Legal and Political Development 

 The recent years have produced the initiative, 

 referendum and recall; woman suffrage; a com- 

 mission to supersede the former ineffective rail- 

 road commission, with powers extending over 

 public utilities other than railroads; workmen's 

 compensation legislation; a direct primary election 

 law; a minimum wage law. The last decade has 

 been an era of fundamental reorganization. We 

 have traveled far from the individualism of the 

 first "diggings" to modern "social insurance." But 

 the daring and venturous character of the miner 

 that, carried too far, often led him to offenses 

 against societj^, is at the basis of the social and 

 political experiments of the present day — the spirit 

 of optimism, of faith in the future, of trust in 

 humanity. 



It would perhaps be unprofitable here to trace 

 the legal history of the other States of the Pacific 

 Coast in detail. Their settlement has been more 

 recent, their development more regular, their de- 

 partures from normal types generally less marked, 

 and they have largely fallen under the influence 

 of California, so that the history of the law of that 

 State is the key to most of what is novel in their 

 law. In the more recent developments in the line 

 of radical legislation, it is true that Washington 

 and Oregon have in many respects preceded Cali- 

 fornia. The most radical and fundamental piece 

 of modern popular law-making, however, that pro- 

 viding for the making of laws directly by the peo- 

 ple, was, as we have seen, the product of the 

 California constitutional convention of 1879. 



REFERENCES 



ENCYCLOPAEDL\ BRITANNICA 



1910-11. (Articles on California, Oregon and Washington.) 

 Vol. 5, pp. 7-20; vol. 20, pp. 242-250; vol. 28, pp. 

 353-358. 

 GOODWIN, C. 



1914. The establishment of state governmient in California, 

 1846-1850. (The Macmillan Co., N. Y.), pp. xiv-}-359. 

 HUNT, R. D. 



1895. The genesis of California's first constitution (1846-49). 

 Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Historical and 

 Political Science, vol. 13, pp. 359-417. 

 1898. Legal status of California, 1846-49.- Amer. Acad, Pol. 

 & Soc. Sci., Annals, vol. 12, pp. 387-408. 

 McMURRAY, O. K. 



1914. Some tendencies In constitution making. Calif. Law 

 Rev., vol. 2, pp. 203-224. 

 ROYCE, J. 



1886. California, from the conquest in 1846 to the second 

 vigilance committee in San Francisco (1856). 

 (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N. Y.), pp. xv+513. 



275 



