244 A. L. Bishop — The State Woi-ks of Pennsylvania. 



state credit collapsed, and the public improvements of Pennsylvania 

 became public scandal. ... It was not an infrequent occur- 

 rence on election day to see the gravel train loaded down with men 

 moving from toAvn to town vnth the scarcely disguised intention of 

 polluting the ballot-box — repeating at the polls became the rule 

 along the line, and waiting in expectation for the gravel train to 

 come in was the occupation on election day of the local adherent 

 of the railroad boss. Personally, I have seen the paymaster, after 

 requiring the employee to sign the pay-roll for the full amount 

 of his pay, count out the amount, less ten per cent., and without a 

 word of comment unblushingly take the latter and put it in a bag 

 made for the purpose, and labelled 'Political Assessments.' The 

 public service became gorged with the friends and adherents of 

 those in power, whose principal duty seemed to be to sign the pay- 

 rolls, submit to assessments and vote the ticket handed to them." 



In spite of the Avidespread operation of fraudulent and corrupt 

 practices, as shown above, it should be added that these charges, 

 by no means, applied to the employees on the state works in toto. 

 On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that scores of 

 honest and efficient officials discharged their duties in a manner 

 highly creditable both to themselves and to their country. In 

 fact, the findings of committees appointed to investigate charges of 

 corruption on the part of certain state officials exonerated beyond 

 question various employees who had been placed under the ban of 

 suspicion by disappointed office-seekers. Again it may be said 

 that, granting the widespread operation of corruption that existed 

 under state ownership and control, we have no assurance that there 

 would have been any greater purity under corporate management. 

 However this might have been, the case seems perfectly clear that, 

 throughout the greater part of their history, the public works were 

 used by the political party in power as an invaluable instrument 

 of political corruption, destroying the morals of citizens and squan- 

 dering the resources of the state. Consequently, those who are 

 abashed by the present-day disclosures of corruption in the manage- 

 ment of cities and powerful corporations, and who therefore sigh 

 for the "good old days" of political purity, have to face the fact 

 that these did not exist in Pennsylvania at least during the period 

 of state ownership and control of the public works. jN^or can the 

 advocates of the extension of state enjterprise into various fields of 

 activity at present considered dangerously corruptible find much 

 to substantiate their views by an examination of the same period. 



