The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-04-27
DEMOCRATIC IDEAS
ON PUBLICITY
{ ARE FUNNY
CONGRESSMEN FIGHT TO PRE-.
VENT PUBLICATION OF CAM.
PAIGN EXPENSES.

'N'NAN vi III PloSl tSSlttS III
the house, has got both democratic
and republicans squirming over thu
puollcatlon of their expense accounts
Tor the last campaign. together will
n statements of contributions anf
expenditures filed by the treasures
OF the progressive, democratic and re.
f. publican national committees TIL,
democrats especially are up against :
plain problem of keeping faith witt
their widely trumpeted demand TO,
campaign fund publicity or demon
strating by their actions now thai
their talk has been buncombe TO,
campaign consumption alone.
for eight or ten years, the demo-
Gratis nave been loud in their demands
Tor campaign fund publicity. Mr.
BrEan especially, has been a most ar
g oent advocate of the plan of com
polling all candidates to make ex-
pllcit statements of contributions both
hefore and after election. After tre-
pother about it a law was
passed which was hailed by democrats
All over the country as a great tri-
umph Tor the principle of publicity.
But the law had been drawn with eX-
IRENE c~ieVerness, SO that it merely
provided for the filing of statements
with the clerk of the house and said
V a word about the printing or
publication of them. 1t did not even
provide against their destruction,
winch will a k place. automatically,
under the general practice with such
records, after Is months.
All the national committee treas
urers filed their statements last fall
as required, and most of the candi-
= dates for congress filed theirs. For
a day or two, at the prescribed times
VI ming, the newspaper men in Wash
lngton had access to these statements,
ana articles of varying length were
printed, confined almost wholly to the
mere statement of total contributions
and expenditures, with the names of
the largest contributors to the various
funds. Such publicity as there was
dealt almost wholly with the. national
lunds, and there was next to no COM
ment about the congressional state
menus. Ihere was no examination
OF any of the statements in detail, and
there never has been any real public
1ty OF them, nor was it ever possible
.1or individuals away from Washing
ton to examine them. AL of which
was very satisfactory to both demo-
Gratis and republicans.
The progressives have not made
anything like the. h%ullaballoo over cam
palsn publicity that has distinguished
the democratic campaigns, hut they
declared in favor of the principle in
thelr platforms and in numerous cases
Where publicity of contributions only
was demanded they filed statements
giving expenditures as well.
Mr. Murdoch is a believer in giving
practical effect to the platform dec
larations as well as theoretical sup
port to them during a campaign. SO
ne prepared a resolution providing for
the printing of the records on file with
the clerk of the house. as a public
He had his resolution
ready on the first day of the session
ana at the earliest opportunity sought
the tloor to bring it up. Both the
democratic and republican leaders had
peen informed of his purpose. The
result was that as soon as he ad-
dressed the speaker, a motion to ad-
1ourn was made on the democratic
side That motion is always in or
der and is not debatable, so that
there was no opportunity for Mr..
Murdoch to tell the house what he
to do. The democrats fol
lowed their leader and voted to ad-
journ, cutting Mr.. Murdoch off for
that day.
Then Mr.. Murdoch formally intro
duced his resolution. Such matters
usually &c to the committee on print
1np h1t for ~, ,.,. 4l:.
referred to the. committee on accounts,
where 1t is still slumbering. This
was the status of the matter when. at
the opening of the session on April
!" the speaker laid before. the house
the report of the clerk, for the pur-
pose of having it printed.
Mr.. Murdoch promptly asked MI.
Clark If the report included these
statements of contributions and ex-
pendltures. The speaker replied that
1t did not, and explained that he did
not think he had authority to direct
the clerk to include them, but he
would entertain a motion to have that
done. Immediately Mr.. Murdoch
made that motion, n then the fun
began. Z
HardWick of Georgia. a democrat of
the old school, promptly raised a
point of order against the motion. He
said that if Mr.. Murdoch would ask
unanimous consent to have the state
,ments printed he would not object.
MIR. Murdoch Knew plenty of other
democrats who would object, however,
so he did not fall into that trap.
Sherley of Kentucky, one of the
most adroit members of the demo-
cratic machine, jumped to Hardwick's
support. He declared that the duty
laid on the clerk by the law was to
file the statements, not to print them,
and that if it was desired to have the
statements printed the proper pro-
cedure would be to change the law. |
Mr.. Sherley is a firm believer in the
literal observation of the law.
MI. Murdoch replied that the house
has complete power over the clerk and
could direct him to print the state
ments if it desired.
Mr.. Lloyd of Missouri, another old
school democrat, who, from having
been chairman of the democratic con-
gressional committee knew pretty
well what sort of disclosures will be
if these statements of congress