Two of these measures bore directly upon the San Francisco situation. The first measure provided for the Direct Primary. The second provided for the elimination of the “party circle” from the election ballot.
This last named measure, known as “the Party Circle bill,” passed the Senate, but was defeated by one vote in the Assembly. The defeated measure was intended to restore the Australian ballot to its original simplicity and effectiveness.[444]
Under the machine’s tinkering of the State’s election laws, the Australian ballot had become a device for encouraging partisan voting. The “party circle” was placed at the head of the column of party candidates. A cross placed in the circle registered a vote for every candidate nominated by the party designated by the circle. The question of “distinguishing marks” invalidating entire ballots was ruled upon so closely by the State courts, that many voters voted by means of the one cross in the party circle to avoid the risk of having their entire ballot denied counting because of technical defects that might creep in if a divided ticket were voted. Had the “Party Circle bill” become a law it would have eliminated the “party circle” from the ballot, leaving the voter to select individual candidates of his choice. The one Assembly vote that defeated this measure after it had passed the Senate, went far toward bringing the San Francisco Graft Prosecution to an end.
The Direct Primary measure was not defeated, nor did the machine element succeed in amending it into complete ineffectiveness. The anti-machine Republicans and Democrats, by joining in non-partisan caucus on this measure, succeeded in forcing the passage of the Direct Primary bill, but they were not able to keep it free of defects. Harassed by the machine at every turn, the anti-machine Senators and Assemblymen were compelled to accept many undesirable provisions.[445]
One of these provisions bore directly upon the San Francisco election of 1909, and contributed to a large extent to the outcome.
This clause required a primary candidate to make affidavit giving “the name of his party and that of the office for which he desires to be a candidate; that he affiliated with said party at the last preceding general election, and either that he did not vote thereat or voted for a majority of the candidates of said party at said next preceding general election, and intends to so vote at the ensuing election.”
At the time this section was under consideration, anti-machine legislators and the unhampered press pointed out that under it, District Attorney Langdon could not, in all probability, have been nominated nor re-elected in 1907; that Mayor Taylor’s election of that year would have been impracticable, if not impossible; that Judge Dunne would have been hampered to the point of defeat in 1908; that under it, both in 1907 and 1908, the so-called “higher-up” element in the field of corruption would have been given an advantage which the better citizenship of the community would have had difficulty in overcoming.[446]
But the machine element denounced these not unreasonable objectors as “enemies of the Direct Primary bill,” and under cover of the denunciation, and the fight for practical expression of popular choice for United States Senators, the objectionable clause was permitted to remain in the bill.
No sooner had the Legislature adjourned than judicial interpretation of the partisan clause of the Direct Primary Act became necessary. The San Francisco primary election was at hand, and the partisan provisions of the new law proved the first snag which the various candidates encountered.
Although the members of the Legislature, machine as well as anti-machine, voted for the bill, believing that the partisan clause restricted primary nominations to members of the party of the candidates’ affiliation, the San Francisco Election Commissioners held there was nothing in the law to prevent the name of a Republican appearing on the Democratic ticket, or of a Democrat on the Republican ticket, provided the candidate made affidavit of the party of his affiliation.