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.