For the bill: Anthony, Bates, Bell, Bills, Birdsall, Black, Boynton,
Burnett, Caminetti, Campbell, Cartwright, Curtin, Cutten, Estudillo,
Holohan, Hurd, Kennedy, Lewis, Martinelli, McCartney, Miller, Price,
Roseberry, Rush, Sanford, Savage, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson, Walker,
Welch, Willis, Wright - 33.
Against the bill: Finn, Hare, Hartman, Leavitt, Reily, Weed, Wolfe - 7.
Chapter VIII.
The Direct Primary Bill.
Parallel Between It and the Walker-Otis Bill - Attempt to Placate the
Machine Weakened Position of Its Supporters - Most Serious Criticism
Came from Advocates of the Direct Primary Idea - What the Original
Measure Provided - Machine's Plan of Campaign.
The parallel between the Walker-Otis Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill and the Wright-Stanton Direct Primary bill furnishes the most suggestive feature of the Legislative session. Each was based on a demand of a large majority of the people of the State for the correction of an abuse; the one to prevent the prostitution of the race-course in the interest of the gambling element; the second to prevent the domination in public affairs of the corrupt, corporation-backed political boss.
Each had been discussed in the public prints for months previous to the convening of the Legislature, and each had been made in the popular view of affairs a sort of test by which the Legislature was to be judged.
Each had the support of not only the better element of electors, but the better element of each House of the Legislature. Each had the determined secret opposition, and so far as it dared, the open opposition of the machine.
The campaign which the machine planned against the bills was practically the same in each instance - to amend the measures into a condition of ineffectiveness, and then pass them as sop to The People. This would have given The People a Direct Primary law without a direct primary; an Anti-Gambling law that would neither close poolrooms nor interfere with bookmaking.
And here the parallel ends.