A WELTER OF CORRUPTION.
So the onslaught of corruption began and continued. Corruption in Ohio was so notorious that it formed a bitter part of the discussion in the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1850-51. The delegates were droning along over insertions devised to increase corporation power. Suddenly rose Delegate Charles Reemelin and exclaimed: "Corporations always have their lobby members in and around the halls of legislation to watch and secure their interests. Not so with the people—they cannot act with that directness and system that a corporation can. No individual will take it upon himself to go to the Capitol at his own expense, to watch the representatives of the people, and to lobby against the potent influences of the corporation. But corporations have the money, and it is to their interest to expend it to secure the passage of partial laws." [Footnote: Ohio Convention Debates, 1850-51, ii: 174.]
Two years later, at one of the sessions of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Delegate Walker, of North Brookfield, made a similar statement as to conditions in that State. "I ask any man to say," he asked, "if he believes that any measure of legislation could be carried in this State, which was generally offensive to the corporations of the Commonwealth? It is very rarely the case that we do not have a majority in the legislature who are either presidents, directors or stockholders in incorporated companies. This is a fact of very grave importance." [Footnote: Debates in the Massachusetts Convention, 1853, iii: 59.] Two-thirds of the property in Massachusetts, Delegate Walker pointed out, was owned by corporations.
In 1857 an acrimonious debate ensued in the Iowa Constitutional Convention over an attempt to give further extraordinary power to the railroads. Already the State of Iowa had incurred $12,000,000 in debts in aiding railroad corporations. "I fear," said Delegate Traer, "that it is very often the case that these votes (on appropriations for railroads) are carried through by improper influences, which the people, if left alone, would, upon mature reflection, never have adopted." [Footnote: Constitutional Debates, Iowa, 1857, ii: 777.]