"Mr. ----, "We offer, subject to sale at par and interest, note $2,500. Date, July 5th, 1892. Time, six months; rate, 6 per cent. Payable where desired. Maker, ---- Endorser, Judge ---- Mr. ----, the maker, is clerk of the United States Circuit Court at ---- Judge ---- the well known attorney of the ---- and ---- Railway Co., of ----, stated to us to be worth $150,000 to $200,000. Can you use it?" While railroad managers rely upon servile courts as a last resort to defeat the will of the sovereign people, they are far from losing sight of the importance of controlling the legislative branch of the government. By preventing what they are pleased to call unfriendly legislation they are more likely to prevent friction with public opinion, and they avoid at the same time the risk of permanently prejudicing their cause by an adverse opinion upon a constitutional question which they may find it necessary to raise in order to nullify a legislative act. There are three distinct means employed by them to control legislative action. First, the election to legislative offices of men who are, for some personal reason, adherents to the railroad cause. Second, the delusion, or even corruption, of weak or unscrupulous members of legislative bodies. Third, the employment of professional and incidental lobbyists and the subsidizing of newspapers, or their representatives, for the purpose of influencing members of legislative bodies and their constituencies. There are probably in every legislative body a number of members who are in some way or other connected with railroad corporations. No doubt, a majority of these are personally irreproachable and even so high-minded as to always postpone private for public interest; yet there are also those whose political advancement was brought about by railroad managers for the very purpose of having in the legislative body servile members who could always be relied upon to serve their corporate masters. Nevertheless, were railroad interests restricted to the votes of these men for their support, the public would probably have no cause for alarm on account of the presence of railroad representatives in legislative bodies, but, as many other interests seek favorable legislation, railroad men are often enabled to gain support for their cause by a corrupt bargain for votes, and it is thus possible for them to double, triple, and even quadruple, their original strength, by a policy of reciprocity.