The Democratic precedent was established in 1887. In that year Robert W. Waterman, a Republican, was Lieutenant-Governor and presiding officer of the Senate. The Senate was made up of twenty-six Democrats and fourteen Republicans. The Democratic majority organized the Senate under the following rule, which will be found in the Senate journal of that session:
"All Committees of the Senate, special and standing, and all joint Committees on the part thereof, shall be elected by the Senate unless otherwise ordered."
The Republican precedent was made in 1897. In that year, William T. Jeter, a Democrat, was Lieutenant-Governor, while a majority of the Senators were Republicans. Instead of leaving the appointing of the committees to the Democratic Lieutenant-Governor, the Republican Senators adopted a rule that "all standing committees of the Senate shall be named by the Senate, unless otherwise ordered, and the first named shall be chairman thereof. All other committees shall be appointed in such manner as the Senate shall determine."
In other words, the Republican majority of the Senate named the Senate committees of the session of 1897, taking their appointment out of the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor as the Democrats had done ten years before. There is no good reason why the members of the anti-machine majority in the Senate should not have taken the same course in 1909, and named the committees. Had they done so, and named the President pro tem., they would have organized the Senate in the interest of those policies in advancing which they were soon in open revolt against Lieutenant-Governor Porter, the machine Senators and the machine lobby. Failing to do so, they placed themselves under a handicap which they were unable to overcome.
The reform element of the Legislature of 1911 will have in the experience of the reform element of the session of 1909, an important lesson. And The People of California, who will elect that Legislature, have a lesson as important. The successes of the machine at the session of 1909, where a clear majority of both Houses opposed machine policies, demonstrated that the well-being of the State requires that the opponents of the machine in Senate and Assembly, regardless of party label, organize the Legislature. But back of this is the even more important requirement that there be elected to the Legislature American citizens, with the responsibility of their citizenship upon them, rather than partisans, burdened until their good purposes are made negative, by the responsibility of their partisanship.
[105] See, for example, Speaker Stanton's ruling on the Direct Primary bill when the Assembly was considering the question of receding from its amendments.
[106] The machine recognizes the real division, if the reform element does not. The machine, for example, calls itself Republican, and as such controls the patronage of the San Francisco water front. The appointments to water front jobs are, of course, partisan, but the writer is reliably informed that as many "Democrats" as "Republicans" are employed there. Senators Hare and Kennedy, we have seen, although Democrats, got appointments to holdover committees. The machine recognizes but one line in politics, that which divides those who support machine policies from those who stand for good government and the square deal. When those who stand for good government and the square deal become as clear sighted, the fight against the machine will not be quite so unequal.
[107] The term "machine" is, as a general thing, rather lightly used. It is made to stand for everything, from what might be and should be perfectly legitimate party organization, to the Southern Pacific political bureau. The Southern Pacific political bureau is, as a matter of fact, the dominating factor in machine affairs, which gives some reason for dubbing the machine Southern Pacific. But it is nor more the Southern Pacific machine than it is the Tenderloin machine or the Racetrack gamblers' machine, or the United Railroads machine, or the Electric Power Trust machine.
[108] Bryce in his American Commonwealth, more than a quarter of a century ago, showed the hollowness of the contention of the machine element for arty consideration. "The interest of a Boss in political questions," said Bryce in one of his admirable chapters on this subject, "is usually quite secondary. Here and there one may be found and who is a politician in the European sense, who, whether sincerely or not, purports and professes to be interested in some principle or measure affecting the welfare of the country. But the attachment of the ringster is usually given wholly to the concrete party, that is, to the men who compose it, regarded as office-holders or office-seekers; and there is often not even a profession of zeal for any party doctrine. As a noted politician happily observed to a friend of mine: 'You know, Mr. R., there are no politics in politics.' "
[109] One has a wider view of this condition if he look out beyond the Sacramento Capitol, into the Senate Hall at Washington. The following is from an editorial article which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, of June 12 last: