Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-20
LOBBY OFTEN PROMPTED
BY ALTRUISTIC MOTIVES
Eastman, Who Gave Schools 50 Millions.
Worked for New Calendar, Carnegie
for Simple Spelling.
nent on which the movement is still

| ment on which the movement is still
existing.
Carnegie lobbied for it personally. He
! lobbied President Roosevelt success
| fully. Roosevelt issued an, executive
order that Government documents
should be spelled the new way. There
upon Congress-who at the moment
] was lrritated with Roosevelt for diff
ferent reaSon-took crack at the new
| spelling. Congress, passing an appro-
| priation act, included a rider to the
effect that mo money herein appropri-
ated shall be expended for the printing
| of any public document in which
though is spelled tho" Il have not
verified the exact language of the bill,
but 1t was to that effectD In the COM
motion, Carnegie and his new idea had
the misfortune to get laughed at--and
public laughter will overcome any
amount of lobbying.
That kind of lobbying Mr.. Carnegie
did. the kind Mr.. Eastman does-en-
tirely unselfish. for public purposes
continues certainly half, at least, of
ton. The Senate committee says 1t
is going to investigate it all. OF all
the lobbying to which this writer has
been subjected, the most persistent was
the lobbying for American entry into
the League of Nations and the World
Court. Most of the lobbyists who OPP
pressed me with personal interviews,
long letters and tons of printed argu-
ments were elderly gentlemen who had
retired from business and had nothing
to do except promote the good of the
world as they saw it. 1 grew so that
I shrank from the very word league"
One of the old gentlemen employed
young woman to help him, who was
quite attractive. She knew how to lobby
and how to write good propaganda and
she deserved the very high salary she
got.
Every fight or skirmish over immi-
grafton brings a flock of lobbyists to
Washington. Some of them are earnest
persons who pay their own expenses.
One man Is employed at Washington
the year round to watch immigration
matters in Congress. His employers are
what are called the patriotic societies"
including such organizations as the
Patriotic Sons of America and the
Junior Order Of United American Me-
chanics. He is an earnest, conscien-
tious man who believes strongly in the
cause he Hobbies for. His salary isn't
more than half what he could readily
earn as lawyer He is one of the best
lobbyists in Washington, for he knows
his subject and every political aspect
of it. His quantity of information, and
the accuracy of it, commends him to
the Congressman whom he Hobbies. He
has made it his business, through long
experience, to know the nature of the
constituency of every one of the SCI
Senators and Representatives. He knows
which ones can afford to support re-
striction and which cannot-and he
never presses the men who would be
too much embarrassed by his pressure.
T9~ny.s1.s}soy. n ohhv;,,n
The writer of this article is frequently
lobbied by agents of the Anti-Saioon
League, and on the other side by law
yers for liquor interests who would like
to have prohibition changed. The liq-
uor lawyers wear the more expensive
clothes and live in the bigger houses.
One feels they. or their employers. have
in part at least-a commercial motive.
The liquor lawyers offer you expensive
cigars; the Anti-Saloon League lobbyists
meyer even offer you cigarette. One
gathers that the liquor lawyers have an
expense account
The agents of the Anti-Saloon League
and some of the so-called church soci-
cites are not paid any more than they
could earn in any ordinary occupation.
The late Wayne Wheeler. who was the
general counsel-which in that case
meant chiefly the lobbyist and political
representative of the Anti-Saloon
League, received salary Gas we used
to hear of $500 a year. As things go
in Washington. that was not much.
Wheeler could have earned two or three
times as much as lawyer in ordinary
practice. for he was a good lawyer for
jury trials and certain other kinds of
practice.
1t was pleasure to be lobbied by
Wheeler. He was a sincere devotee of
prohibition without any qualification.
But his earnestness didn't stick out to
the suppression of more ordinary and
human qualities. He wasn't SNUG. nor
prirn, nor sanctinonious. nor arrogant,
nor intolerant-as some other of the
prohibition workers occasionally are.
Wheeler was not puritanical. On the
contrary, he was jolly man who could
laugh and tell good stories and take
pleasure in a good phrase or an apt
retort When he thought of a good
epithet for one of the wet Congressman
who fought hin1-such as Thinking
Tinkham" for the Massachusetts, wet
Congressman, or "Jingling Jimmy" for
another wet Congressman from Massa-
chusetts-when Wheeler thought of
phrase like that he would call you on
the phone and tell you about it and
chuckle over it, out of sheer pleasure
in his own creativeness. Wheeler was
SO naive about it that you hesitated
to tell him that his phrases weren't
always as effective for his cause as
sometimes he thought they were.