Democratic ones first, who were supporting the Democratic Party: National Committee of Independent Voters for Roosevelt and Wallace, National Committee for Agriculture, Business Men's League for Roosevelt, Young Democracy, Young Democratic Clubs of America, Non-Partisan League of Clothing Workers, Employees for Roosevelt, Democratic State Council of Americans of Italian Origin, and there were many others.

Now these are some that favored the Republicans: Associated Willkie Clubs of America-incidentally, they spent some $1,355,604, Democrats for Willkie, National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government, Citizens Information Committee, Willkie War Veterans, People's Committee to Defend Life Insurance and Savings, Jefferson Democrats of California, Willkie Magazine Fund, No Third Term Committee.

There was every sort of a committee from the Cockeyed Men for the Democrats, to the Red-Headed Women for Willkie, each one claiming that they could spend up to $3,000,000, with the result that, to all intents and purposes, if it is not curbed, the election of our Federal officers is going to be placed on the auction block for the highest bidder.

Not because it is before this committee, but because I think eventually we will have to go into it, if you will permit me to say so, I don't want to raise a States' rights issue because I am very strongly a States' rights supporter, but it is incongruous that the various steps leading up to the selection of these important Federal officers cannot be under the supervision of the Federal Government.

We had instances where, in the registration in one city, Republican groups went around-that happens to be a Republican machineand asked people to go in and register. They would take their registration right there as Republican voters. If they met with a refusal, as was true in one case, they jerked a women who came to the door there were three of them-and because she refused to allow her name to be registered as a Republican voter they beat her and threw her down and broke her leg.

We also state in this report that in one of the States, the two candidates for nomination to the United States Senate- one on the Democratic side and one on the Republican side-filed their own reports. that they spent over $100,000 each to secure merely the nomination. So that eventually I think we are going to have to go in, through a constitutional amendment, possibly, and

Senator HATCH (interposing). You said that at least two Senators spent $100,000 each, according to their own statements, just to secure the nomination?

Senator GILLETTE. Yes; for a job that paid $10,000 a year for 6 years, or $60,000 total.

Senator HATCH. They had lost to begin with.

Senator GILLETTE. Yes; they were in the red.

Now while we can't go into that question of the Federal Government controlling the various steps leading up to the candidacies, if we can't do that it becomes

Senator HATCH (interposing). Senator Gillette, you pointed to something a moment ago-I have given this subject a lot of consideration and I am greatly perplexed about the complications which exist. when you enter into this subject of contributions. You raise the

question of States' rights. I may be interested in the election of a Governor of New Mexico, for instance, and if I had lots of money I might contribute heavily to his campaign. Now I haven't contributed anything to the Presidential campaign but nevertheless that man is running on the same ticket as the President, and every move I make and every contribution I make to the Governor's candidacy benefits the President.

Senator GILLETTE. Indirectly, and to some extent directly, and that is where a very serious problem enters into it.

Senator HATCH. You can carry that clear down to the sheriff of a county.

Senator GILLETTE. Yes.

Senator HATCH. Which I point out are complications that arise when you start to enact Federal legislation on this matter.

Senator GILLETTE. Yes.

Realizing that difficulty, after the report was made and no legislation was introduced, it seemed to me to be a very serious matter to go into this present campaign without some corrective legislation, and I might say that information has been brought to me within the last 24 hours that in the State of South Dakota, in this campaign, $50,000 of outside money was poured in for the purposes of influencing the nomination at the primaries of a Member of Congress.

Now the question came as to how we could obviate this difficulty. So I introduced this piece of legislation, not because I thought it was the last word, but as a suggestion which the committee might use, and I will tell you very briefly what the approach is.

In the first place, it continues the limitation of $5,000 as an individual contribution to a particular candidate or committee, with an over-all limitation of $10,000 in that campaign, which would leave the door open for contributions of the type referred to.

Now it occurred to me that possibly a solution of the over-all expenditures might be reached by approaching it through the candidates. We have had candidates come before us, not the Presidential candidates but other candidates, who have said to us, "We know that the Republican National Committee is collecting money and spending it for our candidacy; we know that they are and they are the only ones we know about. We don't know about this Red-Headed Men for Gillette group, we don't know anything about them; they are not authorized."

Now if there could be an approach whereby the candidate could designate a fiscal agent, that that committee is the committee that is authorized to collect and disburse money for him, for his candidacy, that would go a long way toward taking care of the situation.

So this provides that suggested approach, that there be a limitation of $2,000,000 for a candidate for President, and $1,000,000 for a candidate for Vice President, but that they shall designate the committee and that that committee cannot collect and expend more than the aggregate allowed for the Federal officers who are on that ticket.

Senator HATCH. May I ask you if you have studied the English law in that connection?

Senator GILLETTE. I have not.

Senator HATCH. That is very similar to their practice; each candidate is required to designate a fiscal agent.

Senator GILLETTE. Well, that is the approach that I seek to use.

Senator BUTLER. In endeavoring to limit the expense that each individual candidate may incur, whether it be the President or some of the minor officers, are we not, in a way, putting a limit on free speech? It costs a certain amount of money to deliver information.

Senator GILLETTE. I don't believe

Senator BUTLER (interposing). $5,000, you know, won't do much; it won't even circularize a State.

Senator GILLETTE. Well, you are not limited to $5,000.

Senator BUTLER. Well, you are trying to make the candidates designate an authorized representative-that is one thing?

Senator GILLETTE. Yes.

Senator BUTLER. I was just trying to think. There was no large amount of money spent in Nebraska, and there seldom if ever is, I think, in our smaller and less prosperous States, but I can think who of several instances where smaller amounts were spent by people now were put on radio programs in my behalf, and who paid the cost out of their own pockets; they subscribed to nobody, they got the time and put on the program. Well, I couldn't be held responsible for that if it happened to run my expense account, or the total amount, above the limit, could I?

Senator GILLETTE. No; and I don't think you should be.

Of course, as this bill is drafted there are exempted [reading]: Contributions or expenditures made by any committee, association, or other organization, the principal activities of which are engaging in furthering, advancing, or advocating the nomination or election of candidates for political office or the success of any political party

That would prevent your State organization, or Republican Committee, being limited by the $5,000 provision.

Senator BUTLER. Well, for instance, if Du Pont, for example-he didn't but if he wanted to contribute something to the State campaign out there, does that prohibit him from doing it?

Senator GILLETTE. If he went over the $10,000.

Senator BUTLER. Does it prohibit the Political Action Committee from spending more than $10,000?

Senator GILLETTE. I would say that if the Political Action Committee was not designated as the fiscal agent, that they could not collect and disburse funds. As against a possible infringement on the individual's rights, I believe, gentlemen, that we must keep in mind that to the extent we fail to keep our electorate and our electoral machinery in a situation of purity, we are destroying government.

Now if Mr. du Pont or Mr. Guy Gillette, as a citizen entitled to one vote, to have it cast and counted for his choice, is placed in a position, because of his financial limitations-speaking of myself for the moment-where John Jones over here can go out and expend $500,000 of his own money, I am not placed on an equality with him as a member of the United States electorate. He has a distinct advantage over me. He is in a position where he can pour unlimited funds in there and exert an unfair effect or influence on the outcome of the election, rather than his one vote.

Now this exempts expenditures that a candidate may make for himself, or expenditures made by any person for his own personal subsistence and traveling expenses, or for stationery, postage, or telephone or telegraphic services, for his own personal use.

Now as I say, gentlemen, this is a suggested approach. I cannot view, with any equanimity, an approach to this present campaign with this possibility of a debauchery of the American electorate, and I don't care what party it is, both parties were derelict, there is no question about that. But to say that we can't do something about it, can't limit it, seems to make our election machinery a travesty.

Senator BUTLER. I am certainly sympathetic-and I think perhaps every Senator is-with the statement that we don't want to put elective offices on the auction block. It can't. be done and it must be prevented by any means that is reasonable and practical.

But after all this gets right down to practicalities. We have had a regime that has been in here for three terms and we might have one that will have been in for four or five terms, which has become so entrenched that every department of Government is unconsciously, perhaps within the law, spending untold amounts, not running into 3 millions, but 3 billions or more, which in a way is used as election propagands. How can an opposition party ever uproot or upset or divert the tendency without the expenditure of money and propaganda against such a thing?

Senator GILLETTE. That raises a question which eventually, in my opinion, will have to be met, and it has such difficulties that I can see no solution. That is where, through the use of the radio and other instrumentalities of publicity, there is put on an ostensible educational campaign, for instance, which has a political purpose, no question about it, and may be all formulated and prepared in a political committee room.

But you can't object to the dissemination of information, putting on an educational campaign, even though it has a political purpose.

That brings up another question, Senator Butler, that I want to call attention to. We have, as Senator Hatch knows, a prohibition-I think it was originally in the Corrupt Practices Act rather than in the Hatch Act on the contribution of corporations to these Presidential elections. But while you have that limitation, and it is adhered to pretty well, a glance at the corporation contributions in 1940 raises the query as to what extent personal checks are now given in lieu of corporation grants.

Now take a specific case. The du Pont contribution was $203,000. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., of General Motors-now the du Ponts have heavy holdings in General Motors-contributed $36,000. Clarence Donaldson, chairman of the finance committee of General Motors, contributed $23,000.

When you add all of those together, while they are not contributing as a corporation, if you permit those personal contributions you again have made null and ineffective that limitation.

You men might be interested in having recalled to you an appeal that was made back in 1888, which shows how far we have advanced in our viewpoint as to securing cleanliness and purity of elections. At that time John Wanamaker, trying to collect money for his national committee, approached the people in this way:

How much would you pay for insurance upon your business? If you were confronted with from 1 year to 3 years of general depression by a change in our revenue and protective measures affecting our manufacturers, wages, and good times, what would you pay to be insured for a better year?

Now that, at that time, met with surprising success, under the conditions and amounts that they were contributing at that time.

Senator HATCH. Well, Senator Gillette, I know that you have made quite a study of the history of this matter, but as I recall it is a historical fact that in the campaign of '96 signs were displayed on factories, reading that if Bryan was elected this factory will be closed down.

Senator GILLETTE. That is a historical fact.

(Discussion off the record.)

Senator HATCH. I mentioned that just to carry out your thought that there has been an advance in public thinking.

Senator GILLETTE. I think it is one of the most encouraging things, and I will say here as I have said before, that the chairman of this subcommittee made, I believe, the most notable contribution that has been made in the history of our electorate machinery, and if you don't do anything else, Mr. Chairman, during your service in Congress, you will go down in history as the author of the Hatch Act which was, in my opinion, the farthest single advance in the direction of securing the sanctity and purity and integrity of our election machinery.

The fact that there has been a failure in this limitation as it has been interpreted and it was so interpreted, may I say, by the counsel for the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee, who were called before us and said: "That is our interpretation, that any committee can raise up to $3,000,000"—that fact should dictate some remedial legislation.

Now I have offered this as a suggestion only, I don't care if you wipe it all out, but I think that we will fail of our duty if we don't— it is a little late now-but if we do not offer something whereby there can be some measure of security from debauching our election machinery.

Senator BUTLER. Well, isn't it a fact that there are laws on the books there must be that will take care of anything that you could term "debauchery," Senator; isn't that a fact now?

Senator GILLETTE. No. If you will refer to what I have just called attention to

Senator BUTLER (interposing). Well, while those amounts sum up to a big total, taking your estimate that you think that the campaigns of the two major parties perhaps cost a total of $30,000,000, compare that $30,000,000—and I think it is too large, I am not trying to defend it and compare it with what is spent proportionately for other programs connected with the Government.

Begin with the time that the 48 States ceased to be territories and were all States, which takes us back a number of years. Beginning at that point, What was the total expenditure of the Department of Agriculture, of the Department of the Interior, of Congress, and so forth? Then compare that with what a political campaign cost at that time and what it costs now. I think political campaigns would fall down at a lower percent increase today than even governmental expenditures and some other things. In other words, this rise in the cost of political campaigns is only in keeping with the tendency of the times; everything is costing more.

Senator GILLETTE. Mr. Chairman, I don't believe that the Senator can make that comparison. They are not parallel situations. It is true that there have been tremendous increases in the cost of the