Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/324

308 business managers. Step by step it progressed, and finally became a consummated fact. It was freely charged and is universally believed that the ordinance cost the railway company half a million dollars! So far as I can learn, the charge has never been denied.

Within the last few months another railway project was inaugurated. Application was made to the Chicago City Council in its behalf for an ordinance granting the right of way into the city, and for the right to lay its tracks in certain streets. The application was powerfully supported by one of the great railway organizations of the West, and was as vigorously opposed by a rival company of equal wealth and influence. As the contest proceeded it attracted very general attention and interest. In the discussions had in reference to the matter it came to be openly asserted, both in private conversation and in the public press, that those members of the Council who favored the proposed ordinance were in the pay of one corporation, while those who opposed it were classed as the paid agents of the rival company!

In the discussions to which the matter gave rise, the idea that any member of the Council advocated or opposed the ordinance on its merits did not seem to present itself to any one. I do not mean to affirm that the facts were in harmony with this theory. Indeed, it is very certain that the City Council of Chicago is in part composed of gentlemen of the highest integrity and character. But I noticed these expressed opinions as indicating the standard of public sentiment. People have become so accustomed to venality on the part of municipal legislators, that the first impulse is to interpret their official actions as the quid pro quo of money considerations, and experience proves that as a rule the theory is correct.

In support of my conclusions let me quote a single paragraph from a pamphlet entitled "Problems of Municipal Government for Chicago," by Hon. D. L, Shorey, who has for many years been a member of the City Council of that city, and who deservedly ranks among Chicago's best and ablest citizens. He says: "There is a wide-spread impression that a majority of the Council is venal. Assuming that this is true, it certainly shows a very bad state of affairs, and that there is imperative need for reform in that body. The evil is even more dangerous than is generally supposed. The disease really exists elsewhere, and is only manifested in the Council. There is an outside purchaser for every venal vote. In this case the purchaser is the more dangerous man of the two. He is probably an officer in some moneyed, corporation; is sometimes a member of some fashionable church, stands high in financial and social circles, and is an influential factor in controlling public opinion. On the other hand, the Council is largely composed of young and untried men of moderate social distinctions. Such men have neither the social nor intellectual fiber to resist a moneyed temptation, and it is no marvel if three out of four of them are not able to resist such temptation."