cast with the machine. In other words, over the whole session, on what may be fairly considered the most important roll calls taken in the Senate, the holdover Senators cast 164 votes against the machine and only 119 votes for the machine. This isn't a bad showing to start with.

The showing is strengthened by the fact that ninety-two of the 119 machine votes were cast by eight Senators, Finn, Wolfe, Bills, Martinelli, Hurd, Hare, Lewis and Welch. Senator Finn of San Francisco heads the list with fifteen of these negative votes. On one occasion Senator Finn didn't vote. After Finn comes Wolfe, also from San Francisco, with thirteen of the ninety-two negative or machine votes to his credit or his discredit; Bills of Sacramento and Martinelli of Marin follow with twelve each; Hurd of Los Angeles with eleven; Hare of San Francisco and Lewis of San Joaquin with ten each, and Welch of San Francisco with nine.

This leaves twenty-seven machine votes to be divided among twelve of the holdover Senators, about two votes on an average each.

Burnett is credited with seven of the twenty-seven, which reduces the number to twenty for eleven Senators. Of the twenty votes, seven were cast in the two ballots taken on the Local Option issue, again the bill; and eight were cast in two ballots against the Holohan bill to remove the party circle from the election ballot.

Thus, excluding the votes on local option, and on the Party Circle bill, on twelve important ballots, eleven of the holdover Senators cast only five votes for machine policies.

The eleven are Birdsall, Campbell, Cutten, Estudillo, Holohan, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson and Walker.

These eleven Senators, as judged by their performances at the session just closed, may be depended upon to vote for good bills and against bad ones at the session of 1911.

To this list should be added the name of Burnett. Burnett got off wrong on the Stetson Railroad Regulation bill, and managed to land with the Wolfe element in the direct primary fight. But there is good reason to believe that Burnett was very sick of his company before the session closed. The probabilities are that Senator Burnett feels more at home with Senators Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson and Cutten than with Hare, Finn and Wolfe.

Senator Hurd is another holdover who started out very well, but went badly astray after the vote on the Railroad Regulation bills. Like Burnett, Hurd showed signs toward the end of the session of feeling himself in uncongenial company. There is reason to believe that Hurd at the next session will be found voting with the Thompson-Stetson-Strobridge element.

Senator Welch will be found voting with the majority. This reduces the number of holdover Senators who can be counted upon to accept Wolfe's leadership, machine Senators, if you like, to six. The line-up of the twenty holdovers, then, would on this basis be as follows:

Anti-machine - Birdsall, Cutten, Estudillo, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson, Walker (Republicans), Campbell, Holohan (Democrats) - 11.

Doubtful - Burnett, Hurd (Republicans) - 2.

With the majority - Welch (Republican) - 1.

Machine - Bills, Finn, Lewis[103], Martinelli, Wolfe (Republicans), Hare (Democrat) - 6.

On this basis the anti-machine element will start with all the advantage in the struggle for control of the Senate in 1911. If Burnett and Hurd vote with the eleven anti-machine Senators, it will be necessary to elect only eight anti-machine Senators that the reform element may control the Senate. This will mean twenty-two votes for the reform element, for Welch, if he is to be judged by past performances, will be found with the majority.

From present indications, four important fights will be made at the Legislative session of 1911.

(1) To pass an effective railroad regulation measure and to amend those sections of the State Constitution which prescribe the duties and powers of the Railroad Commissioners.

(2) To amend the Direct Primary law passed at the session just closed to meet with the popular demand for an effective measure.

(3) To grant local option to the counties.

(4) To adopt an amendment to the State Constitution granting the initiative to the electors of the State.

Significantly enough, the line-up of the holdover Senators in the Direct Primary deadlock of the last session was nine to eleven, the eleven Senators who divide but five machine votes between them standing out against Wolfe and Leavitt for an effective provision for the selection of United States Senators by State-wide vote, while the six machine Senators, the "bandwagon" Senator and the two doubtfuls, voted with Wolfe and Leavitt.

But the probabilities are that in the event of the anti-machine element controlling the Senate of 1911, Burnett, Hurd, Lewis, Martinelli and Welch would join with the reform forces to make necessary amendments to the measure. When the Direct Primary bill was first before the Senate, these five Senators united with the Good Government forces and assisted in defeating the machine's amendment. When the bill was amended in the Assembly, however, the five flopped to the machine side. Indeed, only four of the twenty holdover Senators voted for the machine's amendments to the Direct Primary bill when the measure was first passed upon by the Senate. They were Bills, Finn, Hare and Wolfe.

The holdover Senators made their poorest showing on the railroad measures. When the test came on the Stetson bill the twenty holdovers split even, ten being for the effective Stetson bill, ten for the ineffective Wright bill. The line-up was as follows:

For the Stetson bill - Birdsall, Campbell, Cutten, Holohan, Lewis, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson - 10.

For the Wright bill - Bills, Burnett, Estudillo, Finn, Hare, Hurd, Martinelli, Walker, Welch, Wolfe - 10.

Lewis, who usually voted with the performers, voted for the Stetson bill. But the reform forces lost two votes, those of Walker and Estudillo. On another vote on the same issue, however, Burnett, Estudillo and Walker would probably be found with the anti-machine forces supporting an effective measure. This would make the vote of the holdover Senators, thirteen for effective railroad regulation, and seven for a measure of the Wright law variety.

The holdovers made a good showing on the Initiative amendment, eleven voting for it and five against it, four not voting at all. The vote was as follows:

For the Initiative - Birdsall, Campbell, Cutten, Estudillo, Hare, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Thompson, Walker, Welch - 11.

Against the Initiative - Bills, Hurd, Lewis, Martinelli, Wolfe - 5.

Not voting - Burnett, Finn, Holohan, Strobridge - 4.

Of the four who did not vote, three, Burnett, Holohan and Strobridge, would have voted for the amendment. Finn would probably have voted against it. This would have made the vote fourteen to six in the amendment's favor. It will be seen that those who would have the initiative granted the people, have a good start for the next session.

The outlook for local option is not so reassuring. Of the holdover Senators who ordinarily were for measures which give the people a voice in the management of public affairs, Birdsall, Holohan, Rush and Strobridge were unalterably opposed to the local option idea. The six machine Senators, of course, opposed it, which with the votes of Burnett, Welch and Hurd placed thirteen of the twenty holdover Senators against the measure.

Six of the holdovers voted for the Local Option bill - Campbell, Cutten, Estudillo, Roseberry, Thompson and Walker.

Stetson was absent and did not vote. He, however, favored the bill. His vote would have made it 13 to 7. Thus on the vote on their bill at the last session, the local option forces have seven of the holdover Senators with them, and thirteen against.

On the other hand, seventeen of the holdover Senators voted for the Walker-Otis Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill, while only three, Finn, Hare and Wolfe, voted against it. Thus on the moral issue, as well as the political and the industrial, the anti-machine element is stronger in the holdover delegation in the Senate than is the machine. It rests with the good citizenship of California to maintain its advantage by electing to the Senate in 1910, men who will stand with the majority of the holdover members for the passage of good and the defeat of vicious measures.



[103] Lewis voted with the anti-machine element in the Railroad Regulation fight, one of the most severe tests of the session. Persons who know Lewis well stated that he will, if the anti-machine forces be effectively organized at the session of 1911, be found against the machine. It is "up to Senator Lewis."



Chapter XXVII.

The Retiring Senators.

Of the Twenty Whose Terms of Office Will Have Expired, the Machine Loses Eleven, the Anti-Machine Element Seven - Two Who Voted With the Machine on Occasion Were Usually on the Side of Good Government.



Twenty of the forty Senators who sat in the Legislature of 1909, must, if they sit in the Legislature of 1911, be re-elected at the general elections in November 1910. They are: Senators Anthony of San Francisco, Bates of Alameda, Bell of Pasadena, Black of Santa Clara, Boynton of Yuba, Caminetti of Amador, Cartwright of Fresno, Curtin of Tuolumne, Hartman of San Francisco, Kennedy of San Francisco, Leavitt of Alameda, McCartney of Los Angeles, Miller of Kern, Price of Sonoma, Reily of San Francisco, Sanford of Mendocino, Savage of Los Angeles, Weed of Siskiyou, Willis of San Bernardino and Wright of San Diego.

By consulting Table A of the Appendix, it will be seen that on sixteen roll calls the forty members of the Senate of 1909 voted 570 times. Of the 570 votes 311 were cast against what are regarded as machine policies; 259 for such policies. Of the 311 anti-machine votes, 164 were cast by holdover Senators, and were considered in the last chapter, while 147 were cast by Senators whose successors will be elected in 1910. Thus it will be seen, that on this basis, more desirable Senators will hold over than those whose terms of office will have expired before the next Legislature convenes.

On the basis of the machine votes the result is as satisfactory. On the sixteen roll calls, 259 machine votes were cast. Of these 140 were cast by the retiring Senators, and only 119 by those who will hold over, and who will sit in the Legislature of 1911. So, on the whole, the machine loses and the people gain in the retirement of the twenty Senators.

In point of numbers the result is as satisfactory. The machine will lose eleven Senators: Bates, Hartman, Kennedy, Leavitt, McCartney, Price, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis and Wright; while the anti-machine forces will lose only seven who can be counted constantly for reform policies: Bell, Black, Boynton, Caminetti, Cartwright, Miller and Sanford.

This leaves only Anthony and Curtin to be accounted for. Both these men stood out against the machine's amendments to the Direct Primary bill, Anthony in particular standing against the severest pressure that could be brought to compel him to vote against the interests of his constituents and of the State. But Anthony could not be moved. On the railroad measures, however, Anthony voted with the machine. But he voted for the Walker-Otis bill, and, generally speaking, for all measures which made for political reforms. With any sort of organization of the reform forces, Anthony could be counted upon as safe for reform. His record on the Direct Primary bill certainly entitles him to the highest consideration.

Curtin also was as a general thing with the reform element. He voted, however, against the bill to do away with the party circle and he voted against the Local Option bill, but in so doing he merely followed the lead of such men as Birdsall, who, while out and out against the machine, were at the same time against local option and lukewarm on ballot reform. Birdsall, however, finally voted for the bill to remove the party circle from the election ballot, although he had on the first ballot voted against the bill. Curtin did not, however, change his vote. But Curtin did vote against the Initiative Amendment. On the other hand, Curtin's record on the Direct Primary bill, on the Railroad Regulation bills, and on the Anti-Gambling bill is all that could be desired.

While the retirement of all the Senators who do not hold over would strengthen the reform element in the Senate, nevertheless the State can ill afford to lose the services of the seven who stood out so valiantly against machine policies. Senator Bell heads the list, with Caminetti, Black, Boynton and Sanford close seconds.

Senator Bell not only made the best record made in the Senate of 1909, but he made the best record of the Senate of 1907. Conscientious, fully awake to the responsibilities of his position, alive to the tricks of the machine leaders, in constant attendance, Senator Bell proved himself during the two sessions that he has served in the Senate, a power for good government. His absence from the session of 1911 would be a loss to the State.

Senators Black and Boynton at the session of 1909 made records quite as good as that made by Senator Bell. On the sixteen roll calls taken as tests of the standing of the several Senators, Black voted but once against reform policies. On the first ballot on the Party Circle bill he voted against the measure, but the day following, corrected his mistake by voting for the measure. Boynton voted to return the Local Option bill to the Judiciary Committee, but at the final test his vote was recorded for the bill[103a]. Thus neither of the two Senators can be said to have voted with the machine even on comparatively unimportant issues.

Senator Caminetti probably gave the machine more worry during the session than any other one Senator. Caminetti has, a way of saying out loud what his anti-machine associates are thinking, which is not at all popular with the machine. True to principle, he, a Democrat, voted for United States Senator Perkins because, from Caminetti's view-point, no other candidate came so near to being the popular choice of the people as Perkins, and Caminetti holds that the people and not the Legislature should select the United States Senator. The machine was glad of Caminetti's vote for Perkins, but was not at all pleased with the departure of a Democrat voting for a Republican. Caminetti's course continued in by all the members of the Legislature, and the machine would lose its monopoly of Federal Senator-making.

Caminetti's record is admirable. To be sure, he opposed Local Option, but he fought as few others fought for an effective Direct Primary law, for effective railroad regulation, in fact for practically all the reform policies which the anti-machine forces advocated and the machine opposed. Senator Sanford also voted for and worked for reform policies. Like Caminetti, however, he opposed the Local Option bill and voted against it. Senator Miller, on the other hand, supported the Local Option bill, but slipped more seriously than did either Caminetti or Sanford, by voting with the machine Senators against the Initiative amendment. Miller's work for effective railroad regulation and for an effective Direct Primary law, won him the deserved admiration and confidence of the better element of the Legislature. Senator Cartwright voted but twelve times on the sixteen roll calls, but the twelve included the votes on the Direct Primary issues, on railroad regulation, and on all the moral issues considered. And each time, Senator Cartwright's vote was cast on the side of good government.

On the other side, the machine side, Senator Bates distinguished himself but once during the session. It was Senator Bates who, to oblige a friend, had the notorious Change of Venue bill placed on the Special Urgency File, thus making the passage of the bill possible. Senator Bates' vote and influence - such as it was - were thrown in the balance against giving the people of California a State-wide vote - the only practical vote - for United States Senators. He voted against the effective Stetson bill; he voted for the ineffective Railroad Regulation bill. In fact, aside from the Walker-Otis bill, Bates was on the machine side of practically every issue[104].

Senator Hartman was during the session a mere machine vote. He was always on hand, always voted, and voted with the machine. It was Senator Hartman who named an employee of the notorious Sausalito gambling rooms for an important committee clerkship. So far as the writer can recall, Hartman made but two speeches during the session; one against the Walker-Otis Anti-Gambling bill, one against the Islais Creek Harbor bill, the passage of which meant so much for San Francisco, the city, by the way, responsible for Hartman's presence at Sacramento.

On the sixteen roll calls under consideration, Hartman voted sixteen times for machine policies. As a vote, Hartman is a valuable machine asset; otherwise a nonentity.

Those who have read the previous chapters have already formed their opinion of the advisability of returning to the Senate, Kennedy, the hero of the passage of the Change of Venue bill; McCartney, the author of the famous amendment to the Direct Primary bill; Weed, who introduced the resolution to drag Senator Black from his sick bed at Palo Alto; Reily, who with Senator Hartman, alone of all the Senate stood out against the passage of the Islais Creek Harbor bills; Willis, who as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, backed such measures as the Change of Venue bill, and opposed such measures as the Commonwealth Club bills; Savage, who in committee and out of it, opposed the State-wide vote plan for nominating United States Senators, and Senator Price.

Price did not distinguish himself particularly. On the sixteen roll calls included in Table A, his vote was recorded against the machine as many as four times. But there were ten Senators who did even worse. However, a story of the closing days of the session is quite characteristic of Senator Price.

An important roll call was on - if the writer remembers correctly, it was on Burnett's motion to continue the investigation into the causes of the increase of freight and express rates. Price was present, but did not answer to the call of his name. The advocates of the resolution insisted that all vote, and demanded a call of the Senate. The doors were ordered closed, at which order Price made a run for the door. Caminetti saw the move, understood it and started to intercept the fleeing Senator. But if Caminetti were quick, Price was quicker. Caminetti missed his grab at Price, and so chased that gentleman to the door of the Senate chamber. The assistant Sergeant-at-Arms at the door was just swinging it closed as Price shot through. The determined Caminetti made a last grab at Price's coattails, but too late. The massive doors banged closed, with Price, coattails and all, on the outside, and the balked Caminetti on the inside. Price didn't vote on that roll call.

The failure to return Leavitt to the Senate will be a decided loss for the machine, one hard to offset. Next to Wolfe, Leavitt was by far the ablest floor leader in the Senate. The brute force of the man, his grossness, his indifference to public opinion, made him an ideal machine leader. Leavitt's return from Alameda seems extremely doubtful. His district takes in the notorious gambling community, Emeryville, which will be purged of the thug element that has dominated it, by the enforcement of the Walker-Otis law. With the loss of this portion of his constituency, Senator Leavitt's chance of re-election from Emeryville appears slim indeed.

But, according to rather persistent rumor, Senator Leavitt may be returned to the Senate, not from Alameda, but from the Siskiyou-Shasta District, the district represented by Weed. Leavitt has property up there, and the story runs that he will be a candidate from that part of the State. The voters of Shasta and Siskiyou, however, may conclude that they have something to say about it.

Senator Wright, the last of the Senators whose terms will have expired before the next session of the Legislature convenes, is being mentioned as a "reform candidate" for Governor. The idea seems to be that he will run on his record made at the session of 1909. If this be true, he may not be a candidate for re-election to the Senate. Senator Wright's record as a State Senator has already been treated at length.



[103a] Senator Boynton was a consistent supporter of the Local Option bill from the beginning to the end of the session. He held, however, that the bill as originally drawn was not in proper form, and explained that he voted to have the bill returned to the committee that amendments, which he deemed necessary, could be made.

[104] Since the Legislature adjourned Senator Bates has been given a lucrative position in the United States Mint.



Chapter XXVIII.

Conclusion.

Events of the Session of 1909 Show That Before Any Effective Reform Can Be Brought About in California, Good Government Republicans and Democrats Must Unite to Organize Senate and Assembly - Appointment of Senate Committees May Be Taken Out of the Hands of the Lieutenant-Governor.



In the opening chapter it was stated that the machine element in the Legislature of 1909, although in the minority, defeated the purposes of the reform majority, because of three principal reasons:

(1) The reform element was without organization.

(2) The reform members had, except in the anti-racetrack gambling fight, no definite plan of action.

(3) The reform members of both Houses permitted the machine to name presiding officers and appoint committees.

This third reason must appeal to those who have read the foregoing pages as the most important of all. The story of every machine success, in face of opposition, is that of advantage gained through the moral support given by the presiding officers[105], or of co-operation of committees, or of both. But, unfortunately, a stupid partisanship - a partisanship which the machine finds far more potent than bribe money - makes this cause of machine success more difficult to overcome than either of the others. Already a movement is on foot, the details of which the writer is not at liberty to make public, that will unite the reform element of the next Legislature into a working body, from the day nominations are made. Steps to this end were taken before the last Legislature adjourned. In the same way, the work of bringing reform issues before the public - reform of the ballot laws, amendment of the Direct Primary law, the simplification of the mode of criminal procedure - is being taken up in the same effective, commonsense way as was the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. But here the progress of the commonsense element of machine opposition seems to halt. In spite of their experience of the last session, Democrats and Republicans who stand for good government hesitate at the suggestion of non-partisan organization of Senate and Assembly. The writer has shown in the foregoing chapters that the machine Republicans and the machine Democrats were for practical purposes a unit in the organization of the Legislature of 1909. Why, then, should not the anti-machine Republicans and the anti-machine Democrats unite for purposes of organization, just as they united, at the session of 1909, to oppose vicious measures and to work for the passage of good bills? That is a question which has never been satisfactorily answered. It leads us, however, to the question of the real line of division in Senate and Assembly, and, for that matter, in State politics[106].