The Pittsburgh Press (November 1, 1944)
Background of news –
The cost of an election
By Bertram Benedict
Perhaps $50 million will be spent to elect a President and Congress in 1944.
In 1940, there was spent on the election of President and Senate the sum of $22,740,313, according to the Gillette Committee of the Senate to investigate campaign expenditures. But this figure did not include the expenses of electing the 435 members of the House of Representatives. Neither did it include the cost of campaigns for nomination – whether by primary or convention. Nor did it include such expenditures by county, city, precinct and other local groups as were really attributable to the national campaign.
Finally, it did not and could not include private expenditures by personal friends of candidates – often in the form of cash from person to person without any record.
In 1937, the Lonergan Committee of the Senate, which reported expenditures of $23,973,329 in 1936 for the election of President and Senate, concluded:
If the committee might venture an approximation of the total cost of the election of 1936, it would indicate a figure relatively double the sum which it has tabulated and presented.
Of the expenditures of almost $23 million reported by the Gillette Committee in 1940, 66 percent ($14,941,143) was spent by regular Republican committees, 27 percent ($6,095,358) by regular Democratic committees, seven percent ($1,703,813) by other bodies and minor parties.
Time set for reports
The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 requires political committees to report on their finances two weeks before a national election. On Oct. 28 last, the Republican National Committee reported contributions of $2,428,321, the Democratic National Committee contributions of $1,093,178. The National Citizens Political Action Committee reported receipts of only $271,371 – a far cry from the $3 million it originally set as its goal. This body was organized on July 7, 1944. The original PAC had receipts of $669,764 by May 31, 1944.
A number of federal statutes theoretically limit campaign contributions and expenditures in national elections:
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No corporation or national bank may contribute (Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, following earlier act of 1907). Neither may labor organization (Anti-Strike Act of 1943).
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No single political committee may receive or spend more than $3 million in any year (Hatch Act of 1940).
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No person may contribute more than $5,000 in any one year for any candidate for a federal office or in connection with any campaign for nomination or election (Hatch Act of 1940).
Evasion is too easy
But these restrictions are too easily evaded to mean anything. Corporations buy advertising space in convention programs and tickets for their officials to $100-a-plate political banquets. And the CIO has created its own organization for the 1944 campaign, just as AFL bodies always work directly to elect or defeat candidates for Congress.
What used to be the activities of a single national committee are now split among several national organizations, while state and local committees also work for the success of the national ticket.
And many members of a family follow the lead of the head of the family – in 1940, 65 members of the du Pont family contributed a total of $186,780 to 25 different bodies working for Republican victories, and Mr. Lamont du Pont alone contributed $49,000 to committees in 11 different states (In 1936, the du Pont family contributed $520,000; to the Democrats, the late Walter A. Jones of Pittsburgh alone gave $104,500 and the United Mine Workers donated $100,000 to the DNC alone).