DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

OF THE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA,

CONVENED AT THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1878.

"SEC. 14. The Railroad Commissioners shall perform all duties in relation to the railroads, other than those prescribed in the last two sections, as may be required of them by law.'

MR. SCHELL. It seems to me that the gentleman has a right to be heard on a question of privilege. I move that he be allowed to go on.

MR. O'DONNELL. It won't take two minutes.

MR. HUESTIS. If the house desires to hear it I have no objection.
THE CHAIR. Doctor, go on.

MR. O'DONNELL.

MR. WHITE. All that I wished to do was to show that I gave them MR. O'DONNELL. Mr. President: I rise to a question of privilege absolute power; and that they were to arrange the fares and freights as as a member of this body, and respectfully request my colleagues to give in their judgment should be fair and just. Now, is it common sense for this scribbler to write down that Leland Stanford would be willing to knows that members of the State and National Legislature can be called me their attention. Every man familiar with parliamentary rules put that power into the hands of any three men in this State? to account for words spoken in debate. In other words, so long as they it as the silliest nonsense and the most malicious sort of lying that could act in accordance with their sworn duty as members of the legislative MR. HUESTIS. I move that the Convention resolve itself into Com-department of the government, they will be defended and protected.

be got up.

mittee of the Whole.

REMARKS OF MR. HOWARD.

I regard

MR. HOWARD. Mr. President: I rise to a question of privilege. This is a matter of no very great importance, perhaps, but I take two exceptions to this publication. The first is, that it insinuates that the whole Committee on Corporations, in advocating this scheme, have been in the interest of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Now, sir, it seems to me that the daily denunciations of the press in the interest and pay of the corporations, notoriously so of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, should have protected us from any such imputation. The principal organ here has denounced us as Communists, and has given virus to it by saying that we are Communists as bad as Jesus Christ and the Supreme Court of the United States. [Laughter.] Well, now, it seems to me that that should have been sufficient to have demonstrated to the writer of this article that none of us had been stowed away in the pigeon-holes of the Central Pacific Railroad Company.

In the discharge of my duty as a delegate I gave offense to the managers of a vulgar newspaper called the Chronicle. I differed from that newspaper on the law of libel. I voted for a measure which I deemed libelers. In this step I acted in concert with some of the most honored essential to the protection of society from the attacks of professional members of this body, and for the exercise of my right and privilege I have been vilified by the paper which I confess ought to be nameless and endeavor to aid the authorities in their endeavors to bring these men among honorable men. I shall at the proper time appeal to the Courts to justice. I do not think them worthy of the notice of this body. I do dered ask the passage of any resolution, nor do they require any vindinot think that any of the gentlemen whom this mongrel paper has slanthis body that the charges published against me in this nameless sheet All I ask now is the privilege of assuring every member of due time I will cram the libel down the throats of the infernal libelers. are utterly false and without foundation, and I pledge myself that in I thank you kindly for your attention.

cation.

CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

MR. HUESTIS. Mr. President: Now, if there is no other gentleman who wishes to rise to a question of privilege, I move that the Convention resolve itself into Committee of the Whole, Mr. Larkin in the chair, on the question of the report of the Committee on Chinese. i Carried.

Again, sir, the writer is entirely mistaken when he assumes to say that the magnates of the Central Pacific Railroad Company desire this Commission, because they believe they can control it. Now, sir, that is a mistake, because they made an experiment on three Commissioners which proved disastrous. I have it from authority which I believe, that a certain railroad agent, or assumed railroad agent, approached one of the former three Commissioners with a proposition. He happened to be a man of honor, who had borne his country's flag on many a field. He' was indignant to an extent amounting to a towering passion, and he. made an appeal to the code-not to the Civil Code, not to the Penal Code, not to the code that obtains among railroads-but to the code which did obtain among gentlemen once. The officers of the railroad at once declared that the party who had approached this gentleman had done it without their authority, and they disowned him. Of course that stopped When the Legislature met, through its conduit pipe it run into the Legislature the Hart bill. It repealed the law under which the then existing Commission had been carried on, and of course wiped out the Commission. And they substituted for it, and carried through the Legislature, by means which I need not reiterate, a proposition to have one Commissioner. It seems that they came to the conclusion that while they could not manage three, that one, as the Irishmen say, might be very convenient, and, therefore, they displaced the three Commissioners and took the one. It was given out that the Governor would veto the Hart bill, and it was believed by a great many people, but when he came to act on the matter his patriotism got the better of him, and he signed it. That was the end of that

it. But the railroad took its revenge.

matter.

IN COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.

THE CHAIRMAN. The Secretary will read the first section.
THE SECRETARY read:

SECTION 1. The Legislature shall have and shall exercise the power
to enact all needful laws, and prescribe necessary regulations for the
protection of the State, and the counties, cities, and towns thereof, from
the burdens and evils arising from the presence of aliens, who are or
who may become vagrants, paupers, mendicants, criminals, or invalids
afflicted with contagious or infectious diseases, and aliens otherwise
dangerous or detrimental to the well-being or peace of the State, and to
impose conditions upon which such persons may reside in the State, and
to provide the means and mode of their removal from the State upon
failure or refusal to comply with such conditions; provided, that noth-
ing contained in the foregoing shall be construed to impair or limit the
power of the Legislature to pass such other police laws or regulations as
it may deem necessary.
MR. BROWN. I move its adoption.

MR. AYERS. Mr. Chairman: I believe it was understood that the

debate should exhaust itself. The debate has taken the range of the

entire article.

THE CHAIRMAN. If there be no objection to section one

don't see as there are any speakers here. The section is good enough. THE CHAIRMAN. If there are no amendments to section one the

MR. GRACE. It seems to me that the debate has exhausted itself. I

Secretary will read section two.

REMARKS OF MR. BLACKMER.

So, then, I say that the Central Pacific Railroad Company does not desire three Commissioners; that they desire either one, or the Legislature. That is what they want; and the accomplished author of this letter is laboring under a delusion. Nor is that all. Even if it were possible for them to buy up the three Commissioners-which they have not been able to do yet-or experiment, the people could fall back and elect three others who have been under fire and come out unscathed; so I do not think we are in so much danger as the writer seems to think, judgment is a little error in the first section, and I was in hopes that the MR. BLACKMER. Mr. Chairman: I wish to point out what in my of the three Commissioners. There is another thing in this matterand I say here, that if the writer of this letter was not above suspicion-I conversation with him upon that point. It is in the fifth and sixth Chairman of the committee would be here this evening, as had a short would believe that he had been stowed, and that this attack was a weak lines of the first section of the report, and I hope that this will not be device of the enemy. There is another matter in connection with this, passed so that it cannot be taken up again. I am not ready to offer an since they have seen proper to provoke this attack upon us, which I may asendment, but I suggest that the words, "invalids afflicted with conas well mention. Two or three years ago, the North American Review tagious or infectious diseases," means altogether too much. It means published an article which stated that the railroads no longer purchased more, I believe, than the committee themselves intended to convey, votes in detail, but that when they wanted a Senator, they elected him- because they may mean such diseases as are contagious or infectious, but advanced cash enough to elect him and that then they owned him may inflict any people, and they certainly do not wish to have the profited by that suggestion. They seem of late to have elected the simply upon that ground. Now, the section should certainly be modSenator, and to have put a collar on him, with "Central Pacific Rail-ified so as to reach only the point aimed at. The Central Pacific Railroad Company seems to have police power of this State invoked for the purpose of excluding them road Company" written upon it, so that if he got lost, or strayed, he person have the smallpox, or anything of that kind that may be concould be recaptured and returned to his lawful owner. by members of the last Legislature, that when the Hart bill was before tagious, that for that reason we would send them out of the State. Yet bie Legislature, he reappeared here and did his best to carry the Hart amended so that it would mean exactly what the committee, I think, lett through. Therefore, it is, I say, that the learned author of this had in their minds when the section was framed. I hope that there fully, a barking up the wrong tree. He does not understand his business had be their actions then, but that it can still be amended. There is gether in his facts-if he has any facts-or in his conjectures; and he gelly, and whatever may tree en purpose, he is mistaken alto- will be not action and it should be had now, but allow the Chairman, seems to me, in fact, that he had been dreaming, and it was nothing way so that it cannot be called up again in the regular way. an opportunity to the section as he more than a feat of somnambulism which dictated this letter. as I know it is in his ve that we do not pass any section to-night in any

during his term.

MR. HUESTIS.

I renew my motion.

I am told here,

It is not intended that if a

this is broad enough to cover that. Now, the section should be

MR. STUART. I second the motion.

THE CHAIRMAN. It is moved and seconded that the section be

MR. O'DONNELL. I rise to a question of privilege. I rise to a temporarily passed.

question of privilege.

THE CHAIR.

I have a right here on this floor.

MR. HUESTIS. No, I will take the ruling of the Chair.
You are not in order, Mr. O'Donnell.

Does the gentleman withdraw his motion?

THE CHAIR.

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MR. FREUD. Mr. Chairman: I hope no such proceeding will be adopted. The Chairman will have an opportunity, when it comes up in Convention, to amend it as he may deem fit. I think we can go on with our usual business with propriety.