Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-09-28

seems to be an actual conspiracy on
the part of the give-uppers TO hold
out on the go-getters.
Popular Fiction and F~allacics
Writers of popular fiction anen5
politics have been responsible largely
for popular ~fallacies as to the size
of campaign funds and the ease with
which they have been collected. The
impression has been created that
fabulous sums have been gathered
in by party leaders, and that this
has been accomplished by processes
almost as simple as turning on a
faucet. According to these breezy
tales the party boss has only to de-
eide on how many millions he wants
and then call in the representatives
of the interests" and tell them
what their respective assessments
will be, and the money will be forth
coming instantcr.
OF course the boss has to make a
few casual little promises guarantee
ing the interests that they Will get
their money back ten-fold, but what
is a promise to a party leader when
he wants money? Sometimes the
interests drive hard bargains and
manifest a purpose to skin the pub
Tic IL Tic DOlleS Nv bOiA hO ochSo
for grease, but why should a cam
paign chairman worry?
The heroes of these stories, I'M
bought and unpurchasable as heroes
should be, invariably do something
awful to the boss in the last chapter,
but in the meanwhile the boss al
ways gets the money. The cam
paign war chests m always full to
OVERLOOKING.
Just how much fiction there is in
this sort Of stuff is best attestei by
the men who have agonized c7er the
problem of how to raise enough
money to see a committee through
a campaign without a staggering de-
felt. They will agree, irrespective
Of their party affiliations, that the
percentage Of fiction is fully equal
to that of the purity of a well known
soap.
Fred Upham, who has been treas
urer of the Republican National
Committee for years, in referrinG TO
that kind of a novel, once said that
some awful punishment should be
visited on the author.
1.-THE only punishment 1 can think
Of that would fit the crime added
Mr.. Upham, would be to compel the
author to spend the rest of his life
soliciting campaign funds. After ex-
periencing what some of us have
gone through he could face death
without any terror Of the horeaf-
teri"
1t is true that relatively large
campaign funds have been raised IN
wears past, but it is to be doubted
that they have ever been as large
as popular imagination has pictured
them. Rarely have they been large
enough to leave the committees with
balances in the treasury after all
the bills have been paid. Instead,
the usual thing has been the spend
ing of every dollar that has been
taken in and the mourning OF obli-
cations that mean a deficit to be
carried over and wiped out after the
election.
There really is almost no INIT TO
the amount of money that n nation
al committee can spend in a cam
paign, and that without spending a
dollar illegitimately. ORGANIZATION
expenses and the budgets for adVer-
Using and other kinds of publicity
may be made just as large as the
party resources will permit n All
such expenditures will Withstand the
most rigid scrutiny.
OF course money has been spent
corruptly in the politics OF this coun-
try, but such instances lave been
com~paratively rare and as a rule
have been petty and sordid. rather
than important. However, unless
pr sent signs fail no need worry
about how the money is being spent
his year.. There isn't any to be
cnnoff