The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-03-22

Retrospective Glance at The Work Accom-
phShed, the Men Who Did 1t and
How It Was Done.

The thirty-second session of the Cali
fornia Legislature has fretted and
strutted it's hour upon the stage, and
now is heard no more It's part is played
out. Taking a retrospective view, it
seems to have been creature of cir
cumstances, swayed back and forth by
incidents, over many of which it had
no control. 1t basked in the effulgent
rays of popular applause; CRASHED its
teeth at severe, and too often just crit
icism; quivered beneath the lash of
false accusations and stood at logger
heads with an unsympathetic chief ex-
ecutive. It caucused in season and out
of season, and as a rule, stood by its
caucus decisions. It appointed commit
tees by the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES COM
mittees, advisory committees, con-
ference committees, committees Of
inquiry, and numbers of others
past recall. It investigated charges
made by everything from Gov
ernor Budd down to the Examiner"
and incidentally took a wild leap into
the midst Of the coyote scalp bounty
claims. 1t passed through the ordeal,
while yet in its infancy, of electing a
United States Senator and came out
unscathed. Subsequently it piled that
United States Senator's desk high with
petitions and joint resolutions, Instruct
ing him to do or not to do certain par
ticular things, and gave him to dis
5inctly understand that he was a child
Of its caprice, and probably succeeded
in making his life miserable.
1t offered the right hand Of fellow
ship to the Governor Of Georgia; lis
tened to the advance agents Of the
Omaha Exposition, rendered an ovation
TO Attorney-General McKenna, and was
rendered reception on grand scale
at Suffer Club. It introduced nearly
eighteen hundred bills, one hundred
constitutional amendments and joint
and concurrent resolutions innumerable.
and tied itself up with a set of Joint
rules that were difficult to shake off.
Its members We're argumentative in the
extreme-many debating earnestly;
others for the inherent love of contro-
versy born in them, and yet others for
the personal qualification to be derived
from the applause of the gallery
shifting and unstable though it was.
There We're many bright men in the
Thirty-second California Legislature,
and a few thinkers. Effervescent wit
1Js
went down together in many a skir-
mish. Ridicule and sarcasm, the most
powerful weapons of debate, lowered
over the heads Of transgressors, and
others, in both branches, and too often
descended to the death of salutary
measures. Bills, good and bad, were
passed with a whoop or consigned to
oblivion without a regret. The per-
nicious followed the excellent with
logged persistency, and often found
safe harbor under the cloak of charity,
or was waited to victory by the impetus
of a wave of turgid oratory.
Trades were made, too, as they al
ways are made by members of Legis-
latures, and the game Of "tweedle-
dunn and tweedledoo, you tickle me
and I'll tickle you,'' was, it is to be
feared, the cause of many a bug"
passing the picket line that would
otherwise have been crushed beneath
the heel of righteous wrath.
AS to the personalities of the men who
composed the Thirty-second California
Legislature little needs be said Dick
inson, Waymire, Seawell Shanahan,
Simpson. Bulla, wilmington, Dibble and
Caminetti, are all well known. Each
has his peculiarities, and all are well
understood. Morehouse has left rec