"on the understanding that that constitutional amendment would be
adopted. As you know, it was defeated. My attitude on the regulation
bill would have been very different had I known that the amendment was
to be rejected."

The Wright bill met with practically no opposition in the Assembly,
being rushed through the Lower House in the closing hours of the
session. Had the Stetson bill passed the Senate, the machine would have
tried to block and amend it in the Assembly as was done with the Direct
Primary bill, but the measure would probably have been passed.

Had the anti-machine forces in the Senate been organized, the Stetson,
and not the Wright bill, would have passed that body. Without
organization, or even definite policy, in the face of organized machine
opposition, it is astonishing - and at the same time most encouraging -
that eighteen of the forty Senators stood by the Stetson bill to the
end.



[64] The question to which Senator Miller referred was: Has the
Legislature power under the Constitution to authorize the Railroad
Commissioners to fix the absolute rate? a question upon which the
machine does not propose the Supreme Court shall be required to pass.

[65] Walker and Estudillo were bitterly condemned for their vote for the
Wright bill. Incidentally, the writer has been roundly criticized for
offering the excuse in their behalf that these two men indicated by
their attitude on other measures throughout the session that they would
have continued with the reform element in the matter of railroad