The Railway Bribe: Why Editors Shouldn't Take Free Rides
An editorial critique on how railroad corporations use free travel passes to compromise the independence of public officials and journalists.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The current number of the North American Review has excellent articles denouncing and favoring the free pass system. It is admitted that the most numerous recipients of free passes are clergymen and editors, men who from their position in life cannot be supposed to be biased in their actions in a way that will redound to the benefit of railroad corporations. But, in the case of editors, if the pass is sent with an expectation of advocacy of measures hostile to public interest, it is a bribe to all intents and purposes. Every publisher enters into an implied contract with his patrons that the measures advocated by him shall be wholesome and for the general welfare. The acceptance of passes by men in official position is an entirely different matter. They are given with some expectation of return, not from the individual, but from the official in his public action granting to the corporation extending the favor some special privilege or exemption from ordinary burdens. Officials attempt to justify their acceptance of free passes on the ground of insufficient salary, but the attempt is delusive. If they do not like the terms, the public always furnishes them with stationary on which to write a resignation.
“A living dog is worth more than a dead lion, and a Legislator without a living vote is a thing soulless corporations have no further use for.”
This 1884 argument against 'the free pass system' foreshadows modern debates about corporate lobbying, dark money, and the ethical boundaries of influence in journalism and local governance. The fear that public servants act in the interest of their corporate benefactors rather than their constituents remains a central tension in Seattle politics today.
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