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.