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.