Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909

In writing the Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909, the purpose has been, not only to show what was done at Sacramento last Winter, but, what is by far more important, how it was done. To this end, the several measures are divided under three heads, namely, those dealing with moral, with political and with industrial issues. Instead of scattering on all the measures introduced, or even a considerable part of them, the principal issue of each group, that which meant the most to The People, and upon which the machine centered its efforts, has been selected for detailed consideration. On the score of the moral issues, the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill has been taken as the most important; while the Direct Primary bill is dealt with as the chief political issue, and the railroad regulation measures as involving the chief industrial issue. The story of the fight over these bills is the story of the session of 1909. The events attending the passage of the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill, the amendment of the Direct Primary bill, and the defeat of the Stetson Railroad Regulation bill, with the attending incident of the passage of the Wright Railroad bill, show, as nothing else can, how the machine controls and manipulates a Legislature - and such is the purpose of this little volume.

The efforts of justice-loving men to simplify the criminal codes, to the end that rich and poor alike may have equal opportunity in the trial courts - not in theory alone but in fact - and the successful efforts of the machine to block this reform, have made detailed consideration of the defeat of the Commonwealth Club bills and the passage of the Wheelan bills, and the so-called Change of Venue bill timely. And the story of these measures illustrates again how the machine element defeats the purpose of The People, and overrides what are the constitutional rights - and should be rights in fact - of every American citizen.

Measures which involved no particular contest between the good government and the machine forces - measures patched up by interested parties and slipped through the Legislature without opposition and generally without comment - although many of them of great importance, are not touched upon. The histories of those selected for consideration show the machine, or if you like, the system, at its work of passing undesirable measures, and of blocking the passage of good measures. If the Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 assist the citizens of California to understand how this is done; if it give them that knowledge of the weakness, the strength, the purposes, and the affiliations of the Senators and Assemblymen who sat in the Legislature of 1909, a knowledge of which the machine managers have had heretofore a monopoly; if it point the way for a new method of publicity to crush corruption and to promote reform - a way which others better prepared for the work than I, may, in California and even in other States, follow - the labor of preparing this volume for the press will have been justified.

Franklin Hichborn.

Santa Clara, Cal., July 4, 1909.

Chapter I.

Breaking Ground.

Although the Reform Element had a Majority in Both Senate and Assembly, Good Bills Were Defeated, and Vicious Measures Passed - Three Reasons for This: (1) Reform Element Was Without Plan of Action, (2) Was Without Organization; (3) The Machine Was Permitted to Organize Both Senate and Assembly.

The personnel of the California Legislature of 1909, was, all things considered, better than that of any other Legislature that has assembled in California in a decade or more. There were, to be sure, in both Senate and Assembly men who were constantly on the wrong side of every question affecting the moral, political or industrial well-being of the State, but a majority of each House labored for the passage of good laws, laws which would not only silence and satisfy constituents, but prove effective and accomplish the purpose for which they had been drawn. Just as earnestly as they worked for the passage of good laws, a majority of the members of the Senate as well as a majority of the members of the Assembly opposed the passage of vicious measures, and of measures ostensibly introduced to work needed reform but drawn in such a manner as to be, from a practical standpoint, ineffective.