Part 16 (2/2)

When the attacks on the Grand Jury had been met and disposed of, and the defendants brought to the trial Court, the Prosecution found its labors scarcely begun. Every trial juror was placed on trial. Weeks and even months were required, because of technical objections, to secure a trial jury.

Just before the Legislature convened, Abe Ruef, had, as example, been convicted by a jury in the securing of which the metropolis of the State had been raked as with a fine-tooth comb for talesmen who were not technically disqualified to serve. Thousands were available who would have given the defendant a fair trial, but in all San Francisco very few could be found who were not because of one technical reason or another disqualified.

After conviction came the defendant's appeal, in which the Most trivial reasons were accepted for freeing the defendant whose technical defense had failed him in the lower Courts. Former Mayor Schmitz of San Francisco, after conviction of extortion, and Abe Ruef, after having pleaded guilty to the charge, were given their freedom under circ.u.mstances which, to put it mildly, shocked the whole State.

[73] A prominent San Francisco attorney told the writer recently that ”the criminal lawyer too often questions a talesman needlessly, not so much to disqualify him, as to get technical error into the record.”

[73a] It was on a technicality of this kind that the District Court of Appeals found excuse for reversal of the judgment in the case of Louis Gla.s.s, convicted of bribing a member of the San Francis...o...b..ard of Supervisors. E. J. Zimmer, the auditor of the Pacific States Telephone Company, of which Gla.s.s was an official, refused to testify at Gla.s.s'

trial. The trial court refused to instruct the jury to disregard the refusal. The Appellate Court held this to be a fatal error.

Chapter XVI.

How the Change of Venue Bill Was Pa.s.sed.

Slipped Through the a.s.sembly Without Serious Opposition in Closing Days of the Session - Pa.s.sed by Trick in the Senate Although a Majority of That Body Were Opposed to Its Pa.s.sage - Typical Case of Machine ”Generals.h.i.+p.”

Given the presiding officers of the Senate and a.s.sembly and the appointment of the Committees of both bodies, the machine minority in the Legislature had comparatively little difficulty in preventing the pa.s.sage of desirable measures. Thus, the Commonwealth Club bills to simplify and expedite proceedings in criminal cases, or, if you like, to prevent quackery in the practice of the criminal law, were, by clever manipulation, defeated, although if fairly presented to Senate and a.s.sembly they undoubtedly would have become laws[74].

But when it came to pa.s.sing vicious measures in the face of the opposition of the unorganized majority of both Houses, the machine had a harder job on its hands. A majority vote of each House is required for the pa.s.sage of a measure. To get through its bills, then, the machine had to create a situation in which vicious measures could be rushed through without the unorganized reformers knowing what was being done.

By preventing action on a large majority of the measures pending before the Legislature until the end of the session, such a situation was created. In the confusion of the closing days of the session, not only were good bills denied pa.s.sage, but vicious bills, in spite of the opposition of a majority of the Legislature, were pa.s.sed. Some normally anti-machine members in such a situation become worn out, get discouraged and vote for machine policies to secure machine support for measures, the pa.s.sage of which their const.i.tuents at home are demanding.

Others, in the confusion of a whirlwind close of the session, vote for measures which they have no time to read, and which they cannot understand. Thus, even with a majority of Senate and a.s.sembly against machine policies, the clever machine leaders often slip through measures which could not be pa.s.sed early in the session, when the members have opportunity to study the bills upon which they are called upon to act, and before the ranks of the reform element have been broken.

This was very well ill.u.s.trated at the Session of 1909 by the pa.s.sage of the so-called Change of Venue bill[74a]. This measure was introduced in the a.s.sembly by Grove L. Johnson. Under its provisions a person charged with crime would have been permitted upon his whim or caprice to allege bias and disqualify the Judge before whom he was to be tried. The Legislature of 1907 was admittedly controlled by the machine, but even the Legislature of 1907 did not dare pa.s.s the Change of Venue bill. The reform Legislature of 1909, however, did pa.s.s it. The manner in which it was pa.s.sed is a lesson in machine methods. To the credit of Governor Gillett let it be said, however, that he vetoed the measure[75].

Grove L. Johnson having introduced the bill, it was referred to Johnson's committee, the Judiciary Committee of the a.s.sembly. The Committee held it until February 5, when it was referred back to the a.s.sembly with the recommendation that it ”do pa.s.s.” On March 13, eleven days before adjournment, it pa.s.sed the a.s.sembly, by a vote of 42 to 15, 41 votes being required for its pa.s.sage. a.s.semblymen like Drew, Telfer, Wilson and Stuckenbruck, men who fought the machine and machine policies from the beginning to the end of the session, voted for the bill. The negative vote of any two of them would have defeated it[76].

The pa.s.sage in the a.s.sembly of an important reform measure as late as March 13, would have meant its defeat in the Senate. Though in the majority the anti-machine Senators could not have forced a reform measure through the machine-controlled committees, machine-controlled even when a majority of a committee was anti-machine[77]. Measures of the Change of Venue bill stamp, however, had a clear way. The Change of Venue bill was on March 15 referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On March 16, twenty-four hours after, the Committee returned the bill with the recommendation that it do pa.s.s. On March 19, with twenty-two Senators opposed to its pa.s.sage, and eighteen favoring it, with twenty-one votes necessary for its pa.s.sage, the bill pa.s.sed the Senate.

This apparently impossible feat was, in the last two weeks of the session, a comparatively easy task for the machine.

To begin with, Senator Black, who opposed the bill, was ill at his home at Palo Alto. This left twenty-one Senators against the measure and eighteen for. The line-up was as follows:

For the Change of Venue bill - Anthony, Bates, Bills, Finn, Hare, Hartman, Hurd, Leavitt, Martinelli, McCartney, Price, Reily, Savage, Weed, Welch, Willis, Wolfe, Wright - 18.

Against the Change of Venue bill - Bell, Birdsall, Boynton, Burnett[76a], Caminetti, Campbell, Cartwright, Curtin, Cutten, Estudillo, Holohan, Lewis, Kennedy, Miller, Roseberry, Rush, Sanford, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson, Walker - 21.

On the face of it, the outlook for the pa.s.sage of the Change of Venue bill in the Senate was not good. The machine, however, planned to pa.s.s the bill on March 19.

The machine leaders went at the job systematically. When the Senators took their seats that Friday morning, they found that at Senator Bates'

request, a.s.sembly Bill 6 (the Change of Venue bill) had been put on the Special Urgency File. The Special Urgency File was to be considered at 8 o'clock Friday evening. Senator Bates stated in an interview that he had placed a.s.sembly Bill No. 6 on the Special Urgency File ”at the request of a fellow Senator.” Who the fellow Senator was, Bates refused to say.

Bates insisted, however, that he knew nothing about a.s.sembly Bill No, 6, and could give no reason why it should be made a matter of ”special urgency.” Senator Bates has since the Legislature adjourned been given a position of trust in the United States Mint.

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