Railroad Measures.
Constitutional Amendment to Clear the Way for an Effective Railroad
Regulation Bill Defeated - Rate Investigation Delayed Until Too Late for
Effectiveness - Resolution to Continue Investigation Defeated -
Reciprocal Demurrage Bill Becomes a Law - "Error" in the Full Crew Bill.
The anti-machine members of the Legislature had not proceeded far in
their efforts to pass an effective railroad regulation law, before they
became convinced that at best only a make-shift measure is possible,
until certain alleged ambiguities of those sections of the State
Constitution prescribing the powers and duties of the State Board of
Railroad Commissioners have been removed. Where, to the common sense
mind, no ambiguities exist, machine claquers and Southern Pacific
attorneys can read them into the Constitution very easily, as in the
dispute as to whether the absolute or the minimum rate is
constitutional.
Advised by the attorneys representing the shipping interests, the
anti-machine members undertook to simplify the language of the sections
in dispute, so that a wayfaring man though a Judge on the bench or a
machine legislator need not err in the construction thereof.
Early in the session, Senator Campbell had introduced a constitutional
amendment to that end. The amendment went to the Judiciary Committee on
January 14th. The majority of the committee, openly against the machine,
favored the submission to the people of such an amendment. But it was
not until February 22d that the amendment - or rather a substitute for
it - was reported back to the Senate.
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.
Men of the standing of Edwin Bonnheim[68], treasurer and manager of
Weinstock, Lubin & Co.; Russell D. Carpenter, auditor of Hale Brothers,
Inc.; J. O. Bracken, manager of the California Commercial Association;
C. H. Bentley of the California Fruit Canners Association; all testified
that the increase in express and freight charges has worked great
hardship upon the State. They showed that in the final analysis the
consumer pays the increased charges. Furthermore, testimony was produced
which at least indicated that the transportation companies, if
economically not to say honestly managed, would receive fair returns on
their legitimate investments, were even lower freight rates to be
charged than those exacted prior to the increase of 1908. It was also
shown that the State of California could institute and conduct an
examination into railroad affairs before the Interstate Commerce
Commission[69]. It was clear to all that thorough investigation under
the Caminetti resolutions would prove of enormous benefit to the State.
That the committee could do little or nothing in the short time
remaining before adjournment was also recognized. Burnett had come out
for thorough investigation, giving the anti-machine forces a majority of
the committee. Witness after witness representing the large shippers and
importers of the State urged that the investigation be carried on even
after the Legislature had adjourned. Burnett as chairman of the
committee was urging this course, but it was March 23, the day before
adjournment, before he could get his committee report ready, and filed
with the Senate, as basis for a resolution to continue the investigation
after the Legislature had adjourned. There were but eleven dependable
anti-machine Senators in addition to Burnett who were within reach of
the capitol. But the machine had a safe majority within call. Burnett's
resolution was defeated, the investigation denied, by a vote of twelve
for to sixteen against[70].
But two important railroad measures were finally passed by the
Legislature. The first of these was the "Full Crew bill," which required
adequate manning of railroad trains. After being held-up as long as the
machine dared, the bill was finally passed. But the "Full Crew bill" met
with one of those unfortunate "errors"[71] which played such important
parts in the passage of the Anti-Gambling bill and the Direct Primary
bill. When the Legislature had adjourned this error was discovered, and
Governor Gillett refused to sign the bill because of it.
The second important railroad measure passed was the Reciprocal
Demurrage bill, introduced in the Senate by Miller, and in the Assembly
by Drew. As finally passed the bill provides that railroad companies
which fail to supply shippers with cars when proper requisition has been
made for them, shall pay the injured shipper demurrage at the rate of $5
per car per day. On the other hand, shippers who fail to load or unload
cars after a stated time, are required to pay the railroad $6 daily as
demurrage. The extra dollar which the shippers are required to pay the
railroads is exacted to compensate the railroads for rental of the car.
Similar laws up to the time of the passage of the Miller-Drew bill had
been adopted by seventeen States of the Union, including Oregon and
Texas. During the recent car shortage, it is alleged that empty cars
needed in California, were sent into Oregon and into Texas, that the
railroads might escape the demurrage charges exacted in those two
States. California, without a demurrage law, was helpless. At the
session of 1907, however, the machine, in complete control of the
Senate, defeated a reciprocal demurrage bill. To be sure the demurrage
was higher in the measure proposed in 1907 than in that passed at the
session of 1909, but it was the principle of demurrage, not its amount,
that the machine was against in 1907. In 1909, however, not a Senator
voted against the bill. And in this connection there is a story told
which unquestionably had its bearing upon the fate of the Reciprocal
Demurrage bill at the 1909 session. The story deals with a political
adventure in the life of one Henry Lynch.
Mr. Lynch voted against reciprocal demurrage in 1907. He voted neither
for nor against reciprocal demurrage in 1909, for he was not at
Sacramento to vote. Mr. Lynch was not at Sacramento to vote in 1909, for
one reason at least, because he did vote against reciprocal demurrage in
1907.
Mr. Lynch hailed from the Thirty-first Senatorial District, which takes
in San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties. These counties are intensely
Republican; they are also farming communities. And since the one-time
Senator Lynch voted against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill, the farmers
have seen tons upon tons of their products rot in the fields because
they could not get cars to move their crops.
But while the farmers of San Luis Obispo and San Benito counties were
watching their products rot for want of cars to move them, it is alleged
that cars were being sent from California to Oregon to meet the
requisitions of Oregon shippers. Oregon had a reciprocal demurrage law
on her statute books; California had not.
Senator Lynch's vote against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill was made a
sort of issue in San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties at the election
of 1908. A. E. Campbell, Democrat, was running against Mr. Lynch,
Republican, for the State Senate. Right or wrong - the reader may judge
which - the farmers of the two counties credited the defeat of the
Reciprocal Demurrage bill not to the Republican Party, but to the
Republican machine, or better described perhaps as the
Republican-Democratic machine, that dominates the State, a machine
which the people of California are just now engaged in smashing.
Being good Republicans, the people of Mr. Lynch's district gave Mr. Taft
a plurality of more than 1,700; remembering the defeat of the Reciprocal
Demurrage bill, they gave Mr. Campbell, Democratic candidate for the
Senate, a plurality of 416. The fact that a United States Senator was to
be elected didn't influence the Republicans of San Luis Obispo County at
all. They elected a Democrat to the State Senate because they knew him
to be free from machine domination - a machine maintained for the
purpose of defeating good measures, such as the Reciprocal Demurrage
bill, and furthering the passage of bad ones.
But the influence of Lynch's vote against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill
was not confined to San Luis Obispo and San Benito Counties. It spread
over into the adjoining Twenty-ninth District, which takes in Santa Cruz
and San Mateo Counties. These counties are also intensely Republican.
They gave Taft a plurality of 2,799. But they gave the Democratic
candidate for the State Senate, James B. Holohan, a plurality of 677.
Holohan ran 3,476 votes ahead of his ticket in a district where only
9,483 votes were cast for State Senator. Holohan was known to be free of
machine influences. He could be counted upon to vote for a Reciprocal
Demurrage bill without first consulting the Southern Pacific's political
agent, Jere Burke. And the Republican whose place he took in the Senate
had voted against the Reciprocal Demurrage bill of 1907.
The election of Holohan and Campbell unquestionably had its influence on
the passage of the Demurrage, bill. Not a member of the Senate cast his
vote against it, although several of the Senators who had voted against
the bill two years before, sat in the Senate of 1909. Among these were
ten Senators who, during the session of 1909, were conspicuously on the
wrong side of most questions. They were Senators Bates, Hartman,
Leavitt, McCartney, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis, Wolfe and Wright. The
ten, for example, constituted half the twenty Senators who opposed the
plan to give The People State-wide popular vote in the selection of
United States Senators. Only seven Senators voted against the
Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. Five of the seven - Hartman, Leavitt,
Reily, Weed and Wolfe - had voted against reciprocal demurrage in 1907.
But there was a harkening to the demand of The People in 1909, which had
been wanting two years before. Seven of these ten Senators, who voted
against reciprocal demurrage in 1907 - Bates, Hartman, McCartney,
Savage, Willis, Wolfe and Wright - voted for reciprocal demurrage in
1909. Three of them - Leavitt, Reily and Weed - did not vote at all.
[66] The vote was as follows:
For the amendment: Bell, Birdsall, Boynton, Burnett, Caminetti,
Campbell, Cartwright, Curtin, Cutten, Holohan, McCartney, Miller,
Roseberry, Rush, Strobridge, Sanford, Thompson, Walker, Wright - 19.
Against the amendment: Anthony, Bills, Estudillo, Finn, Hartman, Hurd,
Kennedy, Leavitt, Lewis, Price, Reily, Savage, Weed, Welch, Willis,
Wolfe - 16.
[67] Machine Senators habitually exact the utmost consideration and
courtesy from the anti-machine Senators, and habitually repay it with
deceit and trickery. The curious feature of this is that the
anti-machine Senators continue to extend the courtesy and continue to be
tricked and imposed upon. A shutting off of "Senatorial courtesy" would
go far toward solving the problem of machine domination of the
Legislature.
[68] Mr. Bonnheim testified that prior to the new schedule of express
rates enforced between New York and the city of San Francisco, the rate
was $8.00 per hundred for shipments of from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds;
$9.00 per hundred for 5,000 to 10,000 pounds; $10.00 per hundred for
2,000 to 5,000 pounds; $11.00 per hundred from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds.
and $12.00 from 500 to 1,000 pounds; $13.50 from 100 to 500 pounds.
That the withdrawal of the bulk rates in December, 1908, resulted in an
advance of 35 per cent by the withdrawal of the 2,000 pound rate, and an
advance of 50 per cent by the withdrawal of the 5,000 pound rate; an
advance of 66 3/4 per cent by the withdrawal of the 10,000 pound rate,
and that the withdrawal of the 20,000 pound rate amounted to an advance
of 92 8/10 per cent.
[69] Senator Cartwright actually introduced a resolution calling upon
the Attorney-General to institute proceedings before the Interstate
Commerce Commission:
To determine whether existing rates are reasonable or unreasonable.
To ascertain, fix and establish a reasonable schedule of freight rates,
and to enforce the same.
To determine whether or not any existing rate is discriminatory.
And to prevent further discrimination between persons or places.
The resolution carried an appropriation of $25,000 to ensure competent
legal and expert assistance.
The resolution was introduced on February 4. It went first to the
Committee on Federal Relations, then to the Judiciary Committee, then to
the Committee on Finance, from which it emerged March 1 with the
recommendation that it be adopted. On March 2 it was sent back to the
Committee on Finance and was never heard from again. The enormous
benefit to the State if such an investigation could be honestly and
effectively carried on, will be recognized.
[70] The vote was as follows:
For the resolution: Bell, Birdsall, Boynton, Burnett, Caminetti, Cutten,
Estudillo, Holohan, Roseberry, Rush, Sanford, Thompson - 12.
Against the resolution: Anthony, Bates, Bills, Finn, Hartman, Hurd,
Kennedy, Leavitt, Lewis, Martinelli, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis, Wolfe,
Wright - 16.
[71] E. F. Mitchell, Executive Secretary to Governor Gillett, makes the
following statement regarding this particular error:
The electric companies which run interurban trains, also claimed that
the bill, as prepared, applied to them, and would place upon them an
unnecessary burden and expense.
"There is no doubt that section three of the act applies to motor cars
and electric cars. The language is very plain. Section one of the bill
describes passenger trains, section two refers to freight trains, and
section three says "all other trains not propelled by steam
locomotives." Now, there are only two classes of cars that are not
propelled by steam locomotives, and those are motor and electric cars.
In the Governor's opinion, an error was made in endeavoring to amend it,
so it would not apply to motor cars and electric cars. The amendment was
prepared, and we had here in the office, during the argument on the
bill, the original committee amendments proposed. The amendment was to
be made after the word "train" on the second line and had this amendment
been made as contemplated, it would have excluded motor cars and
electric cars, but instead of having been made on line two, as expected,
it was carried into line three, where it gave the bill an entirely
different meaning, It was one of those unfortunate things that crept
into legislation through an oversight of somebody, which could have been
readily corrected if the bill had been watched. The insertion of this
amendment in the wrong place, instead of excluding motor cars and
electric cars, as intended, included them. This error was not discovered
until the bill came up before the Governor for consideration."