abuses of railroad corporations, and, with bribes wanting in the
balance of legislative equivalents, the representatives of the people
could be trusted to enact laws just alike to the corporations and the
public, while asserting the right of the people to control the public
highway and to make it subservient to the welfare of the many instead of
the enrichment of the few. A wise law regulating lobbies exists in
Massachusetts. Every lobbyist is required to register, as soon as he
appears at the Capitol, to state in whose interest and in what capacity
he attends the legislative session, to keep a faithful account of his
expenses and to file a copy of the same with the Secretary of State.
Were a similar law enacted and enforced by every State legislature, as
well as by Congress, the power of railroad lobbies would be curtailed.

Railroad managers never do things by halves. Well realizing that it is
in the power of a fearless executive, by his veto, to render futile the
achievements of a costly lobby and to injure or benefit their interests
by pursuing an aggressive or conservative policy in the enforcement of
the laws, they never fail to make their influence felt in the selection
of a chief magistrate, either of the Nation or of an individual State.
No delegate, with their permission, ever attends a national convention,
Republican or Democratic, if he is not known to favor the selection of a
man as the presidential candidate of his party whose conservatism in all
matters pertaining to railroad interests is well established. At these
conventions the railroad companies are always represented, and their
representatives do not hesitate to inform the delegates that this or
that candidate is not acceptable to their corporations and cannot
receive their support at the polls. During the Chicago convention of
1888 the statement was openly made that two of the Western candidates
lost Eastern support because they were not acceptable to a prominent New
York delegate who had come to Chicago in a threefold capacity--that of a
delegate, a presidential possibility, and special representative of one
of the most powerful railroad interests in the country. This same man
appeared again last year at the Minneapolis convention as chief
organizer of the forces of a leading candidate. His counterpart was in
attendance at the Chicago convention looking after the same interests
there.

It is the boast of prominent railroad men that their influence