"YOU ARE A--SENATOR"
How to control the men who control the highways?
The railroads have become the main rivers of trade and travel, and to
control them has become one of our hardest problems in the field where
politics and industry meet. The Duke of Wellington exhorted Parliament
"not to forget, in legislating upon this subject, the old idea of the
King's Highway." But here, as well as there, the little respect paid
by the Legislature at first to this idea soon vanished. In England, as
well as in America, the State, in giving some citizens the right, for
their private profit, to take the property of others by force, legally,
for railways, began by limiting strictly the power so acquired. Then,
passing under the control of that which it had created, the State
abandoned its attempts to control. Now the State is retracing its
way, and for many years has been struggling painfully to recover its
lost authority. In the first English charters there were the minutest
regulations as to freight and passenger charges, and the right of
citizens generally to put their own cars on the tracks was sacredly
guarded.
The railroads became too strong to submit to this, and the success with
which the teachings of Adam Smith were applied to the abolition of
the old-fashioned restraints on trade bred a furor against any social
control of industry. These limitations were left out of new charters,
and for fair play were revised out of the old charters. After a brief
dream of this _laissez faire_, England began, in 1844, investigating
and legislating, and, after nearly thirty years of experiments and
failures, established the railway commission in 1873. This was a step
forward, but has not proved the solvent it was expected to be. The
expense of getting a decision from the commission and the courts to
which the road can appeal from the commission has frightened people
from making complaints. "A complainant," says Hadley, "is a marked man,
and the commission cannot protect him against the vengeance of the
railroads. A town fares no better ... even the [British] War Department
is afraid. It has grievances, but it dares not make them public for
fear of reprisals."[554]
The course of events in the United States was much the same. The first
railroad powers were carefully limited. The early charters regulated
the charges, limited the profits, gave citizens the right to put their
private carriages on the road, and reserved to the State the right to
take possession of the railroad upon proper payment. But as early as
1846 the railroads had grown strong enough--in the revision of the
Constitution of New York, for example--to secure an almost complete
surrender of these public safe-guards.[555]
But it was seen immediately in America, as in England, that the new
institution could not be left in the uncontrolled hands of individuals.
It created simultaneously two revolutions, each one of the most
momentous in modern civilization. It made the steam-engine master in
transportation, as it had already become in manufacturing. It made the
public highways the private property of a few citizens. An agitation
arose among the people--to-day stronger because more necessary than
ever--and they began to seek what they have not yet found: means of
regulating the relations between new rich and new poor, and protecting
the private interests of all from the private interests of the few who
had this double sovereignty. As early as 1857 New York established a
commission for the regulation of the railways. But the railroads within
a year procured a law abolishing it, bribing the leading commissioner
to make no opposition in consideration of receiving from them $25,000,
the whole amount of his salary for five years. "I was the attorney
of the Erie Railway at that time; I specially used to attend to
legislation that they desired to effect or oppose.... I remember the
appointment of that commission.... We agreed that if they" (the leading
railroad commissioner) "would not oppose the repeal of the law we would
pay $25,000, and have done with the commission; it was embarrassing....
The law was repealed, and we paid the money, I think." "If the
commission had been a useless one," said the counsel of the New York
Chamber of Commerce before the Legislative Committee, "the railroads
would not have parted with their money to get rid of it."[556]
Thirty of the States and Territories of the Union had established
commissions or passed laws to regulate the railroads before Congress,
in 1887, used its power under the Constitution to regulate commerce
among the States, and passed the Interstate Commerce law, establishing
the National Interstate Commerce Commission, in the hope that it might
protect the people. Congress did not act until 1887, although for years
different sections of the public, in their efforts to find a cure for
the new evils which had come with the new good, had sought to set in
action their representatives in Washington. The "Granger movement" of
1871, 1872, and 1873, with its "Granger legislation" by the States
against the railroads, is one of the never-to-be-forgotten waves of
public commotion over this problem which took on its acutest form in
the oil regions. Illinois, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Iowa established railway commissions, or
put stringent regulations on the statute-books at this time. Public
opinion did not cease to demand action by the national government
under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate
commerce, and became clamorous. Petitions poured in by the hundreds,
public meetings were held, chambers of commerce and boards of trade and
anti-monopoly conventions passed resolutions of urgency. This was one
of the main issues in the election of the 44th Congress.
Representative Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, rose in his place in the
House of Representatives on May 16, 1876, and asked unanimous consent
to offer a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five
to investigate the charges that "many industries are crippled and
threatened with extreme prostration" by the discrimination of the
railroads, and to report a bill for the regulation of interstate
commerce. This was the first move to reopen in Congress the great
question, first on the order of the day both in England and in America,
which had been smothered by the Committee of Commerce of 1872. It
required unanimous consent to bring the resolution before the House.
"Instantly," said Representative Hopkins, in describing the occurrence
afterwards,[557] "I heard the fatal words 'I object.' The objector was
Mr. Henry B. Payne, of Cleveland." Other members appealed to Mr. Payne
to withdraw his objection.
The Speaker of the House: "Does the gentleman from Ohio withdraw his
objection?"
Mr. Payne: "I do not."
In a private conference which followed between Representative Payne
and Representative Hopkins, the former said, as Mr. Hopkins relates:
"What he objected to in my resolution was the creation of a special
committee; but if I would again offer it and ask that it be referred
to the Committee of Commerce he would not object. I thought perhaps
there was something reasonable in his objection. A special committee
would probably require a clerk, which would be an expense. He looked to
me so like a frugal Democrat, who had great confidence in the regular
order of established committees and did not want the country to be
taxed for clerks attending to the business of special committees--I say
that he so impressed me that, as the record will show, I adopted his
suggestion."
When the Committee of Commerce to which the investigation was
accordingly referred began its investigation, a member of the oil
combination, not then, as later, a member of the Senate, took his seat
by the ear of the chairman, who was from his State, "presiding," as
the oil producers said in a public appeal, "behind the seat of the
chairman."[558] The financial officer of the oil combination was called
as a witness, but refused to answer the questions of the committee as
to the operations of the company or its relations with the railroads.
The vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad also refused to answer
questions. On the plea of needing time to decide how to compel these
witnesses to answer, the committee let the railroad vice-president
go until he should be recalled. But the committee never decided, and
the witnesses were never recalled. The committee never reported to
Congress, made no complaint of the contempt of its witnesses, and the
investigation of 1876, like that of 1872, came to a mute and inglorious
end.
When Representative Hopkins applied to the clerk of the committee for
the testimony, he was told, to his amazement, that it could not be
found. "Judge Reagan," he relates,[559] "who was a stanch friend of the
bill"--for the regulation of the railroads--"and very earnest for the
investigation, and who at the time was a member of the committee, told
me that it had been stolen."[560]
Eight years after "I object" the people of Ohio were a suppliant before
the Senate of the United States. They believed that their dearest
rights had been violated, and they prayed for redress to the only body
which had power to give it. Officially by the voice of both Houses of
the State Legislature and the governor, unofficially by the press, by
the public appeals of leading men, by the petitions of citizens, press,
leaders, and people, regardless of party, the commonwealth asserted
that the greatest wrong possible in a republic had been done their
members, and sued for restitution. They declared it to be their belief
that against their will, as the result of violation of the laws, a man
had taken their seat in the Senate of the United States who was not
their senator, that they had been denied representation by the senator
of their choice; and they demanded that, in accordance with immemorial
usage, the evidence they had to offer should be examined, and their
right of representation in the Senate of the United States restored
to them, if it should be found to have been taken from them. After
the Legislature had examined sixty-four witnesses, the Ohio House of
Representatives resolved that "ample testimony was adduced to warrant
the belief that ... the seat of Henry B. Payne in the United States
Senate was purchased by the corrupt use of money." The Ohio Senate
charged that "the election of Henry B. Payne as Senator of the United
States from Ohio ... was procured and brought about by the corrupt use
of money, ... and by other corrupt means and practices."
Both Houses passed with these resolutions an urgent request for
investigation by the Senate of the United States.[561]
Mr. Payne's election by the Legislature was a thunder-clap to the
people of Ohio. They did not know he was a candidate. Who was to be
United States Senator was of course one of the issues in the election
of the Ohio Legislature of 1884, and the Democratic voters who elected
the majority of that Legislature had sent them to the State Capitol to
make George H. Pendleton or Durbin Ward senator. One of the leading
newspaper men of the State testified: "I went over the entire State
during the campaign.... Out of the eighty-eight counties I attended
fifty-four Democratic conventions and wrote them up, giving the
sentiment of the people as nearly as I could, and during that entire
canvass I never heard a candidate for the Legislature say that he was
for Henry B. Payne for United States Senator; but every man I ever
talked with was either for George H. Pendleton or General Ward. I think
out of the Democratic candidates throughout the State I conversed with
at least two-thirds of them."[562] As was afterwards stated before the
Senate of the United States by the representatives of the people of
Ohio, "He was in no wise publicly connected with the canvass for the
Senate, nor had the most active, honorable, and best-posted politicians
in the State heard his name in connection with the senatorial office
until subsequent to the October election [of the Legislature]. He was
absolutely without following."[563]
The Democratic constituencies sent their legislators to vote for
Pendleton and Ward, but between the receipt and the execution of
this trust from the people a secret charm was put to work of such a
potency that the people woke up to find that the representative who
had betrayed them in Congress in 1876 was their senator, instead of
one of their real leaders. The people had been digging oil wells for
twenty years that all the value might flow into the bank accounts of a
few interceptors; they had been building railroads and pipe lines that
their business and property might be transported into the same hands;
they had organized agitation and conducted a national anti-monopoly
campaign all over the country, only to see the men who were to have
been investigated take command of the inquiry. The people had had
enough such experience not to be surprised that when they started to
make a beloved leader senator it was their enemy who came out of the
voting mill with the senatorial toga upon his shoulders. But terrible
was the moral storm that broke forth out of the hearts of the people
of Ohio. The votes they had thrown, like roses to garland the head
of a hero, had been transformed as they went, by a black magic, into
missiles of destruction, and had fallen upon him like the stones that
slew Stephen.
The press, without regard to party, gave voice to the popular wrath.
Scores of the Democratic newspapers of Ohio went into mourning. One of
them said: "The whole Democratic Legislature was made rotten by the
money that was used to buy and sell the members like so many sheep."
Many representative Democrats of the State privately and publicly
declared their belief in the charges of corruption. Allen G. Thurman,
who had been a senator and representative at Washington, said: "There
is something that shocks me in the idea of crushing men like Pendleton
and Ward, who have devoted the best portion of their lives to the
maintenance of Democracy, by a combination against them of personal
hatred and overgrown wealth.... I want to see all the Democrats have
a fair chance according to their merits, and do not want to see a
political cutthroat bossism inaugurated for the benefit of a close
party corporation or syndicate." Again he said: "Syndicates purchase
the people's agents, and honest men stand aghast."[564]
It was the "irony of fate" that this Legislature, like the 44th
Congress, had been specially elected to represent opposition to
monopolies. Of course the Legislature that had done this thing was not
to be persuaded, bullied, or shamed into any step towards exposure or
reparation. But the people, usually so forgetful, nursed their wrath.
They made the scandal the issue of the next State election, and put
the Legislature into other hands. The new Legislature then forwarded
formal charges to the Senate of the United States, and a demand for an
investigation. The State of Ohio made its solemn accusation and prayer
for an investigation through all the organs of utterance it had: the
press of both parties; honored men, both Republican and Democratic;
both Houses of the State Legislature and its senator whose seat was
unchallenged--an aggregate representing a vast majority of the people
of the State. The Hon. John Little and the Hon. Benjamin Butterworth,
former Attorney-General of Ohio, both members of Congress, had been
delegated to present the case of the State. They made formal charges,
based on evidence given under oath or communicated in writing by
reputable citizens, who were willing to testify under oath. None of
the matter was presented on mere hearsay or rumor.[565] No charge
was made to connect Senator Payne personally with the corruption. His
denials and those of his friends of any participation by him were
therefore mere evasions of the actual charge--that his election had
been corruptly procured for him, not by him. The substance of their
accusation, as contained in their statement and the papers forwarded by
the Legislature, was as follows:[566]
That among the chief managers of Mr. Payne's canvass, and those who
controlled its financial operations, were four of the principal
members in Ohio of the oil trust: its treasurer, the vice-president
of one of its most important subordinate companies, its Cincinnati
representative, and another--all of whom were named.
That one of these four, naming him, who was given the financial
management of the Payne campaign at Columbus, carried $65,000 with
him, "next to his skin," to Columbus to use in the election, as he had
stated to an intimate friend whose name would be given.
That the cashier of the bank in Cleveland, where the treasurer of the
oil combination kept one of his bank accounts, would testify that this
money was procured on a check given by this treasurer of the oil trust
to another of its officials, and passed over by him to its Cincinnati
agent, who drew out the cash.
That the back room used by the Payne manager at Columbus as his office
displayed such large amounts of money in plain view that it looked like
a bank, and that the employé who acted there as his clerk stated upon
his return home that he had never seen so much money handled together
in his life.
That a prominent gentleman, going to the room used by the Payne
managers for a "converter," had said that he saw "canvas bags and coin
bags and cases for greenbacks littered and scattered around the room
and on the table and on the floor ... with something green sticking
out," which he found to be money.
That members who had been earnest supporters of Pendleton were taken
one by one by certain guides to this room which looked like a bank,
and came out with an intense and suddenly developed dislike of
civil-service reform (Mr. Pendleton's measure), and proceeded to vote
for Mr. Payne; and that these conversions were uniformly attended with
thrift, sudden, extensive, and so irreconcilable with their known means
of making money as to be a matter of remark among their neighbors; and
that "the reasons for the change (of vote) were kept mainly in this
room, passed by delivery, and could be used to buy real estate."
That this use of money in large amounts to procure the sudden
conversions of Pendleton legislators to Payne would be shown by
numerous witnesses, generally Democrats, several of them lawyers of
great distinction and high ability.
That the editor and proprietor of the principal Democratic journal
in Ohio had stated, as was sworn to, that he had spent $100,000 to
elect Payne, and that it cost a great deal of money to get those
representatives and senators to vote for Payne, and they had to be
bought. "It took money, and a good deal of it, to satisfy them," and
he complained that the oil trust had not reciprocated in kind. This
statement was made by one of his editorial writers, who after making
it was discharged. The latter subsequently put it into the form of an
affidavit.
That Senator Pendleton would testify that more than enough of the
legislators to give him the election had been pledged to him.
That the number of members of the Ohio Senate and House of
Representatives who had been paid money to vote for Mr. Payne was so
great that without their votes and influence his nomination would have
been out of the question.
That a legislator who had been violently opposed to Payne, then changed
and became violently rich, had acknowledged that the treasurer of
the oil trust, out of gratitude for what he had done, had "loaned"
him several thousand dollars--"a case," said the representative of
Ohio before the United States Senate, "of a man becoming well-to-do by
borrowing money."
That legislators who were so poor before the election that everything
they had was mortgaged, and they had to beg or borrow funds for their
election expenses, became so prosperous after their sudden conversion
to Payne that they paid off their debts, rebuilt their houses,
furnished them handsomely, deposited large amounts in the banks, or
opened new bank accounts, bought more property, and that the reasons
they gave for this new wealth were demonstrably untrue--or impossible.
That a member of the Legislature, a State senator, had himself stated
that he had received $5000 to vote for Payne,[567] and had offered the
same amount to an associate if he would do the same; and that after the
election this member opened a new bank account, depositing $2500 in his
wife's name, who immediately transferred it to him.
That another member of the Legislature, who changed suddenly after his
election to the Legislature, and just before the caucus, from a warm
advocacy of one of the recognized candidates to the support of Payne,
when directly charged with having taken a bribe, did not deny it, but
"became exceedingly sick, white as a sheet, and answered not. He went
away and laid in bed two days."
That, contrary to all the precedents of Ohio politics, the caucus of
the majority party was not held until the night before election, so as
to leave no time between the caucus and the election.
That, also contrary to the precedents, the nomination was made, not,
as usual, by open vote, but by secret ballot and without debate, on
the demand of the Payne managers and contrary to the protests of the
opponents, so that it could not be known to the public who the Payne
men were.
That this knowledge was made sure to the Payne managers, who were
to pay for the votes, by the ingenious device of requiring each
purchased legislator to use a coupon ballot furnished by them, the
corresponding stub of which they kept. These legislators were not paid
for their votes unless the torn edges of the coupon ballot voted by
them corresponded with the edge of the stub in the possession of the
managers.
That responsible men would testify that they had received confessions
from members of the Legislature that they had been bribed with money to
vote for Mr. Payne.
That two members of the Legislature who had been elected as
anti-monopolists became supporters of Mr. Payne, and were heard
discussing together the amount of money they had received, and
quarrelling because one had received more than the other.
That a member of the Legislature which was corrupted, standing on the
floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, pointed out members who
had been purchased to vote for Payne, saying: "These members were paid
to vote in the senatorial fight," holding a little book in his hand in
which he had the names and amounts; but although he made the charges
openly and defiantly, and although the same charges were made in
Republican and Democratic papers, no investigation was ordered. Three
attempts to have an investigation made by the Legislature in which the
bribery occurred failed.
That a correspondent of a leading Cincinnati daily, sitting on the
floor of the House, daily charged that the election was procured by
bribery, talked about it generally, and dared the House to investigate
or the accused to sue for libel, and that no such step was taken by
either.
That a memorandum of the names of the legislators who sold themselves,
and the amounts they received, had been furnished from a responsible
source.
That on the eve of the election money was sent by draft to twenty-four
of the Democratic candidates for the Legislature, with the promise
of more the next day, and with the statement that thanks for both
remittances were due to one of the prominent members of the oil trust,
who was named, and two others of Payne's managers, "they paying most
of it themselves."
That before the election of the Legislature one of the Payne managers
sent large sums of money amounting to $10,000, or $12,000, perhaps
$13,500--the treasurer of the oil trust "and other wealthy Democrats
contributed it-- ... into different parts of the State."
That the managers of the election absented themselves from the State
during the legislative investigation, and remained out of reach until
it closed.
That during the two and a half years which had passed since these
specific charges of bribery had been put into circulation, there had
been no demand for investigation on the part of those whose reputation
and honor were concerned, but there had been a manifest effort to
prevent investigation.
That in addition to these offers of evidence the case against Mr. Payne
would be greatly strengthened by new and additional testimony from
responsible sources.
Testimony was taken by the Legislature that an ex-Lieutenant-Governor
of Ohio, afterwards Consul-General of the United States at Frankfort,
Germany, had been in the room of Payne's manager, had seen that he was
using money to procure the election, and had so told Mr. Payne before
the election, and that Mr. Payne's reply--"You don't suppose I would
endorse anything of that kind, do you?"--showed that he had understood
the use of money referred to to be an improper use, thereby fastening
upon Mr. Payne, if true, the knowledge that his agents were corrupting
the Legislature.
During this deluge of charges Mr. Payne made no denial.
After the investigation had been ordered by the State Legislature,
Senator Payne made an offer to the committee to submit all his private
papers and books of accounts to their examination--an empty offer,
because it was not charged that the corruption had been done by him,
but for him by others. These latter made no such offer, but fled from
the jurisdiction of the Legislature. When the representatives of the
people of Ohio appeared before the committee of the United States
Senate on elections, with the offer to prove under oath the foregoing
charges, he remained voiceless. He did not rise in his place in the
Senate to deny these accusations, as every other senator since the
Senate began had done. He did not go before the committee, nor send
before them any witness, or make any explanation. When the Senate
committee decided to recommend the Senate not to investigate, and the
representatives of Ohio begged the committee to reconsider, Senator
Sherman declared that he heartily agreed with every word of the appeal,
but Senator Payne still kept silent. The records of Congress show that
his sole utterance or appearance in this matter in Congress was to make
the motion that the papers forwarded by the Ohio Legislature should be
sent, as was the routine, to the Committee on Elections. In doing this
he did more than abstain from the utterance of a word which could be
in any way construed as a demand for investigation. He delivered what
was, in effect, an appeal to his fellow-senators not to investigate. He
attacked the Legislature for sending the report of its investigation
to Congress, characterizing "this proceeding--the transmission of
the testimony here--as an attempt to circulate and give currency to
baseless gossip and scandal, after everything substantial in the way of
a charge had been discredited and disproved." In conclusion he left the
matter to the committee "for such disposition of it as they may find to
be in accordance with dignity and justice."
The Legislature which made the investigation selected as the reason for
ordering it the fact that a well-known citizen had just repeated in
an open letter in the public prints the charges of bribery which had
been made already hundreds of times. When this citizen was called upon
to testify before the Legislature he stated that, as his information
was derived from others, he had no personal proof to offer of his own
knowledge that bribery had been committed. Referring to this, Mr. Payne
said to his colleagues of the Senate:
"Thus fell all that the investigation was originally based upon."[568]
This was not true. The witness furnished the committee with the names
of the men on whose authority he had spoken, and through whom evidence
based on personal knowledge could be procured as to the truth of
the charges.[569] Therefore the statement, "Thus fell all that the
investigation was originally based upon," so far as it was believed by
the senators, deceived them. The State Legislature could not compel
the witnesses to testify. Only the United States Senate could do this,
and it was deterred from doing so by this concealment of the fact that
the investigation, instead of falling because of no basis, had struck
firmer ground. The proffer of evidence was of such a character that,
as has been well said, none of the lawyers of the Senate committee
who voted against recommending investigation "would have failed to
recommend thorough investigation of such an incident if it had been
relevant to an alleged title set up against a private client."[570]
But the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections--Senators Pugh,
Saulsbury, Vance, and Eustis voting against Hoar and Frye--recommended
the Senate not to investigate, and the Senate adopted this report.
No one had expected this. The unbroken precedents of the Senate had
made it a matter of course in public expectation that the investigation
would be made. A convention of Ohio editors, sending a memorial for
a reconsideration, said: "No instance has yet arisen in the history
of the Senate where specific and well-supported charges of bribery in
a senatorial election, preferred by the Legislature of a State, have
not been promptly investigated by the Senate. In fact, so jealous has
the Senate been of its own integrity and honor that it has heretofore
promptly ordered investigations upon the memorials of citizens, and in
other cases upon the memorial of individual members of a Legislature
charging fraud in senatorial elections." In so doing the Senate, to
adopt the language used by the chairman of the Committee on Elections,
Senator Hoar, declared that "it is indifferent to the question
whether its seats are to be in the future the subject of bargain
and sale, or may be presented by a few millionaires as a compliment
to a friend."[571] "This matter never can be quieted," said Senator
Sherman in the debate in the Senate. "There are six or seven men who
are known--I could name them--who, if they were brought before this
Committee on Privileges and Elections, would settle this matter forever
one way or the other in my judgment."
The Senate decided that such a charge, accompanied by such offers of
proof, did not deserve its attention. The trial of "even a criminal
accusation," said the minority of the committee, "requires only the
oath of the accuser who is justified if he have probable cause."
The minority, Senators Hoar and Frye, further said: "It will not be
questioned that in every one of these cases there is abundant probable
cause which would justify a complaint, and compel a grand-jury or
magistrate to issue process and make an investigation. Is the Senate to
deny to the people of a great State, speaking through their Legislature
and their representative citizens, the only opportunity for a hearing
of this momentous case which can exist under the Constitution? The
question now is not whether the case is proved--it is only whether it
shall be inquired into. That has never yet been done. It cannot be done
until the Senate issues its process. No unwilling witness has ever yet
been compelled to testify; no process has gone out which should cross
State lines. The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present
case, and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great crime
of bribery--a crime which poisons the waters of republican liberty
in the fountain--that the circumstances which here appear are not
enough to demand its attention. It will hardly be doubted that cases
of purchase of seats in the Senate will multiply rapidly under the
decision proposed by the majority of the committee."[572]
The debate upon the recommendation of the committee not to investigate
was impassioned. Senator Hoar said: "The adoption of this majority
report ... will be the most unfortunate fact in the history of the
Senate." When the vote of the Senate not to investigate was announced,
Senator Edmunds turned to his neighbor in the Senate and summed up the
verdict of posterity in these words: "This is a day of infamy for the
Senate of the United States."
The same Legislature which sent Senator Payne to the Senate defeated
the bill to allow the Cleveland independent refiners to build a pipe
line to furnish themselves with oil. The defeat of the bill was
accomplished by a lobby whose work was so openly shameless that it
was characterized by the Ohio press "as an indelible disgrace to the
State." The bill was one of many attempts which have been made by
the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania, without success, to get from
their Legislature the right to build pipe lines. It has been tried to
get laws to regulate the charges of the existing lines, but without
success. The history of the pipe-line bills in these legislatures
for the past ten years has been a monotonous record of an unavailing
struggle of a majority of millions to apply legal and constitutional
restraints to a minority of a few dozens. The means employed in the
Ohio Legislature of 1885 to defeat a bill giving equality in pipe-line
transportation to refiners in competition with the oil trust, which
owned the existing pipe-lines, were of such a sort that that body has
gone into the history of the State as the "Coal-oil Legislature." It
is stated by Hudson, in his _Railways and the Republic_, that the
Democratic agent of the bribery openly threatened to publish the list
he had of the members of the Legislature he had purchased, and that in
consequence of this threat proceedings which had been begun against him
for outraging the House by appearing on the floor in a state of gross
intoxication were abandoned.[573]
In a debate about combinations in trade and industry--trusts--in the
United States Senate in 1888, the sore scandal of this senatorial
election of 1884 was disinterred.
"If there be such a trust," said Senator Hoar, referring to the
oil trust, "is it represented in the cabinet at this moment? Is it
represented in the Senate? I want to know the facts about these five or
six great trusts which are sufficient in their power to overthrow any
government in Europe, if they existed in those nations, that should set
itself against them--the coal, the sugar, the whiskey, the cotton, the
fruit, the railroad transportation of this country, controlled by these
giant chieftains."
Senator Payne defended the oil trust and himself. "Even at this date,"
he said, "it seems that that company is represented as being guilty of
all sorts of unlawful and improper things. Such allegations without
proof to sustain them I regard as unworthy of an honorable man or an
honorable senator.... The Standard Oil Company," he continued, "is a
very remarkable and wonderful institution. It has accomplished within
the last twenty years, as a commercial enterprise, what no other
company or association of modern times has accomplished." He went on to
declare that he "never had a dollar's interest in the company." But the
charge which he and it would never allow to be investigated was that
the company had a great many dollars' interest in him. "The majority of
the stockholders are very liberal in their philanthropic contributions
to charity and benevolent works," he pleaded; "but it contributed," he
said, "not one dollar or one cent directly or indirectly to my election
to this body." During the demand for investigation he uttered no such
denial to be taken as a challenge.
The senator made what Senator Hoar properly called a "very remarkable
admission" concerning the part taken in elections by the oil
combination. "When a candidate for the other House in 1871," Senator
Payne said, "no association, no combination in my district did more
to bring about my defeat, and went to so large an expense in money to
accomplish it, as the Standard Oil Company."
The oil trust, then, does take part in elections, and as a company
spends larger sums of money than any other "institution, association,
combination ... to accomplish the defeat" of candidates for Congress!
Then Mr. Payne said: "There never has been a national election at which
those two gentlemen--one of them was my own son--have not contributed
very liberally." He named the two men who were, as Senator Hoar showed,
among the most influential and important managers of his election to
the Senate.
Senator Hoar closed the debate with these unanswered and unanswerable
words: "A senator who, when the governor of his State, when both
branches of the Legislature of his State, complained to us that a
seat in the United States Senate had been bought; when the other
senator from the State rose and told us that that was the belief of
a very large majority of the people of Ohio, without distinction of
party, failed to rise in his place and ask for the investigation which
would have put an end to those charges, if they had been unfounded,
sheltering himself behind the technicalities which were found by some
gentlemen on both sides of this chamber, that the investigation ought
not to be made, but who could have had it by the slightest request on
his part, and then remained dumb, I think should forever after hold his
peace."[574]
The election of this senator was meant to be only the prelude to his
nomination and election as President of the United States. This was
publicly and authoritatively declared by the men who were charged with
having spent money to buy the Legislature for him. One of these was
the proprietor of the most influential Democratic daily in Ohio, and
that journal in a leading editorial, double leaded to make it more
prominent, declared this to be the purpose of Payne's friends. The New
York _Sun_ of May 27, 1884, followed, also in double-leaded editorials,
under the caption in staring black type of the name of the Senator,
and said: "Henry B. Payne is looming up grandly in the character of
a possible and not altogether improbable successor to Mr. Tilden as
the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. The fact that the Ohio
delegation at Chicago in July is sure to be solid for Payne is of
peculiar importance and significancy. Everybody can see what it may
amount to."
Concurrently with these formal announcements came the news from all
parts of Ohio that the Payne party were hard at work to control the
election of the delegates who were to represent Ohio in the National
Democratic Convention at Chicago in July. But the managers of this
Presidential campaign found that they had gone too far. The election
for senator had excited so fierce an anger over the whole country that
it had become perfectly plain that Senator Payne was not "available."
The education of the American public was still incomplete. It could see
senatorships bought and endure it, but the Presidency--"not yet."
The use this senator made of his seat throws light where none is
needed. Again, in 1887, the great question of 1876 of the control of
the highways came up before Congress. The agitation of nearly twenty
years had come to a point. Thirty of the States and Territories of
the Union had established commissions or passed laws to regulate
the railroads. Congress had before it the Interstate Commerce bill
forbidding discriminations, and creating the Interstate Commerce
Commission as a special tribunal to prevent and punish the crime. There
had been investigation, debates, amendments, meetings of conference
committees of both Houses. It was proposed to "recommit" the bill to
prevent its passage for an indefinite time. Mr. Payne voted "Yes." Then
the question before the Senate is, Shall the bill become a law? Senator
Payne's name is called. He votes:
"No."
It is the same question as in 1876, and the same vote. Against the
investigation, first, and then the legislation, his word is:
"I object."