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which, although representing a slight falling off from the corresponding period of 1912, was more than double, both in number and value, the figures for the corresponding months of 1911.

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Islands, especially, seem to take readily to the American product. Thus one of the big motor companies which manufactures a car of medium price - about $2,000 has found the small island of Mauritius one of its best customers, in proportion to population. The same company has had great success in going off the beaten path with its product and sells many cars, not only in the South African, Canadian, English, and South American fields but also in such places as Algeria, Egypt, and Lourenço Marquez, and is now establishing agencies in Morocco and the Azores Islands.

A vast opportunity for export, as yet hardly appreciated, lies in the field of the

commercial vehicle. Trucks of high efficiency and economy of operation have been developed by European makers, especially in Germany and France. Some are prepared to burn at least three different types of fuel without adjustment in order to meet army tests; others have been specialized in function with great suc cess. It is not probable, therefore, that the American heavy-duty truck will rival its touring and passenger-carrying brothers in the world's market. But of the lighter truck and the delivery wagon much growth in exports may be expected. Of the 20,096 cars exported during the ten months ending with April, 1913, 737 were com mercial vehicles. Their value was $1,333,367, out of a total automobile valuation of $20,666,593. This, perhaps, does not seem a large trade, but it was the first period in which commercial vehicles were listed separately and showed that the

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UFACTURERS SOLD ABROAD IN THE ELEVEN MONTHS TO MAY 31, 1913

industry of exporting motor trucks contains promising possibilities.

One of the oddities of the automobile export business is concerned with "used" or second-hand cars. There is a brisk demand for machines which have passed into this stage of their history, especially for the South American countries. New York City is the centre of this trade and one of the active dealers has had an order in a single week for as many as ten cars of a certain popular make, valued in all at $6,500. Used commercial vehicles, particularly those of about one-ton capacity, are also entering the export market in considerable numbers. Nothing would please the automobile dealers more than to see all the used cars sail away overseas, for that would dispose of one of their knottiest problems at home, the basis of exchange or allowance when they take an old car on account of a new one.

In all the branches of the automobile industry, the preeminence of the American motor car is swiftly becoming an accomplished fact. It is the story of other manufactured products over again: the story of steel rails, of locomotives, of agricultural machinery, of shoes. But it is that story intensified, because it has required, roughly, half a century for the pendulum of trade to swing the United States into high place in the world market of these and other manufactures, whereas it is hardly more than twenty years since the motor car was a mere experiment, for the enjoyment and jeopardy of some unusually reckless visionary. It is no more than a decade since the term automobile was considered synonymous with a machine of foreign construction. In a dozen years America has leaped from insignificance to a place of first importance as a maker of motor cars.

S

LOBBY

BY

CHARLES S. THOMAS (UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM COLORADO]

EVERAL years ago the Public Service Commission of New York investigated the Metropolitan Street Railway. One of the most conspicuous witnesses was Mr. Lemuel Ely Quigg, who was for many years an active Republican politician in New York. Mr. Quigg unblushingly related how, well fortified with Metropolitan money, he had manipulated public sentiment in the interest of that corporation. He had inspired public speakers to take the platform, he had caused the circulation of "monster citizens' petitions," he had unobtrusively directed the policy of newspapers and newspaper writers, he had organized citizens' associations and tax payers' leagues and had even financed "uprisings of labor." On the surface, these several agencies manifestly voiced popular opinion; in reality, they were merely fighting the battles of the Metropolitan Street Railway. Mr. Quigg's cleverness consisted in the fact that he frequently utilized his newspapers, his citizens' associations, his private speakers and petition-signers for his own purposes without their knowledge. Few signers of his Few signers of his petitions, for example, knew that the Metropolitan Street Railway paid the agents circulating them five cents for every name secured.

In a few months, Mr. Quigg testified, he had spent $151,000 in work of this kind. His "Monster Petition," which contained a million names and was tastefully bound in twenty volumes, represented an investment of $50,000.

"You spent all this money creating public sentiment favorable to the Metropolitan?" the inquisitor asked.

"No," replied Mr. Quigg. "I should not say that I created public opinion; I merely accelerated it."

I certainly thank Mr. Quigg for teaching me that word. For the last few weeks the country has been listening to the testimony in the Washington lobby investigation. Most of that testimony recalls the Quigg manipulations of ten years ago. It shows that the "acceleration" proposition is by no means local in its activities. Like many other evils in our political and social organization, its scope is nation-wide.

I speak with real knowledge upon this subject because I myself have had an intimate experience with this "accelerating" spirit. I have been a member of the United States Senate only a few months, but the larger part of my time in that brief period has been spent in warding off the approaches and the attacks of those public spirited citizens who have been attempting to influence my acts as a Senator by the ostentatious parade of a manufactured public sentiment.

The recent investigation in Washington clearly showed the changed character of the American lobby. This lobby is an evolution; it adapts itself to the changing circumstances of the time. In the early days of the investigation, the apparent failure to disclose legislative activities of the old-fashioned kind brought down some ridicule upon President Wilson, whose public denunciation had inspired it. Senator after Senator testified that no man had ever attempted to buy his vote. Because no actual bribery and no attempts at bribery had been disclosed, there seemed to be a prevalent idea that Mr. Wilson had "fallen down."

Just what, however, is a lobby and a lobbyist? All the Senators were asked this question. The most generally accepted idea was that a lobbyist was a man hired to influence legislation in which he had no

real personal interest. Fundamentally, however, I think that the word "lobby" has a deeper meaning. Lawmakers are sent to Washington to legislate in the public interest. Their only masters are the people who send them. Their only consideration, in passing laws, is whether these particular laws affect favorably or unfavorably the welfare and happiness of the mass of the people. They can pass no laws that forward any private interest unless those laws, in their practical working, subserve the interest of all the people. That public interest is their only legitimate consideration; the one thing that regulates all their acts. Any effort made to substitute for this public interest a private interest I should define as lobbying. The lobbyist is a man who tries to induce the legislator to forget temporarily all the people and to do something that will promote the fortunes of a single citizen or a group of citizens. It makes no difference whether he does this for himself or for someone else, or the way in which he does it; the act is an act of lobbying and the man or woman guilty of such persuasions is a lobbyist.

At different times the lobbyist, as thus defined, has worked in different ways. The coarser our civilization has been, the coarser have been the means which he has employed. In the 'sixties and 'seventies the lobbyist was particularly brazen. He then frequently resorted to direct purchase and sale. It was in this period that the character, in the popular acceptation of the word, became a national figure. He belonged to what was then a regularly recognized profession. He devoted his energies to no single interest; his sign hung out to all comers and his services were for sale to any one who had the indispensable fees. He made his permanent residence in Washington; sometimes he maintained elaborate headquarters in the most expensive hotel, sometimes he even had an establishment of his own. He was usually a man of ingratiating social charm; the ability to entertain, indeed, was indispensable to success. He hung about the corridors, had "the entré" to committee rooms, and was a "good fellow" with influential legislators. He won votes

by the outright use of money, by free passes on railroads, by entertainments, and "other things of value." He was the type which flourished in the days of the Credit Mobilier, of the Pacific Mail, and of the old Central Pacific Railroad land grants. This type has disappeared; it belongs to our national past as much as do the plainsman, the prairie schooner, and the buffalo. This old-time lobbyist perhaps still haunts our state legislatures; there may be even occasional suggestions of his presence around Washington; the outright purchaser of votes, however, has not been manifest about the Capitol for a good many years.

As his successor appeared a new molder of legislation. Instead of using directly the lobby, our great financial interests acquired the habit of directly annexing the Senate and House chambers themselves. Men came to Washington, especially to the Senate, representing, not the state which ostensibly had sent them, but these great private interests. We had Senators, not from New York, or Missouri, or Colorado, but from the railroads, the banks, the mining and the lumber interests. In 1894 the newspapers recognized this situation by generally referring to the Senators who had betrayed their party on the sugar schedule as the "Senators from Havemeyer." Clearly this form of lobbying was much more dangerous, much more "insidious" than the practices of the old Central Pacific days. It was a kind of corruption that was exceedingly difficult to trace. It nullified popular government.

But this régime likewise is rapidly passing. There are few men in Congress to-day who can be definitely pointed out as representing, not themselves or their committees, but seekers of special privilege. All our politics, in the last ten years, has focussed on attempts to drive this element out of public life. out of public life. The word "progressive," as used by both parties, means this more than anything else. Such political leaders as have really won public confidence in the last decade have done so because they have embodied this idea. embodied this idea. Last fall, the Democratic Party won a national election upon this issue.

It may safely be assumed, therefore, that our representative institutions have

survived these two forms of lobbying — outright purchase and outright representation. We cannot assume, however, that private interests who have favors to seek from the Government will abandon their efforts to control legislation. In the last few years they have elaborated what is perhaps an even more pernicious method of obtaining results. The political happenings of that period have emphasized one important fact: that the final governing force in the United States is public opinion. It is public opinion that has driven the corruptionists from our legislative halls and restored the agencies of government to the people; that has opened the eyes of the public on such important matters as railroad rates, rebates, trust control, the exploitation of natural resources, the sins of the judiciary and the tariff. Since, in the United States, public opinion, and not Congress or the President, is king, the man who controls public opinion will easily control the nation itself. And in recent years, the forces of privilege have aimed at doing precisely this thing. The men who now seek special favors of Congress rely almost exclusively upon the manipulation of public sentiment. They do not bribe, or give free passes, or pay election expenses; they attempt to make the legislator think that the thing that they want is the thing the public wants. They do not go for the man, except only occasionally; they send his constituents after him. The favor-seeking classes apparently remain quiescent themselves; the real persuasion is done by newspapers, magazines, public lecturers, publicity agents, letter-writers, petition-signers, and telegram-senders. The new lobby has seized upon everything that plays a part in forming what is apparently enlightened and independent public sentiment.

Probably the most adroit and experienced practitioners of this new art are the seekers of tariff favors. Whenever there is a suggestion of tariff revision or of legislation that may adversely affect the tariff schedules, representatives of these interests descend upon Washington. Immediately all the well-known engines of public opinion start working. And probably of all protected interests the most

industrious and insistent are the sugar men. This is the branch of the lobbying industry with which I have chiefly come into contact. My own state, Colorado, leads all others in the production of beet sugar. It was during my term as governor that the sugar industry began; as governor, I made the first contract for the sale of public lands to the sugar growers. I have, therefore, had opportunity enough to study at first hand their methods of propaganda. These several sugar industries- the beet growers, the cane growers of Louisiana and Hawaii

have for years maintained regular and expensive headquarters in Washington. These offices have served chiefly for the dissemination of information on the sugar question. Their purpose has been cultivate or accelerate public sentiment favorable to maintaining a high protective duty on sugar.

The head of the beet sugar men, Mr. Henry T. Oxnard, still retains some external traits of the old-fashioned lobbyist. He has the secretive manner which we associate with the professional promoter of legislation; he talks quietly; is inclined to take you entirely into his confidence; is still a good deal of a button-holer and entertainer. Mr. Oxnard was the man whose struggling efforts to start the beet industry I did something to encourage as governor of Colorado. It is hardly necessary, however, for me to attempt to draw his portrait. He did that pretty succinctly himself in his recent appearance before the Senate lobby committee. Mr. Oxnard, who is now 53 years old, prides himself, and justly, upon the fact that he represents the third generation of his family in the sugar industry. The Oxnards and the Havemeyers are the two great sugar families of America. With them the sugar industries have been for many years practically baronial seigniories. The wars of the Havemeyers and the Oxnards have been as famous, in their way, as the medieval struggles of the Percys and the Douglases. For the last twenty-three years, as Mr. Oxnard himself recently testified, he has maintained headquarters in Washington, from which he has kept a weather eye on Congress. He has mingled with Representatives and Senators; in twenty years

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