Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-06-15
THE LOBBYISTS ATLUNCH
TOLD OF BY HASKIN
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin

WASHINGTON, June 15:-At a
certain club in this city from twenty
to fifty men sit down together for
lunch every Monday and discuss the
! affairs of the Government of the
United States.
OF course, almost everybody in
Washington discusses the affairs of
the government, but this particular
discussion is no idle one 1t is a high
~ practical and significant one. For
the men who make up this luncheon
club are the Washington represen-
tatives of great commercial, indus
| trial and agricultural organizations,
such as the National Association of
Manufacturers, the Chamber of Com
merce of the United States, the Farm
Bureau Federation, and the Ameri-
can Mining Congress.
These men are in Washington for
the purpose Of laying before Con-
gress and the Executive end of the
Government the needs and desires of
their several organizations, and of
! trying TO influence the Government
to give their clients what they want.
In a word, they are lobbyists. They
are the invisible Government" that
you hear so much about. Only there
is nothing invisible about them.
Some of these organizations have
buildings here. All of them have
large suites of offices. And they are
no more |inaudible than they + in
visible.
On the contrary, each and every
one of them is hguratively beating
a tin pan all the time. Publicity is
their favorite weapon. Nor is there
anything essentially iIlegitimate
about their work, as many Members
of Congress would have you believe.
II is no more illegitimate for a great
business organization to tell Con
gress what it wants than it is for
you to ask your Congressman for a
package Of garden seeds, or to de-
mand that he get your grandfather's
Civil War pension raised. OF course,
the great business organization may
use illegitimate methods, and so may
you, but that is another question.
Both you and the great business or
ganization have a perfect right to
ask for what you want.
Growing More Numerous
These representatives of organized
industry and commerce and agricul-
| ture have been here in Washington
for a long time. But they have been
much more numerous since the War
than they were before. And they
seem to become more numerous and
influential all the time. Various polit-
ical wiseacres have offered a plausi-
BILE explanation for this fact. They
point out that Representatives
in Congress no longer represent any
thing definite. The old sectional div
isions of interest in American politics
have gone by the board. 1t is no long
err the South against the North. But
1t Is the manufacturers of both North
and South against labor Of both
North and South on many issues.
immigration for instance. And it is
the agriculturalists of all sections
against the manufacturers of all Sec
! tons on other issues. In a word, the
real lineup behind the scenes, is
that of economic or social GROUP
against another.
Congressmeh, generally, do not
represent economic OF social groups
They represent little patches of the
earth, and most of those little pat.
ehes contain pieces of all groups
Some Congressman may represent
almost wholly farmers, and others
may be easily dominated by the
manufacturing interests. But mos
of them represent so man ything'
that they can not fairly represen.
any one thing, and their careers are
painful efforts at straddling, as ony
one nay observe for himself.
In this situation, It is natural tina
the economic groups should have
organized, and should have sent theiI
representatives to Washington to tr.
to assert their several claims on Con
gress by talking with it's members
appearing before its committees, an
by other methods they can devise
That is why this fair land Is chocl
full of organizations, holding con
ventions, passing resolutions, ant
why Washington is full OF their rep
r~esentatives, many of whom draw
three or four times as much none.
as most Congressman, and know
three of four times as much. Thes
organizations are n real and grow
ing factor in the Government of tn
United States.
Now this luncheon club is the firs
effort to bring together the member
, of this extra-congressional govern
ment, and to have them &c tai
; things over. That is why it is sig
nificant. For heretofore these gentle
, men have gone each his separate wa
urging each his claim upon Congress
without any regard for the man
other and conflicting claims that al