California. Constitution Amendments to Constitution Proposed Statutes With Arguments Respecting the Same To be submitted to the Electors of the State of California at the SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, September 3, 1912. To the qualified electors of the State of California: WHEREAS, the legislature of the State of California at its extraordinary session of the thirty-ninth regular session beginning on the 27th day of November, 1911, and ending on the 24th day of December, 1911, two thirds of all the members elected to each of the houses of said legislature voting in favor thereof, proposed the following several amendments to the constitution of the State of California, designated by the following numbers, to wit: Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 3 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 3. AND WHEREAS, there has been presented to me within ninety days after final adjournment of the legislature in said extraordinary session, petitions signed by qualified electors equal in number to 5 per cent of all the votes cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election at which a governor was elected, asking that the following acts or sections or parts of acts of the legislature be submitted to the electors for their approval or rejection, to wit: 1. An act to amend section 4013 of the Political Code of the State of California, relative to the officers of a county; 2. An act to amend the Political Code of the State of California by adding two new sections thereto, to be numbered 4149e and 4149f, providing for the appointment of a registrar of voters, prescribing his duties and fixing his term of office and the compensation to be paid such registrar in the various classes of counties; and 3. An act to amend section 4232 of the Political Code of the State of Californ relating to the salaries and fees of officers in counties of the third class. AND WHEREAS, petitions have been presented to me signed by qualified electors equal in number to 8 per cent of all the votes cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election at which a governor was elected, proposing the following laws and amendments to the constitution, to wit: 1. Proposition to amend section 7 of article XI of the constitution of the State of California relating to the formation of consolidated city and county governments; 2. An act to prohibit bookmaking and pool-selling, and to provide for a state racing commission to grant licenses for horse racing in the State of California, for a limited period, and the permitting of wagering upon such racing by the Paris Mutual and Auction Pool systems only; and 3. A proposition to amend article XIII of the constitution of the State of California by the addition of a new section to said article, to be designated and numbered as section 8 of said article, relating to taxation by counties, cities and counties, cities, towns, districts and townships. Therefore, pursuant to the constitution and the laws of the state, I have caused to be printed and transmitted to each of the county clerks in this state, and to the registrar of voters of the city and county of San Francisco, for distribution to said qualified electors, copies of said proposed amendments to the constitution and propositions (and accompanying statements) to be voted upon at the general election to be held on the 5th day of November, 1912. Shant Berdan Secretary of State. FREE SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS. ASSEMBLY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 3. A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California an amendment to PROPOSED LAW. EXISTING LAW. Section 7, The governor, the superintendent of public instruction, the president of the university of California, and the professor of pedagogy therein and the principals of the state normal schools, shall constitute the state board of educaSection 7. The legislature shall protion, and shall compile, or cause to be vide for the appointment or election of a state board of education, and said board compiled, and adopt a uniform series of shall provide, compile, or cause to be text-books for use in the common schools compiled, and adopt, a uniform series of throughout the state. The state board text-books for use in the day and even- may cause such text-books when adopted, ing elementary schools throughout the to be printed, and published by the superstate. The state board may cause such intendent of state printing, at the state text-books, when adopted, to be printed printing office; and when so printed and and published by the superintendent of state printing, at the state printing office; published, to be distributed and sold at and wherever and however such text- the cost price of printing, publishing and books may be printed and published, they distributing the same. The text-books, shall be furnished and distributed by the so adopted, shall continue in use not less state free of cost or any charge whatever, than four years, without any change or to all children attending the day and alteration whatsoever which will require evening elementary schools of the state, or necessitate the purchase of new books under such conditions as the legislature by such pupils, and said state board shall shall prescribe. The text-books, SO adopted, shall continue in use not less perform such other duties as may be prethan four years, without any change or scribed by law. The legislature shall alteration whatsoever which will require provide for a board of education in each or necessitate the furnishing of new county in the state. The county superinbooks to such pupils, and said state board tendents and the county boards of educashall perform such other duties as may tion shall have control of the examination be prescribed by law. The legislature shall provide for a board of education in of teachers and the granting of teachers' each county in the state. certificates within their respective jurisThe county superintendents and the county boards dictions. [Amendment adopted October of education shall have control of the 10, 1911.] REASONS FOR ADOPTING ASSEMBLY CONSTITUTIONAL This proposed amendment changes sec-| books for use in the day and evening governor. With the power and corrective of the initiative, referendum and recall in the hands of the people no fear need exist that the legislature, the governor and such reorganized board of education would not perform their full and comprehensive duties in their respective spheres of action. or any cost whatever to the children attending such schools; instead of, as at present, that such text-books shall be furnished to such children at the cost price. Except for the two changes above noted, the proposed amendment makes no change in the existing law. Under the amendment the best expert services of the country may be employed, or the best of copyrights may be used The amendment provides that text-under the royalty system, for the purThree 7583 .13 £33 A 1912 OCT 201916 375450 pose of providing for a uniform series of American spirit will not endure such text-books for a standardized, uniform, humiliation. fundamental education of the children of the state, which text-books may be printed, as now, at the state printing office. The adoption of the amendment will make our elementary or common school education free in fact as well as in name. With free schoolhouses, free school grounds, free tuition, and free apparatus, there is no reason why free text-books, the most needful of all, should not be furnished. The cost to the state in making the change will be nominal. The cost of all the text-books of the state series furnished to the school children of the state for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, amounted to only $194,264. If a tax to raise that amount had been levied against the assessed valuation of all property in the state for that year, such tax would have amounted to only seven and four tenths mills upon the one hundred dollars valuation. If we add to this the cost of supplementals forced into the schools through the efforts of book agents, teachers and boards of education, which, in some counties, exceeds the cost of the regular series provided by law, the cost to the state will still be nominal. Opponents of this amendment will probably argue that it is unjust that the state should be required to furnish free text-books in the public elementary schools and not furnish the like books free to similar grades in private schools under private control. The same objection can as reasonably be made to the whole public school system. The complete answer to the objection is, that the state should not support, in whole, or in part, two school systems, the one system under state control and the other system under private control. There are opponents to this amendment who profess to doubt its validity. Nearly all of the senate, and practically all of the assembly, lawyers and laymen, hold it to be valid. This fact, without entering into argument, should be sufficient. A Warning. Some school-teachers, acting consciously or unconsciously in the interest of the private book-publishing concerns, the book trust, have advocated the submission of a constitutional amendment in opposition to the foregoing Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 3, which proposed measure they hope to get upon the ballot through the initiative, by petition. This scheme provides for local adoption by each county, city and high school district, making in all some three hundred and twenty-five different possible adoptions, would destroy a uniform, fundamental education, and would put the Under the present efficient management of state printing, the cost of the state series of text-books has been reduced, on an average, at least twenty per cent, and the same management has demonstrated that henceforth these books may be printed and bound, using the best materials and workmanship needed for the pur-state completely at the mercy of the pose, for at least twenty per cent less than the former cost price. Such textbooks will be used under such sanitary and other regulations as may be prescribed by the legislature. book trust as to the text-books to be used and prices to be paid. The state printing office would be eliminated as a factor and the immense cost of the state printing plant, including the machinery, would be virtually thrown away, for the sole and only purpose of paying enormous profits to the book trust. Therefore, every voter in the state should vote FOR Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 3, which will be No. 2 in the column on the ballot containing the amendments and propositions to be voted vote AGAINST any other amendment relaupon; and every voter should likewise tive to text-books which may appear upon So far as cleanliness and prevention of transmission of disease is concerned the children of the state will be as well or better protected under the free than under the present system, where the child and parents, under the theory of absolute ownership, believe they are entitled to do as they please with that which they own. Under private, or any, ownership or control, a book carried into the presence of infectious disease will, like clothing on the person, infection into the such ballot. carry schools. Hence, real protection does not relate to the ownership of the book, but to public and private care in preventing the transmission of disease. T. W. H. SHANAHAN, Author and introducer, Senator Second District. JOHN F. BECKETT, Assemblyman Sixty-third District. FRANK M. SMITH, Assemblyman Fifty-first District. ROBERT L. TELFER, Assemblyman Fifty-fifth District. DAN E. WILLIAMS, Assemblyman Twenty-sixth District. Introducers. Four ARGUMENT AGAINST ASSEMBLY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 3, RELATING TO BOARD OF EDUCA TION AND FREE SCHOOL BOOKS. It is provided by law that arguments | offending the feelings or sensibilities of for and against a proposed constitutional the applicant. sanitary standpoint, viz., to give to a scholar an old and soiled text-book which has been used by others may tend to the spreading of germs and the dissemination of children's diseases. I have been in amendment should be sent by the secre- There is a stringent objection, from a tary of state to each voter, together with such constitutional amendment. Having been appointed by the speaker of the assembly of the State of California, to pre pare and present points against the socalled "Free Text-Book Amendment," I beg to submit the following: The title FREE TEXT-BOOKS, as applied to the foregoing proposed constitutional amendment, is a misnomer, for the reason that the cost of the text-books comes from the state treasury, and you, Mr. Voter, are paying for the same through your taxes. It is true, of course, that the state funds are supplied by the corporations, but in the event that the taxes derived from the corporations are insufficient to operate the state government, you will be required to pay to the state your pro rata of that deficit in order to meet the needs and requirements of the state government. The cost of printing school text-books and distributing them free of charge will run into large figures each year, and may cause or contribute to the cause of creating a deficit, and those of you who do not have children attending the public elementary schools will be contributing to the cost of the books of such children as do attend such schools. Such an amendment as the foregoing is not required for the purpose of assisting parents who may be unable to pay for their children's books used at public school. If a parent is financially unable to pay for school books for his or her child, or children, there is a provision in the law which will enable such parent to obtain school books free of charge, upon the proper application being made therefor. A sensible teacher or principal, to whom such application is made, will certainly keep such application from being publicly known, and will thereby avoid formed that the epidemic of infantile paralysis, last year, in the city of Boston, was largely attributed to the use of in fected school text-books. Educators-teachers in class room principally, uniformly say that scarcely anything plays a greater part in creating a liking in a child for study than a new, crisp and clean text-book-a thing which, during the four years that a text-book is in use, would be unknown. If it were to be the intention of disinfecting these school books after a child had used them, the cost of such disinfection would be great and the process destructive. As a general proposition, when one receives something for nothing, it is usually treated as being worth nothing, therefore these books will not receive the same treatment at the hands of the children that a privately owned book would receive. A parent who is obliged to spend a few cents which a text-book costs usually sees to it that his child does not destroy, mutilate, or otherwise abuse the book; such parental supervision, in the event of free text-books, will be entirely eliminated. IRRIGATION DISTRICT BONDS. SENATE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 3. article eleven of the constitution of this state be amended so as read as follows: PROPOSED LAW. A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California an amendment to section 16 of article eleven of the constitution, relating to the deposits of moneys belonging to the state, or to any county or municipality within the state. The legislature of the State of California, at its extraordinary session of the thirty-ninth session, commencing on the twenty-seventh day of November, A. D. nineteen hundred and eleven, two thirds of the members elected to both the senate and assembly, respectively, voting therefor, hereby proposes to the people of the State of California that section 16 of Section 16. All moneys belonging to the state, or to any county or municipality within this state, may be deposited in any national bank or banks within this state, or in any bank or banks organized under the laws of this state, in such manner and under such conditions |