back the two remaining too late for passage, had better treatment in
store for the Wheelan measures. They were reported back to the Assembly
on March 6th, at a time when the Assembly was fairly swamped with
pending measures. On March 17th, in the midst of a mass of legislation,
they were slipped through the Assembly without many of the members
apparently knowing what they were. The Assembly journal of that date
shows that such men as Bohnett, Callan, Cattell, Cogswell, Flint,
Gerdes, Gibbons, Gillis, Hayes, Hewitt, Hinkle, Johnson of Placer,
Juilliard, Kehoe, Mendenhall, Polsley, Stuckenbruck, Telfer, Whitney,
Wilson and Wyllie, who ordinarily voted for good measures and against
bad ones, voted for the Wheelan bills.

With the exception of Bill No. 223, not one vote was cast against the
measures. The vote on Bill No. 223 was the last taken. Gillis, who had
voted for the two others, appears to have awakened to the fact that
something was wrong. At any rate, he voted against Bill 223.

His was the only vote cast against any of the three bills in the lower
House, They appear to have gone through the Assembly without thorough
appreciation of their significance. At any rate, there were members
enough present, who were usually against bad measures, to have prevented
the Wheelan bills securing the forty-one votes necessary for their
passage.

A reform measure passing the Assembly on March 17th would have had no
chance whatever in the Senate. The Wheelan bills were more fortunate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, before which the Commonwealth Club bills
had dragged along for weeks, received the Wheelan bills on March 17th,
the day they passed the Assembly, and the same day, March 17th, reported