Black was lying ill at his home at Palo Alto, the Call on March 18
stated that he was in hiding in Sacramento.

The Call on the same date expressed its deep regret for and its utter
condemnation of, the "asinine filibuster, designed to prevent a tie vote
which would be decided by the Lieutenant-Governor, Warren Porter, in
favor of concurrence in the Assembly amendment to the Direct Primary
bill."

On February 18 the Call had objected very strenuously to Porter's
attitude toward the Direct Primary bill. The Call on that date said:

"To-day the wolves (a pet name for the machine Senators), urged by
their masters, will make their last stand in the Senate against a
people determined to be free. Warren Porter, the Lieutenant-Governor
of the fatted soul, who professes all the virtues and practices all
political evil, will be the whipper-in."

One month later, March 18, the Call was complaining bitterly that the
anti-machine Senators would not permit the same "Lieutenant-Governor of
the fatted soul" to whip them into line for the amendment to the Direct
Primary bill, which they had rejected on February 18, and for which the
Call had praised them generously. The Call's special representative at
Sacramento, George Nan Smith, was by this time working openly with
Porter, Wolfe, Leavitt, Hartman, Lynch and Burke to compel Senate
concurrence in the Assembly amendments, while Senators Boynton, Black,
Miller, Campbell, Holohan, Stetson and the other anti-machine Senators
whom the Call had formerly backed in their efforts against the machine,
had become "pin-head politicians," in the columns of the Call, intent
upon defeat of the Direct Primary bill.