favored the submission to the people of such an amendment. But it was
not until February 22d that the amendment - or rather a substitute for
it - was reported back to the Senate.

The day following, February 23d, Senator Campbell had the measure
re-referred to the committee, that an amendment better calculated to
meet the needs of the State might be prepared. The committee took until
March 5th to make its report. The anti-machine Senators on the committee
had to fight for every inch of the way toward securing a report upon an
effective amendment. This, however, they finally succeeded in doing. The
second substitute amendment smoothed out the ambiguities and the alleged
ambiguities of the Constitution, of which the machine legislators made
so much during the session, and of which it is feared the courts may
make much later on. For the long list of constitutional powers and
duties of the Railroad Commissioners, which are so worded as to confuse
the legal mind, the framers of the amendment substituted the following:

"The Commission (Railroad) and each of its members shall have such
powers and perform such duties as are now or may hereafter be provided
for by law." Under that simple permission there could have been no
question of the authority of the Legislature to empower the Railroad
Commissioners to fix a system of absolute rates. Section 23, Article
XII., of the Constitution, which at least confused the lawyers employed
by the railroads to prevent the passage of the Stetson bill, was
repealed entirely. The adoption of the amendment, would, had it been
approved by the people at the general election of 1910, have removed
every impediment which railroad attorneys claim to be in the way of an
effective railroad regulation law for California.

Curiously enough the machine Senators who had been so much exercised