the Assembly amendment. Wolfe commanded twenty votes of the Senators
present, the anti-machine element nineteen. Wolfe required, however,
twenty-one to compel reconsideration. But when the question came up,
Wolfe still lacked the one vote necessary for reconsideration, the
anti-machine element was still without the necessary twenty votes to tie
the Senate, thus giving Warren Porter the deciding vote. Wolfe, however,
with his twenty votes, postponed consideration of his motion to
reconsider the vote by which the Senate had refused to concur. A
somewhat extraordinary parliamentary situation, to say the least. But it
answered the machine's purpose. For a week[49a] the machine was able to
hold the Senate in deadlock. All business was practically suspended. For
hours the reform Senators were compelled to sit in their seats waiting
the pleasure of President Porter and President Pro Tem. Wolfe to call
the Senate to order. The folly of permitting the machine to organize the
Senate was forced home to every good-government man present. The machine
because it controlled the Senate organization could and did arrogantly
override the rights of the Senate, giving the ultimatum that no business
should be transacted until the anti-machine Senators had concurred in
the machine amendments to the Direct Primary bill.

The machine's play was to bully, bluff or beg one of the anti-machine
Senators to desert to the machine, which would have given the machine
twenty-one votes, enough for concurrence, or, failing in this, to force
the attendance of Senator Stetson, which would have tied the Senate,
thus giving Warren Porter the deciding vote. But before Senator Stetson,
pale and plainly on the verge of breakdown, could be brought to
Sacramento, Senator Black became very ill and was obliged to go to his
home at Palo Alto. Thus when Stetson returned, the vote stood 20 to 19,
precisely where it had been before. Performer Porter was still denied
the privilege of casting the deciding vote. For once the machine found