ticket were elected by even larger pluralities, except justices of the supreme court-the successful of whom, save Milton H. Myrick, were on several of the tickets. Morrison was chosen chief justice by seventy-two thousand five hundred and eightyeight votes to sixty-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-six for Rhodes and nineteen thousand nine hundred and six for Bennett. The justices chosen were Elisha W. McKinstry, James D. Thornton, Samuel B. McKee and Erskine M. Ross, Democrats; John R. Sharpstein, Workingman, and Milton H. Myrick, Republican. A few votes, hardly a hundred in number, were thrown in favor of a state ticket of the Prohibition party, which had been regularly nominated but afterwards withdrawn. Among the district officers chosen were: for the state board of equalization, James L. King, Moses M. Drew, Warren Dutton, Republicans, and Tyler D. Heiskell, Democrat; for the railroad commission, Joseph S. Cone, Republican, Charles J. Beerstecher, Workingman, and George Stoneman, Democrat; for congress, Horace Davis, Horace F. Page and Romualdo Pacheco, Republicans, and Campbell P. Berry, Democrat.' In addition to the almost general victory of the Republicans in respect to the officers above mentioned, they also elected a majority of both the senate and assembly-though San Francisco sent delegations whose majorities were Workingmen. Next to the Republicans the Workingmen had the largest number of votes in each house; and the Democrats had only a small minority.

In accordance with the new constitution, the next legislature met at Sacramento on January 5, 1880. It consisted of forty senators elected for three years and eighty assemblymen elected for one year. On January 6, Governor Irwin presented his last message. It was very full. He remarked, among other things, that when the last previous legislature met, there was a general stagnation of business throughout the country and a difficulty for laborers to obtain employment, but there had been some improvement since then. He next noticed the adoption of the new constitution and the very great opposition that had been made to it, closing his remarks with the significant observation that no other method was so effectual to secure the repeal of an 1 Senate Journal, 1880, 12; Davis' Political Conventions, 419-421.

unwise or oppressive law as its strict enforcement. He stated the total funded debt of the state on June 30, 1879, to have been three million four hundred and three thousand dollars. He called attention to the fact that the state under an act of April 4, 1864, to aid the construction of the Central Pacific railroad, was paying interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum on a million and a half of railroad bonds, which however would mature in 1884, when the state's obligation to pay interest would cease. He claimed that the state was thus paying one hundred and five thousand dollars a year for at best only a few hundred dollars worth of service; and he intimated that it would not be paying anything-except for a decision of the supreme court in 1865, which held that the inhibition of the old constitution against the creation by the state of any debt or liability exceeding three hundred thousand dollars except in case of war, invasion or insurrection, without an authorization by a vote of the people, did not apply, for the reason that the debt contracted on behalf of the Central Pacific railroad was for a war or insurrection purpose.1 He further remarked that, with the object of preventing any further legislation of that kind and to restrict the unlimited. power of levying taxes and making appropriations, an amendment of the old constitution was in 1866 adopted and in 1871 ratified, which prohibited the legislature from making an appropriation for any purpose whatever for a longer period than two years. But, strange to say, both this provision and that restricting state indebtedness had been entirely left out of the new constitution. On the other hand, he called attention to the fact that the state board of equalization, provided for by the code in 1873, had been shorn of its powers by another decision of the supreme court; but he supposed, and evidently hoped, that the new constitution would furnish the proper remedy.

2

Irwin spoke favorably of the operation of an act of March 30, 1878, creating a board of bank commissioners, which had been passed at his recommendation. In reference to the question of railroad freights and fares, then attracting much public attention,

1 People vs. Pacheco, 27 Cal. 175.

2 Art. I, sec. 22, of old constitution; Stats. 1869–70, 367. Savings and Loan Society vs. Austin, 46 Cal. 415.

he said that the right of the state to regulate them had been settled by the supreme court of the United States in the so-called Granger cases; and he proceeded to discuss at some length what rates should be established. As to Chinese immigration, he called attention to an act of December 21, 1877, for the submission of the question to popular vote,' and stated that the result of the submission at the general election of September 3, 1879, was a total of one hundred and sixty-one thousand four hundred and five votes, of which one hundred and fifty-four thousand six hundred and thirty-eight were against Chinese immigration to eight hundred and eighty-three in favor of it and five thousand eight hundred and eighty-four silent on the subject. But he added, like a good constitutional expounder as he was, that the state was practically powerless to deal with the subject and relief only to be looked for from congress and federal authority. And in conclusion, referring to the numerous amendments that would be necessary to fit the codes to the new constitution, he stated that he, in conjunction with the new governor who was about to succeed him, had requested Isaac S. Belcher, Thomas P. Stoney and Abraham C. Freeman to prepare the necessary amendments-at the same time admitting that neither of them had any power to make such appointments."

George C. Perkins, the new governor and the first under the new constitution, was born in Kennebunkport, Maine, on August 23, 1839. At the age of twelve years he ran away, or rather stowed himself away, on a vessel bound from that place for New Orleans. Upon being discovered after leaving port, he was accepted by the captain as one of the hands; and for the next four years he led a sea-faring life. In October, 1855, he came to California and, working his way to the Northern Mines, tried his fortune at washing gold; but, after a few months' labor, finding it not congenial, he went down to Oroville and became porter in a general merchandise store. His energy and ability soon procured him promotion to a clerkship; and not very long afterwards he became owner of the establishment. He married in 1864. About the same time, in connection with N. D. Rideout

1 Stats. 1877-8, 3, 740.

25 Appendix to Legislative Journals, 1880.

and other prominent men of the place, he established the Bank of Butte County, of which he became a director. In 1869 he was elected to the state senate from Butte county and served in the sessions of 1869-70 and 1871-2. In 1873 he was again elected to the state senate to fill the unexpired term of Senator David Boucher, who died in September, 1872, and served in the session of 1873-4. In the meanwhile, in 1872, he had become a partner in the San Francisco firm of Goodall & Nelson, afterwards known as Goodall, Perkins & Co., in the shipping business. That firm, in connection with the corporation known as the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, of which they were the principal incorporators, soon became the owners of most of the coastline steamers and gradually extended their line north and south until they did almost all the coasting business by steamers out of San Francisco. Though necessarily much occupied in his shipping and other affairs, he accepted an appointment by Governor Irwin as trustee of the Napa insane asylum in 1878, and in 1879 was president of the San Francisco chamber of comIn June, 1879, as already stated, he was nominated by the Republican party for governor and elected in September.'

merce.

Perkins' inauguration took place before a joint convention of the two houses of the legislature on January 8, 1880. In his inaugural remarks, he turned his attention first to matters of agricultural interest and, in connection with a reference to the prohibition of contracting of state prison labor after January 1, 1882, suggested that upwards of twenty-five millions of grain sacks were needed in the state annually. This, though it may not have been the first mention of what has since become the great jute-bag manufacturing industry at San Quentin, was the first gubernatorial recommendation of it. He also recommended the establishment of a branch of the government bureau of agriculture on the Pacific coast. Turning next to the mining interest, he remarked that California had produced over twelve hundred and fifty millions of dollars worth of gold. In the same connecsurvey had been sub

tion, he remarked that the state geological stantially barren of useful results; that the school of mines in the university had not as yet received an outfit, and that its 'Davis' Political Conventions, 601.

chair was vacant. He mentioned the mining-débris and agricultural-irrigation problems as two most important questions to be settled, and referred them to the careful consideration of the legislature. He thought new legislation would be found necessary in reference to revenue—as the mortgage tax, provided for by the new constitution, would not produce any addition, over the old system, to the public funds. He announced himself in favor of a tax upon all incomes in the state exceeding five thousand dollars per annum, and also in favor of taxing uncultivated land equally with cultivated land of the same quality and similarly situated. He adverted at some length to the great national questions then pending in reference to elections in the southern states; said that thousands and thousands of freedmen in those states were being forcibly prevented from voting, and declared that they should be protected by the government in their rights of suffrage. He pronounced the state university the "crowning glory of our educational system," deserving of liberal encouragement, and recommended state aid for the support of orphans and orphan asylums.'

Almost immediately upon the organization of the legislature, each house was almost flooded with propositions somewhat similar to, but even more extravagant than, the hundreds presented to the constitutional convention. Most of them were aimed directly or indirectly at the Chinese; and it seemed as if every member, who had a desire to gain popular favor, thought it necessary, in proportion to his ambition, to introduce stringent bills and cry out against Mongolians and Asiatics. There were also large numbers of bills designed to cinch capital, destroy corporations and in substance put an end to vested rights; but they were mostly throttled in short order by the conservative members; and, as this was usually accomplished in the most effective way, the legislature of 1880 might be called one preeminently of indefinite postponements. On the other hand, many bills were presented for the purpose of amending the codes and making them fit the new constitution; and a large number of these were passed, including some recommended by the committee appointed by Irwin and Perkins. The result was 16 Appendix to Legislative Journals, 1880.