Doorbell Lawmakers

Primary outlet for California's civic cranks and crazes is the "initiative" provision of the State's constitution. Under it 8% of California's registered electorate (this year 186,378 voters) can, by signing a petition, place a bill on the ballot to be enacted if a majority of voters approve.

Last week as thousands of weary doorbell-ringing crusaders put away their pencils, it appeared that 60 petitions (including four referenda for the repeal of existing laws) had squeaked under the deadline for filing. If sufficient numbers of their signatures are verified from voting lists, they will appear on the ballot, November 8.

Included were no less than 15 pension plans. Strongest was the "California State Retirement Life Payments Act," whose proponents claim over 800,000 signatures, boast that their plan has overshadowed Townsendism in its original stronghold. CSRLP would provide $30 every Thursday for every unemployed qualified voter over 50 who has lived a year in California. The money would be payable in $1 warrants, which would be annually "self liquidating" because whoever has one in his possession any Thursday in the year must affix a special 2-c- stamp to it. Treasurer of the Petition Campaign Committee sponsoring the plan is freckled Len R. Reynolds, onetime taxi driver turned firebrand. Last week, Treasurer Reynolds' receipts were estimated at $1,000 a day.

Also popular were six petitions proposing repeal or modification of the State's 3% sales tax.

Most enthusiastic signature-collector of all was one Irving ("Fig") Newton, of Los Angeles. Boyish-looking Fig Newton, Cherokee-blooded and a onetime vaudevillian, promoted seven separate petitions, ranging from a Sunday closing blue law to freedom for Political Prisoner Tom Mooney. Most interesting Newton proposal was a $100-a-month pension for the needy blind and disabled to be financed by a State-run lottery. Chairman of the Lottery Board, at $10,000 a year, would be Irving ("Fig") Newton.

Some of California's most substantial citizens stood behind two labor petitions that made the biggest news, promised the bitterest November fights. Nominally sponsored by an organization known as the Women of the Pacific, but advertised in a daily front-page box by the potent Los Angeles Times, was a law providing for compulsory incorporation of unions, publicity of union finances, disqualification from union office of all noncitizens (i. e., Maritime Boss Harry Bridges), civil suits against unions for strike damages, jail sentences up to ten years for disobedient union officers. This proposal has a companion piece aimed at picketing and boycotting, sponsored by the California Committee for Peace in Employment Relations which includes many a San Francisco shipowner and member of the city's Committee of 43. These measures, which would make California the toughest anti-union State in the U. S., promised to unite California's divided Labor at least until after election.

Other petitions proposed to:

P: Impose stiff penalties on any doctor who unnecessarily or unskillfully performs a major operation (proposed by M. James McGranahan, San Francisco lawyer and chiropractor).

P: Exempt homesteads from taxes.

P: Forbid pounds to sell any animal to school or laboratory for experimental purposes (plugged by Hearst papers, Los Angeles' Tailwagger Foundation, other organizations opposed to vivisection).

P: Permit any licensed chiropractor to sign birth and death certificates.

P: Require doctors to write their prescriptions in the English language.

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