Project Gutenberg's How Members of Congress Are Bribed, by Joseph Moore

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Title: How Members of Congress Are Bribed

Author: Joseph Moore

Posting Date: January 17, 2009 [EBook #3316]
Release Date: July, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE BRIBED ***

Produced by David A. Schwan

HOW MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE BRIBED.

An Open Letter.

A Protest and a Petition.

From a Citizen of California to the United States Congress

by Joseph H. Moore.

The Lobbyist.

If a persistent intermeddler without proper warrant in Government
affairs, an unscrupulous dealer in threats and promises amongst public
men, a constant menace to sworn servants of the people in their offices
of trust, a tempter of the corrupt and a terror to the timid who are
delegated to power a remorseless enemy to wholesome legislation, a
constant friend to conspirators against the common welfare for private
gain--if such a compound of dangerous and insolent qualities merged
in one personality, active, vigilant, unblushing, be a Lobbyist--then
Collis P. Huntington is a Lobbyist at the doors of Congress, in its
corridors and in its councils, at Washington.

He is the spirit incarnate of Monopoly in its most aggressive form.
Among the intrenched powers which have sapped the vitality and are a
menace to the existence of our form of republican government, he is
strong with their strength, dangerous with their power, perilous with
the insolence of their courtesies, the blandishment of their open or
covert threats.

For nearly thirty years he has engendered broadcast political corruption
in order to enrich himself and his associate railroad magnates at the
public cost.

The declared representative now of those who have been thus far
successful conspirators against the general Treasury and ruthless
oppressors of every vital interest of defenceless California, with
resonant voice and open hand he is clearly visible upon parade,
demanding attention from the elected servants of all the people, and
easily dwarfing the lessor lobby by the splendor of his equipment.

The English Parliament would re