The corrupt legislators, the "black horse
cavalry," as they were termed, would demand payment to vote as the
corporations wished, no matter whether the bill was proper or improper.
Sometimes, if the bill was a proper one, the corporation would have the
virtue or the strength of mind to refuse to pay for its passage, and
sometimes it would not.
A very slight consideration of the above state of affairs will show
how difficult it was at times to keep the issue clear, for honest and
dishonest men were continually found side by side voting now against and
now for a corporation measure, the one set from proper and the other set
from grossly improper motives. Of course part of the fault lay in the
attitudes of outsiders. It was very early borne in upon me that almost
equal harm was done by indiscriminate defense of, and indiscriminate
attack on, corporations. It was hard to say whether the man who prided
himself upon always antagonizing the corporations, or the man who, on
the plea that he was a good conservative, always stood up for them, was
the more mischievous agent of corruption and demoralization.
In one fight in the House over a bill as to which there was a bitter
contest between two New York City street railway organizations, I saw
lobbyists come down on the floor itself and draw venal men out into the
lobbies with almost no pretense of concealing what they were doing.
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