The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-10
PROF. HENDERSON POINTS
 OUT VOTE BUYING
The Five-DoIar Price and How It Works at the PoIIs-Paying
 For Days Work
NOTHING TO DO
 EXCEPT TO VOTE

Commenting upon the statement of. a Gui1ford clergyman who was quoted as saying that a large spercentage of the voters of that town are bought and delivered at election time, Prof.
 YandeiI Henderson explains to the New Haven Union:
 "As a matter of fact, vote buying in Connecticut Is almost always done
 under the form of paying the voter
 for day,s work. He is supposed to have given up a days pay at his
 regular job in order to work for the
 party This sounds well, and it fools people who want to be fooled. The innocent citizen who walks. to the polls and proudly votes as his con- science dictates tunder the absurd mis- apprehension that Connecticut enjoys popular government sees a lot of hacks and automobiles in use, GThei hiring of these conveyances at the prices paid is in itself a big gFaft;I but
 let that go.o The innocent citizen sup poses that the man with the party
 badge in each auto is one of the paid workers Tn fact, however, the men
 who really do some work on election
 day are usually volunteers, and often are not paid. They are always reia-= lively few in number. There is so little proper work to do that even these few are idle most of the time 1 except at the noon hour.
 "An round the polling places and ward headquarters one sees crowds of men simply standing about. In some places the numbers run into the hundreds and amount to more than 20 per cent. of the particular party's vote Each man has a badge;s for when you buy a vote in Connecti- cut you label him. It makes the pur-
 chaser. safe legally, and it is fairer to the other party, as it tends to pre-
 vent their buying him also
 Now every practical politician will tell you that you don't get any work
 out of paid workers-exceptt the thing
 paid for, which is the vote. Tne min tn1um price is $5. I have it on the
 direct statement of an experienced
 machine man that his party never
 pays less than $5 per man. remern-
 Der the case of a man in 1912 who was standing across the street from the polls with a large badge with the pic ture of a presidential candidate on It.
 He, was asked. Well, John, what are. you doing?' Oh, I am working for
 the old party What work are you
 doing?' Well ain't really got nothing 1 toF do except to vote.
 | Eff any evidence is needed to show
 that the thing paid for is not the work but the vote, it is that 8 man
 who is supposed to be able to deliver | five votes gets. not s, but $25; fen. | votes, $50, and so on.
 You can estimate the number of
 votes bought by a party in this way.
 Take the campaign fund even at the
 reduced figure reported to the secre- tary of state and subtract from this big sum. running way up the thous-
 ands the few dollars Cat most a few
 hundred} which are spent on rallies and other efforts to inform the cleo
 torate of the issues. Divide the re-
 mainder by 5, (to allow for a rake | off every time the money changes
 hands) by 10. The quotient is a fig | ure in the thousands, for the state as a whole, and expresses accurately the
 number of votes bought. The greater
 part of all campaign funds are spent on election day. and spent directly for