Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1896 — RUNNING A CAMPAIGN. [ARTICLE]

RUNNING A CAMPAIGN.

MUCH HARD WORK, AS WELL AS MONEY REQTIRED. What the Managers of a Political Party Have to Do in a Year in Which the President is Elected. No two Presidential campaigns are conducted alike, but all are directed by national executive committees, and the headquarters of an executive committee is always the very vortex of political activity daring the continuance of the fight Down to the present both the great parties have always had campaign headquarters in New York, though more than once determined moves have-been made to locate them elsewhere, Campaign headquarters are always iu charge of a campaign or executive committee, the members of which, with the exception of the chairman, are chosen from among themselves by the members of the National Committee. The chairman Is selected by the Presidential candidate himself, and of course, is always a man in whom the candidate places implicit confidence, both as to his loyalty and political wisdom. The place is one cf honor from the politician’s standpoint, but it is also one the duties of which are complicated enough utterly to disjoint and upset the intellect of most men. A man of only ordinary executive ability would go crazy in a single day over the intricacies of the job. The executive chairman Is by all odds the hardest worked of all those who occupy headquarters during the campaign. He feels that the burden of the contest is on his shoulders. He is in a constant state of terror lest some acts have been committed either by himself or some of his subordinates that will “Burehardize” the campaign. The number of letters he is obliged to answer daily is greater, probably, than those which come to any other mortal in existence, no .matter of how exalted station. His callers are numbered literally by the thousands. It Is- physically impossible for him to see them all, and it is equally impossible always to decide wisely as to who shall be refused an audience. His every action is watched by critics and fault-finders, aud he knows it; aud the wonder is, not that the reputation of the executive chairman for political sagacity sometimes suffers during the campaign, but rather at its close he has any reputation at all, no matter which way the contest ends. No two campaign committees organize exactly alike, but there is a general similarity, as a matter of course. Necessarily the work is divided. There are always a treasurer aud a secretary, a speakers’ committee, a finance committee, a printing committee and a committee on election methods. Naturally the treasurer is at the head of the finance committee. In some respects he is badgered even worse than the executive chairman, since not only has to strain every faculty to secure sufficient contributions to meet the truly enormous expenses of the campaign, but also to so manage the funds after he has them in hand as to prevent a deficit, or at least too great a one at the end. If the treasurer is a methodical business man. as he should ne, he comes to be known as a hard man to get along with by the committee’s subordinates, and even by some of the committeemen, quite early in the campaign.

The printing committee generally has charge of the editorial work as well as the printing. The most important piece of this branch of campaigning.is the production of the text book. In the eyes of the committee this volume is always the greatest piece of literature of the current year. Sometimes it is the work of a large number of party wiseinen; sometimes of only a few. The text book issued by one of the parties in 1892 was produced by a young attache of the headquarters, who put it to press without so much as showing the larger part of it to all the members of the committee. Of course, there was a row over that book, as I suppose there is over most text books, no matter liow accurate they may be as to their facts or how sound in their party doctrine.

In addition to looking after the editorial work of the text book the printing committee has to get out the “documents”—that Is, the pamphlets and tracts setting out that unless its candidate wins the country will go to the dogs, whereas if he is elected the entire population will be able to wear diamonds all the time—that are distributed over the country at a great expense, and. as some say, with little effect, from the beginning to the end of every campaign. With regard to documents as with regard to stump speakers, committees differ. Some committees believe in documents as the only salvation of the party, and one committee of which the writer has some knowledge printed anil tried to put out about a hundred millions of documents, including text books, or one and a third to every man, woman and child in the United States. The man who had the contract for getting out the enormous mass of printing this represented was almost driven into a private bedlam by the complications with which he found himself surrounded. Of course the getting out of such an enormous number of documents renders necessary the organization of a tremendous shipping department. In the case just mentioned this department, together with the binding department of the printer, occupied two or three floors of a huge building, a whole block long, and several hundred men, women, boys and girls were kept busy every weekday aud Sunday and many nights during the campaign getting the matter off. The chairman of the “Bureau of Oratory,” as the stump-speakers’ department is sometimes colloquially known about headquarters, has a job that can hardly be considered a “snap.” The limber-tongued members of the party who are in hard luck always rush to him in great numbers, each armed with innumerable letters of recommendation, wherein his ability to hold the attention of turbulent crowds, his soundness as a party man, and many other excellent qualities are duly and enthusiastically set forth. Most of the would-be “stumpers” of this class desire to be paid for their services, not.be ing in politict for their health; and In addition to their compensation they

must, of course, be allowed traveling expense*, which includes their keep in every town they visit, where the faithful are not willing to feed them and sleep them. Occasionally an executive committee employs a man to look after a lot of details too fatiguing or trivial for members of the committee themselves, who, although he may be nominally connected with one special department, has to do with the details of nearly every department. One man who was so employed by an executive committee a few campaigns back had to audit the printers’ bills, to wrestle with the artists who drew cartoons for the committee, to draw up the contracts with those who desired to furnish services of one kind and another, to look after the work of the newspapers published in foreign tongues and attend to one thousand other unconsidered trifles.

The expenses of a National Executive Committee vary as much as the method of conducting them. One committee, which did its work only a few years ago, is said to have used up fl,900,000 in its existence of less than three months, but $1,500,000 is probably nearer the average. Besides the ways of using money of which I have already spoken there are a hundred other avenues for Its escape. Nearly every committee establishes secret bureaus, which are located away from the headquarters themselves. There are bureaus for the workmen, bureaus for the Swedes and voters of other nationalities, and even bureaus for the liquor dealers, whose favor is generally courted by both parties. Curiously enough more than one committee has maintained a temperance bureau contemporaneously with the liquor dealers’ bureau.

The number of typewriters bought and worn out by each committee is very large. In 1892 one of the committees gave a single order for 250 machines. The selection of employees, of which each committee must have a hundred or more, in addition to the speakers and traveling agents, is an important and delicate task, since the persons engaged must be unquestionably of the same political faith as the committee itself, must be strictly trustworthy, so that no damaging.information may be carried into the enemy’s camp, and must be capable of exceedingly hard work for ten, twelve and sometimes sixteen hours a day. A most important part of an executive committee’s work is known as polling doubtful States, that is, securing a supposedly correct and complete list of the voters in each such State. These lists sometimes cost a great deal of money, and are sometimes found to be discouragiugly inaccurate and incomplete. This is not surprising when you consider the brief life of an executive committee. In very few cases does such a committee have more than three months in which to do its work, and this work is really of the most difficult sort throughout, since it means the organization of a vast business in stitution as well as a political machine. There are those that hold that executive committees should be of continuous existence, with permanent headquarters, permanent officers and permanent employees, including a wellpaid executive head. Such an institution would have four years instead of three mouths in which to do its work. Its poll lists would l>e kept constantly revised, and its machinery would always be well-oiled and efficient.— Philadelphia Press.