Evening star., 1912-07-21

particular place where his business fits in and is per-
mtted to relieve himself of the object of his mission.
THE great impetus toward reducing campaigning to
exact science came, of course, through the meta
morphoss of the old, wdeopen, goasyouplease, help
yourself, hit -or-mss procedure in collecting campaign
funds to the present aboveboard bookkeeping method
OF popular demand, with national prolbltIve legislation
in regard to corporate political contributions, requiring
publicity and limiting their amount, merely question
of time In the good old days, when the campaign fund,
started, took substance and grth unto itself as
silently and swiftly rolling SNOWFALL and any pro-
against the "fat frying of protected interests,
@blocks of ive Shaking the plum tree OF insurance
companies and banking concerns was regarded as the
protest of the dsapponted,-hke the canm bal COM
planning to the missionary that neighborng clan have
killed and eaten my father without offering me one
little Bit "a conservative estimate of the total cost
of presidential campaign, including the smaller cam
paigns in every State carried in connection with
it, would not have fallen far short OF eight million
dollars. The national committee headquarters must
have had fully half of this at its disposal and no
accounting of the disbursement thereof was expected
Naturally, intrigue and subterranean management and
waste became prime forces in dlsslpang this enormous
fund.
For example, it reported good authority that
few days before the election OF 1888 the Democrats
sent hundred thousand dollars into Indiana and three
nights before the election the chairman OF the national
committee forwarded three hundred thousand dollars to
the State Probably much less than was suspected
struck to the handling palms. Favorltlsm may have
ruled the leaders in its use; but answer to that
charge might be given in the words of "Unce Joe Can
non, who, when Speaker was taxed with distributing
his committee places to those members whose names
stood for material help in the coming campaign
Whereat he remarked in his most perfect sono the-sol
manner, "Well, out in my country 1T Ism CONSIDERED
crime to buy your children pants before you put
neckties on your neghbors Christmas tree 1t may be-
of the managers of farback campaign nalvely
asserted that ninety per of the campaign fund was
Honestly expended; that 1s in buying votes ana
brbing election officials
Undoubtedly the realization that great of money
could longer supply the snews OF political warfare
nf
creme of graft; but with all possible economy the cleo
ton of President costs money campaign fund is
absolute necessity so long as we have campaigns
The national headquarters of the Republican party
handled about two millions at the last election, the
Democratic headquarters used less than million; but
it two hundred thousand dollars to elect Abraham
Lincoln in 1864 and at that time the body OF voters
was only about fourth of the some sixteen million
of today, and there forty States to be
covered.
Moreover since the change to b1snesslike methods,
other and legitimate drafts the campaign fund
have been acquired The organization has come to be
as extensive that of the executive offices OF great
railroad syse and the cost of maintaining the national
headquarters with the paid force OF employees ranging
from forty hundred men and women often amounts
to three thousand dollars day.
THEN the system that has been inaugurated to make
each national campaign of tremendous educational
influence has brought heavy tax This work is divided
into groups,-the dissemination of literature and
the distribution of oratory The expense OF the former
may be realized from the statement that to get single
letter sealed document to every American voter
would cost for postage alone the large of three hun
dred thousand dollars As it is, the distribution of
single important speech printed form to even limited
contingent has cost the committee as much five thou
sand dollars, and in the last campaign twenty such
speeches delivered and circulated When Senator
Root, then Secretary of State, made his famous
gency speech at Utica New York. at the close of the
1904 campaign, presses all the State set in
action printing millions of copies of it. The cost of
the between fifty and sixty thousand dollars;
but it is supposed to have saved the State for Mr..
Roosevelt
The printers devil of the countryside can, during
one of these political for national supremacy,
attend all the ball games without killing grandmother