Against the bill - Anthony, Bills, Birdsall, Burnett, Caminetti, Curtin, Finn, Hare, Hartman, Holohan, Hurd, Kennedy, Leavitt, Lewis, Martinelli, McCartney, Price, Reily, Rush, Sanford, Strobridge, Weed, Welch, Willis, Wolfe - 25. Chapter XIX. Defeat of the Initiative Amendment. As in the Case of Other Reform Measures It Was Held Back Until Near the Close of the Session - Principle Adopted by Many California Municipalities - Machine Thoroughly Aroused to Its Importance. A most estimable old lady once tried with indifferent success to hold back the incoming tide of the Atlantic with a broom. As one watches the efforts of the machine, through such agents as Gus Hartman, Eddie Wolfe and Frank Leavitt, to stem the reform movement which is sweeping the country, he is strongly reminded of the old lady's endeavor. To be sure, the machine, at the legislative session of 1909, by trick and clever manipulation succeeded in preventing any very effective reform legislation going on the Statute books. But nevertheless the machine was compelled in response to the popular demand to permit the passage of a direct primary law, however inadequate and disappointing it may prove to be, and a railroad regulation law, however ineffective. The machine's success was not on the whole so much in its permanent defeat of good measures as in delaying their adoption. The machine, except in the case of the race-track gamblers, could and did put off the day of the people's reckoning with machine-protected interests, but on desperately small margins at times, and under conditions which point plainly to the machine's ultimate undoing. A bull once attempted to stop a freight train with his head. The train was brought to a standstill and the animal driven off the track. A short time later the bull tried the same experiment with an express train. The train did not stop, nor was it seriously delayed. The aim of the reform movement is to place the government of Nation, State and city back into the hands of the people. To this end States and municipalities throughout the country are trying the direct primary system of nominating candidates for office, extending the principle of local option, establishing the Initiative, the Referendum and the Recall, and experimenting, often with admirable success, sometimes with discouraging failure, with other "wicked innovations," as Assemblyman Grove L. Johnson would call them. Without the machine fully appreciating what has been going on, California has for a decade or more been pushing rapidly to the fore in the promotion of these reforms. In this State the reform policies have found their best expression in recently adopted municipal charters. These charters must be ratified by the Legislature, but up to the session just closed their ratification - "wicked innovations and all" - has met with no particular opposition.