“Even the lay mind,” said the Call, “is competent to reach the conclusion that this decision is bad law, bad logic and had morals.”
The decision was generally condemned by the interior press. The Sacramento Bee denounced it as a “palpable evasion of justice.” The Oakland Enquirer stated that it came as a “shock and a surprise to the law-respecting people of California and of the entire country.” “San Francisco in particular,” said the Los Angeles Evening News, “California in general and the republic at large have suffered great wrong by reason of this reprehensible decision.”
See California Appellate Reports, in which the Supreme Court decision is printed, Vol. No. 7, Page 369.
The Bee prefaced the Chief Justice’s article with the following statement: “The decision of the Supreme Court of California in the case of Eugene Schmitz is one not only of State but even of national importance. It has been the fruitful topic of varied comment throughout the Union. And yet, after all the discussion, there remains a prevailing ignorance as to WHAT WAS DECIDED; and even among those laymen who had a fair idea upon that point, there is certainly little if any knowledge as to WHY IT WAS SO DECIDED.
“Having a very high idea of the granitic probity of Chief Justice Beatty of the Supreme Court, and believing it to be the duty of that Court to answer when citizens respectfully ask for light, the editor of this paper on March 31st last wrote to Chief Justice Beatty and asked him to publicly explain just what the Court had decided and just why it had so decided; to explain it so that the man in the street might easily understand. In that quite lengthy letter to the Chief Justice, the editor of The Bee wrote:
“‘The ignorance of the general public as to what was decided and exactly why it was decided has undoubtedly given rise to considerable of a public suspicion that all is not as it should be—that injustice has triumphed where justice should have prevailed—that the good work of almost two years has been practically wiped out by a judicial obeisance to technicalities—that the guilty have been saved by the interposition of a judicial hand that could with more propriety and equally as much regard for the law have turned the scales to record the verdict of the highest tribunal on the side of good government.’
“Justice Beatty answers the questions at length, but with such clearness that the ‘man in the street’ can understand. His explanation should be read by everybody, so that hereafter those who discuss the matter can do so with a full and thorough understanding of exactly what the Supreme Court decided in the Schmitz case, and exactly why it considered it had so to decide.”