To begin with, Senator Wolfe, as member of the State Harbors Committee, had signed a report which recommended that forty-four blocks only be purchased. But Wolfe afterwards insisted that he had signed the report not knowing what he was doing. When the fight for the improvement came up in the Senate, only two Senators, Hartman and Reily, both of San Francisco, opposed the project. They were in the end ignominiously defeated, every Senator present voting against them. But both Hartman and Reily did the best they knew how to defeat the purchase of the area necessary for the improvement. The San Francisco delegation in its opposition to the Islais Creek project had better success in the Assembly. Nine San Francisco Assemblymen, Beban, Black, Cullen, Lightner, Macauley, McManus, O'Neil, Perine and Wheelan, united against the measure as it had passed the Senate. They succeeded in throwing doubt upon the necessity of the purchase of sixty-three blocks, and finally won twenty-two outside members over to their way of thinking. Had it not been for the efforts of Assemblymen Callan, Beatty and Nelson of San Francisco, backed by the Los Angeles delegation, the Islais Creek Harbor project would unquestionably have been defeated in the Assembly, solely because of the opposition of nine San Francisco Assemblymen. But there is plenty of evidence of improved political conditions at San Francisco. An anti-machine Board of Supervisors is standing out manfully against the demands of machine-protected interests. The District Attorney's office is, indeed, pressing representatives of those interests pretty close to the doors of the penitentiary, although the District Attorney is handicapped by laws for which San Francisco is largely responsible, because of the character of the men whom session after session she has sent to the Legislature. There is, however, enough to warrant the belief that San Francisco will improve the character of the Assembly and Senate delegation. Upon such improvement, the well-being of the whole State largely depends. Chapter XXIV. Attacks On And Defense of the Fish Commission Fast Becoming a Powerful Political Factor - Enormous Fund Which It Expends Practically Without Check. - Legislative Investigation Blocked - Scheme to Give Commissioners Salary Fails. Without the general public realizing just what is going on, the machine is, in the State Fish and Game Commission, building up an adjunct which seems destined to play an important part in any fight that may be carried on by the independent electors to break the machine's strangle-hold upon the State. Naturally the machine element in the Legislature was prepared always to rally to the defense of the Commission, and the defense was necessary, for the Commission is vulnerable, and was attacked at many points.