Venue bill. It was a question of good generalship, or, if you like,
trickery. Perhaps trickery is the better name for it.



[74] Black's Senate bill, 1,144, came very near being defeated in the
Assembly by similar "good generalship." The measure in effect prohibits
the sale of intoxicating liquors within a mile and a half of Stanford
University. Assemblyman Bohnett was in charge of the bill.

Bohnett, the day that the bill was to come up, was called from the room
to attend a committee meeting. Immediately did the Assembly show
astonishing activity in consideration of the file. So fast did they go
that the Stanford bill seemed destined to be reached while Bohnett was
out of the room. Had it been reached with Bohnett away it could have
been dropped to the bottom of the file, where it would have been lost,
so far as the session of the Legislature of 1909 was concerned.

Charles R. Detrick, of Palo Alto, happened to go to the Assembly chamber
at this critical moment and took in the situation at a glance. He
accordingly hunted up Bohnett, who got back to the Assembly chamber
before the bill could be reached on file. For once "good generalship"
had failed at the legislative session of 1909.

[74a] In 1907, the Change of Venue bill was slipped through the
Assembly, but in a form not to affect the San Francisco graft cases. In
the Senate, however, it was amended to apply to Ruef, Schmitz and their
associates. The exposure of this turn raised such a storm that the bill
was not brought to vote. However, on the night before adjournment, the
measure was slipped through the Senate as an amendment tacked on another