The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-07
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. Issued Thursday. One Dollar Year.
WAYS OF THE LOBBY.


 WAYS or THE LOBBY.
 The story printed in the news col- umns of The Journal and Courier Fri day morning, telling in detail the manner in which the temperance fight was carried on in the Connecti- cut legislature this year and the methods which were used by both sides, represented an immense amount of careful study and research in order that exaggeration and misrepresenta- tion should be avoided. But what is more to the point it gave for the first time the facts which will permit the citizens of the State to more intelli- gently understand what goes on in their halls of legislation to fetch forth the legislative product.
 It was not what might be called pretty story. lOne does not like to think that the interests of the State are considered in any such light spir- it fsom the point of view of good morals. Each one of us has heard from time to time that the lobby has done this, that and the other thing to in- terfere with legislation or to promote private interests, but it has been i'm possible to get at the details. What 1nnp Iypouy fbau will opaolr of ;o 4, private conversation but suggest to them the advisability of printing what they say and silence overtakes them which experts can hear from Litch- field to Windham county. Any number of stories, for example, have floated into this office since we began our study of the failures of Connecticut in it's legislative undertaking but in only few instances have we been able to gain consent to use them. In the case of the temperance fight, which has not it's parallel in the his tory of the State for determination and endurance, we have been fortun- ate in possessing means for uncover ing the transaction in detail. We took occasion not to print the facts in a sensational manner, for our object Is not so much to expose as it is to cor rect practices and habits in the Gen. eral Assembly of the State which may at any session turn the machinery of government against the general pub lie for whose advantage it has been created.
 The temperance fight was carried on by the liquor interests in the same old way. Money was raised by assess ment upon the community of interest plan and such personal influence as the princes of the lobby were able to exert was bought and paid for upon commercial principles. No one was enlisted in the struggle for suprem- acy for his health, as the expression is. Then, too, for the first time the temperance people were themselves represented by men who understood the game of lobbying and who from long experience in the game of resist ance knew where to attack and when to attack the enemy. Old campaign CTS would call it what General Lawton called the battle of the Cuban war which General Joe Wheeler com manded in person, Ia game little scrap" but sober-minded people who look deeply into the movement ot things call 1t by a different name Sc far as the fight itself was concerned 1t possessed the merit of being car. ried on in the open. If it was right for the advocates of more stringent temperance legislation to employ g lobby it was equally right for the liquor interests to do the same thing What bothers the average person however, is why 1t should be neces, sary for members of the legislature who are elected to represent the people, to encourage two sets ot lobbyists who are dependent upor the members themselves for their em ployment? Why should not the com mittee hearings enlighten the mem bers early in the session and mak, impossible the deliberate waste O thirty days of the legislative year il discussing matters which should hav been disposed of in thirty hours? l lobby work is essential to legislativ progress, with its expenditure of thous ands of dollars, let the fact be known Then the State can accommodate itsel to some new form of government. is inconceivable, now that the trut has been established in at least on sgislative enterprise, which provide