Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 Part 12

(1) The minority, made up of the out and out machine Republicans and Democrats, who were prepared to pa.s.s a measure which under the name railroad regulation would leave the railroads practically independent of effective State supervision.

(2) The majority, which stood for the pa.s.sage of an effective law.

The minority had the best captains in the Senate and was backed by the machine lobby made up princ.i.p.ally of Southern Pacific attorneys.

The majority was poor in generals. But it had the backing of the shippers of - the State, who sent able counsel to Sacramento to present the shippers' side.

And in the end the machine minority wore out and defeated the majority.

A comparatively effective railroad regulation bill was rejected and an ineffective measure pa.s.sed.

Three railroad regulation measures were introduced in the Senate, their authors being Campbell, Stetson, and Wright.

The Campbell bill had much to commend it, but was rejected without much consideration by either side. Campbell was not in the program of either railroad or shippers. But before the session was over Campbell had made himself felt. He had, too, introduced a Const.i.tutional Amendment for the correction of railroad abuses, which was to figure later on, but his bill was scarcely considered. The attorney for the shippers, in speaking before the Senate Committee on Corporations, confessed that he had not read the Campbell bill.

The attorney for the Southern Pacific Company, however, attempted to split the anti-machine forces by praising the Campbell bill, and setting the anti-machine Senators to disputing over the relative merits of the Campbell and Stetson bills. But nothing came of this graceful little coup. Campbell and his followers were too sensible to be caught by any such trickery. They gave their loyal support to the Stetson bill, and the Campbell bill was allowed to die in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This narrowed the fight down to the Stetson bill and the Wright bill.

The Stetson bill had been prepared in the office of Attorney General Webb, and at the instigation of Governor Gillett. As originally introduced it contained certain defects, which were afterwards corrected, but such Senators as Cutten, Caminetti, Black, Campbell, Miller, Cartwright, Bell and Thompson, admitted that the measure could be made the basis of as effective a law as could be prepared under the present const.i.tutional provisions for the regulation of transportation companies.

The original measure was particularly weak in the section providing for demurrage charges. This was finally corrected by the pa.s.sage of a separate reciprocal demurrage bill, which had been introduced by Miller.

Another weakness in the Stetson bill as originally introduced was that the Railroad Commission was made a sort of barrier between the Courts and those who had grievances against the transportation companies. This objection was corrected by amendments.

Numerous other amendments adopted from time to time made the Stetson bill probably as effective as a California railroad regulation law can be made, under the Const.i.tutional provision which places extraordinary powers in the hands of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners.

Just where the Wright bill originated n.o.body seems to know for certainty. But Senator Wright introduced it. Senator Wright was well selected for the job. For two years he had been groomed as the reformer who would introduce the State-saving Direct Primary Bill. So a railroad regulation measure introduced by Senator Wright might at least be calculated to bear the stamp of respectability.

Like the Stetson bill, the Wright bill was based on the const.i.tutional provisions which make the State Board of Railroad Commissioners the center of railroad regulation in California. And here the parallel ends.

Comparison of the two measures is not at all to the advantage of the Wright bill.

The Stetson bill provided fine and imprisonment as penalty for infringement of its provisions; the Wright bill provided fine only.

The Stetson bill had a definite anti-pa.s.s provision; the Wright bill as originally introduced had no such provision.

The Stetson bill authorized not only the Attorney-General, but the District Attorney of any county of the State to proceed to enforce its provisions; the Wright bill granted the Attorney-General alone such authority.

The Stetson bill required the Railroad Commissioners to meet at least once in every two weeks; the Wright bill provided that such meetings should be held monthly.

The Stetson bill gave the Railroad Commissioners authority to make physical valuation of railroad properties; the Wright bill contained no such provision.

The Stetson bill recognized all discriminations to be unjust; the Wright bill provided that no interference should be inst.i.tuted unless the discriminations complained of were shown to be unjust.

And finally, the Stetson bill provided that the State Board of Railroad Commissioners should have power to fix absolute rates, thus insuring stability of rate schedules, while the Wright bill provided that the Commissioners should fix maximum rates only, thus permitting the famous "fluidity" of schedules advocated by machine lobby and Southern Pacific attorneys.

The contest between the supporters of the Wright and the supporters of the Stetson bill, finally narrowed down to the question of providing for absolute or maximum rates.

The provision for the maximum rate in Senator Wright's bill, authorized the railroad regulating Commission to fix the highest charge which a railroad may exact from a shipper. This is called the maximum rate. The transportation company is authorized to lower the rate at will, but it cannot charge a rate beyond the maximum as fixed by the Commission. This leaves the railroads to fix a sliding schedule of rates, so long as they do not exceed the maximum. It gives the railroads the advantage of that "fluidity" of schedules, which railroad attorneys insist is necessary for railroad prosperity.

The maximum rate is provided in the Interstate Commerce Act, but the Interstate Commerce Commissioners, finding it impracticable, have for years been clamoring for Congress to authorize the fixing of absolute rates. The cry of the Interstate Commerce Commission has been taken up by the shipping interests, and from one end of the country to the other there is growing demand that authority be placed somewhere to make railroad rates, when fixed by a regulating Commission, absolute.

The absolute rate, or the fixed rate as it is better called, which was provided in the Stetson bill, can neither be lowered nor raised by the railroads. Once fixed by the regulating Commission, it must remain until the Commission grants permission for its change. The railroads cannot lower it any more than they can raise it.

The advantages of the absolute rate are many. In the first place, where the absolute rate is established, there can be no discrimination, because the rate is known, it can neither be raised nor lowered, and the railroads have no opportunity to favor one shipper at the expense of another.

In the second place, the shipper is guaranteed a stability of rate schedules which is deemed necessary for settled business conditions. The merchant, for example, includes transportation charges in the cost price of the goods in which he deals. But if the transportation charges on the same cla.s.s of goods are subject to frequent change, the merchant can never tell when his compet.i.tor is to be given the advantage of a sudden lowering in freight rates. This uncertainty unsettles business. The merchant holds that transportation rates should be just as stable as tariff rates. On this account, the merchant advocates fixed rates and stability of schedules as against maximum rates and constantly shifting schedules.

The supporters of the Stetson bill, then, backed the shipping and merchant cla.s.ses; while the supporters of the Wright bill backed the contentions of the transportation companies.

The Campbell and the Stetson bills had been originally referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, while the Wright bill had been referred to the Senate Committee on Corporations. For the first few weeks of the session, no particular note had been taken of the Wright bill, attention being centered on the amendment of the Stetson bill.

Things were going swimmingly with the Stetson bill, when the machine lobby awoke to the fact that something was wrong in the Senate. There was at least some indication that the Senate would pa.s.s an effective railroad regulation measure.

And then, before the advocates of the Stetson measure could tell exactly what was happening, the railroad regulation measures were taken from the Judiciary Committee and placed in the hands of the Committee on Corporations.

A glance at the personnel of the two Committees at least suggests why this was done.

The members of the Judiciary Committee were Willis, Wolfe, Wright, McCartney, Savage, Boynton, Anthony, Burnett, Cutten, Estudillo, Martinelli, Roseberry, Stetson, Thompson, Curtin, Cartwright, Caminetti, Miller, Campbell.

The nine Senators whose names are printed in Italics, when the issue came to vote on the floor of the Senate, voted against the Stetson bill and for the Wright bill; nine of the ten whose names are printed in ordinary letters voted for the Stetson bill and against the Wright bill.

The tenth, Roseberry, was absent, but when he found that the vote had been taken, stated that had he been present he would have voted for the Stetson bill and against the Wright bill.

Furthermore, Estudillo, who finally voted for the Wright bill, did not approve the measure and voted for it because he feared the absolute rate feature of the Stetson bill to be unconst.i.tutional.

Thus at the time the Stetson and the Campbell bills were taken from the Judiciary Committee, the Committee was regarded as standing:

For the Wright bill - 8.

Against the Wright bill - 11.

For the Stetson bill - 11.

Against the Stetson bill - 8.

It was certainly not in the interest of the Stetson bill that the measure was taken from the Judiciary Committee and sent to the Committee on Corporations.

A glance at the personnel of the Committee on Corporations reveals a significant state of affairs. The Committee consisted of the following Senators: Bates, Welch, Wright, McCartney, Burnett, Bills, Walker, Roseberry, Finn, Miller, Kennedy.

When the test came on the floor of the Senate, the nine of the eleven Senators whose names are printed in italics voted for the Wright bill and against the Stetson bill. The two members whose names are printed in ordinary letters, voted for the Stetson bill, and against the Wright bill.

The line-up of the Committee on Corporations, when the measures were taken from the Judiciary Committee and sent to the Committee on Corporations, was then:

For the Wright Bill - 9.

Against the Wright Bill - 2.

For the Stetson Bill - 2.

Against the Stetson Bill - 9.