YOU ARE PAYING THE BILLS
Howe, Frederic C.
You are Paying the Bills Does Your Congressman Represent Your Interests or The Interests? Ask Him Some Straight Questions. THE trouble with Congress is that it does not represent us, the...
...In other words, has he represented you and me...
...You can help to make your next Congressman represent us...
...Has he been your delegate in our common business at Washington...
...not a part of us...
...but all of us...
...Old agents have been replaced by new ones in Massachusetts, and in New York, because the answer was not satisfactory...
...all of us...
...You pay the members of Congress...
...You are making the river and harbor improvements...
...You pay the pensions, build the warships, contribute to the "Pork Barrel...
...And the way to make Congress represent all of us is for each of us to see to it that his Congressman represents him...
...and some of us will do our part...
...And if he represented your competitor, or gave away your goods, or plundered your safe, you would not only discharge him, but would set the Grand Jury in motion to prosecute him as well.— Frederic C. Howe in the August Everybody's...
...And you have a right to know this, and to act upon it...
...not even the best of us...
...But the Record will tell you what your agent did on critical occasions such as the Rules fight in the House, the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill, and the Wickersham railway measure...
...Your Congressman at Washington ought to represent you, not only because this is a "government of the people," but because you reward him—in honor and money...
...Has he distributed the burdens of taxation fairly...
...As a business man, you would discharge him if he did not do so...
...It represents only a part of the people...
...But everybody I meet seems to have this question on his conscience: "What can I do...
...The Record does not tell the whole story...
...Almost alone, America taxes the weak rather than the strong, necessity rather than ability, consumption rather than wealth...
...You are building the Panama Canal and the post-offices...
...not a few of us...
...For this, if no other reason, you have a right to expect your agent at Washington to represent you...
...Here, then, is something for you to do, this year...
...Has he safeguarded your interests as an agent should...
...It is being asked in the shop, on the farm, in the counting room, and on the street...
...Except for the recent tax on corporations, which the corporations have gone into the courts to defeat, none of the things taxed in most of the countries of the world—property, wealth, privilege, incomes, inheritances—is nationally taxed in this country...
...This, our question, is being asked in one form or another all over the country...
...It does not tell how measures are strangled in committees, how they are amended and altered, it does not tell the story of the subterranean tricks employed to control the House through Cannon and the Rules, and the Senate through Aldrich...
...It means me, too, and the other fellow...
...The "Record" Tells How He Voted NOW, you can find the answer to some forms of this question in the Congressional Record, by scrutinizing the roll call...
...That is why I say you support the Government at Washington...
...Has he provided that certain great quasi-public functions shall be carried on in the interests of all the people...
...America is almost the only civilized nation whose government is supported by a sort of poll tax on the people...
...And the task before us, the people, is to make Congress represent us...
...THE trouble with Congress is that it does not represent us, the people...
...And it is being asked at the polls, in some places...
...It is being asked at the primaries and in the conventions...
...That means you...
...You pay for the President's junkets...
...And the way to begin is to ask in your own mind, and then in your own mind to answer, this question: "Does my present Congressman represent me...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 32
