either pluming nor crowning myself; I am
merely stating a fact. This was an emergency, however, I could not
regard as a mere personal concern. It was my duty to care for the
interests of a great property which must not be endangered by my
scruples, and I was willing to be advised by my business friends in the
matter. I went round among my most conservative banking, business, and
newspaper connections and put hypothetical questions to them bearing on
my difficulty. In nearly all instances the replies were the same, and
the subject seemed to be regarded as a joke--what were legislatures for,
anyway, but to be "fixed"? All who did business with legislatures
"fixed" them, and Whitney was certainly the star "fixer." I frankly
stated that I considered bribing a legislator as a low-down crime and
that I did not believe it was done in our strait-laced old Commonwealth
as freely as they all seemed to imagine. Thereupon I was sarcastically
referred to my Bell Telephone, New Haven, and Boston & Maine Railroad
friends, to the organizers of trust companies, and to many other
representative pillars of social and business society who had had
occasion to deal with the State. I started at once a round of
investigation among men who would talk frankly to me, and discovered
that a most iniquitous condition existed. Massachusetts senators and
representatives were not only bought and sold as sausages or fish are in
the markets, but there existed a regular quotation schedule for their
votes. Many of the prominent lawyers of the State were traffickers in
legislation, and earned large fees engineering the repeal of old laws
and the passage of new ones. Agents of corporations nominated candidates
for office, and paid the expenses of their election in return for votes
for a favorite measure and promises to "do business." The Legislature
was organized on the same basis; its executive officers were chosen
because of their subservience to certain corporation leaders; committees
were rigged to do given things and prevent other things from being done.
Above all, I learned that the chance of a citizen of Massachusetts
obtaining a charter from the Legislature of his State, unless he had
money to put up for it, was about as good as a hobo's of securing a
diamond and ruby studded crown at Tiffany's by explaining that he wanted
it. In fact, the citizen's request would be regarded by senators and
representatives very much as Tiffany's would regard the hobo's