Constitution introduced by Senator Black, which gave the people of the
State the power enjoyed by the people of Oregon and of the more advanced
California municipalities, the power to initiate laws.

Black's amendment provided that on petition of eight per cent of the
electors of the State proposing a law or Constitutional amendment, such
law or amendment must be submitted to a vote of the people at the next
general election, precisely as Constitutional amendments are now
submitted. If the proposed law or amendment received a majority vote it
was to become a law of the State, independent of Legislative action. In
a word, the people of California, had the amendment carried, would have
been able to initiate the laws which govern them.

Naturally, the machine, always on thin ice at best, thoroughly aroused
to what the initiative means, opposed any such "wicked innovation."

In its opposition, the machine was backed by that extreme conservatism,
which, while sincere enough, forever hangs on the coattails of progress;
the conservatism which even in New England as late as 1860 drew back its
respectable skirts from abolition; the conservatism which, dragged
protesting over a crisis, never fails to assume for itself all the
credit for what has been accomplished. Thus the machine had some very
respectable assistance in its efforts against the Initiative Amendment,
the measure which more than any other before the Legislature was
calculated to take the government of California out of machine
hands[84].

On the other hand, the amendment had strong backing. It had been drawn
up at the instance of the Direct Legislation League, which numbers among
its members many of the foremost bankers, capitalists, educators and