The United States Since the Civil War Part 27

MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. d.i.c.kinson, Tenn., Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H.

Hitchc.o.c.k, Ma.s.s., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Ma.s.s., Secretary of the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson, Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.

[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a tax on corporation incomes.

[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced, by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones, teeth, sea-moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed, divy divy and other commodities.

[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the following portion of the _Congressional Record_ for March 18:

The Speaker _pro tempore_: The House will be in order. Gentlemen will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House is not in recess.

Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."

The Speaker _pro tempore_. That was last night, not to-night.

(Laughter.) The House will be in order.

Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the tap-tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music.

(Laughter.)

Cf. Atkinson, _Committee on Rules_, 115.

[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was abolished in 1913.

[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a "bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular name.

[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.

CHAPTER XXII

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES SINCE 1896

During the four decades between the opening of the Civil War and the close of the nineteenth century, the United States became in many respects an economic unit. The pa.s.sage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, for instance, was an early recognition of the fact that the transportation problem of the nation transcended state bounds; the Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890 arose from the realization that commercial and industrial unity were rapidly coming to pa.s.s; the American Federation of Labor brought workmen from all states and many trades into a single organization. The election of 1896 and the amazing consolidation of business enterprises at the close of the century were further proofs that the day had pa.s.sed when any section of the United States could live an isolated economic life without relation to other parts of the country. Instead of remaining a federation of diverse economic sections, we became increasingly h.o.m.ogeneous. Much of the economic and political legislation enacted after 1896, and many of the practices and standards which were adopted by leaders in economic and political life were an outgrowth of the new conditions.

It will be remembered that the eighties and early nineties had been years of labor unrest. Costly and bitter strikes on the part of the workmen, and resolute and powerful resistance on the part of the employers were the commonplaces of the history of labor. The culmination was the Pullman strike of 1894.[1] Its cost in money and suffering was appalling; it placed the federal military power in the hands of the employers; and although it was a failure as far as the strikers were concerned, yet an impartial investigation after the struggle was over established the justice of much of which the men had complained. If discriminating justice were to be measured out to both sides, instead of victory to the side of the strongest battalions, and if intolerable waste and discomfort were to be avoided, some remedies for industrial unrest must be discovered which would replace strikes and violence. Happily, signs were not wanting that such a change was slowly taking place.

A combination of influences tended to place the labor problem on a new footing after 1896. One of the most important of these forces was the American Federation of Labor which greatly increased its size and activities, especially about the opening of the new century, growing from 950,000 members in 1901 to 4,302,148 in April, 1920. Its president, Samuel Gompers, is an able, resourceful leader, who has remained in control from 1882 to the present (1920), with the single exception of the year 1895, so that the organization has had the benefit of experienced leaders.h.i.+p and continuity of purpose. Although a radical, socialistic element broke away in 1905 and formed the Industrial Workers of the World, yet the defection was not immediately serious and in general schisms have been avoided. Several other labor organizations, although unconnected with the Federation exerted a strong influence; in particular the brotherhoods of railway employees, by frequent threats to strike and thereby tie up the transportation system, aided in bringing the demands of labor to public notice.

Moreover, after 1896 and especially after the coal strike of 1902 there was an increasing recognition on the part of the public that a labor problem existed and that it must be solved in some way other than by force of arms. Physicians and scientific experts called attention to the lack of proper care for the health of workmen in dangerous industries; the movement for the preservation of the forests and mineral supplies emphasized the need of efforts for the conservation of human lives; social reformers, economists, writers and educators upheld the needs and rights of the neglected cla.s.ses; and the press and the muck-rake periodicals found it profitable to expose extreme abuses.

Distress that had hitherto been unnoticed or disregarded became important, and remedies were demanded. Change was in the air, and not alone in America, for England and France were experiencing the same problems, and attempting to devise new expedients to solve them. After the beginning of the new century, also, the employing cla.s.s came to a better realization of the existence of the labor problem and sought solutions in ways that must be mentioned later.[2] There was a more widespread acceptance of the principle of trade agreements, whereby the employer and the men determined the conditions of labor by means of direct negotiations.

Although it had been the policy of the American Federation of Labor to keep out of politics, it was almost inevitable that the policy should receive some modifications. Organizations of employers were influential at Was.h.i.+ngton, and had long been so. Accordingly in 1908 the Democratic platform was endorsed on account of its labor planks, and again in 1910 and 1912. By the latter year all parties were earnestly striving to capture the labor vote, and in particular the Democratic and Progressive platforms embodied most of what the wage earner had been demanding for the previous generation.

The major demands in the labor program of earlier years--higher wages, shorter hours, settled conditions of employment, and the like--were not altered after 1896, but a few striking advances were made. The attempt to legislate concerning hours of employment, for example, had been continually obstructed by the clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments forbidding any legislation depriving the individual of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The courts had usually interpreted these phrases as prohibiting laws restricting hours of labor, on the ground that the liberty of the workman to contract freely regarding his own working hours was thereby infringed.

A Ma.s.sachusetts law of 1874, nevertheless, which limited a day's work for women and children to ten hours, had followed the long-continued a.s.sertion that regulatory legislation could be based on the "police power"--a somewhat indefinite authority which was gradually conceded by the courts to the states and the federal government, and under which it was possible to pa.s.s legislation concerning the conservation of the health and morals of the people without violating the Const.i.tution. Not until 1908, however, was the const.i.tutionality of such legislation finally settled by the Supreme Court, in upholding an Oregon ten-hour law. "As healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring," the decision a.s.serted, "the physical well-being of women becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." In other words, the Court was prepared to approve limitations on the freedom of contract in order to further the public interest. The Ma.s.sachusetts law was imitated far and wide, so that at the present time an almost negligible number of states have failed to restrict the length of the working day for women.

Recently, also, substantial progress has been made in restricting working hours for children. As long ago as 1866 Ma.s.sachusetts had restricted the employment of children, but neither this law nor similar laws pa.s.sed by other states had been fully enforced. Greater progress has been made since 1903, when Illinois, followed by the majority of the important industrial states, established the eight-hour standard for children under sixteen. Impressed with the need of federal legislation to coerce backward states, the reformers took their case to Congress where a federal act was pa.s.sed in 1916. On account of const.i.tutional limitations, the measure was framed so as to forbid s.h.i.+pment, on interstate railways, of the products of factories employing children under fourteen years of age. It was estimated that 150,000 out of nearly 2,000,000 working children might be affected by the act. Its fate, however, was that of many another piece of economic legislation; by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court declared the law unconst.i.tutional on the ground that it was not an attempt to regulate commerce, but an attempt to regulate the conditions of manufacture. Early in 1919 the effort to regulate child labor was renewed through the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the net profits of factories employing children under fourteen years of age.

The const.i.tutionality of the law has not yet been tested (1920).

It will be noted that all the foregoing legislative attempts to reduce the working day affected women and children only; in general, little attempt has been made to limit the working day for men. Nevertheless, large numbers of cities, more than half the states, and the federal government provide for an eight-hour day on public work; and western states have followed the lead of Utah in pa.s.sing eight-hour laws for miners. Hours of labor for railway employees have also been the subject of study and legislation. Cases had not been unknown where employees were kept at their posts for thirty, fifty and even one hundred hours; frequently such workmen fell asleep and disastrous accidents occurred.

In 1907 this situation was met by a congressional act limiting the hours of railway engineers to sixteen and providing that periods of work must be followed by specified rest periods. Train-despatchers, telegraphers, and others were similarly protected. A majority of the states imitated these federal statutes. In a few cases, state laws have been pa.s.sed which were intended to limit working hours in other especial industries. The most famous of these was one in New York, which restricted the working day in bakeries to ten hours. In the decision Lochner _v._ New York, the Supreme Court declared the law unconst.i.tutional.[3]

The early twentieth century also saw progress on the subject of compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers, except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had pa.s.sed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and should be made a charge on the industry, like the depreciation of buildings and machinery. The United States, however, lagged behind all other industrial nations, despite the astonis.h.i.+ng number of accidents which yearly occurred. In 1908, for example, it was estimated that two million men were injured, of whom 200,000 were permanently disabled, and 30,000 died--a larger number than the federal killed, wounded and missing in the Gettysburg campaign. Under previous practice in this country compensation for industrial accidents had been awarded in accord with common law principles, under which the employer was not responsible for an employee who was injured through the negligence of a fellow servant. Any workman who entered hazardous employment was a.s.sumed under the common law to know the dangers and be ready to run the risks, and no compensation could be recovered unless it could be shown that the master had been negligent and the employee had not also been negligent. It came widely to be thought that the common law did not justly apply to the complex industrial system of modern times. It did not seem equitable, for example, that the fellow servant doctrine should hold in case of a railway employee killed through the negligence of a train despatcher many miles away, whom he did not know and had never even seen.

The first workmen's compensation act in the United States was pa.s.sed in Maryland in 1902. Its scope was narrow and it came to nothing as it was declared unconst.i.tutional. In course of time, however, legislation was framed in such language as to pa.s.s muster before the courts, and moreover judicial decisions changed, as time went on, in the direction desired by popular opinion. Beginning in 1911 there was an avalanche of liability and compensation laws and by 1920 forty-two states, together with Porto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii had pa.s.sed acts that placed the burden more or less completely on the employer, and provided schemes of compensation. The federal government also took action. At the suggestion of President Roosevelt an act was pa.s.sed in 1908 making interstate railroads responsible for injuries to employees and expressly doing away with former common law practices.[4] At the same time a similar liability was placed upon the United States for accidents occurring to certain cla.s.ses of government employees and a plan of compensation was established. In 1916 another act brought all civil servants under the system.

Several other types of social legislation have made considerable progress in Europe, but have found little or no foot-hold in this country, such as minimum wage laws, health insurance, old age and widows' pensions, and unemployment insurance. The minimum wage law, establis.h.i.+ng a level below which wages must not go, has been adopted by Ma.s.sachusetts and a few other states in a restricted form. The unemployment problem has hardly been touched, although the federal Department of Labor since its establishment in 1913 has gathered and made public information in regard to opportunities for work.

Recent years have likewise seen a vast number of laws which together have made a new era in American industrial life, although separately no one of them was revolutionary. For example, matches containing white phosphorous were subjected to a prohibitive tax because of the harmful effect of the phosphorous on workmen in match factories; greater care was exercised in guarding dangerous machines, elevator wells and the like; fire protection, harmful or poisonous fumes and dust, ventilation and safety devices in mines, safety appliances on railway trains, together with numberless other accompaniments of modern industry were the subject of state legislation. Almost as important as legislative enactments were the changes in working conditions voluntarily made by the most progressive corporations. One who compares a factory built within twenty-five years of the close of the Civil War with a building erected since 1900 discovers revolutionary changes. Later buildings are constructed with much more care for ventilation, light and convenience; in some cases even the temperature of the work-rooms is a matter for painstaking attention; "welfare" work is now a commonplace, with rest rooms, lunch rooms, recreation fields and factory social activities.

Factory or store committees that confer with higher officers in relation to hours and the needs and desires of the employees are by no means uncommon, and some of the large corporations even provide pension systems for their employees.

On the other hand, laws and statute books did not always guarantee performance. Laws were continually avoided both by the employers and the employees; workmen transgressed rules laid down for their welfare; the pa.s.sage and execution of many laws were hampered to the last degree by short-sighted employers; the courts invalidated much legislation on the ground of unconst.i.tutionality; and progress was frequently confined to leading states or corporations and was by no means universal. It nevertheless is true that the tendencies in social and economic legislation since 1896 have been widely different from those prevalent before that year.

In several cases the influence of the labor element in federal legislation has been decisive. The use of the injunction, it will be remembered, was one of the grievances most frequently mentioned at the time of the Pullman strike. In the campaign of 1908 both parties strove to attract the labor vote by proposals of reform, but not until 1914 was the issuance of injunctions forbidden "unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to prosperity ... for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law." At the same time the labor unions were exempted from the operation of the anti-trust laws.[5] The influence of the labor organizations was also a factor in the agitation for the restriction of immigration which continued from 1897 to 1917. In the former year a bill was pa.s.sed which contained a literacy test--that is, a provision excluding persons who were unable to read or write English or some other language. President Cleveland exercised his veto, as did later presidents when similar measures were carried in 1913, 1915 and 1917, but in the latter year Congress was able to muster sufficient strength to pa.s.s the act over the President's veto. One of the main purposes of the measure seems to have been the restriction of the labor supply, and hence it enlisted the support of the American Federation of Labor and other similar organizations.[6]

The ameliorative measures already mentioned have by no means prevented the boycott and the strike. Indeed they have not, except in rare cases, directly affected the two great causes of industrial disputes--hours and wages for adult male laborers. Many formidable and violent strikes have occurred since 1896, such as those of the s.h.i.+rt-waist makers in New York in 1909, the textile operatives in Lawrence, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1912, and the Colorado coal miners in 1913. On the whole, however, it seems that the labor unions have developed somewhat greater conservatism and that their influence has been against violence in strikes.

Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been established for continuous conference between representatives of the employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.

The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the pa.s.sage of labor laws, was also ill.u.s.trated in two important measures pa.s.sed in 1906.

The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published _The Jungle_, a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book, together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to such a degree, that two important laws were pa.s.sed. One provided for federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.

Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation.

Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government.

The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown, compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine, Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory of _laissez faire_ gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the belief that the government ought to be the servant of the ma.s.s of the people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Was.h.i.+ngton, therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.

This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the framers of the Const.i.tution, but it trenched upon the powers specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States ... are reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching of the terms of the Const.i.tution. In 1906, one of the most conservative statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage a "construction of the Const.i.tution will be found to vest the power where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus s.h.i.+fted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of specific laws or the acc.u.mulation of specific data. The earliest of these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the trusts.

With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in 1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats, although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.

The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a controlling fraction of the body had achieved members.h.i.+p through wealth, through the a.s.sistance of corporate interests and because of skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all, and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an amendment to the Const.i.tution which should secure popular election. At length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May 31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.

The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the state legislatures had long been observable, and new state const.i.tutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in framing new state const.i.tutions, was also the testing-ground for the initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices--the initiative--is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may initiate legislation--that is, propose a law and require the officials of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is held in abeyance on pet.i.tion of a specified number of voters, until presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum were extended to the munic.i.p.alities. The reasons for the innovation were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public opinion.[8]

The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states (1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the const.i.tutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were negligible.

More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some form of direct nomination. The peculiar circ.u.mstances surrounding the campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with a.s.surance whether the demand is more than temporary.

The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919 Congress pa.s.sed a proposed const.i.tutional amendment expressly stating that s.e.x should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]

Accompanying the increased popular control of government after 1896 was a gradual demand for a higher level of political ethics. The revelations of the insurance investigations of 1905 were significant of this change. Early in that year certain newspapers made charges against the Equitable Life a.s.surance Company which were taken up by the New York legislature and referred to a committee for investigation. The committee's task was the examination of the affairs of life insurance companies doing business in the state of New York; its attorney was Charles E. Hughes. The results of the investigation amazed the country.

The exorbitant salaries paid to officers, the unreasonable expenses incurred and the disregard of the rights of the policy holders were of concern chiefly to persons doing business with the companies. But it also appeared that several of the larger concerns had divided the country into districts, and had systematically influenced legislation affecting either insurance or financial interests to which they or their officers were related; enormous sums were expended and records not kept, or so kept as to conceal the real purposes of the expenditure. The report of the committee showed that Chauncey M. Depew, a member of the United States Senate, was paid $20,000 a year for legal services, without his rendering any return that seemed to warrant the payments made. The contributions of the companies to the Republican campaign funds were very heavy--$50,000 by one company in 1904. It appeared from testimony that Democrats also sought contributions from the companies but were refused. The final report of the committee unsparingly condemned these abuses and embodied a program of legislation for their reform, which was put into effect. The public received an education in the connection of corporations with politics, and Hughes himself at once became a figure of national importance, the favorite of the reform element, and was launched upon a career that made him governor of New York, a member of the United States Supreme Court and candidate for the presidency.[10]

Laws regulating campaign expenditures had long been on the statute books although they had been little heeded, but as the result of the insurance investigation, New York in 1906 forbade contributions by corporations for political purposes. In 1907 Congress pa.s.sed a similar law concerning federal campaigns, and most of the states have since pa.s.sed laws placing restrictions on the use of campaign funds. In the campaign of 1908 Bryan requested that the Democratic National Committee receive no contributions from corporations, that no sums in excess of $10,000 be received from any source and that a list of contributors be published in advance of the election. By a law enacted in 1911 Congress compelled a statement of the amounts of money spent by committees, and limited the amounts which might be spent by candidates for Congress. In 1919 the Chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that the party would raise funds for the next campaign in amounts from $1 to $1,000. Both parties were discovering that public sentiment opposed large contributions from individuals and corporations, because they expect a _quid pro quo_ after the election.[11]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE