Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909Hichborn, Franklin
History
Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909
Hichborn, Franklin
California -- Politics and government
The machine has, long before this, taken stock of those twenty holdover
Senators. Machine agents unquestionably know what the holdover members
owe and to whom indebted; know their family history; know the church to
which they belong, their lodges, their likes, their dislikes and their
prejudices; know how they can be "reached" if vulnerable; know how they
can be "kept in line" if already tarred with the machine brush.
But the plain citizen, not within the charmed circle of machine
protection, is not concerning himself much about these holdovers. He
scarcely knows their names. It is safe to say that not 2 per cent of the
voters of California could off-hand name the twenty holdover members of
the Upper House of the Legislature.
In other words, the machine is posted, and the citizen is not. And here
is the secret of much of the machine's success. In its campaign for
control of affairs, the machine knows to a nicety just what to expect
from men in public life; the plain citizen is without such information.
In the Appendix will be found a table, "Table H," showing the votes of
the twenty holdover Senators on sixteen roll calls. Representative
citizens, all standing for good government, may differ as to the
desirability or undesirability of several of the measures included in
the list. But by and large the average normal citizen will hold that
certain of the sixteen measures are desirable and others undesirable.
Thus all would probably agree that the Change of Venue bill is
undesirable legislation, and declare the Walker-Otis Anti-Racetrack
Gambling measure to be desirable, although they might honestly differ on
the Local Option bill.
On the sixteen roll calls the twenty holdover Senators cast 283 votes.
Of the 283, 164 are recorded against what the normal citizen would
regard as bad measures, or for what the normal citizen would regard as
good measures. In other words, speaking broadly, 164 of the 283 votes
were cast against machine policies. Only 119 were cast with the machine.
In other words, over the whole session, on what may be fairly considered
the most important roll calls taken in the Senate, the holdover Senators
cast 164 votes against the machine and only 119 votes for the machine.
This isn't a bad showing to start with.
The showing is strengthened by the fact that ninety-two of the 119
machine votes were cast by eight Senators, Finn, Wolfe, Bills,
Martinelli, Hurd, Hare, Lewis and Welch. Senator Finn of San Francisco
heads the list with fifteen of these negative votes. On one occasion
Senator Finn didn't vote. After Finn comes Wolfe, also from San
Francisco, with thirteen of the ninety-two negative or machine votes to
his credit or his discredit; Bills of Sacramento and Martinelli of Marin
follow with twelve each; Hurd of Los Angeles with eleven; Hare of San
Francisco and Lewis of San Joaquin with ten each, and Welch of San
Francisco with nine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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