vote of 57 to 19 refused to grant it reconsideration.

The writer remembers his first poll of the Senate on the anti-gambling
issue, when only nineteen Senators could be safely counted for it[24];
twenty-one were necessary for its passage. To be sure, a number of the
Senators not included in the list of the nineteen who were from the
beginning safe for the measure, were pledged to vote for an anti-pool
selling bill, but this did not necessarily mean the effective
Walker-Otis bill which had been drawn to prevent pool selling and
bookmaking. Not a few unquestionably figured on voting for a bill that
would place them on record as against racetrack gambling, but do
racetrack gambling little or no harm.

These uncertain ones were blocked in their plan of action because the
proponents of the Anti-Gambling bill knew just what they wanted to do,
namely, close up poolrooms and bookmakers' booths. They took the most
effective way to close them up, namely, adapted to California
Constitution and criminal practice, the Hughes anti-gambling law, the
adoption of which Governor Hughes forced in New York, and which in New
York State had proved most effective.

The bill was drawn carefully and its backers in the Legislature and out
of the Legislature let it be known that no amendment, not so much as to
change a comma, would be tolerated. The measure was introduced in the
Senate by Walker of Santa Clara, and in the Assembly by Otis of Alameda.
It was known as the Walker-Otis bill.

This determined stand for the passage of the measure just as it had been
drawn thoroughly alarmed the gambling lobby. "Reformers" who would not
"compromise" proved a new experience. The machine never compromises