It appears from the report of the commissioners appointed under the O’Connor Act that the railroads in California, and in particular the Central Pacific, refused to render the reports required by the legislature, and that the commission was unable to compel them to do so.[261] Two years later the commissioners were legislated out of office, and a single commissioner was appointed in their place, acting under a statute similar in most important respects to that administered by his predecessors.[262] Mr. Tuttle, the new commissioner, accumulated certain statistics during his two-year term of office, but otherwise did little to which the railroads could object. The development of railroad regulation was thus temporarily arrested. Yet for several reasons the check to the progress of public control was not lasting. Feeling in the state was running high. The times were hard, both for reasons affecting the whole country, and because of circumstances peculiar to the Pacific Coast. The rainfall of the winter of 1876-77 was slight and, as happens in such cases, great loss of cattle on the ranges occurred, and the grain crop was seriously deficient. At the same time the yield of the Nevada silver mines declined—in fact the dividends of the important Consolidated Virginia mine stopped altogether in January, 1877, to the great disturbance of the stock market at San Francisco. Under these conditions unemployment and suffering were the experience of the working classes, while riots and later, political agitation also resulted. Even the radical labor leader, Dennis Kearney, in spite of his lack of character and self-restraint, or even of unusual mental ability, served as the temporary expression at this time of a real distress, and had some influence on the course of legislation. Railroad Question in Constitutional Convention So far as the railroads were concerned, the effect of the unrest throughout California and the activity of the Workingman’s party is seen in the railroad clauses of the Constitution of 1879, and of the Act of 1880, which carried them into effect. The call for a convention was issued by the same legislature which passed the railroad control bill of 1878.[263] Mr. Colton thought the call most unfortunate,[264] but there is no reason to suppose that the legislature had anything particularly radical in mind.