As has been shown in these pages, the interests of the several beneficiaries of the system are in effect pooled; one element helps the other. The managers of the several elements, the political agents, if you like, of the tenderloin, Southern Pacific, racetrack, and public-service monopolies generally; in a word, all who seek to evade the law or to secure undue special privileges or to continue secure in the possession of such privileges already secured, recognize that they must hang together or submit to a reckoning with the public, which must necessarily result in the breaking of the particular monopoly which each enjoys, be it in transportation, nickel-in-the-slot graft, or traffic in the bodies of young women. Should the political bureau of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, for example, lose the support of the tenderloin, or of the racetrack gamblers, or of any other powerful group of its political associates, the corporation could no longer continue its strangle-hold upon the State. But none of its associates would dare thus offend. Such is the machine, which, in the name of a protective tariff, "sound money," Abraham Lincoln, or Theodore Roosevelt, has organized the Legislature of California for sixteen years. Previous to 1895, there were California Legislatures organized in the name of Thomas Jefferson. But the machine has not taken the name of Thomas Jefferson in vain in California for many years[108].
Nevertheless, although acting under the name Republican, the machine is quite as dependent upon "Democrats" as upon "Republicans," and as dependent upon either as upon the tenderloin, the brewery trust or the racetrack gambling element. It monopolizes neither party, but it divides both parties. Or it may be described as a canker that has eaten into both, diseased both, rendered both unwholesome, until a condition exists in the dominating parties that requires that the uncorrupted element of both unite to cut the diseased portion away[109].
As the machine divides the parties, so did it divide the Republican and Democratic delegations in the Senate and the Assembly of the California Legislature of 1909. Hare and Kennedy, for example, Democratic Senators, voted constantly with Wolfe and Leavitt, Republican Senators, for machine policies. Nor was the opposition restricted to party lines. Black and Boynton and Cutten, Republican Senators, were found voting constantly with Campbell and Holohan, Democratic Senators, against the machine. Between Black and Wolfe, Republicans, there was nothing in common during the entire session; nor was there anything in common between Campbell and Kennedy, Democrats. On practically every important issue, however, Kennedy, Democrat, and Wolfe, Republican, made common cause, while Black, Republican, and Campbell, Democrat, opposed them.
The same comparisons could be made in the Assembly, where such Democrats as Wheelan and Baxter were found with Mott and Coghlan, Republicans, supporting machine policies, while opposed to them were anti-machine Republicans of the character of Bohnett and Callan, and anti-machine Democrats like Polsley and Mendenhall.
Thus, for practical purposes, the Legislature can not be divided on party lines. The only practical line of division is between the machine element, and the anti-machine element. Such, at the session of 1909, was the division on every important issue; such will it be at the legislative session of 1911. Why should not the same division govern the organization of Senate and Assembly?
As a matter of fact, the machine disregards party lines even in organizing. In making up its committees it considers fealty to machine interests above party name. For example, Hare and Kennedy were the Democratic Senators who this year affiliated with the machine. Kennedy was appointed to practically every important committee, at least to those before which important fights were to be made. Thus we find him on the Committee on Commerce and Navigation, Contingent Expenses, Elections and Election Laws, Prisons and Reformatories, and Public Morals, Hare was appointed to the Committee on Commerce and Navigation, Elections and Election Laws, Labor, Capital and Immigration, Municipal Corporations, Printing, and Public Buildings and Grounds. In committees, as well as on the floor of the Senate, Hare and Kennedy were found as a general thing casting their influence and their votes on the side of machine policies.
Had the anti-machine Democrats and the anti-machine Republicans in Senate and Assembly, who worked together for the same ends and voted together on practically every important issue, taken the same course, and united for the organization of the two Houses, reform measures which were defeated by narrow margins would have been made laws, and machine measures which became laws defeated.
Such being the case, is it not the duty of the anti-machine Republicans and the anti-machine Democrats who may sit in the Legislature of 1911, to organize both Senate and Assembly to resist machine purposes and policies?
This can be done comparatively easily in the Assembly, where a movement to elect the Speaker such as was started by Drew of Fresno this year, if carried out, would take the Assembly out of machine hands. Although the organization of the Senate looks more difficult, because the Senate has no voice in the selection of its presiding officer, nevertheless, even though a Warren Porter occupy the post of Lieutenant-Governor, at the session of 1911 the reform element can elect its President pro tem., and appoint the Senate committees. In other words, a majority of the Senate, may if it see fit, take the appointing of the committees out of the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor.
There are two important precedents for this course, one established by a
Democratic Senate; the other by a Republican Senate.