Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909

by Franklin Hichborn

The day following, February 23d, Senator Campbell had the measure re-referred to the committee, that an amendment better calculated to meet the needs of the State might be prepared. The committee took until March 5th to make its report. The anti-machine Senators on the committee had to fight for every inch of the way toward securing a report upon an effective amendment. This, however, they finally succeeded in doing. The second substitute amendment smoothed out the ambiguities and the alleged ambiguities of the Constitution, of which the machine legislators made so much during the session, and of which it is feared the courts may make much later on. For the long list of constitutional powers and duties of the Railroad Commissioners, which are so worded as to confuse the legal mind, the framers of the amendment substituted the following:

"The Commission (Railroad) and each of its members shall have such powers and perform such duties as are now or may hereafter be provided for by law." Under that simple permission there could have been no question of the authority of the Legislature to empower the Railroad Commissioners to fix a system of absolute rates. Section 23, Article XII., of the Constitution, which at least confused the lawyers employed by the railroads to prevent the passage of the Stetson bill, was repealed entirely. The adoption of the amendment, would, had it been approved by the people at the general election of 1910, have removed every impediment which railroad attorneys claim to be in the way of an effective railroad regulation law for California.

Curiously enough the machine Senators who had been so much exercised over the alleged ambiguities of the Constitution when the Stetson bill was under consideration were found opposed to the submission of the amendment to the people. Every Senator who voted against the amendment had voted against the Stetson bill and had voted for the Wright bill. Burnett, who had been led to believe when he voted for the Wright bill that the amendment would be submitted to the people, voted for the amendment. Walker also switched back from the machine. Wright and McCartney, who had voted against the Stetson bill, also went on record for the amendment. The remaining fourteen Senators who voted for it, to a man, had voted for the Stetson bill and against the passage of the Wright bill. But a two-thirds vote of the Senate was required for the amendment's adoption. This meant twenty-seven votes. The amendment was defeated, the vote being nineteen for submission of the measure to the people, and sixteen against[66].

This ended all hope of a model railroad regulation law for California until 1913, for the Constitution must be amended before such a law can be realized. If a satisfactory amendment be adopted in 1911, it must before going into effect be ratified by the people. This ratification would come in 1912. The Legislature of 1913 would then be able to proceed with the passage of the model statute.

An attempt to investigate the causes and the necessity of the arbitrary increase in transcontinental freight rates failed as completely as did the attempted amendment of the Constitution.

Early in the session, on January 18, to be exact, Senator Caminetti introduced a resolution which directed the Senate Committee on Federal Relations to inquire into the cause of the increase in freight rates, and to report its findings to the Senate. Two days later Caminetti introduced a second and companion resolution, which provided that investigation should be made into the causes for the increase in express charges. On Senator Leavitt's motion this last resolution was made a special order for January 22, when the first resolution was to come up. The Senate on the 22d re-referred the resolutions back to the committee.

The Senate Committee on Federal Relations was, by Caminetti's clever; tactics in having the resolutions go to that body, forced into a prominence which evidently worried the machine. It consisted of Burnett, Black and Sanford. Black, Republican, and Sanford, Democrat, were working openly against the machine. Burnett, while he managed to land on the machine side of things at critical points in the progress of the session, was by no means a machine coolie. Had it been known that the Committee on Federal Relations was to be charged with an investigation into railroad affairs, a very different committee would unquestionably have been appointed. The machine's problem was to correct the blunder made when the anti-machine forces were given a majority on what had become a committee charged with the handling of an important railroad issue. The ease with which the blunder was corrected speaks volumes for the machine's resourcefulness.

The air at the capitol suddenly became permeated with the idea that a committee of three was altogether too small to conduct so important an investigation as that proposed in the Caminetti resolutions. Accordingly the Committee on Federal Relations very readily recommended, when it reported the resolutions back to the Senate with the recommendation that the investigation be held, that two Senators be added to the committee, making it a committee of five. Had the machine observed the unwritten rules of Senatorial courtesy[67], which machine Senators insist upon so loudly, the anti-machine element would have been safe enough in doing this. Senatorial courtesy required that the author of the resolutions, Caminetti, be made one of the two additional members. This would have given the anti-machine element at least three members of the enlarged committee, a condition which did not line with machine purposes at all. So Senatorial courtesy was thrown to the winds, Senator Caminetti was ignored, and Senators Wolfe and Bills were named as the additional members of the committee. The machine seldom blunders, but when it does, usually covers its blunders with astonishing directness and dispatch. A glance at the records made by Senators Wolfe and Bills, which will be found in Table "A" of the Appendix, will show the truth of this statement.

The machine's next move was to delay the investigation. For one reason and another the investigation was delayed. Finally, on February 19, Caminetti gave notice that on the following Tuesday, he would move that the committee be discharged and a second committee ordered to carry out the instructions contained in the resolutions. This declaration of war stirred the machine to action - machine action. Assurances were given that the investigation would be held, but it was March 12, almost two months after the resolution had been introduced, and only twelve days before adjournment, before the committee placed its first witness on the stand.

At that time the Senate was in the midst of the Direct Primary fight, and in addition, the machine after months of planning was sending literally hundreds of measures into Senate and Assembly for final action. There was no time nor were the members of the committee in a condition to conduct the investigation which the anti-machine element had contemplated. But hurried hearings were held, and a mass of evidence of railroad and express company extortion brought into the open. The interested reader will find the testimony printed in the Senate journal of March 23, 1909.