The San Francisco call., 1909-03-18

CALL II HEADQCARIERS, CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE BUILDING. sAcRA-
MENTO, March Through asin-
inc flibuster, designed to prevent
tie vote which would be decided by
the lieutenant governor in favor of
concurrence in the assembly amend
ments to the direct primary law, the
men who are honestly lighting against
concurrence were put in an awkward
hole by pinheaded politicians who have
assumed to manage their fight.
Under a call of the senate which
lasted for more than two and half
hours tonight, it was developed that
Senator Marshall Black had been in
duced by fool advisers. who have never
been friends of the direct primary
election movement, 10 absent himself
to insure against termination of the
deadlock and the end of the fight for
direct primary election law. Senator
Holohan was also numbered among
the absent and unaccounted for until
after the call had been lifted and the
senate adjourned, when it was an
nounced that he had been called to
San Jose to attend a funeral and
would be in his seat at o'clock to-
morrow night, when the final show
down will come if Senator John Stet-
son. who is really sick, is able to be
in his seat.
BLACKS TRICK UNNECESSARY
Stetson is not sneaking to keep the
legislature in session or impern the
passage of the direct primary bill. He
is sick. The fool trick which Black
was induced to perpetrate was wholly
unnecessary, since Stetson could not be
in 7ir throw
discredit on his advisers and widen the
breach between the senators who are
lighting concurrence honestly and
those who are trying to make political
capital or worse out of the situation.
There is no doubt about the ultimate
decision of the scrap. The proponents
OF concurrence in the district advisory
vote plan will win, on a tie vote de-
cided by the casting vote of Porter.
The state will pay for the pleasure
furnished the gentlemen who are hold
ing the bill UP at the rate of some
thing more than $1,000 a day.
Let it be understood that a great
majority of the senators who are fight
ing are fighting not for a direct
primary principle, but to preserve
what they believe to be an honest
obligation assumed by them when
they went into an independent con-
ference with the four democrats.
Miller. Cartwright Holohan and
Campbell. who actually participated in
the much discussed conference and who
alone Of the democrats have a right
TO demand the fulfllment of any agree
ment that was made in that conference.
DEGENERATES TO PARTY FIGHT
The democrats who are yowling loud
est about the conference are those who
could not be dragged into it or who
left it when anything was said about
pledging those present. Not at the in
stigation Of either Miller, Holohan,
Campbell or Cartwright, but neverthe-
less beyond any question the fight has
degenerated into a party fight out of
which the men and newspapers who
have never been sincerely for a direct
primary election law hope to snatch the
credit for giving the people a bill
which, until now they have criticised
with unremitting zeal
Thanks TO their efforts TO force an
Issue on a question about which no
one is genuinely concerned, they have
deprived the democrats who honestly
wanted a direct primary law of the
credit which should have been theirs
and have made ii possible for the re
publicans to enact the bill on strict
party lines. The bill will be passed
with the district advisory vote plan
WHICH nlI6 out OF ten OF Ine men WHO
are fighting it honestly prefer. It win
give to the people of California a bet
ter direct primary law than any state
in the union has, unless the state of
! Nevada manages to get the same bill in
its original form through, before the
Wright-Stanton bill reaches the gov
ernor for his approval.
FILIBUsTER RUMoRs RIFE
The trouble started tonight with the
bang of the gavel which called the
senate to order an hour before the
special order set for o'clock Since
noon rumors of a filibuster had been
rife and with the echo of the gaveI
Wolfe demanded q call OF the senate.
The call was ordered and Porter de-
cIined TO hear Caminetti's pleas for a
/ parliamentary inquiry" motion 10
dispense with the call was beaten by
10 to II and Curtin raised a point Of
oroer against the call, contending that
the senate had no right to work un-
der a call except to get votes for a
pending measure
The purpose Of a CALL" said Leavitt.
/ IL TO get absentees, and that's what
this is for. We win find out what
you are slipping over here
one by one senators were brought in
/ py the sergeant at arms. Cartwright
was at the bedside of his wife and
no attempt was made to drag him in
In fact, the purpose of the call was to
smoke out Black. whom everybodv
knew to be in hiding, and to find ont
/ the reason for Holohan's absence. Dem
ocrats like Miller began to worry about
Holohan and to fear that some of their
collea CUES had coaxed him into a false
position. While republicans like Rovne
! ton and Cutten called down maledic-
tions on the pinheads of both political
Plumbing Bill Passed