I Meant What I Said and I Said What I Meant

BRIAN: Campaign finance reform is a phrase we hear a lot of today. Proponents of such measures argue that our entire political system is in danger of being corrupted by the enormous amounts of corporate money pouring into modern campaigns. That concern is not a new one, and attempts to reform the system go back more than 100 years.

In 1907, Congress passed the first major campaign finance legislation. It was called the Tillman Act. And joining me now to explain whose hand was in the till is legal scholar Adam Winkler. Adam, welcome to the show.

ADAM WINKLER: Thanks for having me on.

BRIAN: So this Tillman Act, that was a response to what a lot of people saw as a real problem around the turn of the century. Was the problem created by a specific incident? Often today, you know, there’s some scandal, and it produces this whole wave of reform.

ADAM WINKLER: Indeed. There was a huge scandal in 1905 that showed that insurance companies were donating policyholders’ money to elections, especially the re-election campaign of President Teddy Roosevelt.

BRIAN: I thought that Teddy Roosevelt made his reputation for cleaning up corruption. It turns out he was on the take?

ADAM WINKLER: Well, Teddy Roosevelt had this image of a trust buster. But before he had the image of a trust buster, he had the image of someone who was on the make from corporations. It was the presidential election of 1904 that raised particular controversy. When it came out that the life insurance companies were giving huge contributions in excess of– in today’s dollars– in excess of $2 million. That led to nationwide outrage.

BRIAN: Do people think the practices of these corporations are corrupt? I don’t mean just in terms of payoffs to politicians, but in terms of using stockholders’ funds to try to influence politics. Do they use the stockholders’ money corruptly?

ADAM WINKLER: Absolutely. We have to remember that this is the period where we see the rise of the modern corporation, with modern stockholders, where people are investing through the stock market, and also we see a huge number of people who are investing in insurance companies as policyholders. That’s the way, basically, they provided for their retirement in an era before pensions and before Social Security.

And so you have this modern corporation where you’re separating, increasingly, ownership from control. And the mass of owners have very, very little power over their corporation. And what they’re finding with the campaign finance scandals of the early 1900s is that their money is being used to finance politics against their will.

And indeed, there were a lot of Democrats, for instance, among the insurance company policyholders. And their money was being used to help elect Republicans. And so many people thought this was really the height of corruption. It wasn’t just the corporations were buying influence, but they were buying influence with your money in ways that were designed to reduce your power.

And this set off a huge scandal. At the time, it was called the Scandal of the Century. Of course, the century would have plenty more scandals to come. But this really put pressure on Republicans, especially Teddy Roosevelt, to adopt campaign finance reform.

BRIAN: Adam, so what is this Tillman Act, and does it work?

ADAM WINKLER: The Tillman Act is a law that bans corporations from giving anything of value to a candidate for federal office. And the law is effective in reducing corporate money directly from the corporate till. However, individual contributions were not banned. And so candidates just went to the heads of the big corporations and insurance companies and asked them to give huge personal contributions. And indeed, at that time, most election campaigns were financed by just a handful of very, very wealthy people.

BRIAN: Adam, I want to return to Teddy Roosevelt’s– well, to use a contemporary political term– flip-flop. It seems to me that, even then, there was this pattern of politicians who would like to be known as crusading against corruption. That’s certainly what Teddy Roosevelt did when he was a local politician and a state politician, and that was his reputation.

These politicians make a career crusading against corruption, yet they’re kind of forced to play ball with that corrupt system. Do you think that’s true, and do you think that’s the problem with getting any traction on campaign finance reform today?

ADAM WINKLER: I think that is true, Brian. And in many ways, candidates can suffer a certain cognitive dissonance. You know, they don’t necessarily see their votes as being up for sale, so they don’t view the money they receive as being corrupt. And I think that was the case with Teddy Roosevelt.

He thought of himself as a trust buster who was going to break up the big corporations. Yet when the corporations gave him money, he said, well, I’m not going to sell anything to them, so I need that money, that helps me get elected and do good things for the people. So when it comes to money and politics, I think politicians generally just don’t see money as being all that corrupt because they don’t view themselves as being corrupt and as willing to sell their votes for the highest bidder.

BRIAN: Sounds to me like the politicians trust themselves a lot more than the American public does.

ADAM WINKLER: That’s a great way of putting it.

BRIAN: Adam, thanks for joining us today on BackStory. And I want you to know the check’s in the mail.

ADAM WINKLER: [LAUGHING] Thanks so much, Brian.

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BRIAN: Adam Winkler is a legal scholar at UCLA. He’s working on a book about corporations and corporate personhood.

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One good turn deserves another. Be my love, I’ll be your lover. It’s all part of nature’s law. If you scratch my back, then I’ll scratch yours.

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ED: That’s going to do it for us today. But we’re eager to hear your thoughts about political corruption. Leave us a comment on our website. And while you’re there, we’d love for you to weigh in on our future show topics. Later this month, we’ll be taking on World War I and all that came in its wake.

So far, we’ve got public relations, jazz music, IQ tests, and chemical weapons. What else would you add to our list?

PETER: Let us know at backstoryradio.org. You can also reach us via Facebook and Twitter, or by email. Our address is backstory@virginia.edu. Whatever you do, don’t be a stranger.

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Do a favor for me, I’ll do one in return.

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ED: Today’s episode of BackStory was produced by Tony Field, Nina Earnest, Andrew Parsons, Kelly Jones, and Bruce [? Wallis. ?] Emily Gadek is our digital producer, and Jamal Millner is our engineer. We had help from Sam [? Olmsynder. ?] BackStory’s executive producer is Andrew Wyndham.

BRIAN: Before we leave today, we want to extend a special welcome to our afternoon listeners on WAMU in Washington, DC. And for all you Washingtonians who used to set your alarms for six in the morning to listen to BackStory on Sunday, well, you can now sleep in.

PETER: Major support for BackStory is provided by an anonymous donor, the University of Virginia, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Weinstein Properties, by the Tomato Fund cultivating fresh ideas for the arts, the humanities, and the environment, and by History Channel, history made every day.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Brian Balogh is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Peter Onuf is Professor of History Emeritus at UVA, and Senior Research Fellow at Monticello. Ed Ayers is President and Professor of History at the University of Richmond. BackStory was created by Andrew Wyndham for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

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–like two peas in a pack. Let’s get rid of our itch together. If you scratch my back, then I’ll–

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