know much about this budget. That is the very point that I am interested in. I think it is well enough if they know about the budget and can offer us any information along the lines of their idea that each man be permitted to tell it, and if he does not know it, just to frankly say so, and we can draw our own conclusions."

"You might," said Senator Harris, following up Rigdon, "put it this way: If the rest of these gentlemen will admit that they don't know anything more about it than those who have already addressed us, then we might very well leave it as it is, and take it up with somebody who knows something about it, as the men who addressed us know absolutely nothing; or, if they do know it, they have kept it to themselves."

"I want to say this," said Senator Inman, "that a while ago, I advocated the thing that Senator Harris mentioned, that is, if these gentlemen do not know anything about this budget, let them say so. We will proceed on our way. But the only way we can find out whether they know anything about it is to ask them some questions, and that is what we are proceeding to do, and we are proceeding to find out the very thing Senator Harris said, that they do not know anything about the budget, and that is not calling anybody liars. It is not treating these gentlemen without courtesy, but it is simply stating a plain fact. Now, the truth is that these gentlemen signed a long list of advertisements, and they paid for them, and they put them in the papers, and they made a

lot of statements about the budget, and I say that they are responsible for every single word in them, and they ought to be called before this Senate to see whether they know anything about it, or whether they were taking the word of some understudy, somebody that was making this study for them and putting it in their hands."

"I have hoped," said Senator Harris, "to hear something concerning the budget which would cause us to cut it down or give us some standard by which to reduce it. I hold no brief against the gentlemen who have appeared here to testify, but the Senate and the Legislature of California is in this peculiar position: that it has been advertised broadcast in practically every newspaper in this State, that we are going to be called upon to vote for a budget which is abnormal in its demands. The names of responsible men are signed to those advertisements and it may be when we get through with this hearing we shall find ourselves forced to vote for that budget practically as it is printed here in this pamphlet today. If we are forced to do so, and these gentlemen who have made these charges have not been brought before us to make their statements, and give their showing, we can be properly charged by the people of this State with not having done our duty, and with not having made a sufficient inquiry, and we will have, therefore, two purposes in making this investigation and in conducting this examination; that is, to reduce the budget, that is the first thing, I think, in the minds of all of us, to reduce that budget, if we can, and also to protect

ourselves against advertisements which may be it yet remains to be seen-which may be untrue in the statements which they put before the people of this State, and, therefore, I say that everyone of these men who are responsible for those advertisements should either come before us and show either that they know or do not know anything about it, or else they should come up now and admit it and save us the trouble of proving it."

"I take it," said Senator Jones, "that it is quite important, and I wish to emphasize my views, as expressed by Senator Harris, that during the last month, during the recess, the Legislature of this State, was held up before the public of California as responsible for that budget, and charged in some advertisements directly, and some inferentially, with being guilty of extravagance to the amount of $15,000,000 or $16,000,000."

"Or rather the Budget Board," went on Senator Johnson, taking up Senator Jones, "and, of course, everybody recognizes it is simply a board making recommendations, and that it is incumbent upon the Legislature to act upon those recommendations, so that in the last analysis, the authority and responsibility is upon the Legislature. But, as I say, these gentlemen have signed these advertisements throughout the entire State of California. This advertisement was signed on the 12th day of February. That was some two weeks before they employed Mr. Max Thelen, and I want to know what information they had at the time they issued this to the public of California upon which they made these statements."

That information the Senate did not get. After confession from bank and corporation executives that they had signed those advertisements without personal information to justify the serious charges given Statewide publicity, the Senate called upon Max Thelen, who had been proclaiming his ability to show how the budget could be cut down.

CHAPTER XI

THE CORPORATIONS' CASE AGAINST THE BUDGET

Mr. Thelen was the man upon whom the corporations depended to make good their published charges of extravagance in State government, and their intimation, to put it mildly, that $16,000,000, or thereabouts, had been put into the budget which should not be there.

Thelen was, on the face of it, a valuable man for them. He had, under the Johnson progressive administration,92 occupied important State positions, and had been counted a progressive. Word that he had been hired by representatives of the banks and corporations in their controversy with the State government created as much comment as had the similar employment of Professor Plehn.

Thelen appeared to be temperamentally unable to appreciate the obvious fact that his reputation was of more value to the corporations than his knowledge of the matters involved, and that, with the corporations, this was no doubt the important consideration of his employment.

92 When Hiram Johnson was elected Governor in 1910, Thelen was in the employ of the legal department of the Western Pacific Railway Company. In March, 1911, he took the State job as attorney for the State Railroad Commission. He "sat in" at the writing of the Public Utilities Act adopted by the California Legislature at its extraordinary session in December, 1911, under which the present State Railroad Commission is organized. He became a member of the commission in 1912, continuing that connection until June, 1918, serving much of the time as president.