Special emphasis should be placed upon the constitutional provisions adopted in 1879 because they created the framework upon which railroad regulation in California was to hang for thirty years. For a full understanding of the system the act of the legislature approved April 15, 1880, should also be consulted. This act defined certain terms used in the law. It also fixed the salary of the commissioners at $4,000 each, provided a mechanism for enforcement of the commissioners’ orders through the courts, placed the office of the board in the city of San Francisco, and required rates established by the commission to be posted in all offices, station houses, warehouses, and landing offices to or from which the rates applied. Finally, it granted to the commission, in general terms, all the necessary means and the authority to adopt any suitable procedure to make effective the powers conferred by the Constitution.[265] Harvey S. Brown, attorney for the Stanford interests, once said that the Constitution of the state of California was conceived in communistic malice, was framed by unpardonable ignorance, adopted in frenzied madness, and was valuable only as a beacon to other states and peoples to avoid its principles and results.[266] The document certainly compelled the associates to consider the best method of defence against a political attack which threatened to sterilize the monopoly control which they were slowly establishing over the railroad system of the state. From their point of view the danger was like any other—one to be met by skilful strategy, displayed in a new field, but resembling in impelling motive and essential character their action in adjusting rates and in dominating the terminal situation on San Francisco Bay. Personnel of First Commission According to the Constitution, one railroad commissioner was to be elected from each of three districts into which the state was to be divided. Elections were held in 1880, and J. S. Cone, C. J. Beerstecher, and George B. Stoneman were returned. Cone was a ranch owner, business man, and capitalist at Red Bluff, with an income of $50,000 a year, and property worth perhaps $200,000. He had been on friendly terms with Stanford before he became commissioner, and had known most of the prominent railroad officials of the state for twenty-five years. By association and point of view he represented the interests of large business in the state. Stoneman was a politician of the better type, later governor of the state, a Democrat, and believed to be a defender of the public interest.[267]