History of Fresno County, Vol. 2 - Paul E. Vandor

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most questionable tactics of the pothouse politician.

      The annexationists were beaten in the end at their own game; the result on the division vote was attempted to be arbitrarily set aside and another election called; the popular indignation was great over the tactics pursued: the Fresno grand jury took up the matter of the election commission's refusal to perform an official duty in the canvass of the vote, and of the fraud in voting and registration; three of the commissioners were criminally indicted for felony; injunction was sued out to desist from holding a second or other election on division; the district appellate court issued writ commanding canvass of the election returns and declaration of the result; the indictments were afterward set aside on a legal technicality; the annexation swindle was defeated but based on the showing of the vote the Webber bill as a compromise was passed at the March, 1909, session of the legislature and 120 square miles were lopped of¥ from Fresno instead of the 185 asked and the Laguna de Tache grant was cut almost in two. The ramified litigation over the annexation steal created intense and bitter animosities. It was a rankling thorn for a decade after.

      The legislative measure that initiated the division election was one by Assemblyman William L. McGuire of Kings who politically has passed into oblivion. Under that bill were appointed in March 25, 1907, the following named as commissioners to conduct an election to ratify the boundary change:

      J. W. Herbert of Laton;

      L. P. Guiberson of Coalinga:

      Scott Blair of Coalinga;

      D. M. De Long of Coalinga;

      George Robinson of Coalinga.

      They had made call for an election in the affected district for Tuesday the 10th of December, 1907. Things were in a muddled state the month before and registration of voters for that election had been reopened in the district under the expectation and theory that the election would not be held on the day set under the call and that the call was an illegal one. A test case had been taken to the supreme court against the advice of the Fresno bar and the decision declared that the election call could be issued at any tin.ie within sixty days after the remittitur of the court. The latter had not issued when the December 10th election date was set as notice had been filed of intention to ask for a rehearing of the case in the supreme court. The law required that the election proclamation be published twenty-five days before the day of election and under the attempted call for December 10 issued on November 13 there was a bare twenty-five days intervening and registration closing forty days before election. However that may all be, the election was held on December 10.

      On the Saturday night before the election, the opponents of division held a rally at the Coalinga Theater which was literally jammed to the doors with the more than half a thousand people in attendance. The assemblage was an enthusiastic one and the sentiment decidedly in favor of Fresno and staying with it. Tom O'Donnell, one of the largest oil operators, who had at the election before been a candidate for the assembly, was the chairman and touched upon the personalities that had been injected into the campaign as uncalled for while not affecting the issues at stake. He declared that the attitude of many of the leading men of Coalinga had been misrepresented and lied about by the divisionists. He cited examples of misrepresentations, among others one by Assemblyman McGuire that the interests of the Associated Oil Company were being jeopardized by Guiberson as its local manager in efforts to coerce local men because he favored Fresno interests. The refutation was given in a letter by business men of Coalinga.

      David S. Ewing defended Fresno's interests on the division question. The oil field had been developed by Fresno capital and operated by Fresno men. Kings County men came in after the field had been developed and been proven and there were no longer risks to take. He himself had been among the first to invest in West Side oil lands; was a member of the company that secured the first lease; and the company that discovered oil in 1899 on the West Side; and he was attorney for the men that discovered oil in the Coalinga field in 1894. He pointed out the loss to Coalinga in taking the division step and the burden that it would shoulder as it would be looked to to furnish much of the taxes for the building up of Kings County.

      H. H. Welsh, another large oil operator interested in the pipe transportation lines, also pointed out the greater interests that Fresno men have in the district compared to the Kings agitators and therefore better able to form opinions on the subject of division than the outsiders. He referred to the change of policy of the Coalinga newspaper though two-thirds of its stockholders favored remaining with Fresno County and its unfair means and arguments. He asserted that the district supervisor had more than redeemed the one promise made that all money raised by taxation in the district should be devoted to improvements and needs of the oil district. He ridiculed some circulated rumors, one of these that if division carried the big oil companies would reduce men's wages because involving the supposition of a location in a county affected by the laws of supply and demand of the country at large. And as to the matter of roads of which much was made, he asserted that Coalinga had the best roads in the state and the winter before their condition was nothing to compare in badness with those of Fresno and in the vicinity of Hanford.

      The speaker of the evening was Senator G. W. Cartwright of Fresno, who elaborated upon Kings County's ambition to grow by conquest, its greed and the fact that county division had its inception in Hanford. He made sport of the argument of the excess of love of Kings for the Coalinga people because Fresno officials had not visited the field as often as the Hanfordites. The sum total raised by Kings County for roads was $35,000, while the supervisorial district in which Coalinga is located alone raises $52,000. Kings County could not therefore fulfil the road promises it had made, giving it credit of wishing to make good on its word. The supervisors promise to spend district tax raised money in the district had been fulfilled and the spending of the money was placed in the hands of De Long. If not spent to the best advantage, then it was De Long's fault, or going back of that of the supervisor, but in any event the county should not be held to blame. The remedy is not to leave the county. Under the existing arrangement in Fresno, Coalinga received a lot of tax money, but under the Kings system the plan was to place Coalinga into a district to be included with a large part of the Tulare lake bottom. This swamp country has comparatively small taxable resources, the Coalinga district is rich and the oil field would be called upon to build roads and bridges for the lake and swamp district.

      As to the bait promise of a supervisorship, the Senator said that nothing had prevented Coalinga having a supervisor in Fresno other than that no man had been enterprising enough and up to snuff to run for the office, yet the district had elected a county recorder and small precincts had sent many a county officer to Fresno. Some of the circulated lies that had been nailed, proven untrue and having no foundation were reviewed. Among these were the assertions that Fresno County does not own its courthouse property; that there is a clause in the deed for reversion if the land is not used for court house purposes; that the county is in debt; and the like. As an argument clincher there was exposure of the plot in the showing that on November 19, 1907, at Laton, Ben McGinnis had in the presence of ten people, some of whom had made affidavit, said with regard to the question of who would pay for the proposed improvement of river and swamp land in Kings County: "Those people over in Coalinga are not paying anything like the taxes they should and we are going to raise their taxes to pay for all those improvements."

      As one of the big jokes of the campaign was the statement that a suburban line would be built in the event of county division to run from Coalinga to Hanford crossing the river twice and passing through Lemoore and Laton. This was passed off as buncombe, as an election and not an electric road and ridiculed was the thought that a county would expend $100,000 in bridges and in an electric road to accommodate the travel of a few hundred people.

      The day may come when a main railroad will connect Fresno and Coalinga. Hanford located as it is will be always on a branch line and Coalinga annexed would be connected with its county seat by a jerk water line and the main line closely connected with Fresno. To emphasize the contrasted public improvements of Fresno and Kings Counties, stereopticon views were shown and the exhibition was of things that Fresno had, and that Kings lacked; and that Coalinga might expect to pay for what Kings lacked.

      The night before election the divisionists had their final

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