By consulting the table showing the six votes on this bill - Table "D" of the appendix - it will be seen that eleven of the twenty-three Assemblymen who voted for Mott's motion to refer the measure back to the Committee on Public Morals voted for its final passage. Two, Baxter and Schmitt, who had voted for the Mott resolution, were absent when the final vote on the bill was taken, leaving only ten who had voted for the Mott resolution to vote against the bill. The eleven who had voted for Mott's motion, but who switched to safety when the vote on the bill's passage came, were: Beardslee, Greer, Johnson of Sacramento[30], Johnson of San Diego, Johnston of Contra Costa, Moore, Mott, Nelson, Odom, Wagner, Webber - 11.
There was just one more parliamentary move by which the Walker-Otis bill could be delayed in the Assembly, to give notice of a motion to reconsider the vote by which the measure had been passed. Grove L. Johnson came to the rescue with the notice. This tied the bill up for another twenty-four hours. On the 2nd Johnson made his motion to reconsider but was defeated by a vote of nineteen to fifty-seven.
The table of the six votes on the Walker-Otis bill shows at a glance who voted consistently for the measure on all of the numerous roll calls; who voted consistently against it; and who were pulled backward and forward, voting one moment to satisfy the public demand that the bill be passed, and the next on the side of the gambling interests[31].
Public opinion was running high for the passage of the Walker-Otis bill by the time the measure reached the Senate, after passing the Assembly, but the bill might still have been held up in the Senate committee[32] had it not been for the ridiculous attack which Tom Williams, president of the California jockey Club, made upon all who supported the measure, or all who Williams thought supported it.
The occasion was a public hearing before the Senate Committee on Public Morals, at which Williams was asked to present the side of the opponents of the bill. The crowd that filled the Senate chamber expected from Williams some reasons why the measure should be denied passage, but it was disappointed.
Instead of giving reasons in support of his position, Williams introduced the methods of the barroom into the Senate chamber. He dramatically gave Rev. Frank K. Baker, of Sacramento, the lie, under conditions which stamped Williams as a bully and a coward. His uncalled-for attack on Dr. Baker would have killed his argument, but not content with this, he made probably the most astounding attack on the Protestant clergy of the country ever heard in California, certainly the most astonishing ever heard in the Senate chamber of the State[33].
The racetrack man's tirade did not give the reasons for continuance of gambling, which the people expected to hear from him. Finally, when Williams was swamped by questions which his insolence and tactlessness had provoked, Senator Frank Leavitt came to his rescue by moving adjournment. Leavitt's motion prevailed, but not until Williams had effectively settled the fate of the Walker-Otis bill.
The Committee on Public Morals reported the bill back the next day with the recommendation that it do not pass. The recommendation was that of Weed, Wolfe and Leavitt. While Kennedy and Savage failed to vote for the recommendation, they made no minority report. But even with the unfavorable report, the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 33 to 7. In the eleventh hour, uncertain Senators like Welch joined the winning side, but the showing made by the gamblers was, all things considered, better than could have been expected[34].
In the Senate and Assembly, out of a total vote of 120, the gambling element, which had year after year succeeded in preventing the passage of an anti-racetrack gambling bill, commanded on the measure's final passage but seventeen votes. The incident illustrates what aroused public opinion, when it finds expression in a definite plan of action, can compel.
But even with the measure's final passage, the delays that attended it continued. It passed the Senate on Thursday, February 4. By the following Saturday, the measure had been correctly engrossed, but could not go to the Governor until it had received the signature of Speaker Stanton of the Assembly. Stanton was out of town. As a result, it was February 10, six days after it had passed the Senate, before it went to the Governor. Governor Gillett took nine days to sign it, the Senate History showing that it was approved on February 19. Because of the delays the gamblers were enabled to complete their season at the Emeryville track.