The parties are allowed watchers at
the polls, but these have no official standing.
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 1890
Massachusetts 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.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137