The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-07-30
From the New York Tribune.
THE METHODS OF BRIBERY.

prefer to believe that newspaper publishers
and correspondents have grudges to crafty.
or are actuated by malice and meannsss 4.
rather than credit the intimation That men
chosen by the people for the functions OIL
legislation can deliberately besray their
constituents and sell their votes This not.
|withstand!ng the TACT that the nearer Won
get to aLegislature the louder. more pro.
|nounced and more specific are the charges OF
corruption, and that around the average
State House the prices of venal members
are matters of common talk, things beirr
said openly that the newspapers, from q
sense of the shame involved in them, would
refuseto give place to. The reason TO-. this
incred1lonsness we presume to be the unfa-
miliarty of most people with the methods
by which corrupt men accomplish corrupt
purposes, the subtleties of approach, the
Ingenious devices, sophistries, and eyasions,
and the processes of casulstry by which the
conscience is strangled and the palm allowed
to be colruptly crossed, tits impossible for
the steady.going, sober>minded citizen Of the
rural districts to conceive, that his neighbor
whom he has selected by his vote to repre-
sent him in the Legislature has become at
once corrupt and q brbe-taker upon getting
into the atmosphere of the State House.
They will credit no such SANDER. What
makes the bad atmosphere Of the capital is
the disposition to abuse public officers and
the deprayed taste for coarse, low scandals !;
Legislators are, they say, for the most part
honest and upright, and only they who libel
them are false and unworthy. 1odT Ea1as ae&
Well, there might be some force in this line
of thought were there only one method OF
approach. We're bribery only possible by
abruptly asking men their price and paying
it down in open market. it is safe 10 say
there would be but, little of it anywhere.
| Unhappily there arc q thousand approaches
to the Venal and selfish side of men, and it not
inirequently happens that under some of the
Isubtlests forms Of temptation the palm closes
over the price and the bride is appropriated
before the victim realizes that he is in mar,
ket. cash in hand is the coarsest, crudest
and most vulgar method of all your prectIs
cal operatorlin. the lobby. never uses it. The
cunnin2est or vote manpuIators and lobby
agents begins nis work back of the Legisla-
ture, and even of tie primary meeting; b.
works up the preliminari5s, secures the
nomination for his yictim5 and contributes
handsomely to'his election. Ordinarily the
legislation so chosen is bribed and bought
before he takes his seat, and before he has
the remotest intimation of what his pu'~
chasers expect to do with him. There are
few men, il the present condition OF politics.
who, having been assisted IN this manner
by the active politician and lobbyist, can
look their creators in the face when the
pinch comes and give decided "No'' We
say in The present condition OF politics. not
because politicians are any worse now than
ever before, but because there are more of
them, and more temptations to corrupt and
yenal legislation. The paying down of so
much money for q vote is too gross a form
Of temptation, unworthy the ingenuity of
The tempter, the position of the tempted'
and the spirit OF the age. To contribute
money to defray the election expenses Of
the person whose assistance you shall need
by-and-by, is much more refined and
gracefully winding approach, ana it amounts
to the same thing in the end There was
once & case of this kind IL Iowa, No State
lis withous its instances, and illustrations.
] IL ever the truth were known hundreds of
Post Offices and Collectorships have been
sold in the past ten or twelve years by
members of Congress who had incurred large
expenses in securing their own election.
and reimbursed themselves by contributions
from office-seekers which were. named SUBJ
scr!ptioas for election expenses. hi
The indirections of the Credit Mobilier
J.. bribery are too freshly remembered to require
any analysis. Whatever may be said of the
purity of motive and honesty of purpose of
the holders Of the stock placed A"where It
would 40 most good" the practical honesty
a and good sense of the peoble did not hesi~
tate to pronounce the whole transactlcn.
, corrupt, and carried on in the spirit and
with the unmistakaole purpose of bribery.
lhat Ingenious scheme had, in addition to
lts original subtlety, another element Of
strength in the fact that the honest men
VINO were approached with the temptation.
but saw through 1t and repealed it, were
hindered from denouncing it by the fact
that SO many men of good reputation and
honorable standing were concerned 10 IT
and they did not want too seem phsrisaical
! in condemnlng what others sa no harm In.
legislatures and Congress are full too of
that most indirect and untraceable form of
bribery which is carried on in the process OF
swapping votes" Millions of dollars have
been voted away in appropriations which
1 would never have been made except as the