PRICE TAGS IN POLITICS
Neuberger, Richard L.
Price Tags in Politics By RICHARD L. NEUBERGER Sacramento. Calif. ABRAHAM LINCOLN ran for President in 1860 with a party treasury of $100,000. Today, almost this much is spent merely getting one...
...With this information before them," suggests Bridges, "I think the voters can decide for themselves what candidates are attempting to buy an office or what candidates are likely to be indebted to special interests...
...As mediums of mass communication become more complex, political campaigns probably will be even more costly...
...In 1948 Gov...
...Curtis Calder, chairman of Electric Bond & Share, and Sam Goldwyn of the movies...
...Harry Vaughan's collection of party funds has been probed by the political enemies of the President on Capitol Hill...
...Teddy Roosevelt felt "the need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish" if this were done...
...As an alternative, he advocates continuous listings of all political donations above $100...
...It takes money to win a political campaign in this country," admits Sen...
...One only can wonder how many fine candidates have been defeated precisely because of such a lack...
...In 1937 John L. Lewis bluntly accused President Roosevelt of not delivering in return for a $500,000 advance which the United Mine Workers had made to the Democratic Party...
...Political cocktail parties in San Francisco hotels have been known to cost $10,000...
...Yet why should not the Douglas County Cordon-for-Senator Committee add a further $5,251...
...Teddy was disturbed b the subservience of public servanl to the men who could write U checks at campaign time...
...But the Committee for Constitutional Government disbursed $443,000, the National Association of Electric Companies $305,000, and even the Townsend Old-Age Pension Plan $285,000...
...Sen...
...The British limitation applies to Winston Churchill himself, who runs merely as an MP...
...After the 80th Congress had reduced taxes in the upper brackets this appeal appeared in the Republican News, official paper of the party's national committee: "Many of our friends feels that the least they can do to express their appreciation is to contribute a substantial part of their tax savings for the year to insure the reelection of the Congress which made this possible...
...What might be accomplished by having Federal and state treasuries finance political races...
...This was what it cost him to file his declaration of candidacy...
...Elizabeth Arden of New York has contributed to the Republican Committee of Ohio, Harold S. Vanderbilt of New York to the Republican Committee of Oregon, Ernest T. Weir of Pittsburgh to an unknown farmer from Deadwood, Ore., who tried unsuccessfully to defeat Wayne Morse in the May primaries...
...Donors of substantial means are often listed far from their own realms...
...Certain persons in 1940, 1942, 1944 and 1946," points out Sen...
...Bridges believes the ineffective restrictions on campaign funds should be junked...
...It is costly, too, to elect Governors and Senators...
...What of the quest of a party's nomination, when many commitments obviously are made...
...C. H. Moses, 63-year-old president of Arkansas Power & Light, gave to the party which promotes TVA and Grand Coulee Dam...
...Sums such as these compare markedly with the $100,000 it once cost to win the highest office in the land...
...The financing of political races in America has assumed huge proportions, particularly since radio began to usurp the function of the old-time rally and torchlight parade...
...In the South, the Republican state committees can get no money because even the party's natural sympathizers regard it as a forlorn cause...
...Big business is funneling unprecedented gobs of money into Ohio to assure the victory this year of Sen...
...How much was this attributable to the fact that the Republican State Committee in Oregon spent $211,071, its Democratic counterpart $1,025...
...A candidate who seemed unduly lavish would suffer in public opinion...
...Reader's Digest, Survey Graphic and The Nation...
...Must he adhere, always, to the demands of the group which paid for his radio time, rented his headquarters, and hired his precinct workers...
...The rally required only the rental of a hall and payment for handbills...
...Might not the one-party monopoly in this vast and important region at least be dented if the opposition could open headquarters for every county and get on the radio...
...I think I'll just stay a private citizen for the time being...
...Some men try to avoid the taint of lush political financing...
...Bringing influence to bear in politics is like raising the funds for a polar expedition: it requires immense amounts of money...
...Furthermore, why cannot a rich benefactor of a political party offer another $5,000 in the name of his infant son or maiden aunt...
...By contrast, an election in the United States is a bonanza of Klondike dimensions for public relations men and advertising agencies...
...I sent these lecture fees directly to my finance committee to be applied toward the debt...
...Yet this public financing of the two dominant parties might permanently freeze out all rivals...
...Under the law a candidate for the Senate may spend a mere $25,000 seeking his own election...
...Lodge, present-day sponsor of TR's idea, concedes this is a dilemma...
...Some Arteries are beginning to doubt it, Se Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Ma sachusetts has just introduced resolution to study the possibilil of Government financing of Pres dential campaigns...
...III What is the solution...
...This is a major problem confronts ing the American public, one on which, unhappily, there has been too little light shed in recent years...
...This is mere bagatelle compared with the millions disbursed to come out on top at the ballot box in the United States...
...The sponsors of the stately and attractive Helen Ga-hagan Douglas hope that television appearances in populous Los Angeles County will enable her to beat Rep...
...Bridges of New Hampshire...
...Is the man who arrives in office, after receiving financial benefactions from these sources, free to folRICHARD L. NEUBERGER, a member of the State Senate of Oregon, was subjected to extraordinary pressure to accept the Democratic nomination for governor of that state...
...It also restricted a party's national committee to an expenditure of $3,000,000 in an election...
...From the other side of the tracks, labor organizations will underwrite with substantial donations the contest waged by State Auditor Joe Ferguson, Taft's Democratic opponent...
...What quid pro quo will be expected of the winner...
...He is the author of several books, including "The Promised Land," and "Integrity— The Life of George W. Norris...
...Conversely, the present Secretary of Defense, Louis Johnson, worked har'd to fill Democratic wallets which then were badly depleted...
...Some men confess to discouragement...
...Guy Gillette of Iowa, chairman of a committee to observe the financing of the 1950 elections, has added: "If a candidate for the U. S. Senate can spend thousands or even millions of dollars, a man of limited means is precluded from ever being a successful candidate...
...I don't want to be the kind of official that these groups could have on a tether...
...Dewey carried only one of the 11 Western states—Oregon...
...Today, almost this much is spent merely getting one piece of campaign literature to every potential voter in a single large industrial state such as California or Pennsylvania...
...Can an absolute limitation be enforced...
...Be he President or sheriff, can he deny favors to those who have opened check books in his behalf...
...he adds...
...A prospective candidate for high office in the state of Washington said in a weary voice, "I can't finance a campaign unless I end up indebted to bankers and utility executives, or to slot-machine operators and commission agents for liquor firms...
...In the last British elections a total of approximately $2,300,000 was spent...
...It takes cold, hard cash and lots of it...
...This is because many of those who make these contributions do so in the expectation that there will be value received in return for their generosity...
...Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, "contributed many thousands of dollars to candidates or parties, for political purposes, by the simple device of making a contribution of $5,000 to many different state or local committees...
...Money has become the sinews and blood of many critical races...
...But would only the two major parties receive donations from the public purse...
...Louis Post-Dispatch has condemned Republican platform promises urging reduction of inheritance taxes as being "a virtual invitation to prospective campaign contributors...
...Now voters stay at home in their bedroom slippers and wait for a candidate to come in over the radio speaker or television screen...
...Political contributions seldom flow in fixed channels...
...A man of convincing oratory such as Hiram Johnson or the elder La Fol-lette could speak directly to a majority of the people who would go to the polls...
...Robert A. Taft...
...It often costs as much to sign up convention delegates as it does to pursue the popular vote...
...Voters formerly trudged to rallies to hear candidates in person...
...Tentatively, he believes the taxpayer should not "be called upon to share in meeting the expenses of minor or splinter parties...
...What will be the sources of this vast sum...
...But should a candidate be allowed to spend a fortune to influence voters in a democratic nation...
...While the national committees obey the letter of the law, various state committees spend virtually as they please...
...During 1949 the American Medical Association spent $1,225,000 on political action of one kind or another.-Of course, the national health insurance bill was the prime target...
...Can a man under heavy obligation for financial support be an untrammeled public official...
...More than $50,000,000 probably will be spent by candidates for public office in this election year of 1950, when the people will ballot on 35 U. S. Senators, 435 Congressmen, 34 Governors, several thousand state legislators, and many other aspirants for jobs all the way down to coroner and constable...
...Among substantial donors to the Democratic National Committee were Emil Schram, president of the New York Stock Exchange...
...Suspicions attach easily when it may require a king's ransom to elect a mere Congressman in a strategic district...
...James Couzens of Michigan, richest man ever to sit in the Senate, put his fortune of $30,000,000 in Government bonds so he could never be accused of voting to promote his own immediate interests...
...A few speeches over NBC or CBS would drain Lincoln's whole campaign fund...
...How awful," Eleanor Roosevelt said when on the Coast, "if a candidate as fine as Helen Douglas should be defeated because of a lack of campaign funds...
...Some corporation executives in Illinois are trying to raise the colossal sum of $700,000 to retire Sen...
...II The availability of political financing influences many important issues...
...George W. Norris once was reelected to the Senate from Nebraska with only the money it cost him to drive around the state with his son-in-law, talking to people in Grange halls and on street corners...
...It limited a Federal campaign contribution to $5,000...
...The St...
...The gifts would be published right up to the day of election...
...Nixon in the fall...
...Orchids often are given to the ladies when a Californian with a thick exchequer announces his availability for public service...
...A free-lance writer, Neu-berger has written for Harper's, The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post...
...A Parliamentary candidate in an English borough may spend only $1,180...
...A premium is put on raising a large campaign fund...
...Homer Bone listed expenditures of three cents, and no more, when he was reelected Senator from Washington in 1938...
...The idea fir was proposed in 1907 by Theodoi Roosevelt...
...This ex-partner of Henry Ford also was prudent with campaign financing, because he thought his wealth should not give him an advantage over an adversary poor in pocket...
...Scott Lucas in this November's election...
...How many people would this information ever reach...
...Had Morse been defeated, he would have had to spend years retiring the debt by practicing law...
...This is all perfectly legal, and the 3,050 counties in the United States offer convenient side pockets out of which campaign funds may be spent...
...When the President equally rebuked the Detroit sitdowfl strikers and the automobile manufacturers, Lewis assailed this as base ingratitude from one who had "supped at labor's table...
...No matter how stirring the message, a man must collect coin of the realm to get that message to the electorate...
...Sen...
...And Sen...
...Public utilities, the oil industry, movies, doctors, trade unions, mining, merchants, distilleries, contractors—all have kicked in imposing sums to install their political favorites in positions of public trust...
...Campaign activities are rigidly policed...
...President Truman was said to have been indignant at the late James V. Forrestal, who made only a token donation to the Democratic Party before the last election...
...When Guy Cordon was nominated in Oregon, the Cor-don-for-Senator Committee reported expenditures of $23,785...
...But the Democrats have no monopoly on embarrassment...
...Sherman Fairchild, director of Pan American and International Business Machines...
...The Republican Party itself was once a "splinter party," born in the travail of the slavery crisis...
...This also evidently alarms Lodge, who recently told his colleagues: "There is probably not a man in public life today who does not realize that our system of financing Presidential campaigns by means of contributions from individuals and officers of corporations has led in the past—and continues to lead today—to the most unfortunate results...
...These limitations have been practically meaningless...
...In this fashion the Republicans disbursed $9,260,000 above the Hatch Act boundary in 1944, the Democrats an extra $3,352,000...
...This would hardly get an American Congressional candidacy off the ground...
...Morse claims that he retired a campaign deficit in 1944 by speaking all over the country for fees varying from $250 to $500...
...Is it enough to require continuous publicizing of donations, so the people will know the identity of a candidate's benefactors...
...Even before they are house-broken, some wealthy scions are listed for $5,000 on a grateful Senator's campaign ledgers...
...But television time is expensive...
...But not only the election of a President calls for heavy expense...
...The Democrats, almost axiomatically regarded as the party of hostility to big business, benefited greatly by big business generosity in 1949...
...But there is no lid on what the aspirant's open-handed friends may spend for him...
...And the Lodge resolution would free the candidates of campaign debts only in the Presidential election...
...The $5,000 ceiling on personal donations also is honored only in the breach...
...The Hatch Act, adopted in 1939, was to have ended political largess...
...low his conscience...
Vol. 14 • September 1950 • No. 9
