I have shown you the University of California regents dominating politics and finance through the great companies which turn water power into electricity and distribute it over the state. I have shown you the University of California helping these power companies to defeat the bill for the public development and operation of hydro-electric power. And now we come to Stanford and we find one trustee heavily interested in power companies, and several others in electric companies, and others acting as bankers, lawyers and judges for such companies. And what does Stanford have to say officially on the campaign for this hydro-electric power bill? There is in California a “League of Municipalities,” an official organization of the communities of the state. They hold a convention once a year; the officials of cities and towns attend as delegates, and deal with all matters concerning the welfare of their communities—sanitation, health, paving, taxes, public utilities, etc. This summer Stanford University extended the hospitality of its buildings for the sessions of the convention, and of its dormitories as lodgings for the delegates; but the faculty of the University and the citizens of Palo Alto learned to their surprise that one of the sessions of the convention was to be held at the Community House in the town of Palo Alto, instead of being held in the university hall. I have a letter from a gentleman who was present as an official guest at this session, and he explains the mysterious change of location. At its opening the President, Mayor Louis Bartlett, of Berkeley, said that the delegates should be informed why this particular session was being held in a different place from the others, and then proceeded to read a letter from President Newhall of the Board of Trustees, asking them to omit the Water and Power Act from their program in the University buildings, as the university did not wish to be understood as taking sides, and any action they might take might be interpreted, incorrectly, as being the action of the university. There appeared to be no objection to the danger of the university’s being similarly misunderstood in regard to half a dozen other proposed constitutional amendments! The stupid officers of the League didn’t take the hint, as gentlemen should, and drop the offending subject from the program entirely. They merely called the session meeting in the Community House in Palo Alto (which has nobly served as an open forum upon other critical occasions) and there we listened to a vigorous debate all afternoon, led by Rudolph Spreckels and Francis J. Heney on the one side and Allison Ware and Eustace Cullinan on the other, at the close of which a vote was taken which was unanimous for the Water and Power Act, with the exception of the vote of San Francisco, the most prominent figure in whose delegation was Supervisor (ex-Mayor) Eugene Schmitz—with some public corporation corruption record!