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.