The same bill having been introduced both in Senate and Assembly, the first step was to tie up either the Assembly or the Senate measure, so that the whole crafty campaign against the bill's passage could be confined to one House. The way in which this was done was simplicity itself. The Wyllie bill, as introduced in the Assembly was, at the request of Speaker Stanton, held up in the Assembly Committee on Public Morals. Most plausible reason was given for this course. It was pointed out that since the Assembly had gone on record before the Senate on the anti-gambling bill, on women's suffrage[80a] and other "moral" issues, it was unfair to compel the lower House to go on record before the Senate on the Local Option bill. Speaker Stanton assured the proponents of the measure that if it passed the Senate, it should pass the Assembly.
Stanton accordingly recognized that the Assembly, given an opportunity, would pass the bill. Had it passed the Assembly before the middle of February, it would unquestionably have passed the Senate. But the proponents of the measure consented to the plan to make the Senate act first. The fight for the passage of the bill accordingly took place in the Senate.
Before taking up the Senate measure introduced by Estudillo, the Wyllie bill may as well be disposed of. It was introduced in the Assembly January 8th, and was sent to the Committee on Public Morals. There it lay until March 13th, two months and five days, when the proponents of the measure, realizing that they were being tricked, made their protest so loud that the measure was reported by the Committee, but without recommendation. There was no time then to pass the bill, and on March 15th it was withdrawn by its author.
The Estudillo bill, as it was known on the Senate side of the Capitol, had a more eventful history. Introduced in the Senate on January 8th, it had gone to the famous Committee on Election Laws, which had been stacked for the defeat of the Direct Primary bill. Estudillo was, to be sure, Chairman of the Committee, but a lamb herding lions never had a harder job on its hands than did Estudillo. He could not get his committee together to consider the well-backed Direct Primary bill, let alone the worthy but not politically supported local option measure.
Along about the middle of February, however, Estudillo succeeded in getting the committee to act. By a vote of four to four the committee refused to recommend the Local Option bill for passage. Senator Stetson, who favored the passage of the measure, to compel committee action and get the bill before the Senate, thereupon moved that the bill be referred back to the Senate with recommendation that it do not pass. Senator Stetson's motion prevailed.
Thus, the measure went back to the Senate with a majority committee report that it do not pass. But in spite of this adverse report, the Senate passed the measure on second reading and sent it to engrossment and third reading. It looked very much just then as though the bill would pass the Senate.
But the resourceful machine had other plans. When the measure came up for final passage on February 24th, instead of being voted upon, and passed or defeated, it was amended.
To amend a bill on third reading exasperates those who are supporting it as nothing else can. The bill must, when thus amended, be reprinted and re-engrossed before it can be passed. The delays thus caused very often result in the defeat of the measure.
But the reprinted and re-engrossed Local Option bill got back to the Senate on February 26th, and its supporters could think of no other possible excuse for delaying its passage.
But the machine could, and did. On Senator Wolfe's motion - the reader will no doubt remember that Senator Wolfe led the fight against the Direct Primary bill, against the Anti-Gambling bill and against the effective Stetson Railroad Regulation bill - on Senator Wolfe's motion the Local Option bill, instead of being put on its final passage, was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.