James Truslow Adams Quotes
Every link in the chain that runs from the corporation desiring political favors down to the policeman on the beat levying his toll on the prostitute or the apple-seller is too strong to have been broken yet.
James Truslow Adams, 1878-1949, Historian, The March of Democracy, II, 1933
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Abramoff had bribed over 100 Congressional offices by a combination of campaign donations, paid golf junkets all over the world, free elegant meals at his own fancy Washington Restaurant, free tickets for the Congressmen, their staffs and their major constituents, to Concerts and sporting events including his own Skyboxes, and promises of future employment at very high salaries. Ironically, we was convicted of cheating some of his lobbying clients and did a jail term, but his “bribery” was technically usually legal. In addition to Abramoff, only one Congressman was charged and convicted of corruption, when many if not most had engaged in these corrupt practices. Congress makes the rules with loopholes so that what is bribery and corruption in any other setting is often not against the law if Congress is involved.
It took until the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt until monopolies were regulated. Like many of the rapacious businessmen of his era, bribery of public officials was so common that he had no problem admitting this to a reporter who was interviewing him. His father Cornelius, one of the great, creative industrialists of America, was not at all of the same mindset or the same corrupt character and saw corporations and the Railroads as having an important role in America with substantial obligations to the society which enabled the economic development and supported the railroads. He described his son as a “blockhead”. William goes down in American history as the arrogant industrialist and capitalist whose wealth was produced by his talent of being born to the right father who built the great empire. At that time the bribery of members of Congress was direct with cash going directly into their pockets, unlike modern times where it is indirect in the form of Campaign contributions.
In the early 20th century, the corruption in America was much worse than it is today. At the time, it was very common for members of Congress and State Legilators to take bribes from corporations whose interests they protected. Franchises, subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare was much more common. The reforms of the 20th centuries eliminated much of the corruption. At the same time, Americans, including Ms. De Cleyre knew much less about the details of foreign country’s foibles and weaknesses. So she underestimated the degree of corruption of foreign nations and made her judgment from the extensive corruption that then existed in the United States.
George Barnsedale Cox, 1853–1916, was the corrupt, Republican, political boss of Cincinnati where he amassed a fortune of millions of dollars—hundreds of millions in today’s money—as a city party official in the early 1900s.
James Truslow Adams was an American writer and historian. He was a freelance author who helped to popularize the latest scholarship about American history and his three-volume history of New England is well regarded by scholars. He popularized the phrase "American Dream" in his 1931 book The Epic of America.
