Section 1. A new section is hereby added to the Penal Code to be known as Section three hundred and thirty-seven a thereof and to read as follows:
aye. Every person, who engages in pool selling or bookmaking at any time or place; or who keeps or occupies any room, shed, tenement, tent, booth, or building, float or vessel, or any part thereof, or who occupies any place or stand of any kind, upon any public or private grounds within this State, with books, papers, apparatus or paraphernalia, for the purpose of recording or registering bets or wagers, or of selling pools, or who records or registers bets or wagers, or sells pools, upon the result of any trial or contest of skill, speed or power of endurance, of man or beast or between men or beasts, or upon the result of any lot, chance, casualty, unknown or contingent event whatsoever; or who receives, registers, records or forwards, or purports or pretends to receive, register, record or forward, in any manner whatsoever, any money, thing or consideration of value, bet or wagered, or offered for the purpose of being bet or wagered, by or for any other person, or sells pools, upon any such result; or who, being the owner, lessee, or occupant of any room, shed, tenement, tent, booth or building, float or vessel, or part thereof, or of any grounds within this State, knowingly permits the same to be used or occupied for any of these purposes, or therein keeps, exhibits or employs any device or apparatus for the purpose of recording or registering such bets or wagers, or the selling of such pools, or becomes the custodian or depositary for gain, hire or reward of any money, property or thing of value, staked, wagered or pledged, or to be wagered or pledged upon any such result; or who aids, assists or abets in any manner in any of the said acts, which are hereby forbidden, is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail or State prison for a period of not less than thirty days and not exceeding one year.
[24] Had not the people of the Twenty-ninth and Thirty-first Senatorial Districts revolted against the machine at the general election of 1908, the Walker-Otis bill would probably have been defeated in the Senate. In the chapter dealing with the passage of the Miller-Drew Reciprocal Demurrage bill, it will be shown how the Democratic Senators Holohan and Campbell were elected in the Republican Twenty-ninth and Thirty-first Senatorial Districts, not because they were Democrats, but because the Republicans of those districts, recognizing the real issue before the State - the machine against the anti-machine element - voted for Holohan and Campbell, knowing them to be for good government and a "square deal" for all. Holohan and Campbell were from the beginning foremost in their support of the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. To be sure, at the final vote, only seven Senators voted against the measure. But it is generally conceded that when the session opened, the gamblers had nineteen Senators who could have been prevailed upon to vote against an effective anti-gambling bill. Had machine men sat in the seats occupied by Holohan and Campbell, the gamblers would have had twenty-one votes in the Senate, and the Walker-Otis bill would have been defeated.
[25] Much of the credit for this determined stand is due Earl H. Webb, president of the Anti-Racetrack Gambling League, who managed the fight for effective anti-racetrack gambling legislation not only during the session of the Legislature, but before the Legislature convened. Mr. Webb first convinced himself that the Walker-Otis bill would stop pool selling and bookmaking; and that the measure would stand the test of honest interpretation by the courts. Then he made his fight for it. To Mr. Webb, more than to any other one person, is due the credit for its passage.
Chapter VII.
Passage of the Walker-Otis Bill.
Anti-Machine Element Forced the Issue and Compelled Early Action on the
Measure - Evidence That Machine Planned to Defeat or Amend the Bill by
Delaying Its Passage Until Toward the End of the Session.
As one looks back over the exciting first five weeks of the session, when the Walker-Otis bill was under consideration, it is plain that the machine would have preferred to have made its initial fight in the Senate. If defeated in the Senate, the enemies of the measure could have jockeyed for delay, prevented the passage of the measure until the closing hours of the session, and then killed it or forced its supporters to accept amendments.
But the initial fight did not come in the Senate. The Assembly was the battle-ground. The reason for this lies principally in the fact that while Assemblyman W. B. Griffiths, of Napa, raises fast horses, he is not a gambler, and is as much opposed to the bookmaking, pool-selling features of the track as Senator Walker himself. Griffiths was made chairman of the Assembly Committee on Public Morals. While this committee has sundry sins to answer for, nevertheless it made an astonishingly clean record on the Walker-Otis bill. On January 18, less than three weeks after the Legislature had assembled, Chairman Griffiths called his committee together to take up the Walker-Otis bill.
Of the nine members of the committee, seven were present, Mott and Mendenhall alone failing to answer to their names. Those present were: Griffiths, Cattell, Young, Dean, Perine, Fleisher and Wilson. The seven members went through the bill paragraph by paragraph and decided unanimously to recommend it for passage.