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the pursuit of happiness," guaranteed to all men under the American flag. But, notwithstanding his protests, most of the anti-Chinese sections were almost unanimously adopted, and many of the injustices to the Chinese given a sort of constitutional approval.1

In another direction, a very vigorous effort, also unsuccessful, was made in favor of woman-suffrage. The chief advocate for this was Thomas B. McFarland; but he was supported by James J. Ayers, Eli T. Blackmer, William P. Grace, Horace C. Rolfe, George W. Schell, George Steele, W. J. Sweasey, Alphonse P. Vacquerel and others. After the main proposition was defeated, an attempt to authorize the legislature to permit woman-suffrage was lost by a vote of fifty-five in favor to sixty-seven against it. Among other propositions defeated, were such as to abolish grand juries; to make suffrage compulsory; abolishing official bonds except by officers having charge of public funds; requiring an oath from legislators that they would not be. bribed and making a violation of the oath perjury; providing a decreasing scale for pay of legislators as sessions were prolonged; prohibiting divorces except for adultery; providing for the appointment of all judicial officers, except justices of the peace, and to fix their terms of office during good behavior; prohibiting the employment of chaplains in state institutions; submitting every statute of the legislature to popular vote; striking out of the clause in relation to criminal libels that the jury should have the right to determine the law; providing that in trials for criminal libels the judge might declare the law but the jury should not be bound by the instructions of the court; fixing the amount for which property was insured as its value in adjusting losses; providing that justices of the peace should receive salaries; preventing the mortgaging of homesteads except for purchase money or improvements thereon; restricting land-holding to six hundred and forty acres; numbering election ballots and checking votes opposite names on the registers, and moving the capital of the state to San José. Among petitions from the outside, and it would almost appear from some former generation, was one "that the existence of God the Father and the Son and responsibility 'Debates and Proceedings of Convention, 642, 1238-1240.

40 VOL. IV.

of the state to Him be recognized and declared in the preamble" and another making Sunday a day of rest by constitutional provision.'

Another subject, which attracted much attention and in which radical changes were made over the system provided by the old constitution, was that of taxation. One of the first propositions offered was that no person should pay taxes on his indebtedness; another was to make the payment of poll taxes a qualification for suffrage; another to exempt church property from taxation; a fourth that no license should be collected from any person carrying on business; a fifth to exempt from sale for taxes all property exempt from sale on execution. One delegate believed in a graduated scale of taxation, in proportion to their amount, on estates of deceased persons, so that small ones would pay no tax but large ones should pay enough to run the government. Another was in favor of an ad-valorum tax upon all property. Still another insisted upon an income tax. But the main contention was to tax mortgages and solvent debts. As one of the Workingmen's orators said, it was determined to stop the mouth of the supreme court, which had decided that mortgages and solvent debts were not property, subject to taxation. This was to be accomplished by a clause, proposed by William W. Moreland of Sonoma county and known as the "Moreland amendment," by which "bonds, notes, mortgages, evidences of indebtedness, solvent debts, franchises and everything of value, capable of transfer or ownership," should be considered property and taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as provided by law. Another Sonoma delegate declared that there was nothing which the people of his county were more in favor of than the taxation of mortgages and solvent debts--and he might have added that it was probably because nearly everything in that county was at that time under mortgage, and because the cry against money loaners and capitalists was for similar reasons very general in many parts of the state. Samuel M. Wilson of San Francisco may be said to have led 'Debates and Proceedings of Convention, 81, 83, 104, 1004-1013, 13531365.

2

2 People vs. Hibernia Savings and Loan Society, 51 Cal. 243.

He

the opposition to the proposition of taxing mortgages. argued that when real and personal property were taxed, everything that really existed was taxed. Taxation should be confined to property that was tangible and visible to the senses. Debts, whether secured by mortgage or not, were simply a creature of the mind and existed purely in imagination. Such also were choses in action, patent rights, copyrights, good-will, pensions, policies of insurance, contracts of sale and so on, which could not be taxed. He was therefore opposed to the proposed taxation of mortgages. He appealed to the farmers and mortgagors in general not to tax mortgages, as it would simply add to their burdens. Money lenders would take care of themselves and in the end the borrowers would have to pay the tax. He then went on to show that the proposed tax upon mortgages and solvent debts would be double taxation, and would set back the development of the state ten years.1 Several others followed on the same side; and, among them, several of the Workingmen, who saw that the state was entitled to a tax upon tangible property alone, and not to a tax upon a mere representative of property which was itself taxed. But most of the Workingmen and the so-called Grangers-for they had combined on the question-were in favor, to the full extent of the Moreland amendment, of taxing the land and the mortgage separately-the land for its value and the mortgage for its face. When it came to the vote, however, the Moreland amendment was lost by a vote of sixtyeight against, to forty-seven for it. But some of the same purposes, contemplated by the Moreland amendment, were afterwards accomplished by the complicated system of taxation adopted, which defined "moneys, credits, bonds, stocks, dues, franchises and all other matters and things, real, personal and mixed, capable of private ownership," as property subject to taxation; exempting growing crops and property used exclusively for public schools or belonging to the state, county or municipality; providing for a reduction from credits of debts due to bona-fide residents; making mortgages and contracts, by which debts were secured, for the purposes of taxation interests in the property affected thereby, and prescribing that all land, cultivated or 1Debates and Proceedings of Convention, 882-885.

uncultivated, of the same quality and similarly situated, should be assessed at the same value. In the same connection, a state board of equalization was created-to be elected at the general state elections--to consist of one member from each congressional district, whose duty it was to be to equalize the valuation of taxable property in the several counties, and also to assess the franchise, roadway, road-bed, rails and rolling stock of all railroads operated in more than one county in the state. An attempt to limit the annual state tax to forty cents on each one hundred dollars of valuation was defeated, as also a proposition to impose a succession tax upon legacies; but provision was made for the payment of taxes on real estate by installments, and for income taxes if prescribed by the legislature.

The next most radical changes in the organic law, perhaps, were in relation to corporations. And in respect to these, there was again a combination between the Workingmen and Grangers. As to railroad corporations, a railroad commission was created, to consist of three members, each to be elected in a specified district at the regular gubernatorial elections. This commission was to regulate the freights and fares of railroads and transportation companies; prescribe a uniform system of accounts to be kept by them, and have a general supervision over their business. Various regulations were added against combinations between railroad companies and other common carriers, by which the earnings of one doing the carrying was to be shared by any other not doing the carrying; also against discrimination in charges or facilities of transportation; and it was provided that railroad freights and fares, lowered for the purposes of competition, should not be raised again without the consent of governmental authority. A significant indication of what some members thought of the duties of the railroad commission was a proposition, made by one delegate and supported by a number of others though not enough to adopt it, to allow any citizen to run a locomotive and train on any railroad in the state, under such rules, regulations and pay as the commission might prescribe. As to corporations in general, the most radical change was a clause, proposed by David S. Terry, making directors or 'Debates and Proceedings of Convention, 166, 174-178, 559-574.

trustees jointly and severally liable to creditors and stockholders for all moneys embezzled or misappropriated by officers during their terms of office. This clause-which one delegate called "as absurd a proposition as had been presented to the convention, and that was saying a good deal," and another as going "beyond everything in reason or justice and beyond all the well-settled rules of law on the subject," and another as "a direct blow at the prosperity of the state”—evoked much discussion; but, on account of the combination above referred to, it was adopted by a considerable majority.'

A radical change of a different character and in another direction consisted of certain limitations upon legislative power. Under the first constitution, the legislative power, within the bounds prescribed by the constitution of the United States, was practically unlimited; and, if legislators of integrity and intelligence could always have been secured, there could not possibly have been any need of change. But experience had shown that legislators could be corrupt and foolish; that they could seek election on account of the money they could improperly make out of their votes, and that they could fritter away their time in local, special and private legislation that was not needed or, if needed, could be better accomplished by general laws. To cure these evils to some extent at least, a section was adopted prohibiting the passage of local or special laws in a large number of specified cases, or in any case where a general law could be made applicable. But there were some exceptions to the principle thus enunciated. One was that consolidated, city and county governments of more than one hundred thousand population should have two boards of supervisors or houses of legislation; and another was a provision giving cities containing more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, and evidently like the other intended for San Francisco alone, authority to elect a board of fifteen freeholders and through them frame charters for their municipal government and regulation. Any charter so adopted was to be consistent with and subject to the constitution and laws of the state, and approved by a majority vote of the members elected to each house of the legislature; and, when so 'Debates and Proceedings of Convention, 418, 1199–1207.

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