October 7, 2012 · 1 min
The Purpose of Campaign Contributions
A friend uses as his sig file the quote from Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania:
“I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money … and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money.”
– Senator Boies Penrose (R-Pa.), 1896, citing the relationship between his politics and big business.
I assumed, without giving it a great deal of thought, that Senator Penrose must have been a local machine boss of some sort. But today I came across a reference to a paper he co-authored, circa 1886, which said that he had a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard:
City Government of Philadelphia. By Edward P. Allinson, A. B. (Haverford) and Boies Penrose, A. B. (Harvard).
and was “of the Philadelphia Bar.”