Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 Part 15

Mr. Lynch hailed from the Thirty-first Senatorial District, which takes in San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties. These counties are intensely Republican; they are also farming communities. And since the one-time Senator Lynch voted against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill, the farmers have seen tons upon tons of their products rot in the fields because they could not get cars to move their crops.

But while the farmers of San Luis Obispo and San Benito counties were watching their products rot for want of cars to move them, it is alleged that cars were being sent from California to Oregon to meet the requisitions of Oregon s.h.i.+ppers. Oregon had a reciprocal demurrage law on her statute books; California had not.

Senator Lynch's vote against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill was made a sort of issue in San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties at the election of 1908. A. E. Campbell, Democrat, was running against Mr. Lynch, Republican, for the State Senate. Right or wrong - the reader may judge which - the farmers of the two counties credited the defeat of the Reciprocal Demurrage bill not to the Republican Party, but to the Republican machine, or better described perhaps as the Republican-Democratic machine, that dominates the State, a machine which the people of California are just now engaged in smas.h.i.+ng.

Being good Republicans, the people of Mr. Lynch's district gave Mr. Taft a plurality of more than 1,700; remembering the defeat of the Reciprocal Demurrage bill, they gave Mr. Campbell, Democratic candidate for the Senate, a plurality of 416. The fact that a United States Senator was to be elected didn't influence the Republicans of San Luis Obispo County at all. They elected a Democrat to the State Senate because they knew him to be free from machine domination - a machine maintained for the purpose of defeating good measures, such as the Reciprocal Demurrage bill, and furthering the pa.s.sage of bad ones.

But the influence of Lynch's vote against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill was not confined to San Luis Obispo and San Benito Counties. It spread over into the adjoining Twenty-ninth District, which takes in Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties. These counties are also intensely Republican.

They gave Taft a plurality of 2,799. But they gave the Democratic candidate for the State Senate, James B. Holohan, a plurality of 677.

Holohan ran 3,476 votes ahead of his ticket in a district where only 9,483 votes were cast for State Senator. Holohan was known to be free of machine influences. He could be counted upon to vote for a Reciprocal Demurrage bill without first consulting the Southern Pacific's political agent, Jere Burke. And the Republican whose place he took in the Senate had voted against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill of 1907.

The election of Holohan and Campbell unquestionably had its influence on the pa.s.sage of the Demurrage, bill. Not a member of the Senate cast his vote against it, although several of the Senators who had voted against the bill two years before, sat in the Senate of 1909. Among these were ten Senators who, during the session of 1909, were conspicuously on the wrong side of most questions. They were Senators Bates, Hartman, Leavitt, McCartney, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis, Wolfe and Wright. The ten, for example, const.i.tuted half the twenty Senators who opposed the plan to give The People State-wide popular vote in the selection of United States Senators. Only seven Senators voted against the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. Five of the seven - Hartman, Leavitt, Reily, Weed and Wolfe - had voted against reciprocal demurrage in 1907.

But there was a harkening to the demand of The People in 1909, which had been wanting two years before. Seven of these ten Senators, who voted against reciprocal demurrage in 1907 - Bates, Hartman, McCartney, Savage, Willis, Wolfe and Wright - voted for reciprocal demurrage in 1909. Three of them - Leavitt, Reily and Weed - did not vote at all.

[66] The vote was as follows:

For the amendment: Bell, Birdsall, Boynton, Burnett, Caminetti, Campbell, Cartwright, Curtin, Cutten, Holohan, McCartney, Miller, Roseberry, Rush, Strobridge, Sanford, Thompson, Walker, Wright - 19.

Against the amendment: Anthony, Bills, Estudillo, Finn, Hartman, Hurd, Kennedy, Leavitt, Lewis, Price, Reily, Savage, Weed, Welch, Willis, Wolfe - 16.

[67] Machine Senators habitually exact the utmost consideration and courtesy from the anti-machine Senators, and habitually repay it with deceit and trickery. The curious feature of this is that the anti-machine Senators continue to extend the courtesy and continue to be tricked and imposed upon. A shutting off of "Senatorial courtesy" would go far toward solving the problem of machine domination of the Legislature.

[68] Mr. Bonnheim testified that prior to the new schedule of express rates enforced between New York and the city of San Francisco, the rate was $8.00 per hundred for s.h.i.+pments of from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds; $9.00 per hundred for 5,000 to 10,000 pounds; $10.00 per hundred for 2,000 to 5,000 pounds; $11.00 per hundred from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds.

and $12.00 from 500 to 1,000 pounds; $13.50 from 100 to 500 pounds.

That the withdrawal of the bulk rates in December, 1908, resulted in an advance of 35 per cent by the withdrawal of the 2,000 pound rate, and an advance of 50 per cent by the withdrawal of the 5,000 pound rate; an advance of 66 3/4 per cent by the withdrawal of the 10,000 pound rate, and that the withdrawal of the 20,000 pound rate amounted to an advance of 92 8/10 per cent.

[69] Senator Cartwright actually introduced a resolution calling upon the Attorney-General to inst.i.tute proceedings before the Interstate Commerce Commission:

To determine whether existing rates are reasonable or unreasonable.

To ascertain, fix and establish a reasonable schedule of freight rates, and to enforce the same.

To determine whether or not any existing rate is discriminatory.

And to prevent further discrimination between persons or places.

The resolution carried an appropriation of $25,000 to ensure competent legal and expert a.s.sistance.

The resolution was introduced on February 4. It went first to the Committee on Federal Relations, then to the Judiciary Committee, then to the Committee on Finance, from which it emerged March 1 with the recommendation that it be adopted. On March 2 it was sent back to the Committee on Finance and was never heard from again. The enormous benefit to the State if such an investigation could be honestly and effectively carried on, will be recognized.

[70] The vote was as follows:

For the resolution: Bell, Birdsall, Boynton, Burnett, Caminetti, Cutten, Estudillo, Holohan, Roseberry, Rush, Sanford, Thompson - 12.

Against the resolution: Anthony, Bates, Bills, Finn, Hartman, Hurd, Kennedy, Leavitt, Lewis, Martinelli, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis, Wolfe, Wright - 16.

[71] E. F. Mitch.e.l.l, Executive Secretary to Governor Gillett, makes the following statement regarding this particular error:

The electric companies which run interurban trains, also claimed that the bill, as prepared, applied to them, and would place upon them an unnecessary burden and expense.

"There is no doubt that section three of the act applies to motor cars and electric cars. The language is very plain. Section one of the bill describes pa.s.senger trains, section two refers to freight trains, and section three says "all other trains not propelled by steam locomotives." Now, there are only two cla.s.ses of cars that are not propelled by steam locomotives, and those are motor and electric cars.

In the Governor's opinion, an error was made in endeavoring to amend it, so it would not apply to motor cars and electric cars. The amendment was prepared, and we had here in the office, during the argument on the bill, the original committee amendments proposed. The amendment was to be made after the word "train" on the second line and had this amendment been made as contemplated, it would have excluded motor cars and electric cars, but instead of having been made on line two, as expected, it was carried into line three, where it gave the bill an entirely different meaning, It was one of those unfortunate things that crept into legislation through an oversight of somebody, which could have been readily corrected if the bill had been watched. The insertion of this amendment in the wrong place, instead of excluding motor cars and electric cars, as intended, included them. This error was not discovered until the bill came up before the Governor for consideration."

Chapter XV.

Defeat of the Commonwealth Club Bills.

Drawn By Committees of the Ablest San Francisco Attorneys Not Under Retainer of Prison-Dodging Captains of Industry - Measures Not Allowed to Reach Senate or a.s.sembly, but Killed in Committees - Grove L.

Johnson's Keen Opposition.

The graft prosecution at San Francisco not only brought the fact squarely before the public that large corporations sometimes catch the easiest way to achieve their purposes by bribing public officials, but that it is a deal easier to pa.s.s a camel through the eye of a needle than a millionaire offender through the legal cobwebs of technicality to a cell at San Quentin or Folsom[72].

That the technical defense in criminal cases was subject to grave abuses had been generally recognized. But it took the graft cases at San Francisco to fairly rub this unpleasant fact into the law-abiding element. Because for the first time in the practice of criminal law in California, unlimited wealth was available to employ the best legal talent to defend men under indictment.

The defending lawyers took advantage of every technicality. They emphasized the most trivial of them. Gradually it began to dawn upon The People that here were legal refuges, based upon the most absurd of technicalities, the sweeping away of which would in no way injure the substantial rights of a person charged with crime, refuges which were available to the rich man but denied to the poor or moderately well-to-do.

To be sure, any person accused could make his technical defense if he had the means to employ the necessary counsel. But in face of the astonis.h.i.+ng performances going on in the courts at San Francisco, it soon became apparent to the thoughtful, that no man, whose fortune was expressed in terms of less than five ciphers could make such a defense.

Thus the unpalatable truth was forced home, that we have in California a technical defense available for the rich man charged with crime, which is in effect denied even those of the so-called middle cla.s.ses.

With this conviction came demand of reform of the criminal laws to ensure:

(1) A prompt trial of an accused person on the merits of the case.

(2) A prompt judgment in the case of a verdict of guilty.

(3) A prompt hearing of the case in the Court of Appeal.

The machine was, of course, against any such "wicked innovations," as a.s.semblyman Grove L. Johnson would have called them.

However, at San Francisco, three considerable bodies, the Bar a.s.sociation, the Commonwealth Club and the Citizens' League of Justice, took the matter up, and for months had the ablest lawyers of the State - at any rate the ablest not retained for the defense of capitalists under indictment - at work wrestling with the problem of simplifying the criminal codes and doing away so far as possible with technical defense, except in such cases as the substantial rights of the defendant might be involved.

A committee consisting of J. C. McKinstry, J. J. Dwyer, Lester H.

Jacobs, Oscar Cus.h.i.+ng and Warren Olney Jr. was appointed for this purpose by the Citizens' League of Justice. The Commonwealth Club appointed Beverly L. Hodghead, Orrin K. McMurray, Alex. G. Eells, Fairfax H. Wheelan, Sidney V. Smith, Lester H. Jacobs and Joseph Hutchinson. One would go far before finding more representative or more public-spirited bodies of citizens, or more able exponents of the law.

The labors of the several committees resulted in what may in a broad way be regarded as two sets of bills being prepared.

The first, known as the Commonwealth Club bills, were sixty-five in number, and were introduced in the Senate by Campbell, and in the a.s.sembly by Butler. The second set was known as the Bar a.s.sociation bills. They were introduced in the Senate by Burnett. They were nine in number, and while apparently covering much of the ground of the Commonwealth Club bills, were in no respects so complete as to method or detail. The Bar a.s.sociation bills pin-p.r.i.c.ked an abuse; the Commonwealth Club bills drove the knife in deep.

The sixty-five Commonwealth Club bills were readily divided into three groups, those dealing with Grand Juries and indictments, with trial juries and verdicts, and with appeals to the higher courts.