History of Lobbying
An Essay by Senator Robert C. Byrd
In 1869, a newspaper correspondent published this vivid description of a monster in the Capitol building: "Winding in and out through the long, devious basement passage, crawling through the corridors, trailing its slimy length from gallery to committee room, at last it lies stretched at full length on the floor of Congress — this dazzling reptile, this huge, scaly serpent of the lobby." What was this awful creature? It was intended as the embodiment of lobbyists, who were proliferating in the years after the Civil War and who, many believed, were corrupting the Congress. Even today, the media tend to…
