A
voter considers himself to be noticed if he gets a book; he likes to
have the book bound, and the bigger the book may be, the more the
compliment is relished.
Hence it comes to pass that an enormous
quantity of useless matter is printed and bound, only that it may be
sent down to constituents and make a show on the parlor shelves of
constituents' wives. The post-office groans and becomes insolvent
and the country pays for the paper, the printing, and the binding.
While the public expenses of this nation were very small, there was,
perhaps, no reason why voters should not thus be indulged; but now
the matter is different, and it would be well that the conveyance by
post of these congressional libraries should be brought to an end.
I was also assured that members very frequently obtain permission
for the printing of a speech which has never been delivered - and
which never will be delivered - in order that copies may be
circulated among their constituents. There is in such an
arrangement an ingenuity which is peculiarly American in its nature.
Everybody concerned is no doubt cheated by the system. The
constituents are cheated; the public, which pays, is cheated; and
the post-office is cheated. But the House is spared the hearing of
the speech, and the result on the whole is perhaps beneficial.
We also, within the memory of many of us, had a franking privilege,
which was peculiarly objectionable, inasmuch as it operated toward
giving a free transmission of their letters by post to the rich,
while no such privilege was within reach of the poor. But with us
it never stretched itself to such an extent as it has now achieved
in the States. The number of letters for members was limited. The
whole address was written by the franking member himself, and not
much was sent in this way that was bulky. I am disposed to think
that all government and congressional jobs in the States bear the
same proportion to government and parliamentary jobs which have been
in vogue among us. There has been an unblushing audacity in the
public dishonesty - what I may perhaps call the State dishonesty - at
Washington, which I think was hardly ever equaled in London.
Bribery, I know, was disgracefully current in the days of Walpole,
of Newcastle, and even of Castlereagh; so current, that no
Englishman has a right to hold up his own past government as a model
of purity; but the corruption with us did blush and endeavor to hide
itself. It was disgraceful to be bribed, if not so to offer bribes.
But at Washington corruption has been so common that I can hardly
understand how any honest man can have held up his head in the
vicinity of the Capitol or of the State office.
But the country has, I think, become tired of this. Hitherto it has
been too busy about its more important concerns, in extending
commerce, in making railways, in providing education for its youth,
to think very much of what was being done at Washington.
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