Year: 1873

THE WASHINGTON LOBBY.


From the Sacramento Record.]


The Washington lobby is composed,
for the most part, of shrewd business
men, versed in public affairs, Of liberal
education, keen students of character
and masters of the arts of society. The
leaders Of the lobby maintain costly es-
tablishment Mt the National Capital, and
keep open house. It is their business
to be on intimate terms with members
of Congress, and no class of men bet
ter understand their business. When
the newly elected member arrives to
take his seat, they seek him out, and
take charge of him. He is invited to
their handsome mansions, wined and
dined superbly, introduced to desirable
circles, flattered, made much of, and
assiduously, but unostentatiously, at
tended to. All the little difficulties
which inexperience places in his path
are gently removed. The wheels of
his machinery are delicately fabricated,
and friction reduced to minimum. A
few days suffice to render the lobbyist
master of the Congressman's lido
syncrasies, and thenceforth he knows
just how to deal with him. The COM
monty received idea is that when the
lobby has determined on Job, it ap-
proaches Congressman directly with
open bribery. This is a mistake, as a
little reflection would convince any one.
There are few men, however venal, who
will not revolt at the coarseness of an
open bribe, but there are not many who
cannot be won over by approaching
them on their weak side. Probably
three-fourths of the lobby is performed
in a way so indirect and vague as to
deceive even the controlled members
into the idea that they are acting by
volition, or in an upright way. The
lobby ist does not bore his intended
tool. He avoids everything of that
kind with particular care. But after
he has succeeded in securing good will
of the victim he gently, casually and
cautiously leads him up to this or that
scheme, in which some friend (seldom
himself) is interested, and which from
his showing appears to be a perfectly
simple, innocent, straightforward pro-
ject, meriting the favorable considera-
tion of Congress, and, like good wine,
needing no bush.


BY acts such rs these the average un-
sophisticated member is often very
cheaply purchased and remains uncon-
scious of the way in which he has been
used until, the job being consummated,
some officious correspondent or editor
discovers the little Joker" and the
country rings with the charge of fraud.
OF course, all Congressman are not SO
innocent. 1t is, unfortunately, the fact
that some there are who 90 about seek
ing temptation, and who, though pre-
tending Roman virtue, yet possess
very clearly defined idea of the value
OF their vote on any particular question
where moneyis involved. Itsometimes
happens that. United States Senators
have, in securing their election, been
compelled to graduate in a school
very near akin to that which produces
the Washington lobbyist, and these re-
quire no initiation into the thousand
and one methods by which a member
may sell himself without leaving any
available traces of the operation for
detractors to utilize. When there is no
considerable job before the lobby, the
agents thereof devote their attention to
experimenting the departmental busi-
ness, and in this branch of their busi-
ness the open house, the dinners and
the social arts are employed on the de-
partmental clerks, with unusually salts
factory results, though not necessarily
to the detriment of the public interests.
In this regard the lobbyist acts as the
business representative of those who
have claims in the departments, which,
though just, would probably slumber
until the crack of doom, unless some
outside party attended to and pushed
them through the circumlocution office.