elected
President Garfield, and the statement has been made upon good authority
that "not until a few days before the election did the Garfield managers
feel secure," and that "when the secret history of that campaign comes
to be written it will be seen that Jay Gould had more influence upon the
election than Grant and Conkling." It cannot be said that railroad
managers, as a class, have often openly supported a presidential
candidate. This may be due to the fact that with the uncertainty which
has for years attended national politics they deem it the part of
discretion to pretend friendship for either party and then shout with
the victor. In conformity with this policy, a well-known New York
railroad millionaire has for years made large and secret contributions
to the campaign funds of both political parties. He thereby places both
parties under political obligations, and believes his interests safe,
whichever turn the political wheel may take. After the contest he is
usually the first to congratulate the successful candidate. In the
national campaign of 1884 this railroad king completely outwitted a
prominent Western politician and member of the Republican national
campaign committee who has always prided himself on his political
sagacity. This gentleman had taken it upon himself to enlist the rich
and powerful New Yorker in the Republican cause, and to obtain from him,
as a token of his sincerity, a large contribution to the Blaine campaign
fund. He succeeded, at least so far as the contribution was concerned;
but when the struggle was over and the opposition, in the exuberance of
joy over their victory, told tales out of school, he was not a little
chagrined to find that the managers of the Cleveland campaign had
received from the astute railroad millionaire a campaign contribution
twice as large as that which he had obtained from him. The diatribes
which for weeks after the election filled the columns of his paper
reflected in every line the injured pride of the outwitted general.

Judging from the laxity with which the railroad laws have been enforced
in a considerable number of States, their executive departments are as
much under the influence of railroad managers as are the legislative
departments of others. This cannot be surprising to those who know how
often governors of States are nominated and elected through railroad
influences, and what efforts are made by corporations to humor servile
and to propitiate