Lincoln Steffens Quotes
If we must have campaign contributions, this is the way to raise them. If you would start this method now, you would begin a tremendous reform.
returning all contributions from corporations The President did not take his advice.
Lincoln Steffens, 1866-1936, Editor and Journalist, Statement to President Theodore Roosevelt, The White House, November 1904
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
At the time this was a very widely held, bipartisan view. See {634818} . Given statements like this, TR if he were alive today would never be able to get the Republican Nomination for President; nor could he obtain the Democratic Nomination because of his view on the military, expansionism, defense spending and war.
See {640687}. He was then very worried about the influence of money in politics and was willing to risk his own reelection by limiting his contributions. And he was the Republican presidential candidate so his policy was particularly unusual. A century later money in politics had ballooned to a much larger problem as Taft’s action had little or no effect on the overall relationship between money and politics outside of his campaign.
Lincoln Austin Steffens was an American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in McClure's, called "Tweed Days in St. Louis", that would later be published together in a book titled The Shame of the Cities. He is remembered for investigating corruption in municipal government in American cities and for his leftist values.
