If a Revolutionary Father could visit his old haunts on election day, he would be astonished at the sober decorum.In his time elections lasted three days, days filled with harangue, with drinking, betting, raillery, and occasional encounters.Even those whose memory goes back to the Civil War can contrast the ballot peddling, the soliciting, the crowded noisy polling-places, with the calm and quiet with which men deposit their ballots today.For now every ballot is numbered and no one is permitted to take a single copy from the room.Every voter must prepare his ballot in the booth.And every polling-place is an island of immunity in the sea of political excitement.
While the people were thus assuming control of the ballot, they were proceeding to gain control of their legislatures.In 1890Massachusetts enacted one of the first anti-lobby laws.It has served as a model for many other States.It provided that the sergeant-at-arms should keep dockets in which were enrolled the names of all persons employed as counsel or agents before legislative committees.Each counsel or agent was further compelled to state the length of his engagement, the subjects or bills for which he was employed, and the name and address of his employer.
The first session after the passage of this law, many of the professional lobbyists refused to enroll, and the most notorious ones were seen no more in the State House.The regular counsel of railroads, insurance companies, and other interests signed the proper docket and appeared for their clients in open committee meetings.
The law made it the duty of the Secretary of the Commonwealth to report to the law officers of the State, for prosecution, all those who failed to comply with the act.Sixty-seven such delinquents were reported the first year.The Grand Jury refused to indict them, but the number of recalcitrants has gradually diminished.
The experience of Massachusetts is not unique.Other States passed more or less rigorous anti-lobby laws, and today, in no state Capitol, will the visitor see the disgusting sights that were usual thirty years ago--arrogant and coarse professional "agents" mingling on the floor of the legislature with members, even suggesting procedure to presiding officers, and not infrequently commandeering a majority.Such influences, where they persist, have been driven under cover.
With the decline of the professional lobbyist came the rise of the volunteer lobbyist.Important bills are now considered in formal committee hearings which are well advertised so that interested parties may be present.Publicity and information have taken the place of secrecy in legislative procedure.The gathering of expert testimony by special legislative commissions of inquiry is now a frequent practice in respect to subjects of wide social import, such as workmen's compensation, widows'
pensions, and factory conditions.
