colleagues uncomfortable and added to the popular inflammation. This continued growing until, in the early part of 1884, an unexpected and unusual event occurred which roused the administration and caused a sort of political explosion. After the adoption of the new constitution and the lodgment by it of the power of assessing railroads in the state board of equalization—or in other words for a period of four years-the principal railroads had refused to pay the taxes levied against them. The result was a number of suits, some by the state and some by counties, against the delinquents for not only the taxes but also for the interest and penalties prescribed by law, which amounted at that time to a very large sum. The most important of these suits had been brought in the United States circuit court in San Francisco, then held by Judge Lorenzo Sawyer, and were under the control, so far as the prosecution was concerned, of Edward C. Marshall, the state attorney-general. The general expectation was a judgment, in favor of the state and counties plaintiff, for the full amount claimed; when all at once it became known that Marshall had compromised the cases, by releasing the interest and penalties and accepting the simple amount of the taxes. He claimed, and assumed, the right as attorney-general to act according to his own judgment and will; and, according to his declaration, he had made an advantageous settlement. But the administration and the public generally and, as it afterwards appeared, the Democratic party, which had elected him, were of a very different opinion; and when the facts became known great excitement prevailed.

Stoneman, regarding the honor of the state involved and the situation critical, determined to at once call an extra session of the legislature, and accordingly on March 5 issued a proclamation for that purpose, fixing the time of meeting for March 24, 1884. In this document, he said the tax suits had under various pretexts been delayed and were at last terminated by proceedings, which practically established that, while nothing was collectible from the railroad companies, yet the state was willing to accept whatever they saw fit to pay. The humiliating attitude, in which the state was thus placed, should fill the heart of every public-spirited citizen with regret and mortification; whilst the disturbance of

the financial system of the country, by the repeated and persistent delinquency of these companies, no wise man should willingly permit to continue. The condition of affairs also demanded a change with reference to the regulation of the business of transportation companies. The plan of electing railroad commissioners from districts had not given satisfaction; a wide-spread discontent existed on account of failure to adjust a tariff of freights and fares; and, if the results so long hoped for from the commission were ever to be attained, it would have to be through a revision of the constitution and laws upon the subject. He, therefore, regarding the occasion as extraordinary, called the legislative bodies in extra session, to submit to them six amendments to the constitution relating to railroad commissioners and their election from the state at large, to railroad taxes and to freights and fares; also laws for the assessment and collection of income taxes from railroads and other corporations; laws relating to revenue in general; laws for the sale of railroad property for delinquent taxes; laws to prevent the ratification of any compromise or judgment by consent in any tax case, by which a less amount had been or was to be received than the sum due by law or claimed in the complaint for tax, interest and penalty; laws more clearly defining the duties and powers of the attorney-general, district attorney and boards of supervisors in reference to the collection of delinquent taxes, and laws for the prosecution of and punishment for discriminations and abuses in railroad transportation.'

The legislature accordingly met on Monday, March 24, 1884. As soon as the houses organized, Stoneman sent in a message asking their assistance in proposing such constitutional amendments and passing such laws as would prevent a recurrence of the condition of affairs then existing in reference to railroad matters; also in devising means to assert the rights of the state in reference to the further prosecution of the tax suits and providing for opening and setting aside all compromises, consentjudgments and agreements by which the state had lost or was about to lose any portion of the taxes, penalties or interest due to it. He then enlarged upon the subjects for which he had called them together, and pointed out the way in which he con1Senate Journal, Extra Session, 1884, 1.

ceived the desired objects might be attained. In response to these recommendations, and in apparent accordance with them, there were introduced in the senate thirty-two bills, nineteen of them to amend the constitution, and in the assembly sixty-three bills, twenty-seven of them to amend the constitution. But it soon became apparent that nothing of importance in the direction pointed out by Stoneman was going to be accomplished. This was particularly evident in the senate, where the Republicans joined with the Democrats in electing Democratic officers by a unanimous vote. Whatever other object they may have had in this, it soon began to be suspected that they were looking forward to the contest for the next United States senatorship, which was to be decided by the legislature of 1885. It was generally understood that Aaron A. Sargent, who had been United States senator from 1873 to 1879, was to be the Republican candidate for the office and that the railroad companies, on account of his very great services to them, were to support him with all their power, as they had favored him before. But it seems that Leland Stanford, the president of the railroad companies, had also fixed his eye upon that office for himself; and his desire had begun to make itself felt. The first decided indication of the fact and of the undercurrent in his favor, or at least against Sargent, was a remarkable vote in the early part of this extra session. A short time previous, Sargent, who had been appointed United States minister to the court of Berlin by President Arthur, had become involved in a controversy with the German officials in reference to the importation into Germany of American pork; and, being an outspoken man of very decided views, he had advocated the American side of the question with perhaps more heat than those courtiers were accustomed to. Under the circumstances, fault being found by the German court and the newspapers having taken the subject up, Charles W. Cross, senator from Nevada county, a personal friend of Sargent, offered a resolution declaring that the senate approved Sargent's course in upholding the interests of American products at the court of Berlin, and was proud that the independent spirit of a Californian had dared to assert itself even at the court of the German empire. A motion being made to table and in effect kill the resolution,

the vote showed twenty-two ayes to thirteen noes; and among the ayes were several Republicans, who afterwards acted as special advocates of Stanford's candidacy against Sargent.'

In the meantime, while the senate was doing comparatively nothing-it in fact passed only one senate bill-the assembly was actively engaged in its work and passed nineteen assembly bills and several important resolutions, which were supposed to cover the objects for which they had been specially called together. Three of these were propositions to amend the constitution in reference to the railroad commission and railroad regulation and taxation, and the others chiefly to amend the laws in reference to the same subjects. These, as soon as passed, were sent to the senate, which wrangled over them and passed four, one of which was to provide for funding the indebtedness of counties in certain cases, one to provide for taxes upon the income of railroad corporations which failed to pay property taxes, and two making appropriations to pay the expenses of the extra session. Among the resolutions adopted by the assembly were a series, usually called the "Wallace resolutions," declaring that the railroad companies held their roads and franchises-paid for by public money and land-only as and for a public use and not as their private property; that their management of them-only for corporate gain and emolument—was a flagrant breach of public trust; that the railroads were subject to legislative control, which however should be exercised not oppressively but in a spirit of justice, and that the decision of the United States circuit court, that the power to impose taxes on railroad property was limited to the same rules as the power to tax the property of private persons, was in effect an assumption that railroad property was private property and involved a grave judicial and political heresy, alarming in its consequences and tending to subvert the rightful authority of the state and people over railway properties."

Another step, taken by the assembly in the railroad controversy, was the adoption of the report of a portion of the judiciary committee to the effect that the state was entitled to recover penalties, interest and counsel fees in the railroad suits; that the attorney

general had no authority to waive them; that he intended to waive the rights of the state and had done so as far as he could, but that the state might be restored to its former position by setting aside and annulling his unauthorized acts; that, as the record then stood, the question of the rights of the state was not open to review on appeal; that the conduct and management of the attorney-general was not such as to best enforce and guard the rights of the state and counties, and that steps ought to be taken to set aside the proceedings on the stipulations entered into by that functionary. The vote on the adoption of this report was forty-seven ayes to sixteen noes; and the next day a motion disclaiming "all intention of imputing motives of corruption or personal dishonesty in the attorney-general in his official action" was tabled by a vote of thirty-two ayes to twentyeight noes. But, as the senate would not or at least did not assist in the work contemplated by Stoneman, little or nothing in the direction pointed out by him was done. The subjects involved and the motives governing members, however, received fuller public discussion than would otherwise have been the case. As a specimen of the expressions of public opinion, the Stockton Herald of April 29, 1884, charged David McClure, a Republican senator from San Francisco, with declaring that with seven Republicans and fourteen Democrats he would obstruct and prevent any legislation. He himself called attention to the charge and said that he had taken no part in the debate mentioned by the newspaper and could not possibly have made the statement imputed to him. But the fact remains, that legislation was obstructed and prevented.

Among the bills, passed by the assembly and sent to the senate, was one to prevent discriminations and abuses of railroad companies, commonly known as the "Barry bill." It had passed the assembly by a vote of seventy-two ayes to two noes; but, when it reached the senate, it was so amended as to make it very different from the original; and as so amended it was passed by a unanimous vote. In the long wrangles over it, there was on several occasions a tie; and in every such instance Lieutenant1 Assembly Journal, Extra Session, 1884, 140-143, 178, 179. 2 Senate Journal, Extra Session, 1884, 71.