Conclusion.
Events of the Session of 1909 Show That Before Any Effective Reform Can
Be Brought About in California, Good Government Republicans and
Democrats Must Unite to Organize Senate and Assembly - Appointment of
Senate Committees May Be Taken Out of the Hands of the
Lieutenant-Governor.
In the opening chapter it was stated that the machine element in the Legislature of 1909, although in the minority, defeated the purposes of the reform majority, because of three principal reasons:
(1) The reform element was without organization.
(2) The reform members had, except in the anti-racetrack gambling fight, no definite plan of action.
(3) The reform members of both Houses permitted the machine to name presiding officers and appoint committees.
This third reason must appeal to those who have read the foregoing pages as the most important of all. The story of every machine success, in face of opposition, is that of advantage gained through the moral support given by the presiding officers[105], or of co-operation of committees, or of both. But, unfortunately, a stupid partisanship - a partisanship which the machine finds far more potent than bribe money - makes this cause of machine success more difficult to overcome than either of the others. Already a movement is on foot, the details of which the writer is not at liberty to make public, that will unite the reform element of the next Legislature into a working body, from the day nominations are made. Steps to this end were taken before the last Legislature adjourned. In the same way, the work of bringing reform issues before the public - reform of the ballot laws, amendment of the Direct Primary law, the simplification of the mode of criminal procedure - is being taken up in the same effective, commonsense way as was the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. But here the progress of the commonsense element of machine opposition seems to halt. In spite of their experience of the last session, Democrats and Republicans who stand for good government hesitate at the suggestion of non-partisan organization of Senate and Assembly. The writer has shown in the foregoing chapters that the machine Republicans and the machine Democrats were for practical purposes a unit in the organization of the Legislature of 1909. Why, then, should not the anti-machine Republicans and the anti-machine Democrats unite for purposes of organization, just as they united, at the session of 1909, to oppose vicious measures and to work for the passage of good bills? That is a question which has never been satisfactorily answered. It leads us, however, to the question of the real line of division in Senate and Assembly, and, for that matter, in State politics[106].
That the real division is no longer between political parties, or even between party factions, is apparent to the observer who has given the question any attention at all.
Not once, for example, did the California Legislature of 1909 divide on a party question; nor did it have to deal with any problem that had not at one time or another been endorsed by both parties. Both Democrats and Republicans in either State or county platforms had declared for the passage of an Anti-Racetrack Gambling law, for an effective Direct Primary law, for an effective Railroad Regulation law, for the submission to the people of a Constitutional Amendment granting the people the privilege of initiating laws. In the same way, county conventions of both parties - and county conventions are the closest to the people and most representative of them - had declared for local option, for the election of United States Senators by direct vote of the people, for amendments to the codes that should simplify proceedings in criminal cases, for effective railroad regulation. Estimating the purposes of the two parties by their county and State platforms, none of these reforms can be regarded as any more Democratic than Republican, and these were the issues with which the Legislature of 1909 was called upon to deal.
A glance at the tables of votes in the appendix will show that the Assemblymen and the Senators who voted against the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill, generally speaking, voted against the effective Stetson Railroad Regulation bill and for the ineffective Wright bill, opposed the provision in the Direct Primary bill giving the people an effective part in the selection of United States Senators, supported the passage of the Change of Venue bill, opposed the passage of the Local Option bill, opposed the submission of the Initiative amendment to the electors of the State. This negative element, opposed to policies which the normal citizen regards as making for the State's best interests, has in these pages been called the machine[107].