The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-01-20
WAYS OF LOBBYISTS.
How They Swarm at Washing
ton When the Tariff Is Up.
They Affect an Intimacy With Mem
beers of Congress and Blackmail
Manufacturers
Especial correspondenee.l


bogus lobbyist is. He is professional
blackmailer OF q peculiar type. He does
not belong to Washington alone. He can
be found at every state capital. He is
variously known as Striker
''shyster' and by other suggestive
names. His occupation is to sell his sup
posed influence with public men to peo-
pie who are interested in legislation.
His methods here are a little different
from his methods elsewhere.
At Albany or Harrisburg or Spring
field he usually gets some member of
the state legislature to introduce bill
aimed at corporations-a bill to tax
railroad and express companies, a bill
to abolish grade crossings or what not.
Then he goes to the corporations inter
ested and offers to use his influence to
have the bill killed, always for sub
stantial bribe. The members of congress
are too Jealous of their regulations to
be caught in this WY. They Will not
introduce bills which they are not pre-
pared to indorse unless they have printed
on them by request" and no one
could be frightened by request" bill,
because request bills never pass.
The bogus lobbyist at Washington
works on a different plan. According to
ia A1to ways d1iea
means committee, with whom l had q
conversation on the subject few days
ago, he tries to cultivate the acquaint-
ance of congressman who do not know
his character. He makes show of his
acquaintance with them, buttonholing
them in the corridors of tho capitol and
trying to make it appear that he is on
terms of intimacy with them. Then he
represents to men who are interested iu
the tariff that he can have the duties on
articles changed in the committee or in
the house. The more gullible his victim
the more mysterious he becomes and the
larger the bride he asks. He tells how
he must bay champagne for congress
men, give them dinners, lose large sums
of money to them at poker. He parades
all the fiction which is sent out from
Washington from time to time in bogus
newspaper letters. He works hard, for
one good victim will pay a blackmailer
for a whole winters work. Good vic
Tins, though, are scarce.
Some time ago I had the satisfaction
of unraveIing for a member of the SEN
ate complication involving the repu-
tation of z senator from Wisconsin now
out of public life. The senator told me
that the Wisconsin man reported to the
senate favorably a bill containing a
manifest lob which two or three SEN
ators had expected to expose as soon as
it came before the senate. In the ABB
sence Of these senators the senator from
Wisconsin called the bill up one day
and hurried it through, and it came
within hair of being signed by tho
president. Fortunately the senators
went to the White House, and the presi-
4 of cie
sin man was called to account, he pro-
tested that he had acted innocently, and
my friend was puzzled and unable to
explain it all.
my dear SENATOR said, ''the SEN
ator from Wisconsin was wholly inno-
cent, as he assured you. I happen to
know that his private secretary was a
dishonest man. He has acknowledged
since receiving pay for suppressing bills
of which his employer had charge. The
trick was very simple. He was paid by
the man who wanted the bill passed.
This man knew what senators were op-
posed to the bill. When he saw these
senators leave the senate chamber one
afternoon, he gave the tip to the private
secretary The private secretary went
to his employer and asked him to call
up the bill. A great many public men
rely on their clerks to guide them in
the matter of small bills, reports and so
ON. The senator, supposing that the bill
was all right, called it up and asked the
senate to pass it. And there you are. -
That was the history of one 'tjob''
which came very near going through
con gress. In the same way some bills
are suppressed. There is reason for
thinking that the postal telegraph bill
was held back il the senate by a COM
mittee clerk who was bribed by some
people interested against it. So you see
there is still some lobbying and some
bribery in Washington. There always
will be little, suppose.
What an enormous responsibility the
clerks of the ways and means committee
of the house and the finance committee
of the senate have when a tariff bill is
under consideration Either of them
could make q fortune by stroke of the
pen. If you have kept track of the great
suits for rebates which are brought
against the government from time to
time, you know what a serious thing a
misplaced comma or hyphen in tariff
bill may be.
The treasury department collects du-
ties according to the plain intent of con-
gress After it has collected several
| million dollars on fruit or braids or
hat trimmings or some other common
| article of import, it is found that in
copying the tariff bill clerk put some
! punctuation mark in the wrong place
| or left out a comma or did some other
apparently trivial thing, SO that para
graph when analysed can be made to
bear a construction unlike the one in
! tended by congress. Thereupon the i'm
| porters swoop down ON the treasury and
sue for the duties which were paid.
The supreme court interprets the law
| not as congress meant it to be, but in
accordance with the rules of syntax, and
| millions of dollars are retr1rned to the